"... leaving her and her siblings to be cared for by their mother or by nannies even though Musk had joint custody, and she said Musk berated her when he was present. 'He was cold,' she said. 'He’s very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic.' Wilson said that, when she was a child, Musk would harass her for exhibiting feminine traits and pressure her to appear more masculine, including by pushing her to deepen her voice as early as elementary school. 'I was in fourth grade. We went on this road trip that I didn’t know was actually just an advertisement for one of the cars — I don’t remember which one — and he was constantly yelling at me viciously because my voice was too high,' she said. 'It was cruel.'... 'I would like to emphasize one thing: I am an adult. I am 20 years old. I am not a child,” she said. “My life should be defined by my own choices.'... 'He doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there.... And in the little time that he was I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness.'"
From "Elon Musk's transgender daughter, in first interview, says he berated her for being queer as a child/In an exclusive interview, Vivian Jenna Wilson said her father’s recent statements, including that she is 'not a girl,' inspired her to speak out: 'I’m not just gonna let that slide'" (NBC News).
Here's what Elon Musk said in that conversation with Jordan Peterson:"It happened to one of my older boys.... I was essentially tricked into signing documents for one of my older boys, Xavier. This is before I had really any understanding of what was going on.... I was told oh you know Xavier might commit suicide.... It wasn't explained to me that puberty blockers are actually just sterilization drugs... and so I lost my son essentially uh so you know they uh they call it dead naming for a reason.... the reason it's called dead naming is because uh your son is dead. So my son is dead, killed by the woke mind virus...."
It's hard to believe Elon Musk was "tricked into signing documents." Wilson doesn't believe Musk was tricked. You can see that Musk is very angry, and Wilson depicts Musk as a person who gets angry — "constantly yelling at me viciously." But this supports the position Jordan Peterson is taking, that there are deeper personal and family issues at play in these cases of transgenderism.
Listen to Peterson, in his new interview with Joe Rogan (at 2:25:30):
You know, Musk revealed the other day that the professionals that were interacting with him in regard to his transitioning son told him that if he didn't abide by their dictates that his son was much more likely to commit suicide. That's a lie. No one who's educated as a psychologist believes that to be true.... If you're educated, what you understand is that underneath gender dysphoria is something more substantial which is a proclivity towards depression and anxiety. If you're depressed and anxious you have a higher risk of suicide. You have to account for that before you attribute any of the remainder to gender dysphoria as such....
What had more effect on Elon Musk's "dead son," the "woke mind virus" or the cold, angry, absent father?
Meanwhile, Musk has provided the genetic material to produce 12 new human beings in this world, and he actively promotes population increase. He's straining to get us to Mars and building weird vehicles to get us anywhere but home. Where's the real fatherhood? And why didn't Jordan Peterson confront him about that?
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74 comments:
Are interviews meant to confront or are they meant to reveal?
That screed was exactly the type of thing you would expect an insecure transgender (they are all insecure) to say - to create doubt and provide a perception of coldness where it may not have existed. This all boils down to perception, and transgenders never consider that it might be their perception of the world that's flawed.
Elon has multiple other children that don't seem to have this problem. Sounds like an issue for his "lost son", not Elon.
a HELL OF A LOT of parents were tricked into this.
They told EVERYONE; "oh it's reversible! They can change their minds! It WON'T hurt them AT ALL!"
Of course, it turns out; NONE of the that was true
Why would I trust the storytelling of a clearly mentally disturbed Xavier Musk over that of Elon Musk?
If anything, the picture he’s painting is less credible, given the mental illness.
- Rafe
"But this supports the position Jordan Peterson is taking, that there are deeper personal and family issues at play in these cases of transgenderism."
Althouse, you're never going to understand the lived experience of us crazy people if you keep pointing out that we're mentally ill. Like, what a cop-out! Do the work!
Xavier is just one big pussy living his best life because his dad is a once in a generational genius.
"Affirm my identity or I’ll kill your kids" - Audrey Hale
"Affirm my identity or I'll air laundry about you that I made dirty" - Xavier Musk
Same energy.
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh, no, no, no
I'm a rocket man
I’d get furiously angry if my son announced he was going to cut off his dick. What isn’t in this story is the day to day aggravation within the family this kid undoubtedly deliberately provoked.
Anger, by the way, is an emotion that everybody experiences from time to time. One of the weirder Democrat arguments is that good, politically enlightened people don’t experience anger and hate. Everybody experiences those emotions from time to time. No, professing Democratic Party policy doesn’t mean you don’t experience and act on anger and hate.
I repeat, becoming furiously angry over your son announcing he’s decided he’s a girl strikes me as both a normal and correct parental behavior. The kid needs his butt kicked.
Elon has multiple other children that don't seem to have this problem.
Yes, democracy is clearly indicative of an external contagion, perhaps a woke mind virus. This comports with the clinical studies at Johns Hopkins, which discerned a stability disparity between homosexuals and others in the transgender spectrum, the probable evolution of gender confused or phobic individuals, and the unpredictable value of gender simulation through physical and mental corruption.
Althouse writes, "He's straining to get us to Mars and building weird vehicles to get us anywhere but home."
Among the purposes of all vehicles, weird or not, "getting home" is a minority purpose.
I'd like to learn what Althouse means by weird in the context of vehicles. And let's be honest, weird is a first-order weasel word. It's generally used to cast aspersions without stipulating specific reasons. It's trendy among middle and high school girls when ostracizing someone from the in-group.
A cold, angry wealth father is better than a cold, angry poor father.....If my father was the richest man in the world, I would make every effort to stay on his good side. Plenty of time for these recriminations after the will is read.
Musk is a weird guy.
The mom is weird.
Not surprised the kid is weird.
But cutting off your balls to spite your dad is worse than gouging out your eyes.
Musk yelled at his kids and didn't accept her tranny identity. If that's supposed to be bad, who cares? He's not running for office and he restored free speech to X.
I wonder if Victor/Victoria supports him/herself or lives off Musk's money.
And who is supporting the transgender child in their quest for a sex change? Financially, I mean? This seems to me to be a fundamental question: Richest Man in the World, Angry Transgender Child - who foots the bill for the permanent patient? If Peterson is so curious about the deeper family issues, why not start at the shallow end and present the full picture? My guess is, Elon would not want to cast his kid into such a harsh light. He'd rather focus on eradicating the experience for others.
I find the arguments presented here to be formulaic of pretty much every transgender / family process going through the transition, ever. It creates pain and suffering, and there is no end to it.
The puberty-blocking drugs were originally cancer drugs. I've been through it, and I can tell you, it's no fun - it's a physical and emotional trial. Brainwashing a child to embark on this course, is the devil's work. You're encouraging a mentally and emotionally-damaged child one who is already depressed, to be administered a drug that is guaranteed to make him feel worse, and feel worse about himself. Devil's work.
All predators (and I consider the individuals who provided the puberty blockers as predators) always look for the path of least resistance. They targeted this boy/now girl for a variety of factors including family dynamics.
>Musk has provided the genetic material to produce 12 new human beings in this world, <
Good job, Elon! 11 for 12 ain't bad shootin'.
Even though he's accomplished a lot in business and done a lot of good by buying Twitter, I can believe that he's not a real great dad. There's simply not enough time in the day for one thing. Nobody is perfect.
NBC News refers to his son as his daughter in conspiracy to augment his son's gender confusion and probable phobia or dissatisfaction. That said, in the woke of social progress, is abortive ideation a symptom of the woke mind virus?
"If you're depressed and anxious you have a higher risk of suicide. You have to account for that before you attribute any of the remainder to gender dysphoria as such...."
You have to, if you want to think logically and arrive at a correct assessment. On the other hand, if you want to confirm a political bias and start patient on a profitable treatment, you'd want to avoid such accounting.
"Where's the real fatherhood?"
Depends on the meaning of "real" and evidence on family dynamics not available at a distance, so I'd rather not sit in judgment on Musk.
But setting the most amazing example of success, hard work, and service to humanity counts for something, no? Plus I suspect Elon pays for a few things.
On the other hand, if you want to confirm a political bias and start patient on a profitable treatment, you'd want to avoid such accounting.
Likewise if you're a sadistic pervert with a fetish for mutilating the genitals of children, which I am convinced is an apt description for a not-insignificant number of the doctors pushing this.
“He's straining to get us to Mars and building weird vehicles to get us anywhere but home. Where's the real fatherhood? “
Millions of fathers have had children who turned out to be mentally ill or murderous, it’s sad, but in my opinion, some kids are just ill and turn out bad. My guess is that mental health professionals don’t really have a lot of effective therapies, and punting with the claim of modify the body or they will kill themselves seems barbaric and a fools errand.
If I had billions, I would probably hire Olympic trainers and academic tutors to work with my kids and put them in environments where they make friends with good smart kids, but I have known too many bad kids who had all the advantages.
Are we saying you are not allowed to have a kid unless you hang with them all day? No one can do that.
It seems like Trumps kids are pretty well adjusted although we must hate them as devils, according to media.
“He's straining to get us to Mars and building weird vehicles to get us anywhere but home. Where's the real fatherhood? “
Millions of fathers have had children who turned out to be mentally ill or murderous, it’s sad, but in my opinion, some kids are just ill and turn out bad. My guess is that mental health professionals don’t really have a lot of effective therapies, and punting with the claim of modify the body or they will kill themselves seems barbaric and a fools errand.
If I had billions, I would probably hire Olympic trainers and academic tutors to work with my kids and put them in environments where they make friends with good smart kids, but I have known too many bad kids who had all the advantages.
Are we saying you are not allowed to have a kid unless you hang with them all day? No one can do that.
It seems like Trumps kids are pretty well adjusted although we must hate them as devils, according to media.
“ I'd like to learn what Althouse means by weird in the context of vehicles.”
The Tesla truck
Fancypants Los Angeles prep schools hand parents lengthy contracts of adhesion and it's a rare parent who lawyers up and attempts to understand what they are agreeing to.
Technically, they aren't tricked. They are so eager to get the kid into the socially desirable school that they close their eyes.
But this supports the position Jordan Peterson is taking, that there are deeper personal and family issues at play in these cases of transgenderism.
Why it’s almost as though being an absentee father causes children to act out.
To place more on the pile, if you are a rich industrialist, a good historical way to go would be to educate them in your industry and give them small starting jobs and let them work their way to the top, kind of unfair and nepotistic but they may inherit the place anyway. Let them grow up in the business.
If they dont want to you can give them money and let them be artistes and charity donors and be in society. Or give them a big estate to ramble around in and let them grow antisocial.
Yes, please elaborate on what "real fatherhood" looks like. My father was a USMC aviator who was deployed more often than he was at home. He wasn't home when I was born during the Korean war, he didn't see me until I was a year old and I think he was a great father. I cherish the times we spent together but his job demanded the majority of his time and we all understood that.
It's hard to believe Elon Musk was "tricked into signing documents.
Oh not really. When your child is having problems, you take them to a professional, and they say you must do "this" immediately or your child is very likely to kill themselves. It can be a pretty tense situation.
Add that the professional cannot tell you WHY they are saying this, because they are not allowed to tell you anything that is disclosed by your minor child by law.
So you can either go along with it, or walk out with your kid, which can, in some cases, lead to an immediate investigation by Child Protective Services for rejecting medical advice.
And in doing so you are taking the risk that your judgement overrides whatever the professional knows but you were not allowed to be told.
Most parents in this situation go along with the "safe" course of treatment...
Musk is an engineer, not a doctor. h/t Bones
Diamond, what you describe is the polar opposite of the premise of "The Great Santini", Pat Conroy's great semi-autobiographic novel turned into a great movie starring Robert Duvall.
I once knew a USMC aviator family. It was a complete mess, so I'm happy to learn their situation wasn't the norm.
People on the Spectrum tend to be very gullible. Remember, Musk way overpaid for Twitter. He didn't know it was full of bots.
The expert system consensus is that it's gender corruption therapy or a progressive probability of self-abortion. Your Choice... uh, Choice... choices.
Musk is a celebrity. That's generally not good for a lot of the kids.
Look at how Tom Hank's son turned out. Do we resent him for the time he spent on Forrest Gump? Big?
No, we don't.
The transgerism craze among young women is a sickness, like anorexia. It resembles anorexia in an eerie number of ways, except for one: doctors weren't running around encouraging anorectics to eat less. They weren't giving them bariatric surgery to shrink their stomachs, or cutting off their breasts to help them get skinnier. They weren't giving them weight-loss pills. Psychologists weren't cheering them on every time they lost another pound. Nobody held pro-anorexia parades.
We live in a society where most people think that there is some miracle cure for every problem in life.
Going through adolescence sucks. We all know that. But now some young people, who are suffering from deep depression and anxiety, are being told that changing their gender will be a miracle cure for their unhappiness. And being young and gullible, they fall for it.
There shouldn't be a problem with some young men being more feminine than average and some young women being more masculine than than average. (I was, and still am, a very feminine male. When I was young I loved musical theater, took dance classes and hated sports, but I still knew that I was a biological male and embraced that.) They need to be taught to be happy with who they are, not promised that chemically and surgically changing who they are will be a miracle cure for them.
Also, we don't know the long term effects of these chemical and surgical procedures, but the results so far are not promising. Heck, we've already had two trans mass shooters in the last few years and the trans suicide rate is still high.
Althouse thinks the Tesla truck is weird.
I don't know how that is a defensible notion, UNLESS one is willing to be an outcast fish in the conventionally progressive and globalist pond called Madison.
What are the essential characteristics of the Tesla truck vehicle? There are at least three:
(1) It does not directly consume hydrocarbon-based fuel. This is an unalloyed virtue among the progressive and globalist fish because it allows them to indulge fantasies of themselves as heroic non-contributors to the wanton destruction of Mother Earth and still drive to Milwaukee to chant "Free Palestine" at Donald Trump's armored and greenhouse gas spewing SUV.
(2) As a vehicle designed to favor cargo, the Tesla truck can be virtuously employed in advancing virtuous causes, such as delivering free tofu to the virtuously indigenous victims of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant land piracy who have been heretofore compelled to eat virtuous marine mammals.
(3) As a vehicle designed to favor cargo, the Tesla truck is less accommodating to land piracy than the 200 mph Tesla Model S. The less luxurious the conveyance the less likely one is to travel. Reduced travel means reduced colonization. Reduced colonization means reduced land piracy and cultural appropriation, which in turn leads to fewer Eskimoes eating virtuous marine mammals.
All these characteristics are approved by the ruling elite, ergo not weird.
It's hard to believe Elon Musk was "tricked into signing documents."
I’ve read enough of what parents have been put through by a thoroughly unscrupulous medical profession to find it very believable. There doesn’t seem to be a trick too dirty that the doctors (who, it should be noted, stand to make some pretty good money from gelding young, confused, males) and their allies among psychologists would not stoop to pull it.
And if Althouse is asserting that she wouldn’t have fallen for the “Would you rather have a live daughter or a dead son” shtick then she’s just fooling herself.
Musk should not have discussed his son/daughter’s personal life without that son/daughter’s permission.
I think THAT behavior by Musk is cold and is a betrayal of paternal duty. The son/daughter is a vulnerable person and until that interview with Peterson, a private individual. The power imbalance is staggering. It almost seems spiteful or vengeful on Musk’s part. He is racked with guilt—could he have prevented his son from transitioning…. But this unburdening does not help his child.
And after all is said and done, he is still "not a girl".
Where is Daddy? Oh where oh where oh where? This is history’s lament. He’s out hunting to feed you. He’s out warring over in Troy for 10 years. Poor Telemachus is out searching for daddy Odysseus. I think they call that subtext. If it was a problem during Homer’s time, By Zeus!, then this is an ages old dilemma.
Quaestor said...
Althouse thinks the Tesla truck is weird.
Personally I think the Tesla CyberTruck looks like the Truck of the future, as imagined by someone in 1982. It also seems to have issues performing some expected pick-up truck duties which I think is linked it being an EV rather than Internal Combustion Engine. Though I do like the look of most other Tesla Vehicles and I think those can work for some households as a daily driver, commute and run errands vehicle. Though if a house is only going to have 1 vehicle, I personally would choose an Internal Combustion Engine one over an EV.
Ann Althouse said...
"The Tesla truck"
Yeah. When I look at the Cybertruck, it's looks totally impractical to me. You need a truck that you can run down to Home Depot in and easily throw some 4'x8' sheets of plywood in the back of.
I have a 1986 Nissan Hardbody and I love it. But thanks to the U.S. government, you can't buy small trucks like that anymore. A few years ago they changed the emission standards for trucks and made it much more profitable for manufacturers to produce big, monster trucks because they are allowed to have much dirtier emissions and worse mileage than small trucks. So now, instead of having a lot of low emission, good mileage, small trucks; we have lots of gas guzzling, high emission, bad mileage, monster trucks on the roads. So rewriting the emission standards actually made the pollution problem worse instead of better.
I'm a bit surprised that you so willfully accept the claims of the son.
Raising kids is very difficult. Most of our mistakes are harmless, but sometimes small things have huge impacts. We are all imperfect at parents, and each child responds differently to the same treatment. Oh, ad what about all the talk about fathers being unnecessary to the development of a well adjusted child?
Ice Nine said...
>Musk has provided the genetic material to produce 12 new human beings in this world, <
Good job, Elon! 11 for 12 ain't bad shootin'.
--
His way of competing with NBA players.
Though they would have better instinct re puberty blocking drugs.
But this supports the position Jordan Peterson is taking, that there are deeper personal and family issues at play in these cases of transgenderism.
As a general rule, society offers more care and compassion for women over men, and for girls over boys. If Elon Musk was cold, distant, and sometimes angry with his child, and his child yearned for caring attention from Elon maybe there is an emotional or perhaps deep in the subconscious, drive to become a girl or a woman because then that caring attention might come form somewhere.
Also it seems that there is a likely link between Autism and transgenderism, especially in boys and men transitioning to girls and women. Elon has publicly stated that he is on the spectrum, perhaps his child is as well. Maybe this is a bit of the song Cat's in the Craddle, and Elon's child is saying "I'm going to be like you, Dad."
"The Tesla truck."
Hmmmmm, well, OK, yeah. And then there are those rockety thingies. Transportation by semi-controlled explosion is kind of ... weird.
There's a great line in the movie "Boiler Room" where Seth's dad - a Jewish Appelate-Court Judge - confronts his son about his trading firm and the scams they're running:
"I'm not your mother Seth. Your mother's job is to be your friends, my job is tell you when you fuck up."
It's a great line. Fathers are supposed to provide a friendly but corrective force in their children's lives. It's a father's job to help their children understand consequences, cause-and-effect, and to help understand how what they do will influence how others see them. Moms can do this to, but it's far better when mothers provide the empathetic ear or voice that reinforces the what their father said.
A father and a mother that work together such that the kids can't play them off against one another by simply crying on mom's shoulder is how positive behavior can truly be encouraged.
I wouldn't say that Musk was tricked. He pressured by the kid, the mother and, most importantly, the so-called expert doctors.
All of these gender clinics had the exact same sales line, "Do you want a dead son or a living daughter." They used the same line at Nebraska Medicine and Vandy.
The gender affirming doctors have a trade association called WPATH. Nebraska Medicine is proud of its association with WPATH. I'm sure WPATH had a national convention that showed all these gender clinics how to sell this transition business.
And I'm guessing that they also got a pro forma showing the expected lifetime cash flow from these gender transition patients; all reduced to net present value.
This is barbarism. We don't do medical experiments on children in the United States. The Nazis did.
I think Elon was tricked In the sense that he was told something by experts which was not true. He’s probably also angry at himself for not taking the time to do more research on his own. People are tricked every day by financial advisors, by car mechanics, etc., who pretend to be acting for your benefit, but are actually persuading you to do something that is more for their benefit. There are areas of life that you really do not have expertise in and you have to trust the advice of people who know more than you. They are the professionals so you trust them. It’s extremely disappointing and upsetting to find out later that they lied to you when you were in a vulnerable position.
Elon Musk might not be the perfect father, he might not be a perfect person. That doesn’t change the fact that his transgender daughter still looks very much like a boy. She looks weird. She’ll never have children of her own because she doesn’t have female anatomy and the hormones that she is taking are causing her sperm to be sterile. If she finds a partner which is difficult they’ll have trouble starting a family. She’ll never actually be a woman no matter what she thinks or wants to believe. She wants to live as a woman that’s fine but there are complications that I doubt she has fully understood as a child.
Musk was probably not told that the research has shown that in cases of children with gender dysphoria where they’ve been allowed to just grow up normally, with counseling, 80% of them accept their bodies and are gay. They were able to avoid transgender surgeries and medications and live healthy lives.
From what I’ve read Musk would be willing to accept a gay son, so the perception that his child had may not have been totally accurate. As a father, even as an absent father, he’s still concerned about his child’s future happiness. Unfortunately now they are estranged. I read that his daughter said she has ”disowned” him which is kind of sad because it means that the child doesn’t even understand what the word means.
Musk should not have discussed his son/daughter’s personal life without that son/daughter’s permission.
The child is 20. They are not hiding their transgender status.
Musk was asked a very direct question which required such an answer.
The question was central to the interview and Musk's actions regarding why he bought Twitter and moved the headquarters of three of his companies out of California.
It was Elon's personal life he was discussing.
If the child wished to remain anonymous, they would not have their response and picture in today's NY Post.
One of the things I took away from Isaacson's recent bio of Musk was how deeply involved Musk is involved in his children's lives.
Musk credits one of his kids, who was perhaps 5 or so at the time, for the idea of the mechanical arms to catch the rocket as it comes down. Apparently he had been wrestling with how to keep a 500 foot tall rocket from toppling over and the kid showed him a cartoon of a mechanical rocket grabber.
Also how much he despises Donald Trump and Rudy Guliani.
I highly recommend the book.
John Henry
You need a truck that you can run down to Home Depot in and easily throw some 4'x8' sheets of plywood in the back of.
Almost no new trucks made today can do that. And at the prices and features, no one would WANT to use them as a real truck.
Musk is right about the trans sickness, but he really should have kept his mouth shut about his particular child. Talking specifically about his son was a shitty and stupid thing to do. No one is perfect, even Elon.
Elon Musk might not be the perfect father, he might not be a perfect person. That doesn’t change the fact that his transgender daughter still looks very much like a boy. She looks weird. She’ll never have children of her own because she doesn’t have female anatomy and the hormones that she is taking are causing her sperm to be sterile.
He is an entrepreneur with a terrific track record although I was never a fan of Tesla. Those people are rarely focused enough on parenting. The mother is usually more important. I wonder if that poor kid's mother had anything to do with the sex change stuff. I suspect the kid will find "her" role in the Harris campaign.
Xavier/Vivian says he/she is an adult at 20 years old.
Xavier - born a male.
It is said a male's brain doesn't reach full maturity until around 26 years old.
So...my question is: is Vivian a fully mature adult brain-wise if she still has the male brain?
My thought is that there are still six years to go. Six years from now may be an "Uff da!" moment.
I was told some years ago (by a psychologist working in the area) that, more-or-less, for every 10 gender-dysphoric male children, 1 would grow up to be gender dysphoric, 1 would grow to be a straight male, and 8 would grow to be gay males.
Nine lawsuits for every 10 patients seems to be a bad business plan. So, we shall see.
Why it’s almost as though children are easier to make than they are to raise.
Ah, the trans-blogger comment system.
Give your son powerful hormones and disfiguring surgery or he'll kill himself! Sounds like trickery to me.
Oh, now the commenting system is back to normal.
@Wa St Blogger said at 13:38: "Almost no new trucks made today can do that. "
That is, manifestly, BS. Any full size truck made today can do precisely that, and more. Even trucks with a short bed - usually around 6 ft - can easily carry full 4 x 8' sheets of what-e-vah in their beds, with the tailgate down. And the majority of pickups being made, are full-sized.
Even the down-size Ford Ranger, with a 5 ft box, can carry full sheets between the wheel-wells in the bed, with plenty of room to hold them flat, with the tailgate down, and a red rag pinned to them at the back.
While it's true only a long-bed can carry sheets fully surrounded by the box and tailgate, virtually any domestic brand pickup can carry 4 x 8ft sheet materials all day long. And you can drive with the tailgate down if you're carrying bulky cargo that requires it, as long as the cargo is well-secured, marked for any hazard, and does not exceed the over-hang rules.
"While it's true only a long-bed can carry sheets fully surrounded by the box and tailgate, virtually any domestic brand pickup can carry 4 x 8ft sheet materials all day long."
I once carried a 4x8 sheet of plywood in a '67 Camaro. Granted, the whole board was not entirely inside the car and my chest was about an inch and a half from the steering wheel, but still...
.... and building weird vehicles...
I didn't think of the Tesla Truck simply because I find it stupid-looking (rather than weird) and thus likely to be a commercial failure for that reason alone. So I've put it out of my mind.
What I did think of was the SpaceX rockets, especially Starship because of its role in establishing a human colony on Mars, and the reason I did so was a thought that doesn't really belong in this thread but that Ann Althouse might wish to explore with her readers one day in a specific post.
And that's her seemingly, visceral rejection of human space travel? I say that on the basis of a number of brief comments she has made over the years that seemed dismissive of the whole idea. One's I recall include:
- About the competition between Bezos and Musk in this arena.
- The quoting of Auden's poem about the Apollo 11 landing.
- Commenting on other writers with similar attitudes about that effort.
But I'm sure there are others. So I have two questions, which are ones of genuine curiosity (me coming from a space nerd perspective).
First, are you actually dismissive of the whole enterprise and to what degree, or have I interpreted incorrectly?
Second, if the answer to the first is "yes", is that rooted in your Boomer youth of the 60's, when you were surrounded by the patriotic "Space Race", and the feminist dismissal of "phallic rockets" and the general Avant garde response to all the patriotism and techno stuff?
There is a Tesla truck that is parked in the parking garage at the building where I work. It certainly makes a statement. Like a DeLorean turned into The Hulk.
My own "truck" is a 2003 Toyota Sequoia. I haul 4X8 sheets of plywood in the back, with the hatch down (and my chest on the wheel, like the guy in the Camaro above). 12' lumber goes up onto the dash, with some cardboard to protect the windshield.
280,000 miles and still going strong. I was going to trade it in a few years ago--they offered me $800. No sale.
Also--I believe that the Honda Ridgeline has a panel that opens at the front of the bed so that you can slide a 4X8 panel in under the back seat. A great idea, which I don't understand why other mfg's haven't adopted (presumably requires some serious reinforcement of the rear of the cabin and the base of the seat, but eminently useful). At least they used to. I would have bought one if they didn't look so goddam ugly/weird. (They look more like actual pickup trucks now).
Wa St Blogger said...
You need a truck that you can run down to Home Depot in and easily throw some 4'x8' sheets of plywood in the back of.
"Almost no new trucks made today can do that. And at the prices and features, no one would WANT to use them as a real truck."
Exactly! Which is why I'm keeping my 1986 Nissan Hardbody for as long as possible.
In 1994, my apartment complex in Huntington Beach flooded. The water was three feet high in all the bottom apartments and the garages were six feet underwater. My Yamaha FJ1100 was totally underwater. But I knew that Beach Yamaha had a lot of experience dealing with flooded jet skis, so I took it down there to be drained and repaired. In the mean time, a friend of mine owned that Nissan Hardbody. He drove in to the apartment complex to rescue his girlfriend and the truck died when the water got up to the seats. He offered to trade me his flooded truck for my repaired motorcycle and threw $200 into the deal. Luckily, the engine in the truck hadn't flooded and I cleaned all the electrical connections and repaired the flooded ECU, replaced the transmission fluid, replaced the distributer and the truck came back to life. That truck has been my daily driver ever since.
They don't build trucks like that anymore.
loudogblog said...
“Yeah. When I look at the Cybertruck, it's looks totally impractical to me. You need a truck that you can run down to Home Depot in and easily throw some 4'x8' sheets of plywood in the back of.“
Technically not a pickup truck, but the tailgate of a Ford Maverick can be adjusted so that you can carry 4x8 sheets:
https://maynardsgarage.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Ford-Maverick-Plywood-980x646.jpg
https://www.ford.com/support/vehicle/maverick/2022/how-to-videos/video-library/more-vehicle-topics/6274804830001?name=multi-position-tailgate/
I guess that's the one who should have been aborted.
Transgenderism is obviously a mental condition--biology is real. The question is how should it be treated. Mutilating and poisoning children seems like a poor choice...in fact, it seems crazy.
Elon obviously regrets what he allowed to happen to his son.
I guess if you regularly need to drive your plywood over waterfalls as people shoot at you, go with the Cybertruck.
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