Man I already hate it when I can’t drink water out of the tap when I am travelling abroad.
Comment on We live wasted lives
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 3 weeks agoit’s hard for people so used to the comforts of capitalism to realise this is actually luxury
being inside, seated comfortably, doing non-manual work, educated, can read, listening to music, this is a job better than 99% of people who have ever lived have had
Hell, if you’re in this situation you have immediate and convenient access to potable water in your living space. This is a level of privilege beyond almost every other human that has lived in all of history.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Genius@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Yeah but most humans didn’t have to live around cars. I’d give up running water to get rid of cars. Cars are worse than running water is good. Sign me up for carrying barrels from the river if I don’t need to worry about being run over.
dbtng@eviltoast.org 3 weeks ago
How much experience do you have with third world conditions? I would tend to assume from what you are saying that you’ve never seen what a lack of sanitation does to a society.
But you might be well familiar with all of this … and just like it?Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Not the person who you replied to, but if you could trade all the cars in the world to go back to using rainwater to shower/flush toilets and buy drink water I think we should take that deal.
It has already been proven countless times that having walkable/bikeable cities with the adition of public transport is better for our health and the environment. Most countries don’t even have drinkable water out of the tap anyway.
The only issue is that it doesn’t rain enough in a lot of countries to keep up with our water usage for showering/flushing toilets, but infrastructure to move water is as old as the Roman’s, so we would find a way again.
dbtng@eviltoast.org 3 weeks ago
My friend, we have a way. Many ways. We don’t need to find one. But we keep doing that too.
You are proposing civil engineering projects to deliver water to the people. Yes, that is how we do it.
The other fine contributor to this discussion posited dragging barrels of water from the river as if that would be a good thing. This is a perspective that I cannot support.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
It’s not just the convenience of running water, it’s all of the infrastructure around making sure that water is clean and safe, which involves government regulation and audits, massive engineering projects, a lot of maintenance effort and a considerable amount of tax dollars.
Just as an example, leptospirosis is a common bacterial contaminant in untreated water:
Signs and symptoms can range from none to mild (headaches, muscle pains, and fevers) to severe (bleeding in the lungs or meningitis). Weil’s disease (/ˈvaɪlz/ VILES), the acute, severe form of leptospirosis, causes the infected individual to become jaundiced (skin and eyes become yellow), develop kidney failure, and bleed. Bleeding from the lungs associated with leptospirosis is known as severe pulmonary haemorrhage syndrome.
If you go to places like Hawaii you’ll see warning signs about lepto around pools and streams because people have this delusional fantasy about tropical paradises with clean flowing streams. Untreated, uncontrolled water is a hazard.
Everyone can’t be an expert on water sanitation. Employing some experts to provide that service for thousands or millions of people is a fantastic solution. It’s probably impossible to overstate how much benefit water infrastructure provides for society.
So I disagree with you. “Running water” (centrally managed water sanitation and delivery) is one of the best things human society has ever done. The benefit to public health is incalculable.
The only reason you might discount how much benefit you gain from this system is that you’ve grown up with it as normal. You’ve never had to worry about groundwater contamination, about boiling every cup of water before you drink it, about filtration or desalinization or testing for lead.
Genius@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
But I have had to worry about cars cooking the atmosphere with their pollution and ending the entire human species. And I think that’s worse than leptospirosis.
dbtng@eviltoast.org 3 weeks ago
Oooh. You went there. Well done.
dbtng@eviltoast.org 3 weeks ago
Ya, totally. You make an obvious point.
The only problem with that is that almost all of the humans that have ever existed … exist right now. Until we mastered this planet, there were very very few of us. We are now the most numerous mammal on the planet, and that’s by a far degree. There’s more of us than there are rats.
deranger@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
This is wildly untrue.
dbtng@eviltoast.org 3 weeks ago
ok