The Anarchapulco Experience

Hello--it's @michelios again. Anarchapulco is over and I’ve had some days to reflect on it, so from the Chapultepec Park in Mexico City, I’ll tell you a bit about my experience.

The first day of the conference, I spent most of my time getting my bearings and handing out business cards. My first chance to place a card in someone’s hand was when I met an AGX representative in front of the conference center Starbucks. He was handing out their cards and helping people create an account on the AGX website, where they could scan a QR code to win 10 AGX tokens. They were redeemable for coffee or a T-shirt. I got my shirt, then told him I had a business card, too. So we exchanged. It worked out well.

On the second day, I got into the conference room early and saw business cards on the table. So I asked the organizer if I could put ours, and he said no—that was for the speakers. But I found a place just outside the door. I needed something to attract attention, so I thought about candy. I looked at the schedule and found a small gap of time where I could go to a nearby store and buy candies and little dishes to put them in.

I had a lot of fun doing this. It made me feel like a kid again, putting out candies and stepping back to watch people take them.

I had bought three bags. One was caramel. One was hard candy with a fruit taste. And the third one—it was red, looked like fraise tagada. But it was not. It was like the world’s worst Warhead candy recipe. But I didn’t discover this straightaway. No. I had plenty of time to hand it out to plenty of people who probably hate me now.

People digging into that candy bowl had a two and three chance of not getting that awful flavor. But the hot model wearing the Bitcoin shirt was not so lucky. She had a one hundred percent chance of nearly dying from what I gave her. It wasn’t until during the next presentation that I tried it myself. Oh, man. I hurried right out, separated all of those awful things from the others and put them in the bin. My deepest apologies to anyone I inadvertently tried to kill.

The next day I knew what to do—it was easy to drop back by after each presentation and add more candy and cards for the ones that had been taken. It became a bit of a ritual.

INTERACTIONS

“The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.”
― Louis C.K.

I got to see this principle in action the first day of the conference. Meals weren’t included in the ticket price, so I opted for a light snack rather than a meal. This consisted of an apple and some coffee. A man at a nearby table got my attention and said he had an extra plate of salad, and asked if I was hungry. Well, of course I was. So I accepted his offer, and gave him something in return—a free ebook download for scanning my business card. It was a good trade.

Another good encounter I had was with Joe Baker, founder of Remedy Coin. He approached me and spoke to me about his project. He has a rather unique use for the blockchain and these coins. Two people with unresolved conflict can enter into a contract that’s posted on the Bitcoin blockchain in which a symbolic amount of coin is transferred to represent the transaction of forgiveness. It’s an arbitration tool that can be used at both the personal and corporate level. Interestingly, Joe Baker mentioned that he was hungry because he hadn’t had time to eat. I took the opportunity to pay it forward and shared with him a banana as well as my business card.

SEMINARS

While at the conference, I was able to attend some interesting workshops. One was about seasteading. It began with a presentation on the main stage. We learned that seasteading is the practice of building floating houses with the ability to connect to each other and form floating communities in international waters that do not fall under the jurisdiction of any country or its laws.

The workshop split us into groups to simulate the creation of these communities. The overall problem we needed to solve was how to organize an independent society without a centralized government. We had to formulate a plan to produce and share resources as well as how to maintain order.

Another workshop I attended was about the Mexican community of Cheran. We got to hear the story of their liberation from poachers who were exploiting their land, while making them live in a climate of omnipresent insecurity. Their situation was made even worse by the corrupt government leaders in that region who worked hand in hand with the criminals.

A particularly interesting event I got to see was a sea turtle release party. We took a bus to a specific location on the beach, where we were greeted with a large traditional buffet, a DJ spinning tunes, and fireworks. And yes, they actually released a herd of tiny turtles.

ART EXPO

Near the main meeting area, the conference center hosted an art exhibit. Here are some photos I took of the canvases on display.

PEOPLE

I saw the table for Freos the first day and spoke with the person tending it. He said that at some point during the conference, they would be giving out free “red pills” bearing a USB key that gives access to their platform. I returned the next day, but it was not time yet. I was relentless. I finally was there at the right time and got my own “red pill.” Freos is a means of protecting your information on the web, from tracking to hacking to monitoring. It ensures browsing anonymity and gives you control of personal data. Check out this link and this link for more information.

When I was at Steemfest in November, I had a chance to meet @illucifer. He told me about Anarchapulco and that’s when I decided to go. I saw him my first day at the Conference Center and he remembered talking to me. I was able to watch several of the interviews he did with people during the event. By the last day, when I was finally able to take this selfie with him, he was looking pretty run down. So I offered him the last two candies from my business card bait stash to cheer him up, but I’d learned my lesson after trying to poison the hot model and made sure I didn’t give him one of the nasty ones. He told me about a conference called Anarachdelphia in September of this year. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to go, but I’d like to.

Overall, we had thirty-five downloads of our free e-book that originated from the conference and over a hundred page views. For my first event as an official Steemhouse representative, I believe it was a win.