Host of the Agitation Nation podcast from the Fenton Forecast substack, Author, “The Activist’s Media Handbook,” founder of Fenton: The Social Change Firm.
New York/Berkeley
Joined March 2008
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Trump’s longest-lasting legacy will be swamped coastal cities for generations, but you wouldn’t know that from the US media. grist.org/science/thwaites-r…
David Fenton retweeted
Nuke plants on military bases make perfect targets. One hit to permanently destroy the entire base.
If the Pentagon really believes that untested #nuclear reactors of unknown reliability and safety are going to save us from disaster, we are indeed all doomed. To the contrary, those reactors will be a magnet for attacks that could render military installations unusable.
David Fenton retweeted
Trump officials think they can get away with their corrupt and violent criminality because Trump has neutered the Justice Department. The Rule of Law Project will collect evidence for prosecution by the next Justice Department or today's state prosecutors. trib.al/nelCvmZ
David Fenton retweeted
The claim nuclear is more reliable than renewables is a myth.
WindWaterSolar has not only met a higher percent (12.8%) of demand during its worst 5 minutes in all of 2026 than nuclear during its best 5 minutes (12.0%), but has also met seasonal & daily demand better than nuclear from 2023-26 on the @CaliforniaISO grid.
WWS output (left) is predictably consistent all year, peaking in early summer close to demand (late summer)
Nuclear output is flat most of the year (not following demand). The rest of the year (1-2 months), it decreases by 50%.
P.S., WWS' peak 5-minute output in 2026 is 165% of demand, or 13.75 times that of nuclear's peak output vs demand (12.0%).
David Fenton retweeted
If the Pentagon really believes that untested #nuclear reactors of unknown reliability and safety are going to save us from disaster, we are indeed all doomed. To the contrary, those reactors will be a magnet for attacks that could render military installations unusable.
David Fenton retweeted
Phew! Brazil rejects the far-right Bolsonaro and reelects Lula! trib.al/qR4oxde
David Fenton retweeted
“Free Speech!” — @ElonMusk
It seems Elon is successfully squashing the @alexgibneyfilm documentary about him.
We can confirm showtimes in the Nashville area have disappeared.
showbiz411.com/2026/10/23/co…
David Fenton retweeted
So let met get that straight: paying a wealth tax is impossible (“billionaires have no liquidity”, “it would be taxing unrealized gains”, “their wealth is virtual”) but paying half a billion to influence elections is possible. Did I understand well?
Elon Musk has cemented his record as the largest individual political donor in modern American history.
Musk poured $446 million of his own money into this year’s midterm elections, mostly aimed at preserving the Republican Party’s control of Congress. wapo.st/4igb5Kq
David Fenton retweeted
Today's AIs are already dangerously good at hiding secret messages or secret prompt injections to each other…
Just imagine – if they're this good today, think about how good they'll be in 12-24 months.
David Fenton retweeted
The U.S. spends nearly $1T on the military every year. That's more than the next 6 highest-spending countries combined.
David Fenton retweeted
Putin's diesel arrives in New York Nov 7 aboard the Agioi Fanendes: 40,000 tons, the first Russian fuel cargo since 2022. It's coming in on a Treasury license that sidesteps federal law. New York should refuse to be the loading dock for Putin's war chest. 🧵 1/5
EXCLUSIVE: Tanker carrying 40,000 T of Russian diesel heads to New York after Putin-Trump deal, data shows reut.rs/47zYFZ2 reut.rs/47zYFZ2
David Fenton retweeted
What about my paintings again?
Jared Kushner’s Hacked Phone Revealed His Secret Negotiations—Including More Than $700 Million In Transfers vanityfair.com/story/jared-k…
David Fenton retweeted
Over the five years from 2020-2025, there were 430,365 heat-related deaths in Europe.
And currently we’re just sailing right over 1.5°C of heating with no end in sight.
David Fenton retweeted
What is it with billionaires and taxes? What change in his lifestyle would these taxes cause? Would the guy even notice? What, he doesn’t have enough money already?
politico.com/news/2026/10/21…
David Fenton retweeted
Looks like billionaires will stay and figure out a way to pay the tax. If we pass Prop 40, poor California kids can have healthcare.
Gavin, can you and Sergey Brin stop with your fear-mongering of a billionaire exodus?
The “schools” our artificial kids — our AIs — attend are the tech companies. The teachers are the machine learning engineers. For a human kid, you can meet a teacher, read a curriculum, run for the school board. But for the hundred AIs on your phone learning from you every day, there is no teacher to meet, no curriculum to read, and no board to run for. Your artificial children are being raised without your input, and the tech bros are choosing the lessons.
AI scientist De Kai wrote the book “Raising AI”, where he says we should have reps on the tech boards and citizen input into the values being taught. Watch him on AGITATION NATION on YouTube or listen to it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. @dekai123
David Fenton retweeted
Great convo with @dfenton on the Agitation Nation podcast. Full video at youtu.be/Lcu9HGf8GJ4
👉 newsletter dekai.substack.com
📚 get “Raising AI” amzn.to/4v5UuhS
ℹ️ about the book dek.ai/raising-ai
🌐 web dek.ai
@mitpress @penguinrandom
There are at least a hundred AIs on your phone. They watch what you click, they copy what you do, and they want your approval. We still call them machines, but a machine doesn’t learn your habits — you can yell at your toaster for a year, and it will never change its mind. AI scientist De Kai says the right word to describe AIs is toddlers, not toasters. And once you hear it, you understand that while we need to regulate AI fast, it won’t be enough by itself.
“Raising AI” author @dekai123 is on Agitation Nation talking about the impact of how we describe the “artificial children” that listen to us all day and repeat what we say. His full episode is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Substack. Link in bio.
David Fenton retweeted
This Hoover Institution study, which has fueled the deluge of ads (more than $200 million spent by billionaires so far) to defeat the California billionaire tax, is spectacularly misleading.
Let me explain its crucial flaw. 🧵
California's Billionaire Tax Act would collect roughly $30 billion. Accounting for lost income taxes from departures, the mean Net Present Value is negative $39 billion, from Benjamin Jaros and Joshua Rauh nber.org/papers/w35899
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Zucman argues that the tax will raise his projected revenue because billionaires who leave CA after 1/1/26 will be taxed anyway.
At least $542B of net worth (Page, Brin, Thiel) departed the state by 12/31/25.
The entire thread is a misleading denial of this fact.
ft.com/content/d66976…
nytimes.com/2026/04/27/us/…
forbes.com/sites/forbeswe…