this post was submitted on 02 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. 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.
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If the fish continues cleaning parasites, then it is still mutualistic. If the "host" benefits from the relationship overall, then it is mutualistic. If it doesn't benefit, and is actively harmed by the relationship, then it is parasitic.
The conversation seems to be veering into a game of semantics rather than addressing the biological complexity at hand.
The point isn't about rigidly sticking to one label or another based on each individual interaction; it's about acknowledging that the relationship can fluctuate based on various conditions. Therefore, there's value in having a label that encapsulates this variability, like 'facultative mutualism'.
‘Facultative mutualism' doesn't deny the presence of mutualistic or parasitic interactions but acknowledges that the relationship isn't strictly one or the other. It can fluctuate between the two extremes based on different circumstances, and there's utility in having a term that covers this variability.
You know what? That is fair. You're right - I was engaging in a purely semantics argument, and I'm sorry about that. It was dumb, and also assholish of me to assume that you didn't know what the fuck you were talking about and were just pulling things out of thin air. I see the point that it is useful to define relationships on a spectrum with fully parasitic at one end, and fully mutually beneficial at the other.
I have no clue what I’m talking about.