News
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.
This is a preview from our weekly newsletter. Each week I go ‘Beyond the News’ and handcraft a special edition that includes my thoughts on the biggest stories, why it matters, and how it could impact the future.
A big thanks to our long-time supporters and new subscribers! Thank you.
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!
Cybertruck
Chattanooga Charge: Tesla and EV fans ready for the Southeast’s wildest Tesla party
From Cybertruck Convoys to Kid-Friendly Fun Zones: The Chattanooga Charge Has Something for Everyone
Hundreds of like-minded Tesla and EV enthusiasts are descending on Chattanooga Charge this weekend for the largest Tesla meet in the Southeast. Taking place on March 20–22, 2026 at the stunning Tennessee Riverpark.
If you were there last year, you’ll know that it’s the ultimate experience to see the wildest Teslas in action, see the best in EV tech, and arguably the most fun – finally put a name to the face and connect with those social media buddies IRL! Oh, and that epic night time Tesla light show is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that will transform the Riverpark into something out of a sci-fi film that’s remarkably unforgettable and must be seen in person.
This year’s event takes everything up a notch, with over 100 Cybertrucks expected to be on display, many sporting jaw-dropping modifications and custom wraps that push the boundaries of what these stainless steel beasts can look like.
Whether you’re a diehard Tesla fan, EV supporter, or just EV-mod-curious, the sheer spectacle is worth the drive.
The Chattanooga Charge doesn’t wait until Saturday morning to get started. The weekend technically kicks off Friday, March 20th, and the venue sets the tone immediately. Come share roadtrip stories over drinks at the W-XYZ Rooftop Bar on the top floor of the Aloft Chattanooga Hamilton Place Hotel, with sunset views over the city.
Come morning, nurse your hangover with a some good coffee, and convoy with hundreds of other Tesla and EV drivers through Chattanooga to the event for some morning meet and greets before the speaker panel starts and the food trucks fire up.
Tesla owner clubs travel from across the country to be here, not just to show off their vehicles,, but to connect, share, and celebrate a shared passion for the future of driving.
Sounds like a plan to me. See you there, guys. Don’t miss it. Get your tickets at ChattanoogaCharge.com and join the charge. 🔋⚡
Chattanooga Charge is a premier Tesla and EV gathering inspired by the X Takeover, known as one of the largest Tesla event gatherings. What began as a bold idea from the team at DIY Wraps/TESBROS, hosted in their hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, the event quickly became a movement across social media. The first annual Chattanooga Charge united over 16 Tesla clubs from 16 states, proof that the EV community was hungry for something big in the South. Year after year, the event has grown in scale, ambition, and heart.
News
Tesla Full Self-Driving gets latest bit of scrutiny from NHTSA
The analysis impacts roughly 3.2 million vehicles across the company’s entire lineup, and aims to identify how the suite’s degradation detection systems work and how effective they are when the cars encounter difficult visibility conditions.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has elevated its probe into Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) suite to an Engineering Analysis.
The analysis impacts roughly 3.2 million vehicles across the company’s entire lineup, and aims to identify how the suite’s degradation detection systems work and how effective they are when the cars encounter difficult visibility conditions.
The step up into an Engineering Analysis is often required before the NHTSA will tell an automaker to issue a recall. However, this is not a guarantee that a recall will be issued.
🚨 The NHTSA said it was upgrading a probe into Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) platform to an “engineering analysis”
It will examine 3.2 million vehicles and aims to determine its effectiveness in evaluating degraded road conditions pic.twitter.com/2dkrv1mR8o
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) March 19, 2026
The NTHSA wants to examine Tesla FSD’s ability to assess road conditions that have reduced visibility, as well as detect degradation to alert the driver with sufficient time to respond.
The Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) will evaluate the performance of FSD in degraded roadway conditions and the updates or modifications Tesla makes to the degradation detection system, including the timing, purpose, and capabilities of the updates.
Tesla routinely ships software updates to improve the capabilities of the FSD suite, so it will be interesting to see if various versions of FSD are tested. Interestingly, you can find many examples from real-world users of FSD handling snow-covered roads, heavy rain, and single-lane backroads.
However, there are incidents that the NHTSA has used to determine the need for this probe, at least for now. The agency said:
“Available incident data raise concerns that Tesla’s degradation detection system, both as originally deployed and later updated, fails to detect and/or warn the driver appropriately under degraded visibility conditions such as glare and airborne obscurants. In the crashes that ODI has reviewed, the system did not detect common roadway conditions that impaired camera visibility and/or provide alerts when camera performance had deteriorated until immediately before the crash occurred.”
It continues to say in its report that a review of Tesla’s responses revealed additional crashes that occurred in similar environments showed FSD “did not detect a degraded state, and/or it did not present the driver with an alert with adequate time for the driver to react. In each of these crashes, FSD also lost track of or never detected a lead vehicle in its path.”
The next steps of the NHTSA Engineering Analysis require the agency to gather further information on Tesla’s attempts to upgrade the degradation detection system. It will also analyze six recent potentially related incidents.
The investigation is listed as EA26002.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s Starship V3 is almost ready and it will change space travel forever
SpaceX is targeting April for the debut test launch of Starship V3 “Version 3”
SpaceX is closing in on one of the most anticipated rocket launches in history, as the company readies for a planned April test launch and debut of its next-gen Starship V3 “Version 3”.
The latest iteration of Starship V3 has a slightly taller Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage than their predecessors, and produce stronger, more efficient thrust using SpaceX’s upgraded Raptor 3 engines. V3 also features increased propellant capacity, targeting a total payload capacity of over 100 tons to low Earth orbit, compared to around 35 tons for its predecessor. With Musk’s lifelong aspiration to colonize Mars one day, the increased payload capacity matters enormously, because Mars missions require moving massive amounts of cargo, fuel, and eventually, people. But the most critical upgrade may be orbital refueling. SpaceX’s entire deep space architecture depends on moving large amounts of propellant in space, and having orbital refueling capabilities turn Starship from just a rocket into a true transport system. Without it, neither the Moon nor Mars is reachable at scale.
Initial Super Heavy V3 and Starbase Pad 2 activation campaign complete, wrapping up several days of testing that loaded cryogenic fuel and oxidizer on a V3 vehicle for the first time. While the 10-engine static fire ended early due to a ground-side issue, we saw successful… pic.twitter.com/uHGji17srv
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 18, 2026
A fully reusable Starship and Super Heavy, SpaceX aims to drive marginal launch costs down and at a tenfold reduction compared to current market leaders. To put that in perspective, getting a kilogram of cargo to orbit today costs thousands of dollars. Bring that number down far enough and space stops being an exclusive domain. That price point unlocks mass deployment of satellite constellations, large-scale science payloads, and affordable human transport beyond Earth orbit. It also means the Moon stops being a destination we visit and starts being one we inhabit.
NASA expects Starship to take off for the Moon’s South Pole in 2028, with the ultimate goal of establishing a permanently crewed science station there. A successful V3 flight this spring keeps that timeline alive. As for Mars, Musk has shifted focus toward building a self-sustaining city on the Moon first, arguing that the Moon can be reached every 10 days versus Mars’s 26-month alignment window. Mars remains the horizon, but the Moon is the proving ground.
Elon Musk hasn’t been shy with hyping the upcoming Starship V3 launch. In a social media post on Wednesday, he confirmed the first V3 flight is getting closer to launch. SpaceX also announced its initial activation campaign for V3 and Starbase Pad 2 was complete, wrapping up several days of cryogenic fuel testing on a V3 vehicle for the first time. The countdown is on. April can’t come soon enough.
Chattanooga Charge: Tesla and EV fans ready for the Southeast’s wildest Tesla party
Tesla Full Self-Driving gets latest bit of scrutiny from NHTSA
