Dr. N.R. Luke @_LukeCSkywalker - Twitter Profile

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about 1 year ago

It surprises me that people wonder "What happened to Elon Musk?" when it seems self-evident to me... so here's the most condensed explanation I can manage (while also anticipating/addressing objections from a certain crowd): Circa 2022/23 (Elon likely knew before the public did), Elon's son was swept up by the transgender contagion. Parents who've had this experience know it is indescribably traumatic at multiple levels and for multiple reasons, not least of which is: You know your child in a way that they cannot and do not know themselves. Now, before the non-parents start arguing with that claim, let me explain what I mean and why this is true. The key understanding is: as a parent, you've observed your child from a time before they could even observe themselves -- literally. -From the ages of 0 until 2, you don't even have an ego to act as a self-observer (babies do not differentiate "self" from "other"). -From the ages of 3-7, your self-observation is rudimentary at best, with limited ability to self-reflect (see: Piaget's preoperational stage). -From the ages of 8-11, your self-observation is improving, but still quite basic and largely dependent on environmental feedback. -From the ages of 12-25 (typically), you're (finally!) "really getting to know yourself," mapping your internal world, and crystalizing some form of self-image. (more on this shortly) -But the thing is, your parents (if they're observant) have already been doing that for more than a decade. Because we all reveal who we are in countless little ways. And your parents literally had a ~12+ year head start on you. Plus your parents have the benefit of a much wider "30,000 foot view" perspective on your life -- including sibling dynamics, peer influences, parental expectations, cultural influences, etc. This broader perspective allows parents to interpret the child's behaviors in ways that the child cannot yet comprehend. (For example, a parent might notice that a child's shyness is situational (e.g., around strangers) rather than a fixed trait, while the child may not yet have the self-awareness to make this distinction and may wrongly believe themselves to be "shy.") Research on temperament (e.g., Thomas and Chess) suggests that children exhibit stable behavioral traits from infancy. Observant parents can identify these traits early on, giving them a solid "head start" in understanding their child's identity. Parents (obviously) also have a much broader range of human experience in general than their children do. Now, the key understanding about all this: During that final stage (ages 12-25), some individuals experience identity confusion. This is a perfectly normal occurrence -- but that confusion makes those individuals susceptible to being subsumed by things like cults and radical ideologies, which purport to offer solutions to that confusion. So, if you're a parent who's been observing your child for 15 (or more) years, you have a unique experience-based intuition for when something your child says or does is likely emanating from their core self... or is instead coming from a more superficial, external influence. All that to say: In 2023, Elon's son publicly came out as "trans." This would have gutted Elon at an incredibly deep emotional and instinctual level. And Elon would be in the unique position to judge (with high accuracy) whether his child's feeling was "genuine" or not -- because kids with true gender dysphoria display very early signs (ages 2-4). They don't suddenly become gender dysphoric in their teens. But they do very much get swept up into social fads in their teens. They also get swept into ideologies that pretend to have answers to the aching confusion that comes with that development stage. Elon obviously knows his child better than we do, and he determined that this "feeling" his child was professing was not aligned with his child's true and best self. The trouble is, the unique nature of the trans ideology is that it's a call to action -- specifically, it calls its adherents to DESTROY "the old you." If that's a false call to action, then "destroying the old you" is simply self-destruction. There is nothing noble about it -- it is merely self-harm inspired by a destructive ideology. So, in 2022-23, Elon is dealing with this ideology not in an abstract "what do you care?" way, but at the ground level. The enemy is inside the gates. And he's watching it destroy his child. As a parent, when one of your children is being harmed, you immediately and desperately search for the source of that harm, so you can stop your children from continuing to be harmed. Elon then correctly identified the source of harm to his child, which he dubbed "the woke mind virus." He later said, "The woke mind virus killed my son." So he has since vowed to destroy it the way it destroyed his child, and the children of others. He sees it for what it is: Not just "an idea," but an idea with very real and destructive consequences. That is likely the biggest factor, if not the sole factor, in "why" Elon is who he is today.

Richard Hanania

@RichardHanania

about 1 year ago

In response to my article on what happened to Elon Musk, someone pointed me to this 2021 conversation about technology in warfare. Small sample below. Musk comes across as sharp and informed. He not only knows about engineering, but must’ve read a bit of history. This goes against one theory we might have, which is that Musk has just always been a STEM guy who has no interest in reading about history or politics. But this only adds to the mystery. What on earth happened around 2022? How did he make the government budget his main cause, while giving zero indication he’s ever read anything serious on the topic? If Musk talked about WWII the way he talks about government spending, he would’ve been saying stuff like Hitler conquered Antarctica and Japan pulled off Pearl Harbor with the help of tens of thousands of illegals. But in this conversation, Musk was completely grounded in reality. I consider this strong evidence against the theory he’s always been like this, and support for the theory that something broke in 2022, whether it was drugs, social media radicalization, or some combination of the two.

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Dr. N.R. Luke

@_LukeCSkywalker

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