this post was submitted on 11 Jan 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
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- The entire showerthought must be in the title
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- 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
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Turns out only a handful of things in all of history have pushed people out of social boundaries and into a realm of discomfort and possible consequence:
Fear and hate. Always number one here, if you get enough people scared together, they can be driven anywhere. Most people don't think, they feel. Feelings drive the motions and actions.
A greater discomfort than breaking social norms and potentially going to jail- IE: starvation, homelessness, genocide, etc.
Extremely charismatic people who capture enough political capital that they're given the opportunity to gather large numbers of people for a cause. These are usually politicians who are well trained in how to influence people, and typically use item #1 to enforce their goals.
Right now we don't have any of these things. We also don't have political capital or organized power such as uniting behind nationalism or guns to demonstrate our ability to actually disrupt the system. This makes us a target by the state, and the state protects capital right here, right now.
We can still fix this through political action and organization, and if we do, we can actually create systems that protect the world from more lich-kings rising up and swallowing all of our work and money. It just takes more social involvement than we're doing now... and since just that seems too much for most progressive-minded people, I don't have a lot of hope that we're going to do any of the other, more forceful things that require a LOT more cohesion.
Reality sucks. I know. But we can influence it.