Posted in: BBC, TV | Tagged: bbc, douglas adams, elon musk, hhgttg, hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, jill lepore, tesla

BBC Broadcasts The Hitchhiker's Guide To Elon Musk With Jill Lepore

 Jill Lepore's book on the origins of Wonder Woman is the best comics history book of the past decade. And now she is turning her attention to Elon Musk for the BBC, untangling the strange sci-fi roots of Silicon Valley's extreme capitalism – with its extravagant, existential and extra-terrestrial plans to save humanity. And because Elon Musk is a big fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, and she has access to the original BBC broadcast of that show, that gives her the ability to frame that narrative using the parodies of extreme capitalism in that show, including the planet-makers of Magrathea.

Elon Musk:The Evening Rocket is a five-part series by Lepore on BBC Radio 4, the first episode is Dimension X, which aired yesterday and is available streaming globally, for free. It looks at his history in South Africa, the science-fictional history that both criticised and supported apartheid, as well as Douglas Adams' own involvement. And that "in this world, stock prices can be driven partly by fantasies found in blockbuster superhero movies, but that come from science fiction, some of it a century old. If anyone personifies this phenomenon, it's Elon Musk, the richest or second-richest person in the world on any given day." Jill Lepore says "The bare facts of Musk's life, the way they're usually told, make him sound like a fictional character, a comic-book superhero," as Elon Musk states that he hopes to colonize Mars, create brain-hacking implants and avert an AI apocalypse. And has a baby X. In this first of five episodes, Lepore looks at the early origins of 'Muskism' and explores how the science fiction stories that today's techno-billionaires grew up on have shaped Silicon Valley's vision of the future. Jump on now… and don't panic.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!