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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

#81

Post by ekianjo »

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…

> Community toilets (and streets clear of shit & piss) are, in my opinion, a fundamental and should be the basis of all civilised society. The fact that so many modern cities seem to have forgotten this is beyond me.

Totally agree with that and Japan and many countries in Asia really get that.

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

#82

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

adwn wrote: post #71
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You appeared to be saying "government can't feed those in need, it shouldn't provide toilets for those in need either". Apologies for misreading you; I certainly wasn't the only one!

Wrt your edit: as I mentioned in my original comment, going to the toilet is usually a much more pressing need. How would you efficiently ensure 'the right people' are using the free toilet? I would contend that it's better all round to just have a free toilet, paid for out of taxes, that anyone can use.

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

#83

Post by Sir_Substance »

adwn wrote: post #38
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…

> 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…

>Stallman explicitly demands that public toilets should be free to everyone, independent of their financial situation. Using his logic, we should boycot food until food is available to everyone free of charge. Of course I'm not arguing against feeding the needy, or against social nets in general.

I actually don't see how you could unironically argue against providing essential foods (think bread, beans and chicken/fish[whichever is local]) free of charge, basic income style.

If that's affordable, we should totally do it. Of course, affordability is a key part of the equation. I don't know if a basic sustenance program is affordable. I do know that basic sanitation is /totally/ affordable.

Also, I feel compelled to point out that there's a public health interest in making sure everyone has a sanitary place to defecate. Societies that failed to provide this were regularly ravaged by cholera.

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

#84

Post by pdpi »

mrleiter wrote: post #24
gregwtmtno wrote: post #5

Where I live, we don't have pay toilets, but when I was on vacation last I thought they were great. I was happy to pay a little bit for a clean bathroom instead of having to go at a coffee shop or restaurant. Stallman has a point, but it's easily addressable. The government could give the indigent vouchers to use the pay toilets. I'd even be happy to pay more to use the bathrooms to subsidize such a program.

>The government could give the indigent vouchers to use the pay toilets. Wouldn't work in Europe - Art. 18 TFEU.

I don't buy it. For that to be discriminatory, progressive taxes would be, too.

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

#85

Post by true_religion »

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…

> "either give us specical/exclusive rights or we won't sell your book"

Amazon thinks of themselves as a publisher now, so when you put your book on Amazon without publishing via them they view you as 'the competition' using their hard won resources.

As a publisher, they view asking for exclusive rights to be a normal course of doing business.

The problem is that some people still think they're just a book store.

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

#86

Post by jon-wood »

eumoria wrote: post #37
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…

I know at least in my city the removal of public bathrooms is due to homeless and drug problem. If you have 24 hour public toilets they just become homeless houses. It is frustrating though to be on the train through a less-than-great neighborhood and having to go to the bathroom... knowing that there are no available public ones and all of the commercial entities either try and refuse or force you to purchase someth…

Somewhat off topic, but UK law means any toilet in a licensed establishment is available for free. The law requires licensed establishment to provide free tap water to anyone requesting it. A separate law requires somewhere that serves drinks to someone to give them access to toilets. So if you ask for free tap water, you can use the toilet.

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

#87

Post by jazoom »

ekianjo wrote: post #81
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…

> Community toilets (and streets clear of shit & piss) are, in my opinion, a fundamental and should be the basis of all civilised society. The fact that so many modern cities seem to have forgotten this is beyond me. Totally agree with that and Japan and many countries in Asia really get that.

Singapore is a modern miracle

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

#88

Post by edanm »

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…

"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?"

Well, there are many different ways to tax things. This is a pretty big area of study in e.g. economics and public polciy.

Certainly, one way to tax is to e.g. collect income taxes from everyone and then use it to maintain public toilets. But another way to tax things is to directly tax the thing itself - like in this case, taxing the use of the toilet.

This has some drawbacks and some benefits. One of the benefits is that you're making the toilet more akin to a regular, private good - people pay for what they use, which works pretty well in most cases.

Of course you can appeal to emotion and say "what, we'll make poor people not able to use restrooms"? Clever as that is, what about the alternative appeal - are you really comfortable with a poor person's taxes going to support the public toilets of the 1%? The areas they live have public restrooms too, and I'm sure they cost a hell of a lot more to maintain than most public restrooms.

I have no idea how this actually works in the real world - do rich 1%'ers public toilets cost a lot? Are they supported by taxes (at least, not on the municipal level)? Is there any amount of poor people unable to find access to restrooms that this is even a problem?

I don't know. I'm just saying, the view expressed by Stallman is not nuanced, doesn't provide any data to back him up, only goes for a totally surface-level idea of the morality, and supports it with emotion.

NOT everything in the world is a totally clear black & white moral issue, and not everyone that disagrees with you is necessarily morally wrong! When you make every issue a moral & emotional one, you lose out on actual thoughtful intelligence, or on the idea that smart people can think of different ways of cooperating that might make sense to them.

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