Hi folks, I stopped posting (not here, I never posted here) back in 2014 or so when my local DOT stopped being responsive to my incessant requests for better bike lanes and kept not posting as I slowly became overwhelmed with the constant stream of opinions from other white dudes clogging up all the tubes, but the fediverse is starting to coax me out of my shell. One of these days I might even manage one of these 'shit-posts' the youths are doing.
I'm an engineer (structural and software), and I live in a city in the US, and I ride bikes, work on my bikes, camp with my bike, and look at my bikes a lot. I'm into urbanism and transportation and other things that go hand in hand with riding a bike in a US city. I also make clothes and do some hand-tool woodworking, am weirdly into swords (it's not a good time to be a leftist sword guy on youtube, I tell you what). I belong to an industrial arts group, so if you're looking for space to make shit and you also happen to live in a city in the US then let me know, we like new people.
Politically, I read the Manifesto in high-school and considered myself a leftist but generally went along with liberal ideology for a long time, thinking markets are cool we just need better regulation, I'm sure we can vote our way out of this, if we all just had (business) unions everything would be fine, etc. Finally climate change, Black liberation movements, and yeah, Ol' Bernard started motivating me to peel back some of the cracking layers of contradiction in my ideology and read (or OK, listen to podcasters read) some theory. I feel better now.
Genderically, I chose comrade/them pronouns as I've long been pretty lukewarm about being a cis man. I felt some dysphoria around high-school and college but then I grew a big ass beard and just decided that my personal definition of masculinity was pattern baldness and a face rug, and I could perform whatever way I wanted and feel secure in myself. I've been shopping around he/they or various forms for a minute and figured the internet, and especially Hexbear, would be a fine place to pin one on for a while.
Sincerely, LuddyBuddy
welcome friendIt's okay, I post dumb shit all the time, join the club
I’m not smart enough to post dumb shit. I gotta say the level of shit-posting here is transcendent
I'm in my mid 40s and didn't discover how left I was until I was in my late 30s. There's a reason why we're fed propaganda from an early age: it works.
Welcome!! I have a bike. Biking is cool. I love camping too. You'll do fine here.
Yay bikes! I even had good teachers, ie when I read all the “lies your teacher told you” I was like cool, my teachers didn’t tell me that! But there was still a lot left out.
Do you (or should I ask, do I) listen to a lot of reggae, BBQ on the weekends, and actively try to smash nazi faces at concerts? If the answer is yes, I applaud myself for creating an alt, probably while I was drunk, while having no recollection of it all.
It's really just the reggae part that doesn't fit. Is it possible that when you're (or I as it were) drunk you switch to 90s UK jungle and/or Japanese noise?
Thanks RoomAndBored, I'll try to remember that not everyone is inside my head, so some of these things rattling around could be useful to others!
Genderically, I chose comrade/them pronouns as I've long been pretty lukewarm about being a cis man
This was my mood before I finally decided I was NB
I generally feel that NB fits, but visually I present pretty masc, and all my hobbies are pretty masc, so it’s been easier to just roll with that.
Both can be true, one of the coolest folks at my biking stuff is an amab they/them who presents completely masc; and is a dope ass they/them
- Show
From left to right, French 1876 bayonet, French 1873 bayonet, Indian Tulwar of unknown provenance; likely 1800s.
I’d really like to get a polearm (a halberd for protecting trans kids? A naginata for arming the peasantry? A Dane axe for looking badass?) but life partner has already expressed significant discomfort with the existing collection of pointies, so it will likely only contract from here.
Yeah I had one of those katanas but got rid of it because I realized how fuckin lame it was. The tulwar is my favorite, as in my head canon I maintain it was used in one of the mutinies attempting to throw off the yoke of colonialism (though more likely just served to do the dirty work of empire). It’s also the only one that was service sharpened. If only she wanted her own! Far from it, unfortunately.
Hewwo!
I'm also a recovering lurker.Industrial arts sounds interesting as fuck. What all does that include?
Really it's just doing industry as a hobby. I make chairs, another builds cabinets, others build electronic gadgets, another builds bike frames (well, they used to, they don't at the moment)
I'm not hoarding tools, I'm seizing the means of production, one obsolete machine at a time!
Sounds right up my alley. I'm a 3d printing hobbyist, and unfortunately don't have the space to do much more than that where I live.
I don’t know if saying what city we’re in is self doxxing, but if you’re serious about renting some shop space let’s talk!
Cities might be a bit too specific for my taste, but I'm in the SW Ohio/NE Kentucky area. That said, I'm extremely poor, so unfortunately renting space isn't really an option for me. Thanks, though!
That’s far from me anyway, I hope you get to do some cool shit there!
considered myself a leftist but generally went along with liberal ideology for a long time, thinking markets are cool we just need better regulation
When it is our turn, we shall make no excuses for the regulations.
Go back to lurking. All I do is try to bring a little joy into this wretched world and bare my soul via posting and this website sends barrage after barrage of hatred and malevolence upon me and my poster-husband.
Hey there fellow they/them with facial hair. I realize I don't feel comfortable performing masculinity and I want to have more freedom to express myself so I gave up the male identity. But I feel I look better with facial hair so here I am.
Some of my resistance to identifying as other than male has to do with a feeling of ‘stolen valor’. For the most part I have not suffered oppression for the way I perform gender, (except for my older brother occasionally reinforcing how boys ought to behave through mild bullying), so I don’t feel like my identifying as any kind of genderqueer really helps anyone. This is probably a reactionary liberal identity politics brain worm, and none of my queer friends agree with that sentiment, but that’s how I’ve felt.
