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 ( 7622 )
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Michal Pollan Talks About Psychedelics
At Mother Jones: You know Michael Pollan from his blockbuster book The Omnivore's Dilemma, an entertaining exploration of the thorny decisions surrounding what... Read more
Posted on 28 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Skeptical View of AI
Five years ago Skeptic published A.I. GONE AWRY: The Futile Quest for Artificial Intelligence by Peter Kassa. It's pretty good. Read more
Posted on 28 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
How is the Human Brain Like the Internet, Metabolic Networks, Relations Among...
Navigable networks as Nash equilibria of navigation games András Gulyás, József J. Bíró, Attila Kőrösi, Gábor Rétvári Dmitri... Read more
Posted on 27 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Brexit State of Mind @3QD: The Vision Thing
My latest post is up at 3 Quarks Daily, A Brexit State of Mind: The Vision Thing. I start with a dream–not a nightmare, but not a laughriot either–move into... Read more
Posted on 27 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Networks in the Middle Ages
Calculating the Middle Ages? The Project "Complexities and Networks in the Medieval Mediterranean and Near East" (COMMED) Johannes Preiser-Kapeller (Submitted o... Read more
Posted on 27 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Respose to Sad Music
Eerola T, Peltola H-R (2016) Memorable Experiences with Sad Music—Reasons, Reactions and Mechanisms of Three Types of Experiences. PLoS ONE 11(6): e0157444.... Read more
Posted on 25 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Universal Map, Apple Or Google?
From 2011 to 2015 Justine O'Beirne led Apple's mapping efforts. He' been writing some interesting essays. From 2015, The Universal Map: Cartography's Most... Read more
Posted on 25 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Birth of the Drum Set
By Nick Jaina in Smithsonian Folkways Magazine: For the drums are not one instrument, but many. The drum set is a hybrid of instruments from around the world,... Read more
Posted on 23 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer and the Continuing Apocalypse, Now
David Streitfeld in the NYTimes: LOS ANGELES — Viet Thanh Nguyen has been wrestling with “Apocalypse Now” for most of his life — as a boy, a college student, a... Read more
Posted on 22 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Limitations of the Google Books Corpus for Drawing Inferences About Cultural...
Pechenick EA, Danforth CM, Dodds PS (2015) Characterizing the Google Books Corpus: Strong Limits to Inferences of Socio-Cultural and Linguistic Evolution. PLoS... Read more
Posted on 21 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sex? What's the Difference? It's Not Binary; It's Complex.
Claire Ainsworth in Nature, from February 15, 2016: Sex can be much more complicated than it at first seems. According to the simple scenario, the presence or... Read more
Posted on 19 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Trump Conquers Japan, and Then the World
The strangest Trump video ever, in which Trump is elected world president, and if you suspect that it may not be shooting straight, you'd be correct: It's by... Read more
Posted on 19 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jerry Seinfeld & the Craft of Comedy
Another working paper. URL at Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/26282876/Jerry_Seinfeld_and_the_Craft_of_Comedy Abstract: Stand-up comedy is tightly... Read more
Posted on 18 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
MIckey Mouse in Shanghai, but Only for 43%
Think of it what you will, but Disney is a cultural formation that has traveled around the world, first in cartoons and associated merchandise, then live... Read more
Posted on 16 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Louis CK on Hillary, Bernie, and The Donald (& a Bonus on Performing)
From an interview in Vulture: Sometimes I think the system is so deeply fucked up that somebody as disruptive as Bernie — maybe he doesn’t even do a good job... Read more
Posted on 15 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Trump and Fear as an Instrument in American Politics
From the NYTimes: Exploitation of fear has been part of the American political playbook since colonial pamphleteers whipped their neighbors into a frenzy over... Read more
Posted on 15 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cat and Mouse in “The West Wing”
I’ve been watching The West Wing for the third time. As you may know, it’s a TV series that ran from September 1999 through to May 2006 and centered on Josiah... Read more
Posted on 10 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Computer Writes Sci-Fi Flick
Sunspring is a short sci-fi flick that was scripted by an AI that, apparently, calls itself Benjamin. The story is on Ars Technica. I was pointed there by... Read more
Posted on 10 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Boats
Posted on 03 June 2016
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Intimate Partner Violence in the Great Recession
A recent paper from Schneider, Harknett, and Mclanahan. Here's the abstract: In the United States, the Great Recession has been marked by severe negative... Read more
Posted on 03 June 2016 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
