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 ( 7356 )
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A New Green Day in the Park
Posted on 28 April 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Ignorant White House Techbros Are Destroying Our Seed Corn
David Singer, White House Tech Bros Are Killing What Made Them (and America) Wealthy, NYTimes, April 28, 2025. What’s seed corn? It’s corn the farmer preserves... Read more
Posted on 28 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Academia Shrugged
Well, not quite. But who knows how this will develop. Stephanie Saul and Alan Blinder for the NYTimes (April 17, 2025): Emerging From a Collective Silence,... Read more
Posted on 27 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Tulips Gone Wild!
Posted on 27 April 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Hollis Robbins Worries About the Moral Emptiness of the AI Business
She's reviewing a current book: In 2018, I was in the audience at a Pitch Day event in San Francisco as two computer science majors pitched to potential... Read more
Posted on 27 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Today's Visit to Mickey D's
Posted on 26 April 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Rise of the Woke Right | Glenn Loury & Daniel Bessner
0:00 Intro 1:10 Glenn meets the young Marx 2:32 The new wokeness of the political right 8:30 What is the democratic counterpart of foreign policy and national... Read more
Posted on 26 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On the Streets of Mumbai [Desi Beats]
YouTube page: We put together a DJ set, shot in a moving auto rickshaw, winding through the lively streets of Mumbai! Auto rickshaws in our city are like... Read more
Posted on 26 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: ChatGPT Changes Manhattan's West Side
In the last two years I spent a lot of time having ChatGPT create new stories from old. I’d give it a story and ask it to create a new story on based on, but... Read more
Posted on 25 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Claude 3.7 on the Impossibility of Direct Brain-to-brain Communication
Elon musk has expressed a desire to create technology that will allow direct brain-to-brain communication. That is, a pair of people who are linked through... Read more
Posted on 25 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Neuromorphic Computing
From YouTube: Explore a brand new paradigm in computing, and how it might offer faster solutions that can support scientific breakthroughs. [... Read more
Posted on 25 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Ezra Klein and Ross Douthat on the Mystic Destiny of Donald John Trump, and Othe...
I kid you freakin’ not. And the use of “mystic” in this context creeps me out a bit given that I just wrote a piece for 3QD where I recount how I offered... Read more
Posted on 25 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
West Meets East Heavy Metal Meets Konnakol
From YouTube page: If Meshuggah were from India. V Shivapriya and BR Somashekar Jois perform rhythmic phrases set to Mishrachaapu Tala. Remixed by Andre... Read more
Posted on 25 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Weight
“The Weight,” features Ringo Starr and The Band's original member Robbie Robertson, along with musicians across 5 continents. Great songs can travel everywhere... Read more
Posted on 25 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
ChatGPT Plays Around with an Off-color Mona Lisa and Goes Really Surreal!
On April 11 I did a post where Claude 3.7 commented on this image: In this post I’m going to show you what happened when I asked ChatGPT to modify it in... Read more
Posted on 24 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Howard’s Jam II: Go with the Flow Nation
I’m bumping this to the top of the queue on general principle and because the next edition of Howard’s jam is coming up this May 17th. Read more
Posted on 24 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sabrina Hossenfelder: The AI Revolution Hiding in Obscure Research
Hossenfelder believes that current LLM-based AI is slowly colliding with that wall Gary Marcus has been talking about. I agree with her. We need new paradigms.... Read more
Posted on 23 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Manhattan from Hoboken
Posted on 23 April 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Kidz These Days Seem Stripped of Agency, Don't Know How to Build
Akim Reinhardt, Fly, Be Free, 3 Quarks Daily, April 23, 2025. Reinhardt starts by complaining about over-parenting in the contemporary world, something I've bee... Read more
Posted on 23 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg on Johnny Carson in the Old Days [+ a Recording Session]
Some years ago, in the previous millennium, I had a gig at a recording session involving Nadja. She was recording the Brahms Horn Trio with John Cerminaro,... Read more
Posted on 23 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
