The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens

In this week's Frankly, Nate explores the relationship between technology and wealth when viewed through a global biophysical lens. He uses the visualization of a straw, siphon, and sieve to describe how technology enables the acceleration of physical resource extraction and the concentration and filtering of resulting 'wealth' towards the human species. Running contrary to the commonly-held idea that technology automatically creates monetary wealth (and therefore prosperity), this episode asks listeners to view real wealth as the underlying stocks and flows that make life on Earth possible – whether in the form of forests, social trust, or entire functioning ecosystems.  Nate also discusses the ways that technologies have been deployed to rearrange natural systems around narrow, growth-centric priorities throughout much of human history. Utilizing examples regarding agriculture, finance, and artificial intelligence, he suggests that tools effective at small scales might behave very differently when applied globally – setting us on the path to overshoot that we find ourselves walking today. If technology reflects human priorities, what does current innovation and development reveal about what we currently value? What would it mean to shift towards prioritizing life-giving flows within natural systems and away from accelerating the liquidation of Earth's stocks? Finally, how can societies and individuals begin to distinguish between innovation that serves to borrow from our future versus genuine progress toward a more stable world? (Recorded December 25, 2025)   Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners

For decades, the West has outsourced its own material production to other countries, in favor of lower costs and short-term returns over more expensive, long-duration investments like mining and manufacturing. But while this has seemed like a success on the surface, it has left us with a society based on consumption, unable to produce what we need on our own. What are the deeper costs of this long-term offshoring – including for our geopolitical, climate, and technological ambitions? In this conversation, Nate is joined by materials expert and investor Craig Tindale, who explores the profound vulnerabilities facing Western economies by what he calls "Industrialization 2.0." Craig argues that decades of central banking policies favoring consumption and short-term returns have led the West to offshore virtually all materials production and processing to China – limiting the West's ability to defend itself, as well as rebuild industrial capacity to address the growing technological needs of climate and AI. Tindale also introduces his "four clocks" framework, which describes how corporate quarterly cycles, 10-20 year climate urgency, immediate defense needs, and continuous consumption addiction  are all ticking at different speeds and pulling society in incompatible directions. Furthermore, he posits that Silicon Valley's "unspoken bet" is on human obsolescence, with capital flowing to robot owners rather than human workers. How do all of these pieces – monetary policy, critical materials, climate action, geopolitical risk, and technological displacement – fit together to create a perfect storm for humanity's future? Why might the only path to a circular economy be "through the valley of death" – forced by necessity rather than choice? And what types of practical investments and technological innovations are needed to make our societies more resilient in the face of impending geopolitical and economic turbulence? (Conversation recorded on December 10th, 2025)   About Craig Tindale: Craig Tindale is a private investor who has spent nearly four decades working in software development, business strategy, and infrastructure planning, including in leadership positions at Telstra, Oracle, and IBM. Additionally, he has direct experience working in east-to-west supply chains, including as the CEO and Asia Regional Director for DataDirect Technologies.  He's now pivoted to investing in groundbreaking ideas such as drone reforestation through Air Seed Technologies, and uses his knowledge of Chinese industrial strategy and Western tech demand to identify the choke points in Critical Metals markets. Most recently he released the white paper, Critical Materials: A Strategic Analysis, which offers a systems synthesis on how the race for rare earths and the return of material constraints is shaping geopolitical relationships.    Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners  

In this week's Frankly, Nate shares reflections on what we take for granted in life at multiple scales: from personal health to meaningful work to relative ecological stability. The things that keep our everyday lives functioning often go unnoticed until they're needed or suddenly absent, suggesting that real wealth might come in the form of reliability rather than material gain. Nate also considers what has happened to our attention in an age of constantly-available stimulation, reflecting on how moving towards a quieter and slower lifestyle (whether by choice or by external circumstances) might engage us with small joys that have been forgotten in pursuit of quick dopamine.   When do you most acutely notice the (mostly) invisible supports that make our lives feel effortless, if ever? How has constant access to dopamine and stimulation shaped how your mind conceptualizes and responds to rest or relief? Finally, what does it mean to live freely and with autonomy in systems that increasingly shape our behavior without requiring consent or awareness? (Recorded January 6, 2026)   Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners

Dopamine: the most famous neurotransmitter that regulates pleasure, motivation, and (perhaps most importantly) addiction. When examining  why our society is hooked on consuming more and more of everything – food, clothes, videos, news, vacations – it's imperative to look at how our modern environments hijack our brain's dopamine, sending it into overdrive at nearly every turn. Could taking a closer look at how our societal norms make us more vulnerable to addiction help us transition to more balanced and mindful lifestyles? In this episode, Nate is joined by New York Times bestselling author and professor of psychiatry,  Anna Lembke, to explore how modern society has "drugified" our lived experience through digital media, processed foods, and instant gratification, resulting in an environment that propagates addiction. She explains how dopamine works as our brain's reward signal and why our ancient wiring is mismatched for today's level of high-dopamine stimuli in everyday life – leading to tolerance, withdrawal, and even anhedonia. Ultimately, Anna emphasizes that addiction is not a personal failing but a predictable response to an environment designed to take advantage of our brain's neurochemistry. What are the key practices individuals can use to reduce their addictive tendencies, even as our culture continues to prioritize quick dopamine hits and consumption? How long does it take to see the positive effects after moving away from the stimulus related to our addictive behavior? Lastly, if we acknowledge that information alone isn't enough, what cultural shifts can we make to foster more connection, digital mindfulness, and authenticity, in order to return to a slower, lower throughput way of living? (Conversation recorded on November 18th, 2025)     About Anna Lembke: Anna Lembke is professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. As a clinician scholar, she has published more than a hundred peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, and commentaries. She sits on the board of several state and national addiction-focused organizations, has testified before various committees in the United States House of Representatives and Senate, and maintains a thriving clinical practice. In 2016, she published Drug Dealer, MD – How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It's So Hard to Stop, which was highlighted in the New York Times as one of the top five books to read to understand the opioid epidemic. Dr. Lembke also appeared on the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, an unvarnished look at the impact of social media on our lives.  Her most recent book, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, explores how to moderate compulsive overconsumption in a dopamine-overloaded world and is a New York Times Bestseller.   Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future Join our Substack newsletter Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners  

In this week's Frankly, Nate takes thermodynamics out of the physics classroom, utilizing its principles to explain the invisible forces behind growth, competition, and complexity in our world. Competing life systems build organization out of chaos in order to maximize power usage today, even if it potentially undermines survival tomorrow. Within our energetic reality of finite and destabilizing fossil fuels, this tendency towards instant power accelerates us towards planetary overshoot. Nate poses a question in response to this tendency: What happens when a species becomes conscious of the self-fulfilling drive to maximize energy flow? He suggests a "fifth law" of thermodynamics, which  explains that a self-aware species might evolve to consciously prioritize future security over short-term gains. This "law" serves as a hopeful and mind-expanding invitation to rethink efficiency, progress, and wisdom in the world we experience today. What invisible energy gradients steer your daily habits and decisions? Could a culture actually choose slower, steadier flows without collapsing creativity, freedom, or joy? And, if intelligence doesn't guarantee wisdom, what feedbacks might help us prefer enduring power over maximum power?   Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners