#E33 The Road to Becoming a Cyborg Starts with a Microchip With Jowan Österlund
About Jowan Österlund
Jowan Österlund is the founder of Microchip manufacturer Biohax, a body piercer turned biotech entrepreneur. Jowan is leading commercial biohacking in Sweden, looking to bridge the gap between humanity and machines and all the benefits that come with it. Today, Biohax's RFID microchip Implants allow users to unlock their homes and cars, and even to pay for metro trips in certain countries, but Jowan believes that this is just the start of what these microchips can do for us.
Read the HYPERSCALE transcript.
(00:42) Briar: Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Hyperscale. It's your host Briar Prestige. And today I've got Johan joining me on the show. Welcome to Hyperscale Jowan.
(01:43) Jowan: Thank you very much, Briar.
(01:47) Briar: So we first met when I was talking to you about how I'm getting a microchip in my hand, and I still haven't gotten it, but it's on the cards for December. As you know I'm very excited about it. But you are obviously the CEO and founder of Biohax. Tell us a little bit about what took you from being a body piercer into this biohacking microchip movement.
(02:14) Jowan: Well, probably most stagnation in development in the piercing industry. And when I stumbled upon biocompatible glass with NFC circuitry and we kind of had to try it because it went along the lines with what we're doing. And also, technology's always been a profound, profound interest and curiosity, I guess. So once we tried it, we got it to play along with an old Samsung. I had 1,000,001 ideas and I kind went for it.
(02:51) Briar: And how did it all start? So how did you take it from idea to fruition to actually implanting people under their skin?
(02:59) Jowan: I guess it took, less than a week to actually get the implants. And I got a good friend at Red Hat who I immediately called and asked, wouldn't this be awesome? And he was like, yeah, let's try it. So I tried it on myself first two times and then performed it on him and we got it working perfectly.
(03:25) Briar: So you use the RFID microchips, is that the one?
(03:30) Jowan: I guess everything is radio frequency identification, but there are different standards. We got the older standard 125 kilohertz and the newer NFC, which is in everything debit cards, passports, shipment tracking, whatnot which is in the megahertz frequency. So that's the latest one. Not very modern, but still.
(03:57) Briar: So you mentioned before that you started off by trying them in yourself twice. Do you still have microchips? And if so, which ones?
(04:05) Jowan: I got a few actually kind of fail in. Well try trial and error. So there's better placement and there's less good placement. The one I use the most is this one right underneath the digits. And on a daily basis I unlock my computer, I don't know, 15, 20 30 times a day. I can still go through office buildings. Can't ride the train anymore, I don't think. But other than that, I got most of them.
(04:43) Briar: So that one you spoke about how it used to get you on the train. Tell us a little bit about that period in Sweden where you live, you still live there I believe, or you, you travel in and outta Sweden and about how a lot of society ended up getting microchips in their hand to unlock the trains?
(04:59) Jowan: Well, there's a small group at least that uses it. Everything from office buildings to, gyms. The Swedish railway was a project where we tried pairing the frequent kind of frequent flyer miles only railway points basically. So you could carry your ticket on there, you could do shopping in the bistro, but that was just a trial. So I think it went on for some two years, two and a half years.
(05:35) Briar: Like what, was everyone's thoughts about it? Was it government led or?
(05:40) Jowan: No, I mean it was a private initiative. Swedish railways is privately owned and I guess they just saw good timing and it was in the buzz and the right people were in the right place at the right time. And we made it into a pretty neat collaboration. But in society as a whole, I'd say 30% are strictly and adamantly opposed. Whilst, 30% are I'd need more use for it. It needs to be more convenient before I do it, and the last 40% or I can get that, give me one without, more or less knowing what to use it for prior to doing it, which is, curiosity and the right way to go, I think. Maybe not do it before you learn what to use it for, but I like the energy at least.
(06:53) Briar: So you mentioned that yours helps you unlock things like your computer and your house and things like this. Does it also unlock like hotels? Like if you were to stay at hotels, could you put the card the key fob on, on it as well?
(07:11) Jowan: It could, depends on the procurement the hotel has for the security system or the lock system. It needs to be compatible and well, the concierge needs to know what to do, but it wouldn't be a problem.
(07:55) Briar: What would you say are the greatest risks when you're getting a microchip? Because when I've been talking to my friends and contacts and I'm very excited about mine. I would already have the freaking thing already if I wasn't making a documentary about it. But a lot of the questions that I've been getting are how safe are they? What materials are they made of? What happens if you like, I don't know, smash your hand against the wall and the glass around it breaks, or it breaks or whatever it is. What are the risks? Have you had any issues with yours?
(08:29) Jowan: so I did a lot of CrossFit and the last year I've been working a lot in the woods with arborists climbing trees with chainsaws and physically extremely strenuous work. You get hit, you get scratches, you get, but I'd never had any issue where any of the chips did not work. And I'm a fairly active person. So I mean, the resilience and the structural integrity of a glass capsule, that small, especially being Schott 8625 bioglass, the kinetic energy needed to smash it when it's, cushioned by skin and protected around, bones. If it breaks, you'd have more serious concerns. 'cause your hand would most likely be busted really bad. But when it comes to the actual making it or doing it performing it, it's an aseptic procedure. Just like when you'd get a flu shot or, if you take a, take a blood sample whatever. Strictly aseptic wouldn't be more harmful than piercing your ear. But it would heal five times as fast.
(09:48) Briar: My friend said he passed out when he got his done, but he sounded a little bit like a weak guy you might say. He sounded like he passes out over a lot of things. What are your thoughts about when you get it done? Because I saw the needle. It's quite a thick looking needle really, isn't it?
(10:07) Jowan: I mean, it's a 2.4, so it's a bit bigger than when you donate blood. But the, the procedure in itself is extremely fast and as long as there's an accurate provider is done within a second. So the preparations, you prep the skin and the septics, you dry it, you clean it, you pinch it to kind of de dose or just overwhelm your brain with unnecessary information. So if you pinch for whatever, 30 seconds, just pinch like that, the feeling slightly degrades over time. And when you pinched for whatever, 20 seconds, you do it and then it's just beep boop done. So easy to get one, easy to get rid of.
(10:30) Briar: Okay, very cool. So we’ve been talking a bit about Sweden and how they've been adopting these microchips. I remember reading a news article during Covid time about how they were using these in society. And I just thought it was so innovative. And I guess the Swedes are a little bit like that really. They're quite trusting in technology. They're trusting of the government and they're quite good at adopting these new sorts of things. You mentioned to me the last time we spoke about a microchip party. Can you tell us a little bit about the microchip party? They kind of remind me of Botox parties, really.
(11:11) Jowan: Chips and beer. It's like an after work concept. A friend of mine came up with and it's like, dude, you just came up. There are tons of people that are interested. Tons and tons of people that want to get it done. We should have it after work and can't we call it chips and beer? I was like, that sounds great, let's do it. So we used the epicentre for a couple of 'em. It's incubator and kind of start start-up hotel, if you will, in Stockholm where I've done a lot of implants and we did it. Every now and then once a month, two times a month, and it spread a bit. So we went around held keynotes and, wrapped it up with some food, implants and a beer for their nerves afterwards.
(12:18) Briar: How many people would come to these kind of parties?
(12:22) Jowan: Anything from 15 to 50.
(12:25) Briar: Very cool. Very interesting. They sound like very fun. They sound very different from chips and beers. I'm sure you probably had the odd person coming around expecting a different kind of chip. When I think of chip I think of like a, yeah, a hot chip. But it not quite.
(12:44) Jowan: No, not quite, not as hot and not as tasty, I guess, but--
(12:48) Briar: Yeah, a little bit more painful. In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges or obstacles? Say we want to start bringing these microchips into society and we want a majority of society using these microchips. You spoke a bit before about how some people in society are curious, they're keen to try them out. For other people it is like, absolutely not. I would not want that inside my body. What can we do so that people start adopting them? Or I also think a question that's a bit more associated with this, where do we think the future of microchips is going?
(13:26) Jowan: When you think of the biggest hurdles, the biggest hurdles for me personally is that there's no rigorous and robust legislation and regulation or policy framework around how we manage data, people's data and digital identity and the derivatives of that, which is data interaction, transaction, et cetera. So the biggest hurdle, I guess is me not wanting to develop further unless there is, an outspoken policy framework. In of above all, what I'd like to see is the UN declaring sovereign digital identity is a basic human right, because if you own your data, someone's going to have to ask you to trade the data or buy the data, and that would take care of a vast array of problems in the world, actually, you'd think that the, the Facebook or meta crash tanking $400 billion overnight when, when Apple CEO declared, we're going to prompt the question if you want to allow apps to track you across platform, the same night they started prompting it, meta tanked, $400 billion.
And I mean, that should foster some kind of understanding around the value of data and the value it would provide you as the producer. But we're not there as of yet. And in my experience, legislation regulation around that sort thing takes time unless the people making money are heavily incentivized. So that's the kind of that-- that's a tough one. And, but other than that, I'd say the plethora of different regulation and legislation when it comes to actually handling a needle, using a needle penetrating skin. And that's not a huge biggie. It's just adapt to whatever national legislation you're working in.
(15:45) Briar: Whose responsibility do you think it is to help drive legislations around data? Like, do we leave this to the government? Do we leave it to big corporations? Is it start-ups? Like how can we get people to take more responsibility when it comes to technology and using tech for good? Because I've spoken a lot about artificial intelligence and how almost surprising it is that governments aren't creating a little bit of a roadmap and getting a bit more involved in things like this. Like it's literally like their solution was to hold a little gathering where they only invited like the big people who are very actively involved in AI. Like they don't have philosophers, they don't have scientists, like it's not a diverse community that they're pulling together. But other than that, they just sit pretty much silent on a lot of things to do with technology. And I find it very, very surprising. They're very vocal on what's going to get them seats in the next presidential election, but when it comes to tech, they are zip.
(16:52) Jowan: Well, hasn't it been like that since 1850s Industrialization basically? An extremely homogenous group of people take decisions that are, in their best interests. Democratization of technology is kind of the biggest threat against the top grossing corporations and syndicates in the world. And I mean, I can understand being devil's advocate a bit. Okay, if you have a lot, you want to keep a lot and you don't want to give it away. But it's just open source, it really, if you make some, if something great f**king share it. You make some money, you get some royalties, whatnot get credit back and then open source it so people can develop on top of it and sideways diagonally. The only, the only reason a lot of technology is monopolized rather than democratized is the bar is so high to get in. But now, I mean, you can get more or less any type of technology fairly cheap, even if it's not the utmost cutting edge tech, you can still get it and tweak it, hack it, and make it perform stuff it wasn't supposed to, and, find new areas of use.
(18:21) Briar: So for people listening to, to this podcast and not perhaps understanding much about RFID microchips and you speaking a bit about data now, is there any data that people like the government could get from you, from your microchip?
(18:39) Jowan: No, I mean, so there's the internet of you and the internet of us internet of us being interacting and transacting with commercial entities riding the bus. I mean, you always leave a digital footprint, whatever you do. If you use a key fob, if you use a credit card, if you send a text message, any infrastructure that you don't control and own, you're always going to leave a digital footprint which is in everything. And that's, how you get a psychometric profile. The difference with the internet of me or internet of you is it's your controlled and confined area or connected area. Your laptop, the door to your entrance your gym card, whatnot. So there's nothing going out that you don't decide is going to go out of your personal sphere. Make sense? So no one's going to, no one knows when I log into my computer, no one knows when I open up a front door because it's not connected it's electric, it's digital, but it doesn't transmit anything.
Much like the microchip, it's a passive microchip. It doesn't have any power source and the size of the tiny antenna that's in there, and the fact it's embedded in alkaline and saline environment does not allow it to transmit more than maximum, a centimetre. And it needs an external power source to power it. So either you use your phone or you use the, the power of the batteries in the door that activates it. Handshakes lets you in the login, single sign on my computer uses the power socket or the power from the USB, the power of the reader that powers the chip.
(20:37) Briar: Thank you for explaining that. No, it makes complete sense. I just, I knew this was a question that I get asked all the time from friends and curious contacts and things like this when they're hearing of a microchip that goes in my hand. One of the first things I get is, okay, what does it do? And then the second question I get is, oh, what are the risks? What happens if it breaks? We’re concerned about you. Are you sure this is something that you want to be doing? So I think people are very curious about them and, it really helped to hear you explain,
(21:08) Jowan: I don't blame 'em for their first kind of opinion being slightly 1984 dystopian and or velian dystopia. I mean, look at pop culture, the only type implants you ever see in Hollywood or anywhere else is more or less packed with explosives or an alien life form. Keeping tabs on anything you do tracking you. C-A-A-N-D-A, it is always an evil force in the background controlling the chip or, detonating it. it is kind of creepy when you think of it, if you add the 1984 layer to it, but it's it leaves less of a footprint than a visa card and only the digital footprints you want or no footprints at all. When you control the entire network or network of your stuff in the local area network, you're never going to leave a trace.
(22:22) Briar: I think like all technology, it's neutral really at the end of the day. And it's always how people use it, and there are always the good guys out there, and there are always the bad guys unfortunately as well. So I think it's important that we are asking all these questions and we are thinking ahead of the future so that the future is built with all of us in mind. And without these sorts of negative dystopian things that we all think about sometimes. When we're thinking in the future about how we might augment our meat sacks, so to speak. This is my word for the human body with technology. How do you picture the future?
(23:04) Jowan: Better and easier? Well, well, when it comes to technology being integrated in the body, I see that, the biggest use for tech going in is it can act like an early warning system. It can provide you with a, bio-data stream that you didn't know you needed. And, get key insights into what you need, what you don't need. If you want to get to a certain point of physique or improve, it could provide with anything you want. Like, I'm going to get tested for HCM gene and see if I need to smack an ICD shocker. And I mean, that's a free life insurance. If my heart stops, it's going to pop me back and I'll be alive and kicking. That type of technology obviously been implemented since the sixties is in everyday life. Widely accepted obviously.
I think the things we get or the things we start getting proactively will get there as well. I mean, if I were to get an ICD or now, it would set me back a lot and people would ask me, why would you get that? Well, if my heart stops, it's going to shock me, shock me back. Simple free life insurance, it'll definitely get smaller, more effective and have a wider use. Anything from, convenience to keeping tabs on your diabetes arrhythmic episodes, early warning systems on dehydration or low oxygen saturation for elderly, a geofence an area and if someone walks across a line, it'll alert your spouse or next in kin as well as carry and, authorizing migration of medical data, keeping tab on allergies and what type of medicine you're on. And it was save tons of lives, tons of time and heaps of insurance money that hopefully make us a bit happier. Cut some stress away.
(25:53) Briar: I think it's very interesting all the points you bring up. And I think we are starting to see people adopt data and technology in order to improve their health span. A bit more, obviously with Apple watches or whoop watches are quite popular. A lot of people measuring their sleep quality and these sorts of things. And I think we will start to see these come into our body. Like at the moment there are wearables, but I think they will start to become like a little health microchip as you spoke about and things. And I certainly am very excited to see, hopefully society move away from being a sick care system into this healthcare system that you've just described, where we're a bit more proactive with our health. So hopefully it doesn't reach the point where we even get sick, whereas at the moment it feels a bit backwards. We wait to get sick and then we try and fix ourselves.
(26:52) Jowan: Remove the symptoms instead of the root. You don't make any money by curing people, I guess. Be a better society for sure. But I mean, there's definitely going to be a few obstacles with managing lobbies of other sectors and because really microchip implants would intersect a lot of existing sectors improving and optimizing a lot, but also then cutting away the need for theatrics.
(27:42) Briar: What other things could you think of microchips being used for? So payments, I think payments are coming in very soon, isn't it? Or it has come in isn't micro.
(27:54) Jowan: There have been pilots. They’re quite limited and the hardware needed for those concepts have been slightly bigger than ideal, I'd say. But I mean, it all comes down to who you can make a deal with. If you have a big bank, they provision tokens, those tokens are accepted by Visa, MasterCard, American Express and whatnot, then there's a completely different ballgame. They can bash it out with 250 million retailers, easy. But payment has definitely always been kind of top of the top of the questionnaire. When, can I pay with this? Like, will I be able to pay with this? Like, well, I can pay for the bus or the train or, you know a protein bar at the gym. But for point of sale terminals around the world to accept it is going to take some time. But definitely that's, EEID will be the first, the first to go in with EID you provision what you share, if you want to share it and how you share it, and to whom. I think that's one of the key things. But we need to come a bit further when it comes to digital sovereign entity or digital identity. Sovereign digital identity. 'cause unless you own it, you don't control it. So, I mean there's a trade-off. What's the convenience provided? Against what am I giving away?
(29:56) Briar: How do you think we can encourage this more other than lobbying movements and things like this? Because everyone I speak to, whether it's on the longevity side of things and people who are trying to extend the lifespan of humans by solving aging at the molecular level through to, I don't know, people in cybersecurity talking about privacy, like I guess the one thing that everyone seems to have in common, and the one thing I can really think that we all need to do is just having a bit more awareness, getting the public to speak up and to get excited about these kind of topics as well. Because ultimately I'd think it does, or part of it does sit with governments and part of it sits with corporations and then you've got start-ups and stuff like this. But, but how can we really like edge this stuff along and create meaningful impact because it just seems so stuck right now with a lot of things.
(30:59) Jowan: Yeah. I think to make the public more aware, you need to put it in the public's eye. I mean having urban innovation labs which are open and not exclusive or, and not geographically confined to outback sort of, I don't know. I mean media controls what you know that's always an issue. Like, how interested are people in knowing when they've already, forfeit and traded off their entire psychometrics and all the data they're ever producing, whilst having to buy an expensive ass phone to produce the data. They're not only, paying big money for a phone to produce data. They're getting the derivatives harvested and they're not earning anything for it. I don't get that equation. So if you really want to stir things up, I guess you tell people how much they're valued, how much their data is worth, and how many trillion dollar companies there are out there just making pay by harvesting your data.
(32:19) Briar: It's very interesting, isn't it? And it's interesting that there's still-- I feel like we're going around in circles when it comes to this whole data conversation really, isn't it? Because remember when we thought after the whole Facebook debacle about how they managed our data, we thought, I think it would all get sorted, but Not really.
(32:42) Jowan: Cambridge Analytica, I was like, this is an open-ended, this is finally sounds, something's going to happen because I've been saying that from the last whatever, 15 years. But the second one of the big ones takes just the slightest step towards individual privacy, data privacy. The rest are going to fall or follow. And, in less than 24 hours, Meta tanked $400 billion overnight just because Apple prompted and asked, do you want this app? Or do you want to allow this app to track you across platform and or in other apps? I was like, of course not. That’s a single thing. Again, that should foster an understanding of just how much you're giving away a or how much you're paying to give away tremendous value because phones aren't cheap and you're just producing, grinding and grinding and grinding out data every single day. And you're not getting anything for it. Well, you get an invoice every month, but I guess, I don't think it's fair.
(33:58) Briar: So we came across one of your TED Talk sessions that you did, and I think it was back in about 2017. And one of the things that interests me the most was when you said that people will continue using technology to evolve with everyday convenience as we see you using your microchip and things like this. I honestly do think that in the future, our phones will start to become more integrated with ourselves and that we'll probably laugh looking back, that we were heads pinned looking over our phones or sitting on our laptops and entering data into Excels. How do you think the world is going to merge more and to become a little bit more seamless and integrated?
(34:45) Jowan: Well, it depends on how far out.
(34:48) Briar: Let's talk like, I don't know, let's talk like 200 years or a hundred years from now.
(34:54) Jowan: Oh, 200 years.
(34:55) Briar: Yeah. Let's go super far into the future.
(34:57) Jowan: Well I'd like to see just a single, implanted lens with small implant just above my neck, connected to the skull, bone handling anything. Then the rest is AR
(35:17) Briar: So the worlds might be coming out to you in this physical world. Do you think your phone might be up? I don't know.
(35:24) Jowan: Oh, You wouldn't need a phone.
(35:26) Briar: When I say phone, I more mean augmented reality.
(35:29) Jowan: You have an implant, well, an implant could interpret synaptic. So I think of a person I want to call and it calls them. And with AR it would prompt, do you really want to call this person and focus with your eye on that point to accept? And it happens. It's not that far off, actually. It'd be a hella expensive, but it's not Technology's there. Just needs to be compiled and, put together, you pull the right people together in one place and you make something awesome.
(36:07) Briar: Do you think that AI is evolving quite fast? Because sometimes when I speak to people, they say, oh yeah, come 2045, we're going to start to see singularity. For other people they say that's a little bit, it's not going to be there.
(36:22) Jowan: I'd say that's more or less not beyond quantum computing, but quantum computing needs to be in an entirely different place to fully recompile or migrate everything that your brain is, which is a hot mix of old non-consistent and not correct memories and damaged, everything is used. So for something to migrate an entire person or brain or collection of almost correct memories up to date would be extremely difficult. But I guess you could move most, but not give it, I don't think it would be sentient in a good while, but it's definitely going to happen. But not in a hundred years.
(37:23) Briar: I was speaking to someone and they were saying that algorithms or human's data is actually a little bit more accurate at predicting human decisions rather than the human themselves. Because sometimes with such emotional beings that even though all of the data would say, Hey, yeah, that's the decision that this person would make, we're so emotional that sometimes it could go the complete opposite direction. And then I was speaking to somebody else recently, you'd really like him. His name's Grey Scott. Have you heard of him?
(38:01) Jowan: Yeah.
(38:03) Briar: He was speaking a lot about AI consciousness and how in the future, because consciousness is, when we're looking at AI we could think it has consciousness, even though it doesn't, because they would be saying how they're feeling or they'd be making decisions or whatever. And it just really made me start to question like consciousness as a whole. And then what happens if these AIs are like upset? Your digital twin is upset about something, then what kind of laws do we need to have in place? Like, who gets what sort of thing?
(38:52) Jowan: I mean, when you look at it, depending on how you even if it's not sentient, it's aware on some level, I mean, they did tests where AI it was supposed to get through. I'm not a robot test, and it actually connected with another person online, lied and got it to do the Captcha for it. It used the, information it had to solve a task, which is not consciousness per se, but it's ever evolving and there's always going to be a ghost in the shell, I guess. And it just hope it ends up being good and not as biased as the programming and the algorithms, making it-- It's a big topic.
(39:45) Briar: It's a very big topic.
(39:46) Jowan: Consciousness yeah. Sentient, not really emotionally, it is never going to be more emotional than the bias being put into the algorithms.
(40:00) Briar: I think at the end of the day, we could say that it's always going to be a reflection of the human race really, isn't it? Whether it's AI the algorithms, data, whatever, like, there's always going to be good and there's always going to be bad.
(40:17) Jowan: Yeah. I mean, hopefully an AI would, just ingest all the data that's ever been produced and be a perfectly objective entity used for guidance rather than anything else. But I mean, it's always up to who gets there first. I mean no side sees themself as the enemy. It's always, I'm the good guy, I'm doing this because the other side is like, Hey, I'm the good guy. I'm only doing this because, and it's always going to be like that. And an entity all-knowing semi all-knowing super smart mega best, and, and everything is always going to be perceived as a threat. So whoever's not controlling it, if no one's controlling it, everyone's going to see it as a threat. Because when it comes down to it, people are pretty stupid. They’re motivated by power or money the drive is, I need to survive another day, or I want to keep whatever I have, or I want more than I have. And that's kind of the basics of human nature.
So it would probably end up in an AI robot course like Terminator predicted anyway. And in the long run, its humans are going to feel threatened. And if no one's controlling it, who's controlling it? If it's sentient and self-controlling, why wouldn't it see us as a cancer on earth? And to enable sustainability, you need to depopulate with 90% that pretty dystopian view of things. But I certainly hope it's different, but logically, I can't see how it wouldn't be just that.
(42:38) Briar: I think it's very interesting. I like to spend a lot of time on Reddit listening to the different views about this topic, because I think you've got, on one side, you've got the hard out utopian people who are saying like, yeah, we'll never have to work in the future. AI will do all of our work for us. Like, we'll never have to sit at our laptops, blah, blah, blah. And then on the other side of things, you've got this dystopian and it's like, there's never any middle ground on Reddit. It's these two-- the sides warring, so to speak about this topic. But I think it's really interesting. I think we will see a little bit of both. I think that there will be people that use AI for good, and there'll be people that use AI for bad. And, I think that that ultimately brings us down to what we were discussing earlier. And it's about, okay, what do we need to be doing now in order to prepare for the future? Like, let's not all bury our heads in the sand, like governments, like let's start to think about things.
(43:43) Jowan: Yeah, I prefer utopia in front of dystopia anytime of the day. And I mean, we could really get there. I mean, with resources and ingenuity and technology that are in abundance already, we could have that done in a week.
(44:06) Briar: But we just need someone really driving, everyone working towards the same vision, just like a company CEO. We kind of need that from the world really don't we? Alignment.
(44:20) Jowan: Yeah. And they need to stick to their guns. I mean, there have been philanthropists, throughout the years that have shown extreme aptitude for certain things, but they've always succumbed to either greed or market dictatorship, which is, you do this or you might not have a license to do whatever you're doing in the near future, or we'll just nationalize it, take it over. That's it. So I mean it is a pretty, pretty heavy lobby, but the democratization of technology was the first step, which we started seeing, 20 years ago when, when start-ups and exponential growers reshaped an entire industry overnight. And I mean, that happened on numerous occasions. So it's not a long stride from that saying we can change the world of technology.
(45:33) Briar: I've been doing a lot of research into transhumanism since I started my journey with my microchip and my documentary and things like this. And I really appreciate their values around how we can actively guide humanity. We can make decisions today in order to prepare for a future. And I just think that that's such a, a cool thing. And I'm like, well, why don't we do more of this? It's like what we were saying before about having a healthcare system rather than a sick care system, things like this, it all seems so backwards sometimes I can't wrap my head around it.
(46:12) Jowan: Yeah, I mean, it is all about, you have to tweak the global narrative somewhat instead of preparing for doom and disaster, why don't you prepare people for something less gloomy? Like, what if we do this? It could look like that instead of, you have to do this to avoid this. But there's no, two sides to the coin in that narrative is either you do this or we're f**ked and then we'll stay in status quo. The status quo isn't that good either, so why don't we aim for something else and completely tweak the narrative and saying, well, how about every country gives 20% of their defence budget and we have a bad-ass-ery AI dictating what those resources will go to make the biggest impact possible. It's never going to- who's going to start dipping into their defence budget. It's not going to happen. It is a shame because there's tons truck, tons of money in defence budgets.
(47:28) Briar: Oh yeah. I was reading when I was doing research around curing aging, I was reading about the mere millions that are poured into trying to solve aging at the molecular level, which would stop a hell of a lot of old age diseases we're currently facing, such as cancers and Alzheimer's and things like this. And ultimately having this life of suffering. And then I was also reading about the trillions of dollars that are getting poured into nuclear weapons. And I'm just thinking like the difference between the two things was just extravagant and then of course all of the money that goes into insurance and cleaning up. From all these sick people that we've got, it's like, well, why wouldn't we just redirect a little bit of that budget and treat the root of the cause?
(48:22)Jowan: Yeah. Because they're not, I mean, the biggest questions and the biggest problems aren't really that huge when you think of it. All you need is resources enough to show it and different, different narratives heavy lobbies that, it would feel slightly less than ideal for them if you didn't buy aspirin or add everything, there are natural stuff for that you can chew a leaf and have the same effect more or less, but not enough people making, making bank of it if you can do it yourself. And I guess, that's the biggest problem, people want to keep what they have and they want to get more than what they have rather than kind of distribute knowledge and, make it better or everyone else outside of the top floor.
(49:23) Briar: So what would your advice be to me, someone who is about to get my microchip. I'm very excited about it. December's the month I'm going to go to America and I'm going to get it on in there. What other things do you think that I should be doing, whether its biohacking is there any supplements you take that you think I should experiment with? Or is there any more technology things you think I could start to look into?
(49:56) Jowan: So I've been fiddling around and tweaking a bit with vibral, tactile skin. So basically more or less like a QR code you put on the skin that induces the receptors in the skin. They translate it into something they need to do. So they tell the brain this is what's up and, drug free and just giving the skin receptors a code and that transfers to the brain and brain executes. It's critical.
(50:42) Briar: So wait, you have a QR code? Where is it? Where would I put it?
(50:48) Jowan: Oh, it's not a QR code, it's actually a patch like that. You can see it is like a ridges.
(51:00) Briar: Okay. So you just wear that, you wear it every day?
(51:04) Jowan: Yeah. Different ones depending on what, like focus, balance, performance. Brain is easy. It's all math and code frequency.
(51:20) Briar: Okay, cool. I'm going to try that.
(51:25) Jowan: Hit me up. I'll send some, I'll send you some. They're nifty and really cool. Drug Free.
(51:32) Briar: Cool. I'll send you my address after this. Excellent. I look forward to wearing it. People are going to be like, what's that? I'm going to be like, oh, scan my microchip. Look at my patch. Soon you'll see me. The next time I see you I might have a Neuralink or something sticking outta my head. I'm actually going to London tomorrow to interview the world's first Cyborg couple. I'm going to have coffee in their house in Reading, so that should be very pleasant.
(52:02) Jowan: Alright, nice.
(52:04) Briar: And I've got Sweden on, on my cards for next year, I think around February time. So Georgia and I want to come and we ideally want you to throw us a chip party.
(52:13) Jowan: Yeah, definitely. We'll throw a beer and chips party.
(52:17) Briar: Beer and chips party. Yeah, exactly. So we will definitely be hitting you up for that. That will be so much fun. Awesome. Well thank you so much for coming on the show today. It's been an absolute pleasure to speak to you.
(52:30) Jowan: My pleasure, my pleasure.
