Hakeem Anwar | Digital Freedom, The Above Phone, & Taking Back Our Tech

The planet's puppet masters almost surely have a plan There's clearly maybe something there beyond the realm of man And until we've thoroughly tested every last close-chested view Find the more we think we know Serenity Now, Hireside Chatters, doing what we do from the Sunshine State, I'm Greg Carlwood. We've been well aware for over a decade that the smartphone shift came with a new gold rush and harnessing our once-thought-to-be private data, behavioral habits, and digital footprints. But many of us saw the bright, shiny new object and completely acquiesced to that arrangement. Heck, we still don't even read the terms we agree to. But over time, we've learned a lot more about harmful EMFs, blue light, Bluetooth, psychological manipulation, the altering of our brain chemistry, algorithmic emotional button-pushing, even the gross human rights abuses and slavery lining the entire production pipeline of getting you your own personal mini-monolith. We've watched the technocrats undercutting and middle-manning almost all routine commerce and taking the lion's share of any transaction to do it. We've learned about the increasingly sophisticated ways our data is used, the always-on listening that eerily serves up ads from private conversations. We've seen million-dollar companies become trillion-dollar empires over this data, and we've uncovered how the smartphone fits into the larger plan of smart cities, digital IDs, complete surveillance, stable coins, and social crediting in a dystopian Ready Player One reality. And yet, it's all met with a collective shoulder shrug. Some harsh words about how we don't want that future, but very little action, especially if it means giving up our precious. But we don't have to have rolled over completely, and it's never too late to reset your digital life and redraw the lines of compromise. It's also never been easier with new tools from the ever-growing privacy-focused and often open-source alternative tech community, of which today's guest Akeem Anwar of Take Back Our Tech and The Above Phone is a key figure. If you don't know Akeem, he is a knowledgeable entrepreneur and educator who dropped his career in big tech to work on meaningful social movements. He founded Take Back Our Tech to teach freedom lovers how to use technology privately and created Above, a privacy-first technology company that develops phones, laptops, and communication services. His Take Back Our Tech podcast is also a great way to stay updated on the latest related news and techno-tyranny, and I look forward to hearing about just how bad it really is. The de-googling guru, tech freedom fighter, and crowned prince of privacy, Akeem, welcome to THC. Thank you, Brother Greg. It's good to be here, man. Yeah, this is a real pleasure. You're so knowledgeable about this stuff, and it's just becoming a bigger and bigger part of our lives all the time, and the multitude of ways these devices are being used against us is ever-growing as well. What I'd like to do maybe is start off with just the reason why we should really get privacy right, because so often I try to engage in the conversation with some people, and they just don't seem to care all that much. Yeah, why does privacy matter, right? Why is it so important? Well, the privacy aspect is central to everything that's going on, because right now what we're seeing in the world is we're in the carrot phase of the carrot and the stick, right? So that stick hasn't really come down, but we got little hints of it during the pandemic, and we're going to get hints of it again very soon with this digital ID phenomenon. But the thing is, is that in order for someone to control your life, they need to have visibility into your life. And when you think about how valuable this data is, you can get an idea. Who are the richest people in the world right now? Hint, they're all running big tech companies. Most of the products they sell are free, right? So think about that for a bit, is that they are profiting off of your data, and they are building profiles of people that know them to a very intimate degree, sometimes better than they know themselves. And when it gets to the stage where then there's an algorithmic profile of someone, you can begin to control their behavior. Now, some people are aware of this by looking on social media and getting angry at certain posts or getting really excited about certain posts, right? They've got it nailed down to a science. But the problem is, is once you have all this information out there, it can be used against you, it can be used to influence you. And that's what we, you know, that's the opposite of what we need right now. We need to get real and be building for the hard years to come ahead. Well said. And kind of just like drinking or any other vice, I tend to rationalize it and downplay its effects on me because I don't want to change my habits. And I think that's true for a lot of people. And then it's helpful to, like on the health front, listen to a Huberman podcast about how bad drinking is. And it's like, yeah, you know, you're right. I'm going to do less of that. And I think that same kind of thinking can apply here. Like people don't really know how their data is being used or they think, yeah, maybe I'm being manipulated, but so what? They're just serving me up ads for things I actually do want to know about. Or like just being unaware or thinking that that manipulation that you mentioned, well, I'm smarter than that. Yeah, I know they're manipulating me. I've adjusted my behavior because I know that I'm being manipulated. But I think a lot of things get past us and we don't realize it. Yeah, I have a good point to add on to that, right? So it's going into an environment that you know you don't control, but it's convenient. It works, right? What's the flaw in that? And the flaw is you get into this dynamic with these big tech companies where they start to treat you like a child or you get trapped into an abusive relationship. So they're doing things behind your back. They're lying to you. They're spying on you. And they're just saying, hey, don't even worry about it. We'll control your phone. And I'm going to give you and anyone who's listening, who's using an iPhone, a perfect example of this. This is a setting that scanned your photos with AI and it got turned on by itself. And Apple did not so much as a blog post. They didn't even post a blog about it. There was no announcement. And so it's called Enhanced Visual Search. And I'll go a little bit slowly if you're following along to this. But if you go into your iPhone and you open settings, then you go into the apps and then you tap photos and you scroll all the way down. You'll see a setting in there called Enhanced Visual Search. Now, if that turned on by itself, that means all of your photos, whether they were on iCloud or not, were being scanned by AI for landmarks, right? So it just goes to show you they don't really care how they treat you. Your consent is not even a thing. They just believe that they know better in typical technocratic fashion and they do what they want with your device. Now, this is, you know, what they're doing here is they're building a landmark of every building and device to make it easier to tell when someone takes a photo or that photo taken on top of the geolocation data they already have. So that's why they're doing it. What happens when this comes down to things like a digital ID and COVID passports? What does it mean when our phones are pre-hacked and they can just activate these things on demand? That's what I really think people should be thinking about. More good points. And you mentioned digital ID. Well, one of the things you put out recently is a digital ID report, an analysis of all the digital ID programs on Earth and where they are with their implementation. Some have pilot programs. Some have completed pilot programs. A lot of people know it's coming. And like I said, there's so many people in the alternative community, these researchers who are like, this is coming and they're sounding the alarm, but there's really no solution to it. It's just, and that almost is worse. It's just creating stress without any relief. And of course we'll get to the relief part, but talk to us about this digital ID report. Where are some of the areas where this is happening or most furthest along? We could start with where it isn't happening, Greg. And one really awesome place. I don't know if you've ever been there is Antarctica. There's, there's no, there's no digital ID program there, but I did learn six countries have a stake in Antarctica, which you probably know more about than I. Um, there's also places in the Amazon rainforest, really small countries out there, every other country I'm talking like over 90% of countries is pursuing digital ID, or they're pursuing the precursor to digital ID, electronic ID backed by biometrics. And so it's another COVID-19 scale event, and we should all be paying attention to it. And as I've looked into the history of digital ID, I've, I've seen that the intention is to make an interoperable program to claim anything about yourself that can be verified anywhere on earth. So this is not just an issue. It's not just an app you get in your country and it tracks you within the country, what they're planning is and what standards they're using will enable it to, you can travel anywhere in the world. You'll get scanned by their digital ID technology, and it'll go back to whoever issued you your digital ID. So it is a global electronic control grid. I'll start with kind of the past of digital ID and I've covered this on my show recently. So countries that don't even have, they haven't even cataloged who's living in their country, like we're talking lower income countries like Mexico or Nigeria, right now they're racing to get their electronic IDs with biometrics ready. And the World Bank is paying half a billion dollars. They paid $430 million to Nigeria to improve their electronic ID program so people would go around with biometrics and capture them. And so that's where this push is coming from. First, they need to document the undocumented. I think Mexico was one of those countries, if you're listening and you don't know what Mexico did, they basically said, hey, by February 2026, everyone will need to have a digital ID. Otherwise, you won't be able to open a bank account. You won't be able to have cell service. You won't be able to buy a house, do property transactions. And I think they went too fast, right? You know, the whole thing about boiling the frog, you do it slowly. You know, they, Claudia got it totally wrong. You know, she just threw them, she just threw them in the, on a saute. You know, that's not what we want to do. Some countries are taking that approach. Other countries are building their foundation slowly. And I think the majority of the audience for THC is in the United States. They'll say, you know, go, go America. We don't have a national digital ID program, right? But we, we do really through the mobile driver's licenses, which were started to become a thing with when real ID was being imposed on people. People know to use their passports. But at the same time, states started using these mobile driving licenses, which is a, it is a digital ID because it's interoperable, can be used in many parts of the planet. That standard is being used in Australia. There's a, it's being used in Europe for mobile driver licenses. It's being used in South America. There's many pilots, right? So it fits the definition of a digital ID. It will replace your physical ID. So that is coming. And the best thing we can do right now is to opt out of any form of biometrics. So this is a sneaky thing that the states have done. They've made it mandatory to enroll your biometrics when you go to renew your ID. Some people are already facing that in Texas and in Wyoming, in California. There's already these biometrics set up for them to enroll in when they renew the ID. What, what solution do I have for them? It's honestly kind of, it's, I'm not even sure if it'll work, but it makes sense to me. They need to go to the offices farthest out in the country, the most rural offices, if they want to hope with not being enrolled in the biometric system. What, for, for instance, for a state like Texas, it's very unlikely every DMV office in the state is going to do it. So this is the way we're going to need to start thinking, even when we interact with the government, to do it farthest out away from the cities. Good point. And I know it was Derek Brose who kind of introduced us to each other and he's kind of got that attitude too. He always talks about like, it does seem like a division and it's really the city people versus the country people. Maybe it always has been, but it's also way more obvious with these programs because it's all about centralization. And where do you centralize the cities? So you start with just being like, well, we'll take the top 10 U.S. cities. We'll start there. We'll capture 60% of the population. No, we'll work on everybody else. And yeah, so I think that's really a creative idea to go out to the ones with the least resources in the rural areas. I know I'm very sick of every website I use, like banking and all the stuff asking me for if I want to convert to biometrics or convert to the pass key. No, nothing's broken. Let me use my username and password. I've got it all written down and memorized. Uh, but yeah, it's every time you try to log in, they throw a pop-up at you to try to trick you into clicking it so that you're now in this new credentials ecosystem of biometrics and pass keys that the company controls. I guess I don't really know how different they are, but it's frustrating when, if you'd lose your phone, you have to establish, you have to get new pass keys from these companies. It just seems like, again, treating us like babies. You reminded me of something, um, actually, you, you kind of nailed it in the head. The digital ID program in Russia, they don't have an app yet. They're working on it, but it's called Gossos Lugi. And, uh, what they're working on is a login system for all the government services. So they're working on this digital ID app, but you, you were talking about how these private services are enforcing biometrics. Well, in Russia, before digital ID was a thing, there was these new KYC requirements for banks. So banks were also the first one to enforce biometrics. And it was expected that they were going to allow the FSB, which is, you know, it's like Russia, CIA, or FBI. They were just expected that they were just going to hand that data over to the government. They didn't. They kept it private. Then the law was updated to ensure that the banks would share their biometric data. And when these biometrics are tied with your identity, at that point, that's all that's needed for you to enroll in digital ID. It's not like you have to go and sign up for it. As long as your face gets scanned from that point, they have like the master key to your identity and they can issue a digital identity for you. Right. They already have one sitting in their server, just waiting for you. You just have to download the app and start to use it. Maybe you get forced to use it. So it's the sequence of events that need to happen in order to get the digital ID. So the whole real ID thing with some states doing biometrics, that's starting to happen in America. And where is it all going? Well, the Russian system is already integrated with CCTV cameras in the metro and soon the buses and the trams. They're already stopping anyone who protests. Like last year on Russia Day, they stopped a pregnant woman who was a writer and she wrote about different protests and they detained her. So you see where this is going. The Russians are not based. They're just super far ahead on things like these. And so is China. Right. If I were to ask most people, what's the biggest country that's furthest along? I think most of us would say China. But actually reading more of your stuff, it seems like it could be India, right? India, too, is is very far along. And it's really funny because their Supreme Court ruled that their digital ID is voluntary. I call them, you know, I say they're at the very late stages of their program because the people have turned on each other. This program is supposedly voluntary. It's called India system is called Adhar. It's been around for a long time as an electronic ID, and it was recently upgraded to a digital ID. What's important was that banks started to require it, a cellular provider started to require it, and then people started to impose it on each other. And that's that's the worst part. Landlords started to impose it as a way to do a background check on people. And it's when you reach that part, it's like really hard now to live without digital ID. Yeah, India system is an example of what life will look like when we have a full digital ID. Everyone is using payment apps. They've really killed cash. They have a unified payments infrastructure that is working really well. At the same time, I looked at their digital ID wallet app, and I looked at the reviews on Google, and it's a bunch of poor Indians. Like, like they're they're complaining. They're so mad about this app because it breaks down in the worst cases. They're like, you know, I needed to I needed to renew this loan and the app's not working at all. They couldn't even sign in. So that's what happens when you go full digital and you trust the government to make reliable identification services. It'll break down. Yeah, I already have problems like that. You go to get a status update on a tax refund or something, and it's just like air air air, and there's no phone number to call like we're already in that world. It's so frustrating. And it's funny to hear you bring up the idea that, well, it's voluntary because this is also what they've just been going over in the UK. They just implemented this new digital ID and they're parading out the PR for it. And some of these hosts and interviews are actually asking, well, what am I forced to get this? And they're like, well, it will be mandatory, mandatory, but nobody is forced and you're just going to need it to get a job. And it's like, OK, not forced, need it to work. Where have I heard that before? Wasn't that the COVID playbook? And now people are backtracking. Hey, nobody forced you to get it. Nobody told you how to get it. Nobody would say it would stop transmission. And it's just like, you know, people's memories are so short, but that's exactly what they're saying in the UK. You will need this ID to get a job, but you're not required to have it, but it is mandatory. It just doesn't make any sense. Olympic level mental gymnastics. Yes. They've got that down. The UK is, I mean, that's a key example. Another key example where people need to learn from that, because now there are a lot of protests going on in the UK, people fighting back, which is really great to hear that it kind of raised the alarm. So I'm kind of thankful for Keira Starmer to say that. That's the kind of stuff we need is them boiling the pot too fast. The UK is going to be very interoperable with the EU. We know the EU has the EDAS program, EDAS 2 legislation. They're actually using a technology called verifiable credentials. And so what this is, is a way to verify any piece of information about a person. So this is not just the basics like name, birth date, address. This will eventually be expanded onto when you're where you graduated from university, your vaccination records, the last time you bought alcohol. It is possible to expand them to every dimension of your life, right? So that's where this is going to stop you at any point in time too. So the UK and the EU are farthest along in like the robustness of the program. Kind of like I mentioned earlier, when you get the biometrics, you sign up for biometrics. That's all they really need. There's countries like Italy and also Denmark where they had electronic IDs for these people. I'm not even sure if they had biometrics, but they had electronics IDs. And then they just issued the IDs for tens of millions of people. Yes. I remember Alison McDowell before she kind of crashed out. She did some amazing work, still probably does do amazing work, really. And I know the rabbit hole goes deep and is dark and it's easy to become paranoid when you see what they have planned. So, you know, I don't really falter for the situation, but she would talk about how they're building these profiles so that the 1% can actually bet on people somewhat like stocks because they're going to have your biometrics, your work history. And they're just going to gamify everything and each individual person. And it's just really scary to think about that level of control. And then you can go the black mirror route where you're going to be getting credits for your behavior. And if you have bad behavior, you can't use your credits. And I wanted to ask you a little bit about the Clarity Act and the Genius Act and some of the crypto stuff going on right now, because that really is how it gets done. And this legislation was all about no CBDCs, no central bank digital currencies. We're not going to do it. And it seems like that is a Trojan horse or a red herring because the reality is it's going to be privatized. You're not going to get Fed coin, but you are going to get Amazon coin, Walmart coin, Target coin. And then, I guess, based on certain behaviors, you might have access to more or less of those coins. And it just seems like it's going to get to be a weird world. But everybody was afraid of a central bank digital currency, rightfully so. But a corporate one is not any better if it's used in the same way. What I've researched is I think CBDCs are probably the final frontier after digitality. They're the next thing. It is very interesting how the Clarity Act, which was originally the anti-CBDC Act, was amended. They're having to increase the scope of what they find illegal or what they find threatening. And right now, that is privacy coins. That is privacy technology. So, you know, when we're here, we're having a conversation about privacy. This is not just for nerds. You know, this is literally one of the only vehicles you might escape the surveillance state with. This Clarity Act, this amendment that they made recently, was that any piece of software, any provider for privacy services on cryptocurrency. And the distinction is any entity that can control your coin in any part of the transaction must register with the SEC. Otherwise, they're an unlicensed money transmitter, right? So, this is the custodial wallets, Coinbase and Kraken. They don't care. They'll register with the SEC. They'll pay their dues to them. This is decentralized exchanges. This is also the decentralized exchanges. You know, the sites you can go to, like SimpleSwap, where you can change the coins out to another. This is also the peer-to-peer markets. This is even an escrow service. So, there was this, there was, what was it, Coin Center made this really good comment about this bill. It's like they're essentially illegalizing what would be to, you're sitting at dinner and you're pooling your money together to go pay for the tip. Or maybe you're at work, everyone's putting in $2 for someone's birthday card. If you're doing that in crypto, that's effectively illegal. You have to register with the SEC, which is really crazy, but it just goes to show you how crypto is a threat. You actually, at one point, called the Clarity Act the Patriot Act for crypto, which I do think is a great way of putting it. Because the Patriot Act, obviously, we had this big event, and then the Patriot Act became like you're stepping into this new reality of surveillance. And it's, again, problem, reaction, solution. They gave us a problem, and then they said, well, we're going to need to tighten up everything, all security forever. And that's obviously what has happened. So, you could say the same thing here. And maybe we will have some events. Maybe we already have. Maybe FTX was that event. Like these things that allow people to acquiesce to control because they say, well, look what happened when we didn't have this. So, yeah, maybe there'll be more, but I just thought that was a good phrasing for people who want to know how to sum it up real nicely. The Patriot Act for crypto. Most definitely. Never let a good crisis go to waste. And I hope, you know, I hope people are using crypto and experimenting with it because, remind you, this is just an amendment. It hasn't came into law yet. So, even if you're scared about these technologies, you know, there is a time and place to use them, and that time is now before they get super legal. And then, you know, we wouldn't even be talking about it in the same way. But things I would recommend people look into is obviously Monero. I'm sure you've had guests on before that talk about Monero. It's the most private privacy coin. The IRS tried to trace it, and they failed. They spent millions of dollars on firms like Chain Analysis to try and track it, and they failed. They only succeeded when the person's security was really, really bad, and they didn't even use a VPN for some transactions. So, there is stuff that works out there. There's also peer-to-peer markets like Have and Know, which is a decentralized exchange, where you can receive money in any currency, either by, like, a payment app. But I've even, you can even get it in cash by the mail, which kind of blew my mind to see that. So, that's Have and Know Retail. And there are solutions out there that I hope people use and get experience with. Mm-hmm. And you mentioned that the World Bank is driving this. What is the incentive for the World Bank? I mean, obviously, it seems like the core incentive is just these are control-hungry people that have blinders on and tunnel vision for absolute control at all costs, and that's just what it is. But are there other factors or other people besides the World Bank where you feel like the pressure is really coming? Because it's like it does seem as coordinated as COVID. It's just super coordinated. It's, there's a World Bank. It's an initiative from the World Bank called ID4D, Identification for Development. Guess who that's funded by as well? It's supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and some different governments. And oddly enough, a foundation from the founder of eBay. So more, more big tech bros hopping in. This initiative has programs in over 50 countries. And I think I read this document that maybe should have been classified. But anyways, I found it online. It was about a loan to, well, it was a funding to Nigeria. And one of the reasons that they got this funding is because they were improving their identification program. So the biggest risk to the World Bank and to technocrats is people living off the grid, fully undocumented. That's, you know, places that are lower income, like countries in Africa, countries in South America. That's how they live typically. So it's really important for them to start to register those people. However, what they call it is they want to make sure people have identification from birth so that they can get important services and, you know, parental guidance. They can go to school. You know, they can get banks. They talk about it as if you have a right to an identity that we decide for you. Right. They talk about this right to identity. What about the right to simply being accepted despite whatever identity you have? Right. What about the right to food, water, shelter, education? They're never talking about changing their own, the things that they restrict from people, just people that people need a digital identity. Yeah, they want us to feel like it's a privilege to exist. And I do understand some of the criticisms saying, well, we already have an ID. I need my ID for everything. I need my ID for every bank transaction to log into so many like health care or any kind of insurance website. So many things need the ID, but it's just another level jump in control. And as you say, it's the boiling frog thing. It's like, is there ever a point where you get off the ride? Are you just going to march right off the cliff? Where is the level of compromise? What I try to get at in the intro there is just like this all happened so fast. The smartphone was an interesting technology and it took some time, even though there were warnings, it took some time to realize what that meant, that they were capitalizing on our data and monitoring our behaviors and manipulating the behaviors and creating a sales funnel. Unlike the world has ever seen. And it's all been very effective and efficient. But is there a point where you say, what am I really getting out of this? What am I getting out of this? Like, do these major apps really enrich my life? Or should I maybe divest even just turn the dial down a little bit? You don't have to throw your phone away, but dial it down a little bit and be like, maybe I should reinvest my very precious limited time and energy into more of the real world. And just less of being constantly engaged with this stuff, because that's kind of one of their tricks, too, is they try to manipulate you into constant engagement and constant rechecking, because the more you're on their playing field, the more of your life they consume. And that's kind of one of your big things is get off of their playing field and then they the control kind of like evaporates. Totally right there. They're playing off of our consent. They're actually very, very lazy. These systems that they have designed for surveillance. Now, I'm not saying if you got targeted by an intelligence agency, they could find you anywhere at any time. I'm sure I accept that. I accept that that is the case. But I am saying that for the eight billion people on this planet, they are only using mass surveillance and things that you consent to the social media that you use, the phone that you use, the computer that you use. It's super easy for them. They're very lazy and they're not as smart as you think. I mean, that's why this this Google phone that I'm using and above phone has more features. These these alternative operating systems have more features than Google or Apple is because they're not focusing on the quality and what people actually need or want. They're just going along and they're building things like contact tracing. They're going to be building the digital ID apps. They're already helping with that. That's what they're deciding to put their focus on. So if it really is as easy as installing a different operating system on your phone or laptop to be free. I don't see why people wouldn't try. It's actually quite easy to use. And over the past few years, we've seen that anything you could do on a big tech phone, you can do on one of these phones as well. Greg, too, I know we we tried to get you set up and you had a little bit of an issue with Google, the RCS messaging. I wanted to say they rolled out an update and now that is fully supported as well. Oh, OK. Yes, I was going to spare people my experience, but I guess just to give them the full context, I have been rocking a Pixel 4, which is a phone made. And I think 2018 this whole time and every time my phone breaks, I just buy a new Pixel 4 and, you know, it's gotten cheaper, which is nice, but they only start to last like five or six months. And then I have to get another one and report everything over because they're just not made to last. Plan obsolescence is a real thing. And I'm going back to the Pixel 4 well so many times I just kind of got sick of it because even a refurbished one isn't holding up. The reason I did that is that is the last phone that didn't have 5G and I had 5G concerns. I know they say you can turn it off, but I actually it seems like in the new software update, they removed your ability to turn it off because it was just a toggle. So you just take the button away or they hit it more, I guess. But I had 5G concerns. So I've been sticking with this 4G enabled phone. Finally, it just it went out on me. And also the reason I went with Google phones, this might be interesting for people to know, but you can look up the radiation levels. And even though I have friends who give me a lot of shit for being like, oh, you know, conspiracy guy on a Google phone. iPhone cares way more about your privacy. And it's like, OK, probably not. That's probably a little bit of marketing. But the radiation put out by an iPhone is almost double what's put out by a Google phone. And to me, that's important because you can't really change that in the settings. It's just what it is. So another reason I stuck with those phones. But Derek Brose introduced us and it happened to me right at the time that my phone broke. And I was like, you know what? Maybe I go this route. I get the de-Googled above phone and you guys were really great. Set me up well. Set me up with a call. You really have it dialed in well to get people up to speed on using all the parallel services that are de-Googled. And I did find it to be pretty damn convenient and quite fun to kind of learn about all the new ways that the stuff is being mimicked or mirrored in an open source and private way. And you got a de-Googled store. You know, it's really pretty great. And I commend you on establishing it. But yes, I was in a point in my life with two little kids and an aging mom who lives alone that the RCS messages, maybe one out of five just wasn't getting to me. And I'm just, I specifically at this point in time was not still probably not in a place where I can just let 20% of my messages not reach me. So, yeah, I had to revert back to the stock OS, which was also easy to do. So, that's another thing I would say. Like, if you're in the market for a new phone, you should go with the above phone because, A, it's releasing less radiation than any other phone on the market just based on it being what it is. You know, being a de-Googled phone, using that as the base. And then if you find a problem with the OS and something isn't working or you're getting frustrated and you just can't get up to speed, you can return to the stock OS really, really easily. And then, of course, if they fix the problem you were having, maybe you go back. So, I might be back in. Get him back to the light side. That's the long and short of my story with it. But I do appreciate everything you did for me and I thank you for, you know, all the dedication to trying to make sure I didn't have to do that even though I ended up having to do it. Sometimes that can happen, right? And so, my suggestion to people is to not jump headfirst into it if you're worried about something. If you know you want to leave all that stuff behind, come on over because you can do pretty much everything that you're used to. The thing is, is some people decide to keep their old phone around for a little while, right? It's a delayed migration. So, they're slowly, they're learning the new phone. They're bringing everything over one by one. They're learning how to use the new apps. And after three months, they make the decision and go full cold turkey and they're happy ever since. So, yes, the RCS issue was kind of a rare one. We don't see that a lot. I think it happens because there's like a group text where there's a lot of phones that you're using. And it's also carrier dependent as well. So, it's pretty complex. But I'm sorry that you were dealing with it. And whenever you're ready, whenever you have the space, we'd love you to try it again with RCS. Yeah, it's fine. I actually, at other points in my life, it would have been much easier to do. My first phone I ever had, my first smartphone was an iPhone and it was jailbroken. Because back then, in my early 20s, it was like, you know, out of spite, I want to open myself up to the open source ecosystem that you're trying to deny me. And that spirit is still in me. But talk to people about some of the things that the above phone can do for them. Why? You know, we've made the case that there's a need for the switch. What problems that we see coming does the above phone solve? Yeah, absolutely. I think the best way I can share is by actually showing you. So, for those of you joining the video stream, you'll be able to see this. For those of you listening, I'll try and narrate. But so, there are different apps that let you do things like download apps privately from the Google Play Store. So, this app is called Aurora Store. I know the developer. He is a really awesome Indian dude. We donate to him pretty regularly to keep this thing running as well as other people. And what he created was a way to pool anonymous accounts so people could download app. And here's the really cool thing about it. It's like going to the store and looking at the nutrition facts for whatever you're about to eat. You can do the same thing for the app on your phone. So, you can scroll down and you can actually see how many trackers are in the app. So, these are third-party companies that are gathering data from the app. And this is how this is, you know, this is the start of the data surveillance industry. There's a whole industry around it, which I'll talk about more. But this is how it starts with these different services. When I used to make mobile applications, they somehow knew as soon as I published an application. And all these people would come out of the woodwork trying to get me to put in their advertising in my app. Of course, I would say no. But this is how it happens. You know, a lot of these people release apps for free. They need a way to make money. I'm going to show you a pretty disturbing example of an app that probably a lot of people have, which is Adobe PDF Reader. Here's the PDF Reader. It has one job, to display PDFs. It shouldn't even need to connect to the internet. How many trackers do you think it has? Well, you look down here, you see nine known trackers. And you have all these different companies like Google, Facebook, Adobe, Branch, OpenTelemetry. Right? So, this is how people start to get into trouble. They download that one game of Castle Crush or the game where you're skateboarding or whatever. And they're just, yeah, I'm just killing time. But what they're doing is killing their privacy on the back end. So, this phone gives you visibility. Now you can start making informed decisions about what goes on your phone. And more than that, there is an app store which respects your privacy and freedom and has apps that are completely transparent. It's got games, it's got Bitcoin wallets, it's got replacements for pretty much everything, mapping, watching videos that we can get into. So, that's the way I recommend people go. Yeah, I thought it was great. There's a YouTube equivalent. There's a Reddit equivalent. Like anyone who's big on Reddit, they know that there used to be a bunch of third-party Reddit apps. And it was great. That's when it was useful. And then they closed all those down and made the one corporate centralized Reddit app. And that one sucks because if you ever even click on something that you're just curious about, it starts serving you up things from that subreddit that you're not even subscribed to all the time. And it's like, I might have checked out one thing that was written about the show Foundation because I thought it was interesting. I don't need to see every post in the Foundation sub. Let me control what I see. And so, that's kind of been, that definitely was one of the low consequence but annoying situations that this can have. So, I, you know, I live in an area where I don't know my way around all that much. I found the maps to be useful and fine. And then, really, everything was working except just some messages not getting through. And apparently, that's fixed. But, yeah, people should start thinking more about their privacy. I guess in an analogy, we talked earlier about how they want to centralize in these smart cities. Great. And the way to avoid that is to spread out, make it much harder for them, live in the deep rural areas. And that's great. But some people can't move. But you can do this digitally. This is kind of like moving out of the digital city, the digital mecca, and moving yourself out to the digital countryside where the infrastructure is not as invasive in your life. I think that's a fair analogy, wouldn't you say? I really like that. I'm just picturing it, you know, clean roads. Your email is, no one steals your email. It sounds great, this digital countryside. Yeah, no, that's a really good way to put it. I mean, and it's very important, too. Like, some people, like, might believe that the internet is going to eventually fracture. And that's a real possibility. I don't think it's happening next year or the year after that, but it could happen years down the line. So this is the time to be a digital prepper. With this YouTube app, which is NewPipe, you're actually able to download videos. So I'm on Greg's channel here, the Higher Side Chat on YouTube. You can actually just download the full video right there, or I could download the audio, right? So it's putting you back in control of your data. A lot of, there's some people I follow on YouTube that are making free energy devices and stuff. I don't know how long their videos are going to be on the channel. I'm just going to go ahead and download that, right? And it's all a responsibility to keep this knowledge alive. So this could be a tool in helping you do that. And back to the digital ID thing, I think that the best way to protect yourself against that right now, I've been trying to do a thought experiment to think about what is the most valuable thing, is really to go in person, farmers markets, your neighbors, and start to talk about this issue. I've got my digital ID report that you can share with them. It's at abovephone.com slash digital. But once you get to a shared understanding, just make the promise with each other that digital ID is never going to get in the way. And so imagine if you did that to 100 of your neighbors and shapers in your local community, how valuable that is. I think that's what it's going to take from having instead of this web of trust run by international banks, technical specification standard groups, all these financial tech companies, it's regular everyday people deciding who they want to trust. That is great. And I think that should be motivation because we all know these giant tech companies. If you have a problem with Amazon or Apple or something, like you're basically just fucked. You either figure it out or you don't. And it's, it's, you know, I lost my dad. So my mom lives alone. She doesn't know tech at all. So like, she's trying to just pay a bill without having an email. She'll message me and getting a little inside baseball and personal stuff. But my mom will message me that she can't get like some app on the TV. And she's like, well, I tried to call Amazon. Mom, you don't call Amazon. You know, you don't call Netflix. You just figure it out or you don't have it anymore. And so I just think there's something really interesting about this alternative community. And when the things really get serious, we're going to be so thankful that it exists at all. Like engage with it now. You're going to be so thankful that there are builders who are trying to do something outside of this system. Like you mentioned a couple of times, just, you know, the guys who make these things like that's kind of cool. Don't you want to be, I mean, it's such a flip on the big tech companies where you are just a number in their whole thing of millions of customers. Whereas on the other side, you can actually form a relationship and feel a little more confident and knowing that you'll be able to navigate this. I here in Florida have a guy for pigs and a guy for cows. And we've had these conversations and I know I'm okay now. So it's like when the shit really hits the fan, I know I can call my cow guy and he's already, as long as I can, you know, buy one from him, as long as I'm not totally squeezed out, we will do a transaction outside of the system. And that's great. You know, it doesn't matter if Publix is stocked or not. If there's supply chain issues, the guy's cows are six miles from my house and I got his phone number and I know where he lives. Same, and we've got our own eggs and we got a chicken guy. I think people should really start to take this seriously because you're kind of vulnerable and that vulnerability is already showing more and more cracks and you're having more and more compromises because of it. And it's just fun to get ahead of it before you have to get caught up to speed because you're behind and it's now more of a necessity. That's the funnest thing, right? Where you missed the deadline and now the whole world is collapsing around you. And then you're like, damn it, I should have gotten a privacy phone. No, don't, don't wait for that moment. I also want to say, God bless our moms for having the cutest ideas about how technology works. And I am very proud of, so I'm in my thirties. I'm very proud of the generations that came before me because that's what we're finding. That's what we're finding are more interested, really. So, you know, we have 80 year old grandmas using above phone to make private cryptocurrency transactions. Now they're going way far and they're asking me, hey, Hakeem, what's your opinion on this decentralized chat app? So I'm very proud that, you know, we've managed to take the zeitgeist forward. And even if you are, you know, they, what do they say? They say they're technologically challenged. If you are technologically challenged, that's okay. That's part of why this company exists. It's a pillar for us to educate and support you. That's when you get a device. It comes with a free call. Every, all of that is included. And also the people that we work with, we try and find talented people from within the movement, right? So it is, it's really a family. And the more of us that are using these technologies, the better. The developers get more feedback. The developers get more support and contribution. And that's how we're going to, how we're going to carve our line in the sand here. Yeah. And the younger generations, I think they get a bad rap because we look at their online behavior and just their politics and personalities. And we give them a lot of shit, but they got raised in an environment. You know, the big criticism was you'll own nothing and you'll be happy. They came of age in that ecosystem. They have to look at the older generations that have signed off on the fact that all physical media has just gone away. And now it's just digital subscriptions, software you can't even purchase anymore to use at your leisure. It's all subscription based. So they kind of looked at us for an example and thought, well, if it's okay to the older people, I guess it's okay. But that whole idea of you'll own nothing and be happy. It is already happening, especially in the digital space. Now they're just removing episodes of it's always sunny because they're inappropriate by today's standards. But if you had the DVD, then you just have it. But that was just something that I was reminded of, given that you showed that you can download the YouTube videos. And I was just curious, you mentioned the free energy thing. That is a subject I do love. And you never know who is a charlatan and who is authentic in that realm. But I do think it's one of the most dangerous realms to be engaged with. And it's something the conspiracy world does not talk about nearly enough. But the past is littered with dead bodies from people who said they had an energy breakthrough and then got a knock at the door and didn't want to sell. But I'm just curious if maybe you were just using that as an example. But if that is a movement you follow, do you see some interesting things happening there? I see experiments happening that are very reassuring. And I definitely have seen some devices that are over Unity, if not by much. And I think if people want to go see this stuff in person, there's the Albuquerque Tesla Tech Conference, which is a fun little conference to go to. It's a bunch of scientists and engineers in Albuquerque. They're totally nerding out about free energy and levitation, anti-gravity tech, water filtration. And, yeah, there's a lot of different types of things. But I think that right now what we're finding is these are all homegrown efforts. There's no way, you know, they're not getting the visibility that they need. They're not getting the funding they need. So a lot of these genius inventors are like close to going homeless. So it's the kind of the beautiful irony of the situation is that you have the most evil and untalented men on the planet who have billions of dollars at their disposal and then and these guys. So I think it's I think it's an interesting juxtaposition. And as far as like free energy technology, there's one that I like. It's like the the G the G engine, G E E T engine. I'm blanking on his last name, but it was a project where it's a special engine that can take any type. It could take you could feed trash into it and it could break it down into fuel that can be used by a vehicle. So I know him personally who's working on it now. His name is David. And there's there's other inventors out there, you know, so I try to keep my eyes peeled. Have you ever had anyone on the show to talk about it? Yeah, many times, actually. Aaron Murakami is kind of my guy. He works a lot with Eric Dollard. And I totally can vouch for what you say, that a lot of these people are living in poverty. It's funny. They're the people trying to unlock abundance for everyone. And they're living in such scarcity. But he also has a conference, the Energy and Science Technology Conference, also somewhere in the southwest. Jeremiah Forwarda is working with them. And he also, like you mentioned, he has a plan or a model of the Tesla turbine, one of Tesla's lesser known projects. And it is basically something where, yeah, you can feed anything into it. And the temperature differential that you get can has an output on the other side. And it could basically be the heating and cooling for a home, all kinds of functions in the home. And it would just be like also an incinerator for your trash. So it could be really efficient and self-contained. And you could have full control over the heating and cooling and energy of your home. You know, you could put your lawn clippings in it and that kind of stuff. But it's just, there's just really no help to get it to market. Yeah, yeah, there is. It's going to take a lot more of putting these creators out there. And, you know, I think there's conferences now that are doing it. So I took that down, the Energy and Science Conference. And, you know, that's what I hope to eventually do is to support more of these people and their vision. So that's really cool. I'm going to check out some of those interviews you mentioned. Heck, yeah. There's a great book, Hidden Energy by Susan Manowich and another name that I'm blanking on. But they, it's a great short book that goes over the history of all the people who have kind of had great inventions and then had their patents compromised or ended up dead mysteriously. So there's a lot there. And like I say, the conspiracy community, we focus on the false flags and the military stuff. And this goes under the radar a lot. But it is probably the most impactful thing in the timeline we could have been living in, in your individual life. And one of the most dangerous things to talk about, even though it sometimes is considered to be mundane. As we are starting to wrap this thing up, let's come back to the above phone or just the above company because it's more than the phone. It's also the laptops and stuff, which is something I'm interested in because if I'm having a problem with the text messaging, fine. But I don't do that on my laptop, so maybe I could reclaim some ground with that kind of device. But give us the pros and even the cons of what the above phone can do for people, given all the problems we've talked about. Yeah, so I think one thing you're going to feel when using an above phone is peace of mind. Because you finally have control, again, of every single thing that's going on in your phone. If you don't like 5G, you can set the phone to 4G and LTE only. You can even set it to like 3G and below, although that'll break it in many places, right? You have control of your updates. You have control over whether your apps have access to the internet. So you can just cut them off entirely, right? So it's giving you this, it's really expanding your mind on what you can do with a phone that normal companies haven't bothered to give you these features. You can get them. And you're also getting peace of mind because this phone lacks those centralized big tech services that are responsible for contact tracing. They're responsible for digital payments. They will be responsible, and they are for digital ID as those roll out. And you have to think about, I call it a network blast, when one company is responsible for billions of devices, as Apple and Google are. And as soon as they decide they want society to interface a different way, they just release the software, send it off to billions of people. That's how it happens. And society is changing, is changing through that way. So it cuts you off from these centralized big tech services that are doing the brunt of the damage. And most importantly, there's zero connections to big tech. It allows you to keep doing the things that you love. You can still get the apps that you would normally use on the phone. You know, there's the big tech app stores. You can interface with them privately. You can also get open source applications. And there's new ways to communicate. You can do phone calls. You mentioned earlier that I don't think I can text from my computer. You know, some people have iMessage. Well, here on our ecosystem, if you have the above book, you actually can text from your computer thanks to XMPP and our internet phone number. So it's really cool because you can have an internet phone number on your phone and on your laptop, and they're synced up. So it's like iMessage, but it's far more private because there's no personal details you have to share about that phone number. So, yeah, there are really cool solutions and alternatives like that you can use. Instead of Zoom, you'll use Jitsi, which is a private video conference. You can use that for phone calls, too, if you want. It can completely replace that. And so we have the above phone. We also have all these cool services I'm talking about, our part of AboveSuite. Those are our software services that are optimized for privacy. We have a VPN. We have email and calendar. We have our own search engine, which is really cool. It searches other search engines and strips out the ads, and you can control which search engines you want. It's got the video conferencing. It's got the encrypted chat, voice calls, and video calling. And it has also got file sharing. So it's got all of these things. We run them on our private data center, and you can use them on the phone. You can use them on our laptop. But more than that, you can use them on your phone. If you've got an iPhone or you've got a big tech phone, you can also use them there to a degree. I think our VPN is the one where it's kind of tricky. But we don't put up the same walls that these other big tech companies do because we value your freedom of choice. So I think there's a lot to discover. And, yeah, we recently published a webinar. You can go to abovephone.com slash higher side, and you'll see a sign up for the replay of that webinar. Well, I just go into all the detail of the phone, what you need to know, how it works, how to migrate. So I invite you to check that out because that's a really good source of information. You'll also see on that page at the top a place to download the digital ID report. So, yeah, I invite you to check that out as well. Nice. And give us that custom URL one more time. Abovephone.com slash higher side. The thing is that I found was that, yes, it's like I don't want to say anything bad about it because, yes, all the things you kind of need to use are there and usable. But when it comes to addictions, let's just say in general, I find that if you're having a hard time with impulse control, a little friction goes a long way. I drink a lot less now that I moved to Florida and don't have any friends. You know, sometimes you alter your environment a little bit and, you know, your addiction, addictive behaviors can be curtailed a little bit. I just found that that to be true. I was spending less time on the phone. When I need the maps, I have the maps. They're right here. You know, communication, all this stuff, it's there. But every minutia of every little detail has not been engineered for its addictive qualities. You know, it's engagement qualities, you know, everything. It's more privacy based. So it's all being created for privacy and decentralization. And that goes a long way in just the simple nature of being able to get off a little bit more. So I don't know. Maybe that's not the best sales pitch, but I found it to be kind of a helpful thing. You totally got it. Yeah, it's and that's the that's the essence behind our products. This is not to get tapped in, right? Like, here's more things that'll keep you online. This is the phone you want to use when you're interfacing with the real world. Digital into physical, as I call it. During the pandemic, we all realized for the first time, oh, my God, where has all the common sense gone? And we had to look on the Internet for really amazing shows and communities like yours, Greg, to be like, where are the smart people at? And we first met digitally, but a lot has shifted in four years. We're now getting in person. We're congregating in certain areas. And that's what this is about. We use the good parts of the Internet. We use it as a tool. We use it for good. We use it to connect. And we just drop it when we don't need it anymore. So that's the hope that this is a phone you will use less than your normal phone. And you had mentioned to me an affiliate code type of thing. People can get a deal. Is that also at above phone dot com slash higher side or do they want to use a coupon code higher side? How's that working? It's all it's all bundled in. And right now is our Black Friday sale. I didn't mention that it's going to be running for about another week. It ends November 14th. So the phones are already discounted. And right now the deal is, is you can get a phone for yourself and any phone you get, you'll get a month of above suite for free. So all the cool things I was mentioning, the VPN, search engine, Internet phone number, all those things you'll get for a month free. You can try it out. And then you can also get a really good deal for you and a friend. Christmas is coming up, too. If you want to get a present for your partner, you know, you've got a girlfriend, you've got a wife or the vice versa. You have a boyfriend who wants a phone. This is a great present for guys as well. Then this is a way you can always stay in touch with them privately. It's a really great gift. So we have deals on two packs of phones and of laptops that you'll see on the page there. Yeah, I think that's great. And for me, the only real block to like going down this route was I was afraid I was going to spend a lot of money and then like not think about some obscure thing that I need and not be able to get it. And the reality is everything I thought I needed, I actually could find. And you showed me how to actually get into the conventional app store in a kind of a partitioned part of the phone to get those things like my kids school app that they give updates on. There's not an open source version of it, but you can get that exact app and it's just partitioned and quarantined in a part of the phone. And so that's amazing. And then even still, if you're still worried about it, you can revert back. And now you have just a nice new Pixel 9 that emits less EMF than all the other phones on the market. And so it seems like a win-win to at least give it a shot. Yeah, Greg, and I want to celebrate you for making the transition completely. I mean, you just crushed it. And yeah, there's a lot of resources for you guys that are unsure. You know, you don't know much about tech. We have many guides. We've got these video courses. And we also have chat support, email and chat support for the lifetime of you having the device. So you have a lot of help behind you. So you're not alone in this. We'd love to help you. This is something you want to get prepared with before it becomes a necessity. So yeah, shout out to you, Greg. And yeah, let's get you back into the light side soon too. Yes, I need to, for sure. But when we started with these phones, the idea of what they were doing with our data, even the Snowden stuff, it was all so vague. But now the fruits are known. Look at the tech billionaires. Look at how they just flooded the new administration and just became every seat at the table. It's like clearly now we know how valuable that data was. Aren't you sick of getting bent over? Don't you want to kind of stand up and fight back and all that good stuff? So I think like, yeah, we know there's a problem. How much talk do we need to do? We can just actually have some action now. And thank you for providing us an outlet, you know, another option. So also let us know about the podcast. Any other links you want to give us? I know the People's Reset Conference is coming around again, too. Yeah, thanks for the reminder. So, yes, my personal channel where I do a show every week, it's called the T-Bot Show. It's tbot.substack.com. So I do the tech news of the week with a freedom focus and then one solution for the week, because what is the news if you're not getting a little bit of positivity out of it? We also have the People's Reset coming up soon, which is done collaboration with my friend Derek Brose. This is a solutions focused conference that's happening in Morelia, Mexico. This beautiful town of Mexico, kind of like a colonial town, buildings from the 1500s, beautiful weather. It's really perfect in January. And so it's a five day conference where we talk about solutions, everything from technology to new forms of economics, how to build communities, eco villages, mind, body and soul, how to take care of those things and growing food. So there's something for everyone. And there's people from within the movement who are going on and sharing solutions. And if you're out there and you'd like to get away this January, we think this is a really perfect event for you. You will feel the difference. We've got some really awesome musicians this year, too. Dub FX, who's, you know, been touring internationally and who's touring with my friends Presence on a new Conscious Music album. He's going to be playing. Presence is going to be playing. And I think we also got Natalie Rise. So these are amazing conscious musicians. And I'm super, super excited for the event again. So it's at the peoples reset dot org. I think they're still early bird tickets, but they actually end at the end of October. So I hope you see this before then. If not, I hope to see you there anyways. Well, thanks for doing this. Thanks for everything that you did for me personally. And also just for updating us on where this stuff is in the implementation phase across all the different aspects of the technocracy, because we don't always get those details. And kudos to you for building a business and finding success on the solution side. It's so much easier to just join the system or be a cog in the big machine and think, well, I'm contributing to the dystopia, but the whole plan is bigger than me. So what am I going to do? Well, you figured out what you can do and you got outside of it and used all your knowledge for good. So not all the heroes wear capes, as they say, but thank you for, you know, everything across the board. It was nice talking to you, man. Take care. Thank you, my brother. Thanks again for having me. Thanks again for listening, y'all. All right. Sad, I tell you, my damies, there we have it. Some solutions to the totalitarian tiptoe towards techno tyranny. Akeem did offer us an affiliate code and a discount. I do get my beak wet on that. I just want you to know, but this is how they do business and you get a discount anyway. They just like to track which shows have an impact and all that. I understand and I'm just being upfront about the situation. And really, I would hope that nobody is buying a new phone and making this huge commitment to change a major aspect of their daily modern life only because I got a kickback. You know, let's not do that. Do it for you if you feel that you are motivated to reclaim some ground in your digital life, but aren't ready to go whole hog. You heard my story with it. And like I said, there would have been plenty of points in my life earlier where I would have been able to commit and it wouldn't have bothered me at all. It actually probably would have helped me cut down on the addictive nature of the phones in general, which is good. It's like having a problem with hard alcohol and just committing to sticking to beer and wine. I know those people. Seems like it's working out fine for them. Any little roadblock to full engagement is probably helpful on top of the privacy and data stuff. In the past, I've considered getting a flip phone or a dumb phone, and there's always that one thing I want or need that I can't get with those options, like not having a good camera handy around the kids or not being able to share photos easily with the grandparents and everyone I moved away from. To me, those are important things, important aspects of how I use the phone socially and just not possible. Some of those other options. And really, the further we go into all this, the tech stuff in general, being so ubiquitous and everything, needing the phone, the easier it is for me to back out. Maybe it is my contrarian nature, but I'm finding a lot more aversion to the digital coming up for me in general without even much effort. I appreciate the outside more. I am finding screens, even just the TV on the wall, to be a lot less engaging than going out and having an experience. And I know I've said that before, too. We have these worries about a completely digitally captured reality, and that is true. It is coming basically here, but there's almost always a swing the other way. There will be digital hipsters who reject it all because it's just so ubiquitous and out of space. They want to say no. I've even heard people say that the COVID lockdowns made them realize they were taking for granted life outside of gaming and binge watching, all that kind of stuff. So that's something they don't want to take for granted anymore, and they're not going to go back. So there's always the trend, and then there's the counterreaction. At least I have to keep faith in that idea because it does look like a pretty intense 20 years to be growing up in otherwise. But kudos to Hakeem for being focused on this area and actually working to create solutions when a lot of us just bitch. He definitely knows his stuff, and his digital ID report is out now. He wanted me to let you know and pass along the link, which you can find in the show notes. So, yes, the first hour is good. The second hour includes some more topics that were pulled from his podcast news coverage. There's that thing about an undercover agent implanted into a woman's life for several years. I know that's rare and not consequential to the wider audience, but just so insane to even have an example like that. And a person in that situation is going to be permanently paranoid forever, I would think. Just so insane. We talked about the spiritual aspects of technology and Hakeem's thoughts there. Blue light, tech in the classroom, which is something that just drives me nuts. I also think the AI data center Colossus 2 stuff I read was in the Plus show. Can't exactly remember. It's right on the line. I'm hearing more mainstream arguments, though, against these data centers since we recorded this interview. More people are actually becoming aware of the resources they use, and what is it all for? It's a silver lining, if you ask me, that the energy costs and usages are so high because people can't really ignore it all. And they have to ask, well, what benefit are we getting from this technology that justifies this insane cost? And you come up pretty empty-handed. If it was easier to ignore, you know we would. So I think that's kind of a good thing that people are talking about that. I don't know. I decided to do this interview largely because they were so helpful in getting me from a Pixel 4 to a Pixel 9. They really did try to make the transition easier. And it just seems like every conversation in Conspiracy Land is the same these days. It's technocracy and transhumanism. I know it's a big deal. But when I put on my show producer hat, it's not lost on me that those conversations start to sound the same even when they are at a high level. We know what we need to know there. And in a lot of cases, there's not so much to add. So this felt like a more creative avenue to adjacent material, but with something that's also much more actionable. That was the goal. That's the logic with this one. Hopefully, we did good. In higher side news, the TV tier plus members should be getting that email notification now when a new show is launched. It is a small quality of life improvement. But when I put myself in the shoes of a listener and I think about the video tier, it's kind of hard to know when there's a new show out. People figure out a way. Maybe they follow me on some social media thing so they see it announced or they subscribe to the free show in a podcast app. But then when you see a new one, you still have to log into the website and I don't know, just getting it embedded right in an email in your inbox seems like the right move. I imagine any device that you want to watch the show on, you can also access your email on. Plus, we have the casting and airplay stuff if you want to get it over to a TV or something. So that's good. I don't see a lot of need to have the developers keep tinkering around at this point. I think we got a great system, a well-oiled machine, and I can't really think of many other improvements. I know we do have a little issue with VPNs on the plus videos. Oh, the irony on a privacy-focused episode. Obviously, I don't care if you use a VPN. I assume that you are. We all should. But the infrastructure that I use to serve up the videos has a lot of stuff in place to stop piracy, and some of them are non-negotiable. I've got a support ticket in, though. I think there's got to be some allowance of VPNs, or this is likely a deal breaker, and I'll have to replace this system. Luckily, Hakeem actually gave me a lead on another company, so I have a plan B, though I just can't imagine that they have created a video streaming and delivery system that is this high quality, and there's just a blanket ban on VPN usage. That does not make much sense to me. That said, when we do what we do and take a look at the last episode review, this is the one with Dr. Heather Lynn's return, quickly becoming a fan favorite, her second time in the hot seat, and coming in with a 4.8. That is great to see. The only complaint seemed to be that she might have been a little too careful when talking about the personal stuff. Look, I don't have those sorts of inner circle experiences, so I'm sure it's a little hard to find the line between putting yourself at risk and being so coy about everything that you end up saying nothing. Luckily, the whole show was not about her personal experiences, and I get people wanting more, but I felt like she gave us enough. She also did give a few more details in the plus comments, and if you check out the YouTube on this, the pin post is her comments about Frank Joseph and the pedo situation. You know, obviously, I said in the wrap-up, oh, I think it was just child porn. Well, she came back with the receipts. No, it is not just a child porn situation, which is very, very bad on the surface, just that alone, but this was actually being physical with a child, and god damn it, if you need to know any more about that, check out the pinned comment from her on the YouTube. Man, wild. But I am glad she came back, and that so many people consider her to be up there on the top shelf, because that is what we want. Well-liked guests putting out consistent work that we can revisit every so often. Amazing. I'm lucky to know her, and lucky that she actually likes the show. There's so many out there, so to be considered one in the plus column, it's a beautiful thing. All right, meetup calendar. We got November 5th, remember, remember, Oakland, California, Ed Bar, Sheru, November 6th, Orange County, Laguna Beach Beer Company, and then Friday, November 7th, Tampa, Florida, Copper Tail Brewing. I'll be there. November 8th, Woodstock, Virginia at the Woodstock Brewhouse, and November 10th, Gail Breaths Ale House in Eden, Terrence, Auckland, New Zealand. And then we got that one in Helsinki on November 19th. Love it. Great. Well, again, I'm going to one, so I'm practicing what I preach. Come on in. Get in there. Make one of your own. Find some like-minded locals. Hiresidemeetups.com. But that's it. Another show in the archive. I'm sure you can tell I'm not feeling my best self today, but the show must go on, and we will overcome. Big thanks to Hakeem. Hope you learned at least a little something and were motivated to make a change in your life. I've done my part. Your move, AI engineers, digital data brokers, and tech bro jokers. Your fucking move. Always connected, but gotten long. It's so dis- It's all a sin and then- Go touch some grass, say sin.