this post was submitted on 23 Jan 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:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. 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
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. 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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[–] bryndos@fedia.io 1 points 19 hours ago

I block users who say cuntish stuff. That's not censorship, they can still say it. I just have my fingers in my ears.

Mods on an internet forum don't really have the power to censor, they can stop you spreading your shit via their webshite, but they cant stop you from spreading it elsewise.

It's not censorship for me to wipe your graffiti off my wall. It'd be censorship for the police to lock you up for the content of your message. Or for the govt to make writing what you wrote a crime.

If they just do you for criminal damage though that's fine.

[–] brooke592@sh.itjust.works 2 points 21 hours ago

I don't know why you're getting downvoted. I assumed this was a tongue-in-cheeck way of saying it shouldn't be okay, but it is.

[–] LordFireCrotch@lemmy.today 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

ITT: people who think "censorship" only pertains to "state-sponsored censorship"

Moderation tools are a form of censorship on lemmy.

[–] presoak@lazysoci.al 1 points 16 hours ago

That's refreshingly reasonable.

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you tend to be a person who agrees with majority opinions without creating your own then you will likely self-censor yourself.

Censorship starts first in the mind way before it even gets to the point of being expressed where others can see it.

https://www.liberties.eu/en/stories/self-censorship/43569

People tend to focus on private and public censorship particularly when it comes to the first amendment. That doesn't even matter if you create an environment where dissent or differing opinion isn't allowed in the first place.

An oppressive government doesn't need to censor everyone. They censor themselves. They don't need to deploy agents to harass people. Your fellow citizens will harass you for them.

[–] presoak@lazysoci.al 2 points 16 hours ago

Ok that's a good point. You see the conforming chorus but you don't see that every member is censoring himself.

[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago (11 children)

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” —Voltaire (reportedly)

[–] disregardable@lemmy.zip 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If everyone agrees, then censorship doesn't exist at all. Like, it's not censorship that nobody is saying "Humans don't actually need to breathe." Everyone just knows it is wrong, so they don't say that.

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[–] stepan@lemmy.cafe 1 points 1 day ago

If you mean state censorship then not really, as the opinions of those in power are usually not the majority. One example would be climate change: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/22/spiral-of-silence-climate-action-very-popular-why-dont-people-realise

Another example from Czechia where I live - polls show the majority of people support marriage for all (gay marriage) and euthanasia, but the political landscape renders both quite impossible to be allowed in the foreseeable future.

[–] Darkcoffee@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

First they came for {minority a} and I said nothing because {me! ≠ minority a}.

I'm sure that's where that poem stops, so you're good!

[–] presoak@lazysoci.al 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yes, I'm familiar. But I'm speaking for the majority here. I think that the majority prefers agreement and crushes dissent.

I mean look at social media. Look at how the majority behaves.

It's a hive dictator. It isn't intelligent.

[–] Darkcoffee@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And that makes it ok?

See my previous comment.

[–] presoak@lazysoci.al 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

From the perspective of the majority, yes it does.

[–] Darkcoffee@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I can't even begin to tell you how fucking stupid that take is. And I've been on Reddit.

[–] presoak@lazysoci.al 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You are a diplomat as well as a poet

[–] Darkcoffee@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you're okay with censorship, you ain't right in the head.

[–] presoak@lazysoci.al 1 points 1 day ago

And yet censorship is immensely popular. We all prefer that the spam and troll be silenced. We all downvote the obnoxious fools. We all think moderation is necessary.

We all think that there needs to be some control there, right?

[–] Abundance114@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

The obvious flaw is that humans are dynamic and evolving and you may not always be in the majority. Therefore you should be fair to everyone.

John Rawls's "veil of ignorance" comes to mind.

The idea of the thought experiment is the creation of a society with the designer behind a veil of ignorance, that is, after the society is created they do not know the circumstances that they will have when joining the society.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

No. There is a thing called a nuanced opinion where just because you agree with some parts of a group doesn't mean you agree with them all.

[–] presoak@lazysoci.al 1 points 1 day ago

I think that the majority prefers agreement and crushes dissent. The majority might be an organic dictator. Like an anthill.

[–] TheFogan@programming.dev 4 points 2 days ago (5 children)

More accurate if you agree with those in power. IE the censoring of say... jokes about the brian thompson killing, well liked by the majority. Not so well liked by the 1%.

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[–] hoshikarakitaridia@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I don't think I agree if I read this correctly. I'll specific as to how I understand it.

If I have opinion a, and that's the majority opinion, and any other opinion gets censored, I think I'm fine with that. Hard disagree. I wanna expose myself to nuance and other opinions. Of course there's a time and place when people hate you for nuance and specific opinions but censorship implies a legal framework and enforcement. Sure, there's a lot of majority opinions I hold but I don't want other opinions to get censored or punished on most topics. I wanna hear and learn new things.

Example of something I want censorship on: if someone just repeats NS dog whistles in a clear attempt to instigate, I think it might be good to censored them / punish them in some way. Not in a murderer way, but in a "do you know what you're saying and can you grasp what it means?" way.

Example of something I don't want censorship on: opinions political or societal systems. In fact I love discussing different ones, what they bring to the table, how they worked in practice and how they are bad so we can tweak them. On fact I invite people to tell me how capitalism itself is awesome, so we can discuss what we feel needs to be part of a healthy society and maybe we come up with novel ideas.

I guess if you wanna say "there's some censorship that's good" I might actually agree but that's way more of a narrow statement than what you're saying here.

[–] presoak@lazysoci.al 1 points 1 day ago

I agree but my title speaks for the majority. I think that the majority does not appreciate free speech and the clashing of views. The majority is simple.

[–] DomeGuy@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Censorship is suspect, not inherently bad.

Freedom of viewpoint expression is a key part of democracy and modern society. But it's not an absolute right of unfettered communication, since that would lead to no recourse when a racist troll projects a deep fake of you raping small children on the side of your house.

Being able to sue someone for libel is censorship. Property rights allowing you to control what happens on your house are censorship. And, yes, the government arresting that hypothetical racist troll for the production of child pornography is also censorship.

Of course, we could just define censorship as "suppression of protected speech" or something similar, but that just hides the game and helps folk who actually want to censor political ideas they don't like get away with it.

[–] presoak@lazysoci.al 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Well central information control is out. And a democratic approach means putting the mon in charge, which is bad for a couple reasons.

I'm thinking that an overarching control is to be avoided. There is no good version of that. Control on the small scale. Individuals and small groups maybe. And keep the large scale uncontrolled and wild.

[–] DomeGuy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Putting the mob in charge is the least-bad form of government humans have ever conceived of.

Experts can and do establish reputations to persuade the masses or those chosen by the masses.

When we try putting the experts in charge directly, they invariably become corrupt and stop being as skilled.

There is a reason why America's founding fathers put a wall between church and state. Not because they thought religion was bad, but because they learned from history that when you give a topic-expert political control they stop being good at either function.

[–] presoak@lazysoci.al 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Maybe nobody should be in charge. Just a federation of factions. I guess that's Lemmy.

[–] DomeGuy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Yes. Having any one person 'in charge" who is not an immortal with superhuman morality and judgement will eventually lead to tyrannical suffering or the waste of a bloody civil war.

Lemmy (and piefed) is a great example of human societies done correctly. There are people who run things, and while they can establish whatever rules they want for the parts they run, everyone else is free to either ask for a change or go elsewhere.

For bad actions, options range from immediate negative feedback (downvote) and.corrective speech (public comment or private message), to negative consequences from those in power (ban account from instance), which can ultimately rise to community separation (de-federation). Heck, even the underlying software can be forked or replaced.

Of course, the stakes here are essentially trivial. Which means the consequences are too, but also we all have less incentive for bad action than in the real world where poverty and death are a possibility from bad action.

[–] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 2 points 2 days ago (6 children)

I'm not sure I understand. Are you implying that the majority are in favor of censorship?

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That is an interesting thought experiment, but I would have say no. We all could be wrong, it has happened to me in past. Mass hysteria happens,

[–] presoak@lazysoci.al 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm thinking that maybe hysteria is the normal state of the masses. Or maybe its sanity is just very fragile. And social media is a rough place.

[–] GreatWhite_Shark_EarthAndBeingsRightsPerson@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I understand what you are saying. The Internet is a BLANKhole, as my continued participation here is starting illustrate, but think a lot better of offline people.

[–] presoak@lazysoci.al 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yes, that sounds like how I'm thinking too

[–] GreatWhite_Shark_EarthAndBeingsRightsPerson@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

With that shared, I must also add, as I have seen first-hand, from the people closest possible to me, roommates & brother & brother’s child-
Once they started spending way too much time online social media, verse online message boards & E-Mails & offline person to person or person to group, communicating, like their abilities to be good/respectful communicators, not just speaking to someone, & just generally their treatment of other people drastically changed for the worse. Like I said it is BLANKhole & it has a huge cost.

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