The Last American Vagabond - IMA: Preparing To Fight Back And Insulate Yourself From Technological Control

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

Today the Independent Media Alliance (IMA) brings you a panel discussing the rapidly evolving technological world and the choices ahead of each and every one of us. We discuss the many ways in which our world -- for better or worse -- is changing around us, and how we can potentially effect that change and/or insulate ourselves from the parts that seem inevitable, while considering the pros and cons of leaning into the elements that could be used to fight back. We also discuss the many problems arising around this technological transition, how power structures are already rationalizing alarmingly authoritarian and dystopian control measures throughout, and what we can do to stop it.Source Links:IMA - 9-4-25New folderIMA Archives - The Last American VagabondNew TabEpisode 473 - Algocracy: Government for the New World Order | The Corbett ReportNew TabTake Back Our Tech - #SolutionsWatch | The Corbett ReportOpting Out of Technocracy - #SolutionsWatch | The Corbett ReportLow-tech / No-tech - #SolutionsWatch | The Corbett ReportNew TabYou searched for tech - The Last American VagabondThe Technocratic Tiptoe - The Last American VagabondNew TabTrump administration announces new private health tracking system with Big Tech’s help | AP NewsThe Palantir Panopticon & Trump's New Big Tech-Led "Private Health Tracking System" w/ 7SeesNew TabTake Back Our TechBitcoin Donations Are Appreciated:www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/bitcoin-donation(3FSozj9gQ1UniHvEiRmkPnXzHSVMc68U9f)The Last American Vagabond Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Last American Vagabond Substack at tlavagabond.substack.com/subscribe

We're going to be discussing the idea of the false binary. What an illusion of choice does, establishes the baseline assumptions and nobody questions. This is part of the fifth generation warfare that we've talked about, voting for the lesser of two evils. Definitely an emotional psychological trap that people are in. You're cheerleading for an insane ideology because you think you're winning. The role we have is media. How do we help everybody understand this is theater and you need to get back into the real world? if you're opposed to the agenda, you should oppose it regardless of who's selling it to you.

Welcome back to another episode of the Independent Media Alliance. We're here to discuss an important topic. Something he came here personally as a very big focus on, his main focus of his work in general, is around finding ways to help us both using tech to fight back against what's coming, but also find ways to help protect yourself against what's there. And really just always been, like before the technological advancements of the day, you know, there's always been people that have been trying to use the current status to manipulate people around them. And I think, you know, not even above and beyond the tech,

we talk a lot about just ways, you know, going back to the vote with your dollar, things like that, like finding ways that we can just use our daily actions to help, you know, align with our principles and push back and what's building. And so that's generally the topic today of how we can use tech to fight back and find ways to insulate ourselves. And I'm sure Akeem has a lot more to put on that. So I'll go ahead and throw it to you, Akeem to start us off. Thanks, Ryan. You know, tech has become an issue that we can't. ignore. In any freedom lover, they might be doing all the right things at home, growing their own food, finding their own ways to educate themselves, pulling their money out of the banks. All of that is

all great. But unfortunately, we can't ignore how technology has become an instrument for the institution. And so when major technology decisions happen, for instance, the Google antitrust hearing this week, you really need to pay attention because these big tech companies are really important. to this global agenda. So one of the things I've been looking at is digital ID, and it's really interesting how different parts of the world, whether it's the Western digital ID schemes, or even countries you might have not expected,

like Mexico and Pakistan, how similarly they are structured. And they're all structured to be able to say, hey, we didn't force anyone into this, but it's this thing that I'm calling mandate by proxy where they kind of pass the buck on to the important service providers, whether that's the banks, whether that's the website that you would normally access without air verification, whether that's public services. And they pass the buck on saying, hey, we're not going to force it on you.

It's going to be up to these providers. And so to have solutions and alternatives in your technology is one of the most important things you can do today. So I hope we can dig into that a little bit. And I'm happy to share solutions that I have. For anyone who doesn't know my work, I write about technology on my blog, takebackartech.org. And I also have a privacy company called Above where we make degougled phones,

Linux laptops, things that are important. And we'll talk about today, like how understanding how these systems work is really important to the solutions we use. But I don't think anyone's stranger is a stranger here. to online privacy. So I'm interested in kind of what you guys are doing too to keep yourself safe online. Yeah, it's a good place to start in general. I think we all probably have different views. I mean, not in the sense of what we're fighting back against,

but like ways you might use certain things to push back on. And so let's go ahead and jump around here and let James and Kit kind of give their own perspectives on this. And then I guess when you just get right into like the most important ways that we think we can use this. And I would like to go into some of the things you were talking about, too, like the interesting overlap and even the antitrust idea and what that might mean going forward. But go ahead, James, if you want to start next.

All right, sure. Let me frame this in a way that I'm just thinking off the top of my head, but it occurs to me because I just recently took a little trip to Malaysia, which people will see why very soon, because I'll have a report coming out on that. But while I was there, I had an experience that I've had a few times while traveling in recent years, which is remembering that the rest of the world is not like Japan. And so how did this occur to me? Well, first of all, the little issue of the hotel breakfast that I was eating in the morning. And how do I pay for the hotel breakfast?

Well, of course, I have Malaysian ring it. I have literal cash. So I'm just going to go up and, okay, I'll pay for my breakfast now. Here's the money. Cash? Oh, yeah, I think we can do that. and they have to call someone over to get the cash register and whatever. And like, oh, yeah, this stuff.

Yeah, okay, you can have some of this and blah, blah. Okay. And then the next morning, I go to get the hotel breakfast again. I go to pay for cash. This time, they won't do it at all. They're like, nope, sorry, cashless or nothing. I'm like, well, I don't have a card. So I guess I'm eating for free, which they actually agreed with me.

Okay, I guess so. There's no way to pay. You have these pieces of paper. The next day I decide, oh, you know what, I'll do something else than this stupid breakfast dance of the cashless thing. I'm just going to go somewhere else outside the hotel. I'm going to get something else and go to the restaurant, sit down. What's the first thing I see? Look at the menu.

Okay, that looks good. I'm going to have that. Look around for the waiter until I realize, oh, there's the little QR code on the table. I'm going to have to scan my order in because I can't flag down one of these people, these human beings that are walking around the restaurant who could take. my order. No, no, no, you've got to do it through the app on the QR code thing. But I'm in Malaysia. I don't have cell service. I don't have Wi-Fi in this particular location. So I literally can't. I'm going to have to flag someone down. So I walk, I'm like, okay, this is stupid. I'm not going to support this. I walk out. I'm going to support a business that takes cash. So I walk into

some other cafe, sit down to order something, order my order. And then how are you going to pay? Cash? No, no, no, it's cashless only. So I start to walk out. And the guy at the counter is like, no, no, no, you give me the cash. I'll pay for you. And so he pays with his phone while I give him. I've had this experience in recent years when I travel because, hey, I'm in Japan where cash is still mostly relatively king and you can pay for cash anywhere anytime. And I'm forgetting that the rest of the world is gradually becoming more and more cashless.

What does this mean? We are moving from, Hakeem, you will know the term S-A-A-S software. as a service. I don't know how you techie people say that. Is it SaaS? Sass. Yeah. We are moving to a world that is P-P-A-A-S. I will have to come up with a snapier term for that. But it's public participation as a service. You have to be subscribed. You have to have your cell service. You have to have this smartphone. You have to have the QR code. You have to have the digital ID, you have to have the card in order to just participate in public life, in order to just order your goddamn breakfast. I mean, I don't know how to say how utterly,

I'm glad that I have the experience of being so othered from this, this cashless thing that's coming into everybody's lives, because when I do travel, I see it from a complete outsider perspective. It's not the little gradual boiling frog in the pot, just getting a little bit warmer. No, I jump right into the deep end and, oh my God, I'm boiling alive. Somebody get me out of here. And everybody else is just going about their business as if this is usual. This is not usual. And we are giving up our right to participate in everyday public life. Every time we're scanning the code in order to, you know, order our meal, every time we're using that digital payment, we're giving up our ability to participate without having those services. And that to me is such a

fundamental bedrock issue that in a way it goes beyond the technology. Of course, the technology exists and we can find ways to use it to our advantage or whatever, blah, blah, blah. But no, it's the fact of the infrastructure itself that requires that technological layer. I think we have to start screaming and carving out the space to have the non-technological life that I think we will need if we do not want to move to the past system. It really does. It really does. the core idea of liberty in this context. And my first thing jumps to my mind is, well, there's exactly, you know, vote with your dollar except you can't because of exactly that system,

which I just think is obvious. You know, I have thoughts on QR codes and plenty of stuff, but I'll throw it to Kit if he wants to give his thoughts before we jump around first. Well, I mean, I just want to share first just on the cashist thing. You've probably all familiar with just how many cash is bad stories there are. I saw the funniest one I've seen in years just earlier this week. Somebody sent it to me. The fact that people aren't using coins anymore means that fewer children are swallowing coins

and being taken to the emergency room. So attached society is really great. It's saving kids' lives. Oh, thank God for this digital payment. Yay. In some ways, I would say, regarding like the whole public services subscription model QR codes thing, we are sort of going to be in a position where I think sort of it will be bad and then it will get better because people will still want to benefit themselves and people will quite you know like essentially what you could call black markets will emerge businesses that will take cash will emerge because there will be a market for it so you can sort of rely on self-interest I think to counter it eventually but there will be a period where that doesn't happen regarding like my experience of it, it's not so bad in the UK yet.

The Cash Society is still, we're the forefront, you know, leading the way in many other really quite terrible things, but you can still pay with cash. And a lot of people, I've had a lot of experiences of taxis and window cleaners and tipping various people lately, and they specifically ask for cash for fairly obvious reasons. You know, you don't pay tax on cash and so on. So there is a thriving cash thing in the UK, and I think even more so in the US at the moment still. But the UK is much worse at the whole age verification thing. Obviously, it's one of the main reasons we're here.

That is dreadful. And it was so, so signposted when the Australia brought it in first. It was so obvious what we're going to protect the kids by making sure nobody under 16 has social media, which means everybody over 16 has to prove they're over 16, obviously. nobody reported it at that at the time. Can I ask you a question real quick for both actually the, well, I think you're a different place as well, Keem. In general, anybody outside the United States, is it the same, like on a U.S. bill, it says, you know, this is legal tender, like any of the legal re- is that the same

overlap in other countries? Is it there like a legal obligation for businesses, even though that's even today, that's not, they don't, nobody enforces that. But technically speaking, they're supposed to be legally bound to take it. Is that the same outside of the United States? Funnily enough, I have no idea. I'm sorry, the pervasiveness of your culture is that I'm more familiar with that as an American idea than a British law. Because I've seen it in movies and stuff. Yeah, I know.

They are legally obliged to take tend to. I think there are laws about it, I think in Scotland, which has sturdier financial laws about having to take certain things as legal tender. I'm not sure about England. It's a good place to start this conversation. And having been to Japan, I know James is spoiled with the amazing cash machines that smile and talk to you in a nice voice and give you the exact change. So, so cool. But unfortunately, this seems to be happening everywhere in the world at around the same time, at around the 2027 timeframe. And it's very interesting how these digital ID programs are synced up.

I would think that the in-person stuff is a little bit easier to solve in the sense that if the food vendor down the street, the cafe down the street is requiring this crap, get up and ask your friend to start a cafe, find a cafe that accepts cash and make that your place, right? At least there's a workaround. For a lot of things, I mean, the internet is going to change at large, and I've been looking into the UK Gov ID system. And what a lot of people don't see is that it's not just the digital ID. There's this whole ecosystem around it. For instance, UKGov has single sign-on. So if you remember visiting websites and going to log in, how they have these different providers, you can sign them in with,

sign in with Gmail, sign in with Instagram. Soon it's going to be sign in with your government ID. And when we reach that chapter, then it's kind of a ticking time. for more people to adopt the ID, for more people to sign on to these things online, to at a point where either the other services like Facebook, whatever you're logging in with, also have a dependence on the government ID, or they simply just block everyone else off. So to access your bank account online, you know,

there's not really a better option than that or to, you know, access YouTube. You're not really going to have a choice. So I do think keeping the in-person separate from the digital is just an interesting aspect of it. What do you mean by that exactly? I agree in general, but you mean like don't get a digital ID? I feel like there's more to that what you're saying. Can you flesh that out? Yeah.

So the digital ID system, it's kind of going hand in hand with age verification. And so, for instance, the UK, there's this rumor that they're pushing their wallet back three years. Australia's wallet is going to be, is ready this year. The EU, the wallet is going to be ready next year. And people can go ahead and sign up if they want. And EU states are required to have the wallet app available. Now, there's something interesting in how big tech is being used in a way so that these, These controls cannot be broken.

What I mean by that is so you can't spoof the digital ID. They are super aware of that and will not let you sidestep it, get around it. So when I was reading the UK-Gov policies, even when they talk about verification, like you know, you're at the airport, the TSA officer, whoever, they kind of look at your name and face. So anyone performing these verifications in person or online has to be certified to do it, right? So those are just some of the examples of this verification. And that's going to happen online. And it is also going to happen in person.

Now, it's going to be a little bit of a repeat, like kind of the past decade where we saw the rise of bots and spam and everything. And you started to see those captures everywhere. You started to see cloud flare everywhere, currently verifying your connection thing. So you're going to start to see more of these gates that you're going to have to walk through. and they're going to make it a lot easier for you if you have your digital ID versus when you won't. There's going to be a need for a lot of digital alternatives.

So I think that's one thing to look out for. Now, going back to Big Tech and their role in this, two very important things they did this year was, one, they released the developer verification program. Google did that. Now, anyone who uses a phone, you know, you may know if you use a Google phone, you can install an app from anywhere. It doesn't necessarily need to come from the Google Play Store. You can download it directly from a website.

Well, that's changing come 2027. And in 26, there's a pilot in five Southeast Asian countries. And after this happens, there's literally a fracturing right down the middle where, if you have a normal phone, you don't have alternatives for the apps that you can use. And there's already a fracturing on the other side. Google's released what they call Google Play Integrity, which is, it's kind of branded as a security thing. It's like, all right, make sure the phone is secure enough so no one can use this app maliciously. But in reality, it's insecure.

And all it's doing is checking whether this is a licensed Google phone. So the manufacturer has a partnership with Google. So that open source software can't be used. And I think this is really telling Google made these two moves this year because it shows that de-googled phones are a threat. Believe it or not, it's actually a threat to them. I'll finish with this. Jack Dorsey, whatever you might think about him,

and this goes into the whole AI discussion, but he built that Bluetooth messenger. And supposedly he did it in a weekend. So Jack Dorsey, being a smart guy, being a software engineer, co-founder of Twitter and all that, okay, he can do that. But what happens when more and more people start to build solutions? Google does not want those apps installed on all the phones. So they're planning ahead and making sure people are cut off. So that's why I'm paying attention to it, at least the digital side.

Well, let's start with, let's get into, you know, because there's many ways you could come at this. Like one side is obviously like ways to insulate yourself away. from these things and others, you know, more than just two, but other way to look at it would be ways to use this stuff to essentially fight back from within. And so you're talking about the phone in one part of it there. I think it's a really important, I mean, obviously I think they recognize what you're doing, or others are doing as a threat because it allows people to, at least at the moment, circumvent the system that's necessary to control and surveil and all of that. And so obviously we'll include your link and everything in the show notes. So I recommend people check that out.

So we can talk the phone side of it, I think's important to start with because you've got like a Eric Prince with his fake megaphone that actually was built partly in China, built by Israel, you know, it's like all these things, and that went away. And now you've got this one that floated for a minute that Trump started. And that just kind of disappeared because it turned out it was put together in China. It's very, it's interesting, you know. So clearly I think that's a major part of it. But what other elements of this do we think are ways that we could, you know, either way that goes, you know, like ways that we can use the tech to fight back. But like, see, like tech, you're still using a phone. You're still accessing all the tech. So some out there,

purists might argue that is even too far. You know, there's a line in there. but what other ways do you guys think you can use this step to fight back, even on the phone side of it, wherever you want to go with it? Wait, for Elon must to bring out the ex-phone, it'll be fine. Is he doing that? Oh, I'm sure. I mean, there was definitely something about an ex-phone, wasn't it? I'm sure.

You have to sign up for the America Party, and then you'll get the ex-phone in the mail. It'll all work out. So I have an example. One of the things that they'll go after first, which we already see from Pakistan, which has, they've been doing a digital ID since 2001. So in Pakistan, if you want cell service, you need to, yeah, you need to have a digital ID.

So here is a solution that currently works. Am I, is this screen the right way? Can you guys see that? It's not bad. Here, I can, yeah, go ahead. Okay. So, so this is one solution we have as part of above phone. And so if I go to Bob Smith here, this is thankfully to the more likely.

lax, yeah, more lax cell provider laws in the U.S. where you can still get an internet phone number. So you see this thing that looks like a phone number. I could use this anywhere in the world. I don't need a SIM card. I just need to be connected to the internet. So I could be at a cafe in Austria and still use this. Albaite, I do have a U.S. or Canada country code. Those are the only phone numbers you can get with this service.

But I can still use it. I can use it to call. I can use it to text. Now, that is still the layer where we're bridging worlds. That's when we need to talk to people on the phone network. Super common. This also allows for international calls and stuff. The next layer is actually using decentralized messaging tools,

which I had a great interview with James, where we got to talk about this a little bit. We got to talk about XMPP. And, you know, that's a solution that anyone can run in any country. You could run it on a computer at home. And what's really important is we start investing in this infrastructure locally. We start to run more companies or even services that provide these services for people within a country. So people still have a way to communicate.

Because at a certain point, I mean, this voiceover internet protocol is great. I give it about I would be very surprised if we still had the same level of access that we do in about five years. Sorry, Hakeem, I know I just in the last day or two read an article about a bunch of companies that were providing VoIP, VOIP, that were, I don't know, like, there was some kind of, there's a new U.S. restriction because they have to comply with the robocall laws or whatever. Yeah, that's more regulation from the FCC. It was this, they're cracking down a little. I mean, they're releasing new regulation all the time. And so there's these robicol mitigation laws as part of the Trace Act in the U.S. And so slowly they're trying to make it a lot harder to run a VoIP service.

This one is supposed to protect you. And so there was 1,000 companies that didn't comply. A thousand companies that – this is actually a perfect example. So there's around 2,000, 2,400 companies in the U.S. that do this VoIP service. A thousand of them weren't complying. So what did they do? They told the other 1,400 companies not to route calls from the other 1,000. And I think it sums up this game theory perfectly.

They can only rely on the rest of us to cut the other people out. So going back to the restaurants and stuff, they will rely on, you know, we're really relying on each other not to cut each other out. You know, this really does get to the heart of it. And thank you for clarifying that. Because I remember, yeah, reading about that. And so the robocall mitigation regulations, I guess, require these services to log and the phone calls that are being made or whatever.

They have to keep those records and then obviously store them for government access in the future, essentially, is what they're doing. Anyway, but you're right. Yes, it comes back to the sort of the participation. Will people participate in this? And I think that really is the heart of the matter. And to me, the sort of the societally existentially threatening part of this, because as I think you mentioned at the top, it's not necessarily.

the ham-handed government regulations that we have to worry about so much as it is, to a certain extent, if we're looking for the problem, we should start by looking in the mirror, to the extent that we are participating in these systems voluntarily when we don't have to. In a way, that's extremely empowering because, hey, we do have choice and we can take alternatives, but in a way, it's extremely frightening because, for example, with my recent experience in Malaysia, I was the only one who was, who thought there was anything even weird here. It's like, it's, it really is like the twilight zone when you step into a situation like that and everyone else is just whipping out their card and scanning their QR code and now, it's just daily business. But for me, I'm like,

oh, no, what's going on here? And I think an important part of what the sort of the societal fabric of what's happening right now is we are seeing the government tyranny being outsourced. Um, so for example, What was the core heart of the CBDC issue was, oh, my God, the central bank is going to know everything about everything you're doing and we'll be able to prevent your transactions, et cetera. An obvious threat to liberty that even the asleepest of the asleep could see was, hey, maybe we don't want that kind of system, guys, right? So pretty much everyone can get behind the let's ban CBDCs movement. But then what do we replace it with? Well, stable coins. So what we'll do is we'll outsource this particular function to,

a third party. Don't worry, guys. It's some company. It's tether or whoever that has nothing to do with the U.S. government. It's just, oh, well, we'll pass this legislation so that we regulate and can control exactly who can participate in this space and under what restrictions and given what kind of oversight, which to me, to my mind, is exactly, in a sense, this is the heart of the banking system that perhaps people have failed to understand. Yes, the central bank, the Federal Reserve or the Bank of England or whatever it is, yes, is the central bank that is the bank for the banks, where the bank money, the reserve money is held. But the entire system has been predicated on having these commercial banks, these third party, hey, these aren't government banks. These are private entities that play with the central bank, but then they're the ones providing the service to us. It's this intermediation of the banking system that then allows the government exactly as an operation choke point there in the U.S. it wasn't the government that was debanking anyone. It was the private banks because the government was leaning on them with their FDIC regulatory authority.

That's the system. That's the way this is being structured. So in a sense, yes, great. Okay, I think it's true if we don't play along with these games, if we refuse to go to the restaurant that's getting us to QR scan, or if we refuse to use Reddit or whatever when they're asking us for our digital government ID, great, but in a sense, the entire system is being structured this way. And unless we confront it, I mean, I guess what I'm saying is the 100% most important priority in all of this is the public

awareness. Because I think the public is going to just go along with it, because again, this isn't the government tyranny that we've been hearing about. It's just private companies and you can choose and, hey, whatever, I trust Elon Musk or whoever. That to me seems to be the root of the issue. And I think they learn that very well after things like total information awareness and Palantir and like the way that they can shift into the company and hide everything and the public private overlap where they go, oh, no, that's private. Can't do that. And I think right now that's a very obvious shift. And I think like I just bumped up against that interestingly with research around the bio side of it where I'm looking at a new like, I think it was the vaccine patches and

they're working with different companies. The U.S. government is another way they're kind of pretending they're stopping when they're not. But I'm looking into the company and I kept bumping up against us, oh, it's private company. I was like unable to find the person's name who was behind it. And it's just like this weird, you know, that's the fascist overlap right there. And I think that's very obviously they recognize a way to get around it all. And then of course, we are bombarded moment after moment with narratives every moment that shift in flux, you know, depending on what they need to get us to with, that justify each one little step. And nobody, you know, the normies, let's say, don't connect those little steps and dots with the bigger picture. That's the

boiling frog, you know, and just, but you're right, though, James. That really is the crux. That's why I talk about the two-party illusion part of it, which clearly even from the UK, it's more than two, but it's just the false binary idea that is the real crux of the problem, not the only problem, but damn it, it's the one thing that really does seem to stop us when we get close. The outsourcing extends to censorship as well, because the online safety, for example, it doesn't find individuals for saying things. It finds platforms for hosting things. So the platforms then, you know, they're not being ordered to save things down, but they have faced government fines if they don't take them down. And you can't object because free speech is guaranteed by the

government. It's not guaranteed by Twitter. It's not guaranteed by Facebook. They're a private company. They can choose to take you down if you want. And of course, it works both ways because the bigger companies like Google, like Facebook, like Twitter can afford to pay the fines if they get fined. But small arrivals that would be set up to encourage free speech, couldn't afford to pay the fines. So the government gets its censorship and then the mega companies get their monocally. And they, they intertwine like that. In a sense, that's another sort of false binary is government versus corporations. They're so intermingled, so tied together. You can't really separate. Go ahead. Go ahead.

I was just because it's kind of dumb. It was when the CIA was doing a partnership with Google for their own CIA dashboard, they had to ask permission for Google so that they can change their logo. They could change the Google logo to have the CIA seal in it. Ask permission. Luckily, Google, it was don't be evil at that time, right? Yeah, yeah. They were like, all right. I saw just the other day, someone had saved a screenshot from Google,

and I suppose it would be the late 90, 30,000s, which when it was still an incredibly rough little text box, they had a little disclaimer that said, we're the only search engine that doesn't monitor your data and it doesn't have advertising. It was quite sad. It was like, oh, he was so innocent when he was young. Well, they were lying then, too. Let's be clear about that.

That's the point. Wow. But so let's come at that, like from kind of the one of the main points today is so like what we're discussing, what are the possible solutions to that? You know, obviously it's one of the main things, you know, from the non-tech side is what we're talking about is just, you know, information, what we do for a living. Getting people to understand that these are the, you know, the narrative of the day is not necessarily about solving that wedge issue. It's about, you know, justifying what comes down the line in six months. but, you know, what other ways in that moment can we use to circumvent that problem in your guys. Let me give you my first approximation of a stab at this. I think given what we're talking about here, given the fact that it is this government slash private collaboration,

the public-private partnerships, that's the polite name for fascism these days, how do we approach that? To me, as a voluntarist, as someone who thinks that government should not exist, but people should be allowed to exercise their freedoms in the way that they want, as long as it doesn't infringe on other people's rights to exercise their freedoms, I don't think there should be a body that comes along and, in some way, regulates that people can't use an online ID or there cannot be smartphones or QR codes or something. No, that would be a tyranny in maybe even if it corresponded with the type of tyranny you wanted,

it would still be tyranny and I would not be in support of that. But so to me, the real crux of the matter, at the very least, okay, there's two things that come to mind. One is that, yes, I am, as I hope people understand by now through what I've done with Solutions Watch and everything else, I am 100% supportive of people creating and finding and using alternatives and finding the spaces in the cracks in the system and doing things, you know, in the disintermediated way that you say the internet was predicated on in the first place, that's incredibly important. So my hat's off to Hakeem and everyone out there who is doing

that kind of work. It's incredibly important and I appreciate it. Having said that, it does create sort of a two-tier system where there is the everyday public life of people who go along their merry way and don't ever have to put two seconds of thought into what they're doing and can, you know, enter any public space and do whatever they want because they're using the default method, the cashless digital ID, whatever. And then there are the, you know, the vagabonds and the, and the, the, the castaways from society. And to a certain extent, maybe that, maybe at least that's better than an outright tyranny

in which there are no cracks in the system and in which there is no space for freedom. But, you know, if I have to be a pirate in order to do it, then I guess so. What's the, what's the wretched hive of scum and villainy and? Yeah. Moss Isling. Sorry, I'm getting my help from my assistant back here. You know, there's the Moss Isley's of the world where, you know, you can go and you can be that sort of, you know, alternative person. But to me, the real crux of the matter is to not implement this at the level of the government regulation.

Because to me, that's the evil crux of this. Because whether it's the government tyranny or it's the public-private partnership tyranny, it's stemming from the government's supposed right to say, regulate this industry. Hey, these are private companies. They just have to play by our rules. So that seems to me to be the fundamental connection in this chain of tyranny. And we have to find a way to break that. But that to me isn't a technological problem. I mean, that's a social, political problem. And I don't know if we, I don't know if there's technology that. I mean, Hakeem, maybe, I don't know, but maybe your take is the technology actually dictates society. because a couple of decades ago, of course, taxis are the only way to get around.

Like, what are you talking about? And then some Uber and Lyft come along and completely change upend people's perception of that or Airbnb completely upends people's perceptions of the way the hotel industry works. So perhaps is your take that the technology will lead people in directions that are either towards freedom or away from freedom depending on the way that technology is constructed. Really quick, I'll just add on top of that, let's not forget, too, that the element of, as I'm sure James would add, that it's not just the organic element, but that the government now art like deliberately holds back technology

until it can be flooded to the time that they would feel it most meets their interest. So it changes that point, but go ahead, Hakeem. I think that technology is both the best, it's both the worst thing that happened to humanity, and also it's kind of our saving grace. Just a little bit. Why? because, I mean, look at the lockdowns during COVID.

Where did we all have to turn to? Because everyone, you know, generally around us, if you take a random sample of people, a lot of them are going to be asleep. Very few of them are going to weigh. You're already very lucky if you're around a neighborhood where people are awake. So people didn't have those social bonds yet.

I think we're in Conkin's third stage of evolution where more and more people are, becoming agorist or voluntarious. And right now we're in that navigation phase. There's going to be a lot of shuffling around. And so because people aren't in close proximity to each other, we are going to have to use technology a little bit to figure out where we're going to go next. And so until we get to the point where we're in a giant intentional community and we don't need banks, we don't need to go to the grocery store, which is not going to happen for a while, I would think, at least a few years, you know, technology is going to have a place in it.

But I don't think it's the end all to all our problems. It's just kind of a bridge to help us get there. And then maybe when we get established, maybe technology could play a role to federate our intentional communities and actually have safe ways to communicate across distance and send money across distances. Because as far as I know, cryptocurrency is the only way to send a large sum of something that could be accepted, you know,

as a medium of exchange right now across borders without having to take dollar bills through, you know, the RFID detectors or smuggle it through customs. It's the only way. So, I mean, if it does work, we might as well experiment with it a little bit. And so at above, we've been trying to do things that address these problems. Right now in several countries, Pakistan being one, Estonia being the other, I believe you would need to have a digital ID in order to get a SIM card. However, in other countries that have partnerships with mobile service providers in Pakistan, you can still get cell service. So the laws are not equally applied.

And so there are workarounds that you can use to get connectivity in these regions. Here's also an interesting thing. I want to interview an Afghan refugee who's living in Pakistan. Why? Because they're one of the 4% that aren't on digital ID. They can't legally rent a house. They can't get utilities. They can't go to school. They can't get married.

What is life like that for that person? And I think we get to experience this. Part of it is we have to let our own expectations down as well. It's going to be kind of ghetto for a little bit, right? We're going to be what did Orwell call the places outside of the city? I looked that up. I thought I had a name. Anyways,

I'm like Moss Isley. We're going to Moss Isley. That was Orwell, right? Yeah. I had a question for you, though. I don't want to monopolize this conversation, but it also occurs to me that the question also is, can we scale human connection?

Because part of, I think, the fundamental problem that we have is that human connection between human people is, I mean, in a natural state, in a non-technological state, you're talking about hundreds, maybe thousands of people that can live in some sort of natural state without technological aid. Once you start to scale it up to millions, billions of people across international boundaries around the entire world, you're starting to look at the problems that inherently come with this question of, technological connection. And so one example of this is,

I always like to try to put myself back in the mindset of someone, say, in the 19th century, right? Where a passport, I need some kind of like letter from the queen or the king, I guess, telling me that I can move from one place to another. Like, why? What is this about?

Passports were an invention of the 20th century. They didn't exist before that point. So why, how do they become normal? Or how about your government? issued whatever, driver's license or whatever ID, the physical ID, that's so much better than digital ID. No, it's fundamentally the sort of the same concept. Why is there this government database that says who you are and that proves your age and everything?

Well, it's because how, you know, if you go to the corner store and you want to buy a pack of cigarettes, do people buy cigarettes anymore? I'm an old man. I don't know. Anyway, how are you going to do that? You have to show your ID, right? But think about that 100 years ago. I mean, do you think there were people like,

checking government-issued IDs every time someone bought a packet cigarettes. Of course not. If some 12-year-old came up to buy cigarettes, they'd probably like, okay, whatever. Right. For your parents, I don't care. Whatever. So it's sort of that as the scale gets bigger, we start to expect these technological interventions to do things that in an actual human community of hundreds of people,

where you know your neighbors and you know what's going on. And there's no big overarching authority over the entire, you know, nation or continent or whatever. whatever. It's just about that human connection, which can be dealt with without these big systems, centralized systems of control. How do you get, how do you do that on the scale of millions or billions of people without instituting centralized systems of control and databasesing? And that's, again, that's a fundamental question. And I'd like to hear that there are ways of doing that, but it gets hard to think about. But I think it comes down to the core point real quickly just of again, like there will always be like somebody out there is going to hear that

and list off the things that would make that bad for them. Like there will always be negatives that come, but it's about liberty versus, you know, the negative. Like that's what it always comes down to in this conversation is that you're willing to sacrifice some of those things for liberty. You know, there's a quote for that. You know, so and go ahead. I have another question I wanted to direct at Akeem, but James's point, we can go around on that. Because I think that's what it comes down to. If we're getting, I was getting slightly off the topic, I suppose, but like it is important that in some ways you need to counter the mindset that there is an orthopedic right to be told what to do and that the problem is using that power

correctly rather than maybe that power shouldn't exist like I've written a lot about lab grown meat and alternative proteins and all the other things they call it and I don't like it it's insidious it's unpleasant and yet when Florida banned lab grown meat I got messages saying this isn't this good news and And I had to say, well, I don't think so. Because it still normalizes the idea that the government can just say, no, that's not allowed. If people want lab-grown meat, they should be able to get it. I mean, I wouldn't eat it myself, but I wouldn't eat deep-fried crickets either.

And I don't especially want to eat anything Bill Gates has had his hands on. But I don't believe it is my right. Your own right to be right to tell other people that they can't. And so you do want to really counter what has become highly normalized, like, tyrannical, in people that they feel a need, there should be somebody telling them what to do. It seems designed that way. Like you're creating a situation where you get the other side to call.

And again, this is where it comes down to it's not even about the point. It's not about woke pronouns. It's about using that to get you in a certain position. You know, and so there, it's like you create the system where you get the rights so outraged that they call for the same tyrannical thing they hate

because they want to dunk on the other side. It's actually pretty well crafted when you think about it. You know, but it is everywhere we look right now. But I agree. I think that's a very important point about how this is used against us to get us to call for our own subjugation. If the real way forward here is education, what is the best thing to share with people first?

Because we do have, I do think through all of our audiences, I think we have a lot of people that are just kind of waiting to be told what to do, not told what to do, but guided, right? Here, let's focus on this issue. Here's a design for a sticker. Go and send these out. So in the face of this poly crisis, where do we start? I'm interested in what you guys think. You know, excellent point.

And here's an example of that that just happened recently. Has everyone noticed everyone changing their profile pick to Clippy? Yet again. Right? Because that guy put out that video. And what is even the point of this? Clippy never didn't, wasn't watching what you did. Clippy didn't tell you what to do.

Clippy wasn't spying on you. You know, Clippy was a good guy, right? And so change your profile pick to Clippy. I don't know exactly what they're going to try to accomplish with that movement. But anyway, everyone's changing their profile pick to Clippy, right? So this research. I just had to look up what that was. Yeah.

That's just one of the social experiments. Yeah. Because a silly video, for whatever reason, millions of people watched it and decided to do it. You know, it would be great if we had something like that, that just at the very least just represented in a simple way what it is we're trying to put forward in a way that people can, at the very least, as you say, Hakeem, people are waiting for the movement because 99% of people are just waiting for sort of someone else to take care of it and I'll just follow them. So yeah, how do we get people to understand that they are part of a movement and put their, you know, start putting their thought and intention into that.

Something as stupid as, hey, change your profile click to clip. It can be that kind of thing that gets people at least thinking in the right direction. The problem, though, and this is, and I agree with you. That solution is absolute that's in its own, that's, you know, period, that's something we should do. But the problem is that the same thing, the technology side of it, the platform. Like, I'm of the mind today with how controlled and algorithms and AI that any online engagement is that there's no organic viral anymore. You know, so the point is that those things will never be allowed to get where they need to go. But this is why we do like Whitney's talking about, go back to paper. And like, there's ways around it.

But it's the whole two steps forward, one step back. That's what our world is these days. But I agree with you, but it's like, so again, maybe to Hakeem, like, what is the solution they're in? Like, like, you know, like off top my head, not being the super tech guy, the, you know, decentralized internet would be a way to like try to get around that, you know, but that's kind of the focal is like, how do we either choose to go completely analog or find ways to go around it?

That's why I like what you do, Hakeem, is because there's a lot of pushback on the general idea of using tech in, you know, all crypto bad kind of a mindset. And maybe they're right. But I think there are ways that we can use these things to, you know, work through that and fight back. But I don't know how you get around that, James. Look at Twitter. Like, I don't think any real ideas are getting the light they deserve these days. We're not going to win with algorithms anymore. It's just not going to happen. It's too tightened down. I don't want to give up and say they've won, but that really does look like it.

So we're going to have to use email. As stupid as that is, we can use some low tech, still fairly decentralized solution. I feel implicated in that, Hickey. I think I'm the only person left who still uses email. I have the worst email situation of anybody I know. And I'll just have to speak up and say, I don't know about that because I'll say right now that every single important thing I get goes to spam. It's almost a joke.

And everything that like all the spam that's like the obvious like buy these crypto, you know, buy this casino stuff is all in my inbox. And no matter what I do, it seems to say that way. You know, I agree with you. Like that's the direction. But I'm almost feeling like, you know, carrier pigeon. I feel like your spam filter is not working properly. But I will ask all four of us,

what is the most direct way we have to reach your audience if it's not through a third party platform? And that's why email kind of falls in there, right? That's why substack is now a thing. RRS. RSS. Oh, yeah. That's right, which.

I'm going to die on that hill. And I know no one's following me. I still think I'm right. Yeah, I still have it on mine. Everyone asked me that when I used to have it off. So I include a little tab that just is RSS. Honestly, I get more questions about what that even is these days than I do. But for those that want it, it works.

Change your profile pick to the RSS. RSS. It's going to be my campaign. You'll just get people saying, why is your profile pick a volume of assemble? Raise volume. Well, there's two things. And there's two things here. Once we need a real call to action that is digital.

into physical, which is something I've always promoted. We have this digital connection. I mean, that's why when Derek came up with the idea for the greater reset, it was really powerful. I think it was the year before the algorithm shifted because it felt like overnight. There was this large following of people, and it was lucky enough to connect us to you and to a lot of people around the world at that time. Now, it's not like that anymore, but still, there are fragments of us. And I think the problem is, is that a lot of, let's just call each other influencers. I don't know what the hell we are, but right, reporters, influencers. Not a word that I like, but let you know, go ahead. Correct me on that, but we're not really working together.

It's kind of like, I'm doing my own thing over here, you're doing your own thing, we're reporting on different things, you have your own area of knowledge, but there's no coordination, and I wish there was, because it would make things a lot more effective. And I, and I think as, no, no, No, we know, James. Let's have a fight. No. No, I don't think there needs to be coordination. You know, to me, this is what the fundamental point of the Internet revolution is,

is that back in the 20th century and the mass media paradigm that we were in, yeah, of course, you needed to congregate and have people working in the same, usually in the same physical space, but at least towards the same idea. So you'd have the handful of, you know, Time magazine and New York Times and blah, blah, blah, and you could have your left flavor and your right flavor. but, you know, all working within that same system. But the point of the disintermediation that the internet has brought about is that we can all be doing our own thing. And each person gets to be their own editor.

And each person can say, you know, I love what Hakeem's doing. I absolutely love the daily wrap-up. Off Guardian is just nailing it every day. And, oh, Corbett, he's an asshole. I hate him. Screw him. And they can decide. They can pick and choose and tailor their feed the way they want.

And that's awesome. I think that's a good thing. Why do we all have to be on the same page, working towards the same agenda and agreeing on the same things? No, let's all be different and let people choose their own path forward. And it's kind of that mindset of, no, we all must be on the same page that I think is the old 20th century mindset that we know where that leads. We know the type of, you know, media aggregation that that leads to. I like this. So this is interesting.

I'm going to put my thought somewhere in the middle. And, you know, maybe then maybe Kit can say, give us his thought on it. because this is actually a really important conversation that we always, it is an important that gets talked about a lot, is that, you know, let me start with this. I think we can all acknowledge that I think it's been, I would argue by design, that people have been isolated and siloed in this field, right?

Like we're echo chambered, and that goes for every possible, even the corporate media, mainstream media people at the same way. But in the independent media, I feel it has been driven to where we are adversarial against each other. And I think in many ways, obviously, because infiltration we should be questioning, but I think it's become almost like,

like, I don't know what the right word be, but it's a problem. But at the same time, it's refreshing here you say that, James, because I completely agree with the over, like the idea that we have to, or if you're not, then you're not fighting in the right direction. Like you're right, things have changed quite a bit. And then it's almost like that can be to our detriment. But I would argue it's somewhere in the middle, right? I think it's important that we don't feel like we have to be like part of some club

and group. And not to say that's what you were saying, Akeem, but that can be how it is perceived that we're part of the click or we're part of this echo chamber idea, you know, so where we can focus on what we like. But at the same time, I do think it's important that we try to get some coordination, some, like what we're doing with the IMA. I think that's very important if it's done the right way. So I think it's somewhere in the middle.

But I really like that this is getting discussed because that's, I don't hear that opinion a lot, James, and I do agree with you. So what do you, would you have any thoughts on that kit in that general point? If not, I'm worried or throw out the spot. Yeah, like, I think in some ways, coordination just happens. And I think that is the, when it does, it's very powerful.

Like I think you go back to March 2020, nobody said, this is the big deal guys, we have to write around because COVID is the thing. This is gonna end everything if we let it. There was a feeling and there was a sort of an organic coordination, an army of individuals as opposed to an army. I think that's when coordination is out as most powerful. And it's a sort of unspoken understanding.

That's a good point. I think that will occur naturally when it needs to. Yeah. In the later chapter. You know what? There's a technological implication to this. And Hakeem, I want you to comment on this because I think that sort of the paradigm is either web rings or RSS. And I say this because, okay, for years and years, I've been doing this for nearly 20 years now.

So I remember, you know, back in the day, years and years ago, people used to write back, you know, Actually, come to think of it, this was in the time when everyone had their own website and people were used to going to different websites. Now it's all just YouTube and Instagram and whatever. But anyway, back in the day, and people would always email me like, why don't all you guys just get together? And so you're all in one place. So I don't have to go to all these different websites every day. And some people would suggest, for example, web rings. Do people remember that back in the Web 1.0?

you would have like a little panel that had a link to all these different blogs that are associated with the one that you're reading. Like a drop down on the screen. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Right. And so you could, and you'd share the link and you'd become part of this web ring so people would get caught in the ring, I guess. I don't know. And so people are like, why don't you do that kind of thing?

But I always wanted to respond to those people, who's you guys? Because everybody's you guys is going to be different. And in fact, I remember one of these people who were saying, you guys should. get together, was also saying, I can't remember who it was, but someone, some 9-11 truth or something that they hated and they thought there was a shale and whatever, some of that I interviewed a lot and talked to. So it's like, am I one of you guys? Is I one of you guys? You know, how do we? But that's because the paradigm is you guys should all be together, whereas the spontaneous order that I hope is what kid is driving at, which I 100% agree. Yes, when I am here because I choose to be here, right?

and people voluntarily choosing to come together and work on issues that they agree on, talk about them, et cetera. That's wonderful. That's spontaneous order. And that, to my mind, is reflected more in the RSS model rather than the Webring model. No, I don't have to be, you know, literally linked and associated with this and this and this and this and this website. You get to choose.

I want this guy and this guy and this guy and this guy in my feed. And you come to that organically. It's the spontaneous order that happens. And yes, we're going to, we're probably going to meet like-minded people and grab gravitate towards them and work together in directions that we want, when we want, and when I have a fundamental disagreement, and suddenly, I don't know, Ryan, you're advocating for, you know, actually, we do need CBDCs or something. I'll be like, screw you, Ryan. I'm not working with you anymore. And it'll be fine because we're not linked at hip, right? That's the spontaneous order, which should be,

I think should be the vision for what we're doing. And I think technologically that's reflected in the web ring slash RSS paradigm, right? In this, this speaks to something like, I think, and it's weird. So this is right in the middle of this conversation, and I think most of these issues are, where, you know, which way to go, none, all, I think it's somewhere in the middle. I see this happening a lot. Like, so, for example, on Twitter, one thing I noticed and is still, you know, more choices are going this direction, like started to, if you hashtag, you get suppressed, right? If you include links, you get whatever the term is these days, you get, you know,

throttled, you don't get as seen as much suppression as I think is the best term. And so what is that, you know, there's a narratives for why. What does it ultimately lead to? Less coordination, right? no central location where you can go, oh, that hashtag, what is everybody saying? You have to go down these individual channels. And I think it's about trying to silo the way, you know, echo chamber or the way you look at things.

But at the same time, like you're saying, James, so it's on us. That's the bigger picture of the whole conversation today, right? Go out there, whether S, RSS or whatever else, the point of RSS that, like, I think James's getting at that I like. So you can be the one that goes, I want this one. I want that one. I want this guy. And they show up on your screen.

You know, that's how that really should work. And you can use it that way. And so you are putting everyone you like in that one group, but it's your choice. And, you know, so it is the middle ground of all of this. And I think that's all, like everything we're getting at it seems, at least in my mind, to be the path we should be taking. And again, self-responsibility, which is a tenant of everything we're talking about today. So I think that's a good way to look at it.

Let me, let me respond because I think, yes. So I think I was maybe a little bit misunderstood when I said, coordinate. No, I'm not saying that let's all pick one idea in just, move forward with that and yes spontaneous order is an important part of this um but i i would just say that i don't think there is enough collaboration and i think that we need to put forth the models that do get people engaged so people can be a part of this and if they like the ideas they're putting out to go out in the world and at least be an ambassador and maybe they like it maybe they don't like it maybe they tweak it.

But I don't think there's enough two-way engagement in a lot of the work that is happening right now. And really, that's what we need the most because the algorithms don't, they don't care about us. We're not getting any traction. It's hard. We kind of have our audiences. We can do our best to grow and get on each other's podcasts and show and all that. But we really need to get out in the real world because that's where the fracturing is and not the fracturing is just getting worse. So I would say like one thing, some people talk to me and, um,

They always tell me it leaves an impression when I talk about the phone company and what we're doing. And they let me know, hey, I'm also doing that in my neighborhood. I'm also helping people out. You help me understand what a good incentive it is to be helping people to be making income and to be doing work that I enjoy. And so I think as like, for lack of a better world, being like a thought leader, if you are starting a farm, you really have to show that off. Be like, here's what I did. You can do this at home. Maybe try it.

And the same thing with promotion. It's like, here's how I built an audience. Please try to do the same thing. Let's get more people on our side. And so that's what I was trying to say with coordination. I totally agree it should be spontaneous. We shouldn't just all be saying the same thing. But I just hope we try to get people activated to go out in the real world.

Yeah, I think we all definitely agree with that. It's just important to, you know, like everything we're doing today. Go ahead, James. Sorry, let's put that out as the question then. What technologies facilitate people? human connection versus technologies that take it away from human connection. So, I mean, for example, freedom cells is a brilliant idea because it's the using the

technology to find people that you can then connect with in the real world, right? That should be, if that is what we're interested in, we should be thinking technologically what technologies actually bring people together in the physical space. Hakeem, I'm all ears. What do you think? You have to build something.

Specifically for that, I mean, I'll just share an idea that I had in my head, which is you could think of it like Mapbox or something, and it's kind of like a decentralized Craigslist. There's, so if someone wanted to, it's a software that you can run on your own. If someone was in New York City, they could run their own New York City server, New York City.mapbox.com, and you could go into that server, and there's just a map, and anyone can throw anything. on there. And it's kind of like a bulletin board. It's all these things combined into one that

helps facilitate in-person exchange. So I think decentralized software like that with a geolocation function could be one of the best ways. I think if you're doing something locally, you might need to bust out the QR code. I mean, you know, people use it, you know, and slap some stickers around. Yeah, I'm not against QR code as a principle, like on principle. Oh my God, I have a lot. But yeah, it's, yeah, you know what I mean. I have a really big weird, like maybe I just that I'm overreacting to it, but something about that has always put me out.

Like, I think one of the earliest things I saw was, as you guys have talked about, I'm sure people putting stickers over them and you're doing, or, you know, they're weird ways they can be manipulated to where you ultimately don't know you're giving up information that you, you know what I mean? Or even just the company themselves could lie to you and you're giving more than you realize when you do it. I just have so adverse to those things. It's like people who were scared of the barcodes back when they were introduced.

Because they all have like 6-6 embedded in them or whatever. But isn't the same point, though, realistically. Well, I guess if scanning a barcode could, like, transfer information from your phone, I would say at the same point. You know, it's like, just the fact that it's there makes me worried about it. Not that it's like, you know, maybe it's 5%, 95%, but I'm still worried about that 5%. You know, it's like that's the, like anywhere with this stuff.

I just, I just had a good idea. So our company, we ship internationally around the world. I'm thinking about how much extra would it cost us per package if I put in 50 stickers in there of something I wanted to promote. And I know you guys send out books everywhere. I know Ryan does merch. And how hard would that be? And what could that, you know, how could it build up on each other?

So, yeah, stickers. Stickers, that's my solution. It's not even technology, but it's something. I'm not sure in what way? So stickers, like, go ahead. So, okay. So, like, for instance, for above phone, If I want to do in-person marketing, when you ship above phone in the box, it also comes with

50 really small-sized stickers that are just really easy to put up. Oh, they can go hand out. Exactly. And you, you know, you hope your person is inspired. It always surprises me. We sell stickers on the New World Next Week store. And I, you know, personally, I just think, well, why do people even want them? But people do.

And they put them in places. And, you know, someone sees the sticker and someone goes to a site and it can change their life. And it's something that I don't, you know, personally, I don't do that. So I don't think about it. But it is, I mean, a stupidly simple, but potentially really effective idea for getting information out. I love it when people do like, please, if you're listening, go do it. Put a sticker somewhere. It shouldn't be. Go out there put my T. L.F sticker right on somewhere that, you know, like, that's, I agree with you entirely. But I like it in the way that's like a like a protest in and of itself. You know, go putting on a back of a cop car or something. Don't do that. You'll get in trouble. I was just

kidding. Don't put my sickers now. But yeah, but I, so I mean, I definitely like the, like, what I, what I was thinking, though, is like even freedom cells, you know, I agree. That's a good example of, you're going through it, but arguably, you could do that without tech, right? You could just put out flyers, right? So I'm trying, I was, you said that, and I was trying to think, is there even a way?

Like, is there a way that tech could be used like that without, like, just saying, get rid of the tech and do it, do it the same way? Does it just give another step to what you're already doing? Do you guys have any thoughts of what? You know, actually using tech like that. Like, I mean, I think you could say like a crypto thing or the internet itself, you know, how it's used back. But it's, you know, I think more this goes in this direction with the way it's being done

now, I think it's increasingly less likely. We're saying a pure tech solution that brings people together in person. Or anything. Like a piece of technology that doesn't also come with its negative, that may out even weigh the positive use of it. Like with freedom cells, clearly there's surveillance and everything else using that to get there. You know, any thoughts on a pure piece of tech?

that exist that could be used that way? I think in order to do that, you're gonna have to roll back. You're gonna have to like, you're gonna have to stop. And I'm surprised this doesn't exist already, but maybe it does. Companies that sell old printers, where you don't have to subscribe to buy ink, for example. I mean, that should be a thing.

Hell, maybe I'll stop doing off-guarding and do that instead. There's gonna be a market for old cars that don't have kill switches or electronics in. Right. I mean, there is going to be a market for rolling back to more reliable older technology that isn't wired up to the grid. And going back to the Flyers thing, I mean, flyers do work. Flyers work more than you'd think. I mean, it's going to feel like to anyone that reads off Guardian has talked to me in the last six weeks that I don't talk about anything else.

But I put up flyers when my cat went missing, and I joined Facebook groups. And I got far more response to Flyers, actual real person. in my neighborhood of like 200 people than I did in Facebook with 20,000 people. Flyers do work. They are, I mean, and if you can print them yourself without having to subscribe to a incredibly extortion of printing thing, then all the better. I love that. I mean, that's honestly my mindset.

And I hate to be like, I think it's important that we try to see a way that these, you know, like, it's the same point, internet fighting back, like something like that. But honestly, my gut, every way we tell. anyway, I'm like the opposite direction. You know, go back to flyers, go back to pre-tech kind of solutions. I mean, that just seems to be the obvious right now that makes the most sense. But I'd like to believe that there are ways we could find, you know, maneuver through this. Like your Google's phone.

I mean, I do think that is a positive step for most people, like to at least try to pull themselves away in any ways that they can. I, you know, that's what I would lean. I was going to ask in general that, like, so if we get to a point, maybe we can end on this if we're coming to that time, if we got to a point hypothetically where, you know, let's just say you got rid of all of, like government did exist or, you know, hypothetical, no surveillance, all the problems that we're talking about didn't exist. Would you still think tech was necessary? Like, do you think there's, you know, kind of James earlier question, but to the furthest

extent of it, like, if we got beyond that, do we then, would we just completely go the other direction? What do you think? Would we just never talk to each other again? Well, what do you mean? We would go see each other in person. We would, you know, like the real world kind of stuff. Like, look, it's about convenience.

That's what it comes down to. Like, yes, you're far away. And yes, you know, there are ways. I'm not talking like pre-phone, you know, use the, use a cord phone. I mean, it's a point of how far you want to go, right? But there are a lot of people that feel like, you know, the tech in and of itself was kind of like the direction that took us in a bad path. Like whole Kaczynski kind of mindset, right? And so you, you know, the question is if we got beyond or I guess it just never happened hypothetically where there was no surveillance, there was any of these problems, would you.

in your mindset or anybody in this conversation, would we argue that tech would, that we would just get rid of it entirely? Because you were saying, like, there are ways that tech could be used to go beyond it. I would treat it like my diet. Sorry, go ahead. Well, this is a very quick thing.

It's a very quick thing. You mentioned wired phones, but are there even an option where you guys live? Because hardwired phones don't exist in this country anymore. Like the phone network, they're all over the internet. I could get, I have one. Telecoms in the U.S. are not required to upkeep their pots line. So your mileage will vary.

Does that mean it'll stop working over time? Is that what that means? Yeah, I mean, it's not guaranteed. It's not guaranteed to work. Of course. Ask them when we install like a direct plug for your computer these days, and they'll look at you like you're crazy, you know? But they'll still do it, at least Tennessee.

Ryan, I think I would still use technology quite a lot. I just wouldn't actively use technology. Like I would have maybe a screen time of 20% less than I do because I still want to learn about the world and stay in touch with people. And I think it has a really important function in that sense, not to mention kind of the automation in the garden or in the work. It is a really useful thing. I don't think I'm not like being data driven is a good thing, I think.

It shouldn't be the only measure of success. But it is a good thing. And computers are really, really helpful. It's just too bad that most of the infrastructure is owned by tyrants. It's just too bad. There's a small and but growing number of people who are using deg Googled phones. And I do think this will be, I think the next few years there are going to be a number of apps that are already very revolutionary. I'll give you guys an example.

So what do you do if you can't use the bank? Digital ID is already here. Well, there's an app called Have No Reto, which is a it's a Manero marketplace. And it's really amazing. You can put your Minero on there and then people can pay you in multiple different ways. They can even send you cash in the mail. Now, it works. I'll say that much.

And it's one of the only peer-to-peer marketplaces. So if there wasn't anything, I'd still see myself using a tool like that in some cases. some cases, but 80% of my life I wouldn't need to. Yeah. I think I probably would do at least at the beginning, you know, but like I think my personal opinion is, you know, like, like even with, you know, I don't want any technology. I'd rather be out, you know, but in some cases, like you're saying, like I probably want to talk to my friends that live in the other part of the country, you know, but it's an interesting thought, though, is to think about, you know, is it, we rationalize certain things now for certain reasons because of our circumstances and would that

change if we weren't being put in this position, you know, it's worth thinking about. Well, I'm not American, so let me give you the non-American perspective on this. I just recently learned of something called the rotato, which apparently rotates your potato so you can peel it. Well, I don't know. That to me is the wonders of modern technology and the reason why I don't think we should go completely let-I-dye. No, more seriously, I think there is a tendency. Like, you know, conversations like this, I understand why they tend to end up at that spot.

like yeah undoubtedly the more we go into the digital realm the more we are giving up of our natural humanness we want to preserve our humanness so we got to go in the other direction it kind of logically comes to that conclusion okay so let's get rid of technology at least to the extent possible but we are swimming upstream when we do that in every possible way not just societally but against human nature itself because this technology does not exist just because it is useful for tyrannizing and enslaving people. That's certainly an added bonus for the psychopaths in the top of the cacastocracy,

but I don't think that's the reason why it exists. It exists because as human beings, we have the natural desire for connection and communication with other people. And that extends beyond that, our rapacity for human connection extends beyond the physical boundaries

of our neighborhood. And it may, I'm sure it is true that you will get more of a response to physical flyers in your neighborhood than you will to the 20,000 people on your Facebook feed. But those responses are limited in the geographical confines of your local area. If you want connection with the wider world, we need technology. And that is why the technology exists. We have been scrabbling and eking out existences for thousands of years, gradually building up technology to increase our ability to move, to travel, to communicate.

I don't think we can discount that. I don't think we can work against that. I think that's part of the human nature of what we are as human beings, trying to reach out, trying to connect with other people. So I don't think it's as easy as saying, let's just get rid of the digital space and only go physical. We can try, but we would be swimming upstream. So a lot of it exists to make your life easier.

So you have more time to play guitar or to hang out. And indeed, like, we're sort of, because there is this pushback, we're, we're sort of losing sight of the reality in that it is a pushback against progress. Like the late 90s, 2000, 2010, this technology was a way, was a totally new way for people to communicate. Like, it did push things. Like 9-11 truth would never have taken off the way it did. In fact, it took a few years to take off because the technology had to be. there in order for people to communicate outside the usual channels. And like the old media exists because of that technology.

And all of this, verify your age, verify your identity is all pushback against the losing control of the narrative that the technology is self-facilitated. Right. And that's always the important point. That's the kind of general point that I'm like when I said the internet being a tool used arguably to control us is now used to fight back. You know, it's always an important point. I mean, that's the same, every time we've had cryptocurrency conversations, it's always

something we include, right? I mean, it's the idea is that, you know, yes, you can argue, you can see clearly that all of it. I mean, that's the whole point about technology, I argue in general. Like, and kind of what you're saying, their kid is some people may go, you know, baby out with the bathwater kind of thing where it's like, all this is bad because, you know, and then, you know, ignore possible developments that could benefit and help, you know, but I get it. I completely, I think we all understand why people have that overreaction right now, sort of like, you know, any number of things you can point out. And I agree, though, I agree that there's obvious uses where this continues to go. So I just think it's an individual choice, you know. And I think that's that balance between your liberty and your convenience, you know, or more

possible choices than that. And so I think that's why this conversation is being had. And I think the possible solutions, you know, and there's all the things we didn't even get into, you know, VPNs, basic things we talked about in order to help yourself stay private. Brian, I was hoping, yes, I feel kind of bad because that was the whole context for this. And we haven't really proposed many solutions. So I just wanted to mention a few things. It's like we will need alternative networks that work not just over the internet, but hopefully all our own radios, like long range radio networks.

So there's a few that people can look into. One is reticulum, which is a framework for building decentralized applications and with any mode of transport. So it could be radios. It could be your laptop connected to. the internet. It could be your phone. And I have some friends in the UK, they're B-Chat Network, and they're working on radios that can actually travel 60 miles or more using post-quantum encryption. If you want to check them out, they're at B-chat.network. And it's solutions like these that you might find on households. Instead of relying on your nearest cell towers, you might have to

build a tower at your house, like 20, 40 feet in the air. And that could be kind of cool. Those can be the low, high-tech things that we use to stay in touch with each other. I think that what the viewer could do today, if you're interested in this, is to look at things like self-hosting, which is just the process of running your own software at home. That will take you down a rabbit hole that I've gone down into myself into, you know, administering your own server, learning how the internet works. But yeah, you can get to a place where your own digital life is self-sufficient. Then you could start to help your friends in the neighborhood.

You could give them accounts on your servers and stuff. So I think those are two really valuable things you can do. For anyone who is worried about how the phones play a part in this, you could look at deg Googled phones. Graphene OS is obviously, I think, the de facto, most secure, alternative operating system to date. It's a really amazing, consistent project that has, it's not just an alternative, it's actually better in a lot of ways than standard Google or Android. There are security features in the processors themselves that Apple and Google have not implemented that this nonprofit open source operating system has implemented.

And for that reason, a lot of the authorities are pissed off because they can't break into it. more recently we had two people, there was a, there is a man and there was also a Palestinian activist, get detained when they arrived into a country, and now it's becoming commonplace for them to take your phone. Well, would you want a phone that they can break into, which any normal phone could, or would you want a phone that could resist against that? So I encourage you to look into GraphenOS, and if you're technically inclined, you can de-google it yourself. If you wanted to purchase it out of the box, that's what we do at abovephone, abovephone.com. along with a bunch of other services that I talked about.

But I think it's about having the education and tools necessary to work outside of this technical grid if you need to. God forbid that this happens and it is rolled out and that we do have many people who do not comply so we can get our needs taken care of. Hakeem, sorry, before we go, you recently talked about a really awesome, interesting idea, public pay phones that are being provided, VOIP,

by people in various locations around the States. Can you tell us about that? Yes. So there was this electrical engineer in Vermont. And what he did, he was, when he was growing up, there was a old payphone in his garage. And pay phones, they used to work off the same old telephone lines as landlines. But nowadays, there's nothing to connect them to. So he, there are a few different companies, and he noticed these, and he was inspired to build his own payphone. His company is called Rand Tell, I think based off of his name. Then there's also another one based in Philadelphia called Phil Tell. There's one in Portland called Futil. And they've kind of got this grungy vibe, but what I really like about them is they build these payphones,

which have the analog numbers that you can dial in. But there's a, an adapter, which connects to a Wi-Fi network and sends those signals over the internet. So you can actually have voiced over internet and you can make the call. But what's really cool is that it's free. They're just giving it as a community service. Here you go, neighborhood. And Futele specifically, it's part of their mission because they're trying to, they're helping be unhoused because that's one of the things that happens is you don't have a, you don't

have a permanent address, you don't have a phone number that people can call you. And now there's this free phone, as I like to call them, which can become like the center of a community in a way for people to stay in touch. So it's a really, really cool idea. If you, it's on episode, I want to say 10 of takebacker tech. So check that out. Thanks for reminding me, James. I'm willing to bet you that if not already, they'll find a way to make that illegal or something, you know, just as it always goes. But I think that's a fantastic idea.

So the point is that more individuals should do that and have them pop up enough to where it's too hard to stop. That's always the way to get around that, you know? I love that. It's the whole lark and rose like their arms are going to get tired, right? Just keep doing it until they just get overwhelmed. You know, about the, you know, his point is that, you know, if you're going to protest, they're going to beat people. You know, and ultimately there's enough of you protesting, their arms will get tired. You know, yeah, there may be people get hit, you know, but the reality is that there's too many of you and it will persist.

It was such a graha or whatever, right? Gandhi was the whole concept. Right, right, right. Well, I was going to just, what I was, VPNs being one of the, the obvious, you know, potential things. And I think that's everyone pretty much knows about that. I think there's ways around it. But I'll just add to, you know, the things that we always put out there. You know, we already mentioned the appear to peer with anything, you know, try to find ways around the system, even with your neighborhood, especially your neighbor.

Do what they're talking about the phone. Start your own little bodega in your house. You know, yeah, they'll get you, make things illegal. The point is find ways around at individual exchange. Or my point is always, and this is my big thing for. anything. It's just don't, don't be a slave to whatever you want to call it. The obligation system. Don't, your phone beeps. Don't feel like you have to engage with it. You know, put it in the pouch. You know, check out of it. When somebody, if I, if I'm in my house, I'm off notification.

Well, I put it in the pouch. Actually, I just got, it's right here, actually. I just got one of Is that, is that Solari's new patch? She sent it to me. And so I have one I've been using, but this one's especially, I like this one a lot. And so I, you know, put it in there. You click it closed and I, every time, which frustrates people because even middle of the day, I'll have it in there. And so I'm not like immediately engaging, which is weird way people respond to that today. But what I was going to say is that like my, someone rings my doorbell. I don't, like, unless I'm expecting somebody, I don't feel like I'm obligated to get up and look. People find that so crazy. I'm like, I'll, you know, it's not, I'm not interested.

I know, I don't want to go find out who's trying to sell me something. But it's that mindset when it comes to any of these things. It's just don't be a slave to the system. Don't feel like you have to engage. You have to check in. I think that's just a mindset for all this it'll help us pull away from this, you know, and then obviously when you want to, you can. That's the larger point is that these things can help us connect and so on. And, you know, I think that's a very important conversation. We should probably make this like a routine, you know, monthly kind of ongoing thing, to be honest, like the new technology, what's continued to happen.

But we'll discuss that off air more from the I am in general. But you guys, Kit, you want to end, James, you want to give some last thoughts who ever you want before we wrap up today? Either one of you. If you guys, any thoughts on solutions or things we didn't mention, you know, as we wrap. I can't think of anything. In my defense, it is 1.34 in the morning, Roy. Oh, my God. Okay.

Yeah, let's wrap it up for you. Yeah, I think I've said most of what I wanted to say, and I'm sorry I wasn't more productive in terms of actual digital solutions, but I think there's so many societal issues here that we have to start through. I will plug for you, just to be polite, your Solutions Watch series has got a lot of good stuff in there.

Yes. About RSSB's mailing lists, that kind of thing. And email aliases, which I recently talked to Hakeem about. So thank you for that. And Hakeem, you will be gratified to note that I've received a lot of new subscriptions with people with Corby Report email aliases. Nice. Yeah, people are using it.

We're doing it. That just came up in our conversation about the give WP thing, right? So it's funny how, you know, all these different ways that overlaps. You know, it's important these days. But I'll include all things we mentioned, Keem's website and the solution to watch points. You know, I think this is, like I said, an important conversation. I'm glad to have it with you guys because I think this is going to evolve and get more important.

I think everyone in this group is doing individual parts to make, you know, find solutions. Now, maybe, you know, I know I, I know we didn't necessarily focus on like only solutions, but I think the conversation itself about these things and, you know, with the solutions we did present, I do think that's very helpful. And I think it's sometimes important just kind of go at the problem as well as present solutions, you know, so I think it's a productive conversation. So thank you all for being here. Any other final thoughts before we wrap up?

we'll leave it there then for today and thank you all for being here and I'll look forward to seeing you on the next independent media alliance panel and I'll leave it there thank you guys see you next time blessings