Alfie Kohn
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alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
Alfie Kohn
@alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
1.2K followers 1 following 1.4K posts
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

🌉 bridged from ⁂ https://sciences.social/@alfiekohn, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact
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alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
Arsenic, strychnine, or cyanide: Which substance does the least damage to your body?
PCMag headline: "ChatGPT, Copilot, DeepSeek, or Gemini: Which AI Chatbot Collects the Least of Your Data?"
November 20, 2025 at 4:07 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
Have you seen anything like this? It was my first encounter with a service whose rather unsettling slogan is "Information destruction at your door."
Photo of truck's side panel, which reads "PROSHRED SECURITY - Information destruction at your door - Onsite paper & hard drive destruction"
November 20, 2025 at 1:11 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
Offered without comment
Polymarket: "BREAKING: Zohran Mamdani to require all NY elementary school students to learn Arabic numerals." Laura Loomer [Trump advisor]: "You know things are bad when you can't tell if this is real or a joke. Dear God, it's real. Isn't it?"
November 20, 2025 at 1:52 AM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
We're delighted to announce that there is no bad news about the economy to report!
Bloomberg headline: BLS Cancels October Jobs Report, Couldn't Collect Data
November 19, 2025 at 6:32 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
"Vagueness has long been seen as a clear divide between democracies run by laws and autocracies run by strongmen....The latter use] vague laws to suppress unwanted speech and behavior. But vagueness has become fundamental to the way Trump operates": [ […]

[Original post on sciences.social]
In a sense, Trump is creating a system of rules and punishments all his own. And when those rules are vaguely defined — unlike, say, a speed limit or even complex financial regulations — there is no assurance that anyone can be safely outside the zone of violation. Therefore, there is no telling who might be found out of bounds next and what punishment might be imposed.
November 18, 2025 at 12:40 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
Bulletin board of the sort shown in movies with people attempting to uncover intricate conspiracies, except this one contains just two photos, of Trump and Epstein, connected with a single piece of yarn.
November 15, 2025 at 5:51 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
Completely predictable, but still stunning: A key organizing principle of these people - to the point of animating lunatic conspiracy theories - has been their passionate devotion to rooting out pedophiles. Wait, what's that? It turns out that the leader of […]

[Original post on sciences.social]
[Wired headline] All MAGA Wanted Was the Epstein Files. Now They're Ignoring Them
November 14, 2025 at 5:34 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
Short excerpts from an Atlantic article subtitled "The False Promise of AI Companionship": https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2025/12/ai-companionship-anti-social-media/684596/
Friction is inevitable in human relationships. It can be uncomfortable, even maddening. Yet friction can be meaningful—as a check on selfish behavior or inflated self-regard; as a spur to look more closely at other people; as a way to better understand the foibles and fears we all share. Neither Ani nor any other chatbot will ever tell you it’s bored or glance at its phone while you're talking or tell you to stop being so stupid and self- righteous. They will never ask you to pet-sit or help them move, or demand anything at all from you. They provide some facsimile of companionship while allowing users to avoid uncomfortable interactions or reciprocity. “In the extreme, it can become this hall of mirrors where your worldview is never challenged,” Vasan said. And so, although chatbots may be built on the familiar architecture of engagement, they enable something new: They allow you to talk forever to no one other than yourself. “Every time theres been a new technology, it’s rewired socialization, especially for kids,” Vasan told me. “TV made kids passive spectators. Social media turned things into this 24/7 performance review.” In that respect, generative Al is following a familiar pattern. But the more time children spend with chatbots, the fewer opportunities they'll have to develop alongside other people—and, as opposed to all the digital distractions that have existed for decades, they may be fooled by the technology into thinking that they are, in fact, having a social experience.
November 14, 2025 at 1:04 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
I'm reminded of a headline in the Harvard Lampoon's parody of USA Today: "Chromium Is Heaviest Metal, Poll Finds"
Fox News screen grab features RFK Jr. & JD Vance talking. Post quotes Vance as follows: "Science as practiced in its best form is that if you disagree with it, then you ought to criticize it and you ought to argue against it."
November 12, 2025 at 7:48 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
This is what Zuckerberg's Meta stands for. If you're still on Facebook (or WhatsApp or Insta), you're standing for it, too: https://www.404media.co/ai-generated-videos-of-ice-raids-are-wildly-viral-on-facebook/
Post by Jason Koebler: "The most horrifying AI slop of ICE raids you can possibly imagine is wildly viral on Facebook, collectively totaling tens of millions of views from a single account..." Caption for screenshots continues: "An account is spamming horrific, dehumanizing videos of immigration enforcement because the Facebook algorithm is rewarding them for it."
November 12, 2025 at 6:29 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
In case you needed another reason not to: https://www.pcmag.com/news/ask-chatgpt-about-affairs-abortion-be-careful-marketers-peek-prompts
[PCMag headline] Asking ChatGPT About Affairs or Abortion? Be Careful, Marketers Are Peeking at Your Prompts Browser extensions are potentially funneling your most personal queries to a company selling market insights about chatbot activity.
November 12, 2025 at 3:07 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
He said something very similar about Putin about 10 years ago. I continue to be astounded not only by the man's desperate neediness but by the fact that he lacks the self-awareness to be embarrassed by it or the regulatory capacity to conceal it. And this […]

[Original post on sciences.social]
Trump to Pat McAfee: "I'm only joining you because I hear you say such nice things about me. When people say nice things about me, I join. When they don't say nice about me [sic], I take a pass."
November 11, 2025 at 10:31 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
What's striking isn't the growing number of studies finding negative effects from using AI - in this case, to have it summarize online research for you (vs. searching individual sources yourself) - but the kneejerk tendency of those reporting that research it […]

[Original post on sciences.social]
Last spring, Shiri Melumad, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, gave a group of 250 people a simple writing assignment: Share advice with a friend on how to lead a healthier lifestyle. To come up with tips, some were allowed to use a traditional Google search, while others could rely only on summaries of information generated automatically with Google’s artificial intelligence. The people using A.I-generated summaries wrote advice that was generic, obvious and largely unhelpful — eat healthy foods, stay hydrated and get lots of sleep! The people who found information with a traditional Google web search shared more nuanced advice about focusing on the various pillars of wellness, including physical, mental and emotional health. The tech industry tells us that chatbots and new A. search tools will supercharge the way we learn and thrive, and that anyone who ignores the technology risks being left behind. But Dr. Melumad’s experiment, like other academic studies published so far on A.Ls effects on the brain, found that people who rely heavily on chatbots and A.I search tools for tasks like writing essays and research are generally performing worse than people who don’t use them.
November 10, 2025 at 8:51 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
When ideological purity and loyalty to the regime displace experience, expertise, and all other considerations: Exhibits A and B
Interviews with 25 people, including current and former Kennedy Center executives, board members, longtime employees, recent hires, industry leaders and Trump administration officials, revealed a Washington institution in crisis. Audiences are staying away. Internal sales figures obtained by The New York Times showed ticket sales down by about 50 percent from the same period last year during one typical week in October. Dozens of employees, many with decades of experience, have been fired or quit. Outsiders with few obvious qualifications aside from party loyalty were handed top jobs. The center's head of human resources estimated that staffing was down 30 percent from before Mr. Trump took over. Others call that a conservative estimate. SFDB @sfdb.bsky.social: The DeSantis administration has turned New College into the least efficient school in the state's university system. “The operating funds per student at New College is $83,207 — four times the university system average.” Batting "woke waste" is not cheap. [Sarasota Herald Tribune headline] New College of Florida shows soaring expenses as state targets 'woke waste’ A report by Florida DOGE found that New College is the most financially inefficient school in the university system.
November 10, 2025 at 1:16 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
Much has been said about Musk's appalling social media posts. Joyce Carol Oates takes a moment to notice what he *doesn't* post.
November 9, 2025 at 3:09 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
P.S. Say, what ended up happening to Ceaușescu, the corrupt, narcissistic Romanian dictator? Oh, that's right. He was eventually arrested, tried, and executed.
Posting a photo of Ceausescuo's bathroom for no apparent reason [which is ornate, with marble and gold to rival Trump's more recent monument to bad taste and self-indulgence]
November 8, 2025 at 7:00 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
WashPost headline: "In MAGA stronghold, fury over SNAP but little blame for Trump in shutdown"
November 7, 2025 at 3:50 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
Short answer: Lord, let's hope not!

Long answer: This is precisely the kind of framing that capitulates to Big Tech (rather than exercising our critical faculties to ask whether we should be buying what they're selling) and that I challenged in this essay ( […]

[Original post on sciences.social]
Education Week headline: "AI Is Picking Up Speed. Are Schools Keeping Pace?"
November 7, 2025 at 2:57 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
Close your eyes and imagine a leftist's heavy-handed caricature of American capitalism.

Now open your eyes.
47 Million People Face Food Insecurity Musk Wins $1 Trillion Payday Tesla shareholders approved a plan to grant Elon Musk shares worth nearly $1 trillion if he meets ambitious goals.
November 6, 2025 at 10:37 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
Empathy and compassion personified
Photo taken in the White House of Trump staring straight ahead, ignoring a crowd gathered to help one of his Cabinet members who apparently fainted
November 6, 2025 at 8:04 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
NYT headline: "Be Prepared Before Seeking A.I. Medical Advice" - which has been edited to add "...to Not Seek A.I. Medical Advice"
November 4, 2025 at 8:51 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
This imagined defense by Cheney ("What I Got Right About the Iraq War") from The Onion in 2023 ought to run as a sidebar to every obit that's published this week: https://theonion.com/what-i-got-right-about-the-iraq-war-1850249194/
It's easy for armchair critics to condemn the Iraq War. But you have to remember what things were like back in 2003. People actually trusted the government and had faith in the idea of America, Trust and faith aren't very sturdy things to build a perpetual war machine on, and they don’t make alot of money, either. The Iraq War eroded faith in the government and drove more Americans into suspicion and hatred, just as we hoped it would. Combine that with rising inequality and the American cult of the individual, and you have a perfect recipe for ensuring that most Americans are too disillusioned to mount collective resistance to any governmental transgressions. That's what I always hoped the Iraq War might accomplish, and man, it fels good to be right.
November 4, 2025 at 12:33 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
This is funny but not entirely a joke. Research finds the moralism of religious people is harsher about breaches of conventional sexuality/reproductive issues than breaches of prosocial morality; "conservative stances toward sex are close to the core of what it means to be religious."
ONION headline: "Mike Johnson: 'My Christian Faith Is More About Not Jacking Off Than Feeding the Poor'"
November 3, 2025 at 11:01 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
Murdoch stands for only the highest-quality journalism
NY Post headline: "Nearly a million New Yorkers ready to flee NYC if Mamdani becomes mayor - possibly igniting largest exododus [sic] in history: poll"
November 3, 2025 at 4:33 PM
alfiekohn.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy
We can rest easier knowing that the quality of the Washington Post's investigative journalism is equal to the challenges we're facing these days.
We set out to find the real reason pickleball noise is so annoying The racket from some 70,000 pickleball courts across the United States has generated bitter fights. If we understand the sound, can we learn to ignore it?
November 2, 2025 at 1:00 PM