this post was submitted on 01 Aug 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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[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 17 hours ago

A lack of a standing army has implications. It's a huge drain on an economy that filters resources into tanks and guns rather than schools and healthcare. It also has ripple effects in places that aren't strictly military.

The US massively overproduces food. The reason is that farms were heavily subsidized during WW2 in order to feed an army where every soldier would potentially need a 3000kcal diet after matching all day, every day. Those farms dropped that money into automation, and that meant they still had the capability to produce that much after the war.

Dropping farm subsidies would have meant plunging that industry back into depression. So the subsidies kept going. You could nationalize the farms, but that doesn't happen for obvious reasons. Nobody has come up with another idea for getting out of that trap.

Contrary to what MAGA thinks, free school lunches aren't there to support "moochers". During the draft for WW1, 1 out of 9 draftees were rejected for reasons related to malnutrition during childhood. Those programs exist to make sure America can draw up an army. MAGA doesn't remember that lesson and undermine their own objectives in the process.

You need to subsidize heavy industry, too. Car companies become tank companies in times of war. Therefore, you better make sure your car companies survive in "peace" time. Hence all the government financing of those companies. Chrysler (or the company owning it) has been stumbling from one financial boondoggle to the next for my whole life because of this.

Even worse, you want the tank factories to stay tank factories. Which means Congress needs to order new tanks even when they're not needed otherwise, or else those factories close. Same goes for ships and planes.

None of which used to happen until industrialized warfare forced the issue. If Originalists want things how it was in the first few decades after the Revolution, then the military should have had its funding and staffing at anemic levels for about a decade now. Except that genuinely would be a problem in case of another big war.

A solution to this is to take our ball and go home. As long as Canada and Mexico are friendly, we face no threat on our own continent. An oversea invasion is impossible (I can go over the details of why, but it comes down to logistics). The scaffolding of an army and a navy focused on shore defense would be fine. Keep a few nukes if we really have to.

MAGA would never go for that, either. They're isolationist in some ways, but still want a giant military for some reason.

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 3 points 22 hours ago

They literally renamed it from ministry of war to defense to justify all the Western wars of aggression.

[–] funkyfarmington@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Soon to be the "Ministry of Peace".

[–] SPRUNT@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago

You're talking about the same industry that coined the term "preemptive strike" instead of calling it what it is: starting a war.

[–] robocall@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago

"I didn't shoot a baby, I neutralized a threat!" - the IDF

[–] tgirlschierke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 32 points 2 days ago (2 children)

funny how the israeli military is called a "defense force". haven't been doing much defending.

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

But when you're Hamas, defending your country from invaders: terrorists!

[–] Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I have been calling them the genocide force for the past year

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Diaper force

[–] Hugin@lemmy.world 28 points 2 days ago

Old joke from when I was in engineering college.

What's the difference between a electrical engineer and a civil engineer?

One builds the bombs one builds the targets.

[–] SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 57 points 2 days ago (6 children)

It's a fairly recent development. It was created as the department of war by Washington and remained that until 1947 where it split into the departments of the air force and army, joining the already existing department of the navy, which together made up the national military establishment (NME), which was renamed 2 years later to the DOD.

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[–] Botzo@lemmy.world 37 points 2 days ago (2 children)
  • Military-industrial complex
  • War machine
  • Merchants of death

There are many names.

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[–] Sergio@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago

"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here! This is the War Room!"

[–] fujiwood@lemmy.world 32 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"The Ministry of Peace"

-Orwell

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