4/3/18 "open letter" to Elon Musk about semiautonomous vehicles

Here is the link to a Twitter thread "open letter" I wrote to Elon Musk in April of 2018 about semiautonomous vehicles.

The thread imagined semiautonomous vehicles being remotely driven via "drive centers," which would be something like call centers for remote vehicle drivers. The thread was based on the idea that people want autonomous vehicles because they don't want to have to think about their drive at all.

I still believe in the demand situation behind my idea. However, what I didn't consider then, and what I think is very true today, is that nobody would want someone driving their remote vehicle from a call center, given the intense fear around technology, surveillance, and privacy -- despite the fact that hopping into a Lyft or an Uber is the same thing on many levels.

10/7/17 discussion about SpaceX and the possibilities of queer tech

Here is the link to a Twitter thread I did in 2017 about SpaceX technology and the possibilities for thinking of tech in queer ways.

The thread discusses some of my background for thinking of tech in queer ways. It mentions passages in Bertrand Russell and Jean Piaget and Barbel Inhelder that point to possibilities for imagining science and tech in queer ways, and how that type of thought might dovetail with what queer theorists like Suzanna Danuta Walters and Sara Ahmed talk about when they talk about celebrating, not just tolerating, queerness. It then looks at the refueling process for SpaceX's BFR rocket in a kind of semiotic way to see how it might point to a queer rethinking of refueling aircraft.

Just as a note -- it's been about 2 1/2 years since I wrote this thread. In this time, I've read more queer theory and more queer theory about queering technology and queering "futures." But none of the theory addresses things in this specific way. I honestly think that's a shortcoming of current queer theory. Queer theory is often very socially -- and socioeconomically -- oriented. That's fine. But there are some urgent and vital issues that can be addressed, in my opinion, by thinking of queer theory in a much more image-based or allegory-based way. I'm hoping someone will look at things this way in the near future.