4 ms·

Is using the toilet a human right then, and if so, whose duty is it to volunteer to clean it up? Why are paid toilets nastier than paid food? Why not give poor

by _yosefk 10y ago

Is using the toilet a human right then, and if so, whose duty is it to volunteer to clean it up? Why are paid toilets nastier than paid food? Why not give poor people money instead of spending time (and in this case, a certain effort you can't even brag about in polite society) on yet another boycott? Is there any social institution that is not boycotted by Stallman?

kuschku 10y ago
Well, paid toilets should be funded by taxes – that way you aren’t tracked, and anyone – even the poor and homeless – can use them. There are two independent solutions for this: Many countries, like Singapore, have the government directly own public toilets. In other places, like some states of Germany, the government instead pays restaurants and shops to open their toilets to the public.
- kodfodrasz 10y ago
  Sure, if you are paying taxes is the government cannot track you, but if you have to pay for the toilets, the government can suddenly track you. Also god save me from using a toilet a homeless has used before. Free stuff looses from quality quickly, and the poor, the homeless and the druggies usually do not honor public property and it is quickly degraded. Then does the government pay to renovate the property? Sure, in the next 10 years sometime...
  - kuschku 10y ago
    > Sure, if you are paying taxes is the government cannot track you, but if you have to pay for the toilets, the government can suddenly track you. If I pay taxes, the government knows I live in the country. If I pay for the toilets, someone can create a full and detailed movement profile of where I am when, and track me – and predict where I will be on what day at what time. Paying separately, with each payment tracked by location, creates a rough, but still usable geolocation system. Which can be abused in the same way as giving everyone an ankle monitor, or as having location tracking active on your phone. > Free stuff looses from quality quickly, and the poor, the homeless and the druggies usually do not honor public property and it is quickly degraded. That mentality is quite troubling to see.
    - kodfodrasz 10y ago
      The government knows where you live, where you work, and who are your relatives, and the same data about them. They will not track you by the toilets. So the only opportunity you give those who wish to track you is the use of public toilets, because you never pay for any other kind of goods or services, you are invisible to CCTV cameras, but for some reason you can only use public loos. (not one at your workplace, at home, or one at a restaurant you are given an untrackable meal. Also there are no other means to create a movement profile about you. I have used public toilets less than 10 times last year, and paid for it each time. What a profile the evil toilet-trackers have about me now! >> Free stuff looses from quality quickly, and the poor, the homeless and the druggies usually do not honor public property and it is quickly degraded. >That mentality is quite troubling to see. I agree that that mentality is troubling to see, yet they still stick to it. I know no ethical way to solve it.
sambeau 10y ago
The right is with you and I to not have to step in someone else's shit when walking down the road. Therefor it is our responsibility to provide toilets for those who have none, those who need them more often and for those who are far away from their own. This is what tax is for.
crististm 10y ago
The city should afford to do this from the taxes
schlowmo 10y ago
> "[...] whose duty is it to volunteer to clean it up?" While this isn't applicable in all areas, a rule of thumb could be "those who making money with the people which have to use toilets". Anecdotal example: I'm living in an amusement district of a big German City. There are very few public toilets and most of the few are paid ones. So every weekend the whole district is smelling like a big bowl of piss, except in winter when the frozen pee of multiple weekends accumulate until there is the big pee-melt. Why not making all those bars, clubs and liqor stores pay for the maintanance of free public toilets?
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  Or better yet, why not enact laws that say bars, clubs, gas stations, liquor stores, restaurants and cafés have to have free toilets? Give them some compensation, e.g. government pays for putting in or upgrading the bathroom and the restaurant just has to keep it clean and open. It solves most of the problems with public toilets out on the street, such as them being nasty and occupied by homeless people, because the owner of the establishment wants to keep it nice and clean.
  - true_religion 10y ago
    Don't they have to? In the US, there's a law that says all places that serve food and aren't on a public street (e.g. a food truck), have to have a public toilet. At least in my jurisdiction, gas station don't have public toilets because they want to---they have it because since they serve reheated hot dogs, they are required to have a toilet.
    - y4mi 10y ago
      in germany you're required to have a toiled as well, but it doesnt have to be truly public. they're almost always limited to customers.
    - degorov 10y ago
      Same thing in Russia. It doesn't always work well, but in most cases it does. As for mass public events - usually there are free street portable toilets provided as well. In most office buildings there are free toilets as well, and in all shopping malls, of course. Cinemas, theatres, medical institutions... All of those are publicly accessible without any questions asked. To be honest, I can name only 2 places where the toilets are paid in Russia - train and some bus stations and there are paid toilets near metro stations in Moscow.
informatimago 10y ago
It's a question of property right. In particular, the shared property of the common parts of a city. For the private parts of a city (eg. apartments), they usually include toilets, and you expect your guest to use them instead of shitting in your kitchen or living room. Similarly, as _owner_ of a share of the common parts of your city, you have the choice of providing public toilets, so that guests, visitors, or just citizen far from their home can be expected to use them, instead of shitting in the public space, thus degrading the bacteriological common space (feces can transmit some bad illnesses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal–oral_route https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal–oral_route ).
crdoconnor 10y ago
>Is using the toilet a human right then, and if so, whose duty is it to volunteer to clean it up? It can be paid for with land value taxes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax Indeed, it effectively used to be - they typically are and were paid for with property taxes, which is a proxy for LVT. The political decisions to decline property tax revenue is the reason why many closed. Landlords' entitlement to an ever larger stream of rental income that includes the value of land which they had no hand in creating or making valuable is largely why state/city budgets are in such a mess, why the 1% steadily gets richer and why property values keep going up.

by _yosefk 10y ago

kuschku 10y ago

Well, paid toilets should be funded by taxes – that way you aren’t tracked, and anyone – even the poor and homeless – can use them. There are two independent solutions for this: Many countries, like Singapore, have the government directly own public toilets. In other places, like some states of Germany, the government instead pays restaurants and shops to open their toilets to the public.

kodfodrasz 10y ago
Sure, if you are paying taxes is the government cannot track you, but if you have to pay for the toilets, the government can suddenly track you. Also god save me from using a toilet a homeless has used before. Free stuff looses from quality quickly, and the poor, the homeless and the druggies usually do not honor public property and it is quickly degraded. Then does the government pay to renovate the property? Sure, in the next 10 years sometime...
- kuschku 10y ago
  > Sure, if you are paying taxes is the government cannot track you, but if you have to pay for the toilets, the government can suddenly track you. If I pay taxes, the government knows I live in the country. If I pay for the toilets, someone can create a full and detailed movement profile of where I am when, and track me – and predict where I will be on what day at what time. Paying separately, with each payment tracked by location, creates a rough, but still usable geolocation system. Which can be abused in the same way as giving everyone an ankle monitor, or as having location tracking active on your phone. > Free stuff looses from quality quickly, and the poor, the homeless and the druggies usually do not honor public property and it is quickly degraded. That mentality is quite troubling to see.
  - kodfodrasz 10y ago
    The government knows where you live, where you work, and who are your relatives, and the same data about them. They will not track you by the toilets. So the only opportunity you give those who wish to track you is the use of public toilets, because you never pay for any other kind of goods or services, you are invisible to CCTV cameras, but for some reason you can only use public loos. (not one at your workplace, at home, or one at a restaurant you are given an untrackable meal. Also there are no other means to create a movement profile about you. I have used public toilets less than 10 times last year, and paid for it each time. What a profile the evil toilet-trackers have about me now! >> Free stuff looses from quality quickly, and the poor, the homeless and the druggies usually do not honor public property and it is quickly degraded. >That mentality is quite troubling to see. I agree that that mentality is troubling to see, yet they still stick to it. I know no ethical way to solve it.

sambeau 10y ago

The right is with you and I to not have to step in someone else's shit when walking down the road. Therefor it is our responsibility to provide toilets for those who have none, those who need them more often and for those who are far away from their own. This is what tax is for.

crististm 10y ago

The city should afford to do this from the taxes

schlowmo 10y ago

> "[...] whose duty is it to volunteer to clean it up?" While this isn't applicable in all areas, a rule of thumb could be "those who making money with the people which have to use toilets". Anecdotal example: I'm living in an amusement district of a big German City. There are very few public toilets and most of the few are paid ones. So every weekend the whole district is smelling like a big bowl of piss, except in winter when the frozen pee of multiple weekends accumulate until there is the big pee-melt. Why not making all those bars, clubs and liqor stores pay for the maintanance of free public toilets?

semi-extrinsic 10y ago
Or better yet, why not enact laws that say bars, clubs, gas stations, liquor stores, restaurants and cafés have to have free toilets? Give them some compensation, e.g. government pays for putting in or upgrading the bathroom and the restaurant just has to keep it clean and open. It solves most of the problems with public toilets out on the street, such as them being nasty and occupied by homeless people, because the owner of the establishment wants to keep it nice and clean.
- true_religion 10y ago
  Don't they have to? In the US, there's a law that says all places that serve food and aren't on a public street (e.g. a food truck), have to have a public toilet. At least in my jurisdiction, gas station don't have public toilets because they want to---they have it because since they serve reheated hot dogs, they are required to have a toilet.
  - y4mi 10y ago
    in germany you're required to have a toiled as well, but it doesnt have to be truly public. they're almost always limited to customers.
  - degorov 10y ago
    Same thing in Russia. It doesn't always work well, but in most cases it does. As for mass public events - usually there are free street portable toilets provided as well. In most office buildings there are free toilets as well, and in all shopping malls, of course. Cinemas, theatres, medical institutions... All of those are publicly accessible without any questions asked. To be honest, I can name only 2 places where the toilets are paid in Russia - train and some bus stations and there are paid toilets near metro stations in Moscow.

informatimago 10y ago

It's a question of property right. In particular, the shared property of the common parts of a city. For the private parts of a city (eg. apartments), they usually include toilets, and you expect your guest to use them instead of shitting in your kitchen or living room. Similarly, as _owner_ of a share of the common parts of your city, you have the choice of providing public toilets, so that guests, visitors, or just citizen far from their home can be expected to use them, instead of shitting in the public space, thus degrading the bacteriological common space (feces can transmit some bad illnesses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal–oral_route https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal–oral_route ).

crdoconnor 10y ago

>Is using the toilet a human right then, and if so, whose duty is it to volunteer to clean it up? It can be paid for with land value taxes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax Indeed, it effectively used to be - they typically are and were paid for with property taxes, which is a proxy for LVT. The political decisions to decline property tax revenue is the reason why many closed. Landlords' entitlement to an ever larger stream of rental income that includes the value of land which they had no hand in creating or making valuable is largely why state/city budgets are in such a mess, why the 1% steadily gets richer and why property values keep going up.