I’ve spent time with a would-be presidential assassin, but Ryan Routh is an enigmaThe latest apparent Trump assassination attempt was such a non-event there’s a debate raging over whether it even merits a Wikipedia page. But it’s instructive for what it tells us about the United StatesSat Sept 21 2024 - 07:11
When I found my book on Blinkist I wasn’t sure how affronted to beBlinkist takes non-fiction titles and grinds them down into a dense mulch that resembles a literary version of a protein shakeSat Sept 14 2024 - 07:00
I salute Oasis as the comrades they have lately becomeThe Gallagher brothers embraced the logic of capitalism so wholeheartedly that they have made its flaws luridly, even dangerously visibleSat Sept 07 2024 - 06:30
Ireland’s far-right activists don’t want what they say they wantVulnerable foreigners in tents are a source of joy to the far right. They give the activists licence to unleash their inner animalSat Aug 31 2024 - 06:11
We are prioritising all the wrong kinds of weirdosPioneer inventors including Buckminster Fuller imagined a technology-driven future directed towards sustainability but it is a future that has been forgottenSun Aug 25 2024 - 07:02
Mark O’Connell: Boeing’s description of the weapons it sells makes for an object lesson in cognitive dissonanceThe contrast between the abstract corporate sales language and the concrete reality of the destruction wrought by bombs in Gaza is jarringSat Aug 17 2024 - 06:00
People don’t set small businesses on fire because they love their countryFor all the rhetoric about opposing globalist elites, the far right clearly follows a form of globalismSun Aug 11 2024 - 06:00
To look at this photograph of Trump is to glimpse the darkness and chaos to comeWhat’s most extraordinary is the extent to which Trump himself knows the scene, and knows exactly how to play itSat Jul 20 2024 - 07:03
Like all Dubliners, I question my life choices, especially when I’m trying to cross the streetHow will preventing motorists from driving through the city centre without stopping in the city centre hurt trade in the city centre?Sat Jul 13 2024 - 06:17
We are up to our bleary eyes in advice. Surely no generation in history has been so relentlessly counselledWe all now spend an insane amount of time staring at our phones, most of which time is devoted to the consumption of completely meaningless contentSat Jul 06 2024 - 07:00
As Ireland’s political establishment slides into dotage, our politicians are getting youngerAt age 33, Jack Chambers became the youngest Minister for Finance since 1919 this week. But despite his youth, he is not an avatar of changeSat Jun 29 2024 - 07:00
‘Art should not be political’ is an argument made by those who haven’t thought enough about either In the real world - where bombs fall on children, oceans rise, and art of real value is made - politics is not an exam subject any of us can take or leaveSat Jun 22 2024 - 06:00
Mark O'Connell: A hamster falls down a hole, and I learn something about death and dying and lossI have fallen for a new podcast series which is ostensibly about animals, but is really a joyful and melancholy celebration of humans, among other creaturesSat Jun 15 2024 - 07:00
AI has its strong points. Intelligence isn’t one of themIf the postwar computer scientists who conceived of AI had chosen a different name such as ‘applied statistics’, we would be spared a lot of confusionWed Jun 12 2024 - 05:00
The Kafkaesque charade on Dublin’s Grand Canal is not ‘common sense’. It is common stupidityIn preventing homeless people from finding a place of temporary shelter, the authorities have wrecked a particularly lovely public spaceSat Jun 01 2024 - 07:00
‘What are your reasons for opposing mass slaughter?’ is not a serious questionAt students protests in Ireland, the UK and the US, politicians are rightly being confronted with a wall of blankness and silenceSat May 25 2024 - 07:04
On Instagram I see the body of a Palestinian toddler, an ad for a wetsuit, Oprah talkingHow can we just go about our business while Gaza's overwhelming horror unfolds within our field of vision?Sat May 18 2024 - 07:00
With one stupid video, Apple gave us a neat metaphor for Silicon Valley’s cultural vandalismIf the makers of its new ad were trying to come up with a neat metaphor for Silicon Valley’s destructive presence in the culture industry, they could hardly have come up with anything betterSat May 11 2024 - 07:00
A tech entrepreneur chases immortality: Bryan Johnson is 46. Soon, he plans to turn 18If I were a novelist looking to dramatise capitalism, this story would be hard to resistSat May 04 2024 - 07:00
Would even paradise itself be worth the suffering of a single tortured child? I am tempted to say that it is impossible to imagine the suffering of six-year-old Hind Rajab in her final hours. But I don’t know that that’s true. What’s true, perhaps, is that I can’t face imagining itSat Apr 27 2024 - 07:05
I bought into the idea that wellness guru Andrew Huberman could fix my life. Then I read about himDoes it matter if the paragon of the scientifically-optimised existence is actually kind of a jerk in real life?Sat Apr 20 2024 - 07:02
‘The machine does it coldly’: Artificial Intelligence can already kill peopleWhile Silicon Valley doomers worry about an existential threat to humanity posed by AI, they ignore the nightmarish and destructive uses to which it is already being put by the Israeli armySat Apr 13 2024 - 07:00
