Society/Culture The internet or flushable toilets?

Flushable toilets or the Internet

  • Internet

    Votes: 8 30.8%
  • Toilets

    Votes: 18 69.2%

  • Total voters
    26
Sep 15, 2007
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Go to a conference on productivity or the impact of technology on society and usually at some point someone will bring up the Robert Gordan debate of would you prefer the internet or flushable toilets. Someone will make a comment about how their kids would prefer the internet and all the old people in the room will laugh their heads off at the foolishness of youth.

After thinking about this I think I would still choose the internet. I think the internet improves my life far more greatly than the toilet. What would you choose?
 

Isaac Cumming No 1

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Go to a conference on productivity or the impact of technology on society and usually at some point someone will bring up the Robert Gordan debate of would you prefer the internet or flushable toilets. Someone will make a comment about how their kids would prefer the internet and all the old people in the room will laugh their heads off at the foolishness of youth.

After thinking about this I think I would still choose the internet. I think the internet improves my life far more greatly than the toilet. What would you choose?
More relevant than it appears. :DI guess it's a while ago now but people consistently downplay the importance of promising sewerage to the Western Suburbs of Sydney in getting Whitlam elected.

Septic tanks on the fringes were very common prior to that.

I guess the age thing is because the younger generations have never had to contemplate life without sewerage.
 

its free real estate

it's free real estate
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More relevant than it appears. :DI guess it's a while ago now but people consistently downplay the importance of promising sewerage to the Western Suburbs of Sydney in getting Whitlam elected.

Septic tanks on the fringes were very common prior to that.

I guess the age thing is because the younger generations have never had to contemplate life without sewerage.
Septic tanks were flushable.

What Seeds is longing for is the days when infants died from cholera outbreaks.

This is as bad as saying you’d rather have a smartphone than vaccines.
 

Occidental

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Oct 2, 2016
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Did people have flushable toilets with septic tanks or not?
Yes. The toilet has to be water flushable to make the septic tank work. So basically above ground you have what would appear to be a “normal” flushable toilet. No different to modern toilets.
But buried in your back yard is a large underground (usually concrete in the old days) pit. Clean water floats up above the solid yuk at the bottom and the clean water can be drained out through an underground outlet pipe. So your yard gets watered (from below).
Bacteria in the tank work on breaking down the yuk, and often a huge long “stink pipe” would emerge and be meters high to vent fumes.
Very clever, and they work well. Need de-sludging of the yuk every few years though.
Light years ahead of crapping in a bucket or using some disgusting deep pit without a flushable toilet..... but it’s nowhere near as good as a municipal sewer system.
 

its free real estate

it's free real estate
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Yes. The toilet has to be water flushable to make the septic tank work. So basically above ground you have what would appear to be a “normal” flushable toilet. No different to modern toilets.
But buried in your back yard is a large underground (usually concrete in the old days) pit. Clean water floats up above the solid yuk at the bottom and the clean water can be drained out through an underground outlet pipe. So your yard gets watered (from below).
Bacteria in the tank work on breaking down the yuk, and often a huge long “stink pipe” would emerge and be meters high to vent fumes.
Very clever, and they work well. Need de-sludging of the yuk every few years though.
Light years ahead of crapping in a bucket or using some disgusting deep pit without a flushable toilet..... but it’s nowhere near as good as a municipal sewer system.
That’s what I thought.

Flushable toilets are ancient (relatively), and part of a sanitation system that keeps pathogens out of the water supply. Probably the biggest thing to increase life expectancy in human history.

But not as important as Big Chungus memes.
 
Last edited:
Sep 15, 2007
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Septic tanks were flushable.

What Seeds is longing for is the days when infants died from cholera outbreaks.

This is as bad as saying you’d rather have a smartphone than vaccines.
Um this is about flushable toilets not drinking water systems. The cholera remark only makes sense if you drink water from the toilet. Although this would explain a lot.
 

Herne Hill Hammer

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Go to a conference on productivity or the impact of technology on society and usually at some point someone will bring up the Robert Gordan debate of would you prefer the internet or flushable toilets. Someone will make a comment about how their kids would prefer the internet and all the old people in the room will laugh their heads off at the foolishness of youth.

After thinking about this I think I would still choose the internet. I think the internet improves my life far more greatly than the toilet. What would you choose?

I love the internet but I loved life before the internet.

Flushing toilets for me.
 

Herne Hill Hammer

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What’s the bet Seeds was laying some cable and bored on his smartphone when he posted this?

“Without toilets I could s**t in a field and still read Bigfooty, but without the internet I’d be sitting here on the crapper staring at a wall or something”

Reading the Glen 20 can label.
 
Jul 5, 2011
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Anyone who’s had to use a long drop for a significant period of time knows flushing toilets are better than the internet.
Construction worker checking in. I dry wretch at the mere thought of worksite portables. *shudder*
 
Sep 15, 2007
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Advantages of having an internet:

Dont have to go into banks
Can buy products from overseas.
Uber is vastly superior to the taxi monopoly.
Can save significant time by booking services and purchasing goods online.
Airbnb
Can go on overseas holidays without having to use travel agents. Can also choose more exciting things to do on my holidays.
Easier to get laid than having to go to a pub.
Meeting people on Dating sites are leading to lower divorce rates.
Free overseas phone calls thanks to skype
No longer have to go to libraries to access journal articles. Anyone who went to university before journal articles were online will know how much of a pain this was not to mention how limited the range of material you had compared to know.
Much easier to find new types of music and tv shows thanks to downloading sites.
Emails has greatly improved communication. This has particularly improved office work life. Also made it much easier to organise group meet ups.
The internet enables me to not only work from home but live in a different country to my work colleagues.

Advantages of flushable toilets:
Going to the toilet is a lot more icky.
Toilet expenses will be quite a bit higher.


Yep im taking the internet. Even if it only gave me half the benefits it does I would still easily take the internet.
 
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