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 ( 7792 )
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Dealing with the Devil, John Malone and American Business
Matt Stoller, A Billionaire Explains Why American Business Now Feels like the Mafia, BIG, June 5, 2026. The article opens: In 1981, a consultant named Elmer... Read more
Posted on 05 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
In the Park Looking out
Posted on 05 June 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The American Way of War
I've got a short series of posts from awhile back on the American way of war. I decided to add to it with this short conversation with Claude. Read more
Posted on 05 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Commencement Speakers: Out to Lunch & out of Touch
Molly Jong-Fast, Why Those Commencement Speakers Deserved Those Boos, NYTimes, June 5, 2026. Commencement address season hasn’t been going well — for the... Read more
Posted on 05 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
11th St., a Red Flower, and Washington St. [Hoboken]
Posted on 05 June 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Microsoft AI Builds a “hill-climbing” Machine
* * * * * The Microsoft AI Team, MAI-Thinking-1: Building a Hill-Climbing Machine Abstract: Progress in AI is driven not by a single model, but by the ability t... Read more
Posted on 05 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Seeing China Clearly | Robert Wright & Tianyu Fang
YouTube page: Trans-Pacific tech watcher Tianyu Fang joins Robert Wright to take a close look at China—including how the government works (and doesn’t), online... Read more
Posted on 04 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Does Waning Interest in the World Cup Signal a Thinning of Genuine Nationalist...
David Wallace-Wells, Why Does No One Care About the World Cup This Year? NYTimes, June 3, 2026. They used to call the World Cup, unequivocally, the... Read more
Posted on 04 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ed Zitron Says AI is a Losing Bet – "doing Exit Liquidity for Venture Capital"
To go out publicly and say what he is saying, @edzitron has balls the size of the Las Vegas sphere pic.twitter.com/oHjv3LCvXh— JustDario (@DarioCpx) June 4, Read more
Posted on 04 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
From Saturday's Walk in NW Hoboken
Posted on 03 June 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Correcting Cowen’s Misleading Presentation of Large Language Models [MR #10]
Surprise! There’s been a change of plans. The last time I’d posted about Cowen’s monograph on marginalism I figured I had one more (longish) blog post, one abou... Read more
Posted on 03 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
AI Won't Unfold in Society as Fast as the Silicon Valley Pundits Think It Will...
From YouTube: Economist and author Tyler Cowen delivers a provocative keynote on how AI will reshape growth, work, status, and geopolitics. Read more
Posted on 03 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Three Diverse Flowers
Posted on 02 June 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Mathematicians Are Concerned That Exploitation by the AI Industry Threatens the...
Siobhan Roberts, As A.I. Makes Strides in Mathematics, Mathematicians Urge Caution, NYTimes, June 2, 2026. Mathematicians issue a declaration: On Tuesday, a... Read more
Posted on 02 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Splash! [Media Notes 183]
I’m pretty sure that I saw Splash when it appeared in theaters in 1984 but I certainly didn’t imagine that it would popularize “Madison” as a name for girls. Read more
Posted on 02 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Elysian Park, Hoboken [Peekaboo Manhattan]
Posted on 02 June 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Hollis Robbins in AI and Education
Episode page: This week on The Hope Axis, Hollis Robbins joins me to talk about her dense career and what it actually means to build a life dedicated to the... Read more
Posted on 02 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Surprise! Why It Was So Easy for Executives and VCs to Hijack the AI Revolution
This is a fragment from a longer post in my ongoing commentary on Tyler Cowen's recent monograph on the Marginal Revolution. * * * * * OpenAI released GPT-3 in... Read more
Posted on 01 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Dædalus Has a Special Issue Dedicated to AI – AI & Science: What Is the Future o...
Here's the blurb: Continued progress in artificial intelligence, its expanding usefulness in science, and its contributions to landmark advances suggest that... Read more
Posted on 01 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Learn from Your Own Latents and Not from Tokens
Daniel J. Korchinski, Alessandro Favero, Matthieu Wyart, Learn from your own latents and not from tokens: A sample-complexity theory, arXiv:2605.27734v1 [cs. Read more
Posted on 01 June 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
