The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens

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• Back to the Land: Why Restoring Earth's Capacity Will Take All of Us with Brett KenCairn 03.06.2026 1ч 34мин

  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 continued on as one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. What if we could name and replicate the techniques used to rehabilitate this once inhospitable landscape and use them to restore and regenerate local ecosystems across the planet?  In this episode, Nate is joined by regenerative change practitioner Brett KenCairn for a conversation that reframes the dominant narrative about climate change, emphasizing that it was never just a carbon problem but also one centered on living systems degradation. Brett explains that the desolation of foundational, life-supporting ecosystems has resulted in our planet now operating at roughly half its biological productive capacity. Remarkably, this reframing also clears the way for a path forward: because most degradation is due to how humans have used the land, it means – if we act soon – altering our use of the land can also help regenerate lost capacity. Brett describes how his team and other regenerative experts are attempting to do just that by restoring biodiversity, water cycles, photosynthetic capacity, and (most importantly) opening the door to broad community participation through training, compensation, and meaningful work.  What sorts of regenerative techniques might help bolster our local ecosystems' capacities to buffer, absorb, and cycle energy in order to support life during the extremes ahead? How could we alter our economic and social incentives to better support those doing the critical work to stabilize local ecology? And lastly, could the principles of living systems regeneration also act as an opportunity to reconnect with our place among the web of life, paving the way toward a humanity rooted in stewardship and reciprocity?  (Conversation recorded on May 13th, 2026)   About Brett KenCairn: Brett KenCairn is the Founding Director of Center for Regenerative Solutions and Senior Policy Advisor for Climate and Resilience in the City of Boulder's Climate Initiatives Team. He coordinates the city's nature-based solutions work. Brett has worked across the western US in community-based initiatives in rural, Native American, and other marginalized communities. He is the co-founder of multiple organizations including the Rogue River Institute for Ecology and Economy, Veterans Green Jobs, and Community Energy Systems.   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners  
• Casting Call for a Future Frankly 01.06.2026 4мин

  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 multiple scales, but the overall goal of this campaign is to celebrate the creativity and impact you've had while working on the issues that are most meaningful to you. Chosen stories will be shared on social media, and some will be included in upcoming Frankly episodes. It is our hope that showcasing the projects and initiatives of those actively shifting their own lives in response to the metacrisis may inspire a domino effect of ideas from others. The link to submit videos will only be live for the next two weeks, until June 12th – so if you'd like to share your story for this project the time is now. Thank you for the continued support for this content, and I look forward to hearing from you about your projects and how you embody this work. (Recorded May 27th, 2026)
• A Word I Can't Seem to Understand: Non-Duality and Our Living World | Frankly 144 29.05.2026 14мин

  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 system – which appears everywhere from language to economics to institutions – reinforces separation between the subject and the object, the observer and the observed, the self and the world. It trains us to experience ourselves as isolated individuals standing apart from the living systems that sustain us.  The latter part of this episode turns toward identifying moments where this separation starts to soften: experiences with music, grief, nature, and deep presence, to name a few. Nate connects these insights to the metacrisis as a whole, suggesting that humanity's treatment of the biosphere might be rooted in the same underlying assumption of separateness. Rather than arriving at an outright definition of non-duality, Nate closes with the possibility that loosening our grip on certainty may itself be a large part of the work.  Have there been moments in your own life when the boundary between yourself and the world briefly dissolved? Why does non-duality seem so difficult to define within modern Western culture? And what does it mean to consider separation from nature to be the foundation beneath many of today's global crises? (Recorded May 28th, 2026) Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners  
• Darkness Deficit Disorder: How Constant Stimulation Has Shaped our Consumption with Andrew Holecek 27.05.2026 1ч 41мин

  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 inner terrains for what's coming? In this episode, Nate is joined by meditation practitioner, Andrew Holecek, for an exploration of the concept of dark retreats, periods of extended time in complete absence of light, as a practical path toward reflection and reconnection with ourselves and others. Andrew draws on decades of study in Tibetan Buddhism and non-dual wisdom traditions to explore how the external complexity of modern life is mirrored in the internal complexity of the modern mind. Central to his work is the concept of non-duality: a return from the fragmented display of self-versus-world toward a more unified, less suffering-prone relationship with reality. Andrew and Nate also explore the misleading entanglement of happiness and consumption, arguing that satisfaction arises not from acquiring what we want, but from the cessation of wanting itself.  What would it mean to practice darkness as a needed reprieve from constant light and stimulation, rather than deprivation? If the coming decades hold a forced reduction in external, material complexity, how could a deepening of our internal worlds make us more resilient, compassionate, and grounded? And could confronting fear – by learning to move through it rather than avoid it – be one of the most practical preparations for navigating future uncertainty and social fracture? (Conversation recorded on April 28th, 2026)    About Dr. Andrew Holecek: Andrew Holecek is an interdisciplinary scholar-practitioner in Tibetan Buddhism and other nondual wisdom traditions who has spent over thirty years helping people transform life's greatest challenges into opportunities for awakening. A dedicated meditation practitioner who completed the traditional Tibetan Buddhist three-year retreat, Andrew is known for making profound contemplative practices accessible and practical. He is actively involved in scientific research on dark retreat with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies where he serves as Resident Contemplative Scholar. Andrew is a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the author of several scientific papers on lucid dreaming, and was also the host of the now-concluded Edge of Mind podcast, where he interviewed guests to explore ancient teachings and modern topics about the nature of mind and reality. Andrew's newest area of focus is dark retreat, the ancient Buddhist practice of extended meditation in complete darkness. His most recent book, Total Eclipse of the Mind: Unleashing the Power of Darkness for Creativity, Healing, and Transformation, draws on more than thirty years of personal dark retreat experience. True to his approach, Andrew teaches dark retreat – and the more accessible gray retreat practice of weaving in and out of darkness – as a genuine path to healing, creativity, and self-understanding.   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners
• A Guide to Staying Human (Part 3): Why Mindfulness Matters When the World Is Breaking Down 22.05.2026 35мин

  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-narrative, and wandering thought. Drawing from neuroscience, contemplative traditions, and his own decades spent modeling civilizational risk, Nate examines how the modern world – especially for those immersed in the metacrisis – pulls attention away from lived experience and into endless internal simulations about collapse, uncertainty, and what comes next. He also reflects on the emotional burden carried by people who are deeply aware of ecological decline, social instability, and systemic fragility, while questioning the widely held assumption that constant preoccupation is equivalent to care. Through stories, research, and practical reflections, Nate offers five pathways back to embodied awareness through using sensory attention, taking pause, single-tasking, remaining open to beauty, and embracing the finitude of life itself. Ultimately, this episode asks whether protecting the future requires us to stop abandoning the present – and whether presence itself may be one of the most necessary forms of resilience in the years ahead. How does the brain's default mode network shape our experience of dread, distraction, and time? What do we lose when awareness of the metacrisis becomes a form of absence from our own lives? And how can people engaged in difficult, world-facing work use strategies to remain emotionally present for the relationships and moments directly in front of them? (Recorded May 18th, 2026)   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners
• 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 20.05.2026 1ч 14мин

  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 children? In this episode, Nate is joined by developmental psychologist Dr. Theo Dawson alongside returning guest and philosopher of education Dr. Zak Stein to explore the history of educational testing and show how we've progressively narrowed our definition of learning while stunting the very mental capacities we most need. Together, they make the case that without restoring the developmental health of the next generation, no amount of policy reform or technological innovation will be sufficient to change humanity's current trajectory. At the core of this argument, they discuss the need to pivot our testing and developmental measurements toward those that foster mental complexity, individual growth, and fundamental human skills, ultimately leveraging change through the entire educational system. Both guests emphasize the central importance of cultivating an "earned sense of competence" – the deep, embodied confidence that comes from learning through genuine engagement with the world – which they believe is the most powerful resource a civilization can regenerate. What are the effects on critical thinking and development as a result of years of memorization and high stakes testing? How might reframing the goals of our educational systems toward cultivating human flourishing help both average citizens and those in power make better decisions for the whole of society? And if education truly shapes everything from geopolitics to economic behavior, what would it require of us to treat the next generation as civilization's most precious resource as we continue to face more societal and ecological turbulence? (Conversation recorded on March 25th, 2026)   About Theo Dawson: Dr. Theo Dawson is the founder and executive director of Lectica, a nonprofit organization that develops evidence-based developmental assessments and builds knowledge about learning and its role in the future of society. She received her master's and PhD from the University of California at Berkeley and is widely published in the field of cognitive developmental psychology.   About Zak Stein: Dr. Zak Stein is a philosopher of education and co-founder of Lectica. He is also co-founder of the Center for World Philosophy and Religion, the Civilization Research Institute, and the Consilience Project. He is the author of dozens of published papers and two books, including Education in a Time Between Worlds. Zak received his Doctor of Education from Harvard University.   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners  
• A Guide to Staying Human (Part 2): Navigating Dread and Carrying the Weight of Tomorrow | Frankly 142 15.05.2026 32мин

  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 predicament. The latter part of the episode turns toward response. Nate outlines five practical pathways for metabolizing dread, drawing on insights from a wide variety of thinkers across neuroscience, trauma research, and contemplative traditions. These pathways include tools like mental reframing, somatic practice, reclaiming agency, community and co-regulation, and what Nate calls "befriending the darkness." He closes the episode with five concrete steps individuals can take when dread arises in daily life in order to move from dread into presence amidst widespread transformation.  Where in your body do you actually feel the weight of what you know about the future? What is one action within your reach today that is small but real? And who in your life can sit with what you carry, without trying to fix it? (Recorded May 14th, 2026)   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners  
• A World On the Precipice: The Last Oil Tanker From the Strait of Hormuz has Arrived – Now What? with Art Berman 13.05.2026 1ч 40мин

  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 locked in given the current loss in production, and what will be required of us to cope with the fallout?  In this episode, Nate welcomes back petroleum geologist Art Berman to break down the timeline of the looming oil shortages stemming from the Strait of Hormuz crisis and just how severe they could become within a tightly coupled, complex global system. Art explains why, even if the war were to end today, the inherent lags in our industrial supply chains mean shortfalls are already baked into the coming months. The resulting rise in energy prices will reach far beyond the pump, rippling out into the cost of virtually everything and confronting much of the world with conditions not seen in over five decades. Ultimately, Art sees this as a forcing mechanism that could compress decades of needed adjustment into months. The outcome will rely less on policy than on whether societies can absorb the shock without breaking. Amid all the speculation about oil prices in the wake of the Iranian conflict, what do these numbers actually mean in physical terms? If this conflict signals the beginning of a long-term decline in energy availability, are we already past the peak of the global material economy, with the financial layer not yet caught up to the physics? And if this conflict signals the beginning of a long-term decline in energy availability, what lessons from our deep past might help us find our way forward? (Conversation recorded on May 6th, 2026)   About Art Berman:  Art Berman is a petroleum geologist with over 40 years of oil and gas industry experience. He is an expert on U.S. shale plays and is currently consulting for several E&P companies and capital groups in the energy sector.   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners
• Wide Boundary News: Sacrificing Wilderness, Oil Data Propaganda, and Feeding the Superorganism's Brain 08.05.2026 25мин

  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 as he considers whether the peak of the carbon pulse could pass without clear public understanding, especially as access to the underlying data becomes more restricted and fragmented. Nate then moves into the geopolitical and physical consequences of energy strain, focusing on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz as a critical chokepoint in global oil flows. He connects ongoing disruptions not only to price spikes, but also to how energy functions as a security commodity. These disruptions also extend into cascading effects on food systems, as things like fertilizer supply and cooking fuel reverse in access and affordability. Moving closer to home, Nate discusses the opening of Minnesota's Boundary Waters for copper-nickel mining, highlighting the tension between ecosystem protection and demand for mineral inputs to power any magnitude of energy transition. He also touches on the rapid expansion of AI data centers and the large share of electricity they use, framing this trend as the economic Superorganism diverting massive energy flows toward its cognitive layer, rather than only its muscular layer. Finally, Nate closes with a reflection on industrial livestock productivity as another expression of a system optimized for high output, but operating under energy conditions that may no longer hold.  Why do we need to think about energy as a security commodity? How much of our future depends on being told the truth? And what have we bred for – in cows, seed varieties, supply chains, cities, and financial systems – that we will not be able to feed, medicate, or transport on the backside of the carbon pulse? (Recorded May 5th, 2026)   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners  
• Why Each American Lives Like a 40-Ton Whale: Power, Overshoot, and Climate with Tad Patzek 06.05.2026 1ч 35мин

  Many of us were taught that humans have been the dominant force shaping the modern world through sheer grit, ingenuity, and innovation. While true to an extent, there are also deep, embedded laws of energy that have both constrained and enabled human cleverness and our influence over our surroundings. What exactly are these laws, and what happened in the past few centuries that allowed for an explosion of technology and consumption? Perhaps more importantly, how can that knowledge help us understand how the decades and centuries ahead might be different? In this episode, Nate is joined by earth scientist and thermodynamicist Tad Patzek for a deep dive into the mathematics and physics driving humanity's energetic and material predicament. Tad walks us through the six great flows of power and materials that keep civilization running, and explains why our public conversation about all of them is dangerously detached from physical reality. He argues that planetary breakdown is not merely a side effect of an economic system built on growing these flows – it is a direct mathematical consequence of overshoot. He rounds out this picture by pointing out that every energy transition in history has been additive, not subtractive – increasing total power in the system – and the current push toward renewables is no exception. What if we were to truly see ourselves through the lens of all the energy we consume – for Americans, the equivalent of a 40-ton whale – would that change how we live? How do technology, population, and per capita energy consumption amplify each other, creating an exponential demand for power? And if we were to acknowledge the inseparability of our ecological crises and our energy blindness, would it help us change our behavior in accordance with the kind of world we'd want our grandchildren to inherit? (Conversation recorded on March 11th, 2026)\   About Tad Patzek: Tad Patzek is Professor Emeritus of Petroleum and Chemical Engineering at the Earth Sciences Division and Director of the Ali I. Al-Naimi Petroleum Engineering Center in KAUST, Saudi Arabia. Formerly, he was the Lois K. and Richard D. Folger Leadership Professor and Chairman of the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Austin. Additionally, he was previously a Professor of Geoengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining Berkeley, he was a researcher at Shell Development, a research company managed for 20 years by M. King Hubbert. He is also a full Presidential Professor in Poland, which is the highest honor, and also served as a member of the DOI Macondo Well Advisory Committee. Patzek's current research involves mathematical and numerical modeling of earth systems with emphasis on fluid flow in soils and rocks that can be hydrofractured. He is working on the thermodynamics and ecology of human survival, and food and energy supply for humanity. His current emphasis is the use of unconventional natural gas as a fuel bridge to the possible new energy supply schemes for the world. Patzek is a coauthor of over 400 papers and reports, and most recently, he has cumulated his research into his upcoming book Thermal Power and Climate Change: A Data-Driven Analysis of Cause and Effect, 1800-2100 (Preprint available now)   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners
• A Perspective From Lebanon: Who Will We Be When Things Get Hard? | Frankly 140 01.05.2026 16мин

  In this week's Frankly, Nate steps away from analysis and reflects on a call that reframed his thinking. He shares a recent conversation with a close friend living in Lebanon, who amid ongoing daily violence and loss has been hosting displaced families and leading meditation practices in her community. Nate notes that her grounded presence, alongside the trust she carries from a centuries-old lineage in her village, reveals the ways in which social capital and contemplative practice can hold someone steady as the world around them changes. From that conversation, Nate distills the wider work of this platform into three questions he believes may matter more than the macro-analysis he usually offers. Who are we going to be when comfort and convenience start thinning out? How are we going to live with a biophysical haircut on the horizon? And what are we willing to protect, even at a cost? He notices how many people watching from the relative safety of the Global North live in a constant low-grade state of stress, even without immediate cause, while his friend remains grounded despite being surrounded by actual danger. Nate suggests that separating our internal responses from the external world is the primary work ahead of us, and closes by naming the recent shift in his own curiosity toward the question of who we might become as humans sitting at the precipice of a species-level transition. When comfort and convenience start thinning out, who are you going to be? How do you separate your internal fight or flight response from what is actually happening around you? And what are you willing to give some of your life's energy to protect? (Recorded April 30th, 2026)   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners  
• This War Changes Everything: Are We Ready for Energy Shockwaves From the Strait of Hormuz? with Rory Johnston 29.04.2026 1ч 27мин

  Over three-quarters of the global population has never lived through a major global energy crisis, such as those of the 1970s. In early 2026, that is about to change as the world faces the largest energy disruption in history, measured by the daily loss of oil output. This crisis won't be evenly distributed but will be felt everywhere – and is guaranteed to have ripple effects we won't see coming. How much oil remains in circulation, and what level of damage has already been inflicted on our global energy infrastructure? In this episode, Nate is joined by oil market analyst Rory Johnston to discuss how the Strait of Hormuz closure has led to the largest oil supply shock in history, and what the exact numbers and cascading effects are. He also breaks down the primary strategies countries will have to use to adapt to energy losses, including resorting to demand destruction, and what the disastrous risks are if shortages are allowed to persist. Rory also explains the lag between the closure, the real world impact of oil not being able to enter global circulation, and the market's response. Ultimately, Rory and Nate explore the impact of this situation on international trust and cooperation, and what that might mean for a global market system predicated on interdependence and free trade.  Who are the energy winners and losers in this war so far, and how are our global leaders accounting for the exponential risks of continued warfare? In what way can average people prepare for the energy shocks soon to ripple out across the globe? And lastly, if we do recover from this scenario, how might we treat these disruptions as a dress rehearsal for a future of lower material throughput by building greater resilience and interconnection at the local level? (Conversation recorded on April 23rd, 2026)     About Rory Johnston: Rory Johnston is a Toronto-based oil market researcher, the founder of Commodity Context, a lecturer at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, host of the Oil Ground Up podcast, as well as a Fellow with both the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines. He is a leading voice on oil market analysis, advising institutional investors, global policy makers, and corporate decision makers.  Prior to founding Commodity Context, Rory led commodity economics research at Scotiabank where he set the bank's energy and metals price forecasts, advised the bank's executives and clients, and sat on the bank's senior credit committee for commodity-exposed sectors.   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners
• How to Think About the Future (Part 2): Four Variables Shaping the Coming Decades | Frankly 139 24.04.2026 32мин

  This week's Frankly is part two of the series How to Think About the Future. Today, Nate expands on the case for holding a distribution of possible futures rather than a single preferred one, and walks through a structured scenario-building exercise. He begins with the two-by-two grid that he has used for years, which indicates whether the economy will expand or contract and whether this happens within ecological limits or in overshoot. The four quadrants this produces represent possible directions toward the future: toward green growth, Mordor, Mad Max, or the Great Simplification. From there, Nate layers three more grids on top of this economic foundation. A grid focused on power – military, political, financial, and technological – asks how concentrated each is and where the gains flow. A grid regarding geopolitics maps cooperation and adversarial relations against interdependence and self-sufficiency, using the Strait of Hormuz closure as a live example of an adversarial and interdependent geopolitical makeup. Finally, an Earth systems grid tracks climate stress and biosphere integrity, taking into account that we are operating from an already compromised baseline. Nate also describes the role of technology as a modifier across all these grids, which amplifies whatever direction the surrounding system is already moving. He emphasizes that the real future will always come as a composite across these layers, and that the same economic headline produces radically different lived realities depending on the power, geopolitical, and ecological conditions it sits inside. Where do you find yourself already settled on a particular view of the future, and what gets filtered out when you are? Of the four grids Nate lays out, which feels most defining in your thinking, and which do you tend to underweight? What other grids might matter for anticipating the future, and how might they interact with the ones here? (Recorded April 20th, 2026)   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners  
• Wisdom in a World in Crisis: The Counterintuitive Need to Slow Down and Find Spaciousness with Iain McGilchrist 22.04.2026 2ч 7мин

  For many of us, our instinctual response to rising conflict and instability might be to recede further into pragmatism as a way to survive. Yet, if our cultural values and ways of life are what got us here, rooted in narrow-boundary, cold, and logical thinking – then perhaps moments of turbulence like these actually call on us to change our way of thinking entirely. Is this moment our opportunity to pivot toward worldviews that emphasize the intangible qualities of life, and could that shift cause a cascade through our actions and decisions, leading to more balanced decision-making for the betterment of everyone?  In this episode, Nate is rejoined by philosopher and neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist for discussion on how our left-brain dominance obscures our sense of value, especially for abstract qualities such as truth, goodness, and beauty. As a way to reclaim an appreciation for these things, he urges us to slow down, create spaciousness, embrace silence and deep listening, and resist the mania for productivity in our modern culture. Nate and Iain also discuss consciousness, panpsychism, and panentheism, exploring the thread that there might be some form of universal current running through everything, uniting us all. Bringing everything together, Iain calls for a recovery of humility, compassion, awe, and wonder and insists that even a small percentage of people genuinely living differently could begin to shift cultural consciousness.  How do the things we choose to pay attention to affect our ability to see what's important in the world – and subsequently what we value and prioritize? What would it feel like to treat each day as a gift rather than a problem to solve, and how might that shift our relationship with time, mortality, and meaning? Most of all, is it possible for some subset of humans to reground ourselves and our behavior in the interconnectedness of life, and could those small changes add up to meaningfully alter humanity's current trajectory?  (Conversation recorded on March 24th, 2026)   About Iain McGilchrist:  Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London.  Iain has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, philosophy, medicine and psychiatry.  Iain is the author of a number of books, but is best-known for The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (2009); and his book on neuroscience, epistemology, and ontology called The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World (2021).   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners
• How to Think About the Future (Part 1): Changing the Future Starts with How You Think | Frankly 138 17.04.2026 31мин

  In this week's Frankly, Nate opens a new series called How to Think About the Future. He begins with some comments he's heard repeatedly on this platform: why cover nuclear, plastics, renewables, or climate when something else is the real issue? Nate observes that these questions come from people who have already settled on a single storyline about what's coming, and are filtering everything else through it. Our actual reality is much more complex and unknowable, and even the most well-informed perspectives may only be able to capture pieces of the bigger picture. Nate emphasizes that even his own base scenario – that the global economy is likely to hit a wall in the relatively-near future – should be held with humility. Nate introduces the idea of "scenario thinking" as a practical strategy to reflect on and prepare for several versions of the future, keeping one engaged and grounded in what matters. He also names why this line of thinking is hard in practice – 1. our nervous systems want resolution, 2. our careers and identities are attached to particular futures, and 3. cultural incentives reward confident stories over honest uncertainty. The episode closes by introducing shortfall risk, which is the danger that something essential, like topsoil, social trust, grid stability, or the nuclear taboo drops below a threshold from which it cannot easily recover. This concept will act as connective tissue across the rest of the series, which is an attempt to expand perception instead of picking the right future, and to identify what is coupled, what is irreversible, and what kinds of responses stay robust across many possible worlds. Where in your life have you quietly settled on a single story about the future? Which of the essentials you rely on would be hardest to rebuild if they fell below a threshold? And how might the decisions you make this week change if you held more than one plausible future in mind at the same time? (Recorded April 11th, 2026)   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners
• The Fantasy of Space Colonization: The Spaceship We're Already On with Tom Murphy & DJ White | RR 24 15.04.2026 1ч 35мин

  On the heels of Artemis II, our cultural obsession with space colonization continues, even as we face increasing global resource constraints and planetary health declines. Techno-optimists, including some of the wealthiest among us, dream of a future where we mine, travel to, and colonize other planets – all in the hopes of bypassing the problems we now face on Earth. But from the perspective of physics and ecology, how feasible is space colonization – and are these interplanetary ambitions blinding us to the miracle of the planetary spaceship we already inhabit? In this episode, Nate welcomes back astrophysicist Tom Murphy and eco-interventionist DJ White, two longtime friends with deep roots in both space science and ecological reality, to examine the surging cultural fascination with space mining and off-world colonization. Drawing on decades of experience with NASA missions, lunar laser ranging, and biophysical research, Tom and DJ outline the economic impossibility of asteroid mining, the physiological brutality of long-duration spaceflight, and the absurdity underlying dreams of Mars colonization. Both guests also argue that space colonization has, at its core, become a convenient story that lets humanity off the hook for the damage being done here at home.  What if the real tragedy isn't that we can't reach the stars – it's that we've stopped paying attention to the planetary home we're already on? If the most brilliant minds drawn to space exploration redirected that energy toward the living systems collapsing around us right now, what might become possible? And what if we could recognize that the complexity, beauty, and intelligence we hope to discover elsewhere in the cosmos is, improbably and urgently, still here? (Conversation recorded on February 24th, 2026)   About Tom Murphy: Tom Murphy is a Professor Emeritus of the Department of Physics and the Department Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California San Diego. He retired in 2023 and moved to Washington State to focus more on the predicament of modernity and its ecological incompatibilities.  He is the author of Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet, creator of the Metastatic Modernity video series, and continues to explore long-term human success through his Do the Math blog.   About DJ White:  DJ White is a co-founder of Greenpeace International and founder of EarthTrust. He has played a leading role in protecting dolphins, whales, sea turtles, and countless other marine animals, including successfully stopping a national dolphin drive kill and breaking the deadlock in capping the Kuwait oil fires. Additionally, he helped end the world's largest and most destructive global fishery – pelagic driftnetting – and created the lab which first demonstrated self-awareness in the universe outside the great apes.   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners
• Oil 301: The World After Cheap Energy | Frankly 137 11.04.2026 16мин

  Today's Frankly is the final installment in a three-part series on the role oil plays in modern civilization, prompted by the recent flow disruptions and geopolitical conflict surrounding the Strait of Hormuz. Nate frames the entire arc of this series through the concept of the carbon pulse: a one-time inheritance of ancient stored sunlight that humanity is burning through in a few hundred years. He highlights how modern economies, now roughly a thousand times larger than five centuries ago, are built on the assumption that the energy abundance at the top of this curve is permanent, when in reality it is not. Nate traces how money functions as a claim on physical work, not a substitute for it, and how the financial scaffolding that made shale oil viable depends on cheap capital that may not last. He connects this directly to what he calls energy blindness: the absence of biophysical reality from mainstream economic and political analysis. Nate also draws a direct line between the energy crisis and the ecological crisis, framing them as two faces of the same predicament. The carbon pulse created both the unfolding ecological damage from burning too many fossil fuels, and the depletion crisis from drawing them down too fast. He outlines how forests, wildlife, and food systems all face increasing risk from both climate disruption and human desperation, and how geopolitical alliances are fracturing along lines of energy access rather than ideology. The episode closes with Nate's framing of the Great Simplification not as collapse, but as a potential reorientation, as well as an invitation to consider what actually produces human wellbeing: connection, purpose, community, and service. These are satisfactions that predate the carbon pulse, and do not require a barrel of oil. What does it mean to build a civilization on a one-time energy inheritance, and then plan as though it will last? How might individuals and societies begin to reorient around what actually matters, before external circumstances force the issue? And as the carbon pulse peaks, who do we want to be on the way down? (Recorded March 31st, 2025)   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners
• Oil 201: What Happens When the Oil Stops Flowing | Frankly 136 10.04.2026 13мин

  This week's Frankly is the second in a three-part series on the role oil plays in modern civilization, prompted by the recent flow disruptions and geopolitical conflict surrounding the Strait of Hormuz. This installment explores how modern society has been built on the assumption of cheap and abundant energy, and what happens when that assumption breaks down. Nate describes the ways our built systems, including food production, water treatment, manufacturing, and global trade, are calibrated to cheap energy inputs, and how processes that look economically efficient are often deeply inefficient in physical terms. He walks through the staggering degree to which the modern food system runs on fossil hydrocarbons, noting that roughly ten calories of fossil energy now go into every calorie of food on the plate, and that the Haber-Bosch process for synthetic fertilizer is what allows the planet to feed roughly half of its current population. Nate then traces the accelerating depletion of conventional oil fields and the turn towards shale, which behaves as a fundamentally different resource than the conventional wells it has been masking. He considers the alternatives often proposed as replacements, highlighting why energy quality matters as much as energy quantity, and why solar and wind are better described as 'rebuildable' rather than 'renewable.' The episode closes with Jevons paradox and the historical pattern that humans have never actually transitioned off an energy source, only ever adding new ones on top of the old.  Why can't we simply swap in alternative technologies for fossil hydrocarbons? What does the turn toward shale mean for systems built around cheap and stable energy inputs? And how might oil supply disruptions reshape the things you do, consume, and think about in your daily life? (Recorded March 31st, 2026)   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners
• Oil 101: What You Actually Need to Know About Oil | Frankly 135 09.04.2026 10мин

  This week's Frankly is the first in a three-part series on the role oil plays in modern civilization, prompted by the recent flow disruptions and geopolitical conflict surrounding the Strait of Hormuz. This initial installment covers some foundational concepts of The Great Simplification platform, including what oil actually is, what it does for us, and why most of us never see any of it. Nate begins by describing how oil formed from the compression of ancient marine phytoplankton over millions of years, framing it as a solar battery that took geological time to charge and that humans are draining in centuries. From there, he outlines the sheer amount of human labor that's contained within a single barrel of oil – around 5 years' worth – and scales this to a global level. Nate uses this framing to show how the explosion of population, wealth, and per-capita consumption over the last 150 years was underwritten by an invisible workforce of ancient sunlight. He closes with the metabolic reality that the average American consumes roughly 200,000 calories a day when heating, transport, food systems, and supply chains are considered and assesses why we have become so "energy blind" to it all. If energy is the invisible labor force underlying every product and service in your life, does that change the way you see the economy? What would it mean to live, even briefly, at a metabolic rate closer to what your body actually requires? And if the work performed by a single barrel of oil is worth orders of magnitude more than its price, what does it say about the systems we have built on top of it? (Recorded March 30, 2026)   Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners
• Navigating the Metacrisis: Finding Calm in the Storm through Awareness and Meditation with Sam Harris 08.04.2026 1ч 40мин

  Between global crises and personal problems, modern life is overflowing with things to worry about, including many issues that feel too big to even address. Yet, our ability to influence these problems and how much we worry about them are not equal to each other – and in fact, getting lost in thoughts of anxiety can reduce our ability to act. Given the direct line between individual inner states and civilizational dysfunction, what global change might be possible if we train ourselves to observe thought, rather than be unconsciously consumed and paralyzed by it? In this episode, Nate is joined by philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris to explore how cultivating inner awareness could help us – both as individuals and a society – navigate civilizational crises. Sam argues that virtually all human suffering flows from one source: the mind's incessant, largely unnoticed identification with thought. Sam makes the case that, at scale, these distracted minds cumulate into people who are helplessly identified with their own inner worlds, their tribes, and their identity rather than able to hold a broader view. He offers a deep dive on the foundations of meditation, mindfulness, and awareness techniques as a way to help navigate our thoughts and remain grounded in the present. Ultimately, he suggests that in order to steer toward better futures, we might need to invest in cultivating both saner individuals and wiser systems in parallel. Whether the threat is a cancer diagnosis or civilizational overshoot, the question is the same: how much suffering do you have to carry between now and the future? What if the inner work of moving through grief toward equanimity is actually a precondition for effective action? And if the most consequential decisions in human history are being made by people who have never once examined the nature of their own minds, how will their own mental states reflect onto the reality of our shared outcomes? (Conversation recorded on February 18th, 2026)   About Sam Harris: Sam Harris is the author of five New York Times best sellers. His books include The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, Waking Up, and Islam and the Future of Tolerance (with Maajid Nawaz). The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. His writing and public lectures cover a wide range of topics – neuroscience, moral philosophy, religion, meditation practice, human violence, rationality – but generally focus on how a growing understanding of ourselves and the world is changing our sense of how we should live. He also hosts the Making Sense Podcast, which was selected by Apple as one of the "iTunes Best" and has won a Webby Award for best podcast in the Science & Education category. Sam received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA. He has also practiced meditation for more than 30 years and has studied with many Tibetan, Indian, Burmese, and Western meditation teachers, both in the United States and abroad. Sam has created the Waking Up app for anyone who wants to learn to meditate in a modern, scientific context.   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners