The world actively rewards bad behavior. This realization was a difficult pill for me to swallow.
this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
718 points (100.0% liked)
Showerthoughts
35759 readers
1116 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:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- 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
- Posts must be original/unique
- 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 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Learning this from my (soon-to-be-ex-) wife right now...
We create a world of kindness or selfishness, judgement or forgiveness every day. These behaviors may get you money or power, but the world you have to live in gets worse. I don't think you realize how much you lose getting ahead, and how much you cost everyone else.
"Having the ability to lie and manipulate with no remorse will get you much further in this world than having morals and being correct" This is the reason psychopaths are so successful.
I've known this for a long time but I continue to do my best to operate honorably. I may never be rich or powerful, but I sleep very well at night.
I still don't sleep well, knowing the state of the world
Yea. Trying to be correct and do things in a respectful and good way makes me more and more bitter, resentful and judgemental.
Soon that in itself will corrupt me.
I have to manipulate and lie to myself that things will get better
"control what you can" is my largest crutch.
I just had a talk with my son, 12, this morning about the bad feelings we get when we lie, trick, or cheat and are caught. For me, I explained, it can even physically hurt because my chest tightens. Sometime around when I was my son's age, I decided I wanted to avoid that feeling at all costs, and just stopped trying to lie, or trick, or get away with something wrong, because the risk was never worth it.
I may not be rich, or powerful, or hell even interesting, but I do sleep well at night and nearing middle age, I've more love in my life than I've ever had before. I hope to pass that to my son. Honest man's living is superior.
My neighbor will tell me all about her grown son (who I know as a racist shit bag, and his son bullys mine) is so successful financially, yet in the same breath tells me she doesn't bother wasting money on her garden because she can get free tomatoes from the food bank.
Money doesn't mean one is successful in my opinion. Are they happy? Do they love themselves? Do they treat others kindly? Do the add to their community in positive ways? Do they never take more than they need so that others can have too? That's success.
I prefer to have my conscience clean, and be the brokest person out there, than to lie, sceme, cheat to gain some arbitrary "success".
There’s very few things more galling than yourself playing by the rules, putting in the time and effort to have some kind of social contract, only to have someone flippantly disregard said rules and contract and to benefit from it. Doesn’t matter if it’s someone cutting in line or pillaging the highest office in the land for their own gain.
It makes you bad at art and inventing tho. The liar plays a shallow game.
It says grim things that by playing the shallow game you can succeed in our society. I blame the rule of law. It was basically designed to be gamed.
Say what you will about dictators, at least they're human.
Most successful artists are just as manipulative as any CEO. It's a money laundering front at this point
yeah but those guys are assholes
You take the Edison route of stealing from people like Tesla. One goes down as a famous inventor and the other dies broke and alone other than his pigeons.
And yes, the system is made for people to be pieces of shit because it was created by pieces of shit.
The system could also be described as an abstraction of the same system that's existed for millions of years. Domination by the powerful, exploitation of the weak, etc. Not so much evil as brutish.
That's just slavery with more steps!
I don't see the connection.
Modern wage slaves are not far removed from royalty having an imbalance of power. It's common to refer to our current "work to live or die" society as slavery with extra steps because many are forced to spend their time doing things that benefit their bosses more than themselves
I suppose slavery is an abstract form of being eaten. It certainly "uses every part of the animal" better than just chomping it up.
I see that It's my turn to be confused
Slavery extracts labor from the victim. Which is arguably more valuable than the meat.
Oh yes, we are mere work horses for our overlords
Yeah that tends to happen when most everyone enables such behavior.
A system designed by psychopaths benefits psychopaths? No way...
You'll still be a shit person, likely with no meaningful friendships. That's gotta factor into the equation somehow.
People with low empathy don't see people as companions, but more as tools to benefit themselves. So they don't really care as long as they have enough money and pawns to take care of themselves.
I'm a domestic abuse outreach worker and I see it a lot in clients. Abusers are always selfish and generally manipulative and liars. They have little or no empathy for their partner and rarely care how the partner feels. They're often highly successful in their field, because they have such great manipulation skills.
I imagine your job is as draining as it is fulfilling
Thanks mate, you certainly have to accept the losses. I look at soft outcomes though, so making the children feel heard and like they matter. It gets me through.
You couldn't be thanked enough for your work
I really, truly appreciate it Keanu thanks so much ❤️
Shhh...I made this elaborate fake name because I didn't want everyone to know I'm 8 time MTV Movie & TV Awards nominee and 4 time winner Keanu Reeves
It's ok I won't tell anyone, it'll be our total secret. Still love Bill and Ted BTW thanks for bringing it into the world!
Be excellent to each other and party on dudes!
and party on dudes
This is why punctuation matters.
It's the difference between helping your uncle Jack, off a horse, and helping your uncle jack off a horse.
Reducing other people to mere tools is a symptom of psychopathy rather than simply low empathy. Yes, psychopaths are within the set of people with low empathy, however, shouldn't be confused with the set itself. It's also specifically a lack of affective (warm) empathy that's more of the problem than a lack of empathy in general, as some psychopaths do have cognitive (cold) empathy, and so do understand others (albeit to a limited extent), however, just use it to be more exploitive rather than less. This is by contrast with autistic people who often struggle with cognitive (cold) empathy, however, not with affective (warm) empathy, i.e. they don't know how they've hurt people but they know they've hurt people and try to avoid doing so.
load more comments
(9 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
I've got 2 kids in primary school. We teach them to be kind and caring, that cheaters never win. That bullies are bullies because they are not happy.
However a study came out that compared bullies and non bullies. Bullies kids are more likely to be successful financially and socially based on studies. I was sad for humanity when o found out.
It makes sense, in the same way that it makes sense that CEO's are more likely to be sociopaths. Human brains are made for small societies. When it's a larger society, negative traits can be helpful to get ahead. It's likely part of the reason we experience wars and famine and billionaires.
I love you put billionaires next to other disasters
load more comments
(13 replies)
Yes and i would choose to have morals anyway
This is only true in a world that is mostly full of people with morals. A society built on lying and manipulation inevitably collapses - look at what is happening to the United States. They elected an amoral lying manipulator and in just six months their society is unraveling. They just passed a law that took money away from hungry children and sick people so that their psychopathic leader can better persecute his enemies: that is, anyone who opposes him. ICE just became the best-funded "law" enforcement agency ever created. It is obvious to everyone except a handful of naive idiots that ICE will be used against US citizens to consolidate MAGA's power in an attempt to create a permanent regime. These states always collapse sooner or later, though, because morality is the foundation of law. No one is going to invest in a country where their assets can be seized and they can be imprisoned on the caprice of a senile madman. You can't have trade without trust - all that is left in places like the US are predators and prey.
This unraveling has been going on a lot longer than just six months. It's been accelerating hard since the Patriot Act after 9/11. And even before that, Republicans had been lying about their support of free markets for generations.
load more comments
(2 replies)
It's because we live in a system with perverse incentives. It's practically designed by psychopaths, for psychopaths. Still, we only get one life, don't spend it going against your better nature.
I so wish that I could grift the fuck out of the goddamn Nazis and get rich off of their idiocy but I would feel icky with dirty money.
load more comments
(4 replies)
Maybe, but it also means that you'll be alone for eternity and will never have true friends or camaraderie, and that by itself will consume you.
There is only so many people you can do that to before everyone else catches on and shuns you. All the evil people in the world don't have any friends and are subject to betrayals and threats in their lives constantly. To me, that's not a bearable existence. Sure, you got power, but you're miserable and afraid all the time. Was that really worth it?
load more comments
(26 replies)
It depends where you want to go. Knowledge is always bigger than power, power gives money but knowledge gives depression and suicide thoughts. The fast escape path is obvious.
load more comments
(1 replies)
view more: next ›