Who is afraid of Elon? Me

By: 
Leslie Silverman

Elon Musk terrifies me.

I know many of you think he’s a genius.

I think he’s a madman.

Maybe there’s no difference.

Based on what I read and see I’d equate him to a cross between The Music Man and Frankenstein.

He is selling the world on something they suddenly think they must have. His creation of that thing means some huge changes for many of us and, in my opinion, another vast divide between the rich and poor. He is the richest man in the world yet some of his companies aren’t profitable. Please digest that for a moment. Not profitable. Richest man in the world.

With some states and the federal government now mandating electric vehicles within a 10-year span, what will that mean for the people who drive ancient cars because that’s what they can afford? What about people who love to drive and want power?

Or drivers who don’t want to stop every 400 or so miles and wait six to 12 hours to “refuel?”

We are being told electric cars are better for the environment...but is that so?

They run on batteries, which have lithium and cobalt in them, both of which need to be mined and transported to production sites

Then there is the power grid problem; you know, the same grid that caused massive wildfires in California. Not to mention the brownouts people endured during hot summer days. How can our current power grid support so many new electric vehicles?

I’m not buying the “green” tale.

And then there is the satellite issue Elon is creating. The moon is a natural satellite. Elon is creating thousands of artificial satellites to send into space to give people lightning speed internet. Is this a need? What else do these satellites do? Are they collecting data on us? Is this space pollution? What role with these tens of thousands of extra satellites have on the amount of sun reaching us? ( Google this, I’m not asking ridiculous questions.)

Remember the Music Man, a.k.a. con man Harold Hill, sold instruments to naive townspeople who he promised to train as musicians, never divulging his real plan, which was to take their money and skip town.

But how is Elon like Frankenstein?

Just look at his neuralink creation, which aims to “expand how we interact with each other, with the world and with ourselves.”

I do not want a brain/computer interface. My brain is a super computer already. I don’t want someone inserting anything into my brain. Period.

While some of you may think it’s cool I think it’s terrifying.

I simply don’t think we need to be so technologically intertwined.

How do the benefits outweigh the potential detriments?

And what happens to the poorest of the poor who already lack internet, not to mention food and clean water. As we “advance” in these directions what happens to those who are not rich enough to advance?

Elon scares me.

Several interviews have claimed that Elon has described his father as a “terrible human” and “evil.”

He named his child some strange combination of symbols and numbers: X Æ A-12, I think is its correct spelling.

Apples and trees, people. Apples and trees.

I know I am a technophobe of sorts. And maybe I’m overreacting. But something about Elon specifically bothers me. I am a huge fan of Nikola Tesla, the brilliant, albeit mad, scientist who proposed death rays and radio wave transmission long before its time. He’s also the creator of alternating current electricity transmission.

And maybe I dislike Elon simply because of the fact that he’s turned Nikola’s name into a household word, yet many don’t even know who this Serbian genius was. (Tesla died penniless in New York, by the way. His work was altruistic and futuristic, but not for profit or greed.)

Or maybe, it’s because Elon’s “creations” seem to be revolutionizing a world that simply doesn’t need to be so revolutionized so quickly. Having some people choose to buy electric cars is great. But mandating them, in my opinion, is not so great. And I think Elon’s power and money have had a lot to do with some of these new mandates we are seeing on the electric vehicle front.

Well, I’m sure Greta played a role in this too. But she doesn’t scare me. Elon does.

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