this post was submitted on 05 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:

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Like, we're destroying the one place we know is a sure bet on where we can prosper if we keep it healthy, but instead the world's richest man is trying to expand to other planets while this one's ability to sustain life is in jeopardy. IMO that makes us potentially a very stupid species compared to a species that doesn't really care about meeting other aliens because they value the life on their own planet far more than we do.

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[–] TheTimeKnife@lemmy.world 6 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

The issue isn't just flying saucers not landing in downtown Manhattan, the problem is the universe has been silent so far for us. A universal tendency towards planetary protection doesn't explain why we don't see a cosmos awash in artificial electromagnetic signals. Everything we find seems to have a natural explanation. If life really was as common as it should be, we would see it broadcasting out into the dark like we are. The universe is old, big and filled with the stuff life needs. Life SHOULD exist, the fact that we haven't found any real evidence of it yet is bizarre. Some fundamental part of how we understand the universe is wrong.

[–] pressanykeynow@lemmy.world 1 points 21 minutes ago

The universe is old

Actually it's very young, like a baby young compared to what it could be

Life SHOULD exist

That's a very bold statement without any evidence to it

the fact that we haven't found any real evidence of it yet is bizarre

You could call it bizarre if you had some data where there should be a lot of evidence. We don't have that data, just fantasies.

Some fundamental part of how we understand the universe is wrong.

Likely most of it. Or even our "understanding" as a concept is not there yet. I mean our "understanding" was meant to find food, prey, etc. And we were pretty bad at that.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 11 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

That just indicates nobody is beaming an uncompressed signal directly at use. Something not on a tight beam directed at us would disperse and get lost in the noise. A compressed data stream would be indistinguishable from noise if since we don't know the compression algorithm and with any kind of interference at all there wouldn't be any way to distinguish it from noise.

Getting a radio signal basically requires there to be an alien race that knows we're here and wants to talk to us.

[–] DanceMomsSavedMe@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 hours ago

Yupp could be a whole species of beings out there with their own space programs trying to send and recievesignals but they're left in the dark just like us, forever out of reach and drifting further from each other.

[–] Earthman_Jim@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

We may be receiving weak signals all the time that come across as noise, but receiving a message is a different story with specific motivations and efforts behind it.