this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2025
239 points (93.5% liked)
Showerthoughts
37979 readers
1002 users here now
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.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Do you guys pay really low taxes in the US? I just wonder why this isn't a critical public service and therefore something that is funded through tax by the government?
It depends what state/county/city you live in. For instance, battling the Palisades Fire we had the city LAFD, the LA County Fire Department, and CalFire all coordinating resources, including some of the incarcerated firefighters who just got a raise from $1.00/hr to $7.25/hr and are starting to be able to apply for regular firefighter certification when they get out. And yes, our taxes pay for this, one of the most-supported uses of that money. They also do fast-water rescue when we have enough rain to flood the streams and rivers, help extract crash victims and put out flaming vehicles on the highways, and rescue hikers and mountain bikers on the local trails....
Whereas if you live in a rural red area, there may only be volunteers, because there's not voter support for a professional fire department.
That's really interesting, thanks. Incredible that it's a political stance, why do Republicans vote against it can I ask? - is it seen sort of like a socialist provision?
I wouldn't know, but probably something like "I ain't payin' for putting out someone else's fire! And I sure as hell ain't payin' a buncha guys to sit around the firehouse when nuthin' is burnin'!"
Meanwhile a lot of the work our firefighters do throughout the year is clearing brush, creating and maintaining pre-emptive fire lines so they'll have places to make a stand when wildfires do erupt, and making sure buildings are less likely to burn in the first place.
Oh that reminds me, I should probably add, "Ain't nobody gonna tell me what I can do on my property!"
Yuuup some really low taxes and also a lot of money gets turned into fighter jets and missiles which are of limited use in a structure fire. If they asked me I'd shave off a cheeky 5% of our defense budget and turn it into emergency response but they don't ask
Everyone pays central government taxes also yes! (is that what "Federal" means?). It's a shame something like you suggest can't be pushed through pragmatically at that level but like you say, you can't yeet firefighters out of planes at people :)
Yes, but the central government has a bunch of rules surrounding how it’s formed that can be summarized as “not elected by the people, but by the amount of land you own” so the central federal government doesn’t do anything that helps people, only things that enable big businesses to make more money.