this post was submitted on 07 Apr 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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- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
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Ontological tautology, yes.
No, it’s not a tautology, it’s a pragmatic principle.
A tautology is a statement that’s true by definition and doesn’t add new meaning (e.g., "A circle is round").
An ontological tautology would be:
A system that supports the kind of life one thinks is worthwhile supports the kind of life one thinks is worthwhile.
That's how I read it, which is why I said that. Appreciate the explanation. ✌️
If you can only support one of two systems, for example: the first you know, from experience, supports a worthwhile life; and the second you expect to support it even more, though without empirical evidence; which should you support?
Which would you support?
Is worthwhile enough, for a life? If worthwhile isn't enough, then, by definition, is it not worthwhile? Is enough the level at which anything more is without merit?
I suppose it does "make sense" to support the first system, even if it also makes sense to support the second system. Yeah, it's tautological (it makes sense to do things that make sense to you), but I think it's still an interesting point to make for the questions it raises!
Which of the systems allows for you to pursue your ideal system - an activity which you would probably add to your definition of a worthwhile life?
Is familiar hell better than unknown heaven?
Fun fact: communism worked great for 65,000 years in Australia, so it's way more thoroughly tested than capitalism. Capitalism started a mass extinction event in only a couple hundred years!
Can you elaborate on the Australia communism thing
Sure thing. @HubertManne@piefed.social can listen too.
Australia has many First Nations, and I don't know nearly anything about most of them. But they have a lot of commonalities between them. So I'm gonna tell you about the people whose land I live on, and some of what I say is going to be applicable to most of the First Nations across the continent.
Think of the First Nations as like the European Union. A community of mostly cooperating countries. Sure, there was conflict between many, but none of it was like the way white people do war. If you're the ruler of a city with a million people, you can send five thousand men-at-arms to die for you, easy. In Indigenous Australia, your community was your family. The population was small, you personally knew everyone you had any kind of social power over. So the rules of conflict were designed to minimise bloodshed. The Greeks invented the Olympics to settle political differences without violence, Indigenous conflict was much the same. More like sport than war.
Where I live, there was a gift economy. No money, no internal barter. I want you to think of your parents. They gave you food, clothes, a house, for free. When they're old, you'll probably do the same for them. Healthy families have an internal gift economy. Indigenous clans also had an internal gift economy. Take knowledge, for example. In the First Nation where I live, respect comes from great knowledge. Not from hoarding it all, and not from spraying all of it away like a firehose. Respect comes from passing on knowledge to the next generation at a good, controlled rate. From being a responsible custodian of knowledge. That's how Elders are supposed to act. And Elders are the leaders of Indigenous clans and tribes.
People often had to go travel to the land of other clans and tribes. One of the big reasons to do so, is to find love. You can't go having a baby with your cousins, Indigenous Australians didn't survive 65,000 years by doing that. The health of the gene pool is protected by the First Law. At least, that's what it's called where I'm from. The First law dictates who you can marry and have a kid with. There's a system. The systems are somewhat different in different regions, especially the names, but the point is to protect kids from inbreeding so that the community can have strong genes for thousands of years to come. When the white people showed up, the Indigenous people around here were very happy at first, because they brought a lot of new genes with them. If you marry a white person, your babies are gonna have some very robust genes. White people have so many different genes, they don't even have to worry about accidentally inbreeding! They can marry nearly anyone they want!
But I was talking about travel and trade. So Indigenous people went and travelled to the lands of other clans. Here are the rules for doing that: you go the the boundary between the two regions, and there's a campsite. You go the campsite, light a fire, and put wet leaves on it. It makes a lot of smoke, and they see the smoke. Then they light a fire. When you see their smoke, you can go meet them. You go say hi, and you ask them about their family. Always very important to do that, it's part of the First Law. Protects you from accidentally falling in love with someone you can't marry. You give them a gift, and they teach you the song of the route you're travelling. Every path through the outback has a song. The song helps you navigate and it teaches you about the natural resources in the area.
Notice that you give them a gift. It's not a payment. Not a barter like capitalists might assume it would be. The point is to establish a reciprocal relationship. Mutual kindness. Mutual obligation. That's the way the social structures were designed. So even between different clans and tribes, it's a gift economy.
No money. No state. No class. From each according to ability, to each according to need.
Oh, and here's a fun detail I just remembered. In traditional language where I live, there was no word for "mine". There's a word for it now, the grammar to invent the word is pretty simple. Some people use that word, some people prefer not to, it depends on where you go. But before colonisation, there was no "mine". Everything was "ours". That was the word.
So, if you like communism memes, that one should tickle you.
This seems kinda fanciful. First nations in america had such deep seated hatred in their conflicts that they allied with the invading colonists to defeat rivals.
I to am curious how many millions or billions lived this way for so many years?