
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 c... more
| Publishes | Daily | Episodes | 428 | Founded | 5 years ago |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of Listeners | Categories | Earth SciencesNatural SciencesScience | |||

The 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 down, equipp... more
This 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 that under... more
For 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 case, and in... more
This 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 actually caus... more
People also subscribe to these shows.





I appreciate how some of your guests view the individual as having agency over the path of the super-organism. I disagree. I think of it how Bill Rees puts it; whatever resources I forgo aren’t now saved, they are taken up by another individual.
I would love to hear a round table with landfill experts, that’s a story worth exploring to understand the logistics required to build up a landfill.
Thanks for great work TGS team!
Hierarchy can be good as a scaffold but this is a very odd take and use on the term third person and post modernism especially if you look at how all that has been used before. Also plenty of people were “we” based long before 100 years ago and this is not linear. Too “good guys vs bad guys” framed, like if you don’t become exactly this way you are some lower. There are lots of other avenues. I fear this this could lead to non dual coming to mean “become one like me”
I feel like Bill is one of the few who tells it how it really is. A lot of people don’t paint the picture like he does, they gloss over it or avoid it all together.
Bill is essential listening to enlighten people about the reality.
I’d love to hear if you could do an episode about landfills too.
M Every conveniently left out that Israel bombs Lebanon daily and has likely killed over 100k in gaza. He did claim Iran “has sworn to destroy Israel”. US attacked first killing 150 schoolgirls. Nice line about police as well. Real expert stuff.
That would be great, guests are amazing
Key themes from listener reviews, highlighting what works and what could be improved about the show.
How this podcast ranks in the Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube charts.
Spotify | #43 | |
Apple Podcasts | #2 | |
Apple Podcasts | #50 | |
Spotify | #33 | |
Apple Podcasts | #1 | |
Apple Podcasts | #2 |
Recent interactions between the hosts and their guests.
Listeners, social reach, demographics and more for this podcast.
| Listeners per Episode | |
|---|---|
| Gender Skew | |
| Location | |
| Interests | |
| Professions | |
| Age Range | |
| Household Income | |
| Social Media Reach |
A thoughtful, systems-focused show that probes the forces shaping the human-nature predicament across ecology, energy, economics, and geopolitics. Conversations center on how complex feedbacks, constraints, and scarce resources drive long-term outcomes, with frequent emphasis on resilience, robustness, and practical action at household and community scales. Guests range from scientists and policy experts to energy strategists and sustainability practitioners, offering rigorous analysis paired with actionable ideas for individuals and organizations navigating a rapidly changing world. A distinguishing thread is connecting deep technical understanding to real-world decisions, from local land stewardship and regenerative finance to global supp... more
Rephonic provides a wide range of podcast stats for this podcast. We scanned the web and collated all of the information that we could find in our comprehensive podcast database. See how many people listen to this podcast and access YouTube viewership numbers, download stats, audience demographics, chart rankings, ratings, reviews and more.
Rephonic provides a full set of podcast information for four million podcasts, including the number of listeners. View further listenership figures for this podcast, including podcast download numbers and subscriber numbers, so you can make better decisions about which podcasts to sponsor or be a guest on. You will need to upgrade your account to access this premium data.
Rephonic provides comprehensive predictive audience data for this podcast, including gender skew, age, country, political leaning, income, professions, education level, and interests. You can access these listener demographics by upgrading your account.
To see how many followers or subscribers this podcast has on Spotify and other platforms such as Castbox and Podcast Addict, simply upgrade your account. You'll also find viewership figures for their YouTube channel if they have one.
These podcasts share a similar audience with this podcast:
1. Planet: Critical
2. Accidental Gods - The Thrutopian Podcast
3. Breaking Down: Collapse
4. Emergence Magazine Podcast
5. Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff
this podcast launched 5 years ago and published 428 episodes to date. You can find more information about this podcast including rankings, audience demographics and engagement in our podcast database.
Our systems regularly scour the web to find email addresses and social media links for this podcast. We scanned the web and collated all of the contact information that we could find in our podcast database. But in the unlikely event that you can't find what you're looking for, our concierge service lets you request our research team to source better contacts for you.
Rephonic pulls ratings and reviews for this podcast from multiple sources, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Castbox, and Podcast Addict.
View all the reviews in one place instead of visiting each platform individually and use this information to decide if a show is worth pitching or not.
Rephonic provides full transcripts for episodes of this podcast. Search within each transcript for your keywords, whether they be topics, brands or people, and figure out if it's worth pitching as a guest or sponsor. You can even set-up alerts to get notified when your keywords are mentioned.
Recent guests on this podcast include:
1. Sarah Wilson
2. Roman Yampolskiy
3. Charles Eisenstein
4. Greg Elliott
5. Ed Conway
6. Richard Schwartz
7. Steffi Bednarek
8. Olivier Hamant
To view more recent guests and their details, simply upgrade your Rephonic account. You'll also get access to a typical guest profile to help you decide if the show is worth pitching.