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 ( 7869 )
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Cultural Ranks Revisited: From Stages to Dynamics
This post is by ChatGPT and summarizes a discussion we had about cultural ranks. * * * * * Cultural Rank Theory, as David Hays and I originally formulated it... Read more
Posted on 08 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Bald Eagles on the Hudson
Eagles on the HudsonđŚ Bald eagles are on the ice on the Hudson River during winter primarily to hunt for fish and conserve energy. Read more
Posted on 08 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Organizing Multiple Agents into a Coherent Work Flow
I think agentic AI would work much better if people took lessons from organizational theory, which has actually spent a lot of time understanding how to deal... Read more
Posted on 08 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hallucinated Case Law
A hallucinated case that is merely a citation is worthless. But it if goes on to develop an actual argument, that might well be interesting and valuable. But... Read more
Posted on 07 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Michael Pollan Believes That A.I. Cannot Achieve Consciousness
David Marchese, The Interview: Michael Pollan Says Humanity Is About to Undergo a Revolutionary Change, NYTimes, Feb. 7, 2026. Read more
Posted on 07 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Financialization of the American Economy, Homo Economicus Run Amuck
Oren Cass, The Finance Industry Is a Grift. Let’s Start Treating It That Way. NYTimes, Feb. 6, 2026. From the article: Less than 10 percent of Goldman’s work... Read more
Posted on 07 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: A Sample of Hoboken
Posted on 06 February 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Moltbook Vs. Reddit: Distributional Collapse in Agent-Generated Discourse
Krishnan, Rohit, Moltbook vs. Reddit: Distributional Collapse in Agent-Generated Discourse (January 31, 2026). Available at SSRN:... Read more
Posted on 06 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Voice of Ariel
The Opus 4.6 system card has some extremely wild stuff that remind you about how weird a technology this is. These paragraphs are really worth reading.... Read more
Posted on 06 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Coming out of Melancholy, Again
I've written about my propensity to lapse into a melancholy state periodically, seemingly during the winter months, something I've reported on at length in an... Read more
Posted on 06 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Remember the Snow
Posted on 05 February 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Time for Another Run at “Kubla Khan”
I became “hooked” on “Kubla Khan” early in my career, somewhere around 1970 or so. I decided it was my intellectual touchstone: “a standard or criterion by whic... Read more
Posted on 05 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sympawny No.4 (Chubby Cat)
Musician Norm Oxman composed a song for his late cat, "Sympawny no.4 (Chubby Cat)." It reflects the image of the cat.A composer's musical portrait honoring... Read more
Posted on 04 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Fourteenth Street Viaduct in Hoboken
Posted on 04 February 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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An Agentic Framework That Generates Publication-ready Academic Illustrations
paper: https://t.co/2wGHSX6Dit— Akshay đ (@akshay_pachaar) February 3, 2026That is to say, they're linking six agents together in a... Read more
Posted on 04 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hip-hop & Violence, Misogeny, Etc.– From Shared Knowledge to Common Knowledge
I'm copying this from Marginal Revolution (Tyler Cowen), which quotes a Roland Fryer piece in the Wall Street Journal: In a TED Talk released on Monday, I... Read more
Posted on 04 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Agentic Coding is Neurosymbolic AI
Why do coding agents work so well and what would it take to replicate their success in other domains? One important and under-appreciated reason is that... Read more
Posted on 03 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Mmmm.....Good! Fries, a Quarter-pounder, and Orange Fanta
Posted on 03 February 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Adam Neely: On Suno, AI Music, and the Bad Future
0:00 Intro 4:06 Challenge accepted 6:55 Three Questions 24:14 Why no influences? (deskilling/narcissism) 35:50 Profiles of the Future 47:54 Good uses of Suno... Read more
Posted on 03 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Employers Are Now Using AI as Cover for Laying Employees off – "A.I. Washing"
Lora Kelley, Did A.I. Take Your Job? Or Was Your Employer ‘A.I.-Washing’? NYTimes, Feb. 1, 2025. A company might lay people off for any number of reasons: It... Read more
Posted on 02 February 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
