this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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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. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
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It's completely natural for humans to fall into a binary thinking.
It's evolutionarily advantageous to fully focus on "the enemy", whatever that may be, and "the friends", our own family/tribe, absolutely hating the enemy while absolutely loving your family. It's what made it most likely that our genes persevere, if you give the enemy the benefit of the doubt, and they backstab you, you're dead, but not if you just kill them first/don't trust them at all in any way.
This concept permeates our society and you see it everywhere. It's always "us" vs "them". If your ideology "wins" politically, throughout most of human history that means you get to kill your opponent, while if you lose, it means you may die. So it's naturally almost the worst thing in the world for us if someone disagrees with us politically.
It's really amazing how almost everything about the way we behave is completely shaped by what made us survive in some form or another thousands of years ago. The only way out so far is trying our hardest to resist our natural programming and apply rationality, which comes with its own set of problems.