Ask HN: The strange phenomenon of stockpiling ‘toilet paper’
Are people afraid that they will shit themselves to death? In that case, shouldn’t they be buying meds rather than stockpiling for untreated diarrhea? Is this a first world problem?
A few reasons why some people use a lot of toilet paper: poor diet, food contamination, lack of fiber, lack of exercise and just being overweight. The overall process requires hydration to flow, physical movement and general ability to digest. Even regular walking helps with later bowel movement.
Perhaps these people are revealing more about themselves than they realise?
Obviously, scarce transport will be used to ship high-value, low-physical-volume things rather than low-value, high-physical-volume things.
Gold is the definitive high-value, low-physical-volume item.
Toilet paper is the definitive low-value, high-physical-volume thing. As such it sits very low in the scale of transport priority. Consequently, it becomes one of the first items to run-out when a crisis hits.
However, most families would normally keep several weeks' worth of toilet-paper on hand. So the current run on toilet-paper is, in my humble opinion, a waste of time, angst and money.
As in the case for all panics, there is a snowball/contagion effect. People see others panic-buying and empty shelves so they also start to buy for fear of lacking.
In that regard, I see it as a cyclical sheeple problem.
This makes me wonder how many other people in the world are also tired and exhausted.
Thank god for time off.
Also, the young single men who populate this site often forget that women (who are half the population, remember) need toilet paper every time they go to the bathroom, not just for “number 2”.
Thus, it's important to stockpile "luxuries": board games, toilet paper, candy, etc.