6 ms·

And the reason the Public Bathroom disappeared from America is because we wouldn't want any place for the homeless to feel human either.

AlgorithmicTime 5y ago
Or because we don't want literally filthy, mentally ill, drugged out people using our bathroom. It's not my job to clean up after those people.
asah 5y ago
Well, public bathrooms also attack the dignity of the people who have to clean the restrooms from the 1-in-100 homeless (and non-homeless) who trash them. Some experiments were done with self-cleaning public bathrooms, but they're not a scalable solution due to large physical size and high capex and opex costs.
robomartin 5y ago
> because we wouldn't want any place for the homeless to feel human either I'm sorry, that is nonsense. Who is "we" anyway? Voters? Government? The rich and famous? C'mon. Nobody cares about who uses a bathroom. The issue is how it is used and cared for. Public bathrooms, regardless of the venue, tend to suffer from the tragedy of the commons [0] effect. Most people use them as they would their own bathroom at home. All you need is a very small percentage who just don't care, who are absolute pigs, to ruin them for everyone. If you have ever gone to a public restroom at a Los Angeles beach you know exactly what I am talking about. They are nothing less than disgusting and sometimes revolting. And this is so due to a small percentage of animals (1%? Who knows?) who have no concept of social responsibility and consideration towards others. My guess is you are not aware of what happened this year at schools all over the US [1] (and maybe elsewhere). This, again, was at the hands of a very small number of kids who, for who-knows-what-reason decide it is OK to behave like animals. At our kids school a handful (3 to 5?) actually got arrested. The school had to close all bathrooms except for two. Students had to ask for permission to go and could only go one at a time. They had to post a person outside each bathroom to go inspect it after a student got done. The animals caused tens of thousands of dollars in damages and the inconvenience to well-behaved kids cannot be measured. And then there's a sense of scale. If you own a small restaurant, you can't have 300 people come in just to use the bathroom. You are not a bathroom facility. These things cost money and upkeep and, yes, they need to be clean and available for customers. At the limit you'd have to hire multiple staff just to clean and maintain the bathrooms --because they will get trashed. As is always the case, reality isn't driven by a single convenient variable. One has to consider the multiple (tens, hundreds...) of drivers behind any effect. It isn't single-cause -> effect. It's often incomprehensibly-complex-multivariate-problem -> effect. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=kids+trashing+school+bathrooms https://www.google.com/search?q=kids+trashing+school+bathroo...
- Chris2048 5y ago
  I think at some point public-private bathrooms (private owned/maintained bathrooms for public use) will employ ML/CV to identify vandals. I suspect a camera that either operates outside visible light (or has a filter that operates as such), or that is limited wrt what information it is able to stream out (i.e. it can run ML/CV on raw video, but can only communicate the results rather than any part of the video feed). Could also be useful in identifying e.g. people who pass out in a toilet cubicle.
loudtieblahblah 5y ago
You apparently haven't had to run junkies out of fast food or pharmacy restrooms, as part of your minimum wage job duties before. Go work a CVS in an urban environment and you'll have to deal with people nodding off with needles in their arms. These same people are highly likely to be thieves as well Public restrooms have also historically been gay hookup spots, and spots for hookers too. Bathrooms open to the public always attract garbage humans.
- watwut 5y ago
  I live in urban environment and it is not hellhole some people like to make it into.
  - loudtieblahblah 5y ago
    It's where the majority of crime and pollution is. You can have it.
- racl101 5y ago
  > Bathrooms open to the public always attract garbage humans. Only people who have hold minimum wage jobs in the service industry know this pain. Everyone else keeps talking about treating people like humans never having seen the ugly side. Like, for example, the side where you walk in on these fucks shooting up and then they threaten your life on the spot and leave a mess for you to clean. Yeah, hard to have any compassion left when you've done that day in and day out while getting paid minimum wage and then going back to shit customers at the counter. The easiest decision, is therefore, to close your bathrooms to everyone and discriminate equally. And maybe, only let the pregnant women and truckers use them.
- sophacles 5y ago
  And apparently public comment sections have the same "garbage human attracting" quality.
- vkou 5y ago
  And when those bathrooms are closed, those garbage humans will shit on the sidewalk, instead, to the delight of everyone.
raducu 5y ago
Almost 20 years ago in Romania, I was complaining about the bad showers in my university dormitory, until I saw some homeless women use it and how much joy it brought them. I'm sure it would be impossible today because of security, but it was common back then.

AlgorithmicTime 5y ago

Or because we don't want literally filthy, mentally ill, drugged out people using our bathroom. It's not my job to clean up after those people.

asah 5y ago

Well, public bathrooms also attack the dignity of the people who have to clean the restrooms from the 1-in-100 homeless (and non-homeless) who trash them. Some experiments were done with self-cleaning public bathrooms, but they're not a scalable solution due to large physical size and high capex and opex costs.

robomartin 5y ago

> because we wouldn't want any place for the homeless to feel human either I'm sorry, that is nonsense. Who is "we" anyway? Voters? Government? The rich and famous? C'mon. Nobody cares about who uses a bathroom. The issue is how it is used and cared for. Public bathrooms, regardless of the venue, tend to suffer from the tragedy of the commons [0] effect. Most people use them as they would their own bathroom at home. All you need is a very small percentage who just don't care, who are absolute pigs, to ruin them for everyone. If you have ever gone to a public restroom at a Los Angeles beach you know exactly what I am talking about. They are nothing less than disgusting and sometimes revolting. And this is so due to a small percentage of animals (1%? Who knows?) who have no concept of social responsibility and consideration towards others. My guess is you are not aware of what happened this year at schools all over the US [1] (and maybe elsewhere). This, again, was at the hands of a very small number of kids who, for who-knows-what-reason decide it is OK to behave like animals. At our kids school a handful (3 to 5?) actually got arrested. The school had to close all bathrooms except for two. Students had to ask for permission to go and could only go one at a time. They had to post a person outside each bathroom to go inspect it after a student got done. The animals caused tens of thousands of dollars in damages and the inconvenience to well-behaved kids cannot be measured. And then there's a sense of scale. If you own a small restaurant, you can't have 300 people come in just to use the bathroom. You are not a bathroom facility. These things cost money and upkeep and, yes, they need to be clean and available for customers. At the limit you'd have to hire multiple staff just to clean and maintain the bathrooms --because they will get trashed. As is always the case, reality isn't driven by a single convenient variable. One has to consider the multiple (tens, hundreds...) of drivers behind any effect. It isn't single-cause -> effect. It's often incomprehensibly-complex-multivariate-problem -> effect. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=kids+trashing+school+bathrooms https://www.google.com/search?q=kids+trashing+school+bathroo...

Chris2048 5y ago
I think at some point public-private bathrooms (private owned/maintained bathrooms for public use) will employ ML/CV to identify vandals. I suspect a camera that either operates outside visible light (or has a filter that operates as such), or that is limited wrt what information it is able to stream out (i.e. it can run ML/CV on raw video, but can only communicate the results rather than any part of the video feed). Could also be useful in identifying e.g. people who pass out in a toilet cubicle.

loudtieblahblah 5y ago

You apparently haven't had to run junkies out of fast food or pharmacy restrooms, as part of your minimum wage job duties before. Go work a CVS in an urban environment and you'll have to deal with people nodding off with needles in their arms. These same people are highly likely to be thieves as well Public restrooms have also historically been gay hookup spots, and spots for hookers too. Bathrooms open to the public always attract garbage humans.

watwut 5y ago
I live in urban environment and it is not hellhole some people like to make it into.
- loudtieblahblah 5y ago
  It's where the majority of crime and pollution is. You can have it.
racl101 5y ago
> Bathrooms open to the public always attract garbage humans. Only people who have hold minimum wage jobs in the service industry know this pain. Everyone else keeps talking about treating people like humans never having seen the ugly side. Like, for example, the side where you walk in on these fucks shooting up and then they threaten your life on the spot and leave a mess for you to clean. Yeah, hard to have any compassion left when you've done that day in and day out while getting paid minimum wage and then going back to shit customers at the counter. The easiest decision, is therefore, to close your bathrooms to everyone and discriminate equally. And maybe, only let the pregnant women and truckers use them.
sophacles 5y ago
And apparently public comment sections have the same "garbage human attracting" quality.
vkou 5y ago
And when those bathrooms are closed, those garbage humans will shit on the sidewalk, instead, to the delight of everyone.

raducu 5y ago

Almost 20 years ago in Romania, I was complaining about the bad showers in my university dormitory, until I saw some homeless women use it and how much joy it brought them. I'm sure it would be impossible today because of security, but it was common back then.