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Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

stallman.org

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Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#71

Post by adwn »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #56
adwn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If local government can't use local taxes to provide shared toilet facilities to stop us all having to defecate in the streets then what are they (and taxes) for? If local government can't use local taxes to provide free food to everyone to stop us all having to starve in the streets then what are they (and taxes) for? Is access to toilets a more fundamental human right than access to food? Edit: Stallman explicitl…

If you accept that government letting people starve to death is ok, the only thing I have left to point out is that toilets tend to be more of an immediate need.

> If you accept that government letting people starve to death is ok

I really don't know what part of my post gave you this impression.

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#72

Post by edanm »

franciscop wrote: post #41
sambeau wrote: post #8

I'm not sure if this was put here to ridicule Stallman or as a coda to his comments about Skype but this is a simple well-explained argument that I happen to agree with. If local government can't use local taxes to provide shared toilet facilities to stop us all having to defecate in the streets then what are they (and taxes) for? Community toilets (and streets clear of shit & piss) are, in my opinion, a fundamental…

Coming from Spain and having lived in Japan, I have come to believe that the US is really far away from what can be considered a civilized society. There's a huge mismatch between the public opinion (best country) and the reality that you can see through smaller things like this. Some of these things are better even in the so-called "third world countries". Note: Spain was named for the smaller things like this ; pub…

And yet huge amounts of the "civilized world" are largely tied to the US.

Maybe this is correlated, maybe not, but just scoffing and saying "they're uncivilized" lacks a little nuance.

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#73

Post by adwn »

IanCal wrote: post #54
adwn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If local government can't use local taxes to provide shared toilet facilities to stop us all having to defecate in the streets then what are they (and taxes) for? If local government can't use local taxes to provide free food to everyone to stop us all having to starve in the streets then what are they (and taxes) for? Is access to toilets a more fundamental human right than access to food? Edit: Stallman explicitl…

Providing food to those who would otherwise starve is an important use of taxes, and often a key part of welfare systems.

Please note the clarification to my post above.

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#74

Post by kodfodrasz »

kuschku wrote: post #16
_yosefk wrote: post #7

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?

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.

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...

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#75

Post by endgame »

tete wrote: post #50

I still am not a fan of Stallman and still have to agree. Stallman sadly is right about most of the things he says. He has rather extremist stances sometimes, but that doesn't mean he is wrong. Maybe I'll stop using some of those services. I actually have a resolution going on about not buying books off Amazon anymore. I just came across too many authors and bookshop saying that Amazon has the practice of saying "eit…

> Stallman sadly is right about most of the things he says. He has rather extremist stances sometimes, but that doesn't mean he is wrong.

From what I've seen, his extreme positions are often from him looking further than a lot of other people.

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#76

Post by Normal_gaussian »

kodfodrasz wrote: post #44
fiatjaf wrote: post #30

So you can pay for toilets, but you choose to use free toilets. You're making these free toilets worse by your usage and creating incentive for them to become paid, only making things worse for those who cannot pay.

Basically this was the mechanism the USA won the cold war against the USSR. Now almost all former socialist states are capitalist, because they went bankrupt.

That makes no sense.

You are saying that the USSR went bankrupt because people were trying to use things in it for free?

Surely it has a lot more to do with the political oppression and top down control of the economy.

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#77

Post by kodfodrasz »

himlion wrote: post #42
tuna-piano wrote: post #29

I wonder how he feels about using a toilet in a restaurant/cafe that is "For customers only". Should he stop using any bathroom in these commercial places? Many things are necessary in life. Most of those things cost money. If you think poor people should be able to afford them too, then give them money (direct or through government) and let them spend it how they want. I suspect they may find pay toilets convenient…

I guess this boils down to whether you consider access to toilets a public good or a private good. Everyone* has a toilet at home, but its it the job of the government to supply sanitation in all public spaces?

I'm ok with government run/subsidized pay toilets, if no private company is willing to provide service in an area.

But if something is free, usually the service quality is also such, and many people, who would not use it if it was not free are not taking care and ruining these services.

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#78

Post by semi-extrinsic »

schlowmo wrote: post #43
_yosefk wrote: post #7

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?

> "[...] 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…

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.

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#79

Post by haikuginger »

icebraining wrote: post #55
franciscop wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coming from Spain and having lived in Japan, I have come to believe that the US is really far away from what can be considered a civilized society. There's a huge mismatch between the public opinion (best country) and the reality that you can see through smaller things like this. Some of these things are better even in the so-called "third world countries". Note: Spain was named for the smaller things like this ; pub…

Are there public toilets generally in Spain? I don't remember them from my stays in Galicia, Barcelona or Salamanca.

Nor I in Madrid. I recall being sniggered at a little for asking someone in the tourist office. Although that may have been my Spanish.

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#80

Post by kuschku »

kodfodrasz wrote: post #74
kuschku wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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,…

> 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.

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