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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Diane Disney Talks About Her Dad, Walt
I've now turned this into a PDF file which you can download here: https://www.academia.edu/37815917/Mind-Culture_Coevolution_Major_Trans... In the early 1970s... Read more
Posted on 27 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jim Keller: Moore's Law, Microprocessors, Abstractions, and First Principles | A...
Program notes: Jim Keller is a legendary microprocessor engineer, having worked at AMD, Apple, Tesla, and now Intel. He's known for his work on the AMD K7, K8,... Read more
Posted on 27 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Whisps [Hallucinated City]
• • • • • counterpoint Read more
Posted on 26 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Reaction Videos, Quick Note [Media Notes 40]
I’ve been watching various reaction videos this last week, see examples in this post: Contemporary reactions to blue-eyed soul from 1965, Righteous Brothers... Read more
Posted on 26 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What If Dark Matter Isn't Matter at All? What If Gravity Doesn't Work the Way...
Ramin Skibba, Does Dark Matter Exist? Aeon. In the early 1980s, the Israeli physicist Mordehai ‘Moti’ Milgrom questioned the increasingly popular dark matter... Read more
Posted on 25 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
To Infinity and Beyond: Progress Studies @3QD [Progress Studies]
My latest article for 3 Quarks Daily is up: From Progress Studies to Progress: Through decadence and beyond. I sweated blood to write it and did three... Read more
Posted on 24 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
AGI and Superintelligence Vs. Humans on Mars – Such Different Kinds of...
Every once in awhile I find myself thinking about AGI (artificial general intelligence) and superintelligent machines: How long before they emerge and so on?... Read more
Posted on 23 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Problematic of Color [eye and Camera]
This is how the image came out of the camera, more or less: That's not what I saw when I took the picture. Not those colors. Now I've calibrated the image so... Read more
Posted on 23 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Mad Max: Fury Road – A Straussian Reading [Media Notes 39]
I’ve been thinking about Mad Max: Fury Road, the fourth film in the Mad Max franchise, and a film I liked very much. I’d like to offer an interpretation, perhap... Read more
Posted on 23 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Phylogenesis of the Airplane
Side note: the B-2 bomber project, in the Northrop lineage of tailless flying wings, was managed at Northrop by a Belfast-born man, Thomas Desmond (Des) Arthurs. Read more
Posted on 23 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Helter Skelter Goes Orange
Posted on 22 June 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Authority in Interpretation, a Note Quick & Crude
What is the source of authority in academic literary criticism? Authority is in the text The critic interprets the text without reference to authorial... Read more
Posted on 22 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is High Energy Physics a Case of Intellectual Decadence?
I mean "decadence" in Ross Douthat's sense of cultural exhaustion, the constant repetition of same old same old without anything new resulting. Read more
Posted on 22 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Tale of Two Cities: Hoboken to New York
Posted on 22 June 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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COVID-19, Lessons for Global Warming
Richardson Dilworth, Scott Gabriel Knowles, Franco Montalto, Mimi Sheller, COVID-19 Reveals a Path Forward on Climate Change, American Scientist, May 12, 2020. Read more
Posted on 21 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Growing Collectivism: Irrigation, Group Conformity and Technological Divergence
Buggle, J.C. Growing collectivism: irrigation, group conformity and technological divergence. J Econ Growth 25, 147–193 (2020). https://doi.org/10. Read more
Posted on 21 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hydrangeas All the Way Down
Posted on 21 June 2020
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Wolfram Says It's Computation All the Way Down
At John Brockman's Edge: One of the questions that comes about when you imagine that you might hold in your hand a rule that will generate our whole universe,... Read more
Posted on 21 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Plato’s Brain Contemplating Itself in the Guise of the Ideal Forms [the...
To the head of the queue, from May 2011, on general principle. Since I've got progress on my mind these days, think of this as an example of how knowledge has... Read more
Posted on 21 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Contemporary Reactions to Blue-eyed Soul from 1965, Righteous Brothers [time...
Unchained Melody Pay close attention to how these women react to the singing: when they react, and how. They are enthralled by the music. Read more
Posted on 21 June 2020 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
