Discover a raw, unfiltered look at overcoming homelessness and drug addiction in Dublin.
Learn how transformation is possible through resilience and community. In this powerful interview, Kenny Eivers shares his journey from growing up in Swords to spiraling into a debilitating cycle of homelessness, heroin, and crack cocaine addiction in Dublin. After fighting for his life through countless overdoses and years of instability, Kenny highlights his path to recovery and how helping others through ‘Secret Street Tours’ saved his life. This conversation is not just about the dangers of substance abuse; it is a profound look at the harsh realities of the Irish homeless crisis, the impact of private hostels, and the hope found in advocacy. Whether you are interested in social issues, addiction recovery, or want to hear a gripping, true story of redemption, this video offers a candid perspective on the struggles faced on the streets of Dublin. Viewers will gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of addiction, the importance of empathy, and how one man changed his narrative by turning his traumatic past into a tool for education and connection for others.
How modern life compounds the ancient struggle to belong
Ian Corbin, at left, discussed his book “To Arrive Where We Started: Belonging in the Modern World” with fellow philosopher Samuel Kimbriel.Carlos Sanchez/Harvard FAS Staff Photographer
Philosopher Ian Corbin explores mismatch between human nature and contemporary society
Jun 24, 2026 / Read time: 5 minutes
Eileen O’Grady
Harvard Staff Writer
Why do so many people feel lonely in a world designed for connection?
As Ian Corbin sees it, Americans are experiencing a crisis of belonging, which he attributes to some fundamental misunderstandings about what humans need to flourish.
“We are confronting widespread and deep-seated alienation and loneliness in a lot of modern, wealthy populations right now,” said Corbin, an instructor in neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “It seems like the way we’ve been organized in our common life is not working very well. People aren’t happy with it. They may have creature comforts that an 18th-century French aristocrat couldn’t even imagine, but there is this creeping, important, and maybe dangerous feeling of ‘not-at-home-ness.’”
A recent event put Corbin, a philosopher on faculty in the HMS Center for Bioethics, who also co-directs the Trust and Belonging Initiative at Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program and directs the Public Culture Project in the Division of Arts & Humanities, in conversation about his new book, “To Arrive Where We Started: Belonging in the Modern World.” He was joined by philosopher Samuel Kimbriel, founder and director of the Philosophy & Society program at the Washington, D.C.-based Aspen Institute.
Struggling to find one’s place is an ancient problem, Corbin pointed out, explored through literature in every generation from Homer’s “The Odyssey” to the 1942 T.S. Eliot poem “Little Gidding.”
But Corbin says the feeling is intensified by modern American society, rooted in the philosophy of rugged individualism. The common narrative today suggests that being happy and successful means being independent — with a focus on personal achievement, consumption, and accumulation of wealth. It’s a worldview he calls “ownerism,” where people build their identities around materialism and consumption.
“The idea that I am the sovereign autonomous individual who creates safety and ‘home-ness’ by establishing myself and getting my property and putting up my fence is a very recent invention, and I don’t think it’s going that well,” Corbin told an audience at Barker Center.
The ownerism mindset, he added, contradicts the communal nature of humans, creatures shaped profoundly by relationships. “Friendship and sustained interaction is, from the beginning and all the way to the end, deeply constitutive of what a healthy self looks like,” Corbin said.
Total individualism and isolation are bad for us; we know this from the mental distress experienced by incarcerated people subjected to solitary confinement. But the other extreme, total absorption into a collective, can be just as dangerous.In the leadup to the rise of Germany’s Nazi party, Corbin said, people expressed feeling alienated and adrift from home. The promise of immersion in the spiritual unity of a German cultural identity was, by contrast, attractive.
“In the temptation of a certain kind of totalitarian collective politics, there is a pleasure to losing yourself in a crowd, into a communal story of who we are,” Corbin said, adding that the sensation can be healthy when experienced in reasonable doses. (Think dancing in a crowd at a rock concert.)
The ideal situation, Corbin suggested, is a “virtuous circle” that alternates solitude with community participation, allowing time to reflect and build ideas before they are discussed and refined with others. As an example, Corbin cited the Lakota tradition of the haŋbléčeyapi, or vision quest, a rite of passage where a young person goes to a hilltop for several days to think and pray, and then returns to share newfound knowledge with their community.
“For human groups in general, there should be this dialectic of going off by yourself and coming back in to interpret what you’ve seen,” Corbin said. “I teach, and I write, and I talk incessantly to friends who will talk to me, and I think that there is a very significant degree to which you can get an inkling, but until you bring it to other people and think it together, you don’t fully know what you’ve learned.”
At one point in the exchange, Corbin and Kimbriel debated whether modern monetary systems contribute to feelings of isolation by separating the ability to meet basic human needs from participation in community. In contrast to agrarian societies where people grow food together, Corbin explained, going to the supermarket and buying potatoes leaves one with a different perception of their role. Especially when knowing that, with no money, the potatoes needed for survival can never be obtained.
“Living in that for years and years, it can start to seem like reality itself is cold and withholding and tit for tat,” Corbin said.
Kimbriel pushed back, arguing that money brings people together in many ways. “It allows people who don’t already know each other, or strangers who don’t agree in some way, to operate within society together,” he said.
Corbin countered that money removes feelings of human connection and mutual obligation. But he agreed the system is necessary given the scale of modern society.
“Can you run Manhattan on a gift economy? Probably not. Of course you’re going to be required to use impersonal forms of exchange,” Corbin said. “But I do think there are ways in which we’ve construed a regime of private property and private enterprise that make people feel like they live in a dog-eat-dog, lonely sort of place.”
Despite growing anxiety about AI’s impact on jobs, few workers appear to be resisting agents.
Only 2% of tech leaders report significant pushback from workers, according to new data from KPMG, as organizations rapidly deploy agents to automate tasks, support decision-making, and coordinate work across teams.
Employee adoption of AI agents has already reached 68%, the firm found.Instead, the findings point to a different challenge: helping workers keep pace with the technology. Among leaders who reported employee resistance, 78% said it stemmed from a lack of skills and fears about job security. More than half also cited concerns around trust and safety, followed by worries that AI is increasing workloads.These fears are emerging at a time when employers are increasingly citing AI in layoff announcements and entry-level hiring continues to contract.
As companies race to deploy AI across their organizations, workers are left trying to make sense of what the technology will mean for their careers.KPMG’s findings suggest that companies have largely moved beyond the question of whether employees will use AI. Instead, the workplace is entering a new phase where AI adoption is expected.That pressure is already taking shape. Nearly half of tech leaders say AI literacy is a workforce priority, KPMG found, and many companies are introducing mandatory training, usage requirements, and performance metrics tied to AI adoption.”As the majority signal growing adoption and acknowledge expectations for employees to become AI fluent, it’s critical to rethink how tasks are executed by embedding human-machine collaboration into everyday work,” said Kevin Bogle, KPMG’s US advisory leader for technology, media and telecommunications.Companies face other hurdles as they scale AI. KPMG found organizations are deploying AI without full visibility into costs, with average AI investments projected to reach $269 million over the next 12 months. As spending rises, tech leaders say that data privacy and a shift toward lower-cost, higher-performing models are shaping their AI strategies over the next six months.Worker attitudes toward AI agents may change as the technology matures. Despite the hype around autonomous digital employees, companies are still deploying the technology cautiously. A separate KPMG study found that 63% of organizations require human review of AI agent outputs, meaning they can’t be taken at face value. Meanwhile, deployments remain limited to low-risk tasks such as triaging IT support tickets or answering HR questions. In other words, the gap between the industry’s vision of AI agents and today’s reality remains wide. Workers may be embracing AI agents today because they still function more like assistants than replacements. But as companies release tools that make agents perform more like coworkers, such as Anthropic’s Claude Tag, that mindset could shift.
Chamath Palihapitiya joins Axios’ Dan Primack to discuss the AI boom, Silicon Valley’s trust crisis and America’s race against China. In this episode of The Axios Show, Palihapitiya explains why he believes AI could be the most important economic leveler of our lifetime, why backlash against AI is becoming a political force, and how President Trump is thinking about the technology. The conversation also covers tech oligarchs, OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, Meta’s AI failures, immigration, SPACs and what Palihapitiya says he learned from getting the incentives wrong.
Timestamps: 0:00 – Teaser 0:24 – Welcome to The Axios Show 0:27 – Silicon Valley becomes “AI Valley” 2:29 – Why Chamath believes AI is an economic leveler 5:42 – AI, wealth and the oligarch question 9:39 – What stands in the way of AI’s promise 11:39 – AI doomers and public trust 14:14 – Will AI replace jobs? 18:24 – Guardrails, KYC and who controls AI access 19:47 – Trump’s approach to AI 22:06 – What Trump asks about the AI race 22:43 – Has America created tech oligarchs? 24:56 – What it means to beat China in AI 26:22 – OpenAI, Anthropic and cheaper competition 28:15 – SpaceX vs. OpenAI vs. Anthropic 30:00 – The AI backlash becomes political 31:10 – Could Big Tech benefit from AI regulation? 32:40 – How Meta fell behind in AI 35:07 – Immigration, H1-B visas and America’s talent edge 37:50 – What Chamath learned from SPACs 41:41 – What he hopes his kids inherit from him 44:02 – Closing
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Ireland’s media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, has paid €83,103,429.00 in public money to broadcasters, newspapers and journalists since 2023:
Virgin Media Television Limited €2,989,200 Tyrone Productions Ltd €2,671,569 Irish Times Group €2,544,114 Macalla Teoranta €2,278,861 Bauer Media Audio Ireland €2,095,553 Iconic Media Group €1,998,484 Mediahuis Ireland €1,964,38 Animo TV Productions Limited €1,930,00 Celtic Media Group €1,256,083 Keeper Pictures Ltd €1,070,000 Loosehorse Limited €1,055,117 Meangadh Fíbín Teo €1,024,678 Dyehouse Films €996,000 Turnip & Duck Ltd. €920,000 Element Pictures (The Dry)Limited €900,000 Deadpan Pictures €870,000 Scratch Films €826,432 Hot Press €801,487 Samson Films €800,000 Studio Meala Limited €795,000 Village Magazine €33,177 Dublin Inquirer €197,385 The Journal €197,500
This raises serious questions about editorial independency.
Ireland’s entire mainstream media landscape is being propped up by Govt.
Whether its current affairs or light entertainment, the Irish Govt are involved.
Not just brain-to-computer control Higher-bandwidth communication between humans, AI, and eventually humans themselves This is much bigger than typing with your brain AI is moving at a speed humans simply can’t match through keyboards, phones, voice, or even language itself We think in rich ideas Then we compress those ideas into words Then someone else has to decode those words back into meaning That is painfully low bandwidth AI does not have that problem Machines can process, respond, and improve at insane speed If humans stay trapped in slow communication loops while AI keeps accelerating, we lose the advantage Neuralink is the bridge
“In the long term, Neuralink hopes to play a role in AI risk / civilizational risk reduction by improving human-to-AI and human-to-human bandwidth by several orders of magnitude”
— Elon Musk Brain → computer is step one Brain → AI is the next frontier Brain → brain is the long-term vision Human intent moving closer to the speed of thought This is how humans stay competitive in the age of superintelligence Not by slowing AI down By upgrading human bandwidth
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images
American politics, reordered and reimagined by a decade of President Trump’s rise, fall and resurrection, is imploding in substantial ways, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a “Behind the Curtain” column.
MAGA is splintering between Trump enthusiasts and true “America First” believers.Socialism is rising in popularity and clout. Democratic leaders are flailing.
Israel is bleeding support in both parties. Pro-Palestinian politicians are winningelections.
AI is dividing both sides of the aisle, with pro-worker coalitions forming among Republicans and Democrats.
And Trump’s unpopularity seems set and locked around 60%.
Why it matters: Everything is up for grabs — and wildly uncertain. House and Senate control are coin tossesin November’s midterms, the 2028 presidential races are wide open, and both parties are equally despised by the electorate.
Zoom in: The populist forces Trump awakened are devouring the establishment, inflamed by a cross-partisan blend of endless war, soaring prices and elite impunity, as Axios’ Zachary Basu narrates.
On the right, a historic schism over the meaning of “America First” has left Trump’s broad 2024 coalition in tatters.
Tucker Carlson and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — voices once synonymous with MAGA — both renounced the GOP this week, casting Trump’s war with Iran as a betrayal of his own movement.
The rupture is spreading through the outsider media universe that helped return Trump to power, with populist podcasters such as Theo Von, Tim Dillon and Candace Owens turning fiercely critical of the administration.
On the left, establishment Democrats feara socialist “Tea Party” has arrived — toppling incumbents, humiliating party leaders and turning safe blue seats into laboratories for a more confrontational politics.
Three democratic socialists backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, suddenly a progressive kingmaker, appear headed for Congress after a shakeup in Tuesday’s primaries.
A Gallup poll last year found Democrats favor socialism over capitalism by 66% to 42% — the widest gap on record — with the divide sharpest among voters under 30, the engine of Mamdani’s coalition.
Zoom out: A generational collapse in support for Israel is remaking both parties — while surging antisemitism clouds the increasingly toxic debate.
The numbers are brutal: Pew Research found 60% of Americans now view Israel unfavorably, including 80% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans under 50.
For Democrats, Israel’s actions in Gaza bundle together everything young left-wing voters hate about the old party: war, money in politics, gerontocracy and deference to a foreign policy consensus they see as morally bankrupt.
For Republicans, the fight over Israel is a fight over the future — pitting an aging, pro-Israel establishment against a base that views foreign intervention as the original sin “America First” was meant to cure.
Between the lines: AI is emerging as the next great populist accelerant, fusing fears over lost jobs, soaring power bills and the unchecked power of billionaires.
The backlash is scrambling party lines: Progressive labor activists, MAGA antitrust hawks and young voters increasingly see AI as a machine for enriching tech titans while making ordinary work more disposable.
Harvard’s youth poll found 59% of Americans 18 to 29 see AI as a threat to their job prospects, including 66% of young Democrats and 59% of young Republicans.
What to watch: Trump is deeply unpopular. But the tectonic shifts transforming the two parties — and the country — make 2026 and 2028 impossible to forecast.
Control of theHouse is a toss-up: GOP redistricting established a narrow moat around Republicans’ majority, but Democrats lead the generic ballot by 6 percentage points.
The Senate map is as favorable as it gets for Republicans, but top election prognosticator Larry Sabato this month moved three races toward Democrats. A 50-50 split is a distinct possibility.
The 2028 field, meanwhile, is wide open.
The New York Times presidential primary tracker has four potential candidates — Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — clustered within 8 points of each other.
Vice President Vance leads Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the GOP side. But Vance serves at the pleasure of a president who likes to keep people guessing.If you’re a CEO or on a CEO’s team: Ask to join Jim’s new weekly Axios C-Suite newsletter.Share this column … Zachary Basu and Mike Zapler contributed reporting.
In one of the most moving speeches of ARC 2026, Rick Ekstein tells the extraordinary story of how his mother survived the Holocaust because ordinary people chose courage over fear. Reflecting on the resurgence of antisemitism and attacks on people of faith, he argues that the future of Western civilization depends on our willingness to stand together, speak the truth, and defend the sacred dignity of every human life. __ Buy your 1st edition copy of our new book, The Age of Reconstruction: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1916948510
Worker attitudes toward AI agents may change as the technology matures. Despite the hype around autonomous digital employees, companies are still deploying the technology cautiously. A separate 
Zoom in: The populist forces Trump awakened are devouring the establishment, inflamed by a cross-partisan blend of endless war, soaring prices and elite impunity, as Axios’ Zachary Basu narrates.
Zoom out: A generational collapse in support for Israel is remaking both parties — while 
What to watch: Trump is deeply unpopular. But the tectonic shifts transforming the two parties — and the country — make 2026 and 2028 impossible to forecast.
If you’re a CEO or on a CEO’s team: 
canisgallicus 