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Where did all the public bathrooms go?

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651–660 of 873 posts

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#651
post #94

This really hits home. As a person with IBS I basically cannot peacefully go outside in EU. I lived for many years in China and Thailand, and toilets are free, clean, and plentiful there, and you can easily ask any place to use their toilet - there's no stigma. I even had to run into a police station in rural China once. They were 100% chill about it, though they had to unlock a gate for me. Xi Jinping really will be…

> Then take any shopping mall in Bangkok, that's an absolutely next level experience, clean, smells good, relaxing music. Mmm...

When I traveled to Thailand, I first stopped in Abu Dhabi. The bathrooms in the airport were amazing. I couldn't believe they had stalls that were basically personal bathrooms (whereas in the US, your feet are exposed, and anyone who wants to see you can simply peak through the many cracks, or even throw something on you from above). The bidet thing was a little weird at first, but had no choice but to use it.

Likewise, when I got to Thailand (Bangkok), I could not believe how clean the bathrooms were (with the personal room-style stall as well). These bathrooms were as clean as you'd find them in a clean-freaks home.

When I arrived back in the States (JFK NY), I needed to use the bathroom really bad, but upon entering the restroom... I just couldn't do it. Urine all over the floors and toilets. Even at the entrance. Graffiti everywhere. Absolutely disgusting.

It really changed my perspective. And let's not forget bidets... I'm mind-blown that people in the US use tissue paper to wipe their a*es. Yeah, I've done it for most of my life as well, but after using a bidet in multiple countries, you realize how tissue paper alone isn't effective. It honestly makes me angry that they're not in every public/private bathroom.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#652
post #94

This really hits home. As a person with IBS I basically cannot peacefully go outside in EU. I lived for many years in China and Thailand, and toilets are free, clean, and plentiful there, and you can easily ask any place to use their toilet - there's no stigma. I even had to run into a police station in rural China once. They were 100% chill about it, though they had to unlock a gate for me. Xi Jinping really will be…

Clean toilets? In China?! You must've been to a different China than me. I've been there several times and the toilets are always atrocious. Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan always had the cleanest ones.

Well I lived there for 12 years, so yeah, might've been a "different China".

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#653
post #94

This really hits home. As a person with IBS I basically cannot peacefully go outside in EU. I lived for many years in China and Thailand, and toilets are free, clean, and plentiful there, and you can easily ask any place to use their toilet - there's no stigma. I even had to run into a police station in rural China once. They were 100% chill about it, though they had to unlock a gate for me. Xi Jinping really will be…

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).

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#654
post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how come incarceration in Asia is orders of magnitude lower than in the US?

The laws are enforced harshly and consistently, so people follow them. As a result, you have low crime and low total incarceration. Take auto theft. In California, we have 1 auto theft arrest per 15 stolen cars. Incarceration rate is 1 in 5 of those arrested, so 1 per 75 stolen cars. Japan has 1 arrest for every 2 stolen cars - A much higher rate of getting caught. Japan has about 5,000 stolen vehicles nationally per…

Could it be because Japan is populated mostly (98%) by people who have lived there for multiple generations under strict rules? Also, it's probably a cultural thing where crime is shamed.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#655
post #489
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has a low social cohension because of global immigration instead of targeted immigration compare to China. America use to share a culture because people came from the same places and shared the same religion and had a common history going back to the Romans.

> a common history going back to the Romans. Native Americans are not related to Romans. Slaves brought by force from Africa neither.

[dead]

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#656
post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assure you, if they stopped spending that money tomorrow, things would get dramatically worse, as all the people that money keeps off the streets would be on them.

Do they spend $100,000 per homeless person in Europe and Asia? If not, why don't they have similar problems?

As I remember, in Finland everyone is guaranteered an apartment, even if the person has no money.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the less extreme end, Europe also has much higher rates of catching criminals and punishes then less. I understand the US is really the outlier. I read an interesting article that laid out how that's ultimately rooted in what level of government pays for what. It's easier for local politicians to call for harsher punishment because prisons are run by state or federal but police is funded locally.

I don't think the police is underfunded in the US though?

Look at officers per 100k: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen... France has 422, Germany 349, Italy 456, US 242. There are countries that are super safe like Japan and Singapore with only 255 and 174 but I think it's safe to say that the US probably is better compared to France here. China also has only 258 but I think they make up for it through surveillance which isn't welcome in the US.

The US also doesn't train police officers well compared to most European countries. In the US it takes just a few months to become a police officer. In Germany it takes years.

Very good conversation on the general topic: https://youtu.be/6gMwh3jkWy0?is=MiTI5N1wdEpd_izP

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#658
post #94

This really hits home. As a person with IBS I basically cannot peacefully go outside in EU. I lived for many years in China and Thailand, and toilets are free, clean, and plentiful there, and you can easily ask any place to use their toilet - there's no stigma. I even had to run into a police station in rural China once. They were 100% chill about it, though they had to unlock a gate for me. Xi Jinping really will be…

Sounds like you live in top 1% area in China. That's def not true that toilets are readily available in China.

As non-chinese citizen, I veered off place I cannot go without the passport, I see crappy areas without toilets everywhere (though I was stopped by police from wondering around).

You only see where you are allowed to see. Rest of those area has no toilet, and people crap/pee everywhere.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States is certainly part of the west, and we incarcerate people at a higher rate than any other advanced nation, BY FAR. The idea that we are soft on crime is insane. Harsher punishments do not lead to lower crime.

> we incarcerate people at a higher rate than any other advanced nation, BY FAR Crime is committed at a higher rate than in any other advanced nation, though some of the others are catching up. > The idea that we are soft on crime is insane Not even a little bit insane. There are a million criminal laws on the books that do not get enforced at all. For example, I live in a state that is stereotypically conservative a…

And yet your prisons are full of people in jail for marijuana related crimes.

Because putting people in prison for weed does not stop people smoking weed.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#660
post #94

This really hits home. As a person with IBS I basically cannot peacefully go outside in EU. I lived for many years in China and Thailand, and toilets are free, clean, and plentiful there, and you can easily ask any place to use their toilet - there's no stigma. I even had to run into a police station in rural China once. They were 100% chill about it, though they had to unlock a gate for me. Xi Jinping really will be…

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…

It's not collectivism, it's the "no consequences" thing.

"back in my time" in what used to be yugoslavia, it was perfectly acceptable for an adult to slap/hit a kid who caused problem or was destroying stuff, if a dad had to come to school because the kid did something bad, that was a horrible punishment, plus no leaving the room after, no toys, no bike, no outside play, no nothing for some time.

Now? Parents protect their idiot vandal kids, threathen the school with lawyers, even if cops bring home a kid selling like weed and vomiting red wine, the parents will blame everything else except their little sunshine.

Even academically, kids can't read anymore, and we just push them on, no repeating and losing years, no nothing, here's a "2" (passing grade), go to next year, and after a few more pushes, you'll be someone elses problem, illiterate or not.

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