Technology and Wealth: The Straw, the Siphon, and the Sieve | Frankly 119

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

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Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.

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