You don’t see any job listings for archers, spinners or falconers on LinkedIn these days, yet these trades were once thriving professions performed by ordinary people. Many of these jobs only survive through historical reenactment at fairs and festivals, which invites the question: in hundreds of years from now, which jobs of today will be regarded as cultural heritage for future reenactors?

This week, we discuss heritage jobs of the future. In typical fashion, we delve into the data and lay down hypotheses for why some jobs may be more appealing to reenact than others. We present a framework for how likely a job is to be reenacted in the future, debate which jobs of today are ripe for reenactment and ask what constitutes a classic heritage job in the first place. Finally, we reveal the jobs we would most like to reenact ourselves.

A few things we mentioned in this podcast:

• Heritage Open Days in England
• Kentwell Hall

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Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Tom Spence, Nick Hare and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights and this week we're discussing re-enacting the present. Peter, what? What are we talking about? What's going on? Okay, well so a couple of weeks ago

I took Rosie and little Ada on the bikes, we went for a nice cycle. That's your other half and child. That's my partner and child, yeah. We went to a, I think it was an English heritage organised event, there was things going on all over the country that weekend where historic sites opened their doors for free and have put on loads of things. I went to something as well, I didn't realise it was a national thing, go on. Yeah, so we went to Fernhurst Furnace, a little place called Fernhurst just south of Hazelmere and there is a, I think it's 17th century, although I wasn't really paying attention because I was having to look after Ada a lot, it was, they made cannon there and it's an old furnace, there's a sort of little group of volunteers who are excavating it, doing some reconstruction, rebuilding parts of it, doing and doing lots of archaeology around it. Yeah. Interesting little place and they, this event they had lots, they had lots of tents up and they had little people who, little artisans doing their thing, so they had things like archers, a falconer, spinners, people making charcoal, who are called charcoal burners, I thought they were maybe charcoaliers would be a good word, a better word for it but. Charcoalers. Charcoal, yeah. So, people sort of re-enacting old jobs that people did, which is a really nice, I love it, I love that kind of thing. Yeah, me too. Living history thing, it's great and they're all, they love doing the thing but they also love talking and educating people about that thing, so they're experts at

what they do. I think they're just, I always think they must be the most, have the most fascinating lives, these people. Yeah, great, yeah. But yeah, sorry, go on. And, but I was,

it's sort of, partway through the day I thought, what would a fair like this look like 300 years from now? Yeah. What jobs from today's jobs? Yeah. You know, so will Sam from Slough put on a flashy stripy suit and slip on loafers and show people around the house? Will Kim from Birkenstead, will she put blue overalls on and get oily fixing, you know, an old-fashioned car or something on a car lift? You know, what jobs will become like the future focus of fascination

in these kinds of fairs? Yeah, and I think also, I think immediately that sort of begs a wider question. Is that actually possible? Because a lot of the stuff that we associate with this kind of stuff is quite artisanal stuff. And you could argue that, well, artisanal stuff just doesn't

exist anymore. I think we'll get to that. But it wasn't artisanal at the time. So people spinning, that was an industry. There were lots and lots of spinners making lots and lots of wool and cotton fabric.

that a lot of the things that are underrepresented are jobs that are still very much extant. There are farmers, there are priests. If you want to pretend to be a priest, you could just go and become a priest. If you want to be a farmer, you could, you know, you could move out to the countryside and work on a farm. I don't think it's that at all, but keep going. Plenty of peasants still around. Yeah, lots of peasants. Whereas a lot of the things that people do are jobs that are extinct. And so, you know, or are extinct in the way that they used to exist. So we talked about how, you know, spinners were a huge industry. Now, as you said, it's a very artisanal job, but it doesn't exist in the way that it used to. So I think one of the prerequisites that we'll have to think about for what people will reenact in 300 years time are what jobs will no longer exist. No one's reenacting being

a builder. Well, you say in the same way. Well, I mean, but obviously people do reenact being builders in the sense that they will, you know, get together and build a kind of, you know, thatched cottage. Or, you know, people still work in kitchens. People are still cooking. They might be cooking different things. And I think that is where the interest lies, isn't it? I think it's not so much that the job has disappeared, but some... You guys are overthinking this. You always do. You're overthinking this. This is about fun, right? Who wants to dress up as Lord and Lady Whatever if you just wear your normal stuff that you wander around the house in? No, you want to wear the stuff that you go and see the king and queen in. Of course. I mean, it's fun stuff. And who wants to be private when you can be a general? I think I would say on behalf of Aleph Insights that our question would go a little bit deeper and say, why do we find those things fun? However, I'd like to note something there. But actually you said private is more common than the other ranks. Exactly. Your premise there

that it's fun to be the boss clearly doesn't bear out in the data. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. I'm

completely wrong. What else? Anything else you want to say, Tom? Well, one thing I would note

is that I think we're talking about, as far as it's possible, mainstream reenacting. Because when I was at university, the Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic course, all the people who did that course loved reenacting. And they used to reenact being peasants all the time. But I think it's a, as you said, it gets underrepresented. We have to focus on what would be the popular reenacting things. The thing that you would see at a fair, as opposed to if you were part of a reenacting club, when you would probably see a much more accurate depiction, because people are striving for that

accuracy. Yeah, yeah. I want to stop this podcast now and go off and reenact something. That's how I feel. Are we ready to move on to what you were saying? Peter, yeah, go on. Yeah, I've got a sort

of theory as to what drives people to choose to do a certain job. So I think it's, I think the ones that are well represented are often skill based. So it's part of the, getting dressed up is only part of it. The fun for the individual is about acquiring and perfecting a skill of some kind. But it's not just a skill for its own sake. So the reason why farmers aren't well represented, so medieval farmers at fairs like this is, you can't easily demonstrate what it is to do farming, because you'd need oxen and you'd need plows and you'd need space to do that. You'd need an entire year as opposed to 10 minutes. Exactly. But a spinner or a blacksmith can do their trade and it's visceral and you can see it happening. So it's sort of like this, the skill, needing a skill based thing, but also needing some sort of way of demonstrating it to an audience in a sort of time frame that's feasible. So soldiering, why people want to be private soldiers, there's skill in that. There's a skill of marching around in formation. There's a skill of performing actions as a group and the soldiers will probably likely have weapons, the musketeers will be firing their weapons and things. So there's skill in either building the weapon or maintaining that weapon and firing it. So there's a sort of skill there. Whereas marching around as an officer is pretty skillless when it's reenacted because you're just standing there with a sword. You're not really doing very much, maybe shouting a few orders. So I think it's sort of, you're missing that kind of, that ability to show off a skill and develop a skill in those underrepresented ones.

Tom? I think to second Peter's point, I think there's also an aspect where, particularly in the context that made you think of this question, the reenactment we're talking about is a form of entertainment. You're showing something to an audience, you're performing and performing, you know, someone who digs a hole, no one's going to stop and watch you. They're going to stop and watch the person who's using an old fashioned woodturner, right? So it's about what looks interesting to an outsider as well as just what's interesting for you to do as a hobby.

Yeah. And additionally, in addition to the skill thing, a lot of these people doing the blacksmith, the spinner, the falconer, they were doing this as a sort of hobby that earns money as well. So the spinner was making and selling like throws. It was their trade, right? It was their trade, yes. They were already having another job. Blacksmith was a full-time blacksmith. Falconer was a full-time falconer, that's what he does. He does shows and he does, he sort of uses his falcons as working birds and things. But they were either earning money exclusively from this thing or on the side. So it was like a skill that sort of pays for itself. So look, I think if I

in the future? So I think we can sum up a framework by which you can assess how likely a job is going to exist, become a thing that people reenact. So let's go through the criteria. So watchable. Watchability. So it's got to be entertaining to a crowd and deliverable and visceral enough that you can do it kind of like within a few minutes. You can see what you're doing and understand it.

Yeah. Grokkable, I suppose you might say. Cultural familiarity. So it will remind people of, now, admittedly, all films these days are superhero films. Maybe we'll have people reenacting being a superhero. But, you know, in general, people will want to reenact things that are familiar from this era. So you'll be watching the films, reading the books. What are the key figures and the key roles

that people see? To what extent, though, will that be the films about this era that are being made in 300 years time? Is it people being familiar with, you know, films from the 40s or is it people being familiar with films about World War II now? I think it's like it'll be their

future, the future people's contemporary media, like the sort of the retrospectives of the early internet and things like that. How, when they just, when the media are making a film about Facebook or something, the rise of Amazon or something, then that'll be the sort of

the upstairs, downstairs of the day. Yeah, but hold on. I think we're going about this in a too systematic manner. Oh, okay. Oh, dear. No, because I think there's some... Have you met Aleph Insights? We should just, we should just... Thank God I'm here. Because, you know, because there's some stuff, I think there are some criteria that are more important than others and that quite quickly we can sort of get rid of a whole load of stuff. So, for example, let's say that it's visual and fun for a moment, okay, that it's very visual, then that wipes away a whole load of stuff straight

away, doesn't it? Yeah, office workers, I think they're going to be massive. I don't know, I think there'll be a lot of data analysts.

So, no. There might be, and it might be the case that when you go to one of these places, there will be someone with a computer, you know, with a CRT monitor and they'll go, so what, how this worked was, you type stuff in and there might be a word document and they'll go, so you had to, you know, paragraph numbering was a nightmare and you'll go, oh wow, that's incredible, you created a document. Before the brain link, you know, you had to actually write it with your fingers. And you'll go, well, god, that's incredible, like, yeah, exactly. How did you move your fingers like that?

I think you're making a very big assumption here, which is that people won't still be using the Microsoft Office Suite in 300 years' time.

I think we're answering one question, though, which is what will hobbyist reenactors do? But no one's at a renaissance fair for, you know, for educational purposes being Elon Musk, right? You don't learn from that. You don't learn how life was back in the day.

Yeah, I think you could. You could say, right, what does Elon Musk do? He sits at one of these things called a desk, which, and people go, oh, wow, how did that work? And, you know, and he'll say, right. So, and I'm what they call CEO. And so a CEO has to order people around.

We had these things called meetings where people would get in the same room together.

You get to go into a meeting and pretend that you're in a meeting with Elon Musk. And he says things like, right, we've got this agenda. And is there any other business? And that's when you get to join in. You can say, yeah, it's quite fun actually. That doesn't sound like very fun to watch. Yes, because you're used to these things now. But people like Potter would have said, why would anyone want to watch me doing this thing, which everyone does.

But it's still not visual. There's no movement. I think crucially, though, I think Nick is to some extent, right. But I think it'll be a more generic office job, because they were all office jobs look pretty similar, right? They're all desk, computer, that sort of thing. I reckon you'd have that as the most ubiquitous job of the era. And you would demonstrate how, what an office job was. But then there would also be more tactile, physical, skilled labor things around. By the way, as an aside.

So this is where my actual real answers. Well, wait, before your real answer. I think actually, personally, maybe a more interesting question would be, I bet a Potter from back then would come now and look at the reenactment and go, what? Yeah, they're cocking that right now. And we would be looking at this person in an office and we'd be looking going, what? That's nothing like it. They'd have post-it notes and they'd put them on the whiteboard. But there wouldn't be anything written on them. They'd be moving them around, because that's what it looks like. Nick, you were going to say something. So my actual answers then. I think there are, there's an element to which, you know, we touched on this thing about jobs disappearing. And I think, you know, that there are, but, you know, people reenact, you go to like that Victorian village at Ironbridge and there are people being a teacher. You know, someone's being a teacher. You go to the school and you go to sit a lesson. I think we're going to find there's going to be people who are doctors and nurses and teachers. I imagine also scientists working in labs, moving test tubes about as well. You get to, oh, I reenact scientists. A little micro pipette. Yeah, exactly. Doing the things that scientists do. So there's that. I think sportsmen, you know, musicians playing. Sportsmen, I think. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. And I think, you know, if you think about the fashion side of things, people dressing like influencers, taking selfies on old fashioned mobile phones is something I could imagine seeing. And then they also, someone has recreated a historical sort of social media site that they post to. And you can see what it is that influencers used to do. Now, but I think really the sort of key when we think about skills that are likely to disappear and which require relatively inexpensive props. Right. I think driving people will go and see someone driving. And so my idea, my proposal would be an Amazon delivery driver would be the classic reenacting.

Well, I was thinking something maybe with a bit more interest. So someone operating something like a forklift or a digger. I'm imagining that this fair might be partly sort of virtual reality or augmented reality. So you kind of tune your Apple specs into their channel and you'd see this artificial reality that they created. But something with a bit of interest, because I think there'll still be kind of personal transportation things around that are like cars. That people will be astonished that people used to drive them by hand. Yeah, they'll be astonished that people used to drive them by hand. And that's going to happen quickly. Yeah, but it's not a big conceptual leap, but what is will be, I think a lot of construction was fully automated because it's just much safer to get humans out of the building site. And all this machine just comes and prints new tower blocks for you.

Construction was actually my number one.

Having people in hard hats and yellow vests manually operating diggers and pouring concrete and stuff would be quite exciting.

It's also something that's very watchable. It's fun. There are outfits, as it were, with all the PPE. I also think one point to add on driving is fueling, petrol stations and things like the things around driving.

Yeah, I suppose the only issue is washing the car. Because it's expensive and because there won't be the infrastructure, I suspect you're going to get a horse type situation where actually, if you're the guy, I don't know if you've ever seen this, if you've been to a historical reenactment. Like the guy who's got the portable cannon and it's like he's obviously the king of the reenactment. Imagine the guy who's got a car. He's like, this is everyone's always clustering around him. And he's going from fare to fare. Yeah, exactly. And everyone's like, oh, well, and then at the end of his little talk about how important cars were, he goes for a drive. And everyone's like, wow, look at him drive! And then he very carefully puts it back in his drone and it flies it home for him. I've also got one other suggestion. Go on then. And this I think ticks every box, right? So this is visible. It's culturally familiar. It will be associated with the era, I'm telling you. There is fashion involved. A lot of sort of particular dress that you can wear for this. It doesn't require props. It is a skill, but it's not a skill that's terribly hard to learn to be able to be reasonably competent. And I think it's fun. Rappers. I think everyone, I think you can have an army of Snoop Dogs every time you go to a historical reenactment of the 21st century. It's going to be lots of people being rappers.

I can see that. People won't be sort of dressing up in curly wigs and sort of fancy dress playing violins. They'll be wearing their hats backwards, baggy trousers. Yeah. And gold chains.

We need to stop. There's something I want to ask. But just to summarize so far, that was fun. I think we've done some good work there. So construction, cars, motors around that kind of stuff, entertainment, football, sport, rapping in particular.

I'm going to add police to that list. In 300 years when we're governed by drones that vaporize you if you break a rule, people will look back at the era of Midsomer Murders and Silent Witness and they'll say, wow, let's reenact this.

I just want to say I also think that all the trades that we currently see, the blacksmiths, the falconers will still be there because they'll just be even older.

Yeah, but still interesting. But also people will see a blacksmith alongside a rapper. Yeah, I just kind of think it was all at the same time. OK, so look, obvious question. We can tweak it if you think we could or should. But yeah, if you could reenact something, what kind of reenact? I mean, I want to go out now and become a reenactor. What do you want to reenact? What's your thing? You guys got an answer? Yeah. All right, go with Peter. Peter's going to be something really techy.

Is this me in the future reenacting the thing I want to do?

Well, I actually meant for now. Take whichever way you want.

OK, well, I'll do both, shall I? Yeah. So I know they're overrepresented, but one of the things I want to do when I retire is work metal. So I'd like to learn to be a blacksmith. What did I tell you? So I think that'd be quite fun. Don't wait until you retire. Do it now. Yeah, well, my plan is when we buy a house, I'll be building a workshop in which I can do this. But the job, the future job that I'd like to reenact, I think the IT guy. So my current job would be sort of getting someone's laptop ready and helping them with the laptop and answering tickets and building servers and things like that. That won't be a thing anymore because that will all be automated.

Peter's very optimistic about IT, isn't he? He thinks they won't be IT soon.

Yeah, but just sort of like so that, yeah, there's a guy in the office, his job it was. So I'd be alongside the guy who's using the computer and we'd have a little skit where they go, oh, it's crashed again and it wouldn't work. And they'll put the printer to a jam and I'd come along and I'd fix it. In real life, he'd actually fix it.

Yeah. But also, look how this is the most animated I've seen him in ages. Yeah, he's really going for it. I think we've got a job for Peter when he retires. By the way, another one for the future, astronauts, I think. That'll just be a normal job. Well, no, because this is what astronauts used to look like. Or actually when going out into space was a big thing.

I didn't pick it up at the time. I think astronauts will just be like, everyone's an astronaut. Maybe the suits, maybe the things that we wear and all the trappings that go with it. But the sports thing, I don't really get the sports thing. Because I think we'll still have football. We'll have space ball. No, I think we'll still have football. How the hell would you play football in zero gravity? What are you on about, Peter? Why are we in zero gravity? I'm assuming we're still on Earth, right? Artificial gravity generators, you idiot. I don't get why we'd have sports people. Maybe some of the obscure sports which might go out of favour, yes. But I think things like football will still probably be around. I'm not so sure. And athletics. Athletics, the ancient Greeks had athletics and we still do them. Space athletics. Everything to make something futuristic. You just have to put space in front of it.

Tom. Well, Peter's beat me to it. I was going to try and ingratiate myself with Nick by saying, oh, I'd love to reenact being a data analyst, because it's the best. It's just amazing. I think I think it'd be quite fun to reenact being a scientist, as Nick said. I think, you know, because I did a master's in chemistry and I did all the lab stuff. And it's actually really fun, except for the fact that your experiments never work. And that's really frustrating. If you're a reenactor, they don't have to work. You get to do all the fun bits, you know, pouring things, mixing things. It doesn't matter if it goes wrong.

You're an alchemist discovering gold. And yeah, yeah, yeah. OK. All right. Nice. Nick. I think there is an appeal, isn't there, to doing something which is sort of quite nicely defined. I think that that is the draw to me. The idea of, look, you're a blacksmith and you make these, I don't know, what do blacksmiths make? Metal. Horseshoes. Yeah. Or something. Or, you know, a plough. Your job is to make a plough. And you've made the plough and it's done. It's finished. It's really nice. I think the modern day equivalent would be an Uber driver. So I would like to be an Uber driver. And I hate driving, by the way. But as a reenactor, what I would be is people would arrive at the fair and there would be, you know, three or four places they could go to, different eras. And they'd have to get an Uber, which would be driven by a human. Yeah. And, you know, you'd pick them up and then you'd pretend to pay with, you know, 21st century. They'd pretend to tap a pretend credit card onto a pretend credit card reader. Yeah, I would do that. Because then you're done and you're like, that's it. I'm leaving today and I've done everything I need to do. You know, there's no homework. It's such a relief. Yeah, nice, nice, nice, nice. Well, I don't really have one for the future, but for the past, actually, I saw someone doing this last summer and I thought, yes, I like that. There's nothing spectacular about it. I saw this bloke wandering around and he was an Edwardian wandering musician, essentially. Right. And so he was dressed up in this like corduroy, brown corduroy suit with string around his top of his calves to stop the rats going up. And he was playing, I think it was a harmonium or a melodium, whatever it was, or just like a simple squeeze boxy type thing. Right. Okay. Had a bowler hat, a nice beard. He looked a bit like Peter, actually. Well, he wouldn't have had a bowler hat. Oh, I suppose, no, that does make sense. Are you sure he was associated with the fair? And he hasn't actually just wandered? He wasn't Kirsten Tramp. He definitely was. He definitely was. And he was having a lovely day and he was playing nice music and, you know, he was really adding to the sense of the fair. And yeah, I thought, yeah, I like that. That's what I want to do. But you know what, if I loved all this reenactment stuff so much, why aren't I doing it? Right. So I need to sort of put my, I need to put my melodium where my mouth is and do that. Okay. Anything to add before we know? I think we're good. Let's stop there. All right. So, as always, thanks for listening. If you've got any thoughts or suggestions for topics, you can email us at podcast.alephinsights.com. We'd love to hear from you. If you've enjoyed the podcast, Peter, what should you do?

They should get into character and like that button. Like that button. That's what they'll say in future. In the old days, people used to like the buttoners.

Okay, let's stop there. Thanks, as always, for listening. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Nick Hare, Tom Spence and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights. Until next time. Goodbye.