this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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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
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- 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
- Posts must be original/unique
- 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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I really don't know how to convince people they should care about others.
I don't know how to teach empathy.
There's an underlying care instinct that needs to be activated. Its emotional; you can't explain it, they have to experience it.. There was a post years ago supposedly describing the empathic awakening of a white supremacist, which occurred as he was waiting to harm or harass a father and son on a bus, and the moment of awakening happened as he witnessed the father expressing his love for his son and something clicked for him, probably because he wanted that sort of affection from his dad and never got it.
People care about their in-group. Make being human their main identity.
we can purge those filthy xenos from the galaxy!
If you can't learn empathy, learn to spite the enemies of empathy
By exercising it at a young age in public schools.
And judging those without more harshly.
Captain Archer had some good ideas. Turns out he really doesn't like bullies.
A few slaps on the butt (assisted by a carpet beater when the occasion demands it) will usually do it. At least that's how my mom did it with us.
"You! Have! To be! Good! To! Your! Sister/neighbor/dog!"
(EDIT: /s if not clear)
You cannot. It's either felt, or they're shitspawn to be flushed.
That's the thing, isn't it? You either have empathy, or you are the other species. The one that can't comprehend that there is anything wrong with them, but the world would be better off without them.
Empathy can absolutely develop over time. This rhetoric is not useful. Even dumb fucking right wing pieces of shit feel empathy when their in-group is affected.
If hate can be learned so can empathy, what you're suggesting is dehumanizing
Well, I have neither empathy or sympathy for those anymore. They dehumanized me first, after all.
I’m with you brother. They have dehumanized so much they are no longer human themselves. Right wing ideology is subhuman ideology, in all forms.
This includes liberals.
Empathy can be developed over time by MOST people.
Also, performative empathy can be developed.
But then ALSO, anti empathy seems to be developing in society? Which is wild.
I am absolutely with you.
Also people should learn the difference between empathy and sympathy, the latter not as fatiguing and difficult to develop and often more useful.
Oh fuck off would ya? Every time I test my empathy, I am basically shown to be simply unemphatetic. Doesn't make me a monster - simply instead of feeling something is wrong, I have to think shit through.
And trust me, it's even easier that way. Would I like someone to kick me? Maim me? Deport me? Does the net good outweight both the general consequence and the consequence for the other party? No? Then don't fucking do it. Whether I like other party doesn't take part in the process, which isn't true for empathy.