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

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

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

Avsnitt(357)

The Influence of Psychopaths: Why Humanity Is Better Than We Think

The Influence of Psychopaths: Why Humanity Is Better Than We Think

In this week's Frankly, Nate reflects on intraspecies predation (ours) and the impact psychopathic actors have on the mean and median of human behavior – in the past all the way up to our modern socie...

26 Sep 202522min

The Past and Future of Societal Collapse: Why Civilizations Fall and What We Can Learn From It with Luke Kemp

The Past and Future of Societal Collapse: Why Civilizations Fall and What We Can Learn From It with Luke Kemp

For many people today, the idea of societal collapse is unimaginable. Yet history shows that well-established civilizations have fallen again and again – often for similar reasons. In fact, the same f...

24 Sep 20252h 15min

Dark Triad Personality Traits: How Psychopathy, Narcissism, and Machiavellianism Impact Our Cultures & Social Systems | RR 19

Dark Triad Personality Traits: How Psychopathy, Narcissism, and Machiavellianism Impact Our Cultures & Social Systems | RR 19

Psychopathy is often portrayed as a rare and distant phenomenon – something confined to movie villains or prison cells. Yet when psychopathy is combined with narcissism and Machiavellianism to form wh...

17 Sep 20251h 24min

This Week's Learnings: Gold Holdings, Political Divides, and the DOE Climate Report | Frankly 107

This Week's Learnings: Gold Holdings, Political Divides, and the DOE Climate Report | Frankly 107

In this week's Frankly, in a continuation of his 'This Week's Learnings' series, Nate updates viewers on things he learned in the past week, and the implications for our sociocultural trajectory. Thi...

12 Sep 202516min

Why We Need Forests: Their Vital Role in Climate Dynamics, Rain, and The Biotic Pump with Anastassia Makarieva

Why We Need Forests: Their Vital Role in Climate Dynamics, Rain, and The Biotic Pump with Anastassia Makarieva

To best understand this episode, please watch this ~2 minute video on the biotic pump. It's widely known that Earth's forests provide home to countless numbers of species, act as a vast sink for car...

10 Sep 20252h 1min

10 Things Worth More Than a Pound of Gold | Frankly 106

10 Things Worth More Than a Pound of Gold | Frankly 106

In this week's Frankly, Nate weighs the value of a pound of gold with other things that we derive worth from in our lives – from dollars and bitcoin to...less pecuniary markers. Although gold is simpl...

5 Sep 202515min

How Water Shapes Our Planet: The Undervalued Resource that Supports Everything We Do | Reality Roundtable 18

How Water Shapes Our Planet: The Undervalued Resource that Supports Everything We Do | Reality Roundtable 18

Water has always been a fundamental force shaping our planet – both in sustaining life across ecosystems and in guiding the organization and survival of human societies. Yet, many of us are unaware of...

3 Sep 20251h 14min

Where Will Humanity Move When the World Gets Too Hot? Mass Climate Migration & The Rise of Uninhabitable Regions with Sunil Amrith

Where Will Humanity Move When the World Gets Too Hot? Mass Climate Migration & The Rise of Uninhabitable Regions with Sunil Amrith

In the next 25 years, the International Organization for Migration estimates that one billion people will be displaced from their homes due to climate-related events. From island nations underwater to...

27 Aug 20251h 20min

Populärt inom Vetenskap

pojkmottagningen
svd-nyhetsartiklar
p3-dystopia
dumma-manniskor
allt-du-velat-veta
kapitalet-en-podd-om-ekonomi
det-morka-psyket
rss-vetenskapsradion-2
4health-med-anna-sparre
sexet
paranormalt-med-caroline-giertz
dumforklarat
rss-vetenskapsradion
halsorevolutionen
medicinvetarna
bildningspodden
rss-ufobortom-rimligt-tvivel-2
rss-spraket
hacka-livet
vetenskapsradion