this post was submitted on 06 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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- The entire showerthought must be in the title
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- 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
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In this framework, there are rocks of the living world and rocks of the dead world…. I think. If I understood that properly. As others have pointed out, this kind of 4 element framing isn’t very realistic or useful, but that’s beside the point. Let’s just work with within the confines of the concept to see where it takes us.
I would argue that the rocks of the living world don’t necessarily have to be alive. They just have to support the layer above, i.e plants.
Realistically though, plants don’t require a solid foundation at all. Hydroponic farming exists too, you know. Plants can grow on rocks that have been autoclaved, but usually they grow on natural soil that is full of living things.
even with hydroponics the plants need minerals
Not just any random minerals. Specific elements need to be dissolved in the water in order to be utilised as nutrients. Originally, they may have been in a solid form, but only ions are allowed into the cells.
yeah ... i'm still not fully convinced. the model has its uses but also its weaknesses. a good use case is that it demonstrates both evolutionary history and short-term history.
like in evolution, microorganisms (that probably fed of rock) were the first living beings with a high likelihood (RNA world hypothesis). this is represented by the bottom layer in the model. then developed plants/cyanobacteria that could utilize sunlight (great oxidation event). only after that it was possible for complex life, including multicellular animals, to develop, which feed off the copious amounts of biomass that the plants produce. so the short-term dependency of animals on plants is in fact reflected in evolutionary history, where (complex) animals could also only develop after plants.
it is no accident that eukaryotes developed after cyanobacteria. also all complex (multicellular) life is based on eukaryotes.
and only then were rites and spirituality (or just call it brain) in animals developed.
When you view that concept as a timeline, it fits pretty well.
Microbes can utilise rocks to make life, but that doesn’t really make the rocks alive. There’s a layer of primitive life sustained by dead rocks, or elements leached off them. Hydrothermal vents are a good example of that.