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by sailfast 38 days ago
What on earth is the "industrial complex" part about this? Outside of pharma pushing pills I'm not sure what other profit-seeking, recursive elements exist in the "suicide prevention industry".

Legitimately curious about this - not sure how these words would apply.
2 comments
hirvi74 38 days ago
Not entirely sure what the GP meant either, but maybe it's like sports betting? Where some companies are heavily advertising and trying to get people to become "responsible gamblers" (addicted), meanwhile, some of those same companies are investing in mental health treatment facilities on the side. Thus, those gambling companies can make money off gambling addicts and when gambling addicts try to quit. As the saying goes, the house always wins.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/sports-betting-problem-gamb...

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chaosharmonic 36 days ago
Um. I don't have the link directly in front of me, but the tl;dr of the OP's point (that I was referencing/quoting in the above comment) was that, in the US, our efforts around suicide prevention are last resort options, that we offer instead of actually fixing any of the things that make people here suicidal. We gut mental health resources, and fuck people over in pretty much every other critical, material way -- healthcare and otherwise... But meanwhile we make a big deal about how we have a hotline, and how the number is even easy to remember now.

It's sort of like how we give enormous amounts of money to cops (institutionally), instead of funding the safety nets that actually reduce crime. Actually (edit), those analogies are kind of related, because the same safety nets are important for driving down both of these things. Yk, because people are more stable in other ways when they aren't in desperation all the time.

You might say it's the difference between emergency services and emergency prevention.

Edit: I did eventually find the source. https://linkedin.com/posts/tabitha-lean-5786011a3_nspc26-act...

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clickety_clack 38 days ago
I would much rather the suicide-prevention people become rich than the infinite-scroll advertising guys.
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