The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens - The Middle East: Stormwatch | Frankly #46

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

In this Frankly, Nate shares his perspective on the recent events in the Middle East and how they could lead to a shortening of the timeline to The Great Simplification. For those fortunate to live outside the direct impacts of these conflicts, many feel pressure to stay informed about this turbulent, global landscape. Is it possible to also remain grounded in the present realities of our daily lives? How do individual responses to this past week's geopolitical events vary depending on the livelihood demands of the here and now? Is it possible to live simply in our own lives while also engaging globally ahead of the Great Simplification?   For Show Notes and More: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/46-the-middle-east-stormwatch   To Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/wODlwoKJEE0

Greetings. I had lots of ideas for this week's, frankly. I was going to follow up the One Ring with artificial intelligence versus real ecology. I've also been constructing a framework for philanthropy on eight broad categories that philanthropy needs to urgently consider and start to fund ahead of the the Great Simplification. I also start to write one how I could be wrong about the Great Simplification. And another idea that I'd like to share publicly is I've started doing these things in moderation called Silent Saturdays. And I plan on talking about all that. Of course,

last Saturday was not a Silent Saturday. And I have various contacts around the world who were calling me Saturday morning letting me what's going on of the horror and the tragedy in the Middle East in Israel and subsequently Palestine, Lebanon, etc. And so I didn't do that, frankly, and I'm going to give a very brief reflection on my thoughts on Israel today. Okay, so those people following this podcast are aware that energy is the currency of the universe and that oil is currently, doesn't always have to be, the hemoglobin of modern culture. What you might not know is that within around 800 miles of Israel, in a triangle called the black gold triangle by some contains around 50 to 65% of all the world's remaining oil.

So without getting into, you know, predictive speculation on what's going to happen the next few months, which I never really do. This podcast is about painting the game board of the next decade and beyond. I really don't have an edge in predicting what's going to happen in the near term. But if you squint and take a step back and look at this situation, there are all kinds of complex potential Archduke Ferdinand-like situations here between the Sunnis and the Shias, between the Muslims and the Christians, between the Middle East and the West, between a new potential axis of Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China, and Israel, the U.S., and the U.K., I don't know. But in a world where interest rates are starting to rise, government deficits are ballooning, polarization is high, the agreements between who's buying what, using what currency and what

letters of credit, and what banking system, it's like there's this, uh, choosing of sides that's occurring behind the scenes from the unipolar world order that we grew up with into something else. So my only comment there is, I think the timeline to the Great Simplification just got shorter. And of course, again, when I say that, Palestine and Pakistan and Madagascar and Sri Lanka and Cyprus and many other places have already experienced a great simplification. So when I say the great simplification, I really mean when is it coming from me or for you listening to this program. So I think the timeline just accelerated because oil is precarious and important. Having said that, I think the aggregate market opinion of what has

happened is far more sanguine than what I just said. You can buy a oil futures out five, six, seven years. They're not too liquid, but there is a price structure out many, many years from now. And oil seven years from now is a dollar higher than it was a week ago. So that's either energy blindness and geopolitics blindness in the financial markets, but oil traders are not energy blind. So I suspect that they think that there's going to be a short resolution that Israel is going to gain control over things quickly, like they did in the two crises in the 1970s. I don't think so, but I'm not an expert on that. One more thing I will say about this is, just like with Ukraine and Russia, when I learned my lesson last year, there are two

wars now happening between Israel and Palestine and beyond. There's the kinetic war. which we will see on the news. And there's the informational war. And the propaganda from both sides, tilting public opinion, I've learned not to trust, especially things that come out right away and are well-crafted.

Sunday morning, the Wall Street Journal published an article saying that this was all planned in advance with the backing of Iran by three major journalists with all kinds of, of data, I mean, Sunday morning, color me a little skeptical on that. But I think Iran is going to become a four-letter word. And I don't know the details here, but I think we are spiraling out of control with the geopolitical peace and relationships.

But actually, none of that is what I want to talk about today. My girlfriend was out of town last weekend. She got back Sunday night. And she's like, so what's going on? And I told her all about the horror and the tragedy, the people in Israel and what was going on. And she's like, well, that sucks. But I was asking you, did you dig out the potatoes? Did you clean the duck pen?

Did you chop the wood and stack it like you said you would? And you have to stop worrying about the future and start worrying about today. Of course, I had no response to that other than she was right. And I think we that are aware of the Great Simplification are in some senses storm watchers. And now with Ukraine and Russia and interest rates and the election and the House Speaker and the polarization and now Israel and the Middle East, The species loss and insects and the one and a half degree spike in climate, all time standard deviation, this storm is here. And the storm is going to be here probably for the rest of our lives, some version of it.

And I realized that this was a term Mark Gaffney coined the pre-tragic is when you don't know anything about species loss and climate change and oil depletion and war. And tragic is when you see it and you're like, oh my God, this is so horrible. And then post-tragic is when you've kind of had a stoic response to it and you come to terms and you live with it. Living in the storm, which is what this podcast does a lot of the time, constantly pulls you back from the post-tragic to the tragic. And I think we have to understand the world, but we also have to live in the world. And this week was a big reminder of this because there were so many things going on and so many deadlines that yesterday I just had to take a knee. I did go out and dig some potatoes and

I set out some new straw for my ducks because I never did get my silent Saturday. Another thing that brought it home to me is yesterday. I had a podcast roundtable for next month's roundtable. This month's roundtable will be out two days from today on Sunday with Pelotiel, Dugald Hein and Chris Smeiji on food and community in the ruins. Next month is Vandana Shiva, Andrew Millison, Daniel Zeta, and Jason Bradford on growing food without fossil fuels. Daniel Zita called me on Tuesday night. He's a farmer here in Minnesota. And he's like, what's the plan for tomorrow? I'm like, I've just been jammed since this is real thing.

And he's like, what is real thing? And I was like, dude, it's Tuesday night. This happened Saturday morning. Are you not aware of what happened in the Middle East? And of course he wasn't. He was in the fields all day processing and before hard frost getting all of his crops in, doing chores with his animals. And I felt like, I felt shock.

And then I was like, I felt jealous. I felt envious of that that he had spent the last four days working outside on things and wasn't aware. So I think we all who are aware of this need to live in both worlds. And yeah, it's a privilege to be able to take a knee. I think people living in the Middle East right now don't have that option. But if we spend all of our times worrying and thinking about the future, we miss the beauty and the potential of today. And so I got that tiny, tiny little bit of wisdom and insight this week.

So understand the future, yes, but don't live in the future. Lots more to say in the near future. Salam, Shalom, MIR, peace to all of you.