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Neuralink shouldn’t solve Anxiety and Depression disorders
Neuralink aims to treat some of the most severe and damaging neurological diseases on Earth. In terms of Alzheimer’s, dementia, and epilepsy, a Neuralink device would be a great way to prevent these diseases from ruining everyday life for those who have been affected by them. With that being said, Neuralink needs not to treat anxiety and depression disorders, because those illnesses require human reaction and vulnerability to treat. Defeating anxiety and depression should be done without the help of a complete fix, and it is crucial not to look past the importance of humans being able to feel these two sensations.
This is something I feel very strongly about for several reasons.
Before I dive into those reasons, I want to explain why I feel qualified enough to take a stance that I think many supporters of Neuralink will disagree with.
I have dealt with clinical anxiety and severe depression for my entire life. I was clinically diagnosed in 2009 at the age of 14 with both of these disorders, and I would estimate that it took me around 11 and a half years of diligence on my part to begin living a normal life. My anxiety and depression disorders hindered me from doing a lot of things in my life: playing certain sports, moving away for college (on multiple occasions), keeping past jobs, committing to relationships, etc. It has affected me in the worst way for so many years, and I would never want anyone, even my worst enemy, to experience the things that I felt on a daily basis when I was under the control of these two diseases.
However, I don’t think that everyone should completely rid themselves of anxiety and depression. Why? Because they are two emotions, as humans, we need to have.
Anxiety, while painful and difficult to confront head-on, is necessary for some reasons. The first being the obvious, anxiety is an excellent way to sense when danger is near, and it is a crucial part of our fight or flight response. It can warn someone when there is an issue with what is going on near them and can be life-saving in certain circumstances.
Anxiety also is an opportunity to grow as a human being. Facing and confronting anxious thoughts is one of the best ways to test resilience and learn about what we are made of. Anxiety teaches us a lot about ourselves, and while frightening, facing it directly is one of the best ways to show that we can push through certain circumstances that we aren’t confident about.
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Depression, while more severe in my own experiences, also has its advantages. Without darkness, we wouldn’t know what light is. Without depression, we wouldn’t know about happiness. There are points where humans need to face adversity and challenging circumstances to feel the great things about life.
Now, the way I treated my anxiety and depression disorders was a clinically-focused approach. I regularly attended therapy sessions, took medication, and spoke to doctors as often as I could. While I wholeheartedly believe everyone should talk to a therapist at least three times a year, I disagree with taking medications. In my experience, they are a masking agent for anxiety and depression disorders, especially. They caused me more problems after I started taking them, and the side effects needed treatment on their own.
I believe the best way to treat disorders like anxiety and depression is solely up to the person who is dealing with them. When I started to make real progress with my issues, I began using Exposure Therapy to treat my problems. I did as many things as I could that scared me. This included long drives by myself, roller coasters, and doing more things independently. When I started doing these things, I had stopped taking medication, and my self-diligence started to solve the problems I was facing.
I am in no way condoning that medication is not a wrong way to initially treat these illnesses. However, I do not believe that the healthy dose of side effects that come as a result of taking these medications is helpful to anyone who is being treated for either disorder.
This is where my issue with Neuralink comes in.
I believe that Neuralink intends to completely remove these sensations from a person’s emotions, which I feel can be dangerous to the future. Taking away emotions from humans can be detrimental to the way people communicate with each other and respond to specific events. As hazardous and as stressful as dealing with any mental illness is, solving them requires a long and tiring fight. It is not easy, but anything in life that is worth doing rarely is.
I believe very strongly that removing emotions from humans is one of the most dangerous things that anyone could do. At what point will devices like Neuralink completely take over the human brain? When will emotions begin to disappear from people? Could it lead to a decreased amount of social interaction? How would that make us any different than robots?
It is dangerous, in my opinion, to remove core emotional responses from a human. Nobody wants to be depressed, and nobody wants to be anxious. But treating these diseases is done by finding out who we are as people. It requires us to go out of our comfort zones and grow, not put a chip in our heads or a pill in our throats that eliminates the possibility of feeling certain sensations.
There comes the point where our humanness needs to be preserved. The invention of Smartphones has taken away a lot of opportunities for face-to-face interaction, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that anxiety and depression disorders are caused by these devices, especially through social media use.
I am interested to hear other points on this matter because I know some people have different experiences with anxiety and depression than me. One thing I’ve always loved is hearing other people’s stories about how their anxiety or depression changed their lives. It usually starts with a valley and turns into a peak. While this can differ from case to case, two people rarely have identical stories when talking about their experiences. They also, frequently, are different from one case to the next because of how we obtained anxiety or depression. Some get it through abuse, and some get it from other forms of trauma when their brain is developing.
Neuralink is yet another brilliant idea from Elon Musk. It will hopefully change the way certain neurological diseases are treated and can provide some insight into what causes these medical conditions. However, there has to be boundaries and taking emotions and psychological responses away, in my opinion, is not the right thing to do. To quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.”
I use this newsletter to share my thoughts on what is going on in the Tesla world. If you want to talk to me directly, you can email me or reach me on Twitter. I don’t bite, be sure to reach out!
Elon Musk
Tesla Semi’s official battery capacity leaked by California regulators
A California regulatory filing just confirmed the exact battery size inside each Tesla Semi variant.
A regulatory filing published by the California Air Resources Board in April 2026 has put official numbers on what Tesla Semi owners and fleet buyers have long wanted confirmed: the exact battery capacities of both the Long Range and Standard Range Semi truck variants. CARB is California’s independent air quality regulator, and it certifies zero-emission powertrains before they can be sold or operated in the state. When a manufacturer submits a vehicle for certification, the resulting executive order becomes a public document, making it one of the most reliable sources for confirmed production specs on any EV.
The document lists two certified powertrain configurations. The Long Range Semi carries a usable battery capacity of 822 kWh, while the Standard Range version comes in at 548 kWh. Both use lithium-ion NCMA chemistry and share the same peak and steady-state motor output ratings of 800 kW and 525 kW respectively. Cross-referencing Tesla’s published efficiency figure of approximately 1.7 kWh per mile under full load, the 822 kWh pack supports roughly 480 miles of real-world range, which aligns closely with Tesla’s advertised 500-mile figure for the Long Range trim. The 548 kWh Standard Range pack works out to approximately 320 miles, again consistent with Tesla’s stated 325-mile target.
Here is a direct comparison of the two versions based on the CARB filing and published specs:
| Tesla Semi Spec | Long Range | Standard Range |
| Battery Capacity | 822 kWh | 548 kWh |
| Battery Chemistry | NCMA Li-Ion | NCMA Li-Ion |
| Peak Motor Power | 800 kW | 525 kW |
| Estimated Range | ~500 miles | ~325 miles |
| Efficiency | ~1.7 kWh/mile | ~1.7 kWh/mile |
| Est. Price | ~$290,000 | ~$260,000 |
| GVW Rating | 82,000 lbs | 82,000 lbs |
The timing of this certification is not incidental. On April 29, 2026, Semi Programme Director Dan Priestley confirmed on X that high-volume production is now ramping at Tesla’s dedicated 1.7-million-square-foot facility in Sparks, Nevada. A key advantage of the Nevada location is vertical integration: the 4680 battery cells powering the Semi are manufactured in the same complex, eliminating the supply chain bottleneck that had delayed the program for years.
Tesla’s long-term goal is to reach a production capacity of 50,000 trucks annually at the Nevada factory, which would represent roughly 20 percent of the entire North American Class 8 market. With CARB certification now in hand and the production line running, the regulatory and manufacturing groundwork for that target is in place.
Tesla became the first company to pass the United States government’s new Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) testing with the Model Y, completing each of the new tests with a passing performance.
In a landmark announcement on May 7, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) declared the 2026 Tesla Model Y the first vehicle to pass its newly ADAS benchmark under the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP).
Model Y vehicles manufactured on or after November 12, 2025, met rigorous pass/fail criteria for four newly added tests—pedestrian automatic emergency braking, lane keeping assistance, blind spot warning, and blind spot intervention—while also satisfying the program’s original four ADAS requirements: forward collision warning, crash imminent braking, dynamic brake support, and lane departure warning.
The NHTSA has just officially announced that the 2026 @Tesla Model Y is the first vehicle model to pass the agency’s new advanced driver assistance system tests.
2026 Tesla Model Y vehicles, manufactured on or after Nov. 12, 2025, successfully met the new criteria for four… pic.twitter.com/as8x1OsSL5
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) May 7, 2026
NHTSA administration Jonathan Morrison hailed the achievement as a milestone:
“Today’s announcement marks a significant step forward in our efforts to provide consumers with the most comprehensive safety ratings ever. By successfully passing these new tests, the 2026 Tesla Model Y demonstrates the lifesaving potential of driver assistance technologies and sets a high bar for the industry. We hope to see many more manufacturers develop vehicles that can meet these requirements.”
The updates to NCAP, finalized in late 2024 and effective for 2026 models, reflect growing recognition that ADAS features are no longer optional luxuries but essential tools for preventing crashes.
Pedestrian automatic emergency braking, for instance, targets one of the fastest-rising causes of roadway fatalities, while blind spot intervention and lane keeping assistance address common sources of side-swipes and run-off-road incidents. By incorporating objective, performance-based evaluations rather than mere presence of the technology, NHTSA aims to give buyers clearer data on real-world effectiveness.
This milestone arrives at a pivotal moment when vehicle autonomy is transitioning from science fiction to everyday reality.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) software and the impending rollout of robotaxis underscore a broader industry shift toward higher levels of automation. Yet regulators and consumers remain cautious: safety data must keep pace with technological ambition.
The Model Y’s perfect score on these ADAS benchmarks validates that current driver-assist systems—when engineered rigorously—can dramatically reduce human error, which still accounts for the vast majority of crashes.
For Tesla, the result reinforces its long-standing claim of building the safest vehicles on the road. More importantly, it signals to the entire auto sector that meeting elevated federal standards is achievable and expected.
As autonomy edges closer to Level 3 and beyond, where drivers may disengage more fully, such independent verification becomes critical. It builds public trust, informs purchasing decisions, and accelerates the development of systems that could one day eliminate tens of thousands of annual traffic deaths.
In an era when software-defined vehicles promise transformative mobility, the 2026 Model Y’s NHTSA triumph is more than a manufacturer accolade—it is a regulatory green light that autonomy’s future must be built on proven, testable safety foundations. The bar has been raised. The industry, and the roads we share, will be safer for it.
Tesla is going to fix the nearly 219,000 vehicles that it recalled due to an issue with the rearview camera with a simple software update, giving owners no need to travel to a service center to resolve the problem.
Tesla is formally recalling 218,868 U.S. vehicles after regulators discovered a software glitch that can delay the rearview camera image by up to 11 seconds when drivers shift into reverse.
The affected models include certain 2024-2025 Model 3 and Model Y, as well as 2023-2025 Model S and Model X vehicles running software version 2026.8.6 and equipped with Hardware 3 computers. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) determined the lag violates Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 111 on rear visibility and could increase crash risk.
Yet this is no ordinary recall. Owners do not need to schedule a service-center visit, hand over keys, or wait for parts.
Tesla fans call for recall terminology update, but the NHTSA isn’t convinced it’s needed
Tesla identified the issue on April 10, halted further deployment of the faulty firmware the same day, and began pushing a corrective over-the-air (OTA) software update on April 11.
By the time the NHTSA posted the recall notice on May 6, more than 99.92 percent of the affected fleet had already received the fix. Tesla reports no crashes, injuries, or fatalities linked to the glitch.
The episode underscores a deeper problem with regulatory language. For decades, “recall” meant hauling a vehicle to a dealership for hardware repairs or replacements. That definition no longer fits software-defined cars. When a fix arrives wirelessly in minutes — identical to an iPhone update — the term evokes unnecessary alarm and misleads the public about the actual risk and remedy.
Elon Musk has repeatedly called for exactly this change. After earlier NHTSA actions, he stated plainly: “The terminology is outdated & inaccurate. This is a tiny over-the-air software update.” On another occasion, he added that labeling OTA fixes as recalls is “anachronistic and just flat wrong.”
The terminology is outdated & inaccurate. This is a tiny over-the-air software update. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no injuries.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 22, 2022
Musk’s point is simple: regulators must evolve their vocabulary to match the technology. Traditional recalls involve physical intervention and downtime; OTA updates do not. Retaining the old label distorts consumer perception, inflates perceived defect rates, and slows the industry’s shift to faster, safer software iteration.
Tesla’s rapid, remote remedy demonstrates the safety advantage of over-the-air capability. Problems that once required weeks of dealer appointments are now resolved in hours, often before most owners notice. As more automakers adopt software-first designs, the entire regulatory framework needs to catch up.
Updating “recall” terminology would align language with reality, reduce public confusion, and recognize that modern vehicles are no longer static hardware — they are continuously improving computers on wheels.
For the 219,000 Tesla owners involved, the process is already complete. The camera works, the car is safe, and no one left their driveway. That is the new standard — and the vocabulary should reflect it.
Tesla Semi’s official battery capacity leaked by California regulators
Tesla crushes NHTSA’s brand-new ADAS safety tests – first vehicle to ever pass
