Since we are talking about shithouses in Norway and international politics, I should mention as a Frenchman the existence of French toilets with the colours of the French flags and the France national motto displayed on top. In front of the Norwegian parliament in Oslo.<p><a href="https://koro.no/prosjekter/liberte/" rel="nofollow">https://koro.no/prosjekter/liberte/</a>
This cracked me up:<p><i>> If you are a mere mortal like us and can’t afford a gold-plated toilet seat, the Golden loo on the island Senja is the next best thing.</i><p>All joking aside, I'm impressed at the beauty and serenity of these public restroom facilities. They are truly architectural works of art.<p>Kudos to the people who designed and built them!
Really loving such responses to POTUS, I hope they don't spend too much of our tax money on addressing his childishness though, although, in PR this probably has good ROI :)
Front page of HN…
I would like to visit now. Makes America’s rest stops look even more pathetic and cheap when I see this grandeur.
I'm increasingly convinced that awful public restrooms are mostly a North America thing. Travelling in Iceland a few years ago I was shocked at how nice the restrooms at the major gas stations were (N1 stands out). Full-height doors and stall walls, meticulous cleanliness, no weird smells.<p>At a <i>gas station off the ring road in the middle of nowhere.</i>
Your observation is a Scandinavia thing.<p>Mainland Europe's free public restrooms are not nicer than the US.
Iceland is not Scandinavian, but it is Nordic (as a Scandinavian, English speakers conflating the Nordics and Scandinavia is a pet peeve)
Interesting. From the Internet:<p>> 1. The original and locally preferred view is that Iceland, Finland, Faroe Islands, and Greenland are all countries considered to be part of the Nordics, but not technically part of Scandinavia (which would only be Sweden, Norway and Denmark in this case).<p>> 2. The international and more commonly preferred view is that the Faroe Islands, Finland and Iceland are part of both Scandinavia and the Nordics, leaving Greenland as the only non-Scandinavian country in the Nordics (along with the Norwegian territories of Svalbard, Jan Mayen and Bouvet Island).<p><a href="https://nordicperspective.com/facts/nordic-vs-scandinavian#which-countries-are-nordic-but-not-scandinavian" rel="nofollow">https://nordicperspective.com/facts/nordic-vs-scandinavian#w...</a>
The word I used, "Scandinavian", can be used both to mean "part of the Scandinavian peninsula" and "part of or relating to the culture originating on the Scandinavian peninsula". Calling Iceland Scandinavian easily satisfies the second definition.<p>You're right, in that Scandinavia is a peninsula and Iceland being a far off island is not part of it.<p>English is a weird and inexact language where there are a lot of different things words can mean. Seizing upon a single obviously-incorrect definition is not the whole story.<p>I'm sorry this bothers you; however I fear that you face the same battle as would a German trying to get Americans to call their country "Deutschland" instead of "Germany".
The term Scandinavia includes Denmark, which is not on the peninsula.<p>The use to include any country other than Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, is something that will tend to really annoy Scandinavians, as we're generally consistent in that use and it's foreigners trying to tell is what names to use for ourselves.<p>It may be a losing battle, but it's not one we'll give up on.
The term Scandinavia sometimes includes Denmark. Sometimes not, especially if referring to the peninsula.<p>There's no English language authority dictating what the word "Scandinavia" does/does not mean. The language is its usage.<p>The first wikipedia paragraph does a good job breaking it down: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavia" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavia</a>
I wish Americans would stop conflating some small part of Europe with the entirety of Europe. Scandinavia is of course within Europe, btw. Things may be handled vastly different depending on where you are in Europe. One small part of it does not define the rest of Europe. This is why you can't really compare "the EU" to "the USA" (Norway, while being part of Europe, is outside the EU btw). Not directly, anyway. Maybe some day, Europe will be much more homogeneous, but for now it's a pretty culturally, politically and economically diverse continent. Some European countries have epic public toilets. Others, not at all. It all depends on which country or culture you visit.
> Some European countries have epic public toilets<p>Which mainland European countries have epic free public toilets as a rule rather than as an exception?<p>I'll admit it's possible these countries exist, just that they aren't any of the ones I've been to.<p>Since the mainland European countries I <i>haven't</i> been to are mostly either microstates (which I'm not counting) or post-Soviet, I doubt your claim.
My conflation comes from the fact that in Canada, you're almost guaranteed to have terrible washrooms at gas stations (and frankly, in most public venues outside of really nice hotels and restos) coast to coast to coast.<p>A washroom at at an Irving in rural New Brunswick will have the same weird smells and nonspecific grossness as a Petro in North Vancouver.<p>Granted, I also haven't visited most of Europe since being a kid, though at that time I remember a few Orlans in Poland and Elfs and Mobils in France having a much cleaner vibe than the gas stations back home.
Gas station restrooms in Germany are possibly bearable, but annoying since you need to ask for keys - I have used them about twice in 25 years of driving. Autobahn restrooms are either pretty disgusting or paid.
Awful everything is an American thing. We are cheap and boring in the name of lining some rich wackos pockets. It’s pathetic how gross most of the bathrooms are at national and state parks. These are the Crown Jewels of outdoor areas and we have disgusting, under maintenanced toilets with single ply (if you’re lucky).
> I'm increasingly convinced that awful public restrooms are mostly a North America thing.<p>There used to be a fairly robust rest stop program here, but it's been basically replaced by exits with large gas station chains and fast food.<p>US and Norway seem to have roughly the same number of government rest stops per mile, not including the more common "commercial exit" I guess you could call it.
Some states have really nice rest stops along the freeway. I think it's variable
<a href="https://buc-ees.com/" rel="nofollow">https://buc-ees.com/</a>
Yeah, service areas between between PA-NJ-NY were always pretty good, I miss those today driving here in FL today, where its mostly shitty gas stations where you have to ask for a key to use the restrooms.<p>You don't get the Norway views but its also not a complete mess.
I can assure you that as a fellow European, both this amazing jab at the Clown in Chief and the beautiful vistas have renewed my interest in travelling to Norway as soon as I can, so I'm pretty sure it will pay off!
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Best public restroom density I've ever had was in Japan. Every corner you can find a toilet. So relaxing when you are traveling.
So there's also all the stuff about the wonders of Japanese toilets with heated seats and bidets etc. and I was amazed at how many of what are really low budget toilets in like mid-tier shopping malls, fast food restaurants and rural train stations had the full deal. And how clean they were. Toilets in those kinds of places here are often a mess and it's not uncommon to find the toilet seat missing entirely, so nobody's installing a expensive fancy seat in a public bathroom.<p>The flip side is if you go off more rural, you can run into the type of toilet that Japanese people consider a "Japanese toilet". Complete opposite of the tech wonders that the rest of the world pictures when they hear Japanese toilet. Because they're pretty much relegated to toilets without much investment at this point, they're also usually much less maintained than other toilets too.
For a glimpse into public toilets in Japan, do yourself a favour and watch ‘Perfect Days’.
Correct order is:<p>1. Watch Perfect Days
2. Go to Japan
3. Do the The Tokyo Toilet [1] _tour_<p>[1]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tokyo_Toilet" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tokyo_Toilet</a>
My favorite movie of all time. First thing I thought of when I saw this.
Great film with great acting and great music. If you feel you lost the connection to your own life, it might be worth a watch.
Im always afraid of Japanese toilets, will I sit on it as the robot uprising starts?
No trashcans anywhere though :)
They're in the konbinis.<p>Technically you're supposed to wait around and consume your product at the shop where you've bought it, but I didn't have any objections to doing one-in one-out, so as long as I bought a new drink I just dropped the refuse from the last one at the store where I bought the next one.
and yet there’s no trash and the streets are clean.
Patently not true - there are rubbish bins and recycling bins all over the place in Japan.
Yet no trash cans. It's a frustrating trade off, especially with all the vending machines. If you don't have a backpack, you're stuck carrying trash. If you do, it gets messy.<p>Also, this does not hold in Hokkaido. I taught English in Obihiro (well, Makubetsu) and you had to plan your trash and restroom breaks.
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No one else in the world does that. Nobody.
Most of Australia does that, TBF.<p>Yes, there's litter in Australia of course, but most Australians are taught from a young age to leave nothing but footprints and trek out whatever they bring with them when moving about a city, a park, wild areas.<p>Relative lack of litter and glares from Australians when tossing stuff on ground as a tourist is apparently enough to make a number of those daft "10 things about Australia ..." videos and listicles.
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> Just the worst people<p>What?<p>> Carry your trash with you.<p>What do you think I did with it? I don't litter.<p>It's just not at all enjoyable carrying two empty bottles for miles with just my hands while I have other things to carry.
I still believe Estonian restrooms are prettier. Norway has a shitload of public money, but Estonia very good designers
Almost definitionally, any amount of money spent on these kinds of washrooms would be a shitload, no?
Examples?
Epstinian rooms on the island have no equal.
I hiked Norwegian fjords above Bergen a couple of times in the past, highly recommend it if you ever get a chance.<p>Also: Norway has one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, valued at $2.2 trillion; over 50% are investments in US assets; close to $200 billion in US Treasury securities; and is a major shareholder in US corporations, especially across the tech sector.<p>So well done Norway, this is how you deal with clowns, not debate or argue on social media, but rub their face in your pure awesomness.
Norway has done a great job with what they've been given, but remember that they've had the national equivalent of being born into a rich family - they have had enormous wealth from natural resources in the form of North Sea oil.
You say it like it's given that natural resources wealth is distributed for population like it's in Norway. Its not. It takes a lot of work. Otherwise you get shithole countries where warlords/corporations/mafia take over control of resources and enrich them selves instead of raising global wellbeing.
Exactly. They managed to use it to generate wealth inside their own country instead of spaffing it into the capital of the country next next door like Scotland.
You can only compare Norway to richest of the gulf states like UAE, though (e.g. Saudi Arabia produces less oil per capita than Norway). Put 10x more people in Norway and keep the same amount of oil like in many of those “shithole” countries and you’d end up with a slightly different situation
Look at Venezuela.
Fair, but so does UK, Canada - which might be one of the richest countries in the world in terms of natural resources I think? - and especially US of A.<p>But how these countries use their resources is quite different.
Also their taxes are proportional to wealth and everyone pays them, so good public service. It's not that hard to understand and there is no need to circle around it.
At least we didn’t have to steal it from the original inhabitants.<p>… Oh wait …
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> Norway has one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world<p>There were signs in the article lol
That chilling feeling when an intern in South Asia can freeze your trading account with one click.
Norwegians are honorary Australians apparently, we love a good shithouse.
My favorite Australian idiom is "built like a brick shithouse" (of a guy being very muscular).
I did not know that was an Aussie thing (heard in England often enough)
While I can understand this for muscular guys, I never got why it can also be used to mean a very curvaceous/attractive woman.
My favourite is “Going off like a frog in a sock”<p>But there are many to choose from. “Face like a dropped pie” is another gem.
As per usual, that’s British slang which was carried over to Australia. Almost all slang phrases Americans associate with Australia are British in origin and still in wide use, as you’d expect given the history of both countries.
Nope, sorry, Norwegians actually tax mining / energy corporations (so the government has money to spend on... designer dunnies!), instead of just giving away their non-renewable natural resources to billionaires for free. That's un-Australian!
That's such an appalling misrepresentation of what happens here in Australia that even Konrad Benjamin himself would correct you. State, Territory and Federal governments all take revenue for non-renewable resource extraction.
Their resource company is effectively the government and reducing their climate impact is basically impossible without killing their economy. I think we'd rather not be in that position.
Yep! From the headline, I assumed that Norway had made its own version of <a href="https://toiletmap.gov.au/" rel="nofollow">https://toiletmap.gov.au/</a>
Same energy as ‘CU in the NT’.
Nominally. Public restrooms along major highways are dire in terms of cleanliness.
Trump's gargantuan adult diapers serve as his portable shithouse.
> Norwegians are honorary Australians apparently
LOL, why?
I understand shortened attention spans but maybe consider reading the entire sentence of a single sentence comment before replying.
As the sentence says, because Australians and Norwegians both have an affinity for shithouses.
I'm from Australia and always assumed the word "shithouse" was mostly used here, and at first glance assumed this post was an amusing joke by an Aussie (though - being somewhat cutesy with a Trump-ism?) rather than a Norwegian government website.<p>Though I might be wrong - I doubt this word comes up in tech blogs and academic conferences very often?
I find it fascinating that the cost of these gorgeous places is roughly the same as the cost to build a public restroom in San Francisco. Notably the architects in SF are much more expensive than those in Norway. Certainly quite interesting.
And that's, ladies and gentlemen, how you promote yourself as a tourist destination!
Old Rome had the best shithouses though. A whole row of toilets which made the experience very social and intimate.
Not sure it'd be my cup of tea. I prefer a bit of privacy. This was the one I checked out in Pompeii <a href="https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/10/14/47/8e/this-is-the-communal.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/10/14/47/8e/...</a><p>The ones at Sketch near me are funky <a href="https://live.staticflickr.com/881/42433327302_280548ddd2_b.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://live.staticflickr.com/881/42433327302_280548ddd2_b.j...</a>
Plus, there were persistent stories of terrifying beasts that lived in the sewers and bit people’s bottoms. Of course those stories could have just been invented by people who were waiting on line, to help people get done quicker.
Everyone would meet up later in the vomitorium
Holly molly, Norway #1 rank on the front page. Let's gooo!
They can’t possibly be the best because I went into the public bathroom out our local playground last week at 10am and there was a gigantic steaming turd perfectly deposited on the seat of the all-metal prison-style toilet. My 3 year old was as stunned as I was. To think, some local resident was thoughtful enough to bless us with this gift.<p>Are you telling me my Oakland California toilets are somehow inferior? I find this hard to believe…
Just scroll normally!
Agreed, the website is totally fucked
It's the dumb attempt to use video backgrounds and the varying ways that mobile devices choose to display those videos.
This is the problem with HN not doing humor. You are always the one who does not grok it...<p>"Trump calls Norway a ‘shithouse country’" - <a href="https://www.euronews.com/video/2026/10/27/trump-calls-norway-a-shithouse-country-over-nobel-peace-prize-snub" rel="nofollow">https://www.euronews.com/video/2026/10/27/trump-calls-norway...</a>
Thank you - I did not understand what was going on / what the tie back was.
> This is the problem with HN not doing humor. You are always the one who does not grok it...<p>Rather: many people who are not US citizens or don't live in the USA don't really care about the gossip around Donald Trump's most recent tantrum.
Similarly cool reprisal from Trump 1 (made by a Dutch comedian, which was then many countries copied): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELD2AwFN9Nc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELD2AwFN9Nc</a>
It is amazing what you can do with oil money.
Maybe more what amazing things you you can achieve for your people when the citizens are the shareholders of the economic benefits of your country’s natural resources?
100%.<p>How much better would the US or UK or wherever else be if our wealth of natural resources was shared instead of hoarded by private land-owners and SuperMegaCorp?<p>Norway drills about 1/4 of the barrels we do here in the US, but reaps more than double the revenue into public coffers. ~78% tax rate in Norway vs a published rate of 21% in the US (and a real rate of <10%).
When you get a dollar bill, you can actually tell whether it's from oil or not? I can't..<p>What's really amazing are the lengths by which people justify they cannot have a nice society. It's easy to see, mathematically, the willingness to share has no relation to absolute GDP or where it comes from.
btw, Norway is the only country in the world which didn't get Dutch disease.<p>It's super impressive, isn't it!<p>Ref: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease</a>
Generally building public works becomes quite difficult when you have one dominant sector pushing up wages (oil and gas in this case). See <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect</a>
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Norway was not that poor before oil. That’s a myth. Relative to some other European countries, yes. But it was still a country with a long history of trade, industry and natural resources.<p>Though I’m not surprised a Swede thinks of us mainly as poor farmers ;)
(no bad feelings, you literally had an empire so the attitude is understandable)
Sorry, I have that image due to, just the image of a "poor" fishing country. Now we envy you and I heard all my life that we in Sweden are Norways poles/polacks due to cheap labour from Sweden.<p>That said we in Sweden where extremely poor too, see the famous book "Utvandrarna" for how it could be so miserable that people left.<p>Now we are the ones causing issues - "det svenske tilstander"<p>Well, I say "we" but these are not the Kalles Kaviar looking people. It could get to that point though...
There's a great TV adaptation of Utvandrarna.<p>In fact, immigration to Norway from Sweden started already back then. My great great grandfather moved from near Bullaren to Southern Norway in the late 1809's. But then emigrated with most of his family onwards to the US a couple of decades later as Norway was also poor at that time.<p>What was Norway's way out of the worst of that poverty apart from reduced surplus of people from emigration was shipping, and several of his sons, including my great grandfather ended up working on ships (and my great grandfathers family ended up moving back to Norway, supposedly in part because his wife got tired of the warm summers in Brooklyn...)
> we in Sweden are Norways poles/polacks due to cheap labour from Sweden.<p>Hopefully you'll be treated "with love" on your binge drinking trip to Gdańsk because simply buying and drinking a bottle of wine is a challenge back home.
> Sadly now I feel like it is 25% indians, 25% arabs and only 50% Swedes left in my country...<p>I don't need to downvote you for your nationalism, but I do need to downvote you for your casual racism.
I wouldn’t say poor, fishing was the backbone for over a thousand years and generated its fair share of wealth, so did timber. Seafood is still second after oil, even if oil of course is much bigger.
Norway benefits greatly from being a massive country with a small population and enormous natural resources. This makes governing far simpler compared to many other countries, and the culture is of course vastly different too.<p>I’ve only ever been to Lofoten but it was lovely, I think that’s how humans are supposed to live, too bad I can’t afford to move there.
Wait are you from Norway or?<p>Sorry, I have that image due to, just the image of a "poor" fishing country. Now we envy you and I heard all my life that we in Sweden are Norways poles/polacks due to cheap labour from Sweden.<p>That said we in Sweden where extremely poor too, see the famous book "Utvandrarna" for how it could be so miserable that people left.<p>Now we are the ones causing issues - "det svenske tilstander"<p>Well, I say "we" but these are not the Kalles Kaviar looking people. It could get to that point though...
Your message is snarky, but yes, it's amazing what you can do with oil money AND high IQ; compare Norway to many other countries which also have oil money but do not have high IQ.<p>Norway would still be an amazing country if it had no oil at all.
I’m not sure I would bring high IQ into this. Norwegians tended to own their own farms, they knew how to manage resources. The winters taught them to plan ahead.<p>Most importantly, Norway realised it had to <i>avoid</i> spending all its oil money to be responsible. An Iraqi immigrant helped establish this policy. Wouldn’t give him all credit as some give the impression of, but I think it’s interesting that people from the Middle East do have the right ideas. But the environment they’re in prevents their voices from being heard.
It reminds me that the mediocrity of an enormous amount of the U.S. is really quite voluntary. Enormous potential. Enormous wealth. Just cannot figure out how to socialize the prosperity.
finally: <i>u</i>nshittification
This is prompted by Trump saying "Norway has become a shithouse country, actually" after he was not awarded the Nobel prize for peace.
If you want to visit Norway come to the west coast if you want fjords and scenery - not the capital in the east.
This reminds me of Rick's secret pooping spot in Rick and Morty
From Hyperion by Dan Simmons:<p><pre><code> My home has thirty-eight rooms on thirty-six worlds. No doors: the arched entrances are farcaster portals, a few opaqued with privacy curtains, most open to observation and entry.
...
The architect, a student of the legendary Millon DeHaVre, has incorporated several small jokes into the house’s design: the steps go down to the tower room, of course, but equally droll is the exit from the eyrie which leads to the exercise room on the lowest level of Lusus’s deepest Hive, or perhaps the guest bathroom which consists of toilet, bidet, sink and shower stall on an open, wall-less raft afloat on the violet seaworld of Mare Infinitus.</code></pre>
Sure, fine, but have you ever been to a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike?
Surprisingly few pictures of the facilities interiors.
No way you could have those in North America -- people would ruin them. Which is a shame because they are pretty place to be a king/queen for a bit.
To drop a massive log in house with a nice view is a thing. A good thing.
Intrusive thoughts tell me to defecate straight down the scenic balcony.
India please kindly follow. Indians peeing on the roads should be put in the prisons for life.
Are they just peeing now? One of my indelible memories in India from 20 years ago is seeing a rickshaw driver in Connaught Place, the heart of historically respectable Delhi and no isolated slum, crouching behind his rickshaw and defecating right there on the street.
Tell the Germans, they have a word for it: Wildpinkeln.
We have it too in The Netherlands "wildplassen", since the Dutch "wild" (as in "in the wild") can indeed also be translated as "wild" (as in uncontrolled), the standard response when caught is "No officer, I was, in fact, peeing very calmly."
I've heard a few English parents tell their children to take a "wild wee".
The Dutch even have educational public service survival guides, and canal side bars will lend you a free pisriem or piemelpijp to prevent accidental death.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrgWp9_J1UY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrgWp9_J1UY</a>
Hey! A Pinkelbaum can use some nitrogen.
There's usually a little more dignity involved, with people generally at least trying to be discreet.
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The most shitest shithouse is clearly white and has a orange gremlin in it
Great marketing, a wonderful country, and beautiful shithouses.
Besides aesthetics, there are so many functional aspects that sets apart good from shitty bathrooms.<p>Things I evaluate when I use public restrooms include: are they 100% touch free (doors, toilets, taps)? Recycled towels for drying or air dryers where your hands invariable touch the unit?<p>etc.
It's kinda funny. But I'm a Norwegian, and I can tell you that Norway actually is a shitty country in so many ways. It likes to tell the world how fantastic it is, but there are just so many things that are structurally pathetic, weak, or inadequate about it.<p>Norway has been severely mismanaged for decades now, and soon the chickens are coming home to roost. Sadly, karma will be a bitch.
As an Englishman I can confirm they are built like brick shithouses.
Trump got confused and said shithouse (which makes no sense) instead of shithole, his original term for basically any non-white country.
I've been to about half of those, and can confirm their awesomeness!
In the US, you would get squaters living there the moment it gets opened to the public
As seen in Rick and Morty
Meanwhile in London we have public... urinals. Just a few minutes from the city center. People urinating in the open. Opposite to where my wife goes to dancing classes. UK is really fucking abysmal sometimes.
I like them and I think they're cool, but Norway is a country of 5.6 million people that discovered a massive oil deposit and has an enormous public fund per-capita because of it, so making it a referendum on how bad the United States is is pretty weird. Saudi Arabia has indoor ski resorts too, yes if we had that much oil per person I bet we could have some pretty sweet toilets.<p>I'm totally fine with the pit toilet design they came up with for the parks. I'm not there to take an instagram poop, I'm there to go hiking.
Valuable perspective.<p>That said, our public restrooms in big American cities are, in many cases, a disgrace. Vandalized, disgusting, and sparse/inacessible<p>But outside of cities (and even in some cities) it’s totally fine
Well, that's a pretty good ad from Visit Norway: now I'd really like to visit.<p>In fact, if they weren't so damn rich and everything so expensive compared to my Southern European way of live, I'd consider moving there just to enjoy the gorgeous nature.
On the topic of great shithouses, I highly recommend the 2023 Japanese drama Perfect Days. It's about a quiet man that works for Tokyo Toilets, cleaning a set of architecturally interesting public toilets around the Shibuya district. The movie itself is compelling -- a fascinating study of a man and purpose, very similar to Paterson (2016)[1] -- but the whole thing is like taking a trip to Tokyo, with an enormous number of gorgeous shots of fascinating scenes. Also a lot of shots of someone cleaning toilets.<p>[1] The directors of both movies are friends, and interestingly Paterson ends with the protagonist talking to a man from Tokyo who came to visit Paterson, as a poetry fan of William Carlos Williams. It is coincidence, but it does make it feel like they're the same universe.
Somewhat relevant: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47207284">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47207284</a><p>Lots of shit coming out of Norway lately.
Shithouses and SHITTY NAGSCREENS I will never agree to ...
Did I miss something? Where are the pics of the actual toilet?
I had the same thought! What do they look actually like in Norway‽ Unfortunately, because of the thing we're commenting on, Google image search has been taken over by those kinds of pictures, and none of the actual toilet and sinks!
the dignity of public toilets is a reflection of society
Back in the 1980s, The Miami Herald's "Tropic Magazine" ran a couple of competitions for most scenic outhouse in the world.<p>(That is, an outhouse with a great view, which is different than finding ones which are architectural masterpieces.)<p>I can find no trace of those results online. Perhaps someone here has better success?
The US should take better care of people with mental illness... oh wait
Just the fact that the level of politics dropped this low and this is being celebrated is something that makes me feel that we are on a 100% downward slope on our civilizational collapse with no turning back.
How tf the most powerful country on earth became such an openly corrupted clownshow?
It might be that just your knowledge of history is lacking.<p>Look for example to America (i mean the continent, there is no country named that). Civilisation brought extinction to various indigenous tribes, but in norther and central america. It brought slavery. In a way, we are over that now, aren't we?<p>Look for example to Europe (I'm so glad that no european country is so full of it and call itself just "Europe"). They had hundreds of wars in a 10 year period. Some small ... but some like the 30 year long war more devastating than even the 2nd world war.Sure, some people there (look into ex-jugoslavia or look into Russia) still think that mass-killing people is good. Oh, did I mention 2nd world war? Then look there, too. And how one society thought they have the right to extinguish Jews, Gypsies, Jehovas Witnesses, mental ill people and basically any political opponent. I still think we can say that we are over such a thing.<p>Look for example to Asia. There was a country that waged war on China because China was <i>not</i> buying enough Opium. Or look like the asian golden horde devastated with utter cruelty whole (at the time) mega-cities. And they brough the bubonic plague on top of it ...<p>Or look at Africa. I mentioned the slaver for America ... but actually african tribes captured people from other tribes and sold them. We can't say that slavery is totally abolished in Africa (I heard the Boko Haram does it) --- but certainly not at the scale it used to be.<p>If you think that society develops backwards, then just looking at how things used to be 100, 200 or 500 years.
Because people voted a clown
Slowly (GW Bush and Trump 1), then suddenly (Trump 2).
I don't wanna absolve any of the evil shits in Trump's circle, or among the MAGA crowd, of blame in this. But I think the biggest issue of all is the anglosphere's love for first past the post electoral systems. There's no excuse for FPTP, and while they often have a positive side effect in giving crazies zero representation, they're vulnerable to crazies taking unchecked control of the system.<p>Sure, MAGA would've been a large congressional embarrassment in a proportional system. But they wouldn't run the show.
It's a literal shitpost. I think you're being hyperbolic.
So Rick’s toilet is real and there are more than one
That's some good shit right there!
MSGA lol
who gives a shit, really
I still cannot believe I'm living in a timeline where the US president is emotionally a 3-year-old and throws a temper tantrum in the public when his parents don't get him a shiny thing he has done absolutely nothing to deserve.
As an American, this says more about the American people than it does about a single loser.
Anyone here who spends time around their aging parents and their friends sees what shows up on their phones. The image of an 70+ year old man poolside scrolling through IG reels seeing ragebait about democratic cities is burned into my brain. I wouldn't stand a chance against it either.<p>I truly believe we're here because of Facebook.
I got a FB message from an older relative urging me to vote for the President's party so we could all get the $5000 checks he promised.
You're describing a couple members of my family except... they don't use any Facebook products. Humans have been surrounding themselves with people that parrot their beliefs for generations; the internet just made it easier for fringe beliefs to reach critical mass.<p>If it not Facebook, it would be some other medium. What's the alternative, prevent people from talking to each other unsupervised?
My parents and inlaws are all in their late 70s/early 80s. Facebook is an amplifier for the cohort in question...it's an addictive product experience delivered to an audience without lifelong training in how to spot memes vs sincerity, ragebait vs news, and now, AI vs reality.
I think the "it's Facebook" crowd are people who either weren't around for or don't remember before then. I don't remember before the "It's fox news" time but I now suspect there was probably something before that too.<p>I think a lot of it has to do with the young and idealistic clashing against the old and jaded and both groups yelling at strawmen of each other.
> I truly believe we're here because of Facebook.<p>"Fox news has done to our parents what they thought gangsta rap would do to us". This applies to Facebook as well. I wish they would have stayed in their "I don't know how to use the computer" phase.
I would add Fox News in tandem with Facebook, but otherwise, yes. One is the spigot, the other is the hose.<p>My mom is 76 and absolutely believes the most pressing issues are trans high school swimmers and illegal voting and the biases of the Kennedy Center.<p>Sure, I have my opinions on those but I’m not saying as a society we aren’t allowed to debate those issues. I’m saying that in some news sources, they’re pure ragebait and completely drown out much more pressing and existential topics we should be solving. They’re simple distraction tactics and a continuation of the culture wars from the 80s and 90s.
Democratic institutional norms and a system relying on informed citizenry will always face new obstacles, but technology companies, particularly social media, adtech analytics, decline in established journalism have done so much damage and contributed to more conspiracy theories. Makes me feel even more icky about firms a16z pouring tons of money into things that undermine these norms… <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49416055">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49416055</a>
I think as a species we were destined to invent The Algorithm regardless.
Facebook (and social media in general) just accelerated cultural issues that were already there.<p>The right has seen Democrats (and "leftists" in general) as communists and degenerates for nearly a century. Literally nothing about Trump or Trumpism is new, it just wasn't normalized. There was a consensus reality around politics and culture that had to be maintained which no longer does.
Yes! Trump is just the symptom of a much more serious disease. Far too many Americans are unable to distinguish propaganda from journalism, unable to critically evaluate the information they receive, where it comes from and who it actually benefits.<p>“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” - Jefferson, 1816.
The American elite, specifically. The American people in general don't have much say in the matter anymore.
Somebody has to pull the lever in the voting booth.
As far as I'm aware, regular Americans outnumber American elites and only have one vote each regardless. The people elected Trump, not the elites.<p>Even if the elites are the only ones funding political campaigns, we expected more from regular Americans to vote on facts, rather than ads.
That is a high expectation of people being driven by predictable human emotions, lacking the ability to think critically through everything in front of them.<p>The real issue of our media landscape (information feeds <i>controlled by</i> the elite), probably could have been nipped in the bud some years ago but it may be a little too late for that.
The problem is greatly exacerbated by two-party system. If there was a solid third or fourth choice, then at least people wouldn't be given two bad (in their opinion) choices. Many people don't vote at all, being disillusioned with the voting system.<p>Can we do something about it? The winner-takes-all Electoral College certainly contributes to two-party system [1] and to narrow margins [2]. There are two states who don't do winner-takes-all (Maine and Nebraska), and we can force all states to split their electoral votes.<p>[1] <a href="https://www2.law.temple.edu/lppp/electoral-college-two-party-system/" rel="nofollow">https://www2.law.temple.edu/lppp/electoral-college-two-party...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/rest/article-abstract/108/3/727/119489/The-Risk-of-Narrow-Disputable-Results-in-the-U-S" rel="nofollow">https://direct.mit.edu/rest/article-abstract/108/3/727/11948...</a>
I cant believe 50% of the "free world" (umerca) put him in that place, THATs the scary part
They did that, twice.
I did it, once — most remorseful. Like them all: he's full of shit.<p>Also donated to Bernie, once – then ShareBlue gave it to a Clinton.<p>This political whoredom works best against our own interests.
He is not, remotely, “like them all”, and I think if you are dealing with your remorse this way then, respectfully, you have a little more work to do, not least because it will give you the skills to help you negotiate the current moment where the tech industry has some people who are aberrant in similar ways.<p>The threat posed by Trump to the USA was evident from the day he announced his candidacy. That his whole presidency would one way or another be about his awful approach to immigration and to Ukraine was evident by the time of the Republican National Convention.<p>That he would try to overturn an election that he lost was evident before he ran for one.<p>If you cannot see that this man’s essential pathology is dangerous, I worry you cannot see dangerous parallels in several current tech CEOs (at least two, fairly arguably four or five).<p>There are many bad and crooked politicians; there are many their colleagues hate. Trump is not a crooked politician except as a side effect.<p>He’s not the same kind of “bad person” at all; most of us never meet anyone as dangerous.<p>I think you do need to recognise that you (and don’t get me wrong, millions of others!) voted for someone who is essentially evil (in the literary sense of evil). And really you should have been able to see it, because it wasn’t that hidden.<p>It shouldn’t stop you voting again because genuinely so few people are like him, though he has found fellow travellers in this administration. (Notably RFK Jr — a shockingly awful man)<p>But it would be healthy to look at what it was that let you look past his evil.
> He is not, remotely, “like them all”<p>We will know this only if The Next One reverses all his policies.
No, if the next one did absolutely nothing, they would be much better
No, we won’t.<p>Because it isn’t about his policies (and because it’s actually quite like turning an oil tanker, especially stuff like undoing tariffs).<p>Trump is a malignant narcissist. He’s a deeply unusual man.<p>The Democratic Party had one perennial fringe candidate, Lyndon LaRouche, who was dark-sided in a way Trump is. A really nasty, scary, creepy dude who fairly arguably ran a “business cult”, the LaRouche Group, who was held at arms length by the party.<p>It has had a few charming “political sociopaths” in the sense of driven people who can make arbitrary choices. It recently efficiently ejected a repeated power abuser (Eric Swalwell).<p>But nobody like Trump. People like him are rare (and dangerous when they achieve power)
> And really you should have been able to see it, because it wasn’t that hidden.<p>A lot of his voters saw the cruelty and crassness and <i>liked</i> it. Trump was their vessel for vengeance, as one disappointed Florida voter complained during Trump I "he isn't hurting who he is supposed to be hurting"
I agree with all you said with two caveats. If someone only watched Fox News, they likely didn’t see all this from Trump especially the first time. Second is that Trump is a product of the growing and unaddressed wealth/equality divide. It’s a similar reason we see the rise of the far right in the EU.
People who watched Fox News saw allllll of Trump’s bad traits; he didn’t hide them from Fox viewers. They saw the racism and xenophobia and they loved it.<p>Admittedly they did not hear about Paul Manafort’s connections to corrupt pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians, or his debts, or that he was mysteriously working for Trump for free, or that he successfully weakened the RNC platform language on providing weapons to Ukraine. They heard very little about the “adoptions” meeting. Fox didn’t cover that. But then it only got a little bit of coverage in mainstream US TV media because it is incompetent.
He is much more full of shit.
Far less than 50%.<p>31.6% of all eligible voters.<p>36% of eligible voters didn't even vote in 2024.
They did not. Trump won the electoral college, but failed to obtain 50% or more of the popular vote both times.
Just because you can't understand it doesn't mean it's not real.
I don't mean to bring low value demagougue, I can't help but ask myself, when Hitler rose to power, then being jailed and then rose to power even more, did the normal people who wanted nothing to do with his bs felt the same?
I used to think that the (2018) book "The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States", which ridicules Donald Trump quite a bit, was overdoing it for dramatic effect...<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_2020_Commission_Report_on_the_North_Korean_Nuclear_Attacks_Against_the_United_States" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_2020_Commission_Report_on_...</a>
What has this got to do with a post about Norwegian public toilets? Did you comment on the wrong post? Am I missing something?
Yes, you are missing the context where this is Norway's playful response to Trump petulantly calling Norway "a shithouse country" because it once again didn't award him the Nobel peace prize like it did Obama. Norway is just "Yes, and"-ing the tirade, all judo-like "we <i>are</i> a shithouse country, because our toilets are architectural marvels with unbelievable views"
Ah yes, the timeline where the US president is a convicted sex offender, 34 times convicted felon, tried to overtake a democratically elected president, stored top secret nuclear secrets in his toilet, orchestrated a cover up of the biggest pedophile ring in history, is an active russian agent, and all we talk about is ...his tantrums....
It's been one of the biggest ways the media has <i>helped</i> him since the beginning. (Including outlets supposedly on the "left".) They spend so much time on how he's a terrible human being that it helps obscure that he is grossly incompetent and unfit to lead anything, much less a country.<p>Even now, it seems like more time is spent on his looks or his health or his pettiness than on his crimes and his destruction.
It is like satire. I wonder if he can try bullying the olympics into giving him a 100m gold medal next.
Don't give them ideas...
Trump's dream is to have his name spelled in gold on the surface of the sun. He's not smart enough to know it's impossible, though.
As an American it is pure hell. Every day I feel like Marty McFly waking up in the nightmare timeline where Biff controls things. And my own brother voted for Trump 3 times yet absolutely refuses to talk about him under any circumstances.
This is probably inevitable once you combine winner-takes-all voting systems with the organized hysteria that is social networks.<p>Given that many of us here have helped the latter emerge and dominate the entire societal discourse, we should meditate somberly upon the law of unintended consequences. It certainly did not look this way when it started, but social networks are a major channel for hate and allow the worst of the worst to set standards for everyone else.<p>Frankly if AI can mitigate this, it would be a positive development and I would tolerate all the sickly-sweet sycophancy if it also steered people away from hating one another with passion.
Have you ever taken into account that perhaps it's you who has failed to understand anything about what is actually going on?
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I have no love for previous presidents but at least they acted more like adults and less like a twelve year old with a grudge.
Name one instance that approaches this level of immaturity.
What am I missing? I looked at the article it was just about a bunch of cool public restrooms.
It's a reaction to President Trump's latest remarks. Listen to it straight from the horse's mouth: <a href="https://www.bluewin.ch/en/news/international/trump-rants-about-shithole-country-norway-responds-immediately-li.3653376" rel="nofollow">https://www.bluewin.ch/en/news/international/trump-rants-abo...</a><p>"Norway has become a shithouse country, actually"
> Name one instance that approaches this level of immaturity.<p>Not a head of state, but I nominate:<p>Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky (Владимир Вольфович Жириновский), "Russia's Trump"<p>> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Zhirinovsky" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Zhirinovsky</a>
Clinton forcing an intern to give him a blowjob in the oval office was pretty "fratty"
Weird to assume it was forced.
More lies. Not forced. Inappropriate? Extremely.
And how does that compare with the Epstein level shenanigans of trump? The cheating on all his wives? The banging of a p0rn star with no protection? Grab them by … all these rape accusations?
It is unfathomable to me how anyone can defend or relativize this despicable behavior.
This is what you get when you have Meta and its higher ups cheering Trump, and calling Trump election the 'Facebook election'.
> It is unfathomable to me how anyone can defend or relativize this despicable behavior.<p>From the perspective of a person who is neither a US citizen nor living in the USA: I (and many of my fellow countrymen/countrywomen) <i>will</i> relativize and defend a lot of Trump's tantrums since they give you so much material to laugh about.<p>:-)
It's honestly somewhat refreshing. Politicians are all sociopaths who say all the right things while keeping their true thoughts secret. Trump calls other countries shitholes, and that's actually what he thinks. No doubt it's a diplomatic nightmare but I can't help but muster a small amount of respect for the sheer brazenness of it.
Brazenness is one way to describe it. Another might be a total lack of respect for anyone that doesn't capitulate.<p>It isn't like "saying it like it is" is actually good, or a morally respectable position. It is just word vomit. Most cynically, it is a political strategy to distract from his real self-interests.
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To be fair it's in the website itself. I agree though.
There's a good number of differences between "shithouse countries" and countries that care enough about the wellbeing of their citizens to have good, clean, and free public toilets.<p>We should definitely make not using that phrase one of them.
Nah. Making things great again will continue till greatness improves.
>us all<p>you do realize that half your country had voted for the guy three times?
Imagine building such objects and a graceful website only to have the visitor be confronted with "Shit" right at the beginning. Try this Norway: 'Outhouse'.
Few in Europe can afford visiting these "free" Norwegian restrooms.
I think the hundred of thousands of tourists packing the roads all summer didn't get your memo.<p>You can do expensive vacation or cheap vacation, and both are possible in Norway. You can get a cheap flight and sleep in a tent, or you can drive your car through Sweden.<p>Or you can fly in and stay on expensive hotels.
Norway has everyman's right, so for some holidaymakers that means no accommodation costs. It is also popular to do one's grocery shopping on the Swedish side of the border, or even drive up from Germany with a full load of food for the length of the holiday.
Almost everybody can afford it if they really want to.<p>Not thinking something is worth what it cost doesn't mean you can't afford it.
> Not thinking something is worth what it cost doesn't mean you can't afford it.<p>Make it the official motto of entire Scandinavia. "This burrito is 30 EUR and a seat in a shuttle coach is 50 EUR, but I have to eat something and get to the airport". In certain circumstances I can even afford a 1000 EUR burrito.
Scandinavia (except for Norway) is no more expensive to tour than the rest of Europe. After Covid they caught up in price.<p>But you don't go to Norway for the burritos or beer pints or hotels, but for the nature and outdoors experiences. Which are free. So if you really want it, then you can have it without breaking the bank. But if you want a traditional holiday of drinking and eating and guided tours, then Norway isn't it.
I don't think many Americans visiting Norway can fit into the bathroom there.<p>Bad accessibility, not just for the fatties but also elderlies.
Let's see if they'll still act cute if they're actually confronted by their notorious neighbor one day.
Finland?<p>(I assume you mean Russia, but given that it’s only barely holding it together in Ukraine, it probably won’t be invading _Norway_ anytime soon).
After being confronted over and over by the notorious US, I think that would be peanuts for them.
Last I checked Norway doesn't have a border with the US ;)