I have solar, and electric water heat… I don’t want to share my bath with the community

A hot bath being wasteful because you have to heat water and need a sewer is ridiculous.

Solar water heaters are a thing and grey water reuse is also a thing.

You don’t even need electricity to have a private bath.

In addition, prior to the modern era regular bathing was often a privilege of the elite, not to mention the hygiene concerns of a giant bowl of people soup.

Bathhouses still exist in the form of steam rooms and the like, and you could make an argument about the inefficiency of personal hot tubs, but those are more specific examples of “bathing” as a recreational activity and not a hygienic one.

The idea that most bathing throughout human history has been inherently communal is kind of absurd on its face.

It’s not like every single whole town or tribe would go to the same spot on the same river at the same time to bathe. Communal bathing may be common amongst some cultures and peoples but the mass communal bathing of the Roman, Victorian, and modernish ages was driven by necessity once you had too many people cramped into too little space, and there were also huge health implications from that lack of hygiene.

I also really do not trust the author napkin math about how much energy Roman baths used, nor does he even establish that household showering is a significant water or energy use compared to wasteful industry.

This is a hilarious take. Home efficiency absolutely needs improvement, but trying to force people together isn’t going to help win anyone over to a greener future.

That’s a ridiculous take.

Cool article about bath houses though.

My bet would be that it would be easier to relocate every major city in the sub tropics and further, into the tropics where the solar energy is available, than to convince people to give up hot water at home.

We won’t do either.