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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The Foster Portfolio
I 've loved this Vonnegut story ever since I first read it way back in the Jurassic Era of the late 60s / early 70s. And now it's been made into a wonderful... Read more
Posted on 10 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Of Colorblind Casting and Shakespearean Minstrelsy
Maya Phillips, ‘Hamilton,’ ‘The Simpsons’ and the Problem With Colorblind Casting, NYTimes. Though egalitarian in theory, colorblind casting in practice is... Read more
Posted on 09 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is Pop Music Getting Happier?
It is not very convincing. This are the data on which the conjecture is based (from Spotify). Mmh... pic.twitter.com/oKtyEmKYb6 — Alberto Acerbi (@acerbialberto... Read more
Posted on 09 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Varieties of Descriptive Experience
Bump: Description is (extraordinarily) important and the passage by Mark Twain is (freakin') gorgeous. (Post originally from Nov. 2011. Read more
Posted on 08 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Diversity, Identitarian Rhetoric, and Equality
This was originally published in The Valve in a symposium on Walter Benn Michaels, The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore... Read more
Posted on 08 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Bar Charts, Old School
Searching for the roots of the bar chart! 📶🤓 I found this mind-blowing flood diagram (1784) during my research for *History of Information... Read more
Posted on 08 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Robot as Subaltern: Tezuka's Mighty Atom
I'm bumping this to the top of the queue more or less on general principles, and to remind myself about it. And robots are cool. * * * * * Here's two more... Read more
Posted on 07 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is New York "society" Over? New York Social Diary on Ghislaine Maxwell
David Patrick Columbia, July 7, 2020: The story to take to the beach (with your mask) this past weekend was the discovery and arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell at... Read more
Posted on 07 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Term "cognitive Science" Was Coined in 1973 by Christopher Longuet-Higgins
it was coined in a report on the state of AI research commissioned by the UK Science Research Council (SRC) in 1973. The report was prepared by Sir James... Read more
Posted on 06 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Computational Modeling of Suspense in Short Stories
Finding #acl2020nlp eye-opening. E.g., "Suspense in Short Stories is Predicted by Uncertainty Reduction over Neural Story Representation." https://t. Read more
Posted on 06 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Side Effect on the Web – What's Wrong with These People? [But It's Driving...
So, yesterday afternoon I looked at my stats at Academica.edu and noticed there was a lot of interest in An Open Letter to Steven Pinker, which I thought was... Read more
Posted on 06 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
So Much for the Five Factor Model of Human Personality
A banana explores the poweful accomplishment that the Five Factor Model of personality represents for social science https://t. Read more
Posted on 05 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
From the Old Neighborhood
Posted on 05 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
"If I Were Starting Grad School" – One Person's View About the State of Machine...
If I were starting grad school now I would not do a PhD in ML. It's not the competition that would steer me away though, I think it's a bad idea for other... Read more
Posted on 05 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Red, White, and Blue
Posted on 05 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cycles of Technology Panics
Orben, A. (2020). The Sisyphean Cycle of Technology Panics. Perspectives on Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620919372 Abstract:... Read more
Posted on 04 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ada Palmer, a Historian, Takes a Look at Both the Idea and Reality of Progress...
Ada Palmer, On Progress and Historical Change, Ex Urbe: History, Philosophy, books, Food Fandom. From Part 6 (of 6): Few things have taught me more about the... Read more
Posted on 03 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Some of My Favorites from a Recent Look-through
Posted on 03 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Deidre McCloskey on the Importance of Ideas for Economic Growth [Note: Science...
Here's Jason Crawford's interview with economist Deidre McCloskey for the Torch of Progress Series: At about 18:23 she expresses at idea that's important to... Read more
Posted on 03 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
GPT3 Writes Code (!?) [singularity Alert]
GPT3 writing code. A compiler from natural language to code. People don't understand — this will change absolutely everything. We're decoupling human... Read more
Posted on 03 July 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY