Bbenzon
Humankind got its start on the African savannas some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. At various times in our cultural history we’ve moved to distinctly new cultural ground, as it were. And so we are moving now, and have been for the past half century. This blog is how I see that move. Intellectually, I'm broadly interested in culture and the brain. Within that compass, anything could show up here. Literature and films (including animation), certainly, music as well, and graffiti. But, other things may show up as well. It's a blog, don't you know, it moves.
MY BLOGS
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New Savanna
http://new-savanna.blogspot.com/
Humankind got its start on the African savannas some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. At various times in our cultural history we’ve moved to distinctly new cultural ground, as it were. And so we are moving now, and have been for the past half century. This blog is how I see that move. I'm broadly interested in culture and the brain. Within that compass, anything could show up here. Literature and films (including animation), certainly, music as well, and graffiti. But, other things may show up as well. It's a blog, don't you know, it moves.
LATEST ARTICLES ( 6388 )
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Compositionality [language Notes]
If that parenthetical was surprising to you, and you want to learn more about semantics, Alex Lascarides and I wrote a book for you (university-affiliated folks... Read more
Posted on 18 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
35 Years of Moore's Law [chip Design]
Here are the two dies at the same scale. The M1 is over twice as large physically as the ARM1. It has 16 billion transistors vs 25,000 for the ARM1. Read more
Posted on 16 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Rasta Drums Meet Roma Brass in Belgrade in 2009
I've now turned this into a PDF file which you can download here: https://www.academia.edu/37815917/Mind-Culture_Coevolution_Major_Trans... In the early 1970s... Read more
Posted on 15 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Trump Administration's Refusal to Recognize the Vote is an Attack on...
Writing in Lawfare, Nov. 11, 2020, Benjamin Wittes asks, How Hard is it to Overturn an American Election? He explains that, while the vote count seems secure an... Read more
Posted on 11 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Artefacts of a Lost Civilization
Posted on 11 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Pennsylvania Politics and Culture [Trump in 2016, Biden in 2020]
James Carville once remarked that “Between Paoli and Penn Hills, Pennsylvania is Alabama.” I grew up in Alabama part, Johnstown to be specific. Read more
Posted on 10 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Gig Economy is a Disaster [California's Prop 22]
✊ @amnesty + @hrw "This evisceration of wage labor protections in the gig economy is a grave threat to workers’ rights to earn a decent living safe ... Read more
Posted on 09 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On the Value of Literary Fiction
New research suggests that reading literary fiction rather than popular fiction can make you better at analysing other people and their behaviours, reports... Read more
Posted on 09 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Alexander Graham Bell's Fractal Kite
Alexander Graham Bell created physical fractals, years before the term "fractal" was coined. (Fractal kite, 1909) https://t.co/9YCLQku5Io pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 07 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
"Hope Lies in *understanding* Reality" [Zeynep Tufekci]
There'll be a push to make this appear as a big triumph, some version of "our national nightmare is over" because the tweeter-in-chief is gone. Read more
Posted on 06 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Does the Brain Easily Become Over-fitted to Reality and Fiction a Way of Making...
While *extremely* speculative, I think this is a really important takeaway that I want people to be intrigued by from the Overfitted Brain Hypothesis. Read more
Posted on 06 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Longwood Gardes
Posted on 06 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
If He Accomplishes Nothing Else, Biden Should Be Able to Rebuild the Executive...
Assuming Biden manages to eke out a victory, there's still the Senate. Even if the Democates manage a majority, which doesn't seem likely, it would be the... Read more
Posted on 04 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Tim Burke's Reflections on the Fragility of Left-liberalism and of the...
Tim Burke, There's Got to Be a Morning After, Easily Distracted, Nov. 4, 2020. His opening shot: "The liberal-left coalition is not just weak in the United... Read more
Posted on 04 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
To Rebuild the Country [alienation and Hopelessness], Start at the Local Level
Yuval Levin, Either Trump or Biden Will Win. But Our Deepest Problems Will Remain. NYTimes, Nov. 3, 2020. Yuval observes that, for the most part, "our deepest... Read more
Posted on 04 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two Photos for Election Day, One Patriotic and One Partisan
Posted on 03 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Regardless of Who Wins the Election, Trump “has Attacked the Independent,...
Thomas Edsall has an excellent, and fairly long, opinion piece in the NYTimes today, Be Ready for a Lengthy, Vicious Struggle (Nov. 3, 2020). Read more
Posted on 03 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Glenn Loury Has an Excellent Discussion About Obama Democrats Who Went for...
The good stuff, about honor culture, starts at about 19:16 and continues to the end. Glenn Loury talks with Jon Shields, co-author, with Stephanie Muravchik,... Read more
Posted on 03 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
GPT-3 is Not the Beginning of Artificial General Intelligence
There has been much talking about GPT-3 and the remarkable texts it can produce automatically. With @massimochi we analyse it in this OA article"GPT-3: its... Read more
Posted on 02 November 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
There’s More to Progress Than (mere) Productivity: What About Diversity of...
The literature on economic growth seems to have settled on productivity as the defining measure of progress, which is not unreasonable. Read more
Posted on 31 October 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY