Economy featured

Loss Aversion

By Nate Hagens, originally published by The Great Simplification

March 15, 2023

Great Depression photo

Recorded March 7, 2023

Description

On this Frankly, Nate reflects on his experiences in the financial industry with the cognitive bias Loss Aversion and the ways it may manifest to the coming material throughput declines during The Great Simplification. Why do losses feel so much stronger to us than gains – even when we have an overabundance of wealth? Can being aware of this evolved psychological trait diffuse its intensity? How does this affect our ability to perceive and plan for the reality of less available energy and resources in the future?

PDF Transcript

Show Notes

00:25 – Loss Aversion

00:56 – Salomon Brothers, Lehman Brothers

04:52 – Psychological responses to the Great Depression

06:23 – Identity and in-groups

06:57 – Supernormal stimuli

07:25 – Green New Deal

07:43 – Renewables are useful but can’t power current civilization

08:13 – Material limits to happiness

08:51 – Deep Time

09:05 – Biodiversity loss

 

Teaser photo credit: Crowds outside the Bank of United States in New York after its failure in 1931. By World Telegram staff photographer – Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c17261, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1302228

Nate Hagens

Nate Hagens

Nate Hagens is the Executive Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future (ISEOF). Allied with leading ecologists, energy experts, politicians, and systems thinkers, ISEOF assembles roadmaps for understanding how human societies might adapt to lower-throughput lifestyles.

Nate hosts the podcast The Great Simplification, where he has conversations with experts in energy, ecology, government, technology, and the economy to provide a systemic view of the world around us.

After ten years in finance, Nate left Wall Street to study the interrelationships between energy, ecology, and economics—and the implications for human futures. He was the Managing Editor of The Oil Drum, one of the most respected websites for analysis and discussion of global energy supplies and implications of the upcoming energy transition.

Tags: building resilient economies, material throughput, powering down, Resource Depletion

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