this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
361 points (96.9% liked)

Showerthoughts

33701 readers
687 users here now

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.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Sure, playing chess needs intelligence, dedication, and good chess players are smarter than an average person. But it's waaaay exaggerated in movies. I'm a math researcher, and in any movie, my department will be full of chess geniuses. But in reality, only about 10% of them even play chess.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Flamekebab@piefed.social -4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

...it's not an actual apology, it's a rhetorical device. Was that not clear?

I don't really understand why you feel the need to second guess my own assessment of my own mind. I'm not interested in an explanation either, just to be clear. Each time you keep drawing comparisons that paint me as naïve and childlike. It's perhaps not intentional but the end result is tremendously insulting, hence why I'm not interested in further talk on the subject.

With regards to learning new things, the world of human experience is vast. I am not shutting the door on chess out of petulance. I do so knowing the journey I would need to take is incompatible with my own preferences for discovery and growth. To my mind it is a distilled competitive logic puzzle. I don't like logic puzzles of any complexity, and I particularly don't like pared down ones with no set dressing or storytelling.

I am actually quite happy to engage in puzzle solving - it's one of the things I do for a living. However there the puzzles are more cooperative and with many, many more facets to them. They can be solved in a huge number of ways and with a variety of different skills.

I'm explaining this because it seems you need it spelled out rather explicitly. Particularly as you seem to have rather strange ideas about who you're talking to. I'm nearly 40 and your comment about not recognising past versions of myself could not possibly be further from the truth. The various iterations of myself have been built atop the old ones. The eleven year old boy is still in there, as is the teenager, twenty-something, and the several versions of me from my 30s.

I don't necessarily know everything I like, but I've tried a great many things and have a firm understanding of what kinds of activities I dislike. I can also extrapolate fairly well, and it's not like chess is an obscure interest such as shin-kicking. The journey and destination both look rather dull to me, whereas many others do not. I cannot do everything in one lifetime and must choose. Chess has had its chance with me. It blew it. The same is true for gambling, as it happens. I have tried it in various forms and found it universally dull. I also don't enjoy ales, gloomy literature, tennis, or horror movies. There's much about those things I don't know and I intend to keep it that way in order to explore other potential interests. Things that I hopefully won't be bored by, or at least I enjoy some element of the journey.

Otherwise I might as well just be working - at least then the boring bits result in a paycheque.

[–] WhatsTheHoldup@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

...it's not an actual apology, it's a rhetorical device. Was that not clear?

If we're giving each other mutual advice on phrasing, I'd remove this particular rhetorical device from your repertoire. Strawmanning me as being upset about some irrelevant thing and insincere apologizing for it is unproductive because now I either have to address the strawman or I could use my own rhetorical device by taking your apology literally and use it against you.

The setup I was given wasn't really a productive thing to build on, and that was just as clear as the phoniness in your apology.

I don't really understand why you feel the need to second guess my own assessment of my own mind.

I understand why you think I'm doing that, and it's probably related to the part lower down you admit you aren't really caring about what I say to you and what point I'm actually intending to make.

To once again clarify. At no point have I second guessed your own assessment of your own mind.

I simply pointed out that your assessment of the mind you **do not possess?? (one in which you have fully studied the thing) can't honestly be guessed at and this is an existing problem for everyone.

I'm not interested in an explanation either, just to be clear.

Then what are we doing here man? I'm responding for the sole purpose of explaining this point to you.

I think you need to consider why you're still responding here because all I have for you are more explanations until you understand this basic concept.

Each time you keep drawing comparisons that paint me as naïve and childlike. It's perhaps not intentional but the end result is tremendously insulting, hence why I'm not interested in further talk on the subject.

Since you mention you love logic puzzles how about that I instead of a comparison:

You are a prisoner in a room with 2 doors and 2 guards. One of the doors will guide you to freedom and behind the other is a hangman–you don't know which is which, but the guards do know.

One of the guards always tells the truth and the other always lies. You don't know which one is the truth-teller or the liar either. However both guards know each other.

You have to choose and open one of these doors, but you can only ask a single question to one of the guards.

You ask both guards "are you interested in further talk on the subject?"

The first guard stays silent. The second guard says "Each time you keep drawing comparisons that paint me as naïve and childlike. It's perhaps not intentional but the end result is tremendously insulting, hence why I'm not interested in further talk on the subject." And then continues ranting for 4 more long paragraphs.

Which guard is lying and which one is telling the truth?

With regards to learning new things, the world of human experience is vast. I am not shutting the door on chess out of petulance. I do so knowing the journey I would need to take is incompatible with my own preferences for discovery and growth. To my mind it is a distilled competitive logic puzzle. I don't like logic puzzles of any complexity, and I particularly don't like pared down ones with no set dressing or storytelling.

Yep, no need to justify anything. I know i sound like a broken record here haha but you keep bringing up justifications for why you don't prioritize this hobby when what your priorities are was never really in question.

My point is still strictly about difference between learning X and doing X, and how the learner can't access the mind of the doer before they've finished learning.

I am actually quite happy to engage in puzzle solving - it's one of the things I do for a living. However there the puzzles are more cooperative and with many, many more facets to them. They can be solved in a huge number of ways and with a variety of different skills.

Thats got my interest piqued. In an abstract way or you literally solve recreational style puzzles for a living?

There's this show Ludwig about a puzzle solver who gets pulled into a murder investigation.

I'm explaining this because it seems you need it spelled out rather explicitly.

I don't need anything spelled out. I understand on my end, I'm trying to explain a basic concept to you (difference between thing and learning about thing) and it seems like the problem of why I'm not getting through isn't that you're aren't capable of understanding but you're not willing to concede I might have a point because we're now in an adversarial sort of context and you're just I think in "winning" mode from here on out and won't give me an inch.

Particularly as you seem to have rather strange ideas about who you're talking to. I'm nearly 40 and your comment about not recognising past versions of myself could not possibly be further from the truth. The various iterations of myself have been built atop the old ones. The eleven year old boy is still in there, as is the teenager, twenty-something, and the several versions of me from my 30s.

For example this. You obviously understand the difference between teenage your tastes and your tastes now, you just don't want to give it to me.

Which well, that's sort of how we're encouraged to act online anyway.

I don't necessarily know everything I like, but I've tried a great many things and have a firm understanding of what kinds of activities I dislike. I can also extrapolate fairly well, and it's not like chess is an obscure interest such as shin-kicking. The journey and destination both look rather dull to me, whereas many others do not. I cannot do everything in one lifetime and must choose. Chess has had its chance with me. It blew it. The same is true for gambling, as it happens. I have tried it in various forms and found it universally dull. I also don't enjoy ales, gloomy literature, tennis, or horror movies. There's much about those things I don't know and I intend to keep it that way in order to explore other potential interests. Things that I hopefully won't be bored by, or at least I enjoy some element of the journey.

Yeah I know, chess doesn't fit into your goals and you don't have an interest in the game at the current level you're playing at.

[–] Flamekebab@piefed.social -4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Ye gods, I'm not reading that wall. I tried to make it clear that I was not interested in continuing this interaction but let's make it a bit more explicit: this conversation is over. You've been tremendously abrasive (hence my response in kind) and refuse to take the hint. I'm blocking you now. Best of luck in future interactions, I hope they're more pleasant than this one.

[–] WhatsTheHoldup@lemmy.ml 0 points 3 days ago

You can just not reply. It's weird you keep up typing replies to me and then get mad when I respond.

Do you need the last word that badly?