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 ( 7628 )
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John Horgan Asks: "Is Science Hitting a Wall?"
Back in 1996 John Horgan kicked up a mighty fuss with The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age, which was... Read more
Posted on 08 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Winsor McCay: The Pet
This post from 2012 is about one of the creepiest films I've ever seen and a classic of early animation. Winsor McCay was a cartoonist and a pioneering... Read more
Posted on 08 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Demise of the Nation State
I've been reading about this for several years now. Rana Dasguta has an article of that title in The Guardian for April 5, 2018. Read more
Posted on 06 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sales Dynamics of Best-selling Books
Burcu Yucesoy, Xindi Wang, Junming Huang and Albert-László Barabási, Success in books: a big data approach to bestsellers, EPJ Data Science 2018 7:7.... Read more
Posted on 06 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Boomer's, America's Last Common Culture?
Ross Douthat writing in the NYTimes about the (unexpected) popularity of the Roseanne reboot: So let’s try to analyze the return of the Conner family in strictl... Read more
Posted on 04 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Generative Adversarial Networks
How do you get neural networks to crate stuff rather than simply recognizing existing stuff? The approach, known as a generative adversarial network, or GAN,... Read more
Posted on 04 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Family Problems: From Greene to Shakespeare
This is revised and adapted, from a post I first published at The Valve and have since republished in a working paper which is available at my SSRN page HERE an... Read more
Posted on 03 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Collaboration and Hierarchy
Alberto Antonioni, María Pereda, Katherine A. Cronin, Marco Tomassini Angel Sánchez, Collaborative hierarchy maintains cooperation in asymmetric games,... Read more
Posted on 03 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Uses of Narratology for the Study of Interactive Stories
A couple of weeks ago Mark Nelson posted some tweets that caught my attention:Interactive narrative isn't my research focus anymore, but if I were to restart it... Read more
Posted on 02 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Recent Posts at 3QD: Marching Band and New York 2140
Leapin’ Lizards: Three Lessons from Marching Band (April 2) One lesson is about what makes a good marching band: the groove. Another is about the balance betwee... Read more
Posted on 02 April 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Population is the Main Driver of War Group Size and Conflict Casualties
Rahul C. Oka, Marc Kissel, Mark Golitko, Susan Guise Sheridan, Nam C. Kim and Agustín Fuentes, Population is the main driver of war group size and conflict... Read more
Posted on 26 March 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Analytic And/vs Continental Philosophy
Gee, this explanation of the difference between "analytic" and "continental" philosophy by Gary Gutting in a New York Times "opinionator" column of 2012 is the... Read more
Posted on 24 March 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The False Consciousness of the Elite American University(?)
A powerful, vital essay by @PatrickDeneen on the false consciousness of the elite American university: https://t.co/L6PWxcgdhJ — Alan Jacobs (@ayjay) March 24,... Read more
Posted on 24 March 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Enlightenment How? Pinker on Progress: Impressive Evidence, Not So Impressive...
Nick Spencer reviews Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (Viking 2018). ... Read more
Posted on 23 March 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Visual Word Form - "written Words Invaded a Sector of Visual Cortex That Was...
Dehaene-Lambertz G, Monzalvo K, Dehaene S (2018) The emergence of the visual word form: Longitudinal evolution of category-specific ventral visual areas during... Read more
Posted on 23 March 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Talk to the Wood: Animism is Natural
I'm bumping this 2011 post to the top of the queue. At a certain point her recent OOOIII talk, “Powers of the Hoard: Artistry and Agency in a World of Vibrant... Read more
Posted on 20 March 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Nabakov's "Lolita" and an Example of Ethical Criticism
I recently came across an essay by Michael Doliner, Advanced Creepology: Re-Reading “Lolita” (Counterpunch). It struck me as being a very good piece of... Read more
Posted on 20 March 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Discipline of Literary Criticism and the Difference Between Graduate and...
Michael Meranze reviews a new book by Geoffrey Harpham,What Do You Think, Mr. Ramirez?: The American Revolution in Education, which centers on the definition an... Read more
Posted on 17 March 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
5003
This is to say, this is my 5003rd post here at New Savanna. I reached 2500 on July 14, 2014, and did a not so long post where I took a quick look at what I've... Read more
Posted on 14 March 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Trump in Korea, and Some More Personal Reflections
There’s no doubt about it, North Korea has been a knotty challenge for American foreign policy, not¬–mind you–that I’m a fan of that foreign policy, which... Read more
Posted on 14 March 2018 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
