Tom Massey
LightNews LightNews
banner
tomjmassey.bsky.social
Tom Massey
@tomjmassey.bsky.social
15 followers 22 following 24 posts
A clueless father, yet intensely curious.
Posts Replies Media Videos
tomjmassey.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/tomjmass...
September 29, 2025 at 7:35 AM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
Introducing the concept of 'prosthetic load'—when one brain hemisphere compensates for another's absence. As AI scales, this could reshape how we think about cognitive diversity and human-AI collaboration. @AnthropicAI open.substack.com/pub/tomjmass...
The Prosthetic Mind
When one hemisphere of the brain must do double duty, the cost isn’t conflict, it’s exhaustion. And with AI on the rise, that burden could either deepen or finally be relieved.
open.substack.com
September 28, 2025 at 4:03 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
When logic outpaces identity, kids don’t become wiser—they become crueler to themselves. Ages 7–12 may be our last structured chance to prevent that.

tomjmassey.substack.com/p/you-think-...
#Education #Parenting #MentalHealth #NarrativeIdentity #DualArcProject
You Think, Therefore You Break
Why identity without recursive narration becomes a blade—and how ages 7–12 are the last structured chance to dull the edge.
tomjmassey.substack.com
June 1, 2025 at 8:00 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
AGI won’t just erase jobs. It will erase identity. Kids need daily reflection now—or the feed will do it for them. Coherence is survival.

tomjmassey.substack.com/p/narrative-...

#Parenting #AGI #NarrativeIdentity #ChildDevelopment #Resilience #Education #Leadership
Narrative Coherence Is a Survival Skill: Teaching Kids to Tell Their Story
Why daily reflection rituals protect identity in an age of algorithmic drift
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 28, 2025 at 11:32 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
Grit without discernment is just persistence in the wrong direction.
Trialing isn’t quitting. It’s authorship in progress.

tomjmassey.substack.com/p/grit-witho...

#Parenting #ChildDevelopment #Grit #Identity #Education #ChallengeInterview #DualArc #NarrativeIdentity
Grit Without Discernment Is Just Stubbornness
How Early Overcommitment Hijacks Identity Before It Even Forms
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 27, 2025 at 1:40 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
What if AGI wasn't for output, but for coherence? Not to optimize tasks, but to hold identity. A second narrator. A mirror. Before we forget who we were becoming.

tomjmassey.substack.com/p/the-cognit...
#dualarcproject #identityformation #Claude3 #OpenAI #AnthropicAI #AIUX #Neurodivergent
The Cognitive Mirror: Why We Need AGI Agents for Coherence, Not Just Productivity
What if AI could hold our attention, not just capture it? A case for coherence-first agents in an era of accelerated overwhelm.
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 23, 2025 at 9:35 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
Most tech trains kids to react before they reflect. What if the most radical device isn’t the fastest but the one that waits? OpenAI and Jony Ive might be building it.

tomjmassey.substack.com/p/the-first-...
#parenting #AI #JonyIve #OpenAI #attention #reflection #humandevice #dualarcproject
The First Humane Devices
What OpenAI and Jony Ive Could Still Build Before It’s Too Late
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 22, 2025 at 11:53 AM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
Around 8½, kids start testing coherence, not to rebel, but because their brain just upgraded. If they’re asking harder questions, it’s not defiance. Its emergence.

tomjmassey.substack.com/p/the-concre...
#Parenting #TheDualArc
The Concrete Operational Switch: What Actually Changes at 8½?
You’re in the kitchen, just trying to get dinner started, when your 8-year-old launches into a full courtroom drama over bedtime fairness.
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 22, 2025 at 5:04 AM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
At 9, peer circles start writing the script.

Not teachers. Not parents.
”
Environment is the author.

Friendship isn’t neutral. Exposure isn’t random.

And drift? Drift is monetized.

Your kid doesn’t need curated friends.

They need fertile soil.
tomjmassey.substack.com/p/who-shapes...
Who Shapes Your Child’s Story?
Why Friendships at Age 9 Deserve Strategy
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 21, 2025 at 8:20 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
I ran a 9-year parenting experiment:
 Inputs: Monty Python, Hitchhiker’s Guide, spaceship socks, and a fantasy novelist.
Output: A lamprey-restoring river biologist with a killer deadpan.

Full story: tomjmassey.substack.com/publish/post...
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 13, 2025 at 11:57 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
We taught kids to perform and optimize. But not to reflect. This piece is about what happens when we skip that—and why reflection might be the missing skill of childhood.

tomjmassey.substack.com/p/deliberate...

#Parenting #IdentityFormation #TheDualArc #DeliberatePractice
Deliberate Practice for the Concrete Mind
Why Reflection, Not Just Effort, Is the Missing Skill of Childhood
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 13, 2025 at 10:09 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
AGI won’t fail at super-intelligence. It’ll fail mid-interaction—when a user fragments and the system can’t hold them.
Cognitively asymmetric users aren’t edge cases. They’re alignment’s stress test.

tomjmassey.substack.com/p/agi-is-a-m...

#AI #UX #Alignment
AGI Is a Mirage If You Can’t Hold a Human
Designing for Cognitive Asymmetry as the First Test of Alignment with General Humanity
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 11, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Reposted by Tom Massey
newstatesman1913.bsky.social
The American academic on how tech is changing our capacity for experience.

🗣️ @meganekenyon.bsky.social meets Christine Rosen
Christine Rosen: “If you give people an easy path, they will take it”
The American academic on how tech is changing our capacity for experience.
www.newstatesman.com
March 19, 2025 at 3:01 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
What if the most important convo of your kid’s day happens after it ends?

There’s a 10-minute neural window—when identity is shaped in real-time.

Catch it, and you build resilience.

#Parenting #IdentityFormation #TheDualArc #Neuroscience
tomjmassey.substack.com/p/resilience...
Resilience, by the Minute: Why the 10-Minute Chatterbox Window Works
How a Daily Post-Activity Ritual Builds Self-Narration in Children Aged 7–12
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 6, 2025 at 6:45 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
What if parenting means becoming the memory-keeper of who your child is becoming? In my latest essay, I reflect on how holding her stories helped shape both of us.

#Parenting #Identity #Narrative
tomjmassey.substack.com/p/the-memory...
The Memory We Held Together
How Challenge Interviews Turned Me from a Parent into Her Narrative Anchor
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 5, 2025 at 9:50 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
Kids need better contrasts.
Sesame Street taught by comparing, not explaining. Still works at 9.

“Which was a gallop?”
“Which part drained you?”

Comparison is reflection. That’s how identity forms.

#Parenting #IdentityFormation #TheDualArc
tomjmassey.substack.com/p/the-sesame...
The Sesame Street Insight: Teaching Through Comparison
Why letting go isn’t quitting—it’s leveling up with grace
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 5, 2025 at 8:59 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
What if ambition in childhood isn’t grit—but knowing when to move on?
The Trade-Up Reflex: a skillful shift, not quitting.
Trial → Core → Trade-Up.
Let’s raise kids who evolve with purpose.
#Parenting #IdentityFormation #TheDualArc
tomjmassey.substack.com/p/the-trade-...
The Trade-Up Reflex: Building Adaptive Ambition
Why letting go isn’t quitting—it’s leveling up with grace
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 5, 2025 at 7:08 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
What if the bravest thing your child could do… was quit?
Not all persistence is healthy.
Functional intolerance is the skill of walking away—early, wisely, without shame.
Essay: tomjmassey.substack.com/p/functional...
#Parenting #IdentityFormation #TheDualArc
Functional Intolerance: Teaching Kids When to Walk Away
Why discernment—not just grit—is the real endurance skill children need
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 5, 2025 at 5:29 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
Pattern Leapers don’t disrupt. They reframe.
They leap across systems, connect what others miss, and shape clarity from complexity.
This is the mind AI needs next.
lnkd.in/gEub5rDp
#PatternLeapers #CognitiveRevolution #SpatialThinking #FutureOfWork
Pattern Leapers: The New Intelligence Behind the Next Tech Wave
Not all revolutions start with algorithms. Some begin with how we think about thinking.
www.linkedin.com
May 4, 2025 at 7:22 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
Before kids could swipe, they could listen.
Story wasn’t entertainment—it was structure.
In a world of fragments, identity needs arcs.
Give them back the rhythm that holds memory and meaning.

🔗 tomjmassey.substack.com/p/once-upon-...
#Parenting #IdentityFormation #TheDualArc
Once Upon Our Future
Why Story Is the Ultimate Parenting Tool
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 4, 2025 at 7:01 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
Reading aloud was the first arc.
But when stories stop, identity drifts.
The Challenge Interview is the second—
a daily ritual to help kids reflect before algorithms script their sense of self.

🔗 tomjmassey.substack.com/p/the-dual-a...
#Parenting #IdentityFormation #TheDualArc
The Dual Arc of Identity
Why Daily Reflection Must Follow Daily Reading
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 4, 2025 at 6:58 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
The Challenge Interview isn’t small talk.
It’s how kids 8–12 learn to think.
A daily habit that evolves with their brain—
from literal answers to layered reflection.

Part Two: How the questions grow as they do.
🔗 tomjmassey.substack.com/p/mastering-...
#Parenting #IdentityFormation #TheDualArc
Mastering the Challenge Interview: The Evolution of Thought and Connection (Part Two)
The Challenge Interview isn’t just a clever tool to get kids talking—it’s a structured cognitive workout that evolves with them, shaping how they process experiences, express emotions, and build lifel...
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 4, 2025 at 6:53 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
Want a better way to connect with your child—and build their self-awareness?
I just published a guide to “Challenge Interviews,” a simple daily ritual for kids 8–12.
Rethink reflection. Rebuild connection.
tomjmassey.substack.com/p/mastering-...
#Parenting #IdentityFormation #TheDualArc
Mastering the Challenge Interviews: The Secret to Conversations That Actually Go Somewhere (Part One)
You know the routine.
tomjmassey.substack.com
May 4, 2025 at 6:29 PM
tomjmassey.bsky.social
What you’re feeling might not be dysfunction. It might be strategy.

Elon. Trump. Agile leadership. Neurodivergent minds. This isn’t random chaos—it’s a new operating system.

tomjmassey.substack.com/p/the-chaos-...

#leadership #neurodivergent #disruption #MAGA
The Chaos You’re Feeling Is Not a Bug—It’s a Feature
A field guide for professionals trying to make sense of today’s political and organizational disruption
tomjmassey.substack.com
March 31, 2025 at 4:40 AM
Reposted by Tom Massey
daveyseligman.bsky.social
My father had a bad brain bleed and is in ICU. His sodium is low, but they don’t have enough fluids due to greedy monopoly suppliers & middlemen. Meanwhile, these DOGE geniuses are trying to dismantle the CFPB & FTC and shit. They’re going to kill people.

prospect.org/culture/book...
Monopolies Are Why Salt and Water in a Bag Became a Scarce Item
An excerpt from a new book on life in the age of corporate power
prospect.org
November 30, 2024 at 9:53 PM