What was missing was a vision and a plan. The People were furious and ready to do whatever it would take to make things right. They were far too disgusted to be afraid.

But they were still stuck. Even with the growing protests and the sensible strategies—ones that had removed previous dictators—the Movement seemed to be running in place. Getting nowhere.

Then The Vision went viral. A better world was not only possible—we got a glimpse of it. A proposal, in the form of a short visionary video, was widely viewed and shared. But the follow up video did even more: it demonstrated in fiction how we can get from today’s shitshow to a beautiful society of community, wellbeing, energy, creativity, playfulness, wisdom and joy.

Indeed, we had these capacities all along, but we let some fools take control, and make bad choices and we felt trapped. Ordinary people felt powerless and simply obeyed the powers that be.
But the videos and the ensuing conversations—in real life, not online—helped people recognize their power not as a theory, but as a reality.

After that, events moved quickly.

Reality followed the fictional script. It started with The Strike and The Demands. It was bold and, well, breathtaking. This wasn’t strike for better wages and benefits. It was a strike to change everything, in a big way. Overnight.

Corporations and politicians tried to negotiate, to get the millions of random wildcat strikers to be reasonable. But the script the Movement was following did not include negotiation. They weren’t seeking agreements; they made demands and would accept only 100% compliance.

Non-Negotiable Demands

What were the demands?

First of all, every single person must be given healthy food, medical care, and shelter. People who had fallen through the cracks would be welcomed into the nearest community.

Human needs would be met through sharing, both locally and regionally.

Second, only truly worthwhile work would be performed and no work would be performed for profit or pay. We The People would produce what was needed to satisfy all human needs—and no more. We had always done this. The bosses and overseers and rulers produced nothing. They issued orders and took. They were valueless. We didn’t need them and we knew it.

Over the weeks, more and more of us stopped stupid work. Volunteers joined the productive “human needs” workforce, with nearly every “job” having two or more employees. Almost nobody spent more than 20 hours a weeks at ”work.”

Hell, without bosses and with an actual purpose, it didn’t feel like work anymore. It felt like play. People joked, took breaks whenever they wanted, felt relaxed. All while doing something actually worthwhile. And then they went home after, at most, half day.

 The Desparate “Leaders”

Of course, politicians and media screamed bloody murder. We were crazy! We would destroy the economy! People would starve! Our enemies would take advantage! As they foamed at the mouth with rage, the change continued. In fact it accelerated.

Authorities used everything they had, but they didn’t want to stop the few who were working, and they couldn’t find the others who weren’t at the office or factory. They used carrots and sticks, but people weren’t hungry for carrots, nor were they afraid of sticks.

Oh, the rulers sent in armed goons and the goons fired their weapons, a few times. But then the goons stopped because they didn’t want to shoot their neighbors, their friends, their loved ones. As we buried our dead, fury at the authorities motivated millions more to join the strikers.

It became embarrassing and in some cases dangerous to go to a regular paid job. This was especially true if you worked for the government or for a military contractor. The shrinking population of “loyalists” shrunk to almost nothing. They felt like fools because, in fact, they were fools.

Bills went unpaid as people ate communally, either in their homes, or outside at block parties, or in parks. Fewer people went hungry because the poor and homeless were included in these public meals.

People stopped getting paid, but nobody paid bills anyway so it didn’t matter. Bill collectors and threatening letters arrived—but enforcers were too afraid to enforce. Many joined the public meals and brought potato salad.

Medical professionals started providing medical care, ignoring insurers and insurance—just focusing on patients.

It was startling how well it all worked. Yes, there were problems, but compared to before times, the problems were small. Media made every problems seem like the end of the world, but for each problem a group of people calmly met and addressed it. Unlike the old leaders who would do little or nothing about even existential crises, or more often, create them. The People knew what they were doing. Because they actually cared.

Money, it turned out, was a terrible motivator and it only worked when there was fear and artificial scarcity and the implicit threat of violence. That was the offical way of doing things. Empathy and caring about people and life, and having the opportunity to actually live and enjoy life with the people of your community—that, people realized—was worth the effort.

This started in the United States as the dictator grew more violent and more cruel and, well, more desperate. But it spread to everywhere and no regime was able to stop noncooperation. China and Russia became free countries, albeit with a rougher transition. Even the war zones found peace and community. The seemingly impossible happened in Ukraine and Gaza and Sudan.

Everything useful or important in the world was always done by The People, never by The People In Charge. So, the latter were ignored and The People continued to do what was needed. This cut the workload by 80-90%. Most “work” was bullshit—producing nothing of value, simply creating wealth for undeserving shareholders, and—along the way—damaging our biosphere and climate in unforgivable ways.

We, as a civilization, added by subtracting. We removed wasted time, unnecessary “stuff”—and added LIFE.

We replaced senseless labor with joyful living. People stopped looking at their phones. Cell phones barely worked anymore, except as communications devices and word processors. But we saw each other in person. We talked in person. We played together. We helped one another. We expressed ourselves in art and music and dance and poetry.

We The People—because we did everything—had all the power. We had been using our power, because of propaganda and fear and inertia, to help our oppressors. But we changed everything, not by battling our oppressors, but by using our power to help ourselves and each other and our planet. We defeated our opponents simply by doing nothing for them.

The powerful people were exposed as being incapable of doing anything for themselves. They were leeches. They were incompetent. They were lazy. And now they were finished.

This is how we brought life to a dead planet. And prevented the climate collapse that had been dangerously close.

Yes, there had always been the possibility of a better world. It was there for the taking.

And we took it.