Fredrick Brennan

Carlos talks to software developer and founder of 8Chan Frederick Brennan about his life growing up with Brittle Bone Disease and explains what the different online messaging boards are and what QAnon is.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Frederick Brenning grew up in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and
became hooked on video games. At the age of six,
he taught himself cody and went down the rabbit hole
of the Internet, discovering anonymous online messaging boards before he
launched his own called eight Chances. On this episode of
The Carlos Watson Show podcast, Frederick Brenning reflects on his
life growing up with brittle bone disease, explains what the

(00:22):
different online messaging boards are and what you and on is? Hey, Frederick,
how are you? I'm good? How are you good? Good?
Is that your dog there? Yes? What's your dog's name?
Her name is? He told me? H, I t o

(00:44):
m I she is um five years old? Five years old? Now? Yeah, oh,
my goodness? And where and where did you get her?
I got her on the Philippines, where are used to live. Oh,
when I was looking in case one, I guess she
came from a dog breeder there. They told me that,

(01:05):
I guess she was kind of an accidental combination of
two breeds. So yeah, and what was the Philippines like?
I used to have a friend who was a flight
attention from the Philippines would always tell me that the
Philippines had the best Christmas celebration anywhere in the world.
She had flown lots of places over Christmas holidays, and
she said that that was the best and most interesting.

(01:28):
What was Kazon City like and what what how was
your experience in the Philippines. That's true. They start Christmas
very early. They call it the bur months, so they're
starting all the way back in September, you know, with Christmas,
the Christmas stuff comes out all the way back in September,
and then they're just building up to it and building
up and building up to it until Christmas. So it's

(01:49):
definitely a very vibrant city. It's very different than the
United States. There's a lot of people have seen like
images of the traffic and in Yeah, there's always all
kinds of different cars and tricycles running around. So it's
kind of like that. That's the same kind of a
degree of traffic, you know, there's that same kind of um,

(02:14):
same kind of yeah kind of fields of things. Uh,
but it's it's very warm also. Um, I enjoyed my
time there for sure. Yeah, did you consider staying there longer?
Would or or had you always planned on staying there
just for a minute. Well, I had already lived there
for six years up until the cyber level case that

(02:37):
eventually precipitated me leaving, So I had intended to stay
there the rest of my life. I suppose I hadn't
really seen any reason to leave. I was already you know,
married while I was there. Unfortunately, are very attended for

(02:58):
a lot of reasons. But we even was you know,
a big one. Um. Yeah, so that kind of through
my life into chaouse. But yeah, I can I can
imagine Frederick, take me back, where where did you? Where
did you grow up? Did you grow up on the
East coast or west coast? East coast? I grew up

(03:18):
in upstate New York. Uh, and then I moved when
I was fourteen into the foster care system. And then
after that I moved, you know, to back with my
mom in Atlantic City, and that's where that's where I

(03:39):
really consider where I grew up, kind of Atlantic City,
New Jersey, because that's where I spent most of my
teenage years and it's the city I'm most familiar with
it where I live now. Um. And then yeah, but
they're after exiting the foster care system and being with

(04:01):
my mom in New Jersey. Um, of course I would
go to New York City and I would work with
a guy named Aarren for a while, and then of
course I would you know, create HM began administering that
moved to the Philippines. So my life has been a
lot of different moves all over the world. So do
do you mind if I asked about the foster care system?

(04:23):
Had what what led you to the foster care system? Well,
it's really simple. You know, it's my father. Uh, he
just decided one day that he didn't want to take
care of his children anymore. I mean, that was the

(04:43):
that was his decision. He, I suppose, decided that the
money he would receive from the state for welfare, social security,
whatever was not sufficient. And the thing that really precipitated
it was I had a nurse that was taking care

(05:05):
of me, and he became romantically involved with this nurse.
And then they decided, the state decided that this nurse
wasn't gonna work there anymore because she had been abusive,
not only towards me, but towards my brother. So that
nurse was going to be removed from home, and so
he was romantically involved with her. He just decided that

(05:27):
he would rather put his kids in the foster care
system and lose this you know mistress essentially. And and
and were your parents together at that time or no? No, Uh,
my parents divorced what I was five, So he was
a single father with this nurse. And then yeah, and

(05:47):
and and um, Frederick, the name of of of the
health issue you have is called brittle bone. Is that right? Uh? Huh?
Osteogenesis and perfect brittle bone sees it's a congenital bone
conditions which causes Uh. Scientists say that it's like a

(06:09):
collagen deformity that causes bones. It's not the form correctly.
It has other effects, but that's the the one that's
most noticeable. And so does it mean that that the
bones are more susceptiable to break? Is that? Is that
what it means you break easily? Yes, that's what it means.
I've broken over a hundred bones in my life something

(06:33):
like that, h throughout my entire life, the same one
multiple times in certain cases. Yeah, And do you know
when you break them? I mean, in other words, yeah,
you have a very good sense obviously having this condition

(06:53):
for so long, you know the difference between what a
broken bone feels like and what h a sprain or
other kind of injury would feel like? Yeah, and and
forgive me only because I don't know, Frederick, or will
this happen because you lift something? Or will this just happen? Um,

(07:15):
it's not. There's almost always something that precipitates a broken bone. However,
the condition itself is pretty variable. There are people who
even can walk and have these conditions because I suppose
in the beginning, before DNA was known about, they just

(07:37):
considered this to be one condition, and then later when
they had the un testing, they were able to discover
that actually it's a whole family of related conditions that
are caused by different mutations. So given that that's the case,
Uh yeah, um, I have one of the more severe forms,
but there are even more severe forms than mine. So

(08:01):
it's it's kind of a spectrum disorder like autism in
that way, right right? Who is and you said co general, Um,
do either of your parents suffer from it? Or siblings
or my mother does. Yeah. Most mutations of a lie
occur in something occurring a fashion known as being day novo,

(08:23):
So nobody else in the family had it. It's just
one mutation Uh. In my case, it was congenital, meaning
that it was passed down from my mother. Yes, and
so would I always know that someone suffers from this? Like,
is it easily visible? If I were to meet your mom,
would I know that that she would wrestling with this?

(08:43):
You would know that she has it because we have
the same type. However, type one, as they call it,
type one a lie, you would not know because, uh,
they could look just like you, right, because the only
difference is that their phones are weaker. And it's usually
discovered in kids that have type one. Uh. Let's say

(09:05):
they're playing outside and they fall and they break a bone.
Sometimes it will be discovered by child prospective services. You know,
they'll see that this kid as a lot of broken bones,
and they'll start looking into the parents. Are these parents abusive?
And then you know, a DNA test will come back
and actually it's not the parents fault. The kid is

(09:25):
just really has portal bones. Yet And Frederick, are there
any famous people m besides yourself who who have this? Um,
that's a great question. I wouldn't consider myself particularly famous.
I think that there are some actors that have it.
There was one actor I don't remember his name. He

(09:45):
recently passed. Uh. There was a motivational speaker, Sean Stephenson.
He passed recently too. Uh there was an activist. Yeah,
I think her name was Stella something. But I I
wasn't prepped on that. So I'm Frederick this. I know,
this is a big question that I'm asking you, and
so I realized you may give a shorter, crisper answer.

(10:08):
But but how is having brittle bone shaped your life? Like, like,
take us along your journey a little bit. And again
I'm not asking you necessarily for our thesis, but just
to give me a little bit of color, like, like,
how has it shaped your life? How is it guided
the life you've lived or not lived? Well, I would

(10:28):
say that it probably shaped the beginning part of my
life the most. And the reason I would say that
is because if tomorrow I were to wake up, you know, miraculously,
it's a miracle. Oh he's walking, he's talking, you know
that kind of thing. Um, probably my life would not

(10:49):
change very much because I already have you know, a career,
something that I'm good at. I probably would, you know,
keep sitting in front of the computer twelve hours a day,
So I don't know that it would changed my life
too much if it went away now, But most definitely
in the early portion of my life where I was
figuring out what I was going to do, you know,

(11:11):
it perhaps limited um choices. You know. I went into
computer programming being that that's something that I can do,
you know, because it's something that doesn't require a lot
of physical exertion. When I was very, very very little,
I wanted to be a doctor that you know, uh,
apparently there are some doctors with my condition, but I

(11:34):
don't know. I did that guidance counselors and parents, especially
my father, who uh, you know, told me not to
do that, so I yeah, it's interesting though hearing you speak, Frederick,
you have a clarity and a depth of knowledge I
can tell about you that suggests you could be a doctor.
I have another good friend like you, and I always

(11:57):
tell her that she's a doctor without an m d.
Because she she thinks about health so clearly and can
explain it well to lay people like myself, And I
can tell it feels like you've got something similar within you,
where you've got a level of insight and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I appreciate that for sure. I'm fred if you don't

(12:20):
want me asking what did your dad do or what
does he do? And what did your mom do career wise? Sure, Um,
my father he basically was a mechanic of sorts. He
didn't really repair cars so much, you're repaired old tractors
and kind of farm equipment. We lived in upstate New

(12:40):
York for all New York, so that was his I
suppose calling in life to repair old tractors. However, I
mean I have to still say that he you know,
put me in the philosphic care system due to this
whole thing and you in many ways, he was pretty

(13:02):
much happy to kind of just you know, live off
the welfare that social Security checks generated, and more build
toys than do actual you know work. I mean, he
he built like and he's obviously very talented. You know,
he built like a a dump shovel thing. I didn't

(13:24):
really know the correct term for it, but it's like,
you know, if the scoops up earth and picks it
off and puts it down somewhere else, and he would
like bring that thing to um the anti candidate show
that they had an upstate New York and he would
kind of show it off. So yeah, I think or
mechanics that kind of that was his career. And then

(13:46):
my mother, Um, well when I was very very very little,
she was working at Walmart, and then when I got older,
she uh wasn't sorry, was an operator at Caesar's Atmantic City.
So yeah, yeah, that's the casino hotel. It's um, you

(14:07):
probably have gotten to see the world from some different
vantage points, then that's probably true. I mean my dad
is even up until now, has not left the counties.
So like three counties that you know are nearest his county.
So yeah, yeah, did you were if I had met

(14:27):
you in high school? Were you an optimistic kid? Were
you pessimistice? Where where was your Where was your mind?
Where was your heart? Where was your soul? Well? I
mean if you had met me in high school, I
don't know that you know I would have. I was
very pretty much depressive in high school. I due to

(14:51):
being in the foster care system, doing everything that had happened,
I really didn't necessarily talk two people, you know. I
tried to stay out of the way, keep quiet, just
try to get through this system. Um. Maybe during my
let's say senior year, you know that been buried when

(15:12):
I was back in authentic city. You could have said,
you know, maybe I was more optimistic. I, um, yeah,
but I don't know that you would have liked me
very much in high school. You know, you never know,
you never know how we never know how did the
other kids treat you? Other kids in high school because
I assumed that they didn't probably know as many kids

(15:35):
who were wrestling with brill bone, So how did they
how did they treat you? Uh? You know, obviously I
had been just so many schools that it was different
in each one. So in my very earliest school years,
like elementary school, I would say that the other kids
were actually pretty nice to me. You know, at that

(15:56):
very very young age. Kids don't get how kind of
that inclination to pick on the one that's different. You know,
kids are more open and accepting at that very young age. UM,
I would say, you know, during middle school, high school years,
you know, when kids are to mature and uh, you

(16:20):
know all of that. Uh, I was pretty much you know,
I wasn't necessarily bullied a lot, but I was not
somebody that everyone wanted to because of fret. If you

(16:51):
don't mind me asking, how do you what is dating? What?
What was dating like for you then, and and how
does that live in in in this in this more
modern world we're in. You know, that's funny because it
might help to kind of catapult us into the main

(17:12):
thrust of the story. Right because I, from the age
of twelve started going on fourtune, and so I was
very very familiar with how that site operated and with
how you know, the users there spoke, and essentially being

(17:32):
involved in that website, I took on this idea, you
know this, it's known now as the in cell culture,
the in cell idea that stands for involuntary celibate. And essentially,
these users of that site, many of whom are not

(17:54):
severely disabled. Right there, if you were to see them,
you would say that they are by all respects normal,
but their belief is that due to their inherent qualities.
Some of them would say it's due to their mental illness.
Some would say that they're just ugly. Some would say
that they have some of the problem, but that they
will never be able to achieve anything in their dating life.

(18:18):
And when those users came to know who I was,
you know, I essentially became somebody that they saw as
able to take over, you know, that portion of the community.
So I didn't start wizard Jim, but that was the

(18:39):
first image for it that I administered. And part of
the reason that I was able to do so is
because the other users believed, oh, there's no way that
he will ever have any success in dating, and I
believe that myself, so it seemed like I was a
perfect fit to take over this. Sorry. Uh, you know
that lasted nine months and then I ended up actually

(19:02):
dating and having to leave. And then that's after I
left wizard Channels, when I founded a channel, the one
that I'm actually much more known for. Yeah, so and
and and sorry for people who don't know what what
what is was wizard Chan and how does that tie
to dating? Uh? Wizard Chan was a site for male virgins.

(19:26):
It was founded by a guy that nobody knows his name.
He just went by Mr Pacific. And the whole purpose
of that website was essentially to be for people that
are depressed because they believe that they will never have
any success in dating. And according to the like rules

(19:47):
I guess, or according to the mythos of the website,
when a man goes for forty years without having a relationship,
it becomes a wizard. So after your over the age
of forty and if you've never had sex or a relationship,
according to them, you become a wizard. That's I believe

(20:08):
that it's a meme that originates like from the Japanese
internet culture. I'm not exactly sure where that came from,
but it was definitely something that they believed. And I
don't you know, I wasn't the one that named wizard
Channer came up with the idea. I just kind of
took it over because the original guy that was running

(20:29):
it had the same thing happened to it. And the
funny thing about wizard chann is that this happens like
three more times. I give it up. After nine months,
the next person takes it, they have a relationship, they
can't have it anymore, and it just continues to go
that way. Wait, so, so how did your relationship come about?
Did someone did someone discover you on wizard chan and

(20:51):
so you started essentially yeah, they discovered Yes, there was
a woman that discovered me through wizard channel. Was like,
I guess she just had an interest in people like me,
you know, I don't know. It wasn't the best relationship
and did in life six months, but you know it,

(21:11):
it took me out of that. I wasn't able to
do that anymore, so I had to find something else.
So what is a chan? And again for people who
have no idea what four chan is, they don't know what.
They didn't know what a wizard was, including me, Well,
that's a pretty your internet means, so I would forgive

(21:31):
you for not knowing. Um. So you can essentially think
of four chan as a site like Facebook, except all
of the posters are anonymous. However, it's similar in that
there are groups about certain topics, and you can upload
images and messages, and you can reply to other people's threads,

(21:54):
and you know, there are different groups. So it's essentially
just like Facebook, but about names. And Hhan was kind
of an evolution of that concept, where on fourtune, unlike Facebook,
there are only a set number of groups that whatever exists,

(22:14):
you have like a politics board, they're called boards, not groups.
You have a politics board, a video game board, um.
And there are like thirty two of those boards and
there will never be any more. And Han was more
like Facebook, more like Reddit in that anyone who wanted
to could create and administered the board. So it opened

(22:40):
up four chan, which was based on an earlier Japanese
website called two channel, and so it added the idea
of board creation to that for the first time. Um. Obviously,
as we all know, that didn't go very well, probably
primarily due to the anonymity and and and were these

(23:01):
boards uh four chan and h chan primarily mail It's
obviously it's very difficult to say because everyone's anonymous. However,
I would agree with you through my meeting users, seeing
who would go to these boards, you know, me being
in the unique position of being the administrator, I was

(23:22):
able to say things about the users that others would
not be able to say because they would actually email me.
I would have communication with the others women. So I
would say that while there were female users, they were
absolutely the minority. I would put it even ninety verst
uh ten percent. I would say that it is almost

(23:44):
an exclusively mailed on me and and so and again
forgive me, because I you know this world much better
than I do. Are these typically lonely people? Are these
typically are people on these sites dangerous? Well, what's the
right way for people who who aren't a part of
the world. What's the right way to understand who is

(24:06):
on the site and what is going on there. In
other words, people hear things like the Silk Road. Uh,
they hear things like the dark web. Um Uh that
is that part of one and the same or they
connected anyway, I would say that Fortune and the dark
web are not connected. Uh. The dark web is a

(24:28):
collection of websites that the administrators of those websites are
unknown and unknowable due to the way that that operates. Now,
it's possible to unmask the administrators if you are a
government and you have and you put rather an enormous

(24:48):
amount of resources doing so, you can eventually in certain
cases find out Like for the example of the Silk Road,
they were able to discover of the men that was
operating that and put him in jail. However, four chan
is different in that it's public, you don't need special

(25:08):
software to access it, and you don't need even technical expertise.
So Fortune is more open and also inside of the law.
Right the big difference between the darknet and four chune
h chan those kind of sites on the darknet, because

(25:30):
the administrators are unknown and unnable, oftentimes they're also breaking
the law, like for example, selling drugs uh, other kinds
of illegal activity. Meanwhile, fortune ah Chan, they have to
at least make an attempt to moderate and stay within

(25:51):
the bounds of the law. Four Chun does a much
better job of that. You know. Part of the reason
that I think that the current version of h and
should be shut downs because it's administrators do not operating
good faith. They pretend to essentially have rules when they
have none. You know, they pretend to follow the law

(26:13):
when really they're very happy to look the other way.
So yeah, um, as far as who the users are, uh,
if you also ask um, you know, I would probably
agree with you that most of them are a lonely people.
When you think about the average for can user, it's

(26:36):
somebody who is oftentimes spending hours and hours and hours
day on the site. So there's somebody that doesn't necessarily
have a lot of outside contacts or like a real life,
as you could say, like they don't really have a life.
Their life is for And that's not true for all users,
but it's definitely true for the majority. And what that

(26:58):
means is they tend to be people that either only
work part time, don't have jobs at all, um, don't
have jobs at all, rather, they tend to be younger people,
although recently, in the case of q and On, a
lot more retirees are getting involved. Are these people in
your mind dangerous? I mean, I know there's never one

(27:22):
size fits all, but but is the reality that disproportionate
numbers of the folks on here are dangerous and are
getting involved in dangerous things? Yeah, I mean, yeah, that
would be fair to say. You can't really like, you
can't say every fourtune user is dangerous. That's not a

(27:44):
correct statement, but you can say that compared to other websites,
the users of not so much Fortune, but especially as
it's been found, are much more likely to be a
danger to society, to the world because they they can't

(28:10):
find ways to engage without being anonymous. So that kind
of already is setting them up to be people with
more dangerous ideas that if they were to say the
same things on Facebook or Twitter, they would probably get banned, right,
So it's the system already is sort of self selecting
for people that are more dangerous. Frederick, what do you

(28:33):
think these people did pre digital era? So, like before
there was an internet in computers, what did these same
people do? Um, that's a great question. I kind of
feel like when we think about especially people on the
far right, if they were not involved in like, you know,

(28:57):
a local far right group, they would kind of just
keep their ideas to themselves, you know, if they especially
if they did not want to jeopardize their careers for
their you know, relationships, they would just kind of, yeah,

(29:18):
keep it to themselves, go along that sort of thing.
While this gives them an outlet where they don't have
to jeopardize any of their real world contacts, but they
can still you know, engage in the right wing conspiracy
theories and all of that. Um. Obviously, there has always

(29:40):
been a far right there are you know, as long
as there are democracies. It seems like there's always a
far right in every democracy on art, but it seems
like these sites, due to their anonymity, allow people who
would not normally engaged for IT activity to do so

(30:02):
without jeopardizing their vives. So what is q and on?
Everyone's hearing uh that word these days, and obviously we've
heard it in a variety of differences, including in and
around the Capital Insurrection. But what is q and on?
And what if anything does it have to do with

(30:23):
a chan or four Chan. So Q and On is
a movement that started Unfortune and then very early in
its history at moves to Camp. Q and On is
essentially the belief that Donald Trump, when was president, was

(30:44):
going to basically bring out an event called the Storm
where all of the Democratic politicians which they believed to
be in the Deep State, as well as many Republican
politicians who they lead to be Republicans in name only,
we're going to be rounded up Santa Guantanamo Bay and

(31:06):
executed after a military tribunal. So Q and On is
essentially a fascist movement who hang on a second, say
that again. So they were saying they think there's gonna
be an event. There's gonna be basically a summary execution
of beheading of leading politicians, right. And they believed they

(31:29):
believed that Q, the poster on Fortune who was claiming
to be in the government, actually claiming to be in
the military and planning that they believed that Q was
the head of the Q team, and that the Q
team was going to on a day in an event
called the Storm, round up all of these politicians, send

(31:51):
them to Guantanamo Bay, do the executions, and then let
the world know about their crimes basically, and they believed
that this was going to happen. Obviously, they were all
supremely disappointed when Trump got out of office. Nothing happened,
and in many ways, their last raw was the Capital insurrection.

(32:15):
So they thought that Donald Trump. When did they start
believing this. They started believing this before Trump was elected
or once he got elected. This was part of a
thesis about what would happen during a Trump presidency. You see, Trump,
in many ways is responsible for them believing this because

(32:40):
during his campaign, one of his main statements to his
supporters as to why they should support him was that
he was going to lock her up, and all of
his supporters would chant during his rallies, locked her up,
lock her up, her being Hillary Clinty. So that is
why one of you and I main targets dis Hillary Clinton.

(33:02):
And they expanded this to include all Democratic politicians, all
you know, Republicans name only, but they started with just Hillary.
So Donald Trump essentially started Q in a way now
Q and on the poster, knowing that people were looking

(33:23):
for this, thinking that Donald Trump was actually going to
try to lock her up, and not just her, but
many others. The day we're then very susceptible to believe
somebody saying, hey, I'm in the government, I'm part of
his secret project to lock her up. Like Donald Trump promise,

(33:43):
don't give up faith in Donald Trump, even though he
hasn't done it yet. It's because he can't because the
deep state will try to stop him. And I'm here
to tell you to keep you know, your faith in
Donald Trump. Essentially, uh yeah, wow, um wow wow. So

(34:03):
like what I would say is sorry, you go ahead.
What I would say is that Q and Not operated
as a way for Donald Trump's supporters to excuse all
of the inaction of Donald Trump on that and to
excuse everything that he was doing that seemed like it
didn't match with their ideals and why they voted him,

(34:24):
because they could always fall back on the idea that
Q and ON is secretly in the shadows doing everything
that they want, but Donald Trump publicly cannot admit that.
So it allowed them to kind of lie to themselves
and to say that all of the conspiracy theories they
always believed in about Hilary Quintin, etcetera were true and

(34:46):
that the storm would happen. They just needed to have
enough patience. So what would they say, if they were
hearing you talk right now, what would they say when
when they inevitably watched this, what are they going to
say back to your What would they if they were
in the room with us right now, what would there
what would their reply retort be? You know, And it's
so interesting because the way that you and on has fractured.

(35:10):
It's very hard to say what an individual believer is
thinking at this point, because, I mean, right after the election,
the main thing that they believed was that the election
was stolen and that the storm was coming very soon,
and that Trump was going to use the stolen election

(35:30):
as for the proof of the evil of the deep
state to finally lock them all up. So when the
capital insurrection finally happens, that is a direct reaction to
the fact that day all knew that if Donald Trump
does not stay in power, there is no possible way

(35:54):
for their conspiracy theory to ever come through. There's no
possible way that this like the Joe Biden administration is
never gonna lock her up. And so they you know,
for me, the capital insurrection was very predictable. They needed
to stop Biden, the democratically elected president, from taking power

(36:18):
at all costs, because otherwise this entire movement that they
built up, it's nonsense. So what would they say if
they were in the room. I mean, some of them
would just say that the deep state won this battle,
but there's still the war that can still be won.

(36:41):
So they would say, look forward to you know, when
we'll try to take back the presidency and really lock
her up or lock all of them outis said they
some of them might say this was all a psychological
operation and that Donald Trump was actually the bad guy, right,

(37:01):
and that the US government perpetrated a styop on them
to make them believe that Donald Trump was going to
do something when actually Donald Trump was always part of
the deep state. So they continue to believe in the
deep state, right, they've just rejected the idea that Donald
Trump was ever fighting it um. Another thread of belief

(37:24):
could be that, for example, you know, Donald Trump tried
his very best, right, but he just wasn't able to succeed.
So they could say that Q was always true, but
just somehow the plan failed, you know. So those are

(37:46):
the three main ways that they could Frederick. So if
you if you say, hey, January six Capital insurrection was predictable,
you could see it from afar? What do you see
coming next? Given all of this and given this world,
what do you see coming next at the rest of
us who aren't part of the h and world? What
might we not know? Well, clearly you and on and

(38:14):
the believers in it are not going anywhere. And this
police system, in the deep state, in the idea that
there is an expansive power in the US government that
is not democratic, that isn't going anywhere. And so I
would say what we're going to see next is probably

(38:40):
another attempt to bring about a fascist cool, just as
January six was it. They want this fascist cool more
than they want anything else. They want to see every
democratic politician killed. And just because Trump is no longer
in office and there's no way that they can can

(39:02):
continue to believe that Q is the one that's going
to bring about that cool, that doesn't mean that they're
gonna stop hoping for the coup. And so I would
say that we have a very serious problem where a
very large percentage of our country is radicalized and believes
that the only way that the system can be brought

(39:24):
back in order is through a coup. And a lot
of them are you know, racist, twice supremacist, all kinds
of other beliefs on top of that. Well, I was
actually gonna ask you connect that to race and racism,
because you know, from where I stand, it's hard for
me to imagine a lot of black people are in
that group. Um, No, there are not. Yeah, there are.

(39:46):
I would say that they're yeah. I would say that,
like you just look at the footage of the Capital Insurrection, right,
many white faces, you know, uh, maybe there's one black
face in the crowd. I would yeah. Um, I would
definitely agree with the idea that Q and on is
a fundamentally racist movement. It's also fundamentally anti semitic, so

(40:11):
and and and if and would they if they again,
we're sitting here with us right now, and you said
that they would not agree, They would not They would
not agree. Some of them may, but others would say that. Well,
Q himself posted that they use race to divide us

(40:32):
and they use color to divide us. So Q is
not racist, And I would say that that's not true.
Q and On is clearly clearly a racist movement. It
clearly wants to see a kind of restoration to a
mythical American past where racism was the norm, and Q

(40:57):
and On clearly their whole mythos is about keeping out immigrants,
keeping out people that they don't see as belonging in America.
And I don't know that Q and on is necessarily racist,

(41:17):
at least mostly most racist against black families that have
lived here for generations. But they are certainly racist against
newcomers of all types except why. I mean, they would
tell you that people like it would be better if we,

(41:38):
you know, had a system that was based on you know, merit,
and for that merit usually means white. So who is Q. Well,
I believe that, at least right now, it's Ron Watkins.
I believe that when it started on Fortune, it started
in this environment where sorry, sorry to be clear, you

(42:00):
think it is the guy that you used to work for, correct, Yeah,
I believe that it is the son of the guy
that I used to work for. I believe that very
strongly that it is Ron Watkins. I have a lot
of reasons for believing that there was a documentary is
the way that I was in That's why I'm on
your show right now where he kind of chronicles a

(42:20):
lot of the evidence for that UM and Ron Watkins
even slips up at the end of the documentary kind
of admits that you was mostly as que. But I
think that it's important to differentiate between the how you
started and then where you ended up, because I believe

(42:41):
when Q started on Fortune that it we still don't
know who made that first post because it was anonymous,
and I don't know that we'll ever be able to know. However,
very very early in its history, in the first few months,
moves to a camp and when it's on h hm,

(43:03):
Ron Watkins, as the owner of a camp, essentially has
the ability to take it over whenever he wants, in
the same way that Jack Dorsey, the owner of Twitter,
can take over your account on my account and start
posting on it. He can do that to que. The differences,
Q has no way of proving that their que after

(43:27):
they lose their account, because Q never gave anybody a
different way to prove that he's que. Right. The only
way was ever that trip code. That's just what I'm
calling an account. The only way was ever by posting
on his account on a camp. Frederick question, do you

(44:03):
where do you think all of this comes from? I mean,
we live in a world right now where there's a
pandemic and there are millions of people dying. We live
in a world where there are you know, wars going on.
You know, uh, half the people in the world go
to bed somewhat hungry tonight and every night. You know,

(44:24):
most people never travel more than a couple hundred miles
away from where they were born. And so where, where,
where your mind does all of this come from? Um?
And how how do you think about that? Just when
you think about the world that we live in, where
does all this come from? And should we be spending

(44:44):
as much time on this? And how does a member
of Congress or seven several members of Congress seem to
you know, speak positive words about you and on I
think that when we ask ourselves where this comes from,
it's clear. And this isn't only my opinion. I've had

(45:05):
to do my own, you know, research by experts like
micro Rothschild, who writes extensively on conspiracy theories, where they
come from, why people believe them, that sort of thing.
And his view is that there is this fundamental need
in human beings to make the world simple, to make

(45:29):
the world easier to understand, to have good guys and
bad guys and when you add in all of the
beliefs that they already have racist beliefs, white supremacist beliefs,
it leads them to the place where they are extremely

(45:51):
susceptible to any either prankster or bad actor who tells
them I have all the answers and it's even worse
than you thought. That's often the hope that they used
to get them in because people already believe all of
these conspiracy theories, and then the posters like you will

(46:14):
tell them you are right about everything you think and
it's worse than you thought, and so so so so
if you're right, what should we do or what would
you say? President Biden invited you and for a conversation
and said, hey, talk me through this, et cetera. And

(46:35):
then he got to the end of the conversation he
said he'd say, so, what's the soul? What? What, if
anything should I do? What should we do? What should
he do? I think we should start with a very
easy stuff first before we try to go to the
very hard stuff. The very the easiest thing that we
could do right now would just be too strengthen laws
on impersonating a federal agent to make it so that

(46:57):
if you do that online, if you try to build
a movement around pretending that you're a federal agent, that's
a federal crime that you cannot use. The prestige that
being a military intelligence officer carries, that being an FBI
agent carries, that all of these things carry to be

(47:18):
able to say, you know, I'm you know, to trick people,
That's really what this is. To trick people, to radicalize them,
and to make it so that they are driving trucks
on the Hoover Dam and demanding the release of a
report that doesn't exist. The man that did that is
now in jail for ten years, to make it so

(47:38):
that they are storming the US capital because they're believing
that an election that was not stolen was stolen. They
they're certainly needs to be more consequences for people that
impersonate federal agents like Ron Watkins did. And I'm not
a lawyer, but I think at there is even a

(48:02):
case to be made that even under current law, he
is not exempt that he received a thing of value
through his impersonation of a federal agent, and that you know,
a prosecutor that is willing enough to kind of go
down that path may be able to prove it. But

(48:23):
even if not, if the thing of value he received
was so you know, there's too many steps between that
and him and it can't be proven, well, then our
laws absolutely need to be strengthened. You cannot just go
online anonymously and tell everybody say, I'm in the FBI
and I know for a fact that Hillary, you know,
Clinton eats babies. Like that really really needs to be

(48:47):
especially when it gets to this big extent. The people
that are doing that need to be unmasked and need
to be punished for that. So that's the first thing
that I would say, like, that's the easiest thing we
could do to star up conspiracy theories like this. There
are a lot of harder things that we could do.
Like another thing is the only way that HM is

(49:10):
able to stay online right now is because it uses
Russian hosting, and we have all sorts of sanctions against Russia.
And one thing that I've wondered is why do we
not sanction their Internet service providers? Why is it even
legal for an American business to decide I want to

(49:33):
host my website in Russia to get around you know,
I s p s in the US who do not
want to host domestic terror, you know. Uh, no I
I in America wants to host content that was responsible
for the storming of our capital, you know, so they
use servers of an enemy of the United States in

(49:57):
order to continue this gay So I I would say
that we should sanction Russian is peace. No American business should.
But there's no reason that an American business needs a
server and Russia, right, And you know, unless you're like

(50:19):
actually the lowest level I s P running wires between
Russia and Europe, right or something like that. But just
having your average day to day website in Russia, you know,
that's something else we could do. Um. You know, I
would say, start with those easy things, see the effect

(50:39):
that they have, and then only then do we start
trying to do stuff. It's harder because if we're not
even willing to do those two easy steps, I don't
know that wherever we're gonna be willing to, you know,
try to tackle, uh, the root causes of white supremacy.
Like we have these very easy low hanging through it

(51:00):
and for some people reason, people just aren't grabbing them.
So and what would what would it mean to tackle
the root causes of white supremacy, do you think, Yeah,
the root clauses of white supremacy, conspiracy theory is all
of this are primarily ignorance. They are primarily the fact

(51:21):
that our education system is one of the horse in
the world. I don't think that, at least, you know,
among developed countries. I think that part of the reason
is that, you know, we have never even tried to
deal with all of the effects that racism have had

(51:45):
in this country. We you know, I yeah, I mean
the way that our history is taught. You know, we're
still taught that what was onto the Native Americans was
in some way fundamentally good, you know, so that we

(52:06):
essentially you know, civilized this you know, savage land and
all of that. So I feel like a lot of
educational changes are what's needed to tackle root causes and
laws that affect you know, I sp s, big social

(52:27):
media giants, that kind of thing. But you know, I
really think we should go there. But I think that
if we haven't made the easy changes first, we're never
gonna you know, go to the hard ones. So, M Frederick,
as we wrap up, do you mind if I do
a little bit of rapid fire with you, If you

(52:48):
rapid fire questions. I don't mind, I don't mind, I
don't mind. Go ahead, I tell me what's your favorite book?
Favorite book? Um, wow, that's an interesting question. I guess
nine Door Door. Well, I've read that one of the most. Um,
if you had to name yourself, give you so your
name wasn't Frederick and you had to start over and

(53:08):
choose a name, what would you name yourself? Really, that's funny. Um,
maybe Wayne. I don't know why, but Wayne sounds like
what a name I would choose for myself. Um, what's
your favorite food? Favorite food? My Cronian cheese. Yeah. What's
your karaoke song? Karaoke song? I don't sing too much, Karrie.

(53:33):
Ok uh m hmm. Let's see. If I was really
really drunk, maybe I would maybe saying huh yeah, that's
a good question. I I don't know. I'd have to
be flipping through the book. I can't give you an answer.
Love it, love it, no problem, no problem. Most interesting

(53:53):
celebrity you've ever met? Oh god, Um, you know I
would say that the guy that made my documentary. He's
something of a celebrity and I spent tons and tons
of time with him. Cohen Hoback He is a really
really interesting guy in that he is just so focused
on making these movies that he goes into so much

(54:15):
personal debt to make them. Like he he eventually is
able to sell them to bigger productions. But like Hi
Racks Films, his own company made that movie and he
I know during production he was going into so much
credit card debt to make it, and I felt so bad. Yeah. Uh,
favorite word that begins with the letter to uh plint

(54:39):
essential love that um uh if you weren't doing computer work,
what else would you do? Oh? Um, I wasn't doing
computer work, Well, I guess that I would try to
be a lawyer. Yeah, most interesting thing you've learned about love?
The most interesting thing I would say is how there

(55:04):
just isn't enough of it in the world, and it's free,
So you would think that we could give it out
a little bit more freely, But we don't seem to
be able to. We seem to really hold it back.
So I would say that, yeah, we should all learn to,
you know, be a little more free with our love. Yeah,

(55:24):
free love. I guess if you could have dinner with
anyone dead or alive, who would you love to have
dinner with, um, you know this is very funny, and
but this is an honest answer. I have worked for many,
many years on an open source project called Fontford's and
I would want to have dinner with the guy that

(55:46):
wrote that. He's been like dan years writing it, George Williams.
That's my answer. I love it. It's it's a good
it's a good, honest answer. M Frederick. What would surprise
people to learn about you? Well, what would surprise people
if they were to learn about you? I think I
think maybe they would be most surprised that I don't

(56:12):
really um, you know, I don't spend as much time
like on these sites anymore. You know, I don't really
use four chan anymore. I don't use eight chan anymore.
I tend to mostly, you know, try to even limit
general social media, like I'm still on Twitter. But what

(56:33):
I've learned is that these sites are not any place
that anybody wants to be all day, even the mainstream ones,
even the major ones. You know, where you have where
you're using either your real name or some continuous identity.
I yeah, what do you say to people who say
to you? Are you cue? I've asked, because it's youriculous

(57:00):
and um, you know, I used to get a lot
more of that back in the beginning. If you've seen
a documentary where you know, just due to the fact
that I wasn't kind of out there in public and
I hadn't given my views on it, you know, I
was more likely to be kind of fingered as a
possible uh suspect. But you know, if anybody thought I

(57:21):
was cue, I would just say, you know, read my
Twitter account and talk to other experts, there's no way
that I'm cl um. And and finally, look forward for me, Frederick,
where if you and I were to get together again
in ten years and twenty years, what do you think
will be true, Where do you think you'll be, What
do you think will be going on? What would you

(57:42):
like to be true? Well, I would hope if I'm
thinking of an optimistic vision of the world, that we've
really started to tackle a lout of these issues that
we have online, and we've prevented a world where cyber
sovereignty wins the day and every country just decides that

(58:04):
they're going to have their own internal Internet and block
off much of the rest of the world, because unfortunately,
that's what's starting to happen in many places, China, Russia,
A lot of these countries are deciding that we don't
want our domestic citizens to have contact with sites in
other countries. And I would hope that we still have

(58:27):
an open internet in ten years, that we've learned how
to control it a lot better. That we have learned.
You know, that we have just as much focused on
domestic terror as we do on international terror. I think
that's a big one and I would hope that yeah,
that's yeah. Uh. And and and Frederick, how are you

(58:51):
thinking of, um, about where you would live and about family? Well,
I mean, I've had such a turbulent a few years
here that it's hard to think that far ahead. But
you know, you never know, I could be in another
relationship contain years. It's possible. Um. I feel like at

(59:13):
this point, I'm happy doing what I'm doing, you know,
I I feel like I just kind of need a break.
And I don't know where I'll be in ten years.
I might still feel the same way. I might not.
And are there any interesting medical advances on the horizon
that you that could offer you more options? Um? So

(59:39):
there are some new medications I guess that could improve
bone density. Um, there are a lot of treatments for
kids who haven't been born yet and kids who are
very young now, like, for example, the the very severe
oh eye that I have, likew my arm is that's

(01:00:01):
pretty much gone in the world. Um. A kid born today,
even to a poor family, will have enough surgeries and
enough pam ignate. It's called the medicine that wasn't really
a thing when I was a kid. That there, they
won't look like me hardly at all. You know. They
even if they have the exact same genetic problem, they'll

(01:00:24):
have much straight bones. They might even be able to walk.
So uh. And I would think that with gene therapies
and so on, it's likely that this illness could be eliminated,
you know, and at least in people that are very
younger who haven't been born at. Um, Frederick, I really
I appreciate your time, and I uh, you're such a

(01:00:50):
it seems like a weird phrase, but you're such a
thoughtful thinker um that I hope you. I hope you
continue to think with us and think out loud with people.
Like something tells me that you've just been blessed with
more perspective and insight and soul than than many people

(01:01:12):
have otherwise gotten. And while it may not have always
been an easy road, you know, um, something tells me
that you could be really helpful to a lot of
people in terms of how to think about a better
way forward. So I thank you very much. I enjoyed
our conversation. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for making time
for me. I appreciate you making the time no problem.

(01:01:49):
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Carlos
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