this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2026
213 points (91.4% liked)
Showerthoughts
38900 readers
1358 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
Nothing about that was easy. It may not have been as difficult as it is now, but it still wasn’t “easy”.
It wasn't that hard. Spend a couple hours in the children's section of a cemetery in some midsize Midwest city, and you'd have a list of names of babies, who most likely died right in that very county. Request a copy of a birth certificate from the local county offices. Use that to apply for a Social Security Card, and use that and the birth certificate to get a driver's license.
Most of it has to be done through the mail, so it will take a while, but that's the worst of it.
Can't do that today, though. They've locked down birth certificates pretty well, it would be hard to get your mitts on one. These days they tend to just steal someone else's identity, and live parallel lives with someone else.
You just described to me how it’s extremely difficult and requires a lot of effort.
When I had a racket making fake IDs in the 90s, I didn’t go through a fraction of that much trouble, and they came out looking perfect. Because I figured out the algorithm by which New York State makes ID numbers. It wasn’t difficult. The number corresponds to several different pieces of information on the license itself. And with Photoshop, I just put your picture in there.
No traveling to a midsize Midwest city, no trolling cemeteries for dead children, no interstate identity and Social Security fraud required. And it took about 15 minutes to do.
And even then, I wouldn’t call that “pretty easy”
Yeah, that was life before the Internet. You actually had to do stuff. You couldn't just click a few keys, and get what you want.
Still, to create an entirely new identity, and disappear? Today, you couldn't do it all. A little legwork and a few months of waiting for mail isn't that much to ask.
Literally, nobody said that. And you’re also making my point that it would be a huge pain in the ass, not “easy“.
I wouldn’t know, and that’s not what we’re discussing here. And, once again, you’ve made my point for me that it wouldn’t be “easy“, it would be a gigantic pain in the ass.
It was something you could do yourself, and not have to track down some sketchy criminal to buy some fake identity that may or may not work.
It was a major crime that you could pull off all by yourself, without getting involved with anyone else. It wasn't a pain in the ass, any more than anything was a pain in the ass in the olden days. Want to buy something? Get your ass in the car and go to the store. Want a gift for someone in another state? You had to buy it, box it, and take it to the post office to mail it. No buying it from Amazon and having it delivered, without ever leaving your chair.
Spending a couple of hours in a cemetery, them mailing a couple of letters, would have been considered a pretty easy major crime in those days.
Ok rebel. But that wasn’t what we’re discussing. The point of the discussion was whether or not it was easy. And by everything you keep saying, it was an enormous pain in the ass to do what you’re describing. And well, it may not have been a pain in the ass for you in particular, for any normal person it would’ve been. And the more you keep “explaining”, the more and more you prove that to be the case.
I don’t even know what you’re trying to argue at this point. That you committed crimes and are therefore cool? Because it certainly was neither simple nor easy the way you describe it.
The point was that in the old days, that's what you had to do to create an entirely new identity, and considering how effective it was, it really wasn't that complicated or difficult.
Only today, where so many things are easy, does a few steps, including a couple of hours in a cemetery, a couple of letters, and some waiting time, sound like insurmountable obstacles. That's especially true, when you consider that today, you probably couldn't do it yourself, and you'd have to involve yourself with some people you probably don't want to deal with, and pay a ton of money.
But yeah, the old way was harder, because you had to walk around.
You are the only person in this entire comment section discussing that. As I have said, many times now, the rest of us were discussing creating a fake ID. You keep trying to change the subject.
Except you described, in a bit of the detail, exactly how difficult it was, and how long it took. You keep claiming the opposite of what you spend paragraphs explaining.
I’m sorry you’re so confused. But this has been a waste of my time. I’m blocking you because everything you say is nonsense.
I was making a minor contribution to a discussion, and that would have been the end of it, but something about it seemed to really offend you, and send you on the attack. All I've done since then is reiterate my opinion that taking a few steps isn't really that difficult, but you can't seem to let it go. You've already forced the two of us to put far more effort into this argument than it would take to actually create a fake identity on the 60s.
I've never seen someone so lazy that they'd get infuriated by three simple steps, with one requiring you to go outdoors.