So far mine is the only comment rated on this thread!  Woohoo!  I win!!!

I blame the unholy alliance between emo and goth...but did these two spring from Bush, or did the kids turn to it after Bush became prez?

Damn you, Dashboard Confessional...Damn you, Robert Smith

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

What's the point for young people to go on living?  Bush is just going to send them over to the desert to get killed.  Be better off dying in your own bed room, surrounded by your favorite Marilyn Manson posters and Soundgarden cd's...

So you're saying the stupid, defective, disaffected, socially outcast among us have an evolutionalry check to cause suicide in some dawrwinian evolutionary advance to naturally cull teh herd of the less worthy to breed and pass on progeny?  

That's sick and twisted.  Would make a pissa book.  Write it up, baby!

I'm sure we could look up some research. But where's the fun in that? My imprecise thoughts:

That old people and males have higher suicide rates fit what you would expect from a darwinian perspective.

Depression to a certain amount can be adaptationally advantageous because depressed people take fewer risks. Too much can lead to suicide, just as too much of a predisposition toward risk taking can lead to accidental death. From a group perspective it would seem you would want a balance of types. The cold is an extremely high risk environment. Also a 'depressive type' personality is more suitable to the close quarters living of cold weather environments.

Glancing at the figures, from Nationmaster, suicide in young males is much lower in warmer weather countries. This may be because of the genetics described above, the sun itself may have positive effects on mental health, or both. (I'm guessing the New Zealand figure is skewed by suicide among Maoris, which probably stems from their susceptability to alchohol abuse.)