[I_Am_Nous]

I remember reading about how "sticking your head in an oven" was a legitimate suicide method when using coal gas ovens. When people switched to natural gas/electric, the suicide rate dropped drastically:

>The switch from coal gas to natural gas also had one unexpected effect. During the ‘50s and ‘60s, about half of the suicides in Britain were by coal gas. By the ‘70s, when the transition to natural gas was complete, the number of gas suicides had dropped to zero and the overall suicide rate was down a third. Even the suicidal appreciate convenience. If it's too much trouble, as Dorothy Parker said, "You might as well live."[1]

1. https://gizmodo.com/why-have-people-stopped-committing-suici...

[qohen]

For those unfamiliar with Dorothy Parker[0] and/or that punchline, here's the poem, Resumé, that it's from[1]:

Resumé

By Dorothy Parker

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Parker

[1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44835/resume-56d22415...

[johnla]

Dark comedic thought: if a prerequisite to suicide is to get your affairs in order and leave behind a clean house, suicide would be very low; ugh, too lazy to clean. I'll just live instead.

[tonyedgecombe]

If you see a friend getting their affairs in order and unexpectedly cleaning house then you should worry.

[chasd00]

Tangent: There’s a lot of societal pressure in A house being clean. Remember the line in Goonies from the mom, “boys, I really want the house clean when they tear it down”?

[buildsjets]

I always wanted to die clean and pretty

But I'd be too busy on working days

So I am relieved that the turbulence wasn't forecasted

I couldn't have changed anyways

I am relieved that I'd left my room tidy

Goodbye

[pempem]

Dark, comedic, and so true!

Imagine some kafkaesque effort of bureaucracy

[depletedgherkin]

"Guns aren't lawful", after reading that line I thought she might be British, but it looks like she's American. Were gun laws stricter back then or something?

[peyton]

Yeah the Sullivan Act. Supreme Court struck it down last year.

[birksherty]

Just living without dying is not a good life. If anyone wants to stop suicide they should prevent the root cause that leads to it, not just stop giving a less painful way to do so. It's inhuman and many forced to die horribly because of this. It's always the privileged who decides to make suicide harder.

They think life is always going to be good at after waiting. For many it's not true. Privileged people think just because they themselves have it easier, people who are willing to die just mentally ill and don't know how to enjoy life.

If we are brought to life easily without thinking and no consent, then there should be a way to leave if anyone wants to. Life should not be a one way hell trap, suffering for long time just so that well off people can feel better and not hear about suicide.

Nobody actually does anything to prevent root cause, but it's completely ok for them if people suffer long time without dying. Media will also never show humans whose life is still miserable after not dying. It must be a feel good story.

[dinkleberg]

Thank you! I am not, nor have I ever been suicidal. But the societal view towards it has always felt like tyrannical bullshit.

You’re telling me that if there is nothing left for me in life and I just don’t want to go on anymore that I can’t because society deems it has wrong and selfish (and yet society applauds other selfish acts…)

To be stuck as a slave to your environment and be deprived of your one ultimate freedom is inhumane.

It goes without saying that we should absolutely strive to help those that are suicidal. And a big part of that I imagine is actually providing people a space where they can find a purpose in life rather than being trapped in the endless cycle of trying to escape their debt with low paying and soul destroying jobs.

[jart]

https://youtu.be/tetwGGL997s?t=149

[linuxftw]

That could also be explained that everyone who wanted to kill themselves (WW2 veterans) had already done so. Suicides being 1/3 lower in the 70s than the 50's and 60's seems expected.

[loeg]

Coal gas purportedly has much higher levels of carbon monoxide than natural gas, which would be sufficient.

[linuxftw]

I'm just talking about the connection to the overall suicide rate. Obviously if natural gas doesn't kill you, or as quickly, that method of suicide will go down. But the overall rate can be explained by many other phenomenon.

[saberdancer]

Yes but there is a much larger effect on gas oven suicides than overall.

Suicide prone population dying out would not cause one type of suicide to reduce in a much quicker rate - as is implied here.

[loeg]

E.g., Sylvia Plath.