Yes, they seem to work for many people. I don't mean to belittle that, I guess that is good. But, I'm not sure how that's interesting because "something works for somebody" is true for just about every category.

For example, some people want to work at Palantir and find it interesting that some executive named Steve Cohen runs the AC at 60 degrees and eats ice cubes all day to aid cognition[0]. There's a very wide diversity of people out there, so the fact that some find this appealing is not interesting or surprising.

So, the question, in my mind, is less that something works for somebody, and more about the broader meaning of this civilizational function.

[0] https://nabeelqu.substack.com/p/reflections-on-palantir (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41855006)

It is interesting because while the hotline might help some, it can also do significant damage to others depending on what happens after the phone call. Of course, nothing in life is every 100% good for everyone or every situation.

While not everyone that calls the hotline is involuntarily committed, I wonder how the data matches up with this finding [1]:

> "In this meta-analysis of 100 studies of 183 patient samples, the postdischarge suicide rate was approximately 100 times the global suicide rate during the first 3 months after discharge and patients admitted with suicidal thoughts or behaviors had rates near 200 times the global rate. Even many years after discharge, previous psychiatric inpatients have suicide rates that are approximately 30 times higher than typical global rates."

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5710249/