Episodes

In this episode, Nate is joined by Nigerian bat biologist Iroro Tanshi to explore how the rediscovery of a bat species unseen in Nigeria for 45 years – and a wildfire that destroyed half its habitat just days later – launched a community-led fire prevention program. Iroro explains how listening to farmers, who no longer knew when it was safe to burn their fields, led to a simple fire danger warning system that local leaders then backed with their own bylaws, directly addressing tragedy-of-the-commons dynamics. She also shares what it’s like to navigate conversations about climate and biodiversity with rural Nigerian communities, and how her team is now scaling their fire management solution across the tropics.

In this episode, Nate welcomes back oil market analyst Rory Johnston for an update on how the crisis has evolved since April. Rory explains why diesel is now the epicenter of the crisis, with crack spreads running five to six times their historical norm, driven by both the Iran war and Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries. He also unpacks one of the unexpected moves that lessened the severity of the energy shortage: China’s unprecedented 45% cut in crude imports, which he calls the “Beijing Swing.” Tying these trends together, Rory and Nate explore how soaring shipping costs have fractured a once-global oil market into regional pockets and how the poorest nations are bearing the brunt of demand destruction.

In this episode, Nate is joined by Robin Wall Kimmerer to explore what we can learn from some of Earth’s oldest and smallest beings: plants. Robin weaves together her experience as a botanist and a Citizen Potawatomi Nation member to offer what she’s learned about living well within nature’s limits, including practices such as the Honorable Harvest and the importance of restraint and reciprocity. She also shares the Potawatomi prophecy of the Seventh Fire, in which humanity stands at a fork between a scorched path and a green one, and can only move forward by walking back to recover what was lost along the way. Robin frames this moment as the age of remembering – an invitation to restore the land and our relationship with it.

In this episode, Nate welcomes back Indy Johar, co-founder of Dark Matter Labs, for an exploration of how coupled systemic risks are reshaping capital, institutions, and what it means to invest for the future.

In this episode, Nate welcomes back petroleum geologist Art Berman for a follow-up to their May conversation, to take stock of what's changed since the war upended Middle East energy flows.

In this episode, Nate is joined by climate scientist Zeke Hausfather to break down the numbers and metrics within climate science, and translate what they will actually feel like for humanity.

In this episode, Nate welcomes military historian and political scientist Robert Pape for an in-the-moment breakdown of the Iran war's trajectory.

In this episode, Nate is joined by philosopher and author Sarah Wilson for an exploration of the emotions that come from learning about, processing, and then embodying the full extent of the metacrisis.

In this episode, Nate is joined by Dr. Roman Yampolskiy, one of the earliest researchers in AI safety, to lay out why “controllable superintelligence” is a misguided goal, destined to lead to an entity smarter than all of humanity – and possibly our own extinction.

In this episode, Nate welcomes author and philosopher, Charles Eisenstein, for a long-requested conversation on the mythologies underneath civilization.

In this episode, Nate is joined by Greg Elliott, a systems theorist and author of the Psychopathic Selection Hypothesis (PSH), to unpack why our institutions themselves have become so psychopathic, and how that affects the behavior of the average human.

Current geopolitical events continue to expose just how complex and fragile our global economic system is. As such, The Great Simplification team is re-releasing this episode with Ed Conway, which covers the deceptively critical materials that continue to underpin everything from the phone in your hand to the house that you live in.