What is the sociable? The Sociable is a website, well,
it's a it's a news portal, news blog that I actually started
working on in 10 days or on October 30th, it'll be 10 years
that I've been running that site and it's.
That's pretty good. Started off writing about AI and
the Epic of Gilgamesh and Humanities quest for digital
digital immortality. But no, it's a it's a place
where try to track tech and how it affects society.
And so I look into what defense departments, you know,
government stuff, intelligence agencies with how they develop
some of the tech, how that gets transferred over to big tech and
vice versa. And then going into what kind of
legislation goes about. And then also a lot of stuff on
policy. So policies.
On. How tech is used and, and so
that's, that's a lot of either either from governments or from
NGOs, you know, and globalists and stuff that that's the kind
of area. How deep do you dive?
Do I do kind of medium dives because I, I put out, it's not
like a lot of Evergreen content, although there's quite, there's
some of that, but it's kind of looking at the day-to-day stuff
or week to week stuff. And so once you know, you start
reporting on those enough, then you get a bigger sense of kind
of where something is moving in what kind of direction.
And then I'll do a little bit of a deeper dive.
But it's nothing like, you know, more than I think 10 minutes of
reading time maybe is about the longest I've I've done on a
writing thing. But I try, you know?
I do direct sources and quotes and stuff and try to bring all
the receipts as well. Yeah, digital influence is
probably one of the biggest talking points actually, if you
think about it, because I mean, Technocracy, New World Order,
Build Back Better, what, The Great Reset, all of these terms
that generally mean the same thing all directly involved
technology. Yeah, because I mean, Even so
the Great Reset thing, that's kind of going back to the New
World Order thing. But as far as the tech side
goes, especially when you're talking about the Great Reset,
that's what's powering that. So when Klaus Schwab and Chucky
sausage fingers Rex when he was the Prince, King of England was
a Prince, they launched the Great Reset together in June of
2020. And so that's a great reset of
societal contracts and of the global economy, they said.
But what's powering that is Schwab's term, the 4th
industrial Revolution, which is an infusion of our digital,
biological and physical identities.
So that's what it's it's the merger of all the different
technologies, AI, virtual reality, augmented reality in
the future, quantum computing, but also biological technologies
and all that. Yeah.
I mean, that's why you end up with sort of like like biometric
recognition, facial recognition and these sorts of things.
It's the merger of of exactly those philosophical and
scientific talking points. Yeah, basically.
And it's, well, it's basically going down to transhumanism in
the in the future. It's kind of like what it's
going towards. But you know, for now, you've
got, you know, airports are pretty much, I mean, countries
all over the world are, are getting advanced in this and
pushing through this agenda, this digital ID 1 biometric one
very in a very big way. But you know, airports have
almost got locked down, you know, And so these things, it's,
you know, if you look at what these digital identity systems
are, some people say it's on a smartphone, you know, but
eventually that's not going to matter.
It's, it's you, it's your face, it's a camera, it's a, it's a
probe, it's a sensor, it's, it's whatever.
Even in in the UK, they're Advanced Research and innovation
agency, which is modelled after DARPA in the United States,
they're going after something to re engineer stuff in nature and
why. And then the who's the other the
UN in the Rockefeller Foundation using that they want to monitor
and put a digital Ida nature ID on everything in nature.
So I don't think nature has a cell phone or a mobile phone,
you know, a mobile device, but still they're going to do a
digital public infrastructure to monitor, track and take control
of all land and resources and biodiversity.
I often find myself having a bit of a personal tug of war with
these concepts because the way we often talk about them on my
show and and online and everything else is it's always
bad. It's always nefarious.
And I sometimes wonder whether that's a little bit too much
like being like a Luddite. I mean, not everything that's
technological is bad. I mean, technology is largely a
set of tools which can be used for good and for bad.
Yeah, I mean, you can use a hammer to build a house, or you
can bash someone's brains in with it.
You know, depending how you use it, Yeah, Inherently, I've also
seen these arguments as well. Some people say that, you know,
a certain type of technology that's only purpose is for bad
or to spy or to manipulate. You know, for me, it comes down
to, at least for now, the people who are controlling it or when
in charge. And it's about trust.
So yeah, I mean, digital ID, digital identity systems can be
a godsend. They can make everything easier.
And then they actually promise to do that.
And they probably will, but you know, at what cost That's the
people, you know, in charge using.
I mean, in a future where there's AI and especially mixed
with the quantum computing or whatever, then I don't know what
kind of alien entity is entering into the system there, whether
there's actually any human input.
But for now it's that, yeah, it's, I don't want to be a
Luddite either. You know, I try to, I only got a
mobile phone, what, 2 1/2 years ago.
You know, I, I'm, I'm 40 now so I just got one just a little bit
ago out of wanting to, you know, for, for banking stuff and for
like doing bills and stuff like that because it's just, you
know, living out in middle of nowhere in Columbia and on top
of mountain. It got a little more difficult
yeah, but yeah, there's luckily, I mean, you can still pay in
cash here, but it's not the greatest, you know, they still
have to go through the banking system, still got, you know,
your debit cards and what have you.
So yeah, I'm not allowed. I, I don't.
The digital ID thing, yeah, it's coming.
It's already here and a lot of people already do have it and
use it, but it's kind of like how you navigate through it
right now. You know, I'm, when I was first
reporting on it like 5, about five years ago in the Great
Reset. And like my first story on
digital ID was your digital identity could be used against
you in the events of a great Reset.
And the, the image that I had for that article was up a voodoo
doll because I thought that was very appropriate.
Because whatever you prick over here, it's going to happen to
you, you know, kind of like a quantum, like an entanglement
thing. And plus it had stuff to do with
the coming vaccine passports as well.
But yeah, the technology itself again, yeah, I'm not going to be
one of those. I used to be so gung ho and like
reject this, don't you know? But the ways when it's getting
out, it's not like you signing up for it.
You know, this could be if you do have a phone, the government
can just like have the net app downloaded onto your phone or
something or whatever tech company they they partner with
or, you know, just if you go someplace, it's like no, stop.
If you don't have a phone, well, here's here's a here's a little
paper card, maybe if they'll mail it to you with a QR code on
it, or if not that just every single while they're installing
CCCCCTV cameras everywhere. That's you.
I mean, your eye, your palm, your, your gate movement.
I think that's one that I don't, I know you would recently went
to China. I don't know if they say
anything about gate gate recognition, but that's when I
read it. That was coming out there as
well. I mean, China is very
technocratic, there's no doubt about that.
I've never seen as many cameras. I mean, mass surveillance is
huge, huge, huge, huge there. I mean, I won't get into a chat
now about China, but I will say this.
I come from the African continent.
So my default setting is, you know, no mass surveillance.
We have a very inept government right across.
Every government in Africa is pretty useless.
So we don't have very effective surveillance tools and where we
see cameras, a lot of them don't work.
And when some of them do work, there's, there's no real
enforcement. So my, as I said, my default
setting is not to have mass surveillance and I quite like
where I live as a result of that.
But, but I will say this, you do have very blatant mass
surveillance in China. It's in your face, you can't
miss it. They don't hide it, whereas in
the States and in the UK and Europe it's very subversive.
It's the Palantir type of sinister back door kind of
surveillance. And I think that that's but a
little bit more worrying. Yeah, and there's a lot of it
that's in the just, you know, terms of service, that little
fine print that you Click to agree on whatever app or
service, whatever. And you know, it's, yeah, you're
right. It kind of flies a little bit
more under the radar, like, oh, we're not doing this and we may
collect this technology about you or this data or not.
We may share this or not. You know, I was just reading the
Facebook, those articles by Ian Davis that you had on the other
day. And yeah, that's true.
And yeah, so it's, but it's creeping and people can like,
you know, it's the little, the, the frog slowly boiling, you
know, but I think people are starting to wake up to the heat
of it. And yeah, I know what you're
saying about Africa. I I spent six months in Ghana in
Accra as a as an intern reporter for the Ghanaian Chronicle
there. I mean, we had rolling blackouts
all the time. No, I mean, no water, rivers of
sewage, no cameras anywhere. I didn't see like infrastructure
just not there, you know, Internet going off and on like
crazy and you know, so basic stuff.
Not, not so much there here in Colombia, you know, I'm, I'm up
in the rural area, but if I go into a little Pueblo, there's,
there's cameras in every corner. Most people who don't really pay
attention to them and they're not really as privacy binded.
Every time you go to a store, they ask like, Hey, do you want
to share your ID with us and so we can give you better deals and
stuff. And I mean, everyone here just
kind of goes along with it. Not me, you know, for that
matter. What do you think is the hill to
die on at the moment? For me, it was the one to die on
was the vaccine passport thing, even though that is a digital
ID, but also involved getting, you know, putting something in
your body. You know, I wasn't going to do
that. That was the one to die on for
me, the hill to die on for me, this digital ID 1.
You know, like how how invasive and how just getting away from
that concept of being a thing on a smartphone, you know, that's
that's a temporary thing, you know, but it's going to again,
going through all those different kinds of sensor
systems, sensing systems. So it's, you know, avoid it as
best I can. But you know, it's really good
question because you know, the end game stuff and trying to see
the, the end picture, you know, I, I do see it as one of pillow
control, but it's, is it something that's like, oh, no,
I'm opting out. Well, if you don't, if there's
no opting out because it's already automatically built into
just whatever sees you. So I mean, yeah, I don't know,
it's a tough one. So he'll dine.
He'll dine. Was the vaccine that was putting
something in my body changing, changing something about that.
But for for right now, I'm monitoring it and navigating it
day by day, you know, and seeing what comes up.
I agree with you. I think when you have to inject
something into your body, that becomes a hell of a lot more
important than than something that's more abstract.
I mean, CBDC, digital ID, yeah, these are real things, but
they're, they're kind of more abstract if you compare them to
being injected with something. I mean, I also avoided, I mean,
I, I avoided PCR also. I don't know if you did, but I I
didn't have a single PCR test. No, I, I did because I was, when
I was traveling, I was, I was OK with the test for traveling, but
I mean, when they did ask for like tests and, or, or because I
wanted to see family and stuff. But the Colombian government at
one point, they, they turned out, they, they said, no, if
you're going to Colombia, you need to have the, the vaccine.
And then so it was 1, they did that two weeks before a
Christmas one year. And so I couldn't, so I could
leave the country and, you know, go to the United States, see
family. But I couldn't come back home to
Colombia, where I've been living for 11 years, 10 years or nine
years at that point. And so, you know, I, I missed, I
had a nephew who, who was, had seven years of leukemia and that
was his last Christmas. And he, he died just a couple
weeks after that one. So that was really tough, but I
didn't do that. But, you know, I didn't get the
shot. I didn't leave the country.
I stayed here and missed out on that.
That was a sacrifice that I, that I, that I went with.
But yeah, but for PCR, that was OK.
Didn't like it, but it wasn't as invasive, you know, as putting
some kind of tech, other kind of tech in you.
Let's just stay on that for a second.
If you could go back to 2019 before any of the stuff rolled
out, would you I'm. No, I mean, because no, this is,
I'm not, I'm not one to go back in time, you know, and, and and
and try to do that because now with the knowledge that I have
going back then, I mean, would I just go, are you asking going
back there with the knowledge I have now or just going back
there? Yeah, knowing knowing what you
knowing what you know now. No, because no, because all the
stuff that I've learned now, it was result of things that
happened. So, you know, looking at the
even before digital or vaccine passports were even considered
as something it was like in late 2020, you know, a year later
after 2019 that I already saw the writing on the wall.
I saw that digital idea was coming.
I saw these vaccine passports were coming before a vaccine
came out. So it already that kind of
foresight, you know, if you keep, if you, you know, read
the, you can forecast a bit into the future because they tell you
what's going to happen. So in 2019, you know, I guess it
would have been nice to look at event 2O1IN real time.
Maybe, maybe that's one of the things I would have done and
just right then and there to not be so slow to the narrative
because, you know, when the pandemic was declared in March
of 2020, like right on the Ides of March, it took me about 5
months or so to really kind of like, hold on a second.
This isn't like they're abusing this now two weeks to flatten
the curve, to follow the spread or whatever.
I was like, OK. And then then like, oh, this is
such a weird thing. Oh, but we're all going through
it now. Let's make the best of it.
And then, you know, after the weeks go by, I'm just like, all
right, who's who's making these decisions?
Who's pulling the strings here, you know?
And so I got really more into that.
I was really skeptical, but for the first couple months, few
months, I wasn't. I think it was Nassim Taleb who
who wrote in his one of his books about, I think it was him
who wrote about Black Swan events.
Can't remember now. Besides the fact that he got
COVID very, very wrong. I still appreciate, you know,
his work about risk analysis and 2020 was a major, major turning
point in human history, right? I mean, I don't think, I don't
think the world has been locked down at any point in history.
I think in World War 2, maybe one or two countries.
And I mean, come on, we know that it was just coincidental,
Tim. I mean, we can't be conspiracy
theorists here. It was just all coincidence.
And all the countries just did it at the same time and they
used all the same language also, you know, just coincidentally.
But I'm thinking 911 was also a massive turning point on, on so
many levels. And we still don't really know
what happened. Would would you say that the
COVID event was bigger than 911? They're both they're moving the
needle or pushing society in a certain direction.
So yeah, 911 was huge. I mean, I was 16 when that what
happened. I was still in high school when
when 911 happened. But I mean, immediately after
that, we got the Patriot Act and we got TSA, Department of
Homeland Security, like all this stuff that came in within like
weeks after. So that was already the the plan
was already in place to bring in all this stuff, all the
surveillance, but they just needed a catalyst.
Same thing with COVID, you know, just doing the same thing 20
years or 19 years later, both bad and they both they keep re
reauthorizing emergency, you know, stuff with the Patriot
Act. So it's, it's just, it's
something you keep, keep recycling and it's not going
away, you know, so and, and so which one was, I mean, they were
both huge. Nothing is I mean that we want
and they both launched the what invisible wars on an invisible
enemy, the War on Terror, you know, the war on a disease.
You know which what, what built by by the military, funded by
the US government, maybe in a lab in Wuhan, you know, like
it's it's, it's insane. Can you remember what you're
doing, by the way, on 1911? Oh, of course I was.
I was at open gym and doing basketball practice before
school started. I used to play captain of my
basketball team. Yeah, I remember I came, we came
out of open gym and I'll sweat and go into the parking lot and
my coach just yelled out they're bombing the Pentagon.
And I was like, what? Like, because my coach was
pretty crazy. Anyway, I just thought he was
saying, spouting some weird thing.
But now we were all glued to our in school and class for the next
couple of days. Nobody taught anything.
We were just glued to our the televisions every single class.
Yeah, yeah, I remember it also. I was at my, I was visiting my
girlfriend at the time and I don't know, I think we were
watching MTV or something and her brother came running in
shouting America's under attack, World War 3 is beginning.
And then we switched over. We switched over to CNN.
Those were the days when I still watched CNN, you know.
Yeah, I didn't even watch. I mean, it was on.
I mean, it was on every channel as well, you know, like I was
like wanting to watch ESPN. I was trying to watch Sports
Center and. But no, they're showing that
too. So yeah.
I mean, I feel like an idiot in hindsight because I didn't catch
on to any of this stuff. I thought.
I thought the official story was what happened for years and
years and years and years. I mean, even when it first
happened, I went out and got a little tiny American flag, put
it on the antenna of my car and was like trying to be all
patriotic and stuff like that, you know, not not knowing
anything about it. Just because, you know, I'm a
teenager with my world was high school and in sports, that was
it. When did you start getting your
sort of Damascus moments? Actually it was like around
20/11/2012 and that's when I started.
I started seeing on YouTube the stuff of Bill Cooper and David
Icke and those. Yeah.
I mean, it was like in 2012, I'm like, huh, Huh.
And then, you know, from there, I kind of, I think what happens
maybe with people who first get awakened.
I don't want to say awakened, but all of a sudden, like they
realized that one thing wasn't really true.
And then you always start listening to this one person or
another and they start digging and going down the rabbit holes.
Then you're like, nothing is true.
This is all like anything else that comes up.
No, that's because of this. That's because so I think people
kind of lose their minds for a bit.
I don't know if Candace Owens is in that realm right now where
like she just kind of starting to gradually discover like, oh,
this isn't right, Then this isn't right.
And then it goes full on meltdown and about everything.
But yeah, but but I think that's AI think that's a natural
process of like almost like a deprogramming thing where it's
like, well, if this isn't true, nothing's true.
But it's a little bit more nuanced than that.
It definitely is more nuanced than that.
I think you're right. I mean, we're talking about
complex systems. Yeah, definitely.
So. So with the 9/11 stuff, yeah, I
want us to Start learning about, well, even then in 2003 when the
US went to war with Iraq, I was like, what did that have to do
with Afghanistan and 9:11 and then looking at, you know, in
the Taliban and Al Qaeda and stuff like that.
But then it's like, well, no, the people were from Saudi
Arabia and where was, where was bin Laden allegedly found in
Pakistan? And so I'm like, and then
there's also the whole thing about Israel dancing Israelis.
So like, and then, you know, celebrating right on 9/11.
So I'm looking at Israel and then and they found their, you
know, the, the, the, the, the hijackers passports in, in a
twisted bubble, all, all, you know, good.
So these complex things, it's the more information that comes
in. And that's our thing too.
You know, we got the Internet became, you know, so there's in
social media, they came Internet got more users, you know, more,
more people online sharing information and stuff like that.
So before, you know, you say you used to watch CNN because, yeah,
I mean, there wasn't really much out there on Alta Vista or
CompuServe or AOL kind of stuff, you know, back in the day.
What do you make of AII I I'm in two minds.
I don't think it will ever take over because I don't think it
has a will or a desire. But I think it's highly advanced
algorithms that can be used for very nefarious for very
nefarious purposes. Yeah, I mean, because it can.
It's really good at, you know, handling just a shit ton of data
and processing it and trying to make some sense out of, you
know, spitting out whatever results it does.
And that can seem, you know, right now it's, it's it's, you
know, generative AI is really shit at getting, well, they do
is like go to Reddit or Wikipedia or whatever, you know,
so it's not going to get to that.
But yeah, as it keeps advancing, you know, whatever.
And, you know, people look into it like as maybe some kind of
form of government, others look at some kind of form of
religion. But the answer is as the, as the
more data gets collected and the more it processes it, it's going
to be, you know, it's beyond our comprehension.
So whatever like result it turns spits out, it could seem totally
alien to us, you know, and, and like, if we surrender our
decision making to it, that's when we got really big problems.
We do a lot anyway, you know, even just the search engine,
like we don't memorize stuff anymore.
We don't really kind of go go into physical books, which like,
if you want to know something like, oh, just look it up.
And so we've lost, you know, just like we don't really know
people's phone numbers anymore. We don't have those memorized,
you know, so we just said, oh, I got to go look it up.
But what, you know, with AI and, you know, being so reliant on
technology, then, you know, what happens if the signal stops?
You know, what happens if you're not be able to do that?
You know, our, our knowledge base now is not just, you know,
written in stone like it used to be.
It's not in these papyrus papyri in the desert where it can be
preserved. It's in the cloud, it's in
screens and stuff like that. So if you so, you know, if
there's any kind of cyber warfare that goes on or if
there's some kind of natural disaster of, you know, something
that messes with all these systems, we're going to be kind
of stupid. You know we're going to.
Yeah, Tim, if, if there are so many psyops going on and so many
distractions going on, where should we be looking?
Well, the old philosophy is look within.
No, The thing is, you got to I, so I, yeah, I look at and follow
tons of sources, you know, even the ones don't agree with or
disagree or even one that seems so fantasy fantastical that I
don't know. But The thing is getting
information from everywhere you can and then applying your own
discernment, your own judgement, your own, you know, so I
wouldn't say, you know, like follow or worship anybody.
You know, like you can have like people you look to as trusted
sources, but always question, you know, like look at, you
know, when they're saying something like do they provide
evidence? They back it up and you look at
that. And then even if they are
providing evidence and have the sources, do you come to the same
conclusion or not, You know, based on everything else that
you know about and just based on your own real life experiences.
What did Gandhi say? That you must be the the light
you wish to see in the world or the change you you must be the
change you wish to see in the world, which can be used for
good or I'll. Yeah.
So I mean, what? And for, I mean, for some
people, I mean, there are psychopaths out there, There's
narcissists and the ones who want to start within, if they
actually could, are able to start within.
But what they're going to project onto the world is
something truly horrible. But no, for, for people with the
consciousness and empathy and, and normalcy and, and, and a
decent idea of logic or even the abstract.
It's good to, to do that because in little ways, you know, I'm,
I'm a relatively small account, you know, on social media, it's
starting to grow a little bit, but there's been so many times
where I, it's like planting seeds, you know, like I'll put
out something and it like, it doesn't get any traction
forever. And then like a year later, then
someone else shares this little bit and then it goes big and
then gets shared. It gets filtered through lots of
different accounts and never goes back to me.
Well, not, not never sometimes, but in a way it's like I, I can
see that influence playing out. I can see that what my words
just, you know, like just the other day on Sky News Australia,
I saw they, they quoted from one of my articles just on air.
So it's like, oh, these little seeds, you know, if you plant
out there and this comes from within, this is like your own
doing the research and coming to your conclusions and doing it
all in good faith, and that's from within.
One of my rules of thumb when it comes to following media sources
is generally to have more faith in the media sources like the
sociable, for example, because you're a smaller outfit and what
that means is that you've got more skin in the game.
You know you've got more to lose if you get it wrong.
If CNN or Fox gets it wrong, nothing really happens.
Yeah, especially early on in the pandemic when when I was going
on about all this Great Reset stuff that that really put my,
that's really put myself out there.
I knew that, you know, I got so much.
Actually, a lot of the condemnation came from a lot of
people who are close to me, not really out there in the public
sphere, but I got that as well. So yeah, just.
And when it comes to bigger organizations, yeah, they they
even if like the whatever big news is out there, it doesn't
matter if it's true or not. Like a week later or something
like that, they make a tiny retraction, but by then it's
already spread and no one cares. But I appreciate you saying that
about sociable and yeah, because it's just, yeah, I'm not,
there's no outside influences there.
Like, like not, well, there's influences, of course, but
there's not any incentive for me to do this.
I'm doing this out of because I really, I don't.
Well, basically it comes down to I just want to be left alone.
You know, I don't want all this control.
I don't want all the surveillance.
I don't want what's coming, you know, all the stuff that's
coming. And so I want to let people know
about that and then have them come to their own conclusions.
One of the big difficulties, though, is discerning which
battles to fight, because some of these battles are really
pointless. They're not worth fighting
because you can't win them. You know, you want to fight the
battles that you can win. And I sometimes wonder whether
folks quote UN quote on our side, just stretch themselves
too thin by fighting too many battles.
Yeah, because you got to pick, pick and choose which ones are
the most important to you and and things.
So, yeah, you know, when it comes to conflicts that are far
away from me, like Ukraine, Russia, Palestine, Israel, I'm
not really vocal about them. I have my opinion, of course,
but that's not that's not my battle.
You know, other people are doing that.
Other people are getting stretched than doing that, but
that's not that's not mine. Yeah, I'm, I'm just because
again, that's coming from something within.
I just want to be left alone. I don't want this to this stuff
happening to me. I want to let the world know
what's going on here. And if you choose to pay
attention to it, that's on you if you want to or not, if you
want to pick it up, if you want to go to.
Yeah, everywhere in my stories, I put every single source so you
can go look at that, you know, like every report.
And that's another thing too. But when you talked earlier
about which, you know, Media Trust, I really, I don't read
newspapers. I haven't read newspaper.
Like it's only on occasion if something crosses and even if
then if I'm going to report on it, I'll look at whatever the
media report was and I go, OK, where are their sources in this
story? And then I go directly to that
source and then I go from there. I, so I never on face value, I'd
never trust a media publication. I'd say do the same for my own,
you know, as an outsider. But even when I read more
independent journalist stuff, you know, from time to time, you
know, there's a circle of a few that I that I pay attention to,
but I also look at their sources as well to, you know, make sure
they're not full of it and, you know, keep.
So we're all still kept in check.
Yeah. But I mean, have you found that
there is also a problem with the alternative media space?
Yeah, I don't know, because you also hear a lot about
infiltration and subversion and maybe like some aren't.
I mean, some are out there just get a buck and get the clicks,
and some are just completely not even real.
Like, you know, 2 two sources which get huge traction are in
this category are the People's Voice TV and Slay News, which
they've ripped off my stories. Yeah, Slay News is not real.
Frank Bergman, the main writer, whatever they say, that's not a
real person. They, what they do is like they
take stories and then it's a little bit of truth, you know,
you know, putting 11 truth and two lies or whatever together
and totally distort and twist information and it gets them
clicks. Like I was looking back at
something just even a couple nights ago that some big, huge
account was sharing of Oh yeah. It was about the, the World
Economic Forum publishing their blueprint for, you know,
financializing, monetizing nature and stuff.
And some other huge accounts got that and it went viral.
And I, this is one of the times I went to grok and I was like,
so why did this one get all the traction?
And, you know, I put that news out there, I put that out there
a month before. And then it's like, well, this,
this account uses sensationalist framing and this is what our
algorithms love. And so that's why it got
disseminated. So there's people out, you know,
there's sources out there that are just all in it for that to
monetize and to get big that way.
I'm not like that. I actually prefer, I like flying
under the radar. You know, I don't know if I had
a huge account if I don't know how I'd deal with all that extra
attention. But yeah.
And then other ones, bigger ones, you know, like, like Alex
Jones and stuff. Like, it's going back to what I
said earlier about, you know, whether it's the most
fantastical stuff to look at or, or mundane, you know, you know,
consume it all, but don't believe everything.
You know, It's like, because even even what Alex Jones is
saying, there's some truths in there and there's some not so.
So make up your mind. Yeah.
I mean, and on that, something that really bugs me is the sort
of doom scrolling mindset of so many people who claim to be
pushing back and fighting the system etcetera, but all they do
all day long is share sensational stories, but they
don't do anything. Have you noticed that?
Oh, yeah, I try not to fall into that category myself, you know,
as especially as someone I used to be out in the field talking
to people. You know, when I first started
out in journalism, when especially when I was in Ghana,
I'd go to all the press conferences.
I went to the former president's house, John Koufour, you know,
and with, with 20 Zongo chiefs talking about tribal land rights
and stuff. So I used to go to, you know,
out there and, and here in Colombia in my earlier days, I
was an editor at, in a reporter at Columbia Reports, which is in
English about news about Columbia.
And I, you know, I went out on the streets and where people
were marching to get hostages released from the, the FARC
guerrilla group. So I used to be out there.
So the doom scrolling stuff now, Yeah, I sit behind a computer
all the time. I'm not, you know, I'm, but I'm
not, you know, the doom scrolling.
I'm not trying to do this for attention.
Well, the attention I do want to get is not on me.
It's on the information. And again, like I said before,
even if it's just a little tiny seed, even if it's not
recognized, you know, other bigger ones.
Yeah, that's another love hate thing.
So some of the more sensational people that doom scroll and put
that out, some of that, it is information I've put out there
as well. And so it comes back, at least
it's out there that that's that's what I care about.
Just get information out there. But I mean, what do you do with
that information? I mean, isn't that the ultimate
white pull? You know, you've got all this
information. You've got to do something with
it. Yeah, so my, well, what I do is
just tell the world about it. That's a lot, you know, because
I, I figure that there are people who are a lot smarter
than me, you know, I'm because I'm not a solutions person.
My solution is, well, I work under the, the, the, you know,
the axiom or what the saying knowledge is power.
And like you said, what do you do with that knowledge?
Well, you can do whatever you want with it.
It's your power to do with it. And So what I'm doing with
knowledge is I, I, I'm talking to you and talking with you.
And I write stories and I put stuff out on the Internet
that's, you know, and when I go back and visit the States, I
mean, if I try to talk about that stuff with people here in
Colombia in Spanish, my vocabulary, vocabulary is a
little bit limited when it comes to technical stuff.
But once I start talking about people are like, OK, that's
fascinating. And then and then they're like,
OK, what's the price of avocados?
You know, so it's not like they don't really care that much
here. But so yeah, the internet's the
the forum to do it. By the way, you mentioned
Colombia a few times. How is it living there?
Oh, it's wonderful. I've been here 11 years.
It's especially great out in the countryside.
You know, I lived in Medellin, the city, the big city there for
three years. But price of the price of living
and stuff that are relatively cheap, it's about four to five
times cheaper than living in the United States.
No GMOs fresh. I mean, still after 11 years,
I'm, I'm seeing like alien fruits that I've never heard of
or tasted or tried before. So it's it's really great food.
The infrastructure is pretty darn good.
I mean, as long as you don't get too far out into the, you know,
jungle areas. We still got a lot of crime got
a lot of the government is corrupt as hell.
You still got narcos, you still got guerrilla groups.
Yeah. And actually just I woke up to
the news today that Trump cuts aid to Colombia because he said
the president Gustavo Pedro here is a is a drug dealer and stuff.
So, yeah, that's interesting. But here they only have
elections every there's only one term elections.
Now that that I've been here long enough to know that.
So 2 presidents ago, Santos won when?
Well, Santos, he had two terms, but in his second term, he
eliminated two term presidency. So the next guy, Yvonne Duque,
he had five years. And now this guy, President
Pedro, he's going to, they've got elections, I think starting
next May. So that's going to be
interesting. But no, it's a, I've, I've seen
violence, I've seen weird stuff. But overall, it's it's, it's,
it's a wonderful place to live for, for me.
It sounds exactly like South Africa.
You could be talking about my country.
Yeah. I mean, you know, yeah.
Do you, do you find them that in that sort of chaotic environment
there is a a sense of freedom that you don't get in other
countries? Yeah, I've always felt like it's
like the Wild West here a bit like it's or like even like with
the mom and paw shops everywhere.
They're more popular than the big chain stores, you know, so
it, it just feels like because of that and, and cash is like
mostly king here, even though, I mean, it's changing a bit, but
still a lot of people pay everything in cash.
You know, your neighbors that there's a big sense of community
here. And while they are installing
cameras and stuff, they're like their agencies, organizations
don't talk to each other. It's it's so hilarious because I
like even with immigration, they don't talk to the Department of
State. So one of them issues a visa,
the other one just stamps your passport, but they don't talk to
each other. And I love this.
It's not like I love how how unorganized and uncentralized
this. Yes, they have lots of data like
everywhere, but so they don't know how to connect it yet,
which is I'm so happy about, you know?
We have the same. We have the same thing.
Yeah. And I think it's a blessing.
I'll give you a quick anecdote. My wife and I were driving this
weekend. We went on a short road trip, a
few hours drive and there was a roadblock and the police pulled
us over and he said, just what can I see your driver's license?
We're just doing a routine inspection, a routine check.
We're just going to put your card into the machine here to
see if you have any outstanding fines.
And I said to my wife, Oh no, he's going to pick up on this
because I've got loads of outstanding fines.
Why? Because I don't pay my fines
because there's no, there's no system in place that can follow
up on it, right? So.
So he came back to the car and he gave me my my driver's
license. And he said, you're all good,
Sir. Have a good day.
My wife just laughed. She said.
My wife laughed. She said, OK, let's just go.
Yeah. I've got, I've got the same
thing. I drive an 88 Mazda and there's
cameras that give you tickets, which I didn't know about when I
first started driving. So I racked up a few of those
and I've been pulled over so many times.
A little checkpoints, yeah. And they just look at the
license and they don't, well, even for in my case, they don't
run it, they don't scan it. And in my case, my license was
printed out on a bad printer so that the, the thumbprint is
gone. It's, it's not even there.
Even the barcode is a little bit there that the head is twisted,
you know, it's like elongated on the photo.
But yeah, they don't talk to each other.
So like the, the ones that in every single year I have to go
in for inspection on the car, the technical, mechanical
inspection. And they don't talk to anyone
else either. So, yeah.
So every year it keeps getting renewed.
So The thing is though, I think when I have to renew my license,
my driver's license, which would be in two years, then they, I
think they ask for like, well, do you have anything, any
priors? So I don't know what's going to
happen then, you know, or I'll just go to the United States to
get an American driver's license and bring that over here.
Maybe that'll work. Who knows.
But then I have to sign up for a Real ID.
OK. But so I mean, are you a
Colombian citizen? No, no, still American.
I've been here just on different types of visas, work visa,
tourist visa, you name it. I've been, yeah, just been going
off of those. Why did you move there?
Yeah, so in, in 2011, I was living in Seattle.
I was working at a restaurant going nowhere, and I hadn't used
any of my education. I mean, I went to school for
linguistics, but I studied Spanish.
And so I, I, I was not liking where I was in life.
And so I did the digital equivalent of spending the
globe. So I just searched, I, I want to
do something with writing. So I searched writing gigs,
internships, and I was just like the world or South America or
something like that. And then there was the first
thing that popped up was unpaid internship in managing Colombia
for three months. And I was like, all right, I'll
go try that out and loved it. I was there for three months,
got cut my teeth into journalism.
The first, the first week, two days, I think 3 days into my
first time ever being journalist, my story got picked
up by Fox News, BBCCNNCB. They got picked up everywhere.
It was about Colombian soccer player who went to Saudi Arabia,
got arrested because he had Jesus tattoos on his arms
displayed. You can't do that.
So that was like my first week. I'm like, oh, OK, I can do this.
Yeah. And I fell in love with
Colombia. I went back to the IT was only
three months, went back to the States, tried to look for a job,
couldn't get 1. So in three months after that,
I, I did that again, I was like, well, I'm going to try to be an
intern. Maybe if I get some intern more
international experience, they'll be OK Did the same
search again, but for like Africa and I saw one in Ghana
for the Ghanaian Chronicle. And so I went over there.
So yeah, that that's. And then after doing that, went
back to the States, couldn't find a job again.
Worked in restaurants, worked at Applebee's as a waiter and and,
and Johnny Rockets as a waiter and a host at those restaurants.
And then I was like, no, I'm going to go to maybe I'll be a
travel writer. So I, I went to guy when we take
it to Peru, I thought I was going to be a travel writer
about, you know, going to Inca and ruins and stuff like that.
So I spent a month in Peru, didn't really do much there.
I just went and visited ruins, drank some wine and had two day
hangovers from the, from the altitude sickness.
And I was like, and then, so I, while I was three weeks there,
I, I rang up my old editor at in Columbia and I said, Hey, can I
just come stay with you and crash at your place?
Because I lived with this, this person in Meta Gene news, Dutch
anarchist, really fun, fun dude. And my intention was just to
stay in Colombia for another six months, just not doing anything
because I had enough money saved up that I was just going to hang
out. But he had The Newsroom in his,
in his apartment at the time for the Colombian 1.
And it was during election week. And I was like, oh, I got that
itch. And I was like, Oh my God, can I
come join you? And so then again, I worked for
free for another five months. And then I got from doing that a
local entrepreneur, an entrepreneur in in Colombia
who's American, offered me a space, a place working in PR and
then from PR getting into the sociable and which.
Yeah. So that's, that's, that's the
story. It's kind of long, but yeah,
it's been a lot of ups and downs and twists and.
Turns no but your your story is great in the sense also that it
shows that otherwise backward countries could actually be
great choices, particularly as we move into a more technocratic
future. There seems to be a bigger
buffer in these types of countries.
Yeah, and I was, I've said this for many years, is that for me,
Colombia was the the land of opportunity.
You know, so many people want to get out and go to the United
States, but for me, I couldn't. Every single job I was looking
for wanted three to five years of experience.
You know, I mean, I graduated university in 2007, 2008, the
whole financial, the whole economy collapsed.
And so I couldn't get anything. And so I was just so frustrated.
And I was like, well, at least for me, it, it was, I wanted
adventure. But I, you know, maybe this is
my way in so I can come back to the United States and, you know,
work for a big news outlet or something.
I ended up falling in love with it here because like those
things you said, like, yeah, the, the infrastructure, the
kind of Wild West of it, the, the organized chaos and stuff,
it just really lent it to being the place where I can thrive and
survive. And especially like right now
I'm sitting outside. I do all my writing and working,
you know, outside on this, this front balcony and, and, or this
front little porch here and I've got a view of just beautiful
Green Mountains. I'm end up in the Andes, you
know, and so it's just, it's conducive for writing.
There's, I mean, there's stuff going on here, but you know,
it's, it just I can thrive in this environment.
Well, yes, and also because you know, Colombia and South Africa
and Ghana and you know, countries that are what you'd
consider developing or third world or whatever, they tend to
have lower starting points like the, the, the baselines are
lower. So there is actually opportunity
in many, many areas where as if you go to say Shanghai,
everything is developed and I'm not entirely certain how many
opportunities there are anymore. Yeah.
And there's less competition, right?
Like not, not, not, not billion, not like somewhere like India
where there's billions of people trying to get one thing, you
know, like or a billion people. Well, yeah, I mean, you're
looking at traffic and stuff like that.
I was just looking at this example from India.
I spent a month in India as well.
That was that was interesting. And, you know, like people would
just stop their cars in the middle of the road to walk over
and get something in the street from a store and block traffic
forever because it's that competitive.
Like, no, if I don't do this here, I'm never going to get a
spot. I have to do that to be first.
It's so competitive. Imagine like big old cities are
like that as well. But if you're out in a place
where there's, you know, it's not as developed.
There's not. Yeah, there's less, there's less
competition. And so even, you know, even if I
weren't doing what I'm doing here, doing what I do, I mean,
teaching English would be something that just everywhere
everyone's looking for that, you know, there's always something.
But the big thing for me is again, to try and be in a place
where you have, I think a better prospect of not being Privy to
all the sort of New World Order stuff, you know.
I mean, I don't know if you've been to Amsterdam, but I mean,
it's a 15 minute city in in the making.
You know, it's there's no reason for you ever to own a car.
You can just ride a bicycle and there's no reason for you to go
further than 15 minutes because everything is is there.
Whereas here in South Africa, a 15 minute city is not going to
be happening anytime soon because there's no
infrastructure. Yeah, and like I said about the
the mom and pops shops and things, it's, it's like stepping
back in time in a way, you know, like to the night when my, you
know, parents would talk about, about the 1970s or 1980s.
Well, even going back, you know, in Ghana, I remember the first I
got one of these fruit juices or a soda or something and it had a
pop top, you know, like the one that you can actually snap off.
And I thought those went away like in the 1970s.
I thought like I'd never see that before or, or even there.
OK, corned beef is a weird thing.
It's, I've never seen corned beef in in Colombia, but I know
in Brazil that they do it because when I was in Ghana, I
used to get corned beef and cans from Brazil.
And it was with those little keys you twist around and like,
I thought those were from Mres from World War 2, but those are
still here. This is awesome.
Yeah. And so it's like that you could.
So it's like, yeah, you're slowed down in time here.
I mean, I do feel it's going to eventually going to come.
But maybe you bought yourself 1520 years, you know of that.
They have the means to do it. They got the back.
They got the money. They got the funding for it.
Yeah. I mean, you've got Larry Ellison
funding the Tony Blair Institute.
You got Blair and Starmer being Labour, who are all Fabians
who've got tons of money and and things like that.
Lots of influences. Yeah.
And big, yeah. Like, again, Larry Ellison,
Oracle, big and media, yeah, just tons of stuff here.
We we got it. It's it's at the airports is the
most is is the is the biggest. Where it's rolled.
Out is like I couldn't believe yeah, the bio like the biomig
check thing that they have at the airports.
They just scan like I don't use it.
I think it's more more Colombian citizens, but it is completely
they don't even talk to an agent.
They just go right through scan themselves and then they they
enter the the country, you know. So I, I imagine that's I haven't
actually looked into what's Colombia system is but I imagine
this comes from somewhere else and it's definitely not home.
I don't think it's a home grown thing.
So yeah, they they've managed to do it there because it's a small
little what do they call it sandbox to do it in.
Try doing that on the people here when yeah, there's we still
got, I mean, there's there's child labour, there's child
soldiers, there's all the again, the infrastructure is not
connected so disjointed. That's a little more tricky to
do it on a larger scale. Why do you think Tim, so many
countries, though, have bought into this?
Well, and the first, I mean, their governments are normally
you got to be psychopathic to run in government.
And if you're not, as soon as they get in there, they take you
behind a closed door and say, huh, this is how things really
happen, so better change your tune.
But a lot of them, I think, want money from elsewhere.
And it's almost like, yeah, you know, they want that funding,
you know, in the states, like, we want that federal funding, so
we got to do this or whatever. So a lot of them, you know,
they'll sign up to stuff for, for the United Nations, You know
that that's the big one. The, the pact for the future.
Every, every single country. 193 agreed that they, they were,
they consented to rolling out digital public infrastructure in
their countries, which is digital public infrastructure,
DPI civic technology stack modeled after India's Adhaar
thing. It's digital identity.
It's fast payment systems and data sharing, data exchanges
between public and private entities.
So but it's. Not just that, though.
It's not just that. It's also, as Ian Davis points
out, it's sustainable development, which is the
ultimate Oh yeah, yeah, goal. Yes, it's it's all about yeah,
the the packs of the feature, the UN, their whole mandate is
Agenda 2030, Sustainable Development Goals.
This is one way of you know, this is just one component of
it. Of course, I mean, the the other
thing too is to and sustainability and this and net
zero stuff and it's all tied back.
You go if you want to do that, you know, digital ID, carbon
credit, social credit, you know, system thing, yeah, it's all
part of it. But the but DPI sustainable.
What is sustainable? If you get rid of carbon as the
boogeyman, everything falls apart.
There is not one argument and this just this just is the most
insane thing to me. And and now you're not even
allowed to question policy. The UN has been coming out
saying that even if you question policy, anything that impedes on
our progress towards 2030 agenda Sustainable Development Goals,
you are spreading disinformation.
So, and, and then they're creating a disinformation task
force as well to go after that. And, and in the EU, Ursula von
der Leyen was saying that misinformation, disinformation
bad. And the, the, the World Economic
Forum, everyone's saying that. And again, it's it is going back
to that Agenda 2030, the Sustainable Development Goals,
and without carbon as the boogeyman, it all freaking falls
apart. Yeah.
I asked you earlier about your sort of Damascus moments, and I
think my first one was around 2009, 2010, when I watched a
documentary called The Great Global Warming Swindle.
And that was the first time I started questioning everything
that I thought I knew. And little that I know how
important that film would be because everything actually is
centered around carbon dioxide, as you just pointed out,
everything. Yep.
Well, Even so where's the story that I did?
So I read, you know, I've read the Great Reset and the great
narrative, you know, from Klaus Schwab and Terry Mallory
actually interviewed Terry Mallory once as well.
But so the idea, even when the, when the pandemic came, it was
all what they did, is they took those climate change narratives,
slapped it on to COVID, and then once the COVID control narrative
went away, they went back to the climate net zero stuff.
So what 2 quotes from the The Great Reset which were really
kind of eye opening. One was some leaders and
decision makers who were already at the forefront of the fight
against climate change may want to take advantage of the shock
inflicted by the pandemic to implement long lasting and wider
environmental changes. They will in effect make good
use of the pandemic by not just letting the crisis go to waste.
That's one of them. And then the other quote is, if
in the post pandemic era, we decide to resume our lives just
as before, by driving the same cars, by flying to the same
destinations, by eating the same things, by heating our house the
same way and so on, the COVID-19 crisis will have gone to waste
as far as climate policies are concerned.
Sure. So yeah.
That's a that's. A great question of eating.
Yeah, and so yeah, it's it's whatever it was before like
lockdowns and what climate lockdowns back you know, you
know, lockdown of all of society use consume less, eat less meat,
you'll own nothing be happy. Whoa.
That's another one that that has to do more with the circular
economy, which is coming as well.
Circular economy is where you product as a service.
So anything that is a product and now you, it becomes a
service to rent out. So you.
Actually. Oh, like Apple Music?
Yeah, it's, it's a life as a subscription.
Yeah, that's, that's what the circular economy is.
That's a big one from the WEF club of Rome is huge on that as
well. And I think in Mackenzie,
Deloitte, all of like they love their circular economy because
that's you owe nothing. But it is also sometimes quite
handy to have what is subscriptions.
I mean, for example, you don't want to keep buying an album all
the time. Sometimes you just want one or
two songs, but you want access to all of it.
You know what I mean? Yeah, but how long is that
access available? A lot of times it's what they do
is it's they're licensing. So I remember I bought on Amazon
back in like 2012, the musical Danny K Hans Christian Andersen,
Amazon. And now I go try, try to find
it, get it again. It says, no, you don't own this.
Like, no, I bought that. Well, they don't own they didn't
own the rights at one point or they lost it or something
changed or is it a policy update?
So that's how quickly those things can go away.
I would like I still at least back in my folks home in in the
United States, we've still got a collection, not VHS anymore,
unfortunately, but DVDs, tons of DVDs and and records.
I do have records. Yeah, me too.
I've got a whole bunch beyond me.
Yeah, and it's just amazing to to have those.
I mean, if the Internet goes out, something goes wrong, some
kind of terms of service doesn't work anymore.
What if a company goes belly up some or they sell it to someone
else and comes more, you know, if you can't afford the
subscription anymore, this one type of thing isn't available.
They keep raising prices or they said, Oh, no, you can't share
this with this person, your accounts, it can only be limited
here and stuff like that or in this device, even though you
might own multiple. I mean, they can change at any
moment. So no, I prefer the physical of
yeah, I I prefer analog stuff. But no, you're right about
convenience. It is oh, especially OK, I'll,
I'll do it with books with books like I got my Kindle, you know,
I can't lug around cases and cases of books everywhere I go
to you know, I'm can't bring those on a plane with me.
So yeah, that it's really convenient when it comes to
from, in my case with a book. But it's what?
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, it's what Catherine Orson Fitz often says, just
apply some discernment. You don't have to go in either
direction to the extreme. I mean, it is sometimes a lot
better to have 100 books on your Kindle, for example, than to
have 100 books in your luggage when you're flying.
Yes. Yeah, yeah, for obvious reasons,
yes. Yes, but then, but then playing
a vinyl, it's just so much nicer.
Yeah, it is, isn't it? Yeah, you don't.
Yeah, those are the things that you don't get to experience.
And well, Speaking of those things, you know, like when we
do talk about the incoming digital gulag, panopticon
control grid and stuff like that, as more and more people
sign up for it and agree to give privacy away, or if they don't
agree to it, just all of a sudden is inflicted A thrust
upon them, then, you know, future generations are never
going to know what freedom is, just like other ones are not
going to know what a vital record sounds like, you know,
and you can go back for, you know, every single century go
back, you know, all these things.
You know, we don't know what that smell is or the of the OR
the sound of the the blacksmith making that horseshoe, you know,
or, you know, doing things like that, you know, and what was
that old movie from Disney way back in the day, tall tale, the
adventures of Pecos Bill, like electric light balls.
Electric light balls are coming. How we're going to see the
stars, you know, that kind of stuff.
Let's. Talk about freedom.
What do you mean though? Talk about what?
When you talk about freedom, what do you mean?
Oh yeah. Well, just the freedom to be
without being monitored, like and kind of, and because just
because you're monitored, what you're doing is you change your
behavior if you know you're always being watched.
Then they did this. I remember this little
experiment they did I saw in the few years ago with kids like, so
the teacher, I think it was during lockdowns and the teacher
like went away for a second but kept the camera rolling, you
know, like for the virtual classroom stuff.
And then the kids started going, teacher's gone, we can do it.
And then one of them's like, well, hey, the camera's still
on, it's still recording guys, they can still see us.
And then we was like, oh, oh, OK, OK, So that, that's the kind
of thing because once, you know, you just can't go any.
That's what I love about nature. I love, I love kayaking, I love
fishing, I love hiking. I love going out in, in these
places where just no one can see you.
And you know, like you're kind of, it's that privacy thing, you
know, and some people say, well, well, if you've got nothing to
hide, well, what's the problem? You know, then I'm just and I'm
thinking like, well, why don't you just walk around naked all
day? You know, what's what's the
problem with that? You know, yeah, there's,
there's, there's limits here. All right, dude, I'm looking at
the time one more time. How can my audience follow your
work well? Thanks a lot.
Yeah, sociable.co is the website and on X it's at the Sociable.
And then for me personally at Tim Henchliff and Jeremy, Thank.
Thank you so much. Yeah, it's no, it's been an
absolute pleasure.