The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens - Time Travel & The Superorganism: A Movie Idea | Frankly 81

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

(Recorded December 16, 2024)   As we wrap up another year of thought-provoking discussions on The Great Simplification, Nate takes us on an imaginative journey in this week's Frankly - exploring a potential movie script idea that blends systems, science and fiction. What if someone who deeply understood the challenges of today's global economic Superorganism could travel back in time? Armed with the knowledge of our current ecological and economic trajectory, what would they change? What could they change? Hollywood media could serve as a powerful tool to educate and inspire a wider audience on the systems science of our current predicament. Unpacking his movie idea, Nate shows us how the interventions highlighted - even if sci-fi -  could educate audiences about the complex dynamics which have shaped the issues we now face. Through key character developments, we explore the constraints imposed by the path dependency of the Superorganism, realities about aggregate human behavior, and where degrees of freedom might exist to shift the trajectory of the future - in service of life. If you could travel back through time to the 1970s (or to any date), how would YOU intervene to shape the future? Could education, regenerative ecology, or "Superorganism-free zones" alter the trajectory of civilization? And more broadly, how might Hollywood still play a role in translating the systems science towards providing agency to the general public?   Show Notes and More 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

Season's greetings. It's the end of the year. The end of our third year, we've had 150 weeks of uninterrupted content, including frankly. Oh my God, Frank, you are so cute. You don't know what you look like on camera. I have a movie idea. I'm never going to actually get it into movie form, so I figured I would share it on

this, frankly. It's a little bit science, a little bit fiction, but it's about someone who thinks and is aware about the metabolism of the human economic superorganism and goes back in time and tries to do something about it. And that's going to be the theme of today's, frankly. So before I get into that, I will talk about the audiences of this show. There's the walking worried or the pro-social scout team or the people. people like you that tune in that understand what's going on and they adhere to the bat signal without being directed to or being paid to or anything. It's the natural systems thinkers around the world.

The second category is philanthropists, foundations, and people who have attained outsource, financial claims on biophysical reality that have degrees of freedom to direct our current situation in ways that prior human cultures didn't have other than kings and queens and rulers. There is now a class of humans who have outsize capability and, in my opinion, outsize responsibility because I think there's a lot of antagonism towards the rich that may be misdirected. I think being rich isn't the problem. Once you understand the meta crisis, the great simplification, the human predicament, and then there's a responsibility and a fiduciary to use your resources towards doing something. A third category is government of future policymakers. I'm calling it advanced policy. Those people that are going to need to make what would now be unpopular decisions. in the future to intervene on behalf of better outcomes.

So that's a third category. A fourth is community leaders, pro-social preppers, those people who can have an outsized role in advancing these issues ahead of time in their communities, locally, regionally. A fifth category is young humans, college students, those who have most of their lives ahead of them and will be living through the great simplification,

there is a certain message for them. And lastly, is the general public. However, I am never going to be a spokesperson for anything, really, other than this channel, but I'm certainly not going to be a spokesperson for the general public. I'm too nerdy. I'm too abstract. I'm too goofy.

I mean, look at me. However, I do think the general public needs to have aspects of this message. And of course, this message is hundreds of different things. The best things in life are free. Energy underpins all the things in our world. You know, the ecosystems that support life are not included in our value system or our prices. I mean, there's lots of messages. And I believe that that demographic can be best reached through new Hollywood-type media

that isn't growing potatoes on market. Mars or brain-eating zombies, but something that gives people a visual cues of what futures are likely to look like. And to give people agency, there's a lot of despair and apathy in today's world. We don't need BS fantasy unicorn visions of unrealistic futures, but we do need tangible, character-driven, relatable stories with the Screenwriters Guild and other Hollywood creatives, which is one of our audiences. So with that backdrop, I wanted to tell you about a movie idea I just had on a bike ride. I'm not going to actually pursue this script.

Maybe some of you can improve on it and actually make it come to fruition. But the general idea is there's a scientist. or an ecologically concerned human in circa 2025, that somehow understands the metabolic energy planetary situation and knows that business as usual or all the things we're doing today aren't working. And either, and this would have to be in the Hollywood writing, finds a time machine in a cave,

or develops something, or invents it. And he goes back in time. The second character would be his childhood friend or his sister or his neighbor who is interested in his tinkering's in his garage and somehow gets transported back in time with him. And this is a woman who is a currency trader or investment banker or someone just totally dedicated towards amassing financial surplus claims on reality.

So the broad three arcs of the story are number one, instead of having talking heads like Paul Ehrlich or Dennis Meadows or any Bill McKibben or people talking about climate and the environment or even David Attenborough, that we illustrate the problems with the current metabolism of our economic system with 8 billion humans pursuing profit, tethered to energy, tethered to ecological impact.

We don't tell that story as if it was a blammy thing, but we tell the story indirectly by looking at the interventions that this scientist, activist, pursues going back in time. And so the ocean regeneration and planting artificial coral reefs or doing policy changes

to increase the price of energy and non-renewable inputs, Like, why would we do these things? Planting seeds, growing a lot more for us and keeping the biodiversity areas of the world cordoned off from any development. I mean, there's a hundred different ideas that could fit in there. But the audience learns about our current 2025 reality by looking at the things that this scientist starts back in the past.

But that's just the primary, the proximate goal of the movie. The ultimate is the two-character development. So what happens is the scientist, activist, gradually becomes disillusioned. And as he becomes more famous because he knows so much back in time, he goes to rave parties. And there's a lot of women and drugs and distractions. And he kind of loses the plot. And he also on an alternate path could just become totally disenchanted with not making a difference. He becomes disillusioned with what's going on.

But in contrast, his neighbor, the investment banker currency trader, obviously going back in time becomes very quickly the wealthiest, richest, richest human on the planet because she knows everything that happens. Let's say they go back 50 years in time. She knows about the Hunt Brothers' cornering of the silver market and the stock market crash in 1987 and all the things she's able to leverage with 100% confidence what's going to happen. And very quickly, she becomes the richest person in the world. On her side of the story, what happens is

she gradually understands that having all this money and this game kept going, by amassing digital claims on reality is ultimately meaningless. And she realizes that the way to keep score isn't who has the most ones and zeros on bank drives and on paper, but whose existence shapes the future

in a meaningful way, in a better way. Because really, if independent, deep pocket people adopted an altruistic and not non-delusional outlook, they could do huge things. But unfortunately, back then and today, they mostly care about money and tech singularity. It's become a cult. So one of the main storylines of the movie is the eco-person, gradually gets disillusioned and pulled into the humanity of it all. And the investment banker, rich person changes her values and consciousness and becomes a massive champion for all the things to have a regenerative future in service of life.

So, you know, aligned with all that, we could show the broad categories of regenerative agriculture and protecting species and ecosystems, changing the cultural awareness and meaning and then of creative interventions to change policy, prices, social structure, etc. So that's kind of the general theme, which I think could make a very interesting movie or or series. But since I decided to make this, frankly, I thought about some bonus themes that could be used. One is that going back in time, 50 years,

like what really would have changed things? I mean, there were interventions that massively changed the course of the last 50 years. The day after was this movie about nuclear war in 19, 1983, which catalyzed a nuclear disarmament movement. It caused reduction in warheads and many protections to add against a war. Significantly, even President Reagan watched it and was motivated. Such a thing couldn't be done today because the media is fractionated, polarized.

You could not get entire nations to watch one show at the same time. So going back in time to do a dramatization of energy depletion, of global ecosphere of humanity leaving the stability of the biosphere. Actually, that would in a colorful way, showing the impact on the oceans, putting Richard, or David Attenborough back 50 years with those sorts of messaging might actually make a difference. It's too late now with the Internet increasingly AI-generated individual realities.

So that perturbation is no longer available. today, but it could have been then simultaneously aired to multiple nations, a large fraction of people. So in theory, the superorganism of the 1970s could have functioned cognitively, at least to some degree. So that's one alternative theme. Another one since Frank is in the room, Frank could have jumped on the scientist's lap and gone back in time. And then there could have been a one child, one dog movement that this scientist started. Another thing is that the scientist goes back in time and maybe he meets some other scientists back in the day and he recognizes that education of the masses doesn't work. Education is critical, but education to the masses didn't work, isn't working

and won't work. However, education and inspiration of individuals does. And there could have been some protocol and plan to educate hyperagents about the system synthesis of the human predicament and interventions on how to steer things over time towards better direction. So he goes back in time maybe with the financial help of his neighbor, the currency trader, and they establish schools starting with 10, then 100, then 1,000 people around. the world that are intervening on behalf of the long-term stability of life and other species. And so he goes back in time to breathe life into the creation of hyperagents. Another tangential idea is he goes back in time and builds superorganism-free zones where maybe

they're led by indigenous leaders and they're economically self-sufficient. they don't need philanthropists or billionaires to keep them supported, but people choose to go there because it's a better way of life and it actually acts as pilots and a beacon to other humans. And so it's not muscling the metabolism of the superorganism. It's using Bucky Fuller's logic of create something different, which makes the original model obsolete. A tall order, but superorganism free zones would be one backward-looking. option. Another is that the guy wanted to go back 200 years before we started using fossil fuels, but instead he went back 50 years only to the 1970s. And he's working on these projects and planting

seeds for regenerative, more stable futures. But exactly at one year, he comes back to the present. And it's kind of like a combination of Groundhog Day meets Back to the Future and maybe a little Thelma and Louise. But then he's got to got to be here for a certain amount of time. And then he goes back to the future. He can use the time machine after a refractory period. And he goes back to where he left off. So he can come back to the present and see the changes that he made if they worked or not.

And so he learns about human behavior, aggregate human behavior, system synthesis, kind of an azimovian psychohistory in real time. And he can go back for a year at a time and change things. Another slightly darker tangential theme would be that over time, he realizes that if you combine humans in large numbers, add water, add energy surplus, and time that the metabolic hierarchical structure, which I refer to as the economic superorganism, is inevitable. and its peak and decline and shrinkage is also inevitable. So what he does 50 years ago is create arcs of humanity and biodiversity around the world that look two or three steps ahead at what will happen after the superorganism spends its energy bounty and shrinks and is looking at what humans and the world are capable of hundreds, thousands of

years in the future and is propelling what DJ White and I called in our book, things of value through the bottlenecks of the 21st century. Those things, those values, those morals, those species, those ecosystems, those technologies that would matter in the long run that this individual in the movie works on propelling those and giving them a shot in the arm to propel them through the coming bottlenecks of the 21st century. So there's lots of ideas here. I think it's a cool idea. What do you think? If you had a time machine or if you were making a movie about a time machine that was system synthesis informed, what would you do right in the comments? Like what other suggestions would you have with a time machine to go back 50 years or so to make the future better than it is?

of course it's science fiction right we don't have time machines yet in one sense 50 years from now is 2075 we're all time travelers especially those people who are 30 years and under we are time travelers today and coming from the future knowing the general landscape constraints and trends of the biophysical scenario that we discuss in this podcast What could we start today? Yes, the opportunities aren't the same as they were in the 1970s, but opportunities to change the future away from the default still exist. What would you do with a time machine? So this is 150 weeks straight of content.

We have a special episode coming out on Sunday, which will be our last content of the year. I'm giving my amazing staff two Wednesdays off, December 25th and January 1st. There will be no podcasts. We have amazing podcasts in the queue. There's already eight or ten in the cookie jar for the first two months of the year. Lots of Franklies to come. Happy solstice, happy holidays to everyone onwards, my friends.