2d ago

Certain hobbies set off warning bells

516 comments

I enjoy Powerlifting, Fishing, and Carpentry. I don't have any friends from those hobbies.

I used to enjoy conspiracy theories, because I thought it would be cool if they were true.
Things like cryptids, aliens, etc...
But now all the conspiracy groups are filled with stupid right-wing science deniers.

Try being a classicist... it's rough out here. Can't really say I love Greece and Rome without sounding insane.

I can't wear my King of the Hill shirts anymore because I don't want people to think I'm a trumpster.

Weightlifters seem to hove about similar parts make up very kind people who just want others to succeed and people who listen to Joe rogan and Jordan Peterson.

Linux and crypto users. Sometimes, people just use monero for it's technical merits....

Blacksmithing/bladesmithing.
I spent must of my youth fascinated by knives, still am, and this got me into classical metal working. By the time I was 18 I had built a pretty decent working forge in my mom's backyard.
Shortly after 9/11 I took a week long class in bladesmithing in Arkansas. Outside of Blade Forums and the occasional knife show, I'd never really interacted with other knife people. Not a whole lot going on in my large northern city.
The way those bastards talked openly about anyone that wasn't white or Christian turned my stomach. I pretty much kept to myself, it hung out with the one chill hippy from Oregon, or the eternally gob-struck British blacksmiths apprentice (You sell GUNS in a GROCERY STORE?!)
I learned a lot on that trip. Nowadays I don't bring up my knife hobby because I sure as shit don't want to be mistaken for one of those ignorant cretins.

Hydroponics as well I guess. My DIY automated grow room with a water pump, grow lights, heater and plant shaker (for pollination) always has people think I'm growing weed but I just want chillies and tomatoes.

I like 90% of the shit in this thread lol

Yeah I'm not here for this. I just felt this massive wave of fatigue wash over me as I read it.
Like it or not you're going to run into weirdos in just about every hobby. All preemptively judging people does is teach people to keep to themselves. We're already building up a society of loners where people struggle to connect to each other with various other causes(loss of third places for example). We don't really need something like this pushing people further apart, especially when that ultimately drives peoples empathy for each other down too.

Warhammer 40k. I like to paint little green guys and then move them around a battlefield.
A good half of the poeple in this hobby are almost entirely irredeemable
- Don't try to paint them purple.
  
  I do and i keep losing them and i never learn

Is it surprising to you that people can spend their free time independent of their political paradigm?

Offroading.
Like, I just want to spend too much money breaking my truck to go play in the mud or camping in the middle of nowhere on the weekend, not throw massive alcohol fueled frat parties in the desert and annihilate the environment in my jacked-up, curb princess of a Ram covered in a thousand miniature suns and "~~Don't tread on me~~ Please tread on me, daddy" stickers
- Funny you mention that... we (from CA) went to AZ over Christmas to do some trail driving, and on Christmas day, I literally watched no less than 4 people in let's go brandon and 3 percenter stickers on their UTVs aggressively yell "Merry Christmas" at me right after they saw my license plate on my Jeep. I literally stood there and watched them look at the back of my Jeep, get a smirk, then yell it at me. 4 of them.
  I'm not a right winger, but wtf... seriously? You have to be aggressive and confrontational because I'm from a state that Faux News decries as "liberal"?
- I feel this. I’ve got a really old jeep that I like to ride around in the woods with. I have had tons of dudes compliment my jeep and then immediately start ranting about electric cars or trains or Joe Biden

These hobbies aren't necessarily a recreational activity. There are those who claim to have sixth sense only for them to make false judgements on top of false beliefs. Hobbies can involve pushing for wrong insights and most definitely include a self-absorbed vanity project. I don't judge, but I do actively take note of false judgments when they arise.
Alas, I'm stuck with one but at least she doesn't know that I've apostatized.

Why a plastic fork?
- Exactly. Why not a plastic spork?!
  
  as u can see im very random!!!!

Airsoft.
It's so fun but also run mostly by straight up Nazis.
- Isn't that only because they use it to practice live shooter scenarios?
  
  Yeah, so they can practice being the live shooter.
  
  Yes, they have this hard on for shooting anyone they disagree with

Not as bad, but people interested in Ancient Greece / Rome / classical studies tend to be somewhat conservative. It's (to some extent) the only part of academia which is overtly conservative.
But yeah, you can do a lot worse, that's relatively mild
- The Roman empire is the first reich according to Nazis
  So it is also the first red flag
- Really? With all the gay sex?

"Well, I like Immigrant Song."

I like shooting and having guns.
- Shooting is fun. I like shooting disks.
- Sooooo, do you have any strong opinions one way or the other on killing people?
  
  Defence is kinda always ok to resort to kill someone or something threatening you and your family. Vengeance can be understandable but it's a very fishy topic and I don't know where I would be on it.
  And despite condemning all other forms of killing, if the victim is a billionaire or a fascist, I won't condemn it much.

Does programming count as a hobby? I waste my free time on it... There's this funny stereotype, of a queer programmer with long, quirky socks, and maybe even a fursona. Despite being a small percentage, such types are often overrepresented online. It used to bother me a little.
Nowadays I'm so, so glad when someone I'm talking to is part of that group. It usually means I don't need to worry about them being weirdly sexist, like women don't suffer enough in the industry, or insisting that we need to keep politics out of tech (i.e. they want their politics to rule, unquestioned).
Silly feelings on my part? Perhaps. One less thing to worry about, though.
- I've had to stop watching/reading a load of programming stuff because numerous times I've found out the creator was just horrifically racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic or transphobic. It got too tiring having to investigate every author (not that it was difficult, they're usually VERY open about being bigots).
- It's wild how on the orange website I can read entirely sensible discussions about tricky Bash semantics or whatever, while people in a parallel thread are seriously arguing the Trump admin's repressions are dwarfed by... whatever "repressions" they think happened during Covid. And I don't even click on the threads about disabilities (especially autism) anymore because it's so predictably sad.
  
  The comment sections are frequently just exhausting. People who read PG blog posts and then make comments pretending to be serious. Lunatics.

Cryptography.
- I'm picturing The Jesus meeting that one neighbor.
- Some people just think we should let the dead sleep, what can you say.
  
  That's necromancy. Cryptography is just taking rubbings of tombstones.

- I'm not in this picture, and I don't like it. What about stapler collecting?
  
  stapler collecting
  You could set the building on fire.
  
  You're joking...
  
  Heyyy 😉
- What if all of the above?
  
  Well green is yellow and blue, and red is just another primary color. If you mix it together you get a black flag and it means ye be a pirate matey!

Amateur Radio.
The first video I found on Baofeng Radio guides is on a youtube channel run by some right winger that sounds like a SovCit, who makes "jokes" about people who wear mask and have this "gay humor".
Like bruh
(I mean, I guess it makes sense. Right-wing "anarchists" are skeptical of "government control" and are the type of people to want to use radios instead of smartphones. Buts its ironic that encryption is illegal... But I assume they probably just ignore the "no encryption" rule anyways since they are a SovCit.)
- Not only that, but they're the ones ignoring getting licensed at all.
  It's not quite the same thing, but Meshtastic tends to be more lefty, or at least not outright sovcit. Don't need a license and getting started is relatively cheap.

Old school games enjoyer: “Games used to be awesome… modern games are garbage”
🚨
Morrowind is better than Skyrim
😎
I particularly enjoy the telvanni lore
🚨
- If they enjoy saying N'wah a little too much, that might be a red flag.
  
  To be honest dark elves are either bloodthirsty capitalists, bigoted isolationists, conservative acolytes or all of the above. What a wonderful people <3... ekhm of course, how outrageous
- Great you're going to make me install Morrowind again
  
  Whyd you ever uninstall it?
- Hard to swallow pill that not all ESIII fans are cool
  
  You see, this is the crux. They are cool. They are cooler than you. Also, they identify as Dunmer so they are inherently superior racially than the farming tools in particular but also any other race really

Try being into permaculture and hydroponics

What's funny is that while Vikings are mostly remembered for their warrior culture, their success as a diaspora came more from their merchant and sailing culture. THEY were the 'immigrants.'
- We come from the land of the ice and snow
  From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow
  The hammer of the gods
  Will drive our ships to new lands
- Merchants in this case translates to slavers, so Nazis can feel right at home in that regard. Your point still stands tough.

I'm a white, Christian, male firearms enthusiast from Texas.
That's a tough combination when I'm also extremely leftist.
- There’s very few firearms channels I will watch.
  InRangeTV, Lucky Gunner and PSR are about it.
- You are one mini stroke from switching teams aggressively.
- Well, history shows leftists have been known to use firearms plenty
- I think Christian Leftists are based and cool, you're basically THE Christians who care about what Christ actually wanted for us, but also because you're on the Left you run into r/Atheist type chuds all the time, meaning you work with people who are hostile to you because you know that it's the right thing to do.
  That's pretty based and cool.
  I'm not Christian myself, I learn more Buddhist in my spirituality, and even then I'm more agnostic on my ideas about God, but there's a lot I legitimately respect about the faith.
  
  Buddhism isn't a theological religion. There simply is no god in Buddhism. There are gods, yes, but they are just part of Samsara, the cycle of birth and rebirth, like everybody else.
  So beeing agnostic is right in point in that regard, if not even completly atheistic.
- In all fairness, male firearms are the shit 😉
  
  This is my rifle, this is my gun?
  
  You want a fun read look up the official ATF inquiry letters about the "tactical fleshlight" where they're asking if it counts as a stock or a brace, making it either a short-barreled rifle or a pistol.
- Why only a "male firearms enthusiast", what about the female firearms? Maybe your not as big of a leftist as you thought.
  
  All firearms are female, they accept things inside of them and then at some point in the future they expel a smaller-but-not-identical version of that same thing. Also some of them are queens and the government wants to control them. Ammunition is male, its entire job is to get inside and shoot its shot, and many people consider it expendable and interchangeable.
  
  One's sex is not a political stance...

I do home canning and a fair deal of baking. There's a lot of trad bullshit around this that makes me just go "I'm canning cause I love me some candied jalapeños, not because my husband demands I do"
- Do you own lots of ankle-length skirts?
  
  I use to because skirts are fun to wear! I also wear long sleeves shirts because they're warm and look I know
  I look the part which is why people assume but I just like baking bread, canning apple butter, and being cozy!
- I would auto translate articles / blogs from other languages. In Estonia we mostly have advice literature like that free of bull. I imagine the same is roughly true for most countries besides the US. I'm trying to collect materials about everything DIY and write down what I know. Ask me if you ever try woodworking, construction, plant related stuff or anything that needs doing around the house, like snow removal or firewood. There's lots of tricks to everything. I'm take my time about it as I need to get stuff done so I haven't organized it as a blog yet.
- You just reminded me I need to get a good lemon marmalade recipe

Nazi punks fuck off. This is not a good example. Every metal enjoyer I know is progressive. It's one of the few communities that is still mostly sane and decent.
- Uh... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varg_Vikernes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Anselmo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_black_metal I mean, they can fuck off, and they're definitely a minority, but they absolutely exist as parts of the roots and present structure of metal music.
  
  I was just watching this bit on the OG Skinheads:
  https://youtu.be/sfkTjGsZh7U
  tl;dw: the movement came from Jamaican immigrants to the UK, who then blended their music into the local subculture, and then moved to the US. It has strong anti-racist roots. The fashy takeover of the term "Skinheads" in pop culture is completely without support, since you can't ignore where it came from. OG Skinheads call them "Boneheads".
  
  Varg is more black metal side of things, like yeah in that sphere he's ubiquitous but for people that just like Metallica and slayer he's never gonna come up. Same with nsbm for that matter; better to leave them ignorant I say lol
- Ask the norwegian black metal community about that :D
- Not the metal community in FL.

Anytime someone starts dropping Warhammer lore, or shows a love of Boomer Shooters, I know I'm going to despise that person or they'll be my best friend, no middle ground, and I don't even like Warhammer.
- What the fuck is wrong with boomer shooters?
  
  Boomer Shooters themselves are great.
  The problem are the people who "Only play games before they got all woke!"
- What's wrong with boomer shooters?? The whole genre was founded on killing nazis
  
  It was.
  I personally love Boomer Shooters.
  The problem isn't the games themselves they're great and Civvie 11 is my favorite youtuber.
  It's the "Wahhh I hate Star Wars because women and newer Wolfenstein because you kill Nazis" crowd
  
  Tell that to the nazi enjoyers

I've been collecting comics off and on since I was a pre-teen in the early 90's. I think I had less than 100 books up until about 2013 when I got back into collecting comics. I fell out of the hobby for about 4 more years and got back into it pretty hardcore in 2017 or so and have been pretty consistently involved since then. During the pandemic I learned that there was an entire community of comic collectors on YouTube that made videos about collecting. It was pretty great at first, but over time, I started to realize that a lot of them leaned right. Then more time passed and I realized it was more than a lean. After the most recent election, a lot of YouTube comic book videos became overtly political in support of this shit we're currently enduring. The people that lean left don't seem to say anything against it, and so I felt pretty isolated. I no longer watch YouTube comic videos, but I still collect comics. I just do it as a solo hobby once again.
- What kind of comics do you collect?
  I'm a tiny collector but I almost exclusively do european stuff from the seventies to the nineties (Moebius, Metal hurlant, all the goofy stuff too like Philemon).
  I mean if you collect like the Hulk I guess you're in another mindset. No judgement! I love Scott Campbell for example :-)
  
  I collect Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1, Indie's and Comix primarily. Big fan of Claremont, and a big fan of Robert Crumb... wires must have been crossed.

Whenever some city dweller says they like to go fishing, I immediately think "He's a right winger AND uses fishing as an excuse to cheat on his wife" - this seems to be the case often down here in Brazil
- You guys don't travel a lot for business down in Brazil? Or is it Brokeback Mountain fishing?
- What the hell :-) this is seriously funny, thanks for sharing!
- I liked fishing as a child, but we only did it when we visited our Montanan relatives. I managed to catch a fish! Then squeal cause it was dead and gave it to our older second cousin twice removed.
  
  Fishing got ruined for me when I was 4. We were fishing at Bullfrog Pond and they'd just stocked it with bluegills. We didn't even have to bait our hooks, 15 seconds in the water and you'd have a bite. My dad was expecting to teach me some weird lesson about patience, but nature and the forestry department said Fuck That.
- Oh, so you're one of the GOOD ones who enjoy torturing and killing animals with your bare hands. I imagine that is a vanishingly small minority, eh?????? EH?????
  
  Username checks out.
  
  Yeah, I prefer offloading my torturing and killing to third-parties. That way my hands stay nice and clean.

this is how I feel about people who are really, really into Hearts of Iron IV.
- Hey, now, Stellaris is the true atrocity simulator.
  
  That's a weird way to spell Rimworld.
- World of Tanks huh? And Hearts of Iron, I see... In my observation - 30% they a nazi, 50% a commie and 20% just casually enjoy these games. And by nazi and commie, I mean what that word meant in 1940.
- Other people: "How do you know so much about World War 2?"
  Me: "Oh I play this game called -...I mean I listen to history podcasts a lot."
- Hold up. First you gotta ask if they play Kaiserreich. If yes, you're probably good to go.

Me but with anime and pedophiles
If someone enters a conversation saying child-coding isn't a thing, they get a free block
- Dumbass here, what's child-coding? Those "totally not underage" characters?
  
  Yup.
  "B-b-but ackhshually they're a 1000-year old drago-"
  Shut up. They wanna fuck it. It looks like a 10 year old child. They wanna fuck a 10 year old body.
  They're not just creeps, but they're cowards who don't even stand by their creepy convictions.
  
  Essentially. It's kind of a fuzzy definition, but it refers to characters who, even if they aren't explicitly stated to be children within the canon of their story, are obviously meant to look/act like children. It's a controversial subject, in part because it's somewhat subjective, and in part because pedophiles don't like being called out
  The most controversial example I can think of is this character from Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. She has just enormous breasts. Like, half of her body weight is in her chest. Real weird fetish shit. But also, if you take away the frankly disgusting tits, it's literally just a kid
  Dudes who like jerking off to her really don't like when you point that out
  
  Responding so I can come back later and also find the answer to this

I am interested in survivalism but it seems like most survivalists are a bunch of god-fearing crazy racist motherfuckers.
- Dude. This. I grew up camping. I am into bushcraft, survival stuff too, and every interesting survival youtuber seems like a ticking time bomb, if not already openly right wing crazy.
- The prepper response to covid absolutely broke my heart. I already had an emergency pandemic kit good to go and my whole family in N95 masks from day 1 (in America). We had plenty of canned food and water. I thought, "This is it. We're ready for this." And then all the others sided with the fucking virus. 🤮😭
- maybe the best part of being trans is that your trans friend group can buy a ranch in the mountains and stock up on guns and alpaca and you never get mistaken for a race war wisher
  
  Guns and Alpacas, the two most precious resources in the world! We should combine them a a single element since an Alpaca without a gun is totally useless! /s
- I remember when survivalists were predominately hippie types who feared a right-wing generated apocalypse - like corporatism collapsing the economy, or warmongers starting WW3. The back-to-nature ones learned self-sufficient organic farming, the tech ones bought nitrogen-filled plastic bins of grain, and they all grew weed. Then when rednecks joined the club it became more about homemade ammunition and defending the perimeter.
  
  Whenever right-wingers show the slightest interest in anything the left-wingers flee with their tails between their legs.
  
  I clearly relate more to this first batch than the second one but for me it is about being able to survive in Nature no matter why. I do not fear a right-wing apocalypse either, I only want to survive no matter what happens.
  
  If you go far enough left or right, you end up in the same spot.
  
  I think hippie 'survivalist' material can be foundbunder 'homesteading' more easily. Still a portion of exclusionary-supremacists and superstitious-dogmatics, but somewhat fewer in my experience. More sustainable growing techniques, with the guns chapter further back in the book. More mutual aid networking, less barrel frotting.
- Bushcrafting content has a fine line when it pushes over into doomsday prepper. I can get the ideas of having a bit of food/water stocked up for a normal emergency. But if you are preparing industrial quantities of things to survive for years in a bunker you should seek help.
  
  "prepper" vs "Prepper" with a capital "P".
  The first learns and practices actual useful skills -- gardening, food preservation, repairing their own things, etc. The later are dorks buying a ton of unnecessary shit shilled by right-wing influencers cosplaying as "entirely self-sufficient".
  
  I will point out that we're right now entering a time when basic foodstuffs are going to become very expensive, and a lot of day to day items are likely going to rise sharply in price, or become unavailable. Having industrial amounts of these day-to-day things is a hedge against that.
- Man, I was really invested in that in like 2016 but in 2018 was the election of Bolsonaro. Some time before, during the election and until now every fucking content creator or community around this hobby became a cesspool of right wing dickheads worshipping this fascist.
  
  As someone from a small town in the pacific northwest, it feels like they always have been. It was just a case of the quiet part not being said out loud or them masking it enough those with lower exposure didn't see it.
  I drive a pickup, grew up hunting and fishing and I'm tall, pretty thick, tattooed all to hell and bearded... the amount of "hell yeah brother" followed by some vial, racist, homo/transphobic shit I have said to me is staggering. The moment of pushback has become a high for me. I'm almost baiting them from a conversation about tree stands and elk piss formulas into some fucked statement about trans athlete's just too feel something.
  That said, it isn't all of us so I don't want to gate keep survivalism and general outdoorsiness. Always willing to teach a flytie, how to dig a shit hole and the easiest way to catch water with a tarp.

Me with my koi pond, before I discovered that most other pond owners are elderly right wing conspiracy theorists who don't believe in crazy stuff like the nitrogen cycle or that mailing invasive plants like water hyacinth or water spangled is illegal.

I own guns. I love my guns. But I'm not weird about it, I'm all about responsible gun ownership, I don't have an entire armory, and I ESPECIALLY don't open carry.
Ammosexuals give the rest of gun enthusiasts a very bad name.
- I'm weird about it. But I've always been weird about it. I'm diagnosed as on the autism spectrum, and it's been a particular interest of mine since i was in elementary school. The only reason I don't have an entire armory is because I'm far, far too poor. As it is, I've got, um, 10?, I think? With three more planned, plus an SBR and silencer(s)? And yeah, I'll talk your ear off about gun rights. And motorcycles (I only have one of those).
  OTOH, I also care about LGBTQ+ rights, and I'm working on an instructor certification specifically to train LGBTQ+, racial/ethnic/religious minority, SW, etc. people that aren't going to feel comfortable in any traditional gun space. If it's uncomfortable to me when an instructor goes off on a Christian nationalist rant, it's gotta be 10x worse for people that can't pass as a cis- het- white person. No one should have to deal with that shit just so they can get basic safety and marksmanship instruction.
  
  Why... why do you not know how many guns you have?
- No fucking shit. As a redneck that hunts and goes fishing, it's miserable being around pretty much any other dude that is a hunter and finds out that I hunt. No hunting buddies or anything for me. I've seen a prayer circle at the gun range before.
  Good thing I like solitude, I guess.
  
  I can relate so hard to this. Liberal/leftist hunting buddies are basically non existent.
- There used to be a FB group called something like "gun people who hate gun people" I do clay shooting, and some. 22 pistols and its great fun. And while I respect those who hunt (and hit not just wounds the damn birds with one unlucky shotgun pellet. See so many poor shots who turn up at the range in August, shoot a few rounds of trap, miss 7-10 clay pigeons and off they go to shoot birds) I can't do hunting as I don't really like the kill.
- Guns get treated like fashion accessories and articles of declared personal identity. They’re equally treated with disregard like a pair of earrings you throw in the cupholder of the car or leave on the kitchen counter at home.
  A radical change from when I was a kid 40 years ago. Gun nuts were nuts and viewed as such. Look at action movies from the ‘80s. If someone had a shitload of guns he was usually crazy.
  
  People grew up watching the crazies on TV and decided it looked cool, then became the gun nut when they got money.
  
  See: Burt from Tremors
- I like my guns and I am weird. I do try to not let most folks know about my gun hobby because they'll make assumptions about me that I don't have the energy nor patience to dispel.

I've felt the call to get into history of the American Civil War. But I also am white and live in the south.
- Atun shei films is your guy.
- Never felt that for the Civil War but WW2 history has a shameful stigma as well. I'm just here for the unfathomable high-water mark of human achievement, ingenuity, and international cooperation. Salivate over goose-stepping fascists somewhere else.
  
  "The" civil war? Found the american 😋
  Edit: my bad!
  
  Can I salivate over the Schwerer Gustav railway gun in particular? Like it's a fine encapsulation over the fascist stupidity of bigger is better, but holy fuck I love that it existed! It being a waste of resources and time is just fucken icing on the cake.

I collect coins and I have a deep love of history. I also spent some time in South Africa.
Some of my prized coins are WW2 and Apartheid era coins.

We come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow

Something about people finding someone who shares their interest in hobby and immediately starts to question them politically amuses me.
- 's what happens when one tires of getting surprise racism in hobby-talk.
  
  If the stakes were lower, it wouldn't be an issue. It's not fun to get close to someone, then suddenly realize they don't think the rest of your friends should get to live.

I read an interesting article about 40K Space Marines last year, the problem with them is that some people just don't get satire no matter how glaringly obvious it is
- Starship Troopers is so badass!
  
  My dad legitimately thinks that's a great action movie. And to be fair, it is.
  But he doesn't understand the deeper meanings.
  More meat for the grinder is totally just a bad ass thing to say! Not at all like an orphan crushing machine, for sure.
  
  I have no doubt it's satire, but for me it's always been more of a fun escape into a ridiculous, militarized sci fi fantasy world. I'd never want to genuinely set foot in that world though. Except the sexy coed showers. Booyah!
- I really blame the games industry as a whole for this. They keep making games with Space Marines as the protagonists, where their violence is presented as justified, when a lore-friendly space marine game should be like "No Russian" missions all the time and the resulting failure this causes to their Empire. This constant "whitewashing" of the lore, is what has attracted a ton of people.
  
  I would LOVE to see a WH40k setting where the space marines are lore-accurate murdering an entire multi-billion hive-city for some minor heresy by a few thousand of the people on the 925th-sub-basement, and you're playing random ganger Scumface Mc Spikearms who's just trying to survive.
  
  GW constantly pushes Space Marines and to a lesser extent the Imperial Guard as a majority of time as the protagonist. People don’t have the media literacy to understand that protagonist does not equal the hero. The protagonist is just the main character of the story and they can be evil or good or anything in between.
  I feel like the satire is being washed out to support the line that shall always go up.
  But hey, Space Marines goes “Pew! Pew! Pew!”
  
  The article discusses this; basically the video games want you to at least slightly like the protagonist you're playing as, which means they can't entirely be the monstrous caricatures they were designed to be.
  
  I would like some more grimdark in warhammer games. At this point Rimworld seems better for it, as you can commit most warcrimes in that just fine. Even new things that are not yet yet in the Geneva suggestions! Like executing POWs with eldritch horrors after you have harvested them for most of their organs to sell on the blackmarket.
- Yeah, this was on full display when Helldivers 2 launched. So many people just didn’t get the satire, and unironically leaned into the messaging.
  For the unaware, Helldivers 2 is basically a Starship Troopers video game.
  
  Starship Troopers the book was flat out propaganda. It's only the movie that is satire.
- God-Emperor (mostly dead sitting on a cybernetic throne preserving his life, requires like 100 psychics a day to feed on to live) wants to spread his Religious-no-religion religion across the cosmos, and the brutality with which is required is a small price to pay for industry.
  And then they choose to like the guy unironically. But if they're really into Slaneesh then they just get a special brand of weird.
  
  requires like 100 psychics a day
  1,000 per day. Every day. For Ten. Thousand. Years.
  So you know, just a drop in the bucket, no big deal.
  And to be fairrrrrrr.... The emperor himself wants no religion at all, and it's the corrupt and zealous officials that spread the "the emperor is a god" thing, he straight up destroyed a planet because a chapter of marines converted it to Emperorism once. That was before he got stuck on his death throne, obviously.
  Anyone who genuinely admires ANY of the factions in 40k just doesn't understand it.
  They all suck. There are no good guys. Honestly I'd say the closest thing to good guys there are would be the tyanids, because they're just doing what tyanids do. You don't get mad at cows for being cows. Or wolves for being wolves. They are what they are and they do what they do. It isn't malicious intent.
  It'the A̴l̴l̴ C̶̳̑ọ̷̓͂n̴̼͕͂̄ṡ̴̹̕u̶̘̿m̶̜̿͜ȋ̵̲́͜n̴͈̜̎g̴̰̝̈̇ Ḩ̴̛͖͚̣̯̟̗̮͔͓̝̜͆̓̈́̈́̇̓͒̕Ừ̶̲̓̃̂̉̎͛̀̒̕̚N̵̨̳͈͙̘̭̩̹͈̙͈͙͕̮͋̿̆͐̅̇͆̅̋̈G̵̛̛͇̗̘͓̐̓̆̓̌̓̃̀̂͛́̉͘͘͝Ę̸̙̩͈͕̒̄̋́̍́̔̔̉͝͠R̸̛͇͚̜͍͉̺̋̽̀̎͌̈́͗̀͌̓̊̂͜
- It's just a glaring lack of critical thinking brought on by our (sometimes willingly) ignorant masses. Satire is dead in this country because we didn't have the capacity to comprehend it.
  
  This country of Lemmy?
- Yeah I am having a great time with Helldivers 2 but damn if I don't feel this pretty much every time I play
- Ooh, thanks for sharing this. I clicked on it thinking I had already read it before, but this is actually new to me. It looks interesting

I feel this - I really like Norse mythology and I'm super pissed that it has been stolen by racist shitheads.
- Modern day Asatru practitioners of good firth have to run constant vigilance against supremicists creeping in. Some folks make it in to good groups from cruel groups and have trauma to work out from being around that vitriolic perspective.
  A lot of the effective work comes down to actively communicating openness and inclusion for practitioners from all backgrounds that are willing to do same.
  IOW Norse pantheon worshipers talking and walking as equal and allied with POC and queer folks all the time makes the right jerks uncomfortable.
  
  This. So much this.
  I really wish more queer folk and POC would get into Ásatrú. Most of us are just people that enjoy being out in nature and reading old books, sometimes at the same time.
  And we drink a lot of coffee.
  Plus! Sometimes we even have cookies!
- Its true for most white culture. Nazis own us no mater what we do, think, feel or believe.
  
  That's because there is no "white culture", even calling our cultures that is ceding them to Nazis.

History is kind of the opposite. When someone says they like history I'll get excited and ask what period is their favorite. If they say "Romans" without any qualifiers like Early Republic or Late Eastern Empire, I get a bad feeling and they usually follow up with "and WWII"
- I like ww2 but not Romans (that whole period is overrated and mid), how racist do I have to be now?
- my answer is "mesopotamian" because I like their goofy little sculptures
  archeology is cool, humans are just little goblins that really like to live on hills for some reason
  
  When you can dig cave homes on the hills, like in the case of Petra and early people in current day Turkey, growing a beard becomes mandatory. 🪨 ⛏
  
  Them dudes is wild though! They achieved so many recorded firsts and shaped so much of our culture that we often don't even recognize how huge they were!
  I still yearn for the day we can move to a sexagesimal nubering system.
- Out of curiosity are any of mine red flags. Early bronze age steppe peoples, the Late Bronze age collapse, the " Viking age" my interests are namely to do with Charlemagne and his influence on it, and pre-columbian European trade in the Americas namely the Greenland colony and the possibility that the Irish and Scots may have been fishing around Newfoundland.
  
  Mainly the viking age, except for the fact that you know who Charlemagne is.
- I don't think I have a "favorite period" anymore, but the classical period is super interesting to me mostly with regards to the "losers" like Bactria (current day Afghanistan, conquered by Alexander the Great), Phoenicia/Carthage, Persia (several empires that "annoyed" the yuropeeans).
- What if they said WW1?
  Outside of modern history I think my interest is more into technology and way of living than about governments and cultures though. Like what tools did they use, what did they eat, what sort of alcohol did they drink. How did they make it, can I have a recipe.
  
  Yup, same here. I don't give a fuck about the heroic deeds of X king, or which country fought who. I'm really interested in how people lived and got by. I'm interested in war history too, but I'm interested in the experiences of the people who had to fight in those wars and the civilians who survived them, not in the actions of X nations.
  
  WWI is super interesting since it set the stage for so much of the current geopolitical landscape. My main issue with "I watched History Channel as a kid" types is that they really just think guns and swords are cool (which they are) and don't care much about the story of how people ended up in a war.
  Also, I know what you mean about how interesting the day to day things from the past can be. I got really into preindustrial economies and how we used to make everything by hand. It's fun to go into old buildings and seeing the tool marks on the wood and guessing how they made it
- That just means you grew up in the 90s with the History Channel
- "Yes." Regarding historical periods is my answer. Particularly, a series of history books called "The Cartoon History of the Universe". Each volume has at least 300 pages, and they are quite large. There is about five books in the mainline series, plus another dedicated to American history.
  They were what taught me to enjoy history in general. Humorous, lewd, bloody, with interesting trivia. The only downside is that scientific facts tend to be dated, on account of the series being started in the late 80's or early 90's.
- Curious what is says about me that my answer has always been "the Cold War."
  ... Other than the fact that history feels far too present these days.
  
  Cold War spy stories are the best. It was a rare period of superpower vs. superpower and with enough technology to make it interesting. (I might be wrong, but I don't think a spy story where you had to communicate using carrier pigeons and spy by simply listening over walls would be as interesting.)
  
  you grew up during The Cold War? That’s about it unless you get more specific for example Im interested in the decline of the USSR and the rise of the CIS.
- I would just say medieval because castles.
- What about ancient Egypt without qualifying Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom or New Kingdom? (I just think they're all neat.)
  
  Idk. You're not trying to establish a divine monarchy characterized by inbreeding and a shadow government of priests, are you?

If depression takes away all your hobby energy, then there's no hobby to set off warning bells.
- Oh you're mentally ill, like those columbine guys? /s

Viking depends in where you are. In my country, Norway, viking iconography is a pink flag. Yeah we have dipshit Nazis who use it, but it's fairly main stream. Viking rock is a little sus, but not necessarily as sus as elsewhere.
- Pink flag, as in, red flag lite; or pink flag, as in, another term for a rainbow flag?
  
  I meant as in red flag lite, but I see the ambiguity. The viking reenactors are just regular and LGBTQ+ is usually not an issue I'm Norway so guess they have their fair share of all the colors of Heimdall rainbow. The Viking metal I don't know, as metal go in Norway it's not a huge thing, but I am no metal fan tho'

People who like Rick and Morty.
People who look up to Rick.
- I admire his dedication to his wife. I've never cared about anybody that much.
  
  Season 7 spoilers
- People who like American Psycho because it is a brilliant satire of the sociopathy of the elite.
  vs
  People who like American Psycho because 'I'm just like Patrick Bateman, fr fr.'
  ...
  Its the same with Fight Club, Falling Down, Taxi Driver...
  Its possible to enjoy and be a fan of these movies without actually idolizing a psycopath... maybe you sympathize or empathize with them to varying degrees, but you don't hold them up as idealized character role models, you realize these are all very flawed, often tragic characters who ... basically become villains in (semi?) plausible ways, that showcase how brutal and broken society is...
  But, so many people do actually idolize these trainwreck characters that now we've spent basically the entire era of internet based cultural dominance/exchange where any kind of admiration of these 'cautionary morality tale about a disaffected man' type movies is just immediately, often instantly viewed as a red flag by a whole lot of people.
  
  To people who like American psycho: read the book and get cured, it's one of the worst books I have ever read (long story short, I only had that one book over like months, so I finished it. A scoolkid could have written it + some unnecessary ultra violence, IMO).
  
  American Psycho satirization of the cold and unfeeling aspects of 1980’s yuppie culture. Bateman might have hallucinated the entire thing and Paul Owen really could have been in London given how frequently Bateman is mistaken for another person by colleagues. It’s not about the sociopathy of the rich.
- I love Rick and Morty but all the main characters are not good people. I don’t blame Morty or Summer since what else can you expect growing up surrounded by that family?
- Rick and Morty bangs and had some subtle anti-capitalist elements to it.
  But yeah Rick is a nihilist with severe empathy problems. Although he is showing some very minor character development.
- Honestly all the characters in that show suck. Except that one girl morty time-looped himself out of marrying. She seemed normal.
  Oh and Planetina. There is only one solution to earth's pollution.
  
  I quite liked her methods tbh. Morty was just not willing to solve pollution.
  
  I've only seen a few episodes, but isn't that part of the joke of the show?
- Is there a big connection between them and "Dark Enlightenment" chuds or what?
  
  They'll glom onto any super smart asshole character and pretend that's what Elmo is like.

I've had so many conversations come to a grinding halt while doing RC stuff, because I realize the person is not only veering the conversation to intentionally toward certain topics, they're expressing right-wing opinions or shoving religion in my face. I've left RC events because they opened with a prayer, or because I've seen too many red hats in the crowd.
I'm sure it's also because of the state I live in, but it's a little disheartening to see so many people in my hobby who would gladly stone me to death in the street once the government allows it.
Also weirdly mountain biking has me fucking confused. So many magats on my trails, and it was my impression that cycling in general wasn't as popular amongst the "anti-woke" crowd. Along with other things they view as a threat to their big metal death boxes that run on dead Dino and plant juices.
Lastly, blacksmithing. I do mostly bladesmithing, but like to try all aspects of it. This hobby is rampant with right-wing nut jobs and I've stopped watching MANY content creators over the years because they started making personal vlog style videos when Biden got elected bitching about how awful and hard it is to be a straight white male in America.
also target shooting but that's a hot topic no matter which way you look, but here's a reminder that armed minorities are harder to oppress
never partake of inebriating substances no matter what type while handling a firearm in any capacity. I've seen too many people at an outdoor range with a beer can beside them. This should get you banned from the premesis.
- I'm a road biker who occasionally dabbles in gravel and mountain biking.
  I think the right wing hatred of cyclists comes down to two primary things:
  They have road rage over being behind bikes on the road, so they "hate cyclists."
  They equate lycra/spandex as being feminine or at least "non masculine" if not outright "gay."
  They are usually cool with mountain bikers because they aren't "in their way" on the road, and usually are wearing baggy "manly" clothing.
  
  Ah, insecurity and overcompensation, what would we do without you...
  Fellas, is it gay to be comfortable while cycling? My wife will be devastated.
- I'm going to decide RC is Roman Catholic.
  I've left [Roman Catholic] events because they opened with a prayer
- Alcohol at a range? Id never go back. Stone cold sober people are stupid enough handling weapons.
  
  I don't go back, and I have no more outdoor ranges to go to that aren't too far away.
  I used to go to a childhood friends house but after I moved we kinda drifted apart so it's weird to ask to use their backyard range.
  I would love to have the property to put in at least a 100m lane and a large back stop to stop ricochets and the like. Then I don't have to go somewhere people will whinge when I shoot more than twice a minute, and I'm not at risk of an ND coming my way.
  
  Was visiting some family in central Illinois and went to a range where they allow drinks. They were quite proud of it.
- so many magats on my trails
  Does this really surprise you? "Country folks" are much more likely to be regularly out in nature, more likely to be into fishing/hunting/camping, and more likely to run Conservative than the more Liberal urban folks.
  At least in my experience. Which is something that has me super confused about the national parks thing, cause conservative people routinely poll higher for usage of public lands. But then again I guess it shouldn't surprise me to see them shocked when they invite the leopard into their house.
  
  that's an interesting explanation, didn't think of it that way 🤔
- Also weirdly mountain biking has me fucking confused. So many magats on my trails, and it was my impression that cycling in general wasn’t as popular amongst the “anti-woke” crowd.
  (MX Enduro and Mtn biker of many years here and I've observed the same thing)
  It has nothing to do with liking/disliking bikes and everything to do with the toxic masculinity culture of "conquering" a hill, or trail, or just in general being more in the "bro" culture that does tend to attract more magats than other hobbies I've picked up.
  There's a nontrivial number of mtn bikers that are in the maga crowd, and the only link I can find is that this tends to attract a lot of people similar to the Andrew Tates of the world.
- I have a Peloton at home and at the rare cases when I open the leader board, I am surprised how many people have some MAGA or Trump related tags. Ah well, even the OG Nazis were all about fitness.
- Yeah, it's really annoying being involved in target shooting when everyone thinks you're a MAGAt as well
- I think there are just more of them these days. Young men are an especially growing segment of Trump supporters. And the ones that used to hide themselves are open about it more and more every time Trump wins.
  I see them in woodworking, pottery, gaming, hiking. And I live in a blue city in a blue state. I think we just have to accept that most Americans support conservative ideals.
  
  That's maybe partly true, but pretty much everyone I've talked to in my very conservative area (Utah) doesn't like Trump. In fact, I saw more Ukraine flags in the first year of the war than Trump flags.
  I'm no progressive (consider myself libertarian), though I probably align with the OP in all the ways they seem to care about. I want more legal immigration (my SO immigrated), more acceptance of LGBT people, less pollution, more separation of church and state (happen to be deeply religious too), etc. My main difference is that I don't believe those goals justify using government to restrict rights to effect cultural and social change.
  So just be careful about how you tune your Nazi filter. I strongly oppose Trump, but I may get caught in the filter depending on the question.
- Blacksmithing is sick. I would absolutely love to start doing it again (tbf I never really got into it), but I'm not at my parents that often (which is where the equipment is) and if I am I usually dont really have the time.

Warhammer 40K entered the chat
- Now imagine if you play imperial guard. I feel like I am the only fan who understands IG. Its about people living under a cruel unwieldy empire that is utterly indifferent to their lives with almost no way out. Your entire world with all it rich history and unique culture can be wiped out in a second. And it wont mean a thing. Shit like that is what makes IG cool
  
  I had someone get incredibly mad my UN blue imperial guard beat their afrika korps death guard. Like crying mad.
- I'm not into 40k, I love the idea and mythos and occasionally watch someone paint a mini, then I came across some 40k subreddit and it's a bunch of anti woke nonsense. Like wtf, they do realise they're the ones that used to be shat upon, right?
  
  They sure don't. Fascists are immune to irony.
  
  And upon seeing their chance to be the shitter, rather than the shittee, they climb over each other to throw shit.
  Most of the human race aren't worth fucking saving, that much is clear.
- Tbf that's only the imperium fans. The rest at least know they're playing pretend. Maybe not the Boyz I think they're serious.
  
  As someone outside the fandom looking in it seems like the entire 40K franchise revolves around the Space Marines, with the other factions taking a supporting role at best.
- "I like the ones that look like space Nazis the most."
  
  Oh, the principality/republic of Zeon/Neo Zeon?
- Heresy intensifies.

This is a big problem as a leftist who likes to shoot guns.
- It's the worst trying to interact with the community.
- So much this.
  I found pure sports shooting a bit better, because people either are there for the sport or feel bound by fair play, at least most of the time
- There is a comm for that here !socialistra@midwest.social

80% of car guys are racist and conservative 😩
literally everyone I work with is
- I low-key hate my car because every time I use it, I'm helping to destroy the world.
- Dude tell me about it 😭 especially if you're into overlanding or any kind of off road. Luckily I also have an old Miata and the tuner crowd seems to be chill
  
  miata people are different
- That's unfortunate. I guess I don't find that all too surprising tbh

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