| ▲ | mstaoru 4 hours ago |
| 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 remembered as the Toilet King, he did issue a few decrees early on, and now in every Tier-88 rural Chinese village road you can find a modern toilet (yes, squat), clean, with water. Paper is hit and miss still though. Cross to Hong Kong and it's the same, but paper is reliable. Hong Kong is definitely richer. Then take any shopping mall in Bangkok, that's an absolutely next level experience, clean, smells good, relaxing music. Mmm... And EU is a freaking horror show. In many public toilets there's a used syringe compartment as well. Truly a 5-star service. |
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| ▲ | talon8635 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| 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 populations are profound |
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| ▲ | yodelleehoo 16 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | 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 have seemed to "figure it out" are wildly racist (Nordic countries, Japan, etc.) or authoritarian (China), but that's that underlying attitude: it an outsider's fault. And even IF you are "one of their own" and you fall off the wagon, you find yourself with a bus ticket to a Blue State sanctuary city courtesy of your local Red Leaders. I live in a city that is a dumping ground where Red States have bussed the homeless populations -- out of sight out of mind -- and even before this, homelessness was a growing due to skyrocketing rents, medical costs, and simply falling behind the treadmill. And now gave crazy new drugs, crazy new inflation, and even more unchecked greed, there's really no stopping this so called "antisocial" behavior. Why care about a society when it doesn't give a fuck about you>? Then again, when I was in college in the mid-80s, Freshman year a bunch of young white engineering boys in my dorm were laughing about how they smeared shit all over the bathroom walls of a McDonalds. So, it's been going on forever, but now the scale is massive. I include "white" because a lot of people think this is a non-white, non-rich, non-christian problem. | |
| ▲ | moduspol an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yet another consequence of no longer living in a high-trust society. | | |
| ▲ | Avicebron an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | 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 idk, that doesn't seem wholly accurate. | | | |
| ▲ | yorwba 23 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | In China, it has more to do with putting drug users into labor camps: https://madeinchinajournal.com/2019/10/25/punish-and-cure-fo... |
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| ▲ | mmooss 42 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | > massive population of antisocial people 'Social' isn't 'nobody annoys me'; it's empathy for, caring about, and helping others, especially those you don't like - otherwise it means nothing. I'm in the West, and I support liberty - the defining feature of the West - uber alles; it's their right. I'm not threatening others' freedom so you can feel more at ease. (You are more of a problem for them - they can't have you locked up.) | | |
| ▲ | kraken_cult 40 minutes ago | parent [-] | | 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? | | |
| ▲ | 0xcde4c3db 2 minutes ago | parent [-] | | 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? |
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| ▲ | freehorse 38 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| "EU" is too broad of a term to describe cultural/social/political norms such as public toilets. There are places in the EU with fairly decent toilets, and others with almost none. In some you have to pay in many public toilets, in others they are free. The best bet in most places are public buildings such as libraries. And very often cafes etc allow you use a toilet, esp if you have health reasons and ask them nicely, though ymmv. The biggest issue as others said is vandalism, so in (richer) countries where public toilets are cleaned more often the toilets are much better. |
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| ▲ | deepsun 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| What's wrong about syringe disposal? A significant portion of population has diabetes. And even if a drug addict uses it, still better than throwing to the trash, similar to how cigarette disposals are mandatory in typical airplanes. |
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| ▲ | michaelt 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Some measures that mitigate a problem are associated with places where said problem is a frequent occurrence. If a place has tornado drills and tornado shelters, it's a safe bet that tornados are at least somewhat likely. Some safety and security measures have the effect of making a place feel unsafe and insecure, for this reason. | |
| ▲ | xienze 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > What's wrong about syringe disposal? A significant portion of population has diabetes. Ask yourself if that's truly what motivated those being installed... > And even if a drug addict uses it, still better than throwing to the trash The problem is they still throw their needles all over the ground. As is typical, the intentions are noble, but what ends up happening is people who can't even be bothered to not shoot up their gutter heroin in public are given society's tacit approval to do what they're doing, thus accelerating the societal rot. | | |
| ▲ | cryptolobster 7 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > The problem is they still throw their needles all over the ground But it's better if at least some of them are in the trash and not scattered around, isn't it? I may be wrong but it seems to me that public opinion doesn't matter to these people anyway, so there's no point in getting rid of such garbage bins | |
| ▲ | alexjplant 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I looked into this a while back (~6 years ago) and it basically broke down like this: diabetics outnumber injectable drug users two to one but not all diabetics use injectable insulin and the ones that do are more likely to do so at home. Drug users, however, have less compunction about sticking themselves in a public space, particular the homeless. Best guess based on these numbers is that it's a 50-50 split between these populations as to who's using public sharps containers. > society's tacit approval to do what they're doing, thus accelerating the societal rot. This argument could be made about providing drugs themselves but fails under the faintest scrutiny for sharps containers because said containers have wide uses beyond shooting up heroin. | | |
| ▲ | freehorse an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Homeless heroin addicts who inject themselves in public are not uniformly distributed. Thus while in some places you would expect some such injectable drug use in a public toilet (though I doubt most would bother to go find a toilet for that anyway), that is unlikely for the majority of toilets in a country that contain syringe disposers. On the other hand, one would expect that diabetics who inject insulin would be closer to be uniformly distributed (conditional to the population distribution). If one could find syringe disposers only in areas where public heroin use commonly takes place that would be believable, but it is not the case. In contrast, there are actual, real programs and places in many countries to manage issues arising with syringe use, trying to reduce syringe sharing to reduce blood-transmissible diseases etc. | |
| ▲ | oasisbob an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | > not all diabetics use injectable insulin and the ones that do are more likely to do so at home. I'd love to hear the citation for this one, as people using injectable insulin generally need to do in conjunction with eating, and I can't think of where you'd get the idea that T1 diabetics who use injectable insulin avoid eating outside the home as a general rule. Granted, nowadays plenty of people are using insulin pumps which decimates disposable syringe use, but I'm really puzzled where you picked up that in-home/away-from-home impression from. |
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| ▲ | oasisbob an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Ask yourself if that's truly what motivated those being installed... What motivates this infrastructure is the danger to workers if syringes are just thrown into the trash. My dad had type one diabetes with a type A personality, and was very particular about making sure that syringes were disposed of properly. Not everyone is this careful, and they put others at risk. | |
| ▲ | deepsun 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | oook, so if according to your message, the disposals are mostly used by diabetics, then again, what's wrong with them? | | |
| ▲ | __MatrixMan__ an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | It's like how immigrants are treated in the US. There's nothing wrong with them. They're in fact very beneficial. But since half of the dominant political ideology in the region cannot exist without a boogeyman, they get attacked anyway because they make a convenient boogeyman. | |
| ▲ | Nifty3929 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They weren't saying there is anything wrong with the syringe disposal per se, but instead that it's indicative of the people who use those facilities and the priorities of the authorities that manage them. It is observed that you have junkies shooting up in bathrooms, evidenced by needles strewn on the ground. So the solution from the authorities is to install syringe disposal containers. | | |
| ▲ | _carbyau_ 32 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > So the solution from the authorities is to install syringe disposal containers. Given the cost vs the benefits, why not? A box mounted to a wall is a pittance. Feel free to elaborate your plan for the junkies that would be both cost effective, practical and ethical. |
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| ▲ | chrisfosterelli 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > I lived for many years in China and Thailand, and toilets are free, clean, and plentiful there I don't know about China but this was the opposite of my experience in Thailand. The majority of public toilets I encountered had an attendant you had to pay for access. Shopping malls / hotels / other places were you were already paying to be there were the exception of course. |
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| ▲ | pyreko 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > China > toilets are... clean Okay I'm going to have to say that this _really_ depends on where you are. Sometimes, yes, especially newer buildings, but man I have seen some horrors there in the past few years when it comes to bathrooms in terms of cleanliness and smell (the frequent smoking in a lot of bathrooms doesn't help). This is coming from someone primarily experiencing Canadian and American bathrooms, for reference, and a lot of those are pretty nasty. I think it's getting better at least... Just to be clear though I agree generally, at least from my experience with East Asia. Hong Kong often has really good bathrooms now IMO (I feel like it improved a lot between 2018 to 2023?). Japan is also really good from my experience (fancy-ass bidets). Taiwan was fine too from my recollection. |
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| ▲ | qurren 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > _really_ depends on where you are That kinda applies to anywhere in the world. On the average, I've seen much cleaner toilets in first-tier China cities than first-tier US cities. And much more accessible as well. Free public toilets literally everywhere. All over the city, in every shopping center, in every coffee shop. And you don't need to buy a coffee and trash it to use them. | | |
| ▲ | ux266478 an hour ago | parent [-] | | > I've seen much cleaner toilets in first-tier China cities than first-tier US cities. That definitely tracks. LA has a massive unhoused person issue, many of whom with severe mental disorders. You feel a lot that in the commons, especially as you get near DTLA. New York is shabby and dirty in general. More so than a big city usually is. And it's not really a charming shabbiness from an extreme subtropical climate as you get in Taiwan. The relationship China has with its tier 1 cities is more similar to other Asian countries, like Japan and Korea, than it is to the US. |
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| ▲ | seanmcdirmid an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | The worst toilet I ever saw was in China, but at 5000 meters in Sichuan, it was two slippery two by fours that you had to straddle on over a big open pit (don't slip or lose balance!). That was such an awesome trip circa 2005. | | |
| ▲ | prmph an hour ago | parent [-] | | Well the worst one I ever saw was in New York City, of all places. | | |
| ▲ | Spooky23 an hour ago | parent [-] | | My favorite was a place in Chinatown with a curtain for privacy. Outside a couple of guys where killing a seemingly limitless collection of lives chickens. |
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| ▲ | seanmcdirmid an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Weird. When I was living in Beijing, I made a mental map of all my bathroom choices when I wasn't at a luxury shopping mall, because they just weren't that convenient and available. This includes squats, which I included since sit down toilets were often hogged by some guy on the phone doing a long smoking session (squats never were, which is great when you absolutely need to go!). But this was in the time when Xi had just taken office, so it is probably better now. I didn't see any issues on my trip to Chengdu this summer. I have a lot bigger problems in downtown Seattle today, which is just really bad (either the toilets don't exist, or there is some homeless guy doing drugs in the only stall they have). Sigh. |
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| ▲ | lovich 35 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > Then take any shopping mall in Bangkok That is an extremely small subset of Thailand. I wouldn’t surprised if high end malls in any western capital city also had good toilets. Most toilets outside of malls in Thailand were bring your own soap and toilet paper and covered in water from the bum guns. |
