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David Bent

@davidbent.bsky.social
376 followers 278 following 317 posts

Founder: Atelier of What’s Next, a studio for initiatives at the frontier of generating a better future. Edmund Hillary Fellow. Hon Lecturer: UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources. Views own. linktr.ee/davidbent

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David Bent @davidbent.bsky.social · 20h
Why I just never use the word Zionist. Just too damn complicated to be given one meaning. The situation in Palestine is beyond horrible. But pre-defining Zionism as racist is political simplism at its worst.
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Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 20h
And if you can't see why British Jews who are still scarred by stories like my grandmother's, who remember the names of those who didn't escape, see the word differently to the slur it's become in today's political discourse... well, I'm not sure you can claim to be either progressive or anti-racist
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Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 20h
Zionism - the belief in a Jewish homeland - wasn't a murderous racist ideology. It was a last ditch hope. It was desperation. It was what saved her life. Now it means something different to a lot of people. I can understand why. But the word itself, the belief? It's complicated. That's all
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Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 20h
History is complicated. Last year, I learnt my grandmother's story. She was smuggled out of Berlin in 1936 as an unaccompanied teenager, to British Palestine. There was nowhere else for her to go. Six years later, both her parents were killed by the Nazis www.newstatesman.com/world/europe...
newstatesman.com
Berlin’s dark past and me
In retracing my family’s steps in the city, I realised becoming German wasn’t as simple as it seemed.
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David Bent @davidbent.bsky.social · 22h
Astonishing story of using AI at (or beyond) the limits of guardrails -- and finding a tumour that needed to be removed, and then having a baby. Melvin Kranzberg's First Law of Technology: "technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral" www.astralcodexten.com/p/our-ai-mid...
astralcodexten.com
Our AI Midwife
A guest post by Drew Housman
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David Bent @davidbent.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Actual LOL at ‘humans ask why Deleuze and Guatarri couldn’t write like normal people’. More generally, whole thread well worth your time, on how a radical ‘left’* philosopher became a lodestone for tech bros. *starts left, goes right but, like the Marxist/Spiked Online crowd, always contrarian.
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Simon Evans @drsimevans.carbonbrief.org · 30/09/2026
NEW ANALYSIS: Record wind and solar save UK from gas imports worth £5.9bn during Hormuz crisis 🌤️ wind/solar generation up 14% in 2026 to date 🏭 gas down ~10% 🚢 >100 LNG cargoes avoided
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Scornflake Ghhhoul @scornflakegrrrl.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
So apparently immigrants are both expected to stay transient and to integrate and I don’t know how to put it without shouting expletives but that stance is fucking idiotic
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Michael Liebreich @mliebreich.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
My favourite chart from the @IEA special report on electrification. Electricity is only 23% of Final Energy (No big deal), but it's 37% of Useful Energy (What?) and delivers 46% of GDP (Wow!) And it's going clean, fast. Still think there's no transition? iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/1c696...
.
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David Bent @davidbent.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
#highlight teaching @scenarios analysis & #sustainability to 18/19 yo from @emoryuniversity.bsky.social (as part of IES studying abroad programme). Seriously impressive group; nuanced questions; challenging in a good way. Lesson for me: many different kinds of people from Southern US states.
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David Bent @davidbent.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
DOCTORATE UPDATE. A summary of my Inquiry Proposal. "I am studying my own attempt to change the world for the better." -Whispers from the future.. -Towards practices of ‘Deep Transforming’. -My domains of practice. -The ‘Full Stack’ framing device. exploringwhatsnext.substack.com/p/doc-update...
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Luca Tiratelli @lucatiratelli.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I await the first time a politician proposing some nuts new immigration restriction is asked what is otherwise the media’s favourite question: how are you going to pay for it??
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David Bent @davidbent.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
For those of us who’ve been working on #climate, same dynamic applies to a huge portion of investment & government policies for 20+ years. ‘Let’s invest in / subsidise fossil fuel dependency, knowing that each 0.1C of warming is extremely harmful to millions, even billions.’ AI just more brazen.
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David Bent @davidbent.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"As an...economic historian...I know that “anything that can be mass-produced will fall in price dramatically when it is mass produced”....And yet I forgot it." @timleunig.bsky.social on battery prices & path to Net Zero. So. Many. People. Make. This. Mistake. timleunig.substack.com/p/i-was-wrong
timleunig.substack.com
I was wrong
And what I learned from it.
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Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Fundamentally, the median voter has had a tax cut since 2010 and the result is that nothing works.
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Also under current proposals they won't be allowed to be social care workers after 2028. Ministers still don't seem to understand their own plan.
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James Murray @james-bg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This is a low key tragedy. A broad consensus torched by a handful of ideologues and opportunists who do not even understand what net zero target is and why it was adopted. The reality is temperatures will continue to spiral until we reach net zero or civilisation collapses, whichever comes first.
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Kenny Stewart @kennystew.art · 24/09/2026
I know it’s a pretty tired and far from original point by now, but consider this versus someone holding up a Palestine Action sign and muse on which this government considers support for terrorism.
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Legal C @legalclaret.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Ten years ago, Mr Brexit left his wife because his drunk mate down the pub convinced him he would be totally free and spending his evening with dazzling models who were all desperate to date him. In the past decade, Mr Brexit has moved into a bedsit above a branch of Greggs,
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Dan Snow @thehistoryguy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
England is a made up thing. It has no basis in the ineluctable laws of nature. Its extent is defined by Edward II getting his arse handed to him. Athelstan conquering York. The Welsh of Cumbria were incorporated, the Welsh of Gwynedd were not. It is a political idea, an aspiration - not taxonomy.
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
trump can solve this by renaming "disapproval rating" to "approval rating"
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Nick Davies @njdavies.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Great to hear the PM say “We are going to be much prouder in standing up for our values and the rule of law” re foreign information warfare. I wonder if he or the Home Secretary might consider doing the same when it comes to masked vigilantes shutting down infrastructure and harassing the RNLI
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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 23/09/2026
Can't help but dwell on how the very same media and politicians whipping up this sort of thing celebrated with glee when Just Stop Oil protestors were imprisoned for years...
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Tony Yates @t0nyyates.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This is a really good leaflet. Unfortunately Labour’s PM and Home Office are not upholding the values expressed here.
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Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The complete and total collapse of state function in the face of far right extremists. It is frankly ludicrous that Daniel Thomas continues to be at large given the series of crimes committed which he has literally filmed.
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Chris Boyd @paperghost.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
really feels beyond time for that "full force of the law" the home secretary keeps talking about
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David Bent @davidbent.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
x1,000,000
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James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Hmmmm. Net zero is still *far* more popular than unpopular and the drop in support is largely driven by polarisation.
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James Murray @james-bg.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I know almost everything is terrible, but this year really could be world-historic in a good way. It’ll be several more years before it can be definitively called, but there are encouraging signs emissions really are peaking. www.businessgreen.com/news/4535893...
businessgreen.com
Study: Global fossil-fuel emissions to fall 0.5 per cent this year
Strait of Hormuz crisis has led to lower oil and gas demand that should more than offset any increased emissions from higher coal power generation, Carbon Brief calculates
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Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Thread: The enormous unprecedented SCALE of the American AI investment boom is "crowding out" investment going into any other sector of the economy. At this point in mid 2026, it is literally sucking away all factors of production -capital, land, labour, knowledge, ecology. @katemac.bsky.social
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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 18/09/2026
This is true. But also, sometimes you just have to stand up for stuff even if you don't know the effect it will have.
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David Bent @davidbent.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
An exceptional @londoncentric.media today. Highly recommend. www.londoncentric.media/p/londons-dr...
londoncentric.media
London drug dealers are hijacking Google Maps
Plus: Lime hands customer’s name to the police • More from inside the Shard • Soho box stacking mystery • The AI takeover of humanity begins with a fixation on Lambeth council
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Stoned Feminist @ladylinds.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
A reminder that Kanye West, who released a song called Heil Hitler, is currently touring all over the country
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Matt Bors @mattbors.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
It was exactly ten years ago today, on my 33rd birthday, that I posted this comic online.
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Dan Snow @thehistoryguy.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I’m just a person on my fucking knees begging the government to use its absolutely massive majority to do something extremely fucking popular: save our democracy.
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Elena Adaal @elenaadaal.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
The strange case of a UK where professing support for a quite peaceful organization - Palestine Action - is an Act of Terrorism, while masked thugs can freely block ports. Part of the underlying cause is the highly performative nature of UK politics.
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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
As I keep pointing out, does no one understand Ricardian comparative advantage anymore. FACT: China produces over 1 million engineering graduates per year FACT: To date, China has not produced a single internationally marketable game show format Where does it look like our advantage lies?
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David Bent @davidbent.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Would be interesting to see if this result (implied: if you read your horoscope regularly, then your personality aligns with your star sign) applies to other personality tests, especially Myers-Briggs. (Do you start to imitate the story you have about yourself, as set by an arbitrary test?)
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David Bent @davidbent.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
“Your culture is defined by the worst behaviour you are willing to tolerate.” — Steve Gruenert and Todd Whitaker. If you tolerate mobs attacking people, your society is in a lot of trouble. culturewise.com/blog/the-cul...
culturewise.com
Your Culture Is the Worst Behavior You Tolerate
Learn the high cost of poor behavior in the workplace, and how leaders can strengthen and preserve their company culture.
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Tom Wilson @feedthedrummer.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
This does suggest Britain is a) very good at integration b) actively attracts the world's smart and ambitious people who want to get on and do well for themselves Both of these are very good, competitive qualities to have and should be celebrated.
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Hardeep Matharu @hardeepmatharu.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
A criminal investigation is underway by Met Police into allegations Reform broke the law in relation to foreign funding, following a C4 broadcast involving James Orr. James Orr is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the Faculty of Divinity. Any media interest in hundreds of articles?
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George Eaton @georgeeaton.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Welfare spending is around the same level as in 2007-08 (as a share of GDP). UK’s fiscal challenges owe more to lack of economic growth + undertaxed middle earners.
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Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I think the worst part of Labour's response to the fascist mobilisation is Andy Burnham's absence. He's the most popular politician in the country, with social media reach and actual powers of persuasion, and he's saying nothing in public. He can actually be of use here but he's choosing not to
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Chris Terry-Enescu @cjterry.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Truly wild to have lived through moral panics about teenagers wearing hoodies and Muslim women wearing the head dress to now experience 'but is a large group of organised far right activists in balaclavas really that scary'
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
It continually blows my mind the sheer number of obviously crackers ideas and excuse-making for failure from the last government that Labour have gone “seems legit!”…while at the same time Labour refuses to acknowledge the real, measurable success in education.
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David Bent @davidbent.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Aaaaarrrrrgggghhh. Being against Far Right mobs should be the easiest thing in the world for any politician, let alone one on the Left.
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tunes to make you run away @whippoorwont.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
"people are anthropomorphizing LLMs because they are so astonishingly good at processing human thought and language" people will anthropomorphize a chair if you put the stitches in the right place.
chair with a "face"
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Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
This is the thing, I am happy to accept that I am wet, lefty liberal on immigration compared to the voting public, I'm not really prepared to accept the same on the topic of black masked militia men blocking infrastructure!
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
The AfD and Reform immigration policies are almost identical. There is no plausible reason for considering one far right and the other not.
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Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Make Britain a hostile environment for fascists
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