4 ms·

Plumbing vs. Internet, Revisited

69 points by Ariarule 11mo ago

rzzzwilson 11mo ago
Have to agree, Internet over Indoor Plumbing, since I spend the great majority of my time on the internet vs the toilet. That might be easier for me as I was toilet-trained in a household that used an outhouse containing the infamous "thunderbox".
- ChrisMarshallNY 11mo ago
  > I spend the great majority of my time on the internet vs the toilet. ¿Por qué no los dos? https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/man-sits-toilet-bowl-laptop-13429229.jpg https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/man-sits-toilet-bowl-laptop-...
kg 11mo ago
"No indoor plumbing" would make life functionally impossible in apartment buildings, condos, and suburbs - and at least in the US, a lot of people live in places like that. I suppose you could take an elevator down multiple floors and then climb into your car to drive to the nearest outhouse any time you need to use the bathroom, but that seems unreasonable to me. So I think in practice "no indoor plumbing" means "a different structure of life", similar to the rural plot of land I spent part of my childhood on with well water, a septic system, and no official fire department or police department. (We had 56k dialup though!) The point of this article feels like "we've made life without the internet really difficult", which is true, but we use indoor plumbing dozens or hundreds of times a day - washing our hands before handling food, washing our dishes, going to the bathroom, taking a shower, washing clothes, preparing food, having a drink. Its impact on hygiene and general quality of life is hard to overstate and any amount of time spent camping should drive this home I think. The author seems to have actually spent long periods of time without indoor plumbing though, so maybe they just love that lifestyle. In comparison, sure, the modern person uses the internet a lot, but most of that time is spent doing inessential stuff like browsing social media or sending work emails. If the internet was gone you just wouldn't have those things and you'd go back to, IDK, the radio, newspapers, and typewriters. Props to the author for keeping Robert's question alive.
- larsiusprime 11mo ago
  Interesting. So basically an individual out in the sticks can genuinely get by with Internet but not plumbing, but urban life would be impossible at scale without plumbing, and without urban civilization at scale we probably wouldn’t be able to maintain the internet at scale?
  - ak217 11mo ago
    Correct. At the risk of stating the obvious, indoor plumbing (and public sanitation in general) is not something required for you as an individual. It's something required for society as a whole to sustain value added activities that require dense urban areas without debilitating epidemics wiping out productivity (and any other measure of well-being) in those urban areas.
    - XorNot 11mo ago
      Always how it shows up too: someone says "I've been camping and it was fine". That's not what a lack of indoor plumbing is like though. In fact going camping when indoor plumbing exists isn't even the same: when it's a few enthusiasts digging holes sparsely is very different to when the entire population is doing it.
  - Jordan-117 11mo ago
    Yeah, "would you, personally, forgo this" is a very different value proposition vs. "would you delete this from civilization". A single person might choose the internet over plumbing because at worst they have to compost and use an outhouse, which is less inconvenient than being locked out of most web services. But while giving up the internet globally sends you to the 1980s, giving up plumbing globally sends you to the 1780s. YouTube and Amazon ain't worth chamberpots, dessicated skyscrapers, and regular cholera outbreaks that would reduce most cities into dysfunctional public health disasters.
    - kragen 11mo ago
      Desiccated skyscrapers? I take it you prefer your skyscrapers to be moist?
tpmoney 11mo ago
I'm not sure I buy looking at the numbers of poor people without indoor plumbing but with internet access tells you about what they would actually prefer all things being equal. Internet access seems much cheaper to get and maintain access to than indoor plumbing, both in terms of monetary cost and also infrastructure. Assuming you don't have indoor plumbing, you need to add more rooms onto your house (or take indoor space away). You also need to plumb both the water supply and the drainage system into your space, which if you're lucky you can already get under your house, and if not requires digging up the floor and foundation. And if you're doing this solo (a la a well and a septic system or similar) you need to acquire the necessary skills (electrical, plumbing, drainage management) and build it all out. I'm not a waste disposal expert, but I suspect the nature of indoor plumbing sending all waste water to the same location makes just running a big pipe to your existing outhouse (assuming you have enough downhill slope) not a good idea. A big hole that can handle the amount of human waste a few people produce is probably would not do great adding a bunch of additional waste water to it every day too. By comparison, internet can be had with little more than a phone. In fact if you have a wireless phone at all, you probably have internet access, wether or not you intended to get it. And that applies to the homeless people the article mentions too. Let's ignore the fact that a person that is homeless by definition has no home in which to put indoor plumbing, there are also often programs, charities and NGOs providing cell phones and internet connectivity. Basic internet access could be had for $25 / month. I can't think of anything a homeless person could spend $25 on that would secure them indoor plumbing access for a month. Maybe a gym membership? Then again, your internet provider isn't likely to kick you out and call the cops, but a gym might if they catch on that you're just here to shower and use the toilets every day.
anonzzzies 11mo ago
I cannot imagine people (or at least tech people) didn't have life altering experiences at the dot com bubble times. I was 9 when I logged onto my first bbs begin 80s and in coming years I started to believe that was far more important than plumbing. You could make friends, exchange software, plan meetups etc all without leaving my desk. When internet came, I definitely would've had that, if this was needed, if it meant crapping in the bushes.
gwbas1c 11mo ago
I wish I could understand the people who have internet without toilets: Is it something where it's just not a big deal to pee / poop outside where they live? I could see, if I lived in an area where the weather was nice, and it wasn't a big deal to just walk over to a tree and water it, I might not care as much either. Is it like camping where it's often easier to just duck behind a tree instead of walking to the bathroom?
- kragen 11mo ago
  Sewers and toilets are very, very expensive. Indoor plumbing malfunctions regularly destroy houses even when they are protected by well-enforced building codes, and porcelain toilets basically require industrial mass production. Internet access is much cheaper.
CommenterPerson 11mo ago
For me personally, indoor plumbing wins hands down. If you took society at large, I'd suggest the answer is still indoor plumbing .. the amount of disease and excess deaths would overrule surveillance capitalism easily.
James_K 11mo ago
I think it's very fitting to compare the internet to a toilet.

69 points by Ariarule 11mo ago

Have to agree, Internet over Indoor Plumbing, since I spend the great majority of my time on the internet vs the toilet. That might be easier for me as I was toilet-trained in a household that used an outhouse containing the infamous "thunderbox".

ChrisMarshallNY 11mo ago
> I spend the great majority of my time on the internet vs the toilet. ¿Por qué no los dos? https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/man-sits-toilet-bowl-laptop-13429229.jpg https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/man-sits-toilet-bowl-laptop-...

kg 11mo ago

"No indoor plumbing" would make life functionally impossible in apartment buildings, condos, and suburbs - and at least in the US, a lot of people live in places like that. I suppose you could take an elevator down multiple floors and then climb into your car to drive to the nearest outhouse any time you need to use the bathroom, but that seems unreasonable to me. So I think in practice "no indoor plumbing" means "a different structure of life", similar to the rural plot of land I spent part of my childhood on with well water, a septic system, and no official fire department or police department. (We had 56k dialup though!) The point of this article feels like "we've made life without the internet really difficult", which is true, but we use indoor plumbing dozens or hundreds of times a day - washing our hands before handling food, washing our dishes, going to the bathroom, taking a shower, washing clothes, preparing food, having a drink. Its impact on hygiene and general quality of life is hard to overstate and any amount of time spent camping should drive this home I think. The author seems to have actually spent long periods of time without indoor plumbing though, so maybe they just love that lifestyle. In comparison, sure, the modern person uses the internet a lot, but most of that time is spent doing inessential stuff like browsing social media or sending work emails. If the internet was gone you just wouldn't have those things and you'd go back to, IDK, the radio, newspapers, and typewriters. Props to the author for keeping Robert's question alive.

larsiusprime 11mo ago
Interesting. So basically an individual out in the sticks can genuinely get by with Internet but not plumbing, but urban life would be impossible at scale without plumbing, and without urban civilization at scale we probably wouldn’t be able to maintain the internet at scale?
- ak217 11mo ago
  Correct. At the risk of stating the obvious, indoor plumbing (and public sanitation in general) is not something required for you as an individual. It's something required for society as a whole to sustain value added activities that require dense urban areas without debilitating epidemics wiping out productivity (and any other measure of well-being) in those urban areas.
  - XorNot 11mo ago
    Always how it shows up too: someone says "I've been camping and it was fine". That's not what a lack of indoor plumbing is like though. In fact going camping when indoor plumbing exists isn't even the same: when it's a few enthusiasts digging holes sparsely is very different to when the entire population is doing it.
- Jordan-117 11mo ago
  Yeah, "would you, personally, forgo this" is a very different value proposition vs. "would you delete this from civilization". A single person might choose the internet over plumbing because at worst they have to compost and use an outhouse, which is less inconvenient than being locked out of most web services. But while giving up the internet globally sends you to the 1980s, giving up plumbing globally sends you to the 1780s. YouTube and Amazon ain't worth chamberpots, dessicated skyscrapers, and regular cholera outbreaks that would reduce most cities into dysfunctional public health disasters.
  - kragen 11mo ago
    Desiccated skyscrapers? I take it you prefer your skyscrapers to be moist?

tpmoney 11mo ago

I'm not sure I buy looking at the numbers of poor people without indoor plumbing but with internet access tells you about what they would actually prefer all things being equal. Internet access seems much cheaper to get and maintain access to than indoor plumbing, both in terms of monetary cost and also infrastructure. Assuming you don't have indoor plumbing, you need to add more rooms onto your house (or take indoor space away). You also need to plumb both the water supply and the drainage system into your space, which if you're lucky you can already get under your house, and if not requires digging up the floor and foundation. And if you're doing this solo (a la a well and a septic system or similar) you need to acquire the necessary skills (electrical, plumbing, drainage management) and build it all out. I'm not a waste disposal expert, but I suspect the nature of indoor plumbing sending all waste water to the same location makes just running a big pipe to your existing outhouse (assuming you have enough downhill slope) not a good idea. A big hole that can handle the amount of human waste a few people produce is probably would not do great adding a bunch of additional waste water to it every day too. By comparison, internet can be had with little more than a phone. In fact if you have a wireless phone at all, you probably have internet access, wether or not you intended to get it. And that applies to the homeless people the article mentions too. Let's ignore the fact that a person that is homeless by definition has no home in which to put indoor plumbing, there are also often programs, charities and NGOs providing cell phones and internet connectivity. Basic internet access could be had for $25 / month. I can't think of anything a homeless person could spend $25 on that would secure them indoor plumbing access for a month. Maybe a gym membership? Then again, your internet provider isn't likely to kick you out and call the cops, but a gym might if they catch on that you're just here to shower and use the toilets every day.

anonzzzies 11mo ago

I cannot imagine people (or at least tech people) didn't have life altering experiences at the dot com bubble times. I was 9 when I logged onto my first bbs begin 80s and in coming years I started to believe that was far more important than plumbing. You could make friends, exchange software, plan meetups etc all without leaving my desk. When internet came, I definitely would've had that, if this was needed, if it meant crapping in the bushes.

gwbas1c 11mo ago

I wish I could understand the people who have internet without toilets: Is it something where it's just not a big deal to pee / poop outside where they live? I could see, if I lived in an area where the weather was nice, and it wasn't a big deal to just walk over to a tree and water it, I might not care as much either. Is it like camping where it's often easier to just duck behind a tree instead of walking to the bathroom?

kragen 11mo ago
Sewers and toilets are very, very expensive. Indoor plumbing malfunctions regularly destroy houses even when they are protected by well-enforced building codes, and porcelain toilets basically require industrial mass production. Internet access is much cheaper.

CommenterPerson 11mo ago

For me personally, indoor plumbing wins hands down. If you took society at large, I'd suggest the answer is still indoor plumbing .. the amount of disease and excess deaths would overrule surveillance capitalism easily.

James_K 11mo ago

I think it's very fitting to compare the internet to a toilet.