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 ( 7792 )
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Three from the Festival
Posted on 27 May 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Building a Machine God
Cade Metz, At the Epicenter of A.I., Pope Leo’s Warnings Are Dismissed, NYTimes, May 26, 2026. Jeremy Nixon is the 33 cofounder of A.G.I. House in San Francisco... Read more
Posted on 26 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Walking is Good for Creative Thinking
Marily Oppezzo and Daniel L. Schwartz, Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking, Journal of Experimental Psychology:... Read more
Posted on 26 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Eh? So Much for “Magnifica Humanitas.” Lots of Words, the Substance is Weak.
Matthew Walther, The Pope Should Be Going to War Against A.I. Why Isn’t He? NYTimes, May 26, 2026. This is not exactly the Unabomber manifesto. One is even... Read more
Posted on 26 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Going to Jersey City on the Light Rail
Posted on 26 May 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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R.I.P. Sonny Rollins - September 7, 1930 - May 25, 2026
Jazz Video Guy (Brett Primack): Rollins sits at the intersection of two things that rarely coexist: absolute technical mastery and genuine spontaneous... Read more
Posted on 26 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Old Religion (Christianity) Vs. the New (A.I.)
David Streitfeld, As A.I. Fever Rises in Silicon Valley, Pope Leo Has a Few Words, NYTimes, May 25, 2026. A dozen paragraphs or so into the article: Magnifica... Read more
Posted on 25 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Three Flowers
Posted on 25 May 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Pope Leo Presents Magnifica Humanitas While Standing Next to a Tech Founder
Motoko Rich and Elisabetta Povoledo, Pope Leo Warns of Risks From A.I. in 42,300-Word Encyclical, NYTimes, May 25, 2026. Leo’s declaration came in the form of... Read more
Posted on 25 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Jaron Lanier Talks Sense About AI with Neil deGrasse Tyson [Homo Ludens]
YouTube: There Is No AI Really (It’s Just People), with Jaron Lanier Is the internet too far gone or can we still fix it? Neil deGrasse Tyson, and co-hosts Negi... Read more
Posted on 24 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
LLMs Can't Distinguish Between What They Know and Where They're Guessing
But then how could they possibly know that? Google just figured out why AI lies with confidence. Large language models still make confident mistakes on simple... Read more
Posted on 24 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
From Yesterday's Trip to Newport Mall
Posted on 24 May 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Tyler Cowen on Robert Wright’s The God Test
Here’s Cowen’s post in full, but without the internal links: The subtitle is Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning, due out June 23. Read more
Posted on 24 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Washington St., up and Down, at the Hoboken Arts and Crafts Festival
Posted on 23 May 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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On Method: Epistemic Triangulation with LLMs While Writing About Cowen’s...
If you look at the first post I did on Tyler Cowen’s recent monograph, The Marginal Revolution: Rise and Decline, and the Pending AI Revolution, you’ll see... Read more
Posted on 23 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Evaluation of AIs as Article Reviewers
PREPRINT REVIEW—————————45 domain scientists spent 469 hours rating 2,960 individual criticisms from peer reviews of 82 Nature-portfolio papers, mostly from... Read more
Posted on 23 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Fight! Gary Marcus Vs. Roon on X
Here's how Grok summarizes the feud: The clash began Friday when roon, an OpenAI researcher, posted that cognitive scientist Gary Marcus has been 'plainly ... Read more
Posted on 23 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Making It Strange on the Tabletop @3QD
I’ve got a new piece at 3 Quarks Daily: What’s a Tablescape? I’m Glad You Asked. It’s about photos I’ve taken atop tables where I’m eating a meal, mostly... Read more
Posted on 23 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Rise of DIY Rituals in the 21st Century
YouTube: Can Rituals Save Us? | Robert Wright Bruce Feiler 0:00 Teaser 0:52 Bruce’s new book on ritual, A Time to Gather 3:12 The "Lifequake" that led Bruce t... Read more
Posted on 22 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Pope Leo is About to Issue an Encyclical Centered on A.I.: “Magnifica Humanitas”
David Gibson, Pope Leo Chooses Social Justice Over Pelvic Theology, NYTimes, May 22, 2026 Pope Leo XIV’s first landmark teaching document, to be published on... Read more
Posted on 22 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
