this post was submitted on 01 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:

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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Anarchy is very cool, until someone has the wrong opinion.

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[–] definitely_AI@feddit.online 56 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Looking at you, leftymemes

ugh

groupthink central, do NOT divert an inch from the state sanctioned opinions, OR ELSE

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 52 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's all fun and games until you say that China is wearing socialism as a cloak the same way America wears Christianity or Israel wears anti-semitism.

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[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I’ve seen better moderation in .ml instances.

[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Uh oh. One or the other found you, here comes the brigade!

[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I’ve been brigaded by better instances.

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

"You are allowed to do anything you want, so long as it's exactly what we say"

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Hey! I will have you know that we're are all different and unique in exactly the same way.

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[–] troed@fedia.io 38 points 1 month ago

This is very true - I usually refer to it as "BOFH behavior". I think it stems from many people who end up hosting or moderating feeling that they themselves have been marginalised before so "now they're going to show them!".

A great example is a Mastodon instance where if you don't agree with the site's admin they'll block you at the server level instead of from their personal account. The belief is that if they have an opinion that opinion must then be enforced for everyone else under their control too.

[–] BonkTheAnnoyed@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Okay, I'll bite. I need to add to my block list anyway.

Y'all have heard of the Nazi Bar problem, right? Paradox of intolerance? Which turns out not to be a paradox after all? You should def look that one up rather than waiting for me to type it all out.

[–] Voidian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (9 children)

People like to refer to the paradox of tolerance but always skip out on the inconvenient bit:

""Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.

— In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.

We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.""

If you are not able to rationally argue why we shouldn't be bigoted, I don't know what to tell you.

[–] CXORA@aussie.zone 21 points 1 month ago (2 children)

One problem with bigots is they dont care about truth or logic. Its a waste of time to continually argue the same points over and over again with people who refuse to learn or think.

[–] Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

But remember, be sure that your point is logical and truthful, and not parroting talking points in spite of them being repeated all around you.

Being truthful and logical is not always a popular position. Some would say it's not even often the popular position.

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[–] 9bananas@feddit.org 6 points 1 month ago

i mean, seems you're also conveniently skipping over the part that says:

as long as we can counter them by rational argument

it's right there in the text:

popper states outright, that there are some ideologies and by extension people, that straight-up cannot be argued with. these, therefore, must be excluded from the community, and thereby form the limit to tolerance that must be enforced.

people really love to misinterpret popper...

what goes along nicely with the tolerance of paradox is the quote about anti-semites being entirely aware of how absurd their position truly are:

“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

take both popper and sartre together into consideration of a larger context and it becomes abundantly obvious that a certain minimum of intolerance is strictly necessary for a functional society.

what happens when all checks on speech are removed can be clearly seen in the rotting corpses of facebook and twitter... it's disastrous.

[–] Waveform@multiverse.soulism.net 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

i think people not knowing how to actually win an argument against a bigot is exactly the reason there are so many these days

shit's easy. not that they'll admit defeat but getting them babbling irrational nonsense takes very little debating skills. and when they inevitably start throwing ad hominems, then the mods have legitimate grounds to kick them out.

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[–] bestboyfriendintheworld@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] SalamenceFury@piefed.social 21 points 1 month ago (5 children)

You know that anarchism doesn't mean no rules right? It just means no rulers, but that's not how it works on Lemmy or any social media of this type for that matter.

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[–] fizzle@quokk.au 16 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I have a pretty low opinion of moderators generally.

In the vast majority of cases, the people who actually want to be moderators are precisely the worst kinds of people to do the job.

Of course there are exceptions but all too often they're doing it because they like the power and attention.

[–] adhd_traco@piefed.social 11 points 1 month ago (11 children)

I think many people feel this way, and I think in many cases another thing that plays into it is not realising the amount of good moderators, because good moderation usually doesn't make as much noise as when it's bad.

If I think of all the communities in lemmy/piefed I like, the perfect/near perfect moderation from my browsing heavily outweighs anything problematic.

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[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Are you really comparing a completely optional forum to a society where people can and will point guns at you?

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

"They don't let me spread transphobic rhetoric in this optional community online, literally 1984!"

[–] Paragone@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Aannndddd..... people "wonder why" nothing changes, when THEIR pack/herd/tribe gains power, or when another's does: it just goes 'round & 'round & 'round, again.

Until one has fundamentally altered one's own unconscious-mind,

altering one's own nature,

then the same nature as what created the problems we're caught-in, is all one has to wield.

"physician, 1st heal thyself" is the key, but nobody's got the guts to enforce the deep transformation.

( & I'm saying that while having failed to break unconscious-ignorance from this-incarnation/life, thus-far, myself, for decades.

It isn't easy, but if one never tries, it'll never have more than 0% chance of happening.

it'd be easier in a culture which accepted such transformations as valid, fersure, but that got eradicated by materialism, didn't it? )


aka Spot-on, Voidan@lemmy-dbzer0.com , spot-on.

( :

_ /\ _

[–] Voidian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 month ago

Aannndddd… yeah. The "round and round" is what happens when we mistake performative rebellion for actual change. Most of us know the system’s broken, but we’d rather rage at the symptoms than admit we’re part of the pattern. You’re dead right about the "physician, heal thyself" bit, except nobody wants to do the boring work of actually examining why they crave control, whether it’s over a Lemmy community or a state. Easier to just slap a label on the ‘enemy’ and call it a day.

True rebellion against fascism starts with the self.

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[–] Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago

You have to lick the correct footwear.

[–] TwodogsFighting@lemdro.id 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Some of those who moderate postses!

[–] Dr_Fetus_Jackson@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

*Tom Morello has entered the chat

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[–] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

From my experience, no moderator enjoys the job. And the job is tougher than you think.

[–] Voidian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 month ago

I'm well aware of the challenges, having modded several communities. Which is exactly why I would never do the thing that so many people here do and make themselves the mods of 20+ political communities.

[–] definitely_AI@feddit.online 6 points 1 month ago

They sure love the powertrip tho, which more than makes up for it

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Anybody who sees Authority as a responsability is naturally averse to having it because they would feel the weight of it and would feel bad if, whilst holding Authority, they made a mistake and others got in some way hurt because of that.

Those who see Authority as power to advance something (be it their own personal upsides or some idea they believe in) with little or no feeling of responsability towards others (be it not all directly or they've suppressed it by convincing themselves their actions are somehow "for the greater good" hence any bad they do with the authority has that grand excuse to salve their conscience), have no such aversion to holding authority.

That posture towards authority of people of the second kind applies more broadly to all manner of things which serve to pressure, convince or manipulate others (Authority is generally power force something on others) so of course they also have no aversion to using other such tools, including using ideology to manipulate others, and sometimes that means passing themselves as somebody who holds a certain ideology, and that includes Anarchism.

So yeah, you're going to find that certain people who parrot Anarchist talk aren't in fact people whose Principles mean they're naturally Anarchist but rather people being Performative Anarchists in order to fit-in and manipulate others driven by entirelly different Principles, and such people are absolutelly pro-Authority as long as they're in control of it.

In summary, there are two types of people who seem Anarchist:

  • Those whose personal principles means they are averse to people controlling other people. There are naturally against any form of Authority.
  • Those who want to control other people and are in a specific situation where Theatre Of Anarchism can advance their objectives. These are against forms of Authority which hinder their objectives but are in favor of forms of Authority which advance their objectives.

IMHO, the best way to spot the second kind from the first is to look for the often repetition of common slogans and having a superficial level of ideology with no actual tracing back to personal principles since they learned the ideology at an intellectual level rather than being drived by their Principles - i.e. what feels Right and what feels Wrong - to finding that formal ideology as something that fits them.

By the way, this method to identify the real ones from the performers also works for all other ideologies and even things like Faith - start paying attention and you'll spot all manner of teatrics around ideologies all across the entire political spectrum as well as in people professing some faith or other.

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[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

The anarchist code of conduct

fucking morons

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Just tell them that moral absolutism benefits the status-quo.

Because it's true. It does. I think it's actually a psyop by the capitalists to prevent socialism ever taking a foothold or affecting their money. Capitalists are afraid of positive incremental change, so they tricked leftists into being afraid of it too.

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[–] Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I mean this may be decentralized but its still social media. Its gonna be a cesspool by nature of social media.

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 7 points 1 month ago

I don't love moderating my communities at all. I barely even read the reports. 🤷‍♂️

[–] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 5 points 1 month ago

I think "being able to select which community(ies) one is part of and having the ability to opt out" vs being born into it is a key differentiator.

Fwiw, I'm not part of any moderating teams.

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