Unknown: 0:02

The cosmos is within us. We are made of starstuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself. Carl Sagan. Welcome to the lessons from nature podcast, modeling the secrets of the bees, hosted by Mark Rubin.

Mark Rubin: 0:22

If you hear my voice, you're alive. And if you're alive, your body and mind are traveling at a speed of 90 miles per second around a star. And from the time I started talking to now, you already travelled about 200 miles. It's nice traveling through space and time with you. As Queen Claudine says, and honey as money, time is always coursing, and light is streaming too. We all exist in nature. But we're all just passing through. Today on the lessons from nature podcast, we'll be discussing secret 22, from honey as money, and it's called we're all just passing through. And it's about the idea that this isn't our planet. It's just our turn. I like to introduce my co host, David, who he's a catalyst for creating a better tomorrow. David is a futurist thinker, a keynote speaker, and a cool person. He has keynoted numerous conferences around the country and internationally. In the last 14 years, he's delivered over 1200 presentations and keynotes on six continents, and 16 countries. He's written 14 books, and as a co founder of a global nonprofit to face the climate crisis. It's called this spaceship er, and can be found at this spaceship earth.org. David will co host for episodes with me. And we're gonna be talking about the future. And we're gonna be talking about futurology through the lens of the human business of making money, learning skills, curating communities, creating habitat, and developing regenerative business systems that enable all of us to thrive. Welcome, David. It's great to have you here on the futurology series.

David Houle: 2:07

We're happy to be back I'm really enjoying our conversation, Mark,

Mark Rubin: 2:11

give me two. So today we're talking about the fact that we're alive on a rock in space. And before we were alive on this rock and space, we were on a lie. And after we're alive, we'll be on alive again. And some numbers for me in my life, is that if the universe is 13 point 7 billion years old, I've only been alive for 0.0000039% of the time. And in that time on, I've traveled over 30 billion miles on a spaceship called Earth. And I'm just passing through. And this project is based on three philosophies, philosophies of Carl Sagan philosophies of Buckminster Fuller, and some Native American philosophies that I learned from somebody named Tom Brown Jr. What I learned from Tom Brown Jr. is the impermanence of life and considering multi generational planning, about planning for future generations and their thriving, and their survival. What this series is about is exploring and understanding the importance of respecting nature's balance, and the cycles of nature, and creating sustainable future based on multigenerational planning. And that's really what we're talking about today. Because things change, and being adaptable to those changes is critical for thriving. So, I wanted to tell you a story from nature, from the bees from the secrets of the bees, and explain this story to you to kick things off to give you some perspective of my perspective of, of this chapter, and how these monies just passing through. And it's about the lifespans of bees, and the differences in the lifespan between the bees. So imagine with me, You're a queen bee, and you live the human equivalent of 1500 years, you can never leave your house. And the only way you get money is if your daughter's do work to gather money from your habitat. Your daughter's can only go three miles from your house to gather this money and the energy when the form of money is only available 60 days per year to go gather this energy from the habitat to bring you this money so that you can create it for things to keep you alive. And your main job is simply to control the rate of egg production so that you have the maximum number of daughters available when the maximum amount of energy is available, and then throttle down your rate of egg production. So that as they end their lifespan. There's no wasted energy. It's basically timing. Okay. As the rate of that takes 21 days from the time that you lay a fertilized egg to have a bee, and then some more days after that before them, they could become productive foragers. So there's a timing component here of a curve. And you're a queen bee, and you're sensing the habitat around you the money around you, based on light, based on temperature, based on humidity, and other variables, I'm sure you're fighting through a competitive landscape, because there's other queen bees who want that delicious money all around you. There are seasonal variations, where a one or two week extension in a winter could have you burned through your cash reserves, the money in the bank or the honey and the honey bank. The last one is work, which is that the efficiency of the hive is based on a lot of internal variables that are managed and optimized across the hive through various functions and roles. And so you're the queen bee, you can't leave your house, here's the scenario. And the only way you live is is if there are 20 generations of daughter's feeding you by the way, there are some males that you produce about 10% of the hive. But all they do is consume money. And there's a one in 1000 chance that they will reproduce and spread your DNA into the future. Okay, so they that's their entire job, they just eat, they just eat money. And then maybe there's a chance that your DNA will propel into future generations. This is the game of a queen bee. Now, here's so that's the scenario of the setup of a difference between human short term thinking and be long term thinking. And it's because the lifespan of the organism in a hive, that is the organism that is controlling the main variable, which is the rate of energy collection, in response to the cost of energy collection, that organism lives, multiple generations, 20 generations. So the idea of making short term decisions, does not work, because that organism is dependent on on 20 future generations to survive. And I want to discuss for a few minutes about decision making and planning and in human behavior, and how given the life cycles of both human lifespan, but also our political life cycles of terms and how we think about time, and how we think about our place in time, and what came before your case, what comes next, how we could learn from the secrets of the bees to change the mindset of people for longer term planning.

David Houle: 7:33

Well, the problem with humanity, it's short term, as you implied, and we seem to think that it's all about us. So to put things in perspective, you like to use traveling around the sun, I, I like to bring it home more to the planet, if you took a rope that was 24 feet long, put it up on the stage, where I often speak. That's the amount of time that Earth has been in existence, then you add a penny to the end of the rope. And that's the amount of time that humanity has been on Earth. We've been around for 300,000 years Homo sapiens modern humanity about 150,000. So if you put that in perspective, say a lifetime is 50 years, we live longer than that now, centuries ago, we live to 2025 30, maybe. So the average lifetime is 50 years. 150,000 years is 300 lifetimes. If you go back to the beginning of the Agricultural Age, when humanity first started to develop a sense of place by growing crops, that's 10,000. Right. So that's 20,000. That's 200 lifetimes, yeah, the industrial age 250 years, five lifetimes. So. So all of this stuff that we live in now that humans think of as what is real, you know, driving cars, getting on planes, things like that. It's only been around for five lifetimes, humanity has a great sense of thinking that now is what reality is. And the problem with that, of course, is that the planet has been around for a lot longer than we have. The average mammalian species lives for a million years. Deer and field mice are their answers. It's been around longer we have but we think it's all about us. And so what's so beautiful about the bee metaphor, is the collaborative nature of immediacy to prepare for the long term. Right? We don't prepare for the long term, right? The reason we have the climate crisis today is because we consume too much burn too much fossil fuels and think that every other species is there for us. Now the bees are there for us, but we haven't treated them as though they are. So the bees are a good analogy to represent the long term future of the biosphere and the short term nature it through which humanity looks at it. Does that make sense?

Mark Rubin: 10:04

100% I completely agree and reminds me of something Buckminster Fuller said, most people are localized in their thinking, right, which is that they only think about what's immediately in their habitat, like in their, in their perspective, the people, the politics, the food, the culture, the sports teams, whatever it is, that's near them. But there's also a an idea of being localized in time, meaning that they only think of what they've experienced in their lifespan, or maybe one generation ago, or maybe two. And so, when you're a futurist, you're also studying large cycles of the past. I mean, your thymus really is this, you're looking at all time, but then you're projecting the ideas into the future, because that's where we're going. And I think that gives you a very good view of events, long term events, and things that have occurred over cycles of millions of years, versus people that you know, are waiting for the weekend. And so it's interesting that we're so localized, like, as a species in our thinking,

David Houle: 11:07

well, that's starting to change. My first book I wrote called The shift edge. And I said that it's the beginning of the global stage of human evolution. Right. So if you think of the concept of place, up until communications technology place was all we had, we didn't know anything else that was going on the Roman Empire, the Mayan empire, in some of the great dynasties of China, they all existed simultaneously. But they didn't know it, because they were stuck in their places. Right? Now, if you if you were to put that into the modern day, we find out something's happening in China, within minutes, communication goes by the speed of light through fiber optics. So we're moving from the concept of place to the concept of space, at this point, because we're moving towards the global stage of human evolution. So the point I'm making is that is that you're absolutely right, we have been stuck historically in place. But only now, are we moving to a spatial connectivity. This is why it's such a good time to do this project that you've invested your life in, because we're moving to a spatial connectivity. And that changes everything in terms of human perception of time and place, obviously,

Mark Rubin: 12:24

thanks for saying that. And I want to add that back to the Native American philosophies that I studied with Tom Brown, Jr. I agree with you completely about about our location. But what I think is lacking in my experience, is time, what I learned from from Tom Brown, Jr, was the idea of planning for seven generations ahead, or every generation, they would never, like divert a river, or something without thinking, like, what's going to happen in seven generations, it's one thing to be connected in space to people, because information can be conveyed in real time. But it's the time component, the future time component, that we're heading on a trajectory, there's a timeline, whatever it is, and we're moving. Basically, what world do we want to intercept? What world do we want our children to intercept or our grandchildren and great grandchildren? Like what is the world we want them to intercept on the trajectory that we're on. And I just, I just feel like this is a philosophical discussion today about what could be done to improve people's perception of that we're meeting the future, the future is always coming. And soon, tomorrow will be today. Next winter, let's create the HMI in the most harmonious way away from honey, isn't it? But what could be done? It's always coming.

David Houle: 13:38

Well, that's hard to get people to think the way I do. I'm not accurate in terms of this is going to happen on this day. I'm accurate in the sense of directional trends, where we are right today, which is what the thing I'm trying to get people to focus on facing forward is most humans think maybe in four generations, but usually three, I have parents, I have kids, my kids, my parents or grandparents of my kids. They don't think in terms of seventh generation, right the way the Native Americans do. But we need to think beyond that. Yeah, oversimplify there's two trajectories that humanity has to choose in the next five to 10 years. We have to choose whether we're going to be around for 200 years, or run for 200,000 years, and 200 years is we keep doing what we're doing. Instead, if we want to get to 100,000 years, we have to think of the unborn, as many generations, seven isn't even enough. 20 generations is 1000 years and if we want to live to 100,000 years, we can't think that far ahead. I can't think that far no futures can think they're very only science fiction people. Authors can think that far ahead. But the reality is, you're absolutely right. Those people alive today on the planet are obligated. To bring the unborn future generations to the table of the decision making, yeah, similar to the Indians in altering the path of a river. So we're at this moment. So I mean, my mission in life is to get people to wake up to realize classic rock phrase I use, is we're on the highway to hell, and we need to get on the Stairway to Heaven.

Mark Rubin: 15:22

Nicely done. Okay. Well, it's true, I think that we can do it, I think it's doable.

David Houle: 15:29

So that's why I really like your project. Because instilling this vision of the planet and the planet's future and our integration into it needs to start with the young. So the children's book is the right way to start.

Mark Rubin: 15:46

Ece a Well, I

David Houle: 15:48

mean, it's true, that's why you're interviewing me because I'm supporting it.

Mark Rubin: 15:53

I appreciate your support and also understand it. While it's now possible to predict 1000s of years out with a degree of accuracy, there's one thing we can predict. If we subtract more than we add, we'll run out of energy. But if we develop regenerative systems that add rather than they subtract, we'll have more later. And that'll buy time because money's traded for time. So basically, our energies are traded for time. But we use money to tokenize that energy. But the point is, if we take more out, then it comes in, we'll run out.

David Houle: 16:29

Well, we've been doing that since 1970. Right now, we're consuming 1.7. Earth's every year, meaning we're 70% over the ability of the earth to regenerate what we're extracting from it. That's what the climate crisis is, it's, it's the beeping red button, going up law, you no plan has to be terminated extinction coming. That's where

Mark Rubin: 16:52

we are. Yes, but it's not where we have to be. Let's talk about changes in the demographics of human population, both in terms of a growing population and the resources required to sustain that population. But also, the idea of a shrinking population. And an aging population across the world as the number of babies being born is going down and in many countries, and so populations will start shrinking as they've done in Japan, and other countries,

David Houle: 17:25

I am fully of the school that declining birth rates are good. And that we set our species has a little over 8 billion members of our species on the planet, and that we need to manage population so that we get down to about half of that by 2100. Every new being is a new carbon footprint. And until we get off a carbon having more passive passengers on spaceship Earth, it's counterproductive, right. And if you start to think about it, the only reason that all these stories about the aging population Japan and Italy and what's going to happen to Social Security is all based on a 20th century industrial age model, that growing the population means growing the GDP. And the GDP is the absolute wrong barometer. If you want to start thinking about Climate and Life, we need to rethink our thinking about population growth. In other words, population is aging. What does every single culture that you've ever read about or participated in the old or the wise? So we're proportionately getting more wise as a species? Because the older demographics are increasing, so we have more wisdom. Right? So let's use that wisdom and use that wisdom to keep shrinking the population. Tell me everybody is being fed No. 800 million people go to sleep every night hungry? Tell me that there's that there's no homeless because everybody has a home. Right? So there's too many people. We're not up to dealing with the people we have. So we need to shrink the population. I mean, I'm firmly believe that man, I know that's a little bit off. message here.

Mark Rubin: 19:23

Yeah. No message is your message.

David Houle: 19:27

But the point is, is that is that one of the reasons you've gotten into bees aside from honey is money and the energy around that massive amounts of bees have been killed, for one reason only how humanity lives on the planet. So thinking about entire species that we need to pollinate our crops, bees is brilliant, because we have to start to think about partnerships with other species, not that they're there. For our indulgence and pleasure,

Mark Rubin: 20:02

yeah, I think symbiotic relationships if you think of the relationship between the bee and the flower, right, and that the bee is rewarded with energy for moving the flowers, genetic information around a symbiotic relationship. And the result of that is, is that the flowers can expand across vast territories. Right? They couldn't, because they're not mobile, they don't have feet, there's no flowers with feet, maybe of seeds, I guess there's a way seeds that float, I suppose is a way of doing that. But the thinking sort of like just replicating these these saying, what you just said was really beautiful is replicating the symbiotic connections with nature. Because we are nature, humans are nature. We're not separate from nature. We're mammals, we're nature, but we don't act as if we're part of nature. And so the world I imagine is a world where people live in harmony with the rest of nature. And that's what this project is.

David Houle: 20:54

Native Americans don't think of their surrounding as something to consume. Right? They think of their surroundings as their ancestors. Yeah. In other words, the forest is their represents their ancestors, they they hear and see spirits of the earth, of the plants of the animal kingdom. So they they have understood the integration and the necessity of being integrated with all living things. That's what's so beautiful about beautiful about Native American thinking. I have a question for you. Earlier on in the podcast, you mentioned that a queen bee lives the equivalent of 1500 years. Yeah, what's the correlation with a queen bee.

Mark Rubin: 21:37

So a queen bee can live about four years, four years, and a regular bee lives around four or five weeks. That's a really, okay. So when you do the proportionality,

David Houle: 21:49

it's astounding number.

Mark Rubin: 21:51

But if you think it through, she can't leave the house. So you can only survive if her decisions result in 20 future generations. And so she's a caretaker for the future. And she's a caretaker for her genetic code to live for as long as possible. And if she's successful, like super successful, and what will happen is they'll have so much energy in the energy bank and a hive that they're out of room. And what they'll do is they'll swarm which means half the bees stay behind and the Queen that's successful queen, the successful strong, smart queen, she'll leave with half the bees and start over again. But what happens is the bees that remain clone her DNA and keep going. And because they have enough money in the money bank, to ride out the 40 days, it takes I think, two to 41 days to do it.

David Houle: 22:36

So another form of energy, as you've just said it implied is the bees who live three or four weeks are really supplying the queen bee with the energy for their subsequent generation.

Mark Rubin: 22:52

Exactly. And that is the metaphor I was trying to get to. So thanks for clarifying it. That's exactly exactly what I was trying to get to. So David, I know, part of being a futurist, a big part is thinking about technology and future technologies. And I'd like to discuss some ways in which technology can be used to promote sustainability, and reduce environmental harm, and in particular, exploring the challenges associated with developing and adopting sustainable technologies and ways to overcome them.

David Houle: 23:25

When I wrote my book, the shift age back in 2007, I said that there will be two realities in the shift age, the physical reality and the screen reality. And it wasn't until COVID That people fully understood that. And that's one statement. The other statement is every single year, there has been more carbon released into the atmosphere by humanity in the last 50 years, except for one year, that one year was 2020. And why the carbon pollution go down? Because for months at a time, several billion people did the same thing. They self quarantine. And once you self quarantine, and you're on zoom as we are right now, you don't burn fossil fuels, right. So we stopped doing what we've been doing for several months. And it was the first time in history that several billion people did the same thing. At the same time. As a consequence, carbon emissions went down. So they're in is the single greatest example of how technology can help us. In other words, I know it sounds crazy. But if everybody self quarantined at home for a month, a year, and we could do it together, oh, we could do it. Or I'm taking my month of no carbon emissions in December rather than June because it might whatever. So so that's one thing. The other The thing, of course, is technological innovations in the energy front, you know, AI, space based solar power, things like that. There are

Mark Rubin: 25:07

people that believe that human beings don't affect the climate at all. And that the impact we can have is so low that why bother to change anything in the story you just told is powerful in the sense that something occurred, and human behavior did change. And the result of that change is carbon went down. So if humans can do something and reduce the amount of carbon, then that is evidence of a factual like, then we can do something because that's the example of something.

David Houle: 25:40

Yeah, yeah. Any human wants you to do something once. Yeah, no, it's a possibility.

Mark Rubin: 25:44

That's right. It's a possibility. You created a possibility with that, sorry. Okay. So one of the goals of biological organisms is to propel their genetic information into the future. When we consider the transient nature of life, it's important to consider that other living things will be alive after we're no longer alive. Understanding cycles from the past can help us make long term decisions now, and improve the chances of future survival for future generations. After all, we're all just passing through. We all have the opportunity to clean up our crew quarters on spaceship Earth, so we can leave the planet a little better than we found it. If you enjoyed this discussion about multi generational planning, and the future, and how things are changing, please subscribe to this podcast lessons from nature modeling the secrets of the bees. On the next episode, we'll be discussing ways to buy time for future generations. Visit project emulate dot life for more information about living in harmony with the rest of nature. See you next time.