Japan blew my mind. You're never more than 5 minutes walk away from a free public restroom in any city or town I visited. They were always clean and supplied.
They show up on Maps apps and have reviews. I remember walking a few minutes more once, in Osaka, to try one that had excellent reviews (it was a fun and original design).
In some more rural areas these became squat potties with no toilet paper, so carry a pack of tissues with you.
I also was pleasantly surprised of the availability when I visited. But I would recommend bringing your own soap. A lot of the restrooms in the more rural areas, and even some places in the cities, don't have any soap. Hand Sanitizer won't kill norovirus, which usually spreads in restrooms.
People get so hung up on garbage, I don't get it. Keep a single plastic bag with you, put your trash in it. Take it back and throw it away at home or your hotel or wherever you're staying. Most train stations have plenty of garbage cans, and if you're traveling in Japan, you're probably taking a train.
The toilet paper sucks, sure, but that's just cheap single-ply for public use toilets. People can and do buy the good stuff for their homes. Hardly an issue to worry about.
I live in Japan. I usually have no trouble finding public restrooms or places to throw away trash. When necessary, I use the facilities at train stations.
Taking a plastic bag with you to lug around garbage is obviously inconvenient. They could just put up public garbage cans like most of the civilized world.
The hotels and public venues also had the cheap single-ply stuff.
I was not able to find any decent tissues in stores, so I doubt that people all buy the good stuff for their homes.
In cities, I agree that if you aren't used to it, it might be inconvenient.
However, 99% of hikers in Europe carry their own trash bags. It took off in the early 2000 and now it's almost a culture thing, especially amongst young hikers, and not having one is basically a social error (well, littering is, you can always ask people for an empty trash bag if you forgot yours). Honestly I can see why they choose that solution.
Hiking isn’t the same thing as walking around a town or city as a tourist.
I didn’t find the “carry your trash with you” to be too big of a hassle but what is truly barbaric is the social taboo on strolling through a park on a nice autumn day sipping your coffee!
Just since I’m posting here I did not experience what others have with the restrooms. The ones in the kobini were nasty and we often weren’t able to find public restrooms unless we happened to enter into a mall or somewhere like that where they seemed clean enough but not noteworthy. The Japanese excell in other areas of cleanliness though and you can be sure that many products will be aggressively double or triple-plastic wrapped.
> but what is truly barbaric is the social taboo on strolling through a park on a nice autumn day sipping your coffee!
Wait, what? Has anyone ever said anything to you when you strolled around a park drinking coffee? I've been in Japan over 10 years and do that all the time, no one has given a shit about it. The only time I ever hear about these "taboos" is when foreigners try to tell other foreigners how they should behave in Japan, like it has some mystique about it or something.
No but I definitely did not observe Japanese people doing it. Maybe something changed over the last couple of years but my understanding is that this is still considered a bit of bad form.
Now yea of course as an obvious foreigner nobody really cares because lol foreigner and even more so in super busy touristy areas but my understanding is it really isn’t done. Same with walking and eating.
Back when backpacker hostels used to be more social and people would talk in the common area, it wasn't unusual to hear a Japanese backpacker saying he was weirded out by the sight in that country of people eating or drinking while walking. Argentinians walking while sipping mate, for instance.
I've been living in Japan for over 10 years. Everything is not perfect but the garbage cans are so far down the list that it doesn't even register for anyone who lives here.
I didn't thought that to be a very big issue when I went there. In fact if I could swap my middle European trash cans against Japanese style accessible and clean toilets I would do so without thinking about it for a second.
What's savage is what Japan does to drug users and dealers. If the west did the same, we'd be a lot cleaner, too, since washrooms wouldn't be open door fentanyl naptime rooms. But at what cost?
For what it's worth I think a middle ground leaning closer to the west is the best approach. Save injection sites like the one in Vancouver have been a disaster, however
I can only speak for Vancouver. New West, specifically, which is probably more crack-denny than other areas. But yeah, even Starbucks will hang fake "out of order" signs on the door because it's guaranteed to become an impromptu vein shooting gallery at some point during the day.
This happens in Europe, too. In Finland, in several towns it is not unusual for (the most nondiscriminating) public restrooms to be used for heroin injection, with the needle then disposed of in the toilet bowl, preventing the next visitor from using it and making the cleaner's job even more unpleasant. I am sure this has happened in Germany at least at some points in history when some cities were internationally infamous for heroin.
I don't claim to know drugs well, but if it is being injected and causing a problem for public toilet operators, security, and cleaning staff, I just assume "heroin" because that is what people know. If you are more informed about substances, inform us here, too.
You call it savage, but the result is more civilized. Why should we settle for a middle ground? Why should we negotiate with degenerates who can't even be trusted with a toilet?
There is nothing savage about the way Japan treats those who are incompatible with civilization. On the contrary, to parley with the savages is what makes you a savage too.
The comment you're replying to appears to be responding to the comment made by shoobiedoo in response to what you originally said. It makes sense in this context, whether or not you agree with the position.
Not that I would particularly like to live there but Singapore has fairly clean public restrooms. I suspect there is more to this than the ethnic makeup of the country.
In the West, I’d argue (from personal experience) that a high trust society probably correlates more with high level of employment and (maybe as a second order effect) reasonably high income.
Taking Switzerland as an example, it’s possible to have a managed/positive approach to immigration and maintain very high societal standards.
Switzerland is an okay counter-example I'd say, Singapore not as much since their 'guest workers' aren't real immigrants and get NONE of the social benefits/housing that Singaporeans get. Very very few people become proper immigrants (full residents) to Singapore.
The real problem with both Switzerland and Singapore examples though, they're small tax havens full of rich people.
Kind of like Monaco...which surprise...is actually 70% immigrants!
But when the counter examples are Singapore, Switzerland and Monaco...I think we both have to be honest and look at what we're actually measuring ("the global super rich are higher trust regardless of country of origin").
Finding exceptions doesn't disprove the correlation.
Singapore is a melting pot of many different ethnicities, it’s not xenophobic, and more than 40% of people living in Singapore are immigrants. And it has extremely low crime.
This lauding of ethnic homogeneity and xenophobia just seems to be a dog whistle from the American right because they want to say “See? If we kicked out all the non-whites it would fix our problems!” it’s not true; It’s just a very, very, very old racist playbook.
One of the major founding ethnicities of Singapore was overseas Chinese, who filled the same role anthropologists have long documented as Jews in Europe or Lebanese in Africa. It is unusual for subpopulations fulfilling that economic role to engage in petty crime (organized crime can be another story). And as the other poster mentions, the distinction between citizens and outsiders is about as severe as in GCC countries. So, the diversity of Singapore is somewhat less unrestrained than outsiders often depict.
Singapore is just further evidence of my statements being true.
They also brutally enforce social norms and anti-drug policy, and in 2025 they had a total of 35K people granted permanent residency (in a country of 6M people).
In Singapore you're confusing temporary foreign workers with true immigration. In fact Singapore is an extremely low immigration country.
None of these foreign workers qualify for Singapore's public housing or healthcare for example.
I'm pro immigration and left-leaning, but I don't disagree with the right wingers that ethnic homogeneity leads to higher social trust (many studies have demonstrated this). I prefer having immigration though.
By ethnic groups according to Wikipedia it’s 75% Chinese. The UK is 81% white according to Wikipedia. US at 61% white. Spain is 85% “Spaniard”. (I’m just picking the dominant group)
Are you willing to say the United States is much more racially diverse than these countries? How would you then assess the political systems in comparison?
When you go around saying that we should whip degenerates to be a civilised society, you don’t need to explain why you don’t mind being called a Nazi. Everybody knows why.
Germany's ideology was bad, we know this because it abjectly failed and lead Germany to destruction. Singapore's ideology is good,we know this because it has lead Singapore to a safe, clean and productive society. Stop being obtuse and judge it empirically. The results are what matters.
Japan is great, because they realized that if you stop giving a fuck about public debt you can make a great country happen.
Who could have thought that with investment rather than letting everything crumble things would get better?
Meanwhile here everyone is close to tears if you propose anything for the public, because that might lead to lowering the tax break for some huge multi national that then would not get the well-deserved pay-off for their lobbying work.
And to be fair who wants to live under a regime that is the worst kind of communism, treating people who want need pee, but don't pay with respect, like Japan? (sarcasm)
> Japan is great, because they realized that if you stop giving a fuck about public debt you can make a great country happen.
Japan can largely ignore its public debt because its mostly owned by the Japanese themselves, and thus contained within the nation & erodible via inflation.
Most other countries are restricted from doing this due to the massive foreign ownership of national debt, & ending up in hands/firms/governments outside of their nation.
> Japan is great, because they realized that if you stop giving a fuck about public debt you can make a great country happen.
I don’t know if that’s a key contributor but with those economic policies you also it seems wind up with low economic growth and in a time when you might end to raise interest rates doing so is catastrophic - leaves little room for flexibility.
Bidets without tissue paper only works for people with very super fiber intake or mega-absorptive intestines. Otherwise, no amount of hot streaming water will wash you completely.
Three competing gas station/ convenience stores were built in my area the past few years. All have at least 20 fuel pumps and sell hot carry out food. All have public restrooms that I assume met building codes, but one has a cramped men's room with one stall and one urinal. The other two have much larger restrooms with diaper changing stations. The other two also offer free tire inflation pumps available without purchase.
I'll go out of my way to support companies that do the right thing.
Do you not have a bladder? Do you never leave home for longer than a few hours? Are you aware that some people may have smaller bladders or produce more urine for various reasons?
If anything, toilets aren't discussed nearly enough. There is a huge lack of public toilets pretty much everywhere in the world.
Yes, most people have to use a toilet occasionally?
I can personally attest that having mild gi issues can make most of Europe a bit of a hellscape, with their expensive and simultaneously gross toilets. As an Australian I never appreciated clean public toilets before going there.
Congratulations on being in the top (guess) 5% of humans in this potentially very embarrassing regard. But please maintain a discretely charitable attitude toward the many who are less fortunate than you.
Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer.
[drowned out by moaning and screaming]”
—Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
It is quite interesting to note, that when I read this as a teenager, I did not even try to find out what “micturitions” are, because I confidently assumed that these were all nonsense words.
You'll love that micturition is not equal to urination.
One is the act of expelling fluids from the body, the other is the complete whoa to go system of fluid capture, pipelined filtering, storage, treating, and feedback system for expulsion along with the pipe discharge.
Throwing a ball about with urinary tract types and listening to them argue back and forth.
To clarify, micturition is very much just the process of voiding, the wave-like contractions of the detrusor muscle and the relaxation of the internal and external sphincters, and the signals that trigger that process.
The study of micturition, how far back you might chase to fully grasp what's up when voiding has issues, gets a bit more expansive.
It's a stretch to look as far back as the kidneys, sure - but you likely know how compulsives get when they're getting deep in the wees.
Varies by culture and class, you'll find some people up in arms about almost any mention of bodily functions.
ie. for some urinate and pee are just as bad as piss or wee.
Luckily my cup runneth over and I can decently speak of pissing, going for a slash, splashing the porcelain and otherwise making water in a multitude of ways in my own locale.
It's far worse I'm afraid, you're describing level one beginner English; Colloquial English, aka Inception English, doubles up alternate meanings for the extant exuberance of words and phrases.
Just view the article as an interesting sign of a shifting social norm. It has been decades now since "shit" and "piss" have been pretty normal, not taboo, words in European English (possibly aided by their resemblance to German and French counterparts that are less profane than the English words), and I had already observed that a softening has been occurring in North American and Australian English at least since social media gave people the opportunity to broadcast their use of the words.
It just seems intentionally unpleasant -- as in the insult "Piss off!" You don't say "Urinate off!" or "Pee off!" just like you don't say "Make love off!"
At least in print, my sense is that this topic is dominated by angry voices proclaiming that public bathroom are a disgracefully neglected human right. Especially for themselves. But with amazingly little to say about the practical realities on the supply side. Public restrooms don't come from Santa Claus, and they cost a lot both to build and maintain. Then there are the costs and miseries of security. Gratitude toward business providing restrooms seems nonexistent.
(Comparing to, for instance, people campaigning against hunger. Those folks seem keenly aware that food for the needy has to come from somewhere - whether donated or paid for - then be sorted and stored, possibly repackaged and transported, maybe prepared and cooked, then regularly distributed to those needing it. And if you botch even one step, then you have failed at feeding the poor.)
You pay taxes and taxes fund things which are good for society as a whole. It's not that hard. You don't beg for donations. This stuff isn't optional or the result of benevolent benefactors. If you live in society then you contribute to society.
If taxes are what matters, America would have the best public restrooms in the world because it's the richest country.
But what really matters is culture. If you have a small percentage of people who are bad actors and are not punished for it, they ruin it for everyone.
---
Let me give you a small example of culture and enforcement. I live in a small city in Romania. I once traveled by plane to London. The airport in my city is very small. When boarding, despite the fact that the zigzag queue was 3 lines long, people lifted the cordon and went straight to the door. I was probably the only one who followed it.
When we arrived at Heathrow, people did the same thing. The zigzag queue at Heathrow is very long, so it feels slightly fairer to skip it if there's literally no one in front of you (it was 2 AM or something). But as soon as the first person skipped the line and a second person was going for it, a guard noticed him and ordered him to go back. He tried to "negotiate" but the guard only lifted a finger and told him to "go back".
No one tried to skip after those two.
When you have a culture with no enforcement, a small minority (maybe 2%) of people ruin it for everyone and you feel like an idiot still following the rules. This makes the majority imitate the bad actors because "I might as well too".
No amount of money in the world can fix bad culture.
Are you saying you think citizens should blindly follow even pointless rules in order to be a good culture? Because otherwise your example makes no sense to me. What is gained by people walking completely through a large empty queue?
You can't pay janitors enough to deal with degenerates who routinely deliberately destroy public bathrooms in western countries. It's a job for police and the courts, but those are dysfunctional in a way which "more money" doesn't fix.
Result is all the clean and useful bathrooms are private, because only thus can shit-smearing vandals be reasonably excluded (and only then, somewhat.)
So you can't pay a janitor enough to deal with vandals, but somehow the minimum wage bartender that already has to tend to a bar and cash register is able to keep their toilets clean no problem?
It's not that hard to make toilets that are nearly indestructible and can be very efficiently cleaned by a guy in a "hazmat" suit with a pressure washer. It probably wouldn't be that hard to largely automate this. But the market for this is small and mostly governments, so prices are high and innovation is low.
Do you realize how much money police arrests, courts, and jail cost? A janitor and occassional repairs are way cheaper any way I can look at it. There arent gangs of people walking around with grinders or hacksaws fucking up as much stuff as possible despite what you may want to believe.
This is society. Its origins are people banding together to collectivize violence and its legitimate uses in order to protect themselves from the state of nature in which the strong take what they will and the weak suffer what they must.
Should we also be grateful for restaurants for having seats, or for stores having breathable air?
Cities should not be incompatible with basic human existence. I can bring a bagged lunch and eat it on-the-go. Would people be as open to me taking a shit in a bag on the sidewalk?
Yes. I am one of those voices. And my argument isn't that they do not cost money. My argument is that we can afford it, but chose to instead give the money to people and companies who already have enough. And I know literally no one who claims public restrooms are free to maintain.
Toilets and water should be basic infrastructure (and in some places they are). Business with toilets are a really unreliable way to offer toilets, since they will all come up with their own rules.
And it is ridiculous to pretend they can't be afforded. Ever been to Japan? Every train station has toilets since the 80s, literally every other store has freely usable public toilets. They all use the same signage. They are clean and free to use.
What is the point of society if not creating an environment within which we all can thrive? Yes I know, some want it to maximize the thriving only for certain (rich) people. I call these egoists.
Exactly. If a business can't afford to provide a bathroom, it can't afford to run a business.
It's like saying child labor should be legalised because your business would go bankrupt without underpaid child workers: it just means your business model isn't viable!
> public bathroom are a disgracefully neglected human right.
Well, they are. Just as drinking fountains.
> Public restrooms don't come from Santa Claus, and they cost a lot both to build and maintain. Then there are the costs and miseries of security. Gratitude toward business providing restrooms seems nonexistent.
s/restroom/park/g. Hey, it's still true! And explains why there are almost no public parks around.
Edit: oh, and before someone comments on unhygienicity of drinking fountains: you're not supposed to kiss the nozzle or, heavens forbid, to fellate it to drink. Let about 1/2–1/3 of the top of the spout inside of your mouth and drink it; leave the rest outside.
I live near a park. I watch that drinking fountain. They bathe in there at times. They lift their dogs to drink from it despite. It breaks because they kick the button.
They are the losers, the educated affluent, the youthful of our society.
In Switzerland I did not see such issues with the drinking fountains which are everywhere.
It's certainly a different environment from a large American city, though we also have misbehaving youths and a few drug addicts that are perhaps homeless.
This is just a question of resource allocation and priorities. If a society can afford the displaced costs of unregulated production and extraction, or fleets of aircraft carriers and upkeep for however many thousand nuclear weapons it possesses, or oligarchs (how many is it now?) diverting wealth into superyachts, it can also afford sufficient spaces for people to piss in and janitors to clean them.
But - my experience - it's just another day of the week when advocates for hunger relief do everything from spending money on mass-market advertising, to showing up en masse at city gov't meetings to argue for the laws|zoning|city support|whatever they need, to personally mopping the floor at the soup kitchen after the meal has been served.
Vs., as a generality, "support" for public restrooms seems to consists of complaining about the status quo either privately or on the web, then going back to suffering.
Based on how involved various churches seem to be in hunger relief stuff, I'd bet most of those groups' organizational advantage comes straight from pulpits and pews. Say whatever you will about the Bad Things that religions have done all through history, or about their deities and beliefs being BS - but organized religion is organized, and understands how to make stuff happen. And it's pretty common for their Believers to also believe in working pretty hard to do just that.
Vs. - at least in private comments I hear, and the occasional essays I recall seeing on HN about this - there have been essentially zero suggestions of ever lifting a finger to address the public restroom problem. Send an unhappy email the Mayor? Nope. Google search for what a city council candidate might have said on the subject before you vote? Never. Even being tidy in the restroom of a non-restaurant business, and showing some hint of gratitude to the clerk? It is a point in favor of this particular article that it doesn't advocate an entitled and thankless attitude.
You're absolutely correct, but the sense of entitlement from the typical HN commenter is boundless.
Many of the people who downvoted you may want nice things, but would never contribute back. They're exactly the people who would immediately ruin it. Sometimes the grass really is greener, and it's usually because there's a system at work to keep it that way.
Everyone who downvoted contributes back. They are the people who would not ruin it.
You on the other hand would definitely not want to contribute, and if any were built you'd go out of your way to ruin it, though indirectly (e.g. by working to reduce/remove funding for maintenance)
Japan blew my mind. You're never more than 5 minutes walk away from a free public restroom in any city or town I visited. They were always clean and supplied.
They show up on Maps apps and have reviews. I remember walking a few minutes more once, in Osaka, to try one that had excellent reviews (it was a fun and original design).
In some more rural areas these became squat potties with no toilet paper, so carry a pack of tissues with you.
I also was pleasantly surprised of the availability when I visited. But I would recommend bringing your own soap. A lot of the restrooms in the more rural areas, and even some places in the cities, don't have any soap. Hand Sanitizer won't kill norovirus, which usually spreads in restrooms.
Japan was amazing in these regards. It truly feels liberating when going somewhere means you literally do not need to worry about that specific thing.
When I first went to Japan I felt like we in the west live like fucking savages.
While that's good, Japan has other issues to worry about.
Since there are no trash cans, you have to carry garbage with you until you're back home, or maybe find another store where you can dispose of it.
The toilet paper and tissues in Japan are extremely thin and in my view quite inconvenient.
People get so hung up on garbage, I don't get it. Keep a single plastic bag with you, put your trash in it. Take it back and throw it away at home or your hotel or wherever you're staying. Most train stations have plenty of garbage cans, and if you're traveling in Japan, you're probably taking a train.
The toilet paper sucks, sure, but that's just cheap single-ply for public use toilets. People can and do buy the good stuff for their homes. Hardly an issue to worry about.
I live in Japan. I usually have no trouble finding public restrooms or places to throw away trash. When necessary, I use the facilities at train stations.
Taking a plastic bag with you to lug around garbage is obviously inconvenient. They could just put up public garbage cans like most of the civilized world.
The hotels and public venues also had the cheap single-ply stuff.
I was not able to find any decent tissues in stores, so I doubt that people all buy the good stuff for their homes.
In cities, I agree that if you aren't used to it, it might be inconvenient.
However, 99% of hikers in Europe carry their own trash bags. It took off in the early 2000 and now it's almost a culture thing, especially amongst young hikers, and not having one is basically a social error (well, littering is, you can always ask people for an empty trash bag if you forgot yours). Honestly I can see why they choose that solution.
Hiking isn’t the same thing as walking around a town or city as a tourist.
I didn’t find the “carry your trash with you” to be too big of a hassle but what is truly barbaric is the social taboo on strolling through a park on a nice autumn day sipping your coffee!
Just since I’m posting here I did not experience what others have with the restrooms. The ones in the kobini were nasty and we often weren’t able to find public restrooms unless we happened to enter into a mall or somewhere like that where they seemed clean enough but not noteworthy. The Japanese excell in other areas of cleanliness though and you can be sure that many products will be aggressively double or triple-plastic wrapped.
> but what is truly barbaric is the social taboo on strolling through a park on a nice autumn day sipping your coffee!
Wait, what? Has anyone ever said anything to you when you strolled around a park drinking coffee? I've been in Japan over 10 years and do that all the time, no one has given a shit about it. The only time I ever hear about these "taboos" is when foreigners try to tell other foreigners how they should behave in Japan, like it has some mystique about it or something.
No but I definitely did not observe Japanese people doing it. Maybe something changed over the last couple of years but my understanding is that this is still considered a bit of bad form.
Now yea of course as an obvious foreigner nobody really cares because lol foreigner and even more so in super busy touristy areas but my understanding is it really isn’t done. Same with walking and eating.
Back when backpacker hostels used to be more social and people would talk in the common area, it wasn't unusual to hear a Japanese backpacker saying he was weirded out by the sight in that country of people eating or drinking while walking. Argentinians walking while sipping mate, for instance.
The people living here seem to survive just fine without these garbage cans, so I guess it's not really an "issue for them to worry about" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Nice for them, but it's obviously inconvenient if you are not able to buy some food to consume in public and dispose of the garbage right there.
They could do better, and I see no need to pretend that everything over there was perfect as is.
I've been living in Japan for over 10 years. Everything is not perfect but the garbage cans are so far down the list that it doesn't even register for anyone who lives here.
I didn't thought that to be a very big issue when I went there. In fact if I could swap my middle European trash cans against Japanese style accessible and clean toilets I would do so without thinking about it for a second.
What's savage is what Japan does to drug users and dealers. If the west did the same, we'd be a lot cleaner, too, since washrooms wouldn't be open door fentanyl naptime rooms. But at what cost?
For what it's worth I think a middle ground leaning closer to the west is the best approach. Save injection sites like the one in Vancouver have been a disaster, however
I live in Europe and public restrooms don’t feel like fentanyl naptime rooms. Maybe that’s more of a North America thing?
I can only speak for Vancouver. New West, specifically, which is probably more crack-denny than other areas. But yeah, even Starbucks will hang fake "out of order" signs on the door because it's guaranteed to become an impromptu vein shooting gallery at some point during the day.
This happens in Europe, too. In Finland, in several towns it is not unusual for (the most nondiscriminating) public restrooms to be used for heroin injection, with the needle then disposed of in the toilet bowl, preventing the next visitor from using it and making the cleaner's job even more unpleasant. I am sure this has happened in Germany at least at some points in history when some cities were internationally infamous for heroin.
Cool story bro. Heroin use is practically nonexistent in Finland, opioid addicts use cheaper and easier to obtain alternatives.
I don't claim to know drugs well, but if it is being injected and causing a problem for public toilet operators, security, and cleaning staff, I just assume "heroin" because that is what people know. If you are more informed about substances, inform us here, too.
It’s buprenorphine
Sounds good to me! Fuck drug users, why should they get to trash public spaces for the rest of us.
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You call it savage, but the result is more civilized. Why should we settle for a middle ground? Why should we negotiate with degenerates who can't even be trusted with a toilet?
There is nothing savage about the way Japan treats those who are incompatible with civilization. On the contrary, to parley with the savages is what makes you a savage too.
Huh? What do you think I said here? The point you attack doesn't appear to resemble anything I (1) meant to say and (2) actually said.
The comment you're replying to appears to be responding to the comment made by shoobiedoo in response to what you originally said. It makes sense in this context, whether or not you agree with the position.
That’s what happens when there aren’t druggies and nut jobs in public everywhere.
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You didn't even mention high trust society this time, I feel like you're slipping
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Not that I would particularly like to live there but Singapore has fairly clean public restrooms. I suspect there is more to this than the ethnic makeup of the country.
In the West, I’d argue (from personal experience) that a high trust society probably correlates more with high level of employment and (maybe as a second order effect) reasonably high income.
Taking Switzerland as an example, it’s possible to have a managed/positive approach to immigration and maintain very high societal standards.
Switzerland is an okay counter-example I'd say, Singapore not as much since their 'guest workers' aren't real immigrants and get NONE of the social benefits/housing that Singaporeans get. Very very few people become proper immigrants (full residents) to Singapore.
The real problem with both Switzerland and Singapore examples though, they're small tax havens full of rich people.
Kind of like Monaco...which surprise...is actually 70% immigrants!
But when the counter examples are Singapore, Switzerland and Monaco...I think we both have to be honest and look at what we're actually measuring ("the global super rich are higher trust regardless of country of origin").
Finding exceptions doesn't disprove the correlation.
Your bewildering obsession with "populism" sure does define your entire worldview
Care to offer a rebuttal to any of my statements?
Would love to hear you destroy me with superior logic and/or educate me where I'm wrong.
Or we can just stick to attacking me personally because what I've said makes you emotionally upset.
Good lord man go back to Reddit or something
I accept your surrender.
What a prototype you are
Singapore is a melting pot of many different ethnicities, it’s not xenophobic, and more than 40% of people living in Singapore are immigrants. And it has extremely low crime.
This lauding of ethnic homogeneity and xenophobia just seems to be a dog whistle from the American right because they want to say “See? If we kicked out all the non-whites it would fix our problems!” it’s not true; It’s just a very, very, very old racist playbook.
One of the major founding ethnicities of Singapore was overseas Chinese, who filled the same role anthropologists have long documented as Jews in Europe or Lebanese in Africa. It is unusual for subpopulations fulfilling that economic role to engage in petty crime (organized crime can be another story). And as the other poster mentions, the distinction between citizens and outsiders is about as severe as in GCC countries. So, the diversity of Singapore is somewhat less unrestrained than outsiders often depict.
I’m not an outsider; I’m an immigrant living in Singapore. And it’s very racially diverse.
Singapore is just further evidence of my statements being true.
They also brutally enforce social norms and anti-drug policy, and in 2025 they had a total of 35K people granted permanent residency (in a country of 6M people).
In Singapore you're confusing temporary foreign workers with true immigration. In fact Singapore is an extremely low immigration country.
None of these foreign workers qualify for Singapore's public housing or healthcare for example.
I'm pro immigration and left-leaning, but I don't disagree with the right wingers that ethnic homogeneity leads to higher social trust (many studies have demonstrated this). I prefer having immigration though.
> Also, imo Singapore is just further evidence of my statements being true.
Not anything to do with race it isn’t. It’s a direct contradiction to your claims.
By ethnic groups according to Wikipedia it’s 75% Chinese. The UK is 81% white according to Wikipedia. US at 61% white. Spain is 85% “Spaniard”. (I’m just picking the dominant group)
Are you willing to say the United States is much more racially diverse than these countries? How would you then assess the political systems in comparison?
I think you might’ve misunderstood my point or replied to the wrong person.
Sure could you clarify your point then?
I don’t see anything in my original comment that was unclear.
Ok in that case I just assume my point applies
You didn’t make a point. You asked a question. If there was a point, it was not apparent.
Ok then it was just a general question without any point. Others can read and intuit what they would like.
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You sound like a Nazi when you call people degenerates. Was that your intended meaning?
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When you go around saying that we should whip degenerates to be a civilised society, you don’t need to explain why you don’t mind being called a Nazi. Everybody knows why.
It's just that dehumanizing language sounds really Nazi.
It's a tell.
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Yeah. Nazi Germany was really clean, too.
Gotta clean up those degenerates, amirite?
Germany's ideology was bad, we know this because it abjectly failed and lead Germany to destruction. Singapore's ideology is good,we know this because it has lead Singapore to a safe, clean and productive society. Stop being obtuse and judge it empirically. The results are what matters.
> Germany's ideology was bad, we know this because it abjectly failed and lead Germany to destruction.
Nazi Germany’s ideology was bad for a reason completely different from how successful they were.
> Stop being obtuse and judge it empirically. The results are what matters.
This sounds like you think Nazi Germany would have a good ideology if only they had been successful.
When your primary criticism of the Nazis is that they weren’t successful enough, it’s quite clear you are a Nazi in every way that matters.
Are you worried about the degenerates polluting your bloodline, too?
Japan is great, because they realized that if you stop giving a fuck about public debt you can make a great country happen.
Who could have thought that with investment rather than letting everything crumble things would get better?
Meanwhile here everyone is close to tears if you propose anything for the public, because that might lead to lowering the tax break for some huge multi national that then would not get the well-deserved pay-off for their lobbying work.
And to be fair who wants to live under a regime that is the worst kind of communism, treating people who want need pee, but don't pay with respect, like Japan? (sarcasm)
> Japan is great, because they realized that if you stop giving a fuck about public debt you can make a great country happen.
Japan can largely ignore its public debt because its mostly owned by the Japanese themselves, and thus contained within the nation & erodible via inflation.
Most other countries are restricted from doing this due to the massive foreign ownership of national debt, & ending up in hands/firms/governments outside of their nation.
> Japan is great, because they realized that if you stop giving a fuck about public debt you can make a great country happen.
I don’t know if that’s a key contributor but with those economic policies you also it seems wind up with low economic growth and in a time when you might end to raise interest rates doing so is catastrophic - leaves little room for flexibility.
Use the bidet. Tissues are for savages.
Bidets without tissue paper only works for people with very super fiber intake or mega-absorptive intestines. Otherwise, no amount of hot streaming water will wash you completely.
Uh. See a doctor?
I have every type of turd. A sampling of soft, skittles, lumps, explosive, and everything in between. All have been water-soluble.
Three competing gas station/ convenience stores were built in my area the past few years. All have at least 20 fuel pumps and sell hot carry out food. All have public restrooms that I assume met building codes, but one has a cramped men's room with one stall and one urinal. The other two have much larger restrooms with diaper changing stations. The other two also offer free tire inflation pumps available without purchase.
I'll go out of my way to support companies that do the right thing.
Romans had public toilets and fountains 2000 years ago. No matter who you are, let your body function the way it was designed.
Free public water and toilets are surely the first signs of civilisation.
Didn't realize the Rogers Park, Chicago Target had a restroom. Good to know, as an old guy.
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I think it’s been like 20 years since I had to use a truly public toilet.
Is this really such a common occurrence for people? Because I feel like toilets are being discussed way too much.
Do you not have a bladder? Do you never leave home for longer than a few hours? Are you aware that some people may have smaller bladders or produce more urine for various reasons?
If anything, toilets aren't discussed nearly enough. There is a huge lack of public toilets pretty much everywhere in the world.
Yes, most people have to use a toilet occasionally?
I can personally attest that having mild gi issues can make most of Europe a bit of a hellscape, with their expensive and simultaneously gross toilets. As an Australian I never appreciated clean public toilets before going there.
Australia is great! German posting from down under...
Congratulations on being in the top (guess) 5% of humans in this potentially very embarrassing regard. But please maintain a discretely charitable attitude toward the many who are less fortunate than you.
Don't forget some people go out to public places with their kids
Is it not possible to get your point across using more decent language?
What are you, some sort of fucking nun? It might be sunday but this ain't church
You know the answer is yes. You also know they can, and did, choose not to do that. If you have to object actually object.
The problem with
is few would know WTF the author is referring to.“Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturitions are to me,
As plurdled gabbleblotchits,
On a lurgid bee,
That mordiously hath blurted out,
Its earted jurtles,
Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer.
[drowned out by moaning and screaming]”
—Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
It is quite interesting to note, that when I read this as a teenager, I did not even try to find out what “micturitions” are, because I confidently assumed that these were all nonsense words.
You'll love that micturition is not equal to urination.
One is the act of expelling fluids from the body, the other is the complete whoa to go system of fluid capture, pipelined filtering, storage, treating, and feedback system for expulsion along with the pipe discharge.
I don’t know where the fuck you got that idea, but I am sure that you’ll love to cite your sources.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/micturition
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/micturition#English
Throwing a ball about with urinary tract types and listening to them argue back and forth.
To clarify, micturition is very much just the process of voiding, the wave-like contractions of the detrusor muscle and the relaxation of the internal and external sphincters, and the signals that trigger that process.
The study of micturition, how far back you might chase to fully grasp what's up when voiding has issues, gets a bit more expansive.
It's a stretch to look as far back as the kidneys, sure - but you likely know how compulsives get when they're getting deep in the wees.
See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50139938
What's wrong with "urinate" or "pee"?
Varies by culture and class, you'll find some people up in arms about almost any mention of bodily functions.
ie. for some urinate and pee are just as bad as piss or wee.
Luckily my cup runneth over and I can decently speak of pissing, going for a slash, splashing the porcelain and otherwise making water in a multitude of ways in my own locale.
German has a word for everything; English has more alternate words for bodily functions than one could ever need :)
It's far worse I'm afraid, you're describing level one beginner English; Colloquial English, aka Inception English, doubles up alternate meanings for the extant exuberance of words and phrases.
Of course I might simply be taking the piss.
Just view the article as an interesting sign of a shifting social norm. It has been decades now since "shit" and "piss" have been pretty normal, not taboo, words in European English (possibly aided by their resemblance to German and French counterparts that are less profane than the English words), and I had already observed that a softening has been occurring in North American and Australian English at least since social media gave people the opportunity to broadcast their use of the words.
What’s wrong with “piss”?
It just seems intentionally unpleasant -- as in the insult "Piss off!" You don't say "Urinate off!" or "Pee off!" just like you don't say "Make love off!"
At least in print, my sense is that this topic is dominated by angry voices proclaiming that public bathroom are a disgracefully neglected human right. Especially for themselves. But with amazingly little to say about the practical realities on the supply side. Public restrooms don't come from Santa Claus, and they cost a lot both to build and maintain. Then there are the costs and miseries of security. Gratitude toward business providing restrooms seems nonexistent.
(Comparing to, for instance, people campaigning against hunger. Those folks seem keenly aware that food for the needy has to come from somewhere - whether donated or paid for - then be sorted and stored, possibly repackaged and transported, maybe prepared and cooked, then regularly distributed to those needing it. And if you botch even one step, then you have failed at feeding the poor.)
You pay taxes and taxes fund things which are good for society as a whole. It's not that hard. You don't beg for donations. This stuff isn't optional or the result of benevolent benefactors. If you live in society then you contribute to society.
It is hard and taxes are irrelevant.
If taxes are what matters, America would have the best public restrooms in the world because it's the richest country.
But what really matters is culture. If you have a small percentage of people who are bad actors and are not punished for it, they ruin it for everyone.
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Let me give you a small example of culture and enforcement. I live in a small city in Romania. I once traveled by plane to London. The airport in my city is very small. When boarding, despite the fact that the zigzag queue was 3 lines long, people lifted the cordon and went straight to the door. I was probably the only one who followed it.
When we arrived at Heathrow, people did the same thing. The zigzag queue at Heathrow is very long, so it feels slightly fairer to skip it if there's literally no one in front of you (it was 2 AM or something). But as soon as the first person skipped the line and a second person was going for it, a guard noticed him and ordered him to go back. He tried to "negotiate" but the guard only lifted a finger and told him to "go back".
No one tried to skip after those two.
When you have a culture with no enforcement, a small minority (maybe 2%) of people ruin it for everyone and you feel like an idiot still following the rules. This makes the majority imitate the bad actors because "I might as well too".
No amount of money in the world can fix bad culture.
Are you saying you think citizens should blindly follow even pointless rules in order to be a good culture? Because otherwise your example makes no sense to me. What is gained by people walking completely through a large empty queue?
You can't pay janitors enough to deal with degenerates who routinely deliberately destroy public bathrooms in western countries. It's a job for police and the courts, but those are dysfunctional in a way which "more money" doesn't fix.
Result is all the clean and useful bathrooms are private, because only thus can shit-smearing vandals be reasonably excluded (and only then, somewhat.)
So you can't pay a janitor enough to deal with vandals, but somehow the minimum wage bartender that already has to tend to a bar and cash register is able to keep their toilets clean no problem?
It's not that hard to make toilets that are nearly indestructible and can be very efficiently cleaned by a guy in a "hazmat" suit with a pressure washer. It probably wouldn't be that hard to largely automate this. But the market for this is small and mostly governments, so prices are high and innovation is low.
Paris has a few automated self-cleaning toilets.
https://parisjetaime.com/eng/article/public-toilets-a696
Do you realize how much money police arrests, courts, and jail cost? A janitor and occassional repairs are way cheaper any way I can look at it. There arent gangs of people walking around with grinders or hacksaws fucking up as much stuff as possible despite what you may want to believe.
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Not optional -> force of men with guns who will kill you unless you bow down. This is good for society.
>This is good for society.
This is society. Its origins are people banding together to collectivize violence and its legitimate uses in order to protect themselves from the state of nature in which the strong take what they will and the weak suffer what they must.
Should we also be grateful for restaurants for having seats, or for stores having breathable air?
Cities should not be incompatible with basic human existence. I can bring a bagged lunch and eat it on-the-go. Would people be as open to me taking a shit in a bag on the sidewalk?
Pragmatic, but have you considered the predicament you'll be in if you need to go before lunch?
Yes. I am one of those voices. And my argument isn't that they do not cost money. My argument is that we can afford it, but chose to instead give the money to people and companies who already have enough. And I know literally no one who claims public restrooms are free to maintain.
Toilets and water should be basic infrastructure (and in some places they are). Business with toilets are a really unreliable way to offer toilets, since they will all come up with their own rules.
And it is ridiculous to pretend they can't be afforded. Ever been to Japan? Every train station has toilets since the 80s, literally every other store has freely usable public toilets. They all use the same signage. They are clean and free to use.
What is the point of society if not creating an environment within which we all can thrive? Yes I know, some want it to maximize the thriving only for certain (rich) people. I call these egoists.
Exactly. If a business can't afford to provide a bathroom, it can't afford to run a business.
It's like saying child labor should be legalised because your business would go bankrupt without underpaid child workers: it just means your business model isn't viable!
That's the thing. No one ever got filthy rich of basic infrastructure.
But that's all the more reason to get and keep the infrastructure working.
> public bathroom are a disgracefully neglected human right.
Well, they are. Just as drinking fountains.
> Public restrooms don't come from Santa Claus, and they cost a lot both to build and maintain. Then there are the costs and miseries of security. Gratitude toward business providing restrooms seems nonexistent.
s/restroom/park/g. Hey, it's still true! And explains why there are almost no public parks around.
Edit: oh, and before someone comments on unhygienicity of drinking fountains: you're not supposed to kiss the nozzle or, heavens forbid, to fellate it to drink. Let about 1/2–1/3 of the top of the spout inside of your mouth and drink it; leave the rest outside.
I live near a park. I watch that drinking fountain. They bathe in there at times. They lift their dogs to drink from it despite. It breaks because they kick the button.
They are the losers, the educated affluent, the youthful of our society.
They are the problem. What is the solution?
In Switzerland I did not see such issues with the drinking fountains which are everywhere.
It's certainly a different environment from a large American city, though we also have misbehaving youths and a few drug addicts that are perhaps homeless.
That's because Switzerland is full of Swiss people. Their culture values not being savage.
This is just a question of resource allocation and priorities. If a society can afford the displaced costs of unregulated production and extraction, or fleets of aircraft carriers and upkeep for however many thousand nuclear weapons it possesses, or oligarchs (how many is it now?) diverting wealth into superyachts, it can also afford sufficient spaces for people to piss in and janitors to clean them.
Correct.
But - my experience - it's just another day of the week when advocates for hunger relief do everything from spending money on mass-market advertising, to showing up en masse at city gov't meetings to argue for the laws|zoning|city support|whatever they need, to personally mopping the floor at the soup kitchen after the meal has been served.
Vs., as a generality, "support" for public restrooms seems to consists of complaining about the status quo either privately or on the web, then going back to suffering.
Based on how involved various churches seem to be in hunger relief stuff, I'd bet most of those groups' organizational advantage comes straight from pulpits and pews. Say whatever you will about the Bad Things that religions have done all through history, or about their deities and beliefs being BS - but organized religion is organized, and understands how to make stuff happen. And it's pretty common for their Believers to also believe in working pretty hard to do just that.
Vs. - at least in private comments I hear, and the occasional essays I recall seeing on HN about this - there have been essentially zero suggestions of ever lifting a finger to address the public restroom problem. Send an unhappy email the Mayor? Nope. Google search for what a city council candidate might have said on the subject before you vote? Never. Even being tidy in the restroom of a non-restaurant business, and showing some hint of gratitude to the clerk? It is a point in favor of this particular article that it doesn't advocate an entitled and thankless attitude.
You're absolutely correct, but the sense of entitlement from the typical HN commenter is boundless.
Many of the people who downvoted you may want nice things, but would never contribute back. They're exactly the people who would immediately ruin it. Sometimes the grass really is greener, and it's usually because there's a system at work to keep it that way.
Everyone who downvoted contributes back. They are the people who would not ruin it.
You on the other hand would definitely not want to contribute, and if any were built you'd go out of your way to ruin it, though indirectly (e.g. by working to reduce/remove funding for maintenance)