this post was submitted on 18 Oct 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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- 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
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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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You're misinterpreting the metaphor. There isno separate class of boatless people in the metaphor, the boats are the people.
OP is pointing out there is another layer to the metaphor, which is quite pertinent
No, OP is just correctly understanding the part of the metaphor that the people with boats don't want you to look at.
That the person making the statement care about
The boats are owned by the very wealthy
The metaphor doesn't use the word people at all. Boats refers to all people. Some are big boats (wealthy), some are dingies (poor). The tide raises all the boats equally.
If you want to twist the metaphor into some kind of class thing, fine, but you are deliberately misinterpreting it to push your agenda.
Its a metaphor, it isnt literal
Thats the surface level meaning sure, and thats what people want you to think they mean. But more or less every time I've heard the metaphor, its being used to pretend like me not being able to buy grovceries is the same as Elon Musk being a trillionaire, or Trump having gold plated toilets in his second vacation home or w/e (because we are both boats and a rising tide lifts all boats equally right?)
Either the metaphor has already been twisted, or its simply being deliberately misused to push an agenda.
If its being deliberately misused, I guess you can argue that its not being "twisted" by technical definition, but to pretend like people who understand how its being used are deliberately misinterpreting it is a level of intellectual dishonesty thats pretty bad.
Either you know what you are doing, or you are so dumb you dont get it...I could try to give you the benefit of the doubt, but im not sure I know which is better tbh.
You dont say?
If people are mis-using the metaphor to push an agenda, the solution isnt to further twist the metaphor, it's to push back tell them they are using it incorrectly, and that they are full of shit. Further misinterpreting the metaphor doesn't solve anything, and just allows further abuse of the metaphor.
If anything, this misinterpretation is exactly what a right wingers want, as it legitimises their use of the sound byte, without hold their word to the higher standard of the original metaphor.
We should be holding the metaphor to its strictest meaning, which is a good policy (rising tide) must benefit absolutely everyone (ALL ships).
Im not twisting the metaphor, im calling out how it has been twisted.
Calling out what right wingers actually mean is never what right wingers want.
But thats not what it means, its strictest meaning is that a rising tide will lift all boats. That is, what is good for one person is equally good for all people. It doesnt say anything about good policy or what that must mean.
Oh my god. This thread is infuriating. The people are the fucking boats the wealthy just own the big ones and the tide is not going to drown everyone in the fucking town that might exist somewhere.
People calling your bullshit would be pretty infuriating if you are used to just shouting people down I guess.
This is the meaning people want you to think they mean.
Its not the meaning they actually mean.
idk. Not that it matters but I’ve only ever heard it used when talking about unions or social safety nets. Not people being drowned because they are prople and not boats or people in boats in a metaphor. It’s part of the package. And honestly I just made up some hypothetical non town in this horribly fucking stupid thought experiment.
That's fine, but the boats = assets metaphor rings more true.
It also apparently originates from a christian saying, and spent a long time as a regional adage before JFK (or more accurately a speechwriter) turned it into an explicitly macroeconomic political message.
To the extent that it is used as a conservative political saying, that's a fairly recent development, and one that is intentionally calling back to a moderate democrat.
I’ve often heard it used as a way to define a class of students in the educational space, whereby any influx of new information is the tide. The only thing we can do as our own shipmaster is to help the others patch their vessels as we all learn and grow together through the unspoken knowledge of the seas.
As one born where shoreman are the lifeblood of a community, the old adage fortunately isn’t as tainted as you’ve made concern.
It's funny to read the different contexts in which people have encountered the quote. I first heard it from a hundred-millionaire Republican congressman, sorta chuckling to himself.
OK, gonna have to stop you there. When and/or where has this ever been used by a conservative as a political saying? Whenever has any conservative, in the last 30 years (or more), had such dare to venture into such perilous foresight? I eagerly await the citations, but I think you’d be wasting your time to even look for them, because conservatives do not excitedly foresee such things.
OP said that. I was simply saying that IF they are saying that, it's only as a reference to something said earlier.
No, OP did not say that.
Why would you tell such an obvious lie that is so easy to see is a lie?
Not sure where your misunderstanding is coming from, but the post, if you read any beyond the title, says:
Where is my lie?
You could start by quoting where OP said what you claim they did
I guess I'll take the L for not being more clear initially.
Does this make up for my mistake?
I think we're making the same point. In the real world, there very much are boatless people. Or non-boats, if you prefer. Those non-boats don't fare so well when the tide rises, fyi.
For idiots like me a good example of this analogy is LeBron James. When he is on your team you all objectively get better.
LeBron is the rising tide. His teammates are the boats.
I'd suggest that a good coach may be a better fit? Le Bron could join an U12 team and dominate for them, but they individually won't get better. If he leaves youre back to being the original U12 team.
But a good coach can improve each individual player, such that even after the coach leaves that are a better team still.
(I am not a basketball person, I know he was a player, but did he ever coach? If so, I retract my suggestion).