Toilets or Transistors?

When you look out onto the world, you notice a few trends. One of those trends is the acceleration of technology. There is ample evidence all around us, and if you’ve been alive for more than a couple of decades, you’ve almost certainly seen profound changes in the size and ability of electronic devices.

Entire new paradigms of computing have come into existence, and we’re using computers in ways we never thought imaginable. We’re starting to put devices inside our bodies… and even our brains.

All of this technology is increasing what we humans seem capable of doing. Any sort of glass ceiling that might have limited a human is far less likely to limit a human-AI cyborg, someone who can harness the tools available to help them think.

You might insist that the best way to help the developing world, then, would be to offer high technology based on more transistors on chips. While this would almost surely help, there is a much more effective way to help the developing world.

That way is with toilets.

Think about the streets in Rome, and how there were about 150 public restrooms serving a million residents. Now imagine a similar situation today, in 2024, but with many more people sharing even fewer resources, and you start to get an idea of the scale of the problem.

There are about 8 billion of us here on the planet, and roughly 1.5 billion don’t have even basic access to a toilet. This group includes people who have no choice but to defecate openly or into buckets.

Another 2 billion lack “safely managed services”, meaning they might still get sick from sharing toilets with other households, or the waste isn’t treated off-site, or there’s not soap and water available.

Sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Southern Asia have the worst of this, but the problem is all over the world, even in big cities.

Basic sanitation is the gateway to health and dignity. Without it, there’s little hope for economic opportunity or improvements in education.

Fortunately, we don’t have to turn our focus only toward toilets or transistors. Instead, we can leverage our technology by innovating better toilet designs that use less water… or even no water at all.

Some toilets are even able to generate energy from human waste. One way to get rid of poop is to compost it, and that produces a little bit of energy you can then use to power something.

Smart toilets can optimize efficiency by cutting down on excess water flow and detecting leaks as they form. Some of these toilets can even analyze waste to track certain health markers, something that really took off during the pandemic.

Then, there’s the logistical support that comes from technology. We can use AI to get toilets where they’re most needed, and it might even be possible to 3D print toilets.

I’m frankly excited to see the juncture of tech and sanitation. That’s probably not a huge surprise, given my growing poop collection here on Substack. This also highlights something I write about often—avoiding the binary whenever considering complex discussions.

It’s not a transistors or toilets contest, but more like a transistors and toilets conversation. When people don’t have to worry about basic sanitation needs being met, they might be able to start thinking about things like transistors. Taking a holistic approach that considers the big picture is really important.

What are some of the ways you’ve seen sanitation and technology converge? I’m thinking about everything from automatically flushing toilets to urinal cookies here—no toilet topics are taboo today!