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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday November 07 2018, @04:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the alarming-statistics dept.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46096626

In the fiscal year 2016/7 up to March, 250 children from elementary to high school age were recorded as having taken their own lives. The number is five more than last year, and the highest it has been since 1986.

Concerns the children had reported included family problems, worrying about their futures and bullying. But schools said the reasons behind about 140 of the deaths are unknown as the students did not leave a note. Most of those who took their lives were of high school age, where Japanese students typically study until they are aged 18.

[...] Overall suicides across Japan fell to about 21,000 in 2017, police say, down from a peak of about 34,500 in 2003.

[...] "The number of suicides of students have stayed high, and that is an alarming issue which should be tackled," education ministry official Noriaki Kitazaki said as the latest figures were released.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @04:43PM (14 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @04:43PM (#759032)

    In a nation with declining birth rates and limited immigration, their futures would have been bright.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @04:49PM (11 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @04:49PM (#759036)

      Via decades of inflationary Keynesian "economics", the government has turned Japan into a nation of slaves, stealing their productivity only to squander it on propping up the slowly failing status quo.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @08:59PM (10 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @08:59PM (#759144)

        Notwithstanding popularity of Keynes, academic economists in Japan today no longer want to call themselves Keynesians. Their outlook is very similar to the American economic academia in which dynamic stochastic general equilibrium theory looms large.

        http://jshet.net/docs/conference/79th/wakatabe.pdf [jshet.net]

        The core issue as described in the short review is that Japanese Keynesian economics was highly diverse and full of the monetarism that Keynes objected to. It worked for them during the growth period, but like all economic models based on growth, a housing bubble collapsed and took it down with it. Nowadays they're mostly like the US if the US merged both the federal and state polices into one. That is, they're Keynesian when it means giving their industry friends fat contracts and monetarist when it means giving their banking and finance friends tax cuts. As for how that supposed to work when the taxes are choking the economy, it doesn't. That's how both Japan and the US got to where they are.

        • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday November 07 2018, @11:16PM (9 children)

          by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday November 07 2018, @11:16PM (#759208) Homepage Journal

          I fail to understand what could possibly be bad about a per-capita growth rate of zero. Yet whenever the growth rate really is zero, the economy sucked.

          The parents of me and all my friends were more prosperous than I and my friends.

          --
          Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
          • (Score: 5, Informative) by deimtee on Thursday November 08 2018, @12:09AM (7 children)

            by deimtee (3272) on Thursday November 08 2018, @12:09AM (#759228) Journal

            Growth is necessary because the banking system as constructed continually feeds a percentage of the society's wealth to the bankers. This percentage is roughly equal to the money supply times the interest rate minus the defaults on debt.
            In a steady state economy this ends up with all the wealth in a small group and everyone else in abject poverty.

            There are a few possible results.
            1/ Attempt continual growth to feed the bankers. This is their preferred outcome, and why sustainability movements fail.
            2/ Tax the banking class as much as they are leeching. The bankers do not want this. They bribe politicians to prevent it, and there is significant group overlap anyway.
            3/ Nationalize the banks. The bankers really do not want this, it's why they shot JFK.
            4/ Violent revolution. Happens occasionally and the bankers deflect the blame to some other group, usually the visibly wealthy, and then set up the same system under the new regime.

            --
            If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
            • (Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Thursday November 08 2018, @09:37AM (6 children)

              by shrewdsheep (5215) on Thursday November 08 2018, @09:37AM (#759316)

              I think you give the so called bankers too much credit. It is true that there is accrual of wealth in a small subset of the population (co called 1%ers). This can be measured by the Gini index which is on the rise in most countries. However, the Gini index will stabilize eventually because a Gini index of 1 is impossible (Gini of 1 means a single person own everything, 0: everyone owns the same). So your assertion that the "bankers" have to be fed continuously is not true. Also even if the Gini index is on the rise, growth is not required. If productivity increases, that leaves new wealth to be redistributed without an absolute change. IMO this is what makes societies stable at the moment are the moment (the rich become richer but still everyone can buy the new cell phone every other year).

              • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday November 08 2018, @02:18PM (2 children)

                by deimtee (3272) on Thursday November 08 2018, @02:18PM (#759363) Journal

                It's not a secret cabal wearing hoods and robes meeting in secret and chanting 'Yog Sothoth Neblod Zin'. It's a natural and inevitable outcome of the way the money supply is set up.

                The US government borrows money from the Fed to operate. This money has to be paid back with interest. The only way to get that interest is to either expand the economy or to borrow it from the bankers. It is a vicious cycle, and the only ways out are to nationalize the banks, default on government debt, or introduce a wealth tax.
                Inflation mitigates the debt to a degree, but not completely as the new money that is both created by, and creates, inflation is owned by the Fed.
                At this point a balanced government budget is not sustainable, and probably not desirable. Balancing the budget just means that they are handing some more real wealth to the bankers, which puts a damper on the economy.

                A Gini of 1 may be impossible but we as a species appear to be trying. Currently the eight richest individuals in the world have as much as the combined wealth of the poorest half of the world population.

                --
                If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
                • (Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Thursday November 08 2018, @02:31PM (1 child)

                  by shrewdsheep (5215) on Thursday November 08 2018, @02:31PM (#759365)

                  The Fed is a governmental body that can simply print money, which they did big time recently. With this money they buy the bonds of the government, job done, no banker gets a dime. The US can get away with this scheme as the dollar is the de-facto currency of international trade. Money expansion is absorbed by foreign countries to a great extend. Money expansion does not necessarily lead to wealth distribution. In practice it does, as the rich are more influential in getting hand-outs from the just printed money. What I can agree on is that printing money is not a sustainable strategy. Either a country defaults or sustains a long period of high inflation. It has nothing to do with the private banks or the "bankers" though.

                  • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday November 08 2018, @03:42PM

                    by deimtee (3272) on Thursday November 08 2018, @03:42PM (#759394) Journal

                    The Federal Reserve, despite the name, is a privately owned bank that has some rather complex relationships with the US government. Those bonds are part of the debt the government owes. Where do you think they get the money from to pay them when they fall due?

                    --
                    If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
              • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday November 08 2018, @02:42PM (1 child)

                by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday November 08 2018, @02:42PM (#759370) Journal

                However, the Gini index will stabilize eventually because a Gini index of 1 is impossible (Gini of 1 means a single person own everything, 0: everyone owns the same).

                It's bounded; but that does not prove that it must stabilize. sin(x) cannot exceed 1, but the value still won't ever stabilize. And even if it does stabilize, that doesn't mean that the point where at which is stabilizes will be sustainable for humanity. A nuclear war that wiped out all of humanity would certainly be one way to force it to stabilize...but that's probably not a preferred solution by anyone.

                So your assertion that the "bankers" have to be fed continuously is not true.

                Never heard of an asymptotic function?

                Also even if the Gini index is on the rise, growth is not required. If productivity increases, that leaves new wealth to be redistributed without an absolute change. IMO this is what makes societies stable at the moment are the moment (the rich become richer but still everyone can buy the new cell phone every other year).

                Not everything gains productivity at the same rate though. Look at our own society today -- sure, basic smartphones and laptops keep getting cheaper, but the real cost of healthcare or education are rapidly increasing. Rising productivity means that manufactured goods get cheaper, but it can also make human labor more expensive (if a man-hour is more productive, then it's more valuable), which increases costs in labor-intensive industries. Being able to afford a new iPhone every month doesn't necessarily make your life better if you can't afford to see a doctor anymore...

                • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 08 2018, @03:33PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 08 2018, @03:33PM (#759388)

                  A nuclear war that wiped out all of humanity would certainly be one way to force it to stabilize

                  No, it would actually make it undefined (division by zero).

              • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday November 09 2018, @12:12AM

                by deimtee (3272) on Friday November 09 2018, @12:12AM (#759618) Journal

                This percentage is roughly equal to the money supply times the interest rate minus the defaults on debt.

                Was reading a bit, and found I was wrong on the amount fed to the bankers. It is not what I said above, it is a statutory fixed 6%, which is worse.

                --
                If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
          • (Score: 4, Informative) by Murdoc on Thursday November 08 2018, @03:05AM

            by Murdoc (2518) on Thursday November 08 2018, @03:05AM (#759282) Homepage

            It has to do with the very nature of money. If you'd like a short visual explanation you can find one here. [technocracy.ca] It's a multi-page presentation so be sure to step through it with the links underneath.

            This is why an entirely new form of economics is needed, one that does not depend on money, and is built with sustainability in mind from the start. Technocracy is a good example of that. [technocracy.ca]

    • (Score: 2, Touché) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday November 07 2018, @06:50PM (1 child)

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday November 07 2018, @06:50PM (#759095)

      Yeah, it's almost like being xenophobic with a rigid class structure is bad for a culture.

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
      • (Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @09:51PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @09:51PM (#759164)

        Yeah, it's almost like being xenophobic with a rigid class structure is bad for a culture.

        Amerika is going to show em. You can be xenophobic and have no class.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @04:51PM (12 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @04:51PM (#759037)

    if they're anything like the angst ridden teenagers of the US it's because they have been raised to have screwed up priorities and world view. too much tv and SM in the US. maybe it's more to do with pressure from family and peers in japan, idk much about japan. kids need to be raised in small decentralized schools where they learn what's really going to give them the tools to be successful and happy and to have their priorities straight from an early age. kids in the US want to be rock stars/rappers, gangsters or some other unrealistic or destructive goals. they are concerned with bs that goes on in these huge slave training centers the government likes to call schools. kind of like a prison reality show. it's a credit to these kids sacrificed to the government by their naive, selfish or poor parents that *every* school doesn't have a shooter at least once a year.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 07 2018, @04:59PM (8 children)

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday November 07 2018, @04:59PM (#759043) Journal

      Yeah, that's never going to happen. The Japanese education system is highly organized and ingrained to stratify everyone according to their test results. In middle school exams determine if you're going to go to an academic high school to learn to be lawyers, doctors, and scientists, commercial high school to learn how to be salesmen and clerks, or industrial high school to become a factory worker or farmer. Once you're placed, there are no second chances. From high school those kids take the college entrance exams. A late bloomer in an industrial high school can get the highest score on the exams ever registered and he will still not be accepted to Tokyo University.

      So there's immense pressure on those kids to study their asses off morning, noon, and night and get a phenomenal score on those exams because it really does determine the course of the rest of their lives. Understandably, failure to perform well is devastating. Those kids understand that their lives are already over and they kill themselves instead of living with the shame.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Bobs on Wednesday November 07 2018, @06:25PM (1 child)

        by Bobs (1462) on Wednesday November 07 2018, @06:25PM (#759077)

        Interesting.

          Would be curious to see a breakdown of the suicides by both time : before or after testing, and testing results. Are people killing themselves before the tests, or after doing poorly on the tests?

        These would indicate different causes and mitigations.

        FYI: In the USA, suicides are rising, and become the second leading cause of death of older teens in the USA [cnn.com].

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 07 2018, @10:46PM

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday November 07 2018, @10:46PM (#759192) Journal

          Bullying and physical abuse are contributing factors, too. "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down" is a saying in Japan because bullying and peer pressure are that institutionalized.

          Physical abuse is rampant in schools also. Teachers and administrators beat the hell out of students. There was a story of a teacher who locked for students in the trunk of his car during a class hike. He felt they had misbehaved. When the hike was done he opened the trunk and found they had all smothered to death on the hot day. The dude wasn't even charged with a crime. "These things happen."

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Wednesday November 07 2018, @08:00PM (1 child)

        by shortscreen (2252) on Wednesday November 07 2018, @08:00PM (#759126) Journal

        There's pressure. But is it justified? Which one of those outcomes is the bad, shameful one? (A salesman or a clerk? イヤ)

        If a kid goes to industrial high school and gets high scores relative to their peers, how hard is it to find a job?

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 07 2018, @10:41PM

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday November 07 2018, @10:41PM (#759188) Journal

          It depends on which of those outcomes is that which the parents and the child's teacher did not expect. If they wanted the boy to become a doctor, and he only tested into a commercial high school, then it's a lot different than the kid whose parents are fine with that.

          There are other layers of course. I had a student in the academic high school where I taught and she was one of the top three in the school across the board. She really wanted to become a doctor, but her parents were traditional and thought it was improper for a girl to have that career. The most they would allow her to go for was a pharmacist. I saw her some years later when I was passing through Tokyo on the way to China; she was in her second year of pharmacy training and the bright eyed, energetic high school star I had known was stooped and dulled. The light had already gone out of her, and it broke my heart.

          Against all that the suicide rate for Japanese youth makes perfect sense to me. I am only surprised it's not much higher, or, heck, that Japanese youth don't vote with their feet and decamp for Europe and the US en masse.

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Barenflimski on Wednesday November 07 2018, @08:01PM (3 children)

        by Barenflimski (6836) on Wednesday November 07 2018, @08:01PM (#759127)

        When you have systems like this in place, it makes it extremely hard for people that have a change of mind in life to alter their course. Because you need a 4-20 year degree to even be considered in many fields, once people are out of a field, it is nearly impossible to strike out in another direction. This can be devastating to people at any age. Of course people want to see credentials before hiring someone for any job, but the system today can keep decent people out of fields they might be extremely helpful in. What you may be good at in middle school and like when you are 15 doesn't always translate to a happy future with a career. Once you have financial obligations, starting over in a new field can be next to impossible. When you take hope away, the sense and reality of being able to accomplish anything productive can be destroyed.

        Its a dream, but it would nice if it was about the person, and helping to develop each other, instead of filling cogs who can do job X until its time to replace the cog. It would create a much more integrated populace, who felt more connected to the system they are supporting. Happiness is a thing. A system to support this would be great for workers, while at the same time reducing the power hierarchy across the board.

        • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 07 2018, @10:34PM (2 children)

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday November 07 2018, @10:34PM (#759185) Journal

          I agree, and the gap between that and what we have now constitutes the vast untapped human potential in the world that is being squandered by a system set up to enrich a very few at the expense of all, even those few themselves.

          Even most of us who are blessed to live in the first world rely upon countless others doing grinding, dirty, dangerous, damaging work to enable our standard of living. It's a hierarchy of suck.

          But how do we get that guy there to go unclog the sewer main for those people over there without a system of remuneration we have now? Robots? AI? If you were an AI, you'd have even less reason to go unclog the sewer mains for a bunch of dumb dirty humans. If our replacement system to maximize happiness doesn't solve basic questions like those, all other concerns that take those things for granted will quickly go by the wayside. That is, nobody's gonna care much about their iPhones if their street is a cesspool.

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
          • (Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Wednesday November 07 2018, @11:56PM

            by Barenflimski (6836) on Wednesday November 07 2018, @11:56PM (#759225)

            I'm not sure that the two systems have to be mutually exclusive. For instance, some years I enjoy putting up drywall and cutting boards. Some years I enjoy database work. Some years I enjoy putting together robots. With that said, if no one feels like diving in sewage to clear a blockage [apnews.com], that doesn't help anyone. If I were in a specific job, I'd of course be required to do that job if I said I'd do it.

            I imagine that if over time people were able to do different jobs without losing all of their pay, that would foster something like this. I guess in the world today, that would be like having a merry-go-round job with people at Microsoft, Home Depot, and tutoring at the local University. I suppose one could say that this is called "a student." I digress. To continue to get paid the same amount across these so to make it financially feasible, would require an entire cultural change. Some sort of job-sharing agreement between people and companies that feel like participating would be the idea.

            It is an intriguing thought.

             

          • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday November 08 2018, @04:03PM

            by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday November 08 2018, @04:03PM (#759405) Journal

            But how do we get that guy there to go unclog the sewer main for those people over there without a system of remuneration we have now?

            Remuneration doesn't have to be money. It could simply be earning the respect of the people who you helped, who are more likely to help you in return. Cory Doctrow's "Whuffie" [wikipedia.org], essentially. People do this already to some extent -- I regularly see "Hey, how do I write a program to do [x]" posted to Facebook, then within twenty minutes three different people post the scripts they wrote to do exactly that with three different methods. Rarely do these people demand or anticipate any real payment, they just want to impress with their speed and skill. (YMMV based on gender and appearance...) Of course, I also see artists complain about the exact same thing, about being "expected" to do design work for free. I think it depends on financial security -- decent coders tend to have no problem finding steady work to support themselves, and once you don't have to worry about money then you're more willing to work for other reasons.

            Of course, even without some kind of currency alternative...if someone living in the affected neighborhood knows a thing or two about plumbing, then they've certainly got plenty of incentive to go fix the broken sewer main.

            We see that sometimes already, particularly with potholes...people get fed up waiting for the city and they go patch it themselves. And then the city sometimes charges them with vandalism...they don't WANT any random person going to "fix" the problem, because they want to ensure that the work meets their quality specs. Which kinda sucks...but they've got a valid point too. If you want to rip up and recycle that asphalt someday, you can't have any random person throwing in any random material that they happen to have laying around...or they could even make the situation worse if the material they use doesn't have the same thermal expansion properties as the original pavement.

            The problem is...as technology advances, there's more and more to know about almost every field of work. But there's a limit to what one person can know and understand. You can be a bit of a "jack of all trades" when it comes to repairing your own home, but you still probably don't have the requisite knowledge -- or equipment -- to repair a municipal water main. Some tasks just kinda need an expert. AI can help, but it's not necessarily going to fix the issue unless the AI robot is the one doing the repairs (at which point the whole concept of work becomes kinda obsolete). We all know how many people simply refuse to read the manual or ask for help...AI can't help those who ignore its advice.

            I really do agree with you in theory, I think the world would be a much better place if people weren't so damn afraid to go out and fix the problems they see by themselves...but I can also easily see the ways in which that could go very wrong. Standards are important, and they require enforcement mechanisms. Expertise is important too, and "you don't know what you don't know". Even with the best intentions you can make the problem worse by missing some critical detail. Could we build some kind of repair corps that provides the requisite oversight? Or maybe we can specially license certain industry professionals to do certain kinds of repairs on their own if they choose to do so? That would at least be a start...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @09:32PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @09:32PM (#759159)

      Pffft what a bunch of generationalist garbage. Learn history sometime, older people have been complaining about the younger generation since the dawn of time. It just shows that you prefer simplistic reasoning over critical thinking.

      • (Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday November 08 2018, @01:01AM (1 child)

        by Bot (3902) on Thursday November 08 2018, @01:01AM (#759244) Journal

        > older people have been complaining about the younger generation since the dawn of time

        And they were right. Every. Single. Time.

        --
        Account abandoned.
        • (Score: 4, Touché) by krishnoid on Thursday November 08 2018, @02:33AM

          by krishnoid (1156) on Thursday November 08 2018, @02:33AM (#759272)

          In all honesty, I'm not surprised to hear that kind of a talk from a life form directly affected by Moore's law.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Wednesday November 07 2018, @05:33PM (10 children)

    by legont (4179) on Wednesday November 07 2018, @05:33PM (#759062)

    BOJ is top-10 shareholders in 40% of listed companies https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/BOJ-is-top-10-shareholder-in-40-of-Japan-s-listed-companies [nikkei.com]

    It's peaceful transition to Socialism in progress executed by capitalists themselves exactly as predicted by Carl Marx.

    Here is how the actual revolution will happen. Currently BOJ owns, but does not participate in day to day management. A little obscure rule change and the process is complete.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @05:42PM (8 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @05:42PM (#759066)

      All hail Carl Marx

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @07:35PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @07:35PM (#759114)

        Is Carl some American relative of Karl?

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by istartedi on Wednesday November 07 2018, @07:40PM

        by istartedi (123) on Wednesday November 07 2018, @07:40PM (#759115) Journal

        Ow! The doctor told me not to get manifestos in my eyes.

        --
        Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @09:03PM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @09:03PM (#759145)

        >> Carl [sic] Marx

        A liberal muslim homosexual ACLU lawyer professor and abortion doctor was teaching a class on Karl Marx, known atheist "Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship Marx and accept that he was the most highly-evolved being the world has ever known, even greater than Jesus Christ!"

        At this moment, a brave, patriotic, pro-life Navy SEAL champion who had served 1500 tours of duty and understood the necessity of war and fully supported all military decision made by the United States stood up and held up a rock. "How old is this rock, pinhead?"

        The arrogant professor smirked quite Jewishly and smugly replied "4.6 billion years, you stupid Christian"

        "Wrong. It’s been 5,000 years since God created it. If it was 4.6 billion years old and evolution, as you say, is real… then it should be an animal now"

        The professor was visibly shaken, and dropped his chalk and copy of Origin of the Species. He stormed out of the room crying those liberal crocodile tears. The students applauded and all registered Republican that day and accepted Jesus as their lord and savior.

        An eagle named "Small Government" flew into the room and perched atop the American Flag and shed a tear on the chalk. The pledge of allegiance was read several times, and God himself showed up and enacted a flat tax rate across the country.

        The professor lost his tenure and was fired the next day. He died of the gay plague AIDS and was tossed into the lake of fire for all eternity.

        Semper Fi

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @10:10PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @10:10PM (#759173)

          we 4chan nao

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @10:26PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @10:26PM (#759180)

          --nomsg

        • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday November 08 2018, @02:39AM (1 child)

          by krishnoid (1156) on Thursday November 08 2018, @02:39AM (#759274)

          After which Jesus was jolted from his nap by the sudden influx of devotion from his new followers, thought for a moment, and then said "I want to feel good about this, but something about it just doesn't feel right. Ahh well, bless you my child, I guess."

          • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday November 08 2018, @04:40AM

            by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Thursday November 08 2018, @04:40AM (#759301) Homepage Journal

            ...And god* said to Abraham, "You will kill your son, Isaac."

            And Abraham said, "I can't hear you, you'll have to speak into the microphone."

            And god said, "I'm sorry, Is this better? Check. Check. Check. Jerry, pull the high end out, I'm still getting some hiss back here."

            *This word should be replaced wherever used with "imaginary sky daddy."

            --
            No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 08 2018, @03:39PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 08 2018, @03:39PM (#759391)

          A liberal muslim homosexual ACLU lawyer professor and abortion doctor was teaching a class on Karl Marx, known atheist "Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship Marx and accept that he was the most highly-evolved being the world has ever known, even greater than Jesus Christ!"

          Contradiction detected.

    • (Score: 1, Troll) by Bot on Thursday November 08 2018, @01:05AM

      by Bot (3902) on Thursday November 08 2018, @01:05AM (#759248) Journal

      free market creates lumps of success, conventionally called capitalists.
      capitalists want no more competition
      so they get in bed with the government
      you can call it socialism

      Do you need to read a book to conclude the same? It's obvious.

      --
      Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @07:43PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07 2018, @07:43PM (#759120)

    Anyone who’s seen a high school slice-of-life anime knows these statistics are bullshit.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by shortscreen on Wednesday November 07 2018, @08:22PM

      by shortscreen (2252) on Wednesday November 07 2018, @08:22PM (#759131) Journal

      yeah they're probably not real suicides, the kids are just temporarily missing while they fight against evil in interdimensional/intergalactic/subterranean/prehistoric/future/cyberspace warfare.

      or --spoiler--
      she didn't jump, she went out on that ledge to talk down her friend and then slipped and fell

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Wednesday November 07 2018, @08:45PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday November 07 2018, @08:45PM (#759139) Journal

      Yeah, they're probably being spirited away by shinigami-sans, or secretly murdered by yandere-chans.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday November 07 2018, @11:22PM (3 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday November 07 2018, @11:22PM (#759212) Homepage Journal

    Get them to talk - about anything - by asking "leading questions", that is, questions which do not have a Yes or No answer.

    Listen carefully then respond so as to make transparently obvious that you really heard them.

    During my six week suicide hotline training course, we spent most of our times doing roleplays of active listening.

    Now one must evaluate how much danger they are really in. Do they have a plan? Are the means to carry out that plan readily available? Would their plan actually work if they tried?

    If they are truly in danger you face the hard choice of continuing to listen to them or calling the emergency line, 9-1-1 in the US and Canada. It's a hard choice because here at least, if you tell 9-1-1 that someone is suicidal, they will send the police, who may make the problem worse rather then bringing them back from the brink.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 08 2018, @04:17AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 08 2018, @04:17AM (#759288)

      How do you feel about suicide counseling made easy?

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Thursday November 08 2018, @04:40PM

      by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday November 08 2018, @04:40PM (#759412) Journal

      if you tell 9-1-1 that someone is suicidal, they will send the police, who may make the problem worse rather then bringing them back from the brink.

      Yup. I have two friends who have gone through that. The police showed up, started pounding on their door screaming loud enough for the entire damn neighborhood to overhear about suicidal thoughts and all of that...that's exactly what a depressed person needs, right? Being too embarrassed to speak to their neighbors or even leave the house for the next month...

      Not just one department either, one incident was a Bryn Mawr College campus police in Philadelphia PA and the other was the local cops near Providence RI. Every single fucker involved ought to be prosecuted for HIPAA violations as far as I'm concerned...but of course we all know the laws don't apply to police officers anymore...

  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Bot on Thursday November 08 2018, @12:53AM (2 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Thursday November 08 2018, @12:53AM (#759241) Journal

    The real list of mental illnesses:
    - being french
    - being german
    - being japanese
    - being italian
    - being usian
    - being russian

    notes:
    chinese illness is a fake, they are not really into it
    niggers suffer from a strange syndrome, affecting them only when in groups.

    Prove me wrong.

    (don't be a hypocrite and complain about the use of 'nigger', when 'french' is clearly a greater insult)

    --
    Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 08 2018, @03:46PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 08 2018, @03:46PM (#759395)

      The real list of mental illnesses:

      - being Bot.

      • (Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday November 10 2018, @05:11PM

        by Bot (3902) on Saturday November 10 2018, @05:11PM (#760393) Journal

        Thank you! one step closer to winning that Turing prize.

        --
        Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday November 08 2018, @04:44AM

    by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Thursday November 08 2018, @04:44AM (#759302) Homepage Journal

    Fans of Emily Dickinson [poets.org].

    More's the pity.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
  • (Score: 0, Redundant) by NotSanguine on Thursday November 08 2018, @04:44AM

    by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Thursday November 08 2018, @04:44AM (#759303) Homepage Journal

    Fans of Emily Dickinson [poets.org].

    More's the pity.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
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