[szidev]

this is great. the positive responses you've seen combined with an interesting article i read a few days ago [1] make me want to write an ML suicide prevention bot for social media channels. a 20-30% positive response to suicide prevention would be astounding, and the cost is so small.

[1] http://www.kernelmag.com/features/report/6451/what-suicide-n...

[konstruktor]

This is a very dangerous project idea. Have you, for one second, considered that this is not a sales funnel, where the only thing that counts is the "success rate" at the other end, but something dealing with people in a crisis? People who may just be considering suicide, and can be tipped in both ways. For example by a pseudo-empathic bot that tells them the same shit they hear all day in the US, which sounds nice but is the culturally accepted way to say "Please either pretend to be happy, or shut up" [1].

Please generously apply the hacker mentality to software, arduinos, knitting, cooking and art, if you like. Don't be afraid to fail, nothing bad happens there. Build, test, iterate, enjoy.

There are, however, things in life where the stakes are higher. They require more knowledge than you can quickly gather with a Google search, and, you know, professionalism. Healthcare is one of these topics.

[1] As this seems to be a bit of a cultural blind spot for people in the US, I highly recommend http://www.amazon.com/Bright-Sided-Positive-Thinking-Undermi...

[szidev]

what the fuck merited this response? i've read and re-read my comment, and i can't seem to find anything that would suggest that i'm seeing people simply as numbers here. are you honestly so jaded and cynical that you think someone talking about suicide prevention doesn't realize there is a human element to the matter?

[DanBC]

That article is fantastically irresponsible.

The research is clear and unequivocal - suicide has elements of "contagion". Posting the content of suicide notes carries a serious risk of causing the deaths of other people. Writers have a responsibility to not cause harm and the least they should have done is to include suicide helplines prominently at the start of the article.

And it's full of lousy, lazy, unresearched information.

> and was more true to the typical format of a suicide letter,

Well, no. Research on real suicide notes shows people making requests and showing concern for those left behind rather than making any comments about how the person is feeling or why they made this decision.

> Better yet, we can deal with the threat of suicide, which is increasingly pervasive around the world as we move deeper into the 21st century.

Is suicide "increasingly pervasive around the world"? And the article only mentions finding people at risk of suicide. It makes no mention of what we actually do with these people when we find them.

Sorry for the grumpy tone of this reply. It's a topic I'm particularly sensitive about. Your idea is potentially a good one, and I wish you luck. But please please get some expert opinion on it too!

[szidev]

your reply wasn't really grumpy, and i understand it's a touchy subject for many people. the content of the article wasn't what interested me so much as the topic of it. it had never really occurred to me that the movement of potential suicide notes to digital media allows the opportunity for prevention.