Hate growing old? This advice will help you navigate it
Advice from philosophers, including don’t stop playing, and don’t over-invest in your children
Unthinkable
Unthinkable coumns by Joe Humphreys
Eoin Lenihan’s Vandalising Ireland proposes an idiosyncratic new direction for Ireland
Unthinkable: We’re all anti-globalist now: an idea of the left has became a rallying call of the right
The chatbot will see you now: is this the future of Irish medicine?
Evidence of AI progress is mounting whereas humans ‘haven’t had a software update in 200,000 years’
Culture wars have come for Dublin’s Winter Lights festival
Posts on X are channelling rage at the wokerati accused of being out to ban Christmas
Dreading Christmas dinner with your family? You may be an otrovert
Psychiatrist Rami Kaminski has identified a new ‘personality style’ but is it just a pleasing label for stubborn individualists?
How to think like a bee and stop comparing yourself with others
Unthinkable: Resentment animates much of our political debate today. Here’s a three-point plan to tackle it
Simon Harris may be wrong about migration figures but he wasn’t dogwhistling
Policing language has damaged progressive causes - it’s time to retire the linguistic ‘harm hunters’
Debate about the role of the Tricolour in a united Ireland fails the logic test
Unthinkable: Fact-checking isn’t enough to save democracy, we need logic-checking
The Catholic thinker behind JD Vance’s religious conversion
Unthinkable: French philosopher René Girard developed a theory of scapegoating. The US vice president has weaponised it
Maybe some of us are just not meant to be president
Unthinkable: Many of us aspire to wealth, status and titles such as ‘president’, even when our vocation lies elsewhere
I tried to stare at this painting for three hours. And something odd happened
Should art be useful and retrain our brains or is it more important than that?
This man spent 15 years translating Plato’s dialogues. What he learned is vital for us all
Plato throws down a challenge to us all on how to engage in free and open-ended public debate
The attention economy has made us less attentive, but there is a solution
Unthinkable: Philosopher Simone Weil died in 1943 aged 34, but she may have had the answer many of us are seeking
Meet the philosopher who thinks AI ought to have the same moral rights as humans
Unthinkable: Better start sucking up to your microwave
Do you suffer from FOCO, a fear of causing offence? Here’s some advice
Unthinkable: Parents may be partly to blame for heightened anxiety among under-30s
Cryptocurrency is financial cocaine for the middle classes
Unthinkable: It’s only a few years since the last global economic crash. Will the next one be worse?
Awareness of your own biases is the best defence against misinformation
‘Much of what is thought of as the misinformation problem is really a mistrust problem’
The trouble with always having to be right
Unthinkable: Open-mindedness is a quality we claim to value. In reality, we discourage it
It’s hard to resist the sense that, deep down, I’m a loser
Unthinkable: Toxic positivity may be exacerbating a sense that we’re losing in life
What did you do if you were young, Irish and idealistic 60 years ago? Join the missions
Unthinkable: Irish missionaries have left an example of positive evangelisation, even if we are seeing the last of them
The next president should be selected by lottery. It could be you
Unthinkable: In an era when crooks and despots cling to power at all costs, Ireland could model a different type of democracy by picking a president at random
Read the headlines and wonder if everyone is on Ozempic and has ADHD? It’s all a bit overwhelming
Unthinkable: If you’re feeling overwhelmed and longing for real meaning, Viktor Frankl may be able to help. And if not, Albert Camus might have the answer
We like to romanticise Ireland’s past, but too much remembering could be bad for us
Unthinkable: To create a shared future on this island, and internationally, we must move beyond uncritically celebrating the actions of any particular tribe
The Gaelic philosopher who wrote ‘one of the most influential books of our time’
Self-help books spoon-feed us ‘lessons for life’. But are we inspired to ask better questions?
Maybe we shouldn’t be quite so smug about Trump’s tariffs
Unthinkable: Moral superiority in Ireland over ‘populist’ uprisings in the US and UK ignores how we’ve become slaves to global capital
Forget hope. Be a hopeful pessimist instead
Unthinkable: Hope is not a strategy when it comes to tackling urgent challenges like climate change
How to avoid road rage and cyclist superiority
Unthinkable: We should think more about the consequences of actions and less about perceived character flaws in others
Why Donald Trump is stupid to accept Qatar’s gift of a luxury jet
Unthinkable: Socrates said immorality is the result of ignorance - Trump is proof of that
I tried an ancient cure for procrastination for a month. It was grim
Unthinkable: Various philosophers advocate ‘attaining a deep awareness of death’s possibility at any moment’
Was Bono morally wrong to accept a US medal of freedom? It’s not that simple
Unthinkable: There may be lessons from Northern Ireland in responding to the horrors of the Middle East
Don’t dismiss Peig Sayers. Her stoic folk wisdom has plenty to offer today
Unthinkable: Ireland has been transformed economically, but the sense that everything could go pear-shaped overnight remains
Could there be good reason to believe in life after death?
Unthinkable: Philosopher David Berman claims to have unearthed ‘evidence’ for believing in an afterlife
The ‘death drive’ exists in all of us
Unthinkable: Psychoanalysis suggests each one of us has a ‘death drive’, calling us to self-destruction
The 80/20 rule of dating is nonsense. So why do so many people believe it?
Unthinkable: As technology advances, the risk of drawing over-simplistic conclusions from statistics will grow
Crosswords & Puzzles
Crosswords & puzzles to keep you challenged and entertained
Common Ground
How does a post-Brexit world shape the identity and relationship of these islands
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