Author | Lightnews

Reposted by Mark O’Connell

Tom Usher @tomusher.bsky.social · 15d

Polanski: I think there should be boycott of Israel
Peston: A boycott of a democracy? How dare you
Polanski: Well actually Israel just tortured a load of international civilians which is a war crime
Peston: Wow would you look at the time

Farrukh @implausibleblog.bsky.social · 15d

Robert Peston, "Where are you on the banning of Maccabi fans?"

Zack Polanski, "I'm Jewish, I take antisemitism really seriously"

"I don't think banning Maccabi fans is antisemitic at all"

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Rick O'Shea @rickoshea.bsky.social · 16d

We'll be doing a live Arena show at @dublinbookfest.bsky.social celebrating 100 issues of @thedublinreview.bsky.social.

We'll have editor Brendan Barrington, contributors Sara Baume, @patrickfreyne.bsky.social, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, and @mrkocnnll.bsky.social.

Do come, it's going to be special...

The Dublin Review at 100 - Dublin Book Festival

The Dublin Review, Ireland’s quarterly magazine of essays, memoir, reportage and fiction, is celebrating its 100th issue. Join us for a special live broadcast of RTÉ Arena on Radio 1 in conversation w...

dublinbookfestival.com

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Ed Morrish @edmorrish.bsky.social · Sep 16

[me, a journalist who spends all day every day on a social media app where the discovery algorithm is personally controlled by its owner, captain birdseye] you know, a lot of people are talking about fish fingers, we should probably cover that

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The New York Review of Books @nybooks.com · Sep 13

“It is often said that many nonfiction books should really have been magazine articles; this one feels like a LinkedIn post mercilessly stretched to nearly three hundred pages.” —Mark O’Connell on Palantir’s founder’s first book

The War App | Mark O’Connell

Last year, according to a recent report in The New York Times, Alexander Karp received a total of $6.8 billion for his services as CEO of the data

buff.ly

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Jason Kirk @jasonkirk.fyi · Sep 12

Discovering computer as an adult makes you go crazy. Discovering computer as a baby makes you go crazy. In all of human history, there will only ever be one generation to discover computer at the correct age: 13

Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social · Nov 10

The problem with every post-Millennial generation is they got to go straight to high speed internet. Of course you'll get computer madness that way. Make them start with those old screeching modems and work their way up

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John Merrick @johnmerrick.bsky.social · Sep 13

Yeah man, keep being patronising snobs, that’ll get liberalism back on the road

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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · Sep 11

Terrible book, terrible guy, great magazine

The New York Review of Books @nybooks.com · Sep 11

Mark O’Connell on the flaccid philosophy of Palantir’s CEO

The War App | Mark O’Connell

Last year, according to a recent report in The New York Times, Alexander Karp received a total of $6.8 billion for his services as CEO of the data

buff.ly

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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · Aug 26

Yes, in the same way your thermostat suffers from the pain of burning

The Guardian @theguardian.com · Aug 26

Can AIs suffer? Big tech and users grapple with one of most unsettling questions of our times

As first AI-led rights advocacy group is founded, industry is divided on whether models are, or can be, sentient

www.theguardian.com

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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · Aug 8

Exactly the effect I was going for, thrilled I pulled it off

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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · Jul 31

Catholic handbags!!

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Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · Feb 19

Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...

What’s a technology that you think is overhyped?

I’m going to give a sideways answer to this, which is that the venture capital business model needs to be understood as requiring hype. You can go back to the Netscape IPO, and that was the proof point that made venture capital the financial lifeblood of the tech industry.

Venture capital looks at valuations and growth, not necessarily at profit or revenue. So you don’t actually have to invest in technology that works, or that even makes a profit, you simply have to have a narrative that is compelling enough to float those valuations. So you see this repetitive and exhausting hype cycle as a feature in this industry. A couple of years ago, you would have been asking me about the metaverse, then last year, you would have asked me about Web3 and crypto, and for each of these inflection points there’s an Andreessen Horowitz manifesto.

It’s not simply that one piece of technology is overhyped, it’s that hype is a necessary ingredient of the current business ecosystem of the tech industry. We should examine how often the financial incentive for hype is rewarded without any real social returns, without any meaningful progress in technology, without these tools and services and worlds ever actually manifesting. That’s key to understanding the growing chasm between the narrative of techno-optimists and the reality of our tech-encumbered world.

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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · Jul 31

Instagram ads have gotten exponentially worse recently, right? Just an endlessly encroaching tide of slop and cheap scams

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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · Jul 25

Thank you!

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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · Jul 25

The NYT talked to @jenniferwalshe.bsky.social and me about MARS, which opens tonight at Galway Arts Festival

An Opera Takes A.I., Pronatalism and Hustle Culture to Space

www.nytimes.com

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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · Jul 24

This is such a terrific piece of criticism

The New York Review of Books @nybooks.com · Jul 24

Gabriel Winslow-Yost on Andor and the attempt to depict totalitarian state violence through corporate storytelling buff.ly/4G8iniy

The Revolution Will Not Be Star Wars | Gabriel Winslow-Yost

In 1982 the great French crime novelist Jean-Patrick Manchette stopped publishing fiction. In almost a dozen novels over the previous decade, he had

www.nybooks.com

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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · Jul 19

I think that’s a solid assumption

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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · Jul 19

Hell yeah! Let’s fuckin DO THIS!!!

The Irish Times @irishtimes.com · Jul 19

‘Somebody has to speak for the Irish people’: Michael Flatley ‘seriously’ considering presidential bid

Businessman has assembled team of advisers and has had contact with ‘some very weighted individuals’

www.irishtimes.com

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Rob Palk @robpalk.bsky.social · Jul 7

Oo remembers lying awake after dinner at Combray for maman to give you a goodnight kiss?

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · Jul 2

LMFAO

Bruno J. Navarro @brunojnavarro.bsky.social · Jul 2

One former national security official said they were struck by how often they’d run into Vice President JD Vance standing outside the Oval Office near the Keurig coffee maker, drinking a cup or eating one of the cookies on offer.

Fox News, MAGA hats and cookies: Inside Trump's West Wing

Trump likes to see whom he wants and call whom he chooses, and in the new term, he presides over a White House that mirrors the man, current and former aides say.

www.nbcnews.com

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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · Jun 30

The outcome of the last ten years or so of culture is governments doing cancel culture on behalf of a military death machine

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Tony Bird @tonybirdlondon.bsky.social · Jun 30

The IDF killed three British aid workers last year.
The UK refuses to investigate Israel for killing its citizens but will investigate British people for cursing the IDF
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

British aid workers 'died from blast wounds' in Gaza - inquest

James Kirby, James Henderson and John Chapman were killed in an air strike on 1 April.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · Jun 30

Don’t tell me about a thing being “downstream of” another thing. I don’t want to hear it, and I won’t listen to it!

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Shamim Malekmian @shamimmalekmian.bsky.social · Jun 28

This is an X screenshot I can get behind. No more J.K. Rowling screengrabs, just Bryan Johnson being delusional about how well his age reversal project is going

X post by Bryan Johnson: I'm 18 years old and have a 19 year old kid. Pretty wild.

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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · Jun 27

Patrick Collison here, illustrating a mindset that is, in many ways, a simple misunderstanding of life itself

Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · Jun 27

Really a sad way to go through life www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/b...

On how A.I. can transform media consumption:
Reading the A.I. summary — I think it can be useful. I think it has a powerfully inoculating effect. Like, I think long-form, lots-of-episodes TV is a waste of time. But it’s very tempting, right? You watch an episode and you’re like, “Oh, geez, I really want to know what happens here.”
And so I discovered a couple of years ago, obviously, that the solution is you immediately go to Wikipedia and read the entire summary of the season, and then you’re cured of the desire to watch any more episodes. So there is a therapeutic benefit to A.I. summaries.

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Mark O’Connell @mrkocnnll.bsky.social · Jun 27

It didn't strike me that it might be one of those words you don't really hear anymore

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