this post was submitted on 10 May 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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UFOs are moths, and we are a porch light left on all night. (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Retiredtoflorida@lemmy.world to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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We know how we are handling space exploration. We send robot probes. So once you get good at space travel. You set up automated factories on an asteroid and just churn out probes. Scattering them all over the universe looking for radio waves, nuclear explosion and polluted planets.

Imagine what it must have looked like to the swarms of interstellar probe cruising between the stars, when we detonated Ivy Mike or when the Russians detonated the Tsar Bomba. They would all come running like moths to a flame.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Mike

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

I feel I should point out that the civilizations who did this are probably long dead or just don't care what the probes found. After thousands of years they are gone or have moved on. The probes are just on auto pilot.

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[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I feel I should point out that the civilizations who did this are probably long dead or just don't care what the probes found. After thousands of years they are gone or have moved on. The probes are just on auto pilot.

Why send out probes if you don't care what they find? That simply doesn't make sense. We certainly don't tend to launch massive space exploration campaigns 'just cuz' with no intention to review the data gathered.

[–] Retiredtoflorida@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

Because the project was started thousands of years ago, and then just kept going on autopilot. If that species still exists their priorities would have changed, and they would already have thousands of years worth of data. They let it run because they couldn't be bothered to turn it off.

[–] nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I feel I should point out that the USA UFOs are BS

(Mick West debunks)
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Xn9G1TEEqFE

[–] Retiredtoflorida@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

In Mick Wests own words: "Mysteries remain. What the pilots who reported engaging a giant flying Tic-Tac saw is still unidentified, as are the objects in several other incidents. The causes of ghostly or rapidly moving radar returns are likewise, in many cases, unknown — although since the system is classified, if it's a system glitch or inadequacy, then the Pentagon isn't going to tell us.

We'll also continue to have no good answer for many photos and videos, simply because the object shown is too far away for whatever camera is being used. But "unidentified" means just that. It does not mean advanced technology."

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mick-west-are-ufos-here/id1169885840?i=1000524224097

[–] FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world -2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I would like to believe aliens aren't real, and a lot of shady shit in the usa (e.g JFK's assasination) comes back to their pledged allegiation to a tiny fascist outpost in the middle east.

Since the dead/missing scientists are mainly if not uniquely employed at rocket science labs (or adjacent) my theory is that they were offed for refusing to make weapons for israel. Or kidnapped.

To me it makes sense that any shenanigans tie in to current events.

Could therefore also be the case that they're kidnapping scientists to try and upload their brains to AI. This is a less neat theory.

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That's such a cool setting for SciFi! Discovery of an alien civ by studying UFOs. Astonishment at discovering multiple civs. Finding out the reason why these civs don't exist anymore. Protecting ourselves against this threat.

I wish I had time to explore this :(

[–] Retiredtoflorida@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Their deaths aren't that big a surprise. Look at human history and pre history. It's always the same story, poor sanitation, environmental degradation, corruption and climate.

Look how people responded to covid.

I strongly recommend two books by Jared Diamond, Guns Germs and steel, and Collapse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns%2C_Germs%2C_and_Steel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org 2 points 1 week ago

It's always the same story, poor sanitation, environmental degradation, corruption and climate.

Naah I don't buy it. Individual cities and countries collapse, but not anything larger. Also, poor sanitation throughout history was mostly because of a lack of understanding of germ theory.

Nawww, I was thinking more of a secret nihilistic text or something. Something that just makes an entire civ kill themselves or something. Or maybe some equation that spells eternal doom or something that leaves everyone absolutely hopeless.

I'll try going through the summaries of the books you recommended! Thanks :)

[–] BaroqueInMind@piefed.social 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

If you play the Halo trilogy, this is the premise for the Forerunners, who's only way to defeat the Flood is a reality that ALL sentient life would consider extremely horrific when understood.

[–] deft@lemmy.wtf 2 points 1 week ago

And you end up running into their drones and bots and leftover tech. Guilty spark is my boy

[–] StoneyPicton@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I've never looked at the stats but I've always understood that UFO sightings increased "dramatically" after WWII. So the porch light in that case may have been the extensive explosions.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Sightings really spiked in the 70s, there were lots of reports of strange triangle shaped spaceships that looked like nothing of this world. Many sightings were near UFO activity hotspots, like area 51, or Roswell New Mexico.

Then in the early 80s, the F-117 officially entered service.

Most UFO sightings are totally mundane objects and people not having any idea what they're looking at. The rest are legitimately strange aircraft, because they're cutting edge military projects (not aliens).

[–] StoneyPicton@lemmy.ca 1 points 5 days ago

I may be off on when the sightings increased and therefore hurt my question. Then again we don't know how long between observation and investigation it would take them.

As far as cutting edge military, I find it impossible to believe that the astounding physics required to validate those reports would not already be in use in todays world, if true.