
A game theoretic approach to the toilet seat problem - moeffju
http://home.tiac.net/~cri/1998/toilet.html
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lucian1900
Heh. My simpler solution is to just always sit (I'm a guy). It's more
comfortable, requires less concentration and removes any possibility of
missing.

The only time I stand is for proper urinals.

~~~
tzs
Actually, sitting does not remove the possibility of missing. I once had an
unfortunate encounter with a toilet where someone had installed an elongated
seat on a non-elongated bowl. This made it possible to easily and
inadvertantly sit in a way that resulted in missing.

~~~
dazbradbury
Agreed - and it's not the only problem. I mentioned this to my brother and he
said:

    
    
       You know, I think I once wee'd in my face doing that.
       I hit some crazy angle and it just sprayed out.
       I can't remember the exact parameters but something very odd happened.
    

Always sit at your own risk.

~~~
lucian1900
Heh, I think your brother was just unlucky.

I've been sitting while peeing for most of my life and I've never sprayed
myself. It does take a little practice to do it with an erection, but you have
this problem if standing too.

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briandear
This whole problem has become a cliché. I've been married for over a year now
and never once has this been an issue. Maybe it's because I pee in the sink..

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Lewton
I always leave the seat AND the lid down, to cause equal annoyance for
everyone

~~~
KwanEsq
I don't get why everyone doesn't do this, it's the best and most logical
choice. Not to mention what's even the point of having a lid if it's never
used.

~~~
sodiumphosphate
Seriously, the 'toilet seat problem' is merely a side effect of the _toilet
lid cultural ignorance problem_.

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Renaud
There is a simple solution that takes care of the problem entirely and has the
added benefit of increasing general cleanliness around the operation's area
and avoid any possible argument: just perform #1 seated.

~~~
emiliobumachar
TheOatmeal has done a detailed pros and cons analysis on that habit, coming to
the conclusion it should not be done. My apologies for not linking, but I
can't access it from work.

~~~
Jimmie
I dug it up and it's pretty juvenile
<http://theoatmeal.com/comics/peeing_sitting_down>

I sit to pee, just easier and it means I can take a leak at night without
blinding myself with the lights.

~~~
aidenn0
It's pretty easy to pee standing in the dark, just stand over the toilet and
aim straight down.

~~~
Jimmie
I'm pretty unco, I'd probably miss 50% of the time and I don't want to be
cleaning up piss at 3 am.

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StavrosK
Is this really a problem? Everyone I've ever cohabitated with engaged in their
own toilet seat manipulation and it was never an issue. Maybe it's a US thing.

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brannerchinese
Some men will pee on the seat — whether intentionally or not I have never
figured out — if it's left down. Leaving it up maximizes cleanliness.

~~~
yungchin
If you stick with the assumption that both Marsha and John aim to minimise the
marital discord M, then John won't spill on the seat. So I guess the theory
only addresses the subset of non-disfunctional marriages ;)

~~~
brannerchinese
Marsha and John's guests and visitors, however, are a different matter.

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smoyer
"In our analysis we shall assume that John and Marsha perform toilet
operations with the same frequency"

Yeah right ... I have a wife, two sons and two daughters and we have 4
bathrooms in the house which works out perfectly. That's one bathroom for each
female and a spare one for the three males to share.

And the comments about the lid are funny. I was taught to put it down when I
was growing up, but I never find one that way (don't let the dog kiss you at
my house).

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pardner
Sometimes, when you apply real-world numbers, a single forcing function
overwhelms any other subtleties in the analysis. The analysis in this case
fails to address the extraordinarily high cost of nagging John must endure
when Marsha is inconvenienced N(J) as opposed to the other way around. Since
N(J) = K * N(M), and K is never less than 50 IMO, strategy M will be the
winner. Always.

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gwern
Oddly enough, this is the _second_ game theoretic analysis of toilet seats
I've seen in my life; the first was
<http://www.urticator.net/essay/4/482.html> which in some ways seems to be
better.

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gazrogers
Am I the only man in the world who leaves the seat up regardless of the
operation undertaken?

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jgrahamc
Or place a coin near the toilet and flip it after use (and washing your
hands). Use the coin to determine a new random seat position thus causing
randomized nuisance for everyone.

~~~
a3_nm
The cost of coin flipping is probably more than the cost of seat position
transfer.

~~~
jff
Simple: Install a random number generator and a light, connected up to the
handle. When you flush, if the light goes on, put the seat in the down
position, if it's off, put it in the up position.

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omonra
This analysis misses a very important point - Marsha benefits from John
lifting the seat since this avoids it getting dirty (assuming they take turns
using the toilet and John is not a very accurate shooter).

Moreover, John is probably going to perform #1 more frequently then #2 - by a
factor of 3-4? Thus, we can further stipulate that his default state should be
'seat up' and ask whether Marsha should be made to lift the seat up after she
is done.

~~~
aidenn0
I think you need to reread the article:

1) The analysis assumes that John ensures the seat is in the up position
before #1; if the seat is up he pays cost 0 and if it is down he pays cost C.
Furthermore if John performes #1 with the seat down, the question of the final
position of the seat is moot compared to the question of "why is John gross?"

2) The article takes the probability p of #1 for John. It notes that if p <
1/2 then Marsha's strategy is actually good, but this is clearly not the case

~~~
omonra
"Furthermore if John performes #1 with the seat down, the question of the
final position of the seat is moot compared to the question of "why is John
gross?"

That's precisely what I am taking issue with - an implicit assumption that
lifting of the seat ONLY benefits John and HARMS Marsh. I think it's more
appropriate to characterize it as bestowing equal benefit on both parties
(clean seat) and equal work as well (John lifts the seat / Marsha puts it
down).

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yungchin
"Criterion (2) seems plausible. It requires, however, that Marsha put the seat
in the up position after performing a toilet operation some percentage of the
time. No instance of this behaviour has ever been observed in recorded
history; ergo this criterion can be ruled out."

I thought it was a pity that he skipped this one. He was otherwise really
quite thorough!

~~~
jff
My observations also hold, I have never once had evidence that a woman has
raised the seat. Leaving out this possibility is on the same level as assuming
that things fall downward or that the sun rises in the east.

(Honestly, though, who doesn't check the state of the seat before commencing
operations? What sort of fairyland would you have to be living in?)

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moeffju
Of course, there's always the simple option of "simply sit down".

~~~
lmm
That'd waste more time than moving the seat does.

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nhebb
Another solution is to get a dog. Marsha will realize that sitting in wet dog
slobber is far worse than having to put the seat down occasionally. _(At
least, that's the rationale I use for leaving the seat up in my house.)_

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kstenerud
My solution is to just leave the toilet seat any which way and pay it no mind.
If someone's getting bent out of shape over this sort of issue, they're
squarely in the realm of first world problems.

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amishforkfight
The simplest solution is that each member of the household customize the seat
to their liking before performing any actions. If you fall in and flush your
intestines out, well, tough giggles.

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CookWithMe
I showed the article to my girlfriend and she suggested adding the cleaning
cost to the equation... well played!

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denzil_correa
#FirstWorldProblems

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skylan_q
Install a urinal!

~~~
rsanchez1
But what if someone does #2 in the urinal?

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planetguy
Everyone is so full of simple solutions. My simple solution is to own a house
with at least enough toilets for everybody so that you can have your own and
don't need to share.

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aidenn0
You must be American.

~~~
planetguy
Nope, but thanks for the stereotype!

