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D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem

washingtonian.com

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Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem

#171

Post by rightbyte »

Johnythree wrote: post #119
imgabe wrote: post #37

I don't know why cities don't offer a tax break to businesses to make their bathrooms publicly available. Make it enough that they can hire an extra employee to make sure there's someone to check the bathroom periodically and do some random checks to make sure businesses aren't cheating. It would have to be cheaper than operating separate public bathrooms. I live in Hong Kong and am still a little amazed at the ubiqu…

Better still, make providing a public bathroom a condition of opening a business.

Atleast if they sell food. Dunno how e.g. a Subway restaurant can get away with having no bathroom.

Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem

#172

Post by teddyh »

solatic wrote: post #36
teddyh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people think that a dictatorship is OK as long as the trains all run on time. The right way to solve the problem is not to harden the gatekeeping, but to improve society so that gatekeeping becomes unnecessary. But that’s hard, and has no obvious point where someone can extract money.

> gatekeeping becomes unnecessary This is pure fantasy. Society will always need prisons. Sure, there is much that society can and ought to do in order to reduce what may be judged as tragic or unnecessary incarcerations, but the incarceration rate will never be literally zero. Having prisons doesn't make society a "dictatorship".

We were discussing banning people from social utilities, not setting prisoners free.

Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem

#173

Post by teddyh »

deltasevennine wrote: post #108
teddyh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people think that a dictatorship is OK as long as the trains all run on time. The right way to solve the problem is not to harden the gatekeeping, but to improve society so that gatekeeping becomes unnecessary. But that’s hard, and has no obvious point where someone can extract money.

>Some people think that a dictatorship is OK as long as the trains all run on time. Some people are influenced by propaganda and the historical connotations associated with the word "dictatorship." There's nothing inherently bad about the word, it's just the association. If you look at dictatorships objectively there are many successful examples. Here are a few modern ones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_di…

> So I say give gatekeeping a try.

It’s been tried. Many times. Throughout human history. It is littered with stratified societies, where every man had his lessers and betters to kick and cower before, respectively. This did not lead to any good outcomes. I say let equality and mutual respect have a chance.

Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem

#174

Post by rightbyte »

slumpt_ wrote: post #82
CharlesW wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The callousness of “street critter” really hits hard.

Hackernews in general can be quite callous towards poverty.

I believe most "visible" homelessness is about mental health institutes not being a thing anymore, not poverty.

The general plan seems to be that the mental patients can't be misstreated if they get no treatment.

I blame the "One flew over the coconest"-mentality.

Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem

#175

Post by teddyh »

tomjen3 wrote: post #167
MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously though, accountability is the missing thing. If getting banned for consistently making a mess is what it takes to get public bathrooms back, then so be it. There's no excuse for the shit I've seen. I'm tired of being denied amenities because of other peoples' degenerate behaviour.

I completely agree with you, and it is important to remember that all it takes is very few people to ruin it for everybody. With accountability comes consequences and that fixes the incentive function. However I also think the system requires something kinda like forgiveness, or maybe better yet, redemption. If, once you have been kicked out there is nothing you can do to be let back in then nothing incentivises you…

This is actually a reasonable counter-argument, were it not for the fact that practically every such systems, no matter how lofty their goals or how fair their initial rules, all eventually evolve to be instead a tool for oppression.

Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem

#176

Post by DoreenMichele »

technion wrote: post #104
timuralp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Seattle dweller and an active person, finding a bathroom during a long run or a bike ride is difficult. There are large swaths of the city with no bathrooms. In commercial areas, having to meander through a store to use a restroom is bad for the person trying to use it and the other store customers. Seattle is failing in this regard for all its citizens, not just "street critters". Agreed that everyone should ha…

If you could explain to an Australian here: I have either a pub or a McDonalds every two blocks that any person can walk into and use a restroom. This would include industrial areas. Is that not the case in Seattle?

America seems to have some challenges that most developed countries don't have. I don't entirely know why, but one factor seems to be we default to expecting people to do things privately at home that get done in public spaces elsewhere. This leaves our public spaces under developed.

We meet friends at my place or yours. We don't have a lot of pubs. Etc.

Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem

#177

Post by hackerlight »

idontwantthis wrote: post #159
hackerlight wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would exclude the worst offenders. But it doesn't solve the incentive problem of tragedy of the commons. Once people have paid $1, that's immediately a sunk cost, and from then people have no reason (aside from morals, which are absent in some people) not to shit on the toilet seat and walk out. But it still may be an alright solution (when combined with regular cleaners), even if it isn't a perfect one.

The dollar is used to pay for cleaning and attendance. This is an existing system. The US used to do it.

That's how it's funded. The incentives to not leave a mess remain unchanged. All you've done is filter out some % of people who would have otherwise left a mess, as well as some % of people who wouldn't have.

I mean, maybe paying for it makes people be more careful because of some psychological reasons... possibly.

Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem

#178

Post by hulitu »

classified wrote: post #162
atoav wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: we could have actual (clean) public restrooms everywhere if we were willing to put in the resources.

Which VC would invest in that?

> Which VC would invest in that?

The best question ever "Which VC would invest in WC ?"

Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem

#179

Post by markdestouches »

You buy a card with a unique id that grants access to any public bathroom cabin. Anyone with such card can report a cabin if it's a mess. If it is - the previous visitor's card gets banned. You also get banned for false reports. The maintainers of the bathroom verify the reports. The card needs to be expensive enough to not be disposable, but also cheap enough so that all social classes can afford it. Problem solved without any need for any private data, etc

Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem

#180

Post by ryandrake »

Dalewyn wrote: post #102
ravel-bar-foo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the options to "improve society" so people don't make a mess in shared bathrooms? PSAs? Public shaming? Collateral put down to use bathrooms? Do you have any better and specific ideas? I can't think of much more gentle and more likely to motivate people to change behavior than a public accountability system, although it is regrettable that it must be run through a for-profit entity and look like a social cre…

>What are the options to "improve society" so people don't make a mess in shared bathrooms? 300% public shaming. Japan is an example of this working, to an unbelievably ideal extent even. Public restrooms in Japan are *clean*, they are spotless and sanitary no matter what time of day you visit one. You can probably eat off of those toilet seats, for all I know. The reason for this is because individuals who do not cl…

> The reason for this is because individuals who do not clean up after themselves in public spaces are shamed and ridiculed by Japanese society at large with no holds barred.

Not being from Japan, I’m curious: how does this work in practice? If I were to go into a bathroom in Japan and smear my own shit all over the walls and leave, 1. how does anyone know I did it, 2. if somehow someone actually knew I did it, how exactly would I be shamed and ridiculed, and 3. how would that negatively affect me if I didn’t care about shame or was incapable of feeling shame.

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