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Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

stallman.org

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Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#41

Post by franciscop »

sambeau wrote: post #8

I'm not sure if this was put here to ridicule Stallman or as a coda to his comments about Skype but this is a simple well-explained argument that I happen to agree with. If local government can't use local taxes to provide shared toilet facilities to stop us all having to defecate in the streets then what are they (and taxes) for? Community toilets (and streets clear of shit & piss) are, in my opinion, a fundamental…

Coming from Spain and having lived in Japan, I have come to believe that the US is really far away from what can be considered a civilized society. There's a huge mismatch between the public opinion (best country) and the reality that you can see through smaller things like this. Some of these things are better even in the so-called "third world countries".

Note: Spain was named for the smaller things like this; public toilets are not widely available here (even though there are some).

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#42

Post by himlion »

tuna-piano wrote: post #29

I wonder how he feels about using a toilet in a restaurant/cafe that is "For customers only". Should he stop using any bathroom in these commercial places? Many things are necessary in life. Most of those things cost money. If you think poor people should be able to afford them too, then give them money (direct or through government) and let them spend it how they want. I suspect they may find pay toilets convenient…

I guess this boils down to whether you consider access to toilets a public good or a private good.

Everyone* has a toilet at home, but its it the job of the government to supply sanitation in all public spaces?

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#43

Post by schlowmo »

_yosefk wrote: post #7

Is using the toilet a human right then, and if so, whose duty is it to volunteer to clean it up? Why are paid toilets nastier than paid food? Why not give poor people money instead of spending time (and in this case, a certain effort you can't even brag about in polite society) on yet another boycott? Is there any social institution that is not boycotted by Stallman?

> "[...] whose duty is it to volunteer to clean it up?"

While this isn't applicable in all areas, a rule of thumb could be "those who making money with the people which have to use toilets".

Anecdotal example: I'm living in an amusement district of a big German City. There are very few public toilets and most of the few are paid ones. So every weekend the whole district is smelling like a big bowl of piss, except in winter when the frozen pee of multiple weekends accumulate until there is the big pee-melt.

Why not making all those bars, clubs and liqor stores pay for the maintanance of free public toilets?

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#44

Post by kodfodrasz »

fiatjaf wrote: post #30

So you can pay for toilets, but you choose to use free toilets. You're making these free toilets worse by your usage and creating incentive for them to become paid, only making things worse for those who cannot pay.

Basically this was the mechanism the USA won the cold war against the USSR. Now almost all former socialist states are capitalist, because they went bankrupt.

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#45

Post by wwwigham »

jpatokal wrote: post #15
gregwtmtno wrote: post #5

Where I live, we don't have pay toilets, but when I was on vacation last I thought they were great. I was happy to pay a little bit for a clean bathroom instead of having to go at a coffee shop or restaurant. Stallman has a point, but it's easily addressable. The government could give the indigent vouchers to use the pay toilets. I'd even be happy to pay more to use the bathrooms to subsidize such a program.

There are quite a few countries like Australia and Japan where public toilets are free, reasonably ubiquitous and generally clean.

I had the opportunity to use public bidets with heated seats in Osaka. It felt very fancy, and my only complaint was that the previous user had left the seat on "extremely warm". I wasn't expecting anything in particular, but it was a very nice public bathroom.

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#46

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

dingo_bat wrote: post #14

> Pay toilets are nasty, and ought to be illegal. Those of us who are not poor can afford the price, if we accept the practice; poor people can't. Can't this be applied to basically anything? Food, water, electricity, pubic transport. Let's refuse to pay for all of these otherwise the poor can't afford it. Is this a parody webpage?

You don't think society has a duty to feed people who would otherwise starve to death? Who do you think should pay to clean up the rotting corpse they leave behind?

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#47

Post by informatimago »

_yosefk wrote: post #7

Is using the toilet a human right then, and if so, whose duty is it to volunteer to clean it up? Why are paid toilets nastier than paid food? Why not give poor people money instead of spending time (and in this case, a certain effort you can't even brag about in polite society) on yet another boycott? Is there any social institution that is not boycotted by Stallman?

It's a question of property right. In particular, the shared property of the common parts of a city.

For the private parts of a city (eg. apartments), they usually include toilets, and you expect your guest to use them instead of shitting in your kitchen or living room.

Similarly, as _owner_ of a share of the common parts of your city, you have the choice of providing public toilets, so that guests, visitors, or just citizen far from their home can be expected to use them, instead of shitting in the public space, thus degrading the bacteriological common space (feces can transmit some bad illnesses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal–oral_route ).

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#48

Post by gerbal »

ekns wrote: post #10
DiabloD3 wrote: post #2

Where in the fuck are there pay toilets? Is this a foreign thing?

Random examples from recent experience: Some exist in Finland (at least in Helsinki). Also saw one recently in a train station in Belgium, and IIRC a train station in the Netherlands. Also in the North of Argentina near some bus station, where you would pay directly to someone apparently responsible for cleaning/maintaining them.

In Germany many public restrooms have an attendant who you pay and can complain to if the toilet is dirty or lacking toilet paper.

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#49

Post by kodfodrasz »

Mic92 wrote: post #3
DiabloD3 wrote: post #2

Where in the fuck are there pay toilets? Is this a foreign thing?

Germany

Also in Hungary. Free toilets are not common, only in government buildings, like schools, museums, government agency offices.

Usually paid toilets are cheap (.5-1 €) and clean. Free toilets are not always so clean.

Re: Please don’t pay to use a pay toilet

#50

Post by tete »

I still am not a fan of Stallman and still have to agree. Stallman sadly is right about most of the things he says. He has rather extremist stances sometimes, but that doesn't mean he is wrong.

Maybe I'll stop using some of those services. I actually have a resolution going on about not buying books off Amazon anymore. I just came across too many authors and bookshop saying that Amazon has the practice of saying "either give us specical/exclusive rights or we won't sell your book". I used to like Amazon, and heck, I also was understanding about them trying to avoid taxes, because most companies start doing that at some point, but extorting authors of books is way too horrible.

Also here there are counter examples. There is many games you can get from the developers, from Steam and from GoG for example, so why can't Amazon not be horrible?

Sorry, got a bit distracted about the Amazon link also being up there.

Calls for boycotting companies somehow aren't as popular anymore, despite having the internet and topics like the NDAP going viral. I think most people agree that in our society money has a lot of power and phrases like "vote with your money" have a point. Yet looking at the 60s till 80s those things were way more popular, which is a bit odd.

Be it Skype, Uber or Amazon. You don't have to hate them, but calling out bad practices and acting upon that information with not using their services seems to be a reasonable way to have a positive impact.

In other words it seems odd that certain minor design improvements can justify paying a lot more for a product or service, while that barely seems to be true for the ethics of a product - outside of the food sector that is.

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