(Conversation recorded on May 8th, 2024) Without a systems lens, the full reality of the human predicament will never be understood. It is only when we adopt this kind of holistic, wide-boundary thinking that we are able to see the complexity and nuance of how the biosphere, geopolitics, economics, energy, and many other systems interplay with and influence one another. But historically, the scientific community didn’t utilize the power of systems thinking until a few groundbreaking individuals ...
Aug 28, 2024•1 hr 3 min
(Conversation recorded on July 17th, 2024) Addressing the risks we face on a global scale is a challenge that can feel both enormous in execution and personally daunting. When it comes to finding the motivation and inspiration to do such work, one of the best sources of insight comes from the visionaries and activists who have come before us, who know what it takes to battle – and successfully transform – entrenched systems of power. What advice and wisdom can we learn from their stories and exp...
Aug 21, 2024•1 hr 23 min
(Recorded August 11, 2024) The content of The Great Simplification (on Youtube and in real life) can be complex, nuanced and multi-faceted. In today’s Frankly, Nate offers reflections on a selection of viewers’ direct questions about the myriad topics covered on this channel. The goal of this podcast is to integrate the head, the heart and the hands by building a generative conversation between many more humans. The learning process about upcoming constraints and opportunities will continue to b...
Aug 16, 2024•40 min
(Conversation recorded on July 25th, 2024) Show Summary: Human overpopulation is often depicted in the media in one of two ways: as either a catastrophic disaster or an overly-exaggerated concern. Yet the data understood by scientists and researchers is clear. So what is the actual state of our overshoot, and, despite our growing numbers, are we already seeing the signs that the sixth mass extinction is underway? In this episode, Nate is joined by global ecologist Corey Bradshaw to discuss his r...
Aug 14, 2024•2 hr 1 min
(Recorded August 5 2024) As a problem-solving species, technology is an embedded part of the human experience – we assess, innovate, invent and adapt. But as we move out of the anomalous era we have just lived through and into less stable economic, social, geopolitical and ecological circumstances, humanity will require different kinds of innovation for a livable future. In this Frankly, Nate offers preliminary guidelines for what might be termed ‘Goldilocks Technology’ – not too hot (dopaminerg...
Aug 09, 2024•20 min
(Conversation recorded on June 25th, 2024) Although artificial intelligence tends to dominate conversations about solving our most daunting global challenges, we may actually find some of the most potent ideas hiding in plain sight in the natural world around us. In this episode, Nate is joined by Janine Benyus, who has spent decades advocating for biomimicry – a design principle that seeks to emulate nature's models, systems, and elements to solve complex human problems in ways that are sustain...
Aug 07, 2024•2 hr 36 min•Ep. 135
(Recorded July 23 2024) Description In this week’s Frankly, (coincidentally released the day after Earth Overshoot Day ), Nate breaks down seven factors contributing to humanity’s increasing overshoot – which is defined as the point at which species’ use of ecological resources and services exceeds what Earth can regenerate in a given time period – as well as some things that might engender a retreat from current overshoot levels. For the first time in Earth’s history, a species is able to acces...
Aug 02, 2024•16 min
(Conversation recorded on June 19th, 2024) Show Summary: While the mainstream conversation about our planet’s future is heavily dominated by the topic of climate change, there are other systems which are just as critical to consider when thinking about the health and livability of our world. Just like climate change, each of these systems has its own limits within which humanity and the biosphere can continue to develop and thrive for generations to come. However, each also has a critical tippin...
Jul 31, 2024•2 hr 32 min•Ep. 134
(Conversation recorded on June 14th, 2024) Show Summary: There’s a growing understanding of the need for biodiversity across ecosystems for a healthy and resilient biosphere. What if we applied the same principles to the way we communicate and use language to relate to each other and the world? Today Nate is joined by Nora Bateson, Rex Weyler, Vanessa Andreotti, and Daniel Schmachtenberger to talk about the ecology of communication. This important conversation addresses some of the traps and pit...
Jul 28, 2024•2 hr 49 min
Recorded July 23 2024 In this week’s Frankly, Nate addresses the common desire for solutions to the human predicament - and why the championing of “solutions” is less clear-cut than we might perceive. To this end, he offers a three-dimensional model for thinking about a framework for responses. Effective responses greatly depend on the context of an individual - by highlighting specific ‘solutions’ we narrow the scope of the conversation and exclude creative and empowered humans with different i...
Jul 26, 2024•22 min
(Conversation recorded on June 12th, 2024) Show Summary: As we move through difficult cultural transitions and rethink our governance systems, it will be critical that we listen to voices that are rooted beyond the conventional Western thinking that has come to dominate our society. As such, it is always an honor when Indigenous leaders share their experiences and wisdom with the broader public. This week, Casey Camp-Horinek of the Ponca Nation joins Nate to recount her decades of work in Indige...
Jul 24, 2024•2 hr 34 min•Ep. 133
Recorded July 16 2024 Description Following the attempted assassination of former United States President Donald J. Trump, Nate reflects on the dysfunctional social dynamics which have brought many of us to high levels of tribalism and mistrust toward others and divorced from the deeper challenges facing us in coming decades. As humans, we all - for the most part - share the same enjoyments in life - beautiful nature, autonomy, music, healthy, tasty food, clean water, friends, and family (whatev...
Jul 19, 2024•14 min
(Conversation recorded on June 27th, 2024) Show Summary: Artificial intelligence has been advancing at a break-neck pace. Accompanying this is an almost frenzied optimism that AI will fix our most pressing global problems, particularly when it comes to the hype surrounding climate solutions. In this episode, Daniel Schmachtenberger joins Nate to take a wide-boundary look at the true environmental risks embedded within the current promises of artificial intelligence. He demonstrates that the curr...
Jul 17, 2024•2 hr 47 min
(Recorded July 8 2024) There are many so-called ‘solutions’ out there that, upon first glance, seem like great ideas - yet when we look beyond the narrow scope of the immediate benefits, we discover a slew of unintended (and often counterproductive) consequences. Today’s Frankly offers a series of examples of modern issues using a “wide-boundary” lens - and in the process demonstrates the importance of asking “...and then what?” when thinking about our responses to future events and constraints....
Jul 12, 2024•24 min
(Conversation recorded on June 14th, 2024) Show Summary: If plants are considered the lungs of the Earth, cycling CO2 into oxygen for animals to breathe, then animals act as the heart and arteries, spreading nutrients across the Earth to where it’s needed most. This is the metaphor that today’s guest, conservation biologist Joe Roman, uses when describing his work studying how animals such as whales, otters, salmon, and midges provide vital ecosystem services, and how destruction of their popula...
Jul 10, 2024•2 hr 33 min•Ep. 131
(Conversation recorded on May 16th, 2024) Show Summary: At the intersection between science and spirituality lies some of the most profound questions we can ask ourselves about the future - the answers to which could mean the difference between humanity’s mere survival or a flourishing. Today’s episode with Peabody-award winning broadcaster Krista Tippett is an exploration into what it means to be human in our modern world and engage as individuals in the inner work required to create outward tr...
Jul 03, 2024•2 hr 33 min
In this week’s Frankly, Nate shares twenty different things to expect in the future, some which will be extremely difficult to influence but others which are in our control to change. From the forecast of an increasingly hotter planet due to the Superorganism’s insatiable appetite for fossil-carbon energy to a world of growing conflict and inequality, our tendencies are to despair and feel a loss of control. Will moving from a world of consumption and power defined by money and social status and...
Jun 28, 2024•26 min
(Conversation recorded on April 24th, 2024) Show Summary: Engaging with the human predicament requires new ways of understanding the world - novel perspectives that are rooted in a more holistic and interdependent mindset than those dominant in the industrialized society of the past few centuries. Today’s conversation with philosopher and social scientist Jonathan Rowson dives into the emerging ways of being that could serve us as we move toward a post-growth world, including what he has found p...
Jun 26, 2024•2 hr 36 min•Ep. 129
(Conversation recorded on May 1st, 2024) Show Summary: Music has been an integral part of the human experience for thousands of years, and continues to embody a unique aspect of culture across the world today - yet most people hold only a preliminary understanding of the full range of benefits that sound, resonance, and harmonics can provide. Today, Nate is joined by ethnomusicologist Alexandre Tannous for a deep dive on the evolution of the human relationship with sound and how music could be u...
Jun 19, 2024•3 hr 41 min•Ep. 128
(Conversation recorded on May 7th, 2024) Show Summary: In contrast to ‘The Great Simplification’, some might call the events of the last few hundred years a ‘Great Complexification’ in terms of relationships, governance, supply chains, and many other human activities. Today’s conversation with economics journalist Ed Conway focuses on the six essential resources that underpin our modern economies – sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium - and dives into the (often unseen) environmental and h...
Jun 12, 2024•2 hr 45 min•Ep. 127
(Conversation recorded on May 8th, 2024) Show Summary: As the human predicament continues to accelerate, the conversations regarding the future are still dominated by older generations - yet it is their younger successors who will face the brunt of these issues throughout their lives. Today’s Reality Roundtable with Priscilla Trịnh, James Branagan, and Natasha Linhart, focuses on Generation Z’s perspective of the metacrisis, how learning the reality of the human predicament has affected their wo...
Jun 09, 2024•1 hr 10 min
(Conversation recorded on May 5th, 2024) Show Summary: In this episode, Nate welcomes back Daniel Schmachtenberger to unpack a new paper, which he co-authored, entitled Development in Progress, an analysis on the history of progress and the consequences of ‘advancement’. Current mainstream narratives sell the story that progress is synonymous with betterment, and that the world becomes better for everyone as GDP and economies continue to grow. Yet, this is an incomplete portrayal that leaves out...
Jun 05, 2024•3 hr 21 min•Ep. 126
(Recorded May 28, 2024) Description In this week’s Frankly, Nate offers an update on the current state of conflict between NATO and Russia and the increasing threat of escalation, followed by 7 high-level questions about how to think about war, the human predicament and our work for a more stable future. While these issues may seem too looming and overwhelming for our everyday lives, the society-ending (world-ending?) ramifications of them would trump every other issue if the worst were to happe...
May 31, 2024•18 min
(Conversation recorded on March 25th, 2024) Show Summary: In this episode, Nate is joined by educator and researcher Vanessa Andreotti to discuss what she calls “hospicing modernity” in order to move beyond the world we’ve come to know and the failed promises that “modernity” has made to our current culture. Whether you refer to it as the metacrisis, the polycrisis, or - in Nate’s terms - the human predicament, Vanessa brings a unique framing rooted in indigenous knowledge and relationality to a...
May 29, 2024•2 hr 34 min•Ep. 125
(Conversation recorded on April 23rd, 2024) Show Summary: On this episode, Nate is joined by climate physicist Levke Caesar for a comprehensive overview of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and its connections to broader planetary systems. Amid a complex and heavily interconnected climate system, the AMOC is a powerful force for regulating temperature between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres along the Atlantic Ocean - yet it’s estimated to have slowed down by about 15% ...
May 22, 2024•2 hr 30 min•Ep. 124
UPDATE: We are no longer accepting survey submissions. Thanks for your feedback! Greetings! As we look ahead to the future of our podcast and organization, we hope to continue bringing you the most relevant information, guests, and conversations surrounding The Great Simplification. To that end, we’re asking for your feedback. We have put together a brief survey that includes questions about what issues, content, and worldviews are most important to you. Take the Survey → https://forms.gle/egpgL...
May 17, 2024•4 min
On this episode, Nate is joined by ER doctor, nuclear power advocate, and podcast host Chris Keefer for a broad ranging conversation including the basics of nuclear energy, how he engages with opposing opinions, and hypotheticals for a future medical system. Coming from a broad background, Chris understands what it means to have a human to human conversation and put together the pieces of our systemic puzzle in a clear and compelling way. What role could nuclear play for our future energy needs ...
May 15, 2024•2 hr 10 min•Ep. 123
On this Reality Roundtable, Nate is joined by Mohit Trivedi, Abhishek Thakore, and Kejal Savla, three NGO leaders in India active in driving social and cultural change using the perspective of the Indic Mind. As a subcontinent, the Indic people have faced crisis after crisis, yet have still held onto the optimism and compassion foundational to their culture. Submerged in this history and context, there is so much for the West to learn from those active in the metacrisis space in India. How has I...
May 12, 2024•1 hr 15 min
On this episode, Nate is joined by philosopher and educator Zak Stein to discuss the current state of education and development for children during a time of converging crises and societal transformation. As the pace of life continues to accelerate - including world-shaking technological developments - our schools struggle to keep pace with changes in cultural expectations. What qualities are we encouraging in a system centered on competition and with no emphasis on creating agency or community ...
May 08, 2024•2 hr 53 min•Ep. 122
On this episode, Nate is joined by maverick ecologist Pella Thiel to discuss the legal frameworks behind the Ecocide and Rights of Nature Movements. Our current economic and legal systems have no mechanisms to consider nature in our decision making - much less to make systemic planetary stability a priority. Could redefining the destruction of our biosphere to be considered a crime parallel with that of genocide alter the way we structure laws governing our societies and economies? How are count...
May 01, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 121
