@insaneoctane thank you for posting this. I’ve only recently registered to this forum, but I’ve been a reader since 2016, anxiously biding the last 18 months until my Model 3 arrives.
I fell hard for the mission of Tesla - and more broadly, the mission of Elon Musk - several years ago. I’ve been the “Musk evangelical” in my social group ever since, both playing the cheerleader for the cause and countering anti-Tesla (or simply anti-electric car) arguments with the reading and research I’ve done across the several sites I visit daily, including Electrek, Teslarati, /r/teslamotors, WaitButWhy, and this very forum. I am used to playing the part of optimistic, glass-half-full fanboy in these scenarios specifically _because_ I am oftentimes speaking to a skeptical audience in my friends and family.
If I were to construct, in my own fantasy, an ideal forum for Tesla fans - people who are so passionate about Tesla and its mission that they take precious minutes and hours out of their waning, mortal days to discuss the goings-on of a company with other strangers - I would want it to be a space not _only_ for cheerleading, optimism, feverish excitement, and OCD-levels of photo, video, and tweet analysis, but ALSO a space where Tesla fans, in good faith, can be critical, questioning, or cautious about the company they believe in so very, very much.
When I spend so much energy in the outside world championing the company to skeptics, I yearn for a place where I can occasionally be skeptical of the company with its fellow champions.
I believe there has been a fundamental shift over the last decade in how our society approaches discourse, and more importantly, how it perceives dissent amongst “allies.” I live in Los Angeles, and work in the entertainment industry, so much of my friend group skews liberal. The Democratic primaries were an absolute bloodbath on my Facebook feed. If you were rooting for the “wrong” candidate, you were a Traitor to the Party, and even if you supported the _same_ candidate, but not as enthusiastically, you weren’t a legitimate liberal, but rather a pagan of sorts, as you weren’t committed enough to “the cause.”
Let me repeat: I watched some of my closest friends - people who knew each other in real life - say the most awful, cruel, despicable things to each other if they so much as slightly disagreed with what was perceived by “the true believers” to be The One True Way Forward heading into the general. The friends I have who are conservative reported similar phenomena amongst their social circles: never-ending Purity Tests handed out by self-perceived in-group arbiters.
I quit Facebook in November and I haven’t looked back. But I feel that this “all or nothing” style of discussion, this politicization of all aspects of our lives, has been seeping in to non-political forums throughout the internet. And it saddens me greatly, because it sucks the fun out of pretty much every topic, everywhere.
So much of the world is _already_ skeptical or outright hostile to the idea of electric vehicles. I do what I can, in my own small way, to advocate for a cause I know we all believe in. But damn is it ever disheartening to watch the way some folks on this forum both perceive and react to oftentimes well-reasoned, or well-earned concerns, critiques, or questions about the company so many of us deeply believe in.
I meant every word of this post, but it speaks volumes that I felt the need to prove my bonafides up front before I got to the meat of it.
I love Tesla and its mission. I value this forum; I would love for it to be a space where we can all speak freely without fear of being labeled a Traitor to the Party.
I imagine that many of you feel the same.
. I think, relative to my OP, that the negativity that I am speaking of is, unfortunately toxic...several posters have made excellent observations....between "the natives getting restless" and the fading ability in America to hear alternatives to our opinions and remain objective, many posters are struggling (apparently myself included). I do enjoy the objective conversations here and hope for many more good quality ones in the future.
