The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens Nate Hagens

On this episode, Nate is joined by philosopher and educator Zak Stein to discuss the current state of education and development for children during a time of converging crises and societal transformation. As the pace of life continues to accelerate - including world-shaking technological developments - our schools struggle to keep pace with changes in cultural expectations. What qualities are we encouraging in a system centered on competition and with no emphasis on creating agency or community participation? How is unfettered technology and artificial intelligence influencing youth - and what should parents, adults, and teachers be doing in response? What could the future of education look like if guided by true teacherly authority with the aim to create well-rounded, stable young humans with a sense of belonging and purpose in their communities? 
About Zak Stein: 
Dr. Zak Stein is a philosopher of education, as well as a Co-founder of the Center for World Philosophy and Religion. He is also the Co-founder of Civilization Research Institute, the Consilience Project, and Lectica, Inc. He is the author of dozens of published papers and two books, including Education in a Time Between Worlds. 
PDF Transcript
Show Notes
00:00 - Zak Stein works + Info, Civilization Research Institute, Education in a Time Between Worlds, Center for World Philosophy and Religion, First Principles and First Values 
03:24 - No Child Left Behind
03:56 - Joseph Tainter + TGS episode
03:53 - Iatrogenic 
05:30 - Daniel Schmachtenberger (TGS Episodes), Ken Wilbur, Marc Gafney
16:01 - Effects of screens and social media on teen mental health
16:54 - Marshall McLuhan
17:20 - The importance of adult boundary and limit setting for children
18:17 - How social media affects the brain
19:06 - The rise of ADHD in the 90s and effects on education - a timeline
19:58 - Hypercompetitive primary education systems
20:20 - High level of stress and cheating in primary education
22:28 - Scandinavian school systems
26:27 - Cold war effects on the education system
26:35 - Sputnik
27:25 - Tech elites don’t give their kids tech
28:35 - Elite overproduction, Peter Turchin
34:10 - Your Unique Self 
37:28 - Iain McGilchrist + TGS Episode
38:02 - Moral Relativism
43:27 - Foundations of advertising 
47:07 - Negatives of standardized testing
47:22 - Donald T. Cambell - Campbell’s law
48:57 - Nature vs Nurture Debate
49:20 - Cooperation and competition
52:10 - Effects of a competitive school environment
55:02 - The effects of an above-and-beyond teacher
55:42 - Legitimate teacherly authority
59:55 - Importance of the environment in the first 5 years of life
1:02:20 - John Dewey
1:10:31 - The best way to learn is to teach
1:11:40 - David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs
1:15:25 - How standardized testing increased high education access
1:16:08 - Civilian Conservation Corp, Lawrence A. Cremin
1:17:02 - New Deal
1:22:07 - Risks around artificial intelligence
1:24:58 - Rise of relationships with AI
1:28:41 - First Chatbot ELIZA
1:30:01 - Electricity use of AI
1:37:30 - The Future of Human Nature
1:41:19 - Peak Oil
1:42:29 - Mental Health Crisis
1:46:35 - Correlation of COVID with IQ loss
Watch this video episode on YouTube

On this episode, Nate is joined by maverick ecologist Pella Thiel to discuss the legal frameworks behind the Ecocide and Rights of Nature Movements. Our current economic and legal systems have no mechanisms to consider nature in our decision making - much less to make systemic planetary stability a priority. Could redefining the destruction of our biosphere to be considered a crime parallel with that of genocide alter the way we structure laws governing our societies and economies? How are countries legislating and enforcing these ideas - even going so far as to act against the flow of the superorganism? Most importantly, how could top-down legal ideas such as these interact with bottom-up individual action to create powerful shifts in cultural values and motivations? 
About Pella Thiel:
Pella Thiel is a maverick ecologist, part-time farmer, full-time activist and teacher in ecopsychology. She is the co-founder of Swedish hubs of international networks like Swedish Transition Network and End Ecocide Sweden and a knowledge expert in the UN Harmony with Nature programme. Pella was awarded the Swedish Martin Luther King Award in 2023 and the Environmental Hero of the year 2019.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JgRlgKHvKCE 
More info, and show notes: www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/121-pella-thiel 

Recorded April 22 2024
 
Description
 
For this Earth Day in 2024 Frankly, Nate walks through 7 thought experiments geared towards imagining scenarios and outcomes for ourselves, society, and the planet. While not rooted in reality, thinking through hypotheticals can be a valuable way to reflect on our ethics, ideals, and future decision points. From the perceived quick-fix of solar panels to magic solutions for infrastructure and governance, how might human cultural values impact outcomes for the biosphere? How do humans and the climate shape each other, and what does that mean for the less stable climate we’re headed towards? If they knew what we do today, could humans from hundreds of years ago have avoided the carbon pulse - and what opportunities do we have today, living in the future's past?
 
YouTube Link here 
 
For Show Notes and More: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/62-seven-thought-experiments-for-earth-day

On this episode, Nate is joined by inventor and investor Tom Chi to take a broad look at the principles guiding innovation and capital - and how we might shift these to be more biophysically aligned in the future. For the past few centuries, our global industrial system has been dominated by growth-based economics without awareness of its dependence on the biosphere - or the waste that it leaves behind. What would it mean for our technology to be ecologically centered, working in service of and in synergy with complex, biodiverse life on Earth? How can we work within our current financial and governance systems to create initiatives that benefit both ecosystems and economies? More broadly, what cultural shifts could we imagine that move beyond seeing ourselves as simply dependent on ecological systems - but rather as a part of the entangled whole? 
About Tom Chi
Tom Chi is the founding partner of At One Ventures, which backs early-stage (Seed, Series A) companies using disruptive deep tech to upend the unit economics of established industries while dramatically reducing their planetary footprint. Previously, Tom was a founding member of Google X where he led the teams that created self-driving cars, deep learning artificial intelligence, wearable augmented reality and internet connectivity expansion.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/AjGOGfzAvyc 
More info, and show notes: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/120-tom-chi 

Recorded April 17 2024
 
Description
In this week’s Frankly, Nate focuses on the importance of the Strait of Hormuz, a geographic location within a 700-mile radius of Israel called the “Black Gold Triangle” where more than half of the world’s remaining oil lies under the sand. In the midst of high-stakes geo-political events where the misery and threats from warring nations dominate discourse, we remain (mostly) energy blind to the choke points that lie at the center of these conflicts, which if disrupted could send our liquid-combustible-fuel dependent economies crashing. How could the threat of expanding regional wars - especially Iran’s potential response in the Strait of Hormuz - impact the world’s reliance on the flow of oil? Who are the people making world-altering decisions - and do they have the best interest of the future in mind? Can a heightened awareness of our global system’s dependency on fragile energy supply chains shift our focus away from escalating risks towards deconfliction and peace?   
 
YouTube Link here
 
For Show Notes and More: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/61-the-strait-of-hormuz-and-the-spice

On this episode, Nate is joined by Solar Oven collector and educator Luther Krueger to discuss the ins and outs of solar cooking. In the western world, most of us are used to indoor, gas or electric stoves, typically powered by fossil fuels, and in a third of the world, people are still using solid fuels - wood, coal, or dung - which come with many health and environmental risks. Solar ovens are an alternative which makes use of passive solar energy at a range of temperatures and can be made from basic or reused materials. What would it take on a cultural and economic level for more people to adopt these low-tech solutions? How can solar cooker designs vary to match the needs of the individual and community in varying environmental conditions? Could we take inspiration from this example of Goldilocks Technology for other areas of our lives in a slower, lower-energy throughput future?
About Luther Krueger
Since 2004 Luther Krueger has been collecting unique classic and contemporary solar cookers and promoting solar cooking as the means to halt deforestation, clean unsafe drinking water in remote areas of developing countries, and reducing any community's dependence on fossil fuel. Krueger's unincorporated, volunteer-run Big Blue Sun Museum of Solar Cooking aims to preserve the history of solar cooking while promoting the practice through the video series on the Museum's youtube channel and as contributing moderator to the Solar Cookers World Network on social media and by promoting solar cooking at regional events. Krueger is a Senior Community Faculty member at Metropolitan State University where he teaches the Capstone course for the Master of Public and Nonprofit Administration degree program. Krueger retired from the Minneapolis Police Department in 2023 after twenty-eight years as a civilian community liaison and crime analyst, where he developed and launched several community policing initiatives.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/AaLHkRRbbT4
More info, and show notes: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/119-luther-krueger