马斯克传双语阅读：对马斯克影响极大的一套科幻小说——《银河系搭车客指南》

The science fiction book that most influenced his wonder years was Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The jaunty and wry tale helped shape Musk’s philosophy and added a dollop of droll humor to his serious mien. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide,” he says, “helped me out of my existential depression, and I soon realized it was amazingly funny in all sorts of subtle ways.”
道格拉斯·亚当斯的《银河系搭车客指南》是对马斯克的奇妙岁月影响最大的科幻小说。这个幽默诙谐的故事帮助马斯克形成了自己的哲学，并为他严肃的外表增添了几分幽默。"他说："《搭车指南》帮我走出了存在主义的抑郁，我很快就意识到它在各种微妙的方面都非常有趣"。

The story involves a human named Arthur Dent who is rescued by a passing spaceship seconds before the Earth is destroyed by an alien civilization that is building a hyperspace highway. Along with his alien rescuer, Dent explores various nooks and crannies of the galaxy, which is run by a two-headed president who “had turned unfathomability into an art form.” The denizens of the galaxy are trying to figure out the “Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” They build a supercomputer that after seven million years spouts out the answer: 42. When that provokes a befuddled howl, the computer replies, “That quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.” That lesson stuck with Musk. “I took from the book that we need to extend the scope of consciousness so that we are better able to ask the questions about the answer, which is the universe,” he says.
故事讲述了一个名叫亚瑟·登特的人类，在地球被正在建造超空间高速公路的外星文明毁灭前几秒钟，被一艘路过的宇宙飞船救起。登特和他的外星救援者一起探索了银河系的各个角落，银河系由一个双头总统掌管，他 "把深不可测变成了一种艺术形式"。银河系的居民试图找出 "生命、宇宙和万物终极问题的答案"。他们建造了一台超级计算机，经过七百万年后，这台超级计算机说出了答案：42.当这个答案引起一片茫然的嚎叫时，计算机回答说："这绝对是答案。老实说，我觉得问题在于，你从来都不知道问题到底是什么。"这一课让马斯克记忆犹新。"他说："我从书中领悟到，我们需要扩大意识的范围，这样才能更好地提出关于答案的问题，而答案就是宇宙。

The Hitchhiker’s Guide, combined with Musk’s later immersion into video and tabletop simulation games, led to a lifelong fascination with the tantalizing thought that we might merely be pawns in a simulation devised by some higher-order beings. As Douglas Adams writes, “There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”
《银河系搭车客指南》以及马斯克后来沉浸于视频和桌面模拟游戏的经历，让他终生沉迷于这样一个诱人的想法：我们可能只是一些高阶生物设计的模拟游戏中的棋子。正如道格拉斯·亚当斯写道："有一种理论认为，如果有人确切地发现了宇宙的用途和存在的原因，那么它就会立即消失，取而代之的是更加离奇和难以解释的东西。还有一种理论认为，这种情况已经发生了"。