The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens

Turning the Dials Back on Psychopathy: Decent People, Indecent System | Frankly 157

This week's Frankly builds on Nate's recent conversation with systems theorist Greg Elliott, who came on the platform to discuss why our institutions themselves have beco

The Collapse of Our Mythology: Can Humanity Choose What's Next? with Charles Eisenstein

In this episode, Nate welcomes author and philosopher, Charles Eisenstein, for a long-requested conversation on the mythologies underneath civilization. For over two deca

Just Stop Oil!?: The Economic Foundation We Ignore | Frankly Archives 39 (2023)

This week's Frankly is an episode from summer of 2023, which is being re-released to provide context for one of the most important questions we face today: what is the ro

The Psychopathic Selection Hypothesis: The Rules of the Game Keep Us Trapped with Greg Elliott | TGS 231

Modern companies, markets, and institutions routinely behave in ways that would be diagnosed as pathological in a person: emotional detachment, strategic deception, grand

An Antidote to Despair: What Dogs Reveal About the Metacrisis | Frankly 156

This week, Nate turns a late-night emergency vet visit for one of his dogs into a broader reflection on the extraordinary relationship between dogs and humans. While dogs

Material World: The Key Resources Underpinning Modern Economies with Ed Conway | Archive TGS 127

Current geopolitical events continue to expose just how complex and fragile our global economic system is. As such, The Great Simplification team is re-releasing this epi

The Villains We Choose and the Work They Give Us | Frankly 155

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 explo

Your Anxiety Is Normal: A New Psychology for a World in Crisis with Richard Schwartz & Steffi Bednarek

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

Unordinary Interventions: How to Plant Seeds for a Better Future | Frankly 154

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

The Optimization Trap: Why Too Much Efficiency Makes Us Fragile with Olivier Hamant

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 r

When Truth Becomes Hazardous: Navigating Information Through the Metacrisis | Frankly 153

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 informat

The End of Globalization: Why Abundance Is an Illusion with Jeff Currie

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 ev

Watch With Both Eyes Open: The Beauty and the Horror of Our Moment

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

Taking Love Seriously: What Ancient Wisdom & Modern Psychology Say About Interconnectedness with John Churchill

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 spi

Protect the Irreversible: What Matters Most in an Uncertain Future? | How to Think About the Future Pt 6, Frankly 151

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 ma

It's Not Just Hormuz: The Chokepoints Changing Global Shipping Forever with Sal Mercogliano

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 geopolitic

Foundations Before Outcomes: The Future Beneath Your Feet | How to Think About the Future Pt 5, Frankly 150

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 analyz

Can Money Serve Life? How to Fund Communities Doing the Real Work with Matthew Monahan

Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars flow through global philanthropy, yet only a small fraction reaches environmental, climate, and nature-related causes. Meanwhi

A Legacy Worth Celebrating? Reflecting on 250 Years of the American Experiment | Frankly 149

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

Mordor to the Long Repair: How Might Daily Life Feel in the Next Decades? | How to Think About the Future Part 4, Frankly 148

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 th