# 23 Nate Hagens - Adapting to lower throughput lifestyles

Description

Nate Hagens is the Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future (ISEOF), an organization focused on educating and preparing society for the coming cultural transition. Allied with leading ecologists, energy experts, politicians and systems thinkers the institute assembles road-maps and off-ramps for how human societies can adapt to lower throughput lifestyles.

Nate is also the host of The Great Simplification, a podcast that explores the systems science underpinning the human predicament. Conversation topics span human behavior, monetary and economic systems, energy, ecology, geopolitics and the environment.

In the upcoming conversation, Nate dives into viable pathways to inform more humans about the path ahead and inspire people to play a role in our collective future.

Episode recorded on November 30 2022

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Transcription

Speaker #0
Bonjour, je suis Thomas Gauthier, professeur à EM Lyon Business School. Vous écoutez Remarquable, le podcast qui va à la rencontre de celles et de ceux qui explorent les futurs et se remémorent l'histoire pour bâtir dès à présent un futur durable. Bonne écoute ! Nate Higgins is the director of the Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future, an organization focused on educating and preparing society for the coming cultural transition. Allied with leading ecologists, energy experts, politicians and systems thinkers, the Institute assembles roadmaps and off-ramps for how human societies can adapt to lower-throughput lifestyles. Nate is also the host of The Great Simplification, a podcast that explores the systems science underpinning the human predicament. Conversation topics span human behavior, monetary and economic systems, energy, ecology, geopolitics, and the environment. In the upcoming conversation, Nate dives into valuable pathways to inform more humans about the path ahead and inspire people to play a role in our collective future.
Speaker #1
Hi, Nate.
Speaker #2
Hello, Thomas. How are you?
Speaker #1
I'm doing great. So here you are, Nate, you're looking at the Oracle and you have three chances to ask her questions regarding the future. What is the first question you would like to ask her?
Speaker #2
How did you get to be an Oracle? No, that wouldn't be it. I would have a ton of questions. There's so many questions that I think about every day that some of them have answers. Some of them are more metaphorical, rhetorical reflections on the future. But the questions I would ask the Oracle would pertain to the core drivers and opportunities of the path ahead for humanity. The first would relate to our tribal natures and the fact that we are facing a mismatch between our ancestral environment of living in bands of 100 to 200 people on the savannah of Africa and 8 billion of us coexisting on a finite planet at a time of inflection where economic growth and energy availability the way that we've had it the last century are going to recede. So my first question would be, how can we as tribal social organisms expand a collective arrangement as opposed to breaking down in a zero-sum game, us versus them? You know, if there was an alien... race that had an armada of spaceships that attacked the earth, you know that humanity would band together and sacrifice and have curfews and do everything we can to protect our planet against those alien invaders. But barring that, how can humanity kind of act together as a larger entity to face what we face? That would be my first question.
Speaker #1
Well, then to Continue on with this first question to the Oracle. Could you please remind us perhaps what your research has found regarding human behavior? You're referring to our ancestors, you're referring to the fact that we have historically organized ourselves as tribes. How much of our inherited behavior is now either offering us opportunities, Or causing us to perhaps engage in reactions and actions that are counterproductive, given the circumstances wherein you reminded us of the finite size of the planet, how much of our human behavior is dictated by our gene inheritance in a way?
Speaker #2
Well, all of it is. Now, there... are ways that culture and, um, New developments can change it, but even those are a product of our genes. Simply put, our brains are as much a product of our evolution as our eyes or our arms or our non-hairy biped nature, all those things. We're trying to match the similar emotional states of our ancestors that lived in a wildly different environment. So, we don't so much face an environmental problem or a resource problem as a mismatch of hunter-gatherer minds in a novel, complex, materially rich world. So almost all of our conventional challenges in our world have to do with human behavior. We focus on the present more than the future. We're very tribal and we easily support our own in-group and we ostracize out-group. We value identity over truth and so things that make our tribe or our group seem better or win or whatever, we favor finding those things and and supporting those things and social media has really leveraged in a bad way this tendency for humans because the social rules of engagement in a group of 20 or 30 humans that are sitting together, we would never say the things that we say to each other on social media. So technology has hijacked our evolutionary impulses. We compete for status on a finite planet. We try to... have more than other people, even though on an absolute level, we're incredibly rich. You know, all these things contribute to a misdiagnosis of the problem and also a growing problem where economic growth is our default cultural objective.
Speaker #1
Given this um initial diagnosis that you're sharing with us and with the listeners, are you finding in your research, are you finding in the interactions you're having with politicians, you're having with business leaders, you're having with community leaders, signs of hope, signs that would indicate that despite this gene-structured human behavior, despite the challenges of a finite planet despite this ever increasing search for status, for finding ways to, you know, exercise our power. Where can we find signs of potential new narratives that might be emerging if that is the case and that might be the starting point? points for alternative social organizations because if I follow your thread if I understand it correctly we've got a fundamental mismatch also in the way that we're socially organized in the way that we're trying to or in the way we're driven to always increase complexity of our social constructs is there anything that says to us that hey look in this direction you find possibly some Initial framework for finding alternative routes ahead.
Speaker #2
We might have to ask the Oracle a lot of questions, Thomas. I think, and you asked me that five years ago or 10 years ago, I might have given you a much different answer. But suddenly, and I think it has to do a little bit with COVID and the lockdowns of 2020, and it has a lot to do. with the Ukraine-Russia situation, suddenly a lot of people are aware of the risks that we face in a six-continent globally connected supply chain. chain dependent on cheap energy. And COVID also allowed, and I'm talking from the United States perspective, and of course there's almost 200 other countries, so there's different stories. But in the United States, some people realized that working 50 hour weeks with a one hour commute each way to make a lot of money that All that didn't make them happy or healthy and to work less, to earn less money as long as basic needs are met and to spend more time in nature with your family and friends is a better life and those are some of the tenets. of post-growth, de-growth school of thought that we can have a vibrant civilization with less material throughput. And I think especially young people. I've taught college the last eight years and young people are looking for a different way because the way of economic growth and working at a business or a factory for 50 hours a week doesn't really have meaning in the same way it did when you and I were coming out of college. So I think there's this curiosity and open openness to change that wasn't there five or 10 years ago. I still, there's a huge barrier to change in our society, but you see the, the scout team around the edges, especially with young people being open to, um, a different sort of economic system.
Speaker #1
Well, If that is okay with you, Nate, let's go and check the Oracle again. You can now ask her a second question regarding the future. What would that be?
Speaker #2
The second question that I would ask the Oracle is, we have been a physiological species for 300,000 years as Homo sapiens. And we've had a lot of cultural progression during that time. It was not long ago that we did not allocate full citizenship and respect as a human being to people of color. It was not long ago that we... change the rules so that women would be able to vote and be equal members of our society my question for the oracle is is it possible that humans can continue down that path and extend the the boundaries of empathy and even rights to some of the 10 million other species we share the planet with. Because if we don't, it's going to be a disaster. Since I've been alive, we've lost 70% of the populations of mammals, birds, fish, and insects. And the first step in changing that or saving that is to extend the boundaries of our empathy the way that we have culturally done with different subsets of the human population. only in the last century. So my question, my second question for the Oracle would be, how can we have a cultural change in consciousness to value nature, our cousins, nieces, and nephews? in the animal kingdom and ecosystems and the stability of Earth's biogeochemical processes and oceans, forests, land, etc.
Speaker #1
Well, that is like the first question you asked to the Oracle. Another massive question. I'd like to perhaps echo this question with another question to you. So. I see through your question what could be the end result of a humanity-wide reset of our relationship with the non-human living species. What I guess is a bit tricky is the safe pathway for subsets of humanity to begin. embracing this new relationship with non-human species without putting themselves at risk because they would be, let's say, playing different rules of the game. Today, the rule of the game, to make it simple, is to consider that what is non-human is inferior to human beings. This is probably structuring human rights, this is structuring economics, this is structuring politics, etc. if a subset of humanity, be it a group of people and then a group of organizations with perhaps states and NGOs and companies began redesigning, reconfiguring their relationship with non-humans, they could put themselves at least temporarily at a disadvantage because they would be not playing the existing rules of the game anymore. How can new more sound, more sustainable rules of the game, including relationships with non-human, be designed in a safe way for those that will be willing to be at the forefront of this redesign? How do we, operationally speaking, create such a pathway that would not eliminate those that would be brave enough to reconsider their relationship with non-humans?
Speaker #2
I think maybe you're the oracle, Thomas. That was a hell of a question. And you had no idea what I was going to come up with. And English isn't your first language. That was a great response to my question. And yes, you're right. A lot of environmental activists. out there or people speaking truth to the power of the current system actually have an outsized cost to themselves in doing this work. And I don't have an answer to the question that you just posed. Which is why I wanted to ask the Oracle. I don't know how to do that. One way, I don't think there is any solution. I think there's a lot of responses that will collectively lead to a livable future. One thing is, over time, we could have the prices of our everyday things. Better reflect the costs in a wide boundary sense that go into them. We're drawing down fossil carbon as the main input to our economies, 10 million times faster than it was sequestered. And all we do is pay for the cost it takes us to extract the coal, oil, and natural gas from the ground. We don't pay for the tens of millions of years. of nature's free services to heat, refine, compress the ancient phytoplankton and biomass into substances that are incredibly energy dense and power our economy, nor do we pay for any of the pollution. The externalities are hidden from the prices. So if we had a pricing system that um, included the, uh, the negative externalities and the replacement cost, not only of carbon, but of anything that's non-renewable on human timescales like copper or lithium or fossil water or anything like that, what would happen would be, we would have much higher priced things like this iPhone here, and we would have to repair and, and take care of and conserve those things. We would send signals to entrepreneurs and innovators that these really rare materials on a century-long time scale are precious, and so we have to use less of them or use them more efficiently in our products. And we would conserve as individuals. We wouldn't consume as much. Now, doing those things right now could never happen because such a change in the pricing system would crash the current economic system. But the Oracle don't care about that. The Oracle is asking hypothetical questions that we should reflect on and consider. And somehow we're going to know a need to change the pricing to give better signals of our biophysical reality to more humans.
Speaker #1
Well, and to continue on your thread and line of thinking, it points me in a direction of a subject that most business school students are not very fond of, that is accounting. And I see some interesting signs coming from the accounting and extra financial reporting. norms experts that might be showing that through extra financial reporting schemes companies ideally of the world would have ultimately to show to investors and show to customers and show to civil society what is the real cost and what is the real nature not just of their financial asset but also of their environmental asset or what is the cost or what is the value of their relationship with the um, living ecosystems. And to your point, it's like once rules are globally changed, they may create safe spaces for semi-structured and organized reconfiguration of the rules of the game. Because now no one would be putting itself at a disadvantage because the rules would be applying to everyone. As is, it takes some new constraints. for imagination to become limitless, I guess.
Speaker #2
Yeah, so there's two intertwined challenges. One is we have outsourced our planning to the market system. So any wisdom or longer-term benign trajectory for humans gets squashed by the immediate needs of the financial markets. So there needs to be... some different pricing system, but there also needs to be a governance or a mechanism by which to do that. And you're absolutely right. Once there's some sort of a new system, because we can't have environmentally aware, wide boundary empathy CEOs in the current structure because That CEO, he or she will quickly be voted out by the board and the shareholders if they try to have triple bottom line and other things because some other CEO will come in and try to maximize profits in dollars or euros or whatever. So until the... system goals change, it's going to be very hard to change some of the other things that we have asked the oracle.
Speaker #1
Well, and speaking of the oracle, here is the chance to ask, if you will, your third and final question. What would that be now?
Speaker #2
So the third question I would ask the oracle has to do with the cultural evolution of our species. How can we now change our aspirations away from outward development, pecuniary metrics, material goalposts, towards more inner development and marrying our awareness of our biophysical situation with our evolutionary psychology in a way that We recognize that at least in the United States, we use more energy and make more money on average for the last 50 years, yet the percentage of people who are very happy is flat to slightly lower than it was 50 years ago. Lots of examples of more energy, more money, not more happiness. So my question to the Oracle would be framed as such that almost 200 years ago, Thomas Malthus said that we geometrically can grow food, but our demands for things grow exponentially. And there's going to be a problem with that. And there's going to be a conflict. And he was wrong because we found fossil fuels and we kicked the can for another two centuries. Paul Ehrlich 50 years ago predicted a Malthusian scenario and he was wrong because he didn't know about debt and globalization, which allowed our culture to kick the can a little bit longer. In 2008 and 2009, the financial system almost collapsed. and all of a sudden central banks and governments took over the role of commercial banks in getting money and credit into the system, we kicked the can again. In 2020 with COVID, again, governments and central banks kind of fired a bazooka and the global economy stabilized when we went into that social lockdown and everything. We had again kicked the can. So how many more cans are left to kick, dear Oracle? And is it possible that instead of having the next canned be just a technology or a battery or something like that, that's just a little bit of a finger in the dike, but keeps the entire thing growing with deleterious impacts, is it possible that the next can to kick is one in our minds. that as individuals and eventually as communities and eventually as larger groups of humans realize that after basic needs are met, and understandably basic needs are not met for a lot of humans, but after basic needs are met, the best things in life are free. So that's a long-winded saying, a way of saying, can the next transition be one in our minds where we mature. As a species, we mature as a culture and tie this all together into a lower material throughput way of getting our evolutionary emotional states.
Speaker #1
Well, and I suggest that we leave this question open-ended as it is definitely going to get the listeners to reflect on it. It's asking us in a way to reconsider what it is to be. a human being, it's asking us also to look back, recognize that we are living, as you are saying regularly on the Great Simplification website and elsewhere, we are living through this carbon pulse. This is extremely hard for us as a species to recognize that we are in this very unique time of our long-term history where we do not live the same life as our parents. Whereas if we take many generations before us, the life you had would be almost the same as that of your parents, almost the same as that of your grandparents. And we're asking in a way this species, in a matter of maybe a few years, maybe a few decades at most, to reconsider its relationship with time, to reconsider its relationship with space, because the way that we are recognizing time and space is intimately connected with fossil fuels. To ride a plane has been normal for now many decades and it might not be anymore. To visit a remote place for just a weekend has been normal for many decades and it may not be anymore. So as we're asking the question you're asking to the Oracle, Nate, we are fundamentally thinking up an anthropological So... shift that might be very disorienting for many of us. How do we cope? How do we, let's say, happily recognize our position in this unique carbon pulse situation? I guess I am reverting the question back to you, so I am not expecting an answer, Nate, but any... Any insights that you might want to share would probably be welcome.
Speaker #2
I think happily is not the right word, Thomas. We did not evolve to be happy. Happiness was a byproduct of us, periodically a byproduct of us going through the motions of meeting basic needs and reproducing and raising offspring, etc. I think the... The correct word is more we're awake to the broader tapestry of the times we live in and that we want to participate. And, you know, this is a whole nother conversation about how to deal with with these realities. And I don't think it's for for everyone. But people that choose to listen to your podcast remarkable, are at least curious and want to learn about these things. But it's, we're not alive at normal times. And I think there is a sliding scale from entitlement to privilege to responsibility. And knowledge and awareness of these things lead you more towards eventually, towards the responsibility of playing a role however you see fit in your family, in your job, in your community, in your nation, and as a citizen of the world, in the 21st century.
Speaker #1
Well, I think we've spent much time looking at the futures, asking questions regarding the futures. Let's now turn our attention to the past and to history. Could you please, Nate, bring back from history, let's say, three events that you consider to be of interest, if not of use in the times that we're living now? And also maybe those three historical events could also help us project ourselves into desirable futures. What is it that the past can help us appreciate differently in the present that we're living?
Speaker #0
You can tell you're a college professor because you just keep coming with the questions. They're really hard. And then here's another one. Three historical... Um, events. Well, as you know, um, my podcast, the great simplification has a core focus of energy and energy is the currency of life. Um, animals were the first investors and they use calories, uh, in the pursuit of prey and they received calories, um, revenues in the gazelle that the cheetah killed, et cetera. And the same energy applies to human systems in the past and certainly today and certainly in the future. Energy after the energy cost is expended dictates what we're able to do. So from an energy perspective, I would say the three historical events were a few hundred thousand years ago. Homo sapiens predecessors harnessed fire, and fire enabled us to have more directed protein in our food. It would keep away predators. It would keep us warm in the winter. And new research is showing that other human species, like Neanderthals, didn't master fire. Fire also allowed us to have an... exosomatic wand, which we metaphorically waved. Fire allows us, all the other animals in the animal kingdom eat food and that is the calories that they consume. In the United States today, we eat around 2000 calories a day, but we consume over 200,000 calories a day, 100 times more than our bodies need. We consume exosomatically outside the body. And so a few hundred thousand years ago, the discovery and the mastery of fire was the beginning of that trajectory. Carrying on with that, the second major transition was around 10 to 12,000 years ago, which is when the agricultural revolution happened. And in no fewer than seven places around the world, roughly within a thousand years, Humans stopped hunting and gathering and moved towards an agricultural stationary way of life. And what this did was we never had wealth or possessions before that. We would travel around based on the seasons and based on the fish and the animals and things like that. But once we stayed in one place, we were able to work harder, generate more surplus. which could actually be stored. We would grow crops and have grain that could be stored. And so we weren't living hand to mouth. And so we had this storage, which we were using to trade. And then we had hierarchies and we hired accountants and priests and guards and all kinds of stratifications of society because all of a sudden, our energy surplus measured in calories, then it was actual surplus. enabled complexity and growth. And then the third, you might guess where I'm going, is the industrial revolution of a couple hundred years ago, where for 10,000 years ago, 10,000 years, we were farming horizontally on the earth. And then we started to farm vertically. We started to drill and dig and get stuff, ancient sunlight and concentrated ores and minerals from under the ground and add that to our human system. And a barrel of oil does around five years of yours or my work, Thomas, and we pay 80 euros for that or so. So we use 100 billion barrel of oil equivalents of coal, oil, and natural gas in the global economy every year. That works out to approximately 500 billion human worker equivalents that we are adding to the global workforce of around 5 billion real humans. So this thing that started with fire has ended up with mining ancient sunlight, adding it to our economies. Telling stories that this is due to our own cleverness and that this is interest that is recurring. But the reality is this is a bank account that we're drawing down 10 million times faster than it was sequestered by daily photosynthesis trickle charge of the sun growing biomass, the biomass dying and being sequestered. So this is a major, major inflection point, Right. Which has allowed us to live during. as you mentioned earlier, the carbon pulse, which is a one-time thing for this planet and for our species.
Speaker #1
Well, and to connect with those three historical markers and to connect also with the name of your podcast, The Great Simplification, which I understand is a title that is, in a way, a mirror title to the great acceleration that humanity has. gone through since after World War II. You've invited a number of thinkers at the Great Simplification podcast. I'm thinking, for instance, of Joseph Tainter that has worked on the way that civilizations historically always grow in complexity. And what I understand of your line of thinking with the Great Simplification is that there are Chances that the Great Simplification is going to be the next phase that humanity is going to go through after the Great Acceleration. Now, what could be collective trajectories that would allow us in as peaceful as possible, in as organized as possible way to decrease the level of... Societal complexity. I understand that leaders, be they political leaders or business leaders, are essentially put in office and they stay in office because the promises they make rest upon increasing complexity. Increasing complexity of societal services that we enjoy, be they health services, education services, security services, transportation services. What would become of leadership? What would become of legitimacy in a complexity decreasing regime?
Speaker #0
Again, you're asking very, very hard questions, Professor. My role, or at least what I see my role in this space, is to be asking questions similar to you and get much smarter people than myself. working on them. But I think we have to see how things fit together. And I often say that our culture is energy blind because our leaders, our politicians, our population look at the world. from a technology and money lens and not from an energy and materials lens. And you're right. As we've grown our global amount of energy, that energy has enabled more and more complexity, supply chains and transport lanes and more gadgets in your house that are plugged into an electric socket and all that. I think one of the pathways for forward I mentioned before is to change the pricing. Another is to substitute technological, monetary markers of reality with social and human capital, where people recognize that we probably aren't going to voluntarily simplify as a society, but as individuals, we can simplify first and beat the rush. And so we need a movement of people that are doing things that are not part of the monetary economy, like making love with your partner, playing with your dogs, going for a walk in the woods. And we need a larger percentage of our life to be those things. And I think we need, instead of, and I may be guilty of this too, instead of leading with fear. And if people, if your listeners haven't heard some of these things before, this can be a scary story. I think we need to lead with love and creativity because that is enduring. And as long as basic needs are met, many of these things, we could even have a better future than our current messed up system. You have to keep in mind that in France, You know, we use 60 times the energy that our bodies need. So there is a great amount of surplus in the system that's directed towards things that aren't really helpful or healthy for us in the long run. So it's not like, I mean, humans have had very tough times in prior centuries and millennia, and we face a tough time now, but it's not as tough as many of those. human lives, certainly not in the next 30 or 40 years, or probably not in the next 30 or 40 years. It's a huge question. I think politicians are a reflection of who our citizenry are, and social media is making them more extreme on both sides of the political spectrum. So I think we need a movement of people thinking differently and living differently in their own lives. If I had a fourth question for the Oracle, I might ask, how can we have reason and empathy be higher up in our hierarchy than the passions and the tribal blame of the moment? Kind of to temporarily suppress our own identities and have discourse with people that disagree with us. on at least disagree with this on the surface, because deep down most of us care about the same things. I don't think I answered your question, but you keep asking me really hard questions. So that was about the best I could do on that one.
Speaker #1
Well, you're always offering insights that are, I think, bringing the conversation to the next level. And what is also, I guess, present throughout this discussion, and I think also throughout the previous episodes of the podcast is The need for humility, you know, as a other guiding star than power and fame that have probably guided many folks before us. Humility is this competence that perhaps we've lost sight of and that would need to be placed again at the center of how we structure our thinking and how structure our relationships. You've been talking and I've been talking as well about your podcast. This is naturally leading us into the third and final step of this interview. Now, Nate, let's talk about the present. I'm interested in you, please, sharing the ways in which you intervene in the world, the ways in which that you govern yourself in such a way that you try and be the change. that you wish to see in the world as gandhi invites us to to be please tell us how you're doing how you're working how you're acting at multiple scales i've not listened to your podcast thomas but um we should stay in touch i think we could be friends um you have really heartfelt uh intuitive uh questions and maybe this format is just something you're used to but you had no idea the questions are my answers and your responses are, I mean, this is a intense conversation. Um, Lots to say here. Here's the truth. Sometimes I think that all my efforts are doing a disservice to humanity because I think there's a delta between what we know and who we are. And for most people that haven't been in... constant dialogue on energy, climate, money, resources, biodiversity, the six mass extinction, and potential nuclear war, and how all this stuff fits together. Hearing the magnitude of our challenges. In contrast to how that person is living their lives and their built identities and their jobs and their families and their financial trajectory and everything can cause internal... uh, harmful dynamics where you have to go out and drink a bottle of wine or self-medicate or, um, live with anxiety and be depressed. And, and I I'm not that. And I think the antidote for me is that I have a lot of friends working in this same space. And so I feel like part of a community. But I think ultimately our culture, because we're so rich metaphorically, and of course I'm mostly talking about the global north, combined with our technology, we have become become a dopamine-centric society, where the unexpected reward of checking our email or having these highly exciting experiences in the portfolio of neurotransmitters and hormones and physiological drivers of the human body, dopamine is taking an outsized share of its historical role. And I think we need to have more serotonin, oxytocin, and have a little more equality of the neurotransmitters. So I'm spending most of my time. educating people, telling stories about our biophysical reality and how we're going to have to have a society that uses less energy and less resources, more discourse with people that disagree with us. And I'm telling that story. The natural next step then is what sort of a society, what would be the infrastructure? What would be the political economy? How would culture change? How would we prioritize things? things like manufacturing and heat and waste and water and the basic needs in a coherent way. But I think there's a middle step in there. And I am not an expert on the middle step, which is inner development. And I am learning along the way. I have a little Nate on my shoulder that kind of weighs in and gives me color commentary on what I'm doing in my life. I shouldn't play that fantasy sports, or maybe I shouldn't have that second glass of wine, or maybe I should spend this time with my former students on a hike instead of watching this Netflix show. I think we all need balance and we have to be kind to ourselves. but I I think that the real gold. metaphorically, because gold is really also just a financial marker of real things. The real rainbow of opportunity in our future is on inner development and how to be aware of these things, but live kind of in recognition, but going with the flow of how our, our cultural situation is unfolding. And How am I doing? I'm not doing great. This is a Sisyphean task to not only think about all this stuff every day, but this story is not a popular one. So there are a lot of people that of course... disagree with me. Technology will solve our problems. Climate change is not due to humans. Humans have always had problems and overcome them. You know, these, all these problems are manifestations of overshoot, a biological species finding this treasure trove of ancient sunlight and organizing an economic system around it. And The more you learn about this, there are no easy solutions out of this. And the thing that gives me most solace and most hope and creativity is talking with people like you, to be totally honest. People that I didn't know existed, they kind of speak the same language as I do, and they're trying to help on this discourse and pass the baton to other pro-future, pro-social, creative humans that we are all alive at this miraculous and perilous time. Again, I don't know that I answered your question, but I think the path is on inner development and participating in the broader cultural change. Well, perhaps to echo things that you've just said, it feels to me that, as you're saying, we are rather naturally connecting with one another and interestingly enough if we look at frames that up until now have made people connect with one another one could think about the religious frames people connect with one another because they have the same sort of beliefs in certain gods or you have the political frames they consider that there is one and only one ideology that everybody should embrace. I think that The collective frame that connects us is of a different nature that I don't know precisely what it is, except that perhaps there is a shared appreciation for searching. I think we are intimately researchers in the broad sense. There is a bit of a quest without the search for... a reward it's more like as you were saying inner development i sometimes refer to this as a personal quest for expanding knowledge expanding also on the set of emotions that we can feel just recognizing that just like there are fractal structures well without even traveling to the other end of the world this this search this researcher attitude brings an infinite level of beauty in the most simple tasks that we can work on you know in our everyday life the most simple hike as you were saying that we can take in the woods or the most simple game that we can play with our dog it's like expanding our relationship with life but finding ways to expand this relationship from within. And of course, in a way, it connects us back to some ancient wisdoms. Maybe those are wisdoms that were well known by the ancient Greek. Maybe those wisdoms were well known by Indian thinkers. But to your point, I'm finding that we're connected also because we want to care for the fragile, we want to care for the ephemeral and we probably also in some respect want to find ways to not exactly leave no trace as we see on US hikes in the mountains this leave no trace sign that we must respect. It's not that we do not want to leave a trace but Maybe a trace of a different nature than previous civilizations or our ancestors have attempted to leave. I'm not sure that I'm being very clear, but those are thoughts that your answer brings to my mind.
Speaker #0
Well, I think it's pretty clear we will leave a trace. And now the question is, can we leave some sort of a legacy through the bottlenecks of the 21st century? What can we propel through this century? Other species? Other cultures? knowledge, appropriate forms of technology, what can we midwife through the coming post-growth living arrangements for humans on this planet is a question and a challenge we need a lot more people playing a role in. So thank you for your work on your podcast.
Speaker #1
Well, thank you for being an inspiring figure. And, well, I wish you the best with all the projects that we've touched on, including the Great Simplification and your line of thinking. Thank you, Nate.
Speaker #0
Toi aussi. Merci beaucoup.
Speaker #1
Merci. À bientôt. Merci beaucoup d'avoir écouté ce nouvel épisode de Remarquable. Pour ne rien rater des prochains épisodes, abonnez-vous sur votre plateforme favorite. And don't hesitate to leave a note and talk about the podcast around you. See you soon!

Description

In the upcoming conversation, Nate dives into viable pathways to inform more humans about the path ahead and inspire people to play a role in our collective future.

Episode recorded on November 30 2022

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Transcription

Speaker #0
Bonjour, je suis Thomas Gauthier, professeur à EM Lyon Business School. Vous écoutez Remarquable, le podcast qui va à la rencontre de celles et de ceux qui explorent les futurs et se remémorent l'histoire pour bâtir dès à présent un futur durable. Bonne écoute ! Nate Higgins is the director of the Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future, an organization focused on educating and preparing society for the coming cultural transition. Allied with leading ecologists, energy experts, politicians and systems thinkers, the Institute assembles roadmaps and off-ramps for how human societies can adapt to lower-throughput lifestyles. Nate is also the host of The Great Simplification, a podcast that explores the systems science underpinning the human predicament. Conversation topics span human behavior, monetary and economic systems, energy, ecology, geopolitics, and the environment. In the upcoming conversation, Nate dives into valuable pathways to inform more humans about the path ahead and inspire people to play a role in our collective future.
Speaker #1
Hi, Nate.
Speaker #2
Hello, Thomas. How are you?
Speaker #1
I'm doing great. So here you are, Nate, you're looking at the Oracle and you have three chances to ask her questions regarding the future. What is the first question you would like to ask her?
Speaker #2
How did you get to be an Oracle? No, that wouldn't be it. I would have a ton of questions. There's so many questions that I think about every day that some of them have answers. Some of them are more metaphorical, rhetorical reflections on the future. But the questions I would ask the Oracle would pertain to the core drivers and opportunities of the path ahead for humanity. The first would relate to our tribal natures and the fact that we are facing a mismatch between our ancestral environment of living in bands of 100 to 200 people on the savannah of Africa and 8 billion of us coexisting on a finite planet at a time of inflection where economic growth and energy availability the way that we've had it the last century are going to recede. So my first question would be, how can we as tribal social organisms expand a collective arrangement as opposed to breaking down in a zero-sum game, us versus them? You know, if there was an alien... race that had an armada of spaceships that attacked the earth, you know that humanity would band together and sacrifice and have curfews and do everything we can to protect our planet against those alien invaders. But barring that, how can humanity kind of act together as a larger entity to face what we face? That would be my first question.
Speaker #1
Well, then to Continue on with this first question to the Oracle. Could you please remind us perhaps what your research has found regarding human behavior? You're referring to our ancestors, you're referring to the fact that we have historically organized ourselves as tribes. How much of our inherited behavior is now either offering us opportunities, Or causing us to perhaps engage in reactions and actions that are counterproductive, given the circumstances wherein you reminded us of the finite size of the planet, how much of our human behavior is dictated by our gene inheritance in a way?
Speaker #2
Well, all of it is. Now, there... are ways that culture and, um, New developments can change it, but even those are a product of our genes. Simply put, our brains are as much a product of our evolution as our eyes or our arms or our non-hairy biped nature, all those things. We're trying to match the similar emotional states of our ancestors that lived in a wildly different environment. So, we don't so much face an environmental problem or a resource problem as a mismatch of hunter-gatherer minds in a novel, complex, materially rich world. So almost all of our conventional challenges in our world have to do with human behavior. We focus on the present more than the future. We're very tribal and we easily support our own in-group and we ostracize out-group. We value identity over truth and so things that make our tribe or our group seem better or win or whatever, we favor finding those things and and supporting those things and social media has really leveraged in a bad way this tendency for humans because the social rules of engagement in a group of 20 or 30 humans that are sitting together, we would never say the things that we say to each other on social media. So technology has hijacked our evolutionary impulses. We compete for status on a finite planet. We try to... have more than other people, even though on an absolute level, we're incredibly rich. You know, all these things contribute to a misdiagnosis of the problem and also a growing problem where economic growth is our default cultural objective.
Speaker #1
Given this um initial diagnosis that you're sharing with us and with the listeners, are you finding in your research, are you finding in the interactions you're having with politicians, you're having with business leaders, you're having with community leaders, signs of hope, signs that would indicate that despite this gene-structured human behavior, despite the challenges of a finite planet despite this ever increasing search for status, for finding ways to, you know, exercise our power. Where can we find signs of potential new narratives that might be emerging if that is the case and that might be the starting point? points for alternative social organizations because if I follow your thread if I understand it correctly we've got a fundamental mismatch also in the way that we're socially organized in the way that we're trying to or in the way we're driven to always increase complexity of our social constructs is there anything that says to us that hey look in this direction you find possibly some Initial framework for finding alternative routes ahead.
Speaker #2
We might have to ask the Oracle a lot of questions, Thomas. I think, and you asked me that five years ago or 10 years ago, I might have given you a much different answer. But suddenly, and I think it has to do a little bit with COVID and the lockdowns of 2020, and it has a lot to do. with the Ukraine-Russia situation, suddenly a lot of people are aware of the risks that we face in a six-continent globally connected supply chain. chain dependent on cheap energy. And COVID also allowed, and I'm talking from the United States perspective, and of course there's almost 200 other countries, so there's different stories. But in the United States, some people realized that working 50 hour weeks with a one hour commute each way to make a lot of money that All that didn't make them happy or healthy and to work less, to earn less money as long as basic needs are met and to spend more time in nature with your family and friends is a better life and those are some of the tenets. of post-growth, de-growth school of thought that we can have a vibrant civilization with less material throughput. And I think especially young people. I've taught college the last eight years and young people are looking for a different way because the way of economic growth and working at a business or a factory for 50 hours a week doesn't really have meaning in the same way it did when you and I were coming out of college. So I think there's this curiosity and open openness to change that wasn't there five or 10 years ago. I still, there's a huge barrier to change in our society, but you see the, the scout team around the edges, especially with young people being open to, um, a different sort of economic system.
Speaker #1
Well, If that is okay with you, Nate, let's go and check the Oracle again. You can now ask her a second question regarding the future. What would that be?
Speaker #2
The second question that I would ask the Oracle is, we have been a physiological species for 300,000 years as Homo sapiens. And we've had a lot of cultural progression during that time. It was not long ago that we did not allocate full citizenship and respect as a human being to people of color. It was not long ago that we... change the rules so that women would be able to vote and be equal members of our society my question for the oracle is is it possible that humans can continue down that path and extend the the boundaries of empathy and even rights to some of the 10 million other species we share the planet with. Because if we don't, it's going to be a disaster. Since I've been alive, we've lost 70% of the populations of mammals, birds, fish, and insects. And the first step in changing that or saving that is to extend the boundaries of our empathy the way that we have culturally done with different subsets of the human population. only in the last century. So my question, my second question for the Oracle would be, how can we have a cultural change in consciousness to value nature, our cousins, nieces, and nephews? in the animal kingdom and ecosystems and the stability of Earth's biogeochemical processes and oceans, forests, land, etc.
Speaker #1
Well, that is like the first question you asked to the Oracle. Another massive question. I'd like to perhaps echo this question with another question to you. So. I see through your question what could be the end result of a humanity-wide reset of our relationship with the non-human living species. What I guess is a bit tricky is the safe pathway for subsets of humanity to begin. embracing this new relationship with non-human species without putting themselves at risk because they would be, let's say, playing different rules of the game. Today, the rule of the game, to make it simple, is to consider that what is non-human is inferior to human beings. This is probably structuring human rights, this is structuring economics, this is structuring politics, etc. if a subset of humanity, be it a group of people and then a group of organizations with perhaps states and NGOs and companies began redesigning, reconfiguring their relationship with non-humans, they could put themselves at least temporarily at a disadvantage because they would be not playing the existing rules of the game anymore. How can new more sound, more sustainable rules of the game, including relationships with non-human, be designed in a safe way for those that will be willing to be at the forefront of this redesign? How do we, operationally speaking, create such a pathway that would not eliminate those that would be brave enough to reconsider their relationship with non-humans?
Speaker #2
I think maybe you're the oracle, Thomas. That was a hell of a question. And you had no idea what I was going to come up with. And English isn't your first language. That was a great response to my question. And yes, you're right. A lot of environmental activists. out there or people speaking truth to the power of the current system actually have an outsized cost to themselves in doing this work. And I don't have an answer to the question that you just posed. Which is why I wanted to ask the Oracle. I don't know how to do that. One way, I don't think there is any solution. I think there's a lot of responses that will collectively lead to a livable future. One thing is, over time, we could have the prices of our everyday things. Better reflect the costs in a wide boundary sense that go into them. We're drawing down fossil carbon as the main input to our economies, 10 million times faster than it was sequestered. And all we do is pay for the cost it takes us to extract the coal, oil, and natural gas from the ground. We don't pay for the tens of millions of years. of nature's free services to heat, refine, compress the ancient phytoplankton and biomass into substances that are incredibly energy dense and power our economy, nor do we pay for any of the pollution. The externalities are hidden from the prices. So if we had a pricing system that um, included the, uh, the negative externalities and the replacement cost, not only of carbon, but of anything that's non-renewable on human timescales like copper or lithium or fossil water or anything like that, what would happen would be, we would have much higher priced things like this iPhone here, and we would have to repair and, and take care of and conserve those things. We would send signals to entrepreneurs and innovators that these really rare materials on a century-long time scale are precious, and so we have to use less of them or use them more efficiently in our products. And we would conserve as individuals. We wouldn't consume as much. Now, doing those things right now could never happen because such a change in the pricing system would crash the current economic system. But the Oracle don't care about that. The Oracle is asking hypothetical questions that we should reflect on and consider. And somehow we're going to know a need to change the pricing to give better signals of our biophysical reality to more humans.
Speaker #1
Well, and to continue on your thread and line of thinking, it points me in a direction of a subject that most business school students are not very fond of, that is accounting. And I see some interesting signs coming from the accounting and extra financial reporting. norms experts that might be showing that through extra financial reporting schemes companies ideally of the world would have ultimately to show to investors and show to customers and show to civil society what is the real cost and what is the real nature not just of their financial asset but also of their environmental asset or what is the cost or what is the value of their relationship with the um, living ecosystems. And to your point, it's like once rules are globally changed, they may create safe spaces for semi-structured and organized reconfiguration of the rules of the game. Because now no one would be putting itself at a disadvantage because the rules would be applying to everyone. As is, it takes some new constraints. for imagination to become limitless, I guess.
Speaker #2
Yeah, so there's two intertwined challenges. One is we have outsourced our planning to the market system. So any wisdom or longer-term benign trajectory for humans gets squashed by the immediate needs of the financial markets. So there needs to be... some different pricing system, but there also needs to be a governance or a mechanism by which to do that. And you're absolutely right. Once there's some sort of a new system, because we can't have environmentally aware, wide boundary empathy CEOs in the current structure because That CEO, he or she will quickly be voted out by the board and the shareholders if they try to have triple bottom line and other things because some other CEO will come in and try to maximize profits in dollars or euros or whatever. So until the... system goals change, it's going to be very hard to change some of the other things that we have asked the oracle.
Speaker #1
Well, and speaking of the oracle, here is the chance to ask, if you will, your third and final question. What would that be now?
Speaker #2
So the third question I would ask the oracle has to do with the cultural evolution of our species. How can we now change our aspirations away from outward development, pecuniary metrics, material goalposts, towards more inner development and marrying our awareness of our biophysical situation with our evolutionary psychology in a way that We recognize that at least in the United States, we use more energy and make more money on average for the last 50 years, yet the percentage of people who are very happy is flat to slightly lower than it was 50 years ago. Lots of examples of more energy, more money, not more happiness. So my question to the Oracle would be framed as such that almost 200 years ago, Thomas Malthus said that we geometrically can grow food, but our demands for things grow exponentially. And there's going to be a problem with that. And there's going to be a conflict. And he was wrong because we found fossil fuels and we kicked the can for another two centuries. Paul Ehrlich 50 years ago predicted a Malthusian scenario and he was wrong because he didn't know about debt and globalization, which allowed our culture to kick the can a little bit longer. In 2008 and 2009, the financial system almost collapsed. and all of a sudden central banks and governments took over the role of commercial banks in getting money and credit into the system, we kicked the can again. In 2020 with COVID, again, governments and central banks kind of fired a bazooka and the global economy stabilized when we went into that social lockdown and everything. We had again kicked the can. So how many more cans are left to kick, dear Oracle? And is it possible that instead of having the next canned be just a technology or a battery or something like that, that's just a little bit of a finger in the dike, but keeps the entire thing growing with deleterious impacts, is it possible that the next can to kick is one in our minds. that as individuals and eventually as communities and eventually as larger groups of humans realize that after basic needs are met, and understandably basic needs are not met for a lot of humans, but after basic needs are met, the best things in life are free. So that's a long-winded saying, a way of saying, can the next transition be one in our minds where we mature. As a species, we mature as a culture and tie this all together into a lower material throughput way of getting our evolutionary emotional states.
Speaker #1
Well, and I suggest that we leave this question open-ended as it is definitely going to get the listeners to reflect on it. It's asking us in a way to reconsider what it is to be. a human being, it's asking us also to look back, recognize that we are living, as you are saying regularly on the Great Simplification website and elsewhere, we are living through this carbon pulse. This is extremely hard for us as a species to recognize that we are in this very unique time of our long-term history where we do not live the same life as our parents. Whereas if we take many generations before us, the life you had would be almost the same as that of your parents, almost the same as that of your grandparents. And we're asking in a way this species, in a matter of maybe a few years, maybe a few decades at most, to reconsider its relationship with time, to reconsider its relationship with space, because the way that we are recognizing time and space is intimately connected with fossil fuels. To ride a plane has been normal for now many decades and it might not be anymore. To visit a remote place for just a weekend has been normal for many decades and it may not be anymore. So as we're asking the question you're asking to the Oracle, Nate, we are fundamentally thinking up an anthropological So... shift that might be very disorienting for many of us. How do we cope? How do we, let's say, happily recognize our position in this unique carbon pulse situation? I guess I am reverting the question back to you, so I am not expecting an answer, Nate, but any... Any insights that you might want to share would probably be welcome.
Speaker #2
I think happily is not the right word, Thomas. We did not evolve to be happy. Happiness was a byproduct of us, periodically a byproduct of us going through the motions of meeting basic needs and reproducing and raising offspring, etc. I think the... The correct word is more we're awake to the broader tapestry of the times we live in and that we want to participate. And, you know, this is a whole nother conversation about how to deal with with these realities. And I don't think it's for for everyone. But people that choose to listen to your podcast remarkable, are at least curious and want to learn about these things. But it's, we're not alive at normal times. And I think there is a sliding scale from entitlement to privilege to responsibility. And knowledge and awareness of these things lead you more towards eventually, towards the responsibility of playing a role however you see fit in your family, in your job, in your community, in your nation, and as a citizen of the world, in the 21st century.
Speaker #1
Well, I think we've spent much time looking at the futures, asking questions regarding the futures. Let's now turn our attention to the past and to history. Could you please, Nate, bring back from history, let's say, three events that you consider to be of interest, if not of use in the times that we're living now? And also maybe those three historical events could also help us project ourselves into desirable futures. What is it that the past can help us appreciate differently in the present that we're living?
Speaker #0
You can tell you're a college professor because you just keep coming with the questions. They're really hard. And then here's another one. Three historical... Um, events. Well, as you know, um, my podcast, the great simplification has a core focus of energy and energy is the currency of life. Um, animals were the first investors and they use calories, uh, in the pursuit of prey and they received calories, um, revenues in the gazelle that the cheetah killed, et cetera. And the same energy applies to human systems in the past and certainly today and certainly in the future. Energy after the energy cost is expended dictates what we're able to do. So from an energy perspective, I would say the three historical events were a few hundred thousand years ago. Homo sapiens predecessors harnessed fire, and fire enabled us to have more directed protein in our food. It would keep away predators. It would keep us warm in the winter. And new research is showing that other human species, like Neanderthals, didn't master fire. Fire also allowed us to have an... exosomatic wand, which we metaphorically waved. Fire allows us, all the other animals in the animal kingdom eat food and that is the calories that they consume. In the United States today, we eat around 2000 calories a day, but we consume over 200,000 calories a day, 100 times more than our bodies need. We consume exosomatically outside the body. And so a few hundred thousand years ago, the discovery and the mastery of fire was the beginning of that trajectory. Carrying on with that, the second major transition was around 10 to 12,000 years ago, which is when the agricultural revolution happened. And in no fewer than seven places around the world, roughly within a thousand years, Humans stopped hunting and gathering and moved towards an agricultural stationary way of life. And what this did was we never had wealth or possessions before that. We would travel around based on the seasons and based on the fish and the animals and things like that. But once we stayed in one place, we were able to work harder, generate more surplus. which could actually be stored. We would grow crops and have grain that could be stored. And so we weren't living hand to mouth. And so we had this storage, which we were using to trade. And then we had hierarchies and we hired accountants and priests and guards and all kinds of stratifications of society because all of a sudden, our energy surplus measured in calories, then it was actual surplus. enabled complexity and growth. And then the third, you might guess where I'm going, is the industrial revolution of a couple hundred years ago, where for 10,000 years ago, 10,000 years, we were farming horizontally on the earth. And then we started to farm vertically. We started to drill and dig and get stuff, ancient sunlight and concentrated ores and minerals from under the ground and add that to our human system. And a barrel of oil does around five years of yours or my work, Thomas, and we pay 80 euros for that or so. So we use 100 billion barrel of oil equivalents of coal, oil, and natural gas in the global economy every year. That works out to approximately 500 billion human worker equivalents that we are adding to the global workforce of around 5 billion real humans. So this thing that started with fire has ended up with mining ancient sunlight, adding it to our economies. Telling stories that this is due to our own cleverness and that this is interest that is recurring. But the reality is this is a bank account that we're drawing down 10 million times faster than it was sequestered by daily photosynthesis trickle charge of the sun growing biomass, the biomass dying and being sequestered. So this is a major, major inflection point, Right. Which has allowed us to live during. as you mentioned earlier, the carbon pulse, which is a one-time thing for this planet and for our species.
Speaker #1
Well, and to connect with those three historical markers and to connect also with the name of your podcast, The Great Simplification, which I understand is a title that is, in a way, a mirror title to the great acceleration that humanity has. gone through since after World War II. You've invited a number of thinkers at the Great Simplification podcast. I'm thinking, for instance, of Joseph Tainter that has worked on the way that civilizations historically always grow in complexity. And what I understand of your line of thinking with the Great Simplification is that there are Chances that the Great Simplification is going to be the next phase that humanity is going to go through after the Great Acceleration. Now, what could be collective trajectories that would allow us in as peaceful as possible, in as organized as possible way to decrease the level of... Societal complexity. I understand that leaders, be they political leaders or business leaders, are essentially put in office and they stay in office because the promises they make rest upon increasing complexity. Increasing complexity of societal services that we enjoy, be they health services, education services, security services, transportation services. What would become of leadership? What would become of legitimacy in a complexity decreasing regime?
Speaker #0
Again, you're asking very, very hard questions, Professor. My role, or at least what I see my role in this space, is to be asking questions similar to you and get much smarter people than myself. working on them. But I think we have to see how things fit together. And I often say that our culture is energy blind because our leaders, our politicians, our population look at the world. from a technology and money lens and not from an energy and materials lens. And you're right. As we've grown our global amount of energy, that energy has enabled more and more complexity, supply chains and transport lanes and more gadgets in your house that are plugged into an electric socket and all that. I think one of the pathways for forward I mentioned before is to change the pricing. Another is to substitute technological, monetary markers of reality with social and human capital, where people recognize that we probably aren't going to voluntarily simplify as a society, but as individuals, we can simplify first and beat the rush. And so we need a movement of people that are doing things that are not part of the monetary economy, like making love with your partner, playing with your dogs, going for a walk in the woods. And we need a larger percentage of our life to be those things. And I think we need, instead of, and I may be guilty of this too, instead of leading with fear. And if people, if your listeners haven't heard some of these things before, this can be a scary story. I think we need to lead with love and creativity because that is enduring. And as long as basic needs are met, many of these things, we could even have a better future than our current messed up system. You have to keep in mind that in France, You know, we use 60 times the energy that our bodies need. So there is a great amount of surplus in the system that's directed towards things that aren't really helpful or healthy for us in the long run. So it's not like, I mean, humans have had very tough times in prior centuries and millennia, and we face a tough time now, but it's not as tough as many of those. human lives, certainly not in the next 30 or 40 years, or probably not in the next 30 or 40 years. It's a huge question. I think politicians are a reflection of who our citizenry are, and social media is making them more extreme on both sides of the political spectrum. So I think we need a movement of people thinking differently and living differently in their own lives. If I had a fourth question for the Oracle, I might ask, how can we have reason and empathy be higher up in our hierarchy than the passions and the tribal blame of the moment? Kind of to temporarily suppress our own identities and have discourse with people that disagree with us. on at least disagree with this on the surface, because deep down most of us care about the same things. I don't think I answered your question, but you keep asking me really hard questions. So that was about the best I could do on that one.
Speaker #1
Well, you're always offering insights that are, I think, bringing the conversation to the next level. And what is also, I guess, present throughout this discussion, and I think also throughout the previous episodes of the podcast is The need for humility, you know, as a other guiding star than power and fame that have probably guided many folks before us. Humility is this competence that perhaps we've lost sight of and that would need to be placed again at the center of how we structure our thinking and how structure our relationships. You've been talking and I've been talking as well about your podcast. This is naturally leading us into the third and final step of this interview. Now, Nate, let's talk about the present. I'm interested in you, please, sharing the ways in which you intervene in the world, the ways in which that you govern yourself in such a way that you try and be the change. that you wish to see in the world as gandhi invites us to to be please tell us how you're doing how you're working how you're acting at multiple scales i've not listened to your podcast thomas but um we should stay in touch i think we could be friends um you have really heartfelt uh intuitive uh questions and maybe this format is just something you're used to but you had no idea the questions are my answers and your responses are, I mean, this is a intense conversation. Um, Lots to say here. Here's the truth. Sometimes I think that all my efforts are doing a disservice to humanity because I think there's a delta between what we know and who we are. And for most people that haven't been in... constant dialogue on energy, climate, money, resources, biodiversity, the six mass extinction, and potential nuclear war, and how all this stuff fits together. Hearing the magnitude of our challenges. In contrast to how that person is living their lives and their built identities and their jobs and their families and their financial trajectory and everything can cause internal... uh, harmful dynamics where you have to go out and drink a bottle of wine or self-medicate or, um, live with anxiety and be depressed. And, and I I'm not that. And I think the antidote for me is that I have a lot of friends working in this same space. And so I feel like part of a community. But I think ultimately our culture, because we're so rich metaphorically, and of course I'm mostly talking about the global north, combined with our technology, we have become become a dopamine-centric society, where the unexpected reward of checking our email or having these highly exciting experiences in the portfolio of neurotransmitters and hormones and physiological drivers of the human body, dopamine is taking an outsized share of its historical role. And I think we need to have more serotonin, oxytocin, and have a little more equality of the neurotransmitters. So I'm spending most of my time. educating people, telling stories about our biophysical reality and how we're going to have to have a society that uses less energy and less resources, more discourse with people that disagree with us. And I'm telling that story. The natural next step then is what sort of a society, what would be the infrastructure? What would be the political economy? How would culture change? How would we prioritize things? things like manufacturing and heat and waste and water and the basic needs in a coherent way. But I think there's a middle step in there. And I am not an expert on the middle step, which is inner development. And I am learning along the way. I have a little Nate on my shoulder that kind of weighs in and gives me color commentary on what I'm doing in my life. I shouldn't play that fantasy sports, or maybe I shouldn't have that second glass of wine, or maybe I should spend this time with my former students on a hike instead of watching this Netflix show. I think we all need balance and we have to be kind to ourselves. but I I think that the real gold. metaphorically, because gold is really also just a financial marker of real things. The real rainbow of opportunity in our future is on inner development and how to be aware of these things, but live kind of in recognition, but going with the flow of how our, our cultural situation is unfolding. And How am I doing? I'm not doing great. This is a Sisyphean task to not only think about all this stuff every day, but this story is not a popular one. So there are a lot of people that of course... disagree with me. Technology will solve our problems. Climate change is not due to humans. Humans have always had problems and overcome them. You know, these, all these problems are manifestations of overshoot, a biological species finding this treasure trove of ancient sunlight and organizing an economic system around it. And The more you learn about this, there are no easy solutions out of this. And the thing that gives me most solace and most hope and creativity is talking with people like you, to be totally honest. People that I didn't know existed, they kind of speak the same language as I do, and they're trying to help on this discourse and pass the baton to other pro-future, pro-social, creative humans that we are all alive at this miraculous and perilous time. Again, I don't know that I answered your question, but I think the path is on inner development and participating in the broader cultural change. Well, perhaps to echo things that you've just said, it feels to me that, as you're saying, we are rather naturally connecting with one another and interestingly enough if we look at frames that up until now have made people connect with one another one could think about the religious frames people connect with one another because they have the same sort of beliefs in certain gods or you have the political frames they consider that there is one and only one ideology that everybody should embrace. I think that The collective frame that connects us is of a different nature that I don't know precisely what it is, except that perhaps there is a shared appreciation for searching. I think we are intimately researchers in the broad sense. There is a bit of a quest without the search for... a reward it's more like as you were saying inner development i sometimes refer to this as a personal quest for expanding knowledge expanding also on the set of emotions that we can feel just recognizing that just like there are fractal structures well without even traveling to the other end of the world this this search this researcher attitude brings an infinite level of beauty in the most simple tasks that we can work on you know in our everyday life the most simple hike as you were saying that we can take in the woods or the most simple game that we can play with our dog it's like expanding our relationship with life but finding ways to expand this relationship from within. And of course, in a way, it connects us back to some ancient wisdoms. Maybe those are wisdoms that were well known by the ancient Greek. Maybe those wisdoms were well known by Indian thinkers. But to your point, I'm finding that we're connected also because we want to care for the fragile, we want to care for the ephemeral and we probably also in some respect want to find ways to not exactly leave no trace as we see on US hikes in the mountains this leave no trace sign that we must respect. It's not that we do not want to leave a trace but Maybe a trace of a different nature than previous civilizations or our ancestors have attempted to leave. I'm not sure that I'm being very clear, but those are thoughts that your answer brings to my mind.
Speaker #0
Well, I think it's pretty clear we will leave a trace. And now the question is, can we leave some sort of a legacy through the bottlenecks of the 21st century? What can we propel through this century? Other species? Other cultures? knowledge, appropriate forms of technology, what can we midwife through the coming post-growth living arrangements for humans on this planet is a question and a challenge we need a lot more people playing a role in. So thank you for your work on your podcast.
Speaker #1
Well, thank you for being an inspiring figure. And, well, I wish you the best with all the projects that we've touched on, including the Great Simplification and your line of thinking. Thank you, Nate.
Speaker #0
Toi aussi. Merci beaucoup.
Speaker #1
Merci. À bientôt. Merci beaucoup d'avoir écouté ce nouvel épisode de Remarquable. Pour ne rien rater des prochains épisodes, abonnez-vous sur votre plateforme favorite. And don't hesitate to leave a note and talk about the podcast around you. See you soon!

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