Nate Hagens

Nate scales his exploration of civilizational futures down to the future of a single human life and analyzes how the same patterns that shape economies, power, geopolitics, and Earth systems turn inward.

As America marks its 250th birthday, Nate takes a moment to step outside of the celebrations to seek out a wider boundary perspective on this milestone holiday. He poses the question of whether the United States has truly matured as a nation over two and a half centuries, particularly through the lenses of energy, ecology, history, and culture.

Nate poses questions about our shared future, using headlines regarding a potential ceasefire deal between the U.S. and Iran to confront a subject that has re-entered public discourse with a quiet but startling force: nuclear warfare.

Nate builds a framework for understanding the pathways that connect today’s choices to tomorrow’s realities. Drawing from biology, ecology, history, and systems thinking, he introduces a civilizational terrain of ridges and valleys that is constantly shifting as we are moving through it.

In this week’s Frankly, Nate offers the third episode in his series on staying human, this time focused on presence. Nate shares a personal reflection on presence and its importance in a reality where we are constantly living in anticipation of the future.

Opening with a personal reflection on his own relationship to dread, Nate describes how the chronic anticipation of collapse affects the human nervous system long before any single crisis fully arrives.