
Rural suicides among farmers - wglb
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/21/health/rural-suicides-among-farmers/index.html
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sparrish
I'm from rural Eastern Colorado (think Kansas but you can see a mountain far
off) and I've know farmers/ranchers who've committed suicide but I don't think
any was due to financial stress. It's anecdotal but all were doing quite well.
I think the lack of meaning in their lives due to farm subsidies in the form
of soil conservation may be the root cause.

Every farmer knows how the game is played. Do whatever it takes to get several
years of high yields, then you'll be offered money from the gov to not farm,
based on those yields.

But nobody tells them about the depression that sets in when a farmer is paid
to not farm - to loose the teleo of one's existence. It's sad to see and since
those "soil conservation" contacts can be up to 10 years long, it's a long
time to get out of that funk.

Again, anecdotal, but I've never heard of a farmer who had land to work and
the ability to work it commit suicide.

~~~
simonsarris
Interesting theory.

That people want to work (more than for just the money) is one of the reasons
I am very skeptical of UBI. I think that people want to work, and we
apparently don't structure communities very well for people to just pick up
meaningful work (or even volunteering) as a hobby.

~~~
lightbyte
>That people want to work (more than for just the money) is one of the reasons
I am very skeptical of UBI.

This is interesting, can you elaborate? I would expect most people would
continue to work if given UBI and it would even encourage people to do work
they _like_ to do instead of what makes them the most money, but it sounds
like you are predicting the opposite.

~~~
simonsarris
> it would even encourage people to do work they like to do instead of what
> makes them the most money

But clearly this doesn't play out with the farmers in question here! They are
not freed from the shackles of work for a year or three, busily following
their passion. They are committing suicide. That isn't to say that the
majority go in that direction, but its enough to measure, and should be enough
to give us pause I think.

The majority of men on UBI-like programs seem to watch TV and take drugs, and
not follow passions. I've written a fair bit about UBI and contrasting it with
basic jobs, here:

[https://medium.com/s/story/after-universal-basic-income-
the-...](https://medium.com/s/story/after-universal-basic-income-the-
flood-217db9889c07)

Related to this discussion see the section, "The Existential Problem", and if
you have the time I suggest you read the two articles (NPR 'unfit for work'
and Commentary Mag 'our miserable 21st century') that I link to in that
section.

Not in the above article but broadly speaking, the work disincentive for UBI
tests so far is about 10%. That is, 10% of the people given something like UBI
will drop out of the labor force and not do any kind of (measurable) work.
Some % of that 10% will go on to commit suicide, I imagine, like the farmers
here. Citations for the ~10% figure can be found here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17666307](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17666307)

Something about being given money and having no work to do, plus no community
or purpose, does not cause people to create community or purpose. My fear here
is that instead of working towards making sure people can, somehow, create
more community and purpose, we're taking the one thing many people find
meaning in (work) and pulling the rug out from under them on it, like we are
possibly doing to the farmers here.

Sorry, having a hard time being succinct. What I am suggesting is that we have
_got_ to solve this "no community or purpose" issue before we solve the
"money" issue. It's bigger, and if we don't, we might not like the future very
much.

~~~
rootusrootus
Perhaps a difference with UBI would be the ubiquitousness of it. You'd know
way before you even entered the job market what the score was.

Thanks for the links in your other post, I will take a look. I admit that I
have Star Trek dreams of post-scarcity happiness, but I'm willing to change my
mind if there is credible evidence to suggest my hopes are misplaced. I wasn't
aware that there were any decent UBI experiments that had been done at scale,
lately they all seem to be very limited and aborted early.

Maybe I'll just have to scale back and pin my hopes on Medicare For All. Would
be nice to detach medical coverage from employment, IMO.

~~~
simonsarris
> I admit that I have Star Trek dreams of post-scarcity happiness

I think a lot of us, here on Hacker News, do. I kinda worry that's part of the
problem. But you and me and Sam Altman, etc, are not representative of society
at large. I was thinking of the HN crowd (myself included) when I wrote this
part:

> Just as you can find Silicon Valley techies who think Soylent is the only
> sustenance a person will ever need, intellectuals tend to think everyone
> could be as content as they would be living life in their heads or inventing
> their own destiny. Most people need to be doing something to feel satisfied
> and a potential UBI system addresses this need just as inadequately as
> disability checks do now. Cue drug epidemics.

I think average people need more direction than that. I don't think that's a
bad thing, but I think its a much more serious problem than the average
person's relationship with money.

Put another way, the problems of today and the near future are _not_ primarily
ones of money. They are ones of community and meaning. By most available data,
even the poorest in the USA are doing OK on the money front, though its
obviously not ideal! Some cites on that claim can be found here:
[https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/937200378919055360](https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/937200378919055360)

So I worry UBI is solving the wrong problem first, and might make the real
problem a little or a lot worse, depending on how the job landscape changes.

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jpm_sd
I'm not sure the person profiled supports the underlying thesis of the
article. He was 82 and struggling with numerous health problems, suicide may
have been a quasi-rational choice?

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wglb
Growing up on a Montana wheat farm, while we didn't use the phrase "cowboy
up", there was always "is there a bone sticking out" toughen-up message.

And we did have one of those 15 minute hailstorms, and a lot of nervous June
months without rain.

~~~
peatmoss
I grew up in suburban MT, and was one generation removed from rural MT. I
never heard “cowboy up,” but “is there a bone sticking out” definitely checks
out.

The stresses of being in a rural state can be good and bad. Even in suburban
MT, it would never have occured to my parents to be helicopter parents. Power
tools, dangerous play, and “don’t you dare come inside unless you’re bleeding”
were all par for the course.

But the same stresses that result in kids’ freedom can also overwhelm some
people. My own grandfather committed suicide, and I have to wonder if (even in
a small town where he was well-loved) less isolation and more mental health
services might have given him more years.

~~~
rootusrootus
The 'old men committing suicide' seems to be a thing. My own 85 year old
father has been ratcheting up the idle talk about being a useless burden to
his wife, etc, which makes me _very_ nervous.

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peatmoss
If anyone wants a sound track to this tragic story, Pearl Jam’s “Elderly Woman
Behind the Counter in a Small Town” is—I’m convinced—influenced by bassist
Jeff Ament having grown up in Big Sandy, which is the town discussed in this
article.

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jimnotgym
Similar story from 8 months ago. I liked the top comment about farmers
creating financial stress just to avoid tax. I have seen this effect myself
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15861888](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15861888)

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modells
In Syria, ISIS, war against Assad and mass exodus is due entirely to the
regime not helping farmers get water during a time drought and famine. No
doubt many farmers also killed themselves, but the gamut of hardships fell on
deaf Western ears.

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bryanrasmussen
wouldn't urban suicides among farmers be rare?

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da02
It says, "two out of three suicides in Montana are by firearm". What do 1/3 of
the other people use?

~~~
FooHentai
Assuming it follows the national trends, then the next most common are
suffocation and poisoning.

