In this week’s Frankly, in a continuation of his ‘What I Learned This Week’ series, Nate updates viewers on things he learned in the past week, and the implications for our sociocultural trajectory. This edition focuses on recent financial and political headlines – global gold holdings, shifting geopolitical energy deals, and new U.S. Department of Energy reports – and explains their relevance to our biophysical reality and broader geopolitical landscape. Through this exercise, Nate invites podcast viewers to use a systems lens to integrate the wide array of news we are bombarded with into the large evolving story of The Human Predicament.

Why does it matter that central banks now hold more gold than the U.S. treasuries? How might expanding energy collaborations between Russia and China shift the global political power of the United States and Europe? How do current economic and political incentives affect the nature of energy science, and what we consider to be ‘truth’ itself?

(Recorded September 9th, 2025)

Show Notes and More

Watch this video episode on YouTube

Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.

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