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What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

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Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#61

Post by jtolmar »

makotech222 wrote: post #20
skookumchuck wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the result of free markets. Centralized economic planning is simply unable to deal with the complexity.

Yeah, we certainly can't produce toilet paper unless 50% of the population is in poverty.

That's not inherent to markets, it's caused by allowing a market system to have a feedback loop where investments are rewarded proportionately to their size (capitalism). The people able to participate in the feedback loop inevitably become wealthier than those who can't until the market prioritizes what they want over everyone else.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#62

Post by athenot »

bitwize wrote: post #12
k__ wrote: post #3

I read that many asian people don't even use it and simply wash themselves with a showerhead instead. Maybe we should just do it like that?

Even if you don't avail yourself of the U.S.S. Enterprise style command console allowing you to finely tune how and where your bum is washed, Japan just does toilet business better. Want a clean seat to park your ass on? The American way is to use a toilet seat shaped piece of what feels like thin wax paper, which is guaranteed to slide off the seat and stick to your skin. In Japan, you hold a piece of TP under a noz…

I never bother with the seat cover paper. Instead, I always carry a tiny 1oz (30g) spray can of Lysol disinfectant to wipe like you describe.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#63

Post by salmanarshad321 »

amitbr wrote: post #35
salmanarshad321 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess most Muslims use them as well because washing with water is commanded in Islam. In case there was no water, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) would command his followers to use pebbles. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_toilet_etiquette Coming to India, I have been to a lot of toilets in different places and it's hard to find the ones _with_ a toilet roll. The only place I remember I couldn't find a hand shower w…

*While on the toilet, one must remain silent. Talking, answering greetings or greeting others is strongly discouraged.[4]

Haha I was gonna mention that. I'm still not sure if this counts -- probably does. I'll consult a scholar. Because there are similar things which are allowed under Islam. For instance, a Muslim is advised (not commanded) to make ablutions before picking up the Qur'an. But I have a Qur'an app on my phone which made me wonder if I was supposed to make ablutions before opening the app. A scholar of Islam told me that I'm not. He quoted a ruling which reasoned that the purpose of a mobile phone is not just reading the Qur'an; which is also comparable to a book containing Quranic verse - you don't have to be in a state of purity before picking up that book.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#65

Post by baumandm »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #56
bambax wrote: post #54

> To ancient Romans, the practice of sitting on a shared toilet in an open room full of people was entirely ordinary. That's a funny thing to say for an American, because, to Europeans, American toilets are much too public: doors don't go to the floor or ceiling, and even "walls" are thin sheets of wood/plastic loosely joined together with huge spaces between them. It seems, Americans don't trust one another to sit a…

> It seems, Americans don't trust one another to sit alone in a toilet; I still don't know if it's for security purposes (to check if someone has a heart failure?) or puritanical reasons (make sure people aren't having sex?) but it sure feels strange, and very difficult to get used to when one comes from a different culture. I've always thought it was far less interesting than that: they're cheaper and faster to inst…

It's also easier to mop the floors since you can go under the partitions.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#66

Post by lbenes »

tlarkworthy wrote: post #8

I think a machine vision directed spray is the future. I don't fancy collecting the training data though.

LOL, "a machine vision directed spray", missing a '/s'? My toilet has a built in bidet. When the spray comes on, I move my butt to positions the stream to dead center. There's really no need for any added complexity.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#67

Post by johnpowell »

sneak wrote: post #42
kragen wrote: post #24

When I moved to Argentina, it took me a while to get used to bidets. But now that I'm used to them, I never use toilet paper voluntarily. It leaves your butt still dirty! As someone said, if you got poop on your arm, maybe while changing a diaper, would you wipe it off with a piece of paper and consider it clean? No, not if you're from the mainstream of any developed country. You would use water, soap, and maybe more…

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00A0RHSJO/ $35 and installs in 10 mins with included tools on most toilets. I have installed them on every toilet I regularly use and somewhat internally question anyone who uses Amazon and toilets and doesn’t have one. It also now bothers me when I stay in a 5 star hotel in the US and there is no bidet; I have seriously considered installing one of these (and leaving it) in each hotel…

Thanks for this. I had no clue this was a option. Just ordered one. And in my apartment the sink is right next to the toilet and the hot water line is exposed for the sink. So it should be easy enough to make it warm.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#68

Post by kragen »

logfromblammo wrote: post #45
kragen wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you ferment it until it stinks of ammonia, it's pretty sterile. Eventually even the extremophilic bacteria that produce the ammonia will die off from it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lant I have heard that the piss-collection industry still exists, but collecting the urine from portable toilets and extracting human urokinase from it, rather than using it for cleaners, glazes, and flavorings. And, after searching for confirmation, here it is: http://www.toilets.com/Pharm/pharm_production.htm

While lant or leint seems to have been a real thing, either it was very rare in medieval times and later, or there was a more common word for it. It doesn't appear in Google Ngrams at all. (Neither does "old wash", the more common synonym from Addy's book.)

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#69

Post by manav »

tziki wrote: post #15
tlarkworthy wrote: post #8

I think a machine vision directed spray is the future. I don't fancy collecting the training data though.

Doubt it would take off, considering the low adoption rates of "regular" spray toilets in the west. It's a relatively marginal improvement after all.

Cost of bidets are coming down a lot with more domestic manufacturers. At $200-300 for a Toto-like attachment I upgraded all of my toilets. It's hard to go back once you are used to it.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#70

Post by devnonymous »

agumonkey wrote: post #48
kragen wrote: post #24

When I moved to Argentina, it took me a while to get used to bidets. But now that I'm used to them, I never use toilet paper voluntarily. It leaves your butt still dirty! As someone said, if you got poop on your arm, maybe while changing a diaper, would you wipe it off with a piece of paper and consider it clean? No, not if you're from the mainstream of any developed country. You would use water, soap, and maybe more…

how much better is water ? is it 100% clean ? is it the most efficient (outside nasa technology) ? Do we need to bring Dyson to the table ? bladeless ass wipe, only 900$

> how much better is water ? is it 100% clean ?

They did provide a reference point...

> if you got poop on your arm, maybe while changing a diaper, would you wipe it off with a piece of paper and consider it clean?

...were you expecting something more rigorous?

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