Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that at some level of genius. It also helps

that it's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream

van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC sounds.

This is a download from the BBC. For more information and our terms of use, go to BBC.co.uk slash radio three.

Tonight we prepare for the end of the Anthropocene era, the age of the cybernoughts, is coming.

If we could see the distant future of the Earth, I think, eventually, as it grows hotter and more suitable for electronic life forms,

it would be even more inhospitable to us than our world would have been to our archaican ancestors.

But these imaginary electronic life forms,

based on semiconductor elements or compounds,

might fill the body of a new form of life

and take over from us the task of sustaining a self-regulating planet.

The words of one of the most individual thinkers of our age, James Lovelock,

the man who proposes that all life on Earth is part of a self-regulating system called Gaia,

which functions in the best interests of the planet.

Tonight he tells us to stop worrying and accept the post-human future. But don't give up just yet. Before we undergo union

with the machines in a hotter, wetter world, we have time to share two treasures yielded by the

land that owes its existence to the practice of keeping the waters at bay.

Here in the studio is the Dutch novelist Peter Bavarder,

whose debut novel, Benita Avenue, was a smash hit in ten languages and has now made it into English.

Later in the programme, we'll take a stroll down the avenue with him and explore the sites,

not theory, psychosis, suicide, the early days of internet porn.

Now, I said two treasures from the Netherlands.

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