The Community Center

Hello World, I'm Tomasino.

This is SolarPunk Prompts,

a series for writers where we discuss SolarPunk,

a movement that imagines a world where technology is used

for the good of the planet.

In her 2018 TED Talk, Keisha Howard said,

advances in technology and science don't lead to a dystopia

in SolarPunk,

but rather harmony with the Earth and a more egalitarian

civilization.

Or, as one headline put it, SolarPunk is a tumblr vibe.

It's also a practical movement.

In this series,

we spend each episode exploring a single SolarPunk story

prompt, adding some commentary, some inspirations,

and some considerations.

Most importantly,

we consider how that story might help us better envision a

sustainable civilization.

If this is your first time here,

I'd recommend checking out our introduction episode first,

where we talk about what SolarPunk is, why you should care,

and why this series came into being.

Without further ado,

today's prompt is the Community Center.

A community center, library or educational hub,

initially set up to help people like coal miners re

-specialize and find other jobs,

has now become a place for unofficial pilgrimages of people

striving to find their role in life and learn history from

those who lived it.

What I immediately love about this prompt is that it goes

straight to the heart of what many libraries are used for

today.

This type of skill retraining or upscaling or professional

development.

development is in practice today around the world and

probably at a library near you.

A peer research study from about a decade back found that

one in five library visitors attended a class, program,

or lecture for adults.

There are digital networks for skills development which are

rolled out throughout libraries as well like Clip in the

UK.

But this prompt takes us beyond even these extensive

programs when it mentions respecialization training for

minors.

This is a reference to an ongoing Scandinavian union effort

to modernize its workforce and prepare them for the

sustainable practices emerging across the globe.

One can easily imagine a community center filled with the

types of training and resources found in a local library

and staffed with union experts who have gone through this

sort of retraining process and can speak from experience.

A place like that could exist today down the road from

where you are right now.

If we'd let our imaginations take us just to decorate it

too into the future,

it's quite conceivable to see these places becoming a sort

of destination for those who jobs are shutting down or no

longer relevant.

One entire industry is disrupted.

Where do you go?

Who do you turn to?

Do you fall back into unskilled labor?

Is unskilled labor even a real thing?

When there's a place,

a community center known to retrain people,

to give new skills,

to prepare you to pivot into something similar perhaps,

or to lay the groundwork for something brand new,

then there's a place for hope.

It would be a place to humanize workers and give them a

renewal.

And who would you find there?

Would it be professionals who went through the same

process?

Would it be librarians?

Or the retired perhaps looking to stay in touch, socialize,

and share their knowledge?

It's not hard to imagine people traveling there,

even of a great distance, migrants of a sort,

but a better thought of as pilgrims is the journey to this

place of hope and promise.

It all depends on the psychology of the travelers and the

mystique that may have grown up around the center.

It's quite the picture, isn't it?

This prompt does a fabulous job,

not talking about what's happening in the rest of the

world.

This place could be a pillar of hope in a rather dismal

setting,

or it could be a very realistic and modern view of a near

future world.

What I find most interesting to consider is the

possibilities for what a community center like this might

turn into once the world has moved on a bit more,

when this is no longer needed by gig work.

workers to retrain their livelihoods when it stops being

crucial, but the sense of hope is remained,

and the wisdom of the teachers is still there for the

sharing.

How will pilgrims see it then?

Will it be more like a holy site,

or a guru living atop a remote mountain?

Will people come for enlightenment instead of PowerPoint

training?

These possible pseudo -spiritual lines remind me in some

ways of the monks and monasteries in Walter Miller's

Achaectical for Libowits.

Rather than a depressing setting of a remote Catholic

monastery hoarding scraps of scientific knowledge without

any understanding of them,

we're given a vibrant community setting where wisdom is

sought and shared.

What would a young lost person do to find their purpose in

life?

An author could have great fun exploring the differences

there.

Alternatively,

there's always the option of looking at internal struggles.

Remember that in SolarPunk,

our protagonist communities may still struggle with the

how.

How do we best teach the community?

How do we best act as servants for each other?

And there are always many voices in community,

differing opinions, differing strategies.

The chief librarian that built the center could have vastly

different ideas of how it should be run than the new guy

with his focus on efficiency and measurement.

This type of conflict can make interesting drama while

still upholding the values of the genre.

The desire to use technology, communal effort,

infrastructure,

and resources for the betterment of that future.

That's all for today's episode.

Before we go,

I want to give a very special thanks to all the librarians

out there.

You are the living embodiments of the better future.

I hope more of the world is like a library one day.

Thanks for joining me.

I'll talk to you soon on the next SolarPunk prompt.

a brighter perspective.

a brighter perspective.