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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A Monday Morning Music Lesson: Harry James, Concerto for Trumpet, 1941
Harry James was one of the most popular musicians of his era, the 1930s into the 1940s. He was a virtuoso with well-trained classical technique and he had a... Read more
Posted on 17 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
World, Mind, and Learnability: A Note on the Metaphysical Structure of the Cosmos
There is no a priori reason to believe that world has to be learnable. But if it were not, then we wouldn’t exist, nor would (most?) animals. The existing world... Read more
Posted on 15 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How Do We Know That the Moon is Drifting Away 1.5 Inches a Year? Bounce a Laser...
Katherine Kornei, How Do You Solve a Moon Mystery? Fire a Laser at It, NYTimes, Auguast 15, 2020. The moon is drifting away. Every year, it gets about an inch... Read more
Posted on 15 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Where It All Started, the Old Junk Spot Beneath Christ Hospital...
Posted on 14 August 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Battle is Joined: Fortnite Vs. Apple and Google
Jack Nicas, Kellen Browning and Erin Griffith, Fortnite Creator Sues Apple and Google After Ban From App Stores, NYTimes, Aug. Read more
Posted on 14 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Stagnation, Redux: It’s the Way of the World [good Ideas Are Not Evenly...
Tyler Cowen has just posted a conversation with Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economist interested in economic growth. That gives me a chance to revise a working... Read more
Posted on 13 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Prestige Bias in Cultural Transmission
On cultural transmission biases shaping human cultural evolution..."prestige [bias] serves as a conditional learning strategy when no content cues [social,... Read more
Posted on 12 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Reflections on and Current Status of My GPT-3 Project
As I noted at the beginning of the month the project began with a long comment posted to Marginal Revolution on July 19 [see below for a copy of that comment]. Read more
Posted on 12 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Who Are These Guys and What Do They Have to Do with Jersey City's Berry Lane...
Posted on 12 August 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Zero- and Few-shot Learning: Transformers on the Cheap
For those of you interested in learning more about zero- and few-shot learning, I wrote up a blog post covering a few recent methods with 🤗... Read more
Posted on 12 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Problematics of Text and Form and the Transmutation Zone Between Symbol and...
On the one hand we have those simple diagrams Mark Rose drew back in 1972, the ones he apologized for. Why? Because they’re over the line, ever so slightly.... Read more
Posted on 12 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sedentary Hunter-gatherers Built Complex Societies – "Recognizing This... Has Bi...
When the Spanish chronicled them in the 1550s, the Calusa consisted of 50-60 politically consolidated villages overseen by a king (a hereditary sovereign who... Read more
Posted on 11 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Robot Researchers
A small but growing crop of machines is learning to design and carry out its own experiments. How will this change the future of research?By Jennifer Walter... Read more
Posted on 10 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Racial Attitudes CAN Change {Black GIs in the UK During WWII]
David Schindler, Mark Westcott, Shocking Racial Attitudes: Black G.I.s in Europe, The Review of Economic Studies, rdaa039, https://doi.org/10. Read more
Posted on 10 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
AI, Robots, and Imitation
Posted to the Humanist list: Might I hazard a somewhat contrary response to François Lachance [Humanist 34.222]? This thread on machines and imitation makes me... Read more
Posted on 10 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Are Conservatrives Losers?
Julius Krein, Conservatism is a Collection of Losers. It Doesn’t Have To Be. The American Conservative, August 7, 2020. I am not the first person to point out... Read more
Posted on 09 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Malibu Diner in Hoboken, NJ [pandemic Days]
Posted on 09 August 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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GPT-3 for (not So) Dummies [performance Rather Than Competence]
Noam Chomsky famously distinguished between linguistic competence and performance in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965). The distinction is a bit obscure. Read more
Posted on 09 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Virtual Tezuka
🤔 pic.twitter.com/tAe9yAwxEU — tkasasagi🐻@女子熊 (@tkasasagi) August 9, 2020 The data they cropped. I wonder how many.... Read more
Posted on 09 August 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Pancakes!
Posted on 08 August 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
