this post was submitted on 14 Dec 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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Not just uncaught murderers, there are a lot of people who have killed without legally being considered murderers.

People who killed people in accidents such as driving accidents or hunting accidents

People who killed in self defense

Soldiers who killed enemy soldiers

Executioners

Police officers who have killed on duty

Doctors and nurses who have made mistakes that accidentally killed patients

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[–] TootSweet@lemmy.world 127 points 2 days ago (3 children)

On the flip side, you've probably met someone who has saved a person's life.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I saved my self a bunch of times by convincing my self to not kill myself.

Does that count?

[–] dabaldeagul@feddit.nl 9 points 1 day ago

Username checks out. Also, same. The biggest cheat: keep moving it back by like a week or even a day at a time, because something always comes up that you'd feel bad for not doing first.

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[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

Only if I have a mirror.

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[–] Pistcow@lemmy.world 59 points 2 days ago (9 children)
[–] Wilco@lemmy.zip 16 points 1 day ago

Yea, you know Sir Alec Guinness (the actor that played Obi-Wan) has killed a few people. He wouldnt call WW2 his "best performance" if he didnt take a few baddies out.

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[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 37 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I've met multimillionaires before so yes, thousands of people probably

[–] Hegar@fedia.io 14 points 1 day ago (3 children)

This this this. It's basically impossible to get that rich without having endangered others.

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

I had a co-worker at one of my first big boy jobs working for a hospital, and this guy was weird as weird could be.

He was an older man, probably in his late fifties at the earliest, and we worked in the IT department, and he would blast Avril Lavigne music non-stop.

To make this worse, he wouldn't stop even if you asked him to, and he didn't talk to people, he was rough, he was mean, he was grouchy, he was unapproachable.

About a year after I started, he disappeared one day.

I asked my co-workers about him, and the truth finally came out.

Apparently, about six months before I started, he had gotten into a car accident and killed two people in the car accident, and he was found at fault for drinking and driving.

The reason he was not in jail at the time was his trial was still going through, and the weekend before he disappeared, his trial commenced, he was found guilty and he was sentenced.

And, yeah, as far as I am aware, he is still in jail today if he's still alive.

About a year later, one of my other co-workers was murdered by his wife and their pastor, and it became nationwide news.

[–] ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 27 points 1 day ago (4 children)

If you’re old enough you’ve definitely met someone who has done at least one murder. The question is intent as you’ve said: did you meet the drunk driver or the serial killer with 50 bodies in the basement who hasn’t been caught.

Also this applies to rape and that is far more common because it is simply less reported. One of your buddies might be a person that has straight up forced a person to have sex, maybe violently

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[–] Crackhappy@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I have killed someone. My mother. It was intentional, legal and sanctioned. She was at the end of her life, suffering from Alzheimers and her entire family was present. I volunteered, as her only living child, to pull the plug. And I did. Did I kill someone? Yes. Was it the best thing to do at the time? Yes. Do you wonder if that's a good way to go out of this world? Probably. Would you be wrong? Yes.

[–] Monument@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

When I was younger my grandmother died of cancer. She wanted to pass at home and we lived with her.

For months she just declined, until she was bed-bound in the living room, having carers and family members feed her, clean her after she pooped on herself, sometimes randomly screaming in pain, having nightmares, and was largely incoherent. In the last week she didn’t have the strength to eat and her doctors told us to just stop feeding her. She had a death rattle that lasted for days and echoed through the house every time she breathed, until finally something just gave out.
It was not dignified. It was not peaceful. It was deeply traumatizing. I wish we could cut her suffering short somehow – for us as much as her.

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[–] baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I was told that once the plug is pulled, it’s not just some flatline and quiet sadness. The human body, regardless of its condition, does not like being deprived of oxygen and spends some time physically revolting before finally giving in. Apparently it’s horrific, but I haven’t witnessed it myself.

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[–] django@discuss.tchncs.de 26 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I know a train operator. They are sometimes involuntary involved in other peoples suicide.

[–] orgrinrt@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (6 children)

That has to be one of the worst choices if you must go. I get that we don’t think straight in those moments of our life, but it’s such a horrible thing to force on someone and their conscience…

Not just trains, but all the instances where someone entirely unrelated will be dragged into something so heavy, like truck drivers, too. Hard to live with, can really ruin lives.

Another thing I don’t like is when others that aren’t trained for it like the paramedics or police, have to see the outcome and fallout, such as jumping off a building into a busy street, even at night when nobody’s there just now, but will be. Or hanging yourself from your balcony in an apartment complex.

It fucks up someone to see that, and I have to believe everyone could make the responsible choice of doing it in private or in a way that affects least amount of unrelated people possible. Like going with the helium/nitrogen bag, hanging within the bounds of one’s privacy, if shooting is the way to go, do it perhaps in the woods, somewhere peaceful and remote, and call the paramedics so they’ll be there before any innocent walkers-by, etc.

It’s bad that anyone has to be involved, but at least the professionals have the training to deal with that somehow, even if it will ultimately fuck them up too at least somehow. At least it’s a conscious choice for them to put themselves in the position that they might have to see shit like that. Same for police.

I would strongly encourage messless ways to go, too, because I think the psychological impact of a peacful-seeming exit without blood or injuries has to be the least damaging. It’s never going to be clean and harmless to others, but an exit bag would do a lot of good for everyone eventually involved in the situation.

But I also get that a lot of people in that position may harbor some general hatred and bitterness towards others, which is horrible and I have to think entirely avoidable if the society did its job, so they might even choose to go as publicly and messily as possible just to make a point or something.

But the others have to live with that shit. They keep going. You don’t. The least we can do is try to minimize the trauma and impact we necessarily inflict on others when we do go. We get the peace. We get away. Those others, not so much.

I don’t know how this would be taught other than boldly and empathetically talking about it in school, to make the point repeatedly, like we do with sex education for example. And health education too. We really should talk about these things, so when the time comes one has to leave, the spine reaction would be to do it as kindly as possible, to be considerate in the choice of manner.

[–] Hazor@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

I get that we don’t think straight in those moments of our life, but it’s such a horrible thing to force on someone and their conscience…

I'm a nurse in a psychiatric hospital. When someone is actively suicidal, they indeed are not thinking straight. They are (usually) just looking for a way to escape their pain. Actively experiencing pain (be it physical or mental) reduces our capacity for empathy - that is, to consider how our actions will impact others.

I have had countless patients tell me their method/plan for suicide was to jump in front of traffic, jump from an overpass, lay on a road, lay on train tracks, etc... and none of them are ever, in those moments, thinking about how it will effect other people. Not because they wouldn't care, but because they are simply unable to while in that state of mind.

I've had some who, once they were feeling better, shared about how they eventually realized how it would have impacted the driver of the vehicle (or the person who would find their body if it was by another method). But that usually only happens once they're no longer actively wanting to die.

I've also had several patients who were the person to find a loved one post-suicide. It messed them up.

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[–] northernlights@lemmy.today 22 points 2 days ago (2 children)

This comment section is weird

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago

I killed someone. It's a called a dead name for a reason.

[–] lowflyingduck@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I wonder how many people who have themselves unknowingly caused a death, though some thoughtless or innocuous action. E.g. a discarded banana peel causes another person to later slip and fall with a fatal result.

[–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 day ago

the number of people who fall into this category through their use of stock LED headlights is non-zero

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[–] Aequitas@feddit.org 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (9 children)

Significantly more likely if you live in the USA. Not so much in big parts of the rest of the world.

[–] dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 day ago (8 children)

Yeah. I was thinking for the UK it’s highly unlikely a cop has killed someone here. We do follow America into war and I’ve got a few soldier friends who likely killed people, but our soldiers seem to talk about it less than American ones.

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[–] DrBob@lemmy.ca 16 points 2 days ago

Everyone I know has met a killer.

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 16 points 1 day ago (4 children)

You have definitely met someone who will kill themselves in the end. The rate is about 1/70 people in the US, and for every successful suicide there are 32 attempts of varying seriousness.

[–] guyoverthere123@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've met two people who took their own lives.

My mom shot herself with her husbands gun.

My moms father shot himself with his rifle.

[–] LavaPlanet@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago

Oh man, buddy, I'm so sorry for your loss. Those must have been hugely impactful to grieve. How are you doing?

[–] Quexotic@infosec.pub 11 points 1 day ago

Had a buddy that couldn't take the pain anymore and he had enough drink and anxiety meds one night and he just never woke up.

He made sure to turn on his music extra loud so it'd bother his neighbors so his cat would be okay and would be rehomed.

He was a good guy.

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I have. I used to drink with someone who later killed someone while drinking.

Carl can fuck right off.

[–] blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 day ago

I once gave a friend of a friend a condescending chewing-out after they did something hurtful.

Some time later our mutual friend informed me that they had died, but declined to tell me the cause of death.

Much later I discovered it was self-caused.

... Were my words too much? We spend our lives trying to be more effective communicators. What if we're too effective when it matters most?

[–] uncouple9831@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 day ago (3 children)

If you're an engineer you've almost certainly contributed meaningfully to the death of someone.

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[–] BartyDeCanter@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

My ex-brother-in-law killed a family of four while DUI. The cops really screwed up the investigation so he was able to get the charges down to a minor moving violation. He never saw the inside of a jail.

When I was in high school a friend of a friend that I knew and had hung out with at a couple of times was a serial killer/rapist. He was one of the last people executed by that state.

Edit: My grandfather killed some Nazis in WW2. Several former coworkers killed people in the line of duty as soldiers. And, I worked as a records clerk at a nursing home, so I knew several doctors and nurses that had taken people off life support.

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 day ago

Do you count "gave an old person COVID and they died"? Then absolutely for sure.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 11 points 1 day ago

Met a few ex terrorists. Northern Ireland is cool.

[–] HelterSkeletor@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

I work in healthcare, I've removed... so many people from life support. I often wonder if that's, not the same, but...

I have actually met, spoken to, and joked with convicted murderers. And people who committed far more heinous crimes.

I have a very interesting work history.

The fact of the matter is, someone who has murdered another — beyond a shadow of a doubt, I don't mean to include those falsely convicted — does not necessarily mean to kill YOU. Unless they're a psycho or something, most killers have killed because of some circumstance that put another person in the way of their life. I'm not saying they absolutely had to kill the person. Just that had the circumstances been different, they wouldn't have necessarily killed someone at all. Sexual predators are different. They target their victims and set up the circumstances, in most cases. But killers? Not necessarily a threat to you, unless you are necessarily a threat to them. Even serial killers. Serial killers just have a body count. Most of them don't want to kill everyone.

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I'm associates (he's a friend of a friend) of a guy who did Manslaughter Under the Influence.

He's a prick, but that's unrelated to that, just right-wing

[–] Smoogs@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I dunno, it takes a type.

Knew a guy online who was part of a game guild and regularly told a teenager to go kill himself for not healing him on time during raids.

One day the Kid shot himself.

The guy was a full on asshole in rl, much older than the kid, had a family and a job and told himself and everyone that he wasn’t at fault cuz the kid was not mentally stable.

Like dude, regardless of someone’s mental health he is a bully with an anger problem and leaned into unleashing it on a young kid.

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[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Once met a man who confessed to me that he once hit and ran after striking a pedestrian with his car. He said he knew he killed them, but got away. It was fucking creepy as hell and couldn't get away from the guy fast enough.

[–] herrvogel@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've always wondered what drives people to such confessions. Not a killing of course, but I once met a dude and like 20 minutes later he was telling me about the literal scams he pulls. Shit like stealing old people's passwords and whatnot to buy things for himself online. Very unambiguously illegal stuff. There was no context either, no lead up to that conversation. He just pulled the subject to that out of nowhere and started spilling the beans. One minute we were talking about wearing thinner gloves inside thicker gloves to keep our hands extra warm, and the next minute he was telling me how he tricks old people into submitting their email credentials into fake forms that he makes.

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