Decision Time

[andrewducker]

[Poll #380744]

Comments

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

Having lived without flushing toilets, I can only say this:

It stinks.

[pacotelic.livejournal.com]

Kudos on your friends list having its priories straight

[kellibunny.livejournal.com]

i hated to admit it, but it's true. :P

[fire-sermon.livejournal.com]

I'm quite astonished so many people would rather live with the smell of shit, than without so much crap...

Having survived for 25 years give or take without daily internet access, and having once been without working plumbing for several days, this was no contest...

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

Amen.

[andrewducker]

There are alternatives to flushing toilets...

[vill.livejournal.com]

Please clarify: By "flushing toilets" do you mean "You have a toilet, it never flushes" or "You have an outhouse"?

[andrewducker]

I mean a 'running-water' toilet. As opposed to a chemical one, a composting one, or any other option.

[avatar.livejournal.com]

Can you say that again to me, as if you're explaining it to a two year old?

[andrewducker]

You can get chemical toilets - like at an outdoor concert.
You can get composting toilets which turn your wastes into fertiliser and don't use any water: http://www.compostingtoilet.org/explain.cfm
And there are always buckets/holes in the ground, if both of those are too expensive.

[derumi.livejournal.com]

Latrines take up a lot of work.

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

Um, is this a choice you're planning to make any time soon??
I'm off to bed - night night! x

[rainstorm.livejournal.com]

I stayed in a house in Finland that didn't have running water.

Not having the internet is fine. I go a little bit insane, but I can cope. Not having a toilet that flushes is one of the most revolting things. It's nastier than you'd think. Don't forget that it's not just not flushing, it's having to empty the bucket every few days. I didn't have to do that - our friend did and I feel sorry for him. It's so unbelievably nasty.

[ladysisyphus.livejournal.com]

Ah, but having the internet could help us figure out how to rig up flushing toilets. Having flushing toilets could not help us figure out how to rig up the internet. With this in mind, the choice becomes easy.

Just kidding. Having lived simultaneously without flushing toilets and the internet at several points in my life, we're going with choice B.

Re: choices

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

I choose to not make such a choice.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

We had a similar discussion at work, but instead it was about not having running water.

You were allowed to get water from elsewhere, but you couldnt have any in your house. The question was at what bandwidth of interenet provision would you make the trade.

Pretty much everyone had their price :0)

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

It's worth noting that I do, quite aside from this question, think that people shouldn't really have flushing toilets because, by design, they're a terrible waste of water and resources. Composting toilets, that's the way to go. So, while I think the internet is a pretty neat idea, I think flushing toilets are a pretty stupid idea, and voted accordingly.

[andrewducker]

Yup. I was careful in my phrasing - composting toilets can be fairly smell-free after all.

[avatar.livejournal.com]

Ohh okay, I was under the impression you meant 'a toilet that does not get rid of poop'. I change my answer to option B then.

[moniqueleigh]

But only if I can have a different sort of non-smelly toilet (composting, etc).

[intelligentrix.livejournal.com]

When I stayed with my brother and friends in Alaska, none of them had indoor, flushing toilets. This was in March, In Alaska, with snow on the ground, but really, having to go out to the outhouse wasn't half as bad as you'd think. The seats are made of a kind of styrofoam, so it's never cold, and the walk out through the woods is very pretty. There is more than one way to take a dump, but only one big pipeline to information and friends. My choice was easy.