The Fake Futurism of Elon Musk

A video about Elon Musk and the future.

Timestamps:

0:00 SpaceX Mars
01:49 Introduction
05:35 Tesla, Ford and A Tale of Two Cars
08:53 Futurism
13:00 The Slow Cancellation of the Future
17:53 Back to the Future
21:31 Muskian Futurism for Whom?

There's perhaps already a distinct "Elon Musk Video Essay" genre here on YouTube. Hopefully, though, this takes a different approach to those which are already out there.

Rather than focussing on I take a look at why Elon Musk has become such a revered figure in recent years and why so many people have embraced Elon Musk's Loop, Tesla, Hyperloop, Spacex, Mars Mission, Neuralink and other projects.

Drawing partly on the work of Mark Fisher and Franco "Bifo" Birardi, I consider how human perceptions of the future (at least in the advanced capitalist nations) have changed over time. In particular, I'm interested in how Elon Musk's rise might be read as a response to what Birardi and Fisher refer to as the "Slow Cancellation of the Future" during the ascendency of neoliberalism (or neoliberal capitalism) in the 1970s, 80s, 90s and 2000s.

I also argue that Elon Musk might have more than a little in common with figures in the political sphere such as Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (AOC) and "The Squad", Jeremy Corbyn etc. who have also recently sought to break from the status quo and invited us to imagine bold new futures.

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