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Comment by ghshephard | Hacker News Reader

The Singapore MRT and Bus System was one of the primary reasons inspiring me to relocate to Singapore. I used to live at Lake Merrit in Oakland on 17th, from 1996-1997, used the Bart almost every day - I don't recall ever using the public washrooms - don't recall how available they were.

I've used them several times in Singapore, and 90% of the time they've been excellent - the other 10% of the time they were just heavily trafficked, but not "Dirty" - just puddles of water near the sinks, lots of paper towels in the garbage.

I do recall reading a front page story in the Straits Times about how the MRT had been hiring cleaning consultants to improve their already ridiculous (by my estimate) high levels of cleanliness.

I would love someone to do an analysis of all the horrible failures in San Francisco/Transit and compare them to Singapore, so we can understand why the heck one is doing so well, and the other one is so abysmal.

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Singapore's public restrooms are clean because they can afford to hire armies of 60 year old cleaners with no minimum wage.

I'd argue they are actually TOO clean. Because half the time I want to use them, they are being cleaned! It's a bunch of busywork to employee the otherwise unemployable. They clean bathrooms and sweep up leaves over and over again.

I'm having a hard time understanding what's bad about this. If they are otherwise unemployable, then it's good that they are doing this isn't it?

If they're not doing anything actually productive, wouldn't it be better to pay them the money and let them spend the time on something they enjoy?

Cleaning toilets isn't productive labor?

Not if they're already cleaned plenty often enough and it's just busy-work, which was what I understood the parent comment to be claiming.

Singapore Cleanliness is a huge mental relief after having to deal with the disgusting mess that various parts of San Francisco are. Keeping this city/state clean is incredibly productive. There is a reason why a story regarding hiring cleaning consultants makes the front page news, and people are fined $15,000 for throwing out cigarette butts - singaporeans take cleanliness very, very seriously.

Without basic income, that's the closest you can get.

What's bad is that they are often nearly disabled, and if they don't do this, they starve.

No social security for the elderly in Singapore.

Half the time? Are we perhaps engaging in a bit of hyperbole here? I can't recall the last time I recall a public washroom being cleaned that I wanted to visit - starting at Labrador Park (which actually can get kind of messy), and moving up through One North, Bishan, and Orchard. Occasional visits to Bugis - I'll try and visit them every day for a week or so, and see if they are every being actively cleaned.

Well, with regards to what "Westeners" nowadays consider civilized - Singapore is lagging behind SF I'd care to argue. Just consider gay rights and expressing affection in public - so in that respect there is rather an anti-correlation between cleanliness of public facilities and cultural development.

Public Displays of affection, beyond holding hands, doesn't have any rock solid claim on being "civilized" in my books - so, I'll call that more a question of currently fashionable behavior, much akin to public nudity (the recognizing of which probably has a better claim to being civilized in my books). As far as gay rights, agreed - Singapore is behind the curve on officially recognizing gay marriage. With that said, it's not as though Singapore is actually enforcing any of these laws - Singapore has a pretty active gay community/nightlife: http://blog.happymassage.com/the-gay-bars-guidance-in-singap...

> Public Displays of affection, beyond holding hands, doesn't have any rock solid claim on being "civilized" in my books - so, I'll call that more a question of currently fashionable behavior, much akin to public nudity (the recognizing of which probably has a better claim to being civilized in my books).

The civilized definition of being civilized is not to accept things depending on your personal opinion of what is civilized and what is not, but rather to not criminalize things that have no rational reason to be criminalized.

Public displays of affection, just like public nudity, gay marriage or chewing gum, are simply not reasonable things to make illegal.

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