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PODCAST

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens

The Great Simplification is a podcast that explores the systems science underpinning the human predicament. Through conversations with experts and leaders hosted by Dr. Nate Hagens, we explore topics spanning ecology, economics, energy, geopolitics, human behavior, and monetary/financial systems. Our goal is to provide a simple educational resource for the complex energetic, physical, and social constraints ahead, and to inspire people to play a role in our collective future. Ultimately, we aim to

science earth sciences

All Episodes

01:23:04

Why Science Communication Fails: How to Break Down...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2026/02/25

Humans aren't rational. We don't evaluate facts objectively; instead, we interpret them through our biases, experiences, and backgrounds. What's more, we're psychologically motivated to reject or distort information that threatens our identity or worldview – even if it's scientifically valid. Add to that our modern media landscape where everyone has a different source of "truth" for world events, our ability to understand what is actually true is weaker than ever. How, then, can we combat

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18:11

Wide Boundary News 2/23/26: Biodiversity Depletion,...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2026/02/23

This week's Frankly is another edition of Nate's Wide Boundary News series, where he invites listeners to view the constant churn of headlines through a wider-boundary lens. Today's edition features reflections on renewable energy and CO2 emission trends, updates on species adaptability, and a discussion about nuclear treaties and Iran. Nate ties each topic to the larger story of the Great Simplification, updating listeners on what pathways might be available to pursue the long-term stability of

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14:54

Wide Boundary News: Peak Oil (Not!), Peak...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2026/02/09

This week's Frankly is another edition of Nate's Wide Boundary News series, where he invites listeners to view the constant churn of headlines through a wider-boundary lens. Today's edition features reflections on a new peak in crude oil production, the growth of non-dispatchable electricity, and a report recently released by the World Economic Forum assessing global risks. Nate ties each topic to the larger story of the Great Simplification, updating listeners on what pathways might be available to

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22:59

The Consumption Pyramid

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2026/02/06

This week's Frankly unpacks humans' current identification with the label "consumer." Consumption is something much deeper and more nuanced than shopping or spending. Nate highlights the ways that it shows up across our whole lives – from basic needs and stability to status and mental escape. He outlines a "consumption pyramid" framework that acts as a map for the different layers of consumption present in daily life, emphasizing that they vary in dependency, reliability, and necessity. This episode

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01:16:03

How to Read the Signs of Collapse: Economic...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2026/02/04

Collapse has long been discussed in the public imagination as something that happens suddenly, immediately turning the world upside down. But history shows that collapse is more often characterized by the slow unraveling of a civilization. Usually, this is due to some combination of resource scarcity, economic stagnation, and compounding disruptions to productive capacity – yet it's barely perceptible in the day-to-day lives of the people within it. What are the signs that we could be living through

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31:48

A Country of Geniuses: Anthropic CEO's Warnings, Plus...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2026/02/02

Last week there was so much news Nate recorded two Franklies – this is the second of those, which shares his reflections on a recent seminal essay posted by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, likening Artificial Intelligence as a "rite of passage" for the human species rather than just a narrow technological breakthrough. Amodei posits the possibility that we are now in what Carl Sagan once called a phase of "technological adolescence," wherein humans' technologies and tools become powerful enough to

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31:47

Wide Boundary News: Japan, Silver, Venezuela, and...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2026/01/30

This week's Frankly inaugurates a new category for videos on The Great Simplification platform, Wide Boundary News, in which Nate invites listeners to view the constant churn of headlines through a wider-boundary lens. As we are increasingly inundated with vast quantities of news (and nervous system dysregulation!), it becomes important to be able to tease out a thread on how they interconnect. The stories we tell ourselves about progress, growth, and stability no longer perfectly line up with the

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01:22:22

The New Generation of Environmental Leadership:...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2026/01/28

For many people reading this, the crises we discuss on this podcast – from ecological instability to financial collapse – often feel like a distant problem in the future. But for the youth of today, managing the impact of these situations will define most of their lives, and many have already dedicated their careers to mitigating the worst outcomes. What do the leading young voices envision for the future, and what are they doing today to make that a reality? In this episode, Nate is joined by

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28:43

Technology and Wealth: The Straw, the Siphon, and the...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2026/01/16

In this week's Frankly, Nate explores the relationship between technology and wealth when viewed through a global biophysical lens. He uses the visualization of a straw, siphon, and sieve to describe how technology enables the acceleration of physical resource extraction and the concentration and filtering of resulting 'wealth' towards the human species. Running contrary to the commonly-held idea that technology automatically creates monetary wealth (and therefore prosperity), this episode asks

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01:41:36

Why the West Can't Defend Itself: How Material...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2026/01/14

For decades, the West has outsourced its own material production to other countries, in favor of lower costs and short-term returns over more expensive, long-duration investments like mining and manufacturing. But while this has seemed like a success on the surface, it has left us with a society based on consumption, unable to produce what we need on our own. What are the deeper costs of this long-term offshoring – including for our geopolitical, climate, and technological ambitions? In this

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22:57

The Things We Take for Granted | Frankly 118

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2026/01/09

In this week's Frankly, Nate shares reflections on what we take for granted in life at multiple scales: from personal health to meaningful work to relative ecological stability. The things that keep our everyday lives functioning often go unnoticed until they're needed or suddenly absent, suggesting that real wealth might come in the form of reliability rather than material gain. Nate also considers what has happened to our attention in an age of constantly-available stimulation, reflecting on how

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01:36:56

How We've 'Drugified' Our Entire Existence: Dopamine...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2026/01/07

Dopamine: the most famous neurotransmitter that regulates pleasure, motivation, and (perhaps most importantly) addiction. When examining why our society is hooked on consuming more and more of everything – food, clothes, videos, news, vacations – it's imperative to look at how our modern environments hijack our brain's dopamine, sending it into overdrive at nearly every turn. Could taking a closer look at how our societal norms make us more vulnerable to addiction help us transition to more

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01:06:57

Fighting for a Livable Future: Exploring Frontier...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2025/12/10

While current conversations about global heating tend to center around a few well-established pieces of science, we don't often hear about the scientists and leaders working at the frontier of what is still unknown about Earth's systems. This includes unpredictable tipping points and cascading effects of our rapidly changing climate, as well as the unconventional adaptation strategies that might help us maintain a stable planet. What is the newest climate science being researched right now, and what

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26:09

Inflation, Deflation, & Simplification: The 8 Things...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2025/12/05

In this week's Frankly, Nate explores how the prices we encounter in our daily lives are influenced by not only how much money is in the system, but also by resource depletion, technology, affordability by 'the masses,' and trust within a complex global system. Prices are deeply intertwined with the biophysical reality that underpins our society, and are affected by major forces that often operate unseen to the average consumer. Other forces – like leverage, complexity, and currency reform – also

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01:40:55

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: How Artificial...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2025/12/03

Technological development has always been a double-edged sword for humanity: the printing press increased the spread of misinformation, cars disrupted the fabric of our cities, and social media has made us increasingly polarized and lonely. But it has not been since the invention of the nuclear bomb that technology has presented such a severe existential risk to humanity – until now, with the possibility of Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) on the horizon. Were ASI to come to fruition, it would be

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01:33:51

Reimagining Ourselves at the End of Our World:...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2025/11/24

Over the past decade, the world has become increasingly chaotic and uncertain – and so, too, has our cultural vision for the future. While the events we face now may feel unprecedented, they are rooted in much deeper patterns, which humanity has been playing out for millennia. If we take the time to understand past trends, we can also employ practices and philosophies that might counteract them – such as focusing on kinship, intimacy, and resilience – to help pave the way for a better future. How

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37:41

11 Discoveries That Changed My Worldview | Frankly 113

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2025/11/14

In this episode, Nate weaves personal reflections into an exploration of the human predicament, unpacking a series of chronological insights that have reshaped his worldview. What began years ago as an investigation into oil has morphed into a deep lifelong journey into the complex web of energy, psychology, evolution, and systems that drive today's society. By sharing stories and realizations from his own life, whether it's the debunking of Wall Street energy illusions or unpacking how sexual

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01:21:43

Will We Artificially Cool the Planet? The Science and...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2025/11/12

Global heating continues, despite the increased use of renewable energy sources and international policies attempting otherwise. Even as emissions reduction efforts continue, our world faces more extreme weather, sea level rise, and human health impacts, all of which are projected to accelerate in the coming decades. This raises an important but controversial question: at what point might more drastic interventions, like geoengineering, become necessary in order to cool the planet? In this episode,

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01:53:14

Hacking Human Attachment: The Loneliness Crisis,...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2025/11/05

Mainstream conversations about artificial intelligence tend to center around the technology's economic and large-scale impacts. Yet it's at the individual level where we're seeing AI's most potent effects, and they may not be what you think. Even in the limited time that AI chatbots have been publicly available (like Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, etc.), studies show that our increasing reliance on them wears down our ability to think and communicate effectively, and even erodes our capacity to

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01:46:50

Terror Management Theory: How Existential Dread Has...

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens ·

2025/10/29

Many of us wrestle with the unsettling truth that everyone – including ourselves and those we love – will one day die. Though this awareness is uncomfortable, research suggests that the human capacity to contemplate death is a byproduct of consciousness itself. In fact, our efforts to cope with mortality are at the core of culture, religion, the desire for wealth, and even many of today's societal crises. How might a deeper understanding of our implicit reactions to mortality help us turn towards

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