Alfie Kohn
alfiekohn.bsky.social
Alfie Kohn
@alfiekohn.bsky.social

author and lecturer on topics in education, parenting, and human behavior....
(Personal messages more likely to be read if left on http://alfiekohn.org)
He/him

Alfie Kohn is an American author and lecturer in the areas of education, parenting, and human behavior. He is a proponent of progressive education and has offered critiques of many traditional aspects of parenting, managing, and American society more generally, drawing in each case from social science research. .. more

Education 68%
Psychology 10%
Pinned
"Podcast" comes from the Latin "paudus" (meaning "to half-listen to") and "casteratum" (meaning "while preparing food"). Mine is called "KOHN'S ZONE: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom About Education & Kids." New episodes are posted on the 1st & 15th of each month: www.alfiekohn.org/podcasts/

Authoritarianism defined in eight words: "make sure we have the right people voting"
Kristi Noem: "When it gets to Election Day, we've been proactive to make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country."
Kristi Noem: "When it gets to Election Day, we've been proactive to make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country."

2025: CEO of OpenAI says, "I hate ads," adding that he finds the idea of mixing ads with AI "uniquely unsettling."

2026: OpenAI begins running ads in ChatGPT.

Some time in the future: (watch "Common People," the 1st episode of Black Mirror's 7th season; a clip from which is here: is.gd/1cygjx)
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Actually, it just looks like a proxy for SES

Fungible bigotry

If for no other reason because Bad Bunny grabbed only his own crotch

"As AI models corrupt more and more of the open web, realistic images and authoritative-sounding bullshit are only going to multiply. First interrupting the truth, then competing with the truth, and then, finally, through sheer volume, dominating and fully eradicating the truth": is.gd/wb6Ga5
The Art of Haunting
The email was innocuous enough. A woman wrote to me explaining how her partner had been talking about my work and how much he’d enjoyed it—in particular, he’d remembered me giving a TEDx talk about gh...
is.gd

R.V. is a Christian nationalist

cc: anyone who's still supporting this evil by remaining on Facebook, Whatsapp, or Insta
(the feature in question here is widespread use of facial recognition, BTW)
this is comically evil. brazenly anti-social. just absolute black-pilled nihilism. we will not have a republic, we will not be free, until we regulate these companies to the point where — at a bare minimum — they're too afraid to put stuff like this down on paper.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...

an irony that's particularly striking in light of Vought's religious zealotry
this is comically evil. brazenly anti-social. just absolute black-pilled nihilism. we will not have a republic, we will not be free, until we regulate these companies to the point where — at a bare minimum — they're too afraid to put stuff like this down on paper.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...
There are ~90 million people alive today because of USAID. Russ Vought illegally shut it down and now is spending the money on himself. These are deeply evil people. www.reuters.com/world/us/whi...
Exclusive: White House uses USAID funds for budget director Vought's security, documents show
The White House budget office is using millions of dollars from the former U.S. foreign aid agency to pay for the security detail of Russell Vought, President Donald Trump's budget chief and an archit...
www.reuters.com

In the wake of the unfathomable decision to repeal the government's power to address climate change, have a look at this article's deeper look at how the Trump regime is "actively working to worsen global warming and...make the darkest futures more likely": is.gd/BBJP83
What Climate Change Will Do to America by Mid-Century
Many places may become uninhabitable. Many people may be on their own.
is.gd

We see this over and over
The anti-Black racism was fine, but the anti-Israel rhetoric is where he drew the line. This is the Republican "principled" opposition to Trump

Reposted by Alfie Kohn

The anti-Black racism was fine, but the anti-Israel rhetoric is where he drew the line. This is the Republican "principled" opposition to Trump

Good thread on how the psychology of authoritarianism supersedes racism for MAGA
Put it this way: if you are trying to predict Trump's actions, "what would a committed racist/minsogynst do?" will get you about a 95% hit rate. "What would a desperately insecure narcissist who is deeply afraid of weakness & drawn to bullying strength do?" will get you 100%.

Reposted by Alfie Kohn

Put it this way: if you are trying to predict Trump's actions, "what would a committed racist/minsogynst do?" will get you about a 95% hit rate. "What would a desperately insecure narcissist who is deeply afraid of weakness & drawn to bullying strength do?" will get you 100%.

It's not just a matter of disagreeing with them about political principles or even basic values. They are truly vile people.

Worth a read. And it's easy to imagine a similar human reaction (incredulous, nauseated) to the moral and psychological bankruptcy of just about any representative of the Trump regime - Vance, Hegseth, Noem, Miller, Vought, Rubio...: johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/dear-pam-b...
Dear Pam Bondi, (A Letter From A Father)
Dear Ms Bondi,
johnpavlovitz.substack.com

David Sedaris takes a break from grieving over his father's death to skewer clichés on the subject ("He did his best" as a parent? Well, no, Sedaris says; in fact he probably didn't) as well as grating euphemisms ("My father did not 'pass'....He died.") is.gd/OigEaD
A Better Place
Why the euphemisms? My father did not “pass.” Neither did he “depart.” He died.
is.gd
Fuentes then fantasizes about “breeding gulags”: “So just like Hitler imprisoned Gypsies, Jews, communists, you know, all of his political rivals, we have to do the same thing with women… They go to the breeding gulags. The good ones will be liberated. The bad ones will toil in the mines forever.”

Excuse the redundancy

A viewpoint arguably absent up until now. Mission accomplished!

Also, the two share a deep, chronic, all-consuming sense of grievance. (As does Clarence Thomas.)

Amazing to hear people recite platitudes like "Follow your dream." As if a dream to become famous were equivalent to a dream to end child malnutrition. The amorality of the concept enables the immorality of some individuals who exemplify it. Most tyrants, after all, have a dream. And plenty of grit.

"Our national morality assumes that men, like nations, are the better for staggering through life fully armed."
-E.M. Forster, Howards End

"Existential threat" appears only once in this account of how states are passing laws to make polluters contribute to climate crisis mitigation. Specifically, the phrase is used by the American Petroleum Inst. to describe how these corps. regard the impact of such legislation on them.
is.gd/V8UvS1
Climate ‘Superfund’ Bills Spread Nationwide, Despite Legal Battles
www.nytimes.com

Brian Broome: "I have heard the complaints of conservatives who believe that American colleges are indoctrinating their children. I don’t understand this. From where I sit, this complaint is only rooted in the fear that their children might acquire some empathy and understanding."

I'm sure investigative reporters at the Wash. Post will be exposing these dangers of the Amazon-owned Ring device any day now.
Ring is a wildly dangerous company. Always has been. But it has sort of flown under the radar the last couple years as it tried to soften its image. Make no mistake that this is an extremely dangerous surveillance dragnet:

www.404media.co/with-ring-am...
With Ring, American Consumers Built a Surveillance Dragnet
Ring's 'Search Party' is dystopian surveillance accelerationism.
www.404media.co

I'm sure investigative reporters at the Wash. Post will be exposing these dangers of the Amazon-owned Ring device any day now