(Recorded November 26, 2024)
Description
​​As we piece together the different facets of our reality, the systems synthesis which emerges confronts us with some uncomfortable truths. These are the advanced inferences rooted in the logic of The Great Simplification. They have important implications for our expectations about the future and how we should respond in the present.
In this Frankly, Nate revisits some key messages from this channel and delves into some of the more challenging takeaways. The logic of the Superorganism reveals why narrow focus on solutions while extrapolating current trends will be insufficient for addressing the most important issues of our time and why these will increasingly have to be championed proactively, creatively and indirectly instead. As the biophysical and social limits to growth become harder to ignore, The Great Simplification synthesis points us to a more realistic portrait of the future: one of less for the ‘median’ human. Facing these realities is neither easy nor pleasant, but as more people arrive at a species-level conversation, it is necessary. Only by doing so can we look and plan several steps ahead to change the initial conditions of the future, in service of life.
In what ways are free markets and technology ‘false gods’? How does the metabolic hierarchy of the Superorganism dictate what gets prioritised in global decision making? And what speed bumps lie ahead on the road to The Great Simplification?
Show Notes
01:56 – Frankly on probability
03:47 – Frankly on energy blindness
04:34 – BRICS countries control 50% of oil exports
05:24 – The italian government is borrowing at a lower rate than the US
05:55 – Fossil fuels account for *82% of the global energy mix
07:17 – Frankly on overshoot
07:36 – Poleward movement of fish
08:44 – Frankly on AI and the straw
08:45 – The deadly effect of AI-guided drones
12:22 – Law of total probability
12:54 – Russia’s Oreshnik missile
14:28 – 5 horsemen
15:34 – Mean vs median income in the US
16:09 – Peter Turchin + immiseration
20:00 – James Baldwin
Comments
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Superorganism – yup, that why the Mauna Loa reading never changes trajectory – up up up – the brains of the organism are distributed, not located in Washington and London, therefore Washington and London can think all the low carbon thoughts they like the organism isn't listening.
Years ago I asked climate activists what they were going to do about Russian and China – great you want global net zero by 2030, how many tanks have you got – because the rest of the world isn't your friend and you keep telling them they should hate us anyway.
Never got an answer from them, because they're thick as soy yoghurt and committed to their own political virtue signals.
The answer comes from Russia and China.