The suicide rate obviously has multiple contributing factors, but access to firearms is absolutely one of them. There’s multiple studies on this that will come up in a quick web search. In general, access to anything that makes suicide more impulsive increases the suicide rate. I say this as a person who absolutely believes that access to firearms should be the default state for those that want it.

Opportunity and desire both contribute to rate. Firearms increase opportunity so more of those with desire will try. Some cultures also give more people the desire so more attempts will be made using other methods. It is not either or.

This is a myth. The suicide rate in Japan is lower than the US, and similar to European countries. South Africa, Russia, and Korea have bonkers suicide rates.

Access to firearms increases the rate of suicide. He may have worded it poorly but the point stands. The fact that other countries have worse rates of suicide without firearms notwithstanding, because if they had access to firearms, it would be even higher.

For the alcohol question, I’m actually very interested in seeing a stat of solitary drinking vs social drinking, and how it affects these statistics.

For instance I know parts of Europe still hold a very strong comraderie “pub culture.” Alcohol is involved but so are strong social bonds.

The U.S has lately been making lots of quips about “wine moms” driven to sneak cheap chardonnay from the top cabinet, as well as the cliché portrayal of “working man who is so chewed up and burned out he needs a whisky and TV to sleep.”

Not a fan of heavy drinking in general, but I hypothesize alcohol paired with isolation is much more likely to result in abuse and depression.

Absolutely. Sorry for the long post because I struggle to pare it all down but:

The suicide rate AND the homicide rate is because we live in an inhuman society that, underneath all the transparent PR, is practically egging you on to “just do it already.”

• It tells us that “unless you have money and power, which strip you of your humanity, you don’t matter, and in fact, nothing else does either.” We’re then shocked when people act like psychopaths.

• Everything once held sacred is now deconstructed with the most cynical of irony, after it’s been perverted and exploited for profit, of course. Traditions, communal rituals, the very concept of family, things that once held peoples together are now ridiculed and discarded.

• People see everything through the lens of a transaction, even romantic relationships, even marriages. We’re encouraged to be slaves to our egos and “pursue” fleeting happiness at all costs.

• People are encouraged to see each other by their different labels, and tribe up against other labels, because that sells more plastic garbage.

• Social media empires pervade our waking lives and manipulate us into releasing a ridiculous amount of cortisol that would shock our ancestors.

• Our jobs are totalitarian dictatorships that we’re forced to volunteer in so we can bother to exist within our borders of a country that is “so great and free.”

• Everyone is very suspicious of everyone else. It’s rude form to just go introduce yourself and talk to someone. It’s harassment unless you’re meeting other people through some commercialized app. If someone comes up and talks to you out of the blue, they probably have some kind of angle.

Ultimately… Guns don’t go off by themselves. We could have 10x as many guns in this country, hand em’ out for free even, and, barring negligence and stupidity, suicides and homicides would still drop dramatically if people weren’t constantly DARED to use them every second of their existence. On themselves, on “others.”

Our media also glorifies weaponry as some kind of ultimate problem-solver. So much power to change something, ANYTHING, at the pull of a trigger. And so many people are so desperate to just affect something.

If they had access to education, care, mental wellness, actually felt like they mattered, and weren’t obviously seen to just be batteries and cattle by the ones designing and “influencing” this culture. Those guns wouldn’t go off nearly so often.

When we have teenagers and young adults contemplating their own deaths because a contented existence seems so out of touch and the struggle for better so hopeless, what happened??

But the conversation seems to be less “How do we make a world where people DON’T wish to kill themselves or others so often?” And more “How do we stop them from doing it?”

Which, at its most idealistic extreme, will simply produce a hell-world of limbless, miserable torso-brains with no way out of misery.

Every day we carry on and try to love our neighbors, and make anything just a bit better, and forgive our enemies, and be content with what things we own, is a radical act of defiance against the principalities and powers that feed on the cultivation of our very worst selves.

The Gym of Life

Not saying it’s enough to be in the best shape of your life but it’s really good for you.

Why is sodium bad?

This is the only reason I pace myself. That and if I’m going to binge I’ll rinse them first.

Good point–they make a terrific snack in the office or on the go! 30 to 40 olives… mmmmm

I’m okay with it as long as the taste isn’t overpowering.

Why do you think Doug Doug chugs olive oil, like full bottles of it, on streams sometimes

Worth it.

Ummm Olives and Olive Oil are good for you and does lead to better health outcomes.

Best I can do is olive flavored canola oil.

No one is saying Olive in place of healthcare though. Just pointing out that you may not need as much health care if you eat right and Europeans eat better than Americans.

Mostly a UK problem though. Source: British living in EU

They charge it because they can. No it wasn’t plastic surgery or anything. And yep it took less than 15 minutes. Private Healthcare is robbery.

It is also much cheaper. The US spends double the amount of money per capita on healthcare than compareable western european countries.

Universal healthcare is so much more efficient. When Obama was asked why he just wanted to do the ACA and not universal healthcare he said, that there is 3 million jobs in the adminsitrative side of private health insurance, that would fall away otherwise. But those people could work other jobs and provide a benefit to the economy. The inefficiency of the US system is insane.

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Bub. Including the amount I end up paying for Healthcare, they take way over a third of my paycheck.

Edit- also hold up, you still get pensions over there??

This is incorrect.

We are overpaying for lower quality healthcare.

We have worse outcomes than countries with free healthcare.

As my father used to say “it may be bad, but it’s expensive.”

Yes the exception is places like Massachusetts, which has some of the best quality healthcare in the world. But, you guessed it, they have a universal healthcare system similar to Germany.

My doctor just moved and became one of those. I’m very mad at her for leaving cus she’s freaking awesome.

My son’s pediatrician operates her practice in a “direct primary care” model, which is sort of concierge-light with a significantly lower monthly fee. There are some catches, and it doesn’t replace proper insurance so I’m still paying for that on top of the monthly office fee. But on the other hand, our appointments aren’t a rush-job where we get like five minutes of face-time with the pediatrician and then shuttled out the door, and we can message her any time of the day to ask “yo what’s this rash” and usually get an answer (and occasionally a script for an ointment) within a half-hour, without having to go through the rigamarole of trying to get an appointment that’s usually so far out you’re better off waiting and hoping the problem resolves itself.

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