Bbenzon
Description
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 ( 7846 )
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Yesterday's Walk Down Washington St. in Hoboken
Posted on 28 June 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Paul Krugman: On Holding Elon Musk Accountable
Full transcript HERE. The opening paragraphs: For most of last year, Elon Musk was the second most powerful man in America. He was running a large part of the... Read more
Posted on 28 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Outline – Play: How to Stay Human in the AI Revolution
I've been working on this book project for some time now. An earlier title was Homo Ludens Rising: A Manifesto for the Fourth Arena and I posted an outline for... Read more
Posted on 28 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Four Photos I Had Lying Around
Posted on 27 June 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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From Alchemy to Science in the Early Modern Era. How Will That Work with AI?
Tyler Cowen reports on a recent convo he had with historian Joanne Paul, an expert on Tudor England. From the conversation: COWEN: What precursors of the... Read more
Posted on 27 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
SpaceX Has Become a Securitized Narrative
Doesn’t feel like much of anything is being driven by fundamentals these days. It’s memes and manipulation all day, every day.— IAmSpartacus (@IamSpartacus10)... Read more
Posted on 27 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance, and the Pope – Yikes!
NEW: JD Vance credits Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel with catalyzing his conversion to Catholicism.Thiel has since branded Pope Leo XIV the “woke... Read more
Posted on 27 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Hoboken Arts & Music, Spring 2026
Posted on 26 June 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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A Meeting of Minds on Mars: Charles Babbage • John Von Neumann • Geoffrey Hinton
This discussion is about the implementation of computing in matter. That was the topic of John von Neumann’s last book, The Computer and the Brain. He died... Read more
Posted on 26 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
This Very Expensive AI Infrastructure Depreciates Fast; If You Don't Make Profit...
“If there is a deflation of the AI bubble, the optimists say that the new infrastructure will remain even if the companies do not — just as railways survived th... Read more
Posted on 26 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Blast from the Past, the Bergen Arches and Graffiti
Posted on 25 June 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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In 2025 OpenAI Spent $35B and Lost $21B (Whoops!)
OpenAI spent roughly as much last year as the US government spent on the FBI and NASA combined.The return on all that? A $21 billion loss.... Read more
Posted on 25 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why Do American's Fear AI, but Many Other Countries Don't? [Homo Economicus...
Paul Kedrosky, There’s One Clear Reason Why Americans Are Gloomy About A.I., NYTimes, June 25, 2026. Hating artificial intelligence may be the only thing about... Read more
Posted on 25 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
We Need New Economic Indicators
We have the stock market figures everyday. Maybe also we could have figures on the number of homeless people too. And the media can report daily on those... Read more
Posted on 24 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
AI is in a Regime of Theory-free R&D
New @lawhsw piece on what automating ML R D gets you. As usual, worth your time. https://t.co/jr9ny6EcPf pic.twitter.com/qGTMKVSQ40— Séb Krier (@sebkrier) June... Read more
Posted on 24 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Under Construction [Hoboken]
Posted on 24 June 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Eliezer Yudkowsky, LessWrong, OpenAI & Countercultures Past & Present
Claude 4.6 Medium summarizes a dialog I had with Gemini that started with an inquiry about 1) Eliezer Yudkowsky, his early ideas, his early following, 2)... Read more
Posted on 24 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Near-optimal AI Through Symbolic Learning
You don't need to wait until 2040. You can solve 2-6 OOM today. You already called out the specific error modes, it's undergrad algebra required to fix the... Read more
Posted on 24 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Elon Musk's New Pretoria 2150 {Total Recall}
Posted on 23 June 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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A Face in the Crowd [Media Notes 185]
Bret Primack, aka Jazz Video Guy, has a post about A Face in the Crowd (1957), chilling movie starring Andy Griffith. Here's how it opens: There’s a drunk in... Read more
Posted on 23 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
