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 ( 7846 )
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Rebecca Kukla: A Philosopher Talks About the Value of Boxing
Tyler Cowen has had a recent conversation with Rebecca Kukla, a philosopher at Georgetown. She's also a serious boxer. He asked her about it: COWEN: From a... Read more
Posted on 02 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
FDR 3: How Does Trump Show up at the Park?
I’ve been blogging about how politics, broadly construed, shows up in the graffiti and street art at FDR skate park in south Philadelphia. Read more
Posted on 02 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Would a New Year Be Without Flowers?
Posted on 01 January 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Transformation: FDR Then (2014) and Now
If you line up the left-most pillars in both images things should fall into place. The creature in the lower photo appears to be modeled after Wylie Coyote;... Read more
Posted on 01 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Round 2: Andreesen Horowitz & Talent, Further Thoughts (for 2019 Going Forward)
I’ve continued to think about the Andreesen Horowitz Cowen conversation: I decided that, in making my earlier remarks, perhaps I’d been distracted by the... Read more
Posted on 01 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Trump as King Cyrus, Or, The Bible's Got a Place for All of Us
And here's Trump's place: Cyrus, in case you’ve forgotten, was born in the sixth century B.C.E. and became the first emperor of Persia. Read more
Posted on 01 January 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Lest You Think Longwood Gardesn is All Pretty Flowers...
Posted on 31 December 2018
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Toward a Theory of the Corpus [#DH]
I've just posted a new working paper. Title above, abstract, table of contents, introduction and section introductions are below. Download from: Academia.edu:... Read more
Posted on 31 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Andreessen & Horowitz Discuss Culture, Tech, and Talent with Tyler Cowen:...
Andreesen Horowitz, as you may know, is a venture capital firm located in Silicon Valley. Tyler Cowen is an economist at George Mason University and a prolific... Read more
Posted on 30 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Maya Deren Describes What Spirit Possession is Like
This is an out-take from Chapter Eight, "The Protohuman Rhythm Band", of Beethoven's Anvil. Shortly after the end of World War II a young Russian emigrant... Read more
Posted on 30 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
I Like It, but It's out of Focus [RGB]
This is the kind of focus that keeps me thinking about what I'm doing. I like it. I like the colors, I like the textures. But it's out of focus. For some... Read more
Posted on 29 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
FDR 2: War and Peace
Continuing commentary on politics at FDR SK8park in Philly. Stylistically, it's a roller. That is, the paint was applied with rollers rather than aerosol. This... Read more
Posted on 29 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Alan Liu is Reading Beyond Literary Studies, Check 'em out
Journals I am reading now: Places (https://t.co/Hi9fg7VKdM), e-flux (https://t.co/ShkwAcdDdw), Scenario (https://t.co/FYrBOuT52O). Read more
Posted on 29 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
You See It Everywhere: Who's Flicking Whom? [Longwood Gardens, Outside Philly]
Posted on 28 December 2018
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Politics on Display at FDR SK8park in Philadelphia [Friday Fotos]
THAT^ is why FDR exists, for the thrill and freedom of riding a skateboard. And THIS^ will give you a very rough idea of the scale of the place, which covers... Read more
Posted on 28 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Stagnation 1.4: Is the Cost of Ideation an Issue for Philosophy?
In the my first post in this series, Stagnation 1: The phenomenon and a simple-minded model with some remarks on search (pharmaceuticals) and process... Read more
Posted on 27 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
AlphaZero: Chess Belongs to the Machines, Now More Than Ever Before –...
Steven Strogatz in the NYTimes, 12.26.18. In the old days (1997) IBM's Deep Blue beat Kasparov: For better and worse, it played like a machine, brutally and... Read more
Posted on 27 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
White Springs and Red Berrys, Longwood Gardens, 12.25.18
Posted on 27 December 2018
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Is Cultural Change Driven by Your Peers Or, in Effect, Your Death and Theirs?
Stephen Vaisey, Omar Lizardo, Cultural Fragmentation or Acquired Dispositions? A New Approach to Accounting for Patterns of Cultural Change, Socius: Sociologica... Read more
Posted on 27 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Once Again, What's Intelligence Anyhow?
A recent Twitter discussion got started like this: It should be added that the important findings regarding intelligence are among the most replicable and robus... Read more
Posted on 27 December 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
