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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

#111

Post by crdoconnor »

_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?

>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

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.

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

#112

Post by adwn »

Pica_soO wrote: post #104
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…

>Of course I'm not arguing against feeding the needy, or against social nets in general. Of course you do. You just concat a nice relativizing clause to the end, to not feel like a monster. Sorry, but in a world where people are starving, because the likes of you want to shirk responsibilities, noone could ever be not on guard. What a nightmare. To constantly have to live with your back to the wall. And the irony, is…

> Of course you do [argue against feeding the needy, or against social nets in general].

No, I really don't.

> And the irony, is that after you paid for the gated community guard, for the area to be exclusive, for the medicine and for the weapons- you paid more then European taxes for a "welfare" state - and got less.

You're incorrectly assuming that I'm not European. I'm also not living in a gated community, and there is no one guarding me personally.

> [...] to not feel like a monster [...] the likes of you want to shirk responsibilities [...] What a nightmare [...]

You're seriously overreacting, and you're making extreme, unfounded assumptions about my opinions and motivations. That's not the way to have a factual debate. I won't continue this discussion under these conditions.

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

#113

Post by omeid2 »

edanm wrote: post #88
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…

I can't believe you're making an argument against 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. That is not really Tax, but more so a Fee.

> 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 find it hard to think how the poor would use public restrooms less often than people who are more well off, considering the work environment, public transport dependency, and other factors.

> 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.

Access to public toilet in a civilized society is a matter of dignity and should not be only afford to those who can pay for it. Period.

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

#114

Post by adwn »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #83
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…

>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/fi…

> 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.

Here in Germany, there are very few free-of-charge, public toilets, and yet we aren't "ravaged by cholera", or anything close to it. In fact, there are very few public toilets, free or otherwise, and we don't drown in feces. Apparently public toilets are a nice thing to have, but not on the same level as not letting people starve.

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

#115

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

dingo_bat wrote: post #105
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think society has a duty to feed people who would otherwise starve to death? Who do you think should pay to clean up the rotting corpse they leave behind?

Why would you pay for other people's food? Are you kidding? Cleaning up a corpse is much cheaper than feeding a poor person her whole life.

Because I'd rather live in a world where a few pennies out of my pocket results in everyone living a decent life, sans street corpses. Seriously, even if you're an extreme individualist, is there NO price you would pay to not have dead bodies strewn about the streets?

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

#116

Post by spacehacker »

dingo_bat wrote: post #105
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think society has a duty to feed people who would otherwise starve to death? Who do you think should pay to clean up the rotting corpse they leave behind?

Why would you pay for other people's food? Are you kidding? Cleaning up a corpse is much cheaper than feeding a poor person her whole life.

It comes down to values. Our values have been shaped by stories that on average yield a high reward for a lot of people and they are based on aesthetics, empathy, social stability, food, peace, absence of pain and chaos and so on.

But it also has more direct causal motivation: If you don't fight for basic human rights, taxes, plurality etc., you will likely erode the stability of your own life unless you are completely emotionally, economically and technologically independent (which I doubt you are). There is always the possibility of an unexpected economic decline which a rational agent should take into account for maximizing their reward signals.

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

#117

Post by Kirth »

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…

I'm reminded of this the "urine reflecting wall paint" they want to apply in Hamburg. I highly doubt it'll solve anything: at the end of the day the streets will still reek of piss. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/27/walls-that-pee...)

Does anyone know what public toilets cost (in construction and maintenance)?

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

#118

Post by spacehacker »

dingo_bat wrote: post #14

> Pay toilets are nasty, and ought to be illegal. Those of us who are not poor can afford the price, if we accept the practice; poor people can't. Can't this be applied to basically anything? Food, water, electricity, pubic transport. Let's refuse to pay for all of these otherwise the poor can't afford it. Is this a parody webpage?

Food and water are already largely covered as a basic need in modern countries. Electricity and pubic transport have nothing directly humiliating or existential about them, but people are also negotiating to introduce a basic right for these commodities. Payed toilets in some sense do occupy a special spot in this space because they are such a basic and often very immediate and unpredictable need. This is different from e.g. the need for water, because you can typically suppress it for several hours or even days in an emergency situation.

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

#119

Post by edanm »

omeid2 wrote: post #113
edanm wrote: post #88

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?" 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…

I can't believe you're making an argument against 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. That is not really Tax, but more so a Fee. > 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…

"I can't believe you're making an argument against public toilets."

Err, where exactly did I do that? Seriously, point out where - I certainly didn't mean to. (Unless by public toilets you are specifically referring to free public toilets).

I was only discussing the question of how to pay for public toilets, a direct response to parent's statement about how to use tax resources. I was in no way saying anything against public toilets, only saying that there are reasonable disagreements about how to tax things, with costs and benefits associated with them, and there's no one-size-fits-all solution, especially not a one-size-is-more-moral solution.

"I find it hard to think how the poor would use public restrooms less often than people who are more well off, considering the work environment, public transport dependency, and other factors."

So do I. But I also don't think a lack of access to public toilets is a big problem among poor people in e.g. the US. I could totally be wrong about this though - I'd be happy to learn something new. But just relying on emotion to make me imagine a problem doesn't persuade me.

"Access to public toilet in a civilized society is a matter of dignity and should not be only afford to those who can pay for it. Period."

I agree, but emphatically wanting something to be available to everyone doesn't change the basic economic reality - there are different ways to pay for things, different ways of distributing things, different ways to collet taxes, each with costs and benefits, and it's worthwhile trying to find the right solution.

And don't get me wrong - in places like the US, there is certainly enough money to make sure everyone gets access to public toilets. That still doesn't mean there is only one possible moral way to do things! And it still doesn't absolve anyone making an argument against a certain way of doing things from at least demonstrating there is a problem, instead of simply attacking the current way with emotional appeals.

Note: Just to be clear, I hate pay restrooms too, and try to avoid using them if I can. I just don't think that my beliefs about things are necessarily morally superior, and I certainly don't think it's in general morally correct to force others how to do things. And I think it's worth looking at all sides of an issue and understanding cause and effect - this is the essence of science.

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

#120

Post by y4mi »

true_religion wrote: post #91
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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.
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