>Marcotte's study found that after people attempt suicide and fail, their incomes increase by an average of 20.6 percent compared to peers who seriously contemplate suicide but never make an attempt. In fact, the more serious the attempt, the larger the boost—"hard-suicide" attempts, in which luck is the only reason the attempts fail, are associated with a 36.3 percent increase in income. (The presence of nonattempters as a control group suggests the suicide effort is the root cause of the boost.)<p>Or maybe the people who are willing to do things about their problems are both more likely to commit suicide in tough situations and more likely to thrive in better ones.
Isn't the obvious conclusion that severely depressed people are working under their capacity? I don't see where he considered that.<p>Some commenters wonder why high income rat-racers don't attempt suicide, then learn to stop and smell the roses, and lose income. I doubt that this is common. Suicidal feelings are brought on by a sense of futility, not stress or overwork.
Marcotte's study says income increases by 20% after a suicide attempt but his support for this figure is the following:<p><i>"Once you attempt suicide you suddenly have access to lots of resources: medical care, psychiatric attention, familial love and concern that were previously expensive or unavailable."</i><p>Last time I checked, that's not how we define income unless he's saying that this additional support is what's driving a concomitant rise in income.<p>This finding is the opposite of what I would have expected - namely that the more serious the encounter with death, the less seriously the would-be suicidist would subsequently treat the pursuit of material success.<p>Unfortunately the study seems to be behind a paywall so we can't figure out whether methodological flaws have produced these results.
"The suicide-prevention movement fears that if suicide is deemed the rational product of someone's mind, we may feel justified in suspecting that mind forever."<p>Why? If it was rational, then when the reason for it is no longer there, then there is no reason to suspect that mind.<p>On top of that, if it's rational for one person it's rational for another (assuming the same circumstances), so why suspect the mind in the first place?<p>Is he using a different meaning of rational? (Perhaps "thought out"?)
<i>"attempting suicide seems a rational choice, as long as the attempt isn't too successful"</i><p>What seems rational by economic standards may not be rational by other standards.