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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Ishmael Reed Takes on the Tech Bros
David Streitfeld, Elon Musk and Friends in the Den of Oakland’s Literary Lion, NYTimes, May 14, 2026. Fourth paragraph: Mr. Reed, a novelist, playwright and... Read more
Posted on 15 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
New Savanna Has 911 Tags as of 13 May 2026 [my 16-year Production Function is...
Here’s my previous post on this topic: New Savanna has 665 tags as of 13 Nov 2023 [my 13-year production function is 48 tags per year]. You can find all my post... Read more
Posted on 15 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Civilization is a Murmuration of Stochastic Parrots, Aka a Social Technology
by ChatGPT Read more
Posted on 15 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Reconstructing the Logic of Science
AI has a "Dark Matter" problem.And it’s the reason why even the smartest models still hallucinate.Most scientific knowledge is stored in a "compressed" form. Read more
Posted on 15 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Before, During, and After Breakfast
Posted on 15 May 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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AI Skeptic: This Business Makes No Sense
Ed Elson is joined by Ed Zitron to discuss the state of the AI industry (read: bubble). Zitron argues that every AI startup is unprofitable at its core. Read more
Posted on 15 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
America and China Have Different Attitudes About and Approaches to AI and Work
Ross Douthat, Why China Isn’t Worried A.I. Will Replace Its Workers, NYTimes, May 14, 2026. The United States and China are really the only two countries that... Read more
Posted on 14 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Magenta, Green, White
Posted on 14 May 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Claude Has Been Fine-turned to Talk Down to Many (foreign) Users
Imagine you live in a small village.English is not your first language. You did not go to a fancy school. You open Claude and ask it a simple question about... Read more
Posted on 14 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Impact of AI-Generated Text on the Internet
Jonas Dolezal, Sawood Alam, Mark Graham, and Maty Bohacek, The Impact of AI-Generated Text on the Internet. Abstract: The proliferation of AI-generated and... Read more
Posted on 14 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Mary Magdelene: ChatGPT Offers Some Revisionist Depictions
Here's how the Wikipedia entry for Mary Magdelene opens: Mary Magdalene (sometimes called Mary of Magdala, or simply the Magdalene or the Madeleine) was a... Read more
Posted on 13 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
These People Are Crazy! Give Me Some Sanity, Some Peace, Give Me Some Irises.
Posted on 12 May 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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China and America as Mimetic Rivals in A.I.
Yi-Ling Liu, The U.S. and China Are Hurtling Toward a Shared A.I. Future, NYTimes, May 12, 2026. This is a long article. Are are some highly selected excerpts. Read more
Posted on 12 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Here Come the Sun
Posted on 12 May 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Trump is Hell-bent on Nuking America Back to the Stone Age
OK, OK, I get it. That statement is exaggerated and misleading. The Stone Age is too far back, 1960 will do. He’s not using nukes, he’s using oil and coal. And... Read more
Posted on 12 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Icon, the Omelette, and Some Grass
Posted on 12 May 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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AI’s New Trillion Dollar Mission (is BS)
YouTube: This week on Prof G Markets, Scott Galloway and Ed Elson discuss the growing belief in Silicon Valley that AI won’t just replace workers, but managers... Read more
Posted on 12 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cultural Evolution and (Tyler Cowen’s Views On) History [MR-4]
While Tyler Cowen’s monograph, The Marginal Revolution: Rise and Decline, and the Pending AI Revolution (2026), is about intellectual history, I didn’t sense... Read more
Posted on 11 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Two Cats on a Roof
Under a crescent moon, two cats fraternize on the rooftop. Below them is the shadow of two people conversing behind the translucent sliding screen. Read more
Posted on 11 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Shipyard Park in Hoboken
Posted on 11 May 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
