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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[–] BonkTheAnnoyed@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 1 day ago (22 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 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (18 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.

[–] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

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

it's not that people can't, but spaces which have unlimited tolerance for sealions suggesting that it's necessary to argue about that are likely to have less interesting discussions than spaces which do not 🙄

[–] Voidian@lemmy.dbzer0.com -4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Then be clear about the rules. I have 0 problems with people creating communities with very clear rules on what is allowed and what isn't. I wholeheartedly welcome that. What I take issue with is when people claim to have open discussion, or the space is for "rational discourse", or "anarchist" discourse etc. but then ban everything that doesn't very exactly align with the mod ideology.

If most people waving the anarchist flag would admit they're just doing it because it's cool but actually, they just want to be the authoritarians in place of the authoritarians, that would be fine. I'd happily avoid them. Problem is that when they don't admit it, they drag down the whole anarchist ideology because they are misrepresenting it.

[–] Senal@programming.dev 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

key words there are discourse and discussion.

As is explained in a few responses to your paradox of tolerance reply (that you seem to have conveniently not replied to so far), the kind discussion or conversation they are referencing requires both parties to be working in good faith.

from your own reference

as long as we can counter them by rational argument

If one party can't or won't provide logic or reasoning to their side of an exchange, that's not a discussion because there is nothing to discuss with someone not willing to engage in good faith.

There are absolutely places that are ideological echo chambers, despite claiming otherwise, but banning someone for the inability (or unwillingness) to engage in good faith isn't a removal based on ideology it's a removal based on not adhering to the basic tenets of how discussions are supposed to work.

If it just so happens that most of that kind of banning happens to people with ideologies you subscribe to, perhaps it's worth considering how you can help these people understand how to have an actual conversation.

That all being said, from what i've seen here I’d guess you're on the purposeful bad faith side of things so I’m not expecting any reasonable consideration, but feel free to surprise me (or block me, i suppose).

[–] Voidian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

You're making quite a lot of frankly weird assumptions.

Find a single line from me where I'm saying that people who don't engage in rational discourse shouldn't be kicked out.

In fact, have a honest think. How much of your response is based on a knee jerk reaction instead of actually looking at what I've been saying in this thread?

[–] Senal@programming.dev 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

You’re making quite a lot of frankly weird assumptions.

I've clearly stated what i'm referring to and how i got there, if you think there is an unsupported statement then reference it directly and i will respond.

That being said, fuck, i think i've seen two posts next to each other and missed where it changed from them to you.

That's entirely my bad and i apologise, my response was supposed to be for the other person.

[–] Voidian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

No hard feelings :)

Not sure what theme you're using but at least for me the default one makes it a bit hard to separate replies. I still like it most of all for just lurking.

[–] Senal@programming.dev 2 points 20 hours ago

I appreciate it.

Yeah, I’m on the default but i'll explore the other ones now, see if there is anything i prefer.

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