candybar (u/candybar)

candybar commented on After my dad died, we found the love letters jenn.site/after-my-dad-di... · Posted by u/eatitraw

schneems · 4 months ago

> I don't think she's seeking one vs the other, nor is she judging him less now that she knows he's had a bunch of affairs. She's presenting a story and it's obvious that she has mixed feelings, full of both positive and negative judgement.

It sounds like violently agree with everything other than my framing and wording choices.

> I think you're misreading that last line.

Maybe. I didn't notice it was a period and not a comma until posting it. I still read it as "we found...his life" sure maybe they interpret it was him wasting that life, but your prior sentiment I quoted is the thing I'm emphasizing. I'm not saying there's *no* judgement. I'm saying there's a clear (to me) attempt at understanding that goes beyond blame.

candybar · 4 months ago

> It sounds like violently agree with everything other than my framing and wording choices.

No, you previously implied that the discovery of this information is somehow leading to less judgment and blame and more of an effort to understand.

> The author seemingly had a lot of judgement and blame for the dad before finding this out. It sounds like they are seeking understanding

If you read the story, it looks to me that prior to learning all this she felt bad that he didn't get to have a life of his own and sacrificed for her. But she learned that this wasn't the case. This is kind of the opposite of what you're suggesting.

Also on this:

> You can either seek understanding or seek blame, but not both at once.

My point here is that she's doing both.

> Maybe. I didn't notice it was a period and not a comma until posting it. I still read it as "we found...his life" sure maybe they interpret it was him wasting that life, but your prior sentiment I quoted is the thing I'm emphasizing. I'm not saying there's no judgement. I'm saying there's a clear (to me) attempt at understanding that goes beyond blame.

It's not about the period - it's that she's using italic for quote and this is part of her mom's statement.

candybar commented on After my dad died, we found the love letters jenn.site/after-my-dad-di... · Posted by u/eatitraw

schneems · 4 months ago

I agree. To me, it's like a blameless retro. You can either seek understanding or seek blame, but not both at once.

The author seemingly had a lot of judgement and blame for the dad before finding this out. It sounds like they are seeking understanding. I think the last line makes that clear:

> the evening we found the love letters. his entire life, and mine as well

And it's not to say someone can't attach judgement to characters, or that no one should hold blame. But I think it's important to honor what the author is seeking.

candybar · 4 months ago

I think you're misreading that last line. I'm pretty sure what the author is saying is:

> the evening we found the love letters my mom said to me, "he wasted his entire life, his entire life, and mine as well."

Also, I don't think she's seeking one vs the other, nor is she judging him less now that she knows he's had a bunch of affairs. She's presenting a story and it's obvious that she has mixed feelings, full of both positive and negative judgement.

candybar commented on Responses to unicycling ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti... · Posted by u/PaulHoule

jameslk · 2 years ago

In my US based upbringing, men making jokes at the expense of other men are either aggression or ways of building rapport, and context matters to decipher which it is. I have male friends who take as much opportunity as possible to turn something I’ve said or done into a joke, sarcastically or sometimes trollishly, and I’ll do the same. This mocking isn’t malicious however.

candybar · 2 years ago

Aggression and building rapport aren't mutually exclusive - a lot of this is subtle negotiation for relative status. Just because all parties are okay with these as a way to get to a reasonable common ground (and if done right, can lead to strong rapport and relatively equal status) doesn't mean aggression isn't there. I don't think most of this is conscious, but you will also see conspicuously high-status people use self-deprecating humor to lower their perceived threat level, or conversely, people targeting other conspicuously high-status or threatening people to take them down a notch (to some extent, this is what we're seeing here). Or in a more hierarchical situation, high-status people might target lower-status people to reinforce their higher status.

candybar commented on Americans are feeling much better about the economy thanks to slowing inflation cnn.com/2024/01/19/econom... · Posted by u/MilnerRoute

mulderc · 2 years ago

We also make a high enough income where we don’t really think much at all about grocery prices but have no issue spending way below $200 a month without thinking about it. This is why I am confused by these stories. Sure I grab the thing on sale instead of the expensive thing when I notice but it doesn’t seem that hard to stay under $200 a person.

candybar · 2 years ago

How are you defining groceries here? I suspect that some people are being fairly expansive and including everything that they'd buy at a grocery store, while others are being much more restrictive. Using a more expansive definition (mostly because I've literally broken things down by items), we're close to $500 per person, the few times I've spot-checked our spending. I think it's difficult to be well-below $200 per person without being highly budget-conscious, avoiding expensive categories altogether and/or eating out all the time.

candybar commented on Americans are feeling much better about the economy thanks to slowing inflation cnn.com/2024/01/19/econom... · Posted by u/MilnerRoute

Fire-Dragon-DoL · 2 years ago

I have no idea about the numbers but wouldn't median household income be 50% higher because both adults work (and they have no kids) now?

candybar · 2 years ago

Labor participation rates among women haven't changed drastically since the 80's. Also:

https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2022/06/22/us-household...

> In fact, this is also a period when the number of two-income households shrunk, from 35% in 1987 to 32% in 2020. During this time period, overall household income increased by 18.5% (inflation-adjusted with the CPI-U-RS). For households with just one earner, income increased by almost the exact same amount (19.1%). Income of two-earner households did increase even more (37.7%), so seeing the full distribution would be very useful.

candybar commented on Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015) vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873... · Posted by u/freedomben

jeremy_wiebe · 2 years ago

My issue, as a driver, is that more and more pedestrians walk wherever and whenever they want with complete disregard for their environment. I’ve had to hit the brakes pretty hard on several occasions when I had “right of way” (right turn light, for example) and a pedestrian stepped off the curb with their face buried in their phone.

I see the fines for jaywalking as a function to encourage safety rather than criminalizing sensible behaviour (ie crossing a completely empty street probably won’t yield a fine but crossing a busy street while holding your arm out to stop traffic will, and should).

candybar · 2 years ago

If you find yourself having to hit the brakes hard frequently because a pedestrian stepped off the curb while being distracted, you probably also need to pay more attention while driving.

My general experience is that in practice, in most areas, most drivers don't yield enough and most pedestrians yield too much because the pedestrian has a lot more to lose. It's also important to remember that driving is a privilege specifically granted by the state, walking is not.

candybar commented on A suicide crisis among veterinarians bbc.com/worklife/article/... · Posted by u/rntn

psychlops · 2 years ago

I think you are using the wrong statistics to make your point. The key point here is the there is a suicide difference between males and females. And vets are overwhelmingly male (90%).

Women attempt suicide a lot more and those statistics you used are skewing your conclusion. Men (vets or not) use guns and are more successful.

candybar · 2 years ago

You're wildly off the mark here. From the study quoted:

> In 2017, over 60% of 110,531 US veterinarians were female, and in 2016, approximately 80% of students enrolled at US veterinary medical colleges were female.

> The PMRs for suicide for all veterinarian decedents (2.1 and 3.5 for males and females, respectively), those in clinical positions (2.2 and 3.4 for males and females, respectively), and those in nonclinical positions (1.8 and 5.0 for males and females, respectively) were significantly higher than for the general US population.

So no, this has nothing to do with vets being disproportionately male (which isn't the case to begin with).

candybar commented on A suicide crisis among veterinarians bbc.com/worklife/article/... · Posted by u/rntn

derbOac · 2 years ago

I think this is a dangerous way to approach the problem. Regardless of whether or not the assertion that the "primary factor is they know how", the underlying cause is distress and hopelessness.

I'm frustrated a bit by how discussions of suicide — with vets as well as others — tends to focus on making the means less available, as if it just solves the problem. That's a solution for society, to wash their hands of addressing the underling problems, and not a solution for the person suffering.

Veterinarians should be in a position where they don't want to commit suicide, regardless of whether they have the means.

candybar · 2 years ago

Sure, but at this point you're no longer talking about why vets are dying from suicide at a higher rate. We don't know if vets tend to deal with more "distress and hopelessness" than the general population.

candybar commented on A suicide crisis among veterinarians bbc.com/worklife/article/... · Posted by u/rntn

pydry · 2 years ago

This reminds me of bridge fences being successful at bringing down overall suicide: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2610560/

candybar · 2 years ago

Yup, suicidal attempts are often impulsive, so any barrier (in this case literally) even if it's relatively easy to get around, reduces suicide rates. Here's another study, this time on firearms:

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-owner...

> The researchers found that people who owned handguns had rates of suicide that were nearly four times higher than people living in the same neighborhood who did not own handguns. The elevated risk was driven by higher rates of suicide by firearm. Handgun owners did not have higher rates of suicide by other methods or higher rates of death generally.

Suicide attempts by firearm are far more likely to complete than most other means, ergo, suicide death rates are higher among those that have firearms.

candybar commented on A suicide crisis among veterinarians bbc.com/worklife/article/... · Posted by u/rntn

candybar · 2 years ago

We can talk about other negative aspects of being a vet, but the primary factor is that they know how:

> But that reality of the job can also colour the way veterinarians view human lives – including their own – and for those already experiencing suicidal ideation, it can provide a simple justification: death is preferable to suffering. In a 2021 survey by pharmaceutical company Merck, 12.5% of the veterinarians surveyed said they were "suffering". And nearly half of the respondents were not receiving mental health care.

> "There's an idea that veterinarians work on the belief that it's right to euthanise a hopeless case," says Volk, "and we are seeing ourselves, emotionally, as hopeless cases."

> Death is a routine and repeated part of the job, and while it's never easy to end a life, Volk adds that it is easy to start seeing it as an option to alleviate their own distress. "I have medications in my clinic that are called 'Euthasol', and I euthanise all the time," she says. "Literally like five or six times a night."

> The CDC's 2019 study identified poisoning as the most common cause of death among veterinarians. The primary drug used was pentobarbital, one of the main medications used for animal euthanasia. The study’s authors determined that "training on euthanasia procedures and access to pentobarbital are some of the key factors contributing to the problem of suicide among veterinarians".

What often stops otherwise suicidal folks is that it's not an easy thing to do - suicide attempts usually do not lead to deaths (https://www.mayoclinic.org/medical-professionals/psychiatry-... - 5.4% according to one study, and the denominator here is # of people. not # of attempts). Vets on the other hand are trained to put down animals painlessly and effectively - it's not a surprise that those that have the means to complete suicide and have plenty of experience applying this to other animals then die disproportionately from suicide.