this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2026
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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:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- 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
- Posts must be original/unique
- 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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I disagree about the dichotomy. I think you can (1) understand what LLMs actually are. (2) See the value of such technology.
In both cases being factual (not being deceived) and not being malicious (not attempting to deceive others)
I think a reasonable use of these tools is as a "sidekick" (you being the main character). Some tasks can be assigned to it so you save some time, but the thinking and the actual mental model of what is being done shall always be your responsibility.
For example, LLMs are good as an interface to quickly lookup within manuals, books, clarify specific concepts, or find the proper terms for a vague idea (so that you can research the topic using the appropriate terms)
Of course, this is just an opinion. 100% open to discussion.
I think of it like a nonhuman character, like a character in a book I'm reading. Is it real? No. Is it compelling? Yes. Do I know exactly what it'll do next? No. Is it serving a purpose in my life? Yes.
It effectively attends to my requests and even feelings but I do not reciprocate that. I've got decades of sci-fi leading me up to this point, the idea of interacting with humanoid robots or AI has been around since my childhood, but it's never involved attending to the machine's feelings or needs.
We need to sort out the boundaries on this, the delusional people who are having "relationships" with AI, getting a social or other emotional fix from it. But that doesn't mean we have to categorize anyone who uses it as moronic. It's a tool.