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Where did all the public bathrooms go?

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841–850 of 873 posts

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#841

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fair game. In short, it reads like, "I don't understand the motivations behind this behavior, and here's what needs to happen to stop it." If you want to change something, understanding it is a very good first step. Usually it means you're on the path toward finding a cure rather than simply treating symptoms.

Of course understanding is a good first step. However the onus is I think on the antisocial one to explain themselves. Of course I did ask exactly what you suggested, and they didn't reply. So maybe just stopping them without understanding would be ok in this case.

I think the onus is on the one who wants to enact change, but I'm curious how you came to prefer sorting it by sociability.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#842
post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What recourse do those of us who want to live in a clean productive society have while we wait for the world's sociologists to finally figure out a solution to the homelessness problem? I don't think I'm alone in wanting to see panhandlers, drug addled zombies, and schizophrenics out of all public spaces.

Perhaps some sympathy and care towards your fellow man would help? Your attitude towards them being a nuisance is what needs to change. For example you could easily go out today and invite a rough sleeper to come back and stay at your place for a few nights. That would get one of them off the streets immediately.

Ok, that has to be a joke.

One thing that I continue to wonder about is why is sympathy always directed at the person who is visibly in rough sorts - these people are definitely suffering from mental illness and substance addictions, but there are rarely calls for sympathy directed towards those who have to suffer annoyance, harassment, and sometimes abuse at the hands of these individuals. Not to mention the mental toll it takes on people seeing their communities and favorite haunts slowly degrade over time.

People don't want to live in depressing conditions, so I think some sympathy should be directed at them who have near zero ability to improve their surroundings while academics and NGOs wring their hands about the "homelessness problem" without actually making these communities better in any meaningful sense.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What book is this from? I would like to read it.

The one that might get written if I ever figure out what it's about. (I truly appreciate the inadvertent encouragement.) I can pass along some of the inspiration, at least: https://playlists.at/youtube/embed/?playlist=FdW1CjbCNxw%2CS...

You have a talent for engaging writing. Keep it up.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#844

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per dollar recovered. Paying law enforcement officers overtime and directing police attention away from more significant criminal behavior (as opposed to redesigning turnstiles or pursuing alternative strategies like no-fare systems) is extremely expensive and time-limited in terms of impact. It does shovel a lot of dollars at law enforcement and let the Adams administration pretend to be tough on crime despite engag…

The sorts of people who turnstile jump are likely to commit further crimes on the public transit system that more directly affect the ordinary people trying to use it legitimately. For this reason I specifically want the police to prioritize arresting and prosecuting turnstile jumpers - it concretely improves the experience of public transit for everyone. This is the same reason that getting rid of fare-checking is b…

Corroboration: crime on BART dropped when the new harder-to-jump fare gates went in.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#845
post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU(or US) can't have public toilets because it's gonna get vandalized. For fun. One thing that perplexed me endlessly during my youth living in Sweden was seeing drunk teenagers go around vandalize things for... Fun. Breaking the glass at the buss station (designed to shatter in to million pieces so you don't hurt yourself), friends enjoying graffiti, littering, throwing beer bottles on the street for fun.... During…

> EU(or US) can't have public toilets because it's gonna get vandalized. For fun. Kids vandalize shit in the US for the hell of it. You'll even see graffiti in really hard to reach places where forget the danger of it, it's hard to even understand how they hell they got up there and could still make something legible (like really tall bridges with nothing to stand on underneath).

Historically that was always part of the bragging rights. The harder to reach, or more risky location, the higher the cred for having achieved it.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#846
post #806
post #799

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://web.archive.org/web/20250929053102/https://www.genom... Readers may judge for themselves how accurate the description above is. Thanks, I wasn't able to find an archive. I'm sure you noticed the quotes were accurate and I thank you for the support. > Many many many things that are unwise and can increase pressure on communities' resources are not illegal. Nobody said they were. The argument was that cousin…

> Nobody said they were. No. But what the NHS blog thing said was that this particular thing shouldn't be illegal , and you appear to be arguing that that's bad because it's unwise and can increase pressure on the community's resources. And I am pointing out that in general the bar for making things illegal is, and should be, higher than that. > the NHS Genomics Education Programme proposing that incest not be illega…

> The blogpost in question seems pretty sensible to me

Why do you think allowing incest and increasing birth defects among children is sensible?

I personally imagine it is things like widespread organised rape that was ignored by the police for many years, and a steady increase in Islamic terrorist attacks, that has led to people not disliking the immigration system that allowed the rape and terrorism. But perhaps you are right, people that disagree with incest are at fault.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#847

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homelessness and the post-2008 wave of poverty ruined it. A few people who need to use a public bathroom everyday is fine, but when you have 100x of ppl who are desuetude, on drugs, mentally ill etc. emptying their medications and needles and so on it becomes a public health hazard, attracts crime, and overwhelms staff. Better to just shut it down altogether or limit to staff only. .

> post-2008 wave of poverty ruined it but the US is not poor. The US has the richest "poor" people in the entire world. There is a massive social security net with massive redistribution. There was no "post-2008 wave of poverty".

huge surge of homeless camps, people going on various disability programs, job loss and ppl not returning to labor force. it's possible for the US to be collectivity wealthier yet a lot of people poorer.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#848
post #819

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, if you make a claim - that homeless people are dangerous - then the burden of proof is on you. A scientist doesn't say, 'there's life on Venus, prove me wrong'. A lawyer doesn't say 'you burnt down the house, prove me wrong'. They have to prove their claim. Otherwise, nobody responds - in science they'd be ignored, in court the defense doesn't even need to say a word. Otherwise, we just don't know. I gave you t…

You gave an anecdote that "I've rarely seen an unhoused people do harm". I'm saying do you have any evidence beyond your assertion from personal experience that homeless people are safe? You're making a claim that homeless people are safe, a claim that flies in the face of most people's experience and common sense. It also flies in the face of the data: "In 2022 the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office reporte…

The contempt seems like a pattern - toward homeless people, toward me, toward facts and anything and everyone else that don't fit what you want. It's not persuasive or interesting, and contempt seems pretty strongly correlated with not knowing, learning (essential to knowing), or caring about the actual facts or anyone else. It's also not respectful and incompatible with freedom - that other people can validly do and think things that make you uncomfortable.

Why would anyone take these comments seriously? Why would I spend my time on them? I think I will be moving on. I hope you have a good rest of your day.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Buc-ee's as an example because they're famous for their clean bathrooms. But there certainly exist clean bathrooms in urban areas. I'd venture to say that those aren't all in high-end establishments that exclude any "riff-raff". It's possible to find clean toilets in urban McDonald's or Wal-Mart; maybe not all of them, but certainly not none either. And regarding expense on public bathrooms: * San Francisco sp…

The problem is a small minority ruining the commons. https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2026/08/vandals-set-fires-i...

Sure, but why is it that government-run institutions are (we're being told in this thread) uniquely vulnerable to the problem? Why isn't it happening at Buc-ee's or at McDonald's in the same degree?

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#850
post #846
post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody said they were. No. But what the NHS blog thing said was that this particular thing shouldn't be illegal , and you appear to be arguing that that's bad because it's unwise and can increase pressure on the community's resources. And I am pointing out that in general the bar for making things illegal is, and should be, higher than that. > the NHS Genomics Education Programme proposing that incest not be illega…

> The blogpost in question seems pretty sensible to me Why do you think allowing incest and increasing birth defects among children is sensible? I personally imagine it is things like widespread organised rape that was ignored by the police for many years, and a steady increase in Islamic terrorist attacks, that has led to people not disliking the immigration system that allowed the rape and terrorism. But perhaps yo…

> Why do you think allowing incest and increasing birth defects among children is sensible?

Well, first of all, that isn't in fact what I said. I'll come back to that later. Anyway:

As I said in an earlier comment, not everything bad should be illegal. First-cousin marriage is (or at least seems to me) a bad idea; it seems very unlikely to me that its benefits outweigh its costs. But in something that's trying to be a free society we very frequently allow people to do things that are bad ideas.

Do you think it should be illegal to have children when over the age of 35? That causes increased birth defects, I think about as many per instance as first-cousin marriage does. Do you think it should be illegal to smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol while pregnant? Ashkenazi Jewish people have a very substantially increased risk of some genetic problems; should they be forbidden to have children?

I dunno, maybe you do think all those things should be illegal, in which case there's no inconsistency in calling for first-cousin marriage also to be illegal. But I'm guessing you don't, for reasons along the lines of "it's usually better to allow people to do things they want rather than having the government intervene heavy-handedly in their lives". That is also the main reason why it might be a bad idea to make first-cousin marriage illegal.

With that said: I repeat, I did not in fact say that "allowing incest and increasing birth defects among children is sensible". I said that the blogpost is sensible. There is not a valid inference from "document X is sensible" to "everything that document X, overall, seems to be in favour of is sensible".

The blogpost looks at arguments for and against banning first-cousin marriage. It doesn't, explicitly, take a definite position on that question, though it does seem like its author thinks that first-cousin marriage shouldn't be made illegal. I think it's a sensible blogpost; I would think the same if its author had the opposite apparent leaning, if it had the same overall shape of presenting reasonable arguments on both sides. If I think about the matter some more and decide that actually banning first-cousin marriage would on net be a good idea, I expect I will still think the blogpost is pretty sensible.

> I personally imagine it is things like widespread organised rape that was ignored by the police for many years

The Rotherham scandal was scandalous, I agree, and it seems likely that the police deliberately avoided investigating properly because they were afraid of being called racists, and all of that is very bad. But I don't see how you get from there to "therefore the British immigration system is bad". Consider another scandal involving a lot of sexual abuse of minors: the one around Jeffrey Epstein. The people involved in that were mostly (not exclusively, but mostly) rich middle-aged white men. Do we conclude that we should be trying to keep rich middle-aged white men out of the country? Most people don't. Rather, we say: here was a particular network of people, most of whom happened to be rich middle-aged white men, doing Very Bad Things; we should deal with those particular people, and we should improve our systems for spotting Very Bad Things, and if some of those got overlooked because bits of those systems are too generous to rich middle-aged white men then we should change that.

Likewise, in Rotherham there was a particular network of people, most of whom happened to be Pakistani immigrants or children thereof, doing Very Bad Things; we should deal with those particular people, and we should improve our systems for spotting Very Bad Things, and if some of those got overlooked because bits of those systems are too generous to Pakistani immigrants and their children then we should change that.

But being a rich white middle-aged man, or a poor Pakistani young man, isn't some kind of guarantee of being a sexual abuser, and we would do no one any favours by attaching the crimes of the individuals to the whole group and saying: let's get all the rich white middle-aged men out of the country. Or all the poor Pakistani young men.

(In both cases you could make an argument that it wasn't all coincidence that the people came from those particular demographics. E.g., if your mode of sexual abuse involves sequestering the victims on a private island then it's much easier to do if you're a billionaire; some Pakistani communities have traditionally had very high rates of child-marriage and maybe those traditions make men from those communities more likely to become child abusers or something. But in both cases we can also observe that there are an awful lot of rich white middle-aged men and poor Pakistani young men who somehow manage not to abuse any children at all, and conclude that it's probably better to target the crime itself rather than some broad demographic within which we found a bunch of criminals.)

> a steady increase in Islamic terrorist attacks

Yeah, maybe getting up to an average of one event a year, with a total (coming mostly from a couple of particularly severe cases) of something like 100 deaths from terrorism in the last 25 years. Four deaths a year! That's almost one third as many as people dying from having their clothes catch fire, and almost a quarter as many as people drowning in their bathtubs!

Obviously 100 deaths from terrorism is 100 too many. (And 100 deaths from people drowning in their bathtubs is 100 too many.) But, with terrorism as with bathtubs, the number is actually not all that large, and it doesn't make a great justification for large-scale social change such as radical overhaul of the immigration system.

(It does make a great tool for stirring up xenophobia, though.)

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