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(Some of) The Central Questions of Our Time

By Nate Hagens, originally published by The Great Simplification

March 4, 2025

Armadillo

(Recorded February 25th, 2025)

Description

The period of relative peace and stability we’ve known – enabled by the energy surplus of the Carbon Pulse and the ecological stability of the Holocene – is slipping away. AI is turbocharging the Superorganism, governance structures are fraying, and ecological shocks are intensifying. As the Great Simplification approaches faster than expected, are we asking the right questions?

In this Frankly, Nate invites us to reflect on some of the most urgent questions of our time – and what they might mean for both our collective and individual trajectories ahead. Can open societies endure on the downslope of the Carbon Pulse? Is a future without large-scale war still possible? As the pace of change accelerates, the challenge isn’t just understanding what’s coming, but deciding how to respond.

What would you not regret doing if you knew major disruptions were imminent? Can you redirect frustration into meaningful action? And in a world that increasingly pulls us apart, can you help build a ‘coalition of sanity’?

Show Notes

PDF Transcript

00:10 – PBS

02:26 – Feudalism

04:22 – The web of life

04:40 – The role of Armadillos + more info

05:45 – The Carbon Pulse

07:30 – The Holocene + leaving the stability of the Holocene

07:35 – Planetary boundaries

08:20 – 6th mass extinction

08:48 – Dark triad + ‘The Light Triad’ Frankly

09:09 – Economic Superorganism

09:22 – Artificial General Intelligence

10:05 – AI Frankly

11:00 – Laws of Thermodynamics

11:30 – Maximum Power Principle

16:41 – Coalition for Sanity

Teaser photo credit: A Nine-banded Armadillo in the Green Swamp, central Florida.By http://www.birdphotos.com – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4325104
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.

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