this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2026
142 points (84.5% liked)

Showerthoughts

43390 readers
459 users here now

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:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  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
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

... unless the person works voluntarily, that is.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] darkdemize@sh.itjust.works 26 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Not vegan so correct me if I'm wrong here, but I thought the whole point of veganism was an objection to the non-consensual use of animal products. Humans are aware of the use of their labor and consent to it, exploitation by circumstance notwithstanding.

[–] GaumBeist@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

Consent is a bad metric because it ignores externalities—stuff like economic incentives, implicit threats of loss of basic needs, propaganda, trauma. Someone can be said to consent to exploitation, even if they only did so to continue surviving under oppressive economies/states. I "consent" to have the value of my labor extracted, pooled, and distributed to business owners in the same way I "consent" to the privacy policies (and the sale of my Personally Identifying Information) of the software the company I work for requires us to use (to remain employed)

That's why I prefer focusing on exploitation. Someone doesn't have to know they're being exploited, agree that they're being exploited, nor even want to not be exploited for it to still be unjust to exploit them and identify when it is happening. Veganism is a stance against animal exploitation.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] markz@suppo.fi 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Did you only read the title

[–] darkdemize@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 weeks ago

The OP was a little vague to me, but I'm also a little drunk.

[–] cactusupyourbutt@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I do not consent, no. I only go to work because otherwise I am threatened by homelessness.

[–] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 weeks ago

Don't forget starvation, disease and untimely death.

[–] Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 6 points 2 weeks ago

I don't work voluntarly tho, i have to work because otherwise i am gonna be homeless and i can't get food

[–] gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

exploitation by circumstance notwithstanding

yeah that was exactly what i was referring to. as long as we'd rather stay in bed in the morning, we're not doing it voluntarily. and be honest, do you go to work voluntarily? would you still do it if you didn't need the money? if so, then yes, it is vegan.

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 2 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Wait... So unless food magically appears with no labor at all, because labor isn't fun, no food is vegan?

So no food is vegan other than literal windfall fruit from a tree? Or does picking it up could as labor?

Religions are less strict

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] lemmyman@lemmy.world 24 points 2 weeks ago

Level 8 veganism iirc

[–] skunk@lemmy.zip 16 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

Sure you can make that argument under capitalism, where people are deprived of the value their labor created in order to force them to work more so they may survive. Hence why people should strive for communism. If everyone lived vegan people would be compelled to work as they are able in order to not cause undue burden on others, which again would not be vegan.

"From each according to their ability to each according to their need."

[–] gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

If everyone lived vegan people would be compelled to work as they are able in order to not cause undue burden on others, which again would not be vegan.

i don't quite get your last sentence. what if the person themselves doesn't want to work?

[–] skunk@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

If the person doesn't want to work how will they sustain themselves? They have to rely on other peoples labor without contributing their own. If people don't want to subsidize someone else then that person would either have to start working "against their will" or take other peoples labor without consent, which you have already pointed out, is not vegan. So if everyone were vegan that person would be compelled to work as they are able in order to be able to remain vegan.

Idk its kinda tortured logic when spelling it all out lol

[–] GaumBeist@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Nature compells us to work for food anyway, that's not exploitation and coercion, that's just survival.

The construct of society is predicated on the idea of "from each... to each..." That saying often gets conflated with left-wing politics, but that's just the point of animals (humans included) grouping together; after all, what's the point of living in society if it doesn't convey any benefits to the individual that they could not provide for themselves? That would be exploitative of the individual. But if they are benefitting, then it is only fair and just to also give back to the society one extracts benefits from, otherwise it is exploitative of the others.

Put another way: no one should be obligated to participate in society, but then society should likewise have no obligations to the non-participants.

[–] skunk@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (5 children)

Nature compells us to work for food anyway, that’s not exploitation and coercion, that’s just survival.

Not all of us ahem bourgeoisie ahem

The construct of society is predicated on the idea of “from each… to each…”

of course, however what makes a societies differ is exactly what gets filled in to the "..."

"from each slave to each slavemaster" -> slavery
"from each serf to each lord" -> feudalism
"from each worker to each owner" -> capitalism
"from each person (according to their ability) to each person (according to their need)" -> socialism 😄

[–] gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

ok so what you're describing here is that ...

  • first of all, labor seems to be the constant in your worldview that everything revolves around. do you believe (or think that it's possible / desirable) that we will eventually have a fully automated luxury society?
  • if yes, how would you call such a system?

secondly, it seems to me that the point that "bourgeoisie" doesn't work is a big problem to you. mind explaining why? is it because society desperately needs that 1% extra labor output? is it because of some "work is a moral must" mindset (quasi-religious)? is it for some other reason?


thirdly, it seems to me that you're defining ~~communism~~ socialism as essentially our current society, just that CEOs don't get huge bonuses and shareholders don't skim company profit. so, in other words, our current world minus the stock market: every company has to emit zero profit (such that no shareholders gain from it) and all the money must instead be spent on the business itself: wages to workers and resource acquirements.

did i understand that correctly? would you add anything? do you think that this setup is already feasible in today's legal framework through worker-owned businesses? ("co-ops" and what they're called)

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Gullable@programming.dev 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This socialist ideal of providing luxury goods to the poor masses for cheap is exactly the problem. If the world would be more capitalist, we wouldn’t subsidise the meat industries and the poor would be forced to buy beans.

[–] skunk@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

not necessarily, very abridged version:

The tendency of the rate of profit to fall will soon mean that an industry will stop producing said commodity. It can't anymore if it's unprofitable. This is where the state has to step in and start subsidizing that industry or buying the commodity themself in order to articially inflate demand in order to keep that industry afloat. See e.g. the "butter mountains" of the EU.

That wikipedia article on "The tendency of the rate of profit to fall" is a horrible introduction btw. If you want to know more you can read "Arbeitslohn und Kapital"/"Wage labour and capital" by Marx himself, much more digestible. And rather short.

[–] gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

The tendency of the rate of profit to fall will soon mean that an industry will stop producing said commodity. It can’t anymore if it’s unprofitable. This is where the state has to step in and start subsidizing that industry or buying the commodity themself in order to articially inflate demand in order to keep that industry afloat. See e.g. the “butter mountains” of the EU.

ahem i just so happen to be very familiar with the whole concept of the tendency of rate of profit to fall (TRPF) and you're misunderstanding it here. it turns to be unprofitable in the sense that the profit rate approaches zero (for example, exponentially), it does not go negative! companies continue to produce stuff as long as the profit is larger than zero, which it always stays. so they continue to produce stuff indefinitely, according to the model. even though they make less and less profit with it. no state subsidizing involved here.

this is maybe a subtlety here. something can converge towards zero while also always staying positive. check out this function:

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Gullable@programming.dev 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Thats the exact opposite of capitalism. Unprofitable business go bankrupt. Then their possessions and their labor force gets absorbed by other companies.

This is to align work with reality.

If politicians would artificially decide what companies to keep someone would have to pay for their mistakes. Markets are much better at this (just read “the use of knowledge in society” by Friedrich von Hayek)

Just like the suffering of animals is unnecessary to feed the planet, we now have to pay for the costs of climate change, because people want to life in a socialist fantasy.

[–] skunk@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Ok so unprofitable businesses keep going bankrupt, get gobbled up by a bigger corporation until one corporation has a monopoly. That's the trend we're seeing right? How many corporations for food are there left now? Nestle, Unilever, Coca Cola, Mondelez and that's pretty much it right? Well what happens when the tendency of the rate of the profit to fall forces them to no longer produce food. Do we just go extinct?

This (in case of the "butter mountains" and in general) isn't some politicians deciding which companies to keep, this is the state intervening to save itself. They have to prop up an entire industry that cannot reduce costs any further which means that the price keeps fluctuating around 0 profit which means the entire industry goes extinct. That's why there is a fixed price on milk, not to save some companies, but to prop up the entire industry. Capitalism will devolve sooner or later into state planning since without this state intervention industries start collapsing.

Could you imagine the ramification of the entire dairy industry dying out? (😸) The economy would go haywire, entire villages depend on their dairy farming, they would revolt it would be pandemonium. This is where capitalism finally leads.

[–] Frettchen@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Would not be vegan. Are you starting a religion?

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago

Sorry babe, i can't vacuum the house cause I'm vegan.

[–] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)
[–] DougPiranha42@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Would make more sense if post was talking about slavery, not labor. Labor is compensated.

[–] Triumph@fedia.io 10 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Compare the GDP of your country to earned income, do a tiny bit of math, discover what portion of the workforce are slaves.

[–] DougPiranha42@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Mm, so if a worker creates added value, that makes the worker a slave? Interesting theory.

[–] Triumph@fedia.io 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

When GDP is three times earned income, labor is being undercompensated so much that approximately two-thirds of the workforce is enslaved, yes.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 5 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

yeah but do you go to work voluntarily? would you still do it if you didn’t need the money? if so, then yes, it is vegan.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

We are also riddled with pesticides (perfumes, deodorants), bred in captivity (social/gender/sexual norms) and - if you're going to consume us either way - our caloric and nutritional values are abysmal (compared to our alternatives).

[–] skunk@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (4 children)

CW holocaust stuff

if you’re going to consume us either way - our caloric and nutritional values are abysmal (compared to our alternatives).

Well you can still make leather from human hide and other human-based products. That's what the nazi's did with their prisoners. The whole work camps where basically human agriculture where they were maximising the profit the could gain by minimizing the cost of sustaining the labor-power. They were calculating how much calories people need in order to do exactly the work required and nothing else so they could save penny's on food. That's why they started experimenting with human leather, in order to recoup some of the costs by creating commodities from the corpse a laborer left behind etc. It's really was the same mentality that goes into dairy farming or chicken or really any animal agricutlure ever.

[–] akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] skunk@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Disgusting zionism

When the Holocaust survivors arrived in Israel from the inferno, they were attacked as "sabonim" (Hebrew slang for a naive person but also for "soap," a reference to Nazi experiments to make soap from Jewish fat) or "sheep to the slaughter"; feeble exilic Jews, pale Ashkenazi nebbishes who shouted in their sleep.

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025-11-19/ty-article-opinion/.premium/the-new-scapegoats-returned-hostages-face-israels-rising-hostility/0000019a-9d83-d5e6-abff-fdf7ac150000

[–] Gullable@programming.dev 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

In germany we have the saying: „to wash you hands in innocence.“ I guess thats what that was about.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Jhogenbaum@leminal.space 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I'll post here that I saw this / credit for this should probably go to this subway takes

[–] gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 2 points 2 weeks ago

funny :) but i came up with it independently

load more comments
view more: next ›