The Great Simplification is a podcast that explores the systems science underpinning the human predicament. Through conversations with experts and leaders hosted by Dr. Nate Hagens, we explore topics spanning ecology, economics, energy, geopolitics, human behavior, and monetary/financial systems. Our goal is to provide a simple educational resource for the complex energetic, physical, and social constraints ahead, and to inspire people to play a role in our collective future. Ultimately, we aim to normalize these conversations and, in doing so, change the initial conditions of future events.
379 episodes transcribedOn this episode, financial analyst Luke Gromen joins Nate to discuss how the availability of cheap energy has underpinned our current financial archit...
On this episode, Nate is joined by Professor Nick Haddad, a conservation scientist with a focus on butterflies and other insects. Nick unpacks what de...
On this episode, Nate is joined by Sian Sutherland, a leader in the movement towards reducing the overconsumption of plastic and its waste. The modern...
On this episode, neuroscientist and author Robert Sapolsky joins Nate to discuss the structure of the human brain and its implication on behavior and...
On this Reality Roundtable, marine biologist Daniel Pauly, ocean physicist Antonio Turiel, and paleobiologist Peter Ward join Nate to discuss the nume...
In this Frankly, Nate describes the Carbon Pulse - a one time massive consumption of fossil hydrocarbons at a pace millions of times faster than they...
On this episode, Nate is joined by Graham Palmer, a scholar and engineer in the field of energy. While this show frequently covers the importance of e...
In this week's Frankly, Nate reacts to recent analysis by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) critical of 2022 subsidies to fossil fuel. These subsi...
On this episode, 'Superorganisms' converge as Nate is joined by economist and anthropologist Lisi Krall to discuss the evolutionary origins of our cur...
In this week's Frankly, Nate considers 7 different continuums of perspectives people use when taking part in a "systems" discourse, such as The Great...
On this episode, literary scholar and psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist joins Nate to discuss the way modern culture teaches and encourages us to use - an...
On this episode, Nate is joined by well-known French educator Jean-Marc Jancovici to discuss the critical importance of energy to modern economies. To...
On this Reality Roundtable, Nate is joined by Jon Erickson, Josh Farley, Steve Keen, and Kate Raworth - all of whom are leading thinkers and educators...
In Part 4 of this Frankly mini-series, Nate concludes the deep dive into the nexus between "just stopping oil" and "just pumping oil" with 10 guidepos...
On this episode, Nate is joined by Doomberg - the anonymous energy/finance analyst team (visually presenting as a talking chicken icon) who uses an en...
In Part 3 of this Frankly Series, Nate (just after watching the movie Oppenheimer!) breaks down the logic of how we COULD arrive at a post-growth futu...
On this episode, Nate is joined by climate scientist Kevin Anderson to discuss the possible paths of averting severe climate outcomes and how this is...
In Part 2 of this Frankly Series, Nate breaks down why energy - and specifically oil - is currently the central foundation of our entire modern econom...
On this episode, Nate is joined by climate and policy scientist Roger Pielke Jr. to discuss the progression of climate research and modeling. The clim...
In this week's Frankly, Nate expands upon something he finds himself saying more frequently these days; "what scares me the most is…". From the likel...
