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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Effects of Energy Increase in Technological Evolution
This is another excerpt from David Hays, The Evolution of Technology Through Four Cognitive Ranks (1995). This is from Chapter 3, “ENERGY”, section 3.7... Read more
Posted on 15 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
It's a Cat World
#HappyCaturday Artwork by Japanese Illustrator Mono Kubo (@13033303) pic.twitter.com/sf498os3yT — 41 Strange (@41Strange) July 13, Read more
Posted on 14 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Artificial "scientist" Makes New Discoveries in a Pile of Old Scientific...
Madeleine Gregory, AI Trained on Old Scientific Papers Makes Discoveries Humans Missed, Vice, July 9, 2019: Using just the language in millions of old scientifi... Read more
Posted on 14 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Sita Chronicles
This post lists my various work on Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues, from my initial review in The Valve, to the post on cultural evolution which featured it,... Read more
Posted on 14 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Boats on the Hudson
Posted on 14 July 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Post 6000 Here on New Savanna – My Oh My, How Time Flies!
My first post at New Savanna went up on April 14, 2010. It consisted of a single Mimi Eunice strip by Nina Paley and was called Pay Up. If you follow the... Read more
Posted on 13 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is Netflix Killing the Movie Biz in Order Gain Market Share and Capture...
Matt Stoller has a very interesting article on the fate of movies in the streaming era, The Slow Death of Hollywood, July 9, 2019. Read more
Posted on 12 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Dinner at the Malibu Diner, and a Short Walk Afterward [#5998]
The Malibu Diner is, say, four blocks from my apartment. I eat there, oh, every other week. They know me. Once I forget to bring my wallet. Whoops! No problem,... Read more
Posted on 12 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Beyond Borders: Complex Identies and Social Networking in the Quinceañera of Rub...
M. Sidury Christiansen, "Listisimo para los #XVdeRubi:" Constructing a chronotope as a shared imagined experience in Twitter to enact Mexicanness outside of... Read more
Posted on 12 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Teaching Kids to Read
From Natalie Wexler, Elementary Education Has Gone Terribly Wrong, The Atlantic, August 2019: What if the best way to boost reading comprehension is not to dril... Read more
Posted on 11 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Kisangani 2150, Or Reconstructing Civilization on a New Model
You see what I’m doing, don’t you? Kisangani 2150 is obviously a play on New York 2140; it’s a science fiction novel set ten years after New York 2140. Why ten... Read more
Posted on 10 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Nollywood Millionaire
This is another import from The Valve, from March 2009. The post surely deserves an update†, but I don't have time for that now. Read more
Posted on 10 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Music, Oxytocin, and Synchronization
Physicist Sean Carroll talks with Indre Viskontas, neuroscientist and opera singer. 0:37:07 Indre Viskontas: It’s the terrible times. Yeah. So, one of things... Read more
Posted on 09 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Tight Like This: A Tale of High Adventure in Ancient Nubia
I'm bumping this to the top of the queue. Why? Because I can, that's why. Because the world's got to change and it's got to change NOW. You know, now's the time... Read more
Posted on 09 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
From Artificial to Augmented Intelligence
Joe McKendrick, Why AI Should rightfully Mean Augmented Intelligence, Not Artificial Intelligence, Forbes, 29 June 2019: Perhaps "artificial" is too artificial... Read more
Posted on 09 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Little RGB, Spikey
Posted on 08 July 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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On the Distinction Between One’s Personal Interests and One’s Duties to the...
Corruption is a conspicuous feature of the Trump presidency, starting with Trump himself. Whether or not Trump is the most corrupt man ever to occupy that offic... Read more
Posted on 08 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
History, Change, Evolution (and Intelligence)
Why then should we talk of language evolution rather than language change? And the same with culture, why evolution rather than change? The reason, I suspect, i... Read more
Posted on 08 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A New Leftist Revision of Capitalist Economics?
Andy Beckett, The new left economics: how a network of thinkers is transforming capitalism, The Guardian, 25 June, 2019: There is a dawning recognition that a... Read more
Posted on 07 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Growth Curves for Cultural Evolution Through Cognitive Ranks
This is another section from the working paper I’m preparing on stagnation. I introduce the concept of cultural ranks early in the paper and include an... Read more
Posted on 06 July 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
