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 ( 7273 )
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Under Construction
Posted on 17 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
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Neil De Grasse Tyson Tears Elon & His Techbro Minions & Cronies a New One
Neil deGrasse Tyson REVEALS The TRUTH About Feud With Elon Musk From the YouTube page: On his show Star Talk, Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson set the record... Read more
Posted on 17 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cobra Kai, Saturday Night Fever, & American Politics [Media Notes [157]
I’ve now watched the final episodes of Cobra Kai and I’ve found them satisfying. Not only have the various personal and interpersonal issues been wrapped up in... Read more
Posted on 16 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cleopatra's Electric Green Platform Shoe
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety: other women cloy The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies; for viles... Read more
Posted on 16 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Republican Party’s NPC Problem — and Ours | The Ezra Klein Show
From the accompanying opinion piece in the NYTimes: A few years back, the online right became enamored of a new epithet for liberals: “NPC,” short for “nonplaye... Read more
Posted on 16 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Claude 3.5 Describes a Sophisticated New York City Apartment from a Bygone Era.
What do you see? This appears to be a view of New York City, specifically looking at the Hudson River waterfront with a cruise ship terminal. The image shows... Read more
Posted on 15 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Artificial Therapy
This new paper shows people could not tell the difference between the written responses of ChatGPT-4o expert therapists, and that they preferred ChatGPT's... Read more
Posted on 15 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
It's Looking More and More Like Trump's an Equal Opportunity Affirmative Action...
Michelle Goldberg, Trump Wants to Destroy All Academia, Not Just the Woke Parts, NYTimes, Feb. 14, 2025. I’ve written about Donald Trump’s plan to crush the... Read more
Posted on 14 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
AI and Intellectual Creativity
Just around the corner Tyler Cowen has an interesting post, How to teach people how to work with AI, which he asserts “is also a proposal for how to reform... Read more
Posted on 14 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: The Spirits of AI [from Madam Wayquay's Collection of Resonant...
Posted on 14 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
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Jesus in the Valley
I don't recall just when I first learned about Peter Thiel, or how. Perhaps it was over at Marginal Revolution, a blog that Tyler Cowen runs along with his... Read more
Posted on 13 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Distant Icons [urban Pastoral]
Posted on 13 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
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Deep Seeking Xanadu: A Sonnet Cycle on East, West, and Kisangani
I decided to have FTH (FredTheHeretic) write a cycle of three sonnets on the theme of East and West, you know, “East is East, and West is West, and never the... Read more
Posted on 13 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ralph Macchio Interview • Kobra Kai [Media Notes 156]
Sarah Bahr, Ralph Macchio on Getting In His Final Kicks in ‘Cobra Kai’, NYTimes, Feb. 7, 2025. When Ralph Macchio was first approached about doing a “Karate Kid... Read more
Posted on 12 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Tilt! Musk's Gamification of American Politics. [A Warm-up for Sucking Us into...
Tressie McMillan Cottom, Look Past Elon Musk’s Chaos. There’s Something More Sinister at Work. NYTimes, Feb. 12, 2025. Musk’s escapades are political posturing... Read more
Posted on 12 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Billionaire Climate Champions Buckle Under to Trump's Climate Denial
David Gelles, Under Trump, Billionaire Climate Champions Have Gone Quiet, NYTimes, Feb. 11, 2025. Over the last decade or so, a group of America’s wealthiest... Read more
Posted on 12 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Our Fearless Leaders, Musk and Trump
Tyler Cowen has a post at Marginal Revolution entitled, “The Effect of European Monarchs on State Performance.” That’s the title of an abstract that makes up th... Read more
Posted on 11 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Women of the Year: Middle-Aged and Getting More Action Than Ever Before
Mireille Silicoff, Why Gen X Women Are Having the Best Sex, NYTimes, 2025. A whole new cultural type seems to have landed. It feels worlds away from the... Read more
Posted on 11 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Line in the Sand: Ontologically Restricted Vs. Ontologically Open AIs
I propose that we classify AIs into two general categories: ontologically restricted and ontologically open. Ontologically open AIs stay within the ontologies... Read more
Posted on 10 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What is It About Depicting Sex in Writing? From Shared Knowledge to Common...
Just around the corner at 3 Quarks Daily, Gary Borjesson had an interesting post about love: Can Love Last? A (mostly) encouraging story about the fate of... Read more
Posted on 10 February 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY