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 ( 7631 )
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Let’s Retire at 50 So While There's Still Time to Do Something Interesting with...
The NYTimes has another article that feeds my interest in changing attitudes toward work: Lisa Rabasa Roepe, Millennials Want to Retire at 50. How to Afford It... Read more
Posted on 25 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Tech Trinity
"We’ve torn down the old gods and replaced them with an idolatry of innovators. And this religion is most deeply embedded in the culture of technology,"... Read more
Posted on 25 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Row Houses, Graffiti Style
Posted on 25 September 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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AI Doom Cult at 3QD + TEDx Talk and Essay Contest
Two weeks ago I published another essay at 3 Quarks Daily: On the Cult of AI Doom It’s a decent essay, in particular I like the capsule history I sketch for... Read more
Posted on 25 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Graffiti in Progress [Jersey City]
Posted on 09 September 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Duke Ellington Wrote a Suite for Queen Elizabeth II
0:00 Sunset and the Mocking Bird 3:51 Lightning Bugs and Frogs 6:45 Le Sucrier Velours 9:33 Northern Lights 13:11 The Single Petal of a Rose 17:19 Apes and a... Read more
Posted on 09 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Prediction as a Way of Foreclosing the Future – And No Foreclosure is More...
I’ve just come across a recent article that sheds light on one of the signal features the contemporary AI culture, in particular, the subculture devoted to the... Read more
Posted on 08 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Return of Yellow Pagodas [goldenrod]
Posted on 08 September 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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I've Been Saving These for a Gloomy Day [irises]
Posted on 07 September 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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On the Moral Value of Work
The title of Peter Coy’s Labor Day op-ed caught my attention: Work Is Intrinsically Good. Or Maybe It’s Not?, NYTimes, September 5, 2022. Read more
Posted on 07 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Varieties of Spiritual Experience [35% of People in US & UK Report Spiritual...
Robert Wright interviews David B. Yadan, author of The Varieties of Spiritual Experience. At about 14:11: David B. Yaden: Right in the beginning of this... Read more
Posted on 07 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Suburban Railroad Station
Posted on 06 September 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Two Views of Ornamental Plants on Washington St. [looking N and S on Washington...
Posted on 05 September 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Sailing Along
Posted on 04 September 2022
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Progress in Trumpet Technique: Hora Staccato
Grigoraș Dinicu wrote “Hora Staccato” as a showpiece for violin on the occasion of his graduation ceremony from the Bucharest Conservatory in 1906. Read more
Posted on 04 September 2022 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
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
