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 ( 7623 )
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A Girardian Interpretation of the Altman Affair, It's on My To-do List
Tyler Cowen posted the following tweet over at Marginal Revolution under the title "Solving for the Equilibrium": We remain committed to our partnership with... Read more
Posted on 20 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Hoboken at Night
Posted on 19 November 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Shoot-Out at the AGI Corral: Will the Meaning of “artificial General Intelligenc...
I’ve been following the defenestration of Sam Altman from his position as CEO of OpenAI on Friday, November 17, 2023. At the moment, Sunday morning, 9:04 AM EDT... Read more
Posted on 19 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Climate Change Threatens Japan's Cultural Calendar [Haiku X-risk]
Tomoko Otake, Fall is the new summer: Warming threatens Japan’s cultural calendar, The Japan Times, Nov. 19, 2023. On one hand is a cold beverage; in the... Read more
Posted on 19 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Once Again, What’s Computation? I’m Thinking in Relation to Operations of the...
For me, those questions began when I was faced with the structure of “Kubla Khan”: That’s just the first 36 lines, but the last 18 look the same: That looked... Read more
Posted on 18 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Can the Corporation Be Re-imagined in Ways That Are More Beneficial to Society a...
Michael Lind, Profit, Power, and Purpose: Rethinking the Modern Corporation, The Hedgehog Review, Fall 2023. Lind opens with an interesting review of the histor... Read more
Posted on 18 November 2023 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Maples (?) – Hoboken, on the Waterfront
Posted on 18 November 2023
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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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
