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 ( 7606 )
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Flash!
Posted on 03 April 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Perspective on Musical Neurodynamics
Harding, E.E., Kim, J.C., Demos, A.P. et al. Musical neurodynamics. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-025-00915-4 Abstract: A... Read more
Posted on 03 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Generative AI Chatbot for Mental Health Treatment
Michael V. Heinz, Daniel M. Macklin, Brianna M. Trudeau, et al., Randomized Trial of a Generative AI Chatbot for Mental Health Treatment, The New England Journa... Read more
Posted on 03 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
This Song Has Been Been Haunting Me for Two Or Three Days: Chan Chan
This is the original version: From the webpage: The original Buena Vista Social Club album was recorded for World Circuit Records over six days at the vintage... Read more
Posted on 02 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
AI & Humans, Then and Now
In “The Evolution of Cognition” (1990) David Hays and I argued that the long-term evolution of human culture flows from the architectural foundations of... Read more
Posted on 02 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Caught in Delium [blossoms]
Posted on 02 April 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Tyler Cowen Interviews Ezra Klein on Abundance, Kludgeocracy and So Much More
Here's the link, and the intro: What happens when a liberal thinker shifts his attention from polarization to economic abundance? Read more
Posted on 02 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Authoritarianism in the US and Abroad | Robert Wright & Almut Rochowanski
0:00 Almut’s first-hand acquaintance with authoritarianism 2:00 Trump 2.0’s authoritarian hallmarks 19:13 What should worry us most about Trump 2.0? 25:51... Read more
Posted on 02 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Selection of Recent Photos
Posted on 01 April 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Superforcasting the Future of AI [is the Methodology Appropriate? – a...
Superforcasting is a technique for making predictions about world events that originated in The Good Judgment Project. I’ve known about it for a while and read... Read more
Posted on 01 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
We've Got Liftoff...on a Rebuilt and Highly Modified McLaren P1.
I've been following this saga for two years or so. Tavarish bought an almost new Mclaren P1 that had been submerged in a flood. So he got it, cheap. Could he... Read more
Posted on 01 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Implosion of American Culture and Society: No Way Back?
Over at Linkedin futurist Bryan Alexander linked to this article: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado. Read more
Posted on 01 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Along the Hudson River
Posted on 31 March 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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On the Role of Play in Cultural Evolution, a Conversation with Claude 3.7
I’ve got two posts on the subject where I use passages from David Hays’s book on the history of technology: The Evolution of Technology Through Four Cognitive... Read more
Posted on 31 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Color Purple [flowers]
Posted on 30 March 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Breaking Down Monogamy in Baltimore in the Early 1970s
Was it the best of times? It certainly wasn’t the worst of times. They were for damned sure interesting times. But no, “breaking down monogamy” probably didn’t... Read more
Posted on 30 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Talking with the Virtual Dead Through AI
Cody Delistraty, We’re In a New Age of Techno-Spiritualism, NYTimes, March 30, 2025. Several paragraphs in: A little over a century ago, Thomas Edison... Read more
Posted on 30 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Those Huge Structures Recently "discovered' Beneath the Pyramids Are Probably...
Sabine doubts those amazing findings of huge structures supposedly beneath the pyramids. Read more
Posted on 29 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Cat Prince Assumes His Place
俥ĺˇăŻć¨éŤăéŤăçşăŤ... Read more
Posted on 29 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Signal Fiasco: People Without Character Cannot Be Trusted [Trump...
Phil Klay, Security Breaches Can Be Fixed. People Without Honor Can’t Be Trusted. NYTimes, March 28, 2025. So now it’s clear: The Trump administration has not... Read more
Posted on 29 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
