2% from suicide !?
this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2026
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My thought exactly. +1% chance to die from yourself rather than someone else
Yup. Mass shootings, drunken arguments that go too far, and spousal killings are flashy and stick in the public’s mind. But, the largest epidemic stemming from the omnipresence of firearms in America is self-inflicted gunshots.
"Joe Boomer, 85, chronic smoker and alcoholic, dies of heart attack, none of his family were surprised." is not exactly an intresting article to read lol.
Live 85 years as a smoker and alcoholic - I will take it as a win.
Back when I had a physical newspaper I enjoyed reading the Obituaries
Exactly. People want drama so crimes are more often reported by the media.
It used to be terrorism all the time, have they replaced that with simple homicide now? Definently needs a new war then!
Going to Iran to defend America from terrorism again this weekend according to rumours.
Fear mongering and sensatislism vs educational and beneficial programming.
How we are taught to stop terrorism and homicides, give more power to police and authority figures.
How one actually stops terrorism and homicides, better educate people and provide them with higher quality social and health services. Which ironically result in more preventative care and less deaths from the treatable diseases that are underreported.
Eat this, not that.
Another way to look at something is newsworthiness. If it's something that's super common, it isn't remarkable enough to make the news.
I don't want to live in a world where terrorism is so common it isn't even worth talking about on the news.
Yeah 5 dead from a shooting at an American school is local news. At an Australian school it's international news.
On the one hand, I get this, what's unexpected is more interesting and newsworthy, but at the same time I do see how it creates problems. Airplane travel is much safer than cars, but people feel unsafe in planes. Part of it is because you aren't personally in control, sure, but a lot of it is definitely the availability hueristic*. Especially following things like the September 11th attacks and Malaysian Airlines planes going missing.
But a major issue with it is that it leads to us viewing things like car accidents (and heart disease and cancer) as inevitable and a mere fact of life we can't do anything about. Meanwhile whenever there is an airplane crash it's very thoroughly investigated and will likely lead to changes in regulations.
*: I may be getting the name wrong.
At first sight it seems to me that the coverage being positivelly correlated with how unusual a death is and the number of people dying in a single event, would explain that graph.
I bet if we dig into the details of the Accidents class we would see a pattern were uncommon kinds of accidents and/or those with a large number of deaths ("man killed by falling crane", "plane crash") get lots of coverage whilst common kinds of accidents with few victims per event ("a car crash involving a single car") get a lot less coverage.
Yeah, it's not a conspiracy. They sell clicks, or "public interest" if you want to be generous. It's just that in doing so, they present a scary, distorted version of the world.
I wonder how the comparison would look if you compared years lost per type of death?
That is, old people die of heart disease and cancer. Young people die of accidents and violence.
What gets our attention are mostly causes that we feel we have power over and that look spectacular.
I'm assuming that 40 of the 42% of homicide coverage was that one CEO.
A disproportionate amount, anyway. And then there's homicides that only get covered locally as well, because it's just some poor person.
Its really bothering me that 2.1% was listed above 2.2% at the suicide covid bars.
Heart disease, cancer, etc are part of the plan. Both boring and too close to home. Terrorism and homicide are suitably scary, morally charged, and far enough removed from most people's lives to be mostly abstract fears.
Heart disease, cancer, etc are part of the plan.
exactly. they can't exactly have you all worried about the byproducts of their industries. Worry about that guy who's different, don't care about the planet we're burning
Sorry in advance for the political topic, but it's directly related to the info in the OP.
Is the bar for causes of death roughly similar across social classes? As in: are rich/poor people more/less likely to die from certain causes than others? I'm asking because I'm wondering if news coverage isn't a bit closer to "reasons why rich people die" than to "reasons why your typical person dies" there (in USA). Just a hypothesis, mind you.
Poor people get sick faster, generally speaking and in the West. It's the same diseases, though.
In the third world, tropical diseases, diseases of poor sanitation and infant mortality are disproportionately huge killers. On the other hand, if you're talking about a rainforest tribe, they might be in top shape until they're ancient, because once they survive childhood they're basically living the lifestyle humans were designed for.
Not an american but i would think that not many rich people actually get murdered, unfortunately. Private security and someone wealthy is generally more valuable alive than dead if you are looking for ransom or such.
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Considering that the top reasons for death in the US are related to, more or less, how well you treat your body - as in exercise, diet - there will absolutely be data on poorer people being affected more. If you don't have enough money for a good diet or sports, naturally your body's health will suffer as a result.
Alzheimer and cancer, depending on the cancer, maybe not so much.
This is a big assumption and from what I have researched up to 60% of heart disease is caused by genetics. Environmental pollution and genes play a huge role in both heart attacks and stroke. With dramatic example like:
"In England and Wales, the mortality rate for coronary heart disease (CHD) between 1981 and 2000 have decreased by 62% in men and 45% in women, and more than half of this decline was attributed to a reduction in environmental risk factors."
"This is most strikingly demonstrated by data from China, which show that the age-adjusted CVD mortality rates in Beijing increased by 50% for men and 27% for women because of environmental changes between 1984 and 1999"
I am sure diet and exercise is helpful in preventing heart disease, but it is clear trying to push all responsibility of this disease onto lifestyle choice is highly inaccurate.
You bring up poor being poor as a risk factor. While this may not be true, what is true is poor people's mortality is much higher. See below.
"For example, high-income Asia Pacific and central Latin America have similar age-standardised prevalence of ischemic heart disease (about 2600 cases per 100,000), but the mortality rate due to ischemic heart disease in central Latin America is four times that in high-income Asia Pacific (109 vs 26 per 100,000, respectively). "
So same prevalence, but a huge difference in mortality.
Thanks for the figures. 60% is crazy tho. Sure, genetics are bound to be involved in some way, but I would have assumed that especially anything related to your heart's function is bound to be linked to your "lifestyle choices" and not as much to your gene pool
That appeared to be the highest amount in literature I found. So it is definitely the high end.
I learned that the environment played a large role in cancer awhile ago, but the heart disease challenge my perception as well. While it does not appear to be the dominate factor, it is definitely a significant one.
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Dog bites man is not news. Man bites dog is news.
In other news: The obese Tom from next door got a heart attack and died. The 84-year-old grandma from across the street is still in hospital, and the cancer is getting worse. Stay tuned to find out if she is still alive tomorrow.
Yes. The combined effect is maybe not great, though. A news source that just covers everything in proportion to some measure of impact would actually be neat.
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Yesterday I witnessed a motorcycle rear end an SUV in person. I hope the guy did not die but it looked pretty bad when it randomly happened.
Why is no one dying of old age?
Because being old doesn't kill you. It's the things associated with old age that kill you.
My wife, after I inform her Elizabeth II died :
"What did she die of?"
Me, straight faced :
"of being ~~98~~ 96 fuckin' years old"
On the left: shit happens
On the right: humans are doing stupid shit
I think the OP is trying to express that the New York times is distorting the news. Perhaps true, but humans doing stupid shit will always sell a newspaper.
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