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
-
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 )
-
On the Physics, Mathematics, and Algorithms of Knitting – What's Floofy?
Siobhan Roberts, ‘Knitting Is Coding’ and Yarn Is Programmable in This Physics Lab, NYTimes, May 17, 2019. Dr. Elisabetta Matsumoto, a physicist at Georgia Tech... Read more
Posted on 19 May 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Along the River Line, and Just Outside the Bergen Arches
Posted on 18 May 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
-
The 'Nordic paradox'–Gender Equality Seems Correlated with a High Incidence of...
Gracia E, Martín-Fernández M, Lila M, Merlo J, Ivert A-K (2019) Prevalence of intimate partner violence against women in Sweden and Spain: A psychometric... Read more
Posted on 18 May 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Note About Bell Labs
Ashutosh Jogalekar, Life and Death in New Jersey, 3 Quarks Daily, May 14, 2019: Bell Labs was the most productive research laboratory in the world for almost... Read more
Posted on 14 May 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Geoffrey Hinton (neural Network Pioneer) Interview
AI Pioneer @geoffreyhinton Explains the Evolution of Neural Networks, in this fascinating interview w @nxthompson https://t.co/LybmRZjNzp — Steven Strogatz... Read more
Posted on 14 May 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Underside of the "Green New Deal" – the Mining of Nonrenewable Minerals
Jasper Bernes, Between the Devil and the Green New Deal, Commune, Spring 2019: To meet the demands of the Green New Deal, which proposes to convert the US... Read more
Posted on 10 May 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Prestige is More Important Than Merit in Academic Hiring
Eva-Maria Swidler, A Modest(y) Proposal, from the AAUP: An article detailing some stark facts about social inequality within academia made a small blip in highe... Read more
Posted on 10 May 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Who Benefits from Driverless Cars (not the Poor)
Ashley Nunes, Driverless cars: researchers have made a wrong turn, Nature, 8 May 2019: By merely rehashing the talking points of the self-driving industry,... Read more
Posted on 10 May 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
More Description
The psychological sciences spend too much time on, and place too much weight on, experiments. Given our current state of knowledge we should be spending much... Read more
Posted on 08 May 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
It Don't Mean a Thing If It Don't Got That Swing – Happy Birthday, Duke...
Remembering Duke Ellington, born on this day in 1899 in Washington, D.C. Here's Duke Ellington and His Orchestra performing "It Don't Mean a Thing" in 1943.... Read more
Posted on 30 April 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Miles Davis, the Painter
The Paintings of Miles Davis. Started painting drawing in his 50s and never looked back. https://t.co/wLHBBTS2cc pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 28 April 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Synthetic Philosophy
This is a good essay: "Synthetic philosophy", by Eric Schliesser. Ostensibly a review of recent books by @danieldennett Peter Godfrey-Smith, it's a good... Read more
Posted on 28 April 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Advice from Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk’s 25 Tips for Musicians (1960)."What you don’t play can be more important than what you do play."https://t.co/0nTrdpeCx3 pic.twitter. Read more
Posted on 24 April 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On the Importance of Description (in Science)
The extraordinary effort to successfully take a picture of a black hole is only the latest example of something too many social researchers fail to... Read more
Posted on 20 April 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Happens to the Human Body in Space?
Carl Zimmer, "Scott Kelly Spent a Year in Orbit. His Body Is Not Quite the Same." The NYtimes, April 11, 2019. Scott Kelly spent 340 days on the International... Read more
Posted on 12 April 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Tyler Cowen is Not in Despair Over Brexit – "I Don’t Yet See That Anything Has...
I must have read two hundred tweets about how dysfunctional the British government is, or what a bad leader Teresa May has been. Really? That has yet to be... Read more
Posted on 30 March 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Randomness and Determinism in Dynamical Systems
This is kind of incredible. A proof that all dynamical systems (within a large class of such systems) are a blend of randomness and nearly pure determinism. My... Read more
Posted on 28 March 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Armstrong, Early Jazz and Barbershop Harmony
Steve Provizer reviews Vic Hobson, Creating the Jazz Solo: Louis Armstrong and Barbershop Harmony, University Press of Mississippi. Read more
Posted on 22 March 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Religion Evolves After Large-scale Societies Do
In @nature today, Harvey Whitehouse, @pieterwfrancois, @Peter_Turchin, 9 other coauthors and I analyze 414 societies across 10,000 years of world history to sho... Read more
Posted on 20 March 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Do We Know About the Possibility of Human Survival on a Mars Mission?...
Mohamed Kashkoush, Slow Down, Space X, The Scientist, Mar. 15, 2019. For starters, NASA does not know why or to what extent spaceflight increases the incidence... Read more
Posted on 18 March 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
