67
From BBC History- Training SOE Saboteurs in World War II:
... the 'L' tablet, which came in a little rubber cover, was a suicide
pill. If the agent bit down on it, he would be dead in 15 seconds.
From HowStuffWorks:
An L-pill is a lethal pill carried by spies to prevent them from
revealing secrets if captured and tortured.
During World War ...
27
The numbers are credible
The World Health Organisation homepage on Suicide data states:
Close to 800 000 people die due to suicide every year, which is one person every 40 seconds.
The crude suicide rate for both sexes for the entire world in 2016 was estimated to be — according to the WHO — 10.6 per 100 000 people, which for 7.4 billion people (world ...
20
Foxconn did indeed install "suicide nets". And they worked. It's a well known fact that many people wanting to commit suicide are not thinking straight and can be stopped if anything interferes with their plans. Taking an action that saves lives when it is obvious that this action is opening the company up to attacks by all internet trolls is surely ...
18
Although exact numbers are hard to come by, there is clearly a higher rate of suicides among veterans than the general population and that number exceeds the number of combat deaths in Iraq missions until 2011 and Afghanistan missions from 2001 to the present.
This article from the Military Times notes that:
in 2014, the latest year available, more than ...
18
The heavy lifting has been done by The Straight Dope.
To start with, let's look at the quality of your two conflicting sources. One is a respected academic book by a world-class economist. The other is a website that by admission devotes itself to "random facts and trivia". Guess which is going to be more reliable. Interestingly Galbraith's book is one of ...
16
Yes, suicide rates was that high!
Suicide in Nazi Germany by Christian Goeschel referenced in this essay says that
Goeschel’s study of suicide in Nazi Germany (2009) shows that the number of suicides varied greatly as the War progressed, as far as can be determined. Following the First World War the German suicide rate climbed steadily from just under 16 ...
15
There is not enough scientific data to prove suicidal behavior in non-human animals.
Naturalists have not identified suicide in nonhuman species in field situations, despite intensive study of thousands of animal species. ... Few empirical investigations have been carried out on this topic [1].
Modern naturalistic studies have found little evidence ...
14
Turing's death was ruled a suicide by the official inquest.
Several people, including Jack Copeland, have advanced the theory of an accidental death, including a proposed cause, and pointed out details that would point away from suicide.
The actual truth remains unclear, and in the face of lengthy and detailed investigations it is unlikely that a bunch of ...
14
Yes.
The Huffington post has a story about it, which cited two Chinese sources (source 1 source 2). The Chinese sources are in Chinese so I can't read them, but it also links to a collection of photos from the accident (might be slightly too graphic for some).
The same story is also reported in several other news sites:
The Daily Mail
China Smack
The ...
14
I happened to have access to the book Suicide in Nazi Germany, so just to corroborate the earlier answers by reproducing some figures from the book.
From p. 209 and p. 213, we see that suicide rates in Germany throughout the 1930s was indeed around 27 - 29:
Bonus: He doesn't give corresponding figures for the war years for Germany as a whole, but does ...
13
There does appear to be evidence that raising the subject in certain situations can have a beneficial impact.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140112-is-it-bad-to-talk-about-suicide
In an attempt to work out once and for all whether discussing suicidal feelings could make people feel more suicidal, clinical epidemiologist Madelyn Gould conducted her own ...
11
I found a more in-depth article on theglobeandmail.com.
It takes a critical and researched approach over the issue, which is consistent to the type of answers needed in such cases.
Some highlights from the article (in case the link breaks after a while):
A new moral panic is working its way across Europe and will no doubt
be seized on by North ...
8
Yes. Online forums are a trigger for suicide. Any online forum
Protecting Teens from the Spread of Suicide
Although we don’t usually think of suicide as contagious, one of the strongest predictors of suicide in youth is the suicide or suicide attempt of a friend or family member (Juhnke, Granello, & Haag-Granello, 2011; Mayer, 2013). Teens exposed to ...
7
Yes (almost), in 2009 302 US active duty military deaths were due to suicide, and on the same year 149 US soldiers were killed in Iraq.
According to a study of war-related deaths published by the Congressional Research Service in there were a total of 1515 active duty military deaths, of them 302 were self inflicted and 346 were as a result of hostile ...
6
From what I could find it appears to be part urban legend, part social media game, part a teen fad that probably got blown out of proportion by more traditional media.
It appears that the game involves filming dangerous stunts that get progressively more dangerous and supposingly end with suicide.
The reporting I found however cast a doubt on how many ...
6
It might not be possible to answer this question. The 1/3 value might be accurate, but it isn't, and can't be, precise.
Psychology Today says:
Among youth who identify as sexual minorities, the likelihood of death by suicide has been estimated to be two to seven times greater than the likelihood of death by suicide among heterosexual youth (Haas et al., ...
5
Suicide: Yes (New York Times, study), but not just millennials:
Suicide in the United States has surged to the highest levels in nearly 30 years, a federal data analysis has found, with increases in every age group except older adults. The rise was particularly steep for women. It was also substantial among middle-aged Americans...
Accidental Drug ...
5
tl;dr Suicide in a shopping mall: True. Suicide because of too much shopping: Maybe.
This Chinese news article reports that the police made this statement:
On December 7th (2013) at 15xx hrs, a male aged about 40, entered the Golden Eagle mall through the south entrance and into the hypermarket, rushed up to the lift area of the 7th floor, jumped over ...
3
According to HYPNOSIS: ETHICS AND RISK MANAGEMENT ISSUES :
Focus upon one symptom can result in "symptom substitution". The hypnosis based treatment may appear to eliminate the original problem, while a different problem is substituted.
Another woman with a history of panic disorder saw a psychologist for help with her disabling panic attacks. The ...
3
2. The new seeds, specifically Monsanto Bt Cotton, routinely does not perform as promised
According to Bt Cotton and Farmer Suicides in India - Reviewing the Evidence (referenced in Sancho's answer):
Second, we find that Bt cotton technology has been very effective overall in
India. However, the context in which Bt cotton was introduced has generated ...
2
The number may or may not be correct. But it is plausible.
If you view the Wikipedia article List of countries by suicide rate, there are several countries that nowadays have a suicide rate above 20 per 100,000 people per year.
Wikipedia says that for 1930, there were 65,130,000 people in Germany.
65,130,000 * 20 / 100,000 gives 13,026, which is over half ...
2
eight people jumped off buildings in [New York] city between the crash and the end of 1929
Quoting from My grandfather killed himself in the '29 crash', the title referring to a grandfather of Roger Graef.
According to the 1970 book A Nation in Torment: The Great American Depression, 1929-1939
Comedian Eddie Cantor evoked guffaws from audiences when he ...
2
1. Using the new seeds has increased production cost, thus increasing debt
That seems to be true. Bt Cotton and Farmer Suicides in India says,
Table 9 and Figure 10 show the average effects of Bt cotton, weighted
and unweighted, based on the number of plots for these two groups of
studies. We find that the differences across average estimates do ...
2
3. These factors increase farmer suicide
That may be some truth to that; but it's not entirely fair to blame it on "GMO" crops, because:
The evidence is that Bt cotton generally (i.e. on average) performs better than non-Bt cotton
When and where Bt cotton crops failed, that was not the fault of the Bt trait (it was more caused by inexperience with using it,...
2
The Iraq KIA figures are supported by iCasualties.org, though I cannot determine what their sources are. A similar secondary source exists here, which provides data showing that 143 soldiers were killed in Iraq in 2009. The 149 figure is also supported here, though you have to register to see the sources.
A good primary resource put together by the CBO ...
2
Yes, correlation between altitude and suicide is corroborated by studies outside the USA.
See High altitude remains associated with elevated suicide rates after adjusting for socioeconomic status: a study from South Korea Psychiatry Investigation (2014) vol. 11, pages 492–494.
We found that there is a positive correlation between altitude and suicide ...
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