Get ready, this is the longest blog post I have written to date.

Above photo source: YouTube

Preface/Abstract

I started writing this piece on my observations and opinions of the man known as Elon Musk. Musk is a man whom I have held in high regard for many years due to his fierce focus on changing the nature of the automotive, energy, and space exploration systems that transport and power our society and our future in space. I am not a Musk fanboy (Muskovite?) nor do I see Musk as a hero, I do however see him as a visionary engineer who uses his resources to just get the things that need to be and should be done – done. Elon Musk is also a human with a specific talent for seeing farther into the future than the majority of us who only have the energy to live day to day. He then works very hard to bring about the needed changes to make that better future happen – no matter how long it takes. Doing all this is hard, and I’m sure it takes a great toll on a person’s mind, Musk is no exception to this rule. Over the decades his desire to make the world a better place has succeeded admirably – but it has also changed him, and now his focus seems to be drifting into uncharted realms that often create far more work, strife, and anxiety for him. These heavy mental weights, as well as the deep-seated painful traumas from his past ACEs, bubble up from the roiling cauldron of his mind and boil over creating even more unbalanced issues for him resulting in some not-so-productive observations and statements from the man we call Musk. While some of the things he says online and in person are not the most tactful – I do not (yet) see them as reasons to “cancel” Musk and, far more importantly, the products his companies produce. An important fact to remember is this: what a person says matters far less than what that person does and while Musk has said some absolutely uncalled-for things, it is what Musk and his products and companies are doing for society, for the environment, and for the future that truly matters. The high-quality products produced by almost all of the Musk-led companies are of a far more positive, proactive nature, than the products of the countless corporations that exist only to make products of low quality, high volume, and often single-use natures, designed only to make loads of profit for the company CEOs and shareholders – without care or concern for the consumer, future generations, or for the environment that supports us all.

Say what you will about Elon Musk and his unique nature and unusual comments, but from where I stand, this one human being, even with all his questionable shortcomings, has done more for our species than almost anyone alive.

That being said, as I continued to research, write, and ponder, I discovered that Mr. Musk and I have some things in common (as most humans do)…so I tugged on that thread, and soon I had this beast of a post.

Researching and writing in my long-winded, word-nerd, no-stone-unturned, style, helped me understand and empathize with Elon Musk a bit more…as well as become angered at the powerful negative forces that traumatized him during his childhood, and that remains a big part of who he is today.

Writing this piece was also greatly therapeutic for me in that it uncovered some of my own deeply buried traumas – my Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) – that I really needed to process to help me better understand the human that I call me, and if there is one thing we the people of Earth need much more of today, it’s empathy and understanding for each other and of ourselves.

I have broken this writing into 13 chapters to make it easier to navigate – enjoy.

Chapter One: An Introduction

Whatever your thoughts about Elon Musk and his quirky, goofy, sometimes bizarre, and often harsh way of voicing his opinion and/or communicating with others, the fact remains: the products his companies produce (and will produce in the future) are some of the most innovative, life, and world-changing, forward-thinking, future-shaping, positively disruptive, technologies ever developed.

While it is obvious that I am in great favor and support of Musk’s automotive engineering, space transportation/exploration, internet provider, renewable energy, computer science/robotics/AI empires, and his master plans…I often find myself wishing he would keep his big flapping pie hole shut on issues he has no business with, and just get back to work changing the world for the better within his original areas of focus…but the reality is this; keeping his mouth shut may not be an option for him.

But why?

As I understand and interpret it, his often bizarre commentary, insensitive attitude, harsh treatment of others – e.g. his “demon mode” – as well as his urgent, goal-oriented focus and engineering aptitude, seem to stem from a combination of innate brilliance, education, and several deeply formative factors as well as the deeply cutting physical and mental traumas he has experienced.

These factors may include but are not limited to:

• The deep emotional and physical trauma – the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) – he received from the horrible physical and emotional bullying he was dealt by his hateful peers, and sadly, from his own mentally and verbally abusive father Errol Musk.
• The social and cultural trauma of growing up in South Africa during the Apartheid era.
• The death of his first child Nevada.
• His failed marriages.
• The estrangement from his trans daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson.
• The fact that he finds escape and solace from his past trauma and social awkwardness by immersing himself in a world of books, comics, video games, and movies.
• His highly competitive nature.

His past adverse childhood experiences, traumas, and escapist influences, coupled with his Aspergers/ASD, and other traits, all have been greatly responsible for rewiring and molding his brain and behavior patterns into the unique individual he is today. This is how it is for all of us, our early childhood experiences – good and bad – serve to shape our developing young brains. Then, add in our day-to-day choices and life experiences and other outside inspirations and influences such as books, movies, friends, family, education, religious system exposure, and often toxic religious trauma – all these things shape us into the adults we will become. We are all products of our choices, environments, education, and experiences, as much as we are evolutionary products of the deep-time-derived chemical coding written within the rungs of our DNA.

Chapter Two: Some Important Self-reflections

I may not be able to fully and constructively relate to most of Elon Musk’s ACEs and past experiences and I will not try, but I do understand how the bullying he experienced as a youth could have impacted him at the time, as well as shaped the man he was to become. I understand because I was also bullied by my peers as a child, young adult, and even into adulthood by so-called “adults” who chronologically were of adult age, yet whose cognition and emotional intelligence remained that of a middle-school-aged individual…or in many cases, a teenage male Chimpanzee (although, that is a bit of an insult to our genetic cousin the Chimpanzee).

Photo source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/jul/17/-sp-dawn-planet-apes-scientifically-plausible-caesar-andy-serkis

I still carry with me the deep emotional scars of that repeated bullying to this day. More than the physical damage to my skin which quickly healed and faded away, the deep emotional scars I absorbed and assimilated remain – and they have impacted my overall mental and physical health to this day. For more on this phenomenon please consider reading The Body Keeps the Score.

Through reading, research, reason, and professional therapy, I am beginning to better understand myself on a much deeper level than I ever thought possible. I now understand that the repeated attacks by so many hateful people were not because of or relating to any mistake I made or thing I did. What I did do was just be myself – a socially awkward, sensitive – (possibly even a Highly Sensitive Person HSP), introverted, quiet, skinny, bookish, science and science fiction, wildlife, and nature-loving curious kid who loved to learn new things. The evidence stands alone: I was a 100% grade-A, super nerd, and back in my teenage world of the 1980s, nerds were not as cool as they are today – so all this was more than enough of a reason for the bullies to harshly target me at the time. No, the issue was not at all mine – the attacks I suffered probably indicated serious problems at home – serious ACEs – lurking deep within the minds and histories of my attackers. Those who bullied me, physically, verbally, and emotionally, they were the ones with the deep emotional problems, and far greater ACEs – and more than likely, they faced even greater bullying at home from their family members. There I was, the quiet little sensitive nerd wearing the Star Wars t-shirt, an easy target, an outlet for their pain and frustrations with their homebound trauma delivery systems. Nevertheless, the repeated emotional humiliation and trauma from the roaming troops of mouth-breathing, drooling, hooting bullies that targeted, and harassed me – built up like a hateful, toxic, sediment that accreted in the hidden recesses and alcoves of my mind and has never been fully washed away. This traumatic sediment has stuck around and deeply harmed my sensitive mind, and for whatever burned into my brain like a brand reason, the trauma I experienced decades ago continues to damage me to this day.

Like a chisel to stone, trauma chips away at what makes us whole. Trauma is a real and powerful, vile, and disgusting, venom-dripping, bloodthirsty beast. It reduces us over time, tiny bit by tiny bit…or sometimes in huge bloody chunks torn out all at once. It changes us, and as it is in nature – whatever we are exposed to in our environment will force us to adapt – because the only other option in life is to curl up and die. These trauma-forced evolutionary adaptations help us cope with the constant onslaught from outside stresses, and they often manifest themselves in many forms including but not limited to:

• A deep introversion, a recoiling, a separation from society, a reluctance, and even an irrational fear of participating in social gatherings common for your age group/social structure.
• A quest to find meaning to life, the universe, and everything outside of the trendy but often shallow, ephemeral focuses constantly and incessantly promoted by almost all aspects of the “modern,” consumer-driven, human condition in the country in which I reside – the USA. (e.g. the adoption/acquisition of stuff, power, control, status, sports, fashion, celebrities, politics, religion, etc.)
• An intense fascination and deep connection to animals and nature and often, a deep connection to a certain animal – a spirit guide (mine was the turtle).
• A deep and powerful feeling that nature is not just a thing or a place – it is THE place, THE thing, THE origin, OUR origin, we are not separate from it, we are all a part of it, and this ancient connection is far more important than any of our petty human wants, needs, and desires.
• An intense focus and a great drive to fix problems – problems with our relationships, with society, with nature, with the world. Sometimes, this focus can become an intense desire to make things better for the future and to work hard to leave things far better than you found them.
• A deep drive to create art, music, literature, or to create great works of engineering far above what would be considered “normal” for the average person.
• Technology/device/gaming and/or substance abuse/addiction issues.
• Anxiety, depression, social disorders, hyper or hypo-sexuality, eating disorders, weight issues, self-harm, and sadly even suicide.
• Unfortunately, the harmful and abusive traits of one’s own bullies, are sometimes copied and carried over onto the next generation by those on the receiving end of the trauma. These painful traits may then manifest as more of the same/similar destructive behaviors echoing the original trauma, the ACEs that were experienced by the original bully as a child. In a way, bullying could be considered a highly virulent communicable “disease” – a self-destructive mind “virus” that, if left unchecked, may easily jump from person to person leaving an endless infection of traumatic traits and scars in its wake – what a terrifying life-limiting concept. We are our own most limiting factor.

Many of these traits are often exhibited by those who have experienced trauma in their early lives – including myself, and possibly even Elon Musk.

For me, a deeply empathetic and sensitive human with HSP traits, the peer-delivered emotional trauma I seemed to magnetically attract manifested itself like a hot lead sledgehammer continually pounding away at the inside of my mind. Hammering away with ever-repeating echoes from the bullies and my mind such as thoughts like “You are the problem.” “You are not good enough!” “You are a goofy-looking weakling, a wimp, a nerd, a geek, and a dweeb!” ”You will never amount to nothing!” ” You suck!” “HAAA – you are adopted so your parents didn’t want you!” “You little bastard!” Sometimes the taunting from the bullies and my own mind hurt my sensitive nature so deeply, that it made me physically ill by manifesting itself in the form of confusion, intense self-doubt, waves of anxiety, and sometimes hot raw fear – followed by abdominal cramps, gastro-intestinal distress, along with cold chills, tears, and depression and it would often take hours or even days for my system to reach equilibrium again.

All the intense negative energy and emotion, all the anger, the angst, the toxic venom, and steaming emotional excrement spat out of the mouths of others and flung at me – and for what real purpose?

Why, why was so much fear and so much hate from other humans directed upon me?

Why are some people so insecure and fragile that they feel the need to control and/or take out their frustrations on others? Am I just an easy target? Am I a coward? Am I fatally flawed in some way?

I will stand up and fight for nature, animals, family, friends, and the future – why didn’t and why don’t I fight for myself more? So many questions for so many years fueled by so much venomous dark trauma from so many different directions.

Study Chimpanzee society and you will find remarkable similarities between their social structure and actions when compared with ours – we may have shared a common ancestor millions of years ago but current evidence suggests we really are not that different today.

Above photo source: https://www.newscientist.com/question/humans-evolve-apes/

Are we human animals only a slightly more evolved erect ape, able to control almost all aspects of our environment, play chess, create great works of art and music, turn sunlight into electricity, split and soon fuse the atom, construct pyramids, PacMan, pizzas, planes, starships and Teslas…yet, like our closest relatives the Great apes, we often still resort to a total lack of emotional discipline and self-control resulting in heated displays of unhinged toxic verbal outbursts (e.g. “Go fuck yourself.” – Elon Musk), childish insults, highly emotional flailing, flogging, and screaming and hooting at our closest family, friends, and even total strangers? Sometimes we so-called thinking apes even go so far as to physically harm and even kill each other when things do not go the way we, or the ideas and cultures we are trapped inside, believe they should go – WTAF? Where is the thinking…and what is so highly evolved about all that fighting and war? Absolutely Nothing.

My over 55 years of real-world observations and decades of field research (living life) suggest this may in fact be the case. The evidence seems to suggest that our unique species is capable of incredible greatness, but at the same time, we fearfully and selfishly choose to remain as ignorant tantrum-tossing toddlers on the playing fields of evolution. Ponder it.

Above photo source: https://www.dzstatue.com/custom-made-famous-statues/philosophizing-thinking-monkey-holding-skull-statue.html

Chapter Three: Deflector Shields

The ACEs of my youth gave me powerful emotional deflector shields against the harsh, 1980s-induced, realities of my life – shields that, when I was younger, were almost always online and deployed at full strength. I also developed a highly sensitive sensory network* that was constantly set at maximum thereby keeping me hyper-aware/hyper-vigilant to my surroundings and alert to any possible danger lurking in the hall, gym locker room, the classroom, and the back of the bus. *(and still is as evidenced by my propensity to have multiple-camera security systems and motion detectors at my home and office as well as complex passwords and multi-factor security on all my devices, email accounts, websites, etc. – yet, more ways to keep the bullies at bay.) These sensitive sensors would instantly alert me and automatically deploy my deflector shields at the first hint of what I perceived as danger: the guttural hoots and predatory chest-beating of bullies on the prowl for fresh nerd meat.

To lessen my contact with, and evade the ever-present threat of the chest-beating, drooling bullies, some of the tactics I developed and lessons I learned include, but are not limited to the following:

• Never make eye contact. – Bullies are like hungry predatory animals, and making eye contact is a surefire way to be instantly targeted and attacked – e.g. “What are you lookin’ at nerd!!”
• Have full control of your emotions. The anger and fear are within them, not you. When confronted by a bully – do not show emotion. Remain calm. At peace. Passive. Let your shields take the impact of and deflect the incoming attack.
• Fly under the radar. Stay low, inconspicuous, in the shadows, and always try to avoid the places the predators lurk such as the gym, football field, community swimming pool, the game, the alley, the club, the pub, and any party anywhere. When a known bully appears on your scanners – retreat as far as possible from the threat and wait until it passes.
• Situational awarenesss. When in places outside of school that bullies may frequent, such as restaurants and other venues, never, ever have your back to the door. You must try to be as inconspicuous as possible, yet also remain hyper-vigilant to whoever enters the room so you will not be surprised by a hulking, hyper-insecure, posturing, pubescent, proto-silverback who feels threatened by your presence (i.e. your uniqueness and/or intellect, your appearance, clothes, glasses…anything that will trigger the bully into entering your personal space and attacking.)
• Do not show your strengths, you will be targeted.
• Do not show your weaknesses, you will be targeted.
• Do not make any mistakes. If you do, you will be targeted.
• Do not stand out: if you do, you will be targeted.
• If you choose to ask or answer questions in class, be prepared to feel the laserlike glare of the beady-eyed bullies boring holes in the back of your head…and to later have your intelligence attacked and/or challenged by boastful baby bullies in the hall after class.   
• Stay away from troops of bullies. One lone bully is a threat, but when ganged up together, they power up and gain full strength from their numbers, and this type of situation has the potential to seriously and negatively damage your calm.
• Stay away from troops of girls. As I am male, this is a male perspective – and in my experience, most of my bullies were juvenile male humans – or at least they appeared to be. I did have a few female bullies, but they were very rare – juvenile female humans are often far more mentally and socially advanced than young male humans. Bullies of all kinds are always lurking, watching, hunting, and always trying to impress themselves and each other by finding someone they perceive as smaller/weaker/different to attack so they can show off their strutting venomous vitriol to each other and to the audience of their peers – in this case, the troops of juvenile female humans whom the strutting juvenile males were often hovering around attempting to impress with their infantile antics.
• Sit in the front seats on the bus/van. In my experience, the bullies tend to cluster like razor-sharp barnacles in the very back of the bus and launch their attacks from this vantage point. But knowledge is power and reality bites – and the back seats of the bus are in mighty close proximity to the vehicle’s exhaust orifice. Therefore, all the dirty-mouthed-ear-flicking-hair-pulling little bullies were in the perfect position to receive great lung-fulls of the unfiltered, toxic particulate-filled, diesel exhaust, wafting in through the windows. I never wish ill on anyone, but karma is a harsh mistress.
• Sit in the front seats in class. As on the bus, the bullies most often sat in the back rows, (the “D” and “F” rows as we nerds often called it,) – intentionally as far away from the knowledge as possible.
• Literary learning refuge. Early on I discovered a very helpful fact: the vast majority of my loudmouthed bullies – for whatever bizarre reason – seemed to be afraid of knowledge. Therefore, for me, libraries were, and still are, safe havens for us nerds and they are one of the safest places on campus. Along with being quiet, bully-free, safe zones – they are full of amazing repositories of knowledge you can pour into your brain from the pages of your favorite books.
• Safe and seductive science seclusion. Like the library, the science lab is also a safe place for us nerds and geeks. It is rare to see a bully visit the science classroom/lab and/or speak to a science teacher by choice. Maybe this is due to the irrational fear of knowledge that (in my experience) many bullies and jocks seem to possess. Whatever the case, the science classroom/lab was a welcome reprieve from harassment from the booger-flicking bullies and often the science teacher was present…and if it’s one thing science teachers like to do – that’s share science knowledge with students. I’m sure all my science teachers throughout all my school days shared stories about that nerdy little kid who was always asking questions about, well, everything, and sheltering in the classroom when the bullies were on the hunt for a geek to trounce.
• When the bell rings – stay seated. The bullies will jump and bolt for the door to escape the dwelling place of the people of knowledge. Do not be in a hurry to exit the chambers of learning, or you may run afoul of a bully – “Where you going so fast – punk!”
• Be comfortable being in the back of the line at lunch…or any line. If grunting hooting chest beating bullies cut in front of you in line, do not react or be concerned. The good thing is that they are now in front of you so they cannot surprise you from behind with their embarrassing juvenile antics. I always kept in mind that the food would never run out and I have never been greedy, impatient, or competitive – so I have never cared about being first in line – I would just peacefully and stoically wait in line until it was my turn, therefore I encountered far fewer issues and wasted far less energy.
• Do not drink out of the water fountains. The drooling bullies often do disgusting things to water fountains – I have seen it multiple times and it is just nasty.
• Do not park in the back of the parking lot. Apparently, it has been “claimed” by all the bullies…in all the parking lots everywhere on planet Earth…now and into perpetuity. I believe it has something to do with the distancing themselves from knowledge thing.
• Arcade awareness. When gaming at the arcade (yes, I grew up in the era before home/PC/online video gaming was a thing) – do not play the most popular and/or newest games, these were the games of choice for the bullies and jocks wanting to show off. (In case you are wondering – my favorite arcade games were, in order of choice – Star Wars, Lifeforce, Galaga, Space Invaders, Rastan, Spy Hunter, Pole Position, Moon Patrol, Donkey Kong, and Pac Man.)
• Do not play competitive sports. In my experience, bullies often seem to be gravitationally attracted to contact sports. It seems to boost their testosterone levels giving them a chance to flex, sweat, brag, boast, and grunt like the drooling knuckle-dragging inbred troglodytes that they often are.
• Stay out of the gym and above all – the gym locker room. This place is the absolute pit of despair, pain, and humiliation for us nerdy and geeky types… and visiting this dank, sweaty, place will always be sure to get you attacked with hateful words and what many often refer to as a wedgie or worse – the atomic wedgie.
• The escape plan. Always have an escape plan ready to execute if things go south. When you feel the beady, bloodshot eyes, and the rancid, bad-cheese breath of a mouth-breathing, sweat-soaked, drooling troll start making the hair stand up on the back of your neck – it is far too late for any of the above tactics to be of any value – so it is time to jump to DEFCON 1 and prepare for “battle.”

From the time I stepped on the bus in the morning to the time I stepped off at the end of the day, I was always vigilant, scanning, on alert mode, collecting data, and using that data to choose the scenarios with the lowest chances of emotional harm – I would do all in my power to avoid the emotional predators. I was not as concerned with physical harm because it only hurts for a short time and heals far faster than emotional harm – which often leaves deep, lifelong scars – yes, it’s that old ACEs thing again.

Therefore, when my hair-trigger sensor net snapped on the red alert, and my shields jumped to full strength revealing that I had been targeted and cornered, my tactics would shift into battle mode and I would instinctually choose freeze and focus over fight or flight. We all know that a predator will give chase and attack even harder when its prey bolts and runs, so when the bullies approached with teeth barred, spittle drooling, and muscles popping – I would silently stand my ground and stoically stare at them as if they weren’t there. Never speaking. Just staring right through them. Watching, scanning, planning, as the red-faced bully often bounced around in front of me beating their chest like a flaming mad, testosterone-fueled, adolescent chimp slinging out impulsive, irrational, emotionally hot steaming fresh excrement in the form of loud toxic insults, putrid drool, fetid breath, hot evaporative words, and always with their fingers and fists gesticulating and waving in my face.

Most of my bullies were usually only verbal attackers, targeting the mind of their target. But I did have my ears flicked from behind, I was tripped on multiple occasions, I had clothing and other items stolen from my desk and lockers, I was often called names, insulted, and humiliated countless times, but only once did a fist ever make contact. Yes, it did hurt – but I quickly got over that one and the other physical insults because they were only physical and soon faded away.

Beach Bully Blues Backfires Beautifully

Another more dramatically memorable instance occurred while I was on a high school class field trip to Daytona Beach Florida when a teenage bully on a diminutive motorcycle fit for a circus clown, intentionally stalked me. I was riding an identical rental motorbike parallel to the surf when the little bully suddenly came out of nowhere, speeding across the beach perpendicular to me and hitting me hard, T-boning me directly behind my little bike’s front wheel/fork assembly. It was extremely obvious to me that the bully was trying to show off to the several beautiful, oiled-up, and tanning cheerleaders in tiny bikinis lounging nearby on the sun-soaked sand. Funny thing, the big bully’s lame little “plan” totally backfired on him, and I watched in what seemed like slow motion as his little motorcycle knocked mine over. As I had seen him coming in my peripheral vision, I was able to jump off to safety like a ninja just before his bike impacted mine, but he was not so lucky – he flew off of his bike, hitting the sand hard and my tiny two-wheeler pretzeled-up with his and both bikes fell on top of him in a very unflattering arrangement. Somehow, his bike’s throttle jammed wide open, and when this happened the engine revved to max RPMs – luckily the bike’s back wheel was only barely touching the ground and it just spun at full speed slinging sand all over the place. Then, I noticed that his bike had fallen onto his legs pinning him down like Wile-E-Coyote under an anvil, and one of his pink, flabby calf muscles was pinned under the bike’s, short little, shiny chrome, exhaust pipe. Initially, neither of us noticed this due to the spectacle and the noise from the highly revving engine, the slinging sand, and the adrenalin suddenly surging through our veins. I also experienced that fascinating phenomenon of The Matrix Effect – where, in a serious situation, the passage of time often slows to almost a crawl – so I watched in extended slow motion – the bikes, the revving engine, the spinning wheel, the bully and his glaring stare and gaping maw – for what seemed like several very long seconds as he stared at the bike on his leg, at me, then back at the bike on his leg…then, time returned instantly to normal speed as I watched him try to push the bike off his body…but he didn’t push hard enough and the bike only shifted but stayed put, the throttle then popped back to normal, the engine stalled and backfired loudly…and then there was silence…except for an oddly hilarious sound…like bacon sizzling in the pan…and it was coming from where the chubby pink flesh of his sweaty calf muscle met the searing hot chrome of his little motorcycle’s diminutive exhaust pipe… there was also the sickly smell of burning human skin and hair…gross. The pain then hit his brain and he squealed like the proverbial pig being branded. Like a mini-me Hulk, he strained, groaned, and pushed the little bike off his legs, jumped up, and ran off – still squealing and cussing as he darted past the stunning sunning coeds. I am sure that event made an even greater impression on him than it did on me – and I am sure he still carries that impression on his leg to this day.

As I have said many times and will say again, karma (physics, and gravity) is a harsh mistress, LOL. 

I was trembling with adrenalin as I picked up my little minibike – still shaken up from the mad spectacle – and suddenly I was surrounded by all the scantily clad, tanning oil-soaked, teenage girls in tiny string bikinis who had jumped up and ran over to check on me – it was all so totally freakin awesome. Yes, I was shaken up, covered in sand, and had a few bruises – but I was grinning from ear to ear since I had been rescued from the little red-faced, heat-branded, bully, by physics, my fast reflexes, and several gorgeous, tanning oil-soaked, teenage cheerleaders…but sadly, I was unable to talk to them due to my over-the-top-insecure nerd factor getting in the way of actual human conversation. All I could say was th-th-th-thank you, ladies, while I tried not to look at the almost naked, coconut-scented, curvaceous, succulent flesh, of the young female bodies only inches away from me…who then started working together to brush all the sand off of me! Almost instantly my 16-year-old mind went from being furious with the bully to being laser-focused on all the gloriously gorgeous and gleefully glowing young females gathered around me…and now touching me…but with all the adrenaline and other chemicals flowing through my veins…it was so hard…just so hard to focus on forming coherent thoughts, and even harder to speak…then I began to feel a familiar…um, let’s just call it a “rising hormonal feeling”…surging into my shorts…oh NO…how could this get even more awkward!! At this hypersensitive stage of my life, I had almost zero control over when my hormones chose to do their thing to um…my “thing.” So I looked away from the fabulous flirty females and quickly and awkwardly extracted myself from the sublime situation then staggered on up the beach pushing my little mini bike. As I returned the bike to the rental company I was feeling so many emotional swings, such a build-up of intense emotions that needed releasing…and the only way I had on hand to relieve and release the oh-so-many different kinds of teenage tensions surging through my veins…was to grab the roll of quarters in my pocket and escape into the nearby arcade with its computer-generated worlds of Galaga, Space Invaders, PacMan, Lifeforce, and my personal favorite – Star Wars. The several hours of arcade games helped me shake out the shock, adrenaline, and total bewilderment of what had happened out on the beach…and beat back the unbelievably intense primal urges to go off somewhere secluded and do the deed my hormones wanted me to do. Too bad all the gorgeous girls weren’t interested in joining me in saving the galaxy, but I never had much luck with the girls at that awkward geeky age anyway.

All the other hundreds of times I was attacked by predatory juvenile humans, I was able to calmly and without visible emotion, dodge and duck out of the way until the bully(s) exhausted their short-tempered, chip-on-the-shoulder, hot-headed aggressiveness. They would eventually run out of whatever steam had pressurized them into attacking me, give up, and walk away dragging their knuckles…always while gesticulating and calling me names as if they had some deep-seated need to get in the last word to the silent, non-threatening, skinny little introverted sensitive nerd standing alone in the hallway. Maybe it was my silent, cool-headed, laser-focused, serenity that was the greatest threat to their opposing loudmouthed flaming-hot anger.

These tactics I developed served me well throughout my youth and helped me avoid many other socially awkward, uncomfortable, and dangerous situations.

I once asked a neighbor and great mentor of mine what I should do about all the toxic bullies at school. He thought for a moment and then shared an old proverb his father had shared with him when he once asked the same question when he was a young Cherokee boy:

I always remembered his lessons, and then and now – I choose to never feed the wolf.

Chapter Four: Trauma, Missing Pieces, and Software Patches

During the focused heat of all the intense moments I was being attacked by all the bullies, I was always in a state of mental paralysis and physical readiness – unable to process anything but a potential escape plan should my stoic tactics fail. However, once the danger was over and I could drop my protective shields and process the event – initially, I would often have shallow thoughts of attempting complete and total mind-melting revenge upon the belligerent bullies…but then, time would switch on my thinking mind and I would hear the reasoned words of support and kindness from my mentors and my mother and I would come back to reality. Revenge was just another kind of bullying and I was not going to ever go down that road. 

Someone once said that being successful and living well was the best revenge, and as that old Margarita song by the Spin Doctors so aptly put it “Revenge is sweet, But success is sweeter, Take the salt from my wounds and put it in my margarita.“ Success (and margaritas) seemed like a far better way to spend my time and my unknown number of remaining life points. As I grew older and experienced more of life, I took the salt from my mental wounds and used it to season the margarita of the life I had found and was happily drinking deeply of. I discovered the joy and passion of learning new things, traveling, and meeting new people, and I also discovered that many of them were a lot like me. Finding these kindred spirits and continuing to develop my quest for knowledge and adventure really helped me finally come most of the way out of my shell-like shield. I began to gain greater self-confidence as I chose to dwell deeper in society…however, for whatever reason, it seems there are always predatory humans lurking in unexpected places, ready to pounce on the successful, margarita-drinking (in moderation), adult super-nerd that I had become. The encounters I have had with all the “adult” bullies and other mean people I have encountered over the years, have made me realize that I have never put the shields fully away, and I still carry them to this day. I rarely use them but when I need them, they are still there, just under the surface, and they still serve to protect my core, they allow me to maintain my composure, and keep my unusually hyper-sensitive emotions hidden under many layers of life and trauma-tempered shielding. This emotional shielding gives me a way to cope, a way to let the inflamed emotions, the hateful words, the future-limiting backward ideas, and the selfish short-sighted choices of others, just bounce off my ACE and trauma-hardened shield-like exoskeleton that continues to protect my highly sensitive self hiding underneath. This is what I tell myself anyway…

There always seems to be some bad with the good and sadly, just like too many margaritas can be harmful, these protective deflector shields may have also had a hidden, negative, deep dark impact on my mind. They have forced me to hold my emotions, as well as the dark, stinging waves of hate slung from the minds and mouths of my bullies and others, deep inside where they precipitate, accrete, and get stuck under my shields. There they have built up, fermented, and festered for decades and formed a dangerous plaque that recently seems to have started emitting a sort of “radiation,” a dangerous, negative, dark energy that, for many decades, grew slowly, like a malignant cancer just waiting to revel its twisted hateful existence during one of the lowest points in my life. This began to happen in 2021 after I was vaccinated for the global ravaging SARS-CoV-2 virus. Before I continue I must make 100% clear that I have always been pro-vaccination for those individuals who have nominally functioning immune systems. However, for those with auto-immune disorders, I recommend great caution. I say this because the mRNA vaccine tossed my sensitive immune system into a state of hyperactivity which led to a multitude of physical and mental distress including pain, inflammation, mouth ulcers, peripheral neuropathy, lethargy, and intense brain fog – basically most of the symptoms of “long covid.” Then, In the spring of 2022, I became host to the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19). My symptoms were not terribly bad, lasted only a few weeks, and were nothing like my friend Gordon experienced in 2020. A few weeks after my symptoms faded I began to develop a severe neurochemical imbalance that seemed to feed upon my decades-old festering plaque and manifest itself in the form of mind-numbing anxiety, and a heavy, energy and life-crushing depression that was, at times, totally debilitating and almost unbearable.

During this time in my life, while things were really bad inside my head, I never reached the point of contemplating ending it all, but if my wonderful wife had not been there for me and had been so supportive and understanding of the tormented hell pit I was going through daily, and if my therapist had not been there as an impartial observer talking me through the madness, and if my doctor had not conducted many complex tests that revealed my chemical brain fart and then prescribed an anti-depressive chemical treatment and suggested a multitude of supplements to help treat this incredibly depressive state – I feel that I may have eventually found myself at that dark, dead-end path…and who knows what the person I was on the way to becoming would have done. Yes, mental illness is that bad.

A look in the mirror

All this recent medical and mental trauma, all the recurring early-life ACEs I experienced, and the resulting coping skills I developed due to being wrapped in the tentacles of the trauma for so long, all this twisted history along with my highly sensitive nature – all these things did and still are hurting me. I feel that these experiences, traumas, traits, and mental rewirings have altered, or possibly even removed some of my ability to successfully, productively, and emotionally relate to mentally stressful situations such as death and funerals as well as to others who exhibit sudden heated emotions – even when their emotional outbursts are not actually bullying, but stem from a more proactive source or even a concern for my wellbeing. It seems that when this happens, all the deep emotional stressors from my ACEs, and the many decades of repeated emotional trauma, instinctively react, triggering my mental deflector shields thereby blocking my ability to reason through the reality of the situations and therefore only making things worse for me in the moment, or in the long run.

It also seems that I may have developed some misplaced/misdirected/redirected responses to the emotions and genuine concerns of others such as friends, family members, and supervisors. When these things happen it seems that my sensitive nature, as well as some malignant plaque-like product of all the years of trauma hiding deep in my mind, might be labeling them as a direct threat, while at the same time, my intellect and reason-processing abilities are being suppressed in favor of preserving my chances of survival – even when there is no real danger.

This inner exploration and deep self-analysis are leading me down mind trails I have not trodden in decades.  Trails that are now overgrown, covered in thorns and brambles, impossible to navigate…or even to locate on my mind map. This suggests to me that the puzzle that is my mind, may have a very important missing piece. A piece that was ripped out…stolen by the hateful venomous bullies and by all the hot emotional trauma I experienced and absorbed over all the years. Maybe it is still there, deep inside this mucky murky quagmire that is me…but bound up so tightly and buried so deeply under multiple layers of self-shielding that I am unable to access it. I have no idea what this lost piece is or where I need to journey to find it. I hope it is not lost forever.

I also feel that in my formative years, my deeply sensitive mind must have protectively created some new software, new code, written and installed by my exposure to the ACEs, and to the environmental conditions/toxins I was exposed to while my brain was in its early developmental state. Young brains are plastic and my young brain relied on this neuroplasticity to adapt, evolve, and rewire itself to help me cope with the real and perceived threats lurking all around me. It worked for me at the time, but now it seems that the early adaptive rewiring – and possible missing/hidden piece(s) – may be interfering with the healthy and productive functioning of the emotion processing and human interpersonal relationship/intraspecies interaction sector of my personal meat-based CPU.

It is now obvious to me that my experiences with all the bullies over all the years gave me some pretty important missing mind pieces – the ones the bullies repeatedly ripped from me and stomped into the mud and then laughed at as they jeered and cursed at me standing alone with no support but my shoes and invisible self-shielding. This shielding took the initial blows, but apparently absorbed and internalized much of the pain only to be dredged up later causing me great emotional harm. Sometimes it seems as if the bullies are back, circled up around me, collectively targeting me from all sides with their highly venomous focused hatred all over again.

Like Elon Musk – I escaped my malfunctioning unhealthy reality by filling in those missing pieces with reading. I read every science, engineering, space, and nature book I could find, every new and old National Geographic, Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazine, comics (Spiderman was my favorite because I could really relate to Peter Parker), video games, science fiction movies, and TV, as well as a deep interest in the realities of science, space, and the mysterious deep-time beauty of the natural world all around me. These distractions were my escape, my solace, my comfort, my rescue….and together they all built my future.

Unlike what Elon Musk experienced with his abusive father, my adoptive father was a very good man. He was never aggressive, harsh, or mean and he always spoke to me in a kind, unthreatening, measured tone of voice full of love, respect, and reason. His calm way was so very comforting to me and I suppose that is a big part of why I am similar in the way I have always tried to relate to others – with unthreatening open, calm kindness.

My adoptive father was strongly career-focused and only wanted to provide a good life and prosperous future for his family. However, he had also experienced terrible childhood ACEs which led to an addictive and depressive personality. Sadly, I had to spend my early life watching as he made harmful life and family-disrupting choices with tobacco, alcohol, his business, and infidelity, and later passed away alone, sick, depressed, intoxicated, bankrupt, and broken by his bad life choices…by his trauma. At the time, I was young and I am sure I did not know what exactly was happening to him, but what I did know was that the heavy emotions between my loved ones were hurting them, hurting our family – and it was also deeply hurting me to see these painful things play out. These were painful adverse childhood experiences that served to give me an extreme desire and a laser-sharp focus to NEVER follow in his footsteps by letting a substance control me to the point where I lost control of my decision-making process, my information output filter system, my connections to my loved ones that could cause me to make unhealthy life, business, and relationship decisions. Early on, I made a personal vow to NEVER let destructive addictive substances such as alcohol and tobacco, logic-lacking evolution-crafted hormones, or childishly selfish emotions, ever control my destiny, and above all those things – NEVER treat anyone as the bullies had treated me.

I feel that I have succeeded in never letting addictive substances have control over me, however, in the early 2000’s, during another depressed time in my life, I started down a road that could have ended in video game addiction and even more depression and emotional pain. Lucky for me, my wonderful wife recognized that I had a problem and together we sought help from a counselor, I dropped the gaming problem, and I have not looked back. If not for her recognition that something was wrong, and then pulling me up out of that vortex of despair and depression and working together with me to bring me back to reality – I do not know what would have become of my life. I have so much love and gratitude for her incredible selfless focus on my well-being, and on our lifelong partnership.  

The traumatic experiences of my youth also have given me a lifelong mission and focus to do all in my power to make a positive and lasting difference in the world so the greedy bullies and haters will have less of an impact on innocent people, and on the wildlife and nature that I love so much and that supports us all. (Read my earlier post on bullies).

Chapter Five: Life-Defining Connections

Way back in 1980 when I was in the 6th grade, I made some future-defining connections and associations when Mr. Jackson taught us about energy, our species’ overuse of fossil fuels, and their associated pollution problems – and what all this pollution was doing to our environment, our health, and our future.

Mr. Jackson devised an experiment to help us learn; we affixed, what I now believe were Petri dishes filled with a super-sticky substance (it was not standard agar, and still to this day I do not remember what it was), to randomly chosen locations around the school’s campus. We were also instructed to take one of the sticky disks home with us and place it in a location of our choosing. My team and I placed one disk on the wall in the school’s kitchen, and the other I took home and placed in the dirtiest place I could think of – the boiler room that heated our home and business – it was fired by coal. The disks were left exposed to the air in situ for a few weeks. At the end of the experiment, we placed a lid on them, collected them, and returned them to the classroom where we examined them with magnifying glasses and microscopes, observing and counting the sooty, black, particulates that were trapped in the sticky medium. Most places on campus were very clean with the bathrooms and kitchen being the cleanest, but the ones with the most trapped particulate pollution came from inside one of the school buses, a student’s home near a busy highway, and my home’s heat source – the coal-fired boiler room. I really wish we would have been allowed to place one in the teacher’s lounge because it was always full of clouds of cigarette smoke from the teachers puffing away on their cancer sticks. Sadly, that room was off-limits to us students. 

This real-world, evidence-supported, knowledge made me far more air-aware and it hit very close to home – literally – with the dirtiest air being found in places where I spent lots of time – my home, and the school bus. The pollution was coming from our society’s choice of energy – coal and oil – fossil fuels. The great irony was the fact that the very things that allowed our society to stay warm and get around – were harming all of us, and our shared environmental life-support system. I was saddened by this very obvious, evidence-supported, fact. I was also bewildered and bothered by it – why were we intentionally harming ourselves? It made no sense to my young brain, and today, over four decades later – it still makes no sense to me why we continue to knowingly harm ourselves and our futures by choosing to use toxic fuel sources when we have far better options blowing in the wind, surging through the waters, superheated in the subterranean rocks, and pouring down from the glorious free sun. Read more about my road to sustainability in a post I penned a few years ago after my students, friends, and I completed Phase One of our classroom solar array. Below is a photo of when I recently visited my 6th grade classroom where I made so many important connections so long ago. I am holding a small solar module (panel) in one hand and a toy representing a 2012 Nissan LEAF, the all-electric vehicle I was driving at the time.

It was around this time in my life when I also discovered Carl Sagan‘s TV mini-series COSMOS A Personal Voyage. Carl’s passionate message of the astonishing beauty of reality awakened something inside me, it gave me a deep reverence for life, the universe, and everything, and it gave me a great curiosity, a growing fascination, and an intense focus on things larger than myself.

At the same time I was making these big connections, and discoveries, and developing even bigger questions, I started watching reruns of the original Star Trek. This unique TV series opened my eyes to social problems, and more importantly for me, it fed my deepening curiosity and expanded my interest and my studies into the realities of nature, science, the cosmos, and the future possibilities of our species…if we do not destroy ourselves before we achieve the next level of our evolution.

I loved all the main characters of Trek, but I related most to Mr. Spock – a singular being intensely fascinated by a scientifically-focused way of life while striving to achieve pure, stoic, logic. However, this being of pure logic was constantly tormented by his suppressed emotions streaming from his ancient Vulcan DNA and from his highly emotionally reactive human DNA (he was a Human-Vulcan hybrid), as well as from all the highly unpredictable, emotional, and illogical beings he was forced to share his life with – yet whom he loved with all his logic-shielded heart. Over the years I watched and read everything Star Trek. I used it as an escape from, and a guiding light in the unpredictability of my reality.

I also believe I formed a connection to Spock, a “mind meld” of a sort, that allowed me to “Spockify” myself and stay focused during times of great anxiety, fear, pain, and strife.

It was through the lessons of Mr. Spock, Carl Sagan, and Mr. Jackson that I discovered, constructed, and fed my curiosity, my emotional discipline, and, the many layers of mental shielding that kept me safe from what I perceived as absolute and utter chaos raging all around me. I still love all the iterations of Star Trek and it continues to help me cope with reality – and with my own reality. 

So many things came together for me in those early, formative years, it was then that I believe I discovered another connection in my reality – a deep-seated relationship between those individuals and organizations that choose to intentionally harm others and/or produce products and services that intentionally harm people, animals, and nature in their greedy quest for wealth, power, and control. In my way of understanding at the time, I believe I saw these greedy, profit-focused, individuals and institutions as just another kind of bully – but a far more dangerous, and far larger bully than my little red-faced schoolyard bullies – these were far more powerful bullies, bullies that were harming nature, everyone, and everything alive through their careless, selfish, power and profit-seeking choices and actions. A powerful formative factor that helped me notice this connection was when, as a child, I was exposed to air pollution from the school busses I rode back and forth to school, the automobile exhaust all around me, smoke from my family home and business’s coal-fired heat source and from the nearby coal-fired power plant that provided electrical power to my community. These facts, along with what I learned from Mr. Jackson, Carl Sagan, and Star Trek, gave me great concern for the future of our species – and for life in general. During this time I also watched as my adoptive father, and many of my family members and friends slowly smoked themselves into bad health and early deaths – so much toxic mental and physical trauma, so much loss on so many levels, and from so many different directions.

As I grew up, my sensitive young mind began to associate these polluting fossil fuels, smoke-spewing vehicles and power sources, tobacco products, and those companies that produce and provide them – with the strutting, loudly crowing, hateful, predatory bullies all around me. Like the bullies, these polluting fuel choices – these fossil fuels, and those that were addicted to and worshiped them – were also harming everyone with the completely selfish goal of enriching and propping up only themselves without a care for life or future generations – so therefore, I associated these fossil fuel pushers and the toxic fuels they were (and are) pushing on us, as a drug – as a toxic enemy. Today I still see the fossil fuel pushers as an enemy, an enemy to life today, and for future generations. I have developed such a sensitivity to these individuals and organizations that I am hyper-aware of their presence around me, in my community, and in the world. I see and hear these perpetrators everywhere and they deeply annoy and stress me beyond what words can convey.   

But unlike all the juvenile schoolyard bullies, this hulking enemy and their greedy minions could be defeated if enough people would join an army, an army of good.

This is when the seeds of my future focus were planted, but it took several decades for it to grow to fruition. During this time of growth, I opened many books (and later many web pages) and learned as much as I could about the problems associated with fossil fuel use and their great and lasting impacts on our health today, tomorrow, and for all future life on our home planet.

At some point around 2010, I began to feel extremely guilty for the actions of my past – I felt that I was part of the problem due to my lifetime of use of toxic fossil fuels and I decided that I could no longer continue being part of the problem and had to work to become a part of the solution. I needed to focus on making the future a better place – I needed to live up to the adage of leaving the world better than I found it. Therefore, my wife and I began the slow process of adapting our lives to have a lower carbon footprint by adopting renewable energy systems and electric vehicles as well as far more sustainable, efficient, and healthy ways of living. It was around this time that I also started teaching the next generation all I had learned over my lifetime of learning. 

Chapter Six: Adaptations and Evolutions

In 2013 my wife and I purchased one of the first plug-in 100% Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) in our area – a 2012 Nissan Leaf – that’s it pictured below at PARI.

Around that time I co-founded the Blue Ridge EV Club – which now has hundreds of members and a Tesla-only splinter group. Today, through my small volunteer-owned and operated 501c3 nonprofit outreach organization Earthshine Nature Programs, I use my amassed knowledge, skills, and real-world functioning teaching tools to share evidence-supported, off-the-shelf ways to lessen our reliance on fossil fuels and eventually wean ourselves off of them entirely. Some working examples of my focus with my nonprofit organization include the following community-funded projects:

• A student and volunteer-constructed 19.2 kW photovoltaic solar array
• A 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV outreach vehicle
• A solar-powered mobile outreach classroom and microgrid system
• As well as many nature and wildlife conservation, environmental education, renewable energy, and EV-related hands-on teaching tools in both my classroom and mobile outreach classroom.

I use these amazing working examples, as well as my decades of experience and knowledge, along with the support of my many dedicated volunteers, to impart lessons and examples of why it is important to make use of these technologies if we want our species, and all the species we share our planet with, to survive into the next century and beyond.

Photo: Several of my wonderful volunteers and I sharing nature & science knowledge at a recent festival.

Humble fundraising request: please consider assisting our small, volunteer-operated, 501c3, raise the funds to acquire the final outreach EV needed to complete our EV+ solar microgrid outreach education and community assistance programs by visiting our website for more information on this program and this campaign. Below is a (badly Photoshopped) idea of what it will look like when it is complete (soon to be replaced with a real photo of a real Cybertruck pulling the PoD!)

Chapter Seven: That Musky “Madness,” Mad Money, and Much More

For Elon Musk, however, the senseless bullying he experienced from almost all sides during his formative years, must have carved out and stomped up and down on huge chunks of his heart and mind and injured him very deeply. His early traumatic experiences, coupled with his ASD, seem to have hardened him and maybe even de-sensitized him to the emotions, needs, and realities of those immediately around him…as well as those watching on the other side of his device’s screen. However, when it comes to feeling something for our species as a whole, he seems to have a great and pressing urgency to save all of us from doom – be it natural or self-inflicted. I believe he may have developed this white knight hero trait due in part to growing up with peers and a father whom he undoubtedly labeled as venomous villains. Therefore, in his mind, maybe he feels that HE must be the hero who must go through all kinds of hardship and hell (production hell) trekking forward on his own epic quest, his own Hero’s Journey, to save all the innocent bystanders (the rest of us) from receiving the same kinds of harm that he went through – or from harm we accidentally or intentionally inflict upon others or ourselves. Like the superheroes from his favorite stories, Musk may subconsciously – or consciously – feel that it is his duty, his mission in life to rescue our species from itself. Like the single-minded to-hell-with-the-rules Doc Brown from the Back to the Future movies, Tony Stark’s Iron Man, or any captain from the Star Trek universe – Musk knows deep in his core that what he is doing is the right thing to do and that it must be done at all costs – or there will be very serious consequences for the future of all of us.

While I agree with his mission and can relate on many levels, I do not at all agree or support some of the insensitive, impulsive, unfiltered, and deep dumbassery of some of the things he has said in interviews, on X, nor do I agree with the harsh and disrespectful ways he often treats others. However, there is no edict, law, or executive order stating that we must agree or support each other to coexist. Not agreeing with something someone says does not instantly make that person a horrible scoundrel to be hated and cast out of society – it only means that the two of you disagree on a topic.  

That being said, I have a few things I must get off my chest. For what little value it has, these are some of the things Musk has stated that I do not support.   

 

• The many allegations of bullying, harassment, racism, and discrimination from employees in his Freemont Telsa factory and others (see this recent article: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/tesla-racism-sexual-harassment/ ) To play devil’s advocate, this article may just be another fabricated hit piece targeted at Musk and his companies by the minions of big oil. Think about it, if all these allegations were true, there would be piles of evidence everywhere (and maybe there is). Aren’t there security cameras all over the Tesla factories? If all the hate-focused graffiti exists/existed, where are the security camera videos, where are the photographs taken by all the smartphones held in the hands of those who the racist bullies targeted? Where is all the evidence? If the evidence in fact exists and supports what those claiming harm are saying, then there is a real and terrible problem at Tesla and it is time to fix it. Just like you would fix a problem on a car. Fix it Elon, fix it.
• His war on “wokeness” is a bizarre twist of his character that I cannot understand. I once thought of Musk as being far more “woke” to the issues and concerns of society than many. However, with some of his recent comments, and the reinstatement of some of the most divisive and hateful bullies ever to walk the earth allowed back on the X platform – I wonder if Musk is losing touch with the reality of these individuals and how much damage they can and will do if given the chance. Don’t get me wrong, I am all about free speech – but in today’s world, evidence suggests that there has to be a limit. There has to be some form of filter that stops the poison of the bad apples from reaching the minds of the gullible, twittering masses. You know how one bad apple has the potential to rot the entire bunch…well, there may be some truth to that old adage. To use Tesla vernacular – social media needs a bioweapon defense mode filter system, a mask mode to filter out and remove the toxic and infectious hate, fear, and FUD particulates from the air steam. To not remove these toxins and just let them flow in unchecked is just a recipe for disaster – a recipe for future societal sickness. 
• His careless, reckless, comments and tweets targeting individuals and other groups when things don’t go his way. Where I come from that is called a temper tantrum. Grow up Elon.
• His often fowl mouth when confronted with uncomfortable information (e.g. Go fuck yourself!”). This is not a way for a professional person to act on international media. Again, grow up Elon.
• The way he goes off on people – his often insensitive – aka “demon mode” – way of attacking a situation or a person – again, when things don’t go his way. Grow up Elon. 

You, me, no one – no matter the situation – has the right to treat people this way. No one, no matter how much money and power they have, has the right to be a tantrum-tossing little bully.

It really does seem that there may be a lot of his dad in him.  

I hope he can get some professional help and one day find the missing pieces to his twisted mind puzzle. Maybe then he will be able to wake up to the real issues all around him – not the conspiracy theories and other utter hogwash he has lately been latching onto.

When this happens he will grow and evolve even more and will then be able to do even more good things for humanity.     

With that all said, I have spoken with several people who have worked for Tesla and they have all stated that the working environment was wonderful (some evidence from the inside that suggests to me that many of the dark claims by some ex-employees of Tesla may in fact be fabrications by profit-seeking/vengeful individuals.)- but also very fast-paced and urgent. One individual who worked in the Fremont, California factory said that while working there he never had the opportunity to meet Musk, but his supervisor did report to Musk and that both were very open to any suggestions for improving – everything. If an employee – no matter who they were – had an idea for improving and/or speeding up the build process or even the components of the cars – they could relay their idea to their supervisor who would discuss it with the senior team, and if it had merit, it would be implemented ASAP – sometimes within days or even hours. It was once said by Sandy Munro that Tesla operates at the “speed of thought” and after speaking with these individuals, I believe that statement to be correct, and a huge part of why Tesla is so successful…even with a CEO who is a brilliant, neurally-divergent, adolescent, tantrum-tossing little boy trapped in a man’s body. Musk’s past traumas, his ACEs, and his ASD have shaped him into the brilliant engineer he is today – but if he is not careful, they could also break him.

However, the obvious fact remains that Elon Musk, and all of us, are products of our pasts and at the mercy of the way our personal CPU – our brain – is wired by the ancient experiences of our species’ own evolution, as well as the recently acquired, rewired, and re-programmed experiences of our day-to-day lives. The hardware of our CPU, loaded with the software, the emotional, cultural, religiopolitical, educational, programming, and trauma – the input and (to use an often incorrectly used word) the indoctrination that we all receive while growing up – will dictate how our minds will function as the adult, thinking, mostly hairless, multi-colored, technophilic-apes that we are. In effect – once our mushy meat computers are programmed by all these forces and online, they gather input, run multiple processes, and often conclude (“think”) they are protecting us from dangers that our conditioning, education (from school, religions, parents, friends, etc.), and everyday experiences, have been programmed to label as real threats to our continued existence, as well as those they perceive as threats – even if some of these “threats” are physically harmless.

You, me, and Elon Musk, none of us are immune to this fact as evidenced by many therapists, well-researched papers, and books, including this wonderfully written – and very revealing – recent biography of Musk by Walter Isaacson.

Another point I feel I must make is the fact that many of history’s great minds, minds that shaped our thinking, our modern world, and our way of life – (e.g Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Jaques Cousteau, Galileo Galilei, Stephen Hawking, Charles Darwin, Rosalind Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, Howard Hughes and many more) – were troubled souls and/or often labeled as volatile, cranky, crazy, heretics, sinners, and free spirits – among many other names. Many had surely experienced terrible trauma, ACEs, and other mental and physical hardships, and some were in all likelihood, on the Autism spectrum (many of us introverts and dreamers are probably somewhere on the spectrum – but we just do not know it – and there may, in fact, be a connection between Autism and Introversion.) Similarly, I see Elon Musk as a unique, brilliant, and deeply troubled individual, similar in so many ways to so many of the previously-mentioned great minds from history…but the big difference, and possibly a big part of the reason many people have so much trouble accepting him – is the simple fact that we and Elon Musk are all sharing the same timeline and living alongside each other, therefore, his antics may be harder for some to accept than just reading about them after the fact in a history book.

Also, I do suppose the mountains of ever-growing enormous heaps of money and resources he has invested in and made from all his companies, may have had a powerful influence on his choices as well. 

Fact: Elon does not receive a salary from Tesla, stock options, yes, but his salary is zero. 

If I had access to millions or even billions of dollars, like Elon I would also use it to make the world a better place, maybe not on such a grand scale as Musk does, but I do have positive plans for my little “corner” of the planet if I ever come into a large sum of money.

Another tangent: I often wonder just what makes some people choose to do good things with their intelligence, money, and power, while others greedily choose to do things only for themselves and/or strive to control the choices/actions of others? I have thought about this a lot, and I still have not come to any real conclusions – but I do have some thoughts.

Maybe greed is deeply coded and deeply rooted in our DNA, an ancient genetic trait stemming from the evolutionary need to survive a harsh, challenging, and highly competitive existence before we Modern Humans arose, before agriculture, before “civilization,” before the “modern” world, and before science. Maybe it is a hold-over from a time in the distant, foggy past when everything was trying to kill and eat us and we had to do anything – no matter how aggressive or greedy it may seem to us “modern” humans today – to survive to see another day. When we passed yet another natural selection challenge and our fitness allowed us to survive, we would then pass these survival traits – these ACEs* – on to our offspring whose modern descendants – us – still carry them to this day. *Maybe we should call them – Evolutionary Adverse Experiences (EAEs) – carried forward to today from deep time?

Sometimes, however, chance was not on our side.

Image source unknown – I have had it for many years.

In those of us who choose to use our money, power, and resources to do good things rather than greedily serving only ourselves, maybe our genetic self-survival-focused EAE trait is turned off, suppressed, or modified by…something novel, a new genetic adaptation born out of our constant fight to survive our ancient EAEs – as well as our modern ACEs. Maybe we have discovered a new way to learn from the hardships we have encountered in our lives and we have evolved a deep drive, a focus, and an urgency to never repeat them again? Maybe our Fight, Flight, or Freeze instinct has adapted to be more productive – maybe it is now Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fix.

Or possibly could it be that we free spirits are, by education, environment, experience, and evolution, somehow consciously more aware of how wonderful, and unique, this thing called life truly is, and we want to do everything in our power to keep the special spark of life thriving and moving forward into the future? Maybe we are just more “woke” to evidence, facts, life, the universe, and everything?

Whatever it is, sometimes it feels like a blessing, and sometimes a curse. Why a curse you might ask? The answer is simple – making change happen is very hard work. It weighs heavily on the mind, body, and soul. Sometimes, for a fleeting moment, I think it would be far easier to give up – far easier to just be selfish, to just ignore the mountains of evidence all around me, to just sit back and consume whatever I want and do whatever I want, without any care for the future…but then my compassion and empathy for future generations of humans, wildlife, and nature kicks in and I forge ahead, ever tormented by the ever-creeping clockwork of the fires of time slowly and methodically consuming my body with each passing year (this is one of the reasons I practice some physician-guided nutritional supplement-based “biohacking”), and the deep urgency I have to leave things better than I found them. I also hear the words of all the great human beings who have come before – those who have made lasting positive changes happen – those brilliant, focused, and often troubled minds with great purpose.

“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard” -JFK

“This isn’t rocket science, mate. We’ve got to stop being so bloody selfish. We’re not the only ones on this planet.” –Steve Irwin

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants” –Isaac Newton

“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” –Albert Einstein

“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.” –Stephen Hawking

“If you can judge a wise man by the color of his skin, then mister you’re a better man than I.” –Aerosmith

“To make dreams come true, all you have to do is fight for what you believe in and NEVER NEVER give up.” –Nature Nic “

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” –Albert Einstein

“I have a message for my fans. Whatever you want to do in this world, it is achievable. The most important thing that I’ve found, that perhaps you could use, is to be passionate and enthusiastic in the direction that you choose in life, and you’ll be a winner.” –Steve Irwin

“Unless we do something quickly about teaching kids about our dying animals, there isn’t going to be much left, if anything, for the generations that follow.” –Steve Irwin

“It’s no good being a conservationist and keeping your lips sealed tight, no matter what you might be doing physically. You’ve got to tell people what you’re doing, so they’ll pick it up too, do the same thing. As for me, I’m going to keep on doing this until I can’t do it anymore, and that will be the day when I say goodbye to this world.” –Steve Irwin

“Not all those who wander are lost.” –J.R.R.Tolkien

“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” ― Carl Sagan

“You must unlearn what you have learned. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will…” ~ Yoda

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” — Mahatma Gandhi

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” ~ Dr Seuss

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” ― Carl Sagan

“May the Force be with you is charming but not important. What’s important is that YOU become the Force–for yourself and perhaps for other people.” –Harrison Ford

“Dare Mighty Things.” – NASA/JPL

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” –J.R.R.Tolkien

“I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and question yourself.” –Elon Musk

“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.
It matters that you don’t just give up.” –Stephen Hawking

“The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life’s meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us for our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.” ― Carl Sagan

If I had even a tiny fraction of Musk’s resources I might be a bit freer with my “random” observations – oh wait, I am already mighty free with my observations (e.g. this post), but I always do my best to be as respectful and careful as possible with the feelings and points of view of others*, and I will continue to do so no matter how much or how little money, status, and resources I have. *unless they are absolute and total self-absorbed hateful bullies who choose to harm others, animals, or the environment with their only goal being to prop up and enrich only themselves at the expense of everyone and everything moving forward. Then, I might just choose to calmly share all the available evidence, and do everything possible to persuade others to not support them.

Chapter Eight: Camp Critical Mass

With all this being said, the question still remains: why are so many people so harshly and overly critical of Elon Musk and his companies? My research and observations have led me to thoughtfully consider that many of the most vocal haters seem to be based in five main camps.

Camp 1: Those who fling great and steaming fresh heaps of manufactured Fear Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) toward Musk and anything he is connected to – simply because the Musk-led companies and their products/missions directly threaten their company mission/profits/way of life. Example: any company(s) that mine, ship, refine, and distribute fossil fuels and/or produce the vehicles that need them to operate, as well as the entire support and supply chain needed to keep the fuels flowing and the legacy vehicles that need them, rolling on the roads.

Camp 2: Those who are simply jealous of Mr. Musk’s money/social status and want a piece of his very big pie – even though they did not write the recipe, source the ingredients, or bake the pie.

Camp 3: Those individuals or organizations happy with the comfortable and nostalgic status quo and/or unwilling to accept change, even when that change would be far better for them in the long run.

Camp 4: Those individuals or organizations offended by, and/or not in agreement with, his comments – e.g. the recent trend of “cancel culture” – the practice of canceling, blocking, or boycotting an individual or organization and/or its products due to words uttered or actions committed by said person or organization. In my opinion, this future-limiting practice should be viewed and used on a spectrum. For example: if a person(or organization) makes off-the-cuff, unfiltered, emotional comments on social media that are clearly the ramblings of a neuro-divergent, filter-lacking, man-child, with ASD, suffering from severe ACEs and/or PTSD (e.g. Elon Musk) – then maybe it should be scrutinized – but not canceled. However, if what the person (or organization) says or does is targeting/insighting hate, harm, promoting FUD, falsehoods/outright lies, is driven by greed, and/or is producing products that – by their very natures are designed to be harmful or addictive and/or harm others or our shared futures – then yes, they should be canceled…and/or rendered extinct. (e.g. tobacco, fossil fuel companies, Alex Jones/Info Wars, Donald Trump, and other dangerous misanthropes who dwell on the lunatic fringe of society, etc).

Camp 5: Those individuals not considering the implications of his ACEs – the physical and mental trauma of Elon Musk’s past – coupled with his Aspergers-influenced cognitive development and neuro-divergent way of interacting with others. Attacking someone that you see as different from you, makes you a bully, and yes, Elon Musk can sometimes be a verbal bully – I believe he does this not simply to be a power-seeking bully, but due to the adverse experiences of his past shaping his present responses, as well as his urgency to complete his vision…and/or maybe he just needs to vent off some steam at all the other truly dangerous bullies of the world (and yes, he could really benefit from some therapy.)

What is your excuse?

What the individuals in all of these camps seem to be forgetting (or are intentionally choosing to ignore) is the HUGELY IMPORTANT fact that almost all of the Musk-supported and/or inspired products are designed from the beginning to improve life on (and eventually off) planet Earth for all us earthlings – even for those who are unable to use or afford his products(1)…at least for the time being. For me, this fact massively outweighs almost any of Musk’s comments and “tweets” (or are they now called “Xes”). While it is true that he sometimes says/writes rather bizarre, rude, and inflammatory things(2), the products his companies produce powerfully suggest to me that his ultimate focus is not enriching himself(3). His ultimate focus is the betterment of all our shared futures – no matter who we are, be we those who dwell deep in the hardcore nerd incubator of the Musk and Co. fanboy world…or those from the highly vocal/emotional, FUD and mud-slinging, Musk and Co. haters/boycotters club…or those early adopters deep in the middle of the quickly electrifying roads, subterranean tunnels, and orbiting internet networks paved by Elon Musk’s future-building good intentions and multi-billions of dollars.

1. Even those who are not willing or able to use any products produced by Musk and Co. will benefit from them. Example: Teslas are the safest cars on the roads, and safer cars mean even safer roads – even if the safer cars are not the ones you are driving – and therefore everybody benefits.
2. Hmmmm…I would bet that if we deeply critiqued the venomous words coming out of the mouths/screens/feeds of many of the Musk haters as deeply as they criticize Mr. Musk, we would undoubtedly find some mighty distressing emotional commentary indeed, possibly far worse than anything Mr. Musk has ever said or “Xed.”
3. The dude often sleeps on friend’s couches, under desks, and even on the floor, eats low-quality foods out of vending machines, drinks tap water, sometimes spends time in the $50,000 tiny house he rents from SpaceX, and works inhumanly long work weeks – he is not your typical billionaire.

Yet the fact still remains that whenever you, me, or anyone else starts showing some support for Musk (or for that matter anyone trying to make good and positive change happen – yes, this happens to me often) – we will often receive attacks by a small number of very vocal, very opinionated individuals who, for whatever the reasons, want to attack us for our personal support of these individuals….bizarrely, they are attacking us for our opinions of another human. So strange.

I wonder how many of these highly vocal individuals have ever said or done anything they regret?

I wonder if any of the Musk haters have done anything in their lives to make the world a better place, or do they just consume resources and accept things as they are without question?

I wonder how many of them are genuinely trying to make things better for the future of our species?

The human mind is truly a most unusual psychological phenomenon.

I wonder if the Musk haters have ever taken some time to research all the other well-to-do and mega-rich people who make things happen for our society to function as it does? You know, all the doctors, lawyers, politicians, policymakers, business people, religious leaders, and the massive multi-national corporations that produce all of the goods, services, and technologies that we all use daily such as all the single-use throw-away Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas toys, single-use batteries, candy, decorations and other random crap, junk food, fast food, factory farmed cheap meat, soft drinks, bottled water*, pharmaceuticals, etc., and oh, what about all the billions of gallons of single-use, finite, polluting, fossil fuels they all copiously consume to bring all those goods and services to us? *Case in point: Fiji Water.

IMO Musk has become the target of choice because he is working to dethrone the status quo mentioned above, and he is also a very vocal individual online, but he is also far more open and transparent than many of the bloated CEOs of all the huge multi-national big box, fast food, fossil fuel, automotive, chemical, clothing, media outlets, pharmaceutical companies, and other multibillion-dollar corporations that make our modern world possible…as well as many greedy politicians and so-called religious leaders.

Also, as all of the Musk-fronted companies do not advertise via traditional channels, it has been said by some that one of the reasons so many negative stories drop about Musk and his products, is because he does not play the game of shifting big bucks to big advertising firms/media outlets and therefore, they spin attacks on Musk and his products as a way to blackmail him into joining the rest of the flock. No wonder Elon hates advertising and I support him 100% on this one.  

Chapter Nine: A Thought Experiment

Have you ever wondered who are all the owners/CEOs of all the companies of all the products* that you buy and use every day? What are their thoughts, their religiopolitical beliefs, what do they spend all their money on, what are their ultimate goals with their companies and the products they produce, and with all the mountains of profit they collect from the sale of these products?

*Products such as groceries, fast foods, junk food, health care/pharmaceuticals and other medical needs, home/lawn/garden chemicals/products, building materials, furniture, clothing, cosmetics, pet foods and health care, computers, mobile devices, TVs, games and toys, automobiles, and their supportive fuels/lubricants/car care products, the electricity that powers your home, business, school, and so on…

Just what are all the CEOs of all those companies like? I’m sure they are all heavenly little angels that have never, ever, said or done a single questionable thing…riiiiiight. It is a high probability that many of them hoard heaps of money, rape the earth of its finite resources, pollute everything without a care at all for future generations, make dirty deals that leave an enormous carbon footprint on our shared environmental life support system, intentionally push indigenous peoples off their traditional lands (or worse) to gain access to their resources, fund war and terrorism, jump in bed with twisted politicians, all while ever increasing the cost of the toxic products they highly profit from….and they do it all in the name of “business.” None of this is sustainable. None of this is OK. If we knew even a fraction of the twisted, dastardly, harmful things that all the CEOs of all the companies that make our lives possible have ever approved, said, and done – we probably could not sleep at night.

How many of them are perfect? Hmmmm. I believe you know the answer to that one.

The reason you may not know their names – other than a name you may find with a quick Google search – is that, unlike Mr. Musk, many if not most of these individuals often remain strategically silent about their business operations, family life, and most importantly; their private thoughts, random musings, and the illogical reactionary outcrappings of their own minds…or they have people in place to carefully write their public words for them so as not to offend any of their current or future clients. In this respect, they are very smart in that they know that if they say anything to damage their personal image or their company image, they may run the risk of angering/offending the great masses of people who purchase their products. If this happened, their company(s) may then sell fewer products, and selling fewer products would lower their income which in turn has the potential to anger their partners/investors/shareholders – and their stock would lose value. Since selling products is often their primary and only goal – be they burgers, beer, bottled water, bananas, smartphones, steaks, toys, tortilla chips, or Toyotas – they remain strategically silent, and their image, no matter how much of a reality – or a total façade it may be – will remain untarnished and intact. Very smart indeed.

IMHO it is highly probable that many of the companies that make the majority of the products we use every day – could be run by some of the most greedy, uncaring, people on the planet – and you and I and the average consumer do not know anything about them due to their selective/secretive silence.

It is also highly probable that many of the products they produce are harmful to humans and the environment (e.g. factory-farmed foods, highly refined sugar, tobacco, alcohol, single-use plastics, petroleum-based propellants/chemicals for car, home, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and garden use, just to name a few) – and they have sickened/shortened the lives of, and possibly even killed countless human beings and wild creatures as well as destroyed millions of acres of wilderness and wild places, started and/or funded terrorism and wars, championed child labor, poisoned the air and the water, and some have even been slowly poisoning you and your children for decades all in the name of almighty profit.

Why?! Why would such a beautiful human being choose to intentionally harm themself with such a toxic product – it boggles the mind.

An even more disturbing fact is that many, if not most of these companies know full well their products are bad for those that use them – yet they continue to manufacture, market, and sell these products while rolling in massive profits at the expense of those who consume these unethical, toxic, addictive and dangerous products. This is a truly vile and deeply despicable fact that IMHO should be outlawed…but alas, this is a “free” country, and people are free to choose what they put in/on their bodies, while others are free to choose to sell things that are known by science to harm our bodies, minds, and our shared environmental life support system while they funnel large sums of money (maybe some of your money) into their ever-swelling bank accounts and ever-fattening physiques. At the same time, these companies and their bloated leaders are secretly in bed with, and sucking up to, all the selfish, unethical politicians and policymakers who continue to allow these toxic companies to stay in business, continuing to harm the population, and deeply and repeatedly rape the earth of its finite resources – all for the cause of almighty profit with zero forethought, care, or concern of the health, security, and prosperity of future generations. Which companies am I referring you ask? Below are just a few examples I can think of without very much effort at all.

• All of the world’s fossil fuel mining, refining, distribution, and marketing companies are at fault.
• Energy providers that rely primarily on fossil fuels to generate electricity while refusing to allow, or making it very complicated for, renewable energy sources/providers to supply energy to their grid.
• Legacy automakers who refuse to accept or adapt to change.
• Chemical companies that produce/have produced products such as but are not limited to; petroleum distillates destined to be burned as single-use fuels (gasoline/Diesel, etc.), Tetra-Ethyl Lead (leaded gasoline – more info at this link), CFCs, asbestos, PFOA, dangerous pesticides such as DDT and herbicides such as Glyphosphate/Roundup, etc.
• Tobacco/cigarette/vape companies that target our children and youth with highly addictive, flavor-filled, trendy, “cool” and highly addictive/harmful products intentionally designed to create a lifelong and very expensive* subscription to dependency. *Expensive in cost both to your bank account and to your health “account.”
• Fashion/clothing/cosmetic manufacturers that use child labor in faraway sweatshops to produce their ephemeral products.
• “Bargain” big box stores that push out local family-owned and operated mom-and-pop department stores with their low-quality and low-cost products sourced halfway around the planet.
• Corporate-run factory farms/CAFOs that target and push out small family farms and/or do not care about the animal cruelty, environmental, and human health impacts of their operations.
• Corporate-run marine fishing organizations that continue to rape the seas with monstrous factory ships in search of short-term profit without any concern for the continued existence of the animals and ecosystems they target daily.
• Oil palm plantations destroying rainforests in favor of massive monocultures of Palm oil supporting many of the low-quality, unhealthy, mass-produced “food” products many use every day.
• Fast food/junk food producing organizations that sell low-quality unhealthy pseudo-food products often supported entirely by the corporate food production machines mentioned above.
• Corporate pharmaceutical organizations that market and sell greatly overpriced critical need drugs such as Insulin, critical care cancer/cardiac drugs/devices, and antianxiety/antidepressants – many created to treat physical and mental illnesses – possibly caused in part by the consumption of the mass-produced, industrial pseudo-foodstuffs and pollution-generating fossil fuels outlined earlier.
• Those in the unethical and unsustainable trade of endangered wildlife/traditional “medicines” such as Traditional Chinese Medicine (e.g. Rhinoceros horn, turtle meat/shells/parts, bear gall bladder and other parts, tiger bones/tiger bone wine, pangolin scales and parts, shark fin soup, elephant tusks/skin, dried vulture brains, Manta ray gills, Bushmeat/primate meat/parts, any random snake, lizard, spider, scorpion, worm, grub, or bug that gets within the grasp of the traditional “medicine” hunters, etc.) who are illegally poaching these animals (and many rare plants) then selling (at a very high price) and eating these unique and rare species of wildlife to extinction while claiming these animals and/or their parts/meat are “medicine.” (For more on this issue watch Racing Extinction – it is an eye-opening documentary everyone should see at least once).
• Companies, organizations, politicians/policy-makers working to make it easy for criminals and unstable individuals to acquire weapons designed to kill as many people as possible.
• Politicians/policy-makers fighting tooth and claw to keep many of these before-mentioned unethical organizations in business – while receiving huge bribes/handouts from them to do so.

IMHO, ANY CEO/business or corporation operator that is aware the products they produce and/or the processes to acquire and/or manufacture/ship/distribute said products, are causing harm to others (directly or by association), or to the environmental life support system we call nature – these persons and companies, and the person(s) in charge of implementing and/or supporting the big decisions for these companies – should be held fully and appropriately accountable for their harmful actions/impacts, they should remedy and ensure the actions/impacts do not happen again, and they should also fully compensate the individuals/environments their products have harmed.

Lucky for us, for future generations, and for all the other living organisms we share our world with, there have been many great success stories that have helped us all including but not limited to the following high-profile cases.;

• The mandate of pollution mitigation devices on automobiles, fossil fuel-fired power generation facilities, and factories.
• The VW “Dieselgate” incident, as well as other legacy automaker’s emissions cheating scams such as the most recent emissions cheating scam by Cummins.)
• The huge lawsuits against the tobacco companies.
• The banning of highly toxic and dangerous to life products such as, but not limited to; DDT, asbestos, PFOAs, CFCs, and lead in gasoline/paint/pipes/hunting ammunition used over water, and in other products.

Justice will prevail for some – but not for all companies and individuals who are at fault. Some will be caught, others will not…and all the while their owners/CEOs/shareholders will choose to remain safely silent and continue to operate behind the scenes in “stealth mode” while raking in massive profits at the expense of the rest of us, our shared environment, and of everything else moving forward. Case in point: ExxonMobil’s 2022 profits = $56 Billion!…and at the same time, they received almost 2 billion in government subsidies. WTAF. Read more about these subsidies on this page.

Just for a few moments think about all the products you use daily and then ask yourself the following questions:

• Are they designed with your health, safety, future, and budget in mind – or are they designed simply to give you a few moments of pleasure, a high, or a buzz (e.g. cigarettes, vapes, alcohol).
• Are they purposefully designed to work for a short time, then fail – with no hope of reuse, repair, or repurpose (e.g. fragile clothes, tools, toys, games, incandescent light bulbs, etc.) – and/or exhaust their usefulness and be thrown away (e.g. single-use non-rechargeable batteries, single-use plastic water bottles, plates cups, bags, utensils, etc) only to rot in landfills, sewers, waterways, and ditches and threaten wildlife and our water supply long after you and I are gone.
• Are they designed from the get-go to create and support an addiction, a subscription to dependency in that, by design, they are to be used only once and then simply thrown away…and then purchased again, again, and again – hooking you into buying more of the products for the rest of your life, therefore, making mega-bucks for the seller while harming our health and our shared environmental life support system? Is their obsolescence purposefully planned and built-in by default from day one to maximize profits without any real concern for you, your family, the environment, or the future?

If you answered yes to any of these, maybe you should rethink your need for that product in your life. Consider voting with your money and choosing the product(s)* that do good over those that do harm. If enough people vote with their money – the world will be a better place in which to live. *e.g. healthy food, clean, productive, educational entertainment, transportation, and energy products – a great example; Tesla vehicles and solar/battery energy systems over legacy automobiles and fossil fuels.

If the products you choose to use are conscientiously and thoughtfully designed to be as helpful, safe, robust/long-lasting, innovative, adaptable, and as user-friendly as possible, while at the same time being reusable over the long term, considered and mitigated for their impacts on the environment, as well as improving with each iteration, and designed from the get-go to be fully recyclable when they reach their end of life status – then they may be much better choices for you, your health, your future, and the future of everyone moving forward.

With all that in mind, what follows is my humble and carefully considered opinion:

What Elon Musk, or the owner/CEO/largest shareholder of any given company, THINKS and SAYS, is really of little consequence. What they DO, and the QUALITY, USEFULNESS, SAFETY, and SUSTAINABILITY of what they PRODUCE and DISTRIBUTE to the population – that is where the real VALUE lies in their companies, and in their products.

In day-to-day reality, the often inconsiderate words that Elon Musk, and all the other talking heads running all the companies (and governments) of the world, babble from their steaming, drooling, pie-holes – in public, online, or in private – honestly, do not hold any more weight than the fleeting un-filtered thoughts that produced them, or the hot vocal out gassings their mental excrement is riding upon.

We are what we DO not what we SAY.

Don’t misunderstand me, words truly do have power and they may offend, anger, or trigger some of us (and rightly so because evolution has made us an emotional species), but like our words, our thoughts change by the moment and are influenced by our unique neural wiring, our ebbing and flowing hormones, the natural and human-made chemicals we are/were exposed to, the amount of sleep we are getting, our energy and hydration levels, our life stressors/experiences – such as our ACEs – and so much more. Our randomly generated, emotionally impulsive, words are weightless and ephemeral. They often lack supportive evidence and logic, and in many cases are driven by purely emotional, reactionary reasons unique to the individual and the current electro-chemical mind soup sloshing around in the hyper-complex-meaty-mind-computer generating the words. These logic-lacking, attention-seeking, emotional outbursts often do not carry any substantial meaning, and they often do not produce any lasting positive changes for our species moving forward toward a better future for all. They are just the mind drool of a self-centered singular species of bipedal, mostly hairless, multi-colored, macro-encephalized, ape with an atypically large brain, a brain that was wired by the wilderness eons ago to cluster together with other smelly, grunting, members of the same species while ingesting hunted and gathered berries, bird eggs, and raw or partially-cooked animal flesh in the semi-safe comfort of a fire-warmed cave. Yet, over the last few hundred thousand years, these big-brained advanced mostly-hairless apes have, by choice, coincidence, or connection – thrust themselves neck deep into a singular situation where they face a constant onslaught of complex information streaming into their sensor networks resulting in input overload, a constantly overclocked CPU, and sometimes a complete crash of their higher functions often resulting in conflicting and/or irrational thoughts, thoughtless words, and sometimes even dangerously dysfunctional actions.

Unless our random thoughtless, and reactionary, words are not backed up by real-world actions, they only serve to waste the individual’s energy, only to evaporate into nothingness within microseconds after they are thought or spoken. However, if our thoughts and words are written down and recorded in a more permanent form, such as an analog storage medium, or in the “cloud” – they may then be delivered repeatedly to the masses. Now, the thinker’s momentary mind message – productive or destructive – marches outward into the population, and even far forward in time, long after the thinker has thought their last thought and darkness has forever fallen on their personal meat-based CPU. These miraculous manmade mechanized mediums of manifesting, preserving, and sharing information that we have crafted – since we first painted our handprints, hunts, and humanity in ochre and charcoal on the walls of caves – to the multitude of synthetic machine minds that is the world wide web – essentially allow the thinker’s thoughts to become immortal. This immortality, if it contains enough positive or negative evidence, emotion, and emphasis – may lodge itself deeply in the remote folds of our personal CPU where it may burn in new operational pathways (positive or negative), deeply within our reflection of self – and from that point forward, powerfully alter our perceptions of reality, our interactions with others, and with our environment for the rest of our lives. This process is called learning.

However, in today’s internet-connected world, we must be very careful because the words we type on a public forum (such as X, Facebook, or on this blog) will linger, preserved forever, bouncing around from cyber-CPU to screen to screen at the speed of light in the cyber linked-cloud long after we type them – far, far, longer than the ephemeral thoughts and momentary emotions that originally produced the thoughts and words have evaporated forever into the aether. 

This is both an incredible achievement and a distressing reality. It strongly suggests that what we type must be real, correct, and evidence-supported, otherwise, our words could have the power to harm the thought processes – and possibly even the physical bodies of others. A good example of this may be found in Elon Musk’s own tweets (Xes?) when he often “says” rather unthoughtful and even rude things, apparently on impulse. These comments, which seem to me to be emotionally triggered by current world events, are often things that have the potential to influence or even harm the minds of his readers/followers/supporters and detractors – and others in many ways, as well as have a great impact on the value of his own companies (and potentially their future) due to the often hyper-reactionary nature of the cyber-bloodbath that is the sensationalistic hate, and fear-driven media, social media gossip machines, and the highly reactionary stock market. While Musk’s magical machines are changing the world for the better, Musk’s mental madness may – if he is not careful with his monkey business – mess things up for himself, his employees, and the future in a terrible way.    

Personally, I prefer to toil away on my projects in peace, sharing them with those who understand and support my “madness.” I suppose my propensity for flying under the radar comes from my many years of hiding from all the bullies and the fact that I have always tried to live by my mother’s old sayings of “Treat others the way you want to be treated” and “If you do not have anything good and productive to say, then do not say anything at all.”

This is why I have chosen to ignore most of Mr. Musk’s often emotionally driven, unfiltered, lame-ass, reactionary comments. However, because I am a strong supporter of Musk’s mission and causes, I will continue to support Tesla Motors, Tesla Energy, SpaceX, Starlink, Nuralink, the Boring Company, xAi, and yes, even X – although I still see X and other social media sites as great ways to stir up and distribute/market huge pots of cherry-picked crazy and outright fear and hate-mongering – cases in point as mentioned before – the reinstatement of Donald Trump and Alex Jones to the X public platform. I am all for free speech but if I was in charge, I would have never allowed those two festering, putrescence spouting, mindless, misanthropes, back on a public forum where they have the potential to negatively and harmfully influence others and society moving forward. However, if used, managed, fact-checked, and filtered correctly, X may eventually serve to do far more good for society than the mainstream media – only time and tweets will tell. Feel free to follow me on X @ScienceStevo.

Chapter X

Even with all the boyishly blathering belligerence from Musk, we must not forget that the overarching and obvious mission of all of the Musk-led companies is to do good and positive things that help all of us, and our shared environment. From my point of view, they are all doing great things and they will continue to do so, hopefully, far into the future. They are rapidly making the world, and our shared futures, a better place in which to live. Supporting these forward-looking companies also supports their over 130,000 employees and their families at home and abroad.

Photo of the Tesla Team with the first Cybertruck to roll off the assembly line on July 15, 2023 (July 15 is my birthday so I really hope that is a good omen of things to come…specifically for the Cybertruck I reserved in the spring of 2022. Photo Credit: Tesla

Photo of SpaceX team with Starship and SuperHeavy Booster in the background. Credit: SpaceX

These employees are all silent heroes, and they deserve great support and recognition for all the hard work they put into making the dreams of these amazing companies – and Elon Musk – a sustainably driven reality for us all.

Next are some major examples that stand out to me.

Tesla Family – Photo Credit: Tesla

Tesla and Tesla Energy: Domestically produced electric vehicles constructed in multiple gigafactories, using vertical integration, gigacasting, streamlined automation, and the best employees – then connected, guided, supported, and protected by Tesla Autopilot/Dojo/AI/Neural Net systems will lead us all to roads that are cleaner, quieter, and much safer as time trundles onward. These evolved, next-generation vehicles will be fueled by electricity generated primarily by domestically-produced renewable energy sources, and those same renewable energy sources will be the primary energy generation sources powering our society – this will be a huge win-win situation for all of us moving forward into the future.

By using domestic renewable energy sources to power our EVs (and our homes, businesses, etc.) we will greatly reduce air and water pollution as well as greatly reduce and, over time, repair the impacts of Anthropogenic climate change, as well as the chances of future political and military instability and destructive/bloody conflicts over resources with and between other governments (e.g. Gulf War, Russia/Ukraine).

In turn, our air and water quality will improve, our cities will become quieter, cleaner, and more livable, our travel safety will greatly improve, we will all be healthier, and happier, and our quality of life will greatly improve – oh, and no one will try to steal your catalytic converter. (Below photo source )

The Tesla Robotaxi: will change the roads. It will evolve the business model of urban transport and it will remove from the equation all the air pollution from the millions of gas and diesel-powered taxis/Lyft and Uber vehicles driving the roads today. They will be online and available 24/7/365 and they will rarely need servicing. They will become an ultra-safe, highly efficient, very economical, and fun way to get around. The air quality within our cities will become much cleaner, city life will be far safer (you know what I mean if you have ever taken a cab across town!), far quieter, far more enjoyable, and the big payoff is that we all will be much healthier physically and mentally.

Robotaxi will also allow many individuals who own FSD/AI/Grok-equipped vehicles to offer their vehicles to others when they are not using them as; Transportation As A Service (TAAS) aka Mobility As A Service (MAAS) – they will be able to rent out their vehicle(s) when they are not using them and make money/credit for that service. It will be a positively disruptive system that will revolutionize transportation systems worldwide. I am so excited for the day when I can visit a big city and have a nice dining experience at a streetside restaurant/cafe and not be forced to inhale/endure toxic air/noise pollution from nearby vehicles. Imagine your favorite city without all the noise and pollution found at street level – what a wonderful world that will be.

Image credit: Tesla

Optimus/TeslaBot: Once perfected and coupled with Dojo and the Tesla Neural Net, this amazing bot will revolutionize and optimize so many things, beginning with manufacturing. Where large, traditional, manufacturing robots will not work, the TeslaBot will. Where monotonous, endlessly repetitive jobs await to waste your day and the finite allotment of time you have remaining in your life, – the TeslaBot will tackle them without exhaustion, boredom, laziness, lunch/smoke/bathroom breaks, repetitive stress injuries, sick days, strikes, complaints, or corruption (e.g. theft of company property, sabotage, etc.).

Where dangerous jobs must be done – such as firefighting, search and recovery, infectious disease outbreaks, toxic clean-ups, EVAs on the outside of a lunar colony, space station, or interplanetary spacecraft – the TeslaBot, modified for each unique task, will be able to do them all – without risk to their human operators.

Where deep sea/planetary exploration/construction needs to happen, but our fragile human bodies and minds are unable to cope with the time/distance/pressure/radiation factors – TeslaBot will be there to calmly gather data and beam it back to Earth.

Image source: Tesla/https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-shows-off-optimus-gen-2-humanoid-robot-video/

When the injured, sick, and elderly need a calm, selfless, focused, caregiver, – or just someone to walk the dog, wash the dishes, or play poker/D&D with – TeslaBot will be there to lend its helping robotic hands.

TeslaBot will be fully customizable with different “apps” including Grok and so many unique personality types. Consider the following: you are an elderly nerd (like I will be…soon) who follows science and loves science fiction etc. You can easily program your bot with the personality/voice of your favorite character from your favorite TV series/movie/book etc. such as Mr. Spock, Jean Luc Picard, Mr. Data, Jarvis, Alfred, C-3PO, Darth Vader, Lara Croft(Jolee), Dark Helmet or Austin Powers. Whatever the case, it would be incredibly helpful and loads of fun.

Police patrols: TeslaBot – using specially adapted police cruiser Cybertrucks – will be tapped as impartial “robocops,” “robopatrols,” and “roborangers,” that will serve to maintain a presence offering the watchful eyes of the sentry to help keep the peace – without any profiling or holding onto the dangerous and inhumane prejudices of the past. They will, however, take care of business when needed, but unlike a human, they will be respectful of all people and treat them all the same – no matter their choice of clothing, vehicle of choice, age, ethnicity, skin color, gender, hairstyle, or emotional control. They will be equipped with scanning devices allowing them to detect dangerous weapons/illegal substances on suspects and, if threatened, they will use only nonlethal force able only to stun and restrain – but not kill – because ending the life of a human will not and should not ever be in their purview. They will act only as peacekeepers – not as judge and jury – those big decisions should be left only to their human creators.

And so much more.

Chapter Eleven: The Workforce

You may be asking – what about all the lost jobs, all the jobs taken over by the armies of TeslaBots and Robotaxis, and displaced by the optimization of the way Tesla/SpaceX et. al. manufacture their products…and the great disruption of the legacy automotive, energy, telecommunications, and space industries?

That is a great question with a very multifaceted answer. One reflective answer is this: initially, many highly skilled and specialized jobs will be needed to build and manage* all the legions of TeslaBots, Robotaxis, and other vehicles, as well as their design, manufacture, training, hardware, and neural net/software updates and add-ons, control, modifications, repair, and maintenance systems. *Eventually they will build, maintain, and manage themselves.

Another answer is this: with the advent of Optimus, many companies will choose to keep only their most essential employees. They will choose to employ more robotic employees rather than human because the human workers come with millions of years of evolutionary baggage that gets in the way of their productive abilities. Therefore, employers will simply choose to delete the employees who treat the workplace as an arena by targeting their coworkers with bullying and hate (as Tesla employees have reported and been accused of many times, primarily in the Fremont, California factory as this article suggests: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/tesla-racism-sexual-harassment/ ) Workplace bullying and discrimination is a practice that is all too familiar in many workplaces today and I know this from multiple examples of my own lived experience. It seems that a large percentage of humans, when together in groups, are like chickens – if any one of the chickens exhibits any outward difference, no – matter how small – they will be targeted, attacked, bullied, and belittled, by the other chickens – often with great physical and mental harm falling upon the individual with the “difference.” This is a most unfortunate and very limiting trait, a huge flaw of the human animal, a disgusting evolutionary stain on our singular human consciousness. A trait that, even with our scientific, engineering, technological, and artistic awesomeness, evidence suggests we may never grow out of to our own determent. As I have said countless times: we are our own most limiting factor.

Moving on, the more forward thinking humans will choose to refuse to be slaves to the corporate money machine as they have been in the past. They will refuse to allocate large portions of their finite uptime to all the monotonous, dead-end, endlessly repetitive, legacy jobs, jobs that can be done far faster and far better by armies of tireless robots. They will then have far more time for life. Far more time to concentrate on things they love to do such as; doing good things by creating and spreading positivity, teaching, planting seeds of change and growth, creating music, art, travel, comedy, spending quality time with family, helping animals, the elderly, and the less fortunate, etc.

History has shown that these questions have always been asked whenever any new, time, energy, and resource-saving device/machine/system has been put into place. Some examples: when the first automobiles hit the roads, the horse and buggy/buckboard makers, livery stables, and buggy/buckboard repair services, tack, tools, and other supportive goods and services were soon shut down or in far less demand, but their employees did find other employment – probably building automobiles and their support systems, repairing automobiles, and running filling stations. Similarly and more recently, shortly after the smartphone arrived, the payphone, flip phone, PDA, and landlines mostly vanished. When digital cameras arrived – the film camera industry took a huge hit. When streaming movie services arrived, video rental stores vanished. When LED lighting arrived, incandescent lights fell by the wayside.

From: https://www.icis.com/asian-chemical-connections/2018/12/internal-combustion-engines-car-ownership-to-quickly-head-the-way-of-horses-and-carts/

When Tesla arrived…the same trend started to happen to legacy vehicles, and if the legacy automobile companies do not speed up their adaptations and transition to electrified transportation, they will also disappear as so many legacy technologies and systems have before them.

Some will accept and welcome the change, but for others – it may take a while.

SpaceX

By creating rockets that are fully and rapidly reusable, the cost of access to space will come down allowing deeper exploration of our solar system (first by remotely operated TeslaBots, then human explorers in Starships later) and easier space access to commercial industry and eventually even affordable space tourism for everyone.

Image Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX Starship and Superheavy may also eventually allow Earth-to-Earth transport services replacing overseas air travel with passenger starships giving access to almost all continents on Earth in less than one hour. See an example of this in the below rendering.

The future possibilities of this incredible space transportation system are endless.

Nuralink/Dojo/xAI: With the incorporation of a minimally invasive, small form-factor, brain-machine interface, along with the convergence of technologies found in Optimus, coupled with the hyper-computing power of Dojo and xAI – those with disabilities will have increased or even fully renewed mobility/access to communications and society, and therefore the possibility of achieving a much higher quality of life. These technologies will also allow for far faster access to information for everyone who opts for access. This is due to the biological bandwidth-limiting traits we possess that, by their very natures, slow the data acquisition/input progress due to the glacially slow pace of keyboards, mice, and other currently used human-machine interface devices that input data into the machine mind only as fast as the user can type with their chubby little primate fingers. The integration of our biological meat-computer minds with the offshoots of our minds – our machine minds – will allow communication at almost the speed of light. These technologies will change the way we communicate, learn, and evolve. They will allow better prosthetics for those who have lost limbs/have congenital birth defects and they will also offer countless useful, fascinating, and fun options to those “biohackers” who choose to augment and adapt their existing biological attributes with unique technological components and features to fit their needs and desires. Read my analysis of Biohacking in my earlier post.

These amazing technologies will allow the remote piloting of robotic spacecraft, deep-sea submersibles, firefighting, disaster assistance, search and rescue bots and drones, surgical equipment, and even our own vehicles via implanted and/or wearable brain-machine interface and control devices.

The coupling of a human bot pilot to a TeslaBot via a Nuralink device will allow the human to “become one” with an avatar bot and use the specially kitted bot to attend remote business meetings, perform surgeries/doctor visits on/for patients, participate in extreme sports/adventure/concerts, enter a burning building or forest, explore/work on the surface of Luna, Mars, or maybe one day the moons of Jupiter or Saturn (possibly one day with real-time, 2-way, lag-free, communication via an as yet to be invented “subspace” communication system – a planetary “PlanetLink” internet – while our current understanding of physics/quantum physics/astrophysics and our level of technology will greatly limit this hypothesis, who knows what the future may hold.) 

Using an avatar bot to access dangerous/unhealthy situations such as structure/forest fires and to explore remote locations on Earth as well as other planets, etc. will greatly reduce the cost – both physically, mentally, and monetarily due to the far-reduced/lack of need of life support systems needed to support human life such as atmospheric gasses regulation/CO2 scrubbing, food/water storage and processing, waste extraction/processing, medical and mental healthcare, environmental controls/lighting, etc. needed in search and recovery operations, and space exploration/colonization operations as well as the downtime associated with travel time in a space environment. Just provide the necessary modifications/PPE kit for the bots, as well as the needed Bot Energy Supply & Storage Equipment (BESSiE), keep them in a charged and ready state, and they would be on call 24/7 365 so when the time comes they are ready to work.    

For those with congenital or acquired mobility issues, a degenerative disease, or those who are bedridden, an avatar bot coupled with a Nuralink device could allow them to have a mobile, active, and productive life once again. For a moment just imagine if the late, great Stephen Hawking could have had access to a Neuralink device and/or a TeslaBot with a brain-to-machine interface – what more might he have accomplished?

Imagine the day, when you are an elderly person, possibly with mobility issues, you could interface with your avatar bot (or any accessible bot anywhere on or off Earth!) and lead an active life again. The blind could see, the deaf hear, and the severely immunocompromised could have a life outside the clean room habitat – the possibilities are almost endless. 

Once Nuralink implants become perfected and are as common as smartphones are today, I see companies forming that would offer avatar bot interface rentals for just about anything – any adventure you can dream up from exploring remote places on Earth to mountain climbing on the Moon and Mars. 

Nuralink will change video gaming – players will be able to be inside the game in their mind or, by interfacing with an avatar bot, they could actually compete in the activity – without any physical danger to their bodies. At this point, will video gaming be considered a game – or a virtual contact sport? 

Obviously, these remarkable advancements will eventually also allow avatar bot “brothels” where there would be any and all manner of carnal experiences – without the ethical* and/or biological/disease issues associated with the oldest profession and oldest vice. *However, new ethical questions and cyber-sex addiction concerns will arise out of the use of these unique technologies catering to the deepest primal needs of the human animal. 

As these robotic and computing technologies evolve, so will Tesla’s Autopilot and Neural Network systems eventually leading to Level 5 autonomy and all of the before-outlined full self-driving/driverless cars/robotaxis/autonomous Optimus bots/drones and so much more. Only time will reveal the reality of this thread I have only begun to tug upon.

The massive elephant in the room caveat: to make all of the above happen, Tesla will need to solve* FSD/Autopilot, and it will need to have a redundant backup “sub-network” (which they may already have) in the event of a glitch/crash in the primary network matrix – this will allow uninterrupted FSD/Nuralink access for all equipped automobiles, robotaxies, and Optimus bots in service wherever they may be. *With the implementation of Tesla Vision and the Tesla Neural Net and the recent rollout of FSD v12, and after driving an FSD(supervised) equipped Tesla Model Y, I am astonished at how well it drives. It is comparable to a cautious human driver. Therefore, I predict FSD unsupervised will happen very soon – possibly before the end of this decade if not much earlier.

Chapter Twelve: My Nerdy Predictions

Prediction #1: Electric vehicles produced by Tesla Motors will dominate the roads and the worldwide private and fleet vehicle markets. Tesla will produce the Model Y, Model 3, Cybertruck*, the “Robotaxi,” as well as a delivery van (“Cybervan?” – with possibly a version of this vehicle used in the Boring Company’s tunnels?), the Roadster 2.0, the Semi, and their upcoming compact car aka “Model A/2” – which will be the consumer version of the Robotaxi as well as Tesla’s best-selling vehicle and possibly even the best selling vehicle in history. The before-mentioned vehicles will be their top-selling units with the Model S and X possibly only offered as top-of-the-line ultra-luxury models produced in low numbers or possibly even discontinued (..but if this happened what would become of S.3.X.Y C.A.R.S?)

*Cybertruck tangent: Many are disappointed by the late November 2023 reveal price and revealed driving range of the Cybertruck – including me. However, while the range is lower than expected and the price is higher than many can afford, the cost increase comes with the state of the post-COVID world with inflation/the dollar being less valuable, supply chain issues, etc., – therefore everything is more expensive. The driving range is lower possibly due to advancements in battery technology not happening as fast as Elon predicted in 2019 with his hyper-optimistic way of often anticipating advancements in the science of energy storage chemistry and engineering.

Image Credit: Tesla Motors

These things aside, the Cybertruck is being called by analysts and users (and this user*) as the most advanced piece of automotive technology ever developed. This futuristic beast of a vehicle has so many amazing engineering advancements built on countless existing and newly developed technologies all converging to make it all possible. For example, the Cybertruck comes standard with many technologies that will undoubtedly be copied by all the other automakers such as, but not limited to – vertical integration, gigacastings, stainless steel “exoskeleton” construction, structural battery pack, steer-by-wire, four-wheel steering, power tonneau cover (that works), tri-motor, dual-motor, and eventually single motor variants, an 800-volt high-voltage charging system, 48-volt low-voltage electronics, a gigabit ethernet loop (etherloop), connecting all of Cybertrucks high-speed controllers thereby reducing the size, complexity, and weight of the vehicle’s wiring harness, power frunk, bi-directional charging via the Powershare system (it will be able to charge another EV and/or power your home during a power outage for 3 or more days), user-adjustable air suspension with up to 17″ of ground clearance, Tesla developed UI with over the air updates, minimalistic design, vegan leather seats(heated and cooled), HEPA cabin filtration, incredible safety/power/towing/speed specs, and so much more. Sadly, along with its high price, its driving range is not what many had hoped for – but these advancements do take time to engineer and perfect, and I predict Tesla will engineer even better, longer-range batteries, a faster build process, and, just as with their other vehicles, eventually greater range and lower prices. What we are seeing now is a stepping stone to those achievements. Also, the Musk/Tesla master plan starts with a high-end model, and working on the success of the more expensive unit, they will then release a generally more cost-effective unit. All these incredible advancements in automotive technology and the systems to build them do not come fast and cheap, and sadly, those accrued costs must be passed on to the buyer. I suppose the old adage “you get what you pay for” aptly applies in this case in that the Cybertruck is technologically far and above anything else on the roads with reviews from many sources revealing it is an incredible vehicle.

*I have driven a Cybertruck (above photo by Cyberowners.com) and must say, it is an outstanding work of engineering art – a truly brilliant vehicle unparalleled in its design, engineering, ability, and obviously – its visual and engineering uniqueness. I look forward to the day when I have my own Cybertruck. Until that time my first drive video will have to hold me over.

With that said, look at all the other top-of-the-line trucks – both EV and legacy – on the roads, many of them come with similar prices, yet they are based on the same century-old, carbon-copy construction techniques – with only minor engineering and cosmetic improvements resting like a facade over those age-old systems and designs. Furthermore, the vast majority of them continue to be powered by toxic, earth and life poisoning, quickly depleting, ever-more expensive fossil fuels (that often require unethical dirty deals, and even war with distant players, to keep them flowing)…even when better, faster, stronger more recent technologies and domestically-produced electricity as fuel, are ripe for the picking. Along with all this, the old legacy automakers are sharing a filthy bed with the fossil fuel producers and the governments of the world and they are terrified of change (or they are limited in their decision-making process by their dirty deals with who knows who) so they choose to rarely take the big progressive steps to make truly better products, and even manufacture and spread FUD in anything new – ugh – the thoughtless, irresponsible, greed-driven, insanity of it all just boggles the mind!

I predict that the Cybertruck will be a massive success to those who understand and accept its far-forward-thinking-out-of-the-box design, brilliant engineering, and outstanding capabilities…and those who are just done with the same old status quo. End of tangent.

Image credit: Tesla Motors/SpaceX

Tesla will perfect the Cybertruck as well as their gigacasting and automation processes (followed by those automakers that survive the Tesla Takeover by following their lead), and they will lead the pack with most of their cars being giga/megacasted – Hotwheels style – bringing down the cost of manufacturing their vehicles even more. Along with huge cost and production time reductions will come increased speed of manufacture – and even more Tesla products will hit the roads en masse.

Photo by Joe Tegtmeyer

Their vehicles will be so superior, so safe, so convenient, and so entertaining, and fun, as well as far more affordable than they are today, that they will become massively popular and the go-to choices for the majority of drivers. As for the legacy automakers – who are now so far behind in their transition to EVs/autonomous technologies as well as their reliance on outdated manufacturing, marketing, sales, and personnel management systems – they may never catch up. Many may close their doors forever (without massive bailouts and loans from their governments such as this that recently happened with Ford) …or maybe Tesla will simply absorb them and use their infrastructure, resources, and employees to make even more good things happen for the rest of us.

Tesla will open dozens of massive Gigafactories and Megafactories all over the planet that will pump out tens of millions of vehicles, Optimus bots, batteries, and more – while using millions of Optimus bots and employing hundreds of thousands of people (many that once worked for the legacy automakers), raising the quality of life in their communities.

Tesla may even start a second automotive company with products based on the Cybertruck platform. Why do I say this you may ask? Answer: The Cybertruck is so different than all other Tesla products – and it is entirely unbranded/unbadged as a Tesla maybe this is a big hint at things to come? Cybertruck, Cybertaxi, Cybervan, Cyberbus, CyberRV, Cyberbike…who knows what Musk and his marvelous minions will do next.

Prediction #2: Tesla will power the world’s EV fleet with its ever-growing Supercharger and destination EVSE networks. With the recent and rapid adoption of the NACS (the Tesla plug) by many EV producers – this is already coming to pass. As more people adopt Teslas, and others opt to charge their non-Tesla EVs using Tesla’s EVSE networks, there will be much less traffic at non-Tesla EVSE stations. Therefore, I see Tesla eventually acquiring most of the little-used infrastructure held by other EVSE companies such as Chargepoint, EVGO, Electrify America, and many others – replacing their slow, outdated, underused, fragile EVSE infrastructure with their own high-speed, ultra-reliable, EVSE networks. This will greatly expand the Tesla EVSE network – without Tesla having to do much work.

Prediction #3: Tesla Energy will further evolve their stationary battery storage and photovoltaic solar power systems (and hopefully Tesla solar roof tiles) and begin installing them in/on even more homes, communities, and at popular/larger supercharger locations to offset their energy use with cleanly generated, domestically-harvested, energy-secure, 100% renewable, solar energy. These multi-unit solar/battery-powered supercharger stations will provide many charge ports for all Tesla vehicles as well as any other EVs that are still being manufactured by automakers that remain in business. Some EVSE locations will have unique amenities such as BK World locations. Larger, more popular EVSE locations will have Tesla/sci-fi/future-themed/restaurants/stores with food, coffee, relaxing areas, facilities, movies, and free wifi such as this one that recently broke ground in Hollywood, CA.

Prediction #4: Tesla Energy will dominate the Lithium mining/processing sector extracting domestic Lithium for their batteries thereby cutting out the political, humanitarian, and environmental issues and shipping costs associated with mining in other countries. This has already begun with Tesla breaking ground on its new Lithium refinery in Texas in the spring of 2023.

Prediction #5: Tesla/Tesla Energy will also begin large-scale recycling of spent traction batteries in-house or outsourced to a nearby company (such as Redwood Materials or Li-Cycle) from their vehicles and stationary storage units as well as other EVs (and other products that contain Li-Ion and LiFePo batteries) that have reached the end of their usefulness. (watch a fascinating review of this process with Jerry Rig Everything on YouTube). This market will become most productive by the mid-late 2020s when the batteries from the first few generations of EVs begin to roll in in numbers large enough to warrant dedicated high-volume recycling operations. These batteries will then be ~100% recycled for their complex chemical concoction contents – essentially being mined for their precious metals and materials and then recycled back into new EV/stationary storage/Optimus bot batteries. This process will greatly reduce the need to mine the earth for raw materials since most of the components of a lithium-ion battery are endlessly recyclable – try that with your single-use, finite, filthy, fossil fuels.

Note: like the well-known lead-acid 12VDC starting batteries in legacy vehicles, EV traction batteries will not be tossed in landfills to rot as some anti-EV types suggest. These stories are nothing but more of the same FUD being spread by the haters, Luddites, and petroleum-pushing old fossils fearful of losing their outdated ways of life. (See my previous post – Fossil Fools – pondering about all this madness.) In reality, – EV batteries, when they are not able to push a car down the road, are often repurposed into stationary energy storage such as storage batteries for homes and businesses (think backup generator – but quiet, with batteries, and with zero maintenance and zero toxic emissions.) Then, after another decade or so of life as a stationary storage battery – they are recycled – into more batteries. In other words, as I stated earlier, we can mine the battery for its resources and do not need to dig more holes for more raw materials to make more batteries – we already have them. It’s a win-win for everyone. In fact, it is just stupid (and illegal in some places) to throw away a battery due to the high value of the raw materials contained inside. This is why, when you need a new car starting battery for your automobile, the auto parts store will pay you money (the core charge) for your old one and it is then recycled into a new battery. It is no different with used Lithium-ion batteries.

Prediction #7: Tesla will develop next-generation battery chemistry (Cyber Cell?) – possibly even a solid-state battery. With this new chemistry, Tesla will change the game again and move even higher up the leadership ladder.

Prediction #8: Tesla will use/license/market its Octo-valve to be used as the core of ultra-high-efficiency heat pumps/HVAC units, refrigerators, portable refrigeration units, and other appliances, to help make our homes/schools and businesses more efficient and lower our energy usage even more. As the Human species faces growing threats (mostly the result of the natural consequences of our choices and actions) from anthropogenic climate change, we will also need more efficient and reliable air conditioning and refrigeration systems – and Tesla will be there to provide them.

Prediction #9: Tesla (Tesla Communications/TeslaCom/T-Com/ComTel/Teslink???) may offer its own “Smartphone” running on a version of Dojo – the “Dojo Mobile OS” – as well as a Grok “app.” It will also leverage the Starlink network as a cellular network and partner with existing network providers such as the deal they are working with TMobile. These developments will allow users to seamlessly connect with, monitor, and control all of Tesla’s products as well as have all the functionality of a smartphone and so much more. It will be to the smartphone, what the smartphone is to the flip phone…or the digital camera is to the film camera, or the calculator is to the slide rule…

Prediction #10: Tesla will win. Why you may ask – the answer is simple: it is the way of evolution. When a natural product of Evolution by Natural Selection – an animal or plant – succeeds over the others in its environment, this is due to its genetic adaptations working to give it greater chances of survival by making it better, faster, stronger, more reliable, safer, smarter – in some way or ways more adaptable than all the others it is competing against. In a nutshell, this is also how it works with technological evolution, and Tesla is so far ahead of all the others in its evolution that it cannot be caught by its competitors.

On top of all this evolutionary awesome: “The Tesla Way” will change so many lives through better jobs, stock options, daycare, and preschool for their employee’s young children, and possibly even elementary-level education systems for the children of their employees, as well as doggie daycare for their canine companions. They may even build large-scale “Tesla Towns” – housing units for their employees – all powered by Tesla solar and battery storage systems.

Prediction #11: The Optimus bot will be…um…optimized…and it will eventually replace most of Tesla’s “simple” stationary manufacturing robots as well as many of their human laborers. The speed of their product manufacturing will dramatically increase, and the cost of manufacturing will be greatly reduced, therefore, the cost of Tesla’s products will drop. In response to this massive change, there will be strikes, massive labor group uprisings, and other drama, with many fearful of the same trend happening in their company (the 2023 UAW strike is only the beginning of what is to come.)

Meanwhile, Tesla will continue to surge ahead far outpacing the competition. Many companies will follow Tesla’s lead and adopt the Optimus bot, just as they adopted automation and manufacturing robots before them. Optimus is just another step in the technological evolution of manufacturing, home care, telepresence, and of our species…and as with evolution of any kind, the rule is this: adapt or die. Sadly, many will choose to ignore this rule.

The Optimus bot and Grok will be offered together as a package – and/or Grok will be offered as an optional “app” and your Optimus bot will become even more humanlike – but without all the emotional and physical quirks and failings* of the human being (alternatively, and as mentioned before – a user could opt for built-in quirks and idiosyncrasies – think C-3PO). It will not be long before we start seeing Optimus bots working as bartenders, Robotaxi “drivers,” chauffeurs, barbers, DJs, talk show hosts, elder care units, and so much more. *I have had to work with humans and I know, from almost 40 years of experience, that they can be temperamental, finicky, high maintenance, picky, opinionated, lazy, they get sick all the time, they do not take care of themselves, they can be control freaks, bullies, racists, and they are often not dependable. A Tesla Optimus bot would be a welcome change. All I have to say to those who cry foul when a TeslaBot takes their job is “It is the natural consequences of your actions – you brought it on yourself by being yourself.”

Focusing on the elder care unit Optimus bot idea – imagine this scenario:

Your elderly parents live on the other side of the country. You could opt to hire a human elder care professional that you know absolutely nothing about …or you could buy (or rent) them an Optimus bot optimized for elder care (and not need to worry about the quirks and idiosyncrasies of the flesh and blood-based “legacy” human beings you might have hired to provide care to your elderly parents). It would cost about the same and come preloaded with all the most up-to-date knowledge and skills of all elder care professionals, as well as all geriatric first aid techniques and skills. It would also have Grok AI installed to help it communicate with and relate to your elderly parents. If your parents liked the humorous side of life you could adjust the Grok settings to keep them entertained and active. If your parents were more into the Jeeves or Jarvis types – adjustments could easily be made to the Grok AI thereby custom tailoring your Optimus to your specific situation. Along with all this optimized awesomeness, maybe you could even make daily “OptimusLink” calls to your parent’s elder care bot or go a quantum leap further and use your Nuralink device to “enter” your parent’s Optimus bot and use it as a telepresence avatar to communicate with and assist your parents as needed…from thousands of miles away…or maybe even off the planet! Think of it as telephone, television, and advanced robotic technologies, fused with the futuristic 3D holographic communications from our favorite science fiction movies and TV. Where all these incredible converging technologies will go is exciting indeed!

Prediction #12: The dark side to this mighty Musky success story: Luddites, and those who deeply resent and even hate, the free-thinking, unrestrained, singular mind of Elon Musk and all the amazing evolutions he and his companies are envisioning, building, and bringing to fruition so rapidly. Some individuals and organizations may deeply fear his focus on the betterment of, and for everyone – not just for a select few powerful individuals and corporations with deep roots in the fossil fuel-fired, money, war, and pollution machine that has powered and controlled the planet’s finite resources, funds, and population for well over a century. Obviously, those fearful, profit-driven, highly competitive individuals and corporations are funding much of the FUD while sending their greedy, oil-soaked, toxic tentacles into all corners of society with their one and only goal being to stop Musk and his renewable energy-powered, electrically-driven, thinking machine that builds the machine, while at the same time keeping their future exactly as they have manufactured it – without any real advancement and always eternally focused on the promotion and manufacture of complacent stagnation built on the backs of the common man. These troglodytic, oil-soaked, dark forces do not want to lose their deeply-rooted connections to the rapidly bursting carbon bubble, for if they do, they will also lose their power and control over the masses and their milk money.

The sad fact is this: the majority of the seething masses of humanity are blissfully unaware of how firmly they are latched on and addicted to forever suckling filthy petroleum from Big Oil’s toxic teats. Endlessly, and without question or concern, they forever suckle, slurping more and more of that finite, single-use, toxic, ancient, black “milk,” whose garish and greedy over-use by our species is threatening all our shared futures. Big Oil knows this and they enjoy it – in fact, they are counting on it – they also know that if their control of how people spend their money is lost, if the people cancel their subscription to dependency on the poisonous petrochemical products of Big Oil, their own toxic teats will soon shrivel and dry up and they will quickly go the way of the deep-time-fermented fossils they continually milk from the earth as their primary sources of profit, power, and prestige. Therefore, oil producers and their legacy vehicle partners and the politicians and policy makers that support them, are all terrified of Tesla, EVs, and renewable energy systems and the looming threats they represent. Evidence of this fact lies in this great example of the FUD-fabricating fraud found in this recent article from Jalopnik about the Texas Public Policy Foundation – a Fossil Fuel-funded think tank purporting that electricity costs $17/gallon…wait, what?! Yep, I could not make this stuff up – but someone did and it’s absolutely ludicrous.

Click for a ludicrous interlude.

There are so many of these selfish factions all over the planet, but most of them only yell, bark, and squeal loudly with manufactured doubt – such as the recent “attack” on Gigacasting technologies by the French Automobile Distribution Federation (FEDA), along with many legacy automakers that are running scared because Tesla, Toyota, and the Chinese automakers are adopting gigacasting technologies and therefore, will soon be able to produce far better products at far lower prices which will have a great and lasting impact on the profits of the legacy automakers.

Outside of the inevitable manufacturing and economic battles between legacy automakers and forward-thinking techno-wizards working in every company fronted by Musk – unfortunately, and very predictably, there will be a small faction of un-hinged, lunatic fringe-dwelling fanatics that will not hesitate to step outside the confines of logic, reason, reality, and the law, to physically attack anything and everything created by Elon’s techno-empire. This has already manifested itself many times in the form of childish road rage and hateful bullying from legacy vehicle drivers – often from overly-testosterony, toxically masculine little “men” in greatly oversized toy “trucks” sporting huge exhaust orifices vomiting clouds of dangerously toxic diesel smoke (as well as sporting simulated testicles dragging behind their often unused trailer hitch balls i.e. yournutz – WTAF?!) See many examples of these tribally-bent individuals on the YouTube channel wham baam Tesla cam. Then we have those drooling, knuckle-dragging, slack-jawed types who get off on blocking Tesla and other EVSE (charging) stations with their legacy vehicles – for whatever reason the perpetrators of these childish acts again seem to be small white men in large toy pickup “trucks” (I wrote about this several years ago in this post).

Then we have the scum-slurping bottom-feeders who cross the line of reason and reality and choose to intentionally vandalize Tesla factories and vehicles and other EVs/EVSEs, such as this shocking arson incident against a Tesla, a recent attack in Germany by “radical morons.” …and yet again the morons attack shutting down one of Tesla’s gigafactories – these people are lunatic fringe-dwelling nutjobs.

Musk stated: “These are either the dumbest eco-terrorists on Earth or they’re puppets of those who don’t have good environmental goals.” He added: “Stopping production of electric vehicles, rather than fossil fuel vehicles, ist extrem dumm,” he said, switching to the German phrase meaning “extremely dumb”.

These individuals, organizations, and events are unfortunate, but they seem to be an inevitable part of progress as evidenced when any great scientific, technological, or engineering advancement is made. It seems that the lessons of history show us there will always be highly vocal, overly dramatic, evidence-lacking factions, afraid of and attacking progress and the future because they are simply fearful of change and/or do not want to leave behind the comfortable confines of the world that has worked for them in their past – even if that which worked for them is not the best thing for them or those around them.

This has happened many times before such as when workers rebelled and sabotaged the machines that were reducing their workforce and speeding up production when electricity was first energized, when TVs were first turned on, when microwaves arrived in our kitchens, with the arrival of barcodes, personal computers, mobile phones, and 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, any vaccine, and on an on and on…

Unfortunately, I believe this disturbing trend of attacks on Tesla products, properties, personnel, and drivers will continue, especially as Tesla exponentially grows, as the roads become more populated by Tesla vehicles, and as factories and businesses populate with Optimus bots. I only hope Mr. Musk and all Tesla employees/facilities have adequate security to protect them from these short-sighted, knuckle-dragging, lunatic fringe-dwelling, Luddites, and twisted, hate-slinging fear mongers.

Image credit unknown.

Lucky for those who drive Tesla vehicles – Sentry Mode is constantly scanning and monitoring the nearby surroundings of the vehicle for the rogue hot-headed haters on the lunatic fringe (for examples of how Sentry Mode works to catch the perps, check out this YouTube video).

I am also concerned about Elon himself, specifically, his mental health. We all know he loves drama – loves to be in the thick of things – however, the mushy meat computer that is the human brain can only take so much, and there may come a day when Elon’s overclocked CPU just cannot take it anymore and he is pushed past the breaking point. I am concerned about this more than is logical because we, our species, truly need Elon’s creativity, passion, ideas, and drive to make the future a better place in which to live.

Prediction #13: SpaceX will rule the heavens.

PhotoCredit SpaceX via Twitter(X)

Falcon 9, Dragon, and Falcon Heavy will continue until Starship is perfected and is frequently making weekly (or daily) flights into orbit and beyond. The Starship and Superheavy booster will then replace the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy – and possibly almost all other rocket systems on planet Earth. It will simply be the best (and biggest) bang for the buck.

Photo Credit: SpaceX

Starlink will connect the world with high-speed, low-latency, space-based, internet and eventually mobile phone services that will put all other greedy monopolistic cell and internet providers out of business…or SpaceX will simply absorb them like a big nerdy techno-amoeba (aka cyberamoeba) and make good use of their employees and infrastructure – and their world of resources – to do even more good things.

SpaceX may purchase the ISS and/or build its own space station/habitat in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to be used as a destination for LEO science operations/observations of Earth as well as orbital, lunar, and deep space, operations. They may also offer a module or two of the station as a space tourism destination.

SpaceX may opt to start an orbital salvage operation focused on recovering inactive satellites for recycling and/or repair/repurposing. One example: SpaceX may team up with NASA and/or others to reboost and/or take over maintenance of the amazing Hubble Space Telescope so its technology can be updated with state-of-the-art systems extending its operational lifespan for many more decades of discovery.

Why will SpaceX and Starlink win this game you may ask – the answer is simple: their products are and will be just better, faster, stronger, lower cost, ever iterating/improving, far more environmentally friendly, far more reliable, cost-effective, and more user-friendly than anything else available.

Prediction #14: Nuralink, Xai, Grok, and “TWS”

Nuralink will perfect the human brain-to-machine interface device allowing physically challenged people to find increased mobility, productivity, and purpose – and eventually anyone faster access to information. In fact, the first human trial of Nuralink was initiated in January of 2024 and recently the first human to receive a Nuralink Telepathy device spoke out about his experience as seen in the below video.

Xai will create a faster way to access knowledge – a new internet – through its Grok AI platform. Xai may eventually offer a voice-activated Grok interface device – think Amazon Alexa but far more accurate, useful, and fun. A Grok “app” may also be offered for the Optimus Bot and for all Tesla vehicles (and eventually Starship) as an AI assistant/copilot – think KITT from Knight Rider or Jarvis from the Avengers movies…but hopefully not the HAL 9000 from 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Tesla may choose to offer a cloud computing platform – “Tesla Web Services (TWS)” – running on Dojo. This will be similar to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) but will offer all of the Tesla specialties – and then some. It may in fact be more valuable than anything Tesla has ever offered. Imagine an Optimus bot running Grok, connected to Dojo, taking advantage of the massive computing capabilities, knowledge base, and speed of the TWS – it will be the most powerful computing service system ever derived (if I am interpreting all this correctly). It will change how we work, live, learn, interact, and play – it will bring about a technological revolution greater than anything that has come before…but as with all of the Musk-led projects, that is just what they do.

I am sure I may have over analyzed and/or omitted something important from the picture that I see rapidly unfolding and evolving in my mind’s eye. That is because it is my mind’s eye and what it sees, is different from what yours may see – therefore, this blog post is all just my opinion based upon the research I have done, my own knowledge, and all the input and evidence I have at hand – and I am OK with all that. By the time you read this, some of my predictions may have come to pass – or be outdated or entirely incorrect – that is to be expected in this rapidly evolving techno-cyber ecosystem. 

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Recap: I predict that many of my predictions will happen – some, not so much. But sadly, many people are just not willing or able to accept these predictions only because they do not agree with what Elon Musk says or tweets, or maybe they have some kind of a problem with all the money he has amassed and/or what he chooses to use his money and resources for…or maybe they have an issue with his place of birth – South Africa, or maybe they just do not like nerds. To those people I say this – would you change whom you support, the way you think, and what you buy if the CEOs of all the companies that produce all your favorite products were suddenly as vocal, wealthy, awkward, or nerdy, as Elon Musk? If you knew where they were born/lived, what their ethnicity was, what pronouns they used, what they ate, what they spent their money on with their vast resources of unimaginable wealth, who they spent their time with, what religion or politics they followed (or lack thereof), what music, comic books, video games, TV shows, and movies they liked? Personally, I doubt it. Most of us are just not willing to give up our comfort, entertainment, and convenience, even if the CEO of our favorite/frequented company(s) says something bold, scolding, or even garishly inappropriate.  To hate on Elon Musk/his companies while supporting others who are far more greedy and destructive is just so cancel culture-focused, emotionally reactionary, and hypocritical. 

IMHO I believe one of the big reasons so many are so vocal with their dislike of Elon Musk and want to cancel him/boycott his products – is simply because he is vocal and he speaks his mind – even if he is sometimes terribly wrong, and sometimes he is, he is only human – and that is boldly far and above those that hide behind a facade. Another reason so many may dislike him is simply because he is Elon Musk. He is not a typical CEO. He stands out and is different than the rest, he is a rogue, a risk taker, a super-nerd…or more aptly: a giga-nerd. He is a unique person who has a very different outlook on life than the rest of us random, everyday, cookie-cutter cavemen in blue jeans, business suits, and Birkenstocks. He is a neurally divergent person with an urgent way of seeing things in life, a unique way of speaking, and a singular mind, a mind that allows him to see things the rest of us cannot see, things we easily overlook…or things we choose to overlook. In fact, he may just be trolling all the quick-to-judge haters, toadies, and bullies, with his often outlandish comments and “tweets”…and/or he is just a brilliant boy trapped in a man’s body…or maybe he is some of all these things. Whatever he “is,” and/or whatever we think he is – the fact remains that his atypical cognitive superpowers also give him the amazing ability to “see” the future, and I believe Elon Musk can “see” far deeper into the future than most of us even dare try. He ponders, researches, predicts, plans, and then directs his engineers – armies of some of the world’s most brilliant, creative, forward-thinking, and driven minds – to innovate, implement, and iterate his plans and bring his well-considered imaginings into reality. He doesn’t do any of the things he does in an attempt to get rich, popular, or famous/infamous (although he is all of these things). He does what he does because he feels that he must. It is his urgent mission in life to make life on earth (and eventually off) better for those living it, now and into the future, and he will stop at nothing to bring his plans to reality because he and his teams know there are far better ways of doing things than what the fat and lazy profit-focused status quo has done (and intentionally chosen to not do) for so long. His ideas are so productive, provocative, and visionary because he is not afraid of taking huge risks, risks based on facts, figures, physics, evidence, and above all – the future needs of our species – as well as a good dose of his love of the hard-core nerd-core of the science fiction/pop culture world that he grew up in and that he loves so much. His nontraditional way of doing things is, in fact, ultra-high risk and it could fail miserably – or it could have unbelievably massive payoffs – payoffs that not only support his continued vision, but are also good for all of us – and yes, good for even those of us who do not care for him personally, his forward-focused vision, his amazing products, or his atypical – and sometimes asinine antics.

Speaking of payoffs – I have another prediction about the future value of his companies. I foresee that the stock value of all of the Musk-led companies will…um, skyrocket(LOL)…in the next few years, and along with this, Elon Musk will become the planet’s first trillionaire. Those with quantities of Tesla (TSLA) stock (and maybe one day SpaceX stock) will become millionaires, multimillionaires, and even billionaires. I only hope they will do as Musk has done and choose to use some of their wealth to make the world a better place and leave things far better than they found them for the future of our species.

I also predict that Elon Musk will continue to use his vast resources to convert the planet to a cleaner, safer place in which to live, powered primarily by renewable energy sources while keeping the remaining finite fossil fuels as emergency backup fuels and/or for specialized tasks that currently rely on fossil fuels such as long-distance air travel and rocketry.

Speaking of rocketry, SpaceX along with Tesla, the Optimus bot, Nuralink, and xAi will eventually lead our species to become a multi-planetary society with a large colony, and several smaller ones, on Luna and eventually, several outposts on Mars. However, I predict that this task will be far harder than Musk and his brilliant minions envision, and it will take longer, probably decades longer than he thinks (we all know how Musk is with predictions involving time), but it will happen. The day will finally come when we have thousands of humans and AI-driven Optimus bots as well as other avatar bots living and working together off-world. We can then all breathe a sigh of relief knowing that we do not have all our eggs in one basket here on Planet Earth because we will have become a multi-planet species.

Image credit SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/

All these things will be far better for our species than just continuing on the same environmentally destructive road we have been on for well over a century. If we stay on the same road, we will stagnate, and our future will look like a dystopian/post-apocalyptic movie with fossil fuel pollution, anthropogenic climate change, sea level rise, etc. creating food, water, fuel, and energy shortages which in turn will fuel mass human migrations, war, sickness/disease, death, and destruction, mass wildlife die-offs and extinctions, the collapse of our environment and human society as we know it. (e.g. See Mad Max)

IMHO it seems humanity is at a crossroads, a crossroads where we get to choose which road to take. Do we take Status Quo Street – the same easy, yet highly destructive, ever-worsening, pollution-littered, and garbage-strewn street we have been following for over two centuries, or do we follow Musk’s “Electric Avenue” – the new high road leading up out of the path to our own self-induced destruction into a better future for us all? Following the road created by Elon Musk and his teams of boldly forward-thinking engineers and mighty innovators may just be the road that saves our species from complacent self-destruction.

However, while it is clear as crystal that I greatly support Elon Musk’s goals and master plans, I do not see him as a savior. Sometimes I do not even like him. Sometimes I want to punch him – but as I am a pacifist I will refrain from physical violence and just write, since the pen is mightier than the sword. 

What I do see him as is a visionary engineer standing on the shoulders of the giants of science, engineering, and consciousness that came before him. He and his teams of dedicated, brilliant nerds and geeks are working very hard to make the world, and our shared futures, a far better place in which to live…while at the same time using his unique brand of quirky, science-fiction-influenced, dad-joke style humor (which I do find hilarious)…and unfiltered, off-the-cuff, often deeply-cutting commentary to stir up the pot a bit and hopefully get us to think deeply about what it means to be human in the 21st Century.

Sometimes I think I am overthinking all this musky madness…but in reality, it may be the opposite.

Chapter Thirteen: Finding the Spark

But just what is it that gave Musk, and all the others who have brought and will bring great and positive changes to our species, this intense spark of creativity, this fire of urgency, this incredible focus…I do not know the answer to that question but I do have some thoughts.

It seems to me that some humans are content to exist as conformers/followers and simply live as a cog of the wheel of the mega-machine designed to feed, support, and placate the masses and keep the status quo – and there is nothing wrong with that. It is a good quality to know your limitations. 

But there is a small number of others who possess an instinctual and/or learned drive to make good and positive changes happen, no matter the cost or time involved and no matter what others think of them. Often, this drive to leave the world better than they found it comes with great expense to their private and public lives, their health, sanity, and longevity. Look at the lives and lessons of Galileo, Giordano Bruno, Ignaz Semmelweis, Darwin, Tesla, Alfred Lothar Wegener, Einstein, Rosalind Franklin, Clair Patterson, Rachael Carson, James Hansen, and so many others…and now Elon Musk. They and/or their ideas were/are ridiculed, humiliated, hated, and feared by those in business, religion, government, and even science and engineering (before their science/engineering was proven correct/possible), and so many in the general public because their ideas directly challenged the status quo, they challenged how people did business, who made money, who had control, and even our own biological origins and our position in the cosmos.

I have always looked up to these change makers, these dreamers, and those who try to make the world a better place through invention, innovation, the scientific method, art, and engineering. These are the people who give me great hope for the future. These are the people who will not settle for and accept things as they were or are because they know deep down that there is a far better way.

Whatever this spark is that they possess…well, it seems that some of us may have it and never find a way to access it and make use of it, but in others, for whatever reasons, that spark has been fanned into a flame that, once ignited and fed with the right mix of fuel, it grows into a great blazing fire of inspiration, ambition, and drive, that can manifest and shape great and positive change for the world.

Sadly, finding this rare spark and the right fuel to feed it, seems to be a skill that is not taught in school, so many never find it…and maybe, if the spark is not fed by a certain point in life, it may burn out forever.

I truly do not know. What I do know is that if and when we do manage to find our spark, and if it is fed the right fuel – the right knowledge, motivation, and support from our mentors, teachers, parents – and maybe even our trauma and ACEs – we can become inspired to rise above the mundane and make meaningful, lasting, positive changes happen, and that is what life is all about, leaving things better than we found them. This is why my motto is: “Do good things. Do good things for yourself (without being greedy), for your family, your friends, for nature, and for everything going forward. If all you do is good things – then your future will be bright, meaningful, and prosperous.” It seems that whenever I have done good things while intending to only do good things – good things have always come back to me. Life is bizarre and beautiful. Find your spark, light your candle, and illuminate the darkness with your light.

I do not believe Elon Musk’s brilliant creativity, forward-thinking ideas, and creations, and heaping piles of money, in any way should excuse him from working hard to try and be a better human being. I believe each and every one of us, no matter our wealth, power, or status, share a collective responsibility to work each and every day to make the world a better place and to leave things on this one strange rock we call home, far better than we found them – especially those of us who have the resources to do so such as Elon Musk. Currently, I am fond of Elon Musk and all his creations, however, in my humble opinion, he should always work to treat others far better than he was treated as a youth for if he does not, he may run the risk of spreading the trauma that shaped him, onto his offspring as well as onto others around him – and that would be a great insult to the human consciousness he is attempting to preserve…but then again, his Mighty Muskiness may also be some of the fuel that feeds his spark giving him the passion and creativity to engineer a better future for us all. Whatever the case may be, the fact remains that he should be far more careful and considerate with his words and work to be a little easier on those around him, and maybe we should all be a little easier on him because none of us are perfect and we are all in this thing called life together.

That all being said, if Elon Musk keeps his focus, keeps the ball in his court, and continues to do good things for the future of our species, I will continue to support his projects, plans, and companies.

However, if he steps too far out of his court and becomes something he is not (maybe like a Jean-Baptiste Zorg as some have jokingly suggested) at that time, and if the evidence is solid, I will drop my support of the man called Elon Musk. But for now – party on Elon Musk and make it so.

And remember…

Knowledge Conqueres Fear

Dare mighty things

Do good things

Be the change

Don’t Panic

One Love

Qapla’

Photo Credit: SpaceX

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