Episode 103
Imagining Better Futures Through Interactive Storytelling and Play – with Dain Saint
In this episode of Stories for the Future, I’m joined by storyteller, game designer, and creative force Dain Saint — someone who doesn’t just talk about change, but invites people to practice it through immersive storytelling, collaborative world-building, and art.
We recorded this conversation a few months ago, but it feels even more relevant today. Especially in a time of political tension, uncertainty, and fear, we talk about how imagination, empathy, and interactive experiences can help us stay connected — and prepare us for the future we actually want to live in.
Dain also shares insights from his work in journalism, immersive theatre, and game design — including how changing what it means to “win” the game can fundamentally shift how we live and lead.
We talk about:
- What interactive storytelling really is — and why it matters
- The role of empathy in imagining better futures
- Practicing democracy through games (!)
- What it feels like to live through turbulent times in the US
- The difference between truth and honesty
- Why art, play, and participation are vital right now
🔗 Links & Resources:
Learn more about Dain’s work on his website.
Connect with me and find more episodes at storiesforthefuture.com
Subscribe to my newsletter on Substack
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You can always find more information about the podcast and my work on storiesforthefuture.com
Transcript
Hi and welcome back to another episode of Stories for the Future.
Speaker A:Today I'm sharing a conversation that stayed with me for quite some time.
Speaker A:There's something really powerful about hearing directly from someone living in the middle of changes and tensions that for me, only come through the headlines and the news.
Speaker A:My guest is Dane Saint, a storyteller, game designer, musician, and someone who creates immersive experiences that help us imagine and rehearse better futures through games, events, journalism, and art.
Speaker A:Dehn's work doesn't just talk about change.
Speaker A:It invites people to actively step into it.
Speaker A:Even though we recorded this a few months ago, our conversation feels just as, if not more relevant now.
Speaker A:Especially when it comes to holding on to imagination and caring for each other in turbulent times.
Speaker A:We talk about empathy, politics, creative resistance, and how the stories we tell and the way that we tell them can shape the future.
Speaker A:After listening to the episode, you really must go in and have a look at all the fantastic art projects and different things that Dane is creating.
Speaker A:I promise you, it's well worth your time.
Speaker A:Now let's dive into the conversation.
Speaker A:Welcome, Dane, to Stories for the Future.
Speaker B:Hi, nice to meet you.
Speaker B:Thanks for having me.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:And first, first of all, maybe just to place you geographically, where are you calling from?
Speaker B:I am in Philadelphia in the U.S. yeah.
Speaker A:Great.
Speaker C:So I'd like to start with reading what you say on your website.
Speaker A:It says, I'm a storyteller, creating interactive worlds, immersive events, and collaborative stories.
Speaker A:Whether it's through games, music, writing or design, I create artistic experiences about better.
Speaker C:Futures and the roads we take to get there.
Speaker C:So this, when I read it, it immediately piqued my curiosity, of course.
Speaker C:I mean, it fits very well with Stories for the Future because it's about telling better stories about the future.
Speaker C:So can you just share a little bit about what, what this work looks like?
Speaker B:Sure, yeah.
Speaker B:So I'm an interactive storyteller.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker B:And that's something that is both very new as a discipline, but also very old.
Speaker B:I think the earliest kind of storytelling where you have people kind of around a campfire and you get people involved with it, there's a direct line from that all the way to the sort of digital and event driven stuff that I do now.
Speaker B:And it really is around just, you know, interactive storytelling is any kind of story where the person receiving the story has a way of altering it.
Speaker B:They can explore different parts of it, they can change parts of it, they can insert themselves into the story.
Speaker B:And so the work that I do is based around that level of sort of Authorship and getting people involved in storytelling.
Speaker B:Sometimes that looks like a website where people can move through a story.
Speaker B:And a lot of the work that I did as a journalist was in creating online content that would sort of give people context for the news or for historical events in a way that they would find more interesting or more engaging.
Speaker B:And that also extends to sort of live events.
Speaker B:So currently I'm working on a project called Space Opera, which is this massive, like theatrical role playing game where you get 50, 60 people in a room to come together and figure out how to work together to solve problems on like a generational scale.
Speaker B:And that's told in like a theatrical setting with like lighting, music, costumes, like all of that.
Speaker B:And I think from the outside, like the idea of like news website and the theater production might seem very different, but from the point of view of interactive storytelling, it really is the same discipline.
Speaker C:So how, what, what does that look like, that, that opera?
Speaker C:What types of people come to that event?
Speaker C:And do you buy tickets?
Speaker C:What does it look like?
Speaker B:Yeah, ticketed event.
Speaker B:So people, people buy for that.
Speaker B:Our premiere is June 14th in Philadelphia.
Speaker B:People can purchase tickets for all three days or, you know, one.
Speaker B:One, one session at a time.
Speaker B:And the story kind of changes each week based on what people did in the previous session.
Speaker B:And yeah, it looks like, you know, getting.
Speaker B:I think we have roughly eight players to a table.
Speaker B:They form a society.
Speaker B:They each represent a community and the vested interests of that community.
Speaker B:And given the prompts by the storytellers of what the crisis their world is facing, they have to literally come together and discuss and find ways to address that crisis with the resources that they have and balancing everybody's sort of individual needs as laid out by the game.
Speaker B:And it's a game, so we make sure that it's fun and entertaining.
Speaker B:We bring in, like I said, music, lighting, everything's very dramatic and that sort of Star Trek, Star wars side of things.
Speaker B:And so people don't kind of realize until the end, like, oh, I've actually been learning how to make decisions in like a democratic process the entire time that we've been, you know, diving into the black hole or whatever it is that people end up doing in the game.
Speaker C:Yeah, I'm wondering because I had quite a few guests lately from very different age groups.
Speaker C:So the youngest now I had was 25.
Speaker C:And I will be having another who's 18.
Speaker C:So I'm wondering, do you manage to get people from all different age groups to come to these?
Speaker C:Or is it more younger people or how do you say?
Speaker C:And because I could see the benefit of mixing, like get all generations.
Speaker B:Oh yeah, definitely.
Speaker B:I mean, it definitely goes from, I want to say we've had people in their 50s come out to play and we've had people as young, like in their teens even.
Speaker B:We definitely even had like parents bring their kids and kind of work together as well.
Speaker B:So it's a pretty broad range from teens to 50s of people that come through.
Speaker B:And we try to make it fairly accessible so that so much of it is just.
Speaker B:If you are from the point of view of your community and you are working with the people at your table, you're going to have a good time.
Speaker B:And that's how we have it laid out.
Speaker C:Yeah, interesting.
Speaker C:So how do you see this interactive story storytelling creating or have the potential of creating positive change in, in a community?
Speaker B:Yeah, I, I think that I should say more strongly.
Speaker B:I, I believe that it is hard to fight for a future that you can't imagine.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker B:And I feel that people, especially in the States, especially with the prevalence of so much content that we're consuming sort of passively, that our ability to imagine has been a little atrophied.
Speaker B:We don't get a chance, especially as adults, to just, you know, make believe, to get it together and see ourselves differently, to see, to see how things could be different, to imagine different ways of relating with each other.
Speaker B:And there's not really any way to practice that in our day to day lives.
Speaker B:And so through games, through interactive storytelling, through these sort of exercises, we can create spaces where it is safe for people to imagine something different, to be vulnerable.
Speaker B:Create spaces where they can explore parts of themselves that they might not otherwise get a chance to explore.
Speaker B:It's also an invitation to empathy.
Speaker B:You know, if you're, if you're role playing and you are putting yourselves into the shoes of another character that has a different life than yours, then you're exercising your empathy muscles.
Speaker B:So if you show up to a game on a weekly basis and you are, you know, pretending to be somebody who is experiencing oppression, for instance, or you're pretending to be a knight on a quest and you're actually practicing heroism, you know, practicing standing up for people that are less fortunate or are in dire straits, then in the real world when you need to do those things, those muscles are stronger.
Speaker B:So you're able to hit that empathy more easily, you're able to imagine more easily, empathize and create and stand up more easily because you actually got a chance to practice it in a place where the stakes aren't as high?
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:And do people actually also manage to.
Speaker A:Take on very different identities?
Speaker C:Like if you look at the political divide, for instance, to.
Speaker C:Do you get people to.
Speaker C:Because, okay, you can be a hero or somebody suffering from something, but to take on that, the opposite identity of your real life.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think that can be, you know, it can be challenging to get people to step into that.
Speaker B:And part of the play of it is getting people to kind of let go of these sort of hard boundaries.
Speaker B:One of the things that we do in space opera, you know, at.
Speaker B:At a table where we have these communities, each community has what we call a voice, and they're either a voice of the leader or the voice of the people.
Speaker B:And only the leaders are.
Speaker B:Are allowed to officially make decisions in that society.
Speaker B:Everyone can participate and talk, but the leaders have the responsibility of making those decisions.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker B:And simply by changing the number of leaders that are at a society, you can really explore different dynamics.
Speaker B:When everybody's a leader, right.
Speaker B:When it's sort of a flat hierarchy, then there's a lot more conversation as people have to sort of get their agendas across and reach consensus and find a solution that makes sense for everybody.
Speaker B:If we have eight people at the table and only one of them is the leader, that's a very different dynamic.
Speaker B:And so we can put somebody into the position of like, well, what would I do if I were the only person I needed to listen to?
Speaker B:But also, what would I do if all the responsibility for what goes wrong is on my shoulders?
Speaker B:And so that can elicit some empathy for, you know, people that have very, like, black and white thinking, you know, us versus them and those sorts of things, you start to.
Speaker B:You can start to see those as shorthands, like, well, if I'm in a position of power and I need to make a decision and all the responsibilities on me, and I just need an easy way to make this decision right now you start to see how easy it is to fall into black and white us versus them thinking, because it just makes decisions easier.
Speaker B:And then once we have that sort of empathy and realize, oh, I have that in me as well, I have that thing that can lean authoritarian in me as well, then you can start to see how that can move through a society and how it can be seductive.
Speaker B:And then you are able to counteract it a lot more effectively because you're not looking at it as some foreign, evil, other thing, but a very real part of humanity that some of us will step into out of fear.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker C:Are you now, talking about the physical games, or is it both?
Speaker C:Is it both physical like on.
Speaker C:On a stage or.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:Or online gaming?
Speaker C:Because you have a background from game design as well.
Speaker C:That is a big part of what you do, right?
Speaker B:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker B:I spent.
Speaker B:I spent about 10 years as an indie game developer with Cypher Prime Studios, and we produced a lot of sort of.
Speaker B:We call them ambient games.
Speaker B:What was meant by that is that the goal of playing the game isn't to win.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B:It's to have an enjoyable experience.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker B:And so we took away a lot of, like, high scores.
Speaker B:We took away, like, the, you know, lives.
Speaker B:You know, the big thing in games like, oh, I died and that, you.
Speaker C:Know, and level up and.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker B:And we made sort of more artistic experiences.
Speaker B:You know, one of them was called Auditorium, where you would bend streams of light to fill different containers with light.
Speaker B:And when you did that, different parts of an orchestra would play.
Speaker B:Oh, but there was no time limits, and there was no one right way to fill all the containers.
Speaker B:And once you fill it all, you would get to hear the sort of beautifully orchestrated soundtrack and kind of move to the next one on your own pace.
Speaker B:And some of the interesting things in there are just understanding what motivates people.
Speaker B:I remember there was a game that we were working on called Tailwind, where you were a little ship kind of coming down and very.
Speaker B:What's the name of that one from back in the day?
Speaker B:The Defender.
Speaker B:Sort of situations, plummeting down through the sky and dealing with, like, hordes of enemies, this whole thing.
Speaker B:And we had the mechanics, and they felt good.
Speaker B:Being able to move across the screen in these various ways felt intrinsically good.
Speaker B:But we hadn't yet settled on what the goal of the game would be.
Speaker B:So what we do is we would have people come in and play, and we would say to one person, okay, the goal.
Speaker B:Your goal is to get the highest score possible.
Speaker B:And if they.
Speaker B:We tell them that.
Speaker B:And it's like, okay, well, to get high scores, I need to do combos.
Speaker B:So you have a very technical way of playing where you're trying to string up as many enemies as possible and get combos, because combos give you multipliers.
Speaker B:Multipliers give you a high score.
Speaker B:That's how you play, Right.
Speaker B:Would tell the next person, oh, the goal of the game is to survive the longest.
Speaker B:The longest time is what makes you win.
Speaker B:And so that person would be very cautious, right.
Speaker B:They would avoid enemies.
Speaker B:They wouldn't get into a lot of combat.
Speaker B:They would try and, like, they Would collect a lot of shields and just try and survive as long as possible.
Speaker B:Very different sort of gameplay.
Speaker B:In a third person, we would say your goal is to kill as many enemies as possible.
Speaker B:And they had a very aggressive game style so that they are constantly running into things, blowing things up, like trying to destroy, not really going for the finesse of the combo and not really having a self preservation of the know, playing for as long, as much time as possible.
Speaker B:There was just chaos and destruction and violence.
Speaker B:But the actual game that we created didn't change.
Speaker B:The mechanics were exactly the same.
Speaker B:The only thing that changed was what we told them to do, what we told them what winning was.
Speaker B:And so in that, like, the lesson I took away from that, I think I tell people all the time, is that if you change what it means to win, you change how people play the game.
Speaker B:And when I look at sort of our systems of government and our systems of economy, you know, one of the things that brought me from games into journalism was understanding like the story that we tell about what winning means in our society changes how people interact in our society.
Speaker B:You know, if we say that having the most money is the thing that's going to win the game, quote, unquote, then people are going to do whatever it takes to amass wealth, regardless of whether it helps their community, regardless of whether it hurts the environment, regardless of what, you know, wars or atrocities that might feed off of.
Speaker B:Because we told them that getting the high score is winning the game.
Speaker B:And so, yeah, like I think that, I think the original question was whether, you know, these games are sort of digital versus, you know, analog or in person.
Speaker B:And I think for me it's at a level of the systems of gameplay can exist digitally, they can exist in person, they can exist sort of theatrically.
Speaker B:And for me, that specific medium matters a little bit less.
Speaker B:I'm skill, I'm skilled in all of them, right?
Speaker B:I can, I can just as easily like write a game for a website as like run a session of Dungeons and Dragons or something like that.
Speaker B:And for me it feels very much one and the same because the underlying systems is what is, what feels good to do.
Speaker B:How do we reward people for doing the things that are beneficial?
Speaker B:How do we dissuade people from doing things that are destructive?
Speaker B:And how do we just generally get people to feel like they have authorship over that system, over what is essentially the story that we have all chosen to live in?
Speaker C:What do you feel when you talked about those kind of the goals that.
Speaker A:You gave people in that experiment?
Speaker C:What do you feel is the common thought that people have about their goal in these days?
Speaker C:Like, looking at the society in general and in the US in particular, perhaps.
Speaker C:But is it money which is the driver?
Speaker C:Or do you think it's gradually maybe changing a bit, or how do you see that?
Speaker B:I think that's a really good question because I feel like, I don't feel that individual people want money as much as they say they do.
Speaker B:Some certain people, certainly certain people, you know, between, you know, stock or crypto or going to the casino, like actually getting that high score is the thing that they want.
Speaker B:And no matter how much they have, they're always going to want more.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B:Most people, when I talk to them and I ask them, like, well, what are your goals in life?
Speaker B:And they say like, well, I want to be rich.
Speaker B:And it's like, okay, well, why do you want to be rich?
Speaker B:And you get into the conversation and it's like, well, I don't want to have to worry about health care, and I want to be able to sort of take time off with my family.
Speaker B:I want to go on vacations.
Speaker B:I'd like to have a home that feels comfortable.
Speaker B:And it's in falling apart.
Speaker B:I want to have enough food and, you know, I don't want to worry that if I miss a paycheck, I'm going to, my life is going to fall apart.
Speaker B:And when you talk about that, it's like, well, that's not really being rich, right?
Speaker B:That's not really having a lot of money.
Speaker B:That's, that's feeling safe and secure.
Speaker B:And it just so happens that the architects of our game look at that desire to be safe and secure and say that the way to win the game and to get safety and security is by getting money.
Speaker B:And the way that you get money is by, you know, exchanging your labor in these sorts of ways or by exploiting other people, and there's really no in between.
Speaker B:And so, you know, when people go to amass money and they can either think, I can work really, really, really hard, or I can be smart about it and game the system and, you know, create something of value, get shareholders, you know, increase the value of my stock and all of that, what you're looking at is people who want to win the game and are playing it with the tools that they've been, that they've been given and are told there's a specific way to win this game, which is to get as much money as possible.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:Um, so, yeah, I, I, I feel like most people long for community, safety, security, health.
Speaker B:I, I think, I don't think that these are complicated things and I don't think that those desires have really changed from much of human history.
Speaker B:But we, we've created systems of ultimately distraction and control that, that use those in the same way that like a commercial for beer will show a lot of very attractive young people and say, like, hey, if you want to feel and attract these young people, then you'll drink our beer.
Speaker B:And we kind of like equate the product with the desire.
Speaker B:And I feel like our society is built in a way that equates the desire for safety, security, community, purpose with money and capital.
Speaker C:Yes, I think you're right.
Speaker C:Yes, good point.
Speaker C:When we spoke earlier, you shared this thought about the difference between truth and honesty.
Speaker C:And could you, could you dive a little bit into that?
Speaker C:Because I was also thinking about your background as a journalist and how maybe the need to hold more than one truth at the same time.
Speaker C:And also that you talked also about the challenge, maybe impossibility of staying objective.
Speaker C:You know, and I'm wondering about this because I watch news and I see journalists and I wonder how do they do this these days?
Speaker C:And yeah, so start with the truth and honesty, what you said about that, because I thought that was interesting.
Speaker B:Yeah, I, I do feel like there is a difference between telling the truth and being honest because I think that truth, it is very easy to state the facts of a situation without being transparent about your motivations or your, your perspective or meaning.
Speaker B:And I feel like, you know, politicians especially will, will play in that arena a lot.
Speaker B:And journalists with a eye towards objectivity can sort of unknowingly fall into the, a similar trap.
Speaker B:So to give an example, in, in the States, we have a term that gets thrown around sometimes of a, like a police involved shooting.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B:So we'll say that, you know, so and so died in a police involved shooting.
Speaker B:That's true.
Speaker B:But it's more honest to say that the police shot and killed this person.
Speaker D:Right?
Speaker B:Like that's more honest.
Speaker B:Like that's what happened.
Speaker B:The police.
Speaker B:So a police officer fired a gun and killed a person.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B:Now whether or not you feel that that paints the police in a aggressive light or heroic light, that might be up to how you feel about the police and the person that they shot.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B:But by saying, using a term like police involved shooting, we have removed grammatically the cause and effect from what happened here and that, that while the words are true, the intent is dishonest.
Speaker B:And I think a lot of those sorts of Turns of phrase and points of view can sort of creep through a lot of our news ecosystem, especially in a time where journalism is perhaps not as profitable as it once was.
Speaker B:And the fear of losing subscribers or losing advertisers if something is said one way or another can be really devastating.
Speaker B:I mean, even if we look at the.
Speaker B:The discourse in.
Speaker B:In America over the situation in.
Speaker B:In the Gaza Strip, um, it's truly baffling to see how.
Speaker B:How that conflict is spoken about in American media versus the rest of the world.
Speaker B:That.
Speaker B:That takes a more strident, like, so a genocide is happening.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:That's what's going on.
Speaker B:And in the States, we're very much like, well, it's the Israel Hamas conflict.
Speaker B:You know, it's.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And even saying that, you know, makes it seem like everybody in the Gaza Strip is a part of Hamas.
Speaker B:It makes it seem like the armed forces of Hamas and Israel are equal and that this is a fight for survival.
Speaker B:And just looking at the numbers alone would lead you to be like, this is completely asymmetric.
Speaker B:And we should probably talk about that, especially in a country where, you know, the American Revolution was won through asymmetric warfare and was considered to be, you know, or at least taught in our history books as, you know, the triumph of a small nation rising up against an oppressive regime.
Speaker B:To not have the empathy to look at somebody else in that situation and say, I understand why you might act in the way that you do.
Speaker B:We can't even have those of conversations because people get fired over those things.
Speaker B:People lose.
Speaker B:Lose livelihood over it.
Speaker B:Our government is right now ramping up, you know, deport deportations of students and provoking visas simply because they had the.
Speaker B:The audacity to, you know, speak out against the conflict on social media.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker B:And so, you know, when you're in that ecosystem, it can be very easy to say, to try and actually square the circle of, like, how do I tell people the truth without being too honest.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker B:Which to me really illustrates, like, these are different concepts.
Speaker B:I think truth, at least the way we talk about it, is very close to, like, just the facts.
Speaker B:Here's what happened, and you can pick and choose what truth is there.
Speaker B:Honesty is connecting to a person's emotion and connecting as human beings.
Speaker B:That.
Speaker B:And I think this is where artists talk about, like, I think my art is more honest than anything else that I can provide.
Speaker B:Because when you receive that art and you feel a fully transmitted set of ideas, concepts, histories, points of view, and you can receive all of that, that feels a lot more honest.
Speaker B:Than a strict retelling of facts.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:And I think this is.
Speaker A:It's really challenging, isn't it?
Speaker C:Because people come.
Speaker C:When people come from so totally different worldviews, upbringing, religion, when you mix that into it, it's really hard because one person's truth is based on their reality and what they see, what they learned, what their parents taught them.
Speaker C:So it's.
Speaker C:Yeah, And I think that art, music, what you're talking about, can play a really important role in that.
Speaker C:To.
Speaker C:Yeah, but I think it's really a challenging question, I think.
Speaker C:But is that some parts of why you left journalism?
Speaker B:Partially, yes.
Speaker B:I think also, you know, one of especially, I'm not sure how this works in other countries, have only, you know, worked in an American newsroom.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B:But one of the things that we have as sort of a code of conduct, Right.
Speaker B:Is that if you are a journalist and you're covering certain things, you can't protest, you can't politically agitate, you can't speak on social media in a biased way.
Speaker B:You can't sort of visibly participate in the political process because the.
Speaker B:The core value is objectivity.
Speaker B:And if a reader is able to sort of find you and say, well, you're not capable of being objective because you are promoting this political candidate or agitating for this cause, the fear at these newsrooms is that that will somehow undermine the legitimacy of the news organization because their legitimacy is based on this idea of objectivity and authority.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B: otests that came up in, like,: Speaker B:I couldn't.
Speaker B:Before I was a journalist, I used to volunteer at my local, like, polling station and just, like, engaged in the political process in that way.
Speaker B:And then I went from engaging in the political process to reporting on it.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B:And that was a disconnect.
Speaker B:So when Trump was reelected at the end of last year, and I had a very deep sense of, like, I don't feel like I can report on this and not engage with it.
Speaker B:I don't feel that I can go through the next four years of this presidency being politically invisible.
Speaker B:And so I had a difficult decision to make because I think that journalism is deeply, deeply important and people need to be informed.
Speaker B:And my colleagues did incredible work in getting access to politicians and uncovering abuses at the institutional level.
Speaker B:And that work is so, so important.
Speaker B:But I reached a point where I couldn't see myself doing that to the standard of objectivity that was being asked of me and I certainly couldn't do it and sort of sit behind in the tower while watching communities that I cared about be torn apart by this administration's policies.
Speaker B:And that, that just felt very alienating.
Speaker B:And like I said, I think all people crave Stacy's security, connection and community.
Speaker B:And I was not feeling safe and I wasn't feeling like I was in community.
Speaker B:So I made the decision to leave journalism and really sat down and looked at my career over the past 15 years and said, well, what is it about the work that I've been doing that feels most vital?
Speaker B:And it's the, it's the interactive storytelling of it.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's giving people a chance to see how things are, to remember how things were and to imagine how they could be.
Speaker B:And that feels very vital and that feels like something that, that I am called to do.
Speaker C:Yeah, I can really understand that decision.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:I have to ask because I try to try to put myself in the shoes of people living where you're living now and understand how it is.
Speaker C:And I think I mentioned too that I have kind of focused on having a lot of American people on the podcast lately just to try to understand.
Speaker C:And how do you see this?
Speaker C:Because you mentioned that people get afraid of speaking up and you have all these things happening in education.
Speaker C:We see the universities, schools, like small kids, books being removed.
Speaker C:I don't know if everything that we hear is, but I think it's quite correct.
Speaker C:And also the gender issues, everything.
Speaker C:And people.
Speaker C:Then I read in the newspaper the other day that some experts interviewed by a Norwegian newspaper, they're afraid to speak up because they don't know what will happen then.
Speaker C:So how do you see how is this.
Speaker C:It must be really challenging.
Speaker C:That's my point.
Speaker C:And how does this play out?
Speaker B:Yeah, it's bad over here.
Speaker B:It's not good.
Speaker B:We're not, we're not having a good time.
Speaker B:And I think, you know, we do, I think one thing to really understand about the States and I'll probably go through more than one thing, but the first thing I'll start with is, especially if you're coming from a country with a parliamentary system, system, we don't have that.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker B:So we, we.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's first past the post, winner takes all.
Speaker B:The, the, the game system dynamics of our electoral system tend towards a two party system.
Speaker B:Because if you splinter your party and you have two left leaning parties and one right leaning party and you split your vote amongst the two left because everything's first past the post, the right will take it.
Speaker B:So what you end up with is a system where our left leaning party, the Democrats, have sort of defined themselves in opposition to the right in our country, but they haven't told us what they're for in a meaningful way.
Speaker B:You know, for the last eight years, it's basically just been like, vote for us, we're not Trump.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:And that's not a platform, you know, and so there's that to consider.
Speaker B:There's also, you know, the, the, the deep, the deep conservative right in the states has been working towards this results for 60 years.
Speaker B:Since the civil rights movement.
Speaker B:There has been a concerted effort to, and starting from, you know, the, the very bottom, taking over school boards, local officials, things of that nature, getting certain things passed to, to try and we, we have a law, a civil, sorry, a Supreme Court ruling.
Speaker B:That was the Citizens United case where the Supreme Court ruled that money is equivalent to free speech.
Speaker B:And what that did was it removed the, the campaign finance limits.
Speaker B:It made it so that corporations and PACs and, and these organizations could pour as much money into, into the political process as possible.
Speaker B:And that was just one domino and 60 years worth of dominoes to increase the ability for these really deeply conservative far right groups to execute essentially a coup of sorts.
Speaker B:And so what we have in the states is a situation where, where if you actually do the polling and look at the numbers, there aren't nearly as many Americans who are in agreement with this administration and its decisions as it might seem.
Speaker B:There are a lot of people who voted for Trump because they were tired of the sort of entrenched system of the political system that we had had, you know, and that's often when a populist can come in and say, I'm like you and I don't like the system and I'll tear the system down for you.
Speaker B:And a lot of people voted in that direction.
Speaker B:You know, obviously there, there's people who voted in that way because they, they do share a lot of the same xenophobic nationalists, you know, white supremacist views.
Speaker B:But there's also a good chunk of people who only know Trump from the reality show the Apprentice and are like, he seems like he's good at business and we should run our country like a business, so let him do it, you know, and that's as much thought as they put into it.
Speaker B:So there's this wide middle of people who only care about one or two of these issues and haven't given it deep thought.
Speaker B:And then there's another group of people who are, you know, who have been sort of warning about this sort of thing for a long time.
Speaker B:Communities that have already felt, you know, the, the wrath of ICE and our immigration policies in years past.
Speaker B:And none of these groups are talking to each other and everybody is on edge.
Speaker B:And yeah, there isn't a real strong left party in, in the government that is in a place where they can, how to say it.
Speaker B:Our Democratic Party, our left leaning party is still convinced of the sanctity of the rules.
Speaker B:They're still playing by the rules of the game that, that we set up.
Speaker B:And Trump and his party have made it very clear that they do not care about the rules of that game.
Speaker B:So they will pass an executive order and the rules say that when that executive order goes up, in order to challenge it, you have to petition and you go through the courts, then you all of that.
Speaker B:And that's the attack that the left leaning party is doing.
Speaker B:The Democrats are doing, which if we're honest, the center left at best, if you look at the world stage right because our overtook window is so far to the right in this country, but they're still playing by this rule set of well, we have to gather these facts and go through the proper channels and make sure that the, this is heard by a judge and you know, bureaucracy and procedure and process because that's the America that we believe in.
Speaker B:And Trump's administration does not believe in those things.
Speaker B:So the entire time those legal challenges are coming through, the administration is just running roughshod over our norms.
Speaker B:And so yeah, it's bad over here.
Speaker B:And I don't know that we have clear answers about what comes next.
Speaker B:But I do know that for whatever it may seem like to the outside world, most Americans are not at the very least not happy about what's going on, if not deeply upset, if not in the streets protesting, you know, there's thousand person protests in cities every other day.
Speaker B:And so yeah, it's, I don't think that we have a clear call to action as a nation for how to confront this threat right now.
Speaker B:But I will say that, yeah, we're, we're not having a good time.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker C:Yes, I can totally see that.
Speaker C:So my, my thought, just thinking about the individual, when you see all people losing their jobs or maybe at least feeling really insecure and also insecure about saying stuff or doing this or that, that that gives you this, I can just imagine myself, if you're feeling afraid, that's a very bad place to be in order to to act and to.
Speaker C:To.
Speaker C:To think clearly and all that.
Speaker C:So, yeah, when your situation is bad, it's hard to.
Speaker C:It's a bad place to act from.
Speaker C:That's my point.
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:And I think that's one of the reasons why, like, creating these sort of community spaces for storytelling are so, so important, because it's really easy to get overwhelmed.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:And the overwhelm is a part of the strategy, actually, to do so much so quickly that it feels like Trump is everywhere and he's doing everything.
Speaker B:There's nothing you can do to stop it, when in actuality, you know, his.
Speaker B:His inner circle is, you know, a bunch of sycophants, a bunch of people who.
Speaker B:Who are.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Sayers that are just trying to get what they.
Speaker B:They can get out of it.
Speaker B:And there are cracks in that, and there are ways to move through it.
Speaker B:And beyond that, the federal government isn't your community.
Speaker B:You know, there are things that we can do to take care of each other just as neighbors, as.
Speaker B:As family, as people that, you know, live next to each other and those cells of mutual aid and support where, again, the only thing that we want.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B:Is safety, security, community.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B:And we can create those things, not even in spite of what's going on in the federal government, but because of it.
Speaker B:And creating spaces for storytelling, creating spaces for possibility, creating spaces for levity and joy and fun in a very dark time is vital.
Speaker B:It is vital to give people the.
Speaker B:Not even to give people hope, but to give people the means, tools, and desire to manufacture their own hope.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:I've been talking to a lot of people who say that in these times, it's so important to take care of your health, exercise, get out into nature, all these things to stay resilient.
Speaker C:But I think that what you're talking about as well, like art, music, storytelling, we need more of that in times like this, I think.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's very easy to think that resistance and sort of being an activist, and I hesitate to consider myself an activist because I know activists that are, like, in that life, and I don't want it to demeanor.
Speaker B:Diminish the work that.
Speaker B:That they do.
Speaker B:I. I see my.
Speaker B:My place as sort of almost part of a funnel, you know, how do I get people that are sort of not engaged, engaged with the people who, you know, live, eat, drink, breathe this sort of, like, deep activism.
Speaker B:But at the same time, I do notice, you know, a tendency among my activist friends to overextend and to put so much of themselves into a movement that eventually they burn out and there's nothing left to give.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B:And there's a real feeling or a, I want to say an assumption that because the systems that are hurting us are so constant and almost mechanical and productive, really, that the activism to combat that has to be just as constant and productive and mechanical and all consuming.
Speaker B:And if you're not giving 100% of yourself to the cause, are you really, you know, committed to it?
Speaker B:And that's sort of all or nothing.
Speaker B:Thinking is actually the exact, exact game that we are trying to stop playing.
Speaker B:It's not actually all or nothing.
Speaker B:And I think a big part of that is even in.
Speaker B:I was having a conversation maybe a week or two ago with, with my own therapist and feeling my burnout, feeling, feeling the ways in which I didn't feel like I could really show up in the way that I wanted to.
Speaker B:One of the things that she said, said was to like, oh, well, you know, that's a sign that you need to pay more attention to your self care.
Speaker B:Like you're saying, you know, get out into nature and, and exercise and eat right.
Speaker B:And I had such a violent reaction to that.
Speaker B:And the thing, I almost kind of yelled at her and I was like, I am tired of self care.
Speaker B:I'm actually really good at self care.
Speaker B:I know how to do these things.
Speaker B:I know how to get to the gym, I know how to, how to make sure I'm eating right.
Speaker B:I know to get outside.
Speaker B:I don't want self care right now.
Speaker B:I want to be cared for.
Speaker B:Mutual care is a different thing.
Speaker B:And I think putting everything back on self care continues this like, culture of individualism that we're in where we're like, it's on you.
Speaker B:You go to talk to your therapist, you make sure you get to the gym, you make sure that you're fit bed.
Speaker B:And you can burn yourself out just as hard doing that as not taking care of yourself at all.
Speaker B:But, but how much energy opens up when if you're tired, the person next to you says, I got you.
Speaker B:Or if you're hungry, the person next to you says, here's some food.
Speaker B:Mutual care, I think is, is really where our effort needs to lie, especially as we're going through these sort of dark times.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:Oh, that's a good point.
Speaker C:Mutual care.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:I think that's a very good place to wrap it up.
Speaker C:Yes, I love that.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:Mutual care.
Speaker C:But you have so much great work out there and I told you I've been looking at your website list, listening to your music and it was Almost like this website you have.
Speaker C:It's almost like a journey going into the different project.
Speaker C:And some is like visual, some is sound.
Speaker C:So where is the best place for people to discover your work?
Speaker C:Is it your website?
Speaker C:And for the lucky people who live near you, of course, maybe they can do something in.
Speaker A:In person as well.
Speaker B:Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker B:My personal website, dainsaint.com d a I n say I N T that has links to everything that I'm working on.
Speaker B:I'm trying really hard to bring back, like the personal website instead of putting everything on social media because I like having control over it.
Speaker B:And then, you know, you can find this through dainsaint.com, but if you are an institution, museum, cultural space, and are interested in learning more ways about how interactive storytelling and communal storytelling can communicate your values to your audience, I have a service called Reckless Magic where I can come in and help either design, explain, or even build a lot of these sort of interactions, interactive storytelling experiences.
Speaker B:And that's@relessmagic.com Ah, you had that.
Speaker A:Now, I can't remember the name, but.
Speaker C:You also had a future.
Speaker B:Futureful.
Speaker C:Futureful, yes.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker C:Just briefly, what is that compared to the rest of your work?
Speaker B:Futureful is the.
Speaker B:The community that I'm trying to build, or that I am building, I should say, say, having realized that, you know, this sort of discipline of interactive storytelling is both very old and very new.
Speaker B:I haven't seen a lot of community for interactive storytellers, especially those with marginalized backgrounds.
Speaker B:And so Futureful is the beginnings of a community for marginalized interactive storytellers to.
Speaker B:For us to come together and tell stories about the future that we want to see.
Speaker C:Yes, exactly.
Speaker C:And we didn't touch on that.
Speaker C:But your background is.
Speaker C:You're from Jamaica, right?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So I was born in the States.
Speaker B:My family's from Jamaica.
Speaker B:Deeply mixed Chinese Jamaican on my mother's side, Indian Jamaican on my father's side.
Speaker B:And yeah, I've existed at the.
Speaker B:The boundary of a lot of different identities over my life.
Speaker B:And I think that is a big part of why I'm kind of, kind of constantly asking people like, so, who are you?
Speaker B:Where.
Speaker B:Where do you come from?
Speaker B:What are the.
Speaker B:All the pieces of you that seem to be in contradiction?
Speaker B:Can you hold all of those as true and valid?
Speaker B:And so, yeah, I think that's probably where a lot of this sort of worldview came from.
Speaker C:Interesting.
Speaker C:That's.
Speaker C:That could be another episode, actually.
Speaker B:Fair enough.
Speaker C:Another topic, another time.
Speaker C:Yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C:It was so great to have this conversation with you and thank you so much for your time and I believe this work is so, so important.
Speaker C:So I hope that people will a listen and go into your website and check out your work.
Speaker C:So thank you so much.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker A:Best La Moy thanks for listening to this episode of Stories for the Future.
Speaker A:If you'd like to learn more about Dane and his work, I've added all the links in the show notes and as I said in the beginning, I.
Speaker C:Really, really urge you to check it.
Speaker A:Out because it's beautiful and unexpected and well, you just have to experience it.
Speaker A:So go and have a look at the website and if you want to follow along with more conversations like this reflections on change and what it takes to build a better future, you can find me at wieclavnese.substack.com or on my website stories for the future.com until next time, take care not only of yourself, but also people around you and keep imagining the future you'd like to be part of.
Speaker A:See you next time.
