
Suicides Have Increased. Is This an Existential Crisis? - rimraf
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/23/opinion/sunday/suicide-rate-existential-crisis.html
======
com2kid
> To bemoan the decline of neighborliness,

This strikes a chord for me.

Several years ago my wife and I baked holiday cookies, wrapped them up into
clear gift bags with a bow, and went door to door at our townhome/condo
complex knocking attempting to spread some holiday cheer.

We had 5 doors closed on us before we gave up.

The immigrant family next door invited us in for a chat, everyone else peaked
through a cracked door and waved no thanks.

My mother knew the names of everyone on her block. But it was a different
time, people moved into a house, stayed there, raised a family, their kids
grew up, and came back to visit their parents. As a kid I went over to the
house of the same neighbor my mother visited as a kid.

Now days? Everyone moves. A lot. Chasing jobs, dreams, hopes, and aspirations.
We aren't in one place long enough to form a sense of being or community.

I'm actually tackling this with my startup (linked in profile), I'm personally
sick and tired of wandering the streets of my city, not knowing the people I
pass by.

It does get lonely. The big tech cities are worse to some extent. I'm in
Seattle, widely considered to be one of the hardest to meet people in cities
in the country. In the dozen years since I've graduated college, I have made 4
solid friends (3 moved away). Something needs to change, we can't all survive
being left adrift through life.

~~~
acidburnNSA
Strikes a chord for me too. I came to Seattle from the midwest where I lived
in a Craiglist house with a gang of besties. I met some people here (also via
CL shared housing) but since I've paired up and settled in it's been really
hard to maintain good relationships with friends. I looked out at the skyline
and though, geez there must be tens of thousands of people within a mile
radius, none of whom I have any means to communicate with. I was going to do a
nextdoor-like startup for sharing tools, rides, events, etc. (it was too be
called "neighborcasting") but I didn't pull it off due to engaging day job.

I've also been discouraged because it seems like very many people simply do
not want to meet the people around them. For instance, check out this recent
thread on the SeattleWA subreddit about talking on the bus [1]. I was kind of
flabbergasted by how much people hate it when a stranger talks to them.

It's like there are just too many people and no one has time to connect with
any of them in an unplanned fashion.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/8stzn9/featuring...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/8stzn9/featuring_classic_hits_like_no_one_ever_talks_to/)

~~~
com2kid
> For instance, check out this recent thread on the SeattleWA subreddit about
> talking on the bus [1].

Before smart phones it was different. Now an interruption is a distraction
from our magic dopamine granting machines.

As someone who worked on early smartphones, I feel a twinge of guilt[0]. The
addictive nature of the technology really has destroyed any semblance of
mental down time that used to exist.

[0] I'd feel more, but Windows Phone didn't turn into a raging success, so
I'll let the Android and iOS engineers contemplate the philosophical
implications of their code!

~~~
zimpenfish
> Before smart phones it was different.

Not for me. Crippling social anxiety means that anyone unknown talking to me
causes panic. Especially on a bus in London which are reknowned for their, uh,
"colourful" characters who may well be a harmless eccentric but could equally
well be Stabby McStabberson or Robber McFeralYoot.

~~~
drukenemo
London has gone down in the recent years, so I've heard. Do you also feel
that?

~~~
zimpenfish
No more than when I moved here nearly 20 years ago, really. There's more
pressure on people (financial crash, austerity nonsense, etc.) but on the
whole it seems fairly similar to me.

------
eksemplar
I think there is definitely an existential crisis in the West. I can’t think
of a time when society was this pessimistic, this focused on individual
improvement and this divided financially, and I was an adult in the 80’ies.

I recently hired for a temporary junior position and the applicants blew me
away. It’s the first time I’ve truest vitnessed the product of the competitive
state, these 22-24 year olds were spending all of their time trying to prepare
for the job market, not because they seemed to want to, but because they
didn’t want to fall behind their peers, as one of them said bluntly when I
asked why she never seemed to take time off.

I can’t imagine how terrible that constant performance pressure must be.
Especially if you’re not in the top 80%.

Ironically I can’t really think of a time where things were really better than
they are now. So I’m not entirely sure where this pessimism and performance
anxiety comes from. Rising inequality is a problem though, if left unchecked
it almost always leads to violent instability.

~~~
losteric
Probably a combination of standardized testing, perceived looming
economic/environmental/social upheaval, and feedback loops between blind
optimization of social media engagement metrics and unwitting narcissism.

I found that social media let me to regularly compare myself with friends, and
feel like I was also being evaluated... after explaining why I shut down my
accounts, I learned many of my friends felt similarly.

It doesn't help that everyone's social lives are a clixk-away. When someone's
feeling down, they can passively scroll through "evidence" supporting those
emotions - compared to talking to people, or even imagining their lives
(actively thinking).

~~~
Cthulhu_
Plus how every company seems to insist on only hiring the best or the rest, no
middle ground; either you're a top genius working at hip startups and/or the
engineering department at the big internet megacorporations, or you're doing
the modern equivalent of a McJob, that is, Uber driver (if you're lucky enough
to have a car), delivery guy, warehouse order picker that needs to pee in
bottles on the go to get the targets the computer is telling you to reach.

------
tluyben2
My grandfather (end of WO I and WO II entirely as an adult) always said that
people have no idea what bad looks like and will not be satisfied if they have
not lived through a war (or two) in their own country. We have never had more
peace and wealth and yet I see people around me being more and more unhappy
and dissatisfied. Possibly my grandfather was right, hope not.

~~~
extralego
What “we” are you referring to? You and your grandfather?

A lot of _other_ people are poor. I promise.

~~~
tluyben2
No, the world; EU and US had no wars on their soil for large periods compared
to their histories.

~~~
r3bl
Fully agree with you on the US, but for the EU, it's just ~25 years. Slovenia
and Croatia both went through a violent conflict in early 90s (although
Slovenian one was very short).

There are EU citizens in their mid-twenties born during the war.

If (and that's a giant "if" considering its fragile state of the moment)
Serbia becomes the next EU member (optimistic estimate is 2025), the most
recent conflict will shift to late 90s, and you will again have people in
their mid-twenties born during the conflict.

That's really not that long.

~~~
tluyben2
You are absolutely right. Sorry about that oversight (I am from NL; I do know
better); too living in my own world. Stand corrected.

Then an interesting tidbit would be if people are struggling mentally as much
as they do in north EU or US?

------
benatkin
I think it's part of the trend of "despair deaths":
[https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2017/03/23/5210833...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2017/03/23/521083335/the-forces-driving-middle-aged-white-peoples-
deaths-of-despair) [https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolinekee/maps-despair-deaths-
dru...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolinekee/maps-despair-deaths-drugs-
alcohol-homicide-suicide?utm_term=.clLwqbqnE#.gwyD060op)

------
closeparen
Sidebar: it's cheap and disrespectful to people experiencing depression to
casually attribute the suicide rate to your pet theory about the decline of
society.

~~~
emerged
No, it isn't. You figure things out by theorizing and discussing those
theories. In this case about a macro-level social trend. It isn't about any
particular one or a dozen or a hundred people who's depression is rooted in
something else.

~~~
closeparen
You figure things out by collecting and analyzing data to validate your
hypotheses.

------
Tepix
Atheism is mentioned in the article. Facing the naked truth that there is no
god can be brutal indeed. It's not surprising that rational people are
clinging to their soothing beliefs.

------
DanBC
The most important thing to reduce suicide rates is to reduce access to means
and methods. This is impossible in the US because it means gun owners have to
store their weapons in locked cabinets, with the ammunition in a separate
place. Or, better, that fewer people own guns.

Some thing that might be possible is to provide training to police so that
they don't kill people who are mentally distressed.

It's a bit worrying that this article doesn't mention any definitions or
differences in counting over years.

------
amriksohata
No one mentioned food and the gut brain axis, sugar and phlatetes changing our
gut composition and the gut brain axis then changing our thinking more
rapidly.

~~~
mistermann
Is there a decent theory behind this? Any suggestions on a good place to get
an intro to the idea?

~~~
amriksohata
Various links between your gut bacteria and depression, which can lead to
suicide.

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170308114709.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170308114709.htm)

Google "gut brain axis"

------
pmoriarty
A sense of meaninglessness and purposelessness is often behind suicide.

As Nietzsche observed, _" he who has a why to live can bear almost any how."_

------
kev009
I wonder what percent of this is related to the current media climate and
technology enabling a more relentlessly global perspective and world view.
There is the unhealthy war between the media and Trump. Trump sloughs it off,
the media loves the sensation, but in my anecdotal observation some people
internalize this national/international soap opera in really dark and
despairing ways. I see a few people I know who have attempted suicide
constantly hitting social media with profanities against DJT and retweeting
more of the same. Regardless of what is going on, the stuff is not really
relevant to their own problems and well being at the moment. I'm guessing the
psychology is something like "well, even if I get my shit together it'll still
not a Nash equilibrium because the world is irreparably fucked for me".

~~~
pdimitar
> _" well, even if I get my shit together it'll still not a Nash equilibrium
> because the world is irreparably fucked for me"_

IMO that's exactly it. At certain point I decided that I will work both harder
and smarter because I like money and the peace of mind and freedom they
enable... but in the end all my aspirations for changing the world for the
better won't ever materialize, I am pretty sure of it.

So in the end it turns out that a happy philosophy would be something like in
the "Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy":

"Just do what makes you happy and don't worry about the world."

Even that is pretty hard nowadays because we constantly get bombarded with
comparisons. The media REALLY loves turning people on each other.

------
punnerud
Could all of this be linked to a basic human need of constant "news value"? I
mean, does people need to fill their brain in some form of another, if not
they go insane? Ways you can fill your brain with news value: Difficult tasks
at work, engaging in other peoples lives, gambling, Facebook, Netflix,
hobbies, stock market, knitting, programming, voting for a president to make
their life more interesting (I did not say better).. If you have a lot of
hobbies you are more ok with a boring job, and with a difficult job you are
more ok with boring / little contact with your neighbours.

------
acidburnNSA
If you want to read more thoughts on how having meaning relates to a
fulfilling life, check our Viktor Frankl's classic, Man's Search for Meaning
[1]. He was in concentration camps and developed a whole theory about the
exact topic touched on in the nytimes article.

It's short and very inspiring.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl-
ebo...](https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl-
ebook/dp/B009U9S6FI)

------
chriselles
I highly recommend the book “Tribe” by Sebastian Junger.

He has also been a frequent podcast guest asked of his opinions on the recent
school shooting trend.

While Junger is not a classically trained psychologist, sociologist, or
anthropologist he is a keen observer of human group behaviour.

His argument is that people need meaning, people need purpose, and most
importantly people need to belong.

I would agree 100%

------
bonestamp2
For one, I think people are more selfish these days. I don't mean that as an
insult, I'm selfish in the same way and I think it's a luxury we couldn't
afford until recently. I don't know if the world made us that way, or we made
the world that way, but we're all to blame. Because relative wealth has
increased since I was a kid we generally don't need our community the way we
used to. When I was a kid, my mom knew all the neighbors really well and
nearly every night somebody was borrowing dinner ingredients or something from
somebody. Today, my same mom would probably just go to the store and buy what
she needs. Nobody needs each other anymore, or at least they don't think they
do.

Secondly, there is so much more entertainment now than there used to be. When
I was a kid, there was maybe one night/week where something was on TV that I
actually wanted to watch. Movies were rented once/week max. So, the rest of
the time was mostly spent playing with kids on our block... and our parents
would have a beer with the other parents at the same time. It was cheap, fun,
and more importantly for our context... there wasn't anything better to do
anyway. It was plain simple truthful fun. It was real.

Fucking too. I think people fucked more back then.

Our transition to the mass consumption of entertainment that we have now,
including hacker news to some degree, presents an even bigger problem... lies.
Plain simple truthful fun is much harder to come by now. The Joneses (or
Kardashians) are on your TV all the time on every channel. Mostly unobtainable
celebrity lifestyles stream to your pocket in real time. And if nothing good
is on in real time then you can consume every night of your next two months
streaming 7 seasons of a new show. I know my wife and I definitely have less
sex because Game of Thrones and other TV shows are better than most movies. I
hate to admit it because it sounds sad, but it's also our choice, we have less
sex than we would if TV wasn't so damn good. It's not better than sex, but
it's easier to do. You can drink wine while you're doing it. At the end of a
long day, you can wind down instead of winding up. It doesn't take any effort,
and everything else worthwhile, like talking to your neighbors, is harder than
winding down. It is work. You have to think. It shouldn't be that way, but
it's just not as relaxing as watching TV or reading hacker news.

Nobody leaves their house anymore. When I was a kid, there were people outside
constantly. Nobody in my neighborhood even mows their grass anymore, it's all
lawn care services. Nobody does shit that they don't have to do. Kids too. My
kids are young, but if I let them start the day watching TV they never want to
stop and go outside. I rarely see other kids outside playing anymore. My
friends with teenagers say their kids have no desire to get their drivers
license, they like being at home, watching youtube, playing video games and
texting with friends. Even the number of teens having sex is way down. Even
horny teenagers aren't fucking as much anymore!

That's because the entertainment itself is part of the problem. It's good.
It's really good. "Binge watching" sounds like an unhealthy disorder because
it is an unhealthy disorder. Even "reality tv" isn't real. What? The things
they market as real aren't real! Then the lie takes a break to pay the bills
through advertising and it's even more lies. Now, don't get me wrong, I've
worked in Advertising and there's no grand conspiracy to try and control
people, everyone in that industry is just working their ass off to do the best
job they can like everyone else in every other industry. If you go to the gym,
the girl with the nice boobs -- they might be fake, or that guy with the
muscles you want -- he might be doped up. Everything is out of control.

So, it's no wonder people can't find purpose and are killing themselves --
they can't make sense of this world and that is one of the few things they can
do that they know is real. They feel out of control and taking their own life
is one thing they can do, it's the final and ultimate way to beat this world
and prove that they really do have some control.

I used a lot of hyperbole and generalizations but I think this one is true: we
need to spend less time with our screens and more time outside with our
friends and family. Good luck convincing them.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
Get off hacker news then! Haha. No, I agree entirely. People not talking to
each other is ultimately the problem. My wife was depressed because she had
nobody but me to talk to. She went to get help but that didn’t do much so we
moved back to her hometown and live next to her parents. Now she sees and
talks to her mom every day and I have not seen any evidence of depression.
Myself, I have on and off moments where I feel like total shit. It doesn’t
help that I have 0 friends and never go out anywhere.

~~~
bonestamp2
> It doesn’t help that I have 0 friends and never go out anywhere.

Find or start a weekly meetup.com group for something you're interested in. Go
every week. Within months you'll have friends. I've done it in a couple cities
now and it works great. Any adults who are new to your city are in the same
boat -- it's hard to make friends, but this plan works.

------
dijit
Betteridges law.

It raises a good point though; and I don't want to entirely blame individual
things; but I do wonder how much of our psychology is pushed to limits with
social media. From what I’ve seen on social media platforms you have intensely
powerful echo chambers (twitter) telling you everything is hopeless, or making
you vitriolic and angry at the world. With instagram we get a curated view of
someone’s life. Perfectly packaged and polished which leads to envy and
eventually bitterness. Similar story with facebook and the way that you may
perceive attention being lavished on other potentially “more deserving”
people.

Personally I feel a little less hope in the world from knowing that I will
likely never own my own home. Or have the time to start a family. At the same
time there are those having swathes of children without being able to provide
for them economically. So the burden goes to everyone.

------
intralizee
Define crisis first and is it something society even cares about?

I think people are more secluded now, it’s a world where you google on your
phone instead of asking a stranger or have a discussion with friends. The
younger generation is getting robbed with students loans for degrees most
don’t even need and could just do apprenticeship or internship for a year to
prove themselves. A lot of social media exists now showing social status with
wealth, traveling and stuff that isn’t important but creates envi. The mental
health «professionals» are not great and just drug pushers filling a
capitalist needed role for pharmaceutical companies. Society is approaching
the bottom of the barrel where nobody cares to confront anything face to face.

------
darpa_escapee
Was this controlled for income and net worth?

------
aurelien
A solution cheaper than life.

------
rubicon33
Thomas D from Brooklyn said it best...

"I find this essay to be incredibly simplistic.

You blame the increased suicide rate on the diminished role of religion in our
lives and a lack of “neighborliness” with our neighbors? Really?

Just off the top of my head, here are a short list of factors you did not
consider:

\- The worst income inequality our country’s seen in a CENTURY.

\- Most Americans — and statistics back this up — dislike or literally hate
their jobs... Which they find meaningless.

\- Millions are working 2 and even 3 jobs on starvation wages.

\- Millions of Americans are overwhelmed with student debt.

\- Our country has no guaranteed paid parental leave.

\- Our for-profit health care system leaves millions uncovered — and millions
more “covered,” but unable to afford to actually use their coverage.

\- Unlike all other major countries in the world, we have ZERO guaranteed paid
vacation.

\- We work too much — we work longer hours than almost any other
industrialized country.

\- Because of this sad fact, what time we have left over for leisure and
spending time with family and friends is severely limited.

\- We have a deeply corrupt political system in which all of us recognize that
it’s only the super-rich and corporations who get what they want — decade in
and decade out. \- We live in the Wild, Wild West of “anything goes” for
corporations — including raping our environment and monopolizing... resulting
in higher bills for us, less innovation, little to no competition and so
forth.

Need I go on?"

~~~
squirrelicus
Sure, not a lot of substance here. Easy to disprove most of it.

-income inequality is higher but so is standard of living. Moreover, suicidality is pretty strongly inversely correlated with poverty and privilege. If the hypothesis is that people are killing themselves because "wah someone has more numbers than me" the argument crumbles immediately.

-most jobs have always been shit and meaningless. Nothing new here expect maybe a generation that was told they were special when they are not.

\- "2 or 3 jobs" but how many hours? Also, starvation wages? Come on. Nobody
in America with a job is poor enough to be hungry. To suggest starvation wage
in America devalues actual food scarcity globally. Also, again, poverty and
suicidality are inversely correlated

\- you can thank federally guaranteed student loans and useless majors for
driving up the cost and driving down the value of college. Still, having
40k-200k of loans contributing to suicidality... I'd like to see the study.
Could be right.

\- guaranteed parental leave would help reduce suicides? I mean, we didn't
have that in the past. So why does the status quo cause higher suicide rates?

\- the medical services coverage is a strange argument with respect to
suicidality. We understand and treat depression way better than we did 50
years ago, so why is it worse now? Plentiful mental health clinics even
operate on a "pay what you can" model

-paid vacation, see paid parental leave

\- why wasn't suicide higher when we worked more hours in the past? In the
last 50 years as hours worked hasn't really changed, why is suicidality up now
and not then?

\- I mean... Leisure time is still a good 6 hours a workday plus weekends and
hasn't really gone down. Why don't people who work more for less commit
suicide more often?

\- this last one doesn't even deserve a response.

Please go on. Maybe you'll get a single reason if you do.

~~~
King-Aaron
> Nobody in America with a job is poor enough to be hungry.

That's an absurdly out-of-touch statement.

~~~
pandem
I think I heard recently on NPR that an American making minimum wage earns
enough to buy 100k kcal per day. (Sorry, no source)

If you compare that to countries where people actually starve you should be
able to see the difference

~~~
Cthulhu_
What about being able to rent or buy a house in addition to feeding yourself?

Besides, there's a lot of "jobs" out there right now where minimum wage does
not apply - the service industry (where it has to be filled by tips, which are
voluntary, but if you don't tip you're both 'stealing' people's wages and will
get shit treatment), the "gig economy", etcetera.

------
imoverhere
This will sound odd but I believe the rise of the independent woman, while a
good thing, has some negative unforeseen impacts on society.

I’m so scared to even say that under my normal account because people will
take issue with it and try to get me fired from my job.

Some impact is that women are completely able to take care of their self now.
They do not need a man and can date who they want or nobody at all (that’s a
good thing). This has left women able to pick the top men, studies have shown
that they are much more selective than men — and they are in much higher
demand than men. This has left a lot of men unable to find love or start a
family. Men would get meaning from life having a family, now some men are
completely denied the opportunity. Women date up. Men date whatever they can
get and women are increasingly more educated and doing better than men. If not
for foreign women in the US many many would never have a chance with a woman.

With women entering the workforce, basically doubling it, wages have been
impacted, a lot of men struggle (though not us in tech).

This is just something we have to adjust to.

~~~
Double_a_92
> This has left women able to pick the top men, studies have shown that they
> are much more selective than men — and they are in much higher demand than
> men. This has left a lot of men unable to find love or start a family.

I experience that myself... But I wonder how that works. Isn't the ratio of
women to men 50:50 more or less? Are multiple women all in a relationship with
the same few men? I don't see how that would work for serious relationships.
That must mean women are also not starting families anymore?

~~~
johnny22
It doesn't help that most (American) men don't seem to be worth dating for
reasons that have nothing to do with looks, money, or fame.

Most american men are boring (generally speaking).

NOTE: I'm saying this as an american man.

~~~
JDiculous
And American women aren't boring?

Pretty loaded statement there that should probably be accompanied with
supporting evidence.

~~~
johnny22
Are you taking this personally? If we hung out, would we have a good time?

Would we be able to talk all night about interesting stuff? Would i stay up
way past my bedtime because I don't wanna put the phone (or whatever
communication) down?

~~~
JDiculous
You've accusing an entire gender of being boring, the least you can do is
support it with evidence, otherwise your statement is at best doesn't
contribute anything, at worst is toxic.

------
q-base
It is probably harder than ever to NOT question your current path and position
in life. Even IF you are satisfied with your position and path, the attention
economy constantly works to make you question whether the grass is actually
greener on the other side.

------
burntrelish1273
Disclaimer: coincidentally, I was 5150'ed today per an email I didn't think
through clearly very early in the morning I sent to a family member.

Due to the Werther Effect, does discussing this influence the behavior? Isn't
it why all discussions of the topic are banned in certain country's news...
not for embarrassment or to hide trauma, but to prevent it from becoming a
memetic epidemic?

~~~
tomcam
5150 means you're involuntarily committed due to mental illness where I come
from--what happened to you today exactly?

~~~
burntrelish1273
It's originally part of the TPS Act in Cali, and it's not a convo for
anonymous online discussion.

------
hsienmaneja
I keep a kit on standby in case things get too bad. I desire to die
perpetually and am generally cynical about the human meat sack condition.

~~~
darpa_escapee
What's in the kit?

~~~
hsienmaneja
40000 1000 100000 500

------
JUDAS
Some relevant books here for those with a Christian heritage who are confused
about what's going on, with a historical perspective.

[http://www.culturewars.com/books.htm](http://www.culturewars.com/books.htm)

------
kirkules
No.

------
pacnard
Nytimes complains about suicides, but then it also promote policies and
politicians that are causing the suicides and destroying our socities. Some of
the policies are: uncontrolled immigration from poor countries bringing crime
and causing social distrust. Laws that close the market and give few companies
a lot of bargaining power, forcing people to move around like cattle and also
making almost impossible to create good economies in towns. Laws that give
sociopaths the ability to bring functioning human being in courts for stupid
reasons and win, making people not trusting their neighbors. Divorce laws that
destroy families. Anti-family propaganda that pushes people to destroy their
family at the first difficulties. These things, and many others, make really
difficult to create a well-connected society, and people eventually kill
themselves because it's really bad out there where you get a little off the
track set by thr State and its puppetters.

So, nytimes should know very well that this is not an existential crisis, it's
the result of something they supported for a very long time.

~~~
mschuster91
> uncontrolled immigration from poor countries bringing crime and causing
> social distrust.

That's bullshit, sorry. Given same demographics, refugees bring about the same
levels of crime as "native Germans" do (e.g.
[https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2016-06/bunde...](https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2016-06/bundeskriminalamt-
statistik-straftaten-asylbewerber)). The "rise" that is sometimes perceived is
largely based on the fact that young, poor-ish males tend to be the social
group with the most crime issues.

As for "social distrust", you are certainly correct in the _symptom_ , but not
the cause. The cause is not "uncontrolled immigration", but politicians having
totally screwed up social security systems and protection laws. For example,
fair and equal minimum wage laws and especially actual enforcement of these
would prevent the common notion of "the migrants are taking away our jobs
because they're cheaper".

> Laws that give sociopaths the ability to bring functioning human being in
> courts for stupid reasons and win, making people not trusting their
> neighbors.

Laws usually have a reason why they got enacted. Yeah, it's sometimes a mess
(especially when it comes to HOAs, per countless debates here and on reddit),
but in general, stuff is pretty okay.

> Divorce laws that destroy families.

Care to explain how, other than (in the US!) everything being on the public
record and snatched up on the Internet for everyone to see?

> Anti-family propaganda that pushes people to destroy their family at the
> first difficulties.

What? And even if that were true: sorry, but a family/environment where there
is constant arguing between the parents is _not_ healthy for the kids!

~~~
mistermann
> That's bullshit, sorry. Given same demographics

Wait a minute....if you're calling bullshit, why do you lead your disproof
with a limiting qualifier?

Does the specific immigration the grandparent comment references arrive with
the same demographics, or not?

> As for "social distrust", you are certainly correct in the symptom, but not
> the cause. The cause is not "uncontrolled immigration", but politicians
> having totally screwed up social security systems and protection laws. For
> example, fair and equal minimum wage laws and especially actual enforcement
> of these would prevent the common notion of "the migrants are taking away
> our jobs because they're cheaper".

Again, I would ask, is this a theory or is it a fact? I'm under the impression
that social distrust rises as diversity rises (the underlying reason, and
whether it is fact-based or not is irrelevant) - is this belief _false_?

I actually kind of don't agree with your last two points either, but those are
more opinion-based so fairly pointless to argue one way or the other.

~~~
mistermann
-1 with no response.

ideology > facts

