this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2025
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 hour ago

My interpretation of this might be different, but I agree wholeheartedly with my interpretation.

Being morally just doesn't just mean "not causing harm" directly. It means striving to not cause harm both directly and indirectly. As someone who lives in the USA, our entire society is built off of exploitation. The less expensive something is, the more heavy the exploitation likely is. The cheapest manufacturing is done in countries where labor is exploited or even enslaved, where the manufacturing process can pollute and poison the area with little consequence (to the manufacturer), and where the powerful can force deals on the government to let them extract valuable resources and pay a fraction of its value - depriving the locals and nation prosperity. Even when buying US food products, the food industry mostly relies on extremely poor conditions for the animals it keeps, taking advantage of farmers it buys from or employs, and may even employ migrant children for dangerous slaughterhouse labor.

Avoiding these kinds of practices throughout most supply chains is sometimes impossible and usually more expensive the more thoroughly you manage to avoid the practices. Even then someone has to check in and constantly verify that the practices are legitimately avoided and not just greenwashing or fraudulent.

It's really quite depressing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

According to Lemmy poor people who have done not harm to others have the same morals that poor people that hurt others.

I personally know a homeless person that have never steal or hurt. And several poor people with homes but small income that have stab and stolen other people, probably justifying their shit behavior in being poor.

According to some out of touch lemmings those two people are morally equivalent.

Being poor doesn't justify being a shit person. And defending that is insulting to honest and moral poor people.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

I guess you can always find "some" people that can fit with your strawman, doesn't really make it a valid argument.

"Some people" on Lemmy think the earth is flat. "Some" are pedophiles. "Some" are even Republicans. That doesn't mean they are correct or common.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Oh no! You put republicans in my showerthoughts. Oh, that's a strange mix.

I think I'm gonna puke.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

What are you implying is the strawman?

The millions of honest and dishonest poor and rich people that prove that morals are not related to money? Or the statically significant lemmings that agree with "all poor are good because they are poor" ?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

The part were you say a significant amount of people on Lemmy think that stabbing others is morally correct if you're poor.

And just to be clear, in not implying, I'm telling it plain and open.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

? Pretty sure that’s not what they said.

They said that there are people on Lemmy who think a person who stabs someone vs a person who doesn’t are morally equivalent—as long as they’re both poor.

Very different.

They did also say that there are poor people who stab others and blame their actions on being poor, but that was tangential to their main point about judging the morals of a person solely based on their wealth or lack thereof.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 hours ago

I think it was Mark Twain who said that in order for a man to be moral he needs to be well-fed first.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 hours ago

I understand where you're coming from, because many societies are being structured in ways that make it feel like you are only hurting yourself by not being just and moral. It's truly horrible when trying to live a life following "the good" puts you in the path of pain all the time, working jobs you don't want to afford not to be put out on the street (and God forbid you want to have kids if you're in a high cost of living area).

With all that being said: I'd fear becoming an evil person more than dying poor. I hope that we can work together to make a world that isn't run by greedy, bad people.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (2 children)

Wait till you realize morality is shitty fucked up crutch that doesn't work at best and a tool to control people at... usual, not even the worst

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Is this an anarchist perspective? Just trying to see what your broader view might be.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (3 children)

No, I don't expect there to be any ready label for this. In a nutshell:

  • humans are as much part of life on this planet as everything else. the "killing is wrong" kind of maxims is just plain bullshit, just go watch how other forms of life take care of their sustenance
  • moral dilemmas show by their existence that pretty much any widespread "morally right" way to behave has its limits, yet those limits are somehow "omitted" from most sources that are supposed to teach people what is good and what is bad

also, "good" and "bad" do not actually exist: you can vaporise whole Earth and rest of the universe won't even notice

  • still there is a vivid difference between a kind soul attending to a garden a feeding stray cats and dogs who happen to come by and an idiot torturing kittens in front of their mother just for fun, even seeing these situations produces very different experiences. Substitute humans here with animals and appropriate behaviour, the difference will still stand. So there is some kind of "this is in line with how all life longs to be", "that is not how mature and balanced living creatures operate", but I have no clue even what level to look at to find that difference
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Still in support. Reality is an illusion. Tuesdays, doubly so. A comet could wipe us all, and nothing will have essentially changed. Morals are power structures. Meaning is where you find it, because you are what brings meaning. This perspective doesn't need a label. It's what ... is.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 53 minutes ago

Thank you :) And maybe it is not. If reality is an illusion and I am only dreaming, why can't I dream myself immortal and stop getting so sleepy in the evenings already. But yeah, a comet could wipe us all and meaning only exists in the mind of observer, this is a hill I can joyfully die on

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

TLDR: So morality doesn't exist, killing is ok, the way we teach morality to people is too simple, only physical reality matters, and actually there is a morality it's kind of going along with a good nature balance and it's sorta nuanced? Gotta feel it in your gut ya know? Anyway I haven't researched any philosophy or study of ethics.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 56 minutes ago

That is a word salad I could support, as dbtng already said:)

Ok, but seriously, I studied only a bit of philosophy and no ethics, and the question of discerning between objective reality and subjective observer can keep us occupied for many lifetimes, so no use in trying do dive deeper

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I appreciate you giving me your candid opinion. I find some of it fascinating, from the perspective that you're not just subscribing to some brand of nihilism or whatever.

I do agree with some of it, from a lay persons perspective. I'm no philosopher and I'm certain someone might be much more qualified to tell you all about the origins of your belief. Like you talk about some simple coping strategies like, "good and bad being inconsequential when compared to an infinitely large universe." These are just copes we develop to reconcile the brutal nature of the world.

Getting back to morality, i think, the more we are separated from the "bad thing" that happened the harder it is to apply a moral framework around it and even if you did, trying to teach that framework on a scale that will reach everyone is mostly impossible.

So end of the day we are still just picking battles, which is usually just harm reduction.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Thank you for the reply :)

Well, trying to teach others to think like me is not something I will attempt: in the end, what I have come to think about anything is just a result of my biography, there is no point in trying to imprint it onto other people. And for the coping part, two things:

  • the world was before me, will be after me. If I get wounded by how it is, that's on me
  • I am not talking about good and bad being inconsequential, I am talking of them not existing as actual reality, same way words do not exist as reality: they mean what they mean only because some people agreed on it. There is nothing to cope with
[–] [email protected] 1 points 36 minutes ago

You obviously know that most people won't understand you. I feel ya. People don't understand me either.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

This is a word salad that I can support.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

Don't use being poor to justify your shitty choices bro, wtf? Trash take.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

You just assume I'm poor. Nice.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Simple. Trashy. But simple.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 hours ago

According to Lemmy all poor people are good.

Tell that to Juan, the homeless I personally know that has not done anything bad, and have been always an angel. He had never hurt or steal anyone and he doesn't even have a roof over his head.

But according to Lemmy shitheads that kill, steal and rape have the same moral merit as Juan because they are not rich.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I'm sorry but this is fucking stupid. WHO is calling WHAT immoral? Someone babbling on recycling, who the fuck cares about recycling?

Poorest people are 100% capable of making choices that align with their personal values as anyone else. This is such a fucking Christian thread. What, do you think morals come from the Bible? what a joke

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

There ya go. Yes, 'threading a moral needle with bad choices' is all just pure imagery. Nothing real was said. There's no actual situation under discussion, just vapor.

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