I encourage you to read the current thinking on this evolving language, which offers some explanation as to why we're moving away from damaging language like "committing" suicide.
I think they are saying that the current title ("people died ... amid scandal") muddies the water when it comes to the causal relation, arguably "people were led to suicide by baseless accusations" _might_ be a more faithful descriptor of who's at fault here, but I understand journalists don't want to risk being sued (and neither do I, hence my use of _might_)
You may disagree with my assertion, but there has been considerable research into the role of media and reporting in suicide, indicating that contagion is real and that words matter when reporting on these issues.
That words matter is why I'm in opposition, as this diminishes agency in people.
Today I would say that framing suicide as "immoral" in secular society is banal and has no traction, but most, excepting certain circumstances, would suggest it is a bad choice. That surely follows if you as well as I would try to talk an able person out of suicide.
I don't think it helps to diminish agency as though suicide is an inevitability following tough circumstances. That's the message I am getting from the euphemism treadmill game, and I reject it.
The message should be that you can go through hell and recover, and you still have a choice. And granted there's always nature vs nurture; just as we are not entirely the product of our environment, the environment does shape us. But it's not all-or-nothing.
The person you are replying to shared some research by experts on the topic giving recommendations. You can argue for or against anything, but it’s useful to at least engage with the evidence being presented.
Did you look at the link? Its just a long list. There is no point in there to engage with, and regardless the point of contention is not reporting in abstract, its the exact terminology of "commit suicide", its not even clear that is explored at all.
I would say it's not the treadmill at work in this case. It's not simply a replacement.
The article linked by the parent comment explains it well and references plenty of considered material. But the tldr is that committing suicide aligns with an active criminal/immoral act, while dying by suicide is a factual cause of death with many possible causes.
Consider how people would like your death, or the death of a loved one, described by others. And if you can't, maybe consider how others might be affected.
> But the tldr is that committing suicide aligns with an active criminal/immoral act, while dying by suicide is a factual cause of death with many possible causes.
The projections are doing the work here. Colloquially today what's understood is that "commit" merely means they did the deed. People can judge that to be immoral or not regardless; most people don't, except through the lens of religion.
They might judge it to be the wrong choice, as I surely do, and I don't think it helps to diminish agency as though suicide is an inevitability following any given circumstance.
edit: lol wut? The more I think about this the less it makes sense. The stigma of suicide is from the societal attitude that it's wrong and you should never do it. Using a verb isn't the bit that tells everyone it is wrong. If you want to remove the stigma take away all the signs for 998 and perfunctory statements that help is available, and replace them all with "do it. no balls, do it."
Isn't the stigma desired anyway? It keeps people from going through with it. That's why society deliberately creates and actively cultivates the stigma.
I doubt removing "committed" removes any stigma to seek help. What sucks about suicidality is that everyone is so sterile about it. Removing the word is more of that. IMO the sterility discourages the not-yet-at-rock-bottom suicidal from reaching out.
> Isn't the stigma desired anyway? It keeps people from going through with it. That's why society deliberately creates and actively cultivates the stigma.
That’s a very optimistic take on how “rational” society tends to be. The thought that “if things are in a certain way in society, then it must make sense (from a moral or societal point of view) for them to be that way.”
This is a key distinction. Plus codes map to a 14m x 14m square area and aren't aware of things like building units or elevation.
If you live in a high rise apartment, a plus code does not identify you precisely. Sadly to do this you need some knowledge of a structure's internals. It makes sense it's being done on the national level in Japan.
Or even just addresses that are split between multiple pluscodes?
For example, a duplex where the front door of each unit is adjacent to the other. Even at the 4m resolution, that means both units front doors (and thus street addresses) can fall into one single pluscode.
The Navy's Marine Mammal Program advertises quite an interesting array of mine detection techniques using Dophins. If this is what they publicly share, who knows what they're training animals to do in secret.
This reminds me of the recent New Yorker article on indigenous Pacific Northwest oral histories about climactic flooding that can be directly correlated to ancient written Japanese tsunami records.
It's not a good point though, because one of the important traits of a good engineering manager is that they understand the work of the ICs they are managing (at least to a reasonable depth).
I’ve had many good engineering managers over the decades. None were technical. But they were good because they did have skills in things like running interference for us. In my experience, people skills are far more important than technical skills for good engineering managers.
I’ve also had a handful of good non-technical managers over the decades, and they succeeded by having trust in the right technical people (for whatever reason, sometimes it may have been luck). What I’ve seen more often is non-technical managers place trust in the wrong people, get taken for a ride, and generally fail to pinpoint problems correctly.
You’re right that people skills are more important but they are often necessary but insufficient depending on the specific team and business situation.
An astonishing number of debates are between one group of people saying “Foo needs A” and another saying “Foo needs B” when really... Foo needs a good helping of A and B.
... same as bakery manager? And in both cases it helps understanding underlying work, unless you don't just fill forms, organize meetings and chase/yell at people (then you can be easily cut&pasted elsewhere with same great results)
