NO, GOOGLE IS NO HELP ON THIS [F, 1-28-22]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

If you hack into my computer and see in my search history that I have Googled “How to commit suicide,” don’t be alarmed. Comedian Brian Simpson says that Google saved his life, because when he searched for “How to commit suicide?” what came up was: “You are not alone. Help is available.” And then it gives the number for the national suicide prevention hotline, 1-800-273-8255. I thought that he might be saying that simply as part of his shtick, so I checked it out. He is right. That’s exactly what happens.

[Brian Simpson is very funny, and is featured in “The Standups” series on Netflix. He goes on in his routine to say he had to go to Reddit, where they gave him lots of methods for committing suicide.]

Google gets a lot of deserved criticism, since they haven’t exactly lived up to the motto of their founders, “Don’t do anything evil,” but they should receive commendation for putting that telephone number right there. As often as Google is used, for every search, they probably have really saved some lives.

SUICIDE STATISTICS

Our local newspaper reports that suicide is six times higher among farmers than in the general population, and that the covid pandemic is making it worse. I knew that suicide in general is getting worse, but I was a bit surprised that it was hitting farmers the hardest. Vaguely, I remembered that it used to be dentists who were first on the suicide list. It makes sense to me that dentists would outrank farmers in suicides. Farmers get to look at cows and skies all day. Dentists have to look at plaque and uvulas, and everybody hates them.

So I decided to get more info. I consulted several web sites. They had widely varying ideas about which groups have the highest suicide rates.

Apparently there are many ways to gather and analyze and categorize this sort of data. One site had lumberjacks ranking second and fishermen [Think “The Deadliest Catch”] third.

But one site that intrigues me is blackdoctor.org. Here is their ranking of suicide frequency:1] Doctors 2] Dentists 3] Financial Planners 4] Lawyers 5] Real Estate 6] Electricians 7] Farm Workers 8] Pharmacists 9] Scientists.

Blackdoctor.org doesn’t rank lumberjacks and fishermen at all, and gets to farmers only at # 7. And which group ranks first for them? Why, medical people, of course. We are just more aware of the “joys and concerns” of our own groups than we are of those of other folks. So it behooves us all to be generous to others as we look at statistics.

If you know someone who might consider suicide, act like you’re sympathetic and suggest they Google “how to commit suicide.” They might get a comedy routine out of it. They’ll at least get a useful telephone number.

John Robert McFarland