Thank you Nate for the really great content you share and your "Franklys". When trying to talk to different people about planetary limits, I am often told "yeah but we managed to solve the acid rain, the ozone layer, we will do the same with other sources of pollution". I try to indicate that for those 2 issues, it was relatively simple to change the cooling CFC and remove the sulfur, but that it is not the same with other limits. I really feel that the technosolutionism is the main issue of our time. Almost everyone is convinced that we will eventually be able to live on Mars, that it is juste a question of time.
I feel that although slowing down, reducing consumption and going back to real social interactions is very appealing to me, it is not a story that most people want to hear.
Hey Nate — your work has been a light for me in the long dark of collapse-awareness. It helped me move through epistemic panic into something closer to coherent stewardship. Thank you for the comfort and clarity “The Great Simplification” has brought me.
A few interwoven questions I’ve been holding lately, sparked again by your post:
• Is there a third stance beyond “there’s nothing we can do” and “we must stay hopeful”? A kind of grief-held clarity that can metabolize despair without collapsing into it?
• How do we tell the truth about energy descent and ecological overshoot without inducing psychological shutdown — especially in those just beginning to wake up?
• How do you hold the tension between articulating complex system breakdowns and not becoming yet another totalizing narrative in the process?
• And finally — as we watch institutions flail — do you see any remaining leverage in formal systems, or has the locus of transformation now fully shifted to the relational and emergent?
These are live questions for me as I write The Sovereign Self, a Substack exploring collapse-aware sovereignty, grief, and meaning-making. If it ever resonates to cross-pollinate, I’d be honored to connect.
I like your thoughtful questions John but why do I feel a chill at a title like The Sovereign Self? See the Self Help and the Sovereign Citizen movements.
Appreciate this, Alistair — and your perceptiveness. That chill you felt is totally valid.
The title The Sovereign Self is definitely not meant in the “Sovereign Citizen” or hyper-individualist self-help sense (I bristle at that stuff too).
My framing is more ontological and relational — sovereignty as the capacity to remain coherent and compassionate within collapse, to author one’s presence without bypass or dissociation. It’s a post-salvific stance, not a self-seeking one.
In many ways, I’m trying to reclaim the word — to point toward a kind of grief-informed, grounded authorship that doesn’t rely on institutions, fantasies, or savior myths.
I get 2 responses: 1) that’s depressing and 2) when I explain all we can do to make collapse less harmful they say “Isn’t that just advice for living a good life?” (Stoicism, Buddhism). Do you have advice for threading the needle between avoidance and non-specificity?
3. The era of cheap energy is ending, to the point where systems that rely on it are beginning to collapse and that collapse will accelerate.
Do we think that AI is developing so fast that it becomes an existential threat before it loses its energy source? Or do we think that when energy rationing becomes a reality, AI will take priority over poor people in inner cities who need air conditioning, and food production, and....
I'm a devoted listener to your podcasts and Frankly's. What I want to know is about neighbors. I have lived across the street and next door to the same people for more than 40 years. I'm a terrible neighbor!! I don't trust them. I don't want to know what their politics are! And yet, it's amazing that we've been sleeping 100 yards from each other for 40 years!! What's it going to take for us weird, privileged, private, freedom-loving americans to connect with each other????
Hi Nate, I've really enjoyed engaging with your ideas and content and was especially inspired by your 'Economics for the future' article. In my Bachelor's in Economics, techno-optimism is a very commonly held position - that human ingenuity will allow us to out-innovate any global challenges that come our way, and therefore any call to reduce consumption or growth is pessimistic, short-sighted, and Malthusian. This often feels like a dead-end argument and I'd love your thoughts on how to engage more deeply with (or challenge more effectively!) ideas around a blinding faith in technology and innovation. Many thanks, Lazarus
I am 68. I consider that life with no car in San Francisco and frequently ad hoc jobs worked and does now after 37 years despite continual catastrophe. I simply chose what would make me happy at 30 and acted. In the end trust in our heart is first. This is the greatest simplification. I Am I - a person, an agent, and I act in this world which also made me. I am a verb.
My question is a lot more concrete: what are the "canaries in the coal mine" you see/perceive/track that would give us the insights of upcoming "polycollapse" within few years/less than a decade?
One struggle I have with smart but busy people is deference to institutional authority. To truly understand this topic requires lots of time, and research. Until then, a discerning person might say "I'll trust the opinion of the experts in our leading institutions over your say so." I'm not sure how to convey the message of "I know this is shocking and disagrees with most of the messages about reality we typically hear, but you should really look into this."
I’d like to hear more on why so called solutions such as solar, wind, electric cars, all the new green deal things simply won’t work in any substantial way- or perhaps even help. Seems few are interested in conservation or living simply any more - even in the environmentalist crowd. Feels like we should looking for inspiration in the likes of Thorea’s Walden rather than some tech bro out of Silicon Valley.
JoRoo, can I recommend a couple of books? I found Life After Fossil Fuels by Alice J. Friedemann and Bright Green Lies by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert very helpful in answering your question.
I have a similar strain of question: what are the underlying cultural/personal stories that are currently shielding us from collective action on behalf of these issues? What are the outlines of a "new story"? What is the process for infecting our culture with this story? Why aren't environmental orgs contending with issues at this deep cultural/values level?
I have watched or listened to every episode of TGS---interviews, franklies, and roundtables---with rapt attention. I have a folder of digital notebooks, one of which is largely devoted to TGS and other media by many of your guests. For some of the episodes, I have sat at the laptop with the video in one tab, the show notes in another, the transcript in a third, additional tabs open to links from the show notes, and my digital notebook in yet another tab, taking notes furiously. I have downloaded and read guests' published papers and purchased and read guests' books cover to cover. TGS and PCI, which you are also involved with, form the core of my self-study.
However, I have no credentials. I am a retired software engineer living in a community that doesn't know software engineering from HTML coding. I only have a BS degree in a college town surrounded by professors, attorneys, and MDs. I'm wading through Charlie Hall's textbook on biophysical economics, and have read countless related books, academic papers, thinktank blogs, reports, and watched videos of these marvelous friends of yours. But I cannot call myself a biophysical economist, or even a student of biophysical economics, as I cannot, at this stage in life, commit myself to a PhD program. Probably couldn't get admitted anyway.
So I am limited to 3 minute public comment at local government meetings, and emails to members of government who may or may not read them, or may read them with varying levels of attention or comprehension.
Local government is willing to listen to groups. I formed a group of 3 but it fell apart, for the same reasons cited in other comments here about all our busy lives, and radically different attitides regarding TGS or collapse. During our brief existence as a group, we got the local government to listen to a 20 minute presentation on resilience, well recieved, and got them to read a 4-page paper of recommendations, largely well-recieved, but now I'm back to 3 minute public comment and emails that may easily be ignored or misconstrued.
Is there a path to acquiring some sort of credentials other than enrollment in a PhD program?
Is there some way to deliver an elevator pitch in 3 minutes? Your 4-minute video does a great job, yet still can't fit in a 3 minute public comment, especially without the benefit of visuals.
How can I break through this wall of brevity and credentialism to find a role in my community?
I circulated a proposal for the formation of a permanent local energy commission that would function on par with the planning commission and environmental advisory council. The proposal went nowhere. I want to reintroduce it. How do I give it the social energy it needs to get some attention?
Together with a group based in a nearby town, I ran a couple of film and discussion events. The second one was your original Full Animation video. The discussions were lively and helpful, but failed to result in anybody signing up to join me in forming some sort of a group within the borders of my community that would give Simplification and Resilience a real voice. It takes a lot of time and energy. Do I keep going with that?
Even a new 3-person group would be a huge victory.
Similar experiences for me, but I had yet to set up the groups that you have. That was my next step, and am hoping Nate picks up this question to address. My fear with the group is that I attract like minded people who sit around and agree on this stuff, but it makes no difference in moving the needle.
I think the point of forming an aligned group is to gain a seat at a table, where seats are reserved for representatives of groups and individuals with no group backing are excluded. In my community, the group members must all be local residents.
The local gov't has advisory bodies. Not all members on these bodies have advanced degrees, but they all have some sort of credential you can name. "Biophysical economics autodidact student" isn't a recognizable credential. Representative of a local group is, however, as is "Professor of <something relevant>" or "30 years experience as an urban planner."
This is my hope for moving the needle, where to me, moving the needle translates to limiting the damage while the current paradigm endures to make it a wee bit easier for the next generation to enter a new paradign.
Choosing the life of The Great Simplification needn't be only because we are no longer energy blind. There is goodness and richness in the lifestyle itself. I live in a community where I witness and engage with many 20-60 year olds who get it and somehow are able to incorporate their awareness and concerns for what lies ahead into their daily lives today. Addressing global issues locally is sort of the guide but there is more to it than that. So the question could be how do attract more people into the Great Simplification lifestyle for its own sake. Looming also is AI. Get more of the people who are not AI Blind on the program.
Please change the music on the episodes. Let it represent the Great Simplification and not so much the Superorganism. I always feel the need to apologize for the scary, sort of horror-film music when I introduce someone new to the programming which I cherish.
Hi Nate and thanks for all that you do with this podcast.
I find that a lot of people find the subject matter depressing. They are weighted down too much with their day to day concerns( busy with family, aging parents, cost of living difficulties , etc). So caught up on the hamster wheel they can’t get off to contemplate how they might make a start to initiate positive changes in their lives and care for our planet.
Then there are those who are fully engaged with what is being discussed here …however, unfortunately I think there are less of those people than the above at the moment.
So I guess the issue is how to get more people willing and/or able to take the time to contemplate these pressing concerns for the future of all species and our collective home?
Oh, yes, one of the other big ones, Why was the discovery of J M Keynes, that growth-to-collapse is readily averted by using its system resources for something other than expanding the system’s overshoot. And, Doesn’t it seem that it must be very simple, if it appears every new life that survives its own growth must have discovered it; how to use its agency for something else, too?
Thank you Nate for the really great content you share and your "Franklys". When trying to talk to different people about planetary limits, I am often told "yeah but we managed to solve the acid rain, the ozone layer, we will do the same with other sources of pollution". I try to indicate that for those 2 issues, it was relatively simple to change the cooling CFC and remove the sulfur, but that it is not the same with other limits. I really feel that the technosolutionism is the main issue of our time. Almost everyone is convinced that we will eventually be able to live on Mars, that it is juste a question of time.
I feel that although slowing down, reducing consumption and going back to real social interactions is very appealing to me, it is not a story that most people want to hear.
Hey Nate — your work has been a light for me in the long dark of collapse-awareness. It helped me move through epistemic panic into something closer to coherent stewardship. Thank you for the comfort and clarity “The Great Simplification” has brought me.
A few interwoven questions I’ve been holding lately, sparked again by your post:
• Is there a third stance beyond “there’s nothing we can do” and “we must stay hopeful”? A kind of grief-held clarity that can metabolize despair without collapsing into it?
• How do we tell the truth about energy descent and ecological overshoot without inducing psychological shutdown — especially in those just beginning to wake up?
• How do you hold the tension between articulating complex system breakdowns and not becoming yet another totalizing narrative in the process?
• And finally — as we watch institutions flail — do you see any remaining leverage in formal systems, or has the locus of transformation now fully shifted to the relational and emergent?
These are live questions for me as I write The Sovereign Self, a Substack exploring collapse-aware sovereignty, grief, and meaning-making. If it ever resonates to cross-pollinate, I’d be honored to connect.
Thanks again for all you offer.
I like your thoughtful questions John but why do I feel a chill at a title like The Sovereign Self? See the Self Help and the Sovereign Citizen movements.
Appreciate this, Alistair — and your perceptiveness. That chill you felt is totally valid.
The title The Sovereign Self is definitely not meant in the “Sovereign Citizen” or hyper-individualist self-help sense (I bristle at that stuff too).
My framing is more ontological and relational — sovereignty as the capacity to remain coherent and compassionate within collapse, to author one’s presence without bypass or dissociation. It’s a post-salvific stance, not a self-seeking one.
In many ways, I’m trying to reclaim the word — to point toward a kind of grief-informed, grounded authorship that doesn’t rely on institutions, fantasies, or savior myths.
https://johnmhoneycutt1.substack.com/p/what-we-mean-by-self-sovereignty
Would love your thoughts on that. And thank you for voicing the friction — I really appreciate it.
I get 2 responses: 1) that’s depressing and 2) when I explain all we can do to make collapse less harmful they say “Isn’t that just advice for living a good life?” (Stoicism, Buddhism). Do you have advice for threading the needle between avoidance and non-specificity?
Hi Nate! I so enjoy the Franklies.
My question is this: We know that
1. AI is an existential threat
2. AI is incredibly energy intensive
3. The era of cheap energy is ending, to the point where systems that rely on it are beginning to collapse and that collapse will accelerate.
Do we think that AI is developing so fast that it becomes an existential threat before it loses its energy source? Or do we think that when energy rationing becomes a reality, AI will take priority over poor people in inner cities who need air conditioning, and food production, and....
I'm a devoted listener to your podcasts and Frankly's. What I want to know is about neighbors. I have lived across the street and next door to the same people for more than 40 years. I'm a terrible neighbor!! I don't trust them. I don't want to know what their politics are! And yet, it's amazing that we've been sleeping 100 yards from each other for 40 years!! What's it going to take for us weird, privileged, private, freedom-loving americans to connect with each other????
Hi Nate, I've really enjoyed engaging with your ideas and content and was especially inspired by your 'Economics for the future' article. In my Bachelor's in Economics, techno-optimism is a very commonly held position - that human ingenuity will allow us to out-innovate any global challenges that come our way, and therefore any call to reduce consumption or growth is pessimistic, short-sighted, and Malthusian. This often feels like a dead-end argument and I'd love your thoughts on how to engage more deeply with (or challenge more effectively!) ideas around a blinding faith in technology and innovation. Many thanks, Lazarus
I am 68. I consider that life with no car in San Francisco and frequently ad hoc jobs worked and does now after 37 years despite continual catastrophe. I simply chose what would make me happy at 30 and acted. In the end trust in our heart is first. This is the greatest simplification. I Am I - a person, an agent, and I act in this world which also made me. I am a verb.
Thanks Nate for opening up our minds!
My question is a lot more concrete: what are the "canaries in the coal mine" you see/perceive/track that would give us the insights of upcoming "polycollapse" within few years/less than a decade?
(my question was inspired from this: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/arkh3_leading-through-the-polycrisis-key-insights-activity-7338085118802108417-ZaAU )
One struggle I have with smart but busy people is deference to institutional authority. To truly understand this topic requires lots of time, and research. Until then, a discerning person might say "I'll trust the opinion of the experts in our leading institutions over your say so." I'm not sure how to convey the message of "I know this is shocking and disagrees with most of the messages about reality we typically hear, but you should really look into this."
I’d like to hear more on why so called solutions such as solar, wind, electric cars, all the new green deal things simply won’t work in any substantial way- or perhaps even help. Seems few are interested in conservation or living simply any more - even in the environmentalist crowd. Feels like we should looking for inspiration in the likes of Thorea’s Walden rather than some tech bro out of Silicon Valley.
JoRoo, can I recommend a couple of books? I found Life After Fossil Fuels by Alice J. Friedemann and Bright Green Lies by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert very helpful in answering your question.
Nate, I'd love to hear your thoughts about implications for education. How should we change what and how we teach, ditto research?
Nate, thank you for all you contribute. Wondering , Is Collapse, Extinction happening because not enough humans treat the earth as Sacred.
Love this beautiful earth and life as we are all part of this cosmic story.
I have a similar strain of question: what are the underlying cultural/personal stories that are currently shielding us from collective action on behalf of these issues? What are the outlines of a "new story"? What is the process for infecting our culture with this story? Why aren't environmental orgs contending with issues at this deep cultural/values level?
I have watched or listened to every episode of TGS---interviews, franklies, and roundtables---with rapt attention. I have a folder of digital notebooks, one of which is largely devoted to TGS and other media by many of your guests. For some of the episodes, I have sat at the laptop with the video in one tab, the show notes in another, the transcript in a third, additional tabs open to links from the show notes, and my digital notebook in yet another tab, taking notes furiously. I have downloaded and read guests' published papers and purchased and read guests' books cover to cover. TGS and PCI, which you are also involved with, form the core of my self-study.
However, I have no credentials. I am a retired software engineer living in a community that doesn't know software engineering from HTML coding. I only have a BS degree in a college town surrounded by professors, attorneys, and MDs. I'm wading through Charlie Hall's textbook on biophysical economics, and have read countless related books, academic papers, thinktank blogs, reports, and watched videos of these marvelous friends of yours. But I cannot call myself a biophysical economist, or even a student of biophysical economics, as I cannot, at this stage in life, commit myself to a PhD program. Probably couldn't get admitted anyway.
So I am limited to 3 minute public comment at local government meetings, and emails to members of government who may or may not read them, or may read them with varying levels of attention or comprehension.
Local government is willing to listen to groups. I formed a group of 3 but it fell apart, for the same reasons cited in other comments here about all our busy lives, and radically different attitides regarding TGS or collapse. During our brief existence as a group, we got the local government to listen to a 20 minute presentation on resilience, well recieved, and got them to read a 4-page paper of recommendations, largely well-recieved, but now I'm back to 3 minute public comment and emails that may easily be ignored or misconstrued.
Is there a path to acquiring some sort of credentials other than enrollment in a PhD program?
Is there some way to deliver an elevator pitch in 3 minutes? Your 4-minute video does a great job, yet still can't fit in a 3 minute public comment, especially without the benefit of visuals.
How can I break through this wall of brevity and credentialism to find a role in my community?
I circulated a proposal for the formation of a permanent local energy commission that would function on par with the planning commission and environmental advisory council. The proposal went nowhere. I want to reintroduce it. How do I give it the social energy it needs to get some attention?
Together with a group based in a nearby town, I ran a couple of film and discussion events. The second one was your original Full Animation video. The discussions were lively and helpful, but failed to result in anybody signing up to join me in forming some sort of a group within the borders of my community that would give Simplification and Resilience a real voice. It takes a lot of time and energy. Do I keep going with that?
Even a new 3-person group would be a huge victory.
Similar experiences for me, but I had yet to set up the groups that you have. That was my next step, and am hoping Nate picks up this question to address. My fear with the group is that I attract like minded people who sit around and agree on this stuff, but it makes no difference in moving the needle.
I think the point of forming an aligned group is to gain a seat at a table, where seats are reserved for representatives of groups and individuals with no group backing are excluded. In my community, the group members must all be local residents.
The local gov't has advisory bodies. Not all members on these bodies have advanced degrees, but they all have some sort of credential you can name. "Biophysical economics autodidact student" isn't a recognizable credential. Representative of a local group is, however, as is "Professor of <something relevant>" or "30 years experience as an urban planner."
This is my hope for moving the needle, where to me, moving the needle translates to limiting the damage while the current paradigm endures to make it a wee bit easier for the next generation to enter a new paradign.
Choosing the life of The Great Simplification needn't be only because we are no longer energy blind. There is goodness and richness in the lifestyle itself. I live in a community where I witness and engage with many 20-60 year olds who get it and somehow are able to incorporate their awareness and concerns for what lies ahead into their daily lives today. Addressing global issues locally is sort of the guide but there is more to it than that. So the question could be how do attract more people into the Great Simplification lifestyle for its own sake. Looming also is AI. Get more of the people who are not AI Blind on the program.
Please change the music on the episodes. Let it represent the Great Simplification and not so much the Superorganism. I always feel the need to apologize for the scary, sort of horror-film music when I introduce someone new to the programming which I cherish.
Hi Nate and thanks for all that you do with this podcast.
I find that a lot of people find the subject matter depressing. They are weighted down too much with their day to day concerns( busy with family, aging parents, cost of living difficulties , etc). So caught up on the hamster wheel they can’t get off to contemplate how they might make a start to initiate positive changes in their lives and care for our planet.
Then there are those who are fully engaged with what is being discussed here …however, unfortunately I think there are less of those people than the above at the moment.
So I guess the issue is how to get more people willing and/or able to take the time to contemplate these pressing concerns for the future of all species and our collective home?
Oh, yes, one of the other big ones, Why was the discovery of J M Keynes, that growth-to-collapse is readily averted by using its system resources for something other than expanding the system’s overshoot. And, Doesn’t it seem that it must be very simple, if it appears every new life that survives its own growth must have discovered it; how to use its agency for something else, too?