Hidden Brain
Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam
Science
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
by Nate Hagens
Today: #25 in Science on our combined chart.
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Ranking history
History builds daily. We started tracking this show on the Science chart recently, so the trend line appears after a second day of data.
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| Date | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pocket Casts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 1 | #26 | #38 | #27 |
About the show
The Great Simplification is a podcast that explores the systems science underpinning the human predicament. Through conversations with experts and leaders hosted by Dr. Nate Hagens, we explore topics spanning ecology, economics, energy, geopolitics, human behavior, and monetary/financial systems. Our goal is to provide a simple educational resource for the complex energetic, physical, and social constraints ahead, and to inspire people to play a role in our collective future. Ultimately, we aim to normalize these conversations and, in doing so, change the initial conditions of future events.
Latest episodes
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Climate Uncertainty: The Coolest Year for the Rest of Our Lives? with Zeke Hausfather
September 30, 2026 · 1 hr 32 minThe El Niño now building in the tropical Pacific is unlike anything in the historical record, and it's arriving on top of decades of warming. Together, they could push global temperatures to roughly 1.8°C (3.2ºF) above pre-industrial…
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A State of the World Address: The Climate Speech We'll Probably Never Hear | Frankly 160
September 25, 2026 · 15 minOn the heels of Climate Week, Nate poses a thought experiment: What would a world leader's speech sound like if the difficult truths underpinning global heating – which are politically unsayable due to donors, borders, electoral campaigns…
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The Escalation Trap: Is America's Strategy in Iran Backfiring?
September 23, 2026 · 1 hr 7 minThe United States, a global superpower for the last several decades, is now locked into a battle for control over the region with the bulk of the world's remaining fossil fuel reserves. Despite U.S. military strength, Iran is not backing…
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The Real Work: Four Things We Can't Afford to Get Wrong | Frankly 159
September 18, 2026 · 33 minThis week, Nate zooms out from recent headlines about climbing diesel prices, a thinning U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and inflationary bond markets to ask the deeper question: what is the real work that's required of us as the systems…
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Radical Simplicity: The Opportunities of a World in Collapse with Sarah Wilson
September 16, 2026 · 1 hr 39 minFor years, the climate movement ran on the promise that, if we all rally hard enough, we could have it all: continue with our current system and save the planet. Yet the events of the past few decades have shown that this isn't quite the…
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The Human Predicament: What Would Change My Mind | Frankly 158
September 11, 2026 · 19 minThis week's Frankly begins with a deceptively simple question Nate was asked in conversation: what would change his mind about The Great Simplification thesis? Nate uses the question as a jumping-off point to examine what evidence would…
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Banning Superintelligence: Are We Building Humanity's Replacement? with Roman Yampolskiy
September 9, 2026 · 54 minThe world's leading AI companies tell us that superintelligence has a strong chance of leading to human extinction, while also promising that they will be able to control it, offering unlimited power to the one who does it first. So far…
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Turning the Dials Back on Psychopathy: Decent People, Indecent System | Frankly 157
September 4, 2026 · 39 minThis week's Frankly builds on Nate's recent conversation with systems theorist Greg Elliott, who came on the platform to discuss why our institutions themselves have become psychopathic and how that affects the behavior of the average…