this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2024
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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. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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Most of us just want to fit in, and believe what everybody believes.

Coming to your beliefs this way is not actually intelligent. We don't do it consciously. It's just tribalism or herding instinct or whatever.

So if everybody agrees with you then that's a pretty good sign that you are wrong.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (2 children)

If I was to say "the sky is blue" and everyone agrees with me, it's actually because the sky is fucking blue.

I don't know how you came to such a wildly bad conclusion. There are other caveats needed to make what you said even remotely accurate. Like if you're a billionaire and everyone always agrees with you, you're probably wrong most of the time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Because this person got absolutely roasted in their previous post, and even commented this post's title to another comment there.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Getting dogpiled by a bunch of lukewarm jellyfish is hardly roasting.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

There are exceptions of course. And maybe that's one of them. Or maybe it isn't.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 day ago

Contrarianism in a nutshell.

You're not smart, you're just a hipster.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Being contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian doesn’t make one interesting

Edit: I gotta look at usernames before I comment

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

A contrarian isn’t one who always objects — that’s a confirmist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently, from the ground up, and resists pressure to conform.

  • Naval Ravikant
[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The opposite doesn't mean you're right either.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 day ago

Things I must be wrong about because everyone agrees:

Flapping my arms won't cause me to fly.

I can't breathe underwater.

Washing hands prevents disease.

Eating food gives us energy.

Yesterday was Christmas.

If only everyone was as smart as you. 🙄

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sometimes most people are right. Sometimes most people are wrong. Come to your own conclusions as independently as possible from what other people think. It's just as much a fallacy to assume the majority of people are wrong as to assume they are right.

And some things aren't even objectively true or false, they are just personal preferences or morals.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

Based on the downvotes, you must think this was a good take lmao

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago

For unpopular opinion maybe

[–] [email protected] -2 points 22 hours ago

It's expected. It's the 2 or 3 thoughtful responses that I'm looking for.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

Must be hard to come around math, science and in general facts for you. We all agree on how it works, so it must be wrong?

[–] [email protected] -3 points 22 hours ago

That's a special case.

Most of popular thought is not that.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Do you always frame your assertions as questions?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 22 hours ago

Only if I ask for an answer.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is a little concept known as conformity, and it's a pretty big and interesting part of sociology

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It depends vastly on the subject, audience and source of information.

I’m not going to disagree with a room of experts aligned on a conclusion based on data and verified study. Actual knowledge is in fact knowledge and a contrarian opinion, no matter how passionately expressed, is not equivalent to it.

Being contrarian solely to go against the popular position is laughably simplistic.

Everyone knows this.

(☞゚ヮ゚)☞

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

People who don't understand science don't get this. When science changes it doesn't mean the previous ideas were "wrong" - it usually just means that the framework and the data it is built around was incomplete or imprecise. That's the entire premise of empiricism, and why there are differences between how theory, fact and axiom are handled.

Far too many people believe that the history of overturned consensus suggests that modern consensus is also "wrong" when it was the empiricist framework which discovered both "truths" in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Most people think the letter "A" is the first letter of the English alphabet.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Few people know that runes were first

[–] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 21 hours ago

Not in the anglosphere

[–] [email protected] -1 points 23 hours ago

Assuming the English alphabet, A is the first letter.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

I think you're confusing a few things here, but that's ok. After all, it's a shower thought, not a thesis.

Whether people agree or disagree with you is not a good indication of you being right or wrong. it could be either way in both cases.

When people think the same way as you do, they tend to agree with you. They might think that way, because you're really convincing or because they see the world the same way you do. In either case, you could still be right or wrong.

It's also possible that people appear to agree with you even though they don't actually think like you do. See dictatorships for more info on that situation. As usual, this has nothing to with who is right and who is wrong.

Regardless, you touched upon an important point. Humans are social animals, and tribalism causes all sorts of weird behavior, such as rejecting your own conclusions and going with the flow. In a hunter gatherer society, your life literally depends on the group, so you better stick together. In a modern society, we still need each other, but more indirectly.

If everyone agrees with you, take that as a warning sign that they might be acting on tribal instincts. Act responsibly, because your decisions could affect the people around you.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Most people agree that puppies and kittens are cute.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That’s just Big Cute propaganda. The puppy-kitten industrial complex has brainwashed us all. Have you even considered that tarantulas and anglerfish might be the true standard of cuteness?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 hours ago

Not even once.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Critical thinking skills are required, to really know if you're right or wrong. Just going by what is common and doing the opposite, or doing what is common, is not enough.

The entire scientific method is designed so that people can verify if they are wrong or right, through falsifiable hypotheses, simply debating and using rhetoric to try to decide truth often leads to incorrect conclusions, if not outright falsehoods. However, the burden of proof is on the person with the new theory, not everybody else to prove the new theory is wrong

[–] [email protected] -1 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

Such careful thinking, such scientificness, is rare as hen's teeth.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago

It's the only way to be sure you are correct or not.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I'm a Yakuza game series fan, so, a guy who I know asked me what do I think about the live action series of Amazon Prime. I said that isn't going to get the same reception as other live action series, so this mf agreed with me with no hesitation. I got mad, no because he was trying to "giving me the reason" but he was trying to lick my boots.