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Where did all the public bathrooms go?

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Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#271

Post by alex43578 »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #227
kraken_cult wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has to be a line draw somewhere. Generally people who say this don't actually have regular interactions with aggressive, hostile, homeless. Or are you just really cool with going to a coffee shop and have someone screaming in a pile of their own feces 20 or so feet away?

The problem is that once you draw "the line", then what? Warehouse a bunch of helpless people in overcrowded prisons? Bus them to some other less-draconian municipality? Forcibly drug them into quasi-submission and then turn them loose again until the depot injection wears off? Or perhaps we should "just kill 'em", as Fox & Friends cohost Brian Kilmeade once suggested?

If they are committing crimes, they should be imprisoned for an appropriate period of time as a deterrent to crime, a punishment for their actions, and to facilitate rehabilitation (even though evidence shows this doesn't really happen).

If they are mentally ill and unable to care for themselves or pose a threat to the community because of their mental illness, they should be institutionalized and treated. If they are able to be released into the community after a period of time, checks should be performed to ensure compliance with treatment/medication.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#272

Post by zmgsabst »

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…

Circa 2015 when the reformulation of meth made it more likely to induce psychosis — as the new flow chemistry version altered which isomers were made.

At least, in Seattle.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#273

Post by Loocid »

mym1990 wrote: post #181
miltonlost wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even the government deems it infeasible. Because they are underfunded often.

Funny how the government is "underfunded", yet can spend billions and trillions on plenty of things.

The parts of government responsible for public toilets are not the ones spending billions or trillions of dollars on things.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#274

Post by qwerpy »

csullivannet wrote: post #260
kraken_cult wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forced rehab if needed and then somewhere they can work to pay their way, learn the skills to help themselves. There's a ton of manual labor that needs doing, potholes to be fixed.

Oh, so forced labour then?

If someone’s forcing society to pay for their living expenses, it only seems fair for society to force them to labor to cover the expenses.

I’m sure the next objection will be “what, so you’re going to concentrate them in some kind of camp?” Yes because that’s the smart thing to do with a large scale problem. Use scalable solutions.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#275

Post by djeastm »

markdown wrote: post #150
TheAlchemist wrote: post #125

Interesting. And quite sad - we definitely should invest in things that make people lives better all around. There are countries were public bathrooms are everywhere - New Zealand is a good example. As a tourist, you're never too far from one. Which is good, since quite often that may be the only human made thing, surrounded by beautiful nature.

I visited Hollywood Boulevard once. That was nuts. No public toilets anywhere, in one of the most famous tourist attractions in the country. Worse, food establishments won't let you use the restroom, claiming they have none or that it was out of order. Thankfully I found one in a cinema.

Oh, there's definitely a well-used star-shaped public toilet off the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#276

Post by slg »

throwawayffffas wrote: post #232
Avicebron wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When it became unfashionable to put mentally ill people in asylums. The additional fashion of "giving local people a voice" in construction projects planning did not help either.

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?

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#277

Post by DeluluDon »

yodelleehoo wrote: post #219
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…

I was picking up some lumber today (USA) and they were blaring some country song about "Try that in a small town" which was basically a gun owner's fantasy about shooting people. One of the lines was something like "we look out for our own". And that right there describes half the USA: outsiders not welcomed. ingroup/outgroup is nothing new, and its not like any country has really fixed it, and the countries that hav…

Arrogance has nothing to do with race. Those assholes had zero discipline.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#279

Post by streptomycin »

ipdashc wrote: post #144
tomjakubowski wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascinating stuff. And what a logo. > Starting a national crusade to cast away coin-operated commodes, Gessel told newsmen, "You can have a fifty-dollar bill, but if you don't have a dime, that metal box is between you and relief." I'm sympathetic to this argument. Carrying around loose change with US-style billfold wallets has never been convenient, and back in the day you'd often find yourself without change for a…

> Today, though, almost everyone carries either a contactless credit card or a phone with an NFC wallet. I would pay $0.25 for access to a clean public toilet if I could swipe one of those instead of having to carry change. This is one of those things that gets ruined by credit card transaction fees though, right? It is kinda depressing that after all these fintech companies and society's ~decade long scam-filled obs…

Not ruined, just diminished. If too much of the $0.25 is taken by fees, then make it $0.50, or $1, or whatever. In many places, there'd be plenty of business still.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#280

Post by slg »

gamblor956 wrote: post #265
scheme271 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That thing about cities bussing their homeless elsewhere seems to be a pretty common urban myth. I don't think anyone has really shown that it's definitively happening on any large scale manner. And it should be relatively easy to show given that governments publish their budgets.

Governor Rick Perry of Texas openly bragged about bussing the state's homeless to California for years. Abbot does the same thing; he simply doesn't brag about it anymore. The LAT did a series of articles (back in 2018, and sporadically since then) in which Steve Lopez tried to humanize the homeless in Hollywood. It took him over 2 days to find someone who has actually a local. The vast majority of the homeless came…

The last census I saw of the Los Angeles homeless population found that the percentage of homeless people in LA that were never housed in LA was higher than either the percentage of homeless people who had a severe mental illness or substance abuse issue.
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