If you block people from using the bathroom, they will use the outside of the bathroom.
A better solution would be to clean them often.
D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem
131–140 of 243 posts
Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem
#132Earlier 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.
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.
Improving society without accountability is hardly possible. Humans are not dark matter, they interact with each other very intensely.
It's of course ideal when everyone is so nice and civilized that you don't need to lock your door. The problem is that such a society is a great hunting ground for a rare breaker, because it does not have a mechanism to resist breaking the rules. Such a breaker can inflict disproportionate damage and ruin things for everyone.
Improving mores and living conditions should go hand in hand with protecting these improved mores and conditions from those who try to push the society back to the savage state for a minor benefit for themselves.
Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem
#133> QR code Um, solve the public restrooms problem for whom? Granted I’ve been living far from DC for 20 years, but I spent a large chunk of this summer there. Access to public restrooms was the same as it is here in Seattle: only a problem if you’re a street critter. People who can scan QR codes already have plenty of access to restrooms, they just need to at least suggest they’ll buy something. Homeless people and pe…
> only a problem if you’re a street critter In parts of the Bay Area, sometimes you can't find a restroom no matter who you are. The UC Berkeley campus during school breaks is one such place. The campus has 0, and the businesses in the surrounding city have very few restrooms, even for paying customers. The subway has restrooms, but they're nearly always closed. You pretty much have to go to a sit-down restaurant (go…
Sit down restaurants close at 9pm?
Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure what it's like where you live but where I live it's like this. Train/Bus stations don't have bathrooms. Homeless shelters and the churches which do provide services make you leave during the day and do not let people back in under any circumstances until around 5 PM. Fast food restaurants, gas stations and hotel lobbies all lock their bathrooms and allow access to patrons only. Which leaves shopping mall…
Train stations / bus terminals in major cities absolutely do have bathrooms. Union Station in DC, Grand Central / Penn Station in New York, similar stations in other cities, all have bathrooms. They’re usually open 24/7 too. Even places with locks on the bathrooms will usually let people use them if they ask. It is not unreasonable to imagine someone, no matter how destitute, getting something off the dollar menu at…
> similar stations in other cities, all have bathrooms. They’re usually open 24/7 too.
Less than you think. I ride the bus all around the Seattle area and I can't think of a bus station here that has a bathroom.
> Even places with locks on the bathrooms will usually let people use them if they ask.
Not here.
> It is not unreasonable to imagine someone, no matter how destitute, getting something off the dollar menu at McDonald’s.
You're talking about a couple bucks a day for people subsisting on $200 of snap benefits a month.
> any certainly have no trouble finding enough money for drugs or alcohol
It's almost as if people suffering from substance abuse disorder make poor financial choices
> In the absolute worst case scenario, find a secluded place in a park and dig a hole, or get a plastic bag and throw it away.
Just to be clear, that is still illegal.
> There’s no excuse for leaving feces on the sidewalk.
I agree. People shitting right on the sidewalk are probably in need of medical attention.
> Sorry, but “don’t shit in the common area” has been table stakes for participating in human society since the beginning of time.
You know that people used to empty their chamber pots on the street right? You know India is undergoing a campaign right now to decrease ubiquitous public defecation and that involves building a million plus toilets?
> Even in a hunter gatherer society someone taking a dump next to the campfire would be rightly ostracized.
Probably. I don't think they'd lock you in a cage for it though.
Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem
#135At root is that an individualist culture exposes itself as seriously broken in the public space. There can be no public good if the individual always comes first.
Paid high tech street toilets are a logical conclusion of a culture with little shared public good. The human rights and priority of the individual is respected and maintained.
Public toilets will go away as the public goes away.
Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem
#136Earlier 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.
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…
First you have to know what you're actually up against. It's not a particular human behavior that is to blame, but stupidity itself. Some people are total morons and the behavior you're complaining against is merely a consequence of that. You can't defeat stupidity, it's a nature thing.
You can suppress it though. Public shaming, forced fines, get violent with them... All these things work to certain degree and will get you through the day. But again - you're not solving the problem, you're just suppressing. Stupidity is ultimately unsolvable, because nature; and that is why all those utopic dreams always fail with impressive death counts.
Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a good summary for what it’s like to live in SF. There are lots of people around who are completely immune from any accountability and thus treat the whole city as a literal public toilet (and land fill).
Such is the consequence of a housing crisis and the downstream homelessness, despair, and of course mental illness. Don't give someone a roof and a toilet and they may just find any old place to go!
It's a consequence of a political machine and culture which tolerates it.
People who pretend that SF having drug addicts with open sores assaulting each other and the rest of the citizenry is a housing crisis disgust me. It's a policy which actively aids and abets human misery.
Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem
#138Earlier 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…
Who makes a mess? People who don’t care, or who hate other people. How do we, as a society, make less of those? By investing in social programs, getting people out of poverty and drugs, civic education. Increasing the minimum wage. Eliminating wage theft. UBI. Will any of these work? I don’t know. But this is the way. Not stricter and stricter gatekeeping.
Or, people who smear shit on the walls of the loo, lose their shitting privileges.
I'm good with that. It seems easier, and more important, it would work, and you're just singing Kumbaya.
Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
The more commonplace and universal something is, the less of a big deal people will feel it is to deal with. And vice versa. The very fact that we don’t all live in filth now, means that you have to pay a high premium to get someone to choose to be the person whose job constantly exposes them to it. See also: the profitability of electronics recycling (i.e. picking through piles of scrap for base metal to melt) in th…
My job for a long time involved digging up people's septic tanks and fixing them. I know other people who pump them for a living. I know others who buy the waste and dry it. And people of all stripes buy it after it's treated and mixed with mulch and put it on their lawn. This problem is much more minor than you think. Lots of us are not afraid of poop.
"Lots" is not necessarily "enough".
Does SF have only a few dozen "poop disasters" a day? The language in this thread suggests the number is higher and the nature is worse than your language would imply, but I wouldn't know as I've only been a tourist there.
Even if "lots" was enough, how much did you earn doing that job? I don't know American politics beyond Team Red vs. Team Blue, are American cities willing to pay for enough cleaners?
Re: D.C.-area startup wants to solve the public bathroom problem
#140Earlier 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.
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.
Also, the dictatorship making the trains run on time was a lie.