Bbenzon
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 ( 6457 )
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Kids These Days
A Washington Post article about young people who work well-paying jobs so they can give much of their income away. For example:Take Jeff Kaufman. A Cambridge,... Read more
Posted on 02 June 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Train Tech
The Economist has an interesting article on train technology. A representative paragraph:Accelerating a passenger train to 300kph and holding that speed for... Read more
Posted on 02 June 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Moral Monkeys
Two years ago philosopher Peter Railton published “Moral Camouflage or Moral Monkeys?” in today’s New York Times. Discussion took place at On the Human Forum,... Read more
Posted on 01 June 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
See Images of Atoms and Bonds with Textbook Clarity
See images of carbon atoms and the bonds between them HERE:What the microscope showed the researchers, says Fischer, "was amazing. Read more
Posted on 01 June 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Balancing Out in Breaking Bad, S3, E10, Fly
One think I noticed a while ago is that Breaking Bad keeps you moving back and forth on its major characters, especially Walter and Jesse. Read more
Posted on 28 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Watch Out, Dan Dennett, Your Mind’s Changing Up on You!
I want to look at two recent pieces by Daniel Dennett. One is a formal paper from 2009, The Cultural Evolution of Words and Other Thinking Tools (Cold Spring... Read more
Posted on 27 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Timing, and Speaking
Salon has an interesting article about time and timing (excerpted from, Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception, a book by Claudia Hammond). Read more
Posted on 27 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Bleg: Length of Dramas and Comedies on TV
TV comedies tend to be half-hour shows while dramas tend to be hour-long shows? Why? And why don't we have comedies with a continuous story over a whole season... Read more
Posted on 26 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Coincidence in Breaking Bad
In my previous post on Breaking Bad I noted that the show seems a bit thick with coincidence. Since the show’s been out for awhile I figured others must have... Read more
Posted on 25 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Call This Real
Posted on 24 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Breaking Bad: S2, E11, Mandala, Pile up
Just watched this episode, “Mandala,” in season 2, episode 11. It has the kind of coincidence that is neither here nor there as far as realism in concerned,... Read more
Posted on 24 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Breaking Bad, All Twisted Pretty
A couple of days ago I saw the one James Atlas–about whom I have heard, a bit–had and op-ed in the NYTimes entitled “Get a Life? No Thanks. Just Pass the... Read more
Posted on 24 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Linguistic Diversity and Universal Grammar
One of the most important ideas to come from the Chomsky program of linguistic thought is the idea of universal grammar (aka UG), a "deep" structure of human... Read more
Posted on 23 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Samurai Champloo: Graffiti and Baseball in Old Japan
This post originally appeared in The Valve in August of 2006. I’m reprinting it here for several reasons. In the first place, the screen shots no longer show... Read more
Posted on 22 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Superstars No More: Saturation?
From Tyler Cowen:If I approach this question from a more general angle of cultural history, I find the diminution of superstars in particular areas not very... Read more
Posted on 22 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Roles in Cultural Selection: Replicators, Interactors, and Beneficiaries, Or,...
Once again, cultural evolution, and the problem of memes: What are they? Where are they? What do they do? While the general case does interest me, culture is... Read more
Posted on 21 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why We'll Never Be Able to Build Technology for Direct Brain-to-Brain...
Would it be possible, some time in the unpredictable future, for people to have direct brain-to-brain communication, perhaps using some amazing nanotechnology... Read more
Posted on 19 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Will Blockbuster's Go Bust This Summer?
The movie business is notoriously fickle. As screenwriter William Goldman has said "nobody knows anything" about the economics of making films. Read more
Posted on 17 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What is Philosophy?
I've just discovered (via Dan Dennett) to the work of Peter Godfrey-Smith, a philosopher of science with a particular interest in biology. Read more
Posted on 17 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
"Beam Me Up, Scotty"
According to the Wikipedia, that exact phrase never appeared in the original Star Trek, though a similar one did: "Scotty, beam us up. Read more
Posted on 16 May 2013 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY