Petty Biases

 At my age, I am pretty much over what I consider petty biases. After all, I ride maxiscooters (250cc and up in my case), use kickstands on my bicycles and wear hip bags. But it still surprises me when old biases better lost to time resurface. 

Of course, there are the big ones such as those relating to race, religion, sexuality, women's rights and so on. And those are topics worth tackling. But I want to note a few petty ones which I have come across or experienced.

SOME MOTORCYCISTS DISRESPECT RIDERS OF MAXISCOTTERS AND OTHER AUTOMATIC MOTORCYCLES.

My motorcycles of choice are automatics. Other than my first one, they have been maxiscooters and all of them could do freeway speeds. My last two and current one could all go 100 mph or higher. In order, I've had a 400cc Hondamatic, a 250cc Honda Helix, a 400cc Yamaha Majesty and a 500cc Kymco Xciting. My current one is a 650cc Suzuki Burgman. Some riders, including those who aren't very good riders, disrespect anything without a manual clutch. They say that those who ride automatics are not real motorcyclists. But we are still riding on 2 wheels which can mix in quite well with "regular" motorcycles when the riders don't have attitudes about us. I've even beat a guy on a Harley in an informal race. In the end, we are all out there enjoying the same things which motorcycles of any type bring. personally, I respect anyone on any size, whether 50cc or 2000cc.

NOT A REAL CYCLIST

Some people have quite the attitudes about what people have on their bicycles or what kind of bikes being ridden. I've seen attitudes ranging from the age of a bike to whether or not a bike has a kickstand. Some MTB riders disrespect riders of road bikes and some road bike riders disrespect MTB riders. I experiences disrespect from some in both camps when I rode recumbents. And, yes, I usually have kickstands.

HIP BAGS / FANNY PACKS

As a rider of both motorcycles and bicycles, hip bags are really useful for safely storing stuff. But I go beyond using them just when I ride. it's nice not having stuff in my pockets. it's especially nice to have a safe place for my phone instead of forcing it into my pocket. So I wear a hip bag whenever I go out. Some people are once again accepting of hip bags but some people are still caught up in fashion attitudes about them.

Differences between Republicans and Democrats

 I saw an ad with a Democrat and a Republican talking about common ground. The Republican indicated that they disagree about a lot of things but can still work together. I admit that I have some Republican friends who aren't too regressed to deal with. But the differences between many Democrats and Republicans and, more to the point, progressives and regressives are very big. It can be quite dangerous to prioritize commonality over differences when many on the Republican side demonize differences and want people who are different from them to disappear. Further, many Republicans want to regress society to when religion ruled, LGBTQYA+ hid or were incarcerated, education was restricted and nonbelievers were forbidden. As a queer nonbeliever, I would be killed by some of them if they could get away with it.

I had a visit by Jehovah's Witnesses

 Two Jehovah's Witnesses came to my apartment. They were willing to talk even after I disclosed that I was a nonbeliever. And I was willing because I was curious about their approach. After I disclosed that I was a nonbeliever, they went into how their god created everything. They asked about my beliefs about how things came to be. I explained that my approach is to start with the physical for explanations. From that starting point, it looks to me to be all natural processes. They shifted to talk about how their god will come to cleanse the earth. They said that there is no human means to make things better so their god has to cleanse the earth. I indicated that their approach excludes humans from even trying since it can be left up to their god to fix things.