Author: ralphpitre

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York... Now I living and working in the SF Bay area... I've seen things...from there to here... Indifferent and unexpected... All those moments lost in time, like tears in rain... And like all living things, waste away... I write... I see stories in my camera and in my mind, I like to learn... We always do... Despite what you may think... We're always learning, We assume otherwise. I'm not just shooting or telling a story but relating the results of what I see... I am a shooter of stories... I see the shot in the camera... Extending the intended vision... How we'll use it in the final cut... Who will see it... Why and how, so much goes into the whole... I am more than the equipment... I am more than the shooter... I am...the camera in hand...

Awareness of Opportunity, Desire and Temptation

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Good and evil are each acts of opportunity… We all have the desire for each, most for good depending on the return you benefit from… Watch what you say… Watch what you do… Take note of your awareness, watch what you say… careful of the opportunity to act, it is of benefit for or against you and others… Lack of awareness can be will become an act for or against either depending on your desire

The Guardians of Desire, Opportunity and Temptation

Temptation and opportunity…

No one is truly good or evil but everyone has an opportunity to play upon desires and playing into those desires is acceptable but you don’t want it to become guilt which can play on itself…becoming temptation and desire. Resistance builds strength, awareness of our desires and Temptations, watch what you say

 

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Believing without evidence is always morally wrong – Francisco Mejia Uribe

On By ralphpitreIn Article, Order From Chaos, Thought, TruthLeave a comment

is an executive director at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong. He has degrees in philosophy and economics from the University of Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, and blogs at The Philosopher Blog.

 

You have probably never heard of William Kingdon Clifford. He is not in the pantheon of great philosophers – perhaps because his life was cut short at the age of 33 – but I cannot think of anyone whose ideas are more relevant for our interconnected, AI-driven, digital age. This might seem strange given that we are talking about a Victorian Briton whose most famous philosophical work is an essay nearly 150 years ago. However, reality has caught up with Clifford. His once seemingly exaggerated claim that ‘it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence’ is no longer hyperbole but a technical reality.
<p>If I believe it is raining outside... <em>The Umbrella</em> (1883) by Marie Bashkirtseff. <em>Courtesy the State Russian Museum/Wikipedia</em></p>
In ‘The Ethics of Belief’ (1877), Clifford gives three arguments as to why we have a moral obligation to believe responsibly, that is, to believe only what we have sufficient evidence for, and what we have diligently investigated. His first argument starts with the simple observation that our beliefs influence our actions. Everyone would agree that our behaviour is shaped by what we take to be true about the world – which is to say, by what we believe. If I believe that it is raining outside, I’ll bring an umbrella. If I believe taxis don’t take credit cards, I make sure I have some cash before jumping into one. And if I believe that stealing is wrong, then I will pay for my goods before leaving the store.
What we believe is then of tremendous practical importance. False beliefs about physical or social facts lead us into poor habits of action that in the most extreme cases could threaten our survival. If the singer R Kelly genuinely believed the words of his song
‘I Believe I Can Fly’ (1996), I can guarantee you he would not be around by now.
But it is not only our own self-preservation that is at stake here. As social animals, our agency impacts on those around us, and improper believing puts our fellow humans at risk. As Clifford warns: ‘We all suffer severely enough from the maintenance and support of false beliefs and the fatally wrong actions which they lead to …’ In short, sloppy practices of belief-formation are ethically wrong because – as social beings – when we believe something, the stakes are very high.
The most natural objection to this first argument is that while it might be true that some of our beliefs do lead to actions that can be devastating for others, in reality most of what we believe is probably inconsequential for our fellow humans. As such, claiming as Clifford did that it is wrong in all cases to believe on insufficient evidence seems like a stretch. I think critics had a point – had – but that is no longer so. In a world in which just about everyone’s beliefs are instantly shareable, at minimal cost, to a global audience, every single belief has the capacity to be truly consequential in the way Clifford imagined. If you still believe this is an exaggeration, think about how beliefs fashioned in a cave in Afghanistan lead to acts that ended lives in New York, Paris and London. Or consider how influential the ramblings pouring through your social media feeds have become in your very own daily behaviour. In the digital global village that we now inhabit, false beliefs cast a wider social net, hence Clifford’s argument might have been hyperbole when he first made it, but is no longer so today.
The second argument Clifford provides to back his claim that it is always wrong to believe on insufficient evidence is that poor practices of belief-formation turn us into careless, credulous believers. Clifford puts it nicely: ‘No real belief, however trifling and fragmentary it may seem, is ever truly insignificant; it prepares us to receive more of its like, confirms those which resembled it before, and weakens others; and so gradually it lays a stealthy train in our inmost thoughts, which may someday explode into overt action, and leave its stamp upon our character.’ Translating Clifford’s warning to our interconnected times, what he tells us is that careless believing turns us into easy prey for fake-news pedlars, conspiracy theorists and charlatans. And letting ourselves become hosts to these false beliefs is morally wrong because, as we have seen, the error cost for society can be devastating. Epistemic alertness is a much more precious virtue today than it ever was, since the need to sift through conflicting information has exponentially increased, and the risk of becoming a vessel of credulity is just a few taps of a smartphone away.
Clifford’s third and final argument as to why believing without evidence is morally wrong is that, in our capacity as communicators of belief, we have the moral responsibility not to pollute the well of collective knowledge. In Clifford’s time, the way in which our beliefs were woven into the ‘precious deposit’ of common knowledge was primarily through speech and writing. Because of this capacity to communicate, ‘our words, our phrases, our forms and processes and modes of thought’ become ‘common property’. Subverting this ‘heirloom’, as he called it, by adding false beliefs is immoral because everyone’s lives ultimately rely on this vital, shared resource.
While Clifford’s final argument rings true, it again seems exaggerated to claim that every little false belief we harbour is a moral affront to common knowledge. Yet reality, once more, is aligning with Clifford, and his words seem prophetic. Today, we truly have a global reservoir of belief into which all of our commitments are being painstakingly added: it’s called Big Data. You don’t even need to be an active netizen posting on Twitter or ranting on Facebook: more and more of what we do in the real world is being recorded and digitised, and from there algorithms can easily infer what we believe before we even express a view. In turn, this enormous pool of stored belief is used by algorithms to make decisions for and about us. And it’s the same reservoir that search engines tap into when we seek answers to our questions and acquire new beliefs. Add the wrong ingredients into the Big Data recipe, and what you’ll get is a potentially toxic output. If there was ever a time when critical thinking was a moral imperative, and credulity a calamitous sin, it is now.

Maria & Lilo / Padre

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La Vida de La Dona y El Cuerpo del Cacique

 

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“Dando y dando, palomita volando” / remember that you have to die

Don Lilo, long delayed a much needed journey back home to Genoa… “Dando y dando, palomita volando”… he recalled the days of life together with his daughter before the dilemma of wealth and the cold indifferent world that had come between them…”you were a free bird once and yet, you chose jewels of iron to bejewel yourself in tarnished glamour.”

Don Lilo had come into money, after selling off his small but successful shipping concern in Genoa to Baldo and The Church. Moving to Málaga, with his daughter Maria, Don Lilo continued to manage shipping details of the business while he set his daughter free who then turned against him, broke his heart to be an elitist socialite. Don Lilo unhappy with the wealth bestowed upon him sought to give Maria the rich life he felt she deserved…the life that would eventually drive her away from him…and to Baldo.

Don Lilo was openly against Maria’s relationship with Baldo, who was more than fifteen years her senior, too old it seemed, to pique the interest of such a young and innocent girl, but the glimmer of wealth in a big city became the draw and her comfort. Though in doubt, she longed for the hope she imagined upon agreeing to marry Baldo…despite her father…and the awareness that her self-imposed ignorance resulted in Father’s death.

The sound of duende filled the air as he walked alone in the streets of Málaga after drink and celebration then sadness, the cries and sound of anguish and tragedy from an open window came the sound of a gypsy song… death in the guise of familiar faces from the darkness of la cantina. A night of misery that caressed him in fear, the two men came to him as he drank and as festive as they were they wondered who he was, where he came from, why he was here in Malaga… “you sound Genovese, si, why are you here?”

“My daughter…”

“Su hija, si, bella, si….

“Es bella.”

“Let us drink with you, liven your misery, jest with us until then, until your misery is gone.”

And they did, their familiar faces became darkness without jest, death was their friend to introduce to Don Lilo…The men hovered and laughed over Don Lilo’s bloodied body, his eyes and body deflated of its soul, the shell collapsed of structure but longing for Maria…the two men walked away with death having spoken it’s orders and carried out.

Don Lilo dragged his limp and beaten body back to the Last Cantina he visited; by the time The Crowns soldiers noticed and identified the body and his importance, he had died from the assault. An inquest ordered by the court found no suspect… before Maria left for the new world and had lost interest…

duquende

remember that you have to die

To see the darkness…

after the light

haunts the light and remains always there…

Even in the light there is darkness without expectation…

There is never only light…

But when there is no light there is darkness…

Before the light there was always and only darkness…

Light must rest from questions of the darkness…

Darkness by default questions existence itself…

Darkness is why…

It is assumed that only the light consumes energy but darkness is the energy…

It is a side that seems to deceive…

But in truth is honest, almost to a fault…

Its feared because it represents as unknown as the truth really is…

What we perceive as the truth is an assumption and accepted without question while darkness is questioned and preferred but humankind doesn’t ask but more often questions the light assuming the answer and fears the darkness because it’s questions answered…

Darkness has its consequences as all do, always ask a question or be taken a fool…

Alone on the ship Maria travelled and pondered all she left behind and the fear she sailed into, so much of it hers but the fear of others…. They were upon the Lord’s bounty the Lord’s beauty… Have we been offered enough?

Balbo had insisted she bathe herself in a complex skin bath to lighten her complexion… Her skin was too dark her mixed heritage was showing through.. She would have to change to fit by his side, otherwise…

Maria speaks to traveling holy man of the military…The world is finite despite the belief of many throughout… What is left is still to be had… To be taken and will be the claim of the northern European over the black men

 

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Careful What You Say

On By ralphpitreIn by rPitre, Order From Chaos, TruthLeave a comment


e·voke
/əˈvōk/Submit
verb


1.
bring or recall to the conscious mind.
“the sight of American asters evokes pleasant memories of childhood”
synonyms: bring to mind, put one in mind of, conjure up, summon (up), invoke, elicit, induce, kindle, stimulate, stir up, awaken, arouse, call forth; More

2.
invoke (a spirit or deity).
synonyms: bring to mind, put one in mind of, conjure up, summon (up), invoke, elicit, induce, kindle, stimulate, stir up, awaken, arouse, call forth…
Words are important…they aren’t just for communication, you can do that with drums…

Words have intent, words can have multiple meanings of intent…

Each word spoken or thought makes a  difference…

Each word, spoken or written has a different intent then each word thought or heard by others and specifically by whom.

Each word can also have no intent…

Conversation, whether spoken or written can have a frivolous intent, to communicate perhaps or can evoke meanings of intent that speaks to or from the self or to the heart and soul of others reading or listening…

Careful what you say…

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Disney Princesses Get an Edgy Twist Reimagined as Noir-Inspired Femme Fatales

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By Sara Barnes on October 29, 2018

beast hunter
Belle of “Beauty and the Beast”
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Artist Ástor Alexander reimagines some of our favorite Disney royalty with an edgy twist. His series titled Noir Princesses features the beloved characters portrayed as private eyes and femme fatales. In doing so, the digital portraits offer an alternative perspective on the characters we know and love. Alexander’s use of a dark color palette with a nod to vintage film noir posters suggests that there’s evil lurking beneath their beauty.
The San Diego-based illustrator has also given movie titles to each Noir Princess that hints to who these women really are. Each has her own agenda, whether it’s pursuing vigilante justice or leading a daring caper. Belle and the Beast, of Beauty and the Beast fame, are given the title Beast Hunter, suggesting that they save innocent folks from terrifying monsters. Ariel from The Little Mermaid has a different plan; her noir tale is called High Sea Robbery. Clad in a wetsuit and brandishing a gun, it appears that she is planning an elaborate heist.
Want Noir Princesses on your walls? The entire series is available as prints through Alexander’s Society6 store.

Illustrator Ástor Alexander has created a series called Noir Princesses featuring Disney princesses reimagined into detectives and femme fatales.

beast 2 [2]
Snow White of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”
beast 3
Pocahontas of “Pocahontas”
beast 4
Princess Jasmine of “Aladdin”
Ariel of “The Little Mermaid”
Digital Illustration by Astor Alexander
Tiana of “The Princess and the Frog”
Disney Princesses Reimagined by Astor Alexander
Mulan of “Mulan”
Disney Princesses Reimagined by Astor Alexander
Cinderella of “Cinderella”
Disney Princesses Reimagined by Astor Alexander
Princess Aurora of “Sleeping Beauty”
Ástor Alexander:  Behance | Tumblr | Society6

My Modern Met granted permission to use images by Ástor Alexander.

Drool

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A black man walking with a cane, boards the subway train struggling to move along but still standing walks to a seat nearest the door with his back to me. Mostly I saw his hulking physique trying to find comfort in his position. I could likewise see him via reflection through the subway train glass and he still adjusted side to side to be comfortable. He slouched forward and seemed to drool from underneath his hood, the drool falling forward coming to a rest. As I continued to watch his body slouch even more until the hulk he seemed to be disappear within his clothing that folded accordingly. I watched the man as his clothing folded in on itself. And out from underneath the mass of clothing he was appeared a squirming caterpillar-like being. And then the train filled with other pedestrians…