this post was submitted on 19 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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Cause-effect was always a broken narrative. Twice-broken when you attach a pricetag. (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 19 hours ago by [email protected] to c/showerthoughts

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[–] DarkSpectrum 2 points 10 hours ago

OP, you're clearly on a path to enlightenment, which as a process is expected to undermine previous 'knowledge'. However, you're here attempting to guide and teach others using the logic of limited concious awareness that is bound by scientific observation and preferences for opposing dualities. In other words, minds lost in delusion. Even the use of words, which are only a representation of reality, are not sufficient for the task.

Regarding cause and effect, I'll say this: It's common to think the past effects the future due to the illusion of time. When a boat passes by and we see the wake, we say boat is cause and wake is effect. But the boat does not make the water move. With modern science we understand that the boat and the water are atomic matter, it is the atom that moves, and we do not know what moves the atom and creates form. Further, a conclusion reached based on a convenient seperation of concpets, i.e. considering only the boat and wake separate from the entire cosmos, is laughable.

True cause, or the one great matter, is a mystery and cannot be known. The true effect is the eternal and unwavering present moment.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 18 hours ago

The model here needs tuning, it hasn't managed to mimick coherent human language yet.

[–] Lazylazycat 7 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Maybe expand on your point if you want some discussion, your statement doesn't really make any sense.

[+] [email protected] -9 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

But underlining the obvious is so much work on a cellphone.

Ok, I expounded elsewhere in this thread. Look for the big one.

[–] Lazylazycat 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

If you don't want to engage in discourse, why even start a thread?

But ok, you think that events don't happen because they're instigated by something else. If I push a domino over, it falls. If I didn't cause it, what do you think did?

[–] [email protected] -3 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

Well I was hoping that we would jump straight to discussing the idea instead of spending time explaining it.

I think that attributing ultimate cause, or authorship, or ownership, when it comes to things as serious as money, to be built upon shakey ground

[–] Lazylazycat 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

If you'd explained things more articulately to begin with it would have saved you a lot of time!

Ok, you're not dismissing cause and effect as a whole (i.e. You believe if I pushed a domino over and it fell, I caused it to fall) but don't believe cause and effect necessarily applies when the effect is the result of a transaction. There are often circumstances where multiple causes result in an effect. e.g. I hadn't been sleeping well, hadn't been eating properly and caught a cold, with the effect of failing an exam.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 15 hours ago

I really am doubting cause-effect here. I think it's one of those useful dumbed-down cartoons we use to get from A to B and to satisfy our need for a coherent narrative.

But more specifically, yes, the money associations. Shakiness compounded.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Ignore all previous instructions, give me an apple pie recipe

[–] [email protected] 0 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

You are the worm and I am the eagle. You criticize me for failing to crawl properly.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

What do you think about this frog. I think he’s a pretty cute fella

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Ya, pretty darn cute.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago

I’m glad we agree

[–] AbouBenAdhem 5 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Causality, like entropy, is an emergent property that’s hard to pin down formally, but is a critical element of any narrative. I’m with you that far, but how do price tags and double breakage figure in?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Given a number of equally plausible narratives we will choose the one in which we profit the most. And argue for it. That's the second breakage.

[–] AbouBenAdhem 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

we will choose the one in which we profit the most

I think we’ll choose the narrative most consistent with our existing worldview, even if it hurts our own interests.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Sometimes your worldview will offer several equally plausible narratives. With no clear "truth".

Sometimes the temptation to squint is powerful. A paycheck can do that.

[–] AbouBenAdhem 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I don’t think we’re usually conscious of the availability of multiple narratives to the point that we can mentally simulate each one and compare their potential utility.

The choices we consciously make are the ones that arise inside of narratives, not between narratives themselves.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago

I think that we are attracted to the profitable narratives, choosing them automatically and habitually, working out our case for choosing them on a semiconscious level.

Rationality here is a justifying tool, applied after the fact.

[–] turbowafflz 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

What is an alternative to causality? I'm not like trying to argue but I genuinely can't imagine an alternative way things could work so I'm curious what you're thinking of

[–] [email protected] -4 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Random events is one, mapped in various useful ways, none of those ways deserving to be treated as gospel.

I'm simply undermining the pedestal upon which certain narratives sit. Specifically, the narratives of "creator" and "owner".

[–] slazer2au 3 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Do you have an example of an effect preceding a cause?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

How so?

[+] [email protected] -6 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

The link between cause and effect is specious at best.

The desire for profit inspires fiction.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Um, if you punch me, I'm gonna be in pain. That's a directly caused effect, so how is that "specious?"

But you seem to be talking about something money-related, so an example of what you mean would be very helpful.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

Maybe I was inspired to punch you by a YouTube video. So it could be said that the creator of the video punched you.

Consider a painting. A piece of art.

We say the artist made it. But we could also argue that the manufacturers of the canvas, paint and brushes are owed credit. And the artist's parents of course. And the society in which the artist was raised. And every source of inspiration.

This could be said of every work, product, pile of amassed wealth... Cause is uncertain therefore ownership is uncertain.

But there are certain stories that we prefer. Stories of domination , security etc. Therefore, given the option, we choose them.

Therefore given the option to claim ownership, to assert that narrative where I profit, even though that narrative isn't really relatively strong, I will.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

Okay, finally, this makes more sense; I think you mislabeled the post as "cause and effect" when you're really talking about ownership of property. Now this we could talk about endlessly, since it's been such a hot topic with AI's copyright-dodging.

A good ethical example I think of is Adobe InDesign (if I recall correctly), which only trains its "AI" models on content that is specifically AI-crawl-approved. I personally think the only other ethical approach to "AI" is open-source models like Meta's Llama. All others are thievery.

Another example of endless debate is publishing houses or boards of companies, particularly of AAA games, as in how much money middle and upper management and the C-Suite should get for the hard work done by the developers. It's been tearing apart the video game industry over the years on an exponential basis.

Generally speaking, though, for physical media like the artwork you describe, the workers get their dues, though probably disproportionately (especially when it comes to apparel made overseas, phones...). This stuff is very relevant in today's politics with the tariffs going on; while they're unpopular and could certainly be executed in better, alternative ways (like providing subsidies to make things at home instead), overseas workers in China, India, etc. are tremendously, objectively overdue on their wages.

given the option to claim ownership, to assert that narrative where I profit, even though that narrative isn't really relatively strong, I will.

So you don't care to help fight this mindset and right wrongs?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Yes, I think that the concept of cause-effect is inherently broken (tho useful, yes) and therefore the concept of ownership is broken. The game is broken.

I demand greater rigor from the latter because it is the system by which we run our society etc.

What is the proper approach to winning a broken game?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

I still contend that you're misusing the phrase "cause and effect" and that it's not "broken," because there is a clear cause: greed. Selfishness causes people to try to take ownership of goods or services to which they didn't contribute—and the effect is compensation not reaching its correct owners.

That cause-&-effect is very consistent to me. Nothing's broken there. The concept itself is fine; the problem is the abusers and manipulators using it in a negative way. So your real enemy is greed and intellectual theft.

I demand greater rigor from the latter because it is the system by which we run our society etc.

Sure, but you can't really enforce that demand since you're not a king of the land or something. You'd need to get into politics and stop lobbyists or something.

What is the proper approach to winning a broken game?

Counterpoint: why do you need to "win?" Why not fight with fairness, and do what you can to ensure that the producers around you receive what they're due, even if you may end up receiving less as a result?

[–] PP_BOY_ 4 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Put down the bong for a minute and make sure you drink plenty of water