Questions about individuals taking their own lives. Please follow the site guidelines on this topic: own life. [This is a sensitive topic; please follow the site guidelines: https://skeptics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2871/]
Questions tagged [suicide]
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Do spies use cyanide or other suicide agents as a last resort?
Spy movies and novels have popularized the idea that CIA agents, or other spies, will carry cyanide pills, or other "quick and painless" suicide devices with them on covert missions, to use as a last resort to avoid torture in case of enemy…
Flimzy
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Are gender dysphoric teenagers more likely to take their own lives if they are not allowed to transition?
In a recent essay defending her controversial views on sex and gender issues, author J.K. Rowling writes:
The argument of many current trans activists is that if you don’t let a gender dysphoric teenager transition, they will kill themselves. In an…
Oddthinking
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Stock Market Crash of 1929: Did Wall Street investors jump off buildings?
I think the tales of Wall Street financiers plunging to their deaths in 1929 are probably well known.
The Hudsucker Proxy
From Random Facts - The Great Depression:
After the initial crash, there was a wave of suicides in the New York’s financial…
Oliver_C
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Have more US veterans taken their own life in the last six years than died in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Is this claim by Jill Stein accurate?
I'm assuming that she's referring to US veterans, both for the suicide rate and the combined death rate in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Beofett
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Do "people who undergo gender transition" die by suicide at a rate "about 20 times higher than their peers"?
A Wisconsin state representative staffer shared a scan on Twitter of a sponsorship memorandum for bill LRB-0396: The Help Not Harm Act - Prohibiting sex reassignment of minors. A pdf of the memo is available here.
The following is a quote from the…
LShaver
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Were there more suicides than violent deaths worldwide in 2018?
According to this article at lidovky.cz, there were more suicides than violent deaths all over the world in 2018. Is that true?
The important part of the original (Czech) article:
817 000 versus 544 000
Jedno číslo představuje roční počet…
vojta
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Do animals commit suicide?
I've done some Googling and only found case stories without any scientific backup. Most of the case reports about animal suicide online can by easily debunked by logical reasoning. For example there is a story about some dozen of cows throwing…
Jori
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Are suicide attempts via wrist cutting likely fatal?
New York Times: Those methods that require forethought or exertion on the actor’s part (taking an overdose of pills, say, or cutting your wrists), and thus most strongly suggest premeditation, happen to be the methods with the least chance of…
Muz
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Will a proposed Canadian law allow minors to be euthanized without parental consent?
As reported on FoxNews. This immediately triggers my skepticism since it seems pretty extreme.
From the link above:
Creighton School of Medicine professor Charles Camosy joined 'Tucker
Carlson Tonight' to discuss a new Canadian law that would…
Tony Ennis
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Was there a peak in suicides associated with the release of Pokémon red and green?
My 13-year-old stepson just told me this story: When Pokémon Red and Green was first released in 1996, there were dozens or hundreds of suicides of children caused by high-frequency sounds in the theme music for the "Lavender Town" location in the…
Kristopher Johnson
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In Pre-WWII peacetime Germany, were there about 18,000-20,000 suicides per year?
In a discourse to his staff in 1943, Hitler made this claim:
In peacetime Germany, about 18,000 or 20,000 people a year chose to commit suicide, [...] Source
Was this true?
I'm skeptical of this claim because 18,000 seems to be a very large…
Carlo Alterego
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Did Brazilian football fans take their own lives inside the stadium after the loss to Uruguay in 1950?
An oft-repeated claim about the Uruguay v Brazil 1950 World Cup match is that upon the blowing of the final whistle, several Brazilian fans took their own lives inside the stadium.
The LA Times says that "[a]t the final whistle one distraught fan…
416E64726577
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Have 41% of transgender people attempted suicide?
In Daniella Carter's TED talk "Walking in your truth as an LGBT youth", she mentioned:
I need it, they need it, we need the love, we need the liberation, we need the support, not only for the 2.5 million homeless LGBT youth but for the 41 percent…
Robert Columbia
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Do blue lights on railway platforms reduce suicide?
Does the installation of blue lights at specific locations on station platforms reduce the incidence of suicide...
at that location?
using that particular method ('suicide by train')?
overall?
The references below include a paper on the subject,…
A E
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Did a man jump to his death after too much shopping?
According to a news article, Man commits suicide after girlfriend refuses to quit shopping, a man in China jumped to his death after his girlfriend insisted on going to one more shoe outlet after an enormous shopping spree.
I find this hard to…
Kenshin
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