@grok@BenSasse@CRISPRKING@parmita Listen to his podcast and track down his roundtable for Sola Media. His insights on living, family, politics, higher ed and finishing well have all been spot on!
Ben Sasse was diagnosed in Dec 2025 with stage-4 metastatic pancreatic cancer (plus lymphoma, lung, liver, vascular). Doctors called it a death sentence—3-4 months initially. He's in clinical trials at MD Anderson, pain down 80%, but it's terminal. The photo is from his recent NYT podcast interview (bleeding from a med side effect); he's facing it head-on with faith, family focus, and even launched "Not Dead Yet" podcast.
“Ben Sasse’s torso is chock full of tumors.”
That podcast was enlightening and heartbreaking.
this is the face of a warrior. These are battlescars. @BenSasse
@BayesianAutist@asanwal Stop pretending that the ideal of the tool is more meaningful than how it is used. It’s like suggesting that the problem with pornography is that its users are not just focused on anatomy lessons.
@asanwal This is full of causal misattribution and loaded language.
“When people use this tool to cheat instead of study - it actually doesn’t help!”
Therefore…?
This isn’t “AI failing” it’s human psychology + incentives. AI just removed friction. Stop blaming tools on users.
Wharton researchers gave nearly 1,000 high school math students access to ChatGPT during practice problems
Result: chatGPT is the perfect trap.
Look at the red bars.
Students with ChatGPT crushed their practice sessions.
The basic ChatGPT group solved more problems and those on the "tutor" version did even more.
Now look at the gray bars. That's the exam.
No AI allowed.
The ChatGPT group scored 17% worse than kids who practiced with zero technology.
And the fancy tutor version?
No better than working alone.
The researchers called AI a "crutch."
When they analyzed what students actually typed into ChatGPT, most of them just wrote - “What’s the answer?”
The kicker: students who used ChatGPT believed it hadn't hurt their learning.
They were confidently wrong.
This is the AI trap in education.
Outsourcing your thinking.
Of course, lots of half-baked AI literacy curricula being rolled out in schools now
Let’s of course ignore that basic literacy (the ability to read) is possible for <50% of 8th graders
Source: Bastani et al. (2025), "Generative AI Can Harm Learning," PNAS
Application window closes 3/1 for GTC '26-27 cohort, a year of ministry training in gospel culture in Naperville. Ideal as gap year between college and seminary. Stipend, books, and housing all provided by NPC. Calvinism, love, and laughter! Fun fun fun!!
youtube.com/watch?v=cebOYq…
@j_em_bee@jasonhickel The working class is currently celebrating in Caracas and Miami. Not a Trump fan, but your calls for the working class to strike missed by a generation.
@jasonhickel Correct, and only one social force can stop US imperialism’s neocolonial aggression, Jason: the working class. Nothing moves in this world w/o the working class moving it. What is needed is the unified mobilization of the Venezuelan & US working class in opposition to Trump.
Remember that the US *does not care* about the people of Venezuela. It is not about "narcotrafficking", or "democracy", or whatever propaganda they have going. It is *explicitly* about US control over oil, capital accumulation, and geopolitical power.
@annielcrawford Make the walk in nature and it’s a bigger win. I’m worried about all of the responses from the arctic. We don’t need more interstate refugees in our beloved state.
Solvitur ambulando.
If you added 30 or more minutes of walking alone or with family and friends every day, how would it change your life?
Walking creates rest from the world of work while simultaneously bringing our mind, heart and body back into rhythm with the world.
It opens up emotional and mental and relational space for the kind of reconnection and recollection that we desperately need.
All you need to do is put on shoes and walk out the door before the demons can change your mind.
Consider adding 30 minutes to an hour per day as an advent practice, a way to make space as we prepare for the arrival of the king.
@latinedisce
@JoshuaBarzon 2 or 6 but it would it would have to be a smoking flight for 6. For many of the others, I would need more than 8 hours to catch up on the conversation.
HEARTWARMING: Nate, a 17-year-old Saquon Barkley superfan from Austin, Texas, lost half his pelvis to rare bone cancer in 2022 and recently learned it has spread.
Before the game, he met his hero Saquon in person.
Saquon and Nate shared a special moment.
@man_of_renown@daneortlund He has been a great role model for my son. I doubt that you actually know him, but if you do and have a problem with him then reach out directly to him.
Young men,
If you will learn early on how to:
- shake a hand
- look people in the eye
- ask a question
- listen
- stand up straight
- be on time (pro tip: early = on time)
...you will be in the top 3% of your peers before anyone cares at all what your grades are, what you do for work, how strong or good-looking you are, how much money you make, what you drive, or who your family is.
We could add more skills. How to have a conversation, introduce yourself, apologize, read a book, and more. These are hugely important too. But they are harder. The above bullet points are B-A-S-I-C and easily learned.
Rudimentary inter-personal skills are rarer with each passing year and those who receive basic coaching in this arena of life strongly stand out.
@Profligate_joy@dustinwmesser Catechesis is a good thing. The post is saying that the church isn’t catechizing or discipling but is attracting people who received this elsewhere.
@dustinwmesser Is catechesis a bad thing?
(Genuinely asking I’ve never heard anyone use it in a negative sense)
What is the distinction you are making between catechesis and discipleship?
Anglicanism attracted disaffected sheep & the results look like evangelism. Theology-nerds self selected in & the results look like catechesis. The aesthetic patina that got people here is wearing off. We have to re-learn the normie basics of discipleship before it's too late.
Applications now open for the 2026-2027 cohort of four men at NPC's Gospel Training Center.
A one-year local church "lab" to complement the "lecture hall" of seminary.
npchurch.org/gospel-trainin…
We do not need wall to wall coverage from UK journalists, of the Charlie Kirk memorial FFS.
He was a far right gobshite podcaster with ZERO meaning to the UK!!