Beating Cancer and Returning to a Changed Indie Media Landscape with John Vibes

Hey everyone, this is Derek Bros with the Conscious Resistance Network. And today I'm bringing you another insightful, what I believe will be interesting conversation with an old friend of mine to discuss not only his work and what he's been up to in years past, but also how his perspectives as well as mine have evolved and changed since the beginning of our work. Of course, I'm speaking about fellow activist, author and I'd say just important thinker John Vibes, who. I'll just tell this story briefly for those who haven't heard it because it's been years since John's been on my channel. Back in 2012, I had an internship with another activist in the D.C. area. That's where John and I first got connected. And then later on in 2013, he was the person who actually got me my first paid writing gig in the independent media. And that eventually kind of led me on the path that I'm doing today. And we also co wrote one of the books behind me, the Conscious Resistance Trilogy. We started publishing those books individually in 2015, 16 and 17, and then later recollected them as the Conscious Resistance Trilogy with some new chapters and that was released in the spring of 2020. John also took a break from the independent media space and from content creation and he's continued to do different types of work in blockchain industry and others that we'll hear from him today. But he's recently come back and now has a new YouTube channel and is putting out some really important reports that I. I think we're going to talk about today. But let's get into all that with my brother, John Vibes. How you doing, man?

What's up, man? It's good to be on with you again.

Yeah, it's been a while. I was looking at my past interviews. I think we did some, of course, early on in the 2012 13, and probably the last one would have been around the time of our book, our last book together. And that's what I wanted to get, you know, just get your perspective on how the world has changed, how your perspectives have evolved since we were collaborating together and of course what you're up to today. But first I want to give you a chance, if you want to just dive into it for a moment. I don't think we ever really did an interview, not that I can recall, about one of the biggest challenges you faced, which was getting cancer in 2017. And that was actually you were dealing with that at the time. We were writing Manifesto the Free Humans, which is the third Book in our trilogy of books, and I came to visit you. We spent that week together, I think ended up being seven or eight days that we put this book together. While you were dealing with. Dealing with chemo and just kind of battling that. Why don't you share a little bit about that, like, what that was like and, of course, where you are today with that situation.

Yeah. So that was, I think, kind of when the road to my hiatus kind of started, was when I had gotten sick. There was, you know, at first I had tried to just fight the doctors and not listen to any of their advice, not do the mainstream treatment. I tried a whole bunch of different cocktail of things for a year or two. And, you know, there were 10 different diets that were prescribed to me, and all of them had a lot of good research behind them. And then there was also the cannabis that I was using as well. And things just still didn't turn out too great for me. Towards the end of, like, a year and a half, I was, like, drowning in lymph fluid in my lungs, essentially in, like, my chest cavity that was putting pressure on my lungs. So I had to make the difficult decision to kind of go back to the doctors, which I had sworn off for many years for various different reasons. And I had to do the chemo, which was one of the most difficult decisions of my life. But it ended up saving me. And I made it through all that. And then I. You know, as soon as I got back, it was like the purge happened, which was when all of our sites that we wrote for got taken down. The Free Thought Project, the Anti Media, even the Free youe Mind Conference that I was hosting at the time Time had our Facebook page taken down. So it was. That whole thing was happening, too. And then kind of coinciding with that, like, I. I feel that the purge was a part of this. It was like these kind of like nonpartisan people from outside of the political spectrum offering, you know, different kinds of solutions were getting silenced. And everybody was kind of being forced into the Democrat or Republican advocacy like buckets, you know what I mean? And if you weren't, you were just getting taken off of social media, unless you were, like a really, really extreme, like, you know, bigot or something like that, because they always seem to be able to claim free speech. But then they were used as the excuse for why we were getting taken off, which is. Was a very weird situation. So, anyway, as this was developing, I was feeling like a lot of the people in my audience were kind of falling for this and were getting sucked into this. And I was increasingly banging my head against the wall trying to, you know, trying to shake people out of this. Many of them getting funneled into the Trump thing. And that was a massive disappointment and a massive shock. And then, you know, as weird as it sounds, once January 6th happened in 2020 because of the fact that people were trying to have a revolution. Not that I think they would have succeeded or. Or that I was like, scared of politicians getting hurt or anything like that, but it was like their political project in general that bothered me and, like, how driven by cruelty it was and how many people in my audience were just kind of like, you know, trying to skate around it in different ways. And that was when I was like, damn. We used to say, like, a revolution without healing is a recipe for disaster. And I was like, really starting to realize that that healing had not happened yet, you know.

Yeah. And that's that. That phrase that you just said, it's actually have it still on some of the Conscious resistance shirts. And it comes from our book. You know, it's interesting. A couple things that come to mind. First of all, on the cancer thing, I have a couple questions, and I definitely want to talk about January 6th and that shift that we. We saw because it was in Manifesto the Free Humans, where we included on the updated version an essay about the alt right infection and libertarian movement, when the Trump movement was first originally known as the alt right, then eventually, you know, the neo reactionaries maga. But it's all kind of the same thing. And we were calling this out from beginning, seeing how many people in the libertarian movement that we had both sort of, you know, hesitantly associated with or been around and mixed with and started to see like, okay, these people seem to be loving their helicopter memes, and they seem to be loving all, you know, yeah, you know, we're going to kill the communist or whatever. Right. But before we get into that, how on. On a deeper level did you, like, you mentioned trying different therapies. And I remember this. I was there for it. You were trying Rick Simpson oil. You were trying other things. Did your experience sour you on any of those natural remedies, or do you think it just, you know, it just wasn't. It just didn't work for you because, you know, it was. The cancer was too aggressive or how did you end up feeling about those ideas afterwards?

Yeah, I have been, like, kind of grappling with this for many years because I think it isn't as black and white as I initially thought it was. So you know, I was, I think still in my late 20s, which at now to me seems quite young. And I had seen things in very militant black and white terms like, you know, big Pharma bad, anything natural good. And you know, I feel like there is a lot of value in natural medicine and natural medicine has been suppressed by Big Pharma and that is a bad thing. I still drink aloe every day because it helps my stomach. It's one of the only things through the years that I have found that helps my stomach. But I also still go to the doctor and I take what they say a little bit more seriously when it comes to whether alternative stuff can cure cancer or not. I, I'm not sure. I have seen cases where people have claimed that that has happened and I don't necessarily discount that I was not as, you know, the best with the diets, but there was also numerous different diets that are prescribed based on whether you are vegan or not vegan. There were way different advices from, from those two different camps. And then there was a lot of different cures like the so called, like SC act and apricot seeds, cannabis oil. I was taking like a cocktail of them. But, but yeah, I think it's a, it's a very nuanced situation. So it has made me more skeptical of the natural health industry because that is a real thing. You know, I mean there is the same kind of greed and corruption that exists in Big Pharma exists to a lesser degree in a lot of these supplement companies and stuff. Not saying that there isn't value in taking them, but it is a big industry with very similar incentives.

Absolutely. And I think that, you know, it's interesting and some we're going to get into how the, the scene or the, the independent media landscape has changed. One of those big things. And you talked about the purge for those who don't know what John's referring to. October 2018 purge of 500 plus Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, et cetera. That was really the beginning of things that we saw pick up during COVID and other times, which continue today. But that was a really big day where so many of us, which I, you know, I tend to refer to as the original independent media movement, at least as far as the Internet goes. Because now we have this so called independent media movement that is funded by. You talk about the, the natural health industry. There is an industry, there's companies like the Wellness Company which you start to notice a lot of these big podcast platforms are funded by not to say anything about the quality of their products. I don't know, I don't use them. But there is an industry behind many of these podcasting platforms and people like Tucker Carlson and others who are, oh, I'm independent, I left fo have become the new and so called independent media, or as David Ike calls them, the mainstream alternative media. That happened, I think, subsequent from us being deplatformed. And in my view, I kind of think that whatever you want to say, the deep state, whatever the predator class, whatever term you want to use, oligarchy, that they needed there to be less of a genuine independent media at the forefront and to have something rise to the top that could be engineered, could be steered at least. Because I am very skeptical of all these different names you could say in top 10 podcasting platforms out there. I, you know, I don't have proof they're CIA agents or something like that, but I'm definitely skeptical of all them and their agendas. And I think that was very much by design. And you mentioned. Well, first, thanks for sharing your nuanced view on the cancer thing and on natural health. I think that's definitely probably a reality that many people don't ever have to face because unless you do get cancer or some other life threatening illness, you know, you, it's easy to talk about these things like, oh yeah, look, I've got all the books and all the different remedies and I'm juicy and I'm doing this and I'm living healthy and that's what, you know, many of us strive for. But then one day when you wake up and you're facing, you know, cancer or some other thing, you might try those things for a while and hopefully they, they do work the way that they claim. But if you find yourself facing a situation like you did, where you're like, okay, this is progressing, it's getting worse and I'm not finding the results, or at least not quick enough. You know, maybe on a long enough timeline, I would see the results that they're talking about. Then you have to make some hard choices, right? And so it's easy to say, oh, screw chemo, I'd never do that. You know, I'm going to stick with apricot seeds or whatever else until you're facing it. And for those who've had success and haven't had to do that, I think that's amazing. And for those who have had similar situations to you, you know, it might offer a different, more nuanced perspective. So I appreciate you sharing that And I think that's more something we need to be willing to. To those kind of conversations are something we need to be willing to have in this alternative space. It's something I've been harping a lot on, particularly in the Trump years, because the conspiracy space, which I don't really consider myself to be a part of, if I ever did, is a mix of people, I think, and we've seen this over the years, but I think it's gotten worse, who are very loose with facts, if they use any facts at all. Of course, like, that's speculation. And asking questions is how many of us got here in the first place. If we didn't ask questions, we wouldn't be thinking in these alternative ways. But now it seems like, because the Internet is flooded with so much like, from all different directions, that you can just make up any kind of theory and post it out there on TikTok and Instagram, whatever, and it goes viral. And it doesn't matter if the documents you're referring to exist or if you misinterpreted them or if the events you're talking about didn't actually happen that way. Right. And I think that it's just a big problem. I see. And you mentioned January 6th, and, you know, I haven't done a whole lot of work on it, but I've studied it a lot behind the scenes. And it's one thing that I, that I've noticed as the. The shift towards the right, where we both know that when we were kind of getting into this and whenever I first met you, to me I saw the conspiracy culture, the awakening movement, whatever, the freedom movement, as beyond the left right paradigm. And then it seemed like because Obama was so bad in some ways, and because people started to, you know, push back against certain progressive policies, Trump and these people presented themselves as, we're the opposite of that. We're the alternative. And a lot of people just fell right into it, thinking that Trump is going to fight the deep state or whatever. And because of. Of certain, you know, COVID policies that came from largely the progressives, I noticed that people, especially new people who just woke up during COVID started to by default, oh, the awake movement or whatever is the right, where we lean to the right because the conservatives are saying all the right things. And I think that's been a huge mistake this entire time. And so because of that, this shift towards the right, I noticed that it becomes almost the default to just laugh at or make fun of anybody who thinks that January 6th was anything other than A picnic. You know, they'll say like, oh, look at these videos of a grandma peacefully walking through the building. It's like, yeah, that's true. And also look at these other videos of people beating cops. I'm not going to complain about beating up cops too much, but let's be real, right? Like, they weren't all just peaceful, non violent. So my point is there's certain, like, events like that, January 6th being one of them. The 2020 election where the truth movement, so called is the default position is, ha, ha ha. Anybody who actually believes that narrative is just falling for propaganda when the truth is more nuanced. I've watched hundreds of hours of footage of January 6th just to continue on that example, and there's definitely clear evidence that people, I think they were tricked and they fell for, you know, they fell for a trap that Trump sort of helped encourage, but they believed they were going to get into that building and do something. You know, they weren't just, you know, showing up just to go, hey, how you doing, Nancy Pelosi? If the politicians had been in there, maybe some of them would have committed violence. Maybe, you know, they. So at the very least, there were people who were tricked to believe that by falling into this. And I think there probably were agent provocateurs, of course, like, I mean, at

every kind of thing like that.

Exactly. But the point being that it wasn't just, oh, a picnic and the, you know, whatever they've tried to downplay it as. And I think that's been a big failing of the conspiracy culture freedom movement is to just now their version of the history is that nothing happened at all while the mainstream has this. It's an insurrection. And I think they kind of go too far that end the opposite is like nothing happened at all. But, you know, what are your thoughts on that and how not just with January 6th, but other events have now become sort of rewritten in the conspiracy culture freedom movement.

Yeah, that is a very good point. And I definitely want to be clear that like, my concern is not that like government officials had to run away in fear or that a couple like the cops got beat up or that property in the Capitol was destroyed. It was that there were people who had a very cruel political project who were very willing and very organized over the course of many years in militias and stuff like that to, you know, overthrow the government to implement that political project. Now, you know, overthrowing the government is not something that I necessarily have a problem with, but if people are doing it to make it more Fascist. That's, that's probably bad. And it's, it's like, I, I don't actually think that they would have accomplished that on that day, just because of the way that things were set up. Like, Trump's whole plan was, was idiotic to begin with, with like, stopping the certification or whatever. And even if they took out a couple of politicians, like, they would have went to jail and probably not would have been able to be pardoned and stuff, but it, I don't think it would have allowed them to take over the government. But my concern is like, these people are still organized, still there. Most of them are in ice now. They're all like a part of the government, you know what I mean? So that's another angle to this that I think it is a concern. So it's not like the stuff that the Democrats clutch their pearls about, about January 6th, because I do think that that stuff is, is kind of ridiculous, even though people legitimately did get hurt. And that that is, is a shame, you know what I'm saying? It's. It's like it was one of those things where I realized that, like, whatever, whatever this movement was, that, that I was adjacent to was, you know, not that I was adjacent to maga, but I was adjacent to people who were getting sucked into maga, you know.

Absolutely. And I think that was what was so, and continues to be so disheartening. I will say for the moment, it seems like there's a lot of MAGA slash former MAGA who are like, okay, we got played. There's definitely seems to be some people finally getting in. There's always going to be the Die Hards who will just kiss Trump's ass no matter what he does, and are like, yeah, he's Jesus, he's the Pope, he's the king, whatever, you know, we'll celebrate it. But I can definitely say from 2016, 2015, where it seemed like we're starting to notice, okay, some of our friends who call themselves anarchists of various types are starting to at least be soft on Trump, let's say. Or they're like, well, he's funny, he's trolling. You know, they like, they kind of just gave it that excuse. Then by 2020, it was. Some of those people were full on like, no, we have to stop Biden. And it's just, to me, it was just the same old thing that I've seen so many times over the last 16 years. I've been doing this where it was like, this side says, if, If Biden or then in 2024, if Kamala wins, it's going to be full blown communism and it's the end of the world. And on this side it's like if Trump wins, it's going to be full on fascism. And I think both a bit exaggerating. I mean, there's, I think tyranny coming from both ways, but that kind of dichotomy again of like you have to vote. Most important election of our lifetimes in 2016, 2020, 2024. And I'm sure they'll say it again in 2028. But it was really sad and continues to be sad. And, and you know, even to illustrate that point further, I was at the Libertarian party convention in 2024. Now, obviously the Libertarian Party is a political party, a piece of, but not the liberty movement or freedom movement. But they're, you know, in that you could place them under that same umbrella. But still to see the party that claims to be upholding libertarian values or something close to it, which I think has been a farce pretty much from the beginning. And Samuel Conkin called that out in the early beginning of the party, but nevertheless, the third largest party courting Donald Trump, inviting him to speak, you know, even just obviously, I don't really believe much in politics, but it's just, that's kind of unprecedented to see one political party invite the, the, the candidate, the nominee from another party to their convention and basically tell him, we will vote for you if you promise us a bunch of things. And I can say it was one of my, one of my proudest moments to be in that crowd booing that man with, you know, hundreds of other people. It was, it was, it was a shit show for sure because they had, they had invited some MAGA people that they thought were gonna like, hey, for the cameras, let's make sure it looks like these people support Trump. But all the libertarians, I will give them credit, the LP people came up, say, no, no, no, no, you're not up front and made sure all the MAGA people were stuffed in. And even within the party though, there were people like, come on guys, this is our chance. They're going to free Ross. And we get to, they're going to, he's promising a libertarian in the office and blah, blah, whatever. And there were other libertarians like myself, not a member of the party, but who are just there. We're like this, we don't want anything to do with it. We're going to turn our back to this guy. We're going to boo this guy every chance we get. And it, as far as, obviously it didn't really do anything, but as far as catharsis goes, it felt great to just be 20, 30ft away from this dude like you, you, you suck, you know, and just with a whole crowd of people, because that's not what he's at all. He's used to sycophants and, you know, yes men around him. But it was disappointing to even see that Angela McArdo and this whole LP and there's still a bunch of shadiness that I think has not been fully investigated. And, and there's probably some financial, you know, financial crimes that were committed and, and there. And I don't know if that will ever come out, but who knows? But the point being that the LP made a deal with Trump that, hey, look, we'll pretty much do everything but endorse you. We won't endorse our own candidate and we'll send as many of our people your way. That was the culmination of, I think, everything we were seeing since 2015, 2016, of the libertarians going soft on Trump and like embracing, embracing him more and more to the point that the Libertarian Party eventually just said, yeah, vote for Trump and you'll probably get more of a Libertarian country than if you vote for your own party candidate. Obviously that didn't happen and it should have been obvious to all these people from the beginning. Why would you trust a known liar? It's not like we didn't see who Trump was at that point, but, man, yeah. Your thoughts on watching all that, obviously by that point, you'd kind of step back a little bit from this particular section sector of the movement. You know, we were never involved with the lp, but obviously we knew people who were. But what was your perspective kind of watching all that during the 2024 election?

Yeah, it was, it was extremely disappointing and, and just disturbing because like, like you said, we had already seen this and so many people were coming to me with these narratives, like, no new wars. And I was telling them like he, he, he started a war with Iran the last time. He killed general. The general. And that is an act of war. They responded by bombing a base in Iraq. And you know, they were generally, they showed restraint after that, you know, and, and we were lucky for that. Obviously, now that they didn't close the straight of hermuz then and, but people did not understand that. They're like, oh, whatever, we just killed one of them. We're taking people out. And, and one of the things that was upsetting and this is one of the things that kind of bothers me about what's next after maga. And that's the American first perspective, which I think there, it's still very chauvinistic. It's still very open to America being the global hegemon which requires all of this military activity all around the world. And I feel like there is like a willingness to just take out the leader of Venezuela if we don't like him and just do all of these things around the world to try to control other, other governments. And that fits within the America first framework. And I have noticed that there are two kind of strains of MAGA regretful people. There are the MAGA regretful that are like, wow, I have been conned. This, this guy has convinced me to hate a bunch of people that have nothing to do with me. And you know, he is allowing these technocrats to control our government. And then you have the other people who are like, you know, America First, Nick Fuentes, Trump isn't deporting enough people kind of thing. So those are just kind of my thoughts based on, based on some of what you said. But that was the thing that was kind of most shocking to me is that we've already had the example that he was a warmonger, he was quite forceful and this strong man type is not going to be like a peaceful guy. And the way that they got walked into this and the, the whole podcast circuit promoting it, Joe Rogan, who, you know, is unrecognizable from 10 years ago or 15 years ago or however long it was that he was having like immortal technique and Alex Gray on his podcast and stuff.

You know, it's sad and it's interesting to see how. Well for one it revealed that so many people apparently do want a strong man and they do want American empire to continue for them. America first, which was originally promoted as, you know, bring American jobs back, end the wars, try to reduce tax. It was, it was what we would say, not a full on libertarian or anarchist perspective, but something closer to a conservative limited government, at least in theory. Right? It was. And largely, I would say they picked up the energy and carried the energy from the Tea Party movement, from the Ron Paul movement and tried to suck up as much of that as possible and just pay enough lip service. Say something about 9, 11. Oh yeah, there we, there are some questions unanswered. Mention the Federal Reserve once, once or twice, just say enough to kind of, to pull in all these end groups and we saw that in 2024 for sure, with getting the health freedom people, getting the bitcoin people, getting the free Ross people, getting the libertarians and any other crowd they could and the disaffected Democrats and all those stuff to build a, an alleged coalition. Of course, you know, I'm still skeptical of how much any of the politics is actually real up to that level, but I do think at the very least, they knew that they needed the appearance of a true coalition. And a lot of people who would call themselves politically homeless, we're like, okay, well, Trump's saying these things. He's going to undo this stuff. Epstein files, blah, blah, whatever. Again, to people like you and I, it should been obviously like, why would you trust a known liar? Why are you giving his anything he says any credit? But nevertheless, it is what it is, and this is where we are today. And so you, you had the cancer experience. You overcome that. The purge happens. This shift is going towards the right, towards maga. Is that ultimately what sort of got you to sort of switch gears? Because you never really stopped doing things. You've been working in, in crypto and blockchain companies. I know you've been doing conferences. Maybe you could speak to that. But was that part of your kind of stepping away from commenting on the political landscape? I know also that it's, it's a huge stressor on you and many of us to just, it's like, all right, do I even want to step into this space? But speak about that a little bit and then we'll talk about what you're doing today. Like, as you transitioned away from being an alternative media, independent media, and speaking on those issues to focusing on other areas, was that because of this shift we're discussing? At least in part?

100%, yeah. I mean, it, like the, the purge and stuff had a little bit to do with it because it was like, you know, where, where is my platform? My, you know, my platform is gone. But I would have continued if I felt like there was a coalition that I was a part of that, like, I shared values with. And I started to realize, like, even though I did share certain goals in this coalition, it wasn't really values based. And I think one good example of this is like, homeschooling and unschooling, which I was and am still very supportive of. But I also have a little bit of a more nuanced take to that as well, because, you know, my experience in school was horrible. It was, it was complete torture, you know, and now I understand that it was probably quite a bit worse for me because, like, I am neurodivergent. My brain works a little bit differently. It isn't very obvious, but it, it is a thing. And you know, they didn't understand that in the 90s. And I think that all of my criticisms of the public school system are accurate still. But the reason, like, what I saw through my perspective in that environment is what led me to my kind of like, you know, don't send kids to those places. And I, I shared space and, and shared a movement with a lot of people who felt that same way, but because they wanted to shelter and, and potentially abuse in certain ways their children. But by keeping them out of just a public arena or a public space where people can comment on what the hell they're doing with their kids or that they can't like, be exposed to what the real world is going to be like. And so it's like, wow, we're trying to accomplish the same thing. But I really, really don't, don't, don't agree with why you're trying to do that. And I started noticing a lot of other parallels. Like, it's like, wow, I really, you know, we're on the same mission. Like, we think that there's questions about 9 11, but you want to lock up immigrant people for no reason. So it was very challenging for me. And then I look at the other side and it's like, is there another coalition to build around? And I did not see one at the time. And so over the years I did have, I realized, like, I need to do something in my life. I need to get something together. So I did pick up some knowledge about blockchain through covering the Silk Road and covering all the stuff that we've covered over the years. So I was able to get jobs in the industry. I was able to ghostwrite for one of the biggest crypto influencers in the industry, who is Ben Armstrong, bitboy crypto, who now is not in a good way. He ended up having a very, very, I guess, loud. He burned out real fast. I guess you could say there was a bunch of drama with his, his company where they like blackmailed him over an affair he was having and they stole the company from him and stole all his money. And then he got sued by Kevin O', Leary, that, that bald creep, for $3 million. So he's, he's in a, he's in a rough space. But it was an interesting job, you know, ghost writing those books for him.

And.

But that's the other Thing is, the crypto industry has been infected by all these people too, because back in the day it was like hacker shit. It was, you know, cypherpunk. We're buying weed on the Internet with this stuff. We're trying to get around government money. And then it became like Wall street, pump my bags bullshit. And then with Trump coming in, it got even worse where it got like explicitly right wing. And, and that's how crypto is recognized in, in this country now, not in other parts of the world, but definitely in America. So that has gotten kind of weird. I just, I just left my, the company that I was working for for a couple years. Not. No, it has nothing to do with that. And it was on very good terms. It was just kind of like, contract was up kind of deal. But over the past year, I've been kind of looking at everything that's been happening. I've been in therapy a couple years to figure out some of the. Both with my eating issues and with, you know, the stressors of the paths that I've chosen, both in the music industry, which I still have some trauma around, and journalism, which, you know, you're plugged into the worst things on earth all day long. And I take a little bit of a different approach with that these days. Instead of getting the scoop on every story, I just want to follow, like, certain things that I'm individually interested in. The other thing is, is like, I absolutely still consider myself an anarchist, but I'm, I'm not very confident that, that we're going to be ready for that in our lifetime. I want to move towards that, of course, and I want to normalize that philosophy as much as possible. I feel like I may not need to meet people where they are a little bit more in that conversation. And instead of trying to lead people into an ideological, like, position, I am more concerned with, like, you know, stop being cruel, be concerned about human rights. You know, I don't care what you do politically, but just, you know, you know what I'm saying that that's kind of how I'm feeling these days.

No, I appreciate that. I appreciate all of that. And, and yeah, I, you know, obviously we've stayed in touch over the years. There's been times we've both been busy, but we've stayed in touch. And so I've, I've watched as you chose to take care of yourself, which, first of all, I think that's amazing and congratulations on whether it's through therapy or just taking time for your own self, because you mentioned Burnout with the other dude there. We've seen so many people burn out over the years, I think ourselves included. And it's because, like you said, you get pulled into this cycle and this is something I, like you were describing a moment ago, I strive not to do of like, okay, what's the trending thing this week? Hantavirus or it's this thing or what, you know, and just immediately I got to make a video about it, I got to write an article or crank it out because that's exhausting. And it's also, I don't think, deep work that anybody's going to remember a week later, let alone five years later. Right. But if you're doing work that maybe has more meaning and you're taking time to select your topics and it's something you actually care about and feel inspired by, it's going to be more fun, it's going to be more meaningful, and people will see that. And so I think that's important. So I, I also feel similar to what you were saying there about anarchism. I mean, obviously we wrote a book about anarchism and I'm going to ask you in a few moments, you know, how you. I want to reflect on that, but I will say I do still consider myself an anarchist of voluntarist. But as you just said, I don't really have. I'm also a vegan and I started a joke to people like, I have less hope of converting people to veganism than I do of anarchism. And I don't really try to convert anybody anymore to anything. I just try to lead by example. I still believe in the message that we talked about and what my website is about, this conscious resistance, because I do think there is a lot of healing that needs to take place before humanity would ever be willing to, to even consider these ideas. And I was thinking about this the other day. I mean, even on the timeline of humanity's history, the idea of liberty, of individual liberty, we're only talking about a few hundred years here, right? Obviously we talk about like the dao and stuff like that, but in terms of it being like a written philosophy and the beginning of liberalism and libertarianism, this stuff is still very like a tiny bit speck on humanity's history. So I, you know, I, I was like, maybe, maybe it's still possible that we're still evolving and we're going to get there. Is it going to happen in my lifetime? Is it going to happen next week? I'm highly doubtful. Doesn't mean I give up on those ideas or those values. But I do think that it's. It's not. You're not going to convert anybody over just by posting taxation as theft memes or just beating people over the head with like, how are you so stupid? You stay this blah, blah. I think we both knew that was never a winning strategy. And the other thing I'll say that has kind of informed some of my views these these days is that I did actually run for mayor of Houston two times. Not to become mayor, because I really had no expectation that that was even possible. But it started out as a stunt in 2019, then I did it again in 2023. And what I'll tell you about that though, is that I think running, as weird as it sounds, running for mayor turned me into a better anarchist. Because of what you were talking about, a moment about meeting people where they are right again. Like, I can have these deep philosophical books and ideas and stuff, but how is that helping this low income black or brown person in the fifth ward of Houston who is just like, trying to make it through the day? And I lived in 5th Ward of Houston when I was running for mayor because as a felon, that's the only place that I can get an apartment to rent to me. So I was living in a place surrounded by mostly poor black, brown and white people with prostitutes two blocks away. And like, I'm like, how do I reach these people? How do my ideas, as lofty, as important as I believe they are, how are they going to matter to any of these people here? How is that reaching them? And also when we were going out, we would be doing campaigning and I'd be talking to people like, hey, my name is Derek Bros. I'm an activist, not a politician. I'm running for mayor to promote these ideas. There were times when people just, I realized, like, as silly as and stupid as it sounds to me because I, these aren't my concerns. Most of their concerns on local level. And I think this is kind of by design, but also I have to take people for what they care about. They're like, who's going to fix my streets? And how come my trash isn't getting picked up on time? There was another lady came up to me one of those times and I'm trying to hand her a flyer and she's like, you're running for mayor? I'm like, yeah, yeah, my name is Derek, how can I help you? And she started crying immediately and said that her son had recently been run over by a city bus on his bicycle and that the city was refusing to help her. And she's like trying to get money together for a lawsuit and she's just bawling in tears, you know, And I, I have no solution for this, of course. I'm like, hey, anarchism, you know, right? Like, what do I have to say to this woman other than just to listen to her? And it was experiences like that that got me really understanding like so much of this movement which pretty much lives online and that these people have no idea about because they're not on these freaking spaces, they're not watching these podcasts necessarily, that so much of that movement, I'll say the American libertarian movement, voluntarist, anarcho capitalist movement, although we never consider our. That has nothing to say to these people, has nothing to say to the average person who is just struggling, trying to make it through the day. And so it really did inform my position. It's like, okay. And even as a candidate, right, I'm like, okay, well nothing I was doing was we're going to create a new government department. It was like, we're going to get rid of that, we're going to get the fluoride out of the water and take that, that money from there and plant a bunch of non GMO seeds or do permaculture trying to come up with these like, you know, creative ideas put to also promote the things I cared about. And there was people who were excited about it, but overall it just made me realize that, wow, the movements that I have been a part of and that I do believe in are doing a piss poor job of communicating to the average person. And that that criticism has been there long term that the American libertarian movement is largely made up of like middle class to upper middle class white people. I think there's some truth to that. Obviously that doesn't apply to me and I don't think it's the case. There are black people, there are brown people. So I think sometimes it's more people just talking shit, but there's some truth to that as well. And if that is the target, if that is the majority of the audience, their concerns are not going to be the same as the poor person in the fifth ward of Houston. Right. And so I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. But I mean that's. I, so I kind of, I really just, I'm with you on the same page. Like I've been reflecting on this for years of like, how do I actually reach people? How do, how the Ideas I care about, how do I make sure that that poor person in Fifth Ward feels like it means something to them?

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of, a lot of truth to a lot of that. And I found that, you know, all of these abstract ideas, like these, these philosophical ideas, they don't really connect with what people's needs are. And you know, a lot of the, a lot of the things that I think we put forward, like they don't address people's needs immediately enough and people are worried about next week's, next week's bills or next week's responsibilities or whatever stresses they have in their lives. And people do have a lot. I think that people like us who live outside of the system because, you know, we're just wired a little bit differently, we face additional challenges in some ways, but we, there are some ways where we do end up kind of not recognizing a lot of the challenges that other people have, especially people that have kids. And I, I don't have kids. I don't plan to. And I know that people who don't have a lot of money and they do have kids, which is most people, if you think about it, the, the things that they have to worry about and deal with in their lives, they're very immediate. Like you said, not necessarily maybe potholes, but you know, in a city. Mayor. Mayor circumstance, probably, but it's, it's very much around of like how, how am I paying for food and, and what's going to happen, like with my kids? Are they going to be able to be successful in their lives? Are they even going to be able to, am I going to be able to help them survive until they're. They're 18? So I think that we need to recognize that more that, that people are struggling. But that is also one of the challenges of the situation is the establishment. One of the reasons why they want people to continue to struggle is so they don't start to think long term about the society that we live in. So the other thing here that I've realized that I really wanted to mention is that people will twist philosophies in their heads in order to align with whatever their immediate needs or wants or desires are in that moment. And they will also, they will pick and choose their philosophies based on their individual, like, needs at the moment. And I've noticed this like, in a couple different ways. Like, you know, people will be at a certain stage in their lives and what you will say to them really resonates with them. And then they'll hit a different stage in their lives where they have different, different needs and their politics will change and stuff like that. Or, you know, people will get richer and their politics will change. So in that way, I think that trying to get people on board with a philosophy when their needs aren't necessarily compatible with that is like running upstream. And I think that focusing more on solutions, whatever they may be. And I don't, you know, I'm just coming back to this, trying to figure things out. I know algorithm plays a role in it, but I know that changing the systems might play some kind of role too. And I'm increasingly thinking that maybe it does. I don't know how we accomplish that, but. But yeah, that, that is really something I realized because I noticed that like, me and you, we, like, we'll, like, we'll adopt a philosophy and we'll say, is this right and wrong along with that? And like, you know, we'll look at a situation and will say, how does this line up with my view of the world? And I don't necessarily think that people do that even on a subconscious level. It usually happens more on a subconscious level. I think where people will look at a situation, they'll subconsciously recognize that they might be impacted in a certain way. So they will do certain mental gymnastics to kind of justify speaking out for whatever they think will benefit them the most. Am I speaking nonsense here? I'm trying to like, illustrate this.

No, I get, I get what you're saying. I mean, I think you said it probably most succinctly earlier when you said that people try to fit like their worldview into, like apply, twist certain things to fit their, their, their current worldview instead of adapting and updating. And obviously there's, there's a balance there. Right? Because if you have principles hold fast, those principles don't just be swayed by the whims of politicians and by the way the wind blows or whatever. But also, and this is something I think we did talk about in the book, that like, there's all these different systems, whether it's statism, capitalism, anarcho, communism, blah, blah, whatever. And they have their theories, but then they often will ignore what things play out in real life and instead say, no, no, no, that's because it's not actually capitalism. No, because it's not actual communism, whatever. And so they're trying to still, you know, fit that, make sure that no my worldview stays the same, even if it's not actually playing out. And I think that, you know, we have to be willing to dive into our own beliefs and to question them. And in fact, this is why to me, what we were trying to do, I think, with the Conscious Resistance trilogy, with here's our principles and values, here's the exploration of everything from psychedelics to meditation to anarchist history, and here's the things that we matter to us to get people to even think about that. Because I think you were hinting at this a moment ago too, that most people don't even really have well thought out principles in the first place. Because, and that's, I think, a problem, but also trying to be empathetic here. It's largely because of what you were talking about earlier. People are just worried about when the next checks coming, how they're going to feed their kids this week, can they make rent, etc, And I do think that that's by design. The system is created so that we're in the rat race and we can't even try to stop and think like, are these systems moral? Am I participating in moral systems? Is there a better way? Because if you're just trying to eat that week, you're just trying to survive. It's a lot harder to take the time to do that, you know, And I think that is of course, what the system and the people who run it fear is that people will have the free time to start questioning things and to start asking these things. But even if, then, even if you have time to listen to some podcasts while you're working your 10 hour factory job or whatever, waiting tables at three different restaurants, whatever people may be dealing with, that doesn't mean you actually have the time to do anything about it. Okay, you're getting this information, you're getting informed, and then you're still like, well, what am I supposed to do? This is, you know, this is the best I can do with the current circumstances I have. So there's, you know, there's reasons to question the whole pull yourself up by the bootstraps story. We've always, always been told. And I think there's also, for me, I think it does come back to personal responsibility too. Not to say victim blame and say, well, your circumstances are your fault. I think it's more, there's things aren't just as black and white like you said earlier, sometimes we can be victims of our own circumstances and our own mindset and our own limiting beliefs.

Absolutely.

We can create. And I've done that. I can speak from my own experience of just like creating, shooting myself in the foot, self sabotaging, then and looking around like, oh my, why is my life so horrible? It's like, well, maybe I'm doing this to myself. But then there are structural reasons and structural reasons that people are in the positions they are in. Right? So, yeah, the topic is this whole conversation, I think what I'm appreciating about this is, and hopefully the listeners are getting out of it too, is that our worldviews as anarchists, and I say that I'm an anarchist, but I know that a lot of my audience isn't. And that's the interesting thing about this, that over the years, even though I've talked and talked about anarchism and volunteerism, I don't think I've done a great job convincing people. I mean, there are people in the audience who kind of get it and are with me on there, but I think that they're probably the minority of my audience. I think the rest of the people are status to varying degrees. And I don't say that as a pejorative. I just mean they believe in politics, whether that's they tried MAGA or they're trying the Libertarian Party or the Green Party, or they just don't know what to do, but they still aren't ready to cross that bridge of like, maybe the state is the problem itself. And that's fine. I'm not saying everybody who listens to these conversations needs to be on the same page as me. In fact, I prefer that we're all just sharing new perspectives. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on, brother, because I know that from seeing you kind of come out, from working more in. In the background to deciding you're gonna. You were starting to share with me with your videos and getting ready to share them. Now you're sharing them publicly. I appreciate your journey philosophically, spiritually, politically. And I think that we've never. We've both. One of the reasons we connect is because we both knew that we didn't quite fit in with the movement we were associated with in the first place, that we had spiritual interest and psychedelic shamanic interest, and we also had anarchist interest. And we knew. Sure, Rothbard says some great things. There's this really awesome period. And the libertarians have some things right, but there's some areas where we just can't seem to jive with them and where we seem to end up on the opposite. Or maybe they take this privatization thing too far. Like, there was always areas where we were questioning and sort of, yeah, these people seem to be good right now. But there's something that isn't fully, you know, aligned with, with both our worldviews. And so it's been fascinating to me to watch your evolution, your continued journey and let's speak to that now about you deciding now to create a new YouTube channel. And you're doing kind of a very specific style of YouTube videos. I mean, you are doing more like heavily edited videos now. Tell us about that.

Yeah, so I'm doing a little bit and one more point on what you were just talking about as far as. It just struck in my head about the twisting of philosophy. I realized like when a lot of people were using the non aggression principle to justify locking immigrants in cages and stuff like that, I was like, okay, this is cooked. You know what I mean? So. But as far as the, the new channel, I was working on a book which I'm about to finish, which is about my journey through the, the world of online activism and you know, many of the things that you have witnessed. And I realized, you know, I really need to be doing more video. I should have started 10 years ago for various reasons, I did, I, I didn't, I, I'm not like the most on camera charismatic person yet. And also I was, I really, you know, this, I was never big debater, so. And, and that was what was like, really, really everybody was kind of being forced into that in the, in the 2020 realm, I feel like. And so, but yeah, now I'm working on longer, more produced videos, but I'm also streaming like most weeknights Monday through Thursday, just to kind of hang out and try to, I guess, boost the algorithm a little bit and try to reconnect with some new people. That's one of the reasons why I didn't promote it initially because I was going to try to, you know, let some algorithmic discovery happen and try to start from scratch a little bit. And then that, and that, that was kind of the soft launch, I guess I did. And then I have been slowly promoting on my old social channels. So the first video that I put out was like an hour and a half long. The editing. It was the first video I really edited. And I'm trying to teach myself this skill. And the second video I edited I was much more happy with as far as the, the editing is concerned. But the concept of the first video is the Cold War was World War Three. And it's basically a different way of looking at history where like, it makes so much more sense as World War 3 because it was a world, a war all over the world in all these different countries. And it took place right after World War II. Directly connected to World War II in the same way that World War I was connected to World War II in the sense that, you know, the lines that were drawn led to new conflicts, but we were the bad guys this time. So it was framed completely differently. And not to say that the Soviets were not, you know, were perfect. Of course they invaded Afghanistan and stuff like that. But you know, what we did with South America and just so much of it was for the purposes of colonialism with the bananas down there and the oil in the Middle east and, and the resources in Indonesia that we, you know, took out like half of their population. So that I thought was really interesting to cover. And then in the second video I did, it was about how the CIA is a drug cartel. And I've been doing some other small videos since then just to kind of get my editing skills up. And I'm just kind of experimenting with the channel now and seeing what direction it goes because it was one of those things where I was like, if I don't start today, I'm just, I'm never going to start. So I'm just going to like go live and clip some stuff from the live and try to make a video. And then the World War three video was the result of that. And the streams that I've started kind of is the result of that as well. So we'll see what direction it takes over the next year, especially since I have a little bit more time to devote to it.

That's really cool, man. Yeah, and I think that's a interesting idea of not telling anybody who knows you that you're streaming or you're doing anything and just to kind of see who finds it organically or through the algorithm more likely. But you know, who, who just pulls in because yeah, sometimes it's like if you've already got a built in audience, which over the years of you doing your work, even though you did step away from writing articles or commenting on politics, you were still. We didn't even mention this. You were also, you made a tarot deck as well. You got really into AI art and stuff. So you were still constantly posting. So you still had people tuning into your, your, your posts and things like that. And you could have easily just said, hey guys, here's my new channel, you know, plug in here. And I know you've since done that, but I really like that idea of just like, let me just. I kind of did the same thing with with starting music where I didn't want my music that I've been doing now for the last six years to kind of build off of Derrick Bros. Like, okay, I've got my own thing I built here as an independent journalist, but let me see if my music can survive on its own and if anybody will care instead of it just being like, oh, Derrick Bros. Is doing this other thing. Let me go check that out. Or Jon Vibes has now started a new YouTube channel. Let me check that out. So I think that's cool. And, and now you're, you're doing that. And you said you're streaming Monday through Thursday?

Yeah, yeah, Stream Monday through Thursday at night. I, I cover like random stuff that I want to talk about. Usually like for a long time I was doing Epstein because there was like, you know, files to look through and, and that's a good, good content for doing live. So I was covering a lot of Epstein and then I was covering a lot of Iran war and stuff like that. So, you know, that kind of similar to what we did back in the day, really. War, government corruption, surveillance.

Very cool. Cool, man. Well, I would definitely. So you're streaming. Just. Are you streaming on YouTube? Are you streaming to Twitter anywhere else or just on the YouTube?

Just YouTube. But I think I'm gonna start streaming to Twitter again too because now that I'm not like officially working for any company, like, I don't like, I'm not gonna get fired for like a, a Charlie Kirk meme or something like that. You know what I mean? So, yeah, so I'm probably going to be more active on there.

Cool. Well, I'll make sure to put your YouTube channel, Twitter, Facebook, all that stuff in there. And yeah, as we wrap up here, brother, thank you for taking the time. And I guess I mentioned earlier I wanted to just, I guess close with if there was anything that you felt like maybe your thoughts shifted or just a reflection on our book, on the three books we wrote together. That was a decade ago now. 2015, we wrote the first one, 2016. So this year, 10 years ago, the second book came out and then 2017 was the final one. And as I mentioned earlier, we re released them with some new additions in 2020, working with Discovery publisher. But yeah, do you have any. Just reflections on that? Anything that stands out that now you would say, like, I don't stand by that anymore or I mean you kind of already touched on some of the nuance, like evolution.

But anything I think like it stands up pretty well. I have it behind Me on the, on the shelf. There it is. I think we were very, very, very critical of anarcho capitalism and the libertarian movement. And I think we very early on identified the fascist influence that was coming in that is now this whole, like, you know, turning into this technocratic machine, you know, with the alliances with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, etc. So I'm very, very proud of that. Our, Our anarchy and spirituality, I think was good. I think we, we couldn't have seen what was coming with the explosion of Christian nationalism. But I feel like if we were to have written that today, I feel like that that would have been a part after we talked about, like, how the Quakers were good on slavery and how, you know, Jesus was probably a revolutionary and all that stuff. I feel like we would have given the balance of, like, this rise of Christian nationalism and the threats with that. But I really do think that it does stand the test of time and that the things that I put into there were truly in my heart and that the things that I really ended up breaking from it was more of a, A strategic thing. It was like more of my, My, My plan strategically changed and the alliances that I started to question and the, the, the movements and the idea of kind of this, this idea of a movement, because I don't feel attached to a movement anymore, and I'm not sure if I will. And that is kind of the main thing. And I, And I also think I was more confident about it happening in our lifetime in the book.

Yeah, I would, I just to add to that, I would say the same thing. I think, definitely. Which is it, like you said, it's crazy. Just it's been 10, 11 years. It doesn't seem like a long time ago. So I would have been 30, 29, 30, 28, 29, 30, when we were writing these ideas and just a few years into my awakening activism and definitely was much more optimistic and idealistic. I don't mean that in a bad term. I just mean, like, I was like, passionate and like, holy, we can do this. We just got to get enough good ideas out there and we can defeat the bad ones. And I believe that to some degree, but it definitely, you know, the world hasn't changed the way we would have hoped for. I also think that the cool thing about, you know, because I feel the same, I, I pretty much. I've revisited the book over the years and there's some areas where I feel like if I was to rewrite. If we were to rewrite it today, I would Want to go a little bit more in depth, mainly in like some of the areas where we just kind of touched on briefly on meditation or some, just different ideas that I feel like we could flesh out more fully. Even though the original idea with it was that this wasn't to be the end all, be all of these topics, but just kind of an introduction to a lot of topics for people, which I think we succeeded at. But I also think that even we were writing the book and, and at that time, 2015, 16 and 17, the free your Mind conference was going on. I started to get invited to Anarchapoco in 2017. That lasted about two years before I, you know, said screw you guys. And I had been invited to some libertarian events. But for the most part, even though we were part of some movement, I think we were always on the edges, always on the fringes and kind of doing our own thing anyways, because there wasn't really anybody else talking about spirituality and voluntourism or anarchism or revolutionary thought. They were sort of complete polar opposites. People who were anarchists or whether left wing or ancaps or whatever were like, yeah, atheism is the way to go. You know, screw religion, screw spirituality, there's nothing there. And then the spiritual types that a lot of us that me and you knew in our various communities weren't really interested in political thought. So I kind of think we were always in our own world. And the cool thing too is I've heard people say, which kind of surprised me, that book two in the series, Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion, which was originally based on your work and you had already kind of had the skeleton for it. Whenever we decided to go from one book book, because it was really just going to be one book, we decided, hey, let's, let's keep going, see where this goes. That I've heard from several people that that's their favorite book of the series, which is kind of surprising. Not that I don't think there's good stuff in there, but I felt like that's our most simple book, you know, not a bad way, but it's just very simple ideas and short essays and just kind of, you know, it's, it's. You could get through it in half an hour, an hour if you're just sitting down reading it. But I've heard from several people over the years that they felt like that was exactly what they needed at that moment, you know, which was really cool because we wanted it to be empowering and educational, informative. So I'm grateful for the work we've done together, brother, and I look forward to any future collaborations. And I'm glad you are contributing your voice again because I think you have a lot to say. And I will encourage everybody who's hearing this to check out the show notes, to follow John over on Twitter, Facebook, and check out the streams on YouTube and anything else you want to add, brother, before we end this.

No, it's just great to be on here with you. And it's just crazy how fast time flies, man. It's. It's like. It feels like not too long ago where we were just starting this, you know what I mean? And where we were just writing the first book there with that time that I visited you in Houston. And it's just crazy how much time has fast, how much the world has changed. And I'm happy to be back. Even though, like, it was good to get my life together, it was good to be away, and I feel a lot better. There was a piece of me missing, you know what I mean? You. You know, like, this is your mission in life, you know, to at least do something. And this was the only thing that I've known how to do. And here I'm back to in it again.

Awesome, brother. Thank you so much for joining me today, everybody. Check out the show notes. We've been talking with John Vibes. Be sure to watch his podcast and stay tuned for all of his future reports. Until next time, everybody. Remember, you are powerful, you are beautiful, and you are free. Peace. Since 2012, the conscious resistance Network has been an independent media organization focused on empowering individuals through education, philosophy, health, and community organizing. We work to create a world where corporate and state power do not rule over the lives of free human beings. Our motto is leading by example and helping others in their pursuit of freedom. Visit theconsciousresistance.com to find our articles, documentaries, interviews, podcasts, books, and more. Remember, you are powerful, you are beautiful, and you are free.