The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens

In this week's Frankly, Nate offers the third episode in his series on staying human, this time focused on presence. Nate shares a personal reflection on presence, and its importance in a reality where we are constantly living in anticipation of the future. What begins as a missed moment of coffee and a birdsong unfolds into an examination of the brain's "default mode network" – one of the most studied structures in neuroscience, which supports functions like memory, future simulation, self-narrative, and wandering thought. Drawing from neuroscience, contemplative traditions, and his own decades spent modeling civilizational risk, Nate examines how the modern world – especially for those immersed in the metacrisis – pulls attention away from lived experience and into endless internal simulations about collapse, uncertainty, and what comes next.
He also reflects on the emotional burden carried by people who are deeply aware of ecological decline, social instability, and systemic fragility, while questioning the widely held assumption that constant preoccupation is equivalent to care. Through stories, research, and practical reflections, Nate offers five pathways back to embodied awareness through using sensory attention, taking pause, single-tasking, remaining open to beauty, and embracing the finitude of life itself. Ultimately, this episode asks whether protecting the future requires us to stop abandoning the present – and whether presence itself may be one of the most necessary forms of resilience in the years ahead.
How does the brain's default mode network shape our experience of dread, distraction, and time? What do we lose when awareness of the metacrisis becomes a form of absence from our own lives? And how can people engaged in difficult, world-facing work use strategies to remain emotionally present for the relationships and moments directly in front of them?
(Recorded May 18th, 2026)
 
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Over the past century, standardized testing evolved from a wartime sorting tool into the defining feature of how we measure children's worth and potential, fundamentally altering the mental health and learning outcomes of an entire generation. Now, as global crises mount and our leaders struggle to navigate staggering complexity, a growing number of researchers are asking: what if the root cause of civilizational dysfunction is something as upstream and innately human as the way we educate our children?
In this episode, Nate is joined by developmental psychologist Dr. Theo Dawson alongside returning guest and philosopher of education Dr. Zak Stein to explore the history of educational testing and show how we've progressively narrowed our definition of learning while stunting the very mental capacities we most need. Together, they make the case that without restoring the developmental health of the next generation, no amount of policy reform or technological innovation will be sufficient to change humanity's current trajectory. At the core of this argument, they discuss the need to pivot our testing and developmental measurements toward those that foster mental complexity, individual growth, and fundamental human skills, ultimately leveraging change through the entire educational system. Both guests emphasize the central importance of cultivating an "earned sense of competence" – the deep, embodied confidence that comes from learning through genuine engagement with the world – which they believe is the most powerful resource a civilization can regenerate.
What are the effects on critical thinking and development as a result of years of memorization and high stakes testing? How might reframing the goals of our educational systems toward cultivating human flourishing help both average citizens and those in power make better decisions for the whole of society? And if education truly shapes everything from geopolitics to economic behavior, what would it require of us to treat the next generation as civilization's most precious resource as we continue to face more societal and ecological turbulence?
(Conversation recorded on March 25th, 2026)

 
About Theo Dawson:
Dr. Theo Dawson is the founder and executive director of Lectica, a nonprofit organization that develops evidence-based developmental assessments and builds knowledge about learning and its role in the future of society. She received her master's and PhD from the University of California at Berkeley and is widely published in the field of cognitive developmental psychology.
 
About Zak Stein:
Dr. Zak Stein is a philosopher of education and co-founder of Lectica. He is also co-founder of the Center for World Philosophy and Religion, the Civilization Research Institute, and the Consilience Project. He is the author of dozens of published papers and two books, including Education in a Time Between Worlds. Zak received his Doctor of Education from Harvard University.
 
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In this week's Frankly, Nate offers the second episode in his series on staying human, this time focused on dread. Opening with a personal reflection on his own relationship to dread, Nate describes how the chronic anticipation of collapse affects the human nervous system long before any single crisis fully arrives. He walks through how the neuroscience behind the body's threat response was wired for more immediate risk, rather than the slow-moving and abstract risks of the more-than-human predicament.
The latter part of the episode turns toward response. Nate outlines five practical pathways for metabolizing dread, drawing on insights from a wide variety of thinkers across neuroscience, trauma research, and contemplative traditions. These pathways include tools like mental reframing, somatic practice, reclaiming agency, community and co-regulation, and what Nate calls "befriending the darkness." He closes the episode with five concrete steps individuals can take when dread arises in daily life in order to move from dread into presence amidst widespread transformation. 
Where in your body do you actually feel the weight of what you know about the future? What is one action within your reach today that is small but real? And who in your life can sit with what you carry, without trying to fix it?
(Recorded May 14th, 2026)
 
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The last pre-war shipments of oil products from the Strait of Hormuz have arrived at their destinations as of early May, meaning the promise of an energy crisis as a result of the Iran war is fast approaching. Leading experts are now forecasting energy disruptions ranging from rationing to severe shortages in import-dependent economies, with roughly 11% of global oil supply already offline. This leaves us with the question: even if this war were to end today, what sort of system-wide effects are locked in given the current loss in production, and what will be required of us to cope with the fallout? 
In this episode, Nate welcomes back petroleum geologist Art Berman to break down the timeline of the looming oil shortages stemming from the Strait of Hormuz crisis and just how severe they could become within a tightly coupled, complex global system. Art explains why, even if the war were to end today, the inherent lags in our industrial supply chains mean shortfalls are already baked into the coming months. The resulting rise in energy prices will reach far beyond the pump, rippling out into the cost of virtually everything and confronting much of the world with conditions not seen in over five decades. Ultimately, Art sees this as a forcing mechanism that could compress decades of needed adjustment into months. The outcome will rely less on policy than on whether societies can absorb the shock without breaking.
Amid all the speculation about oil prices in the wake of the Iranian conflict, what do these numbers actually mean in physical terms? If this conflict signals the beginning of a long-term decline in energy availability, are we already past the peak of the global material economy, with the financial layer not yet caught up to the physics? And if this conflict signals the beginning of a long-term decline in energy availability, what lessons from our deep past might help us find our way forward?
(Conversation recorded on May 6th, 2026)
 
About Art Berman: 
Art Berman is a petroleum geologist with over 40 years of oil and gas industry experience. He is an expert on U.S. shale plays and is currently consulting for several E&P companies and capital groups in the energy sector.
 
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This week's Frankly is another edition of Wide Boundary News, where Nate invites listeners to view the constant churn of headlines through a wider-boundary lens. He begins with the misleading framing of recent oil production statistics by the United States, which blurs distinctions between crude oil and broader petroleum products. Nate uses this as a case study in how data can be technically correct, yet structurally misleading – particularly when used for political storytelling. The lens widens as he considers whether the peak of the carbon pulse could pass without clear public understanding, especially as access to the underlying data becomes more restricted and fragmented.
Nate then moves into the geopolitical and physical consequences of energy strain, focusing on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz as a critical chokepoint in global oil flows. He connects ongoing disruptions not only to price spikes, but also to how energy functions as a security commodity. These disruptions also extend into cascading effects on food systems, as things like fertilizer supply and cooking fuel reverse in access and affordability. Moving closer to home, Nate discusses the opening of Minnesota's Boundary Waters for copper-nickel mining, highlighting the tension between ecosystem protection and demand for mineral inputs to power any magnitude of energy transition. He also touches on the rapid expansion of AI data centers and the large share of electricity they use, framing this trend as the economic Superorganism diverting massive energy flows toward its cognitive layer, rather than only its muscular layer. Finally, Nate closes with a reflection on industrial livestock productivity as another expression of a system optimized for high output, but operating under energy conditions that may no longer hold. 
Why do we need to think about energy as a security commodity? How much of our future depends on being told the truth? And what have we bred for – in cows, seed varieties, supply chains, cities, and financial systems – that we will not be able to feed, medicate, or transport on the backside of the carbon pulse?
(Recorded May 5th, 2026)
 
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