this post was submitted on 04 Jan 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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  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
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When I was a kid, computers expanded your mind and your freedoms, bringing power to the individual. With AI, now it does the thinking for you, takes your job, gives power only to a few billionaires. (lemmus.org)
submitted 5 days ago by realitista@lemmus.org to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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When I was young and starting out with computers, programming, BBS' and later the early internet, technology was something that expanded my mind, helped me to research, learn new skills, and meet people and have interesting conversations. Something decentralized that put power into the hands of the little guy who could start his own business venture with his PC or expand his skillset.

Where we are now with AI, the opposite seems to be happening. We are asking AI to do things for us rather than learning how to do things ourselves. We are losing our research skills. Many people are talking to AI's about their problems instead of other people. And they will take away our jobs and centralize all power into a handful of billionaire sociopaths with robot armies to carry out whatever nefarious deeds they want to do.

I hope we somehow make it through this part of history with some semblance of freedom and autonomy intact, but I'm having a hard time seeing how.

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[–] artwork@lemmy.world 16 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Thank you...

Apparently, I've never ever considered any LLM serious, convenient, appropriate, similar to Markov's chain, though those differ, and I disable and uninstall absolutely everything that is LLM related, or alters human effortful works, including programming suggestions, searching, and in any kind of adequate research, in the personal life or everywhere possible since 2021 (and some in 2023), where I had a few months of experimenting with those - enough to consider the time I still have to continue actually learning, discovering, and staying social as much as I can...

Please... Please, in context of such education... instead of investing your priceless, precious, finite life time... into such empty void as unknown output of unknown LLM from unknown dataset of unknown artists... developers... people... Please, instead, please consider to take your time... and try to see the love in someone's else works, courses, videos, books, articles, schemes, tables, drawings... who would be only heartfelt delighted to know... to know that someone else like you, like themselves... were reaching out for their experience they were gaining for decades and worked hard to prepare it for someone out there... in search... for someone who wishes and tries to create something, to improve the world... to reach for an achievement... to treasure a goal... to invent a miracle...

Since isn't the following the miraculous purpose to live and contribute to the infinite world? To gain experience by confident, adequate effort, to work towards achievements, to stay responsible as a human, to stay alive... Which is at least: personal contributions published, social interactions, actually felt and considered facts organized by accountable people, self-confidence and miraculous time you invest into learning the human experience published in marvelous works of books, articles, videos, forums, chats - the ineffable magnificence...

There's use for LLM, including pentesting, medicine and analyzing of unknown and random for the sake of random in scopes of "black-box", for example, sure, but overly rarely and the fear of malformed facts, unknown sources, disturbed art... will always shadow any presence of such generative technologies, I believe... Yet, shouldn't technology support you, your mind (i.e. not atrophy it but train and discipline it), your creativity, your ideas, your... existence?

Since isn't learning from someone else experience is actually important... Isn't it ineffably magnificent to discover someone's hard work... Isn't the process of learning and discovering actually fun!
Isn't the knowledge that you unique carry valuable... What is the fun, the purpose, otherwise...?

Please consider your confidence, skills, mind, and... your precious time...

"If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product." ~ Tristan Harris
"Machines should work; people should think." ~ IBM Pollyanna Principle