A lot of the news chatter today has to do with Elon Musk. Musk is a billionaire who spends his money on things. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t use his money to help people. His biggest beneficiary seems to be himself or, rather, Tesla. He made the news by sending a rocket into space successfully and again, with 90 year old William Shatner aboard. Shatner, who played Captain James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek series, was the oldest man to go up in space. All of this stuff can be entertaining but meanwhile, there was still covid running wild in the country and people who’ve lost their jobs, homes and are hungry as a result. No charitable organization got any funds he claims to have donated.
Why does he seem so self-centered and cold-hearted? Well, on Saturday Night Live last year, he announced he was the first SNL guest host with Asperger’s Syndrome. First of all, he’s not. Dan Ackroyd, an original SNL member, has had diagnosed Asperger’s for years.
What is Asperger’s? It’s on the autism spectrum and many people might have it without knowing it. It all depends on presenting symptoms. Musk went on to say to his audience that his voice seems without intonation, he doesn’t make eye contact and he’ll emulate emotions. Most people with Asperger’s are high functioning, socially delayed, and many are geniuses.
I speak with some experience because two of my adult children have been diagnosed with Asperger’s. They have varying degrees of executive order function, the ability to read social cues, understand some forms of humor, irony, or sarcasm. Neither of my kids had the motor skills to do well in sports and so focused their attentions elsewhere. Throughout their lives as kids, they’ve become very focused on one thing or another. It wasn’t easy “fitting in” at school.
As adults, they’ve both become successful, caring adults and have learned how to socialize with family and friends.
All of this meandering about Asperger’s is just to say this might be why Musk seems indifferent to people’s needs.
Or, maybe he’s just a grasping, selfish individual looking for the next bright, expensive toy to play with.
That new toy right now is Twitter. I worry about what Twitter will turn into. Musk says he wants to make Twitter “private” and wants free speech. Does that mean he’s going to allow hateful, racist, violence language on the platform now? Right now Twitter works to keep some of that negativity off.
Will Musk allow TFG back on Twitter? What a disaster that would be. The TFG is a very vocal hate machine.
I am active on Twitter, mostly with creative writing, liberal left leaning and cat groups. I try to stimulate interest in my blog, support other writers, express frustration about the GQP’s continuing shenanigans without consequences, and share cat pictures. I plan on staying but already registered with a platform called Counter Social.
What will make me quit Twitter? If Musk charges for membership, if it becomes filled with ranting, hate filled Q-Anon trumper fanatics, and if I’m bounced off for saying what I think that isn’t in line with Musk politically.
The man scares me.
No comments:
Post a Comment