this post was submitted on 08 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:

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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.
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We paved over paradise and put up a parking lot, all so two tons of empty metal could sit undisturbed for 23 hours a day. (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 day ago by Absolute_Slayer@lemmy.world to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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[–] gandalf_der_12te@feddit.org 6 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

eh, land use for parking lots is commonly overestimated based on our own observation bias

1% of habitable land is used for all constructions (housing and parking lots and streets) together. it's not a lot. it seems a lot when you're standing on a vast parking area, but no, in absolute terms, compared to Earth's size, it's not a lot. much bigger are the area uses for agriculture, actually. that makes the most land use of humanity, it's in fact the limiting factor for the number of people on the world.

[–] thevoidzero@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago

No one is saying parking lot is a lot of area of the earth. It's a lot of area of a city.

Cities and areas human live in is very small part of the overall land we have available, because we need a lot more resources than just a house to live in. Even in tribal areas the buildings take barely any land compared to the area they use for agriculture, hunting and things.

The main problem with parking lot is the amount of space it takes within the area we live in, specially for any place people gather in. Making the places people want to gather even more isolated because of it.

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 6 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

The under utilization of buildings is huge problem. So much waste it is insane. Some churches are the worst like Mormons who build tons of churches just to have them sit vacant the majority of time. We are just too selfish to want to change.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 15 hours ago

dont they also have other properties that are in the 10s if not hundreds of billions.

[–] CannonFodder@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago

You should write a song about that!

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Years later...

The highways and cars
were sacrificed for agriculture.
I thought that we'd start over
but, I guess I was wrong.

Once there were parking lots,
now it's a peaceful oasis.
This was a Pizza Hut
now it's all covered with daisies.

I miss the honky tonks,
Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

"When I was your age we had datacenters the size of fungus farms!"

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 3 points 18 hours ago

"In fact, this fungus farm used to be a data center."

[–] IWW4@lemmy.zip 16 points 1 day ago

Man imagine only have to drive 1 hour a day….

[–] HeHoXa@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Completely unrelated, but: Late last night I heard the screen door slam, and a big yellow taxi took my girl away.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago

Im a small minority of biking folk that like parking spaces. Better than them moving around. I do wish parking garages where required to have roof garden parks though. So the top was never allowed to be parking but instead a nature area. Also only garages no lots. I also want them to require spaces made in condos and such must stay with the unit ownership and not be sold seperately.

[–] unbuckled_easily933@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

/c/fuckcars@lemmy.world

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

Life without nothing bro

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

https://youtu.be/2twY8YQYDBE

[–] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well, get on making the cars self driving so they can all drive to one big parking garage. Then less of paradise will have to be paved.

[–] Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

What if the car companies lobby the government to ban manual cars and pedestrians from the road so that speeds can be safely increased, thereby increasing noise and particulate pollution and isolating us in between high speed nightmare roads?

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

ban manual cars

increasing noise and particulate pollution

Are they building non-"manual" cars that are noisy and polluting? I've never seen the term "manual car" yet, but I'm assuming it means a non-self-driving car, which already includes many electric options.

I haven't driven a car in about 2 years, now, and I've tried to keep up with the news of self-driving developments (and snake oil), but I still think we'll still see self-driving cars long before we see the ability to remove cars from the equation completely.

Kumbaya.

[–] Diddlydee@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago

They mean not automatic. A car that you need to work the gears. A normal car in most places.

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 1 points 1 day ago

They mean human operated vehicles. And Waymo has made significant progress towards fully autonomous vehicles. The whole "humans are actually driving," thing was misrepresented. Basically the humans were customer support when the vehicle ran into a situation like, "the end of the road is blocked for construction. A U-turn is required but is also a traffic violation."

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Manual driving will go away at some point. And fully autonomous vehicles would be electric, so no noise increase.

Once autonomous vehicles reach a critical mass, there won't be a real need to own one and auto insurance premiums will skyrocket since human drivers would be the highest risk.

The government probably won't need to intervene to kill human driving on public roads

Plus the number of vehicles in existence will dramatically decrease, thus lowering total pollution from manufacturing and maintenance.

The fact is that humans are awful at driving; it's one of the leading causes of death. A computer that doesn't get tired, intoxicated, or distracted with 360° sensors reporting a great many times per second will be significantly safer than a human.

We're not there yet, but companies like Waymo are making significant progress.

[–] Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 0 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

And fully autonomous vehicles would be electric, so no noise increase

At low speed, most of the noise an ICE car produces is the engine. At high speeds, most of the noise is the tires on the road. At high speeds, electric and ICE cars are equally loud. At even higher speeds, they're even louder.

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 1 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

Electric vehicles have to artificially add engine noise so people can hear them...

Compared to ICE vehicles, they're silent. Whenever hybrids came out people kept getting hit because they couldn't hear them coming.

[–] Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 1 points 20 hours ago

At low speeds, yes. They're just as loud at high speeds because the noise comes from the tires, not the engines.