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
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.
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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.