Has anyone watched one of Nate’s most recent posts? He presents a really fantastic framework for action, which my brain very much enjoyed. Unsurprisingly Level 1 involves community. Which is exactly what we hope to do here!
“Level 1 is finding the others and building capacity. Because none of what we need to do can be done alone. And very little can be done by people who don’t share a reasonably common language and framework.
One of the most effective things you can do… is identify the people around you. Locally, and in your broader national and international networks, who see the general shape of what’s happening, and are trying to respond to it seriously. And starting conversations in that community to bring more people to that framework. This means building trusted networks… it means developing shared mental models & shared vocabulary, so when something happen, you all aren’t starting from scratch - you’re jumping into the response.”
For years podcasts have been my main ongoing education vehicle and The Great Simplification is far and away the most important of these.
This latest episode stands out as a turning point away from a decade of analysis of the meta crisis to the urgency of using what we’ve learned to build community to help each other find paths to a viable future.
As a young woman, my teacher Joanna Macy started her activism in Sri Lanka with a group called Sarvodaya which means “waking up together”.
We have created Kinterra to be a forum where we can do exactly this.
Despite the bluntness of the title… I always feel heartened by Nate Hagen’s perspective. He walks a beautiful line between bringing us to the reality we’re in and reminding us that there are things we can do to navigate through. I love the weekly ‘frankly’s’
I have listened to just about all of Nate’s podcasts since I first heard Sarah Wilson interview him 3 years ago. And Frankly #132 I listened to twice and again with my partner. It felt important, this new pivot, and I have only praise for him and his team.
I cycle through various podcasts, but I have been listening to TGS for about a year and a half, and it has been integral to returning me to a place of active hope. I am here on Kinterra thanks to a link on the deprecated TGS Discord community. I am saddened that the Discord has been abandoned by Nate & team (though I do appreciate the issues with Discord and prefer forums like this one on independent websites), but heartened that they haven’t actually closed it as it was a decently curated space and still holds a lot of valuable resources.
I think his renewed energy since the closure of Hormuz is timely and very focused, and I appreciate Nate’s work hugely, and believe he genuinely wants to help people connect and face the difficult realities of our predicament.
I’m not a fan of Discord so didn’t spend much time on the TGS one. I didn’t realise it had been abandoned? Hopefully some of the Australians and NZ folk find their way here!
Yes, Nate moved the community to a new platform run by greenwashing cryptobros, which disappointed me hugely, I stopped listening for maybe 3-6 months, but returned as his content is so important. I hope he realises the error eventually, but the process has been interesting to watch, a very dysfunctional platform which makes it harder for people to communicate, not easier - Discourse is so much better.
The How to Think About the Future is such fantastic series from Nate, well worth the watch/listen. Although many find his approach confronting, I always find it a relief in a strange way. The honesty about our predicament, his help visualising complex layers of scenarios, whilst acknowledging associated feelings, and addressing what next.
Here are the links to each one, incase you get tripped up finding them all given Nate has so many videos:
I’m currently reading Rob Hopkins’ How to Fall in Love with the Future. Whilst Nate & Rob differ somewhat in their approach, I feel for me personally that Nate’s work is a great foundation to move into Rob’s optimism. But some people might want to skip straight to Rob’s! There are of course many other great (non white male) folk and voices to guide us (non human too!), I’d love folk to share what you’re reading, observing, feeling.
