this post was submitted on 31 Mar 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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[Citation Needed]
The problem with statements like this is tautological. If somebody can't get themselves out of a situation, one can just breezily dismiss it by saying that they didn't work hard enough.
It's why I think that we need to send Elon Musk to colonize Mars. By himself. He's a self-made job creator, so he can start up a successful business first, create those jobs, and then send for workers later, right? He wouldn't even need heavy, expensive life support equipment!
If you think that this is ridiculous, then you have to concede that there are actually some structural obstacles that can't be overcome by any amount of gumption. (And is it really just a lack of effort that explains why nobody born in Soweto in 1971 is a near-trillionaire?)
My experience and all the people I've spoken to throughout my life. Not 1 single person in a shut scenario didn't have options to negate or escape said scenario.
Or they weren't smart enough. Or they where not fit (in the Darwinian sense) enough to get out of it.
That's an excellent strawman. He went from a middle class situation (similar to thousands of people of people myself included) to the worlds richest man. He was not handed everything he has on a platter. He admittedly started with more than most but he still did infinitely better than anyone else born to similar level of advantage.
Their absolutely are structural obstacles just that these obstacles are infinitely less than previous. I mean by your logic we claim claim that the dictatorial control of Iran by the iatola is a structural obstacle and justify trumps actions in Iran hell we can justify the dropping of the nuclear bomb on Japan or go a step further and justify Hitlers actions as he confiscating property from an entire class of people and redistributed to those with less this still counts as removing structural obstacles regardless of the morality of such actions. Blind adherence to your argument takes us to a very dark place very quickly.
I want u to go to south Africa on Google street view and scroll back through time just looking at the streets and what u see. Then I want u to think about why the changes ur witnessing have happened and what changed into the period of time for which these changes happened (demographic changes might be a good indicator).
Elon Musk was not middle class. Unbelievably dumb statement. He grew up in one of the largest houses in Pretoria. Don't get jealous though as his father was a child rapist. Like most wealthy people, rotten to the core.
I did some googling and I would say comfortably upper middle class. I guess ur definition and mine are different.
Glad you did the right thing and looked it up instead of talking out your ass.
Is that u admitting I was right wrapped in a bad faith personal attack? Perhaps let's try keep to discussing ideas instead of insulting each other like mid witted barbarians.
No, I am saying you were full of shit talking out your ass and then you looked it up and saw you were wrong.
I don't like what you have to say at all with the pull yourself up by the bootstraps, ignore privilege, subtle racist garbage.
Talking up Elon like he is not a piece of shit and lying about his upbringing made me chime in since I have actually read about the loser.
That only shows that SOME of the people who somehow relates to you, have options.
Have you ever wondered why they don't take those options? You might have missed something that prevents them.
Or maybe better: Have you wondered about the people further away from you? I can guarantee you, millions of people literally don't have any good options. If you haven't met any, that only means you have met any.
I've met many people of many different nations of many different levels of wealth and success. Every single one of them in a shit scenario got their by choices they made.
Why don't I take those options? Cos I can read the statistics on everyone before me, I paid attention in school, I realised that drugs, debt, gambling, criminal behaviour etc don't improve my life. I chose an education path and career that make it impossible for me to end up a brokie loser
Lots of people don't have access to any of the information sources you had, or the ability to take any of the options you did.
You had plenty of good options, and you chose from those. Some people only have bad options. They pick bad options, because that's all they have.
Almost every single person on this planet has internet access and that can teach u literally anything. And please explain when doing crack is the best of a set of bad options?
Honestly, I think it would be healthy for you to study just a little bit about what it's like to be poor and unprivileged. If nothing else, it should make you feel more lucky in life, and make you appreciate what you have more.
First, about a third of the world population doesn't have access to internet at all.
Second, what do you think a person can do with internet, when their intire life is about getting enough food to survive? And how would an education even help, if you have no chance of ever getting a job or starting a business bigger than selling water and snacks to people stuck in traffic near your bridge?
If you have never been so physically and mentally used, and so far down, and so out of options that the only way of of the missery is substance abuse, you are lucky.
If you are so far away from all of this, that you are unaware of its existence, you are very lucky.