As a designer, I don't need compound curves and decorative flourishes to see beauty. There are aesthetic elements in all good design that one can appreciate at an abstract level. Proportion, contrast, rhythm, juxtaposition, tension, honesty, sensitivity, and so forth. The Cybertruck seems ignorant of these, trying instead for a Futurism that comes off as arrogant, bullying, and ultimately childish. Eliel Saarinen said, "Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context—a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, and environment in a city plan." The Cybertruck seems to be designed as a prop inside a 10-year-old boy's vision of the future. The drivers of these contraptions are unconsciously living out the axiom: "Bad taste is hard to hide."
The weird thing is how the cybertruck is like the opposite of a good piece of art, in that it gets uglier every time I look at it. The first time I saw it, I thought it looked weird, but didn't think it looked *that* bad, but the more I've seen it especially in the real world, the less I think of it. Whatever one might think of Tesla's other vehicles, it is amazing how much the cybertruck stands out from the rest of them, and not in a good way. The others at least look more or less like normal cars.
A few weeks ago, I took a different route than usual through Albuquerque and passed a place that had several cybertrucks outside it. Each had a different wrap, most of which seemed to be advertisements for businesses.
The wraps did not make the vehicles look any better.
I just passed a new Tesla dealership in Rio Rancho. A line of ten cyber trucks is truly ugly. They even parked them alternating front and back and that amplified the distortion.
I love your “…it gets uglier every time I look at it.” Not seen one live,or should that be dead, on this side of the pond but in the photos it looks hideous.
I wonder how much the 'gets uglier every time I look at it' parallels your evolving feelings toward Musk. It wouldn’t be surprising if our feelings about an object evolved as we learn more about its designer’s qualities.
One of the reasons I love designers as “citizen legislators” is the nuance of understanding as exemplified in two of your comments: (1) “There are aesthetic elements in all good design that one can appreciate at an abstract level. Proportion, contrast, rhythm, juxtaposition, tension,” and (2) “Eliel Saarinen said, ‘Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context…’”. Thank you for that.
Perhaps the Cybertruck is the outward physical manifestation (or perhaps the infestation) of Musk himself - devoid of humanity, lacking empathy, filled with hubris. A self portrait.
Bad taste is hard to hide. I remember seeing some advanced drawings of the Tesla roadster from maybe 20 years ago. They were beautiful. Then Musk exercised his authority and nixed them all, replacing the early concepts with a cruder, less nuanced design that could have come from Ford or Chevrolet. With the Cybertruck, his taste has reached its fullest expression.
Well said. I hope that more and more press on the fact that he didn’t create Tesla - he kicked the two guys who did out and now says he created it, comes out.
Yes, and now Tesla has vehicles that look lumpy and bland. Except for the Cybertruck, which looks like a prop for a cheesy movie. I love Ted’s photo of the Cybertruck pileup—a collision of triangles.
Let’s imagine that the Cybertruck, under it’s flat triangular skin, is a marvel of engineering. Elegant, efficient, eco-friendly, and human-centered. Should the outside look like a geometry figure gone wrong? It’s as if the engineer and the stylist, who are both designers, hated each other and refused to cooperate.
There is irony in the fact that Tesla's vehicles were (some still are, as far as I know) originally built on the Lotus Elise unibody architecture because it was so well designed, rigid, and lightweight. I seriously considered adding an Elise as a stablemate for my old 911 because of its beautiful aesthetic. And 200 SAE net horsepower in a car that weighs about 1500 pounds as going to be a ton of fun.
I think it's more about Musk's age. The Cybertruck is an obvious borrow from military stealth technology which started showing up in the 1980s. Aircraft, ships and whatever else you wanted to hide from radar were built of flat planes that made it possible to minimize the signature. Just as the streamlined designs of Loewy and Dreyfuss defined the future in the 1930s, those weird looking stealth machines defined the future in the 1980s.
Like many, Musk has gotten his taste stuck in an era. It's about coding, like the way Star Trek used to highlight flashbacks to earlier starship designs by making their screens more rounded just as older television sets were more rounded than newer ones. His coding for the future hasn't changed in the past 40 years which is kind of sad. I half expect Musk to retreat to his bunker and grow his fingernails like Howard Hughes.
Ironically, modern stealth technology is different. Back then, they used that polyhedral look because then modern computers could analyze the radar reflections and find minima. Now modern computers can analyze the radar reflections of more sophisticated shapes. More promising are metamaterials which don't look much different, but allow much finer control of radar reflection.
I like that assessment very much and agree with you. Interesting that what he think is a thrust toward the future might just be an outdated homage to the past. Some things can be brought forward but care has to be taken to avoid the kitch. Thank you!
The Cybertruck looks very cyberpunk-influenced, like something out of Blade Runner. It's what pop culture in the 1980's thought "the future" would look like.
yes. Seems as stuck in child-land as that elementary-school-level movie franchise Transformers. And clapping for polyhedral ... that's the word I've been looking for. 👏
Not even a good try, like starlink and space x are not good for humanity ? All these commentaries are so simplistic and resentful as to expose the writers of shallow presuppositions.
Agreed, but the Tesla truck is really, really ugly. I think the self-parking star ship is one of the greatest feats in engineering. Ever. But I would like a little nod to some good human-oriented design when it's not going to affect performance.
Elon's grandfather, Joshua Norman Haldeman, was the director of Technocracy Incorporated in Canada. Technocracy is just eugenics rebranded. Elon wants the *right kind* of smart people to have lots of kids.
Musk's grandfather.... In Cahnahda, no less, wants eugenics... Apparently he was/is? a prototypical Cahnahdian, given that Trudeau and his minions are pushing that on unwanted older and unhappy people. Quit the straw man BS. I'm fine with Elon wanting the right kind (No asterisks for me, perhaps you meant to use quotes?) of people, I have it on good authority they would be much kinder and more intelligent than the vast majority of the whiny snowflakes on the left, most of whom would prefer to extinguish their offspring in the womb. See current birthrates in Western first-world countries. If your name is indicative of your actual sex at birth, why don't you pop out a few kids to combat Elon the Terrible? Go ahead, fight the good fight.
LOL Define creepy and let me know what sounded creepy about my post. Then tell me at what you're gazing; that may give me some insight into your creepiness level. My best guess is that you're navel gazing, a term my Dad used to use. Let me know if you think my assessment is creepy, please.
They're probably not interested in women anyway,by which I dont mean Gay. They're probably not into any sort of romantic entanglements that require outlays of time and money,oldie-fash wooing and coaxing,paying for meals in candlelit restaurants,buying horrid overpriced forced flowers when it would be much more romantic to give her a bunch of wild flowers you picked yourself,and after months of expense and time wasting and she thinks a long term emotional commitment you get what can be achieved for free by a quick jerk off or at minimum cost from a lurker in the shadows. I know I'm so coarse and vulgar. But we live in an age where even sexual activity is uglified. It's actually sexual activity now not romance. I mean some of them want to go in for a house and have babies,the harpies. You gotta give them up for music and a free electric band.
I always associated the Cybertruck design with turning sci-fi into reality. Like having a car from Bladerunner or Cyberpunk turn up in reality. On that note, both film and game are pretty brutalistic and dystopic.
Good call on those movies! But yes, they belong on the screen, not in our lives. The powers that should not be would love to turn us all into cyberpunk slaves.
Yes, which I suspect perfectly describes the world Musk would like see. The Cybertruck is a deliberately ugly projection of wealth as brutal power. Elsewhere in Musk-land, I’ve always been disturbed by the Star Wars, Stormtrooper references to the design of Space X space suits.
I now think that far from being prophetic those films and even books of the past are being used as a Blueprint. Hey,what a great idea. It was fantasy in 1900+ but now we have the technology,let's DO IT!.
I personally quite like the Geisel library, as it somehow reminds me of a cute robot’s idea of a cloud, a jewel box, and an artichoke at the same time. It must be the setbacks and the glass.
But the Cybertruck is crassness in vehicle form. As much as I like cars with the hood and A-pillar perfectly aligned, this one sucks. I’ll take a new Prius or this Ferrari design over that monstrosity any day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_Modulo
It's interesting to note that defense of Brutalism and defense (or at least enjoyment) of the aesthetics of the Cybertruck come from completely opposite ends of the political spectrum, and for completely different reasons.
If I remember my James C. Scott, Le Corbusier expressed interest in working with both Hitler and Stalin, who both appreciated cyclopean, unlivable architecture.
Futurism as an artistic, architectural, and social movement originates in early 20th-century Italy, and its creators were largely full-fledged supporters of capital-f Fascism under Mussolini. So at the risk of sounding like I'm saying something I'm not and am calling some of the cybertruck enjoyers who like its "futuristic, sci-fi" look (or even all Futurists) all fascists, I am admittedly not sure it is an end as opposite to the Brutalists as we think it is.
There was an earlier nationalist style in the 19th century when nation states started defining things like national food, dress, songs and so on. There were projects to define national architecture and urban planning. Look at Haussmann's Paris, New York City's grid and the Washington DC mall. I'm sure I'm missing many. We take the fruits of that era for granted and forget that it was the futurism of its day.
(That's when the Scots started wearing kilts again and made up clan tartans. They had been suppressed, so no one knows the original patterns. Now they're considered traditional.)
None of them live in those places. They live in old red tiled farmhouses in Sussex or Flint walled cottages in Berkshire or Arts + Crafts era houses in Hampstead.
I'm in UK. I live in a block of flats. It's in a nice area,well maintained,it's I think well designed,all the residents here are nice people who care about standards,we've got beautiful colourful garden beds outside,quite fabulous and outstanding in fact. Those Garden Beds are Something Else. Guess who designed, planted and maintains them to such a high standard of beauty and excellence.Yes,I am the one who answers yes to," you're the one who does the gardens arent you,theyre lovely". Ha ha. Modesty? Why?
Interesting. I laugh (at the inanity) when I see videos on the news showing people with their nose stuck so far into their notsosmart phone and step into an open utility access in a sidewalk, or when I see a two couples at a restaurant who don't speak a word to each other, but all laugh when they receive the same funny text or TikTok video.
And here I wonder how high the percentage of people are reading and posting comments are doing so on the same type of device. From my perspective the electric pickup and the stupid phone are basically equivalent .
It is brutalist architecture on wheels. A horrendous status symbol. At least Italian sports cars look great and would be fun to drive, if you are in the tax bracket that can afford such a mid-life vehicle.
I don't claim that regular cars are great for the environment, but when electric cars are plugged into a power source that is burning natural gas and coal then what the heck is the difference, between having gas and electric? To say nothing of the mining that goes on to make those batteries.
Stainless steel does NOT rust after 6 months. I live in St. Louis, and our Gateway Arch is made of stainless steel. No rust yet, and it dates back to the mid 60's.
There are different formulations of stainless steel, so likely the Arch is not the same as a Cybertruck. Here's a thread that goes in to some of the nuance:
Funny, I just bought a new golf putter that has angles like Cybertruck - I call it the cyber putter. Golfers are very traditional when it comes to aesthetics - my putter is ugly but works for me. I am torn on the cybertruck where design elements like the side mirrors are dictated by arcane government regulations, but in the end it has some sort of odd appeal. An appeal that moves people’s perception of design to a different place. Like sloppy punk rock influencing a generation of musicians.
I love them and they’re so fun to drive. The cyberpunk brutalism does it for me. You really feel like you’re in the future while riding in one and the handling and acceleration for such a big vehicle is incredibly smooth. Idk no hate from me on the cyber truck other than I want the price to go down…
Totally. I’m very optimistic and believe we’re in a tremendous and wonderful age, the best era of all time. There is no time period I’d like to return to.
Newsflash: We may only live in the present, but our only hope of life is in our future. Doesn't matter what happened last week. If it does for you, you are by default, suicidal. Life is good. Where there's life there's hope.
Actually, Jonathan is into peace and love, but occasionally/frequently will open his big mouth and say what he thinks/feels - or as close to it as he can manage in the somewhat narrow bandwidth of words upon the screen - and the consequences be damned. As a genetic product of generations of warriors, not to mention being awarded a scholarship to Sandhurst which he turned down, Jonathan is quite aware of the negative consequences of fighting. A true warrior does everything to avoid fighting. Fighting is a sign of failure. Jonathan is now going back to bed.
The trouble with these comments, as well as the original essay, is that they posit that ever since Elon Musk went fascist and began supporting Trump, everything that his companies produce must then be rotten and evil.
I ask you and the geezers here, Do you think that Elon Musk had one thing to do with the engineering or design of this vehicle? He's so busy running around being the next Trump that he doesn't run his companies. He picked good engineers and managers, and he must be given credit for organizing the only successful electric vehicle maker in America, but you don't have to hate these products or the SpaceX technology because you hate Elon.
Henry Ford was a vicious anti-semite, and he hired goons to beat-up on Walter Reuther. Does that mean you must likewise hate Ford vehicles?
I didn’t mention Elon Musk anywhere in this article. I didn’t even refer to him indirectly. Nor is any politician or political party mentioned at any point in the text. Feel free to disagree with the article but please don’t misrepresent what I actually wrote.
And nowhere did I say that you had mentioned Musk. I addressed your opinions in a separate comment, but this reply is to the comment of Ms. Dune, and it refers to the mob mentality on wide display here that Since Elon Musk is in league with Satan himself, the modern truck his company makes is thus Satanic in itself and thus must be put down viciously.
My comment to your essay instead concerns your devout preference for ideas and creations of the glorious past over those of the present or anything threatening from the ominous future.
I believe that a cogent argument can be made that in all cases, not just this novel truck, you hail the art and ideas of the past over those of the present. Can you point to any of your sermons in which you praise modern music, art, writing or thought as being superior to that of the past?
This is exactly what I’m referring to—you misrepresent my views. I’ve recommended around 400 new albums here in the last three years. I spend hours every day listening to new music, and I am an enthusiastic advocate for it. Either you don’t know my work, or you deliberately misrepresent it.
I like the cyber truck. Actually I LOVE IT. It makes me feel really safe when I’m riding in it, which I’ve never felt in a car before. Perhaps the feeling for women is tremendous safety and for men it is power?
I also live in a flood prone area, so I thought it would be great for that. If I could afford it, I’d buy my daughter one also. It is an apocalyptic car, so tough, but that’s why I like it. You aren’t going to blow out the tires on a pot hole or get crunched up to death if someone hits you in a cyber truck. I guess many trucks would be like this, but they’d also be harder to drive than the cyber truck, which they made very easy with all the screen visualizations and handling.
I also think Elon Musk makes great cars in general. I own a Tesla 3 and I love it.
I’m totally fine with democracy and people can support whomever and whatever ideas they want.
I do think the truck is ugly. I respect your reasons for liking it. But I will note that Lithium-Ion batteries are inherently dangerous when exposed to dihydrogen oxide (little high school chemistry class name for water). So please consider other options if you're affected by a flood.
The whole Satan schtick is more a GQP, mob mentality thing than it is for us who find Musk rather disgusting for many different reasons. And Satan has little to do with it.
Ford was instrumental in helping us win WW2 , Roosevelt had to finally negotiate with him. I get from the globalist perspective all dissenting voices become fascist.
I work in automotive design, and the non Elon fanboys (few in that world that don't work for Tesla) all agree it's an abomination. There is a perverse logic at work here, the Opinionated Design school of thought that says it's better to be hated than ignored. Musk wanted to push this to the edge, so it is a deliberately perverse design whose goal is to provoke the very discussion we are having.
Any one who wants to own a Cybertruck has an ego that wants to be at the center of this conversation, they are feeding off the (mostly) hate and the sweet (few) love. Much better to them than rolling up in something that doesn't stir the public emotion. It's the equivalent of a rolling Twitter troll. And, like most of his other businesses, Elon stole someone else's thunder; the most famous example is the original Hummer.
Ted, you're a great social commentator and I learn so much from you. But I think you're on the wrong track on this one. The Cybertruck tells us nothing about current trends in aesthetics. It only tells us about Muskthetics.
Normally I feel like I get your takes on things and I was with you on the ugliness angle of the Cybertruck. But intimidating? A Dodge Ram or a Ford F-150 with dualies and a raised suspension and aftermarket pipes is intimidating. The Cybertruck is an object of derision. It's something you point and laugh at. As you do the person inside it.
I get your point, but while I think traditional trucks like those look cool, I admit there is nothing that intimidates me and strikes more fear into my heart than a clownmobile on the road. It really brings out my inner coulrophobia. The cybertruck is like the John Wayne Gacy of trucks. So I suppose it depends on how you look at it!
It’s not so much power that this vehicle exudes but FEAR. Power goes big and high, like those monster trucks on the highway that will roll right over your cute little Mazda 3. No, this is sleek and low, like a metallic rat. Take a look at the assault vehicle in Aliens, the movie, and you’ll get a picture of the world or the environment this thing is made for—alien, threatening, and inhospitable to human life. It is a post-apocalyptic, high-tech cockroach built to invade, strike, and evade capture. I think it fits perfectly with your sense of the Zeitgeist, Ted.
A post-apocalyptic, high-tech cockroach built to invade, strike, run out of battery, and fail in winter, I'd argue. Imagine a bunch of raiders coming on their Teslas to attack your post-apocalyptic safehouse some years after the fall. One of their trucks' lithium batteries fails since it's never been replaced and lost all its charge quickly like an old phone. They have to stop, just a bit away from your fence, thinking they are out of sight.
So you see the other raiders all stop their trucks, too, before they intended to get out of them. Maybe you watch them a bit before your people open fire, and realising they've been seen and their trucks have flunked their raid, they all get back in their high-tech war cockroaches, trying to start them back up to leave in a hurry and trying to look where they're being shot from.
There is a problem: it's winter, and lithium ion clumps have formed on their batteries because of the cold temperature. The batteries promptly short-circuit, and the raiders' trucks all explode while you watch in amazement at something that if you had seen it in a movie, you'd have gone "yeah, right, that's convenient" – free scrap metal!
As a designer, I don't need compound curves and decorative flourishes to see beauty. There are aesthetic elements in all good design that one can appreciate at an abstract level. Proportion, contrast, rhythm, juxtaposition, tension, honesty, sensitivity, and so forth. The Cybertruck seems ignorant of these, trying instead for a Futurism that comes off as arrogant, bullying, and ultimately childish. Eliel Saarinen said, "Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context—a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, and environment in a city plan." The Cybertruck seems to be designed as a prop inside a 10-year-old boy's vision of the future. The drivers of these contraptions are unconsciously living out the axiom: "Bad taste is hard to hide."
The weird thing is how the cybertruck is like the opposite of a good piece of art, in that it gets uglier every time I look at it. The first time I saw it, I thought it looked weird, but didn't think it looked *that* bad, but the more I've seen it especially in the real world, the less I think of it. Whatever one might think of Tesla's other vehicles, it is amazing how much the cybertruck stands out from the rest of them, and not in a good way. The others at least look more or less like normal cars.
A few weeks ago, I took a different route than usual through Albuquerque and passed a place that had several cybertrucks outside it. Each had a different wrap, most of which seemed to be advertisements for businesses.
The wraps did not make the vehicles look any better.
I just passed a new Tesla dealership in Rio Rancho. A line of ten cyber trucks is truly ugly. They even parked them alternating front and back and that amplified the distortion.
Where is that? I want to check it out!
Recursive ugliness
I love your “…it gets uglier every time I look at it.” Not seen one live,or should that be dead, on this side of the pond but in the photos it looks hideous.
I wonder how much the 'gets uglier every time I look at it' parallels your evolving feelings toward Musk. It wouldn’t be surprising if our feelings about an object evolved as we learn more about its designer’s qualities.
One of the reasons I love designers as “citizen legislators” is the nuance of understanding as exemplified in two of your comments: (1) “There are aesthetic elements in all good design that one can appreciate at an abstract level. Proportion, contrast, rhythm, juxtaposition, tension,” and (2) “Eliel Saarinen said, ‘Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context…’”. Thank you for that.
You mean, like, the world's largest inedible cheese wedge!
How can a design be “honest”?
Well, surely it is "courageous" then, no?
It is a prop in the juvenile fantasy world of its factory's owner.
Perhaps the Cybertruck is the outward physical manifestation (or perhaps the infestation) of Musk himself - devoid of humanity, lacking empathy, filled with hubris. A self portrait.
Bad taste is hard to hide. I remember seeing some advanced drawings of the Tesla roadster from maybe 20 years ago. They were beautiful. Then Musk exercised his authority and nixed them all, replacing the early concepts with a cruder, less nuanced design that could have come from Ford or Chevrolet. With the Cybertruck, his taste has reached its fullest expression.
Well said. I hope that more and more press on the fact that he didn’t create Tesla - he kicked the two guys who did out and now says he created it, comes out.
Yes, and now Tesla has vehicles that look lumpy and bland. Except for the Cybertruck, which looks like a prop for a cheesy movie. I love Ted’s photo of the Cybertruck pileup—a collision of triangles.
Keep in mind that Musk is not an engineer, so the only input has in a product is the physical appearance.
Let’s imagine that the Cybertruck, under it’s flat triangular skin, is a marvel of engineering. Elegant, efficient, eco-friendly, and human-centered. Should the outside look like a geometry figure gone wrong? It’s as if the engineer and the stylist, who are both designers, hated each other and refused to cooperate.
There is irony in the fact that Tesla's vehicles were (some still are, as far as I know) originally built on the Lotus Elise unibody architecture because it was so well designed, rigid, and lightweight. I seriously considered adding an Elise as a stablemate for my old 911 because of its beautiful aesthetic. And 200 SAE net horsepower in a car that weighs about 1500 pounds as going to be a ton of fun.
Very interesting, I didn’t know that, thanks!
I think it's more about Musk's age. The Cybertruck is an obvious borrow from military stealth technology which started showing up in the 1980s. Aircraft, ships and whatever else you wanted to hide from radar were built of flat planes that made it possible to minimize the signature. Just as the streamlined designs of Loewy and Dreyfuss defined the future in the 1930s, those weird looking stealth machines defined the future in the 1980s.
Like many, Musk has gotten his taste stuck in an era. It's about coding, like the way Star Trek used to highlight flashbacks to earlier starship designs by making their screens more rounded just as older television sets were more rounded than newer ones. His coding for the future hasn't changed in the past 40 years which is kind of sad. I half expect Musk to retreat to his bunker and grow his fingernails like Howard Hughes.
Ironically, modern stealth technology is different. Back then, they used that polyhedral look because then modern computers could analyze the radar reflections and find minima. Now modern computers can analyze the radar reflections of more sophisticated shapes. More promising are metamaterials which don't look much different, but allow much finer control of radar reflection.
I like that assessment very much and agree with you. Interesting that what he think is a thrust toward the future might just be an outdated homage to the past. Some things can be brought forward but care has to be taken to avoid the kitch. Thank you!
The Cybertruck looks very cyberpunk-influenced, like something out of Blade Runner. It's what pop culture in the 1980's thought "the future" would look like.
I forgot about Blade Runner. Yup!
Great insight.
Kaleberg, very much agreed on the "stealth tech" look.
yes. Seems as stuck in child-land as that elementary-school-level movie franchise Transformers. And clapping for polyhedral ... that's the word I've been looking for. 👏
He's found his ideal buyer and is selling Schwarzenegger to him.
Yup.
Exactly this.
Not even a good try, like starlink and space x are not good for humanity ? All these commentaries are so simplistic and resentful as to expose the writers of shallow presuppositions.
Agreed, but the Tesla truck is really, really ugly. I think the self-parking star ship is one of the greatest feats in engineering. Ever. But I would like a little nod to some good human-oriented design when it's not going to affect performance.
yup. A technocratic huckster. James Corbett nails Elon here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/p2Myle58ozLn/
I had a Tesla Cybertruck reservation, but I canceled it. The thing was just too ugly, too expensive and I’ve grown to really dislike Elon Musk.
Likewise.
Another form of male birth control or degradation of the gene pool. No woman of substance would go near a guy who buys one of these. ;-)
Methinks ye think highly of herself
Wishful thinking. Anyway Musk has his own eugenics program.
That's pretty disgusting. So he's practicing eugenics by having a horde of children? Your personal dislike of Musk has made you sound like an idiot.
Elon's grandfather, Joshua Norman Haldeman, was the director of Technocracy Incorporated in Canada. Technocracy is just eugenics rebranded. Elon wants the *right kind* of smart people to have lots of kids.
https://youtu.be/aGIDbTFtIzw?si=82mm4_ZySZbWs3hr
*right kind* of people company Elon funds:
https://futureoflife.org/about-us/our-people/
more:
https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/biopolitical-times/transhumanist-philosopher-silicon-valley-money-and-lab-made-gametes
Musk's grandfather.... In Cahnahda, no less, wants eugenics... Apparently he was/is? a prototypical Cahnahdian, given that Trudeau and his minions are pushing that on unwanted older and unhappy people. Quit the straw man BS. I'm fine with Elon wanting the right kind (No asterisks for me, perhaps you meant to use quotes?) of people, I have it on good authority they would be much kinder and more intelligent than the vast majority of the whiny snowflakes on the left, most of whom would prefer to extinguish their offspring in the womb. See current birthrates in Western first-world countries. If your name is indicative of your actual sex at birth, why don't you pop out a few kids to combat Elon the Terrible? Go ahead, fight the good fight.
Are you as creepy as you sound?
LOL Define creepy and let me know what sounded creepy about my post. Then tell me at what you're gazing; that may give me some insight into your creepiness level. My best guess is that you're navel gazing, a term my Dad used to use. Let me know if you think my assessment is creepy, please.
Have a good one, keep on gazing.
They're probably not interested in women anyway,by which I dont mean Gay. They're probably not into any sort of romantic entanglements that require outlays of time and money,oldie-fash wooing and coaxing,paying for meals in candlelit restaurants,buying horrid overpriced forced flowers when it would be much more romantic to give her a bunch of wild flowers you picked yourself,and after months of expense and time wasting and she thinks a long term emotional commitment you get what can be achieved for free by a quick jerk off or at minimum cost from a lurker in the shadows. I know I'm so coarse and vulgar. But we live in an age where even sexual activity is uglified. It's actually sexual activity now not romance. I mean some of them want to go in for a house and have babies,the harpies. You gotta give them up for music and a free electric band.
I always associated the Cybertruck design with turning sci-fi into reality. Like having a car from Bladerunner or Cyberpunk turn up in reality. On that note, both film and game are pretty brutalistic and dystopic.
Good call on those movies! But yes, they belong on the screen, not in our lives. The powers that should not be would love to turn us all into cyberpunk slaves.
Yes, which I suspect perfectly describes the world Musk would like see. The Cybertruck is a deliberately ugly projection of wealth as brutal power. Elsewhere in Musk-land, I’ve always been disturbed by the Star Wars, Stormtrooper references to the design of Space X space suits.
I now think that far from being prophetic those films and even books of the past are being used as a Blueprint. Hey,what a great idea. It was fantasy in 1900+ but now we have the technology,let's DO IT!.
But even the spinner car from Blade Runner had some curves and color to it.
I for one do appreciate brutalism for its material honesty, and the egalitarian social vision its founders had: https://jacobin.com/2018/10/brutalism-architecture-public-housing-urban-planning
I personally quite like the Geisel library, as it somehow reminds me of a cute robot’s idea of a cloud, a jewel box, and an artichoke at the same time. It must be the setbacks and the glass.
But the Cybertruck is crassness in vehicle form. As much as I like cars with the hood and A-pillar perfectly aligned, this one sucks. I’ll take a new Prius or this Ferrari design over that monstrosity any day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_Modulo
It's interesting to note that defense of Brutalism and defense (or at least enjoyment) of the aesthetics of the Cybertruck come from completely opposite ends of the political spectrum, and for completely different reasons.
If I remember my James C. Scott, Le Corbusier expressed interest in working with both Hitler and Stalin, who both appreciated cyclopean, unlivable architecture.
Futurism as an artistic, architectural, and social movement originates in early 20th-century Italy, and its creators were largely full-fledged supporters of capital-f Fascism under Mussolini. So at the risk of sounding like I'm saying something I'm not and am calling some of the cybertruck enjoyers who like its "futuristic, sci-fi" look (or even all Futurists) all fascists, I am admittedly not sure it is an end as opposite to the Brutalists as we think it is.
There was an earlier nationalist style in the 19th century when nation states started defining things like national food, dress, songs and so on. There were projects to define national architecture and urban planning. Look at Haussmann's Paris, New York City's grid and the Washington DC mall. I'm sure I'm missing many. We take the fruits of that era for granted and forget that it was the futurism of its day.
(That's when the Scots started wearing kilts again and made up clan tartans. They had been suppressed, so no one knows the original patterns. Now they're considered traditional.)
None of them live in those places. They live in old red tiled farmhouses in Sussex or Flint walled cottages in Berkshire or Arts + Crafts era houses in Hampstead.
My college campus had several poured concrete buildings that were fair enough to behold. They had welcoming windows and comfortable proportions.
The only example on my campus was Everson Hall, and it was pretty nice, I think because of the fluting and the simple eastern facade
I stand corrected, it was Briggs Hall
I'm in UK. I live in a block of flats. It's in a nice area,well maintained,it's I think well designed,all the residents here are nice people who care about standards,we've got beautiful colourful garden beds outside,quite fabulous and outstanding in fact. Those Garden Beds are Something Else. Guess who designed, planted and maintains them to such a high standard of beauty and excellence.Yes,I am the one who answers yes to," you're the one who does the gardens arent you,theyre lovely". Ha ha. Modesty? Why?
The cyber truck reminds me of the Yogi Berra quote “the future isn’t what it used to be.”
It SO isn't!
When I'm walking down the street with friends and one of these passes, we all point and laugh. So much for power and dominance. 😂
We just scream, “Sorry about your penis”!
Hooray. Good for you.
Not sure humorous memes and associated thinking are going to cut it in our brutal new future. Power and dominance are simply going to mow us down.
Yes. I keep citing the biting satire of Weimar Germany and how it undermined and overthrew Hitler.
But Weimar Germany was destroyed by the Nazis. *They* "overthrew" it.
Yep. You laugh,mock power and destroy it's credibility. It shoots you!
Interesting. I laugh (at the inanity) when I see videos on the news showing people with their nose stuck so far into their notsosmart phone and step into an open utility access in a sidewalk, or when I see a two couples at a restaurant who don't speak a word to each other, but all laugh when they receive the same funny text or TikTok video.
And here I wonder how high the percentage of people are reading and posting comments are doing so on the same type of device. From my perspective the electric pickup and the stupid phone are basically equivalent .
It is brutalist architecture on wheels. A horrendous status symbol. At least Italian sports cars look great and would be fun to drive, if you are in the tax bracket that can afford such a mid-life vehicle.
I don't claim that regular cars are great for the environment, but when electric cars are plugged into a power source that is burning natural gas and coal then what the heck is the difference, between having gas and electric? To say nothing of the mining that goes on to make those batteries.
Stainless steel does NOT rust after 6 months. I live in St. Louis, and our Gateway Arch is made of stainless steel. No rust yet, and it dates back to the mid 60's.
There are different formulations of stainless steel, so likely the Arch is not the same as a Cybertruck. Here's a thread that goes in to some of the nuance:
https://community.cartalk.com/t/stainless-steel/194377
I was going to let Ted know that, thanks for pointing that our. He probably was thinking of poorly galvanized steel.
Funny, I just bought a new golf putter that has angles like Cybertruck - I call it the cyber putter. Golfers are very traditional when it comes to aesthetics - my putter is ugly but works for me. I am torn on the cybertruck where design elements like the side mirrors are dictated by arcane government regulations, but in the end it has some sort of odd appeal. An appeal that moves people’s perception of design to a different place. Like sloppy punk rock influencing a generation of musicians.
I love them and they’re so fun to drive. The cyberpunk brutalism does it for me. You really feel like you’re in the future while riding in one and the handling and acceleration for such a big vehicle is incredibly smooth. Idk no hate from me on the cyber truck other than I want the price to go down…
You want to live in the future? After this week?
Totally. I’m very optimistic and believe we’re in a tremendous and wonderful age, the best era of all time. There is no time period I’d like to return to.
It’s not so much that I wish to return to an earlier time period, but I sure wish for a better future than the one which appears to be manifesting.
What would you change first?
First, the laws of physics so that burning fossil fuels did not produce CO2!
Charlotte, do you mean this, or is it an elaborate leg-pull? I'm thinking it's the latter.
Newsflash: We may only live in the present, but our only hope of life is in our future. Doesn't matter what happened last week. If it does for you, you are by default, suicidal. Life is good. Where there's life there's hope.
Thank you for pointing out that very minor and cliched truism.
First one's free, kid.
Are you a fan of Bleriot's flying machines?
No, they look like tongue depressors.
I meant the question for Hektor Bleriot, actually...
Yes, one could say I like my monoplanes cantilevered, yes...and gossamer wing'ed. And Berlioz's symphonies ;0)
That's a depressing...and uplifting comment.
Jonathan is looking for a fight… online!
Actually, Jonathan is into peace and love, but occasionally/frequently will open his big mouth and say what he thinks/feels - or as close to it as he can manage in the somewhat narrow bandwidth of words upon the screen - and the consequences be damned. As a genetic product of generations of warriors, not to mention being awarded a scholarship to Sandhurst which he turned down, Jonathan is quite aware of the negative consequences of fighting. A true warrior does everything to avoid fighting. Fighting is a sign of failure. Jonathan is now going back to bed.
The trouble with these comments, as well as the original essay, is that they posit that ever since Elon Musk went fascist and began supporting Trump, everything that his companies produce must then be rotten and evil.
I ask you and the geezers here, Do you think that Elon Musk had one thing to do with the engineering or design of this vehicle? He's so busy running around being the next Trump that he doesn't run his companies. He picked good engineers and managers, and he must be given credit for organizing the only successful electric vehicle maker in America, but you don't have to hate these products or the SpaceX technology because you hate Elon.
Henry Ford was a vicious anti-semite, and he hired goons to beat-up on Walter Reuther. Does that mean you must likewise hate Ford vehicles?
I didn’t mention Elon Musk anywhere in this article. I didn’t even refer to him indirectly. Nor is any politician or political party mentioned at any point in the text. Feel free to disagree with the article but please don’t misrepresent what I actually wrote.
And nowhere did I say that you had mentioned Musk. I addressed your opinions in a separate comment, but this reply is to the comment of Ms. Dune, and it refers to the mob mentality on wide display here that Since Elon Musk is in league with Satan himself, the modern truck his company makes is thus Satanic in itself and thus must be put down viciously.
My comment to your essay instead concerns your devout preference for ideas and creations of the glorious past over those of the present or anything threatening from the ominous future.
You don’t understand my views in the least. You misrepresented them here and in your other comment.
I believe that a cogent argument can be made that in all cases, not just this novel truck, you hail the art and ideas of the past over those of the present. Can you point to any of your sermons in which you praise modern music, art, writing or thought as being superior to that of the past?
This is exactly what I’m referring to—you misrepresent my views. I’ve recommended around 400 new albums here in the last three years. I spend hours every day listening to new music, and I am an enthusiastic advocate for it. Either you don’t know my work, or you deliberately misrepresent it.
I like the cyber truck. Actually I LOVE IT. It makes me feel really safe when I’m riding in it, which I’ve never felt in a car before. Perhaps the feeling for women is tremendous safety and for men it is power?
I also live in a flood prone area, so I thought it would be great for that. If I could afford it, I’d buy my daughter one also. It is an apocalyptic car, so tough, but that’s why I like it. You aren’t going to blow out the tires on a pot hole or get crunched up to death if someone hits you in a cyber truck. I guess many trucks would be like this, but they’d also be harder to drive than the cyber truck, which they made very easy with all the screen visualizations and handling.
I also think Elon Musk makes great cars in general. I own a Tesla 3 and I love it.
I’m totally fine with democracy and people can support whomever and whatever ideas they want.
I do think the truck is ugly. I respect your reasons for liking it. But I will note that Lithium-Ion batteries are inherently dangerous when exposed to dihydrogen oxide (little high school chemistry class name for water). So please consider other options if you're affected by a flood.
I mean driving through the floods. The cyber truck has a boat mode that seals the battery off from water.
Satan? You totally discredit your comments on that reference alone!
The whole Satan schtick is more a GQP, mob mentality thing than it is for us who find Musk rather disgusting for many different reasons. And Satan has little to do with it.
The combination of Godwin's law and TDS is very strong in you.
Ford was instrumental in helping us win WW2 , Roosevelt had to finally negotiate with him. I get from the globalist perspective all dissenting voices become fascist.
Consider yourself the targeted demographic.
Middle aged white single mother with masters degree born and raised in rural Appalachia. Noted.
Fascist!! Ha ha ha. Are you over the loss of Harris yet? If it looks like a duck it is a duck.
Have you seen this video...?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK_EJ3DyiiA
Cybertruck vs F-150
A true test of trucks, and funny as hell! And it showed some serious drawbacks on the Tesla.
Yes! But also showed some totally awesome features. And most people won’t ever do the crazy stunts he does.
I work in automotive design, and the non Elon fanboys (few in that world that don't work for Tesla) all agree it's an abomination. There is a perverse logic at work here, the Opinionated Design school of thought that says it's better to be hated than ignored. Musk wanted to push this to the edge, so it is a deliberately perverse design whose goal is to provoke the very discussion we are having.
Any one who wants to own a Cybertruck has an ego that wants to be at the center of this conversation, they are feeding off the (mostly) hate and the sweet (few) love. Much better to them than rolling up in something that doesn't stir the public emotion. It's the equivalent of a rolling Twitter troll. And, like most of his other businesses, Elon stole someone else's thunder; the most famous example is the original Hummer.
Ted, you're a great social commentator and I learn so much from you. But I think you're on the wrong track on this one. The Cybertruck tells us nothing about current trends in aesthetics. It only tells us about Muskthetics.
I think he is right that it indicates current trends- in ugliness.
Normally I feel like I get your takes on things and I was with you on the ugliness angle of the Cybertruck. But intimidating? A Dodge Ram or a Ford F-150 with dualies and a raised suspension and aftermarket pipes is intimidating. The Cybertruck is an object of derision. It's something you point and laugh at. As you do the person inside it.
I get your point, but while I think traditional trucks like those look cool, I admit there is nothing that intimidates me and strikes more fear into my heart than a clownmobile on the road. It really brings out my inner coulrophobia. The cybertruck is like the John Wayne Gacy of trucks. So I suppose it depends on how you look at it!
Had to look that one up. That makes sense though.
It’s not so much power that this vehicle exudes but FEAR. Power goes big and high, like those monster trucks on the highway that will roll right over your cute little Mazda 3. No, this is sleek and low, like a metallic rat. Take a look at the assault vehicle in Aliens, the movie, and you’ll get a picture of the world or the environment this thing is made for—alien, threatening, and inhospitable to human life. It is a post-apocalyptic, high-tech cockroach built to invade, strike, and evade capture. I think it fits perfectly with your sense of the Zeitgeist, Ted.
A post-apocalyptic, high-tech cockroach built to invade, strike, run out of battery, and fail in winter, I'd argue. Imagine a bunch of raiders coming on their Teslas to attack your post-apocalyptic safehouse some years after the fall. One of their trucks' lithium batteries fails since it's never been replaced and lost all its charge quickly like an old phone. They have to stop, just a bit away from your fence, thinking they are out of sight.
So you see the other raiders all stop their trucks, too, before they intended to get out of them. Maybe you watch them a bit before your people open fire, and realising they've been seen and their trucks have flunked their raid, they all get back in their high-tech war cockroaches, trying to start them back up to leave in a hurry and trying to look where they're being shot from.
There is a problem: it's winter, and lithium ion clumps have formed on their batteries because of the cold temperature. The batteries promptly short-circuit, and the raiders' trucks all explode while you watch in amazement at something that if you had seen it in a movie, you'd have gone "yeah, right, that's convenient" – free scrap metal!
That's hilarious, Emma. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Made my night.
That sounds like a great movie.
You afraid of metallic rats? Metallic cockroachs will survive anything just like artists are rumored to do.
Ain't it the truth, Tin Man. Ain't it the truth.