this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2025
52 points (82.5% liked)

Showerthoughts

38200 readers
526 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
 

So, maybe crazy conspiracy guy. Probably, actually.

But l mean...

  • /u/maxwelhill is still silent since Ghisilaine Maxwells arrest. This was a long term power user and has been around pretty much since the beginning. At the time it went silent, the account was #8 in total karma.

  • Aaron Swartz was a founder of reddit and died by "suicide" in 2013. Lots of controversy around all events leading up to it. He was hanged, just like Jeff Epstein. Perhaps he knew too much?

  • Reddit was scarily protective of /r/theDonald.

  • Spez was a mod of jailbait subs. And was quite reluctant to do anything about them, too.

  • I still contend that monetizing API was a strategic move to get long term tech-savvy users (the proponents of open source, choice in software...largely left-wing users) off the site...they wanted us gone.

  • I still contend that Ron Paul's 2008 reddit fame was a trial run for utilizing social media to mobilize young white men towards conservativism.

Idk. Maybe I'm just being really paranoid, but man...I'm really looking at reddit, Spez, and the past decade or so in a different light.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Test_Tickles@lemmy.world 19 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I don’t think you need some big coordinated Illuminati-type group to explain what’s going on. It’s way more realistic to see bad actors as behaving like bacteria or viruses. They don’t sit in secret meetings plotting everything. They just act independently in ways that benefit themselves, and the harmful effects add up on their own.  Bacteria don’t plan. They find weaknesses, take advantage of them, multiply, and adapt when something stops them. They’re not masterminds. They’re just opportunistic. One person finds a loophole, another copies it, someone else builds on it, and suddenly you have a whole system bending in a bad direction without anyone actually coordinating it.

And this is where billionaires fit in. Realistically the traits that get you to billionaire status are usually closer to aggressive mutations in an ecosystem. Not kindness or wisdom, more like: ruthlessness, willingness to exploit gaps, willingness to push harm outward while collecting gains.

Once someone becomes a billionaire, their resources act like a multiplier. A normal bad actor is one germ. A billionaire is the same germ with unlimited food, a weakened immune system around them, and the ability to reshape the environment to favor their own growth.

And then you get a feedback loop. The more safeguards and regulations get weakened, the easier it is for aggressive “strains” like this to emerge. Those new billionaires then use their wealth to weaken safeguards even more. Each round speeds up the next. It’s basically the same dynamic as a compromised immune system getting overwhelmed by infections that would normally be manageable.  

But most of all, there's no way you're going to get that many extreme narcissists to work together nicely and follow some long term plan.

[–] Quexotic 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Tell ya what. Go listen to the extremely American podcast start to finish, and then tell me how uncoordinated extremest groups, the christo-fascists, and the Republicans are.

The podcast makes the argument much better than I ever could.

[–] Test_Tickles@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Oh, I don't doubt you are correct about that. I'm not trying to say that there isn't any coordination. The GOP is definitely and completely overrun with extremists that openly work together to implement plans like project 2025. But we are also at the terminal stages of this disease and the patient is on life support.
Project 2025 is a perfect example of what I am talking about. It was supposed to be a secret agenda that flopped right out into the open almost as soon as they are done writing it. In a healthy society it would have been attacked and overwhelmed from multiple directions in the same uncoordinated way that a virus or bacteria would be dealt with. But instead, the infection has reached a point where 1/3 of the nation decided that it wasn't their problem, and another 1/3 was actively helping the infection. We are at that point in the covid infection where the body is now harming itself.