The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens - Missing Words | Frankly #30

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

Last Friday we released Nate's annual Earth Day presentation for 2023: a reflection on ~3 dozen common English words which are semantically disconnected from what they really mean - paired alongside more biophysically accurate terms. Building on that theme, this week's Frankly is a thought experiment of which ecological and systems concepts do not exist in the English language - but perhaps should. All of this is to say, the semantics and connotations of our language are extremely powerful and have direct impacts on the way we think and act. Could shaping our speech to be more accurate, empathetic, and comprehensive cause our aggregate actions to do the same? For Show notes and more: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/30-missing-words To Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/wDLTkAad3rY

Greetings. Last week I did an Earth Day talk called Words of Our Lives, and it cataloged three dozen or so terms like fossil fuels that from a system's perspective actually have different meanings like flammable fossils. Consumer, human, economic growth, metastatic cancer. After reflecting on that exercise, it made me wonder what words in our culture don't exist, but maybe should. And I just went for a hike with the dogs looking for morale mushrooms. All I found was some deer ticks and wood ticks. But this is all fresh in my mind. So I'm just going to riff here on some words that should exist.

exist in our culture. And when I say culture, I am a citizen of the world, one of eight billion people alive today, but I am actually a citizen of the United States. So this is a reflection on my culture in the United States, but also applies more broadly. For instance, there is a Swedish word that's Lagom, which stands for enough or just the right amount. We don't have Lagom in the U.S. cultural lexicon. Okay, so here are some of my thoughts. When we think about the future, you can look at the future from a tech and normative money progress lens

or from the vantage point of living during the carbon pulse and the ecology of the world. So what does that mean? What is that vantage point? how do you describe those people that view the bottlenecks and the opportunities and constraints of the 21st century from the lens of the carbon pulse, which requires an energy understanding, systems ecology understanding, human behavior, et cetera. So that's one word that I think would be nice to view the future from the carbon pulse and all that entails.

Another concept is the future itself. We don't have an emoji that represents the future of the thousands of emojis you can find on your phone. There is no concept to represent the future. In our materials, DJ White and I came up with a tea with an arrow through it to represent tomorrow. But the reality is like the Inuit have 10, 20 words for different kinds of snow. Our culture should have 10 or 15 words for different futures, horrible futures, apocalyptic futures, decent futures, barely livable futures, and some sort of a range to describe the coming decades and centuries because the future and the lack of the ability to describe it with nuance and

delineation may be part of the problem. Another word missing in our culture is a concept for the energetically unfeasible. I think we've already kind of coined the term energy blind, which is we don't realize how energy, particularly fossil energy, underpins our lifestyles. So to have something about the amount of energy it costs to do something and the complex, involved in a otherwise ostensibly cool idea. That idea is front or something like that, meaning it's energetically unfeasible. I think we need that word in our culture. And building on that, I've started to rephrase the trajectory of continued growth by kicking cans, by adding more gross energy to our system,

but all that energy gets directed to the mining energy sector of the economy, taking it away from the rest of the economy, and destroying the environment in the process. I think we need a word for things that create growth. dose energy, but the net contributions to our culture are minimal or even negative. That would be an interesting word to have. Building on that, I think there's also a word energy porn comes to mind, but all kinds of things that give us massive amounts of dopamine, but the energy and materials and non-renewable inputs to create those sensational. are akin to internet pornography from a cultural standpoint.

And that is a whole lot of the activities in our culture. So I don't think energy porn is going to become in our cultural lexicon anytime soon, but something to represent turning billions of barrels of ancient sunlight into microleaders of dopamine. That's a catchy concept and phrase. that probably more people should think about things that way. And then an offshoot from that is maybe looking at some of the technology, and as Steve Keene says, technology without energy as a sculpture,

some of the technology that will without energy be purely decorative curiosities. Maybe that's not bling, it's blank or something like that. but to view technology in that sense that we really have technology in tandem with almost too cheap to meter energy inputs from Earth's past. It's the combination of those things. And so what do we really want to use those fancy tech things for? The term woke is popular. It's actually been co-opted now. But the original intent was to become aware of and understand and own and empathize with the racial and social inequalities of our past. And it was meant to just be aware of that and its implications in our lives and our futures.

I think there's missing a term, and I don't want to create it here, of ecologically systems woke. That includes our impact not only between different, demographics and our current culture, but between cultures, between the global north and the global south, between generations, those generations that will live on the downslope or well after the carbon pulse, the other species that are downstream of the carbon pulse. And to be alive and aware of the depth of how all that fits together is like wider systems awareness. And I think the giant red pill, I don't know. We're missing, we're missing a phrase for that. Another term that I think we need is someone who is content with absolute versus relative wealth.

There is a word that I think originated in the polyamory space called compersion, which is to be happy for someone else's well-being and success and not jealous. I think our entire culture, Western culture, has a driver of envy status, marketing, advertising. You don't have this thing. other people do you suck if you buy this you'll be better at the same time we are the richest generation ever to live in material standards on this planet and to have people be happy with absolute wealth and material standards as opposed to comparing themselves to others that would be a cool word to have. I just a couple hours ago finished a podcast with a Lebanese woman, Jocelyn, Katie. It was fantastic. Their economy is down 50% in the last three years. Their currency is collapsed by 98%. 80% of people

in their country are in poverty. And she is relishing the good things in life. She's going to have some sardines with her dad tonight. And she's working in the garden. And she's happy. with absolute things in her life instead of comparing herself to what people and other nations have. I think as we go forward, there's going to need to be a concept for that. As far as our behavior, maybe there needs to be a term that is neurotransmitter diversification. There is a four-legged stool of our main neurotransmitters, dopamine, endorphins, serotonin, and oxytocin. and most people are on a one-legged stool, which is dopamine. Dopamine drives our addictions, our behavior, our food, our social media, all kinds of things.

How do we refer to people to humans that are kind of a quarter, a quarter, a quarter, a quarter of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins? And they're well balanced. They're not constantly seeking. They're not in fight or flight mode. They're not unbalanced, but they have the ability to use Daniel Schmockenberger's, defer the second marshmallow terminology. They're more neurotransmitter balanced. Maybe there's a term for that.

A couple more. And then I'll call this a ram. what about those things that we do in our culture that in order to monetize something, we destroy something that is sacred? This should be something deeper than bad or illegal. This should be kind of referenced as a deep sin in our culture. the monetization of the sacred earth groves of old growth forest or habitat for an endangered species or the abysol oceans that are home to diverse ecosystems or I can't even think of and articulate all the things. But in our pursuit of maintaining a 19 terawatt global energy metabolism, there will

be many things that still in this diminished, you know, superorganism, casualty of a global natural system is still a wonderful, beautiful, amazing place of treasure, diversity, and stunning beauty. And to destroy that in the name of additional profits, there should be a name for you. for that, a term for that. Lastly, there should be a name for people who are aware of the circumstances we're in and choose to not pursue wealth or fame or notoriety or fortune, but to do what's right and to act as stewards of life, as earth stewards. My colleague, DJ White, many of you that follow my work know of his success stories, saving a million or more dolphins from the ocean. He was the first guy that was thought about being willing to take

a harpoon in his chest from a Russian whaler to protect a whale who he would never know. And lots of environmental success stories. In our culture, our word for that is like environmental wacko, that's not a good word to represent the deep earth life ethic in people like that. And I think we're going to need a lot more of those champions, those stewards who resist the siren song of status in our cultural narrative of what we think is the most important and follow their own intrinsic path to what they know is important and sacred to them. I think we need a word for that. An inspiring word. Okay, that's enough for today. Back to regularly scheduled, frankly, analysis on the world situation next week. Thank you.