this post was submitted on 03 Jun 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 lineup (like a police lineup) is exactly that. One is the suspect and the rest are there to ensure that you can accurately identify the actual suspect to be used later in court.
You realize that a police line is literally random selection (including the perp) right? thats kind of the point. There is no guarentee that the 'perp' is the actual criminal despite the officers or the witnesses opinions on the matter.
"Literally a random selection except for the person not randomly selected"
Lol you have to be joking, right?
😂
You realize we're talking about a hypothetical scenario where one person in the lineup is a worm farmer, right? I guess you don't want to acknowledge that because it would mean admitting that you've been terribly wrong this whole time. I can't wait for your next reply where you write 10 paragraphs about how worms aren't real therefore the whole premise is wrong and you're right.
feel free to re-read the thread as many times as it takes for you to understand where you fucked up. =)
They fucked up by responding to you.
I honestly find this person's compulsion to never admit they're wrong to be mildly fascinating. They just keep digging and creating the most outlandish reasons for why they think everyone else is wrong including the very person who asked the question to begin with.
No, the point is that one of them is actually the suspect lmfao. And guess what, if it’s not, they tell you ahead of time. You’re just wrong on every level here, and are just making yourself look foolish now.
You just aren’t all there are you?
Because you dont actually understand what random is.
I didnt bring up police line ups that's someone else in this thread. Im just happy to point out how those are essentially random selection as well.
My original point was that the OP was ambiguous on the selection process used for the population. thusly assuming a random selection process from the overall popullation is just as valid as assuming 1 worm farmer + 9 randoms.
Now: randomness.
Given a random population of N entities, assume you want a sample of M where M < N and you decide to filter by Y to get X sample.
X is still random despite the filtering. all you've done is biased the N random population towards Y. but unless you remove the initial randomness (somehow... which is almost impossible btw). this is why so much of science is predicated on collecting large datasets because we have to make sure enough of the data has the attributes we want that it'll show up for study once we apply our faulty filtering mechanisms. and its why we spend so much effort creating better and better filters. its also why algorithm that leverage randomness are so powerful, because they match the reality of the problems being solved.
Using the line up as an example:
applying those two faulty filters to population N is still going to result in a random population because the initial candidate selection before applying those two (faulty) filters is random.
no, i havent. and in fact anyone asserting this is absolutely moronic and has no idea what they are talking about for reasons I've already mentioned.
im not doubling down you dunces just dont know what you're talking about. again as I've stated repeatedly.
lets start over so you can understand:
you have:
you are asked:
facts:
chucklefucks:
So how many people need to explain the same thing to you before you realize that you’re wrong? There’s already 4.
There’s no one here supporting you, I wonder why that is?
;)
Well done
I’ve read it multiple times, the only one who needs a clue is you. Take the hint dude, seriously.
You're right to point out that the alleged perpetrator might not in fact be related to the case. You're wrong to call at least this one person random, police doesn't always appoints the perpetrator at random
That person still isn’t randomly selected, they are selected because they look similar to the suspected perp.
This person is thinking they’ll just grab anyone walking in front of the police station, that’s just wrong on every level.
And this is exactly what I said
they (and people like yourself) believe they do, but errors in information/how they interpret information that led to the selection of any given individual makes even the perp brought in by the police potentially random.
the 'intent' of the police is immaterial to the facts of how the process actually unfolds. when your high confidence witness' produce a 12.5% error rate on a line up between 6-8 people. you are literally in the realm of a coin toss. in that study the %ages for when the witness selected a filler were worse than random.
now agreeably the police are often essentially running a drakes equation for selecting the perp. but thats still entirely reliant on the quality of the information they are using for their identification. and often the line up is run early in the investigation. where they may only have eye witness information.
and since none of that information was provided by the OP you dont get to assume anything about it.