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Alfie Kohn
@alfiekohn@sciences.social
mastodon 4.7.3author 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
1803 Followers
18 Following
50 Posts
Joined December 20, 2022
Jen Sorensen nails it, as always.
Well, what do you know? A manuscript editor with a van..."
Drinking salt water when you're thirsty just makes you thirstier.
Competing to feel better about yourself ultimately makes you feel worse about yourself (even if you win).
And guess what new research finds about the effect of interacting with chatbots when you're lonely?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09567976261427747
Boosted by @trending@homestead.social
Characteristically pointed piece by Cory Doctorow on the difference between the left and the right, particularly with regard to property rights: https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/08/wilhoitian/#human-rights-v-property-rights
New study of almost 100K people in 66 countries: "A happy society is more than just a collection of happy individuals." Public policies that promote the common good, "building open, fair, and supportive societies," are more likely to produce happiness "than policies focused exclusively on improving the lives of individual citizens": https://www.psypost.org/scientists-identify-five-key-factors-linked-to-happiness-across-66-countries/
If you read only one article from 1949 today, make it this gem by Robert Benchley called "How to Get Things Done." It's not only very funny; the strategy he describes actually sort of works: https://adam.nz/how-to-get-things-done
"Thus the injustice committed by the wealthy, though great, was hard to recognize; and what happened was in fact a general upheaval of people being transferred and settling down on land which had belonged to others."
- Appian, the Roman historian, writing ca. 2,000 years ago
"Men have become the tools of their tools."
-Thoreau, 1854
"After just ∼10 minutes of AI-assisted problem-solving, people who lost access to the AI performed worse and gave up more frequently than those who never used it."
- research finding, 2026
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2604.04721
Is there a group of soulless writers assigned, as though in an Orwellian Ministry of Propaganda, to do nothing but spin out fictional crimes and seamy histories to be used by ICE & DHS & Stephen Miller to smear the victims of their (sometimes fatal) attacks?
Let me know where these fabulists work so I can send them a bag of complimentary Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supremes with extra lettuce.
When you find yourself denouncing Amnesty International (and becoming an apologist for whoever they've identified as violators of human rights), it's probably time to reexamine your entire moral framework.
cc: defenders of Israel
https://bsky.app/profile/esqueer.net/post/3mqkm7t7pq22e
To Trump et al., the value of an education is measured purely in monetary terms: https://newrepublic.com/post/213446/trump-litmus-tests-student-loans-degrees-income But this is common on the right: A very similar anti-intellectual sensibility was heard from Reagan (https://medium.com/politically-speaking/the-republican-assault-on-education-700b2cd16a34) and, well, from Hitler (https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-ways-to-destroy-democracy/)
Nice piece that draws an analogy between relying on a GPS (vs. developing a sense of direction) to teachers who offer direct instruction of math procedures (vs. helping kids to develop math sense): https://www.middleweb.com/53328/are-you-gpsing-your-students-in-math-class/
Some ask: Can't we just teach kids principles AND procedures? This 1991 study found that the destructive effects of step-by-step direct instruction aren't offset by adding richer content: https://perryresearchgroupatillinois.weebly.com/uploads/4/1/6/7/41674785/perry_1991_cognitive_development.pdf. And this study 25 yrs later confirms it: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/306030326_Improving_conceptual_and_procedural_knowledge_The_impact_of_instructional_content_within_a_mathematics_lesson
Republicans: "We're making tremendous progress thanks to our unprecedented mid-decade gerrymandering and the Supreme Court's evisceration of the Voting Rights Act. But without the voting-suppression SAVE Act, there's a real danger that some of us could lose to candidates preferred by voters."
"Hezbollah does not resist Israel simply because it is a Shiite organization supported by Iran; it resists Israel primarily because Israel has repeatedly invaded, scorched and occupied Lebanese land, and because Israel uprooted and terrorized its community." Worth a read: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/23/opinion/israel-exploits-lebanon-sectarian-divides.html?unlocked_article_code=1.dlA.krNC.3JLNP0R2gx_I&smid=url-share
Did someone say "equal justice under the law"?
Replying to
AI as homogenizer: The real and imagined advantages to using generative AI invariably focus on the individual who's using it. But here's evidence that any benefit to each of us comes at a cost to all of us - by reducing the diversity of ideas and making our thinking more uniform: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/rz5s4_v1
I'm making a point of not flying anywhere today. I worry that if my plane were hit or lost power, air traffic control would respond to the pilot's "Mayday! Mayday!" with "Sure is, buddy! Have a good one!"
Elie Mystal warns that the Court's decision allowing red states to discriminate against a handful of trans women and girls in sports will be used by the Trump regime and other Republicans to *require* discrimination against trans people - and not just on the athletic field: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/supreme-court-trans-athlete-ruling/
Replying to
3/3
The book nicely debunks economists' appeals to cognitive biases - e.g., claiming obesity or low retirement-savings are due to overweighting present desires over future needs - noting that there are huge variations in those problems by society or time period.
The bk's criticism of behav econ is notable b/c the authors are (reformed) practitioners of that field who seem to have had an epiphany about its individualist ideology & the corp. actors that cynically promote & benefit from that dogma.
Replying to
How to disable it:
https://winaero.com/google-chrome-secretly-downloads-huge-local-ai-models/
"Hormuz," it turns out, is Persian for "Schrödinger"
Andrew Hacker (1929-2026) pointed out that making high schoolers take college-prep classes, especially advanced math (for no good reason), just creates "lifelong tracking" because those who can't hack these classes may be denied a diploma. (I highly recommend his book The Math Myth: https://is.gd/Hj5IIt.)
Replying to
2/3
Corporations "are (rightly, as it turns out) confident that the resulting environmental and social problems can't and won't be solved one person at a time...[They] spend substantial resources...to ensure that the game is rigged in their favor" and then "blame individual citizens for any resulting social ills."
"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons"
-T.S. Eliot
"Time is tapping on my forehead
Hanging from my mirror
Rattling the teacups"
-Paul Simon
"Every day a little death
In the parlor, in the bed
In the curtains, in the silver
In the buttons, in the bread"
-Stephen Sondheim
Saying “I love kids!” is like saying “I like people . . . for a little while.”
-- Demetri Martin
Replying to
4/3
The book also contains a persuasive critique of social scientists' reliance on randomized controlled trials, which inherently favor a framework limited to tweaking choices made by individuals. More substantive policy interventions (e.g., single-payer healthcare, carbon taxes) are excluded because they don't lend themselves to this experimental methodology.
Replying to
Sometimes they don't even wait for a full week to pass: https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chrome-silent-nano-install/
Replying to
In that same post, Elie Mystal unpacks Musk's lawsuit against Altman, which he refers to as "Person I’d Like to See Punted Into the Sun v. Person I’d Like to See Tied to the Bottom of the Ocean."
It's not just the use of stolen data, the environmental devastation, the slop producing unreliable answers, and so on. AI - LLMs - and the companies betting our future on it - are all fully committed to supporting the war machine (i.e., helping the Pentagon to kill more efficiently): https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/us/politics/pentagon-ai-companies-deals.html?unlocked_article_code=1.fVA.z_7k.jcPZLV596YVU&smid=url-share
1/2
A substantial research literature finds that people driven by extrinsic goals - thirsting for fame, recognition, wealth, or beauty - are often trying to compensate for feelings of emptiness and insecurity. Yet their quest leaves them even more unhappy than before. (For more, see https://www.alfiekohn.org/blogs/fame/; https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/1996_KasserRyan_AmericanDream.pdf.)
RFK,Jr.'s efforts to undermine not just public health but science dovetails with Vought et al.'s Christian nationalism - a "coordinated, full-throated attack on secular democratic institutions that protect everyone equally": https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/may/03/christofascism-rfk-jr-health
Those "dragging America’s public health system toward a new dark age...are morally bankrupt" and indifferent to the effect on "real people’s well-being. Christian nationalist language gives calculated government neglect the sheen of providence."
Replying to
@daiversity
Close. It makes me want to send the companies pushing chatbots on us to Mars.
When we fail to formulate a meaningful, positive definition of mental health, the (tacit) goal of therapy we're left with is unsatisfying.
When we fail to reflect on the purposes of education, the same is true of the (tacit) goal of schooling. New podcast episode: "Beneath the What and the How Is the Why."
Listen here: https://www.alfiekohn.org/podcasts/
"Beneath the Why and the How Is the Why" - the new episode of Kohn's Zone - offers a series of questions for probing and refining our views on the goals of schooling. When we ignore this topic, we end up by default with crude credentialism: https://www.alfiekohn.org/podcasts/
Replying to
Not just academic freedom. Also press freedom:
https://bsky.app/profile/alexip718.com/post/3mkorcg4dlc2g
Replying to
@bifouba
In one of his books, Jonathan Kozol drily described conservative educational theorist Chester Finn’s opposition to allocating money for the purpose of reducing class size. That “is ‘not a very prudent investment strategy,’ said Mr. Finn, who sent his daughter to Exeter, where class size is 13.”
Make sure to read this with the theme from "Jaws" playing in the background:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/21/technology/openai-attack-hugging-face.html?unlocked_article_code=1.z1A.U6WQ.Qa7sGHQIeYMm&smid=url-share
OK, sure, but with noncollege, rural, Evangelical, sociopathic white men, I'll bet he's doing great.