The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens - USA! (But wait, There's More) | Frankly #27

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

Recorded March 29, 2023   Description   In this Frankly, Nate reflects on the varying perspectives from which people perceive the meta-crisis relative to their own circumstances. This extends to the countries we live in and the particular economic/social situations we are part of. But each of these is part of a wider systems lens that we should at least keep in mind and respect - even if it doesn't feel like our central cause. The challenging times ahead will have huge implications for the social progress of the last few centuries on local, national, and international levels. There will never be one solution to such grand scale problems. As we work on responding to these challenges, keeping in mind the scope and complexity of these issues might allow us to approach them from a place of empathy and compassion. To Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5PZagNLa6s&list=PLdc087VsWiC5im7eWkCD0t907MbOAftb3&index=13 For Show Notes and More: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/27-usa-but-wait-theres-more

Hi, I had a long form, frankly, planned, but I've had vertigo this week, like standing up and falling down because I had a massage last week and my head got kind of yanked in a certain way, so my inner ear crystals or something like that. But I did promise to do a frankly this week. So here are some reflections on something that I've been thinking about that has kind of. to come to my attention again this week. Two weeks ago I was out in San Francisco giving some presentations and I had an Uber ride from the airport to my board member's house with a young man from Afghanistan. 21, 22, he was a student there. His English was amazing. I was really impressed. He worked really hard. He's studying and driving an Uber car to pay the bills. And we started to talk about my work and the great simplification. He had a lot of interesting questions. He was telling me how

awful things were in Afghanistan now, and especially since the U.S. military and everything left, how women have really lost all their rights, especially, you know, older women can not. longer drive or do things in public and he was lamenting about that and then we started to talk about homeless people in California and he said something that I'll never forget he's like if I'm working like I am now I want to be in America he's like but if I'm homeless I will go back or I want to be in Afghanistan because despite what's going in in Afghanistan people can grow food there and they take care of other people, and here you're just kind of left out in a park or whatever, and there's

nothing. What a profound thing to say. Afghanistan is one of the most dangerous countries in the world. And so all this has got me thinking this week, especially looking at some of the YouTube comments on recent videos, that this message that I'm talking about, that we are, as a species approaching an inflection point of the carbon pulse. And that's going to change everything about our lifestyles, our institutions, our expectations, the social contract. And it's going to mean different things for different countries next week that will be a podcast with Antonio Turiel talking about that Europe and Spain are going to approach the great simplification in a biophysical standpoint much sooner than the United States. But the United States has people that are

metabolic syndrome and entitled and addicted and polarized and more guns per capita than anywhere in the world. I mean, we have our own problems despite being 80-some percent energy-sufficient. So the story that I'm telling is for humanity. It's for anyone in the world that can understand English, tuning in to listen to this. And so I would ask for tolerance and perhaps a wider boundary perspective of the listeners and viewers of this show because the solutions and the responses from the things we talk about are going to be wildly different depending on where you live in the world and your circumstances and there is not a one-size-fits-all response.

In coming weeks, I'm talking with some financial icons about interest rates and historical manias in the markets and too big to save financial aspects of our current system. But I'm also going to be talking with a young Lebanese woman who, the country, of Lebanon has a thousand percent inflation. They have over 50 percent unemployment and she's trying to work on using local materials like potatoes and algae to make packaging to deliver food to people. So Lebanon, Syria, Ukraine, Pakistan, Madagascar, Sri Lanka. I mean, there are many countries now living what I could foresee decades. hence for Western democracies.

And I think it's natural as humans to focus on our own situation and our own plight. Even in the United States, the word and the practice of wokeism and critical race theory is at its core to be alert and sensitive to racial and social injustices that have brought us to this moment. And on that part, I agree. But I think in that case, we often don't have wide enough boundaries because people that are really passionate about those issues are largely U.S. focused. You don't hear people in Europe even talking about critical race theory much. And what about all the other inequalities between countries? The United States has 4% of the world's population and 50% of the world's medical prescriptions and about a quarter of the resource use, etc.

So there are many people listening to this broadcast that are in materially much different circumstances than the 40% or so of the show's listeners that reside in the United States. So I don't really know what I'm trying to say here other than I think equality is unlikely to be attained in coming decades. I think we will when there's a financial recalibration. I think the whole pie will get smaller and the rich people are going to lose more because of their exposure to financial assets. but poor people will lose as well. And so there will be more equality, but we'll all be poor from a biophysical standpoint.

While that's all going on, I actually think we need more kindness and more empathy because the world is a big place and there's between peoples in a country, inequality and issues, there's between nations, there's between generations. about the generations that come after us that won't have access to the goodies and the complexity of the carbon pulse? And then what about other species who don't listen to this podcast and don't have any voice in the human predicament? So I guess this is just an appeal to be tolerant.

And I have the next 22 episodes of this podcast are either recorded or scheduled and it's a wide variety of excellent guests on topics relevant to the human predicament. But the human predicament is not only a North American, United States, Canada, or European thing. It is a global story. And so I hope that future Franklies and future episodes, you can take away something that applies to your own life, your own work, your own corner of the world. But maybe soften the boundaries in your mind and imagine that other people are taking something quite different away. That's all for now. I will have that probability longer form, frankly, next week. Vertigo, notwithstanding. Talk to you soon. Thanks.