Notes on Feednet: Working 2050

Feednet is a quarterly-ish news roundup on technology, community organizing, and this month, YouTube. Read old versions here.

Feednet Vol 11: Working 2050

One of my favorite books is Working, by Studs Terkel, an oral history and radio interview collection. Terkel interviewed people all over the country asking people about their work, or as the collection’s subtitle says, “People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do”.  It’s beautiful for so many reasons, but especially because so many of these stories uncover powerful truth about what it means to have purpose -- in and beyond their work.

Someone told me recently about the idea of "hope punk' -- which I guess is pretty much what it sounds like. A book I love in that genre is World War Z , a fictional oral history where everyday people talk about their experiences surviving the zombie apocalypse.

I’ve been thinking about both of these books a lot over the last few months as I’ve collected data about the future of work, technology, and social change. And as 5 Minute Speech Coach gets closer to launching, I'm excited to build something new: a collaborative story telling project called Working 2050.  Working 2050 is a speculative fiction oral history project: conversations with workers of the future.

The first one, with lots of bees droning in the background, is here.

The audio is rough, but I'm excited to get better: working on this has helped me grapple with climate extinction + despair, and think about hope for the future as a practice.  II'm also excited for this to be a project that grows with lots of other people: if you’d be interested in writing an interview, reading an interview for recording, or collaborating on something completely different in this world, lmk.  Have a wonderful December, and talk to you soon, H