The Death of the Student Essay—and the Future of Cognition One professor's reflections on the end of an era, as AI tools such as ChatGPT have murdered the student essay (RIP). Here's why that threatens the future of human cognition—and how to save ourselves.

open.substack.com/pub/briankla...

Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task This study explores the neural and behavioral consequences of LLM-assisted essay writing. Participants were divided into three groups: LLM, Search Engine, and Brain-only (no tools). Each completed thr...

Coincidentally, I bumped into this research article shortly after I read Brian Klaas’s Substack post this morning. (I’m posting Klaas’s article separately.) arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872

Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task This study explores the neural and behavioral consequences of LLM-assisted essay writing. Participants were divided into three groups: LLM, Search Engine, and Brain-only (no tools). Each completed thr...

arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872

For the first time in program history, Texas has reached the mountaintop of the college softball world 🏆️

#WCWs | https://bit.ly/442ML8W

I did not have Gustavo Dudamel/LA Philharmonic/Cynthia Erivo/Purple Rain on my Coachella 2025 Bingo card

But thankful it happened

145. Justice Alito's Misbegotten Dissent in A.A.R.P. Justice Alito's after-the-fact opinion dissenting from the Court's early-Saturday-morning Alien Enemy Act ruling rests on a revealing array of misrepresentations, misstatements, and non-sequiturs.

145. Justice Alito's Misbegotten Dissent in A.A.R.P.
open.substack.com/pub/stevevla...

144. The Supreme Court's Late-Night Alien Enemy Act Intervention Just before 1:00 a.m., the justices (aggressively) stepped back into the Alien Enemy Act litigation—in a decision suggesting that a majority understands that these are no longer normal circumstances.

Just before 1 a.m., #SCOTUS stepped back into the Alien Enemy Act litigation with a (remarkable) ruling that suggests, among other things, that a majority of the justices is tiring of the Trump administration’s Calvinball.

For more, see the latest “One First”:

www.stevevladeck.com/p/144-the-su...

250 years ago today America began its march toward independence at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The battles marked “No Kings Day, Part I.” Today millions of Americans will take part in “No Kings Day, Part II.”

How to cross thin ice, #polar #bear edition: spread out wide to distribute weight and reduce pressure. This clever move helps avoid breaking the fragile surface.
A survival tactic perfected in the Arctic
#physics

This is an obvious point, but cannot overstated. There is an enormous difference between deporting someone - where they get off a plane as a free citizen in their home country AND FUNNELING THEM INTO A BRUTAL PRISON FROM WHICH THEY HAVE NO CHANCE OF EVER EMERGING!!!

Twenty Lessons, read by John Lithgow Key selections from On Tyranny, for viewing and sharing

"On Tyranny" is a #1 NYT bestseller again. I wish the moment were different. But I’m glad the book is useful. And grateful for all the kind words about putting the 20 lessons to work.
snyder.substack.com/p/twenty-les...

She was one of the seven Republican senators who voted to convict him. Only three of the seven are still in the Senate. The other two are Collins and Cassidy. She’s been the most courageous of the bunch of them.

Exactly. The way to look at it is: If we had just 5 Lisa Murkowskis in the House and 19 more in the Senate, our national nightmare would be over in a matter of weeks. But we don’t, and it won’t.

I don’t think a better headline could have been written about what happened yesterday.

www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

11/ The tariffs aren’t economic policy. They are political weapons.

But as long as we see this clearly, we can stop him. Public mobilization is working. Today, a few Republicans joined Democrats to vote against one set of tariffs.

The people still have the power.

10/ And once Trump has the lawyers, colleges and industry under his thumb, it becomes very hard for the opposition to have any viable space to maneuver.

Trump didn’t invent this strategy. It’s the playbook for democratically elected leaders who want to stay in power forever.

9/ The tariffs are DESIGNED to create economic hardship. Why? So that Trump has a straight face rationale for releasing them, business by business or industry by industry.

As he adjusts or grants relief, it’s a win-win: the economy improves and dissent disappears.

8/ What could Trump demand as part of a quiet loyalty pledge?

Public shows of support from executives for all his economic policy. Contributions to his political efforts. Promises to police employees’ support for his political opposition.

7/ But the private sector also plays a rule to protect democracy. Independent industry has power.

The tariffs are Trump’s tool to erode that independence. Now, one by one, every industry or company will need to pledge loyalty to Trump in order to get sanctions relief.

6/ Healthy democracies rely on an independent legal profession to maintain the rule of law, independent universities to guard objective truth and provide forums for dissent to authority, and independent state/local government to counterbalance a powerful federal government.

5/ Trump knows that he can weaken (and maybe destroy) democracy by using spending and taxation in the same way.

He is using access to government funds to bully universities, law firms and state and local governments into loyalty pledges.

4/ British kings used taxation to reward loyalty and punish dissent.

Our own revolution was spurred by the King’s use of heavy taxation of the colonies to punish our push for self governance.

The King’s message was simple: stop protesting and I’ll stop taxing.

3/ You see, our founders created a President with limited and checked powers. They specifically put the power of spending and taxation in the hands of the legislature.

Why? Because they watched how kings and despots used spending and taxes to control their subjects.

2/ This week you will read many confused economists and political pundits who won’t understand how the tariffs make economic sense.

That’s because they don’t. They aren’t designed as economic policy. The tariffs are simply a new, super dangerous political tool.

Those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive.

No, the tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief.

1/ A 🧵 to explain his plan and how we fight back.

Twenty Lessons, read by John Lithgow Key selections from On Tyranny, for viewing and sharing

Twenty Lessons, read by John Lithgow
open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...

This is horrible to post, but I may as well post it. We are essentially shutting down research operations in my group, which is focused on treatments for pediatric brain cancer. I’m a well funded investigator, and there’s no choice. Science can’t function without the stability of NIH

At SXSW, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber pokes fun at Mark Zuckerberg with Latin phrase T-shirt | TechCrunch When Bluesky CEO Jay Graber walked on stage at SXSW 2025 for her keynote discussion, she wore a large black T-shirt with her hair pulled back into a bun.

at sxsw, @jay.bsky.team pokes fun at mark zuckerberg by mimicking a version of a t-shirt he designed for himself, which said "aut zuck aut nihil" (either zuck or nothing, like "aut caesar aut nihil").

jay's shirt? "mundus sine caesaribus" (a world without caesars).
techcrunch.com/2025/03/10/a...