Recorded on: Feb 10, 2026
Description
This week’s Frankly marks a new recurring segment on this platform where Nate poses questions about our shared future: Uncomfortable Questions in Unstable Times. In this edition, he explores what would change if societies shifted their primary goal from growth to stability. Nate also unpacks how a lack of purpose in modern life might shape politics, culture, and personal choices.
He then scales up to look at power and behavior through a wider lens, examining how incentives in systems can shape the behavior of a nation. Nate cites the example of Artificial Intelligence to demonstrate how the large-scale introduction of tools can alter how we experience reality, morality, and physical bottlenecks. Overall, this series is based on the premise that better questions may matter more than discrete answers as we move toward a more uncertain future.
What would change in your life if the country you reside in chose stability over growth? How do notions of “fairness” shift in a world where some people are closer to the “brink” than others? Finally, where is the line between staying true to your values and giving up power in a society built around growth and accumulation?
Show Notes & Links to Learn More
The TGS team puts together these brief references and show notes for the learning and convenience of our listeners. However, most of the points made in episodes hold more nuance than one link can address, and we encourage you to dig deeper into any of these topics and come to your own informed conclusions.
00:13 – Albert Einstein (Quote referenced)
01:55 – Theory of Change
02:03 – The Great Simplification
02:07 – TGS Podcast Playlist, Frankly Playlist
02:24 – TGS Hylo Community
02:35 – Hospicing Modernity, Vanessa Andreotti (TGS Episode, Reality Roundtable)
03:55 – The Lord of the Rings
04:50 – Default setting of our society has been growth and expansion: Economic Superorganism
06:30 – Collapse on the periphery first – Decay is the weakening of the core’s rule of the periphery (Motyl, Imperial Ends) / Empires Fall By Dennis RM Campbell
07:15 – The Meaning Crisis, John Vervaeke (TGS Episode)
07:40 – Rise in addiction, Scapegoating, Rise in authoritarianism
08:07 – Dark Triad, Related Frankly, Related Reality Roundtable
08:26 – Humans in small groups vs. aggregate, The Wisdom of Crowds, Dunbar’s number
08:48 – Effects of Centralization
09:00 – Small group of powerful people steering the “signal”
09:25 – Jekyll and Hyde metaphor, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
09:45 – U.S. vs. China favorability, The U.S.’s place in the international community, Views of U.S. around the world
10:00 – Opinions about the future of the U.S.
10:12 – Political identity overpowering facts
10:20 – Mean vs. Median, Incentive gradients and Feedback loops, Thinking in Systems
11:49 – The Quadruple Bifurcation Frankly
12:15 – AI approval ratings
12:45: – Electricity, water, and material demand of AI
13:00 – Higher utility bills due to AI, Community backlash toward data center construction
13:50 – Tightening resources: Energy, Water, and Materials
14:20 – Materials analysis: Copper (Copper supply gap), Tantalum, Lanthanum
14:33 – Nvidia
15:48 – People refusing to use AI, Groups demanding moral purity, Rethinking moral purity, Tribal moral warfare, Humans’ tribal nature, In-group/Out-group and Tribalism
17:10 – Wide Boundary Analysis
18:00 – Technology (tools) are not values neutral, Multipolar trap
