Threats to U.S. Security: Aging Infrastructure, Fragile Systems, and Information Warfare with Dan O'Connor

On this special 100th episode, Nate is interviewed by his friend and colleague in the metacrisis space, Kate Raworth. The conversation is a reflection on the past two years of podcasting – and how Nate's worldview has evolved because of it. What fundamental concepts could help us better understand the trends happening around us and the potential futures they point to? With so many moving pieces, how can we begin to create a coherent story of the world around us and - even more difficult - start preparing responses to coming challenges? What should individuals aware of these converging crises be thinking about in order to prepare themselves, their families, and their communities for a materially smaller future? About Nate Hagens Nate Hagens is the Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future (ISEOF) an organization focused on educating and preparing society for the coming cultural transition. Allied with leading ecologists, energy experts, politicians and systems thinkers, ISEOF assembles road-maps and off-ramps for how human societies can adapt to lower throughput lifestyles. Nate holds a Masters Degree in Finance with Honors from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Natural Resources from the University of Vermont. He teaches an Honors course, Reality 101, at the University of Minnesota. About Kate Raworth Kate Raworth describes herself as a renegade economist focused on making economics fit for 21st century realities. She is the creator of the Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries, and co-founder of Doughnut Economics Action Lab, based on her best-selling book Doughnut Economics: 7 Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist. Kate is a Senior Associate at Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute, where she teaches on the Masters in Environmental Change and Management. She is also Professor of Practice at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. She is a member of the Club of Rome and currently serves on the World Health Organisation Council on the Economics of Health for All. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GocuMZX3hIs Learn more, and show notes: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/100-nate-hagens

6 Joulu 20232h 8min

On this episode, Nate is joined by co-founder of GMO Financial Holdings, Jeremy Grantham, to discuss how finance, human population, ecology, and pollution interact to shape current trends and what they could tell us about the future. Mr. Grantham unpacks why the expectations of perpetual growth - in the economy, standards of living, and finance - are not so likely and that when looking at the system holistically we should expect large paradigm shifts in the coming decades. What can the pattern of super (stock market) bubbles over the last century tell us about the larger resource bubble we find ourselves in? How will rapidly changing population demographics and fertility rates interact with the other global crises we face? How might endocrine disrupting chemicals impact these other trends? Where should investors be focusing energy and resources towards to make the largest and most positive impact on human and planetary futures? About Jeremy Grantham Jeremy Grantham co-founded GMO in 1977 and is a member of GMO's Asset Allocation team, serving as the firm's long-term investment strategist. He is a member of the GMO Board of Directors, a partner of the firm, and has also served on the investment boards of several non-profit organizations. Prior to GMO's founding, Mr. Grantham was co-founder of Batterymarch Financial Management in 1969 where he recommended commercial indexing in 1971, one of several claims to being first. He began his investment career as an economist with Royal Dutch Shell. Mr. Grantham earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Sheffield (U.K.) and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, holds a CBE from the UK and is a recipient of the Carnegie Medal for Philanthropy. For Show Notes and More visit: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/99-jeremy-grantham To watch this video episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/cTvN9iFJ0fY

29 Marras 20232h 20min

In this Frankly, a follow up to "One Ring to Rule Them All", Nate unpacks the common misconception that AI is the answer to all our energy and ecological problems, specifically climate change. As the development of AI continues to accelerate, many propose that we are entering the 'Exponential Age', yet what's ignored is that we've just lived through an age of exponential impact on Earth's systems. Under this same 'operating system', AI can at best act as a more powerful tool for the continuation of this phenomenon - not to restore ecological stability as some would hope. If AI is based on current cultural goals and aspirations, who will ultimately benefit and who will pay the costs? What types of solutions is AI capable of developing - and more importantly, where is the interplay of AI and human responsibility required to then implement those ideas to fruition? To Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/zY29LjWYHIo For Show Notes and More: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/49-ai-vs-real-ecology

17 Marras 202317min

On this episode, political economist Helen Thompson and Nate discuss how energy and geopolitics have interconnected over the past century, building to the entangled political relationships we see around us today. The dynamics of power on a global scale are complex - stemming from access to energy, financial control, military strength, credibility/trust, and much more - yet we can understand these a bit better by learning the history that shaped them. How have geologic provinces of energy dense carbon created inherent hot spots on the geopolitical playing field? How has the global monetary system and debt evolved to strengthen the power of a select few countries and how difficult is it to break from this system? Do our leaders have the capability/knowledge to connect energy and geopolitical policy in order to guide us through a future of declining energy availability? About Helen Thomspon: Helen Thompson is Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge since 1994. Her current research concentrates on the political economy of energy and the long history of the democratic, economic, and geopolitical disruptions of the twenty-first century. She is a regular panelist on Talking Politics and a columnist for the New Statesman. She is a co-presenter of UnHerd's podcast, These Times and recently published Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century. For Show Notes and More visit: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/98-helen-thompson To watch this video episode on Youtube → https://youtu.be/FQbdNXQcT3E

15 Marras 20232h

Show Summary: On this Reality Roundtable, Nate is joined by small-scale farmer Jason Bradford, permaculturist and documentarian Andrew Millison, regenerative agriculture activist Vandana Shiva, and regenerative farmer and educator Daniel Zetah to discuss the feasibility of a food system fully or mostly independent of fossil fuel inputs. While a non-industrialized agriculture system is certainly possible (it was the norm for the majority of human history), what that will look like and how we even begin such a transition is daunting with a population of 8 billion humans to feed. How do we teach people the skills they'll need as fossil inputs become less affordable, reliable, and accessible? Can we create a cultural shift towards a slower lifestyle that is more connected to the land which provides us food? What do the people of a society look like where we are once again centered around agriculture and in tune with the flows of nature? How would our relationship with jobs and the land have to change? About Jason Bradford: Jason Bradford has been affiliated with Post Carbon Institute since 2004, first as a Fellow and then as Board President. He worked for the Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development at the Missouri Botanical Garden, was a Visiting Scholar at U.C. Davis, and during that period co-founded the Andes Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Group (ABERG). He decided to shift from academia to learn more about and practice sustainable agriculture, and in the process, completed six months of training with Ecology Action (aka GrowBiointensive) in Willits, California, and then founded Brookside School Farm. About Andrew Millison: Andrew Millison is an innovative educator, storyteller and designer. He founded the Permaculture Design education program at Oregon State University (OSU) in 2009. At OSU Andrew serves as an Education Director and Senior Instructor who offers over 25 years of experience, and a playful approach to regenerative design. Andrew is also a documentary videographer who travels the world documenting epic permaculture projects in places such as India, Egypt, Mexico, Cuba, and throughout the US. You can view his videos and series on his YouTube channel. About Vandana Shiva Vandana Shiva is a well known activist, author of many books, and is a global champion on regenerative local agriculture, biodiversity and nutritious food. She has a PhD in physics and 40 years ago founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, an independent research institute that works on the most significant ecological problems of our times. About Daniel Zetah: Daniel grew up on a farm in Minnesota where he learned to fix all manner of things driven from an insatiable curiosity about how things worked. He studied economics and business at university. After waking to our planetary predicament, he became a full time environmental activist, then moved to an off grid community in the mountains where he studied permaculture and built straw bale houses. He moved back to America to help steer culture in a more sane direction. He and his wife Stephanie moved back to the family farm in Minnesota where they are growing 80% of their calories, rebuilding the local ecology, and educating and empowering people to wrest back control of their sovereignty as human beings. For Show Notes and More visit: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/rr06-bradford-millison-shiva-zetah To watch this video episode on Youtube → https://youtu.be/lb2tJXopTJA

12 Marras 20231h 31min

(Conversation recorded on November 2nd, 2023) Show Summary: On this episode, Nate is re-joined by risk expert Chuck Watson for a candid discussion of recent news regarding the nuclear developments between Russia and the United States. As the world's attention is focused on the events in the Middle East, US testing and development of new nuclear weapons and Russia's decision to pull out of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty last week have been overlooked and underreported by major media. Yet, in the bigger picture these trends represent some of the most imminent risks to life on Earth as we know it. What is the history behind this framework of trust that took decades to develop, and how quickly might our current fear spiral destroy it? Are the people in positions of power aware of the dangers of this situation and acting with appropriate caution? What should concerned individuals and leaders understand and advocate for to minimize this truly existential risk? About Chuck Watson: Chuck Watson has had a long career in military and intelligence work, with a specialty in natural and human made disaster modeling. He worked for the US Air Force, was an attache to US Ambassadors to the Middle East Robert McFarland, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as a Soviet expert. Chuck has worked as an advisor to the military for over four decades with a particular emphasis on big data, open source intelligence, with an emphasis on the Soviet Union and Russia. Chuck is also the founder and Director of Research and Development of Enki Holdings, LLC, which designs computer models for phenomena ranging from tropical cyclones (hurricanes) and other weather phenomena, earthquakes, and tsunamis, as well as anthropogenic hazards such as industrial accidents, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction. For Show Notes and More visit: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/97-chuck-watson To watch this video episode on Youtube → https://youtu.be/8T9vGNNdKKs

8 Marras 202356min

Recorded October 31 2023 Description In this Frankly, Nate expands on our conventional definition of "taxes" to highlight nine other categories that will 'tax' our modern lifestyles. Traditionally, when we think of net and gross income, we only think of direct government taxes that subtract from what we take home. What are other taxes - resulting from our system's ecology - which will factor into the way society can pay for the goods and services we've become used to? As converging global crises intensify and each add their own 'tax', can we learn to manage with a smaller "net " resource balance sheet - and maintain our time, sanity, and humanity through the coming decades? Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/27WBbdMcfmM For Show Notes and More: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/48-the-biophysical-taxman-cometh

3 Marras 202317min

On this episode, Nate is joined by 'permaculture' author and educator David Holmgren to discuss his experience within the movement and what it might look like for more systems to be designed using permaculture in the future. While often thought to be an agricultural tool, permaculture thinking is meant for designing human systems to be embedded in nature - an important principle for a future where societies will need to re-synchronize with natural flows. What does it mean for permaculture design to 'scale up', and how is it different from how we usually think about growing a system? How will permaculture design change as we move through different phases of resource availability? More importantly, how can the 'small and slow' foundation of permaculture help human societies adapt to a lower throughput future as we navigate The Great Simplification? About David Holmgren David Holmgren is best known as the co-originator of permaculture. In 1978, he and Bill Mollison published Permaculture One, starting the global permaculture movement. Since then, David has developed three properties, consulted and supervised on urban and rural projects, written eight more books, and presented lectures, workshops and courses in Australia and around the world. His writings over those three decades span a diversity of subjects and issues, whilst always illuminating aspects of permaculture thinking and living. Holmgren Design would like to offer a discount on RetroSuburbia to The Great Simplification listeners. Get a 20% discount on RetroSuburbia plus a free copy of Our Street for the month of November by using code: Nate at this link: http://retrosuburbia.com/nate Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/A9hW4Jh9hF0 Show Notes & Links to Learn More: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/96-david-holmgren

1 Marras 20231h 40min