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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Music Diplomacy: Beethoven's the Hoochie Coochie Man
Matías Tarnopolsky, American Musicians Are Doing Something Profound in Beijing Right Now, Nov. 16, 2023. While presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping were drawing... Read more
Posted on 18 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Interesting Discussion of China: Robert Wright & Susan Shirk
1:23 Susan’s new book, Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise 7:00 China’s turn to more assertive policies in 2007 15:02 The well-intentioned reform... Read more
Posted on 17 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Movie Protagonists Over the Last 100 Years
I recently wrote about the glut of movies inspired by comic book franchises, and predicted that they will eventually meet the same fate as cowboy films. Read more
Posted on 17 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: Let's Say "Bye, Bye!" to Halloween
Posted on 17 November 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Some Recent Work on Lévi-Strauss and Myth
I’ve long thought that the work Lévi-Strauss did on myth in Mythologies needed to be taken further, and have said so in my working paper, Beyond Lévi-Strauss... Read more
Posted on 17 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sub-Saharan Africa Has Lost Another Decade.
COLUMN: Sub-Saharan Africa has lost another decade.The region's GDP per capita peaked in 2014, and since has fallen ~10%. On current trends, it would not... Read more
Posted on 17 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Sam Altman: "We Need Another Breakthrough."
Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI): There are more breakthroughs required in order to get to AGI Cambridge Student: "To get to AGI, can we just keep min maxing... Read more
Posted on 17 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Three for a Thursday
Posted on 16 November 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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What's a "liberal" These Days?
Pamela Paul, Progressives Aren't Liberal, NYTimes, 2023. For those of us who never abandoned the term — why let Republicans define us? Read more
Posted on 16 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Dialectical View of the History of AI: We’re Only in the Antithesis Phase. [A...
The idea that history proceeds by way of dialectical change is due primarily to Hegel and Marx. While I read bit of both early in my career, I haven’t been... Read more
Posted on 15 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Take Us to Your Leader [state of Nature]
Posted on 15 November 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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A Conceptual Precursor to Today's Language Machines [Shannon]
I'm in the process of reading a fascinating article by Richard Hughes Gibson, Language Machinery: Who will attend to the machines’ writing? Read more
Posted on 15 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
New AI-based Weather Forecasting is Superior to Traditional Methods
Dan Stillman, Why your weather forecasts may soon become more accurate, Washington Post, Nov. 14, 2023. Google DeepMind’s AI model, named “GraphCast,” was... Read more
Posted on 15 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Time and Form in A Testament for Ariela
When I began reading Miriam Yevick’s A Testament for Ariela I realized that not only had she had an interesting life, but that she had considerable literary... Read more
Posted on 14 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
From Pier 13, Hoboken
Posted on 14 November 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Enhancing LM Common-sense Reasoning Through Neurosymbolic Techniques
Here's the GitHub repository: https://t.co/z99otRustc— Carlos E. Perez (@IntuitMachine) November 14, 2023 Abstract of paper linked in the GitHub site: Yuling... Read more
Posted on 14 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Extra! Extra! Read All About It! New Savanna Now Has 666 Tags. [Mark of the...
When I added that last photo post, from my recent breakfast at Turning Point in Hoboken, my breakfast joint now that the Malibu is toast – though perhaps it wil... Read more
Posted on 13 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
All That Tag Tabulating Made Me Hungry. Time for Breakfast. [Hoboken]
Posted on 13 November 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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New Savanna Has 665 Tags as of 13 Nov 2023 [my 13-year Production Function is...
I’ve been working on a little ChatGPT project involving the list of tags I use to label posts here at New Savanna. While the project doesn’t actually require... Read more
Posted on 13 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Short-Term Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence on Employment
Hui, Xiang and Reshef, Oren and Zhou, Luofeng, The Short-Term Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence on Employment: Evidence from an Online Labor Market... Read more
Posted on 12 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
