Working 2050

Working 2050 is a speculative oral history about workers of the future. We talk to people about what they do all day and how they feel about it.  Then we write science fiction about what the future might look in 2050. EPISODE 1.02 -- GAME SHOW HOST:  “Welcome! To! Accept! Your! Death! I’m your host Sam Okafor.” SHOW NOTES + TRANSCRIPT: https://notesonfeednet.substack.com/p/working-2050-episode-102-game-show CREDITS:  Concept and Script: H Kapp-Klote 2020 Interviewee: Kamal Sinclair 2050 Interviewee:  Sierra Doss Host/"Interviewer" (2020/2050):  H Kapp-Klote Editing, Mixing, Engineering, Sound Design: Katie In Story Editing: Kae Bara Kratcha

Pathfinders are flamboyant, touchy, secretive, and in demand — the defining work of 2050."  -- WHAT IS WORKING 2050?  Working 2050 is a speculative oral history about workers of the future. We talk to people about what they do all day and how they feel about it.  Then we write science fiction about what they say — and how the future might look in 2050. EPISODE 1.01 -- PATHFINDER:  We interviewed Rabbi Menachem Cohen, a spiritual director and tabletop game designer in 2020.  Then, in the style of Studs Terkel's oral history Working, we interviewed Ursula Delany, a Pathfinder in 2050.  SHOW NOTES + TRANSCRIPT:  https://bit.ly/PathfinderWorking2050 CREDITS:  2020 Interviewee: Rabbi Menachem Cohen 2050 Interviewee:  Ursula Delany, Pathfinder, played by Hunter Dunn. Host/"The Narrator" (2020/2050):  H Kapp-Klote Mixing, Engineering, Sound Design: Katie In Moral Support, Story Strategy: Lawrence Barrier and the Center for Story Based Strategy Class Story Editing: Zoe Schein OTHER NOTES:  This episode is a test run -- my hope is to get feedback and make Working 2050 even better. Feel free to email me at [email protected] with thoughts, feedback, and more. To learn more about Rabbi Menachem's work check out: http://whatmakesyoucomealive.net/ To learn about his project adapting a spiritual version of Dreamchaser, check out: https://www.imagininggames.com/ Pathfinder is a real (and very popular) game from Dungeons and Dragons. The 2050 career as a whole is likely a direct descendant of RPG games like played with this system. However, this  template is unlikely to be the basis for Ursula Delany's game The Demon Within. -- We tell ourselves so many stories about work -- what we do all day, and how we feel about it. When we imagine how people will feel about what they do all day in the future -- we get a little closer to changing the future for the better.

“Pathfinders are flamboyant, touchy, secretive, and in demand — the defining work of 2050."  -- WHAT IS WORKING 2050?  Working 2050 is a speculative oral history about workers of the future. We talk to people about what they do all day and how they feel about it.  Then we write science fiction about what they say — and how the future might look in 2050. EPISODE 1.01 -- PATHFINDER:  We interviewed Rabbi Menachem Cohen, a spiritual director and tabletop game designer in 2020.  Then, in the style of Studs Terkel's oral history Working, we interviewed Ursula Delany, a Pathfinder in 2050.  SHOW NOTES + TRANSCRIPT:  https://bit.ly/PathfinderWorking2050 CREDITS:  2020 Interviewee: Rabbi Menachem Cohen 2050 Interviewee:  Ursula Delany, Pathfinder, played by Hunter Dunn. Host/"The Narrator" (2020/2050):  H Kapp-Klote Mixing, Engineering, Sound Design: Katie In Moral Support, Story Strategy: Lawrence Barrier and the Center for Story Based Strategy Class Story Editing: Zoe Schein OTHER NOTES:  This episode is a test run -- my hope is to get feedback and make Working 2050 even better. Feel free to email me at [email protected] with thoughts, feedback, and more. To learn more about Rabbi Menachem's work check out: http://whatmakesyoucomealive.net/ To learn about his project adapting a spiritual version of Dreamchaser, check out: https://www.imagininggames.com/ Pathfinder is a real (and very popular) game from Dungeons and Dragons. The 2050 career as a whole is likely a direct descendant of RPG games like played with this system. However, this  template is unlikely to be the basis for Ursula Delany's game The Demon Within. -- We tell ourselves so many stories about work -- what we do all day, and how we feel about it. When we imagine how people will feel about what they do all day in the future -- we get a little closer to changing the future for the better.

Working 2050 has been on hiatus for the last couple of months, but new episodes are coming soon, from interviews with Table Top RPG playing rabbis in 2020 to Morse Code Poet teens in 2050. What you hear in this episode is the sound of 63rd Beach in Chicago Illinois, on a Friday afternoon in 2020 (during COVID). What will it sound like in 2050?

Working 2050: “You don’t have to be the best person to play. You just have to play.”   This month is a little different -- a 2020 interview about the future of work.  Katie In is a songwriter, musician, + producer in Iowa. She writes + performs as @PinkNeighbor & @katiesinmusic Hear more of her music here: https://www.katiesin.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI48mlGbcus Show Notes: “If you’re not on the Voice, you’re not a real musician” Prioritizing things for other people v. own creative work “Music in 2050 will sound like everything -- more people are being musicians. That is a beautiful, cool thing for music.” What makes good music?

Mara talks about New Orleans in 2050. The future of New Orleans is also the future of water.

This Working 2050 episode is based on @recomposelife, a death care system and burial method that sequesters carbon and improves soil health.   Mara Lazer did the voiceover and rocks, thank you for the time.  https://buff.ly/3a3I5Aw Show Notes: Elmer has a large beard and an even larger thermos of coffee, which seems appropriate for a 6:30 AM meeting. The building where we meet is all glass and plants, a giant garden with 7 massive green cylinders on one side. Elmer runs one of the City of Chicago’s main decomposition sites and memorial gardens for human remains. I couldn’t figure out what made them so full of energy until I realized we were meeting 4 hours into their work day: Elmer wakes up at 4:30 AM. More here: https://www.aytchkappklote.com/post/working-2050-recomposition-technician

Working 2050 is a speculative oral history about workers of the future. "It's nice to make boxes. But... it's a niche, not my passion." Thanks to Molly Pease for providing the voiceover. Show Notes and Transcript: NK Guin lives in a cooperative outside of Oak Lawn. She’s lived in the short term dormitory for 4 years: “I guess I just like bunk beds.” We met in the dorm’s kitchen: “I don’t really know why I became an artist. When I was 10 my dad put my art capstone for 4th grade on all of his social channels. It was an artisan project: a really big deal for me, I’d spent months working on it, but nothing special, a 3D printed reclaimed mahogany box inlaid with silver. Special for a kid artist, not special for an artist artist. I was a cute kid and the box was pretty nice, so I viraled for a minute, like anything with a cute kid with an out of the ordinary talent does. I was reaching 2, maybe 3 million people at one point -- so my dad helped me set up my own channel -- an editorial calendar, microniches, keywords, a shop with sales items. There was a high demand for more wooden boxes like the type I made for my project, it didn’t matter to the buyers if they were 3D printer or not. So I started mass producing those, managing my own channel, taking art and marketing courses, and… here I am today. What is your typical day like? It’s pretty much the same every day. Wake up, read through all the comments on my channels from the night before. Answer all the shopping and community comments. Schedule some posts for the next few days. Make some videos, answer some questions about the boxes on live video. Make boxes. Go to bed. What do you like to do for fun? Every now and then I’ll have some free hours, I’ll walk around outside. Be in nature. I like to write poetry, when I have time for that. Do you ever think about switching over to that? Making more nature or poetry oriented work? It’s not really my niche, you know? A lot of other producers are doing that, it’s a pretty competitive track. It would be hard to shift gears. [Awkward silence]. I mean, I made a box with a tree on it a couple of months ago. Check it out. [he projected an image of the box onto their projected home screen]. I mean… it’s cool, right? It’s a beech tree. For a while they weren’t sure if they were going to be any of these left in Illinois. Really? Yeah! Why? Oh… That’s all I know about it. Is the box made of beech? Oh… no. It’s way cheaper to buy red pine. And people don’t care what kind of wood the box is made out of, as long as it’s wood. Do you like what you do all day? I mean… who does? I’m not trying to save the world or anything. It’s not my passion -- it’s my niche. We all have different niches. My niche isn’t about teaching people how to build better sanitation systems, or stopping pandemics. My niche is that I build boxes. “ Reading/Resources: The Passion Economy, Instructables.com,

Working 2050: is a speculative fiction oral history about workers of the future. Octavia Robinson’s practice is based on self actualization entertainment: media, including video games, television, and music, created specifically to help people improve particular personality traits or clusters of behavior. For international listeners: The Horrors refers to the massive wave of political and ecological crises across the American Union throughout the 2020s (often broadly discussed by survivors as “The Horrors”). For more: https://www.aytchkappklote.com/blog (Octavia Robinson is voiced by storyteller, researcher, actress, and badass dungeon master Olivia Blocker).

Working 2050 is a speculative fiction oral history project. In an homage to Studs Terkel’s Working, these are conversations with workers of the future. Episode 1: Beekeeper “My mother always wanted me to be something practical, like an artist. Every time she visits she spends the whole visit following me at a distance. She waits until I’m totally geared up and starting morning chores, and then I realize she’s standing in the yard with her hands on her hips.” Transcript: https://www.aytchkappklote.com/blog