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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I’d Forgotten How Hilarious Tootsie is [Media Notes 180]
I’d seen the movie when it originally played in theaters [1982] and I’d watched it several years ago on some streaming platform (probably Netflix). Read more
Posted on 11 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A.I. and the Growth of the Chore Economy
Carl Benedikt Frey, This Is Why You’re Drowning in Busywork, NYTimes, May 11, 2026. We have been told that A.I. will take people’s jobs. What no one mentions... Read more
Posted on 11 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Tyler Cowen is Imagining That AI Will Kill the Research Paper
Here’s roughly the first half of his post: Imagine taking a macroeconomics paper and adding a little button at the end “Press this button to update this paper... Read more
Posted on 10 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Chinese Conceptualize A.I. Differently Than Americans and Are Deploying It...
Jacob Dreyer, America’s A.I. Is Futuristic. China Is Just Making It Work. NYTimes, May 9, 2026. The reality is that China and the United States are racing in... Read more
Posted on 10 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Analogical Thinking: How to Succeed in “wicked” Environments
A Hungarian psychologist raised three daughters to prove that any child could become a chess grandmaster through early specialization. He succeeded. Two of... Read more
Posted on 09 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Douthat, A.I., and Pope Leo
Ross Douthat, The Atheist and the Machine God, NYTimes, May 9, 2026. Douthout is anticipating Pope Leo XIV's encyclical on A.I. For Douthat the crucial issue... Read more
Posted on 09 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Marginalism as a Tool for Rhetorical Analysis: Cognitive Effort in Intellectual...
I’ve been thinking, and I think I’ve come up with a speculative way of applying marginalist thinking to intellectual production. Read more
Posted on 09 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
11th Street Peeka-boo
Posted on 09 May 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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The Populist Backlash Against A.I. is Accelerating
David Wallace-Wells, A.I. Populism Is Here. And No One Is Ready. NYTimes, May 8, 2026. Americans still worry about the local impacts of data centers, storming t... Read more
Posted on 09 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Scramble in the Middle East: The Times They Are a Changin'
The New Middle East | Robert Wright Annelle Sheline 0:00 Teaser 1:06 Annelle’s Middle East bona fides 2:55 The state of play in Iran 8:14 A deepening fissure... Read more
Posted on 08 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hoboken Tenement Fires, 1979-1983
Dylan Gottlieb, Hoboken Is Burning: Yuppies, Arson, and Displacement in the Postindustrial City, Journal of American History, Volume 106, Issue 2, September... Read more
Posted on 08 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Five Core Issues Underlying AI Debates, a Useful Classification
Alex Chalmers, The five philosophical disagreements underneath every AI argument, Cosmos Institute, May 8, 2026. Most AI debates aren’t really about evidence. Read more
Posted on 08 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Trip Through Alice in Wonderland with Google [tablescapes]
@font-face {font-family:Wingdings; panose-1:5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:77; mso-generic-font-family:decorative; mso-font-pitch:variable;... Read more
Posted on 08 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
On the Appeal of the Rockford Files [Media Notes 164] {Beware of Work-mode!}
I've been watching The Rockford Files again and though I should write up a post about the appeal of the show. But I decided to check the blog first and, wouldn'... Read more
Posted on 08 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: To and from an Egg-white Omelette
Posted on 08 May 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Trump’s Transactional View of the World
David French, True Believers Blow Trump’s Mind, NYTimes, May 7, 2026. At the core of Trump’s worldview is a belief that the world is a fundamentally... Read more
Posted on 07 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Uncertainty About the Future as a Factor in Declining Fertility
Anna Louie Sussman, Why So Few Babies? We Might Have Overlooked the Biggest Reason of All. NYTimes, May 7, 2026. The collective reluctance to procreate is... Read more
Posted on 07 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Some Other Flowers
Posted on 07 May 2026
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Invention and Greatness: Jevons, Linnaeus, Darwin, and Pound’s Typology [MR-Aux]
I was curious about the fact that Jevons is barely even mentioned in Cowen’s recent book, GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time and Why Does it Matter... Read more
Posted on 07 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Will AI Increase the Value of Traditional Credentialing?
I will also take the other side of this bet.As things stand, AI will increase the value of traditional credentialing, especially elite ones.Will colleges do a... Read more
Posted on 07 May 2026 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
