Pictured here: Kurdish YPG soldiers fighting IS in Syria.
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“Highest loyalty” is essentially defined in this case as “valuing most in one’s decisions” or “whose existence is the highest priority”
The poll widget only lets me make 5 choices, so I had to group up a lot. Explain your choices as needed in the discussion, which is the whole fucking point of this anyway.
Oh, by the way, some things got a little weird yesterday with the "would you torture someone?" poll.
Weird is all good, but let me clarify something: these polls are designed to provoke interesting conversation with the friendly, generally mature, heterodox community of the Gutter. I am not espousing any immoral, evil, or illegal activities- I am asking philosophical questions for discussion in a moderated forum.
Neither is anyone else here (unless they, of course, explicitly discuss perpetrating real and specific illegal activity, so don't ever do that).
You sound like I did both in class and in the faculty lounge (which is a very fancy name for what used to be the showers in and old closed down and refurbished mental hospital).
It's something with questions of that type which really upsets a lot of us - small wonder Hannah Arendt was so villified initially when it was made clear that any one of us can be the boring little clerk administrating Hell on Earth.
I get a real state of arousal and excitement when I encounter things that are so scary to humans on average that you're not even "allowed" to question or talk about them.
I would not last very long in a Lovecraft novel. I would read ALL the books.
I just realised I was into that hobby from age 11 to age 48, and only quit because we moved out into the forest. And 25 years of that time was with the same circle of friends.
Oh, the adventures! The heroics! The humiliations! The anecdotes only other gamers get!
To walk home through the city at 04:30 in the AM a Sunday morning, after having met up with the gang after work at 17:00 on the Friday before, and then lived on lager, pizza, snacks, handrolled cigarettes with no sleep, only to meet a hedgehog trapped on the curb in the middle of the the two lane throughway, and sacrificing your favourite shirt to lift it into a nearby park.
Only to find the little prickleback had defecated all over the shirt. Worth it.
I sometimes wonder what if any the overlap of RPGers and similar games, and politically oppositional people is.
I say with no exaggeration that RPGs taught me how to lead, organize my ideas, be friends with boys, challenge my beliefs and ideas, and create loyal groups. Some of my greatest friendships arose from the gaming groups I started. Even a few grown-up jobs.
They are some of the most fun you can have with your clothes on.
Gamers tended to run quite libertarian, historically, but the hobby is now completely captured by the woke. Brothermouth and I are actually banned from several cons purely on the basis of political speech.
I”m sorry, but I checked the box marked “yourself”. I’ve made some bad choices and decisions in my life based on what other people wanted, or what they needed. Had I remained loyal to myself, I’m positive things would have turned out better. For example, I took the first covid jab because my family and doc pressed me, even though I felt otherwise. I stayed with my first husband too long, a drunk, abuser, piece of shit, only because my parents, my priest, and my boss urged me to stay married. As I grew up, matured and became more worldly, I realized I needed to be true and loyal to myself. Since then, my life has been WAY better!!
Damn, I know. 🤦🏼♀️. I’m really not a whimp. In my mind, I said it kinda snarky. 🤣. I didn’t want to sound like I was on an ego trip. Or that it’s “all about me”.
Yeah. I was just into traveling and building a company. But I do have a lot of memories and experiences that I wouldn't have had if I settled down earlier.
How old are your children and do you have grandchildren?
Our son is 30, no grandchildren yet since he works all the others he can nab at the restaurant he works in (as chef*). At least that his explanation.
Sadly, we couldn't have more. After five consecutive miscarriages the midwife my wife was seeing, as well as the gynecologist, made clear that further attempts might kill her due to internal bleeding.
On the other hand, the family tree as such is in no danger. My sisters have 4 kids each, and my brother has two.
What's kind of funny is both me and my wife were the same kind of hellions in our teens, you know the "No Future!" and "Live hard and leave a beautiful corpse!" nonsense, and we made a pact when got together: if she got pregnant, we'd marry. We both thought was no chance of that the way we were...
Heh, our mariage photo. We have to tell people who the persons in the picture are, we look that different. I'm wearing a loden coat over my clothes since it was winter, and she's wearing her mothers wedding dress - the kind women wear when pregnant and trying to hide it.
Don't knock building a company - not that you were. I know from friends and family it's like trying t have a career in sports or music - it's all you do. Far better then to build the business and then have the family, than be an absentee father with the best intentions, "Cat's in the Cradle"-style.
Father of a friend did that more or less. Worked his knuckles to the bone until 30, married and got a bunch of kids, then sold the business at 50 and retired to become a consultant.
Twins was something we feared/hoped for since we both have a number of twins in out family trees. But the boy was plenty enough - as stubborn as his a father and with his mother's volcanic temper.
I always wondered what Jim Morrison meant when he wrote: "I woke up this morning and got myself a beer. The future's uncertain and the end is always near."
Without that kindred , who am I? I'll give my loyalty over to that situation which shows the best hope of their continued existence outside of slavery ( of any kind). I already know my son ( I could only have the one) will get anything I could give him should times get harsh.
Food out of my mouth. The blood in my veins. Whatever it takes.
This is how I knew what my answer was. I'd give much for an America properly under its Constitution...but it doesn't compare to the no-holds-barred , " fuck around and find out" passion I hold for doing what's right for my son.
My best response will have to consist of breaking it down a bit.
Ultimate loyalty is to God.
National/political loyalty is to the Constitution of the United States of America.
Physical loyalty is first to my family, then to friends and immediate community, with special emphasis on the innocent (especially if unable to fend for themselves).
Financial loyalty is to whomever I owe money, goods, or favors (assuming they aren't asking for anything ridiculous).
It wasn't really an open-ended query, though; you created a bunch of new categories that I didn't, and seem to have discarded the "I define ultimate loyalty as" at the bottom of the post.
You probably know the answer, and it's probably your real answer, because I sense "OT times" is a Perplexity stand-in for "freed of involuntary modern societal baggage."
Whatever the case, be 100% honest with yourself about what your answer really is, whatever you might tell us.
Here's the thing: I would not be able to slaughter at the command of an angry god. The OT portrays God as such, at times. Jesus, on the other hand, I cannot imagine ordering me to slaughter people.
I liked your explanation of a difference between the NT and the OT the other day, btw.
No, I cannot imagine the biblical Jesus commanding anyone to harm anyone. You might have found yourself in quite a pickle as a young Hebrew man approaching Babylon.
Have you ever heard of the Cathars? I learned about them while I was studying Christian Gnosticism. Unfortunately quite a lot of their writing was destroyed as heretical (and was rare anyway) but they were a very absorbing tangent in my research.
Oct 9, 2022·edited Oct 9, 2022Liked by Guttermouth
In OT-times, if you mean before what we call Year 0, you wouldn't have distinguished between god as in the god(s) of your tribe, your people, or your family. None of us would, no matter our respective heritage.
Let's put it this way: My (adult independent) kid gets everything, unreservedly. Any other loyalties, obligations, attachments that might have a deserved claim on my loyalties etc. etc. etc.--if they should for some unforeseen reason conflict with that--sorry, out of the dinghy into the shark-infested water, though I'll cry while heaving you out.
Kurds are our only true allies in GME and we (meaning all of the west, but especially the Anglo Axis of Evil) just keep screwing them over. Yet they fight on and do it with remarkable success. Turkey and Iraq are both screwing themselves, too, by not working with, rather than against, these industrious, freedom-loving people. I pray for, support the Kurds when I can, and hope that they will, sooner rather than later, get their own independent state or at least a protectorate.
You've really been spoiling your readers the last days.
In answer to the poll, I've used this a my ethical foundation half my life (consciously) and all of it (unconsciously):
Familj, fränder, folk, fosterland, främling.
In english:
Family, kin (fränder is both extended family such as second cousins as well as friends that are as close as family), folk means people - what you call race in the US I'd guess, fosterland is mother/fatherland (foster is fetus, as in you are the child of your nation), and främling is stranger here in the sense of xenos.
Oct 9, 2022·edited Oct 9, 2022Liked by Guttermouth
Shamelesly replying to myself, bloated and jovial after a plate of salted herrings fried in old bacon grease, fresh made lingonberry jam, small potatoes straight from the garden (well, by way of boiling water), finely chopped onions; all of it served on white bread roasted in the oven and then dunked in the salty-fatty sauce in the pan before being topped with the rest of the food. And lingonberry juice made from berrys picked during the day for drink.
This is what my wife calls "fast food" by the way, since it akes maybe 15 minutes to make.
Right, topic. Who comes first?
Family, because you don't exist without family. So some families are crap, doesn't make [family] crap - only the one in question and for often obvious reasons. Get even or get over it, harsh as it may sound, is the best for you.
Kin, because they are an extension of your family (see above) and often even if your immediate family is crap your kin won't be. Or vice versa - we all have that one in-law who we just know will show up to the reading of a will with a lawyer in tow. Or uncle Weird Smell. Or Auntie Helps You Wash Everywhere. Still - get even, or get over it.
People, for the very obvious reason that without a people around you, you're prey for all the other peoples. Lone wolves die from starvation, pack wolves get to eat.
Mother-/fatherland because the land and the peope are one, in the same way a family is one despite consisting of individuals. A nation isn't a geographical area - it is an indelibe whole.
Xenos, because they too exist and you can learn from them. Sometimes how and what to do, sometmes what not to do, and sometimes whether they are people too or enemies to be eradicated.
Now, time for desert. Milk chocolate cookie with orange zest, a little tipple of whisky (Lauder's Blended Scotch), and a cup of coffee.
This is tricky, based on the two definitions of highest loyalty (which would have been my first question, had you not defined it.) 'Valuing most in one's decisions,' I'd go with ideology and my one dogma, which is 'All people are born morally equal.' It follows from that any differences are based on life circumstances, so they remain morally equal. Everything I think traces back to that one choice to believe in something that can't be proven.
But in 'whose existence is the highest priority', I totally agree with Ryan. That's why my house is currently littered with craft projects for the upcoming wedding of the 30-yr-old. It never ends, Ryan.
Oh, by the way, some things got a little weird yesterday with the "would you torture someone?" poll.
Weird is all good, but let me clarify something: these polls are designed to provoke interesting conversation with the friendly, generally mature, heterodox community of the Gutter. I am not espousing any immoral, evil, or illegal activities- I am asking philosophical questions for discussion in a moderated forum.
Neither is anyone else here (unless they, of course, explicitly discuss perpetrating real and specific illegal activity, so don't ever do that).
Weird and challenging questions are your highest service to readers.
Brothermouth and our circle of friends have referred to them as "bar questions" for several decades.
Is that not a dangerous sport?
Those are really the only kinds that have ever held any appeal for me.
I'll confess that every dangerous thing I ever did was because of blithe disregard of common sense.
I would say every dangerous thing I ever did was WILLFUL disregard of common sense.
Each time I performed an act of moral courage it was done heart-poundingly.
You sound like I did both in class and in the faculty lounge (which is a very fancy name for what used to be the showers in and old closed down and refurbished mental hospital).
It's something with questions of that type which really upsets a lot of us - small wonder Hannah Arendt was so villified initially when it was made clear that any one of us can be the boring little clerk administrating Hell on Earth.
I get a real state of arousal and excitement when I encounter things that are so scary to humans on average that you're not even "allowed" to question or talk about them.
I would not last very long in a Lovecraft novel. I would read ALL the books.
"Roll Mythos Lore, if failed lose 1D10 SAN, if succesful lose 1d10+5 SAN."
Gods of the polyhedrons, I miss GMing!
That was one of my very favorites, too.
I just realised I was into that hobby from age 11 to age 48, and only quit because we moved out into the forest. And 25 years of that time was with the same circle of friends.
Oh, the adventures! The heroics! The humiliations! The anecdotes only other gamers get!
To walk home through the city at 04:30 in the AM a Sunday morning, after having met up with the gang after work at 17:00 on the Friday before, and then lived on lager, pizza, snacks, handrolled cigarettes with no sleep, only to meet a hedgehog trapped on the curb in the middle of the the two lane throughway, and sacrificing your favourite shirt to lift it into a nearby park.
Only to find the little prickleback had defecated all over the shirt. Worth it.
I sometimes wonder what if any the overlap of RPGers and similar games, and politically oppositional people is.
I say with no exaggeration that RPGs taught me how to lead, organize my ideas, be friends with boys, challenge my beliefs and ideas, and create loyal groups. Some of my greatest friendships arose from the gaming groups I started. Even a few grown-up jobs.
They are some of the most fun you can have with your clothes on.
Gamers tended to run quite libertarian, historically, but the hobby is now completely captured by the woke. Brothermouth and I are actually banned from several cons purely on the basis of political speech.
Don't care much for faith, though my thoughts on it have become much more complex since I started watching/reading Jordan Peterson.
Don't even recognise my country anymore, or the bizarre ideologies they are so convinced represent the plurality of the population.
So, family and friends it is. As it was always going to be.
"We become who we are."
That picture also proves that any woman with an automatic rifle in her hand looks like a right beauty!
I”m sorry, but I checked the box marked “yourself”. I’ve made some bad choices and decisions in my life based on what other people wanted, or what they needed. Had I remained loyal to myself, I’m positive things would have turned out better. For example, I took the first covid jab because my family and doc pressed me, even though I felt otherwise. I stayed with my first husband too long, a drunk, abuser, piece of shit, only because my parents, my priest, and my boss urged me to stay married. As I grew up, matured and became more worldly, I realized I needed to be true and loyal to myself. Since then, my life has been WAY better!!
The most interesting part of that entire comment was the "I'm sorry."
Damn, I know. 🤦🏼♀️. I’m really not a whimp. In my mind, I said it kinda snarky. 🤣. I didn’t want to sound like I was on an ego trip. Or that it’s “all about me”.
Oops. Now that I’ve read other replies, I want to clarify = my ultimate loyalty is to God. Period.
Easy. Children. There's no way to understand it until they're born and you realize they're completely helpless little Devils.
Joy of my life.
I was selfish before. And it's a good thing I didn't get married until my mid thirties and have kids until 39...otherwise I would royally effed it up.
For some, having children makes you grow up (that's me by the way, father at 20).
For others, growing up (or older might be better?) makes you (want to) have children.
Yeah. I was just into traveling and building a company. But I do have a lot of memories and experiences that I wouldn't have had if I settled down earlier.
How old are your children and do you have grandchildren?
Our son is 30, no grandchildren yet since he works all the others he can nab at the restaurant he works in (as chef*). At least that his explanation.
Sadly, we couldn't have more. After five consecutive miscarriages the midwife my wife was seeing, as well as the gynecologist, made clear that further attempts might kill her due to internal bleeding.
On the other hand, the family tree as such is in no danger. My sisters have 4 kids each, and my brother has two.
What's kind of funny is both me and my wife were the same kind of hellions in our teens, you know the "No Future!" and "Live hard and leave a beautiful corpse!" nonsense, and we made a pact when got together: if she got pregnant, we'd marry. We both thought was no chance of that the way we were...
Heh, our mariage photo. We have to tell people who the persons in the picture are, we look that different. I'm wearing a loden coat over my clothes since it was winter, and she's wearing her mothers wedding dress - the kind women wear when pregnant and trying to hide it.
Don't knock building a company - not that you were. I know from friends and family it's like trying t have a career in sports or music - it's all you do. Far better then to build the business and then have the family, than be an absentee father with the best intentions, "Cat's in the Cradle"-style.
Father of a friend did that more or less. Worked his knuckles to the bone until 30, married and got a bunch of kids, then sold the business at 50 and retired to become a consultant.
Man Rikard.
We had a similar situation; but it was the opposite; it took us 4 tries to have our twins...with help from a petri dish.
We had just about giving up, but decided on one more try. Thank God it worked out
Thanks for sharing so much buddy!
Right back at you!
Twins was something we feared/hoped for since we both have a number of twins in out family trees. But the boy was plenty enough - as stubborn as his a father and with his mother's volcanic temper.
I always wondered what Jim Morrison meant when he wrote: "I woke up this morning and got myself a beer. The future's uncertain and the end is always near."
Now I know.
Ditto. First at 37. Was enjoying my own (extended) childhood too much prior to that.
God. I'd have answered differently 2 years ago.
Family/ adopted as family.
Without that kindred , who am I? I'll give my loyalty over to that situation which shows the best hope of their continued existence outside of slavery ( of any kind). I already know my son ( I could only have the one) will get anything I could give him should times get harsh.
Food out of my mouth. The blood in my veins. Whatever it takes.
This is how I knew what my answer was. I'd give much for an America properly under its Constitution...but it doesn't compare to the no-holds-barred , " fuck around and find out" passion I hold for doing what's right for my son.
How does one respond to such an open-ended query?
My best response will have to consist of breaking it down a bit.
Ultimate loyalty is to God.
National/political loyalty is to the Constitution of the United States of America.
Physical loyalty is first to my family, then to friends and immediate community, with special emphasis on the innocent (especially if unable to fend for themselves).
Financial loyalty is to whomever I owe money, goods, or favors (assuming they aren't asking for anything ridiculous).
It wasn't really an open-ended query, though; you created a bunch of new categories that I didn't, and seem to have discarded the "I define ultimate loyalty as" at the bottom of the post.
And, in the end, you did actually answer the question: your ultimate loyalty is to God, and all your other relationships are subordinate to it.
That was the only question being asked.
What I find disturbing in this question is, would I have answered the same if we were living in OT times. 😐
edit: maybe not in the question, but in my process of answering it.
You probably know the answer, and it's probably your real answer, because I sense "OT times" is a Perplexity stand-in for "freed of involuntary modern societal baggage."
Whatever the case, be 100% honest with yourself about what your answer really is, whatever you might tell us.
Here's the thing: I would not be able to slaughter at the command of an angry god. The OT portrays God as such, at times. Jesus, on the other hand, I cannot imagine ordering me to slaughter people.
I liked your explanation of a difference between the NT and the OT the other day, btw.
No, I cannot imagine the biblical Jesus commanding anyone to harm anyone. You might have found yourself in quite a pickle as a young Hebrew man approaching Babylon.
Have you ever heard of the Cathars? I learned about them while I was studying Christian Gnosticism. Unfortunately quite a lot of their writing was destroyed as heretical (and was rare anyway) but they were a very absorbing tangent in my research.
In OT-times, if you mean before what we call Year 0, you wouldn't have distinguished between god as in the god(s) of your tribe, your people, or your family. None of us would, no matter our respective heritage.
Edited to herd runaway parentheses.
Ok, so I guess the word I'm having trouble with is "highest".
😆
Defined in the post:
>> “Highest loyalty” is essentially defined in this case as “valuing most in one’s decisions” or “whose existence is the highest priority”
Fair enough.
P.S. This is why I generally avoid surveys. It has been my experience that I simply can't answer them with the given multiple choice options.
Let's put it this way: My (adult independent) kid gets everything, unreservedly. Any other loyalties, obligations, attachments that might have a deserved claim on my loyalties etc. etc. etc.--if they should for some unforeseen reason conflict with that--sorry, out of the dinghy into the shark-infested water, though I'll cry while heaving you out.
The answer is always the Gootz. It used to be Chuck Norris, but he's had his time in the sun.
But who would win if Gutenberg and Norris had a child?
Literally everyone.
ChuckBerg for president it is.
🤣
Kurds are our only true allies in GME and we (meaning all of the west, but especially the Anglo Axis of Evil) just keep screwing them over. Yet they fight on and do it with remarkable success. Turkey and Iraq are both screwing themselves, too, by not working with, rather than against, these industrious, freedom-loving people. I pray for, support the Kurds when I can, and hope that they will, sooner rather than later, get their own independent state or at least a protectorate.
You've really been spoiling your readers the last days.
In answer to the poll, I've used this a my ethical foundation half my life (consciously) and all of it (unconsciously):
Familj, fränder, folk, fosterland, främling.
In english:
Family, kin (fränder is both extended family such as second cousins as well as friends that are as close as family), folk means people - what you call race in the US I'd guess, fosterland is mother/fatherland (foster is fetus, as in you are the child of your nation), and främling is stranger here in the sense of xenos.
Gotta go eat, be back in a jiffy.
Shamelesly replying to myself, bloated and jovial after a plate of salted herrings fried in old bacon grease, fresh made lingonberry jam, small potatoes straight from the garden (well, by way of boiling water), finely chopped onions; all of it served on white bread roasted in the oven and then dunked in the salty-fatty sauce in the pan before being topped with the rest of the food. And lingonberry juice made from berrys picked during the day for drink.
This is what my wife calls "fast food" by the way, since it akes maybe 15 minutes to make.
Right, topic. Who comes first?
Family, because you don't exist without family. So some families are crap, doesn't make [family] crap - only the one in question and for often obvious reasons. Get even or get over it, harsh as it may sound, is the best for you.
Kin, because they are an extension of your family (see above) and often even if your immediate family is crap your kin won't be. Or vice versa - we all have that one in-law who we just know will show up to the reading of a will with a lawyer in tow. Or uncle Weird Smell. Or Auntie Helps You Wash Everywhere. Still - get even, or get over it.
People, for the very obvious reason that without a people around you, you're prey for all the other peoples. Lone wolves die from starvation, pack wolves get to eat.
Mother-/fatherland because the land and the peope are one, in the same way a family is one despite consisting of individuals. A nation isn't a geographical area - it is an indelibe whole.
Xenos, because they too exist and you can learn from them. Sometimes how and what to do, sometmes what not to do, and sometimes whether they are people too or enemies to be eradicated.
Now, time for desert. Milk chocolate cookie with orange zest, a little tipple of whisky (Lauder's Blended Scotch), and a cup of coffee.
This is tricky, based on the two definitions of highest loyalty (which would have been my first question, had you not defined it.) 'Valuing most in one's decisions,' I'd go with ideology and my one dogma, which is 'All people are born morally equal.' It follows from that any differences are based on life circumstances, so they remain morally equal. Everything I think traces back to that one choice to believe in something that can't be proven.
But in 'whose existence is the highest priority', I totally agree with Ryan. That's why my house is currently littered with craft projects for the upcoming wedding of the 30-yr-old. It never ends, Ryan.