Marginalium

Why Do So Many People Want to Die?

There are still parts of the world today where rates of suicide are 10 times the average found elsewhere, apparently as the result of a local chain reaction … Yet, what could have set off the chain reaction to begin with? MacDonald has put forward what he calls the “wave theory” … suicide was probably at a “normal” level … until … some kind of catastrophe occurred—a cholera epidemic, a slave raid? … This caused a surge in suicides, and the wave has been propagating ever since.