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
-
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 ( 6433 )
-
A Decade of New Savanna: 2010-2019
I made my first post at New Savanna on April 14, 2010 and have published 6607 posts up through December 31, 2019. This chart shows yearly totals for the... Read more
Posted on 01 January 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Some Observations About Democracy and the State
This is clipped from the middle of a longish post by E. Glen Wyle, The Political Philosophy of RadicalxChange. It may be a bit obscure without more context (e.g. Read more
Posted on 31 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How Amazon Ships to Places That Lack Street Address and Reliable Mail Service,...
The NYTimes has a fascinating article about a cottage industry in so-called "last-mile" service to such places. The customer doesn't have their items shipped... Read more
Posted on 31 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Humans Are Born Premature Relative to Other Primates
Kimerer LaMothe, The dancing species: how moving together in time helps make us human, Aeon. Further support for this thesis comes from anthropologists and... Read more
Posted on 30 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Mental Capacities and Cultural Variation: A Comment on a Recent Post by Tyler...
Tyler Cowen has done a recent review of Charles Murray’s forthcoming, Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class (January 2020). Read more
Posted on 30 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Story of a Dog and a Man [BAPC Camping]
Posted on 30 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Morning Light at My Sister's
Posted on 29 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
About a Collection of Tales from Ancient Japan – Cats, Dogs, and Courtesans in...
Rivka Galchen, Shonagon is hot, London Review of Books, Vol. 42 No. 1 · 2 January 2020. Shonagon is the author of The Pillow Book, which is about life in... Read more
Posted on 29 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Evangelicals and Trump
Michael Luo, What It Would Take for Evangelicals to Turn on President Trump, The New Yorker, December 23, 2019. Guth writes that “white evangelicals share with... Read more
Posted on 28 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos (a Day Late): At FDR SK8park on December 25, 2019
Posted on 28 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Computation, Mind, and the World [bounding AI]
Some thoughts on the above topics. Think of it as an exercise in conceptual factoring. What’s being factored? The “space” of AI. * * * * * The debate goes on:... Read more
Posted on 28 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Big AI Debate: Yoshua Bengio | Gary Marcus
NEW post by Yoshua explicating his definition of deep learning, attached as a screenshot. (I anticipate responding briefly, though not today). Full archives of... Read more
Posted on 28 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Photos from Twitter 2
Season's greetings from #Greatstone beach this lunchtime, stunning weather today, even some warmth in the sun. Enjoy the day. 🎅☀️👍... Read more
Posted on 27 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Doing Science is Very Difficult, Mistakes Are Made [and Then There's Fraud and...
Philip Kitcher, Has Science Journalism Helped Unmask a “Replication Crisis” in Biomedicine?, LARB, Nov. 28, 2019. From the article: During the past eight... Read more
Posted on 27 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Photos from Twitter
pic.twitter.com/8tOA5CXC7t — Alex (@AlexLVBS) December 22, 2019 pic.twitter.com/mAySwNyGrW — Francesc Domènech (@ffdomenech) December 23, 2019 🔥 a... Read more
Posted on 26 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Presidential Disquisition on Birds, Wind, and Stuff [how to Wing It]
Remarks by President Trump at Turning Point USA Student Action Summit | West Palm Beach, FL We’ll have an economy based on wind. I never understood wind. You... Read more
Posted on 26 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Debating AI on Twitter
Sir, accepting that correlation is different than causality is the basic step. For people who are not ready to accept that on face value or "common sense",... Read more
Posted on 25 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
52nd St. Back in the Day – Bird at the 3 Deuces
The south side of 52nd Street, between 5th 6th Avenues – looking east from 6th Avenue (c.1948); photo by William P. Gottlieb. William P. Gottlieb/Ira and... Read more
Posted on 25 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Intuitions Does Current AI Afford Practitioners? [What About “close-reading...
Or: How do we think? I think a lot about the role intuition plays in our thinking. It provides a sense of the world that guides us toward problems we regard as... Read more
Posted on 25 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
John Holbo Wishes You a Strange and Colorful Victorian Christmas
15/ pic.twitter.com/fZsbhvuo6s — John Holbo (@jholbo1) December 9, 2019 23/ pic.twitter.com/vjs1GWerR5 — John Holbo (@jholbo1) December 9, 2019 25/... Read more
Posted on 25 December 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY