this post was submitted on 10 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:

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  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
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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.

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If I have to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, doesn't that make me the journalist? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 3 months ago by Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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[–] Lennny@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

He asked for sources and you just act superior and yet didn't provide sources.

The sources

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

Take those with necessary salt and tequila if wanted. One of them is literally "nyt is mean to apartheid musk"

[–] surph_ninja@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (3 children)

If I tell him the sky is blue, and he asked for a source, am I obligated to provide that as well?

I’m not going to play along with bad faith questioning of common knowledge.

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You'll find "common knowledge" is surprisingly hard to prove when you're wrong. Wikipedia is a big place, if you can find concrete evidence of NYT lying, you can do a lot of reputational damage to them (even as so far as getting them removed as an acceptable source)

[–] surph_ninja@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Seeing a lot of bots defend Wikipedia the past couple months. Is that because it’s so easily manipulated by y’all?

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 months ago

Ah yes, beep boop

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Seeing a lot of bots defend Wikipedia the past couple months. […]

How are you determining that they are bots? Would you, by chance, have any examples?

[–] surph_ninja@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

“Astroturfers” may be a more accurate term. Especially in regards to Israel and Ukraine. There’s videos you can look up where they train Zionists to astroturf forums and strategically edit Wikipedia. The US Air Force has a massive astroturf farm at Eglin Air Force base pushing a lot of this, too.

Whether these commenters are professional astroturfers, or just repeating what they’ve heard from one, I don’t believe it a meaningful distinction to make.

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

[…] There’s videos you can look up where they train Zionists to astroturf forums and strategically edit Wikipedia. […]

Can you cite a source for this?

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

[…] The US Air Force has a massive astroturf farm at Eglin Air Force base pushing a lot of this, too. […]

Can you cite a source for this?

[–] surph_ninja@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Besides public disclosure documents? Reddit admins accidentally outed them before they started masking their traffic.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160410083943/http://www.redditblog.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-reddit-meetup-day.html?m=1

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Reddit admins accidentally outed them before they started masking their traffic.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160410083943/http://www.redditblog.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-reddit-meetup-day.html?m=1

Very interesting. Thank you for the link! When digging into this a little more, I came across this Reddit post ^[1]^, which pointed me to this research paper ^[2]^ authored, in part, an associate of Eglin AFB ^[2.1]^.

References

  1. Title: "Reddit has removed their blog post identifying Eglin Air Force Base as the most reddit-addicted "city" - Eglin is often cited as the source of some government social-media propaganda/astroturfing programs". Author: "Mumberthrax" u/Mumberthrax. "r/Blackout2015". Reddit. Published: 2016-08-19T22:11:33.372Z. Accessed: 2024-12-13T03:55Z. https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/4ylml3/reddit_has_removed_their_blog_post_identifying/.
  2. Title: "Containment Control for a Social Network with State-Dependent Connectivity". Author: "Zhen Kan", "Justin Klotz", "Eduardo L. Pasiliao Jr", "Warren E. Dixon". arxiv. Published: 2014-02-23T18:13:47Z. Accessed: 2024-12-13T03:59Z. DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1402.5644. https://arxiv.org/abs/1402.5644v1.

      • One of the authors has a footnote stating that they are associated with

        Air Force Research Laboratory, Munitions Directorate, Eglin AFB, FL 32542, USA

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Besides public disclosure documents?

Do you have a handy source for those as well? Please don't interpret my prying for sources as sealioning — I'm very curious to read more about this, and I want to make sure that what I find is actually what you are referring to.

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

If I tell him the sky is blue, and he asked for a source, am I obligated to provide that as well? […]

Imo, while not exactly proper science, a quick source for such a claim could be a simple color photo of the sky.

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 months ago

[…] I’m not going to play along with bad faith questioning of common knowledge.

Leaving aside the "bad faith questioning" component, how would you handle requests for proof of what you are calling "common knowledge" in general?