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Every episode
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
30 episodes
The Villains We Choose and the Work They Give Us | Frankly 155
Aug 14, 2026 · 29 min
How can humans – at least those with access to the internet – ingest the same facts and data, yet arrive at radically different worldviews? That's the question Nate explores in this week's Frankly, which unpacks eight different lenses through which people understand the current more-than-human predicament. Each of these perspectives identifies a different source of the problem and offers a different path toward action, but what looks like an obvious solution from one perspective can look irrelev…
An Ecological Psychology: Internal Family Systems for a Turbulent World with Richard Schwartz & Steffi Bednarek
Aug 12, 2026 · 1 hr 40 min
Most of us were taught to treat emotions like distress, numbness, and burnout as private failings to manage and move past, rather than normal responses to living within a world full of crises. The unintended result is a distrust in our own bodies and mind, further leading to more confusion about what is 'normal.' One framework offers a potential path to living in harmony with all of the mind's distinct parts, breaking the defensive and counterproductive loops we tend to get stuck in. What sort o…
Unordinary Interventions: How to Plant Seeds for a Better Future | Frankly 154
Aug 7, 2026 · 30 min
What can one person actually do about the metacrisis? In this week's Frankly, Nate explicitly outlines just a few of the countless actions we can take to actually change what's coming, rather than just prepare for it. He touches on why the metacrisis is better understood as a predicament to be continually shaped, rather than as a problem with a single solution – calling for a shift in mindset in order to navigate the uncertainty ahead. In complex systems such as ours, even seemingly modest diffe…
The Optimization Trap: Why Too Much Efficiency Makes Us Fragile with Olivier Hamant
Aug 5, 2026 · 1 hr 25 min
For decades, modern civilization has treated efficiency as an unquestioned good: the leaner, faster, and more optimized anything is – from supply chains to your morning routine – the better. But emerging systems science argues that this obsession with performance is actually making humanity more brittle. What if the over-optimization baked into our economies, our agriculture, our institutions, and even our own bodies is at the root of our shared predicament, and how can nature's intelligence sho…
When Truth Becomes Hazardous: Navigating Information Through the Metacrisis | Frankly 153
Jul 31, 2026 · 24 min
This week, Nate takes on a tension he has been navigating for years, at the heart of communicating about the metacrisis: the hazards that arise from sharing true information with a global audience. Building on his earlier episode, "The Limits to Podcasting," where he first described a "triple information hazard," Nate now outlines twelve distinct risks that emerge when honest insights about the more-than-human predicament are broadcast at scale. Drawing on philosopher Nick Bostrom's concept of a…
The End of Globalization: Why Abundance Is an Illusion with Jeff Currie
Jul 29, 2026 · 1 hr 28 min
For three decades, most of Wall Street has treated energy and commodities as a rounding error, or as a small slice of the portfolio rather than the physical foundation everything else runs on. But in mid-2026, with the Strait of Hormuz disrupted, tankers burning in the Red and Black Seas, and nearly half of Russia's refining capacity knocked offline, that complacency is being tested in real time. The noise around increasing crude oil prices is loud, but this week's guest argues that the signal b…
Watch With Both Eyes Open: The Beauty and the Horror of Our Moment
Jul 24, 2026 · 9 min
In this week's Frankly, Nate reflects on a week spent with a group of friends and peers who share his understanding of the world's converging crises, and what it revealed about the deeply human need to be fully seen, without having to explain yourself first. Though the group rarely discussed climate, AI, or energy depletion, the shared awareness of these issues created space for humor, joy, and the reemergence of a version of himself that had quietly faded into the background over the years. He…
Taking Love Seriously: What Ancient Wisdom & Modern Psychology Say About Interconnectedness with John Churchill
Jul 22, 2026 · 1 hr 35 min
A growing chorus of psychologists, contemplatives, and systems thinkers argue that most of us, and most of our institutions, are running an outdated psychological and spiritual "operating system," one never built for the converging ecological, economic, and cultural crises we face. Technological and policy responses absorb nearly all of our attention and resources, yet the maturity of the humans making the decisions may be the most needed and least prioritized intervention of all. Could ancient…
Protect the Irreversible: What Matters Most in an Uncertain Future? | How to Think About the Future Pt 6, Frankly 151
Jul 17, 2026 · 32 min
This week's video is the sixth part in Nate's ongoing series, How to Think About the Future. Today, Nate turns from describing possible futures to exploring how we can make decisions when certainty is impossible. He introduces a framework for planning under uncertainty by distinguishing between two common mistakes – failing to respond to real risks, and taking decisive action based on incomplete understanding. Touching on examples like soil health, social trust, and children's developmental wind…
It's Not Just Hormuz: The Chokepoints Changing Global Shipping Forever with Sal Mercogliano
Jul 15, 2026 · 1 hr 31 min
Roughly a fifth of the world's oil and more than a tenth of all global trade has been navigating a literal minefield, a wary insurance industry, and whipsawing geopolitics since late February of this year. But looking beyond the Strait of Hormuz closure itself, the same pattern threatens every critical chokepoint: passages open to all shipping for the past 80 years are becoming strategic assets within a geopolitical power struggle. If we continue this trend, what does a more fragmented, higher-c…
Foundations Before Outcomes: The Future Beneath Your Feet | How to Think About the Future Pt 5, Frankly 150
Jul 10, 2026 · 29 min
Today, in Part 5 of the "How to Think About the Future" series, Nate scales his exploration of civilizational futures down to the future of a single human life and analyzes how the same patterns that shape economies, power, geopolitics, and Earth systems turn inward. Building on the framework developed throughout the series, he describes how the factors from material throughput to personal agency are underpinned by our own physical/mental health and our web of relationships. Nate emphasizes that…
Can Money Serve Life? How to Fund Communities Doing the Real Work with Matthew Monahan
Jul 8, 2026 · 1 hr 8 min
Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars flow through global philanthropy, yet only a small fraction reaches environmental, climate, and nature-related causes. Meanwhile, in small towns and rural communities around the world, a hidden throughline of regenerative work is already underway. This work rarely waits for large-scale funding to begin, but it does need resourcing to grow into replicable movements capable of propelling system-wide change. What would it take to build financial infrastru…
A Legacy Worth Celebrating? Reflecting on 250 Years of the American Experiment | Frankly 149
Jul 2, 2026 · 21 min
As America marks its 250th birthday, Nate takes a moment to step outside of the celebrations to seek out a wider boundary perspective on this week's holiday. He poses the question of whether the United States has truly matured as a nation over two and a half centuries, particularly through the lenses of energy, ecology, history, and culture. Nate walks through the extraordinary inheritance of fossil fuels that simultaneously shaped the American story while masking the real foundations of prosper…
Mordor to the Long Repair: How Might Daily Life Feel in the Next Decades? | How to Think About the Future Part 4, Frankly 148
Jun 26, 2026 · 33 min
This week, Nate continues his "How to Think About the Future" series, where he invites listeners to imagine what it's like to live in different versions of the reality that lies ahead. In today's edition, Nate builds upon the frameworks outlined in part three to create four distinct future worlds – composites that emerge from various combinations of economic conditions, geopolitical scenarios, power structures, and Earth systems stability. The resulting worlds are not meant to serve as a predict…
We Weren't Expecting This: What Does a Super El Niño Mean For the Climate? with Tad Patzek
Jun 24, 2026 · 1 hr 25 min
This year's projected Super El Niño forming in the Pacific could become one of the strongest climate oscillations in over a century. As regions prepare for the effects, and continue to adapt to extreme heat waves, intensifying storms, accelerating ice loss, and increasingly erratic rainfall, scientists and citizens alike are questioning what our new normal will look like under accelerated global heating. From climate basics to unfolding atmospheric research, what do we know about the trajectory…
How to Play 5D Chess: It's Not What You Think | Frankly 147
Jun 19, 2026 · 18 min
In this week's Frankly, Nate explores a pattern of thinking that permeates so many of our conversations: we often decide what we think before we've fully heard what's being said. Using the metaphor of a chessboard, he invites listeners to examine how we process information through a series of expanding perspectives. At the closest range, we instinctively assess people and ideas through lenses of threat, familiarity, and belonging. Soon after, conversations become filtered through ideologies, tri…
No More Dystopian Stories: How to See a Future Worth Living In with Rob Hopkins
Jun 17, 2026 · 1 hr 35 min
Self-fulfilling prophecies; manifestations; the Oedipus Effect: Humanity has long had an intuition that the stories we tell ourselves the most are often the stories we make come true. Science has found more and more evidence to back this up, through both historical cultural analysis as well as unexpected neurological connections in our brains. If we fully accept this, then what sort of future are we telling with our current cultural narratives, and is there still time to write a new one? In this…
The Ultimate Alternative: Are You Okay With Nuclear Warfare? | Frankly 146
Jun 16, 2026 · 24 min
This week's Frankly is another in Nate's recurring series Uncomfortable Questions for Unsettled Times, in which he poses questions about our shared future. Today, he uses headlines regarding a potential ceasefire deal between the U.S. and Iran to confront a subject that has re-entered public discourse with a quiet but startling force: nuclear warfare. Through a wide-boundary lens, Nate outlines how the renewed discussion of nuclear force raises questions that extend far beyond the current confli…
The U.S. Can't Back Down: The Strait of Hormuz Closure Is Messier Than You Think with Michael Every
Jun 12, 2026 · 1 hr 25 min
This episode was recorded Tuesday, June 9th, before the current 'deal' was floated. Given world events, we decided to post this episode immediately as a special release, and deal or not, this conversation is an excellent overview of the issues and stakes of this evolving situation. In a media environment constantly contradicting itself, with every side proclaiming the advantage for themselves, the reality of what's happening in the Middle East gets lost amidst the day-to-day headlines. But for a…
Why 'Community' Fails: Everyone Wants a Village, Nobody Wants to Be a Villager with Nora Bateson, Jonathan Goldsmith & Lucas Jackson | RR 26
Jun 10, 2026 · 1 hr 34 min
Many of us lack meaningful community in our lives, either from a complete absence of relationships or simply the sense of disconnection from those around us. In response, a growing number of people attempt to cultivate community based on shared values and interests, which inadvertently reproduces the very labeling that keeps real connection forming. The systemic forces that created this separation are real, but what if the deeper problem is that most of us have never actually learned how to comm…
How to Think About the Future (Part 3): Uphill Futures in a Downhill World | Frankly 145
Jun 5, 2026 · 24 min
This week's Frankly is part three of the series How to Think About the Future. Today, Nate builds a framework for understanding the pathways that connect today's choices to tomorrow's realities. Drawing from biology, ecology, history, and systems thinking, he introduces a civilizational terrain of ridges and valleys that is constantly shifting as we are moving through it. Nate also uses the concepts of switchbacks and erosion to explain why some futures emerge by default from existing incentives…
The Missing Half of Climate Change: Why Our Planet is at 50% Capacity and How to Get it Back with Brett KenCairn
Jun 3, 2026 · 1 hr 34 min
The Dust Bowl of the 1930s is one of the worst ecological disasters in American history. Across the great plains, roughly 2.5 million people left the region over the decade, amid severe crop failures, livestock losses and widespread hunger. Caused by drought and extreme land degradation, this regional collapse is also an example of what is now happening in ecosystems across the globe. The glimmer of hope in this story lies in the equally remarkable recovery of the Dust Bowl region, which has con…
Casting Call for a Future Frankly
Jun 1, 2026 · 5 min
Link to submit: https://senja.io/p/the-great-simplification/r/share-your-technology This week, Nate is putting out a call to listeners of this platform to share stories from the work they're doing on the ground, within their own communities and connections. He's specifically seeking stories that reflect technological innovation – either through goldilocks technology, social innovation, or inner tech stacks – as responses to the more-than-human predicament. This can look many ways and apply to mu…
A Word I Can't Seem to Understand: Non-Duality and Our Living World | Frankly 144
May 29, 2026 · 14 min
In this week's Frankly, Nate discusses his long-running attempt to understand non-duality, and why this concept has remained just out of his grasp despite years of conversations with teachers, thinkers, and podcast guests. He begins with a personal reflection on the possibility that his difficulty understanding non-duality does not stem from lack of intelligence or a short attention span, but from the particular cultural operating system that Westerners seem to inherit from birth. This operating…
Darkness Deficit Disorder: How Constant Stimulation Has Shaped our Consumption with Andrew Holecek
May 27, 2026 · 1 hr 41 min
Most responses to civilizational crises focus outward – policy levers, energy systems, geopolitical actors, and material flows – with little focus on how the humans inside these systems might change and grow in parallel. At the same time, the minds that built this complex and fragile world are also the instruments we must use to navigate its unraveling, making them a critical factor in defining humanity's future. With that said, who will we be as simplification unfolds, and how do we prepare our…
A Guide to Staying Human (Part 3): Why Mindfulness Matters When the World Is Breaking Down
May 22, 2026 · 35 min
In this week's Frankly, Nate offers the third episode in his series on staying human, this time focused on presence. Nate shares a personal reflection on presence, and its importance in a reality where we are constantly living in anticipation of the future. What begins as a missed moment of coffee and a birdsong unfolds into an examination of the brain's "default mode network" – one of the most studied structures in neuroscience, which supports functions like memory, future simulation, self-narr…
Learning in a Way that Actually Matters: Why Standardized Testing Contributed to the Metacrisis – and How to Fix It with Theo Dawson & Zak Stein | RR 25
May 20, 2026 · 1 hr 14 min
Over the past century, standardized testing evolved from a wartime sorting tool into the defining feature of how we measure children's worth and potential, fundamentally altering the mental health and learning outcomes of an entire generation. Now, as global crises mount and our leaders struggle to navigate staggering complexity, a growing number of researchers are asking: what if the root cause of civilizational dysfunction is something as upstream and innately human as the way we educate our c…
A Guide to Staying Human (Part 2): Navigating Dread and Carrying the Weight of Tomorrow | Frankly 142
May 15, 2026 · 32 min
In this week's Frankly, Nate offers the second episode in his series on staying human, this time focused on dread. Opening with a personal reflection on his own relationship to dread, Nate describes how the chronic anticipation of collapse affects the human nervous system long before any single crisis fully arrives. He walks through how the neuroscience behind the body's threat response was wired for more immediate risk, rather than the slow-moving and abstract risks of the more-than-human predi…
A World On the Precipice: The Last Oil Tanker From the Strait of Hormuz has Arrived – Now What? with Art Berman
May 13, 2026 · 1 hr 41 min
The last pre-war shipments of oil products from the Strait of Hormuz have arrived at their destinations as of early May, meaning the promise of an energy crisis as a result of the Iran war is fast approaching. Leading experts are now forecasting energy disruptions ranging from rationing to severe shortages in import-dependent economies, with roughly 11% of global oil supply already offline. This leaves us with the question: even if this war were to end today, what sort of system-wide effects are…
Wide Boundary News: Sacrificing Wilderness, Oil Data Propaganda, and Feeding the Superorganism's Brain
May 8, 2026 · 25 min
This week's Frankly is another edition of Wide Boundary News, where Nate invites listeners to view the constant churn of headlines through a wider-boundary lens. He begins with the misleading framing of recent oil production statistics by the United States, which blurs distinctions between crude oil and broader petroleum products. Nate uses this as a case study in how data can be technically correct, yet structurally misleading – particularly when used for political storytelling. The lens widens…
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