The public assumption when it comes to our sprawling debt is that China owns us. They will soon rise to economic power, and overtake the United States, putting us into sweatshops, and throwing us into a third-world country. Oh hail our Chinese overlords!
Okay so that last part might be a bit exaggerated, but don’t tell that to the filmmakers behind Ghosts for Shit Jobs, which is playing for free at MIT on Saturday.
This independent satire on the future of our economy envisions a future where the roles have been completely reversed. The wealthy, Chinese population watches a documentary series on Americans who are forced to hold down marginal, dead-end jobs. The “Digital Janitor” censors advertisements with his trusty broom, and “Human Spam” has to drop keywords in every day conversation. It’s a cruel, cruel 2040 that we get to look forward to.
The film is preceded by a talk with XKCD webcomic creator Randall Munroe, interactive fiction expert Andrew Plotkin, and creators and actors from “Ghosts” on the Future of Cultural Work, which I guess is all about how XKCD is the Bible of 2040, which most of us I think would be totally okay with.
GHOSTS WITH SHIT JOBS
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