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 ( 7259 )
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The Confabulist Real [dream Time]
Posted on 03 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
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Confabulation, Dylan’s Epistemic Stance, and Progress in the Arts: “I’ll Let...
I continue to think about the tendency of LLMs to confabulate, that is, to make stuff up that is simply not true of the world. Read more
Posted on 03 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Most Rapid Change in Human Written Communication Ever?
The past 18 months have seen the most rapid change in human written communication everBy. September 2024, 18% of financial consumer complaints, 24% of press... Read more
Posted on 02 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Bipedalism, Hominin Fetuses, and Musical and Linguistic Evolution
Matz Larsson and Dean Falk, Direct Effects of Bipedalism on Early Hominin Fetuses Stimulated Later Musical and Linguistic Evolution, Current Anthropology,... Read more
Posted on 02 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Return of Shaky-cam [night Crawler]
Posted on 02 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
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A Drop in Zero-sum Thinking, America and Beyond
Damien Cave, Welcome to the Zero Sum Era. Now How Do We Get Out? NYTimes, March 1, 2025. The lede: “Zero-sum thinking has spread like a mind virus, from... Read more
Posted on 02 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
My Favorite Comfort Food
Posted on 01 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
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Fareed Zakaria on Trump's Destruction of American Foreign Policy
Ezra Klein, The Dark Heart of Trump’s Foreign Policy, NYTimes, March 1, 2025. Klein interviews Fareed Zakaria. Here's Klein's statement of Trump's foreign... Read more
Posted on 01 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Algorithms That Rule the World
đŸ”ĽđŸ”ˇSearch Algorithms ⭢ Efficiently locates items in datasets.↳ Uses: search engines, databases,... Read more
Posted on 01 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Has America's Position in the World Changed Forever So That the Country's Word...
From the Bulwark: Eric and Eliot bemoan the shameful meltdown in the Oval Office between VP Vance, President Trump and President Zelensky. Read more
Posted on 01 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
By the Numbers, New Savanna and Academia, a Quick Update
Here’s where things currently stand with overall views at New Savanna: There’s that big jump for 2017. I haven’t got the foggiest idea what that’s about. Read more
Posted on 01 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ambush in the Oval Office, Zelinsky’s Out, Putin’s in
Heather Cox Richardson, February 28, 2025, Letters from an American, March 1, 2025. Today, President Donald Trump ambushed Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky... Read more
Posted on 01 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Groove Before the Machine @3QD
I’ve got a new article at 3 Quarks Daily: One thought for living in a high-tech world: The groove before the machine. It’s a strange one, for me, more... Read more
Posted on 28 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Sun Circuit Hoboken
Posted on 28 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
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How Many Unnecessary Deaths Will Be Laid at the Feet of DOGE? [The Destruction o...
Ari Daniel, Why Dean Karlan, chief economist of USAID, resigned on Tuesday, NPR, February 26, 2025. From the article: We're watching psychological warfare... Read more
Posted on 27 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Play Time in Northwest Hoboken
Posted on 27 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
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Claude 3.7 Evaluates My Paper on Story Variations in ChatGPT
Here and there I’ve read about experiments with using chatbots to evaluate papers to be presented at conferences and for publication in academic journals. For... Read more
Posted on 27 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is Work Really the Virtue It's Claimed to Be? No! It's Time to Wake Up!
Erik Baker, Elon Musk Is the World’s Richest Man. Why Is He Sleeping on an Office Floor? NYTimes, Feb. 27, 2025. This association between incessant work and... Read more
Posted on 27 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two-dimensional Neural Geometry Underpins Sequence Organization in Working Memory
Fan, Y., Wang, M., Fang, F. et al. Two-dimensional neural geometry underpins hierarchical organization of sequence in human working memory. Nat Hum Behav 9,... Read more
Posted on 26 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
BrainGPT, an LLM Tuned on the Neuroscience Literature, Surpasses Human Experts i...
Luo, X., Rechardt, A., Sun, G. et al. Large language models surpass human experts in predicting neuroscience results. Nat Hum Behav 9, 305–315 (2025).... Read more
Posted on 26 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY