You didn't end up here, but you are a product of this environment, and "you" couldn't be born anywhere else.
this post was submitted on 05 Jul 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:
- 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
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Make no mistake: This planet did not have a 40hr work week until we brought it here. We only have ourselves to blame.
On top of that, as another comment points out, the 40hr work week is the improvement on the system.
We really fucked it
Mine's 35. 40 is illegal unless you're a medical doctor. And legally I have to be paid overtime for every minute over but it's my choice.
That’s bizarro world. Here doctors work like 6 hours a week. Unless golf counts as work. Which it might now, there’s probably an executive order about that somewhere.
Imagine living in a world without being voluntold to do overtime every week.
Damn bro just solved the Fermi Paradox with a Dilbert punchline
I have a 40 hour work week. And two more jobs than are ten hours work per week. And I need to do these, or I don't have health insurance and can't afford my rent.
Welllll the 40 hr work week is based off our 24 hour days and some planets have much longer than 24 hours in their day. So realistically some planets could have 60 hr work weeks. Plus we have no idea the governmental structure and ideology of other worlds and if they even allow you to stop working at all/you're worked to death or if they have such an advanced society that you don't even really have to work much at all.
Basically, this is kinda dumb.
Sort of, but but really. You're right that historically the daylight hours set an upper limit on the amount of work that can be done per week for most types of work, but that limit is far higher than 8 hours per day over 5 days. The 40 hour work week is based on unions fighting for a 40 hour work week. If it wasn't for the unions you'd be working all day every day except Sunday, for religious reasons.
That might change over the next few decades too, the current fight is for a 4 day work week and studies are showing promising results there.
Unions are absolutely why we have 40 hour work weeks I wasn't saying otherwise. Just that because of how our day works 8 hours of work was what people fought for. If we had days that were 48 hours things could be different and people could have fought for 10 hours days. Of course this is all hypothetical and we have no idea what people actually would have fought for.
The point isn't about how our work week works though, it's about how dumb it is to assume that other planets wouldn't have possibly longer work weeks.
Interesting idea. Since we don’t see as well at night, we evolved to use that time to sleep. Were a day 48 hours in length we probably would have evolved to be awake twice as long, and then sleep twice as long. So proportionally we would probably be working the same amount.
Either it happens, or it doesn't. I'd say that's exactly 50/50.
be the change you wanna see in the world
spare the change you wanna have in your pocket
spare the tire you want to change in this world
spare me the grief from changing your spare tire