Globalization End Game: How Localization Builds Resilient Communities & Economies with Helena Norberg-Hodge
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Release Date: 06/11/2025
The Systems Science Behind Our Global Crises: How Energy Drives Economics, Ecology, and Our Future | The Great Simplification Movie
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
👉 👈 Three years ago, my team and I created a that provides a comprehensive systems analysis of the human predicament—spanning energy, economics, ecology, and behavioral psychology. This beautifully animated film aims to help viewers understand the interconnected crises defining our era. When we first released this film, our podcast was just beginning and our community was much smaller. Today, more than 100,000 people have joined the conversation; and with 300+ hours of content now on our channel, this movie has become an essential orientation tool — a “start here” primer...
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Globalization End Game: How Localization Builds Resilient Communities & Economies with Helena Norberg-Hodge
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Over the last few decades, humanity has globalized everything – from food production and supply chains to communication and information systems – making countries, businesses, and individuals more connected and reliant on each other than ever before. Yet, with this increased interconnectedness comes more complexity and fragility. What have we lost through the globalization process, and how might we fortify our communities by investing in local economies? In this episode, Nate is joined by Helena Norberg-Hodge – a leading voice in the localization movement – to explore the deep...
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10 Qualities That Could Change the Future: The Seeds of New Cultural Mitochondria | Frankly 98
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Living in a period increasingly fraught by various crises and risks, it is more necessary than ever to be able to metabolize anxiety into something useful. But what about at a cultural level? The behaviors that the current economic superstructure rewards cannot form the basis of what emerges from its ashes…we require new ways of thinking and living that put us in closer relationship to one another and the planet around us. In a system structured to serve as a dissipative structure, how do we plant the seeds of something that is more resilient and cooperative? In this week’s Frankly, Nate...
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AI’s Unseen Risks: How Artificial Intelligence Could Harm Future Generations with Zak Stein
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
While 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,...
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Why the World Feels Like It’s Falling Apart: The Superorganism Explained in 7 Minutes | Frankly 97
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
In a world grappling with converging crises, we often look outward – for new tech, new markets, new distractions. But the deeper issue lies within: our relationship with energy, nature, and each other. What if we step back far enough to see human civilization itself as an organism that is growing without a plan? In this week’s Frankly — adapted from a recent TED talk like presentation (called Ignite) — Nate outlines how humanity is part of a global economic superorganism, driven by abundant energy and the emergent properties of billions of humans working towards the same goal. Rather...
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The Fish are Fleeing: How Shifting Marine Ecosystems are Upending Life with Malin Pinsky
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
For all of human history, the oceans and the life within them have remained a stable and fundamental part of Earth as we know it. Yet, for the past few decades, fisheries and scientists alike have observed massive migrations in marine ecosystems unlike anything we’ve ever witnessed. What is driving these unprecedented movements, and how are they rippling out to affect every aspect of life In this conversation, Nate is joined by marine ecologist Malin Pinsky, whose decades of research shed light on the dramatic migrations of marine species due to rising ocean temperatures. Malin breaks down...
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The 8 Faces of AI: Who Will You Become As AI Accelerates? | Frankly 96
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
In a world increasingly mediated by machines, the boundaries between human identity and artificial intelligence are beginning to blur. While some embrace the tools of the future, others quietly resist, preserving ways of being that have endured for millennia. What happens when AI becomes not just a tool but a mirror? In this week’s Frankly, Nate introduces a new typology of how AI may shape human behavior in the years ahead. He outlines eight archetypes reflecting our varied relationships to artificial intelligence—ranging from resistance and discipline to dependence and immersion. Rather...
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Restoring Global Ecology: The Great Green Wall and Large-Scale Permaculture in Action with Andrew Millison
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
It’s no secret that massive change is needed to restore our planet’s vital ecosystems. Permaculture offers practices to restore local environments by focusing on creating sustainable agricultural systems that mimic patterns found in nature. But how might permaculture initiatives go beyond agriculture to transform some of our largest-scale problems, such as social cohesion, climate stabilization, and even human migration? In this conversation, Nate sits down with permaculture educator Andrew Millison to discuss the Great Green Wall project, a massive ecological initiative aimed at combating...
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The Parent and the Pendulum | Frankly 95
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
In a culture driven by achievement, autonomy, and digital distraction, our sense of identity is often shaped by performance and external validation. Yet beneath this surface, many carry unseen psychological imprints from childhood and culture alike. What happens when we begin to examine these layers and imagine healthier ones? In this week’s Frankly, Nate explores the themes of attention, awareness, and the psychological impacts of modern life. Through poetry and reflection, he examines the pull toward validation and control that shapes many of our behaviors. Building on the Ideal Parent...
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No Economies Without Biodiversity: Why Our Markets Rely on the Complexity of Nature with Thomas Crowther
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
There is only one known planet in the universe capable of meeting humanity's needs – Earth. And yet, our understanding and appreciation of the underlying complexity that makes it function remains limited. If we were able to grasp the transformative potential of biodiversity – specifically how it relates to biocomplexity – how might we change our behavior? In this episode, Nate is joined by ecologist Thomas Crowther to discuss the critical importance of biodiversity as an intricate web of life that supports all other living beings, not just through the sheer number of species, but...
info_outlineOver the last few decades, humanity has globalized everything – from food production and supply chains to communication and information systems – making countries, businesses, and individuals more connected and reliant on each other than ever before. Yet, with this increased interconnectedness comes more complexity and fragility. What have we lost through the globalization process, and how might we fortify our communities by investing in local economies?
In this episode, Nate is joined by Helena Norberg-Hodge – a leading voice in the localization movement – to explore the deep systemic challenges posed by economic globalization. Together, they examine how the global growth model has fueled environmental degradation, social fragmentation, and cultural erosion, and why shifting toward localized economies might be one of the most effective (and overlooked) responses to our predicament. Drawing on decades of firsthand experience, Helena invites us to question the assumptions underpinning our globalized lives and imagine a future rooted in local reconnection.
How might we rekindle a sense of enough in a world that constantly tells us we need more? As globalization begins to retreat, what small but meaningful steps can we take to relocalize our lives and reconnect with each other? And what kind of futures might be possible if we centered our communities around systems that regenerate the very places we call home?
(Conversation recorded on May 7th, 2025)
About Helena Norberg-Hodge:
Linguist, author and filmmaker, Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of the international non-profit organisation, Local Futures. She is also a pioneer of the new economy movement, the convenor of World Localization Day, and an expert in understanding the ecological, social, and psychological effects of the global economy on diverse cultures.
Additionally, Helena is the author of several books, including ‘Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh’, an eye-opening tale of tradition and change in Ladakh, or “Little Tibet”. Together with a film of the same title, Ancient Futures has been translated into more than 40 languages, and sold half a million copies. Helena has continued to produce several other short films, including the award-winning documentary ‘The Economics of Happiness’.
Helena specialized in linguistics, including studies at the University of London and with Noam Chomsky at MIT. Her work, spanning almost half a century, has received the support of a wide range of international figures, including Jane Goodall, HH the Dalai Lama, HRH Prince Charles and Indira Gandhi.
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