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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

#121

Post by oelmekki »

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.

Wait, how does giving free tickets to indigent people relates to segregation based on nationality?

Btw, here in France, we give a lot of free stuff to people in need, and we certainly won't allow this to be prohibited by European treaties. So yeah, providing free tickets for toilet is indeed a solution that can be considered.

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

#122

Post by [deleted] »

diryawish wrote: post #107
Sir_Substance wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

How do you know sanitation's affordable? How much do you have to pay workers to clean those public toilets?(anecdotally, these toilets have always been dirtier than the private ones I've used) Will those cleaners be unionized or require full-time benefits? How do you analyze toilet usage and concentrate cleaning resources on those toilets which are used more? How much funding do you dedicate to these analysts? How do…

[deleted]

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

#123

Post by degorov »

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.

Same thing in Russia. It doesn't always work well, but in most cases it does. As for mass public events - usually there are free street portable toilets provided as well. In most office buildings there are free toilets as well, and in all shopping malls, of course. Cinemas, theatres, medical institutions... All of those are publicly accessible without any questions asked.

To be honest, I can name only 2 places where the toilets are paid in Russia - train and some bus stations and there are paid toilets near metro stations in Moscow.

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

#124

Post by IanCal »

adwn wrote: post #73
IanCal wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Edit: 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.

Food is something we spend a significant amount of money on, and have wildly different preferences in purchasing. Toilets are something we spend very little on, and all are purchasing something extremely similar. Needing to prove you require hundreds of pounds of assistance for is different from having to prove you require a few quid occasionally to not have to go and shit in an alley.

The key difference here is that to give free basic food to the wealthy would be wasteful (they don't need it and it's not what they might want) as well as expensive. Giving the wealthy access to a public toilet for free is not a huge incidental cost and is likely far cheaper and easier than any kind of tokens or voucher schemes (really, how well is that going to work for the homeless?).

You also cannot boycott food. Boycotting paid for toilets means those who can go somewhere else, such as at home. Boycotting food means you die.

The two are not comparable.

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

#125

Post by Normal_gaussian »

kodfodrasz wrote: post #108
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People in this topic are arguing for free toilets paid by the government. Now what is that if not a top down control of economy?

They aren't preventing private toilets - free or otherwise - being created. Pretty simple.

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

#126

Post by dingo_bat »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #115
dingo_bat wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

So you moved the goalposts. You were talking about the economic thing to do. I responded accordingly. Now you want to talk about ethics and morality.

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

#127

Post by drstewart »

franciscop wrote: post #94
icebraining wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not many, I was talking more about Japan for public toilets, which I certainly consider more advanced than Spain. I named Spain because of other basic things to expect in civilized countries (public and good quality health/education among others).

But apparently having a job to make ends meet is not necessary to be considered civilized. 25% unemployment, so civilized.

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

#128

Post by franciscop »

drstewart wrote: post #127
franciscop wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not many, I was talking more about Japan for public toilets, which I certainly consider more advanced than Spain. I named Spain because of other basic things to expect in civilized countries (public and good quality health/education among others).

But apparently having a job to make ends meet is not necessary to be considered civilized. 25% unemployment, so civilized.

People don't (normally) die on the street of preventable diseases because they cannot afford a doctor. We also take care of our elders and have mostly free quality education for everyone. Our streets are clean and we have public infrastructure/services.

But job opportunities do suck, that's why most of the good people go abroad to get better jobs.

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