Fighting Digital ID & Building Free Communities (Derrick Broze on the #TBOT Show)

Welcome back to the Take Back Artech Show. I am so excited for the interview we are going to have today with someone who's been a close friend of mine for years and who really changed my life. I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today if it wasn't for this person. We're going for about an hour. The first half will be about this person's work, what they do, how they think about the world. The last half will be their personal side, the struggle, what they've learned, how they've grown. And so if you want to catch the last half of this interview, make sure you're a paid member to the T Bot show. There's a link in the description where you can access the paid part of the interview. Without further ado, this is a person who is a very talented speaker. I've gone across the country with him on a tour and I've seen him speak to countless audiences and his speeches are always very powerful. He's an author, he's written about five books. He's a documentary filmmaker. He's covered things like 5G Covid passports and the Technocratic State. He is the author of this book, how to how to Opt out of the Technocratic State and he is the founder of the Conscious Resistance Network. Please welcome to the show. Derek Bros. I'm glad we finally have you on the show, dude. I've got some really challenging questions for you. I'm really interested in what you're going to say, but we start the show with the traditional question of T Bot, which is what is your favorite open source software and why?

Great question. I'll just go with the easy one. It's Linux. The Linux laptop I'm running here, I use Cinnamon Mint. That one's been making my life less Microsoft and, and more open source for a while now. And largely again, thanks to you and your encouragement and your, your guides and all your work.

You got it, man. And you made that transition this past year, right? What do you, what do you notice, like the before and after leaving Microsoft?

I mean, besides just not being forced into updates that I don't want or, you know, that I'm not interested in. Honestly, it's, it's not too big of a difference in terms of like my practical experience. I think that's one thing that people are worried about when they're used to Apple or Microsoft is like, I'm going to switch over and all the tools I use, they're not going to work. Which is true in some cases. You might have to learn new tools. So I guess that's kind of part of the learning curve. But at this point, you know, I, I pretty much use my laptop to edit, to write articles, obviously social media, those usual things. And none of those experiences have really been changed drastically. It's just a matter of knowing that I'm not supporting Microsoft, Microsoft and I'm using alternative tools similar to like what, you know, you run on the above phone, but just for my laptop. Trying to watch videos without giving YouTube my data, trying to, you know, surf the net without giving whoever's, you know, what my data and all that sort of stuff. It's, it's really, I don't think a huge drastic change maybe for some people if it's, if they're a little bit less tech proficient. But I really think once you make the change and then you get used to the new tools, you might have to up, you know, kind of upgrade to if the ones that you're used to don't switch to Linux. Once you get past that, it's smooth sailing.

And you do edit a lot of your own videos. Are you, what video editor are you using on Linux?

I've tried a few different ones, but the one that seems to work the best for what I do, which is not super complex, I mean I just do a lot of cut and paste and stuff. I use Kaden so kdenlive and so that's, I mean it does, does the work for me. I actually have the laptop that I'm on right now which is more like my day to day laptop and then another laptop to my right which I've turned into like basically my desktop that I only edit on because it's a little bit more powerful and they both have the same operating systems and the same tools running and everything.

That's, that's super dope, man. Yeah, that's. Do you ever use anything like sync thing to sync files between the two? I know it can be hard when you have got multiple computers.

I, I actually thanks for the reminder. You're the one who told me about that before. But I mean honestly I've, I've been doing it a little bit more cumbersome where I just got like my SD card here. So let's say like I have a file here. Like this morning I had a file I needed to edit but it was on this laptop. So I put it on here, transferred it to the other one, did the render, put it back on here, put it back over here. It does the job. But yeah, sync thing might be the solution to save time on that, for.

Big files, I totally get using the usb. There's also this one that I'll just share with you if I can remember the name to it. It's called Local Send. And it lets you connect to the same WI FI network. Put it up on the screen.

Show you.

Yeah, it lets you connect to the same WI FI network here.

There we go.

And it's just so clean, you know. And they name you after fruits and vegetables so you'll see like different computers on your network. It'll be like energetic avocado and you can pick whatever files you want to send to them. It works on your phone. So yeah, that might be a cool one to check out.

Awesome.

Thanks for sharing your experiences with Linux, Derek. As you well know, because you stay on top of these things. We're dealing with somewhat of a poly crisis. Even within the technocratic state, there are so many technologies being weaponized against us. We've got Palantir unified surveillance combined with AI. We've got digital ID and biometrics. We've got mass surveillance through our phones and we've got technology addiction too. On the other side of them, if you have the ability, let's say you're just playing God for a second, you have the ability to just completely get rid of one of these issues completely. Which one would you pick and why is that one so important?

That's a great question. It's kind of tough because, you know, my guiding principles and philosophy come down to voluntarism and wanting people to make their own voluntary choices, to. To come to their own awakening without me having to play God. But if, if I'm playing God for a moment and I wanted to remove one of these sort of to help people, maybe it would be, you know, it's. It's like I feel like for each one I could say there would be a. There would be a positive use case. Right. We can talk all about the dangers and I'm sure we're going to about biometrics, digital IDs. But then somebody would present a use case for biometrics where they found a lost child or, you know, something like that. Right. So there's. Putting that aside that there could be positive use cases for all these technologies. I think that Biometrics, Yeah, I'm kind of torn between biometrics and facial recognition cameras because of just their ability to track us everywhere we go. Obviously the phone kind of does that itself, but I've really been warning people that I think that it's the combination of the digital ID with the facial recognition and the biometrics, that brings that, that kind of makes this full spectrum surveillance state, you know, because you could have a phone and, and choose to leave it at home, but if you walk outside and there's cameras scanning your face the moment you leave your house and the moment you go to the local coffee shop or your church or girlfriend's house, whatever, that's going to have every movement you go, whether you have a phone on you or not. Right. And I think that can lead to some really dangerous places.

You nailed it, man. This digital ID report I'm working on, I spend some time on Russia, which a lot of people think Russia' because they oppose Western viewpoints. But if you look at how they're using their digital ID system, they're already using it within the metro and they'll stop activists in the metro and they, yeah, it's linked up from your digital ID to the CCTV cameras. So that's spot on. And it's a tough question because they're all glued into each other. That's a good answer, man. So in your analog, like looking at digital ID programs, as I'm sure you've been following, it's interesting to see the US hasn't announced a federal digital ID program. Do you think Americans should be just chilling and not worrying about it or do you think they. They should worry?

I think people should, you know, would. Should worry. But more than that, should start taking action and thinking about what they're going to do. Because, well, for anybody who's just like focused on January 1, 2030 and assuming on that day the switch is going to flip, that's not how this stuff works. It works incrementally. The agendas that we're dealing with have been moving forward incrementally for the last couple generations and some would say for, you know, for millennia. But in terms of the technology, it's not just going to turn on on 2030. So I wouldn't expect that people who are concerned about this to just sit around and do nothing and say, okay, well, nothing's happening yet, so I guess I don't need to make any moves. I think that's one of the big problems we have is that humans, like in a more philosophical sense, we tend to be very reactive. And not only that, but we're only reactive when we feel that we're under threat, like under immediate. During COVID Covid 1984. Which honestly, for me, in some ways I feel like that was a better place to be a better state of mind because the masses were very much like, oh, my God, what am I going to do? Okay, COVID lockdowns, Vaccine passports, Like, I need to make moves, I need to change jobs, I need to pull my kids out of school. People were feeling the pressure and feeling the heat, and so they were choosing to act and to start thinking, all right, what am I going to do for the future? Then as things calm down, people have tried to go back to normal. And the reality is that none of the agendas we are facing with COVID have gone anywhere. Vaccine passports is just a gateway to digital id. These, these same issues are still right here staring us in the face. And even more than they were in Covid, it's just that we don't have the 24 news cycle to kind of keep you on edge all the time. And so I, I think that's a little bit detrimental. And I wish people would realize what we're facing. So, I mean, in terms of the U.S. we've already got the implementation of the Real ID card, which, you know, a lot of people made a big deal when it first started, so far hasn't had many major impact. People who've had to go get their new driver's license, they might have noticed the difference in. They got a little star in the corner or something. But I know in your report, you talk about mobile driver's license, digital driver's license, and this is something I've written about for the last American vagabond over the last couple years. I believe that the real ID combined with digital driver's license, mobile driver's license, or mdls as they like to call them, are really going to be the gateway towards digital IDs in the U.S. you know, it's. It's already got, where you've got a couple of private companies like Apple who are starting to offer their versions. You got some states, I think Colorado is one, and there's a few others that have already started to roll out mobile driver's licenses. They're not mandatory yet. You can still have your, you know, a little plastic card, but they're getting people comfortable with pulling out the phone. And here's my driver's license. And that's essentially what a digital ID is, at least in one form. And I think that is what people should be paying attention to. Look at the areas where they're rolling out mobile driver's licenses, where they're starting those programs, digital driver's licenses, because that's just going to be. It'll start out optional and then it'll eventually be mandatory. And I'm sure there'll be other avenues for them to bring this in, like we saw during COVID with the, what was like the Kobe pass and the health pass, all this sort of stuff, which I know you do cover in your report. So Americans should not be chilling at all, should not be, you know, sitting down and thinking that, okay, well that's just the uk that's just eu, that's not going to happen here or that's just, you know, some other countries, it's those, those authoritarian countries. And especially if anybody hearing this who still has faith or hope in Trump, like I think Trump's job, we're not even a full year into this first, first, first year of his administration, of his second administration and we've seen so much technocratic agendas moving forward. I mean, he's working directly with the technocrats. So I believe that by the end of Trump's term, come 2027, these agendas are going to have been greatly advanced. And largely, of course, right now, the main way they're pushing it is the fight against illegal immigration. Trump has already made it very clear that much like what we're seeing in the eu, that he wants a biometric entry and exit system. He said this numerous times for all people coming in and out of the United States, including American citizens. So I, you know, I don't like to make predictions, but I won't be surprised if by the end of Trump's term that is in place or at least all the groundwork has been laid and then whoever they bring in next will be the one to fully implement it as we go into 2030, I.

Think that's a pretty apt prediction and I would bet on that happening as well. Unfortunately, you bring up the federal takeover of troops in different US Cities and we know that ICE was given a military sized budget. And on top of the biometric entry exit system, what do you think the point of these takeovers are? And do you think they're going to spread to other cities? Like a lot of people are fear mongering?

I think. Well, first, yes, I do think it's going to spread. Right now there's National Guard troops in Portland, D.C. memphis, Chicago is the latest one. Right before we were doing this interview, I saw there's, you know, some conflicts on the street happening again. Trump is threatened to send them elsewhere. And honestly, I wouldn't even be surprised if they end up coming to my hometown of Houston eventually because he's really heavily focused on left wing progressive areas. And Houston's not as progressive as something like, you know, Portland or something like that places in California. It's more moderate Democrat. But still, nevertheless, I wouldn't be surprised if eventually that happens as well. And to me, the purpose of that, besides whatever potential, you know, legit efforts they're making to go after illegal immigrants, which I have my own opinions on whether or not that's even, you know, should be happening. But besides that, I think it's about normalizing the military. Even though it's National Guard, it's not technically the military. It's a form of military. It's guys in camo, heavily armed, you know, and in the case of ICE agents masked up and just taking people off the streets. So whatever people think about borders and immigration, setting that aside for a moment, in my mind, this is definitely about, about normalizing this and about getting Americans used to seeing this, seeing the presence of soldiers just marching through the streets, which is not a, an American value. And in fact, what's really strange and odd and kind of shows you the power of this psyop is that traditionally it has been the conservatives, the right wing, the Republicans who, the constitutionalists who are the ones who speak out against these things and say, you know, posse comitatis. Posse comitatis is like, you know, a practice that's been around since the 1800s that basically says it should be illegal for the military to police the streets, to be involved in domestic affairs. You know, that's a job for the cops, it's not a job for the military. Most Republicans, most MAGA folks, most so called conservatives, not all because there are some people standing on principle, but for the most part, people are just following the cult of Trump and they're not saying anything about it. They're just, you know, I like to remind people that, like, if this had been Obama, Biden, Clinton, etc. Etc. Saying we're going to send troops to Republican cities to get them under control, people would be losing their minds, people, and rightfully so. They would be saying, oh, this is a violation of posse comitatus. But because it's Trump, so many people just make excuses. So I really do think this is about kind of normalizing this presence of military on the streets. And not only that, the people who can't quite get a grip on it and see that, you know, the way that the agenda moves forward is that the left and the right, they, I kind of been using the, the metaphor of it's like a baton, you know, like, you're running a race and Trump. Exactly. And he'll pass that baton to the next one. And, you know, whoever the Democrats are going to run in 2028 will be AOC or the governor of California or whatever, and then they will use the same tools and then advance it further down the line. And the same way that, just as another example, Trump is bombing these, These, these ships, these boats off the coast of the Caribbean that we're being told are drug dealers, cartels with fentanyl. The government's providing no evidence of this. But even if, let's just say what they're claiming is true, they still have no constitutional mandate, congressional mandate, legal mandate, international law, mandate to do so. But because in the post 911 era, George Bush first started with the drones, and then Obama really took it and then kind of created this idea that, well, if there's a terrorist anywhere in the world that we say is a threat to the US we can bomb them. You know, we could bomb in Pakistan, Somalia, Africa, whatever. Who cares about sovereignty? You have other countries and their borders. They're endangering us, allegedly, so we can go bomb and kill them. And so once that precedent was set, Obama passes the baton to Trump, and now here, Trump is doing the same thing. But this time it's not about terrorists from the Middle East. It's about drug dealers and cartel members and gang members from South America. But it's the same kind of action. It's just, it's been established. So people need to understand that the precedents that were established before Trump, he's just expanding on them. And, and the person coming after him, whether they're Democrat or Republican, will expand them as well.

I feel really sad for people who see these weapons being used against people in their own country. And they say, all right, that person deserves it. They're just. They're not thinking ahead when, where that weapon is going to turn next. As you so correctly pointed out, digital id, we're seeing it almost in every country. I know you've been following it, and it's really weird because all of the programs are structured very similarly with similar timelines. I think it's the EU program that will be open to private entities by 2026. I hope I'm getting that right. And same with Australia. So it's kind of eerie how everything is so timed up to land to 2030 now. I know there's organizations participating behind the scenes and developing these digital ID programs. Do you know a bit about them and what can you tell us?

Yeah, I mean, I'VE done some, some work on some of them over the years. I'll just mention, like in terms of the, the mobile, mobile driver's license, digital driver's license, I mentioned. I did an article a couple years ago. One of the biggest companies promoting it in the US as well as in Mexico and in parts of Europe is the, the, I think they're called the Thales Group. T H A L E S. Anybody who's searching for this, I'm sure you came across their name. They're one of the most prominent people who are advancing this. And then in terms of like on the kind of NGO non governmental side, you have, of course, the United Nations. The United nations is probably one of the biggest because one of the Sustainable development goals, the SDGs, is specifically about trying to get every person in the world some form of id. Yeah, exactly. This is one of the big areas people need to understand because. So I live in Mexico and in Mexico, like I could walk outside and I could probably see some day laborers and people who are just, you know, living on cash. And they might have a Mexican ID card, they might not. And Bill Gates and the UN and others like that, they say, well, those poor Mexican farmers, those Mexican workers, or those Indian farmers, we need to bring them into the modern system. We need to make sure that they, you know, they're unbanked. And you know, because of that they can't get a government id. They're, you know, they lack the proper documentation. So they really sell this kind of like sob story, which I think is meant to, you know, hit the emotions and the heart of the people in the first world. It's like, oh, I feel bad for those people in those third world countries. You know, they don't have a way to exist the way I do plugged into the system. And so the whole mentality, of course, is that like the answer is being in the system. So we need to take these unbanked people, we need to get them retina scanned, fingerprint scanned, get them a digital ID card, all this sort of stuff. And so the whole premise is that the answer is to be plugged into the system. Of course, a lot of my work is focused on trying to encourage people to consciously stay out of these systems. But I think that's really what it, what it comes down to is you got groups like the UN because of the Sustainable Development Goals, they're pushing for this. And then they're working with some of their counterpart organizations like the World bank for their ID4D initiative, and of course the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is a big player, particularly in India, parts of Africa. And then there's of course, the companies who are actually building the infrastructure, like the Thales Group and some of these others. So it really is this web of players that are involved in it, from governments promoting it to NGOs and organizations like the UN World Economic Forum, of course, pushing it and propagandizing for it, and then the big tech companies who are actually building the infrastructure. And so you, when you put that together and you start identifying these names and companies and players, you can see the web of people who are promoting this idea. Because, you know, similar to, I think about like the rollout of 5G and the expansion to 5G and digital IDs that I don't see anybody out there demanding these things. There's no public demand for this. It's just that they're pushing it on people and they will convince people that they need it. And the ways they do that is the same ways they do with everything. Of course, fear. We talked about fear, like being afraid of immigrants. So, you know, now we need to scan everybody's face so we know who's who, who's real, who's legal and who's not. And we need to, you know, get everybody digital ID so we can make sure that the elections aren't rigged. So they'll sell it through fear and then they'll sell it through convenience, of course. And so this is where you start to see some of these different stores at the airport and elsewhere where, you know, they'll tell you just do the palm page, just scan your hand or whatever. And you don't actually have to talk to a dirty human who might have Covid or something. Just walk in and buy your stuff and walk out and it scans your face and automatically deducts it from your bank account. So it's convenience, it's easy. And then the other is entertainment. You know, I think another big way they're going to push these kind of things is through video games is a big thing, like with people wanting to like, oh, I can scan my face and now my avatar is inside the video game, of course, through apps and all that stuff. And then the other big one would be sports because. And not to on everybody who likes sports or anything like that. I don't, I don't. I know a lot of people who are plenty awake who also like sports. So I'm not trying to say that. And at the same time, there are plenty of people, I think, who do like sports, who are kind of normie just regular people going about their lives who aren't concerned about privacy and digital ID. And so, for example, the NFL, the National Football League, I think they have 32 stadiums at this point that now require facial recognition. There's no physical tickets at all. Literally you just come in and your face is scanned and you got like a skit, you know, do the phone thing. So they're already kind of getting people acclimated to scanning something on their phone, just scanning their face. And if you want to go see your favorite sports ball game, well, you're going to comply. And as far as I can see, those stadiums aren't empty. People are complying without any hesitation. Exactly. So those are the ways I think they'll sell it. Fear, convenience and entertainment.

Go team. I guess you did mention the events happening in your home country, Mexico, which took a very aggressive stance to digital id. And then you've been posting on your channel recently the pushback back from local states and towns. And you are one of the only people who have gone into Mexico to go to these autonomous regions. Like Chiran. I have two questions. So tell me a little bit more about these autonomous regions and also what is it about Mexico or Mexico's legal structure that gives towns and states the abilities to do this versus anywhere else in the world? Why can't we just say this is, you know, this is our own town now separate from the government.

So one of the major things I think that differentiates Mexico from a lot of places in the world, of course I can't speak for everywhere, but specifically, let's say the US Western Europe is that it's written in the constitution. Well, first of all, that the way that the Mexican government dealt with the indigenous people of the country is completely different than the US there's no reservation system. That's not to say there wasn't abuse, you know, genocides and atrocities that have taken place throughout Mexico's history because much like the U.S. u.S was colonized by Europeans, English and others, they came in there, they started, you know, fighting with the natives. And you know, that's not to say the natives weren't warring with themselves, but the U. S and the, the English and the other colonizers came there, dominated them, killed as many as they could, and then eventually they got the legal backing to use the force of the state to move people towards reservation systems. You know, you had the trail of tears and you had people they basically forcibly marched thousands of miles to go live in places they had no connection to. And that that was the way the US Dealt with their indigenous population. Mexico was colonized by the Spanish, obviously. And again, there was definitely conflicts between the. The vast amount of indigenous people in the US and it's also important, I'll just say one kind of side point, that sometimes because of the way we live and because the borders on a map, we draw a distinction between the U.S. mexico and Canada. But if you think about it, before Canada was colonized by the French and the US by the English, and Mexico by the Spanish, these were just. It was just a massive landmass, North America, right? And besides the Rio Grande and other kind of natural borders, there was just indigenous people across the entire land, and they were mixing and, you know, kind of swapping cultures and languages and things like that. So Texas was at one point considered Mexico. A lot of the indigenous people from Mexico moved to Texas and vice versa. My family, I recently learned, is from at least the fourth generation back northern Mexico. At some point, they crossed over into Texas to become workers. But my point was saying all that is that before the colonization happened, these were just people existing on the land, and you had different tribes, different languages, cultures mixing and adapting to each other. And when the Spanish came and the. They fought the Aztec, they fought the Incas, you know, there was all this conquering going on, but a lot of the indigenous groups never fully assimilated, either to the Aztecs or to the Spanish. One example is where I live here in Micho Khan, in Morelia, is the Purapecha people, which are still existing and still alive. They're one of the only groups that, if not the only, that never submitted to the Aztecs. They actually kind of fought all the way to the end. And unlike a lot of the conflicts, they didn't. It didn't end with them being wiped out. They resisted the Aztec, they resisted assimilation, and they still survived, and they still exist to this day in this state, mainly in the area where I'm at now. And there's other indigenous groups as well who were able to survive. So you have a really high concentration of indigenous people in the state of Chiapas, in Micho Khan and two other states that I can't remember right now. So, you know, they're spread out around the country. Of course people have moved, but for the most part, there are really high concentrations in these different areas. And some of those people don't even speak Spanish. They. Their languages are still alive. And this is why I say it's very different from the US where in the US Many Many indigenous groups are just completely gone or there may be less than 100 of them. There may be nobody who still speaks their language. Like Lakota is probably the most popular indigenous language in the US And a lot of tribes who don't even have their own language, they will use Lakota prayers and Lakota words because that's just what's been passed around in Mexico though those cultures have very much been preserved and they continue to survive. So after the Mexican Revolution, it was pretty much written into the constitution that indigenous areas that, and I think there's like a certain percentage, if like an area has a certain percentage of a concentration of indigenous people, they can choose to vote to become recognized as autonomous or auto governing, self governing. And so that's, you know, that's for one, that's very unique. Like you said, that's not something you would expect to see in many countries because the government doesn't like to give up their control over their, their tax cattle. But in the, in Mexico, it is something that not only exists but has been, has actually happened in practice. You mentioned Chadan. I'll send a link if you want to put in the show notes for anybody who wants to see a little mini documentary I did back in 2021. It was the 15th anniversary of Chadan celebrating their uprising. And you know, it's sort of a long story, but the short version is they, they were able to become declared autonomous once they realized that the state and the federal government were not helping them because they're working with corrupt cartels and corrupt police and these loggers who were logging their thousand year old forest. And so eventually they had to have an uprising to stand up for themselves. And they voted to go back to their indigenous ways of organizing. They actually recognized that, you know, before these political parties started coming about, which as weird as it sounds for most Americans and people in modern societies, the political parties had only started to come around in the last 20, 30, 40 years in some of these communities. And they, they recognize that once the political parties came, it started to turn them against each other. All of a sudden it was, you know, you're red and I'm blue. So we're not neighbors anymore. We're not family, we're not, you know, friends. You're the other side and I'm on this side. And so they really saw that the political parties were dividing their own country, their own people. And so they voted to abolish political parties. So there's no campaigning allowed from the state, local or the feds. They banned all Cops. So they have their own kind of, they, they, you know, they have what we might call cops, but it's not coming from the government outside, it's from their own community. And, and yeah, and so they decided to continue to govern themselves in their own way. So this stipulation exists in the Mexican constitution and there's at least, I think there's more than a dozen areas in Mexico and a couple of them here in the state I live in who have voted to do this. And in fact, just this week, literally like a five minute bike ride from where I live, the local town, a little pueblo where I'm living, they them in four other areas. They actually spent a year, you know, kind of talking about this and then they were able to get it to a vote. And so this Sunday there was a vote held to decide if these four areas wanted to be self governing. And the reason for that is because, I mean, I'm, I'm in a pretty rural area right out on the edge of town now. So people who live over here and in Mexico in general, they don't expect a lot from their government, but especially if you live very rurally, you're not expecting, you know, government assistance or help. So people live pretty freely, they have to take care of themselves. And so a lot of people felt like, well, look, the government's not helping us, the government's not protecting us from criminals or anything else. Why should we be under their laws? Why don't we vote to become self governing and then we can decide how we run things. And then of course there was a lot of propaganda being spread, some of which is true. I mean, I think this is, this is one point maybe people can take away is that for those of us who believe in liberty and freedom, you have to realize that such a concept actually entails a huge amount of personal responsibility. Right. If you're going to vote today and say, hey, you know what, we no longer want any help from the government, that means we don't want them giving us electricity, we don't want them giving us water, we don't want them, you know, fixing our roads, any of that stuff. Maybe some things we even take for granted, that's now your responsibility. And so for some people, that's kind of scary. That's not something they want. Even if they're like, well, the government's not doing much, but I might as well keep what I can get. And so ultimately, unfortunately, the measure did not pass, lost by 67 votes. They decided to stay under the governorship of the City of Morelia, even though, like I said, they're on the edge of town and I doubt there's anybody from the government going there to help them. But unfortunately it didn't pass. But I just love the fact that Mexico has that even in the Constitution, that's even a possibility. And I, that's one of the reasons why I do love Mexico. And even though I'd never been here before in this particular state, before I moved here, the more I've been here, the more I've learned about the history, the culture, the, the high presence of indigenous people and that potential for being self governing. It does give me hope that despite these efforts to start rolling out digital IDs, biometrics and stuff like that, that I don't think it's going to roll out as cleanly as they might expect. I mean, just like how the EU just started this week and they're claiming by April 2026 it's going to be complete. That's probably much more likely to happen because of just how far along and how modern those countries are. And I'm sure they'll have some hiccups along the way. But Mexico is claiming by February this entire system is going to be implemented. Yeah, I see no way in hell that that's going to be done in this country. Not only is this country vast, but again, I mean, we're talking where people like live out on the mountains and side, completely disconnected from modern life and government and living their own lives. Like, sure, it could be possible if they use enough coercion, but I, I just can't see it rolling out. So there's a lot of hype on the Internet right now about it. And I'm not saying we should be dismissive and ignore it completely. Believe me, I'm paying attention to it. Conversations are happening across Mexico. Locals and expats are trying to figure out what moves to make. Thankfully, there have been some lawsuits from different attorneys which so far have been successful in there's activists trying to raise awareness about it. So those are all good signs. But rest assured, Mexico, just like every place in the world, is eventually going to try to force these things. I just think it'll be a more difficult rollout. They'll have much better luck in Mexico City, for example, than they will over here on the countryside where I'm living and where, where my land is, for example.

Those are definitely a few good reasons to move to Mexico. And if only people around the world could take a page from that book, realize we are all indigenous to this planet and yeah, stand in our power. Amazing. So one of the things I was doing was reading your book. Preparation for this interview. How to opt out of the Technocratic State, which if you don't have a copy of this book, Derek, where can you purchase it?

People can. The best place to go is go to my website, theconsciousresistance.com how to. And that'll take you to all the other links. Of course, always preferred to use the non Amazon links and there are some available to buy it from, you know, Barnes and Noble or smaller stores. I also have a free PDF there on my website and there's a free audio book as well which is hosted on Odyssey. So if people want to listen to it as opposed to read it, those options are there. And it is currently available in Spanish, German, French, and there's some more translations coming soon.

Yeah, and this book was really ahead of its time. We were talking about a lot of these issues. When was this released? In 20.

Original version was January 2020. And then I updated that one, the one you're holding and. And 2022, kind of in the middle of COVID after we saw, you know, it was like updates about travel restrictions and everything else we were learning in that process and.

And now all these things are becoming a reality. So it's a really important book to get. It's a really good present for those in your life that you might want to wake up. The truth is quite a present. But. So I encourage you to check out that book. When I was reading it, I found a few new sections and I also found a section on page 84 where you're talking about in your hometown of Houston that you were growing food and selling it on an app. On an app called Nextdoor, which in the U. I think it's mainly the US it lets you connect with nearby neighborhoods and it's like social media. And I want to ask you, man, what'd you learn from that experience? And on top of that, do you think people could try that today with the big tech apps we have?

Yeah. You know, I will say I. That I definitely use Nextdoor. And I think it was a much more. I don't know everyone. I don't want to say it was like a freedom app or anything like that, but it was definitely not filled with cops like it is now. And I. I mean that true. Like cops are on there. During COVID people were snitching on their neighbors using the Nextdoor app. So like any tool, it can be valuable for certain Reasons, but the way we were using it. I was involved with this activist community that I helped start, and we were living in a house together. And so we were doing things like drive, you know, biking around and driving around and going, finding people in the neighborhood who had an orange tree that was just rotting. They weren't picking any of their fruit. Like, a lot of people, they get fruit trees and they, they just don't have time or they don't take care of it. And we would literally just go take the initiative and knock on somebody's door, say, hey, we saw you had a, you know, an orange tree or a, you know, tangerine tree back there or whatever. Can we pick it, harvest it for you? And most people are like, sure, yeah. Otherwise it's just going to rot in my backyard. Go ahead. And we took those back to the house and we juiced them all. We'd been recycling glass bottles, so we had a big collection of glass bottles and then we turned the juice put. Turn into juice, put it in the bottles, and then we went to next door. Which one thing about nextdoor I will say, besides just people talking about what's going on their neighborhood, a lot of times you'll find businesses on there, like local offices and stuff like that. So we just started kind of promoting on there and saying, hey, everybody, we live in the neighborhood here. We've got fresh orange juice bottled from the neighborhood. It's as local as you can get. We're selling it for X amount of dollars. Feel free to reach out. And we actually did have people. I mean, we were, we were going around and delivering to neighbors, going to office spaces that were just, hey, yeah, we'll get a case of juices for our, our, you know, lunch today or whatever. And it was, I mean, as kind of simple and tried as that might sound to some people, or maybe it sounds like too much work. I loved that it was just us taking a resource that is abundant and sitting out there, fruit sitting on a tree that's going to go to waste and taking that for free, then repackaging it and being able to sell and make money off it. I mean, I think those are the sort of ingenious entrepreneurial skills that we need to have. And you know, like I said, next door isn't a place I would fully recommend for different things. But in terms of kind of simple stuff like that, where it doesn't involve anything illegal or controversial, then, yeah, I mean, it's, it's not a bad, not a bad resource. I haven't used it in years. But things like that can be valuable. And of course, like, I know Alex X got the Way Forward program and then, you know, what we try to do with the Freedom Cell Network and there are other resources like that, even if they're not awake, you know, kind of websites, there's still a resource where you're going to find other people to connect with them. And, and for me, that the reason I wanted to share that story in the book is to show people an example of using these tools in an entrepreneurial way in a untaxed. That's, you know, a total gray market activity. I'm sure technically some government agent thinks we should be having a license and registered to bottle juice in our kitchen. You know, make sure the glasses are clean to their standard and the juice has been pasteurized and blah, blah, whatever else. But we just did it. We just took the initiative. And people didn't ask for our permits or our licenses. They were happy to buy juice from us. And so I think those kind of simple ideas can go a long way.

I think so too. Man, that's really cool story. And I think as these digital ID walls get built around us, it's exactly these same homegrown raw solutions that we're going to have to do simply because we don't want to enroll in these things. So I like that section in the book again, you guys. That's how to opt out of the technocratic state. Go to Derek's website, theconsciousresistance.com Derek, you've got the People's Reset coming up this January 2026. Can you tell us a little bit about the event? What's going on this year?

Yeah, thank you for that. So the People's Reset, formerly known as the Greater reset, is happening January 28th to February 1st here in Morelia, Mexico, where I'm at. And as we've been doing now, I don't know if you can believe it, Hakeem, but this will be the eighth event that we've hosted since 2021, including one over there in the UK. And we had some events in Texas, events in Mexico. It's honestly, guys, it's. If I wasn't involved in this event, this is the kind of event I would want to come attend and be a part of. So it's unlike the things you're used to, where you have some events are all conference, so you got a stage, people are talking and it's a lot of good information. And then some events are all party play, maybe camp out, you know, Some kind of more spiritual, esoteric workshops, but not too grounded. We try to balance all those things. And then also some events are just purely festival. You got music, you got art, but maybe there's no education elements. We try to bring together all those things and we call it an activation very purposefully, because the idea is that you come in person, hopefully, but if not, you can watch for free online on our website. And when you attend or you watch, you're going to learn from people who are really experts in their fields. And the idea is that you take that information, you get inspired by it, you get activated, and then you choose to implement it and do something with it and put it to practice in your life. And so, as with every year, we focus on five themes. Day one is liberate your mind, body and soul. So that's just kind of health, mental, physical, spiritual. Day two is about permaculture and food independence. Day three is algorithm and parallel networks. So that could be everything from, you know, homeschooling, alternative education, all kinds of things. Actually, this year I'm going to be kind of taking that title and stretching it as far as I can. I'm going to be talking about my journey, recovering from drug addiction and how I think that we need to come up with alternative parallel systems that, to deal with that, that don't involve AA or government treatment and stuff like that. On day four is all about empowering technology. So that'll be just like what we're talking about here with Take Back Our Tech. And then the final day is called Building free and conscious Communities. And that is everything from people who are already living in communities and they're sharing about their projects and how they went about it, or to people who are homesteading or people who are speaking about like organizational strategies like sociocracy and stuff like that. And so it's five days, 35 presenters. Every evening there's different events. We're gonna have two concerts. This year we're going to be bringing back conscious speed dating because a lot of people in our community are looking for their loved ones. We're going to probably be doing some documentary screenings, maybe some comedy this year. And then we always end everything with a really beautiful cacao ceremony and kind of a sound bath and. And so there's a mix of everything. You know, if you're all. If you're more on the kind of hippie ish side of things, there's stuff for you. If you're just looking for more practical knowledge, there's stuff for you. If you're looking to network with other like minded people. There's something for you. We get about 400 to 450 people. We're aiming for 500 this year. Usually about 10 to 12, 15 countries are represented. As I said, we stream for free online and we get viewers from all over the world. It's. It is a blast to be involved, to organize and to, to speak and just network with so many great people. And most importantly, and I say this like truly, truly at all, I've been involved in organizing a lot of events from Houston here in Mexico, tours, all the fun stuff. And I've never heard as many times. I hear with being involved with the people's reset, about how this changed people's lives or it gave them the tools they were looking for. Especially during the COVID years when people were so desperately looking for solutions. And to me that's the real measure of success of an event like this. You know, we make enough to do it again the next year. But we're not, you know, we're not getting rich off this event. It's not about that, it's. It's about helping people out. And so when somebody comes up to me and says, wow, I felt so alone, Derek. And now I came here and I feel like I just met other people where I don't have to put up any guard, I can just be my real self and I, I get this new tool or this new resource and I'm going to take it home and I'm so excited. That makes it all worth it. And then one other piece that I'll just mention that I think makes our event different from others is that being based in Mexico, it's very important for us that this is an integrated event. Some events like to host event host their stuff in Mexico or Costa Rica and there's nothing wrong with that, but they mainly market it to an expat audience, to an English speaking audience. We do that as well. But also we are very much focused on trying to get locals here. So the event is completely free to Mexicans. It's also a bilingual event, so we work with this team of interpreters. So when people are in person, they can hear all the talks. If you don't speak Spanish, you can hear the Spanish talks in English and vice versa. And so that's really cool. And then of course we release all the talks in Spanish and English for free on our Odyssey channels, our Spanish channel and our English channel. And then this year particularly, I've put a lot of effort into bringing more Spanish speakers than ever. So I believe every day there might be one day that doesn't have one Spanish speaker, but every day has at least one, if not multiple Spanish speakers. And this year as well, we're going to have more Spanish artists performing at our concerts as well. So we're really trying to build this integrated movement. So whether you're coming from the US or Canada or parts of Europe or wherever else you can come to Mexico, you can get to learn a little bit about the culture. You can, you know, network with like minded people, even people who don't speak English. And really, I think that's important for us to see that this movement is a worldwide movement. It's not just in the English speaking countries. It's, it's all over the world that people are asking these questions and are looking for solutions.

We want you to come in person. We hope you'll be there. I'll be there for sure. Yes. The people's reset is so life changing because it's one of the first events where everyone can participate. In fact, that's, that's what it's all about. So we hope to see you there. Go to the peoplesreset.org again, happening at the end of January, coming up in 2026. And no biometric scans on your way into Mexico. So how about that? And we're not done yet. We are about to wrap up the first part of our interview. Interview for T bot. The next half of the interview is going to be personal questions about Derek's life, his values, his philosophy, and if you're not a paid subscriber, T bot, I encourage you to sign up now because it's going to be pretty awesome. But before we get into that, I know that Derek has a new 10 week opt out challenge based off of this book, but he's taking it and the ideas in this book and taking it farther than ever, ever before. Derek, tell us about the challenge.

Yeah, thanks for that, brother. So I've recently partnered up with this streaming platform podcasting network called Civil. That's c I v l.com and it's run by an old friend of mine that I know from back in Texas, activism from years ago and we recently reconnected and him and his team, their whole mission at Civil, they like to say that they're trying to upgrade human civilization by promoting voluntarism, individual liberty and human respect. And what they mean by that is like dialogue, right? We need more dialogue with each other, not less, if we're ever going to get to this better world. That I think we're all aiming for. And so they host all kinds of documentaries and podcasts and things like that. And we've recently partnered together to work on my podcast. But we're also starting to do exclusive content like this 10 week challenge. And so as you said, this is going to be, I'm going to really push myself to take what I've written in the book and obviously I wrote it three years ago, the update. So there's quite, quite a few things have evolved and changed since then and I'm going to try to just over, I think my part is five weeks. I'm going to be partnering with John Bush to do this. So I'll be starting October 15th, so pretty soon here and then the following week will be John and it'll be me and we'll go back and forth through the end of 2025 and it's exclusively going to be through civil. What's cool about it is I'm going to do some like the first one exit and build 101. What is the basics of it? How do you, you know, what does this even mean? And I'm gonna, for me, I'm gonna start with mindset, which I think is one of the most important aspects of it. Because as you know Hakeem, like so many people when we talk about these ideas, people's first instinct or thought is to come up with the reason it won't work. And the sort of worst case scenario, well, that will, that can't work because of this or well, why should I switch to Linux? They can just hack, hack me or whatever. You know, they're just ready to kind of go to the doomer black pill stance. And so for me it's important to start this out by talking about our mindset. If we don't work on our mindset and exit and build from unhealthy limiting beliefs and, and negative self talk and limiting talk like that, then there's really no way for us to succeed. If you don't even believe it's possible, then, well, it's not going to be possible. So we're going to start there and then of course we'll go deeper. We're going to talk about, we're going to talk about getting off the big tech ecosystem surveillance system, which we'll be definitely mentioning the above phone and take back our tech and then we'll be talking about getting reconnected to your food supply. Talk about getting off of the, let's see, I got big tech, I got food. Yeah, Unbanking. Thank you. The unbanking. And that's, that's of course one of the more complex and challenging areas. But I'm gonna really push myself in the second edition of the book. I do try to come up with like, make yourself a six month plan to get out of these systems. It's easier said than done, but I think we really need to be starting to think about these ideas and at least trying to find what I call in the book half measures or you know, kind of half steps to be at least moving in the right direction even if you can't fully unplug. And in the final week for myself, I'm going to talk about the value of land. Whether that means actually buying land yourself, if you have the means to do so, or partnering up with other like minded people to buy land, which is what I've done, or even just having access to land, whether that means you have a, an allotment at a local community farm or urban garden and you start making use of it. Like even if you can't actually own the land and build a home on it, having access to land is going to be extremely important, especially when we're being told we're going to own nothing and be happy. And then I'll also be talking about sort of some of the, the, the ups and downs and the benefits and the challenges of having land versus being nomadic because some people are kind of in the, the view that, well, I'd rather have, I'd rather be nomadic, I'd rather have multiple passports in different countries. And, and there's value to both. And I think there's, there's challenges and drawbacks to each as well. Especially when we're living in a world, as we were just discussing, where Biometrics and Digital IDs are becoming more normalized. You know, what is that going to look like? And so we'll be going deep into all those topics. And as I said, it is exclusively through Civil. So if people want to sign up, the page you were just showing is the place to do it. And I want to mention that you can, so you can sign up to Civil for free and you get access to some of their stuff. But if you sign up for either $5 a month or $50 a year, you'll get access to this 10 week challenge. You'll also get access to the final conclusion of my documentary series, the Pyramid of Power before anybody else. We're going to have it on there for five weeks once it's done in mid November, before it goes public, and then we're going to be doing more kind of challenges, skill shares, bonus content that is exclusively on Civil. And if anybody is interested in signing up, I'll mention if you do the annual subscription for 50 a year, you can use the code TCR20, and that'll give you a 20 off the annual subscription. And honestly, it's a pretty good deal when you look at the amount of content they have on there. Some of it's like original films that they've done produce themselves. Others is just content that they've grabbed from other places. And they like to go to events in person, too, like this voluntarism event we went to in Sedona, and they do live filming and. And they put all those talks and presentations on there. So honestly, if you're looking, it's. They're not trying to replace Netflix or anything like that, but if you're looking for a place to stream content that is more mindful, it's not all political, but it's just, you know, about empowerment. Like I said, upgrading human civilization, human respect, you'll find a lot of good stuff on there. And plus, you get access to this challenge. So that code is TCR20.

I think I'm going to be using that code to sign up. It's a really big deal for a platform to showcase your work. I mean, you're right on the front page. And I just think it's really funny because I've known you for a while, I've seen your work be deplatformed, going through a purge, it doesn't want to be shown anywhere. So for a platform like this to put you on the front page, it means that they really care about the truth, they care about freedom, they care about these important ideas. So I will be supporting myself.

Absolutely. Yeah. I'll just say one thing on that real quick, brother. Thank you for that. Just to even make that a finer point. Absolutely. Like the arrangement with civil. I mean, just in full transparency, they. They have me on residency right now, so they're paying me on a monthly basis to. To do content like this. They're supporting my pod, my podcast, and it's because they do believe in the message that I promote. That you believe in. I'm sure most people here believe in. And yes, after being deplatformed and shadow banned, which still continues on other platforms for so many years, it does feel good to have somebody step up and say, hey, we believe in what you're doing and we want to work with you and we want to make sure that you have access, you know, to the tools you need. And the other cool thing too is for the people who are kind of more if you're still plugged into the mainstream systems, you can watch the Civil app through the the Apple tv, Roku, Amazon, all that sort of stuff. Of course you can just watch through your laptop, whatever your phone, but it gives access to people who are on those other systems who maybe they'll find the Civil app and maybe they'll stumble across my work or some of this other content and you know, begin their journey. So I'm really happy to be working with them again.

Derek, congratulations and everyone watching. We'll see you on the personal paid part of the interview where we're here. We're going to hear about Derek's memoirs, his personal life, his work ethic, a bunch of good stuff. We'll see you there. Thanks for joining this TBOT interview.