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What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

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Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#41
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the result of free markets. Centralized economic planning is simply unable to deal with the complexity.

Wut? Do you really think you can convince me that USSR did not have toilet papers or pencils? Or send the first man to space? This is not about what economical model is better. People can collaborate both under central economic planning and through free markets. One might certainly be more preferable to the other, but that's totally a different conversation (I'm not a fan of either, for the records).

> USSR did not have toilet papers or pencils?

No. Just that it could not produce them reliably with efficiency. Consider this from Friedman's book "Free to Choose":

First, the wood comes from a tree, "a cedar of straight grain that grows in Northern California and Oregon." To cut down the tree and cart the logs to the railroad siding requires "saws and trucks and rope and . . . countless other gear." Many persons and numberless skills are involved in their fabrication: in "the mining of ore, the making of steel and its refinement into saws, axes, motors; the growing of hemp and bringing it through all the stages to heavy and strong rope; the logging camps with their beds and mess halls, ... untold thousands of persons had a hand in every cup of coffee the loggers drink!" And so Mr. Read goes on to the bringing of the logs to the mill, the millwork involved in converting the logs to slats, and the transportation of the slats from California to Wilkes-Barre, where the particular pencil that tells the story was manufactured. And so far we have only the outside wood of the pencil. The "lead" center is not really lead at all. It starts as graphite mined in Ceylon. After many complicated processes it ends up as the lead in the center of the pencil. The bit of metal - the ferrule - near the top of the pencil is brass. "Think of all the persons," he says, "who mine zinc and copper and those who have the skills to make sheet brass from these products of nature." What we call the eraser is known in the trade as "the plug." It is thought to be rubber. But Mr. Read tells us the rubber is only for binding purposes. The erasing is actually done by "Factice," a rubberlike product made by reacting rape seed oil from the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) with sulfur chloride. After all of this, says the pencil, "Does anyone wish to challenge my earlier assertion that no single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me?" None of the thousands of persons involved in producing the pencil performed his task because he wanted a pencil. Some among them never saw a pencil and would not know what it is for. Each saw his work as a way to get the goods and services he wanted - goods and services we produced in order to get the pencil we wanted. Every time we go to the store and buy a pencil, we are ex changing a little bit of our services for the infinitesimal amount of services that each of the thousands contributed toward producing the pencil. It is even more astounding that the pencil was ever produced. No one sitting in a central office gave orders to these thousands of people. No military police enforced the orders that were not given. These people live in many lands, speak different languages, practice different religions, may even hate one another - yet none of these differences prevented them from cooperating to produce a pencil.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#42
post #24

When I moved to Argentina, it took me a while to get used to bidets. But now that I'm used to them, I never use toilet paper voluntarily. It leaves your butt still dirty! As someone said, if you got poop on your arm, maybe while changing a diaper, would you wipe it off with a piece of paper and consider it clean? No, not if you're from the mainstream of any developed country. You would use water, soap, and maybe more…

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00A0RHSJO/

$35 and installs in 10 mins with included tools on most toilets. I have installed them on every toilet I regularly use and somewhat internally question anyone who uses Amazon and toilets and doesn’t have one.

It also now bothers me when I stay in a 5 star hotel in the US and there is no bidet; I have seriously considered installing one of these (and leaving it) in each hotel I stay at for more than 48h.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. Whenever I bring this up to friends, they seem weirded out by bidets, sometimes even grossed out. How can it be grosser than trying to smear poop off with a paper towel!?

I was (surprisingly, to me) mocked by friends/family when I purchased a bidet seat a few years ago. Over the period of a few months, most went from teasing to shy curiosity to buying one for their own home. A victory for cleanliness!

People who mock you for having a cleaner butthole than them are strange people indeed.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#44
post #29
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wut? Do you really think you can convince me that USSR did not have toilet papers or pencils? Or send the first man to space? This is not about what economical model is better. People can collaborate both under central economic planning and through free markets. One might certainly be more preferable to the other, but that's totally a different conversation (I'm not a fan of either, for the records).

You will laugh, but yes, USSR also had troubles with toilet paper from time to time (while launching satellites i guess) - https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...

Wow, thanks! This is why I like to err in public sometimes, you never know how interesting things will come your way.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#45
post #26
post #6

> I’m thinking of opening a chain called Urine-Urout All-Natural Laundromat. It’s a sparkling business opportunity! Best line in the article. Though, TIL contrary to the popular myth, urine isn't sterile.

Once you ferment it until it stinks of ammonia, it's pretty sterile. Eventually even the extremophilic bacteria that produce the ammonia will die off from it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lant

I have heard that the piss-collection industry still exists, but collecting the urine from portable toilets and extracting human urokinase from it, rather than using it for cleaners, glazes, and flavorings.

And, after searching for confirmation, here it is: http://www.toilets.com/Pharm/pharm_production.htm

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#46
post #2

My uncle was an engineer for a toilet paper manufacturing plant, that took logs in one end and put TP rolls out the other end. The path was over a mile long. He worked on variable speed electronic drives for the 1000 horsepower motors that turned the machinery. TP illustrates the triumph of civilization: 1000s of people all doing specialized jobs so billions of people can each avoid a daily unpleasantness.

Toilet Paper is one of my favorite "How it's Made" episodes. Feel free to check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z74OfpUbeac.

My favorite part is at 4:43 with the Circular Saw!

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#47
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was (surprisingly, to me) mocked by friends/family when I purchased a bidet seat a few years ago. Over the period of a few months, most went from teasing to shy curiosity to buying one for their own home. A victory for cleanliness!

People who mock you for having a cleaner butthole than them are strange people indeed.

::shrug:: Can't say I disagree. People have surprisingly strong feelings about getting their butts splashed with water.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#48
post #24

When I moved to Argentina, it took me a while to get used to bidets. But now that I'm used to them, I never use toilet paper voluntarily. It leaves your butt still dirty! As someone said, if you got poop on your arm, maybe while changing a diaper, would you wipe it off with a piece of paper and consider it clean? No, not if you're from the mainstream of any developed country. You would use water, soap, and maybe more…

how much better is water ? is it 100% clean ? is it the most efficient (outside nasa technology) ?

Do we need to bring Dyson to the table ? bladeless ass wipe, only 900$

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#50
post #34
post #24

When I moved to Argentina, it took me a while to get used to bidets. But now that I'm used to them, I never use toilet paper voluntarily. It leaves your butt still dirty! As someone said, if you got poop on your arm, maybe while changing a diaper, would you wipe it off with a piece of paper and consider it clean? No, not if you're from the mainstream of any developed country. You would use water, soap, and maybe more…

How do you dry?

Toilet paper!
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