Teslian eFleas

Guest Post by Eric Peters

When corporations get into bed with government, it’s us who get the fleas. Obamacare, for instance.

Big Med plus Big Government.

Sometimes, you can’t actually see the fleas. But they’re there, just the same.

An example of this unwholesome symbiosis has just emerged – in China. But it involves an American company, Tesla – which sells the same cars here.

Turns out Tesla – which builds electric cars but makes money by leveraging government mandates  – has set up its EVs to live-feed information about where each of their cars is at any given moment directly to the Chinese government.

Their car italicized to make the point that it’s not really your car when someone else has open access to it  – and so, to your life. The car tracks your movements, records where you’ve been, how long you stayed.

The government takes note.

According to the Associated Press, which broke the story, the Chinese government merely wishes to obtain “data points” for the purpose of “infrastructure planning” and – of course – to “improve public safety.”

How isn’t specified.

This from the same government which is instituting a nightmarish social shaming/ostracization regime which requires precisely such detailed, personal information – to establish panopticonic control over the population.

Not, this time, by bayonets in the back – but by simply cutting off a person’s ability to do everyday things like drive to work. Or drive anywhere.

The “data points” being sent to China’s Uncle are not anonymous; they are specific to each vehicle and thus serve as high-tech versions of the ear tags used by ranchers to keep track of each steer.

Each tag is numbered.

And so are you.

How else do you suppose they – and not just the Chinese – are going to keep track of the miles driven by an individual driver, in order to tax-by-mile, which is the way EVs will be taxed since they cannot be taxed (anonymously) per gallon?

And not just tax him.

These “connected” cars can also be controlled anytime they like.

This includes at least potentially the ability to turn the car off remotely, at their pleasure. Or rather, at their displeasure. Whenever they have decided you no longer ought to be allowed to drive.

Perhaps because of something you Tweeted.

De-monetizing is just for openers.

Paraphrasing the Soup Nazi from the old Seinfeld TV series: No mobility for you!

It’s much more efficient than sending out the goon squad. Prisons cost money; guards have to be fed. Better to just former-person the recalcitrant. 

The AP story doesn’t go into it, but modern cars – not just Tesla and not just electric cars – are already set up to be remote-controllable, as well as amenable to being real-time monitored, which they have been for years.

GM’s OnStar system, which has been around for more than 20 years, can shut off a car’s engine remotely. Every new car that has a similar system has microphones embedded in it. The newest Subarus have facial recognition systems. Toyota is putting Alexa in the 2019 Camry and Sienna minivan.

Some new BMW models can remote park themselves; the car can be auto-piloted into a parking spot via the high-tech key fob. Just push a button.

If you can do it Uncle (our Uncle) can, too.

Tesla already does.

Its cars constantly receive “updates” from Tesla, including the “unlocking” of various car capabilities, such as the battery’s maximum range or charging capacity.

This implies the car can be locked just as easily.

The company’s cars – you are the “owner”of a Tesla in the same sense that you “own” the home you paid for years ago but which you are still obliged to pay the government continuously for, if you wish to be allowed to  continue living in it – tet-a-tet with Tesla continuously.

Cellular hardware is embedded in the cars; they are thus “connected” to the Tesla controlling intelligence. At purchase, buyers are given a disclosure about this and a consent form to sign – under duress, similar to that used by the government get your “implied consent” to roadside blood draws as a condition of getting a driver’s license.

Your option is to not buy the car.

You cannot opt out of Tesla’s monitoring regime. The company will not “support” the car in that case. It’s then like a sail fawn without the ability to make a call.

Whether Tesla “shares” (in the soupy kumbaya language of late-model authoritarian corporatism) the information thus gleaned with the government – as it is doing in China – or just uses it for its own purposes is a distinction as meaningfully relevant to us, the flea-ridden, as the temporary recision of the “shared responsibility payment” used to enforce the Obamacare “individual mandate” to send money to the health insurance mafia.

And, again, it is not just Tesla. Soon, it will be all of them. And there will be no opting out.

A Brave New World is upon us.