This essay was a finalist in the How We Saved the World essay contest, where people wrote as if it was 2050 when the world was working, saying how we got there starting with something they did. Here's the intro to this presentation of results, with links to the other finalists and an invitation to make comments about the contest.

18

Abya Yala

It is January 1st, 2050. This year, I will turn 75 years old, a number that feels strange to me, especially since my father passed away at 57. Times are changing; indeed, they have already changed. Our daughter, Laniakea, is soon to welcome her daughter, Abya Yala, into the world, and I am filled with a profound sense of calm and joy at the prospect—a sentiment I could not claim when Laniakea herself was born.

Back then, when a friend asked me what I expected the world to be like in 2050, my immediate response was, “We will either be in the midst of the most horrific war ever, or recovering from it.” Simultaneously – inducing some hope – I observed countless individuals around the globe attempting to navigate a path out of the bizarre predicament we had steered ourselves into. And I was among them.

The prevailing sentiment closely resembled a phenomenon sometimes observed in ants: as they follow the pheromone trail back to their nest, they inadvertently intersect their own path and begin circling until they perish from exhaustion. Back in 2024, this analogy aptly captured the essence of human existence as we confronted a wide array of interconnected crises, all stemming from the manner in which we managed our civilization.

Abya Yala will inhabit a world vastly different from our own. It is a world still healing from the scars of the last few centuries, yet it is also a world in the process of recovering, repairing, and regenerating everywhere. This is a world that has transitioned from mutually assured destruction to mutually assured thriving.

In every community across our planet, in anticipation of welcoming a new member, whether through birth, love, or serendipity, the people are starting to contribute to the life-gift: a box that will contain all the seeds Abya Yala will ever need to cultivate her food, produce materials for her clothing, and also all the microorganisms and mycelial spores necessary for growing any other materials she might need for a fulfilling life.

Back when we were ensnared in an extractive economy, fueled by the combustion of ancient sunlight, materials were scarce. This, in hindsight, while tragic, is almost somewhat comic. We completely overlooked the existence of a parallel economic system that had been operating on ten thousand times more energy, provided freely by the big fusion reactor in the sky, recycling the same six atoms for billions of years. I am referring to nature, of course.

As this understanding and perspective expanded and gained traction among individuals from all walks of life— including scientists, those still connected to lineages of original knowledge, and everyday people like myself—we began to experiment with this concept. We started simply, by creating bricks and plastic-like materials from biological waste with the aid of mycelium and microorganisms. Initially, this movement was almost imperceptible, but due to the exponential nature of nature, these solutions rapidly expanded across the world as they matured.

The catalyst that tipped the scales and sparked this exponential expansion, was, like many groundbreaking ideas and innovations, both outrageously unconventional and radically evident. In this instance, it was the endeavor of a group that remained anonymous, referring to themselves as the “Pirate Partners.” Among other things they launched a series of investment funds dedicated to nurturing the nascent seeds of a paradigmatic shift in our perception of the materials economy. Operating under the name Project MIRACLE, these funds broke free from the extractive and exploitative modalities central to the late-stage capitalist paradigm deeply ingrained in our society back then, attacking the issue from both ends.

Firstly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the funds were owned and operated by an independent not-for-profit foundation. However, the mechanism that truly moved the needle and changed everything was something they termed “Exit to Planet.” This concept revolved around the simple idea that large pools of money, ultimately owned by the public—such as sovereign wealth funds or pension funds—would purchase innovative, life-serving solutions at market prices, only to then provide them to the planet and her inhabitants for free. This act made these solutions part of the infrastructure for life, dedicated to and for the commons.

Norway was the first to embrace this innovative and groundbreaking idea, which allowed conventional market forces to be harnessed in a manner that ensured they were life-serving rather than extractive and exploitative.

To this end, a set of principles was defined and made public, clarifying which types of solutions would be considered for an “Exit to Planet” by the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund. These principles laid the foundation for what we today recognize as the “heliogenic civilization.” As other nations observed that this initiative was not only positioning Norway at the forefront of a new world order but also attracting the most talented individuals to the country, they quickly began to emulate this model.

First Singapore, then the EU, followed by the African Union – now known as MOTHERLAND, which had started as a grass roots movement to liberate rural African communities from economic pressures, and quickly gained steam as the climate pressures started fully unloading their energy on the African continent and the then-emerging Union of Central and South America. This shift tipped the balance of economic power in the world, not by outcompeting the GDP-rich regions but by simply bypassing them, rendering their materials and products unnecessary. As their economic activities became obsolete, so too did their traditional asset classes.

An organization dedicated to researching the necessary advancements for our economic models, known as the “Initiative for the Regenerative Market Economy,” outlined a set of asset classes that aligned with a life-serving economy. These were deeply influenced by the wisdom of the permaculture movement and encapsulated in what was known as the “Eight Forms of Capital”: financial, living, material, cultural, social, spiritual, intellectual, and experiential capital. The challenge of the subjective and qualitative nature of most of these capitals was addressed by measuring them not as static figures but as vectors of development, assessing accumulated wealth by the vector’s directionality towards a goal.

This approach meshed well with the emergence of a new and enhanced paradigm of governance, as we will explore later. Among the first to embrace these innovative ideas were cities. They felt the kaleidoscopic pressures of multiple, simultaneously unfolding crises with an immediacy that rendered action unavoidable, and they possessed more political leeway for action than nation-states typically did. This movement was spearheaded by a nonprofit organization that had its origins in the early 2020s in Israel, known as GITA, which stands for Global Impact Tech Alliance. GITA presented a straightforward proposition to those cities ready to undertake transformative change: it would facilitate the creation of necessary alliances between unlikely partners to address the infrastructural challenges these cities faced. This was aimed at keeping them within planetary boundaries and fostering conditions for their populations to thrive.

Through these alliances, heliogenic solutions were swiftly identified for all pressing issues cities encountered. Simultaneously, a network of seventy cities coalesced around an economic model termed the “Doughnut Economy,” conceptualized by British economist Kate Raworth. As these cities began adopting the new solutions, their success served as a model that prompted other cities to follow suit.

Witnessing these processes was astounding. As millions lost their homes due to ecosystem disruption and climate change, they embraced these new concepts of freely available and regenerative materials to construct new dwellings for themselves. In doing so, and with the aid of modern science, they managed to create the most incredible and life-affirming houses you could imagine.

To you, today, this is normal. But back then, people lived in boxes within boxes in cities, detached from nature and detached from each other. In other words, people started building regenerative asset classes from the ground up.

Over the span of ten to fifteen years, we witnessed a tremendous surge in innovation and creativity as we advanced from cultivating materials for our homes and clothing to more complex items like communication devices, satellites, and transportation mechanisms. This transition from an extractive and scarcity-driven economic model to one of abundance, almost felt like magic, paving the way for something even more remarkable.

With the newfound assurance that material scarcity was a thing of the past, individuals began to explore their talents and passions, crafting the most exquisite jewelry, food, clothing, furniture, and homes, alongside incredible innovations that enhanced life for all. As everyone had access to everything they needed, the transactional, money-based system of exchange yielded to a relational gift economy, reminiscent of the way humans had lived for millennia.

This newfound sovereignty encountered another force that had been emerging slowly, silently, yet just as relentlessly. It began in Germany, where two hundred years earlier a similar idea had taken root. Back then, in the salons of Goethe and Schiller, people wrestled with a notion akin to what we faced in the 2020s. They sensed a massive paradigmatic shift on the horizon. In their era, it was the transition from aristocratic monarchy to the early forms of European democracy. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s always easier to recognize such shifts as inevitable, whereas living through such transitions can feel overwhelming and frightening. Reflecting on how to navigate this leap into the unknown, they concluded that it would require deeply grounded individuals, prompting the critical question: how do we consistently cultivate such groundedness in people? Today, the answer seems obvious: by providing them with free time, space, and guidance to connect with the essence of their being, enabling them to become proactive agents in the world based on their discoveries.

This idea, though never actualized in Germany due to the distractions posed by the uprising of 1848, did not lose its potency. In this instance, Denmark took up the mantle and implemented it, allowing 10% of their young population to participate in what is still known today as the “Folk High School.” There, young individuals were given the freedom to explore themselves, each other, and the world for several months before embarkingon a productive life in society. From Denmark, the idea swiftly spread across the Nordic countries, particularly setting Norway on the path to implementing the foundation for the “heliogenic civilization” almost two hundred years later.

In the 2020s, a similar series of discussions unfolded. However, this time it was clear that the challenge could not be addressed by grounded individuals alone but required collective grounding and coordination. It was essentially an effort to upgrade democracy to better reflect the principle that the sovereign in a democracy is the population itself. Back then, it was still customary for the public to exert periodic influence on political behavior through voting every few years. The significant change that occurred in 2024 was the establishment of a citizens’ assembly, self-organized by the population, which defined what a good life looks like from the perspective of someone living in Germany.

What this assembly articulated was remarkably similar to what we now understand as a universal human aspiration. It was the realization that we are most fulfilled when embedded within a community of no more than approximately four thousand individuals, living close to nature and in harmony with both people and the environment. At the time, this vision seemed utopian and unattainable, yet the German population made it the cornerstone of the mandate they issued to their politicians. Although initially skeptical, politicians quickly recognized that this directive offered them an escape from the short-term marketing cycle of electioneering in which they were trapped. This cycle had engendered ideological warfare, rendering everyone incapable of addressing the looming challenges. Once this obstacle was removed and the political sphere was provided with a clear, population-updated objective, it unleashed a wave of civic innovation unprecedented in history. In a pioneering move, German politicians institutionalized this concept by establishing an independent commission with the power to veto any policy decision that could not justify its relevance to the definition of a good life as determined by the sovereign. While this step was radical, it was also facilitated by the precedent set by Wales, which had implemented a similar measure ten years earlier.

Rosa Parks, who became a pivotal figure in the American civil rights movement, had attended the Highlander Folk School, a U.S. adaptation of the Folk Schools described earlier. Just as we can trace a line from the salons of Goethe and Schiller to Barack Obama becoming the first black president of the U.S., today we can draw a connection from the efforts of the first citizens’ assembly —then known as the “New Wohlstand Campaign”—to our current self-governance system. This system, as you are aware, places a strong emphasis on deliberation and consensus around shared objectives and aspirations. This approach enables the rapid deployment of hierarchical implementation groups to construct what needs to be built, while also keeping dark-triad personalities in check through a straightforward mechanism that allows anyone to initiate a vote of confidence on any leader at any time.

And there was another element that proved to be crucial in the shift towards effective self-governance, buoyed by the waves of change we were experiencing at the time. It was a renewed understanding of gender and sex, championed by a formidable group of women who rooted their womanhood in both ancient wisdom and modern science. Initially, they rediscovered the power inherent in the embodied understanding and engagement with hormonal cycles for themselves. Then, they taught this knowledge to as many women around the world as they could—in 2024, there were only about 250,000 of them, known back then as the “Womb Blessing Movement,” a figure that seems unimaginably small compared to today, now that it has become common knowledge. The real turning point occurred when they began educating men.

As men came to understand the deep and inherent biophysical dispositions that influence the sexes, it created space for both sexes to leverage their strengths in balance and harmony with each other, while acknowledging the profound differences in their ways of being, seeing, and acting in the world.

Thus, in the midst of the greatest catastrophe humans had ever witnessed on this planet, the nurturing of life and love gradually became the focal point of our civilization, manifesting in new forms of governance and economy. We were able to look forward once more, moving beyond conflicts over ideologies entrenched in dogmatic stances. Collectively, we became agents of our own fate, embracing generosity towards ourselves, each other, and the world.

It even allowed us to laugh the dark-triad types out of power, since they did not have any lever over us anymore. We could finally be free to live as we all already had known to live deep in our being. We had found a way to tap into the unkown knowns that our species had cultivated over the course of deep time into embodied knowing that runs deeper than fear. We were finally free to love.

This newfound freedom to love empowered us to truly place LIFE at the heart of all human endeavors. As every aspect of human existence was liberated from the constraints of profit-seeking mechanisms, they transformed into versions that served life. With the opportunity for everyone to spend time in nature and enjoy leisure, our parasympathetic nervous system was reliably activated, inducing a relaxation response essential for our biophysical regeneration. This, coupled with a diet rooted in what grows in our bioregion during the current season and aligned with the needs of our biome, restored the healthy bodies that had been compromised by a food system optimized for profit. This system exploited our reward pathways by offering excessive amounts of sugar and fat.

And then, schools and universities were eventually supplanted by what you now recognize as INFINITIVE, which, 25 years ago, was an almost imperceptible endeavor to grant every human on the planet access to the principles that had shaped Rosa Parks into the formidable individual she became. Simultaneously, it aimed to provide lifelong learning, tailored to the situation one finds oneself in. Just as it is today, this was facilitated by individuals who volunteered on the basis of a relational gift economy, sharing whatever skills and knowledge they had acquired. This was complemented by the mutual support and accountability groups that are now so integral to our lives that it’s hard to imagine existence without them.

And now you know the most important parts of the story that created your world. While it feels natural to you, it is far from it. We-all created it together and we must continuously nurture it to keep it. So, tell it forward, so that the cycle may never repeat again and rather we will progress further in the increase of the density of the fabric of life and love we are weaving together, making everything more beautiful and more exciting at the same time. Making life worth living.

I will have to go now. High tide is coming,the waves are amazing today, and my beautiful woman, Abya Yalas’s granny, is waiting for me at the line-up.