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 ( 7356 )
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Rogue AI & the Relationship Between Reality and Community Orientations
Time once again to chew the AI-Doom bone. Rohit over at Strange Loop Canon has recent posts about AI risk is modern eschatology and Effective Altruism is a... Read more
Posted on 03 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
As the Era of Globalization Ends, China Has Become Obsessed with Food Security
N.S. Lyons, Why is China so Obsessed With Food Security? The Upheaval, September 1, 2022: The reality, which China’s leaders appear to have grasped at least... Read more
Posted on 03 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Traceable and Interpretable Reasoning Using Large Language Models
Antonia Creswell, Murray Shanahan, Faithful Reasoning Using Large Language Models, arXiv:2208.14271v1 [cs.AI], https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2208. Read more
Posted on 02 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: It's a Purple World out There
* * * * * A note about the middle image: That's a photo of objects on my dining table one of the evenings during Hurricane Sandy. The power was out so I was... Read more
Posted on 02 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Fred Rogers Was a Mensch, Who Faced Down a Skeptical Senator
Here's his 1969 testimony before the US Senate Subcommittee on Communications: Mr. Rogers on the Tonight Show in 1983, with Joan Rivers as guest host. Watch... Read more
Posted on 02 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Prediction Mania as a Magical Attempt to Foreclose on the Future
I argue that notions like prediction and optimisation work like what religious studies calls cosmograms: supersized, whole-world models for how things relate... Read more
Posted on 01 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Economist Bryan Caplan Says That Primary and Secondary School Are a Waste of...
The New York Times is running a set of guest op-eds about education. Bryan Caplan, an economist at George Mason University has one under the title, “School Is... Read more
Posted on 01 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hoboken Peek-a-boo with Hydrangeas
Posted on 01 September 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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A Critical Period for Acquiring Rhythmic Feel?
Steven Pinker recently posted a short video about a critical period for learning language. He reports a recent study he participated in that found that, yes,... Read more
Posted on 01 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Music on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood Was Good Jazz [Media Notes 79]
Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was a children’s TV program that ran from 1968 to 2001. Thus my own childhood was well behind me by the time it got started. But I... Read more
Posted on 01 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Note on AGI as Concept and as Shibboleth [kissing Cousin to Singularity]
Artificial intelligence as ambitious from its beginnings in the mid-1950s and this or that practitioner would confidently predict that before long computers... Read more
Posted on 30 August 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cab Calloway and His Band on the Road [railroad]
Photographic print of Cab Calloway and his band in a sleeper car, 1933 #openaccess #museumarchive https://t.co/yzXR22JyPQ pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 30 August 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Audiences and Critics Are Now Disagreeing About Blockbusters
Fans and critics agree more often than not. The average difference in their ratings is about 5 points. This year? It is 19. Here are the 10 highest-grossing... Read more
Posted on 30 August 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sun and Shade [Hoboken]
Posted on 29 August 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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My Current Thoughts on AI Doom as a Cult(ish) Phenomenon
I’ve been working on an article in which I argue that belief in and interest in the likelihood that future AI poses an existential risk to humanity – AI Doom –... Read more
Posted on 29 August 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
At the Docks [Hoboken]
Posted on 28 August 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Elemental Cognition is Ready to Deploy Hybrid AI Technology in Practical Systems
Steve Lohr, One Man's Dream of Fusing A.I. With Common Sense, NYTimes, Aug. 28, 2022 David Ferrucci is best-known as the researcher who led the team that... Read more
Posted on 28 August 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jazz Has Been Blamed for Many Things [Twitter]
Warts on the feet pic.twitter.com/OJj8SSHd49— Paul Fairie (@paulisci) August 25, 2022 Bad teeth pic.twitter.com/I6jOuiWmTO— Paul Fairie (@paulisci) August 25,... Read more
Posted on 27 August 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Tile Madness [photoshoppery]
Posted on 27 August 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Sex Among Ath Aka, Hunter-gatherers of the Central African Republic [sex is...
2. The Aka report having sex about 3 times a night, with some days of rest between (all data are self-reported). Here, these frequencies are converted to... Read more
Posted on 26 August 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
