[taneem]

I always find that sharing those little tedious details is what creates visceral understanding of a situation. In this case, the true horror of being a liberated Black person in the 1800s and having to relentlessly work to rescue others, while surrounded by people who truly don't care.

On a lighter note, I use the same approach in understanding user needs as a product builder. I focus on letting people share the minutiae of their day rather than have them editorialize the big topics. By doing so, I get a lot of visceral insight and intuition.

Thanks for sharing this. I really enjoyed reading it.

[mncharity]

tfa> The streets of New York were famously the filthiest in the United States, too, lined with privies piled high, which overflowed into the streets. Loose pigs and dogs snuffled in the mire.

One of my visceral touchstones for early New York: All through the winter, excrement would accumulate, frozen in the streets. Then would come the spring thaw. Even New Yorkers found it notable. It would take several weeks, for hordes of ultimately-fat pigs, to consume that... bounty.

More on topic, I was years ago viscerally struck by a letter from a 1700's British officer embedded with an American militia. He was clearly gobsmacked - the American officer was... was talking with his men, and... asking the men what they thought!?!

Perhaps we might teach history as a "travel guide for the time traveler"? "Finding yourself in NY in December of 1836, ..."

Nice thought on user interviews.

[Neonlicht]

Apparently Edo (now Tokyo) had a population of one million in the 18th century.

Always amazed me how they could pull that off. Japan was a very regulated society which must have helped with the chaos but Japanese people go to the toilet just like everyone else...

[mncharity]

Interesing.[1] Looks like governance (better water supply, sanitation, lower density, a "polluted" caste[2]), intensive agriculture making night soil valuable fertilizer instead of city-as-cesspit waste, and domestic culture (cooking/boiling, cleanliness). The night soil diversion seems to have kept toilets out of sewers/water into the 1900s.

[1] https://wjsmith.faculty.unlv.edu/smithtest/Urban-Sanitation_... (1987) [2] off topic but interesting https://www.academia.edu/download/34028214/The_Creation_of_t...

[e40]

2nd link is a 404 for me

[mncharity]

Thx! That's [1]. So I guess beware direct links into academia.edu.

[1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=Gro...

[DFHippie]

> people who truly don't care

The problem with the old "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" quote of uncertain provenance is that it leaves out most of the population: the people who truly don't care.

[01HNNWZ0MV43FF]

"One-third of your population wants to kill another third, and the last third won't try to stop them"