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 ( 7356 )
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Five Technology Surges So Far. When's the 6th?
We're on or rapidly approaching the informatic plateau. Next surge requires a gestalt switch in how we think about and implement computation. (Note: numbers in... Read more
Posted on 06 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
“White Privilege” – It’s More About How Language is Used Than About How Race...
The good people over at Crooked Timber are having a long and complex discussion about white privilege that is spread out over four posts: Chris Bertram, On an... Read more
Posted on 06 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Poetry, Prediction, Prose Fiction, and the Problem of Language More Generally...
I’ve been thinking about the problems that GPT-3 has in dealing with poetry [1,2,3,4]. That led me to a variety of thoughts, about statistical semantics and... Read more
Posted on 05 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Back-up Circuits in the Brain
Are there "backup circuits" in the human brain that can provide failsafe connections for the primary ones? We found three, and they are substantially reduced... Read more
Posted on 05 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
We Need Decentralized Social Networks and AI Tools to Give Users More Control...
Ben Goertzel thinks large centrally controlled social networks, like, e.g. Facebook, are a bad idea. I agree. He thinks that "explainable AI" is one of the... Read more
Posted on 05 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Emophilia Leads to Attraction Toward Individuals with Dark Triad Traits...
Individuals with a proclivity to fall in love fast and often are particularly attracted to partners high in dark personality traits. https://t.co/Q9AvZNXU6h... Read more
Posted on 05 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Training Language Models for Summarization
We've used reinforcement learning from human feedback to train language models for summarization. The resulting models produce better summaries than 10x larger... Read more
Posted on 05 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Facebook Or Freedom, Part 1: Who Gave You Permission to Mess with My Mind?
No, I’m not talking about the issues Facebook is having with hate speech and political posts, though those issues are certainly deep and important ones. Read more
Posted on 04 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Photos of Photos
Posted on 04 September 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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On Ethical Criticism [in the 21st Century?]
This appears to be a group of scholars reflecting on Toril Moi, Revolution of the Ordinary: Literary Studies After Wittgenstein, Austin, and Cavell (Chicago:... Read more
Posted on 04 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is Wokism a Manifestation ‘free-floating’ Nationalist Sentiment That is No Longe...
I don’t have an argument here. Just some observations in search of an argument. We know that nationalist sentiment accompanies the nation-state as a form of... Read more
Posted on 03 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
We’ve Run Through 4 Cultural Ranks, Are We Ready for 5? [cultural Evolution,...
Cultural evolution is one of the continuing topics at New Savanna; it’s something I’ve been interested in since graduate school. Read more
Posted on 03 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Comfort in Downton Abby: Utopia, Gemeinschaft and Family [Media Notes 45]
Earlier this year I worked my way through Downtown Abby, all of it. It’s about comfort, comfort and family. As I’m sure you know, the series is centered on a... Read more
Posted on 02 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Look, up in the Air! It's a Bird, It's a Plane....it's a Drone!
Posted on 02 September 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Why the 'gig Economy' is a Scam
From an ongoing thread: Gig economy work is a way to shift all the risks associated with being an employer onto your workforce, while hoarding all of the... Read more
Posted on 02 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Storyline Visualization [digital Humanities]
PlotThread: Creating Expressive Storyline Visualizations using Reinforcement Learningpdf: https://t.co/FXAXyusPEOabs: https://t.co/POVn5O8C5C pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 02 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
GPT-3 Meets “Kubla Khan” and the Results Are Interesting, but Not Encouraging fo...
I experimented a bit with GPT-3 and poetry in conjunction with my interview with Hollis Robbins. As you recall, she had written a book about the African-America... Read more
Posted on 01 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Washington Street at Night [Hoboken]
Posted on 01 September 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Elon Musk Understands the Technical Challenges of Going to Mars, but He’s in...
For reasons I’m about to explain, I’m pretty sure about that. What I’m wondering is how Musk himself compares the two. He has declared publicly that he’s going... Read more
Posted on 01 September 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Will the Regulation of Big Tech Backfire
Cory Doctorow Twitter thread that starts here: I'm all for regulating Big Tech, but not all regulation is created equal. Some regulation can dampen the power... Read more
Posted on 31 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
