I for one would counter that this IS a feel good frankly, that in today’s world and culture it is refreshing to hear someone speak these truths so clearly and succinctly. Nice to know there are others out there who see these realities as you do and share them so well Nate.
I love that the number of subscriptions for this channel has grown. We seemed to be at 50k for years, and now finally 70k. Notice I used "we" because I believe this channel is a collective good, and of course I am grateful to Nate for all his very hard work on keeping the "us" part of "we" informed.
I know for a fact that some Spanish-speaking thinkers and "influencers" in this very topic are reporting systematic shadowbanning of their contents in social media, with people already having their accounts deleted without a reason. To be in this little bubble of wisdom you have to be a very proactive individual that is far away from the average citizen in terms of being concerned about these topics, we are a very small minority... They let you grow until you reach a probably very-well- researched-through-IA threshold of followers, after which you become shadowbanned by the algorithm... There is indeed no free market, anyone that has been around this for a couple of years has all the red lights on, this civilization is going down the drain
So shadowbanned that my lenghty comment on this replying to you with my conclusions on the matter was... mysteriously deleted. There is indeed a secret threshold in reach put in place.
Nate, you are the only person I know who can talk about the dire consequences headed to us with a kind, sweet voice. Thank you for that. God bless you.
Thanks Nate. Watching the development of this podcast, from analytically, scientific to more spiritually, poetic is a great example for a global movement needed. The simplification is to step back to a holistic view and find the root we can all agree on. Only then can awareness turn into action. Like a global advertising campaign to promote minimalism, for example. Stay sane all.
It's very comforting to know that there are other likeminded people in the world. I don't know many personally or at least none who take such a deep dive on the issues we face. Nate is my go-to person for a reality check and gaining knowledge from his wonderful podcasts is invaluable. His discussions with such an interesting array of guests are also fascinating. Listening regularly to Nate heightens my appreciation for everyday life, family and my wonderful local community.
We are indeed very few... Only 10K watched this video after almost 3 days, I have to search him on the platform to get to see his videos in many cases, and then I share it with some other people that get to it thanks to my link... There is a shadowban to this content for obvious reasons.
In a nutshell : our global conundrum hinges on a cultural battle between wisdom and greed. To be more precise, it is between universal well-being, the Common Good, and the health of our only Earth, compared to the narrow, self-serving interests of the rich and powerful few. At this point in human history, taking in to account the egregious disparities in wealth, opportunity and viability that are prevalent everywhere; while simultaneously acknowledging endless warfare that benefits almost no-one but the rich and powerful - AND which threatens everyone and everything! - I would say that human wisdom has succumbed to baser inclinations which most of us don't share - or benefit from!
what if, humanity was less greedy, more wise, that it provides basic necessities to the vast and large pool of 8th billion people to live like a "westener materialist". Would that improve ressource usage ? Reduce pollution ? Reduce the waste management footprint ? prevent waste production to begin with ? While it is undeniable that there is a grave and important income equity imbalance. In the extremely imaginary thought experiment where everybody gets enriched. It does not suffice to induce by itself, a fixing of the systemic issues inherited by "the way of life", as it was physically deployed and implemented by our ancestors, and contemporary, people. See the highways, the train, the cities, the fields, the industry and everything we are doing at large to sel and produce those made-to-waste industrial goods. The frame that we use as our reference to assess, to consider, our daily actions is to be deeply revised at first because it is totally f-up, only then, we can possibly scale it to a much, much larger and crowded world. Earth does not expand and space minerals extraction is a fantasy !
@@emceegreen8864Good question. That's in substantial part what we were advocating for in the Counter-culture of the late 1960's and 70's. The movement didn't achieve enough support to establish a self-sustaining momentum, and it generated such a powerful political backlash, we are still experiencing the consequences of that backlash now, and I suspect we haven't yet reached the crest of that destructive wave. Your 'what if' is on track, but there are deeper questions that have to be answered: What is required to generate enough open-mindedness and "listening for" such ideas among human beings, such that a majority of us will at least be willing to begin implementing such ideas globally? And why did we fail to achieve momentum in our last attempts?
Thank you, Nate! Your PC has played a big role among media influences in helping me make a gradual transition to where being a good me is the first priority while enmeshing myself into any local or world systems improvement!
Thank you for the succinct Frankly Nate! Always good to be reminded and get an overview.I am a 31 year old German making my way to a more simplified and resilient life. As of now I am still caught up in the system, but luckily I don't have too many tethers. Although the world is desperately trying to demotivate and depress me with everything that is going on, I remain hopeful and resolute. You and many others motivate me and give me the necessary information to make more informed choices in my life. Here's to you and another exciting year coming up!
I am 29, I think that until the event horizon of the bend & break (or such as Nate calls it, the "big bump ahead" there is not much one can plan on the material side that is a guarantee of a good future, as the societal and political changes that will take place in such a dire scenario are going to be so profound that we'll live in a complete different social reality concerning how we'll have to conduct our lives. The best we can do is "de-risking" (move away from where is more likely for violence to be more present) but there is a big chunk of luck involved even if we thought we made the right decisions before (For example, if AMOC stops anyone in a farm in Ireland is lost) In my opinion the most important things that can be done in order to have the highest chances of landing a benign life after the bump involve inmaterial things, like staying healthy and mentally strong as well as developing a conciliatory approach towards conflict, because many people are going to be very traumatized and lots of violence are ahead of us... Being nurturing and conciliatory in such boundary conditions and therefore regarded as someone which people like to have around in this new, energy-poorer predicament is the best bulletproof vest one can wear Greetings from Spain, wish you great luck
Thanks for constantly advancing the knowledge and pulling it together in different educational ways to reach different audiences. You're playing a vital role in creating a living learning community. It's got to be exhausting to keep confronting the world's institutional idiocy, venality and chaos and not get overwhelmed. We all have to learn from your tenacious benvolence, expansive intelligence and emotional devotion to the future.
Thank you for this lecture, it is the most sensible take away I have heard, regarding our current situation and condition as a species, describing our complex relationships to the planet and its natural systems. So much of this lecture resonates with many views and a basic understanding I and many others have held for some years now, good to see it is now being quantified, sorted out and specified in very accessible language, even as will need to take a deeper dive in wrapping my head around some of the terminology. Can't wait to hear more in 2025, we are in dire need.
Three to Dos 1. Inter-religious dialogues - not for conversion but for pure conversation and understanding each other 2. Contemplation (meditation) to gain somatic, cognitive, compassionate and spiritual resilience to metabolize the approaching apocalypse 3. Facing the issues head on with a zest for life and a positive vision for the future.
The only tweak I might make to this fine list would be with 3. For me it’s more a choice of where to focus collective energy, and it may not be on ‘facing issues head on’. I think solving problems and dealing with predicaments is better handled by instead choosing to focus energy on ‘right living’. We seem more preoccupied with problems and fighting than with flow and co-creative living and seeing. Not bypassing, but moving through to move beyond. Lots of grief work will be necessary, but the overall focus could remain on healthy new ways of seeing: the paradigm shift, the emergent of the new, the ‘flip’. Wisdom growth. New purpose.
@@jennysteves Good catch! This is the reason a dialogue is so necessary. For context, I am a retired chemical engineer having worked for Shell for 10 years and then for many of the energy majors for the past 40 years. So, my natural inclination is to jump to solutions as soon as possible. What you point out is so correct... it shouldn't be a "Head On" thing, it should be a "Heart On"... The first two points are primary and then I believe the solutions will well up from the "ground of being" no matter which faith tradition, or even no faith tradition. It will happen more from a subjective pull or prompting towards what Teilhard de Chardin called the "Omega Point".
Thanks. It has been wonderful to have a much clearer picture of how I've been feeling about the world in general. Working with others and working on the self will have to be a concerted effort for those who want prosperity for our species.
My 10 year old watched your recent video on the Climate Council and they spoke to so much she was already thinking. In her school she hasnt found many (any) kids her age who understand at the same level. These connections internationally are so very important and i look forward to hearing more in 2025 and learning how to hook in to meaningful approaches. We need to leapfrog the current process. Thank you again.
Once again, I have made an intentional effort to read the subsequent commentary after a TGS podcast. A significant aspect of those comments is that they are sincere and well thought-out responses rather than merely blind "bandwagon" echoes. The level of sincere intellectual and humanistic discourse that TGS generates is a breath of fresh air amidst the echo chamber and arid desert of most media outlets.
So..... Frankly no. 79 arrives to me as my 2nd Frankly. I'm left with a feeling that I can't quite put my finger on. I feel like I've missed out on so much.....yet ready for a special journey before me. Thanks.
Very much appreciate this podcast. I am mining the early episodes from before my time all of which is adding to and confirming my life style choices. There is no question that good information helps put a face on the monster and that is reassuring.
A Passing Thought: For years many of us have known, through your work and the many others you have interviewed, that the way we live will have to simplify. This now is a well-established point of view. As you have pointed out, how we move from modernity to a sustainable lifestyle is hard to predict but clearly it will involve some horsemen riding willy-nilly. Little will be done voluntarily to rein in this action. It will simply show up at our doorsteps with eyes filled with fire. Those individuals with a little pre-warning may have positioned themselves to open the door slowly and cautiously making it possible to drift though the bottleneck. We also know, I suspect, that the sooner we make this obvious transition, the more likely a greater portion of the biosphere will, meaning all of life forms, move on to the next level. The level of destruction at this point is simply profound as you have pointed out. The need for immediate action, almost meaning by any means, is becoming over-bearing. Is it possible that by electing the most inapt of leaders, both here and worldwide, the most despicable, the most devious, the most self-centered, the most destructive from almost any point of view, might be a means of bringing on this simplification sooner rather than later? This seems absurd on the surface (and admittedly it is already happening as the people of Gaza will tell us) but if the horsemen are going to ride why not allow the ignorant, the naïve, the misguided, and the egotistical maniacs to just turn them loose. Or, can this thing just be walked down by the thoughtful, the compassionate, the scientifically informed and more spiritual among us? Nate you are the guide to many of us and for that I am thankful. I guess there are no real answers but just let my mind go today as I am trying to work through what I see as the ruins.
Thank you Nate for this Frankly of signposts and way markers along the road of TGS, it helps every so often to pull things back into context of how complex and daunting your/this work is🤔
This frankly did make me feel good because now I know that what I stand for is just and necessary. To do nothing at this time is to be complicit in the demise of all.
thank you nate🙂. politics is prioretising ourdaily being,so theres nothing that is not politics in human social structures. the party's sphere now,is not doing that in a viable ways,and for itself,is representing our core destructive perception,of rivals,seperation,fear and power over others-opression. as long as we wont culitivate the right heart,are doing will echo fear and violence. thank you for doing this nate.
Excellent....particularly your last few minutes. Individual and small community preparedness are going to be vital to navigate the changes that are already happening. I found Tom Murphy's 2015 Do the Math blog addressing Myers-Brigg personality types and his blog audience ... fascinating stuff. I think it would be enlightening if you did a similar survey of your viewers to see if you came up with similar results where INTJs dominate your audience type.
Three main systemic characteristics of the economic super organism are 1) infinite growth 2) Jevons’ paradox 3) the time discounting problem. These could be called managing growth and valuing the future. These are ultimately the greatest economic problems to be resolved.
@@GM4ThePeople He's a Doomers Doomer alright. Listening to him is like hanging on the edge of a precipice. Fascinating, and terrifying, at the same time.
@@mrrecluse7002 i find him uplifting as he speaks the truth of our situation honestly without sugarcoating it. It is the only way we might make effective changes to society in the face of the predicaments we face. Nothing short of a cultural awakening will prevent a major collapse. Short of that, honestly facing the predicaments might allow for some changes that might mitigate the damage done.
Number One Hierarchy : The underlying hegemonic culture . Hegemonic meaning everyone generally accepts the mythos of their society, in ours that money is the way to account for all things and violence is ok so long as it is top down, all under the deep ingrained monotheistic patriarchal dominionism: This whole world is here for us to use and abuse as we see fit, only we are of any consideration, all life and land water and air are just objects with no rights, no sentience and no import except as some human culture may use them. No matter how wonderful your democracy and your rational science and your desires for good, if the culture thinks that it can just use the world and everything in it as their god given, or atheistic scientific right, we kill the planet and extinct ourselves in bizzare self centered anthropocentric insanity. - Really Like your Channel-- Good stuff for thought.
Thank you Nate for this sobering summary...I wonder if you might have plans to have Daniel Schmachtenberger back on your show for an update on AI, geopolitics, etc? I am so grateful for all the work you have done and continue to do...My husband and I have learned so much from watching your podcasts...💙
Nice one Nate - I was only thinking recently that you could do with a back-to-basics overview - so was great to hear about the ensuing package you're putting together for early next year. As Dr Johnson used to say, 'we need more often to be reminded than instructed'. Really liked your, ''Go underground (in small communities) and think 2 or 3 steps ahead' - I can't see it any other way either! As a slight aside; I agree with you that most people are not ecology literate - but I'm pretty sure a lot of people don't know much at all about economics either. You are a really rare breed being fluent in both! Economics is a struggle for me even though I'm good at mathematics!
Art Berman just dropped a new article that blew my mind .... technology improvements have only accounted for max 5% productivity increases above energy.... this is actually very concerning.
Would appreciate more discussions on what the future may look like, topics like career choice, relocation, long term family structures, likely low energy lifestyles in america etc
Such a font of wisdom and sincerity. Fear is such a driver of behavior but when people come to grips with less, it is possible to imagine a more functional citizenry. But "more" is the result of all the communication of the system i.e. religion (increase our flock), capitalism (most profit wins), lifespan and progeny, experiences (travel and education), security (police, locks, banks), freedom, etc. But the simplification must go through some serious fire hoses in order to create a process anything approaching sustainability. The other creatures on the planet do not get to indulge in such imaginative pursuits. They are subject to the here and now restrictions on their choices. The feedbacks are undeniable and inescapable for them as well as us. The bottom line is that far far fewer humans with far lower standards of living are the likely near term result. How we get there remains a taboo subject until "more" is debunked.
Collapse of a toxic social order and a destructive economic one. The default path of any organism is to return to its long-term, historic nature once a given anomaly passes. For humans that is social cooperation and ecological stewardship. The danger is that the current system continues long enough to extinguish the return to a balanced one.
I would like to fervently recommend a song from a depression era movie in youtube : Shirley Temple singing 'Come and Get Your Happiness'. (nice NB: The composer was a jewish refugee from the USSR, who during the civil war after the russian revolution (c1920) had written most popular red army marching song !) PS FDR was heard to say, 'As long as we've got Shirley Temple everything's going to turn our fine'
Thanks. This has triggered a separate comment from me - it is so full of important connotations and insights. You probably won't agree that the music has died and will take some time to be "born again". But surely some major things have to die before Rebirth can occur? This is so in Nature anyway, and it looks to me as if it is also the case in human cultural matters, where death and decay are part of the only available cycle (despite wishful thinking).
@@edithcrowther9604 Dont understand your pschic predicament. I derive such profound nourishment from our forebears' wisdom and artistry - They had cultures adapted to the relative energy poverty to which we must now find our way, so they are natural companions
@@julianholman7379 Oh yes - that is what I meant. Modern art and music seem lifeless whereas the work of people who are now dead is full of life. It is by no means a predicament - civilizations and cultures decay and in that phase produce nothing inspiring. Then with any luck there is a Renaissance of some kind - but only after a period of decay, and only by drawing on things achieved in the distant past, before the decay set in. I know no-one accepts that Nations must go through dark times periodically - but I am quite happy about this fact of life. The present dark time is particularly dreadful and any "blast from the past" is welcome, especially as it reminds us that a lot of good stuff was produced by candlelight or at least in "relative energy poverty" of some kind, as you say.
Excellent, Nate you nailed it again. My own view is those that invest in sustainability first and foremost and how far we get, will define as if we bend or break. So I don't see a solely one way issue, as those in the great depression that did the best were farmers, Just a thought. I seen two stories one on permaculture along the Sudan that started ten years ago. Small guilds were formed of semicircle shallow pits with tiny ones all around that half circle and all filled with water. Then a tree was planted into the center of that half circle and grass seedling throughout it in the smaller depressions and then the spaces in between. The showed one such groups of guilds going in and how they were created then a view of the first one they did ten years ago. That had a lush young forest growing on the edge of the greatest hot desert. The man standing in it bent down showing us that water still was there the grass has kept it from evaporating even during droughts. "We start growing in this next year," he said, as he stood back up, "Its already even with these young trees ten degrees cooler than the air outside the forest." I paraphrasing as I do not have his exact words. The next was a school in Kenya near a healthy river. They were using drip irrigation to feed their fields and planting in fruit trees along the edges to provide shade and cool the area, "we have more than one crop," the child said, "and enough food to sell this as well as feed all of us at the school" again paraphrasing as I don't have exact words but this is the gist of what was said. So if those suffering food insecurity, facing desertification (like in the west) and poor as church mice can do these things, well it gives me hope for my sad permaforesting tries that are getting better but it seems to be taking too much time! Yet I haven't been at it ten years....
Suburban homes with organic permaculture food production where lawns now demand "care" would do wonders to lower the cost of living, improve health and the quality of meals, cut water, toxic chemical and fossil fuel use, and put a dent in that ~36% of plastics the food industry consumes/discards.
@@BettieSommer Once in such system are easy to care for, if weeds come in "chop and drop" and planting flower among food crops makes those guilds attractive if done right. Most build them in back yards because neighbors sometimes complain about systems but the can be made beautiful, my three are in the front, Yet where cars dirt can reach (up to 100 yards) that soil is risky so I plant flours mostly and put edibles further back.
Something to remember: AI itself is extremely energy intensive and relies on six-continent supply chains. The chips (GPUs) used to train and run AI models are manufactured using astonishingly complex processes. When the bend-not break moment comes, AI will be very difficult if not impossible to sustain.
agree to a point - it WILL be possible to maintain, but for a much smaller scope and scale - it will be prioritized above all else - at that point there will only be 1 (or a few) AIs
I've known that humans were on the wrong path since I was a little girl and could connect dead fish along the side of the river to the speed boats that zoomed past. Back then (in the 60's), no one would have listened to a little shy girl. I was not Greta. Now, besides yourself I listen to Umair Haque who tells people to listen to their 'gut'. We've known for a long time but do not acknowledge what we know. And it becomes Important where we get our information from.
Thank you for this Frankly. Recently I've been thinking about narcissism in the sense of being controlling, bullying and selfish and how it perpetuates trauma, violence and abuse. The Superorganism is presented as something good in that it provides dopamine hits to hijack our limbic systems and present life as good and making progress. If this was in reference to the natural ecological dynamics of life on Earth, I would agree it could be regarded as a Superorganism and a highly intelligent superorganism far exceeding the ridiculous AI systems developed by the human being because it has created the conditions for the evolution of intelligent life. And this intelligent life should be contributing to the further evolution of intelligent life but instead prefers to tinker creating AI and undermining its own continued existence in the process and perpetuating trauma, violence and abuse around the world. This is by definition narcissism and it is collective narcissism, systemic narcissism, that perpetuates the conditions of trauma, violence and abuse and it is presented as free market economics, progressive technology, global trade, competition, growth, etc. Maybe it should be labeled the Superabuser rather than the Superorganism(since it's an organism it is perceived as organic and hence something good!) instead because frankly, this is exactly what our current economic relations are perpetuating with corporations and governments sitting in the role of primary narcissistic controllers. They of course do this because they subscribe to the architecture of the current system that is primarily designed under the the guidance of dysfunctional accounting and economic tools backed by laws that are completely incompatible with Nature. The laws applied or adhered to by the most powerful abusers within the collective Superabuser are the product of a colonizer mindset rather than the laws of energy dynamics in Nature. Thank you for the thoughts and contemplations. Keep up the excellent work.
As a retired software engineer who has kept up with the advancements of AI, my take is that what happens in the field of AI (how quickly it improves, how capable it becomes, how quickly it is integrated) will be the primary factor of what happens to the human species. I don't think we are on a very positive trajectory here. I would expect some flavor of dystopia.
I have been thinking for a while now, that the universe at the biggest picture level is a fractal pattern. As time goes by, the future unfolds along the lines that were always built into the math, and this is why we say that the past doesn't repeat, but rather the future rhymes with the past. So, for example, when you point out that solar/wind/renewables aren't a direct replacement for our energy usage now, it fits into some of my thinking by considering that solar and wind, as part of our future, are necessarily occupying a smaller branch of the pattern. In this idea, the people of the future may create a society that to them feels like abundance, but some people, for a while, will be old enough to remember when oil allowed us to occupy a bigger, older branch of abundance. Just now, I decided to follow this analogy a bit further, and I asked myself, well where does our harnessing of fusion energy fit into the fractal pattern. On the one hand, it seems to represent a bucking of the fractal pattern if it opens a door to greater energy abundance than oil. But, as I thought about it, (and I understand what you mean by energy being non fungible also) our current plans for harnessing fusion are to make energy from it in ways that are categorically smaller than what happens when a whole new star is born in the universe at large. So, here again, when we zoom out we see the bigger picture in which our harnessing of artificial (non gravitational) fusion is just occupying a smaller future branch of the fractal pattern. Now, if we someday create a new star by coalescing that much matter, that would kind of seem--to me--to mean that we escaped the typical branching of the fractal pattern. But even then, I think stars are still forming in the universe today, naturally aren't they? We would just have achieved it artificially. Also in this analogy, the idea of a Dyson sphere is actually rather depressing if you ask me--because that is something that is traditionally used to describe the ultimate technological advancement, whereas from a zoomed out view, all that has been achieved is the total darkening of a star that once lit up the whole universe around it. Ultimately of course, I don't like my own entire idea that time is just the process by which the universe crystalizes into the fractal pattern that it was always going to become, because that leaves little room for human creativity in the way we like to think of it, in terms of spiritual free will, for example (yes I saw your interview of Dr. Sapolsky). But perhaps the hope is, that humans represent an emergent phenomenon, that somehow escapes the rules of the fractal pattern into which we were born. Would it be funny to then say, time will tell? (Final note: I realize that in some sense, going from oil to small fusion reactors is bucking the pattern because of energy density, and I suppose we could end up with as many fusion reactors as we have oil drilling rigs. But the fungibility thing still changes the game. Even with fusion, liquid and solid chemical fuels will still be a thing in the future. I'm aware, for example that the navy currently uses nuclear fission energy to create biofuel from raw sea water mass--if I'm not mistaken. Hence, as Nate says, the more energy we have, the more we will use, and the further down the limiting fractal pattern we go, and the loss of species diversity and climate health etc.)
About 30 years ago as editor of a rather brainy magazine/journal, tech-oriented, I decided to write an article on data centers (technology, value proposition including overall costs, talentt, etc., but stumbled upon power consumption and heat dissipation). It turned out, power and heat were staggering issues that were invisible to most general people. Vast arrays of rack mounted computers actually sometime melted down. Cooling costs were immense. Power consumption, insane. People don't realize what AI today means in that regard. It's orders of magnitude more, and it's going to get worse. But I guarantee militaries will pay that price, as will financial centers and some large corporates. These are not the toys you play with on your iPhone or laptop. They will consume staggering amounts of energy, more than cities, or small nations, then larger ones. It's naive to think anyone will stop it. Sure, the ultimate is to have a global elevation of consciousness, as Nate says, but what is the probability? I think it's very low indeed. Of course, we should do our best.
@@thegreatsimplification I worried all night that I failed to take my argument to it's logical conclusion. Back in 1960, Freeman Dyson, a respected physicist, speculated that a highly advanced civilization would become so power hungry that it would build a sphere around a sun to more efficiently harvest it's energy, and that by detecting stars whose output does not confirm to its type, we might detect indications of highly advanced life in the galaxy. Only small amounts of a star's energy will otherwise fall on a planet. Today they're known as Dyson Spheres. It's highly speculative. Some early returns from JWST suggest anomalies which are the hyped by podcasters. But that's not the point. I think you, Nate, are posing a much more fundamental question. Will we, should we, in our blind pursuit of, say, Artificial Super Intelligence, the next step beyond AGI, harness our or other suns? There's already reports of the AI corporates looking to build modular nuclear reactors simply to power their AGI solutions. The energy requirements will only grow. But at some point, if you want to remain human you confront age-old moral dilemmas. What is the purpose or value of life? Is it to construct a sun-eating, galaxy consuming, self-replicating machine, a Frankenstein as it were, that may one day know and do all, even if we can't comprehend it? These are deep, philosophical questions. I think this is where your search leads us. I don't know the answer. But there's something to be said for your suggestion that human community matters.
And probabilities are all that matter. Desire by military or financial centers is irrelevant. AI is subject to the same energy / resource limitations as all else in the superorganism. Reference the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989.
Yes - while it is true that change is inevitable, when it comes to addressing planetary boundaries and ecological overshoot, there is a reluctance/ resistance/ reactance to change how we live, despite the clear need for it. The disconnect between the awareness of planetary limits and the unwillingness to change is where tension lies. We may observe the environmental damage and acknowledge the scientific warnings, but many struggle to make the kind of personal or collective changes needed. Awareness of change is not enough to propel us into action-perhaps because it requires a rethinking of fundamental assumptions about growth, prosperity, and the value of material wealth. Who is steering our cultural narrative? Change is not just something that happens to us; it’s something we need to connect (mind , heart and spirit) with if we are to live within the planet’s boundaries.
It does appear that we are going to fail to live within planetary boundaries. Or at least there is not a single positive indication I can see. So change likely will happen to us to connect us to reality. Fucking messy, unsanitary, and perhaps small miracles can lead to the expansion of minds, hearts and spirits. A critical mass? Maybe that is where hope lies. I can only lead by example but it doesn't seem like a movement.
Greetings! I appreciate the giant speed bump image. Especially poignant because, along with war, in our society we often use cars and roads as metaphors. Imagine that, on the other side of the speed bump, we have the problem of transport in a world built for cars that no one can afford.
Greetings! Solve the imagined problem of local roads built for unaffordable cars by people getting around for over half of all trips by bikes, boards, skates and walking. They need both the exercise and camaraderie. Plus we all need a break from resource depletion, noisy local air-and-water polluting traffic, and GHG emissions from the ~28% "biggest emitter" transportation sector. Local traffic -- the biggest emitter -- is even worse than official stats suggest with an estimated 50% of upstream/downstream private vehicle emissions not even counted in US transportation tallies. This uncounted half of local traffic GHG emissions is hidden in the sector labeled "industrial processes," including what the private vehicle indirectly "emits" before it hits the road, years of maintenance and after it dies, a sequence including all that goes into mining for metals and for fossil fuels; manufacturing plastics, paints, tires; building and running factories that manufacture the mechanical and other parts and supplies for the factories that manufacture the parts; shipping to point of sale, often across oceans, to paved lots with nearby temp conditioned showrooms; and disposing of these 2000 pound plus vehicles. Micromobility -- enabled by Toggle Times -- is on the other side of the speed bump.
You should get Geoff Lawton on your podcast. He has been teaching all over the world for decades. The work that he has done in Palestine is really quite amazing.
"The silver backed gorilla is not going to lay in a hammock and eat grapes!" "We are not headed for a Multi-Polar world it remains a Unipolar world for now." "Climate is not to win this argument." ... classic Nate!
Another excellent summary. Your synthesizing is amazing. I really don't understand the AI element. Some good references would help? Regarding politics, I came across an interesting book that claims Marx figured out a lot of this late in life. I haven't read it yet but reserved at library. Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto by Saitō, Kōhei - Maybe you've already read or discussed or interviewed; I'm overwhelmed by the info flow.
We need to start panicking now and avoid the rush. We're certainly not slowing emmissions or removing anything from our 560 COe ppm and growing. It's going exponential soon, and we'll still be as fractious as always and non-sacrificial to the end.
On a note about energy, I've been listening to a bunch of podcasts, and between yours and Planet: Critical, I've come to understand that our planet has a capacity to hold so much output of energy based on the Laws of Thermodynamics. According to Scientist Louie Arnoux from France, we're putting out the equivalency of 28 million Hiroshima booms going off at once, over the past few hundred years since Industrialization. In order to get back to be within the Laws of Thermodynamics, we would have to have energy systems that are not centralized, and built out in smaller, more efficient/sustainable and cost effective materials, which Louis mentions. He brought up using parabolic mirrors and microturbines, that can be made with more ecological materials. So, I'm hoping we can figure this out at some point, but who knows. I'm open to whatever happens.
regional self-sustainability will become key. Regional defined as large metros and outer rings for food and energy production. We will need to simplify the food system greatly.
🌅Thanks Nate & TGS. Team🎉 "Most of the Best needs in Life are FREE🤓☀️🗽 & LOT of data... Needed a Synopsis 🎯...mostly to share with ignorant of concept.🙏 Especially Like..."World does Not live in Free Market... Western's World (mostly US) biggest export is Capital🗽
best synopsis so far (working on new one) is probably: ruclips.net/video/qYeZwUVx5MY/видео.htmlsi=vMBanul-fmfIjDLG or ruclips.net/video/bE7Bbnvf4ko/видео.htmlsi=_k6Z27ol7YLTrs-O (the fact that capital is the biggest commodity should be obvious once you think about it that way)
There is a significant probability that the phase shift achieved in synthetic intelligence will create a time of superabundance where anything can be produced at approaching maximum efficiency.
The probabilistic paradigm is a wise choice. However, the idea of working on single issues is not based on saving the world. It is based on surviving collapse through BOTH generalization and specialization. For example, expertise in growing food sustainably provides a broad foundation that allows other areas of expertise to be developed. But it also provides products that can be traded. Further, it provides expertise that can be taught and traded for home repair, car repair, bookkeeping services, social capital, currency, and other necessary goods and services in a more localized economy. As I mentioned to you last time, it is likely Homo erectus was using trade in the first movement out of Africa. Indeed, it is likely trade predates the invention of fire. One does not have to have a synthetic systems overview to see trade and food procurement as intrinsic to the human condition.
Ya, so it depends how one defines the GS. But we could say it is when the acceleration of energy/resources through the system stalls and then reverses. In other words, when growth moves from exponential (like 3% GDP/year) to flat, and then negative. Not a year thing, but we can look at energy availability limits plus growth inhibitors and make a guess about the decade: 2030-2040. (Results may vary by location).
You should consider seeing if you can use your connections to create a social media platform called something like "climateface". A social media platform dedicated to bragadocio efforts of people fighting climate change. The algorithm of climateface should be designed to promote those doing the most actual good for the climate whether they are individuals institutions or corporations.
You need to check out this Nate and add it in. It is most likely the power of the future , along with solar, wind, tide etc. and pisses over oil. With our great brains and tech it may even be miniaturized in the future to run transport. To my mind energy isn’t the problem, we will always find a way to power things. We are the problem and our desire to have, control, overpower. We’ve done it, we’ve overpowered, yay for us, now we need to grow tf up and learn how to live with us. This growing up stage is the next bit of our evolution imo and there will be confusion, anger and tears as we face up to who we are, just like teenage years. But we can do it. Be cool if we did it together.
As someone who has been following your channel for a while now. I was curious have you ever seen the film three days of the Condor you may find it interesting
I just heard the song Seed by Aurora (Royal Albert Hall performance) and I thought of you. Highly recommend you check it out if you haven't heard it - lyrics are also very nice.
Imagine what happens when the US fossil fuel destruction machine runs out of gas [pun intended] and inelastic fuel demand collides with a much more limited energy structure. Boom! Very few are doing the math, Nate. Warring factions always win.
No-one wants to believe the old America has gone - but it clearly has. Renaissance is not impossible - we have an example from medieval Italy, and many other Nations at some point in their history. But it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of time. it also can only occur after Death and then Decay. This is how the life cycle works in Nature, and we are part of Nature. Although I am a full-blown pessimist (or realist), I have time for Shirley Temple and especially for uplifting music (which can be tinged with sadness, and the greatest stuff often is). Wiki has an excellent article about Jack Selig Yellen who wrote "Come and Get Your Happiness" and much else - his wonderful life stands for another America, before "The Day the Music Died". Don McLean thought the 1959 plane crash in which Buddy Holly and others died was the end, or the beginning of the end. Wiki says "The theme of the song goes beyond mourning McLean's childhood music heroes, reflecting the deep cultural changes and profound disillusion and loss of innocence of his generation - the early rock and roll generation - that took place between the 1959 plane crash and either late 1969 or late 1970. The meaning of the other lyrics, which cryptically allude to many of the jarring events and social changes experienced during that period, has been debated for decades." Shirley Temple died in 2014, but she "died" from films in 1950 - not far off 1959. Her last film seems to have been "That Hagen Girl" [1947] - a neat coincidence. It sounds rather good, from the description in wiki.
Ah, "Pre-simplifying"! I wish that I could do all of it right now. Find and buy that plot in Georgia or WV, or Kentucky; buy me two trained oxen, set up a gristmill near a clean river, build me a future home with geothermal powered by wind and water. Raise rabbits, start beekeeping perhaps, but grow everything and anything from beans to to hay, to flax, to grapes and rewild the forest. Hard work, yes. It will be rough. Make friends, build community, create a council of like-minded "simplfiers", barter and trade, rather than using money. I'd like that *now*, but it's not attainable for me yet. Soon, though. It had better be soon. In the meantime, learning to use less water, less electricity, and fewer commodities is what I do. It's the least we can do.
Nate is Simon Michaux coming back on to discuss his purple transition? He has done a lot of work recently. A show with him followed by a round table with him and Daniel Schmachtenberger would be great.
he ignores the Aerosol Masking Effect and the ESAS methane abrupt eruption. Algae is the future of life on earth since Algae can sequester 100 gigatons of CO2 per year. Nate had Sir David King on promoting algae. So Sir David King should be back on.
Next time anyone walks through their local Target or Walmart look around and try to estimate just how much of what meets the eye will be in the waste stream within the next 5 years.
Maybe I've missed it, but have you ever thought to invite Jeffrey Sachs on this podcast to discuss of a multipolar world ? An other one to consider is Emmanuel Todd who published this year "La défaite de l'Occident" ("The defeat of the West", my translation of the title) where he exposes two intrinsic factors explaining the fall of West : family composition and cultural ethic.
The population size factors on evolution of a species according to Darwin. Too large of human herd to evolve? The New Madrid fault will be devastating to humans on our continent. How fragile are the institutions in this scenario?
There's a 'tipping point' no one recognizes. It happened some 60 + years ago, when the population blew past 3 billion, relentlessly, and without remorse. We're paying the piper for not caring about it, then, and even now. It's a subject that is as taboo, as it gets.
11:45 I suspect technology has made traditional kinetic warfare ineffective. Precise destruction is so cheap that any kinetic combat eventually escalates to mutually assured destruction. No?
he's inherently political though. Corporations are legal persons destroying the planet. Not sure how you can solve the ecological crisis without being political. Clearcuts are political. Cargill is political and is the largest private corporation in the world yet controls the biology department at University of Minnesota where over 350 corporations get 100% tax deductible "research" done.
@@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885 "Not sure how you can solve the ecological crisis without being political." You can't! (but that isn't my role with this public facing work which is education, synthesis and community building)
@@thegreatsimplification Hi Nate - I'm just on the St. Croix river myself. Education? I did my master's degree at U of MN back in 2000 when Lawrence Solely got fired for his "Leasing of the Ivory Tower" book published when he was an educator at U of MN. I documented 350 corporations doing 100% tax deductible "research" at that public institution - getting their access to the tax-funded scientists, facilities, research results. This is in the MN Daily documented - see below. For example I went into a lab to interview scientists that had posters up for testing latino genetics causing asthma. These scientists bragged to me about how they were going to get patented for their blood samples they took from people being tested - people's blood patented without their knowledge. I documented this all in a report that I passed out at the President's annual "State of the University" talk while I held a big sign against Monsanto controlling the biology research at U of Minnesota. Professor Phil Regal, former chair of the biology department, told me how MOnsanto-Cargill took over the biology department. Then he left to return back to Canada. Meanwhile I had published a detailed op-ed about how Cargill operates by relying on huge tax subsidies to prop up a private family of billionaires while Cargill destroys the biodiversity of the equatorial ecology. Wow - no need to be political to education people. hahaha. Education is controlled by the aristocrat corporate "legal persons" as former M.I.T. History professor detailed - David F. Noble's book "America By Design" and his follow-up "The Religion of Technology" and his final book "Beyond the Promised Land" - you just need to get educated Nate. I spent ten years after my master's degree reading one scholarly book a day while I worked part-time at Clean Water Action and I rode an old 3 speed British internal hub gear bicycle while I dumpster dived Minneapolis. Then I left in 2009 after a cop arrested me at Morrill Hall for me taking a nap during spring break in the stall that had been frequented by the native American Indian homeless that I hung out with. Oops I forgot they did that and so the cop wanted me to "prove" I wasn't homeless by calling my boss and my landlady - and I refused to go along. So I was illegally banned from the University campus for a year since later ruling on trespassing citation in Minnesota ruled it can only apply to the specific building and not all the buildings of the same owner. My dad, ironically, wrote the procedural training manual for the Minnesota Attorney General office - I got it out of the MN Historical Society Attorney General archives recently - it's in their stacks. Have fun "educating" - sounds like you're dependent on corporate donations or something. too bad. But then again self-censorship is the most common form of censorship as Noam Chomsky points out. Genetic engineering protest disrupts address by Josh Linehan Published October 6, 1999 As University President Mark Yudof highlighted a year of progress in his State of the University address last Thursday, an outspoken student took a view contrary to the president’s and publicly voiced his discontent. During the question and answer portion of the address, graduate student Drew Hempel questioned Yudof directly about the University’s involvement in genetic engineering. Hempel said the University is out of line in continuing research into genetic engineering of crops without full knowledge of the problems and benefits it might bring. Hempel also distributed about 40 copies of the “Dis-orientation Report,” a self-published paper alleging University abuse of power and funding. “I disagree with your premise, and I disagree with your conclusion,” Yudof said then. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Gary Muehlbauer, a wheat and barley molecular biologist who works as a genetic engineer for the University, said the University is an acknowledged leader in the field. While he thinks care must be exercised in the area of genetic engineering, he does not support postponing research in the field. “I think in certain cases genetic engineering can be very useful. We do have to take some time and decide where it will help and where it will hurt,” Muehlbauer said. The British Medical Association recently called for a moratorium on genetically engineered crops, which Hempel highlighted by carrying a sign advertising the decision. “Over 237 countries have called for a ban on genetic engineering, but, for some reason, the University has taken it upon itself to be a leader in the field,” Hempel said. Research persists at the University - as opposed to most European countries, where the practice has been halted - because of large private donations by corporations, Hempel said. In September, the University received a $10 million gift from Cargill for a microbial and plant genomics facility. “Basically, public universities have become extensions of large corporations. They donate $50 million biotech centers so they can get free research and then wait for the patents. They can’t stop without giving the money back,” Hempel said. “The University is a public, nonprofit organization. It should be democratic and operate toward the public good. This hasn’t happened in this case.”
Like you Nate, I see things in terms of probabilities, and it seems very probable to me that such extends to ontological probabilities underlying the equations of QM; yet evolution seems to have (understandably) installed so many biases within us for simple certainty, that we have recursive sets of confirmation bias to our sets of simple binary truths, and very few seem able to conceive of ontologically probabilistic systems. Agree with most of your preamble, except some aspects of the political. I don't do political in the standards sense, and as you said, everything is political in another sense. Agree that energy is one of the fundamentals of life, the ability to make things happen in reality. If one uses the definition of life I find most powerful; that of systems capable of searching the space of the possible for the survivable, then both the act of searching and the instantiation of systems requires energy. And for classical biological life search is done through instantiating new systems that embody variations; and the environment determines what actually survives. We human beings, with our brains capable of modeling new technologies, new ways of being, new ways of creating and changing our environment, are capable of searching "spaces" far faster than other life forms reliant on genetic search are capable of responding. Unfortunately, our multiple levels of understandable bias within our neural networks for simple certainty mean that we tend to over simplify the complexities actually present, and be over confident about our understandings. The recursive levels of confirmation bias present in such dynamics is my prime candidate for "The Great Filter", the reason we do not see a universe teaming with evident signs of technologically advanced life when we point our advanced instruments away from this planet. I agree with you that it is not energy as such that is the issue, but rather the "system of claims and expectations and institutions" that we are embedded within; and the overly simplistic assumptions that are at its core (understandably, given our evolutionary history). Those cultural and economic systems are deeply complex, and contain multiple levels of over simplifications, and if there is one idea above all others that is at root of all issues, it is the idea that evolution is powered by competition, and that competitive systems can solve all problems. That notion is actually not simply false, but almost the exact inverse of reality. In reality, it is cooperation that makes complexity possible. In reality, it is our sense of responsibility that makes cooperation sustainable; our ability and willingness to identify and mitigate cheating on the cooperative that is modern society. And there is nothing simple in this. We are both individuals and members of groups, and both aspects of human nature are critical to our survival, and both have sets of limits that must be usefully approximated and respected if we are to survive. And in modern society we are dealing with very complex systems, deep stacks of them, some 20 levels deep, with every level containing something over a thousand (up to billions), of interacting complex adaptive systems - with probabilistic influence between all systems, both between systems within levels, and between levels of systems. The combinatorial numbers are way beyond the ability of most people to usefully imagine. Most, understandably, revert to simple certainty at some level. Anarchist, who focus only on the need for individual freedom, and ignore the social aspects of responsibility put us all at risk. They ignore the fact that language, culture, technology, etc are all complex social constructs. Communists and socialists, who focus only on the group needs, and ignore the needs of individuals for freedom and security, are equally dangerous in their over simplifications. Our reality is demonstrably more complex than any of us (any computational entity, human or AI), can possibly deal with in detail, in anything remotely approximating real time, that we must all make simplifications. We have no other option. And in making them, it is powerful to acknowledge them as such, not confuse them for being any sort of "Truth", and thus be alert for any level of failure of our simplifying assumptions in any particular context. That is hard. It is much easier, much more comfortable within levels of internal systems, to be righteously angry at others for their evident errors, and absolve ourselves of responsibility and complicity. Making mistakes is an inevitable part of searching beyond the known. No possible way of avoiding that in any form of logic I have investigated. Making the same mistake too frequently is to be avoided. Cleaning up after mistakes is required. Part of the responsibility required for those who choose to search beyond the known is to be as aware as reasonably possible of the known classes of danger and error. And when we have multiple classes of existential level risk that have no known solutions within the space of the known, then we have to search beyond the known, into the unknown, and unknown unknown. So yes, we have energy issues, scale issues, density issues, storage issues; but most critically, we have an economic system based in competition the fails to acknowledge the fundamental role of cooperation in the emergence and survival of complexity, and is actually destroying the diversity that makes life resilient to the sorts of changes in context that we are (more or less unknowingly) creating. The idea that "Free Markets and technology are false gods" is a gross and dangerous over simplification. Agree we don't have free markets, they are mostly monopolised and captured, because their is profit in doing so; but deeply worse than that, are issues with the very idea of basing a generalised token of value on one particular subclass of value - value in exchange; and then heavily biasing that system so that some players have vastly more tokens than othes, and most have essentially no influence on how the system works. The huge issue with value in exchange is that it is based in scarcity. Important things that are abundant have no value, by definition, under such a measure - think air - arguably the most important thing to any of us, yet of zero market value. When most things were genuinely scarce, this was not an issue. Now that we have the potential, though the direct capture of sunlight for energy (distributed abundance) and through advanced automation and AI (abundance of most goods and services), the value of such things drops to zero by definition, which breaks the system. Markets only work under conditions of scarcity. There is no theoretical mechanism for any set of market systems to deliver universal abundance. The system is no longer the useful approximation to optimality that it arguably once was. We need fundamental systemic change. We need to make whatever we evolve it to both distributed and resilient and capable of supporting diversity (all levels, all domains). We do not want systems that are prone to any form of single point of failure, be it capture by non-aligned agents or anything else. Capital is not a commodity. Capital is a myth. Capital is "just" numbers backed by belief, by some level of trust. For the most part, capital and finance are cheating strategies on the both the biological ecosystems on which all life depends, and on the social/cultural systems of which we are part. The idea of a generalised token of value has some real power to it, but that power has to be responsible within the limits required for the existence of biophysical and cultural systems. This is deeply more complex than most people seem either willing or able to consider, and also fundamental to our existence.
Those of us here mostly know we have crossed 6 of 9 measurable planetary boundaries, and are as yet showing little sign of making serious effort to reverse that overshoot in a sustainable fashion. We must have fundamental systemic change, for survival. On that we agree. I do not see any way in which that change can usefully be described as a simplification. We cannot have growth for growths sake. We cannot have marketing and junk production just for the purpose of sustaining an economic system that cannot be survived. And we do need to continue to explore levels of complexity and cooperation not yet instantiated, if we are to find solutions to known existential level risks (without being explicit about what those risks are, there are many classes of them, five of which a reasonably well discussed publicly, many more of which are not - for good reasons). Life is deeply more complex than most are willing to admit. Admitting that complex life is founded on cooperation immediately delivers multiple levels of responsibility that most levels and classes of agents would rather ignore; as it gets in the way of what they consider their rights and freedoms. We need rights and freedoms, and if they are to be survivable, then both must be accompanied by appropriate levels of responsibilities. That is the part fundamentally missing from the American experiment. It is not possible to have a right, without a balancing responsibility, and expect any level of complexity to survive. That is an over simplification of what complexity actually is. No shadow of reasonable doubt remaining about that assertion. Agree that infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible. We have vast potential for growth off planet, in O'Neill class habitats, forming something that eventually (in several thousand years) usefully approximates a Dyson Sphere. But we need to start that process on the Moon (not Mars), and there is no point in doing any of that unless we actualy have our systems down here being survivable. Non-survivable systems retain that property, whether Earth bound or otherwise. Escaping Earth and avoiding responsibility for the chaos created here is not a survivable strategy. We need to get systems off this planet, as a necessary aspect of long term risk reduction, but we also have to make our systems down here survivable first and foremost. And that demands accepting complexity and diversity that most will find uncomfortable. Agree, we are a long way from sustainable. Simplification is not survivable. While I align with most of what you say, simple is not survivable - I can demonstrate that beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt in any form of logic you want to explore. The description of the decision making hierarchy is reasonably accurate, and is a reasonable approximation to the inverse of what is actually required. Agree that Elon has done more to address climate than any other single individual alive. Realpolitik is a gross and non-survivable over simplification. Most people understand responsibility at some level. At the systems level, AI can be a powerful tool, in education, by framing the conversation of the need for freedom, security, responsibility and cooperation into a context that is available to each individual. If these things are present, in useful approximation, at every level, then the system as a whole can become survivable, and there can be reasonably available paths to security and reasonable abundance for all. But not abundance of junk and waste for the sake of economic activity alone. It has to be something deeply more complex and long term than that; and it must have meaningful levels of freedom for all agents in the system (all levels, all domains, biological and non-biological, human and non-human). The idea of human control is a grossly over simplified and non-survivable myth. We have influence - not control. We cooperate, in diversity (real uncomfortable diversity) or we perish. In one sense, it really is that simple, yet it is also more complex than most seem willing or able to consider. It has been clear to many agents for decades that the existing economic system is a tontine. It is not survivable as such. Surviving within the existing economic system is not an option. This is not a unipolar world. That is a gross and unsurvivable over simplification. The law of aggregate probability only holds if the probabilities being summed are actually applicable to the context. If there are fundamental errors in the numbers produced, then summing them does not remove those errors. Yes, we have the 5 horsemen, and more; and there are paths. We must have a world of less throughput, that does not mean less available meaningful options, or less freedom, or less security. We can build technology to last, rather than technology designed to fail because economic prosperity in the current system demands rapid turnover. We can now build things that work very reliably. We tend not to because of the economic system. We can, we must, change that system, on that we agree. We also agree, that it will not change until the collapse is so imminent, that even the most willfully blind can see it coming. There is a certain amount of unavoidable risk in such a reality, and it does actually seem to be the least risk path available. We need as many as possible prepared to act when required. Agree to a degree about the social limits to growth. Europe cannot de-industrialise. We need to be having conversations through as many diverse trust networks as we can to create the sort of trust we need to act to survive. Feelings are important, and they are much more complex than most currently understand. Yes - we have arrived at a species level conversation. Yes we are part of the natural world, and we need to build that into our trust networks, and our communication strategies. We must be both humble (open to the all too real possibility of error) and confident (ready and able to act on our best approximations when it seems most appropriate to do so); in the full knowledge that many with far less knowledge will be far more confident (and we can be very confident that their confidence is misplaced - and that is the reality we face). As stated already above, it seems beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt to me that: In reality, it is cooperation (trust) that makes complexity possible. In reality, it is our sense of responsibility that makes cooperation sustainable; our ability and willingness to identify and mitigate cheating on the cooperative that is modern society. Freedom, security, responsibility and cooperation are demanded of each of us, and of the systems we choose to support and create; each to the best of our limited and fallible abilities (human and AI alike). This is not in any sense simple, and it does, in my 60+ years of contemplation of life and systems and existential level risk and mitigation strategies, seem to be what is available to us - if we wish to survive, if we want to be in the class of life (rather than the class of anti-life - as defined above).
@@tedhoward2606 thats your definition of simplification vs mine - beyond that we mostly agree. I use simplification not in the ecological sense but in the tainter-esque sense. as energy surplus wanes our ECONOMIC system will have to simplify - by definition. that doesnt mean our lives and relationships to broader nature will simplify. It's semantics methinks. Please don't focus on the WORD simplification (its a much better word than collapse - which is binary). I guarantee you in 10 years time, our financial and economic lives will be simpler than today - and probably harder and more rewarding. Again, please look beyond the one word description of a really deep treatment of human predicament
@@thegreatsimplification Hi Nate, I completed undergrad biochemistry 50 years ago. I've been thinking about xRisk since living through the Cuban Missile Crisis 62 years ago. The more closely I look at biology, the more complex it actually seems to be. The process of evolution is far more complex than most people have considered. The economic system is no longer fit for purpose. It is in need of urgent and deep reform, we cannot survive it in its current form. I think we agree on that. But as I see it, most of the issues we have come from attempts to over simplify that which is actually deeply more complex than most want to consider; things like human nature, and the nature of responsibility. If we want a long term future, we need to get a lot of very high tech off this planet. The amount of solar energy flux in near Earth orbits dwarfs fossil fuels by order of magnitude. The future has to be different. The financial system has to fundamentally change. But I really don't see any way that it can actually be simpler. It actually needs to be much more complex to actually deliver the reasonable needs of everyone, as there is huge diversity actually present. Agree - business as usual is not a survivable option, but I have a great deal of difficulty characterising what needs to follow as "simplification" - and I have owned and run a software business for the last 38 years, so have had to deal with a bit of complexity from time to time. I love your shows, and don't miss any. I align with a great deal of your thinking.
@@thegreatsimplification In the personal sense, I agree with you, that many need to simplify, to choose things that they find meaningful and satisfying, but with as little impact on planetary ecosystems as is reasonably possible, and with far greater consciousness of those impacts than is generally being displayed today. Economic reform is required in that sense. I don't know that I agree with Tainter as a general theorem, and his thesis can be part of something more complex. It seems to me more likely that what is the major component of collapse in most cases, is the failure of simplifications that become highly tuned to some local (over some metrics of time and space) set of contexts, that fail when some aspects of that context set change in some way that pushes that system beyond that locally approached optima, and its responses fail to adapt. This is part of why my major thesis is that we need to encourage both responsibility and freedom. We need to encourage people to be responsible, to acknowledge both their individual and group natures, to see our legal and ethical systems as some approximation to an optimal response to the many levels of issues in maintaining the complexity that is modern society, and not to over simplify it; and to be prepared to go beyond the bounds of those systems if their local contexts and sense of responsibility demands more from them that the constraints of those restrictions allow. This notion of being called by something deeper, rather than responding to rather low level desires, seems to me to be the approach with the greatest probability of long term survival. It demands that we each engage in multiple distribute trust networks, so that key ideas that work are able to propagate rapidly through those networks when they are required. This embodies the idea of distributing both random search and responsibility as broadly and deeply as possible, to maximise the probability of finding locally optimal solutions to the extremely complex and in some senses unpredictable problems that we can reasonably know the general classes of which are approaching us. Encouraging a willingness to experiment, to go beyond social norms, is not something generally approved of; and there are good reasons for that when things are relatively stable, and I think all of us here can agree that we are not in such stable times now. My thesis is, in this sense, almost the inverse of Tainter's, that our major problems generally occur not because or systems get too complex, but because the contexts change, and wither our overly simplistic distinction sets fail to notice and adapt, or our systems are too rigid and are unable to adapt, and systems generally fail because of that. Under such conditions, random search is actually the most efficient search possible, especially when searching beyond the known, into the unknown unknown, for solutions to problems that do not have solutions present in known space. Distributed, high trust, high bandwidth, communication channels are essential to group survival under such conditions. Under such conditions, prior formal channels of trust fail by definition. Understanding, from the depths of evolutionary theory, that it is cooperation (deep cooperation, in diversity, with appropriate levels of trust verification systems) that allows complexity to survive, and that contrary to popular dogma, competition tends to destroy both freedom and diversity, and drive systems to local optima highly optimised for local condition; is actually critical for the survival of the sort of complexity that we now are. Yes, I have planted edible trees (apples, walnuts, olives, persimmon, almond, apricot, fig, feijoa) on our section. Yes I have solar cells on our roof, an electric bike, electric tools. I haven't been in an aircraft (other than a local helicopter, to do research on a local species of seabird that breeds in alpine conditions, that I do not have the skillset to get to any other way) for about 8 years. I have let my pilot's license lapse. I am choosing a low energy lifestyle where that is reasonably possible, spending more time in international networks such as this, building linkages, digitally rather than physically. So to the degree reasonably possible, I am simplifying where that seems reasonable, and I am also exploring greater systemic complexity for stable solutions to sets of problems that I expect to become critical to survival in the not too distant future. So I agree with you that we need simplification where appropriate, but I am warning strongly against taking that notion too far, as I see no survivable paths in oversimplifying that which actually demands irreducible complexity for survival. And I get that there are deep issues in communicating such notions. And sitting here, in a small country village, on the far side of the planet from you, I have been getting message back through networks that seem to me to be over simplifying your message, and taking it in directions that do not seem survivable; hence my pushback, at the margins. And once again, I honour and respect you, and align with a great deal of the message you are transmitting - we are far more alike than we are different; and we are different, and it seems to me that some of those difference are important.
@@tedhoward2606 thanks Ted - this isn't about me - or even my views and hopes and ideas - its about describing WHAT IS. The Superorganism - globally - is not pulling out the best aspects of humanity - it doesnt mean how humans ARE, it describes how we are acting in aggregate. I don't have a well crafted message (yet). Im just trying to connect the dots in ways that people who are not familiar w energy, ecology or systems can get a glimpse into what we truly face. (I dont know what you mean about ppl in your network oversimplifying my message- how do they even know about 'my' message ?) Take good care~ 🙏🌏❤
I'm not convinced that it is reasonable to be "apolitical" out of principle. That is the choice to allow the destroyers of the world and of justice to continue unimpeded.
Dear Nate, being european I would like to challenge a part of your predictions. Like it or not, western european people will turn to fascism, break NATO alliance and make peace with Russia before choosing degrowth or deindustrialization. The elite in the EU have different plans of course but you can't suppress the will of the people while destroying the economy. We have an history of violence and civil war sadly and peace was only made possible by economic development. Beside, the multipolar world is already there. China is already a contender in economic terms. As far as prediction goes, I think that the US is the one who have to make most of the "diet" and who is already suffering more because of the great simplification: in the EU, insurance's CEOs are not shot in the street... people get cured if they need help.
I hear you. But I also hear things about military and AI and am not so sanguine. (And Europes debt overhang will precipitate a Simplification even if they partner w Russia). This is not end times, just ending current expectations and lifestyles. I could be wrong
@@thegreatsimplification Personally, thanks to your work and the many books I've read in the last years, I already revised most of my expectations for a different future without that much consuption of everything. Beside I knew what awaited us since I've read Limits to Growth in 2001 :). The whole "west" will have to make sacrifices and I get that the Pentagon could have different ideas and won't go down peacefully, but in order to bend and not break we will have finally to leave colonialism behind and accept a future where all humanity has the same dignity. Otherwise we will break. Badly. Thanks for your work and sorry if I "challenged" you: you remain one of the few voice of reason.
Fascism arises from exactly that: the promise to alleviate economic suffering. The public -- of any region -- will not choose simplification. Part of simplification is the breakdown in the social contract between democratic governments and the people, followed by some form of autocracy, followed by disintegration of the center, followed by some form of reorganization at more local levels. Historically, this has played out slowly due to overreach. In the near future, it is likely to play out very rapidly due to global overshoot.
I must disagree, Nate. I believe it is possible that we have always been in service of technology. I recommend reading: “What Technology Wants” by Kevin Kelly.
I for one would counter that this IS a feel good frankly, that in today’s world and culture it is refreshing to hear someone speak these truths so clearly and succinctly. Nice to know there are others out there who see these realities as you do and share them so well Nate.
For those of us who have been on board for three years, this is a great 20-minute summary. We appreciate Nate and this work so much!
Nate does a pretty good job of counting up the trends, but what about population?
I love that the number of subscriptions for this channel has grown. We seemed to be at 50k for years, and now finally 70k. Notice I used "we" because I believe this channel is a collective good, and of course I am grateful to Nate for all his very hard work on keeping the "us" part of "we" informed.
This entire topic is very shadowbanned.
I know for a fact that some Spanish-speaking thinkers and "influencers" in this very topic are reporting systematic shadowbanning of their contents in social media, with people already having their accounts deleted without a reason. To be in this little bubble of wisdom you have to be a very proactive individual that is far away from the average citizen in terms of being concerned about these topics, we are a very small minority... They let you grow until you reach a probably very-well- researched-through-IA threshold of followers, after which you become shadowbanned by the algorithm... There is indeed no free market, anyone that has been around this for a couple of years has all the red lights on, this civilization is going down the drain
So shadowbanned that my lenghty comment on this replying to you with my conclusions on the matter was... mysteriously deleted. There is indeed a secret threshold in reach put in place.
Nate, you are the only person I know who can talk about the dire consequences headed to us with a kind, sweet voice.
Thank you for that.
God bless you.
Thanks Nate. Watching the development of this podcast, from analytically, scientific to more spiritually, poetic is a great example for a global movement needed. The simplification is to step back to a holistic view and find the root we can all agree on. Only then can awareness turn into action.
Like a global advertising campaign to promote minimalism, for example.
Stay sane all.
Thank you Nate. Truth and accuracy do feel good to me. Know that you are loved and appreciated.🥰
It's very comforting to know that there are other likeminded people in the world. I don't know many personally or at least none who take such a deep dive on the issues we face. Nate is my go-to person for a reality check and gaining knowledge from his wonderful podcasts is invaluable. His discussions with such an interesting array of guests are also fascinating. Listening regularly to Nate heightens my appreciation for everyday life, family and my wonderful local community.
We are indeed very few... Only 10K watched this video after almost 3 days, I have to search him on the platform to get to see his videos in many cases, and then I share it with some other people that get to it thanks to my link... There is a shadowban to this content for obvious reasons.
In a nutshell : our global conundrum hinges on a cultural battle between wisdom and greed. To be more precise, it is between universal well-being, the Common Good, and the health of our only Earth, compared to the narrow, self-serving interests of the rich and powerful few. At this point in human history, taking in to account the egregious disparities in wealth, opportunity and viability that are prevalent everywhere; while simultaneously acknowledging endless warfare that benefits almost no-one but the rich and powerful - AND which threatens everyone and everything! - I would say that human wisdom has succumbed to baser inclinations which most of us don't share - or benefit from!
A phrase that I have been thinking about lately: "Humanity has an ocean of intelligence, but only a thimble of wisdom "
what if, humanity was less greedy, more wise, that it provides basic necessities to the vast and large pool of 8th billion people to live like a "westener materialist". Would that improve ressource usage ? Reduce pollution ? Reduce the waste management footprint ? prevent waste production to begin with ? While it is undeniable that there is a grave and important income equity imbalance. In the extremely imaginary thought experiment where everybody gets enriched. It does not suffice to induce by itself, a fixing of the systemic issues inherited by "the way of life", as it was physically deployed and implemented by our ancestors, and contemporary, people. See the highways, the train, the cities, the fields, the industry and everything we are doing at large to sel and produce those made-to-waste industrial goods. The frame that we use as our reference to assess, to consider, our daily actions is to be deeply revised at first because it is totally f-up, only then, we can possibly scale it to a much, much larger and crowded world. Earth does not expand and space minerals extraction is a fantasy !
@@maboiteaspamspammaboite9670 Don't get me started on "overshoot"!
What if we had a system that rewarded the activities that were positive and aided general welfare?
@@emceegreen8864Good question. That's in substantial part what we were advocating for in the Counter-culture of the late 1960's and 70's. The movement didn't achieve enough support to establish a self-sustaining momentum, and it generated such a powerful political backlash, we are still experiencing the consequences of that backlash now, and I suspect we haven't yet reached the crest of that destructive wave. Your 'what if' is on track, but there are deeper questions that have to be answered: What is required to generate enough open-mindedness and "listening for" such ideas among human beings, such that a majority of us will at least be willing to begin implementing such ideas globally? And why did we fail to achieve momentum in our last attempts?
Thank you, Nate!
Your PC has played a big role among media influences in helping me make a gradual transition to where being a good me is the first priority while enmeshing myself into any local or world systems improvement!
Thank you for the succinct Frankly Nate! Always good to be reminded and get an overview.I am a 31 year old German making my way to a more simplified and resilient life.
As of now I am still caught up in the system, but luckily I don't have too many tethers.
Although the world is desperately trying to demotivate and depress me with everything that is going on, I remain hopeful and resolute.
You and many others motivate me and give me the necessary information to make more informed choices in my life.
Here's to you and another exciting year coming up!
I am 29, I think that until the event horizon of the bend & break (or such as Nate calls it, the "big bump ahead" there is not much one can plan on the material side that is a guarantee of a good future, as the societal and political changes that will take place in such a dire scenario are going to be so profound that we'll live in a complete different social reality concerning how we'll have to conduct our lives. The best we can do is "de-risking" (move away from where is more likely for violence to be more present) but there is a big chunk of luck involved even if we thought we made the right decisions before (For example, if AMOC stops anyone in a farm in Ireland is lost) In my opinion the most important things that can be done in order to have the highest chances of landing a benign life after the bump involve inmaterial things, like staying healthy and mentally strong as well as developing a conciliatory approach towards conflict, because many people are going to be very traumatized and lots of violence are ahead of us... Being nurturing and conciliatory in such boundary conditions and therefore regarded as someone which people like to have around in this new, energy-poorer predicament is the best bulletproof vest one can wear
Greetings from Spain, wish you great luck
I'm amazed by your ability to keep trying.
Thanks for constantly advancing the knowledge and pulling it together in different educational ways to reach different audiences. You're playing a vital role in creating a living learning community. It's got to be exhausting to keep confronting the world's institutional idiocy, venality and chaos and not get overwhelmed. We all have to learn from your tenacious benvolence, expansive intelligence and emotional devotion to the future.
thank you
As an older gent I appreciate everything Nate does on this platform. I have all my kids and grandkids listen to Nate.
"All of the world's problems can be solved in the garden"-Bill Mollison
Thank you for this lecture, it is the most sensible take away I have heard, regarding our current situation and condition as a species, describing our complex relationships to the planet and its natural systems. So much of this lecture resonates with many views and a basic understanding I and many others have held for some years now, good to see it is now being quantified, sorted out and specified in very accessible language, even as will need to take a deeper dive in wrapping my head around some of the terminology. Can't wait to hear more in 2025, we are in dire need.
Three to Dos
1. Inter-religious dialogues - not for conversion but for pure conversation and understanding each other
2. Contemplation (meditation) to gain somatic, cognitive, compassionate and spiritual resilience to metabolize the approaching apocalypse
3. Facing the issues head on with a zest for life and a positive vision for the future.
Love this! Yes.
The only tweak I might make to this fine list would be with 3. For me it’s more a choice of where to focus collective energy, and it may not be on ‘facing issues head on’. I think solving problems and dealing with predicaments is better handled by instead choosing to focus energy on ‘right living’. We seem more preoccupied with problems and fighting than with flow and co-creative living and seeing. Not bypassing, but moving through to move beyond. Lots of grief work will be necessary, but the overall focus could remain on healthy new ways of seeing: the paradigm shift, the emergent of the new, the ‘flip’. Wisdom growth. New purpose.
@@jennysteves Good catch! This is the reason a dialogue is so necessary. For context, I am a retired chemical engineer having worked for Shell for 10 years and then for many of the energy majors for the past 40 years. So, my natural inclination is to jump to solutions as soon as possible. What you point out is so correct... it shouldn't be a "Head On" thing, it should be a "Heart On"... The first two points are primary and then I believe the solutions will well up from the "ground of being" no matter which faith tradition, or even no faith tradition. It will happen more from a subjective pull or prompting towards what Teilhard de Chardin called the "Omega Point".
Here here
Thanks. It has been wonderful to have a much clearer picture of how I've been feeling about the world in general.
Working with others and working on the self will have to be a concerted effort for those who want prosperity for our species.
Thank you Brother! Well said as usual, and this is the way to spread the knowledge.
We love you Nate! Thank you for the great service you offer to us all who are working with you in this space.
My 10 year old watched your recent video on the Climate Council and they spoke to so much she was already thinking. In her school she hasnt found many (any) kids her age who understand at the same level. These connections internationally are so very important and i look forward to hearing more in 2025 and learning how to hook in to meaningful approaches. We need to leapfrog the current process. Thank you again.
Love the James Baldwin quote - not everything that we face can be changed, but nothing can be
changed unless it is faced.
Once again, I have made an intentional effort to read the subsequent commentary after a TGS podcast. A significant aspect of those comments is that they are sincere and well thought-out responses rather than merely blind "bandwagon" echoes. The level of sincere intellectual and humanistic discourse that TGS generates is a breath of fresh air amidst the echo chamber and arid desert of most media outlets.
So..... Frankly no. 79 arrives to me as my 2nd Frankly. I'm left with a feeling that I can't quite put my finger on. I feel like I've missed out on so much.....yet ready for a special journey before me. Thanks.
Thank goodness for Nate and United States. ❤❤❤
It comes down to expectations. The sooner more people expect that we will have to cut energy usage, the earlier they will prepare for it.
Very much appreciate this podcast. I am mining the early episodes from before my time all of which is adding to and confirming my life style choices. There is no question that good information helps put a face on the monster and that is reassuring.
A Passing Thought:
For years many of us have known, through your work and the many others you have interviewed, that the way we live will have to simplify. This now is a well-established point of view. As you have pointed out, how we move from modernity to a sustainable lifestyle is hard to predict but clearly it will involve some horsemen riding willy-nilly. Little will be done voluntarily to rein in this action. It will simply show up at our doorsteps with eyes filled with fire. Those individuals with a little pre-warning may have positioned themselves to open the door slowly and cautiously making it possible to drift though the bottleneck.
We also know, I suspect, that the sooner we make this obvious transition, the more likely a greater portion of the biosphere will, meaning all of life forms, move on to the next level.
The level of destruction at this point is simply profound as you have pointed out. The need for immediate action, almost meaning by any means, is becoming over-bearing. Is it possible that by electing the most inapt of leaders, both here and worldwide, the most despicable, the most devious, the most self-centered, the most destructive from almost any point of view, might be a means of bringing on this simplification sooner rather than later? This seems absurd on the surface (and admittedly it is already happening as the people of Gaza will tell us) but if the horsemen are going to ride why not allow the ignorant, the naïve, the misguided, and the egotistical maniacs to just turn them loose. Or, can this thing just be walked down by the thoughtful, the compassionate, the scientifically informed and more spiritual among us?
Nate you are the guide to many of us and for that I am thankful. I guess there are no real answers but just let my mind go today as I am trying to work through what I see as the ruins.
Thank you Nate for this Frankly of signposts and way markers along the road of TGS, it helps every so often to pull things back into context of how complex and daunting your/this work is🤔
This is a very valuable summary, Nate. Thanks so much 🙏🙏🌿
This frankly did make me feel good because now I know that what I stand for is just and necessary.
To do nothing at this time is to be complicit in the demise of all.
thank you nate🙂.
politics is prioretising ourdaily being,so theres nothing that is not politics in human social structures. the party's sphere now,is not doing that in a viable ways,and for itself,is representing our core destructive perception,of rivals,seperation,fear and power over others-opression.
as long as we wont culitivate the right heart,are doing will echo fear and violence.
thank you for doing this nate.
I can't thank you enough because you are educating me with the big picture that I couldn't see😮❤❤❤❤
Excellent....particularly your last few minutes. Individual and small community preparedness are going to be vital to navigate the changes that are already happening.
I found Tom Murphy's 2015 Do the Math blog addressing Myers-Brigg personality types and his blog audience ... fascinating stuff. I think it would be enlightening if you did a similar survey of your viewers to see if you came up with similar results where INTJs dominate your audience type.
what do you have against ENFP's? 🤕
You are awesome! Doing a great job Bub. I been subbed to the channel but just rang the bell.
Three main systemic characteristics of the economic super organism are 1) infinite growth 2) Jevons’ paradox 3) the time discounting problem. These could be called managing growth and valuing the future. These are ultimately the greatest economic problems to be resolved.
Important topic! Thanks for sharing
I hope you get to continue your discussions with Daniel Schmachtenberger next year!
Yeah, The Schmacker's awesome! o/
@@GM4ThePeople He's a Doomers Doomer alright. Listening to him is like hanging on the edge of a precipice. Fascinating, and terrifying, at the same time.
@@mrrecluse7002 i find him uplifting as he speaks the truth of our situation honestly without sugarcoating it. It is the only way we might make effective changes to society in the face of the predicaments we face. Nothing short of a cultural awakening will prevent a major collapse. Short of that, honestly facing the predicaments might allow for some changes that might mitigate the damage done.
Thank you for this.
And I feel you.
Number One Hierarchy : The underlying hegemonic culture . Hegemonic meaning everyone generally accepts the mythos of their society, in ours that money is the way to account for all things and violence is ok so long as it is top down, all under the deep ingrained monotheistic patriarchal dominionism: This whole world is here for us to use and abuse as we see fit, only we are of any consideration, all life and land water and air are just objects with no rights, no sentience and no import except as some human culture may use them. No matter how wonderful your democracy and your rational science and your desires for good, if the culture thinks that it can just use the world and everything in it as their god given, or atheistic scientific right, we kill the planet and extinct ourselves in bizzare self centered anthropocentric insanity. - Really Like your Channel-- Good stuff for thought.
Thank you Nate for this sobering summary...I wonder if you might have plans to have Daniel Schmachtenberger back on your show for an update on AI, geopolitics, etc? I am so grateful for all the work you have done and continue to do...My husband and I have learned so much from watching your podcasts...💙
Nice one Nate - I was only thinking recently that you could do with a back-to-basics overview - so was great to hear about the ensuing package you're putting together for early next year. As Dr Johnson used to say, 'we need more often to be reminded than instructed'. Really liked your, ''Go underground (in small communities) and think 2 or 3 steps ahead' - I can't see it any other way either! As a slight aside; I agree with you that most people are not ecology literate - but I'm pretty sure a lot of people don't know much at all about economics either. You are a really rare breed being fluent in both! Economics is a struggle for me even though I'm good at mathematics!
Thank you.
Art Berman just dropped a new article that blew my mind .... technology improvements have only accounted for max 5% productivity increases above energy.... this is actually very concerning.
Jevons's paradox.
@roysmith5597 indeed
Would appreciate more discussions on what the future may look like, topics like career choice, relocation, long term family structures, likely low energy lifestyles in america etc
will have some guests on those topics for sure - but it's hard to cover all the things. thanks for the nudge
"We are an unfinished product of an evolution that is yet to be." ~ Teilhard de Chardin ~
I’ve never seen that quote! Précis 🙏❤️🌎
Such a font of wisdom and sincerity. Fear is such a driver of behavior but when people come to grips with less, it is possible to imagine a more functional citizenry. But "more" is the result of all the communication of the system i.e. religion (increase our flock), capitalism (most profit wins), lifespan and progeny, experiences (travel and education), security (police, locks, banks), freedom, etc. But the simplification must go through some serious fire hoses in order to create a process anything approaching sustainability. The other creatures on the planet do not get to indulge in such imaginative pursuits. They are subject to the here and now restrictions on their choices. The feedbacks are undeniable and inescapable for them as well as us. The bottom line is that far far fewer humans with far lower standards of living are the likely near term result. How we get there remains a taboo subject until "more" is debunked.
i'm starting to think socioeconomic collapse is our best hope
(also worst fear)
Collapse of a toxic social order and a destructive economic one.
The default path of any organism is to return to its long-term, historic nature once a given anomaly passes. For humans that is social cooperation and ecological stewardship.
The danger is that the current system continues long enough to extinguish the return to a balanced one.
It seems like Nate has taken the urgency level up a couple notches in the past few weeks. TGS may be closer than we think.
Thankyou ❤️ let us consider contemplate and pray 🙏 as I feel its the only way to add to the collective unconscious mind
I would like to fervently recommend a song from a depression era movie in youtube : Shirley Temple singing 'Come and Get Your Happiness'.
(nice NB: The composer was a jewish refugee from the USSR, who during the civil war after the russian revolution (c1920) had written most popular red army marching song !)
PS FDR was heard to say, 'As long as we've got Shirley Temple everything's going to turn our fine'
Thanks. This has triggered a separate comment from me - it is so full of important connotations and insights. You probably won't agree that the music has died and will take some time to be "born again". But surely some major things have to die before Rebirth can occur? This is so in Nature anyway, and it looks to me as if it is also the case in human cultural matters, where death and decay are part of the only available cycle (despite wishful thinking).
@@edithcrowther9604 Dont understand your pschic predicament. I derive such profound nourishment from our forebears' wisdom and artistry - They had cultures adapted to the relative energy poverty to which we must now find our way, so they are natural companions
@@julianholman7379 Oh yes - that is what I meant. Modern art and music seem lifeless whereas the work of people who are now dead is full of life. It is by no means a predicament - civilizations and cultures decay and in that phase produce nothing inspiring. Then with any luck there is a Renaissance of some kind - but only after a period of decay, and only by drawing on things achieved in the distant past, before the decay set in. I know no-one accepts that Nations must go through dark times periodically - but I am quite happy about this fact of life. The present dark time is particularly dreadful and any "blast from the past" is welcome, especially as it reminds us that a lot of good stuff was produced by candlelight or at least in "relative energy poverty" of some kind, as you say.
I read Malm's book last year, I would love to hear a conversation with him.
"Property will cost us the Earth"
Excellent, Nate you nailed it again. My own view is those that invest in sustainability first and foremost and how far we get, will define as if we bend or break. So I don't see a solely one way issue, as those in the great depression that did the best were farmers, Just a thought.
I seen two stories one on permaculture along the Sudan that started ten years ago. Small guilds were formed of semicircle shallow pits with tiny ones all around that half circle and all filled with water. Then a tree was planted into the center of that half circle and grass seedling throughout it in the smaller depressions and then the spaces in between.
The showed one such groups of guilds going in and how they were created then a view of the first one they did ten years ago. That had a lush young forest growing on the edge of the greatest hot desert. The man standing in it bent down showing us that water still was there the grass has kept it from evaporating even during droughts.
"We start growing in this next year," he said, as he stood back up, "Its already even with these young trees ten degrees cooler than the air outside the forest." I paraphrasing as I do not have his exact words.
The next was a school in Kenya near a healthy river. They were using drip irrigation to feed their fields and planting in fruit trees along the edges to provide shade and cool the area, "we have more than one crop," the child said, "and enough food to sell this as well as feed all of us at the school" again paraphrasing as I don't have exact words but this is the gist of what was said.
So if those suffering food insecurity, facing desertification (like in the west) and poor as church mice can do these things, well it gives me hope for my sad permaforesting tries that are getting better but it seems to be taking too much time! Yet I haven't been at it ten years....
💚
Suburban homes with organic permaculture food production where lawns now demand "care" would do wonders to lower the cost of living, improve health and the quality of meals, cut water, toxic chemical and fossil fuel use, and put a dent in that ~36% of plastics the food industry consumes/discards.
@@BettieSommer Once in such system are easy to care for, if weeds come in "chop and drop" and planting flower among food crops makes those guilds attractive if done right. Most build them in back yards because neighbors sometimes complain about systems but the can be made beautiful, my three are in the front,
Yet where cars dirt can reach (up to 100 yards) that soil is risky so I plant flours mostly and put edibles further back.
Something to remember: AI itself is extremely energy intensive and relies on six-continent supply chains. The chips (GPUs) used to train and run AI models are manufactured using astonishingly complex processes. When the bend-not break moment comes, AI will be very difficult if not impossible to sustain.
agree to a point - it WILL be possible to maintain, but for a much smaller scope and scale - it will be prioritized above all else - at that point there will only be 1 (or a few) AIs
I've known that humans were on the wrong path since I was a little girl and could connect dead fish along the side of the river to the speed boats that zoomed past. Back then (in the 60's), no one would have listened to a little shy girl. I was not Greta. Now, besides yourself I listen to Umair Haque who tells people to listen to their 'gut'. We've known for a long time but do not acknowledge what we know. And it becomes Important where we get our information from.
Thank you for this Frankly.
Recently I've been thinking about narcissism in the sense of being controlling, bullying and selfish and how it perpetuates trauma, violence and abuse. The Superorganism is presented as something good in that it provides dopamine hits to hijack our limbic systems and present life as good and making progress. If this was in reference to the natural ecological dynamics of life on Earth, I would agree it could be regarded as a Superorganism and a highly intelligent superorganism far exceeding the ridiculous AI systems developed by the human being because it has created the conditions for the evolution of intelligent life. And this intelligent life should be contributing to the further evolution of intelligent life but instead prefers to tinker creating AI and undermining its own continued existence in the process and perpetuating trauma, violence and abuse around the world.
This is by definition narcissism and it is collective narcissism, systemic narcissism, that perpetuates the conditions of trauma, violence and abuse and it is presented as free market economics, progressive technology, global trade, competition, growth, etc. Maybe it should be labeled the Superabuser rather than the Superorganism(since it's an organism it is perceived as organic and hence something good!) instead because frankly, this is exactly what our current economic relations are perpetuating with corporations and governments sitting in the role of primary narcissistic controllers. They of course do this because they subscribe to the architecture of the current system that is primarily designed under the the guidance of dysfunctional accounting and economic tools backed by laws that are completely incompatible with Nature. The laws applied or adhered to by the most powerful abusers within the collective Superabuser are the product of a colonizer mindset rather than the laws of energy dynamics in Nature.
Thank you for the thoughts and contemplations. Keep up the excellent work.
As a retired software engineer who has kept up with the advancements of AI, my take is that what happens in the field of AI (how quickly it improves, how capable it becomes, how quickly it is integrated) will be the primary factor of what happens to the human species. I don't think we are on a very positive trajectory here. I would expect some flavor of dystopia.
I have been thinking for a while now, that the universe at the biggest picture level is a fractal pattern. As time goes by, the future unfolds along the lines that were always built into the math, and this is why we say that the past doesn't repeat, but rather the future rhymes with the past. So, for example, when you point out that solar/wind/renewables aren't a direct replacement for our energy usage now, it fits into some of my thinking by considering that solar and wind, as part of our future, are necessarily occupying a smaller branch of the pattern. In this idea, the people of the future may create a society that to them feels like abundance, but some people, for a while, will be old enough to remember when oil allowed us to occupy a bigger, older branch of abundance. Just now, I decided to follow this analogy a bit further, and I asked myself, well where does our harnessing of fusion energy fit into the fractal pattern. On the one hand, it seems to represent a bucking of the fractal pattern if it opens a door to greater energy abundance than oil. But, as I thought about it, (and I understand what you mean by energy being non fungible also) our current plans for harnessing fusion are to make energy from it in ways that are categorically smaller than what happens when a whole new star is born in the universe at large. So, here again, when we zoom out we see the bigger picture in which our harnessing of artificial (non gravitational) fusion is just occupying a smaller future branch of the fractal pattern. Now, if we someday create a new star by coalescing that much matter, that would kind of seem--to me--to mean that we escaped the typical branching of the fractal pattern. But even then, I think stars are still forming in the universe today, naturally aren't they? We would just have achieved it artificially. Also in this analogy, the idea of a Dyson sphere is actually rather depressing if you ask me--because that is something that is traditionally used to describe the ultimate technological advancement, whereas from a zoomed out view, all that has been achieved is the total darkening of a star that once lit up the whole universe around it. Ultimately of course, I don't like my own entire idea that time is just the process by which the universe crystalizes into the fractal pattern that it was always going to become, because that leaves little room for human creativity in the way we like to think of it, in terms of spiritual free will, for example (yes I saw your interview of Dr. Sapolsky). But perhaps the hope is, that humans represent an emergent phenomenon, that somehow escapes the rules of the fractal pattern into which we were born. Would it be funny to then say, time will tell? (Final note: I realize that in some sense, going from oil to small fusion reactors is bucking the pattern because of energy density, and I suppose we could end up with as many fusion reactors as we have oil drilling rigs. But the fungibility thing still changes the game. Even with fusion, liquid and solid chemical fuels will still be a thing in the future. I'm aware, for example that the navy currently uses nuclear fission energy to create biofuel from raw sea water mass--if I'm not mistaken. Hence, as Nate says, the more energy we have, the more we will use, and the further down the limiting fractal pattern we go, and the loss of species diversity and climate health etc.)
About 30 years ago as editor of a rather brainy magazine/journal, tech-oriented, I decided to write an article on data centers (technology, value proposition including overall costs, talentt, etc., but stumbled upon power consumption and heat dissipation). It turned out, power and heat were staggering issues that were invisible to most general people. Vast arrays of rack mounted computers actually sometime melted down. Cooling costs were immense. Power consumption, insane. People don't realize what AI today means in that regard. It's orders of magnitude more, and it's going to get worse. But I guarantee militaries will pay that price, as will financial centers and some large corporates. These are not the toys you play with on your iPhone or laptop. They will consume staggering amounts of energy, more than cities, or small nations, then larger ones. It's naive to think anyone will stop it. Sure, the ultimate is to have a global elevation of consciousness, as Nate says, but what is the probability? I think it's very low indeed. Of course, we should do our best.
well said....
@@thegreatsimplification I worried all night that I failed to take my argument to it's logical conclusion. Back in 1960, Freeman Dyson, a respected physicist, speculated that a highly advanced civilization would become so power hungry that it would build a sphere around a sun to more efficiently harvest it's energy, and that by detecting stars whose output does not confirm to its type, we might detect indications of highly advanced life in the galaxy. Only small amounts of a star's energy will otherwise fall on a planet. Today they're known as Dyson Spheres. It's highly speculative. Some early returns from JWST suggest anomalies which are the hyped by podcasters. But that's not the point. I think you, Nate, are posing a much more fundamental question. Will we, should we, in our blind pursuit of, say, Artificial Super Intelligence, the next step beyond AGI, harness our or other suns? There's already reports of the AI corporates looking to build modular nuclear reactors simply to power their AGI solutions. The energy requirements will only grow. But at some point, if you want to remain human you confront age-old moral dilemmas. What is the purpose or value of life? Is it to construct a sun-eating, galaxy consuming, self-replicating machine, a Frankenstein as it were, that may one day know and do all, even if we can't comprehend it? These are deep, philosophical questions. I think this is where your search leads us. I don't know the answer. But there's something to be said for your suggestion that human community matters.
And probabilities are all that matter. Desire by military or financial centers is irrelevant. AI is subject to the same energy / resource limitations as all else in the superorganism. Reference the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989.
We're not going back to spear hunting overnight, but we're also not going to each have a single-family house with two cars in the garage.
won't need two cars if 1) workforce changes 2) robotaxis become efficient and cheap enough
@@NationalParksX It's not a question of "need" but of expectations.
Yes - while it is true that change is inevitable, when it comes to addressing planetary boundaries and ecological overshoot, there is a reluctance/ resistance/ reactance to change how we live, despite the clear need for it.
The disconnect between the awareness of planetary limits and the unwillingness to change is where tension lies. We may observe the environmental damage and acknowledge the scientific warnings, but many struggle to make the kind of personal or collective changes needed. Awareness of change is not enough to propel us into action-perhaps because it requires a rethinking of fundamental assumptions about growth, prosperity, and the value of material wealth. Who is steering our cultural narrative?
Change is not just something that happens to us; it’s something we need to connect (mind , heart and spirit) with if we are to live within the planet’s boundaries.
It does appear that we are going to fail to live within planetary boundaries. Or at least there is not a single positive indication I can see. So change likely will happen to us to connect us to reality. Fucking messy, unsanitary, and perhaps small miracles can lead to the expansion of minds, hearts and spirits. A critical mass? Maybe that is where hope lies. I can only lead by example but it doesn't seem like a movement.
Greetings! I appreciate the giant speed bump image. Especially poignant because, along with war, in our society we often use cars and roads as metaphors. Imagine that, on the other side of the speed bump, we have the problem of transport in a world built for cars that no one can afford.
Greetings! Solve the imagined problem of local roads built for unaffordable cars by people getting around for over half of all trips by bikes, boards, skates and walking. They need both the exercise and camaraderie. Plus we all need a break from resource depletion, noisy local air-and-water polluting traffic, and GHG emissions from the ~28% "biggest emitter" transportation sector. Local traffic -- the biggest emitter -- is even worse than official stats suggest with an estimated 50% of upstream/downstream private vehicle emissions not even counted in US transportation tallies. This uncounted half of local traffic GHG emissions is hidden in the sector labeled "industrial processes," including what the private vehicle indirectly "emits" before it hits the road, years of maintenance and after it dies, a sequence including all that goes into mining for metals and for fossil fuels; manufacturing plastics, paints, tires; building and running factories that manufacture the mechanical and other parts and supplies for the factories that manufacture the parts; shipping to point of sale, often across oceans, to paved lots with nearby temp conditioned showrooms; and disposing of these 2000 pound plus vehicles. Micromobility -- enabled by Toggle Times -- is on the other side of the speed bump.
You should get Geoff Lawton on your podcast. He has been teaching all over the world for decades. The work that he has done in Palestine is really quite amazing.
Seconded!
19:32 Hear, Hear!
"The silver backed gorilla is not going to lay in a hammock and eat grapes!"
"We are not headed for a Multi-Polar world it remains a Unipolar world for now."
"Climate is not to win this argument." ... classic Nate!
Another excellent summary. Your synthesizing is amazing. I really don't understand the AI element. Some good references would help?
Regarding politics, I came across an interesting book that claims Marx figured out a lot of this late in life. I haven't read it yet but reserved at library. Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto by Saitō, Kōhei - Maybe you've already read or discussed or interviewed; I'm overwhelmed by the info flow.
We need to start panicking now and avoid the rush. We're certainly not slowing emmissions or removing anything from our 560 COe ppm and growing. It's going exponential soon, and we'll still be as fractious as always and non-sacrificial to the end.
Greetings Nate!
On a note about energy, I've been listening to a bunch of podcasts, and between yours and Planet: Critical, I've come to understand that our planet has a capacity to hold so much output of energy based on the Laws of Thermodynamics. According to Scientist Louie Arnoux from France, we're putting out the equivalency of 28 million Hiroshima booms going off at once, over the past few hundred years since Industrialization.
In order to get back to be within the Laws of Thermodynamics, we would have to have energy systems that are not centralized, and built out in smaller, more efficient/sustainable and cost effective materials, which Louis mentions. He brought up using parabolic mirrors and microturbines, that can be made with more ecological materials.
So, I'm hoping we can figure this out at some point, but who knows. I'm open to whatever happens.
regional self-sustainability will become key. Regional defined as large metros and outer rings for food and energy production. We will need to simplify the food system greatly.
5:00 Capital is not a commodity! If it were, there'd be shops where you could go buy it!
🌅Thanks Nate & TGS. Team🎉
"Most of the Best needs in Life are FREE🤓☀️🗽
&
LOT of data...
Needed a Synopsis 🎯...mostly to share with ignorant of concept.🙏
Especially Like..."World does Not live in Free Market...
Western's World (mostly US) biggest export is Capital🗽
best synopsis so far (working on new one) is probably: ruclips.net/video/qYeZwUVx5MY/видео.htmlsi=vMBanul-fmfIjDLG or ruclips.net/video/bE7Bbnvf4ko/видео.htmlsi=_k6Z27ol7YLTrs-O (the fact that capital is the biggest commodity should be obvious once you think about it that way)
There is a significant probability that the phase shift achieved in synthetic intelligence will create a time of superabundance where anything can be produced at approaching maximum efficiency.
The probabilistic paradigm is a wise choice. However, the idea of working on single issues is not based on saving the world. It is based on surviving collapse through BOTH generalization and specialization. For example, expertise in growing food sustainably provides a broad foundation that allows other areas of expertise to be developed. But it also provides products that can be traded. Further, it provides expertise that can be taught and traded for home repair, car repair, bookkeeping services, social capital, currency, and other necessary goods and services in a more localized economy. As I mentioned to you last time, it is likely Homo erectus was using trade in the first movement out of Africa. Indeed, it is likely trade predates the invention of fire. One does not have to have a synthetic systems overview to see trade and food procurement as intrinsic to the human condition.
Hi Nate, thank you for another insightful Frankly. Can you get John D Lui on the podcast to talk about the Ecosystem Restoration Movement?
Time to have Simon on again to talk about purple transition
So what year or decade will the great simplification happen?
Ya, so it depends how one defines the GS. But we could say it is when the acceleration of energy/resources through the system stalls and then reverses. In other words, when growth moves from exponential (like 3% GDP/year) to flat, and then negative.
Not a year thing, but we can look at energy availability limits plus growth inhibitors and make a guess about the decade:
2030-2040.
(Results may vary by location).
You should consider seeing if you can use your connections to create a social media platform called something like "climateface". A social media platform dedicated to bragadocio efforts of people fighting climate change. The algorithm of climateface should be designed to promote those doing the most actual good for the climate whether they are individuals institutions or corporations.
I don't have a Facebook. I would join climate face.
You need to check out this Nate and add it in. It is most likely the power of the future , along with solar, wind, tide etc. and pisses over oil. With our great brains and tech it may even be miniaturized in the future to run transport. To my mind energy isn’t the problem, we will always find a way to power things. We are the problem and our desire to have, control, overpower. We’ve done it, we’ve overpowered, yay for us, now we need to grow tf up and learn how to live with us. This growing up stage is the next bit of our evolution imo and there will be confusion, anger and tears as we face up to who we are, just like teenage years. But we can do it. Be cool if we did it together.
Important question: what is this economic superorganism, and how does it fit in the pictures offered by Kate Raworth's Donut Economy?
As someone who has been following your channel for a while now. I was curious have you ever seen the film three days of the Condor you may find it interesting
I just heard the song Seed by Aurora (Royal Albert Hall performance) and I thought of you.
Highly recommend you check it out if you haven't heard it - lyrics are also very nice.
Been here 3yrs
Imagine what happens when the US fossil fuel destruction machine runs out of gas [pun intended] and inelastic fuel demand collides with a much more limited energy structure. Boom! Very few are doing the math, Nate. Warring factions always win.
No-one wants to believe the old America has gone - but it clearly has. Renaissance is not impossible - we have an example from medieval Italy, and many other Nations at some point in their history. But it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of time. it also can only occur after Death and then Decay. This is how the life cycle works in Nature, and we are part of Nature.
Although I am a full-blown pessimist (or realist), I have time for Shirley Temple and especially for uplifting music (which can be tinged with sadness, and the greatest stuff often is). Wiki has an excellent article about Jack Selig Yellen who wrote "Come and Get Your Happiness" and much else - his wonderful life stands for another America, before "The Day the Music Died".
Don McLean thought the 1959 plane crash in which Buddy Holly and others died was the end, or the beginning of the end.
Wiki says "The theme of the song goes beyond mourning McLean's childhood music heroes, reflecting the deep cultural changes and profound disillusion and loss of innocence of his generation - the early rock and roll generation - that took place between the 1959 plane crash and either late 1969 or late 1970. The meaning of the other lyrics, which cryptically allude to many of the jarring events and social changes experienced during that period, has been debated for decades."
Shirley Temple died in 2014, but she "died" from films in 1950 - not far off 1959. Her last film seems to have been "That Hagen Girl" [1947] - a neat coincidence. It sounds rather good, from the description in wiki.
Ah, "Pre-simplifying"! I wish that I could do all of it right now. Find and buy that plot in Georgia or WV, or Kentucky; buy me two trained oxen, set up a gristmill near a clean river, build me a future home with geothermal powered by wind and water. Raise rabbits, start beekeeping perhaps, but grow everything and anything from beans to to hay, to flax, to grapes and rewild the forest. Hard work, yes. It will be rough.
Make friends, build community, create a council of like-minded "simplfiers", barter and trade, rather than using money.
I'd like that *now*, but it's not attainable for me yet. Soon, though. It had better be soon.
In the meantime, learning to use less water, less electricity, and fewer commodities is what I do. It's the least we can do.
No country for old men.
Nate is Simon Michaux coming back on to discuss his purple transition? He has done a lot of work recently. A show with him followed by a round table with him and Daniel Schmachtenberger would be great.
he ignores the Aerosol Masking Effect and the ESAS methane abrupt eruption. Algae is the future of life on earth since Algae can sequester 100 gigatons of CO2 per year. Nate had Sir David King on promoting algae. So Sir David King should be back on.
Next time anyone walks through their local Target or Walmart look around and try to estimate just how much of what meets the eye will be in the waste stream within the next 5 years.
Maybe I've missed it, but have you ever thought to invite Jeffrey Sachs on this podcast to discuss of a multipolar world ? An other one to consider is Emmanuel Todd who published this year "La défaite de l'Occident" ("The defeat of the West", my translation of the title) where he exposes two intrinsic factors explaining the fall of West : family composition and cultural ethic.
ruclips.net/video/e3LMQBL_pok/видео.htmlsi=4qsS7CiDpS16i_S4
Wow, Sachs already invited and I commented its conversation with you. Do my memory is beginning to fail... My gosh 73 years old and already losing it!
@@PACotnoir1 Join the club. I'm 74......going, going, gone.
The population size factors on evolution of a species according to Darwin. Too large of human herd to evolve? The New Madrid fault will be devastating to humans on our continent. How fragile are the institutions in this scenario?
There's a 'tipping point' no one recognizes. It happened some 60 + years ago, when the population blew past 3 billion, relentlessly, and without remorse. We're paying the piper for not caring about it, then, and even now. It's a subject that is as taboo, as it gets.
11:45 I suspect technology has made traditional kinetic warfare ineffective. Precise destruction is so cheap that any kinetic combat eventually escalates to mutually assured destruction. No?
Given your view on podcasts - I’d say yours will become an intrinsic echo chamber for change makers. Maybe speak to Yannis Varoufakis
ive tried - he doesn't reply (and probably doesn't know who i am)
he's inherently political though. Corporations are legal persons destroying the planet. Not sure how you can solve the ecological crisis without being political. Clearcuts are political. Cargill is political and is the largest private corporation in the world yet controls the biology department at University of Minnesota where over 350 corporations get 100% tax deductible "research" done.
@@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885 "Not sure how you can solve the ecological crisis without being political." You can't! (but that isn't my role with this public facing work which is education, synthesis and community building)
@@thegreatsimplification Hi Nate - I'm just on the St. Croix river myself. Education? I did my master's degree at U of MN back in 2000 when Lawrence Solely got fired for his "Leasing of the Ivory Tower" book published when he was an educator at U of MN. I documented 350 corporations doing 100% tax deductible "research" at that public institution - getting their access to the tax-funded scientists, facilities, research results. This is in the MN Daily documented - see below. For example I went into a lab to interview scientists that had posters up for testing latino genetics causing asthma. These scientists bragged to me about how they were going to get patented for their blood samples they took from people being tested - people's blood patented without their knowledge. I documented this all in a report that I passed out at the President's annual "State of the University" talk while I held a big sign against Monsanto controlling the biology research at U of Minnesota. Professor Phil Regal, former chair of the biology department, told me how MOnsanto-Cargill took over the biology department. Then he left to return back to Canada. Meanwhile I had published a detailed op-ed about how Cargill operates by relying on huge tax subsidies to prop up a private family of billionaires while Cargill destroys the biodiversity of the equatorial ecology.
Wow - no need to be political to education people. hahaha. Education is controlled by the aristocrat corporate "legal persons" as former M.I.T. History professor detailed - David F. Noble's book "America By Design" and his follow-up "The Religion of Technology" and his final book "Beyond the Promised Land" - you just need to get educated Nate. I spent ten years after my master's degree reading one scholarly book a day while I worked part-time at Clean Water Action and I rode an old 3 speed British internal hub gear bicycle while I dumpster dived Minneapolis. Then I left in 2009 after a cop arrested me at Morrill Hall for me taking a nap during spring break in the stall that had been frequented by the native American Indian homeless that I hung out with. Oops I forgot they did that and so the cop wanted me to "prove" I wasn't homeless by calling my boss and my landlady - and I refused to go along. So I was illegally banned from the University campus for a year since later ruling on trespassing citation in Minnesota ruled it can only apply to the specific building and not all the buildings of the same owner. My dad, ironically, wrote the procedural training manual for the Minnesota Attorney General office - I got it out of the MN Historical Society Attorney General archives recently - it's in their stacks.
Have fun "educating" - sounds like you're dependent on corporate donations or something. too bad. But then again self-censorship is the most common form of censorship as Noam Chomsky points out.
Genetic engineering protest disrupts address
by Josh Linehan
Published October 6, 1999
As University President Mark Yudof highlighted a year of progress in his State of the University address last Thursday, an outspoken student took a view contrary to the president’s and publicly voiced his discontent.
During the question and answer portion of the address, graduate student Drew Hempel questioned Yudof directly about the University’s involvement in genetic engineering.
Hempel said the University is out of line in continuing research into genetic engineering of crops without full knowledge of the problems and benefits it might bring. Hempel also distributed about 40 copies of the “Dis-orientation Report,” a self-published paper alleging University abuse of power and funding.
“I disagree with your premise, and I disagree with your conclusion,” Yudof said then. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Gary Muehlbauer, a wheat and barley molecular biologist who works as a genetic engineer for the University, said the University is an acknowledged leader in the field.
While he thinks care must be exercised in the area of genetic engineering, he does not support postponing research in the field.
“I think in certain cases genetic engineering can be very useful. We do have to take some time and decide where it will help and where it will hurt,” Muehlbauer said.
The British Medical Association recently called for a moratorium on genetically engineered crops, which Hempel highlighted by carrying a sign advertising the decision.
“Over 237 countries have called for a ban on genetic engineering, but, for some reason, the University has taken it upon itself to be a leader in the field,” Hempel said.
Research persists at the University - as opposed to most European countries, where the practice has been halted - because of large private donations by corporations, Hempel said.
In September, the University received a $10 million gift from Cargill for a microbial and plant genomics facility.
“Basically, public universities have become extensions of large corporations. They donate $50 million biotech centers so they can get free research and then wait for the patents. They can’t stop without giving the money back,” Hempel said. “The University is a public, nonprofit organization. It should be democratic and operate toward the public good. This hasn’t happened in this case.”
Like you Nate, I see things in terms of probabilities, and it seems very probable to me that such extends to ontological probabilities underlying the equations of QM; yet evolution seems to have (understandably) installed so many biases within us for simple certainty, that we have recursive sets of confirmation bias to our sets of simple binary truths, and very few seem able to conceive of ontologically probabilistic systems.
Agree with most of your preamble, except some aspects of the political. I don't do political in the standards sense, and as you said, everything is political in another sense.
Agree that energy is one of the fundamentals of life, the ability to make things happen in reality.
If one uses the definition of life I find most powerful; that of systems capable of searching the space of the possible for the survivable, then both the act of searching and the instantiation of systems requires energy. And for classical biological life search is done through instantiating new systems that embody variations; and the environment determines what actually survives. We human beings, with our brains capable of modeling new technologies, new ways of being, new ways of creating and changing our environment, are capable of searching "spaces" far faster than other life forms reliant on genetic search are capable of responding.
Unfortunately, our multiple levels of understandable bias within our neural networks for simple certainty mean that we tend to over simplify the complexities actually present, and be over confident about our understandings. The recursive levels of confirmation bias present in such dynamics is my prime candidate for "The Great Filter", the reason we do not see a universe teaming with evident signs of technologically advanced life when we point our advanced instruments away from this planet.
I agree with you that it is not energy as such that is the issue, but rather the "system of claims and expectations and institutions" that we are embedded within; and the overly simplistic assumptions that are at its core (understandably, given our evolutionary history). Those cultural and economic systems are deeply complex, and contain multiple levels of over simplifications, and if there is one idea above all others that is at root of all issues, it is the idea that evolution is powered by competition, and that competitive systems can solve all problems. That notion is actually not simply false, but almost the exact inverse of reality.
In reality, it is cooperation that makes complexity possible.
In reality, it is our sense of responsibility that makes cooperation sustainable; our ability and willingness to identify and mitigate cheating on the cooperative that is modern society.
And there is nothing simple in this.
We are both individuals and members of groups, and both aspects of human nature are critical to our survival, and both have sets of limits that must be usefully approximated and respected if we are to survive. And in modern society we are dealing with very complex systems, deep stacks of them, some 20 levels deep, with every level containing something over a thousand (up to billions), of interacting complex adaptive systems - with probabilistic influence between all systems, both between systems within levels, and between levels of systems. The combinatorial numbers are way beyond the ability of most people to usefully imagine. Most, understandably, revert to simple certainty at some level.
Anarchist, who focus only on the need for individual freedom, and ignore the social aspects of responsibility put us all at risk. They ignore the fact that language, culture, technology, etc are all complex social constructs.
Communists and socialists, who focus only on the group needs, and ignore the needs of individuals for freedom and security, are equally dangerous in their over simplifications.
Our reality is demonstrably more complex than any of us (any computational entity, human or AI), can possibly deal with in detail, in anything remotely approximating real time, that we must all make simplifications. We have no other option. And in making them, it is powerful to acknowledge them as such, not confuse them for being any sort of "Truth", and thus be alert for any level of failure of our simplifying assumptions in any particular context.
That is hard.
It is much easier, much more comfortable within levels of internal systems, to be righteously angry at others for their evident errors, and absolve ourselves of responsibility and complicity.
Making mistakes is an inevitable part of searching beyond the known. No possible way of avoiding that in any form of logic I have investigated. Making the same mistake too frequently is to be avoided. Cleaning up after mistakes is required. Part of the responsibility required for those who choose to search beyond the known is to be as aware as reasonably possible of the known classes of danger and error. And when we have multiple classes of existential level risk that have no known solutions within the space of the known, then we have to search beyond the known, into the unknown, and unknown unknown.
So yes, we have energy issues, scale issues, density issues, storage issues; but most critically, we have an economic system based in competition the fails to acknowledge the fundamental role of cooperation in the emergence and survival of complexity, and is actually destroying the diversity that makes life resilient to the sorts of changes in context that we are (more or less unknowingly) creating.
The idea that "Free Markets and technology are false gods" is a gross and dangerous over simplification.
Agree we don't have free markets, they are mostly monopolised and captured, because their is profit in doing so; but deeply worse than that, are issues with the very idea of basing a generalised token of value on one particular subclass of value - value in exchange; and then heavily biasing that system so that some players have vastly more tokens than othes, and most have essentially no influence on how the system works.
The huge issue with value in exchange is that it is based in scarcity. Important things that are abundant have no value, by definition, under such a measure - think air - arguably the most important thing to any of us, yet of zero market value.
When most things were genuinely scarce, this was not an issue. Now that we have the potential, though the direct capture of sunlight for energy (distributed abundance) and through advanced automation and AI (abundance of most goods and services), the value of such things drops to zero by definition, which breaks the system. Markets only work under conditions of scarcity. There is no theoretical mechanism for any set of market systems to deliver universal abundance. The system is no longer the useful approximation to optimality that it arguably once was.
We need fundamental systemic change.
We need to make whatever we evolve it to both distributed and resilient and capable of supporting diversity (all levels, all domains). We do not want systems that are prone to any form of single point of failure, be it capture by non-aligned agents or anything else.
Capital is not a commodity.
Capital is a myth.
Capital is "just" numbers backed by belief, by some level of trust.
For the most part, capital and finance are cheating strategies on the both the biological ecosystems on which all life depends, and on the social/cultural systems of which we are part. The idea of a generalised token of value has some real power to it, but that power has to be responsible within the limits required for the existence of biophysical and cultural systems. This is deeply more complex than most people seem either willing or able to consider, and also fundamental to our existence.
Those of us here mostly know we have crossed 6 of 9 measurable planetary boundaries, and are as yet showing little sign of making serious effort to reverse that overshoot in a sustainable fashion.
We must have fundamental systemic change, for survival.
On that we agree.
I do not see any way in which that change can usefully be described as a simplification.
We cannot have growth for growths sake.
We cannot have marketing and junk production just for the purpose of sustaining an economic system that cannot be survived.
And we do need to continue to explore levels of complexity and cooperation not yet instantiated, if we are to find solutions to known existential level risks (without being explicit about what those risks are, there are many classes of them, five of which a reasonably well discussed publicly, many more of which are not - for good reasons).
Life is deeply more complex than most are willing to admit.
Admitting that complex life is founded on cooperation immediately delivers multiple levels of responsibility that most levels and classes of agents would rather ignore; as it gets in the way of what they consider their rights and freedoms.
We need rights and freedoms, and if they are to be survivable, then both must be accompanied by appropriate levels of responsibilities. That is the part fundamentally missing from the American experiment. It is not possible to have a right, without a balancing responsibility, and expect any level of complexity to survive. That is an over simplification of what complexity actually is. No shadow of reasonable doubt remaining about that assertion.
Agree that infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible.
We have vast potential for growth off planet, in O'Neill class habitats, forming something that eventually (in several thousand years) usefully approximates a Dyson Sphere. But we need to start that process on the Moon (not Mars), and there is no point in doing any of that unless we actualy have our systems down here being survivable. Non-survivable systems retain that property, whether Earth bound or otherwise. Escaping Earth and avoiding responsibility for the chaos created here is not a survivable strategy. We need to get systems off this planet, as a necessary aspect of long term risk reduction, but we also have to make our systems down here survivable first and foremost. And that demands accepting complexity and diversity that most will find uncomfortable.
Agree, we are a long way from sustainable.
Simplification is not survivable.
While I align with most of what you say, simple is not survivable - I can demonstrate that beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt in any form of logic you want to explore.
The description of the decision making hierarchy is reasonably accurate, and is a reasonable approximation to the inverse of what is actually required.
Agree that Elon has done more to address climate than any other single individual alive.
Realpolitik is a gross and non-survivable over simplification.
Most people understand responsibility at some level.
At the systems level, AI can be a powerful tool, in education, by framing the conversation of the need for freedom, security, responsibility and cooperation into a context that is available to each individual. If these things are present, in useful approximation, at every level, then the system as a whole can become survivable, and there can be reasonably available paths to security and reasonable abundance for all. But not abundance of junk and waste for the sake of economic activity alone. It has to be something deeply more complex and long term than that; and it must have meaningful levels of freedom for all agents in the system (all levels, all domains, biological and non-biological, human and non-human). The idea of human control is a grossly over simplified and non-survivable myth.
We have influence - not control.
We cooperate, in diversity (real uncomfortable diversity) or we perish.
In one sense, it really is that simple, yet it is also more complex than most seem willing or able to consider.
It has been clear to many agents for decades that the existing economic system is a tontine.
It is not survivable as such.
Surviving within the existing economic system is not an option.
This is not a unipolar world. That is a gross and unsurvivable over simplification.
The law of aggregate probability only holds if the probabilities being summed are actually applicable to the context. If there are fundamental errors in the numbers produced, then summing them does not remove those errors.
Yes, we have the 5 horsemen, and more; and there are paths.
We must have a world of less throughput, that does not mean less available meaningful options, or less freedom, or less security.
We can build technology to last, rather than technology designed to fail because economic prosperity in the current system demands rapid turnover. We can now build things that work very reliably. We tend not to because of the economic system. We can, we must, change that system, on that we agree.
We also agree, that it will not change until the collapse is so imminent, that even the most willfully blind can see it coming. There is a certain amount of unavoidable risk in such a reality, and it does actually seem to be the least risk path available. We need as many as possible prepared to act when required.
Agree to a degree about the social limits to growth.
Europe cannot de-industrialise.
We need to be having conversations through as many diverse trust networks as we can to create the sort of trust we need to act to survive. Feelings are important, and they are much more complex than most currently understand.
Yes - we have arrived at a species level conversation.
Yes we are part of the natural world, and we need to build that into our trust networks, and our communication strategies. We must be both humble (open to the all too real possibility of error) and confident (ready and able to act on our best approximations when it seems most appropriate to do so); in the full knowledge that many with far less knowledge will be far more confident (and we can be very confident that their confidence is misplaced - and that is the reality we face).
As stated already above, it seems beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt to me that:
In reality, it is cooperation (trust) that makes complexity possible.
In reality, it is our sense of responsibility that makes cooperation sustainable; our ability and willingness to identify and mitigate cheating on the cooperative that is modern society.
Freedom, security, responsibility and cooperation are demanded of each of us, and of the systems we choose to support and create; each to the best of our limited and fallible abilities (human and AI alike).
This is not in any sense simple, and it does, in my 60+ years of contemplation of life and systems and existential level risk and mitigation strategies, seem to be what is available to us - if we wish to survive, if we want to be in the class of life (rather than the class of anti-life - as defined above).
@@tedhoward2606 thats your definition of simplification vs mine - beyond that we mostly agree. I use simplification not in the ecological sense but in the tainter-esque sense. as energy surplus wanes our ECONOMIC system will have to simplify - by definition. that doesnt mean our lives and relationships to broader nature will simplify. It's semantics methinks. Please don't focus on the WORD simplification (its a much better word than collapse - which is binary). I guarantee you in 10 years time, our financial and economic lives will be simpler than today - and probably harder and more rewarding. Again, please look beyond the one word description of a really deep treatment of human predicament
@@thegreatsimplification
Hi Nate,
I completed undergrad biochemistry 50 years ago. I've been thinking about xRisk since living through the Cuban Missile Crisis 62 years ago.
The more closely I look at biology, the more complex it actually seems to be.
The process of evolution is far more complex than most people have considered.
The economic system is no longer fit for purpose.
It is in need of urgent and deep reform, we cannot survive it in its current form. I think we agree on that.
But as I see it, most of the issues we have come from attempts to over simplify that which is actually deeply more complex than most want to consider; things like human nature, and the nature of responsibility.
If we want a long term future, we need to get a lot of very high tech off this planet. The amount of solar energy flux in near Earth orbits dwarfs fossil fuels by order of magnitude.
The future has to be different.
The financial system has to fundamentally change.
But I really don't see any way that it can actually be simpler.
It actually needs to be much more complex to actually deliver the reasonable needs of everyone, as there is huge diversity actually present.
Agree - business as usual is not a survivable option, but I have a great deal of difficulty characterising what needs to follow as "simplification" - and I have owned and run a software business for the last 38 years, so have had to deal with a bit of complexity from time to time.
I love your shows, and don't miss any. I align with a great deal of your thinking.
@@thegreatsimplification
In the personal sense, I agree with you, that many need to simplify, to choose things that they find meaningful and satisfying, but with as little impact on planetary ecosystems as is reasonably possible, and with far greater consciousness of those impacts than is generally being displayed today. Economic reform is required in that sense.
I don't know that I agree with Tainter as a general theorem, and his thesis can be part of something more complex.
It seems to me more likely that what is the major component of collapse in most cases, is the failure of simplifications that become highly tuned to some local (over some metrics of time and space) set of contexts, that fail when some aspects of that context set change in some way that pushes that system beyond that locally approached optima, and its responses fail to adapt.
This is part of why my major thesis is that we need to encourage both responsibility and freedom. We need to encourage people to be responsible, to acknowledge both their individual and group natures, to see our legal and ethical systems as some approximation to an optimal response to the many levels of issues in maintaining the complexity that is modern society, and not to over simplify it; and to be prepared to go beyond the bounds of those systems if their local contexts and sense of responsibility demands more from them that the constraints of those restrictions allow. This notion of being called by something deeper, rather than responding to rather low level desires, seems to me to be the approach with the greatest probability of long term survival.
It demands that we each engage in multiple distribute trust networks, so that key ideas that work are able to propagate rapidly through those networks when they are required. This embodies the idea of distributing both random search and responsibility as broadly and deeply as possible, to maximise the probability of finding locally optimal solutions to the extremely complex and in some senses unpredictable problems that we can reasonably know the general classes of which are approaching us.
Encouraging a willingness to experiment, to go beyond social norms, is not something generally approved of; and there are good reasons for that when things are relatively stable, and I think all of us here can agree that we are not in such stable times now.
My thesis is, in this sense, almost the inverse of Tainter's, that our major problems generally occur not because or systems get too complex, but because the contexts change, and wither our overly simplistic distinction sets fail to notice and adapt, or our systems are too rigid and are unable to adapt, and systems generally fail because of that.
Under such conditions, random search is actually the most efficient search possible, especially when searching beyond the known, into the unknown unknown, for solutions to problems that do not have solutions present in known space.
Distributed, high trust, high bandwidth, communication channels are essential to group survival under such conditions. Under such conditions, prior formal channels of trust fail by definition.
Understanding, from the depths of evolutionary theory, that it is cooperation (deep cooperation, in diversity, with appropriate levels of trust verification systems) that allows complexity to survive, and that contrary to popular dogma, competition tends to destroy both freedom and diversity, and drive systems to local optima highly optimised for local condition; is actually critical for the survival of the sort of complexity that we now are.
Yes, I have planted edible trees (apples, walnuts, olives, persimmon, almond, apricot, fig, feijoa) on our section.
Yes I have solar cells on our roof, an electric bike, electric tools.
I haven't been in an aircraft (other than a local helicopter, to do research on a local species of seabird that breeds in alpine conditions, that I do not have the skillset to get to any other way) for about 8 years. I have let my pilot's license lapse.
I am choosing a low energy lifestyle where that is reasonably possible, spending more time in international networks such as this, building linkages, digitally rather than physically.
So to the degree reasonably possible, I am simplifying where that seems reasonable, and I am also exploring greater systemic complexity for stable solutions to sets of problems that I expect to become critical to survival in the not too distant future.
So I agree with you that we need simplification where appropriate, but I am warning strongly against taking that notion too far, as I see no survivable paths in oversimplifying that which actually demands irreducible complexity for survival. And I get that there are deep issues in communicating such notions.
And sitting here, in a small country village, on the far side of the planet from you, I have been getting message back through networks that seem to me to be over simplifying your message, and taking it in directions that do not seem survivable; hence my pushback, at the margins.
And once again, I honour and respect you, and align with a great deal of the message you are transmitting - we are far more alike than we are different; and we are different, and it seems to me that some of those difference are important.
@@tedhoward2606 thanks Ted - this isn't about me - or even my views and hopes and ideas - its about describing WHAT IS. The Superorganism - globally - is not pulling out the best aspects of humanity - it doesnt mean how humans ARE, it describes how we are acting in aggregate. I don't have a well crafted message (yet). Im just trying to connect the dots in ways that people who are not familiar w energy, ecology or systems can get a glimpse into what we truly face. (I dont know what you mean about ppl in your network oversimplifying my message- how do they even know about 'my' message ?) Take good care~ 🙏🌏❤
I'm not convinced that it is reasonable to be "apolitical" out of principle. That is the choice to allow the destroyers of the world and of justice to continue unimpeded.
ahhhhh Nate!
Have a lovely weekend and stay warm.
Energy ... Zero point energy is the next system to depend on, if we can get over the Greed of the Superorganism.
Dear Nate, being european I would like to challenge a part of your predictions. Like it or not, western european people will turn to fascism, break NATO alliance and make peace with Russia before choosing degrowth or deindustrialization. The elite in the EU have different plans of course but you can't suppress the will of the people while destroying the economy. We have an history of violence and civil war sadly and peace was only made possible by economic development. Beside, the multipolar world is already there. China is already a contender in economic terms. As far as prediction goes, I think that the US is the one who have to make most of the "diet" and who is already suffering more because of the great simplification: in the EU, insurance's CEOs are not shot in the street... people get cured if they need help.
I hear you. But I also hear things about military and AI and am not so sanguine. (And Europes debt overhang will precipitate a Simplification even if they partner w Russia). This is not end times, just ending current expectations and lifestyles. I could be wrong
@@thegreatsimplification Personally, thanks to your work and the many books I've read in the last years, I already revised most of my expectations for a different future without that much consuption of everything. Beside I knew what awaited us since I've read Limits to Growth in 2001 :). The whole "west" will have to make sacrifices and I get that the Pentagon could have different ideas and won't go down peacefully, but in order to bend and not break we will have finally to leave colonialism behind and accept a future where all humanity has the same dignity. Otherwise we will break. Badly. Thanks for your work and sorry if I "challenged" you: you remain one of the few voice of reason.
Fascism arises from exactly that: the promise to alleviate economic suffering. The public -- of any region -- will not choose simplification. Part of simplification is the breakdown in the social contract between democratic governments and the people, followed by some form of autocracy, followed by disintegration of the center, followed by some form of reorganization at more local levels.
Historically, this has played out slowly due to overreach. In the near future, it is likely to play out very rapidly due to global overshoot.
@@FedericoV75 constructive challenging is how I learn and clarify
Whereas here the graphics help the mind visualize without taking from the one on one conversion.
Carrington capacity is a bit subjective ... it's based on many debatable metrics , also based on current systems
I must disagree, Nate. I believe it is possible that we have always been in service of technology. I recommend reading: “What Technology Wants” by Kevin Kelly.
Building a gold plated 1000 feet cheese statue of Trump seems more likely than world peace imo