this post was submitted on 13 Jul 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:
- 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
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- The entire showerthought must be in the title
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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.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
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No, not really. It would limit beneficial advancements in technology as well.
Like crossing over to renewable energy sources and advancements in energy efficiency or battery technology. Thanks to EVs we have progressed significantly in that department within last few years.
Or medical advancements, covid and mRNA vaccines are probably a good example.
These would just need a different (higher) set point of the control loop, but still need some kind of regulating mechanism.
Even things like renewable deployment need some kind of selective dampening to make them work, e.g. to allow the old style energy infrastructure to keep up without the grid frequently collapsing.
Same for medical advancements. E.g. you don't want the employment speed of new methods outpace the test and review measures ensuring people's safety.
On this front there's also fun challenges such as Javons Paradox where increased efficiency leads to increased consumption. This was observed all the way back to the Industrial Revolution as coal use did not decrease with increased efficiency but instead coal consumption simply kept increasing as it effectively became a cheaper input for the same amount of output
I remember seeing a similar effect when conventional lights became forbidden in the EU, followed by energy saving devices suddenly becoming widely available for decent prices.
EU expectation was now saving 80% of the power used for lighting.
Reality was that people instead just started putting up twice as many lights, and each with maximum available luminosity instead of the few dim ones they were content with before...
Fair, good point, yeah it would need some regulating mechanism to make sure that the gird can keep up and to make sure that medical advancements are safe to use.
I mean medical advancements already have a regulation mechanism in the form of certification that does indeed limit the pace of their development. It's quite a clumsy one though and there's no feedback loop, it's more like a permanent break
Yes, i kinda forgot that.
Well said