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•Transcript available on Metacast (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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast (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•Transcript available on Metacast (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•Transcript available on Metacast (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•Transcript available on Metacast (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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast (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•Transcript available on Metacast (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•Transcript available on Metacast (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•Transcript available on Metacast (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•Transcript available on Metacast (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•Transcript available on Metacast (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•Transcript available on Metacast (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•Transcript available on Metacast (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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast Recorded April 22 2024 Description For this Earth Day in 2024 Frankly, Nate walks through 7 thought experiments geared towards imagining scenarios and outcomes for ourselves, society, and the planet. While not rooted in reality, thinking through hypotheticals can be a valuable way to reflect on our ethics, ideals, and future decision points. From the perceived quick-fix of solar panels to magic solutions for infrastructure and governance, how might human cultural values impact outcomes for the b...
Apr 26, 2024•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode, Nate is joined by inventor and investor Tom Chi to take a broad look at the principles guiding innovation and capital - and how we might shift these to be more biophysically aligned in the future. For the past few centuries, our global industrial system has been dominated by growth-based economics without awareness of its dependence on the biosphere - or the waste that it leaves behind. What would it mean for our technology to be ecologically centered, working in service of and ...
Apr 24, 2024•2 hr 19 min•Ep 120•Transcript available on Metacast Recorded April 17 2024 Description In this week’s Frankly, Nate focuses on the importance of the Strait of Hormuz, a geographic location within a 700-mile radius of Israel called the “Black Gold Triangle” where more than half of the world’s remaining oil lies under the sand. In the midst of high-stakes geo-political events where the misery and threats from warring nations dominate discourse, we remain (mostly) energy blind to the choke points that lie at the center of these conflicts, which if d...
Apr 19, 2024•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode, Nate is joined by Solar Oven collector and educator Luther Krueger to discuss the ins and outs of solar cooking. In the western world, most of us are used to indoor, gas or electric stoves, typically powered by fossil fuels, and in a third of the world, people are still using solid fuels - wood, coal, or dung - which come with many health and environmental risks. Solar ovens are an alternative which makes use of passive solar energy at a range of temperatures and can be made fro...
Apr 17, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Ep 119•Transcript available on Metacast Recorded April 8 2024 Description In this week’s Frankly, Nate offers a list of things he is absolutely certain of… or as certain as any human can be. Each of us has grounding beliefs about the reality around us with which we shape our outlook on the world and how we’d like to interact with it. How will planetary and energetic limits interact with human society and culture in the future? Can we recognize truisms about our world without becoming closed off to ways of learning and understanding? W...
Apr 12, 2024•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode, Nate is joined by financial analyst Michael Every to discuss global macro trends in economics, politics, and social movements. By taking a wide-view lens of current events, we can better see how seemingly isolated events interconnect and what mainstream economic theories tend to miss. What do rising political tensions and dissatisfaction around the globe amidst increasing GDP tell us about the accuracy of our economic measures? How much are geopolitical conflicts and supply chai...
Apr 10, 2024•2 hr 50 min•Ep 118•Transcript available on Metacast Recorded April 4 2024 Description Based on this week’s podcast episode with Geoffrey West, which covered how biological scaling applies to human economies, this week’s Frankly is a reflection on what this might mean for the future of our societies. Throughout history and up to today, there are scaling patterns driving our social and infrastructural metabolism - potentially shedding light on some long debated questions about the limits of our ability to design our societies. Do we as humans have ...
Apr 04, 2024•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode, physicist Geoffrey West joins Nate to discuss his decades of work on metabolic scaling laws found in nature and how they apply to humans and our economies. As we think about the past and future of societies, there are patterns that emerge independently across cultures in terms of resource use and social phenomena as the size of a city grows. Does Kleiber’s law, which describes the increasingly efficient use of energy as an animal gets larger - also apply to human cities? How hav...
Apr 03, 2024•2 hr 41 min•Ep 117•Transcript available on Metacast In this Frankly, Nate recasts his favorite book series, the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, with some speculative “archetypes” of our human world grouped by various timelines. The eventual reduction in energy and material accessibility will likely alter the archetypes that we’re familiar with today - perhaps to become something not helpful to larger society. What categories of human archetypes in the future will have the potential to best influence their communities and the Eart...
Mar 29, 2024•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
