The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens - "Thank You for Ruining My Life" | Frankly 80

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

(Recorded December 5, 2024)   It's not everyday that a stranger thanks you for 'ruining their life'. In this heartfelt Frankly, Nate reflects on a powerful encounter with a venture capitalist whose life was upended - and ultimately enriched - after immersing himself in the full content of The Great Simplification podcast. This man's journey from techno-optimism to a deeper understanding of the limits of infinite growth on a finite planet shines a light on the purpose of this channel: to inspire and equip curious, prosocial individuals to channel their skills and creativity toward building a future that's better than the default. Nate shares an email from this listener, detailing the emotional and intellectual wrestling match of confronting uncomfortable truths. From sleepless nights to moments of clarity, this journey underscores the transformative power of knowledge - not just to inform, but to empower action, shifting us from passive consumers of content to active creators of responses. What does it feel like to be confronted with the uncomfortable realities of the systems synthesis? Is it worth it? And are you ready to join a growing community of changemakers leaning into this challenge?   Watch this video episode on YouTube   --- Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future Join our Substack newsletter Join our Discord channel and connect with other listeners  

I was just at a conference last week. It was a lot of tech people, and I was invited. I was kind of an oddball out. And during one of the breaks, a man walked up being shook my hand with a smile. Thank you for ruining my life. Set it with a smile. And he then proceeded to say that he had watched 400 hours of the content. He came to the conference just to meet me.

He's a successful venture capitalist and his world change nine months ago when he found this podcast. He's watched every single episode, every single frankly, including the Bend Not Break series multiple times. He's changing things in his life. He's changing his priorities. He's changing his investments. He's changing his goals. And I'd like to talk more broadly, not about this person, but about the implicated. of what happens when the magnitude of what is the great simplification, the system synthesis

of the human predicament, versus the delta of what people believe in our techno-consumerist, isolated, insular, individualist culture when that delta collapses. Just some reflections on that today. So actually, the first thing he said to me is he, you know, outside. he's like, I have so many questions, which is, of course, Captain Crunch Decoder Ring for me as someone that watches the podcast, because I say that a lot. Then he shook my hand and he told me his story. We've become friends and had a few calls.

And, you know, it's a true bat signal when someone says they've watched 400 hours of your content. That's no BS. That is a true non-fakable signal because I asked him, what did you think about this podcast with Jeremy Grantham or this one with Joan Diamond? And like he had answers or opinions. So, of course, I was a little puffed up. And, you know, it's, I'm here in an office, often by myself. My staff works remotely.

And I have ideas. I have a lot to say. And I care deeply about these issues. but it's until I leave and go somewhere and then people find me and talk to me about what they've learned and what they've inferred and how things have changed in their life from the things they've learned that it really hits home. So I sent him an email and I said, you know, that was quite a profound thing, the things you said to me about me ruining your life, in quotes. and he sent me an email back, which I'm going to read out loud and share because I think it might be

applicable to others. And I think there's an inference from this because in the last week or so, I've got intense clarity about the role of this podcast, the role of this channel, the role of my work in the world. But let me read this email from this nice gentleman. Your synthesis shook me at my core. It resonated with me deeply, and yet for months I wrestled with myself as I knew it couldn't be true. It just couldn't. There is no way. Then I would take a few deep breaths and listen to another round of bend not break. The logic would hold, and I'd enjoy a moment of clarity, of understanding, only to be visited by the demons of techno-optimism, which was start the cycle over. But each time, it would end up in the same place of understanding. As I added additional episodes in French,

frankly's the wrestling matches became more intense, but also added context that made the fights shorter and the moments of clarity longer. Then I added books from other thinkers, many of whom I learned about from your podcast, more discomfort in sleepness nights as the complexity grew. But I committed to leaning into the discomfort with curiosity and each new block of complexity oddly made the story more coherent and reality more clear. I remain on this journey and yet now that the basic story is clear to me, I find a peace that eluded me in my old venture capital frame. I feel terror for civilization, and yet peace in my understanding and even joy in my commitment to sharing this message. We cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet. The things we are ostensibly now doing to help

are making it much worse. I am embarrassed and ashamed and many of things I said, did, and thought as a priest worshipping at the altar of perpetual growth. Reconciling this has been a painful process and one I suspect will be with me for a long time. But it has taught me something very valuable and has given me a unique skill set. We're looking for deeply curious people with the ability to lean into the discomfort of this message and people with values that match ecological sustainability over our conventional form of capitalism. an army of curious homo-economicus can evolve into homo sapiens with a clear understanding of our place in the natural world. These are the people that will lead the change on the solution sets.

Thank you for your work. You have given me an educational debt I can never repay, but more importantly a peace that comes from understanding and a joy that comes from sharing it with our human kin. That was really meaningful to me. I think you all know this has been a Sisyphian path. These aren't my concepts that I'm sharing. Yes, I'm integrating them and I'm parsing them in ways that might be novel. But I stand on the shoulders of giants and the thinking of ecology and biophysical economics and energy, neuroscience, environmental science, all the things that have come before. So this isn't my story.

I'm just a spokesperson and a catalyst that's widening the Overton window. The clarity I have is that I've admitted many times. I don't know the solutions. I'm becoming more confident of the frameworks and the roadmaps that directionally makes sense. And some of my upcoming, frankly's, well, the next week, the next frankly is going to be a movie I have about time travel, that'll be a digression, but also a communication vector. But after that, I'm going to have a framework for philanthropy. What should philanthropy and

foundations be thinking about? And it's going to be quite a long thing because there's multiple categories. But we need a framework for technology. We need a framework for community, a framework for governance, a framework for individual healing and behavior as we crest and descend on the backside of the carbon pulse. So the clarity for me is I want to continue to learn. I want to share that journey of learning with others, you, the viewers of this show. And I want to inspire people like this gentleman who came up to me and shared that he'd watched 400 hours of this channel.

There are people around that in the world that had conventional jobs and normal families and they've just been watching the wrong movie. And once the aperture changes, there are many bright pro-social people of all different races, colors, creeds, nationalities, ages, skill sets. And I think what we want to do is find a thousand people like my new friend or 100,000, or millions, that each of them could then with a little shift, or in this case a big shift in their world view, apply their creativity, not just their money, but their skills, their ideas, their resources, their passions, their networks, their particular regional or micro area, what's special there or their connections internationally?

I don't know. But I think the benefit of this channel, of this work, is the second order of facts of the conversations and initiatives that start because of some new insights and new framings that I do hear imperfectly. You know, these Franklies are just, I have no notes at all other than the email I just read. I'm just talking to you as a human being. These could be way better produced. I could have a cooler hat than this crocheted one by my friend. I could do a lot of things at a much more professional level.

So I'm just doing the best I can every week. The podcast is only about a third of my work with presentations and productions and, you know, advice and meetings and such. So I kind of think B Plus and service of life is my new kind of email signature. There's never time to make everything perfect. I want to put things out there in a way that passes the baton to more people, but not everyone. This is a bat signal that is not for everyone because it's intense. It's scary.

There are no easy answers. But the type of person that contacted me, this email I just read, that is self-possessed enough, has maturity and has grown up enough to know what's right and wrong and to see BS or reality and has this ethos to do what's right for life on the planet and the people in his community. I think there's a lot of you out there that can do this in ways that I will never know. I don't need to know and I can't imagine the ripple effects from the insights in the community that we're trying to build.

I'm just the guy. I'm not a leader of any movement or anything. I am super curious and I have a quick brain. So I'm suited to what I should be doing. I'm inviting really cool humans on this show to share their insights about the world. And then I'm creating little videos and maybe an 8 to 10 hour video in the next few months. We're working on a primer for a reality one and one primer that you can share with friends and colleagues to get the foundational insights. So B plus in service of life, my friends.

And it is not my intention to ruin anyone's life, but information, knowledge, insights, learning, and towards an objective of making the future better than the default. I think that's a good use of time. Talk to you next week with a movie idea on time travel and the superorganism.