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The current cause célebre is the fruit stands in the subway. No sanitary facilities to speak of. In one video the lady licks her knife by way of cleaning it between fruits. I'm sure a certain type of high-openness person genuinely *is* enriched by having what amounts to Mayan market vendors on their own doorstep, complete with exotic fruits and seasonings and an exciting language and culture to learn from. And these are indeed the kind of things that, should they be anywhere, should be in New York City, capital of Earth. But these people would defend regulation in any other circumstance and seem willing to cast aside the kind of hygiene a ten-year-old boy would adhere to in favor of this exoticism.

All this is to say every one of these unlicensed carts should be shut down today. I'm all for a discussion to make such licensing easier, but they need to be shut down first pour encourager les autres.

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Jun 3Edited

Heh, I have a co-worker who grew up abroad. The local equivalent of drinking fountains was a spigot with a literal glass. You put in a penny, the spigot filled the glass with water and then you drank. If there was a crack in the rim? You just rotated the glass so that the crack faced away from you.

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Going to be a massive hypocrite here and say this is based. This hits the sweet spot between a high trust society and not understanding your theory. Such fountains require public infrastructure and upkeep, which suggests some respect for the commons and ones fellow citizens. It would also require people not drinking from the cup if they knew they were sick, and given just how prevalent these were across much of Central and Eastern Europe, it is presumably the case that this was adhered to. RETVRN to thr germ cup.

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Although Russia had them and it's very low trust, so what do I know? In fact it even had them on fruit drink vending machines.

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Kudos for knowing what part of the world I was referring to.

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In the Soviet era there were also vending machines for cheap, low quality wine - the sort of stuff we Aussies call "goon" and drink from bladders inside cardboard boxes.

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This is what they took from us

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I was thinking in terms that most of the time sharing saliva with your fellow citizens is probably not going to make you sick, hence the knife cleaning trick.

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True but the scenario is different. If you feel sido you just avoid the cup until you're better. If you are working to literally put cash in your pocket you'll cut more corners.

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I'm an Eastern European and never saw this. Why do you make up stuff?

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They must have seen you coming and hid them.

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Very funny reply! So again, why do you make shit up?

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I don't. I think what's happened is you're appointed yourself as "America's expert on Eastern Europe" but have pretty limited experience of it. Rural water fountains very commonly have a shared cup throughout the Continent, or at least did until fairly recently.

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I am an Eastern Euro who never lived in the US. And yes, as someone from the region, I'm a bit of am expert on it.

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I bet you know all aboot it!

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"RETVRN to thr germ cup." You sound like an American who exotocizes Central and Eastern Europe.

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