CharonY

No, the numbers you cited I am pretty sure are not from a study but are directly pulled from the CDC database. It does not meant that they are better or worse, but they are just a data collection as such and are not a study in itself. The latter often have specific cohorts or have some further analyses attached. In the study I mentioned they focused on a cohort of folks who actually verifiable attempted suicide, and investigated the means they used, for example. Oh, you are right, things went off topic a fair bit. But the answer to that is that yet again, folks, again have co-opted an issue and use it as an excuse for being racist/fascist. Specifically, it is a common tactic to avoid accountability and place the blame somewhere else.

That is not how statistics work. You might refer to a particular data set (e.g. CDC).

Nope, I was thinking about a couple of studies which looked at suicide methods. The reported frequency differences was usually between 1.5-4 ish. And older paper by Tsirigotis et al. (Med Sci Monit. 2011 Aug 1;17(8):PH65–PH70.) mentioned about 3 fold, for example. It is not necessarily a cutting off, just a weaker social structure in general. As to relevance it is a direct response to. As I said, trends in mental health try to address exactly that. I.e. attempts to strengthening bonds. I have heard of initiatives to get folks at risk to get them involved in activities for example. But the bigger point to me at least is that the sample mentioning of higher suicide rates means little in isolation. Rather, an analysis of the underlying reasons are more appropriate as opposed to an overinterpretation of a single data point. I have only read a little bit mostly because I got into a discussion with a clinical psychologist a long while ago, but even I am aware that there is a huge body of lit to sift through.

The original post is a few years old and around that time we started to have couple of issues which we assumed was due to supply chain issues (it was a weird time for many things). But if there are recent issues that is concerning. We had some trouble with RNA extractions recently, but we have been using Eppendorf plate. But I attributed that to personnel changes for now. Potentially need to run some additional quality checks...

That is just a commonly cited statistic without any more in-depth analyses. But as mentioned before, women tend to attempt suicide at rates at up to 4 times that of men. One should also add that the also mentioned use of drug and poison also has folks speculating whether suicide by women could be undercounted. Some overdoses might be ruled as accidental, especially if the dosage was not massive an/or in the absence of other indications of suicide. There might be more explanation for the so-called gender paradox, but in my mind the means of suicide is the most compelling one. This is actually an area of active research and the short answer seems to be yes, but it takes time, effort and money. Which is not saying much, I know. But part of that is active outreach as folks tend to cut off their social circle and men are generally more comfortable with not being in touch (or to put it differently, they tend to spend time to ensure that they remain in touch).

I still think that having Miller in the WH is more of a problem than teenagers shitposting. The latter might or might not grow out of it.

Conduct a quick search on this forum, I have mentioned relevant papers a few times. But that is a well known observation and you can find it referred to as gender paradox in suicide. If you are actually interested in reading on that that I can provide you some lit. Why, what is the relevance of stupid kids? I thought we established that the issue is folks in power. This is part of the toxic masculinity argument. There is a need to define healthy version which doesn't prevent to be being themselves but also allowing self-care. Current version, especially those propagated in the manosphere are leading to detrimental result, hence the "toxic" moniker. Edit: and one more thing at issue. Often the research in mental health has been led with men used as the norm (similar to other aspects of health research). As a consequence, understanding of what normative behaviour is and where mental health issues begin is somewhat skewed. It also impacts diagnoses to some traits like autism or ADHD. It is not that long ago when it became clear that gendered research is necessary with larger and more diverse cohorts. Of course the current US government is restricting this type of research.

We have talked about this in multiple places on this forum and to a certain degree that statistic is misleading. The suicide attempt rate is roughly the same (some statistics have slightly higher attempts with women). But the methods are different. Men tend to use more violent and effective methods such as guns, whereas women prefer poisoning. The latter has a high failure (i.e. survival) rate. The second part is more relevant. Men are are less likely to seek help as it is considered unmanly. This squarely falls into the toxic masculinity concept (i.e. concepts in masculinity that end up being harmful). A big issue is that men also don't like to talk about that. Here women have the "advantage" of being assumed to be "weaker" . However, they obviously face issues in other areas especially related to bodily autonomy.

In your prior posts you referred to a few bad apples and that only time you witnessed that behaviour was from teenagers. My larger point is that this just happens to be the group you are more familiar with but the issue is much broader and goes beyond either a few apples or a few teenagers. This does not invalidate your experiences, just saying that this is a limited view on the overall matter. Framing the issue as just or even mainly coming form a few basement-dwelling teenagers is just off.

And again, that is not a kid's problem only. I think this an often-used and frankly useless argument (and frequently used as an excuse), similar to the lonely men epidemic claim. There is some truth to the claim, but it is less that they are not supported, but rather that they build barriers themselves. Now there are real issues but at the same point the affected folks are also fairly resilient to improvement This attitude seems associated with a toxic view on manliness thus prohibiting them to seek help when they need it. That being said, these racist attitudes are not a matter of mental health in the first place. There are many factors ranging from true racialized ideologies to disenfranchisement and the all to common search for a convenient scapegoat. Also of note, kids nowadays dislike picking up a book and read. But this is going seriously off-topic.

You can call them teenagers, yet they are elected politicians and big chunk of the electorate. It might make you feel better if you characterize them as powerless kids, but they are not. The fact that kids are also part of it should not be used as a means to ignore the much more dangerous adults with the virtually the same ideology. Kids got it from somewhere. Just because this is the demographic you are mostly interacting with, does not make it the whole thing. The really depressing thing is that if anything it shows that this old ideology, which for a while was more associated with older, more conservative demographic, is now also attractive for kids (and more dominantly, male kids).

I think you might be referring to the possee comitatus act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act)? The way I understand it, it refers mostly to federal troops (i.e. the marines). The National Guard can be used (and has been in the past), though conventionally not against the State governor's wishes. Though the last time it happened was under Johnson, who used the National Guard to protect the civil rights movement. Basically a reversal of what has happened here. I have seen quite a bit of coverage of the demonstrations and protests as well as legal analysis on the use of troops. While one can always argue that folks could do a better job I am not necessarily sure what a terrible job (and hence, what a better job) would be in this context.

That is simply not true ts. First, anti-immigrant sentiments have always been simmering everywhere, but the slogan you mentioned has become more prevalent. The far-right AfD in Germany is second-strongest party in Germany, for example. I.e. while much of it is driven by young men, it is far beyond just some teenagers. If talking about race issues, there were always distinct differences, where Europe tended to have a more etho-centric approach to identity, whereas the US and Canada had more recognition and integration of immigrants. That being said, racism was heavily skewed against certain demographics, especially Indigenous and, in the US, Afro-Americans (and an assortment of other groups). The history is uneven, with Europe having more systemic issues which were at least ostensibly race-neutral, whereas in the US it took a while to roll back at least some of the most clearly racialized policies. But when it comes to improvement, how can you possibly look at what the GOP and ICE is doing and characterize it as bad apples? These folks that you characterized as pissy teenagers either have grown up or were already old and have taken over various positions of power across the world. The saying goes that few bad apples spoil the bunch. Guess what, the bunch is spoilt.

To both points I think we are dealing with a profoundly new situation related to how information flows through our society. A hallmark of dictatorships of the past was the direct control of media. In today's fractured information system, this is no longer necessary. Folks increasingly become passive receivers of information fluff, making them believe that they gained information, but ultimately they don't. Couple that with the easy but wrong and superficial answers from AI, we are dealing with an increasingly bigger disconnect between facts and perception. The authoritarians thrive in this environment, as they never cared much for fact to begin with. The traditional democratic system face a critical challenge. Either lean into this environment and become demagogues themselves, or stay principled and risk continued loss of power.

Generally speaking, limitations in data, i.e., related to screening, healthcare access etc. make it very difficult to compare cancer rates if the health system has very different standards. There is a reason why some of the lowest cancer rates are found in some of the poorest (and/or war-torn) countries. Cancer is sufficiently complex that one can project a lot of assumptions and beliefs on it, often with weak data (which to some degree is also true to the related issue of nutrition).

I think the way the traditional mechanisms still work is not to stop the power grab- we have seen evidence of them failing. However, we have seen that they (especially the judiciary) are slowing things down. I do not yet see a realistic pathway to truly get martial law going, but we still have some time to go.

Sure, though to me the most important bit is the cautionary aspect of it and the parallels in missteps. Examples include the mistaken idea that one can utilize extremism, without paying a price or the assumption of certain norms (which are stronger in the US now then they were the case then in Germany as the country was still in the middle of redefining itself). While there are folks who take the situation very seriously, the changing media landscape and social media makes it very difficult, if not impossible to create consensus on the simplest issues. That, among other things is fueling extremist, especially on the far-right end (as they have a better grip in using the system) makes it really difficult to enact countermeasures. Again, the midterms will be a watershed moment, one way or the other.

This is of course mostly just for fun, but I would say a bit earlier than that. The fact that Hitler was arrested is just too much of a neat parallel with Jan6 and the fact that the US is run by a convicted felon. I am thinking maybe 1932? At that point Hitler gained broader support among industrialist (now techbros) and getting money from that side. While the SA was banned, Hitler managed to unban them in 32 (Jan6 crowd) and the NSDAP became the largest party in the elections with over 30%. Of course Hitler only became chancellor in 1933 but much of the groundwork on the right was done (with the mistaken belief of being able to control him). Though we can also take the happenings in LA as an attempt to get a Reichstagsbrand going. But of course, this is just looking at parallels for the decline, either way, it ain't pretty. And again, the shocking bit is that it defies the long-held assumptions of the particular strengths of US democracy.

One should also add that credentials also do not really mean much, if someone with credentials proposes something silly (we also had that here) that idea will be taken apart just as well. This is part of the mechanism.

And no one claimed that to begin with. Just that, similar to Weimar Germany (which was likely the start of this discussion), the democratic norms and mechanisms are eroding. Which is way more shocking as Germany did not had the long democratic history, which could explain some of the more failures. The US does not have that excuse. And again, only one person argued differently. That person suggested that a "neutral" stance would be advisable. You should show them this particular quote. Except they are not really winning. First of all, many are rolling over. Second, while there are lawsuits on specific elements, there is an underlying issue- many aspects of academic freedom are not as safeguarded as folks thought they would be. There were certain conventions, such as the belief that things like health research would be an ultimate benefit, or perhaps even just rational decision making (after all, research investment has been a huge net benefit to the US economy). That has gone out of the window and federal funds are drying up. What they are suing for (among other things) is against clawing back money that was awarded and where they have for now won is the foreign student ban against Harvard. But there is nothing stopping them not to give them any money in the future. Well technically congress can, but, you know. What it means in total is that the administration is putting strain on all mechanisms that democratically constrain their power. While the mechanisms held during Trump 1 now the guardrails are popping off. And again, we are only half a year in. Not all good people have been ousted yet but if things are not kept in check now, it will become increasingly more difficult.

Holy, you are aware that you are addressing the wrong Trump presidency? If you have followed the discussion here, we have mentioned that the institutions held then, but are failing now. How about you address those points? I mean, it is fine if you have no idea about the current happenings (which in some ways requires an admirably isolation from information) but there is little to engage in the discussion, then. While rather vague that is one thing that is going on, though again, the same can be said for Weimar pre- 33. Importantly (and not addressed) is the fact that the administration has defied court orders. Without consequences, it makes little difference that lawsuits are moving. Also on that note, the administration also has weaponized the courts. Thereby, they have effectively forced journalists to resign (see 60 minutes), and is expecting big payoffs from bogus lawsuits. These are not signs of a healthy democracy. Also ignored: the power grab (which was very long in the making) to control school and university curricula, especially the latter are a clear violation of academic freedom. Absolutely. The system is gearing up to avoid any sort of accountability and is wielding the power in dangerous ways. If folks start to complain only after the power grab is done is kind of too late.

The question to me is also what you mean with "scientific". There are practical discoveries and invention that lay persons can arguably make based on known principles. It is somewhat different to push the boundaries of scientific knowledge. The latter requires a much detailed and nuanced understanding of the current state of the art in a given subject, and in many disciplines also requires collecting data to support the idea. Otherwise it is just unsubstantiated speculation which generally do not amount to much. I will also add that the plateau is almost certainly at a much lower point than the peak.

I have added context to the economic collapse story, this doesn't really address that at all. Please explain how ignoring court orders, conducting open bribery, effectively ending habeas corpus does not indicate a breakdown of democratic norms. In fact, how about substantiating your claim rather than repeating them? The obvious response should have been an act of congress. Failing that, the only other safeguard are the midterms. We'll see how that goes. But to be clear, the sentences are handwavy fluff as they do not in any shape or form acknowledge what is going on.

I may be wrong, but I think the data was age-adjusted. But the life expectancy gap is significant and one would need to look a a bit a demographics to see the impact.

Absolutely. Trump and the rise of what folks call illiberal democracies and the diminishing power of established democracies are all part of a common trend (we have discussed Europe a fair bit on this forum, too). One big issue is that with current technologies, fractured information platforms and how folks interact with them all make it very easy to push autocracy, Meanwhile, maintaining or re-establishing democratic structures is an uphill battle. We have seen much damage barely 6 months can do to institutions. Heck, I foresee that in the near future the full discourse will be between chat bots with people only copy/pasting their output and wondering why the world is going to hell in a handbasket (after asking a bot what a handbasket is).