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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Selfie Madness
The New York Times has an op-ed about selfies (through the ages). I've taken a bunch of them myself. Here's a Flickr album of my selfies. Read more
Posted on 06 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Claude 3.7 Describes Psychedelic Marilyn
In all the other posts in my “Claude Describes” series I’ve had Claude describe a photograph or photographs that I’ve taken. This time it’s something... Read more
Posted on 05 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Pansies
Posted on 05 April 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Using Machine Learning to Measure CEO Depression
Cheng, S.-Y. and Golshan, N.M. (2025), Silent Suffering: Using Machine Learning to Measure CEO Depression. Journal of Accounting Research, 63: 689-767.... Read more
Posted on 05 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Why This Obsession with IQ? [It's as American as Apple Pie.]
Amanda Hess, What Is Elon Musk’s IQ? NYTimes, Apr. 5, 2025. FWIW estimates put Musk's IQ between 100-110 on the low end and 155. But we don't really know becaus... Read more
Posted on 05 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Humans Learn New Chess Concepts from AlphaZero
L. Schut, N. Tomašev, T. McGrath, D. Hassabis, U. Paquet, B. Kim, Bridging the human–AI knowledge gap through concept discovery and transfer in AlphaZero... Read more
Posted on 04 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Friday Fotos: An Act of Quite Despiration, Leavened with Bacon
Posted on 04 April 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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If No Longer America, Then What Nation Or Nations Will Answer the Calls of...
I was raised believing that America was the greatest country in the world, the home of the free and the brave, leader of the free world. I continued to believe... Read more
Posted on 04 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Short Note on the Importance of Fun [Homo Ludens]
Tyler Cowen has just interviewed economic historian Sheilagh Ogilvie on a variety of topics: ...the economic impacts of historical pandemics, the “happy story”... Read more
Posted on 03 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Lawrence Summers on Why Universities Must Resist Trump
Lawrence H. Summers, If Powerful Places Like Harvard Don’t Stand Up to Trump, Who Can? NYTimes, April 3, 2025. The U.S. government is trying to bludgeon... Read more
Posted on 03 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Flash!
Posted on 03 April 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Perspective on Musical Neurodynamics
Harding, E.E., Kim, J.C., Demos, A.P. et al. Musical neurodynamics. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-025-00915-4 Abstract: A... Read more
Posted on 03 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Generative AI Chatbot for Mental Health Treatment
Michael V. Heinz, Daniel M. Macklin, Brianna M. Trudeau, et al., Randomized Trial of a Generative AI Chatbot for Mental Health Treatment, The New England Journa... Read more
Posted on 03 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
This Song Has Been Been Haunting Me for Two Or Three Days: Chan Chan
This is the original version: From the webpage: The original Buena Vista Social Club album was recorded for World Circuit Records over six days at the vintage... Read more
Posted on 02 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
AI & Humans, Then and Now
In “The Evolution of Cognition” (1990) David Hays and I argued that the long-term evolution of human culture flows from the architectural foundations of... Read more
Posted on 02 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Caught in Delium [blossoms]
Posted on 02 April 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Tyler Cowen Interviews Ezra Klein on Abundance, Kludgeocracy and So Much More
Here's the link, and the intro: What happens when a liberal thinker shifts his attention from polarization to economic abundance? Read more
Posted on 02 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Authoritarianism in the US and Abroad | Robert Wright & Almut Rochowanski
0:00 Almut’s first-hand acquaintance with authoritarianism 2:00 Trump 2.0’s authoritarian hallmarks 19:13 What should worry us most about Trump 2.0? 25:51... Read more
Posted on 02 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Selection of Recent Photos
Posted on 01 April 2025
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Superforcasting the Future of AI [is the Methodology Appropriate? – a...
Superforcasting is a technique for making predictions about world events that originated in The Good Judgment Project. I’ve known about it for a while and read... Read more
Posted on 01 April 2025 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
