Nature + Technology = The Future
We've come a long way with technology and fortunately there are many people who have used it to enhance sustainable ways of living. We are at a unique point in human history where nature and technology meet and provide wonderful opportunities in business, ways of living and general sustainability moving forward. I share some documentary ideas and give my perspective on this exciting topic.
Transcript
Welcome to Life Lessons and Laughter with your host,
Glenn Ambrose.
Hey everybody,
Welcome to the show.
So,
Today I am talking about nature and technology equaling our future.
Which is,
This is something that I'm pretty excited about.
This gets the juices flowing.
The reason is,
Is because it makes the talk about sustainable living and the right way of doing things,
You know,
Just not destroying the earth.
And,
You know,
I believe that the earth can repair itself.
Like,
It'll basically shake us off like a wet dog when it needs to.
So,
I'm not so concerned about saving the earth.
What I'm concerned about is just sustainable living in all areas.
You know,
A happy,
Healthy way of living.
And,
You know,
That includes just working with nature.
It just makes more sense to work with nature.
So,
Like,
You know,
Maybe in the past we didn't have the technological advances.
Well,
Of course we didn't.
But maybe we also didn't choose to go in the direction of working with the earth and creating sustainable solutions moving forward.
You know,
Like one good example is the farming.
Basically,
In the past,
The way farming was done was it destroyed the soil for future farming.
So,
You know,
That's been a huge problem and still is.
Well,
With technology,
We found ways of regenerating soil,
You know.
And we found less expensive ways of doing things.
So,
This is what gets me jazzed up is because,
You know,
Most of the world is basically addicted or attached to or used to a certain lifestyle,
A certain way of living.
And businesses are used to a certain way of making profit.
And if you go in and say,
Hey,
You know,
I'm a tree hugger and you should do everything that's good for the environment and your profits are going to take a nosedive,
But it's the right thing to do and you should do it anyway,
You're not going to get many businesses to do that because businesses are there to make profit.
So,
If they're not making profit,
It's a hard sell.
Same thing with just doing things the right way.
You know,
Like,
Hey,
I know that you do things a certain way and I know it's not sustainable,
But it's your way of doing things.
I want you to change that and do it in a sustainable way.
Now,
If it's not easy,
If it doesn't make more sense,
If it doesn't make more profit,
It's not going to be adopted,
Quite honestly.
At least not now,
Maybe someday it would be.
But the beauty of technology meeting with nature,
And I see this more and more as I get involved with my own land project and how I'm going to do things here in the Dominican,
I see that we've come so far with the technology that we're at a beautiful place now.
Like,
We can actually use the technological advances meshed with the natural way of doing things and nature itself and do amazing,
Wonderful things in a sustainable,
Long-term vision way where everybody's going to benefit,
Including the businesses.
You know,
I saw this documentary a little while ago,
And this is just one example of many.
They were talking about the plastic wrap.
They come in these big rolls,
And all these companies wrap up these things on pallets and ship them.
This plastic wrap,
How much of it is used is amazingly large.
There's tons of this stuff used.
There are these people that developed an organic wrap that is not plastic and is biodegradable,
And it's cheaper.
See,
This is the cool thing.
Then all of a sudden you go to a company like,
You know,
Whatever,
Coca-Cola or Pepsi or some big company out there,
And you present them with this option and what they do,
And you tell them it's cheaper.
It's going to cost you less money.
You're going to make more profit if you use this.
One,
They're like,
Okay,
You have my ear,
Right,
Because they're all about profit,
So now they're making more profit.
Cool.
Now all of a sudden you tell them,
Like,
You can market this to your customer base because more and more people are getting concerned about the earth,
And it's fashionable now.
If your company looks like it's a caring company,
People like that,
And your profits go up.
Oh,
Yes,
True.
Good idea.
So now all of a sudden they're getting a good reputation with the public because they're using this organic stuff instead of polluting the earth with the plastic,
And they're making more profit.
So their profits go up because more people like their company,
And they're making more profit because this stuff costs less money than the plastic stuff does anyway.
Like,
This is the stuff that gets me jazzed up.
This is the stuff that I get excited about because I can see a new future coming.
When we adopt this into our life,
It brings a new future in,
And that's exciting to me.
And there's all kinds of stuff like this.
Like I said,
With the regenerating the soil,
There's new ways of farming,
Ways of farming basically vertically as opposed to just horizontally.
So we have the ability now to take,
Let's just say,
I'll just keep it simple.
Like,
Let's say an acre.
You take one acre,
And then all of a sudden you start setting up systems that grow vertically,
Not just horizontally.
So now all of a sudden you can go two stories,
Three stories,
Four stories,
Or whatever,
Maybe even more,
And you can grow vertically.
So now all of a sudden,
Let's say you have,
You know,
Four times the amount of food that you can grow in one particular area.
So now in one acre,
You can grow what you could have grown in four acres.
Like,
That is less money,
Right?
More profit,
More product.
This is the stuff that's getting excited and getting me excited.
And when you look into it and you see the marriage of technology with nature,
You know,
Like we have the technology to mimic a lot of things.
Nature's got it,
Man.
Nature's got the secrets.
You know,
Because it's been sustainable.
Nature is sustainable.
You know,
Like if we leave nature alone,
It doesn't die off.
You know,
So it's sustainable for the future.
So if we just mimic that with the technology that we have,
Then it's just moving,
You know,
It creates a sustainable future.
So this is what I want to talk about a little bit today.
I want to just,
You know,
And I think it's probably going to be a brief podcast,
But I just want to get this out there to you guys.
So to plant the seed so you can start looking into these things.
You know,
There are ways of doing all kinds of things where you live,
You know,
Like no matter where you live.
Like,
You know,
I've seen documentaries and examples and talked with people that have created sustainable lifestyles in their home in the city.
So there's all kinds of ways of doing this stuff.
You know,
Some people have taken their toilet water and set up a system in their house where they're watering plants and created these indoor greenhouses.
And it's just the stuff that's out there is amazing.
Just growing your own herbs in your house.
You know,
You can do that.
They've got these things that look like shoe racks and you just grow stuff like in your own house.
You know,
Like why buy stuff that is,
You know,
Riddled with pesticides when you can grow your own stuff organically in your house for free,
Basically.
You know,
I mean,
Of course,
You got to pay for the little setup that probably cost 20 bucks or make it yourself,
You know,
And some seeds.
But I mean,
Really,
You know,
After a couple of times,
It's all profit at that point.
You know,
So we have the technology now.
We have the ways of doing these things.
We have the ways of working with nature and creating a sustainable environment.
You know,
Another one,
When I was talking to some of the people I talked to in the off-grid community,
You know,
Some of these larger companies have gone to disaster areas.
Because,
You know,
They figure out that they know how to make old style eco-friendly homes.
Like,
You know,
Using ancient technology and how people used to build homes and then bringing in with the modern technology,
Like we can build domes in,
You know,
A matter of days.
You can build all kinds of amazing structures just in a week or two.
So you go into these places that have been,
You know,
Flattened by earthquakes and hurricanes and all these natural disasters.
And these people come in and set up shelter for tons of people in like record time now.
You know,
That's another example of what I'm talking about.
This is,
You know,
We have the technology and if we,
What I love seeing is the technology enhancing ancient wisdom.
You know,
Again,
Like people and nature,
New ways of doing things that worked a lot better than most of the stuff that we use now.
It's a lot more sustainable,
Long lasting,
All that stuff.
So when we blend the technology with ancient wisdom and then,
You know,
We can create these things that are so much more earth friendly and cheaper.
You know,
I mean,
The houses that I'm looking at,
I mean,
Building over here,
There's endless possibilities,
Really.
But I mean,
There are some realistic situations,
You know,
I'm not,
I haven't narrowed things down with specific numbers yet in my particular project.
But I've seen examples where in a,
With a ballpark situation,
You could probably purchase a piece of land enough to grow your own food on to feed yourself and even make a profit with like a little earth friendly home.
You know,
Just something simple for,
I don't know,
Somewhere around $60,
000,
You know,
And there's so many people like,
Oh,
I just,
I just want a simple little home,
You know,
In nature.
It's like,
Well,
Here you go.
Here you go.
It's a heck of a lot cheaper.
I mean,
What do you,
You know,
What's a low level house going for right now?
I mean,
I'm not paying attention to the housing market in the US,
But it was skyrocketed.
I believe it still is at least pretty high up there.
So,
You know,
What are you paying?
Like $200,
000 to get into an entry level home at these days?
Like buy three of these for that.
Like it's,
And you,
And you have land and you're in nature and you're growing your own food.
Like it's,
You know,
This is what I'm talking about.
Like where we are right now is an amazing time to be alive because where we have such technological advances.
And there are,
You know,
Of course there's room for us to do all kinds of amazing,
Wonderful things.
And I think,
You know,
Over the next 10,
20,
30,
40 years,
We're going to see a lot of that.
However,
We're already at the place where people are doing things like,
You know,
I'm not interested in really studying technology and coming up with necessarily my own ways of doing things.
I don't have to,
I don't have to,
Like,
You know,
I'm planning large,
A large land project that's going to have,
You know,
All kinds of culture,
You know,
All kinds of food and medicinal plants and everything growing.
And all kinds of eco-friendly homes and sustainable living systems,
Rain catch systems,
Sewage systems,
Solar and wind power and,
You know,
And all kinds of other things.
And I don't have to come up with any of it.
It's all there and it's all cheaper than if I were to,
You know,
Just go buy an entry level house in the United States.
Like I don't have to make it up.
This is,
This is why I want to do the podcast is it's to let you guys know,
Start looking into this stuff because it's cool and it's just interesting.
You know,
I mean,
Of course,
Not to everybody.
I find it interesting,
But even me,
I'm not,
Like I said,
I'm not studying it.
I'm not looking to become an expert on it,
But I am looking to take advantage of all this stuff and be like,
Wow,
You guys develop these growing techniques for this.
And,
You know,
It can grow that much faster without genetically modifying anything.
Or,
You know,
I can use the gray water and the black water from my sewage systems to make my plants grow quicker and just kind of close the loop.
Like,
Okay,
Cool.
You know,
And I can use this stuff to,
To,
To make sure my soil doesn't get depleted.
And like,
It's,
It's just,
It's amazing what we found out there and,
You know,
Look into different documentaries.
And,
You know,
You can look into different ones about,
I'm going to try to think of some of the ones I can recommend.
I mean,
The Time of the Sixth Sun,
That's a series that I really enjoyed,
And it has some of this stuff in it.
That Down to Earth,
That's the name of my book,
So I remember the name.
Down to Earth on Netflix with Zac Efron and the other guy,
I can't remember his name right now.
But they had two seasons and,
You know,
I,
I didn't grow up in the Zac Efron age,
So I didn't know what to expect.
But I liked the topic and I checked it out.
And honestly,
I think he did a great job with that,
With that series.
He travels all around the world in the first one and then kind of gets locked down in Australia during COVID for the second series.
The second season,
I mean,
Not the second series.
He did two seasons.
And,
And it's just,
You know,
Giving us different examples of what people are doing and the,
The,
How it's better financially.
Like it's,
It's cheaper to start.
It's cheaper to do.
If you make a business out of it,
The profit margin is higher.
You know,
Or if you're just using it yourself,
It's just less expensive.
So,
So whether you want to just spend less money and live a better life,
You can do that.
Or if you want to start a business with this stuff,
You can do that.
Like one of the things they were doing,
These people had a small farm.
It really wasn't that big.
And this was part of the series or the season that was in Australia.
And they had a,
A waiting period for the,
For what was it,
The restaurant or,
Or just the food that they were growing that people came like weekly and picked up.
They had a waiting period that was like,
That was years and years long,
Like ridiculously long.
Like,
You know,
I can't remember.
It was quite a while ago when I saw the show,
But it was like,
Like 20 years or something.
They had a waiting list.
So what does that mean?
You know,
Like what it means is that there's a desire for this.
If you have a 20 year waiting period for something.
You should not be struggling to make good money,
Right?
Because the supply is there.
I mean,
The demand is there.
So then you just need to be able to make good money.
So if you have a 20 year waiting period,
I mean,
You can jack up your prices a little bit.
You know,
Just a little,
Just so you can at least make a decent profit in your business and keep it the size you want,
If you want.
Or you can expand your business.
Why?
Because it's plentiful.
You can expand your business.
You know,
Just a little,
Just so you can at least make a decent profit in your business and keep it the size you want,
If you want.
Or you can expand your business.
Why?
Because there's plenty of demand.
See,
You have options is my point.
And the reason they have options is because they're working smarter,
Not harder.
That's what the technology brings to us.
We have the ability.
People have already figured out the ways to work smarter,
Not harder.
And like I said,
Increase profits.
So if you're looking for something,
This is the direction that things are going.
We are going to a more sustainable way of living.
Just look at whatever is,
You know,
Look at what's getting more popular over the last 10 years.
Green sustainability.
You know,
The businesses that are in the business of this are expanding and getting bigger.
And it's going to continue to do so.
Because why not?
It's better for the earth.
People like hearing that.
And you make more profit.
So,
You know,
Whether you're looking for a business to invest in or to start.
Or whether you're just looking to lower your bills and not be so much of a consumer and support yourself.
Or just simply build a earth-friendly house where you don't have a mortgage.
So,
You know,
Like how cool would that be?
How cool would it be to just spend,
You know,
Whatever,
$60,
000.
And have no mortgage.
And have your own place to live on and your own house.
You know,
Some people might choose to work part-time.
Because they don't need to work full-time.
You know,
The flexibility that it can bring into your life when you're not living paycheck to paycheck is its own reward.
So,
If you just want to decrease your bills,
Then you can do that.
You know,
If you want to just live a more sustainable life.
If you just want to,
You know,
Live around nature.
If you want to just make a little extra money on the side.
If you want to start a business.
Like,
There's so many different reasons that this type of mentality can enhance someone's life.
And like I said,
The beauty of it is that the technology is already there.
So,
Check out these documentaries.
You know,
And learn about some of this stuff.
See if something strikes your fancy.
If not,
Hey,
It's kind of cool to learn about it anyway.
But if you're looking to start a business.
Or you're looking to start a side hustle.
Or you're looking to simplify your life.
Or you're looking for a long-term plan.
Like,
I mean,
If you're,
You know,
Some people haven't.
You know,
I was fortunate enough to have a father that was aware of what was going on in society.
And in the government.
That kind of pointed things out.
So,
I've never really.
Like,
My plan for retirement was never like work a bunch of years.
And then the government will take care of me.
Like,
I never had that misconception.
And if you're thinking that that's what you're going to do.
Please look at the numbers.
Look at what happens if you get sick.
You know,
Like,
And put into a home or your medical bills.
Because they just take your house.
You know,
They take the money that's in your bank accounts.
Like,
It's not the system that some people think it is.
Oh,
You know,
I live in the United States of America.
Or some other developed country.
And I'm going to work.
And then,
You know,
When I get 65 or what is it?
67 nowadays.
You know,
I'll just retire.
And like,
Well,
How much money are you going to get when you retire?
$12,
000 a year?
Can you live on that?
You know,
And I'm not saying everybody's going to get $12,
000.
But do a little research here.
You know,
Be responsible for your own life.
And look at your future.
You know,
Like,
I'm 55 now.
So it's,
You know,
One of the reasons that I'm doing this land project is because I'm looking down the road.
You know,
And I want a place in nature where that's mine.
That I have no mortgage.
That,
You know,
I have assets with my land.
I just live there.
I don't owe anybody anything.
So I like that mentality.
So if you like that mentality,
Look into it.
But,
You know,
And there's a lot of this stuff that you can do in the United States.
I mean,
I understand that I'm in the Dominican Republic and there are differences.
And there certainly are.
That's one of the reasons why I'm here.
But there are lots of these types of opportunities and things going on in the off-grid community,
Especially.
Even if you're not interested in living off-grid,
I suggest looking into the off-grid movement.
Looking into Facebook groups about off-grid.
Watching YouTube videos about people living off-grid.
Whatever.
Just to wrap your brain around what's going on out there.
Because it's absolutely amazing.
There are people that are running programs that show you how to buy land with no money down.
And then create Airbnbs through workshops.
And it's amazing how creative these people are.
And what you can do with little or no money.
Because that's where a lot of people are.
So you can't change the world in any way other than a grassroots movement.
I've talked about this before.
And I'm not going to get too into it now.
I just want to give you a brief explanation of what I mean.
The way people think and look at things changes before the big hurdle.
So I'll just pick one thing.
The women's movement in the 60s and 70s.
Women getting rights was a result of a grassroots movement.
If you just took an ideology,
A way of thinking that is not yet embedded in most people's minds.
And then you try to start a movement doing that.
It's probably not going to be that successful.
So by the time the women's movement really started pushing to get women's rights and stuff like that.
Most people in society,
And by most I mean at least the majority.
At least 51% of people had already kind of come to this way of thinking.
Maybe they weren't living like that.
Maybe they weren't even sharing that they thought like that with other people.
Maybe it was just a secret inside of themselves.
Maybe they just talked about it with their friends or their family.
A lot of people were starting to look around going,
You know what?
This is a load of crap that women don't have the same rights as men.
And most people started becoming comfortable with that mindset,
That way of thinking.
And then the movement started out of that.
And then it was successful.
So this is what I mean by a grassroots movement.
So everything starts small.
Like in what people perceive is the background.
It starts with the ordinary people.
It gets popular.
It spreads.
And then it becomes a new way of interacting on a larger scale.
In a country or globally or whatever.
But it starts at the grassroots movement.
So if the way to live a more sustainable life and a simple life with a simple home in nature,
Growing your own food if you choose to,
Or anything that I've talked about.
If the way to do that was you needed to have a couple million dollars and you needed to be able to just risk at least half of it.
And then maybe it would work out and maybe it wouldn't.
This movement would not take off.
Because there's not many people in that situation.
So this is what's so cool about it.
Most people making these changes and doing these things and living in creative,
Sustainable technology and earth blended ways.
Most of those people have no money.
Or at least have no extra money.
Or have very little.
And it's spreading.
So out of necessity.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
So out of necessity it has to be low cost.
There has to be low cost options.
Otherwise it wouldn't be able to spread.
So look into this stuff regardless of your financial situation.
You don't have to be rolling in the dough to look into this stuff.
And most of it is specifically designed for people to not have a lot of money and still be able to do this.
So it's just like I said,
It's a very exciting time in my opinion.
Because we have nature.
We have ancient wisdom.
We have things like community,
Sustainability.
All those things are getting more and more popular.
And we're seeing the value in them.
And we're seeing that moving forward.
We're going to have to lean in that direction a little bit more.
Because what we're developing now just doesn't work.
I believe I saw,
I can't say this 100%.
But I believe I saw that life expectancy is actually going down.
Whereas it never has before.
And it's like what it is,
We're just depending on these drugs that are killing people.
And there's always a learning curve.
So if you take a giant step back and look at society.
Really it was about maybe 100 years ago that we really got away from living in nature.
What I mean by that is eating natural foods,
Using our physical bodies on a daily basis.
Maybe 100 years ago,
Maybe a little more.
We started getting away from that.
So it took us a while to see what happens when you don't use your body on a regular basis.
It takes a while to see what happens when you have a generation that grows up eating processed foods.
It takes a while to see what happens to people when they just forget about eating healthy or natural medicinal plants.
And they just depend on man-made drugs.
It takes a while to see what transpires in that.
And now we have a society that's just rampant in disease and birth defects.
And all kinds of things that are going on.
And people that are like my grandparents.
And my parents were some of the first people that weren't as active in their life.
And then the ones who aren't taking care of themselves,
We're seeing what's happening.
They're just working for 65 years doing what's socially acceptable.
Eating crap food,
Not taking care of themselves,
Taking man-made drugs when they don't feel good.
And then they're dropping dead right after they retire.
So we've been doing it the wrong way long enough to see that this is not sustainable,
It's not healthy,
And it's not a good way to move forward.
So we're drawing the line back to nature.
And we're going,
Oh,
Okay.
And again,
I saw some horrible stuff about what technology did with genetically modifying plants.
And the amount of sugar and carbs that are in wheat.
It's a completely different plant than it was 60 years ago.
So even a foundation that people are using to make foods that they think are healthy isn't even the same.
The wheat is a completely different plant than it was 60 years ago.
And most people don't know this.
And they don't know why they're sick all the time.
So we're in the turn now.
Everything is changing to a more sustainable way.
And the technology we have supports us in this.
So look out there.
There have been people working on this stuff for 40,
50 years already.
And the systems that they have are insane.
So whatever sparks your interest,
Or even if it doesn't,
Even if you're just curious as to what the heck I'm talking about,
Start researching some of these documentaries.
Because the government doesn't want you to know about this stuff.
Big business doesn't want you to know about this.
Big pharmacy doesn't want you to know about this.
The media giants don't want you to know about this.
Why?
Because you're not as dependent on them.
Right now,
When you're plugged into the system,
You're a number.
The more people plugged into the system,
The more money they make.
The more people they have buying electricity.
The more people that they have going to the grocery stores.
They're in control of absolutely everything.
That's why this stuff isn't everywhere.
This is why whenever I share this stuff on social media,
They don't put it in the normal rotation.
It's there.
I'll get a certain number of likes and views and all this stuff on most of my things.
And then all of a sudden,
I share something that's good for people,
And it gets nothing.
I have to literally make a post and tell people to go look at my wall for the other post.
This is what's happening.
It's just they block out anything that doesn't make them money and makes people more sustainable and healthier.
Because they don't want you healthy.
They want you sick.
So look into this stuff.
There's ways that you can just treat if you're sick and dealing with things.
There are natural ways to deal with it.
And you can probably grow your own medicine in your house.
There are ways to have homes and live in nature.
There are ways to start businesses and side hustles.
All this stuff is based on everything we've known from human history and nature meshed with the technology that we have.
And it's absolutely mind-blowing.
So that's going to do it for today.
Take a look.
Look into this stuff.
It's fun.
It's exciting.
Like I said,
I'm 55 now.
A lot of people aren't getting pulled around by the shiny things so much anymore.
They're like,
You know what?
I just want a simple life.
Well,
There's tons of opportunities out there because of the nature and the technology coming together.
And providing these awesome solutions and opportunities.
So go take a look.
Thanks for listening.
I will talk with you guys soon.
Peace.
