The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens

• Fighting for a Livable Future: Exploring Frontier Climate Interventions with Kelly Erhart

  While current conversations about global heating tend to center around a few well-established pieces of science, we don't often hear about the scientists and leaders working at the frontier of what is still unknown about Earth's systems. This includes unpredictable tipping points and cascading effects of our rapidly changing climate, as well as the unconventional adaptation strategies that might help us maintain a stable planet. What is the newest climate science being researched right now, and what areas are we still needing to explore as we fight for a livable future?  In this episode, Nate is joined by climate philanthropist Kelly Erhart to discuss the urgent state of climate science and emerging response strategies beyond traditional mitigation and adaptation. Kelly explains the climate research that reveals increasingly alarming risks, including natural feedback loops such as glacier collapse, declining albedo (the reflectivity of Earth), and methane release from melting permafrost. They also discuss frontier emergency climate interventions such as oceanic carbon sequestration, atmospheric methane removal, and glacier stabilization strategies, among others – while emphasizing that none of these replace the need for the drastic reduction of emissions. What are the biggest climate questions that are currently being researched? How can an interdisciplinary approach help us better understand the climate mitigation and adaptation options available to us? And finally, how do we, especially the youngest among us, maintain hope and motivation to continue working towards better outcomes for humanity and the planet?  (Conversation recorded on September 26th, 2025)    About Kelly Erhart: Kelly Erhart is the Director of Partnerships at both Outlier Projects (a climate philanthropy) and Gigascale Capital (a climate venture capital firm). Her work at Outlier Projects focuses on funding teams that are accelerating research on efforts to improve forecasting of catastrophic risks, and research on tools that could help stabilize climate systems at the necessary speed and scale. Previously, she was a repeat climate non-profit founder and entrepreneur; including co-founding Vesta, a pioneering ocean-based carbon dioxide removal approach. Erhart's multidisciplinary background spans climate technology  development and commercialization, nonprofit leadership, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy. Erhart was also named one of Forbes 30 under 30 for Energy and Green Tech in 2026.   Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future Join our Substack newsletter Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners

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• Inflation, Deflation, & Simplification: The 8 Things That Influence Prices | Frankly 115

  In this week's Frankly, Nate explores how the prices we encounter in our daily lives are influenced by not only how much money is in the system, but also by resource depletion, technology, affordability by 'the masses,' and trust within a complex global system. Prices are deeply intertwined with the biophysical reality that underpins our society, and are affected by major forces that often operate unseen to the average consumer. Other forces – like leverage, complexity, and currency reform – also have longer term repercussions within our monetary system. These have the ability to create both inflationary and deflationary effects on price, amplifying notions of prosperity and fragility within our current social contract. Ecological instability, often treated as peripheral to financial/price analysis, has emerged as another driver of prices, even as extreme weather, biodiversity loss, and breached planetary boundaries will increasingly feed directly into the cost structures of our modern civilization. Where are the gaps within our existing conceptions of money and prices? What might follow the past few centuries of increasing societal and economic complexity? And how do prices – and societies – change when monetary claims and physical reality begin pulling in opposite directions? (Recorded December 1st, 2025)   Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners  

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• If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: How Artificial Superintelligence Might Wipe Out Our Entire Species with Nate Soares

  Technological development has always been a double-edged sword for humanity: the printing press increased the spread of misinformation, cars disrupted the fabric of our cities, and social media has made us increasingly polarized and lonely. But it has not been since the invention of the nuclear bomb that technology has presented such a severe existential risk to humanity – until now, with the possibility of Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) on the horizon. Were ASI to come to fruition, it would be so powerful that it would outcompete human beings in everything – from scientific discovery to strategic warfare. What might happen to our species if we reach this point of singularity, and how can we steer away from the worst outcomes?  In this episode, Nate is joined by Nate Soares, an AI safety researcher and co-author of the book If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All. Together, they discuss many aspects of AI and ASI, including the dangerous unpredictability of continued ASI development, the "alignment problem," and the newest safety studies uncovering increasingly deceptive AI behavior. Soares also explores the need for global cooperation and oversight in AI development and the importance of public awareness and political action in addressing these existential risks.  How does ASI present an entirely different level of risk than the conventional artificial intelligence models that the public has already become accustomed to? Why do the leaders of the AI industry persist in their pursuits, despite acknowledging the extinction-level risks presented by continued ASI development? And will we be able to join together to create global guardrails against this shared threat, taking one small step toward a better future for humanity?  (Conversation recorded on November 11th, 2025)    About Nate Soares: Nate Soares is the President of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), and plays a central role in setting MIRI's vision and strategy. Soares has been working in the field for over a decade, and is the author of a large body of technical and semi-technical writing on AI alignment, including foundational work on value learning, decision theory, and power-seeking incentives in smarter-than-human AIs. Prior to MIRI, Soares worked as an engineer at Google and Microsoft, as a research associate at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and as a contractor for the US Department of Defense.   Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future Join our Substack newsletter Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners  

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• Reimagining Ourselves at the End of Our World: Kinship, Interconnection, and Spirituality in the Metacrisis with Samantha Sweetwater

  Over the past decade, the world has become increasingly chaotic and uncertain – and so, too, has our cultural vision for the future. While the events we face now may feel unprecedented, they are rooted in much deeper patterns, which humanity has been playing out for millennia. If we take the time to understand past trends, we can also employ practices and philosophies that might counteract them –  such as focusing on kinship, intimacy, and resilience – to help pave the way for a better future. How might we nurture the foundations of a different kind of society, even while the end of our current civilization plays out around us?  In this episode, Nate is joined by guide and author Samantha Sweetwater to explore how separation is at the root of the metacrisis and how nurturing interconnection, relationships, and ecological maturity act as foundational components for systems change. Samantha delves into the distinction between power of life and power over life, emphasizing the need for personal transformation that aligns with collective evolution. She also describes how we could shift our cultural focus from the hero's journey to a kinship journey through the practices of remembering, reconnection, and tending to collective emergence. How might we reimagine humanity's ecological role as that of stewards, rather than domination? Could focusing on reconnection, rather than separation, help us bridge the polarizing divides that currently prevent many of us from working together? And how might this work of remembering, which begins with ourselves, ripple out into stronger connections with our loved ones, communities, and ultimately to humanity and life as a whole?  (Conversation recorded on October 1st, 2025)    About Samantha Sweetwater: Samantha Sweetwater is a wisdom guide, author, and founder of One Life Circle—a ministry of remembering. She works at the fertile nexus where unraveling systems make way for emerging forms of kinship, leadership, and value. For over three decades, she has facilitated individuals and organizations across five continents through journeys of personal, cultural, ecological, and spiritual emergence. She mentors leaders in business, technology, and finance, helping them to navigate awakening, develop systemic wisdom, and align impact with regenerative futures. Founder of Dancing Freedom and Peacebody Japan, she sparked a global movement of embodied awakening and has trained hundreds of facilitators. She has also been a seed farmer—a practice that taught her the rigors of tending the real. She holds an MA in Wisdom Studies, a BA in Social Theory and Dance, and has been initiated into indigenous lineages of Africa, Latin America, and Turtle Island.   Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners  

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• Directional Advice for the (More Than) Human Predicament | Frankly 114

  Over the past decade, the world has become increasingly chaotic and uncertain – and so, too, has our cultural vision for the future. While the events we face now may feel unprecedented, they are rooted in much deeper patterns, which humanity has been playing out for millennia. If we take the time to understand past trends, we can also employ practices and philosophies that might counteract them –  such as focusing on kinship, intimacy, and resilience – to help pave the way for a better future. How might we nurture the foundations of a different kind of society, even while the end of our current civilization plays out around us?  In this episode, Nate is joined by guide and author Samantha Sweetwater to explore how separation is at the root of the metacrisis and how nurturing interconnection, relationships, and ecological maturity act as foundational components for systems change. Samantha delves into the distinction between power of life and power over life, emphasizing the need for personal transformation that aligns with collective evolution. She also describes how we could shift our cultural focus from the hero's journey to a kinship journey through the practices of remembering, reconnection, and tending to collective emergence. How might we reimagine humanity's ecological role as that of stewards, rather than domination? Could focusing on reconnection, rather than separation, help us bridge the polarizing divides that currently prevent many of us from working together? And how might this work of remembering, which begins with ourselves, ripple out into stronger connections with our loved ones, communities, and ultimately to humanity and life as a whole?  (Conversation recorded on October 1st, 2025)    About Samantha Sweetwater: Samantha Sweetwater is a wisdom guide, author, and founder of One Life Circle—a ministry of remembering. She works at the fertile nexus where unraveling systems make way for emerging forms of kinship, leadership, and value. For over three decades, she has facilitated individuals and organizations across five continents through journeys of personal, cultural, ecological, and spiritual emergence. She mentors leaders in business, technology, and finance, helping them to navigate awakening, develop systemic wisdom, and align impact with regenerative futures. Founder of Dancing Freedom and Peacebody Japan, she sparked a global movement of embodied awakening and has trained hundreds of facilitators. She has also been a seed farmer—a practice that taught her the rigors of tending the real. She holds an MA in Wisdom Studies, a BA in Social Theory and Dance, and has been initiated into indigenous lineages of Africa, Latin America, and Turtle Island.   Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter    Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners

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