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faul_sname comments on Irrationality Game III - Less Wrong Discussion

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

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Comment author: trist 12 March 2014 03:00:19PM 35 points [-]

Irrationality Game: (meta, I like this idea)

Flush toilets are a horrible mistake. 7b/99%

Comment author: faul_sname 13 March 2014 07:04:07AM 0 points [-]

Upvoted for "horrible". I don't see how their impact is all that bad -- at 3.5 GPF (which is standard), that means that, for example, all of the flush toilets in California together use about 750,000 acre-feet of water per year. Compared to the 34 million acre feet used in the same state for agriculture, it's clear that flush toilets use a significant but still pretty small fraction of the water in the state, but "horrible" is an overstatement. (I choose California because it is a populous state that regularly has water shortages).

Comment author: trist 13 March 2014 03:07:56PM *  -1 points [-]

I admit to hyperbole, now, with a little more thought, I would have worded it differently. Both to clarify that it's pretty far down on our list of societal problems, and that it's more an individual level mistake rather than a systematic one (though there are systematic benefits to fewer flush toilets).