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Where did all the public bathrooms go?

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Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#521

Post by panta »

socalgal2 wrote: post #348
justin66 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess if you don’t have a massive population of antisocial people who destroy the public facility, you can provide them. It’s a shame we in the west surrendered that. What a weird way of stating the problem. There is too large a population of homeless, mentally ill, and drug addicts wandering the streets. We didn't surrender anything, at least not during the last half century in the United States. We did as littl…

> We did as little as possible to deal with homelessness and mental illness SF would beg to differ. They have a budget of $100k per homeless person. They can't solve the problem because the problem is not money

The problem is money, but at a different level. When you deal with the homeless it's too late. That money must be spent before someone becomes homeless, on welfare: unemployment benefits, accessible healthcare and housing. A minor cut taken care of immediately is nothing, but let it turn into gangrene and you won't be able to fix it at all.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#522

Post by defrost »

jimnotgym wrote: post #519

I feel like HN should ban discussion of homelessness, due to the extreme ignorance and prejudice of the comments. A bunch of people who don't know the first thing about it jumping to conclusions. The quality of the comments here is so so poor.

And there's an argument that the ignorance and poor comment quality is exactly why they should be kept, highlighted, and passed about.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#523

Post by mock-possum »

F3nd0 wrote: post #380
LoganDark wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Antisocial people who destroy the public facility don't just come out of nowhere. People get driven to this. Not to say that you can simply ignore them when they're already everywhere, though.

What exactly (supposedly) drives someone to destroy public facilities?

Mental illness

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#524

Post by mock-possum »

mohamedkoubaa wrote: post #417
slg wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem regarding putting mentally ill people in asylums is who gets to decide who is mentally ill? I mean that's literally incarcerating people for thoughtcrime. If people have committed no crime, how can we justify taking away their freedom?

Exactly and once you're in the asylum the doctors can lobotomize and drug you to the point of insanity. People used to abuse the system to get rid of family members they had an inheritance dispute with.

Also queer kids who refused to pretend to be a good little cishet

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#525

Post by selfmodruntime »

ajmurmann wrote: post #406
socalgal2 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We did as little as possible to deal with homelessness and mental illness SF would beg to differ. They have a budget of $100k per homeless person. They can't solve the problem because the problem is not money

What do you suggest the solution is?

Insane Asylums.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#526

Post by selfmodruntime »

LoganDark wrote: post #229
talon8635 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if you don’t have a massive population of antisocial people who destroy the public facility, you can provide them. It’s a shame we in the west surrendered that. Not the worst thing in the world, but I do find it frustrating often to not have a bathroom available nearby (small bladder) But, while the toilets aren’t the worst sacrifice, the cumulative sacrifices made on the alter of our huge antisocial populati…

Antisocial people who destroy the public facility don't just come out of nowhere. People get driven to this. Not to say that you can simply ignore them when they're already everywhere, though.

Eh. There‘s a cultural background factor to this.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#527

Post by jimnotgym »

defrost wrote: post #522
jimnotgym wrote: post #519

I feel like HN should ban discussion of homelessness, due to the extreme ignorance and prejudice of the comments. A bunch of people who don't know the first thing about it jumping to conclusions. The quality of the comments here is so so poor.

And there's an argument that the ignorance and poor comment quality is exactly why they should be kept, highlighted, and passed about.

But what does one learn, if one is ignorant and is only reading ignorant comments?

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#528

Post by mock-possum »

Avicebron wrote: post #193
moduspol wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet another consequence of no longer living in a high-trust society.

What I want to know is if anyone can identify when exactly the homeless issue became so bad. It was already a problem when I lived in the Bay, and when I moved back to the East Coast it had been 10 years in the making (conveniently when I was away). Clearly there a some sharp lines that can be drawn somewhere. But it's hard to get some actual answers. Edit: rough clauding indicates it was when fentanyl took off, but…

Feels like it’s been a last ten years thing in Portland too - covid locked in the whole “it’s okay for people to pitch a tent on the sidewalk and set warming fires” thing

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#529

Post by [deleted] »

mstaoru wrote: post #94

This really hits home. As a person with IBS I basically cannot peacefully go outside in EU. I lived for many years in China and Thailand, and toilets are free, clean, and plentiful there, and you can easily ask any place to use their toilet - there's no stigma. I even had to run into a police station in rural China once. They were 100% chill about it, though they had to unlock a gate for me. Xi Jinping really will be…

[deleted]

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#530

Post by EduardoBautista »

dgoldstein0 wrote: post #460
socalgal2 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We did as little as possible to deal with homelessness and mental illness SF would beg to differ. They have a budget of $100k per homeless person. They can't solve the problem because the problem is not money

SF - and probably much of the US homeless problem elsewhere - is largely cost of housing; rent and home prices are ridiculous enough that if you don't make big bucks, you are likely barely scraping by. Rents here are rising way faster than inflation, and it makes everything more expensive and means a lot more people are living that much closer to not being able to pay their rent. Way easier to end up homeless after l…

Many of the homeless don’t have jobs. They wouldn’t be able to afford rent in Bangladesh.
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