this post was submitted on 20 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. The most popular seem to be lighthearted, clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts: 1

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Yeah, the whole Flat Earth stuff is a relative modern re-occurrence.

We've had concrete evidence of a globe Earth and a pretty accurate measurement of the circumference since the 3rd century BC (Erastothenes). ¹
Heliocentrism was theorized by the Ancient Greeks, but we've only had concrete evidence/math since the 16th century (Copernicus). ²

Then in the 19th century, you had the writer Washington Irving who wrote a romanticized biography of Columbus and claimed that folks in the Middle Ages believed the Earth to be flat, which was just not true. ³

And then there was Samuel Rowbotham, another writer who just made up a whole load of bullshit and kind of brought the conspiracy theories underway. ⁴

¹: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth
²: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism
³: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth#Irving's_biography_of_Columbus
⁴: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Rowbotham