In 2001, a 16-year-old took poorly focused photos of Dublin's docklands for a high school art project, watching cranes convert the area from Victorian cottages into office towers. This Dial essay traces how Silicon Docks became home to Google, Facebook, and Apple, lured by Ireland's 12.5 percent corporate tax rate and the notorious "double Irish" loophole that let companies shield billions from taxation. The author gave a poetry reading at Facebook headquarters in 2018 where no employees showed up because "everyone tends to work through lunch," months before the company faced €1.2 billion in EU fines for illegal data surveillance. Now 43 percent of Dublin renters are tech workers earning six figures while 15,000 people are homeless, three-quarters of rental properties fail minimum legal standards, and Trump threatens 200 percent tariffs on Irish pharma. The government recently received a €13 billion Apple tax windfall it initially fought against collecting, terrified of losing the multinationals that account for 66 percent of Ireland's exports.

American public education has collapsed in ways that transcend COVID-19 and poverty. Forty percent of fourth-graders now perform below basic literacy; three-quarters of high schoolers cannot calculate a restaurant tip. This devastating investigation chronicles how even affluent districts like Montclair, New Jersey—spending $27,600 per pupil—watched achievement plummet by an entire grade level while parents remained oblivious. Despite $190 billion in pandemic relief, schools squandered funds on Chromebooks and administrative bloat rather than tutoring. The kicker? Montclair's new superintendent discovered $12 million in unpaid bills stuffed in desk drawers, a fitting metaphor for a system that prioritized everything except learning while an entire generation fell behind.

Bryan Johnson, the tech entrepreneur spending $2 million annually to reverse aging, has become a media sensation for shocking his penis, swapping plasma with his teenage son, and subsisting on precisely 1,977 calories while documenting every erection. But this exhaustive investigation reveals a darker story: According to a lawsuit filed by his ex-fiancée Taryn Southern, Johnson abandoned her immediately after she completed chemotherapy for stage III breast cancer, forced her from their shared home, threatened to fire her from a position at his neurotechnology company, and pressured her into signing exploitative NDAs. When Southern refused his initial separation terms and later sued for $9 million, arbitration clauses buried in her employment contract resulted in her owing Johnson $584,000 in legal fees. Meanwhile, his company Kernel, which promised $110 million brain-reading helmets in every household, has sold fewer than ten units and required a federal bailout during the pandemic. Johnson's response to the allegations? A YouTube video casting himself as a #MeToo extortion victim, followed by Instagram posts featuring eggplant emojis and stacks of fake cash.

Generative AI promises democratized information but delivers colonial knowledge hierarchies on steroids. This Cornell researcher reveals how language models erase Indigenous wisdom: Hindi, spoken by 7.5% of humanity, comprises 0.2% of training data; Tamil accounts for 0.04%. As AI summaries replace traditional search, a feedback loop emerges where Western epistemologies dominate while local knowledge—medicinal plants, sustainable architecture, water management—vanishes. The author's father successfully treated a tongue tumor with herbal concoctions after Western medicine recommended surgery, yet she initially dismissed this as coincidence. Now she questions whether our rush toward superintelligence trained on glass skyscrapers is erasing the ecological knowledge that could ensure survival.

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The Atlantic: MAGA Has Repulsed Young Women

David Frum talks with The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell about the growing gender gap in voting and how the Trump era has upended voting patterns.

Really hope you enjoyed the selection of stories today. I am always interested in hearing from you. If you have thoughts on how I can make this email even better, do not hesitate to reach out.

Brett

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