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Mark O&x27Connell

Mark O&x27Connell

The Irish Times

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Michael O’Leary wouldn’t employ teachers. I wouldn’t hire him to campaign for me

Like many people who watched the now-infamous recording, shared by the Westmeath Examiner, of Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary disparaging...

15.11.2024 10

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

Matthew Miller has the most despicable job in the US but it seems like he is enjoying it

There are not, as far as I’m aware, any silver linings to the election of Donald Trump to a second term as US president. In the few moments of...

08.11.2024 30

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

I’ll take my praise where I find it, even if I have to generate it myself

The other day, I listened to a short and very interesting podcast. Its hosts, a chipper American male/female duo whose names I didn’t catch,...

25.10.2024 10

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

Glitch, glitch. Watching Trump dance for 40 minutes was like watching an empire buffer

There’s an idea known as the simulation hypothesis, popular in recent years among Silicon Valley types, which proposes that what we think of as...

18.10.2024 20

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

Elon Musk makes being a billionaire plutocrat look profoundly uncool

As a writer with an interest in observing the lurid symptoms of terminal-stage capitalism, I feel strangely grateful for the omnipresence of Elon Musk...

12.10.2024 40

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

Can AI ever replicate human art? Maybe that’s the wrong question

Toward the end of a visit to Barcelona last week, I found myself with some free time before my flight home, and so I decided to visit Casa Batlló,...

06.10.2024 20

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

The illusion that the language of human rights carries any moral weight is over

For almost a year now, as Israel’s campaign of mass slaughter and destruction in Palestine has continued, I have had almost daily cause to think of...

28.09.2024 10

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

I’ve spent time with a would-be presidential assassin, but Ryan Routh is an enigma

The most recent apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump raises a series of absurd questions. How many more assassination attempts on Trump...

21.09.2024 20

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

When I found my book on Blinkist I wasn’t sure how affronted to be

Whenever I pass through the Smart Thinking section of a bookshop, I invariably think of the Italian writer and publisher Roberto Calasso. Calasso, who...

14.09.2024 10

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

I salute Oasis as the comrades they have lately become

I was never much of an Oasis fan. I was 15 by the time their debut album Definitely Maybe came out, and was by then well on my way to becoming the...

07.09.2024 10

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

Ireland’s far-right activists don’t want what they say they want

The other day, I came across a video on social media of a scene that had recently played out on the banks of Dublin’s Grand Canal, at Mount Street...

31.08.2024 10

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

We are prioritising all the wrong kinds of weirdos

In the later years of his life, the American designer and inventor Buckminster Fuller often told a story about a painful period in his early 30s. It...

25.08.2024 20

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

To look at this photograph of Trump is to glimpse the darkness and chaos to come

You’ve seen the clip. You’ve seen it unfolding in real-time: Donald Trump’s transition from a shocked realisation that he is being shot at, and...

20.07.2024 10

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

Like all Dubliners, I question my life choices, especially when I’m trying to cross the street

There are certain locations in Dublin that, whenever I encounter them, make me question the nature of the relationship between the people who live in...

13.07.2024 20

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

As Ireland’s political establishment slides into dotage, our politicians are getting younger

Consider the present spectacle of American electoral politics. The current president, at 81 the oldest person ever to serve in the role; his...

29.06.2024 20

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

‘Art should not be political’ is an argument made by those who haven’t thought enough about either

In recent weeks, writers and publishing people in the UK have been embroiled in a long and gruelling controversy over the sponsorship of literary...

22.06.2024 10

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

A hamster falls down a hole, and I learn something about death and dying and loss

“Let me tell you a story about a hole,” says the American writer Sam Anderson at the start of his new six-episode podcast series Animal. The first...

15.06.2024 10

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

AI has its strong points. Intelligence isn’t one of them

Until about five years ago, whenever I interviewed someone for a writing project, I would be faced with the gruelling prospect of having to transcribe...

08.06.2024 10

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

When it comes to ‘intelligence’, AI is still drinking piss and eating glue

Until about five years ago, whenever I interviewed someone for a writing project, I would be faced with the gruelling prospect of having to transcribe...

08.06.2024 10

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

‘What are your reasons for opposing mass slaughter?’ is not a serious question

Last week, a video circulated online of Suella Braverman, the UK’s twice-sacked former home secretary, walking around an encampment of protesters at...

25.05.2024 50

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

With one stupid video, Apple gave us a neat metaphor for Silicon Valley’s cultural vandalism

Earlier this week, Apple released a short social media video for its new iPad Pro. The video, which is called “Crush”, begins with a series of...

11.05.2024 20

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

A tech entrepreneur chases immortality: Bryan Johnson is 46. Soon, he plans to turn 18

If I had to choose a favourite tech guy, it would probably be Bryan Johnson. Johnson was, until fairly recently, best known as a venture capitalist...

04.05.2024 10

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

Would even paradise itself be worth the suffering of a single tortured child?

There is a question in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov that has haunted me ever since I first read it in my 20s. The question is put by Ivan...

27.04.2024 50

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

I bought into the idea that wellness guru Andrew Huberman could fix my life. Then I read about him

Early last year, I had a conversation with a friend about a spell of intractable insomnia I was going through at the time – a condition that has...

20.04.2024 10

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

‘The machine does it coldly’: Artificial Intelligence can already kill people

Among the technological faithful of Silicon Valley, there is an ongoing debate about the risks inherent in the development of artificial intelligence....

13.04.2024 20

The Irish Times

Mark O&x27Connell

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