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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Kisangani 2150: Homo Ludens Rising
I've posted a new working paper. Title above, links, abstract, contents, and introduction below. Academia.edu:... Read more
Posted on 28 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Drowning in Forsythia
Posted on 28 March 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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My Father’s Most Important Lesson: Fundamental Change is Difficult
Perhaps the most important lesson my father gave to me explicitly is that people resist change. I forget this exact wording – for I’m thinking about a specific... Read more
Posted on 28 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Archaeologists Find Huge Tomb of Unknown Pharaoh
Alan Yuhas, Archaeologists Find Huge Tomb of Unknown Pharaoh in Egypt, NYTimes, March 27, 2025. Archaeologists have unearthed the huge tomb of an unknown pharao... Read more
Posted on 27 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Some Cherry Blossoms for Sakura Day
Posted on 27 March 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Jacob Collier, Anoushka Shankar, and Varijashree Venugopal • A Rock Somewhere...
I had just finished listening to Jacob Collier improvise with the National Symphony Orchestra, when YouTube presented me with another video before I could stop... Read more
Posted on 27 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Today is Sakura Day 🌸 #SakuraDay
äťćĽăŻăăăăŽćĽăŞ... Read more
Posted on 27 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
One Oligarch to Another: "Gotcha!" Trump Goes After the Democrats Lawyers.
Matt Stoller, Monopoly Round-Up: The Democrats' Corporate Lawyers Get the Humiliation They Deserve, BIG, March 27, 2025. In his opening paragraph Stoller... Read more
Posted on 27 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The United States of the Blues: On the Crossing of African and European...
I've uploaded an article from 1993. You can download it at Academia.edu:... Read more
Posted on 26 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Daily Life in a New Kingdom Fortress Town in Nubia
I recently posted about some potentially spectacular, but currently controversial, results about the great pyramids. This referred paper reports more modest... Read more
Posted on 26 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hoboken Street Lamps (& the Sun)
Posted on 26 March 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Homo Economicus Sucks! Homo Ludens Rocks!
Here's what Wikipedia says about Homo economicus: The term Homo economicus, or economic man, is the portrayal of humans as agents who are consistently rational... Read more
Posted on 26 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Rick Beato Interviews Mohini Day, an Insanely Excellent Bass Player from Kolkata
From her Wikipedia entry: Dey was born and brought up in Mumbai. When she was born, her parents were struggling to make ends meet, as her father worked as a... Read more
Posted on 26 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Which Do Major American Universities Value More, Freedom of Inquiry and Free...
Charlie Eaton, $15 Billion Is Enough to Fight a President, NYTimes, March 25, 2025. President Trump has declared that this country’s leading universities are... Read more
Posted on 25 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Areas with Higher Adoption of Google Translate Experienced a Decline in...
Carl Benedikt Frey Pedro Llanos-Paredes, Lost in translation: AI’s impact on translators and foreign language skills, VoxEU. 22 march 2025 . Read more
Posted on 25 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Can Scholarly Pirate Libraries Bridge the Knowledge Access Gap?
Bod贸 B, Antal D, Puha Z (2020) Can scholarly pirate libraries bridge the knowledge access gap? An empirical study on the structural conditions of book... Read more
Posted on 25 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
More About Those Pyramids
Yesterday I published excerpts from an article in The Jerusalem Post about recent discoveries that may upend what we know about the pyramids at Giza. That... Read more
Posted on 25 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Lessons in Laughter
: Dozens of you have shared this lovely video with me over the past couple days. And I just love that it illustrates two baby lessons in one. Read more
Posted on 24 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Delirous with Daffodils
Posted on 24 March 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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What's Up, Umm, Err, Down with the Pyramids? [“a Vast Underground City”?]
The Egyptian pyramids have been a scientific, historical, and mythological (if you will) puzzle since whenever. What are the for and how were they built? On... Read more
Posted on 24 March 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
