AI’s Unseen Risks: How Artificial Intelligence Could Harm Future Generations with Zak Stein
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Release Date: 06/04/2025
Dark Triad Personality Traits: How Psychopathy, Narcissism, and Machiavellianism Impact Our Cultures & Social Systems | RR 19
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Psychopathy is often portrayed as a rare and distant phenomenon – something confined to movie villains or prison cells. Yet when psychopathy is combined with narcissism and Machiavellianism to form what psychologists call the Dark Triad, its impact becomes far more immediate. Individuals with these traits can wield disproportionate influence over our culture, institutions, and daily lives. What goes on inside their minds, and how do they shape the world around us? In this episode, Nate is joined by Dr. Reid Meloy and Dr. Nancy McWilliams to explore the inner workings of the Dark Triad...
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What I Learned This Week: Gold Holdings, Political Divides, and the DOE Climate Report | Frankly 107
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
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...
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Why We Need Forests: Their Vital Role in Climate Dynamics, Rain, and The Biotic Pump with Anastassia Makarieva
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
It’s widely known that Earth’s forests provide home to countless numbers of species, act as a vast sink for carbon, and provide much of the food, materials, and clean water on which our societies rely. But emerging science shows us that forests may play another critical role: making rain. This theory, called the biotic pump theory, hypothesizes that instead of being passive recipients of rain, forests may actively create the conditions for precipitation over land – a premise that turns modern meteorology on its head. In this episode, Nate is joined by physicist Anastassia...
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10 Things Worth More Than a Pound of Gold | Frankly 106
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
In this week’s Frankly, Nate weighs the value of a pound of gold with other things that we derive worth from in our lives – from dollars and bitcoin to...less pecuniary markers. Although gold is simply a metal, it has long been a symbol of wealth in human cultures. Through highlighting other important, sometimes intangible forms of wealth, Nate encourages the viewer to not only examine what they place the most worth on in their own lives, but also to consider why things have worth to us as humans living in a complex, modern system. What contributes to the real wealth of your life – and...
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How Water Shapes Our Planet: The Undervalued Resource that Supports Everything We Do | Reality Roundtable 18
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Water has always been a fundamental force shaping our planet – both in sustaining life across ecosystems and in guiding the organization and survival of human societies. Yet, many of us are unaware of how intertwined our lives are with the water cycle, much less of the ways we deplete and degrade the water resources that we and other living creatures rely upon for our very existence. What might change if we had a deeper understanding of global and regional hydrological cycles? On this Reality Roundtable, Nate is joined by Heather Cooley, Zach Weiss, and Mike Joy to discuss the...
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Where Will Humanity Move When the World Gets Too Hot? Mass Climate Migration & The Rise of Uninhabitable Regions with Sunil Amrith
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
In the next 25 years, the International Organization for Migration estimates that one billion people will be displaced from their homes due to climate-related events. From island nations underwater to inland areas too hot and extreme to sustain life, the individuals and communities in these areas will need somewhere new to live. Where will these people go, and how will this mass migration add further pressure to the stability of nations and the world? In this episode, Nate is joined by environmental and migration historian, Sunil Amrith, to explore the complex history of human movement...
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Key Blindspots of the “Walrus” Movement | Frankly 105
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
In this week’s Frankly, Nate unpacks some key blindspots of “the walrus movement”—a placeholder label that's a gentle nod to those championing bold social and ecological ideals. While mostly well-intentioned, this "movement" can miss the stark limits of our planet’s unfolding biophysical reality. What happens when lofty goals sidestep ecological and energetic realities? How might we incorporate these oversights to drive clear, purposeful action towards a (more) sustainable future? And how do we ground ourselves in biophysical truths while envisioning a system that better serves the...
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How Do You Become Who You Want to Be?: The Science Behind Identity, Purpose, and Motivation with Taylor Guthrie
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Our personal concept of identity shapes every decision we make – ranging from life-altering choices to our smallest daily preferences. Identity influences our values, the relationships we build, and how we respond to an increasingly unpredictable world, whether in constructive or destructive ways. But how are these identities formed, and how might we take a more deliberate role in cultivating a healthy sense of self – and therefore a healthier way of relating to the world? In this episode, Nate is joined by social neuroscientist Taylor Guthrie to delve into the neuroscience of identity,...
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Ducks and Blueberries: A Reflection on Price, Cost and Value
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
In this week’s Frankly, Nate shares an excerpt from his daily life that mirrors a larger observation on the human predicament. A grocery shopping trip turns into a reflection on value vs cost, and how consumption in our society is driven by the perception of value that’s presented to us. What is the difference in value that our minds create between a $5 container of blueberries, and a $1 container? What is the difference between price, cost and value? What things in our lives do we treat as disposable when they are cheap, but treat as treasure when they are pricey? What would it look...
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The Forgotten Skills of Dying and Grieving Well: How Engaging with Loss Can Help Us Live More Fully with Stephen Jenkinson
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
In Western culture, topics surrounding death and dying are often considered taboo and are generally avoided in everyday conversations. But this reluctance to fully acknowledge and integrate death as a natural part of the human experience has rendered us less able to cope with the end of life and less prepared to show up for ourselves and the people around us as we inevitably navigate loss. But what if a more skillful engagement with death and grief could actually offer us a more mindful approach to living? In this conversation, Nate is joined by Stephen Jenkinson, a cultural activist and...
info_outlineWhile most industries are embracing artificial intelligence, citing profit and efficiency, the tech industry is pushing AI into education under the guise of ‘inevitability’. But the focus on its potential benefits for academia eclipses the pressing (and often invisible) risks that AI poses to children – including the decline of critical thinking, the inability to connect with other humans, and even addiction. With the use of AI becoming more ubiquitous by the day, we must ask ourselves: can our education systems adequately protect children from the potential harms of AI?
In this episode, Nate is joined once again by philosopher of education Zak Stein to delve into the far-reaching implications of technology – especially artificial intelligence – on the future of education. Together, they examine the risks of over-reliance on AI for the development of young minds, as well as the broader impact on society and some of the biggest existential risks. Zak explores the ethical challenges of adopting AI into educational systems, emphasizing the enduring value of traditional skills and the need for a balanced approach to integrating technology with human values (not just the values of tech companies).
What steps are available to us today – from interface design to regulation of access – to limit the negative effects of Artificial Intelligence on children? How can parents and educators keep alive the pillars of independent thinking and foundational learning as AI threatens them? Ultimately, is there a world where Artificial Intelligence could become a tool to amplify human connection and socialization – or might it replace them entirely?
(Conversation recorded on May 12th, 2025)
About Zak Stein:
Dr. Zak Stein is a philosopher of education, as well as a Co-founder of the Center for World Philosophy and Religion. He is also the Co-founder of Civilization Research Institute, the Consilience Project, and Lectica, Inc. He is the author of dozens of published papers and two books, including Education in a Time Between Worlds. Zak recieved his EdD from Harvard University.
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