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The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens

Lyn Alden: "The Myth of Frictionless Finance"

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens

Nate Hagens

Natural Sciences, Earth Sciences, Science

4.8553 Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2024

⏱️ 100 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this episode, Nate is joined by investment strategist Lyn Alden to discuss how energy and technology have shaped our monetary system and current financial trends. While more people are becoming aware of energy's foundational role in our global systems, it is still widely overlooked, especially among those working in finance. In contrast, Lyn's biophysically rooted analysis of macroeconomic patterns expose the cyclical dysfunction of the world's economy. How has increasing energy availability and productivity offset the inflationary nature of fiat currencies - and what happens if this trend were to slow or reverse? What assumptions and biases have led most analysts to mis-read long term trends, leaving us with vulnerable economies? Is it possible to rejigger our systems and innovate more biophysically aligned tools to enable a smoother transition into a future with a lower energy throughput? 

 

About Lyn Alden:

 

Lyn Alden is an independent analyst and founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy with a background in engineering management. Her work provides institutional-level research in plain English, so that both institutional investors and retail investors can benefit from it. Lyn also serves as an independent director on the board of Swan.com and as a general partner at the venture capital firm Ego Death Capital. She is the author of the 2023 best-selling book Broken Money about the past, present, and future of money through the lens of technology. Lyn has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and a master's degree in engineering management, with a focus on engineering economics, systems engineering, and financial modeling. She worked for over a decade as an electrical engineer at the Federal Aviation Administration's William J. Hughes Technical Center.

 

For Show Notes and More visit: thegreatsimplification.com/113-lyn-alden 


To watch this video episode on Youtube → https://youtu.be/JTbZaSL1pHI

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You're listening to the Great Simplification.

0:05.1

I'm Nate Higgins.

0:06.4

On this show, we describe how energy, the economy, the environment, and human behavior all

0:12.2

fit together and what it might mean for our future.

0:15.9

By sharing insights from global thinkers, we hope to inform and inspire more humans to play emergent roles in the coming

0:23.5

great simplification. I'd like to welcome Lynn Alden to the podcast. Lynn is a investor, an independent

0:36.2

analyst, very popular on social media.

0:39.8

Like other guests I've highlighted in the past, Kirill Sokoloff, Jeremy Grantham, Luke

0:45.5

Groman, and others to come, Lynn looks at the world from an energy lens.

0:52.0

And it's my view that just looking at money and technology the way that we did in the past

0:57.2

neglects energy and ecosystems,

1:01.1

which is why I only like to talk to financial people that understand energy.

1:09.3

Lynn has a recent book she wrote called Broken Money about the past, present and future

1:15.2

of money through the lens of technology.

1:18.9

This conversation was fast moving, no nonsense about how energy, technology, and money integrate

1:27.1

for the future of our financial and our

1:28.9

economic system and the way that that's reflected in current global events.

1:35.6

Please welcome Lynn the show.

1:53.3

Happy to be here.

1:54.4

It took us a while to get this schedule, but I'm happy to have the conversation.

1:58.0

We have multiple mutual friends, but I've long followed your Twitter feed

2:03.1

and your newsletter. And of all the bright financial analysts, prognosticators out there,

...

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