this post was submitted on 04 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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I'm glad you clearly defined the issue so that I now understand why everyone is so up I'm arms about the intelligence argument. I made a similar one recently to a person who said black folks had lower IQs and explained that the test results would have probably been much different if all participants came from the same socioeconomic backgrounds. But then got called a Nazi in a separate discussion for discussing intelligence and race on Lemmy. So I guess my real problem was not realizing that other people don't get how education and environment can change the results of IQ tests and intelligence perception. I just kinda thought everyone knew that. So if you speak in terms of race and perceived intelligence, other people have no way of knowing that you have considered all the other environmental factors and just assume a person is a racist.
I guess what I am saying is that it would be better discourse if more people nicely explained what the problem with their language is like you did, but without assuming a person is racist or on board with eugenics. Like, personally, I'm willing to make adjustments so that it's not offensive to others, but I wasn't inclined to previously because people just said I was wrong and a Nazi and I had no idea wtf they were talking about until I read your comment just now.
Attaching IQ to race is 100% racist and Nazi. there is more genetic variety within "races" (a racist pseudoscientific term that has no biological bearing) than between races, and also, if we went with the assumption that race is related to IQ, then Africans would be the smartest people on the planet. Because there is more genetic variety in Africa than the rest of the world^1^. There is also the fact that IQ is malleable, spend a year watching tiktok and get tested you will see a cognitive difference, it is 100% a reflection of affluence and education.
Also conservatives (racists especially) love to talk about IQ, high IQ people. Those must be dog whistles, when they say high IQ they mean whites and Asians, and by low IQ they mean brown and black people. That is likely the issue, they were not talking about human intelligence as an academic conversation, they are just trying to say that there is a racial hierarchy, you did not understand each other because you were having different conversations. if you reply to them agreeing about that bs, they will likely open up about their racism and try to recruit you or push you further to the right.
^1^ Humans were developing in Africa way before they left the continent, those who left were from relatively small population pockets, that is why the tallest and shortest ethnicities are in Africa. That is a scientific fact.
I think they meant that we still live in inequal society where minorities are more likely to have poor sosioeconomic position that can reflect how well people do in IQ tests.
You can wave nazi card or think why certain social groups do worse in those test and what that does tell about the society as a whole.
as long as we attribute the difference in socio-economic status.
Nazis do the opposite, they attribute low socioeconomic status to having low IQ, a nd therefore, somehow deserved? still a wrong thing to conclude even if, there's is an IQ difference between ethnicities.