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 ( 7828 )
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Inequality Plagues AI Research
Steve Lohr, At Tech’s Leading Edge, Worry About a Concentration of Power, NYTimes, Sept 26, 2019: Computer scientists say A.I. Read more
Posted on 26 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Neil deGrasse Tyson, The Possibility of Permanent Settlements on Mars
On February 11, 2018, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson delivered a presentation at the World Government Summit held annually in Dubai, UAE. His presentation... Read more
Posted on 26 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
African AI
Dave Gershgorn, Africa Is Building an A.I. Industry That Doesn’t Look Like Silicon Valley, Medium, Sept. 25, 2019: Deep Learning Indaba has become connective... Read more
Posted on 26 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Wild Flowers from Yesterday's Shoot
Posted on 25 September 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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It’s That Time of Year Again. [Yawn] The MacArthur Fellows Have Been Announced...
And no doubt they are a worthy bunch. But the foundation keeps doing it, by which I mean they award the majority of their Big Mac fellowships to people who... Read more
Posted on 25 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Into the Jungle: Yesterday's Walk in Liberty State Park
Posted on 23 September 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Should There Be a Limit on How Much Income a Wealthy Person Can Hold?
Ingrid Robeyns asks that question at Crooked Timber, The most blasphemous idea in contemporary discourse?, Sept. 21, 2019: I have no idea how he found it, but... Read more
Posted on 23 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Speech as Computation [Trump's Speaking]
Posted to Language Log as a comment to a post on Trump’s 'incoherence' while speaking: If I might indulge a current hobby horse, I've been playing with the... Read more
Posted on 23 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Splish Splash
Posted on 21 September 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Value of Handwriting, It's Good for Memory, Mind, and Soul
Hetty Roessingh, Why cursive handwriting needs to make a school comeback, The Conversation, August 23, 2019: Beyond a nostalgia for the pre-digital age, there... Read more
Posted on 21 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: From Jersey City to Hoboken Via the Light Rail
Posted on 20 September 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Have Republicans Decided It's Do Or Die, That If They Can't Hold on to Power Now...
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Why Republicans Play Dirty, NYTimes, Sept. 20, 2019: Why is the Republican Party playing dirty? Republican leaders are not... Read more
Posted on 20 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Facebook Announces New 'values'
Evelyn Douek, Why Facebook’s 'Values' Update Matters, Lawfare, Sept. 16, 2019: Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO, has released periodic “manifestos” i... Read more
Posted on 19 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Rote Learning, an Extreme Example
William Langewiesche has a long article in the NYTimes Magazine about the malfunctions in the Boeing 737. It contains an example of rote learning that I'm... Read more
Posted on 18 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Non-state Actors and the Implications of the Recent Attack on Saudi Oil...
Tyler Rogoway, The Strike On Saudi Oil Facilities Was Unprecedented And It Underscores Far Greater Issues, The Drive, Sept. 19, 2019: That brings us to my next... Read more
Posted on 18 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Segmenting the Language Stream [words Are Tricky]
It is sometimes useful to reflect of the fact that, aurally, the speech stream is continuous, not segmented. The segmentation is something we impose on the... Read more
Posted on 18 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Climate Change is Urgent, but It is a Mistake to Us War-fighting Rhetoric to Urg...
Roy Scranton, Climate Change Is Not World War, NYTimes, Sept. 18, 2019. When Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Edward Markey of... Read more
Posted on 18 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Emergent Ventures Has an Unconference
Tyler Cowen's Emergent Ventures recently had an Unconference to celebrate its one-year anni versary. Craig Palsson attended and then went immediately to a... Read more
Posted on 17 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How the Current Situation in Hong Kong Came About
Richard C. Bush, How Hong Kong Got to This Point, Lawfare, September 17, 2019. An Imperfect, But Workable, Hybrid To understand the current situation, it’s... Read more
Posted on 17 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Japan × 5
"Five Japans" from 1936 is another masterpiece by one of the greatest cartographers of the 20th century, Richard Edes Harrison. Source: https://t.co/EFKzmF94OA... Read more
Posted on 17 September 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
