This is really interesting data. I think if we dug deeper there might be an education correlation. That’s what maps look like in Europe and Canada anyway. However there might be a demographic reason behind it as well. This is part of what I really wanted to explore in the more meta textual approach to psychology….. but I’m a bit on the manic side of my career at the moment. Those levers, can you imagine if the state was willing to put that kind of power in the hands of people with the knowledge to use them in therapuedic ways? That’s what fires my ambition, what is left of it, ideas like that.
Anyway, it’s really never going to happen, I know that now. That’s why I want to move to the middle of nowhere. I could talk to the trees about it. The trees won’t tell anyone. I could carve my story into the stupid trees. They won’t mind. Seriously, the trees are going to pay for my suffering, there’s some twisted feelings here. I mean, maybe not literally, I’m not making a religion out of it.
I’m not nailing anyone to a tree okay. That has children of the corn vibes. So does my job. Send him to the cornfield….. like if I get there late I have to park in the corn field……. it’s so fracking rural……. it feels like a crime to work sometimes… Just a yogurt shop, that would save the neighborhood.
It looks like education is a part of it, but it looks like the midwest suffers the most here. I wonder if it’s also about rurality? Midwest and mid states seem to be more rural compared to east and west coasts where you get a lot more travel and the like.
Alaska is rural and cold as hell so there’s that. Seeing that a lotta east/ west coast states are more densy populated and have more big cities in an area could be part of it too, since everything’s closer for people who live in those kinds of cities…
Education may be a part of it, but I think education is a part of poverty as a whole. Poor states and poor cities have worse outcomes in everything, bc ofc they do.
Hello Eternal, I am intrigued by this map and it’s numbers. I have lived and worked in many of these states. I traveled through many of them as well. As I kept looking at this map and it’s numbers I thought about where it was I lived or worked when the suicide thoughts were most common for me. The prevalence of those thoughts corresponded well to the map. I felt most inclined to go in the Rocky Mountain states. The thing I noticed about the other continental states, in general, was a stronger sense of social welcoming.
A simple example of this was the time I was attending specialized training by myself in Tennessee for a week. One day at lunch time I was walking across the lot to my rental car and a lady in the same group as I asked if she could join me for lunch. I said sure. No romantic sparks, nothing like that, just two strangers essentially, a man and a woman, with a common interest who did not want to dine alone. I could tell more stories like this one.
I think the map correlates to where poverty is. Poor people more often commit suicide bc their life sucks. Though most of those are written off as drug overdoses or whatnot.
Yes, modern society as a whole is lacking in something called “community.” It was a “thing” back in the day but no more. It ended before I was born, and it’s even worse now in the younger generations. Nobody gives a shit about anybody anymore. Back then, it was more like “polite society” I suppose. But even that is so gone.
Red states. It’s been known for decades, but not often discussed due to the touchy subject, that suicides are significantly higher in Republican governed counties & states. Even worldwide there is a trend of higher suicide rates under right wing governments.
Scroll down to the bottom to see the list of all 50 states ranked by highest suicides and color coded red/blue. All the highest are red, all the lowest are blue.
yeah i kinda knew that but didn’t want to say it and turn this into a political post. but literally half the country/half the world votes republican/conservative which f*s over themselves. which is not to say voting democrat in the US is all that much better since it’s also rigged by the rich/corporations, but sheeple have bought into voting for policies that make the richer and the poor poorer -_-
That’s what I truly don’t understand. Why would anyone vote AGAINST free/cheap healthcare? And yet somehow all the republican politicians need to say is “it’s socialism!” And half the voters vote it down.
Well I shouldn’t talk because I was raised hard conservative and it took me years to break out of the cult. When you’re indoctrinated at a young age you’re practically screwed.
But yeah at the very least, Americans should look at the rest of the developed world and see how they all get free health services (including mental health) while we’re stuck handing all our money to big corporations and getting sicker, more depressed, and killing ourselves at way higher rates than those ‘evil’ socialist europeans who have free healthcare.
I’m a middle-of-the-road independent voter, but the recent hard right shift in politics suddenly puts me hard left even though I haven’t moved lol.
I would expatriate to UK in a heartbeat if they’d have me. Unfortunately I’m already worn down to the bone so I have no value anymore. Just riding the red wave straight to the grave.
There are a lot of reasons that conservatism succeeds in red states, and nothing else does. It’s a monoculture, and so is most of the economy. They really have a captive audience in terms of molding minds from education to employment. Us rogue elements are up against a huge resistance. Huge funding and grift from the city government all the way up every level of government.
There are honest people occasionally in government but making alliances is hard, it’s easier to make alliances in the charity sector that occupies much of what used to be the public sector. I mean, it really is an autocracy. At best it could be a plutocracy or a heavily rigged democracy. We’ve gotten a few reps into the statehouse, not near enough to threaten their majority in my state.
Yet every even moderately liberal young person faces the same problem I do; stay and try and fix it or leave and join people who are already succeeding at fixing someplace that wants to be fixed? (I know, calling 37 young is a stretch).
That’s why I really think Oklahoma is getting redder; more conservatives moving here, liberals moving away. The feedback loop will keep going as long as leadership wants to encourage it.
You’re so right about the captive audience. And they’ll always win because we independent thinkers are by definition wary of joining a team. Republicans are team fanatics who vote red because it’s the color of their jersey, and while that’s true of many dems, in general the democrats & independents are all about change, meaning we don’t like to blindly wear the same jersey if it starts to stink. Some call it a lack of unity but I see it as an inherent trait of being a free thinker: my candidate has to earn my vote.
But the republicans (I’m speaking of generations in my family) literally go to the polls and vote for their team without even knowing whom they’re voting for. That’s the inherent trait of conservatives: when in doubt trust your team. And that’s why throughout history we see the slow simmering rise of right wing authoritarian governments and their entrenchment dating all the way back to Roman emperors.
What I’m saying is that independent, free thinkers don’t have a strong team and never will. So by default, the only real team, the right wingers, will keep winning until they cross some red line like Hitler or Mussolini or Louis XIV or Caesar did. Then we get some bullshit revolution that lulls us into the illusion of sanity for a decade or two before the whole thing repeats itself.
What you said about libs fleeing the red states is exactly what I’m talking about. Very few liberals will take a stand because if you’re the only one on your block taking a stand you’re gonna get your house egged or worse. This polarization of political beliefs is how the right wing always scoops up power. Those who don’t want to play the game, those of us who don’t join a team or refuse to play the sordid game, we lose.
eternaldarkness6/24/2025 - 1:20 am
“That’s what I truly don’t understand. Why would anyone vote AGAINST free/cheap healthcare? ”
—bc the rich are pitting the poor and middle class, dems and repubs, against each other, rather than allow us peasants to stand united against the real evil- which are them, the rich- the ones who make all the rules and regulations that f*ck over the poor and middle class, and siphon the wealth up to themselves.
—bc ppl who are fooled would take it to the grave rather than admit they were fooled
—bc after stealing all our collective wealth, there’s very little money left, so what money IS left, the republicans want to keep every bit of it for themselves and “give” none of it away- as in “no i will not give MY taxes to the poor (ie benefits like wic, food stamps, etc). Meanwhile, it is the republican states and take the most from benefits, and they are white (mainly bc there’s more white ppl in the US). Most republicans do NOT want to give a DIME to help the poor bc they stereotype the poor as “black welfare queens” and ghetto black ppl. That’s essentially why. They’d rather screw over poor white ppl rather than help “those” ppl. Meanwhile, statistically, the ppl getting food stamps and such are WORKING WHITE PPL. With KIDS. 60% of ppl on food stamps are children.
And the majority are adults who DO have jobs and WORK FT- so the stereotype of the lazy moocher on food stamps is just wrong. While ofc there are some, that’s not the majority. Nobody seems to question how F*CKED UP it is to WORK FT and STILL not make enough to live. But no, no to increasing min wage either. SMDH.
-anyhow, dems aren’t that much better in other areas- dems are all about lip service without doing much of anything, vs republicans will flat out tell you they will cut SS, cut Medicare, cut Food Stamps, etc. And ppl actually VOTE for this shit. SMFH- Americans are just a lost cause. -_-
For real, why can’t Americans see the real evil, the real problem is rich fuckers exploiting everyone? I think most people do see it, but conservatives convince themselves that they’re the rich fuckers, or on the (delusional) path to being rich. So they’d rather associate with rich assholes like Elon Musk than raggedy old Bernie Sanders. Hell it seems to be an American tradition to create royalty just for the sake of dreaming that can be us one day. Not just politics but how about all the celebrity superstars, the Cardashians, the Kanyes, who aren’t worth slime except for their bank accounts and gold plated underwear. We fled the British monarchy only to create our own, the difference is that our royals have as much class as strip club owner. And Americans seem to like it that way??
eternaldarkness6/24/2025 - 9:39 pm
“conservatives convince themselves that they’re the rich fuckers, or on the (delusional) path to being rich.”
—yup, that’s one of the biggest problems. these ppl refuse to vote for taxing the rich bc “one day that might be me” kind of thinking
i honestly have lost all hope in Americans, and in humanity in general. Can’t fix stupid. Can’t fix 50-90% of the population who keep voting against their own best interests.
I do not believe we are “smarter than apes.” We sound pretty f*cking stupid to me.
eternaldarkness6/24/2025 - 9:43 pm
i was very liberal/progressive left. now i’m “independent” meaning i don’t believe ANY of these 2 evil parties. BOTH parties f*ck us over for their wealthy corporate overlords. we are peasants and mean NOTHING to them.
heartlessviking6/24/2025 - 10:08 pm
There’s nothing like not having a candidate in a race for several campaign cycles to alienate someone from both parties, and it happens a lot in the United States, and we’re way too focused on candidates.
Which is really stupid, to that point. I don’t care about personalities, or personal values, and realistically who should?! What matters are policies. Yet personal egoes is a sure fire way to devide people.
The real problem with our leaders is that they run on one set of policies and implement another. I’ve said in my more autistic and violent moments that we should nail them to a set of policies and shoot them if they drift.
I’m told that’s inhumane, but I think it’s inhumane to bomb a foreign country on a fucking whim, but that’s me. Not even getting into the genocides, deaths of dispair and massive problems being covered up by this stupid war…….
Right now I’m a fricken socialist, seize ALL the assets of anyone stubborn enough not to tote the party line that we need some rationality and to feed , house, and get everyone healthcare as our TOP priorities, and anything rich people think are good ideas need to automatically be considered bad ideas. We need to reverse our society, top to bottom. Take care of the poor, screw the rich.
I find people in every fricken political affiliation who want the rich to suck it……. this is a popular idea. The rich getting tax cuts is unpopular and that it keeps happening is quite the magic trick. Union busting is unpopular, the rent insanity is unpopular. What is insane is that if renters got better rights then property values would go up, because quality of life goes up….
wages go up because more money is getting spent, people pay off their student loans and start families, do you know what really drives the economy? BABIES!!!!! Babies print money faster than silicon. Everyone is buying diapers and investing in their college fund and the economy starts to grow, because it has a future.
Instead…….. Our economy seems ready to die.
To hell with it, I’m okay with working hospice, but I’m not going to pretend it isn’t stupid shit. Giving old people more money, this is the sector of the economy that spends least, or at least in areas that generate the least for the economy…… it is economic suicide.
17 comments
This is really interesting data. I think if we dug deeper there might be an education correlation. That’s what maps look like in Europe and Canada anyway. However there might be a demographic reason behind it as well. This is part of what I really wanted to explore in the more meta textual approach to psychology….. but I’m a bit on the manic side of my career at the moment. Those levers, can you imagine if the state was willing to put that kind of power in the hands of people with the knowledge to use them in therapuedic ways? That’s what fires my ambition, what is left of it, ideas like that.
Anyway, it’s really never going to happen, I know that now. That’s why I want to move to the middle of nowhere. I could talk to the trees about it. The trees won’t tell anyone. I could carve my story into the stupid trees. They won’t mind. Seriously, the trees are going to pay for my suffering, there’s some twisted feelings here. I mean, maybe not literally, I’m not making a religion out of it.
I’m not nailing anyone to a tree okay. That has children of the corn vibes. So does my job. Send him to the cornfield….. like if I get there late I have to park in the corn field……. it’s so fracking rural……. it feels like a crime to work sometimes… Just a yogurt shop, that would save the neighborhood.
It looks like education is a part of it, but it looks like the midwest suffers the most here. I wonder if it’s also about rurality? Midwest and mid states seem to be more rural compared to east and west coasts where you get a lot more travel and the like.
Alaska is rural and cold as hell so there’s that. Seeing that a lotta east/ west coast states are more densy populated and have more big cities in an area could be part of it too, since everything’s closer for people who live in those kinds of cities…
Education may be a part of it, but I think education is a part of poverty as a whole. Poor states and poor cities have worse outcomes in everything, bc ofc they do.
Hello Eternal, I am intrigued by this map and it’s numbers. I have lived and worked in many of these states. I traveled through many of them as well. As I kept looking at this map and it’s numbers I thought about where it was I lived or worked when the suicide thoughts were most common for me. The prevalence of those thoughts corresponded well to the map. I felt most inclined to go in the Rocky Mountain states. The thing I noticed about the other continental states, in general, was a stronger sense of social welcoming.
A simple example of this was the time I was attending specialized training by myself in Tennessee for a week. One day at lunch time I was walking across the lot to my rental car and a lady in the same group as I asked if she could join me for lunch. I said sure. No romantic sparks, nothing like that, just two strangers essentially, a man and a woman, with a common interest who did not want to dine alone. I could tell more stories like this one.
I think the map correlates to where poverty is. Poor people more often commit suicide bc their life sucks. Though most of those are written off as drug overdoses or whatnot.
Yes indeed. Poverty is awful. In my late teens I experienced poverty. It was no picnic. Over and over I thought of death.
Yes, modern society as a whole is lacking in something called “community.” It was a “thing” back in the day but no more. It ended before I was born, and it’s even worse now in the younger generations. Nobody gives a shit about anybody anymore. Back then, it was more like “polite society” I suppose. But even that is so gone.
Red states. It’s been known for decades, but not often discussed due to the touchy subject, that suicides are significantly higher in Republican governed counties & states. Even worldwide there is a trend of higher suicide rates under right wing governments.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-in-republican-counties-have-higher-death-rates-than-those-in-democratic-counties/
Scroll down to the bottom to see the list of all 50 states ranked by highest suicides and color coded red/blue. All the highest are red, all the lowest are blue.
yeah i kinda knew that but didn’t want to say it and turn this into a political post. but literally half the country/half the world votes republican/conservative which f*s over themselves. which is not to say voting democrat in the US is all that much better since it’s also rigged by the rich/corporations, but sheeple have bought into voting for policies that make the richer and the poor poorer -_-
That’s what I truly don’t understand. Why would anyone vote AGAINST free/cheap healthcare? And yet somehow all the republican politicians need to say is “it’s socialism!” And half the voters vote it down.
Well I shouldn’t talk because I was raised hard conservative and it took me years to break out of the cult. When you’re indoctrinated at a young age you’re practically screwed.
But yeah at the very least, Americans should look at the rest of the developed world and see how they all get free health services (including mental health) while we’re stuck handing all our money to big corporations and getting sicker, more depressed, and killing ourselves at way higher rates than those ‘evil’ socialist europeans who have free healthcare.
I’m a middle-of-the-road independent voter, but the recent hard right shift in politics suddenly puts me hard left even though I haven’t moved lol.
I would expatriate to UK in a heartbeat if they’d have me. Unfortunately I’m already worn down to the bone so I have no value anymore. Just riding the red wave straight to the grave.
There are a lot of reasons that conservatism succeeds in red states, and nothing else does. It’s a monoculture, and so is most of the economy. They really have a captive audience in terms of molding minds from education to employment. Us rogue elements are up against a huge resistance. Huge funding and grift from the city government all the way up every level of government.
There are honest people occasionally in government but making alliances is hard, it’s easier to make alliances in the charity sector that occupies much of what used to be the public sector. I mean, it really is an autocracy. At best it could be a plutocracy or a heavily rigged democracy. We’ve gotten a few reps into the statehouse, not near enough to threaten their majority in my state.
Yet every even moderately liberal young person faces the same problem I do; stay and try and fix it or leave and join people who are already succeeding at fixing someplace that wants to be fixed? (I know, calling 37 young is a stretch).
That’s why I really think Oklahoma is getting redder; more conservatives moving here, liberals moving away. The feedback loop will keep going as long as leadership wants to encourage it.
You’re so right about the captive audience. And they’ll always win because we independent thinkers are by definition wary of joining a team. Republicans are team fanatics who vote red because it’s the color of their jersey, and while that’s true of many dems, in general the democrats & independents are all about change, meaning we don’t like to blindly wear the same jersey if it starts to stink. Some call it a lack of unity but I see it as an inherent trait of being a free thinker: my candidate has to earn my vote.
But the republicans (I’m speaking of generations in my family) literally go to the polls and vote for their team without even knowing whom they’re voting for. That’s the inherent trait of conservatives: when in doubt trust your team. And that’s why throughout history we see the slow simmering rise of right wing authoritarian governments and their entrenchment dating all the way back to Roman emperors.
What I’m saying is that independent, free thinkers don’t have a strong team and never will. So by default, the only real team, the right wingers, will keep winning until they cross some red line like Hitler or Mussolini or Louis XIV or Caesar did. Then we get some bullshit revolution that lulls us into the illusion of sanity for a decade or two before the whole thing repeats itself.
What you said about libs fleeing the red states is exactly what I’m talking about. Very few liberals will take a stand because if you’re the only one on your block taking a stand you’re gonna get your house egged or worse. This polarization of political beliefs is how the right wing always scoops up power. Those who don’t want to play the game, those of us who don’t join a team or refuse to play the sordid game, we lose.
“That’s what I truly don’t understand. Why would anyone vote AGAINST free/cheap healthcare? ”
—bc the rich are pitting the poor and middle class, dems and repubs, against each other, rather than allow us peasants to stand united against the real evil- which are them, the rich- the ones who make all the rules and regulations that f*ck over the poor and middle class, and siphon the wealth up to themselves.
—bc ppl who are fooled would take it to the grave rather than admit they were fooled
—bc after stealing all our collective wealth, there’s very little money left, so what money IS left, the republicans want to keep every bit of it for themselves and “give” none of it away- as in “no i will not give MY taxes to the poor (ie benefits like wic, food stamps, etc). Meanwhile, it is the republican states and take the most from benefits, and they are white (mainly bc there’s more white ppl in the US). Most republicans do NOT want to give a DIME to help the poor bc they stereotype the poor as “black welfare queens” and ghetto black ppl. That’s essentially why. They’d rather screw over poor white ppl rather than help “those” ppl. Meanwhile, statistically, the ppl getting food stamps and such are WORKING WHITE PPL. With KIDS. 60% of ppl on food stamps are children.
And the majority are adults who DO have jobs and WORK FT- so the stereotype of the lazy moocher on food stamps is just wrong. While ofc there are some, that’s not the majority. Nobody seems to question how F*CKED UP it is to WORK FT and STILL not make enough to live. But no, no to increasing min wage either. SMDH.
-anyhow, dems aren’t that much better in other areas- dems are all about lip service without doing much of anything, vs republicans will flat out tell you they will cut SS, cut Medicare, cut Food Stamps, etc. And ppl actually VOTE for this shit. SMFH- Americans are just a lost cause. -_-
For real, why can’t Americans see the real evil, the real problem is rich fuckers exploiting everyone? I think most people do see it, but conservatives convince themselves that they’re the rich fuckers, or on the (delusional) path to being rich. So they’d rather associate with rich assholes like Elon Musk than raggedy old Bernie Sanders. Hell it seems to be an American tradition to create royalty just for the sake of dreaming that can be us one day. Not just politics but how about all the celebrity superstars, the Cardashians, the Kanyes, who aren’t worth slime except for their bank accounts and gold plated underwear. We fled the British monarchy only to create our own, the difference is that our royals have as much class as strip club owner. And Americans seem to like it that way??
“conservatives convince themselves that they’re the rich fuckers, or on the (delusional) path to being rich.”
—yup, that’s one of the biggest problems. these ppl refuse to vote for taxing the rich bc “one day that might be me” kind of thinking
i honestly have lost all hope in Americans, and in humanity in general. Can’t fix stupid. Can’t fix 50-90% of the population who keep voting against their own best interests.
I do not believe we are “smarter than apes.” We sound pretty f*cking stupid to me.
i was very liberal/progressive left. now i’m “independent” meaning i don’t believe ANY of these 2 evil parties. BOTH parties f*ck us over for their wealthy corporate overlords. we are peasants and mean NOTHING to them.
There’s nothing like not having a candidate in a race for several campaign cycles to alienate someone from both parties, and it happens a lot in the United States, and we’re way too focused on candidates.
Which is really stupid, to that point. I don’t care about personalities, or personal values, and realistically who should?! What matters are policies. Yet personal egoes is a sure fire way to devide people.
The real problem with our leaders is that they run on one set of policies and implement another. I’ve said in my more autistic and violent moments that we should nail them to a set of policies and shoot them if they drift.
I’m told that’s inhumane, but I think it’s inhumane to bomb a foreign country on a fucking whim, but that’s me. Not even getting into the genocides, deaths of dispair and massive problems being covered up by this stupid war…….
Right now I’m a fricken socialist, seize ALL the assets of anyone stubborn enough not to tote the party line that we need some rationality and to feed , house, and get everyone healthcare as our TOP priorities, and anything rich people think are good ideas need to automatically be considered bad ideas. We need to reverse our society, top to bottom. Take care of the poor, screw the rich.
I find people in every fricken political affiliation who want the rich to suck it……. this is a popular idea. The rich getting tax cuts is unpopular and that it keeps happening is quite the magic trick. Union busting is unpopular, the rent insanity is unpopular. What is insane is that if renters got better rights then property values would go up, because quality of life goes up….
wages go up because more money is getting spent, people pay off their student loans and start families, do you know what really drives the economy? BABIES!!!!! Babies print money faster than silicon. Everyone is buying diapers and investing in their college fund and the economy starts to grow, because it has a future.
Instead…….. Our economy seems ready to die.
To hell with it, I’m okay with working hospice, but I’m not going to pretend it isn’t stupid shit. Giving old people more money, this is the sector of the economy that spends least, or at least in areas that generate the least for the economy…… it is economic suicide.