Mark O'Connell

2 months ago | irishtimes.com | Mark O'Connell

During an interview published earlier this month on the website Vox, the American technologist and writer Jaron Lanier came out with one of the more unsettling remarks I’ve encountered recently. Lanier is one of the more interesting of Silicon Valley’s in-house intellectuals. He was an early developer of virtual reality technologies in the 1980s, and is often credited (and credits himself) with coining the term to describe that technology.

2 months ago | irishtimes.com | Mark O'Connell

Some years ago, en route from JFK Airport to Manhattan, I had a conversation with a cab driver that has remained with me ever since. I say a conversation, but it was mostly a monologue on his part. He was an old guy with a strong New York accent, and the cab was a so-called gypsy cab – one of those unregulated and unlicensed taxis that can’t be hailed on the street, and which have presumably mostly been driven from the market by ride-sharing apps.

2 months ago | irishtimes.com | Mark O'Connell

I’ve been writing this column for a year now, and mostly it’s been a blessing. It has been, for the most part, a welcome weekly change from the otherwise incremental rhythm of my writing, a way of forcing me to think through my responses to the bewildering flux of world events, and an opportunity to do so for a readership that might not otherwise seek out my writing.

2 months ago | irishtimes.com | Mark O'Connell

A couple of weeks ago, a short video clip detailing the morning routine of one Ashton Hall, a personal trainer and fitness influencer, went viral online. Once you watch the clip – and I am absolutely recommending that you do – you will see why: it occupies the big sweet spot of social media virality, both completely serious and utterly absurd, and wildly and inexplicably compelling.

Mar 30, 2025 | irishtimes.com | Mark O'Connell

It is a commonly held position among political commentators in the English-speaking world that Donald Trump’s second term as US president marks the demise of an international order that had held since the end of the second World War, and that was based on a shared European and American commitment to liberal democracy and international law.