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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Tracking Global Happiness
Global happiness measured by @hedonometer hit an all-time record low on 12 March, recovering quickly since then. People are resilient and getting used to the ne... Read more
Posted on 22 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The American Dream, by Andreessen and Disney
Marc Andreessen has just published a call to action, It's Time to Build, which has been getting a lot of action, pro, con, and sideways. Read more
Posted on 21 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Back in November: Ginkos
Posted on 21 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
x1000: Unicorns Are Black Swans [Marc Andreessen]
From Tad Friend's NYorker profile of Marc Andreessen (2015): Venture capitalists with a knack for the 1,000x know that true innovations don’t follow a pattern. Read more
Posted on 21 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Co-citation in the Academy
This graph of the sciences shows the fragmentation of academia, as measured by co-citations.A kingdom of epiphanies is waiting for people in the middle who can... Read more
Posted on 20 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Looking Back from 2080: Covid-19 Crisis
Question #2 In 500 words, explain how the reorganization of social familial structures in the “Quarantwenties” sparked rapid development of virtual public... Read more
Posted on 16 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The World Has Changed, but How? [Has It, Really?] – New Modes of Governance?
So, there’s this idea kicking around that everything thing has changed? What does that mean? No one knows, of course. Consider this: I think we’ve got a... Read more
Posted on 15 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Glenn Loury and John McWhorter on Race and the Pandemic
John on being at Covid ground zero in Queens 1:07 The many racial disparities the pandemic has made plain 3:18 But after the disparities are acknowledged, now... Read more
Posted on 15 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Information and Individuality
David Krakauer, Nils Bertschinger, Eckehard Olbrich, Jessica C. Flack1, Nihat Ay, The information theory of individuality, Theory in Bioscineces, (2020).... Read more
Posted on 15 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
We World Has Changed, We've Hit Peak Globalization, and We Must Come to Terms...
John Gray, Why this crisis is a turning point in history, New Statesman, April 1, 2020. The era of peak globalisation is over. Read more
Posted on 06 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Interchange [graffiti]
Posted on 06 April 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Malick’s Thin Red Line
I thought I'd bump this to the top of the queue. It's a review of a war picture, one where the scenes of war are intercut with scenes of animal and plant life. Read more
Posted on 30 March 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Public Perception of the Trump Administration's Handling of the Evolving...
Shibley Telhami, Stella M. Rouse, How Are American Views of the Coronavirus Crisis Evolving as It Intensifies?, Lawfare, March 25, 2020. Read more
Posted on 26 March 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The President Does Not Have the Power to Override State and Local Policies on...
Robert Chesney, Can the Federal Government Override State Government Rules on Social Distancing to Promote the Economy? Lawfare, March 24, 2020. Read more
Posted on 25 March 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ghost Dancing in the USA [Magical Thinking, Trump and Covid-19]
Or, Why the Old Myths and Magic Don’t Work Anymore I published this in Buffalo Report on 1 March 2005 (the URL now belongs to someone else and the old Buffalo... Read more
Posted on 24 March 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Treasure Trove of Interviews with Jazz Musicins [Monk Rowe]
Check out the Fillius Jazz Archive at Hamilton College, which has 25 years of live interviews with jazz musicians conducted by Monk Rowe. Many of the... Read more
Posted on 16 March 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Posted on 12 March 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
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And When the End Comes...(of the World)
Agnes Callard, The End is Coming, The Point, March 11, 2020. How long have we got? At a recent public talk, the economist Tyler Cowen spitballed the number of... Read more
Posted on 12 March 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Oprah and Trump, Two Sides of the Same Coin?
Natasha Zaretsky, The Odd Couple: Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, and Contemporary Charisma, The Hedgehog Review, Spring 2020: How, then, do we explain the... Read more
Posted on 10 March 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Music Education in the USA in the 1920s and 30s [#LingLing40hours]
"It was the greatest shock of my life to hear her play" (1927). It's remarkable how many magazine ads in the 1920s and 1930s were devoted to music education.... Read more
Posted on 09 March 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY