You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Error comments on Irrationality Game III - Less Wrong Discussion

11 Post author: CellBioGuy 12 March 2014 01:51PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (204)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: trist 12 March 2014 04:50:10PM 1 point [-]

I suppose my actual belief is that flush toilets are a mistake outside of urban areas, I don't have much experience with urban living or what other poop strategies could work with it.

Advantages, flush toilets:

  • Provide easy long distance transport of human waste in urban environments.
  • Exchanges weekly-to-yearly chores for purchased services.

Disadvantages, flush toilets:

  • Create additional dependency on water (and by extension outside water districts, electricity).
  • Turn (vast amounts of) drinking water into black water.
  • Create a waste product from human manure, which is a valuable resource (fertile soil) when dealt with properly.
  • Adds significantly to the cost of housing (especially outside sewer districts).
Comment author: Error 12 March 2014 06:53:02PM 3 points [-]

I still think you're overconfident, so upvoting, but the justification is convincing enough to make me update from near-zero to something noticeably above zero. I never thought of it quite that way.

Comment author: trist 12 March 2014 09:59:01PM 0 points [-]

Translate it to "In x% of new non-urban houses, there are options better than flush toilets." My confidence in my confidence assignment isn't very high yet though, so I am quite open to being overconfident.

And obviously both lists are non-exhaustive.

  • Flush toilets handle large numbers of people for a long time fairly easily.
  • Flush toilets get clogged.