this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025

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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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If we need a common enemy for people to get along then society has already failed (lemm.ee)

submitted 8 hours ago by ReanuKeeves@lemm.ee to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world

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[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 1 points 18 minutes ago

Crazier idea. Let's create a fake facial group, and blame all our problems on them! We'll first manufacture a fake racial group that no real human could be mistaken for. Then we'll create fake history, fake documentation, maybe even invent an imaginary island they originate from. We'll run endless fake news stories showing them committing horrible crimes. Etc. Turn the hate machine up to 11.

It won't fool the most intelligent, but that's fine. Everyone who wants someone to hate will have someone to hate. And no one will have to suffer for it.

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 1 points 53 minutes ago

You've got it backwards. Society doesn't work without a looming threat, whether that's an enemy or the environment.

[–] ramble81@lemm.ee 4 points 2 hours ago

Ironically, we do have a common enemy: The billionaires. Problem is the enemy has managed to brainwash almost half the populace into fighting for them.

[–] RedstoneValley@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 hours ago

Insert "Always has been" meme here

[–] biofaust@lemmy.world 7 points 5 hours ago

As an ex-biologist, I think this is just down to a choice of words: as a society, you could see Nature as an enemy.

Man, even as an individual, or even a monocellular organism, you could argue that entropy is your enemy.

If an enemy is a useful concept for maximizing potential within your scope of choice, then be it.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 15 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Not necessarily a common enemy, but a common cause.

I've never seen people come together and work harder than when we were trying to end the Y2K problem. I guess you could call the bug "the enemy", but it was a little more abstract than that.

[–] ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Were you in an industry affected or are you just reminiscing on being in society

Because being in society for y2k was utterly meaningless. We did nothing. We did not come together, we did not work hard. A small handful of dweebs noticed the issue and fixed it.

The USA, with its burgeoning 24 hour news cycle and coming off such hits as oj, princess di, and columbine, recognized they could blow that shit up. So then America wasted 40 billion dollars and a shitload of fear mongering when basically every other country spent almost nothing for essentially the same outcome. Because the outcome was contingent on patches to windows and the Linux kernel, which were obviously going to happen long before 1/1/2000 and regardless of the government because it was a glaring bug that was found

I do ultimately agree with your sentiment though. A common enemy is not necessary and we absolutely can be unified around a cause. The space race obviously had Russia as a villain. The new deal is something that on paper could unify but in practice saw conservative opposition and liberal criticism that it didn’t go far enough. I still think it’s possible though, even if an example is a challenge to think up

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 10 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

I was a front line worker during Y2K with 60 software updates across 600 systems from Texas to Guam.

I had to run a color coded Excel sheet to keep it all straight, it was CRAZY.

In my case, because it was the automotive industry, it also all had to be done early because of the '00 model year cars. Like I say, I've never seen people work harder.

Even then, there were still problems outside our control:

https://www.capecodtimes.com/story/news/1999/10/13/y2k-brings-back-horseless-carriages/51026660007/

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

I quit after y2k. I worked nights for months and after it was over, my baby threw up on me one morning, I was 10 minutes late because I had to change, and my boss literally screamed at me.

[–] ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

So you were administering systems or something similar? Then sure, I am sure for you and your team it brought you together (and maybe some tension at times). Glad it went well. But society as a whole? Eh

That’s the challenge though. On a micro level it’s easy. I work in mental health and I have similar stories from my days working in hospitals (I do outpatient work now) where our unit staff have banded together for challenges. Covid was like that at the beginning. Then it fell apart because everything became politicized thanks to our dogshit leadership at the time

But finding something that can (for the most part) unite all of society? Even limiting it to just the US that’s a talllllll order. Especially if you also don’t want it to fall apart after a month like the Covid thing

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 3 points 6 hours ago

The only system that has sustained common cause in human societies long-term is religion. It's outlasted nationalism and political ideologies, noble families and dynasties, and even the collapse of civilizations.

Which is terrifying, when you consider how much violence has been done in the name of religion throughout human history. Why do none of our more productive ideas and organizing principles have such longevity?

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

I was administering a small part of a system, probably 1/3rd of the entire server environment. There was another team doing the financial software and another team doing the hardware side.

But, yeah, society as a whole I think did notice. There was an up-tick in "prepperdom" or whatever you want to call it, especially when this story broke:

https://www.waterworld.com/drinking-water-treatment/article/16193307/committee-warns-of-y2k-dangers-in-water-industry

I had a lot of non-technical people asking me what it was all about and I explained it like this:

Let's say, on 1/1, the government has decided to issue everbody new quarters and all your old quarters are going to go away.

1:1 - you won't lose any money, but the new quarters they're handing out won't work in ANY vending machine. Everything with a coin slot needs to be updated.

Now, if you have the proper tools, and knowledge, updating one machine is not a big deal.

But now you have to update every machine on your block, in your neighborhood, in your city, in your county, in your state, in the entire country, in the whole world...

Suddenly the scale is far, far bigger.

To this day, I'm stunned we pulled it off without more problems. There was the "horseless carriage" bit noted above, there was another problem with a taxi system in, I wanna say Thailand?

Singapore! I wasn't that far off!

https://money.cnn.com/1999/01/12/technology/y2k_moneyline/

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

And now people are saying climate change is like the Y2K bug and "it will fix itself" 🙄

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Those people don't even KNOW about the 2038 bug... ;)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

Fortunately(?) it's unlikely I'll live to see that one.

[–] badbrainstorm@lemmy.world 16 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

Truth.

Though, America got by for a long time with that being Russia, and Nazis...

What happened to that

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 10 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Whoever fights with monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.

[–] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 8 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

A more applicable version would be Whoever fights with monsters should see to it that they still have something to do in case they succeed.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 points 6 hours ago

Yeah, don't want to end up unemployed... better create some more monsters...

[–] TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 3 points 7 hours ago

Having the local dictator as the unifying enemy seems to be popular. Just ask anyone from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya or Yemen.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Well except for all the innocent people swept up in the red scare.

Or the minorities living during those times.

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 11 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

This is the underlying plot of plenty of movies. The prevailing solution is to find something other than each other to be our unifying enemy.

Conclusion: Hopefully we get attacked by aliens or something.

[–] executivechimp@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 7 hours ago

We had a global pandemic and that didn't work. Maybe an alien invasion would work but I think it might just be a plot device.

[–] kilgore_trout@feddit.it 1 points 6 hours ago

The global pandemic of COVID-19 was not a visible menace, and only endangered the poor, the old and the weak.

[–] fyzzlefry@retrolemmy.com 5 points 7 hours ago

We have built within us a need to fight for survival. Natural selection has bred us to constantly be fighting for the top. When we get there we have no idea what to do with it.

We need something to fight against, that's why we all love under dog stories.

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

We need something in common for people to get along. Enemies are just very easy things to share between groups, but common creeds, ideals, projects are all unifiers of equal power (though they're not nearly as convenient to find...)

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

You'd think being people would be common enough... life has enough difficulty without us creating more for each other.

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

Unfortunately I've found that unless they're given a very definitive common focus, humans are exceedingly prone to spending their free time carefully cataloging their differences.

[–] nesc@lemmy.cafe 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

No, it means that your society is not homogenous and most of the time people do not feel themselves as part of it.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

Feeling a part of something has nothing to do with homogeneity, it has to do with empowerment.

What you’re describing frankly sounds like ethnonationalism.

[–] nesc@lemmy.cafe 1 points 7 hours ago

Feeling part of something has a lot to do with homogenity. Most nations are built on ethnonationalism.