-(BIRD CHEEPING) -(CRICKET CHIRPING)
(WIND WHOOSHING)
If you can't appreciate the world around you
and the beauty it holds,
I feel sorry for you. You suck.
(SCHOOL BUS ENGINE WHIRRING)
(CRICKETS CHIRPING)
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
PAUL PROPERT: I left a lot behind in my travels,
and I miss many, many people...
especially my family and friends from home.
Some have told me to document the insanity of traveling
from Northeast Pennsylvania to Acapulco, Mexico.
So, here we go.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
PAUL: My adventure began
where the land was already drained
of life energy by the parasitical empire.
Forced to seek a better reality, I journey far,
searching for people worth calling my tribe.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
PAUL: This quest was never about my comfort or well-being.
I fully understand, I am the broken
and damaged- beyond-repair traveler...
sent to protect those with a fighting chance.
I'm a beast born in the violence
of a dead paradigm.
I am the obsolete tool of a world
that must give way for the new.
And I never harbored any illusion
of surviving until the end.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC CONTINUES, FADES) ♪
(WAVES CRASHING)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
JEFF BERWICK: You see people waking up every day.
You see, like, 70-year-old moms and they're like...
"I... I understand now, this is a whole fraud.
And where's all my money the government took?
And why am I standing for this national sing-along?
And why do I think cops are good?"
Like, hundreds of millions or billions of people right now
are having these conversations in their own mind.
And we'll see, it's up to them.
'Cause I can't change this whole place. (CHUCKLES)
We're gonna need some help.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
TODD SCHRAMKE: The momentum of Anarchapulco
and the local anarchist community
continued to accelerate with Jeff's hands-off approach,
allowing the movement to take on a life of its own.
JEFF: One of my main messages is that every single person,
everyone, no one excluded, can change this world.
Look at Jesus,
and I don't even know if he is real.
I don't trust anything in this world,
but if he was, look at what he did.
He was an anarchist and he said, "Fuck the government."
And he only got angry and violent
with central bankers.
Sounds familiar.
We'll see what happens. (CHUCKLES)
All right, let's go.
♪ (FAST-PACED MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
TODD: As the Anarchapulco community was growing,
so was my crew.
Joining me now was producer
and sound recordist, Kym Kylland,
who quickly became an essential part of this project.
♪ (FAST-PACED MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
(STAFF MEMBER SPEAKING SPANISH)
-Buenas tardes. -(STAFF MEMBER SPEAKING SPANISH)
NATHAN FREEMAN: I'm sorry?
STAFF MEMBER:
Oh, I'm waiting for an appointment.
Um, and while I'm waiting, we're just getting
a little footage of the hotel.
We have a conference
-here in, uh... -Oh, okay.
-...in February. -Let me ask you...
TODD: For the upcoming 2017 conference,
the Freemans were taking a new approach to expansion.
I want to help all these people figure out
how to get filthy rich.
(CHUCKLES) And I... And I... I mean that quite sincerely.
If this community manages to accumulate wealth
while being a beacon for, uh, a voluntary society
in such a beautiful location, uh, then I think
we'll be able to attract more and more people.
Wealth and comfort are something that most people do,
in fact, aspire to and therefore we should...
we should try to be able to demonstrate that.
Are you... Are you looking in the camera when you speak?
I am looking in the camera lens.
I never do! I was looking at... (CHUCKLES)
♪ (MELLOW MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
LISA FREEMAN: We moved the conference
to the biggest hotel in Acapulco.
NATHAN: So there's, I believe three pools...
uh, plus a hot tub.
And then there's a wave pool on the far side.
It's way more modern, touristy, high-end.
NATHAN: My personal favorite thing about it
is this beautiful bar. I'm very much looking forward
to filling it up with anarchists.
Unlike the hotels where we've stayed in the past,
uh, this one is open until three in the morning.
LISA: It was kind of like the decision you make
when you have a business, when you go
from a national company to an international,
it's time to start being in the big boy ring.
TODD: How would you pitch the conference to someone?
It's simple. It will change your life.
Um, every single person who's attended
has said the same thing. If you're a person
who's interested in peace and freedom,
then, uh, when you come here, you're gonna be in your tribe,
uh, more than you ever have been anywhere else.
So, this is the main stage, right?
LISA: The main conference room was huge!
Which sucked for the walkthrough,
because I was pregnant.
I remember having to walk all the time.
NATHAN: So many people that are part of the conference
are just the people I cherish
more than almost anyone else in my life,
-except for my family. -No, don't cry.
(BOTH CHUCKLE)
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
(SPEAKING IN SPANISH)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER CONTINUES)
(SPEAKING IN SPANISH)
He almost cut the fat off, and he was like, "Wait."
LILY FORESTER: We knew that we weren't going
to make very much money just trying to live in Mexico.
♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
LILY: We tried selling cannabis edibles
in the community. And then I was basically,
like, trying to pimp out all my skills,
which really my skills at that point
was that I could cook.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
LILY: Like every night we would just say,
"We're making this, come up to our house,
pay us a little money."
And that expanded because people were like,
"I hear you guys are making good food."
TODD: What kind of steaks are these?
LILY: Those are Denver strip. These are picanha.
I was impressed because they got shit done.
They got shit done,
with little... with, like, with little to nothing.
To this day, I still don't know
if I have met as resourceful a couple as John and Lily.
LILY: It was just like a process of like bringing people
into our homes, feeding them, telling them our story.
"This is who we are, this is how we got here."
And people were fascinated.
(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING)
LILY: So we got on Steemit...
and we decided we were just gonna tell our story.
TODD: Steemit is a blogging site that rewards users
in cryptocurrency for popular posts.
It's known for being resistant to censorship.
So when it launched in 2016,
it quickly became a common forum for the movement.
(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING)
LILY: We had written our first post,
which was literally just the story of the crossing...
and it made like 50 dollars.
And it was just like, "Oh, this is pretty good."
John was trying to find ways to inspire me
to post more content to attract our people to Acapulco.
♪ (SOFT MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
LILY: And Paul was one of those people.
♪ (INTENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(SCHOOL BUS ENGINE WHIRRING)
PAUL: Well, hey there.
I have no fucking idea what to write.
I guess I'll start off by introducing myself.
My name's Paul,
I'm a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan...
and I'm now an anarchist.
I consider myself a peaceful person,
but I will not hesitate to crush skulls
-to defend myself. -♪ (INTENSE MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
PAUL: After Anarchapulco 2016, I bought this beast,
and then my mind began to churn with possibilities.
Why not move into the bus?
It makes the whole thing I'm about to do
even more insane.
TODD: Paul's Steemit page had the feel of a comic book
and was filled with self-made fantasy imagery,
often based on his real life.
PAUL: Along with my battle rifle,
body armor, and a stockpile of supplies,
I devised a plan to evacuate the state...
and party my way down to the conference.
(METAL CLANKING)
-♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪ -(BIRDS CHIRPING)
TODD: So, uh, what's gonna be new this year
for the conference?
NATHAN: The biggest change is the fact that there's gonna
be a dedicated, uh, cryptocurrency lounge.
So, it'll be a full-time room that's just there
for our crypto-oriented sponsors.
The last day of the conference,
we're actually redubbing to Cryptopulco.
ZAIN ASHER: Using your credit card to buy stuff,
that is so 20th century.
Let me tell you what's in right now.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NEWSCASTER: Electronic currency.
Everyone is talking about cryptocurrencies right now.
Okay, I get it, this is complicated.
If you're worried that we're going
to get too technical, don't.
NEWSCASTER 2: Let's get some serious explanation
here from Jeff Berwick.
This is a voluntary decentralized currency,
anonymous.
It can't be shut down by anyone, there is no central servers.
And, uh, it's really catching on because people are getting
a little tired of these central banks.
Cryptocurrency is so valuable
because it is all about end-user control.
No banks, no fees, no inflation.
NEWSCASTER 3: No Visa, no PayPal, no regulators.
LARKEN ROSE: I love that there's potential
for so much undermining of centralized currencies,
it serves to disempower ruling classes
and empower the people.
♪ (HURRIED MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
TODD: The disruptive backbone of cryptocurrency
is called blockchain.
When using traditional money, government-chartered banks
keep track of all electronic transactions.
But blockchain software takes your entire financial ledger
and records it across a massive, open network of computers.
Bitcoin is an attempt to separate money and state,
kind of like,
how the separation of church and state
was a sort of pivotal change in human history.
Fundamentally, it's a limit on political will
and political power.
If enough people start using it,
we will get rid of most poverty on Earth,
all wars will end,
all big governments will go away.
We're on the cusp of it right now.
I can buy all kinds of shady things.
-Drugs. -Uh, yeah, drugs.
-NEWSCASTER 2: Guns. -Whatever you'd like.
TODD: Currently, there are
over 10,000 cryptocurrencies in the world.
But only one has risen to mainstream prominence.
How many of you have heard of Bitcoin?
Bitcoin!
We have something called the Bitcoin,
the Bitcoin, the Bitcoin...
REPORTER: We've seen evidence that the value
of Bitcoin can actually fluctuate by about
20 percent on a daily basis.
JUAN GALT: It has a fundamentally limited supply,
there can only be 21 million Bitcoin.
And so it makes it kind of a digital gold.
You have to really stretch your imagination to infer
what the intrinsic value of Bitcoin is.
I am confident that Bitcoin is the most important invention
in the entire history of the world since the internet.
People are willing to buy it because they think can sell
to somebody else at a higher price.
That's not money, that's a Ponzi scheme.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JEFF: I love the fact that anyone in the world
can trade these things. And yeah, they might lose a lot,
or they might gain a lot, you know?
I wouldn't call it gambling, but it's similar.
But you have to be smart. Just like when you play poker,
if you don't know how to play poker,
and you play with guys who know how to play poker,
you're just gonna lose.
REPORTER 2: Well, Bitcoin, today,
the cryptocurrency up 178 percent...
And it looks like Bitcoin
still has room to run this new year. This week...
LISA: The cryptocurrency world was really starting to pick up.
And I told Nathan, we need a crypto ATM.
♪ (MILD TEMPO MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
REPORTER 3: This machine is getting a lot of buzz.
The main objective?
Basically allowing people to buy Bitcoins with cash,
cash Bitcoins out right on the spot.
LISA: If we're gonna be a crypto conference,
we need to have a Bitcoin ATM here,
so people can actually practice what we're talking about.
And so I got a hold of Joby Weeks
and he's like, "I can get you an ATM."
I'm here with a longtime friend and Bitcoin fan, Joby Weeks.
Joby Weeks, seems like I see you here
every, uh, few months now.
TODD: Joby Weeks is a network marketing
entrepreneur, turned Bitcoin evangelist.
Literally, this is a machine that prints money
in the form of Bitcoin.
TODD: He'd been a regular face at the conference
since it began,
and always seemed to come through
with some of the most interesting connections
in the crypto world.
LISA: And then I created a chat,
and Paul's like, "I can get it here, no problem."
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
If you can't appreciate the world around, you suck.
TODD: Paul had been acquainted with the Freemans
for about a year. They met at the 2016 conference,
where he fell in love with the movement
and decided to rebuild his entire life around it.
LISA: The Paul crowd were the ones
hanging out late at night, drinking and partying.
But fundamentally, he had a really great heart.
(PAUL COUGHING)
He's just the person that jumps right in
to helping people.
PAUL: I cannot wait to party with y'all again.
If I don't get gunned down or kidnapped on the way...
I'll be crash-landing at the party in a few days.
-(MOUSE CLICKING) -(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING)
♪ (MILD TEMPO MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
It's been, what, almost one full year,
-or just over a year? -Just about a year.
Just about a year since you've been here. Just...
TODD: John and Lily's Steemit adventure had taken off.
They gathered over 6,000 followers,
which drew the attention of independent journalists.
JOHN GALTON: Fortunately, we, uh, became
one of the top 100 personalities within Steemit fairly early on,
like people just kind of liked our story.
People have had bigger payouts than us,
but we consistently have decent payouts,
which has kind of allowed us to make a living.
We were essentially making history,
like who else was doing what we were doing?
Not only were we, like, on the run,
but we were vocal about it. (CHUCKLES)
We were like, "Hey, look at us, we're on the run!" (CHUCKLES)
"We got charges!" (CHUCKLES) Like...
TODD: Were you worried at all,
putting your image out there in the world?
LILY: After about six months, we were kind of like,
"If it was gonna happen, it would have."
Like if they were just gonna come down and swoop us out
and take us back, it would have.
The idea of statism, you know, taxation and stuff,
like these are inherently wrong concepts,
-you know, it's not... -INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
And this is how they affect real people's lives.
And that's all we're trying to show,
is how it's affected our life.
LILY: At a certain point, we realized
that if we could come to Mexico and survive with nothing,
then anybody who was determined enough could.
-(SIREN BLARING) -LISA: And they did.
(TRAIN ENGINE RUMBLING)
♪ (MELLOW MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
That's how I dry my clothes.
TODD: Can you tell me what led to your decision
to leave the United States?
JASON HENZA: I... I started to see all the ways,
uh, I was controlled through the banking system,
and through, you know, just arbitrary laws,
like building codes and whatever.
I thought I owned this property because I had bought a house.
(GRASS MOWER ENGINE WHIRRING)
HENZA: But every time I wanted to do something,
people were like, "No, no, no, you have to go get a permit."
I'm like, "Why do I need permission?
Like, isn't it my house?"
And then-- then I started to realize it wasn't my house.
It was the village's house,
it was the county's house, who was levying taxes on me.
I just felt really trapped.
I was wanting more freedom
and wanting to be controlled less.
(MOUSE CLICKING)
HENZA: And then I found John and Lily on Steemit.
Their story inspired me.
-(MOUSE CLICKING) -(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING)
HENZA: So I obsessed about Acapulco,
just seeing it on Google Maps,
just flipping through the streets,
imagining I'd live there someday.
But my wife didn't like that at all.
She put the stipulation that I had to pay
for everything on this vacation,
and she was our only source of income.
We were just gonna show up down there
for the conference,
and just stay 30 days and then go home.
I basically traded in my life's savings
to get this done and make it happen.
-(WIND WHOOSHING) -(BIRDS SQUAWKING)
It's about 5:30 at night,
just winding down after a day of sitting in the shade...
enjoying life.
-(QUAD BIKE ENGINES REVVING) -♪ (RHYTHMIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
HENZA: When we got to Acapulco...
(INHALES DEEPLY) ...yeah, it was pretty cool.
Like, I loved it.
♪ (WHIMSICAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
HENZA: A beautiful 73 degrees out here.
I know you're all suffering back in Chicagoland.
It's... It's amazing out here. I mean...
TODD: How did your wife feel about being in Acapulco?
♪ (WHIMSICAL MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
She hated hot weather.
She hated Mexico.
And she didn't want anything to do with it, really.
But we met John and Lily,
and then we immediately jumped into the back
of that yellow truck.
♪ (WHIMSICAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
HENZA: And he is yanking us through these side streets
as hard as he can. (CHUCKLES) I loved those days,
just sitting in the back of the truck.
Eventually, I made him
make me sit in the front seat 'cause I felt like
I was gonna fly out half the time.
HENZA: All the freedom, all the shit that you get to do,
it's... it's amazing.
LILY: He was very starstruck, like,
"Oh, everything's amazing,
this is exactly what I wanted it to be!"
We drove him and his dog and his wife
all over Acapulco all day long, looking at places.
HENZA: And then we went over to his friend's house.
We called him Modprobe.
And today I'd like to tell you a little bit about blockchains.
A blockchain...
HENZA: He built this blockchain that was supposed to replace
the stock market.
He was very personal, very nice, really deep voice.
He loved to be, uh, the bass in acapella groups...
and he had, like a seven-bedroom mansion.
There's a nice pool over here, it was a really cool atmosphere
and everything like that.
I'm in this kick-ass mansion, and it's pouring out there,
looking over Acapulco Bay.
But this thing's awesome.
There's Sammy.
HENZA: He seemed very chill and everything was all good.
And he only wanted 500 bucks a month to stay
in that beautiful house. I was like, "Hell, yeah."
TODD: Did your wife warm up at all
after settling in with Modprobe?
It was a little rocky at first.
She talked about how she didn't like him.
(INHALES DEEPLY) And then after about a week or so
they-- they started talking and he was using big words,
which suddenly she's like,
"Oh, I'm talking to someone who's smart." (CHUCKLES)
You know, and like, "They can speak my language."
And then eventually, you know, they became pretty good friends
and they were really close.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING)
NARRATOR: By the 21st Century,
the statists had taken over the world.
After 9/11, the savage union of the war on terror
and the war on drugs
squelched the last flickers of freedom.
Central-banking-backed wars raged.
Violence, imprisonment and theft had become the norm.
But then, when things looked their darkest,
something happened just in time.
♪ (INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NARRATOR: The third annual Anarchapulco.
(CROWD APPLAUDS)
JEFF: Good to see you, thank you for coming.
Third annual Anarchapulco, kinda hard to believe, really.
It's actually sort of my first one,
'cause last year I had dengue fever
and I was delirious.
And then the first year, I was actually
just black-out drunk the entire conference.
(HOWLS)
DAYNA MARTIN: When you were three, when you were four,
when you were six, and it didn't seem fair.
Or when you were in school and you had to ask permission
for basic human rights,
that it was wrong. And you were all right,
-they were all wrong. -LARKEN: Fuck the troops!
They work for the one organization
that is actually a threat to the freedom
of the American people,
which is the United States fucking government!
AMANDA ROSE: People who want to control others,
people who want to rule the world
and live as a parasite class
leeching off of our productivity,
use our ideas and our beliefs against us.
(CROWD APPLAUDING)
NATHAN: We have so many great speakers
who want to come and break new ground.
Break into new ideas, break into new areas.
So, again... (CLEARS THROAT) ...fuck the government.
TODD: This was, by far, the biggest Anarchapulco yet.
Attendees were packed in for the speakers.
I started engaging in the liberty space
about three and a half years ago.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
TODD: And the parties at night seemed endless.
Over 600 people attended...
but the energy across the first few days
felt like there were thousands.
What's really going on at the very most basic level
is creation. That's what we're all doing here.
That's where this all came from.
GUSTAVO SARTORIUS: The anarchists, like,
they started to come in herds.
They show up 50 or 60 or 80 at the same time
in the restaurant and the store. And we were not used to that.
I-- That moment I noticed, thanks to the Freemans,
that it was a community here in Acapulco.
SPEAKER: We have to know what we believe in,
as well as what we want out from.
HENAZA: I felt like I wouldn't be alone.
Every idea I had,
people were like, "I get you, man."
Like my dugout in my baseball team,
you know, you just kind of have this--
this family, this camaraderie that was just so... so us.
It makes me feel like...
I can't even tell you.
It... it just, um...
(INHALES DEEPLY) It felt right. It felt right to me.
♪ ("EL NIÑO" BY WILLIE NELSON PLAYING) ♪
♪ (INTENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
TODD: Paul and the ATM finally made it to Acapulco.
LISA: I had to guide him through some of the drive,
because as you're driving alone
in Mexico for days on end, you get a little loopy.
So I had to be the mommy bear and kind of,
"No one's following you. You're just, you need to take--
You need to go to sleep." You know? (CHUCKLES)
TODD: But delays along the way caused him
to miss the first three days of the conference.
LILY: He was telling us what was going on
the whole way down. He was like, "Oh, I got in a car accident.
Oh, I got in another car accident,
and these Mexicans helped me!"
I remember meeting Paul the morning after he drove
the battle bus through hell. (CHUCKLES)
And he still was so disheveled, I remember just going...
I just wanted, like-- I just wanted him to be fed and showered, and, you know...
TODD: The battle bus broke down again immediately
after Paul's arrival.
So the ATM was loaded into John and Lily's pickup
and delivered to its final resting place.
Gustavo and Amparo's restaurant.
AMPARO MANZAREZ: I remember the first time I saw it,
and I was like, "What is this?" He was told, "I don't know."
♪ (FAST PACED MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
GUSTAVO: Nathan asked me, "Hey, Gustavo,
what do you think about it? We're gonna bring
the first Bitcoin ATM to Mexico."
"Okay. Sounds cool.
What-- But what's the purpose?
Like, who wants to go to our organic store
and exchange or pay with Bitcoin?"
"Don't worry about it, like this is just the beginning."
The day Paul brought the ATM,
he said, "Of course, I'm an ex-Army,
this was like a mission.
Of course, I was going to get it done."
He was very proud to bring the Bitcoin ATM to Acapulco.
JOBY WEEKS: We started a club called BitClub.
We basically are selling machines that print money,
that's what this is. Bitcoin-mining hardware
is a machine that prints money.
We've got a huge data center,
whatever the data center generates each day
is paid out to our investors,
and we're paying these people in Bitcoin every single day.
TODD: On its final day,
the conference transformed into Cryptopulco,
taking on an entirely different feel.
The security of crypto market has improved.
Here, we will be the first crypto currency to come out with a wallet.
I made over 120,000 dollars
in Bitcoin in this last 11 months.
TODD: The group was laser-focused,
mesmerized by the allure of a new way
to build wealth outside of the established systems.
CONFERENCE REPORTER: The last speaker was Roger Ver,
the Bitcoin Jesus.
The only way to stop Bitcoin would be to turn off
the entire internet in the entire world
and keep it turned off.
Good luck stopping that.
JOHN: The first couple of days a lot of the people
I was talking to were saying,
"Are you here for the Bitcoin conference?"
-(CHUCKLES) -And I'm like, I guess, sort of.
But I thought it was
an anarchy conference. (CHUCKLES)
What's a good investment, okay?
JOHN: I would say a lot of them are more like business types
or finance types that have only heard
about some of this stuff because of Bitcoin.
LILY: I was kind of going through
the disappointment the first year of it,
but I was like, "Oh, it's just the first year,
people don't understand it." But by the second year,
I was just like, "Okay, now, what the fuck?"
Like, most of these people are like,
"Yeah, we're anarchy and we're living the dream."
And it's like, "Y'all still pay taxes, you still bank."
JEFF: Quite amazing to see the growth of this, um...
You know, something's definitely going on,
this is interesting.
There's a lot of things changing right now.
JOHN: Something I think can be missed at this conference is,
the money isn't the wealth,
the wealth is many different forms, you know?
Capital can take all different forms,
not just economic capital.
If we lose sight of our principles,
if we lose sight of what got us here,
we're gonna end up being worse
than the people we are trying to replace.
Yeah, there's a big, uh,
"No infighting or no criticizing other anarchists" thing.
But like, criticism is how we got here, you know?
I just want to mention Nathan Freeman,
done an amazing job.
I just can't believe what a great job he's done.
-(CROWD CHEERING AND APPLAUDING) -Thank you, guys.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE CONTINUES)
LISA: After the conference...
I was very pregnant.
That only propelled me even further
to... to be more involved
in the peaceful parenting and unschooling.
-If we create a generation... -(CHILD EXCLAIMING)
-LISA: (ON VIDEO) Hi. -LISA: ...that is not exposed to violence,
bullying, spanking, manipulation,
especially around Santa Claus,
you know, the behavioral modification,
you know, "You won't get presents,
Santa won't come unless you're good,"
all another level of control.
We could create a world that starts to pull apart
this normalcy of violence and programming
that we-- some of us don't even see.
And they lived happily ever after.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
LISA: One of the things that I told Nathan
when we first met was,
I want to be the mom I never received.
What the hell are you looking at?
LISA: In the past, I had a lot of trauma around
the parental-child relationship.
My mom was not a very empathetic mother, um...
She was a narcissist. She was very toxic,
she had her own issues,
health issues, mental health issues.
And, you know, I was very bitter.
I believed, deep in my heart,
that I deserved to be loved by my mom.
The baby, she was supposed to come
right during the conference.
But she showed up, like, three weeks later.
Freedom in learning,
and respect in parenting is very, very important.
LISA: Dayna was our doula.
We bought a pool and 21 bottles of the Pur water.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
LISA: My contractions started fast, fast, fast, fast.
And within two hours, I was holding Irebel.
No doctor, no nurse, no blood, no medicine, no nothing.
Just my husband, my kids, and my best friend and doula.
And now a baby.
JEFF: Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition
of Anarchast Over Anarchy on the internet.
You can't see her, but she's right inside
that little thing. It's Irebel,
uh, which, if you say it kind of fast, "I rebel,"
uh, she was born last night
at about 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.
♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
LISA: I did not realize
how much we've been lied to in the hospital.
They make it scary,
they make it scary and they make it an emergency
-'cause then you're willing... -(BABY CRYING)
LISA: ...to listen to everything they say in the US
and buy their medical business.
And my experience here, it... it was really magical.
I'm gonna try not to cry. (CHUCKLES)
But it was extremely empowering
to know that I do have the freedom
to have my child the way I want to.
NATHAN: It is a funny thought,
that, like, the first thing they do with a baby
in a hospital is measure it,
type it, you know,
they have to encode it in every way.
It was just not a priority at all, like...
Do you plan to get
some sort of birth certificate or anything, or...
There may be some advantages
to her having a Mexico birth certificate,
particularly around property ownership...
but, right now, we have no specific plans to do it.
We're certainly not gonna get her any kind
-of US papers. -JEFF: No?
-Hell no! (CHUCKLES) -Wow.
She'll be free and clear. (CHUCKLES)
LISA: When you are born and you get a birth certificate,
you become owned by that government.
You're given the legal entitlement to be a human.
Irebel is not documented, she's not been to a doctor,
she's never been measured, she's never been compared.
She's free!
♪ (SOFT MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
So, Paul's kinda given me a good idea
to maybe start a series where I just follow him around
and just watch him freak out most of the day.
-I want my hat back! -He's really interesting, as you can see.
Give me my sweaty hat. Ew, it's so gross, man.
All right, let's talk for a little bit.
I forgot your fuckin' name already.
JUAN: Right after the conference,
Paul showed up at the Anarcastle.
It's just like a four-bedroom house with five bathrooms,
two living rooms, private pool, like two blocks from the beach.
And it cost 1,000 dollars a month.
HENZA: That was like kinda home base
for a lot of people.
Go to the Anarcastle
and then there's like an actual room or a bed
or something that you can crash on for a week
or two until you find your own place.
And it was full of anarchists.
JUAN: Paul showed up in this little...
school bus...
and he parked in front of the Anarcastle,
and he just kind of stayed there.
He was living off the truck and...
we're like...
"This guy still there? Like this guy's still parked
in front of our house? Okay."
So we stared to talk to Paul and he would talk
about how he had some PTSD
and had some action time in Afghanistan,
"And I'm here to help you guys survive the Apocalypse, right?"
Paul, right? (CHUCKLES)
We kinda, like, agreed
to let him sort of utilize the Anarcastle, right,
the kitchen, bathroom, stuff for a while.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
HENZA: Paul was doing physical training
at the Anarcastle...
trying to teach people how to hand-to-hand combat.
He wanted to start a--
"An angry hippie dojo," I think that's the way he put it.
-(MOUSE CLICKING) -♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING)
PAUL: This is the oath of a battle hippie
and should be for all to take heart.
I will be without fear in the face of my enemies.
I will defend liberty, even if imprisoned.
I will defend those who cannot defend themselves.
♪ (MUSIC INTENSIFIES) ♪
JUAN: I remember very clearly, he said to me,
"The apocalypse is coming.
When shit hits the fan, it's gonna get really bad."
TODD: Were you taking it seriously?
No, I mean...
Paul was not a general, he was a foot soldier.
-(MOUSE CLICKING) -(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING)
PAUL: Getting back to training.
I hold back the tears and swallow the pain.
I let hurt start to rage.
I know rage.
Rage is more useful than pain.
I let it take hold.
I will use it to harden my heart and my fists.
I will let it fuel me in my training...
the training I will use to fix the shitty attitude
of certain individuals.
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
GUSTAVO: When Paul put the ATM here in Acapulco,
it was not fully operational. They were expecting
some software update, something like that.
LILY: People kept going there
like, "Hey, how do we turn this thing on?"
I'm like, "We don't know, we've never set up a Bitcoin ATM,
like, we don't know how to make it work."
And they kept asking us about it.
Like people keep coming in and asking to use it,
and it's not even on.
And I finally turned it on,
and within a week, Interpol showed up.
♪ ("SILVER SPOON" BY PAUL DURANGO PLAYING) ♪
GUSTAVO: The police arrive, "Hey, this ATM is stolen."
And I'm like, "It's not stolen. Like, dude..."
LILY: They say, "We turned it on. And it said,
'Here I am, come get me.'"
You know, 'cause that's how they work.
LISA: The Federales surrounded the restaurant
and took the ATM back. And I was like,
"Are you kidding me?"
Why is there a stolen ATM at Anarchapulco?
Like that sounds cool,
but we're trying to do things,
like, on the right side of the...
You know? So that was a whole clusterfuck.
TODD: After some investigation,
I discovered that the Bitcoin ATM
had originally been at a strip club in San Diego,
where a disgruntled employee at the ATM company
took possession of it and gave it to Paul.
(WIND SWOOSHING)
HENZA: After the conference,
me and my wife, we went back to the States.
And we were there, maybe like three days
before she decided that she was gonna
ask for a divorce.
Actually not ask, yell at me for three days,
and then tell me she wants a divorce. (CHUCKLES)
♪ (MELANCHOLY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
HENZA: I decided after she left me,
I was gonna go back to Acapulco.
And before I go down there, I found out
she's moving down there, and I thought, that's weird,
she hates Acapulco.
And then she said she was moving into Modprobe's house.
The force is with you, young Skywalker,
but you are not a Jedi yet.
♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
When I left you, I was but a learner...
LILY: And then, like, two weeks after that,
Modprobe finally admitted, "Yes, she is coming to me."
In my previous video, I described our open source,
end-to-end, verifiable online voting software.
HENZA: And apparently, like that whole time
at his house, he was constantly saying,
"I'll be your boyfriend" type thing and...
(INHALES DEEPLY) And, um...
yeah, she just decided that she found somebody better.
(SMACKS LIPS) "You deliberately disobeyed me, Simba."
♪ (WHIMSICAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
LILY: And then a few weeks later,
Henza was, like, at the bottom of our driveway,
sleeping in his van with his dog.
I wake Henza up and he's like...
"What? I'm gonna break his legs! Ah!"
He would like wake up, get himself real angry
in the morning, and then he'd go take a walk with the dog.
-(BIRDS CHIRPING) -(UNICYCLE WHIRRS)
♪ (MELANCHOLY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
LILY: He had a fuckin' unicycle, instead of walking.
(UNICYCLE WHIRRING)
LILY: It was a little sad.
And then a certain time would roll around
and he'd start drinking. And then it would just be like,
Henza laying in the hammock crying.
It was a while of this, you know, just him mourning
the death of the life
he thought that he was gonna live till he died.
HENZA: This is my home.
(DOG PANTING)
HANZA: There's no sink in here, but...
it's blue, and it's my favorite color.
That's what really matters.
TODD: Henza had been dependent on his wife's income
for most of their relationship.
Now, he had to find a place to live within his new budget.
HENZA: So this is my kitchen.
TODD: Seventy-five dollars a month.
HENZA: I've got all my supplies here.
I sorta got a view.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
HENZA: My ego did take a bit of a hit
thinking about, you know, my ex-wife moving
into a mansion and dating someone
who had like a million dollars or something.
-(DOG PANTING) -HENZA: This is my storage area
that isn't covered.
HENZA: But after that,
there were less things to control me.
(DOG PANTING)
HENZA: It's really nice up here, I love it.
♪ (WHIMSICAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
TODD: Henza wasn't the only one having trouble
with his love life.
(MOUSE CLICKING)
♪ (MELANCHOLY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
TODD: At the Anarcastle, a young woman who declined
to participate in this project,
was drawing the romantic interests
of several castle residents...
(MOUSE CLICKING)
TODD: ...especially Paul.
LISA: They were both perfect for each other
'cause they were unstable
and they liked to abuse drugs and alcohol.
He fell for her pretty hard. He really, really liked her.
But, as happens in romance sometimes, you know,
like, there was like some conflict
that started there.
♪ ("ROOMS" BY DAVID O'DPWDA PLAYING) ♪
JUAN: We didn't really know what happened,
but Paul started to become very belligerent,
he started to, like, escalate conflicts
throughout the Anarcastle.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
JUAN: Eventually we kicked him out.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER CONTINUES)
-JOHN: Are we all good? -Good.
JOHN: We good to go.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
LILY: And it was Christmas Eve,
I remember 'cause we sat in fucking traffic
for three hours
to go pick him and his shit up out of the Anarcastle...
(DOG BARKING)
LILY: ...and then bring him to my house.
(DOG BARKING)
Can somebody bring me a paper towel?
Paul, are there paper towels in there?
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
LILY: Which I knew was a bad idea.
LAUNCH CONTROL COMMENTATOR: Five, four...
(EXHALES DEEPLY)
LAUNCH CONTROL COMMENTATOR: ...three, two, one, ignition,
liftoff.
(ROCKET ENGINE ROARING)
TODD: By the end of 2017,
on the same day as the SpaceX launch...
♪ (ROCK MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
TODD: ...the Acapulco Anarchist community would reach
-an all-new high. -Yes! Yes!
Boom shakalaka! Man! What an exciting day.
NEWSCASTER: Bitcoin breaking major milestone.
NEWSCASTER 2: Bitcoin surging...
-...Bitcoin surged today... -And Bitcoin surging more...
Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin.
(IN DEEP VOICE) Give me the Bitcoin, where is it?
TODD: After a slow and steady climb
through most of the year,
Bitcoin surged to over 19,000 dollars.
So much money coming in.
-An incredible run. -Sick gains!
I'm sure by the time you see this video,
it'll be even more.
If you are one of those who was lucky enough
to speculate on Bitcoin's rise and you cashed out,
bravo to you. That's a win.
TODD: How did the 2017
crypto boom affect your household?
Um. (CLEARS THROAT) Ironic, I mean, we did well financially.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
TODD: The crypto boom drew a clear line in the sand
between community members.
On one side, the overnight millionaires.
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
TODD: And on the other side, those who missed the bus.
We collect nine Bitcoins.
I asked him like, "Where is the nine Bitcoin?"
And he said, "I sold them." And I was like "No!" (CHUCKLES)
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
We had amassed, at our height, 130 Bitcoin.
All of that Bitcoin had been spent trying to live off-grid.
There was nothing left.
(CHUCKLES)
Very excited about Bitcoin, I'm wearing my tie.
So many people are jumping into this virtual currency.
It's created so much attention.
It's just gonna be very interesting to see
just how much this catches on.
It just sounds so silly, but maybe it's not.
TODD: And what about Jeff's music video?
I've never watched it, because I can't.
♪ Straight to the moon Bitcoin all the way ♪
♪ Dollar vigilante All up in your hearsay ♪
♪ Dropping crypto knowledge Making the ladies go cray-cray ♪
♪ Baby I'm old-school And you the new jack ♪
♪ I've been walking on Bitcoin Since a hell long way back ♪
♪ Track six years ago What friends of mine ♪
♪ Told me to say Some Bitcoin rhyme ♪
♪ So I bought some Bitcoin Around three bucks that day ♪
♪ Now it's 2K On its way to 10K ♪
♪ Fuck you Ben Bernanke ♪
I didn't-- I didn't-- I couldn't, like,
I've never heard the song
because I can't. John was listening to it,
and I straight up ran outside and hung out with my chickens
until it was over. I couldn't handle it.
♪ (MILD TEMPO MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JEFF: As I got into puberty, I was so shy.
Like, I could literally not go
to a store and ask for something.
I always try to do the most extreme thing possible
to get myself out of something I wanna change.
So I was just like, I'll become a rapper. (CHUCKLES)
-♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪ -(KEYBOARD CLACKING)
JEFF: So then I started the Jeff Steel Crew.
Right when I was about 14,
and I show up at school the next day
with a ghetto blaster pumping Run DMC.
And like, every kid in school was like, "What the hell,
that's that kid we always beat up and now he's like..."
I... I bought a woman's fake gold belt...
which cost ten dollars, but it looked like a gold chain.
We actually became a little bit popular in Western Canada.
I actually almost opened for MC Hammer
'cause I knew the bartender at a bar
who was also a promoter of concerts.
I was supposed to do it, but then MC Hammer canceled.
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
The growth that I saw, it was remarkable.
Initially, we came together on beliefs,
but now, we were not economic peers.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NATHAN: We moved, we had a lovely new home.
LISA: We need a bigger place,
because Irebel obviously is getting bigger,
and so are the kids.
We were really doing well, we had lots of stuff happening.
Nathan and I saw a lot of ways in which it could
make really good money.
Like I wanted to build, like businesses
around the conference, just to make sure
that the community could feel our presence.
LILY: The way we saw it,
the Freemans were the gatekeepers.
The only people that came to Anarchapulco
were the ones that they wanted
to come to Anarchapulco, and that was it.
NATHAN: Everybody on this side...
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
JOHN: Why are we having our anarchist conference
all around the world
be essentially top-run organizations
where the executive makes the decision
on who's important and how money is spent.
To us, it seems obvious that an anarchist conference
shouldn't be centralized like a pyramid scheme.
If we're gonna really put anarchy into action
and bring anarchy into the world,
the conferences that are spreading it
should kind of be at least
uh, experimental reflections of that.
LILY: Fuck this!
I did not sign up for this.
So we were like, "Let's Fork Anarchapulco."
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING)
TODD: John and Lily decided to fork Anarchapulco
into a new version, just like in cryptocurrency development.
-(MOUSE CLICKING) -HENZA: When we don't like
the way a cryptocurrency functions,
and we want to see something different,
we duplicate it and then run it off
in their own paths.
So they're one, and then they start to fork off.
LILY: How do we make an event,
but make it so we're not in control of it?
Like, let people figure that out themselves.
HENZA: The Fork was decentralization.
What they wanted to do was have people just sign up
on the calendar and start their own workshop
and advertise for their own workshop,
and the only thing they offered was a space to do it in.
Everything else is on you, and if you sell tickets
to your event, you get half the price of the tickets.
It was really cool.
-♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪ -(MOUSE CLICKING)
LILY: We were trying to do Anarchaforko to say,
"Hey, we don't like to just complain
about what we don't like.
You know, we like to just build what we'd rather see."
-♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪ -(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING)
(MOUSE CLICKING)
JEFF: I'm way up in the hills of dangerous Acapulco, Mexico,
with a couple of defectors from the US empire, the USSA,
John and Lily. You guys were even discussing,
and you just posted on Steemit recently,
that you're thinking about having like,
what you call it is Forking Anarchapulco.
Why don't you talk about
a little bit of what you have in mind?
Well, the whole structure in general will be less formal
and more organic...
LILY: We wanted Jeff involved. We wanted it to be
this big, you know, thing.
He, like, mentions the Fork in one of his videos.
It makes sense to fork that, Forking Anarchapulco.
-Fork away. -Okay.
-All right. -Uh, this is the crypto era.
I'm obviously not going to use the government
to patent laws to say "Hey! This is Anarchapulco,
you can't fork Anarchapulco." Obviously not...
LILY: And then after that,
we asked him like, "Hey, do you wanna come?
Do you wanna speak? Like, do you wanna be involved?"
And he said, "I want nothing to do with your stupid event."
And we were like, "Ah, so the Freemans
have been talking to him."
Anarchaforko. Yeah,
it sounds very like, "Go fuck yourself."
I don't know why. (LAUGHS) I'm sorry. Anarch-go-fork-you.
JEFF: It was weird, it was just weird.
They came here and they wanted to attack me,
or my thing, or my Anarchapulco. "We're gonna do another one.
We're gonna fuck your shit up." (CHUCKLES)
LILY: Everything that he was hearing
came from the Freemans, and the Freemans were like,
"They're trying to replace our conference.
They're trying to take this away from you."
TODD: What do you think their motivation was?
Knowing their personality...
you're gonna get this on camera, but to be spiteful.
♪ (INQUISITIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
LILY: The Freemans had this rule
and they had told everybody but us this, like,
"If we're having public events, don't invite John and Lily,
they're not welcome. We don't want them
anywhere near us or our family."
LISA: Uh, yes, but I don't want to talk
-about it on camera, no. -(BOTH CHUCKLE)
LILY: It was just kinda like...
(INHALES DEEPLY) ..."Okay, there's this weird cold war
that I didn't even start myself,
but I am responsible for." (CHUCKLES)
You know this isn't my good side.
-(CHUCKLES) -LISA:
-(CHUCKLES) Yeah. -LISA:
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
LILY: I thought that it was just gonna be
fuckin' weird forever with them.
And then eventually one of us would leave Acapulco
'cause we would get tired of the weirdness.
(INHALES DEEPLY) Which is what happened,
technically speaking, but it had to get really weird I guess,
for that to happen.
TODD: How weird?
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
(INHALES DEEPLY) Murder weird. (CHUCKLES)
♪ (THEME MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (THEME MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪