SUE's Blog

January 1, 2050

Where did you come from, swamp flower? Why were your seeds everywhere? How did you sprout so swiftly? I cannot pinpoint your origin, I only know it feels like a thousand lifetimes since I recognized you twenty-five years ago. Because of your existence, I and others broke through the frozen peatlands of our mummified thoughts and got to work aligning our actions with our ideals. However, if there was an origin, it certainly was not in any specific region or peoples. Not even the poets, priests, and the psychonauts could claim you. You were universal, thriving in the cracks of shattered hearts and wills across the Earth’s surface. I stopped “teaching” history years ago ever since the arrival of participatory curriculum. My students now freely reconstruct history from the library themselves, driven by their own interests; I only guide their work, learning alongside them. To help preserve the memory of what happened, I will attempt to write a brief history of the events as best I can remember in the style of my students: reverse order and process-oriented, discerning cause and effect. Like a seed containing the whole, so too will this history strive to contain the whole, however incomplete. I hope this story can be of service to others. More voices will need to contribute their perspective to form a complete picture of what happened.

The Phenomenology of The Flowering

The Blossoming (2040-2050): Ecological health was restored and plant and animal kingdoms sprung back to life with a vigor unexpected by scientists. So many of us, from every background, tradition, and perspective, felt united by mutual respect, acknowledgement, and shared sense of inspiration in thought and deed. While challenges remain, we are more prepared to understand and engage evil than we were twenty years ago (we catch it in ourselves before it spreads). Even after the global genocides, whose victims are forever remembered in our hearts, we continued to develop heightened capacities for discernment, love, and resolve. A chief example of this is humanity’s new approach to global governance. Today, every jurisdiction works to serve every jurisdiction, dedicating what they produce to others (whether it be rights, resources, or culture); cities, regional hubs, states and countries (those that remain), and planetary institutions, all find their needs met by the acts of others. The thought “my work, my resources” gave way to “my work, your resources.” We learned to “act first” and permeate our proximate surroundings with the good we want to see in the world, rather than reacting first and waiting for institutions to respond. The United Nations and other nation state-directed bodies gave way to new, ever-evolving forms of multi-level planetary cooperation, which were deeply democratic, inclusive, responsive, and interested in the whole. Top-down administrative governance slowly phased out after the Second Global Pandemic. A “planetary rhizome”-like structure of collaborative, living institutions emerged, where every node contributed something of value, with no actor greater or higher than another. We can credit the Chula Vista-Tijuana Assembly of Free Peoples (Encuentro de Pueblos Libres del Norte y del Sur) for prefiguring the first transborder social assembly, generating a hub of regional economic activity dedicated to the health of its members and those just beyond its jurisdiction. A key component of this project’s success was that local and regional business leaders saw their corporations as ecological- and community-enriching entities, capable of both care and empowerment, and not as profit-maximizing engines of extraction. Producers, traders, and consumers from all industries got together to choose which products they needed and co-determined their production practices (most used 100% regenerative materials and manufacturing processes) and prices (pricing throughout the supply chain now reflected “true prices” or “the costs of living and dreams” between the time a producer produces a single product and next). Funds were set aside annually for those without the income to purchase goods from the collective at their true price until their own workplace integrated into the ecosystem. These business entities became known as “Care Corps,” supplanting the traditional C Corporation, and inspired social entrepreneurs around the world to experiment with similar practices. Voluntary contributions to Collective Coffers (regenerative, community-led finance institutions) quickly surpassed resources raised by taxes and put resources to immediate use, more inclusively, in more ways. Producers within the regions once governed by the national governments of Brazil, Russia, India, Nigeria, and China became famous for the natural beauty of their products and production processes—seamlessly integrating nature and human activity into an elevated form of economic activity, akin to artisanal production organisms. Profits everywhere were largely redirected back into communities, rather than accumulated by owners, to further develop the capacities of its members. The last remnants of racism, sexism, and ignorance of all kinds succumbed to the immense power of persistent interest in serving the needs of others regardless of background or belief. With humanity’s social and political systems, economic associations, and cultural institutions cooperating with greater degrees of harmony and autonomy, human beings became more equipped to weather flare ups from those who sought to dim the cooperative spirit. Above all, a new feeling of cosmic unity and purpose pervaded those involved in this work, thanks in large part to the deeds of the Three Wilderness generations (1940-1960; 1960-1980; and 1980-2020), who dedicated their lives to preparing the soil for future generations. With the stars speaking once again, we turn our attention to the swamp flower within humanity and continue to nourish it.

The Germinating (2033-2040): First, those closest to each individual were healed. All the inner work that was taken up during “The Trieste” began to slowly penetrate people’s immediate relationships. Family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers began to sense a different way of being in the world through interacting with those who had chosen to live differently. This “ethic of solidarity and non-coercion,” famously coined by philosopher Edgar Morin, bore immense fruit. Not everyone decided to move differently through the world, but enough did. My students say that the 2034 South America Citizens’ Assembly on Elder Care and the 2035 Asia Peoples’ Assembly on Reforestation signaled a global shift in attitudes around planetary cooperation and service, resulting in the Great Integration Movement that proliferated various inner development and institutional reform practices aimed at co-living. As a result, the collective thought form “I won’t act because I am not benefited” gave way to “I act so that I may benefit others.” These inner developments would bear institutional fruit in the next era. Another significant development was the popularization of the concepts of karma and reincarnation among the West as more and more scientific studies demonstrated its existence. The effect was particularly potent in the American South, where a combination of Calvinist ideas and karmic thought unleashed a new impulse for heart-led action. One consequence of this development was that new multiracial, transideological coalitions began to emerge and pass laws that restricted money from corrupting elections. Electoral politics and representative forms of government gave way to more and more experiments in deliberative democracy, where people from all backgrounds participated in decision-making. A whiff of an agenda or partisan ideology on the campaign trail began to trigger an allergic reaction within voters, many of whom point to the catastrophes of the 2020s as evidence of the failed project of governance by faction. The campaign slogan of Texas-born 1936 Presidential Candidate Senator Joseph S. Pack, “I ain’t governin’ unless we all governin’,” encouraged a new generation of people to make decisions together. A change also occurred within the mindset of people globally. After witnessing the horrors of political violence in the previous era, many people began practicing a more integrated political outlook, also known as the Many Ways of Seeing the World Movement (MWSW), pronounced “MuhSuh,” that sought to acknowledge the truths buried within all perspectives. Political scientists called this the “Polarized to Polarity” development, in which people became more capable of holding opposing tendencies within themselves, thus being able to cooperate more freely with others. This cooperative spirit would shape new ways of moving through the world in the subsequent era, but it was only made possible because people had recognized the swamp flower in the prior era.

The Sprouting (2025-2033): I will only refer to these years as “The Trieste,” the name of the deep-sea submersible that reached the deepest point in Earth’s seabed: the Mariana Trench. Highly technical forms of social and political violence whipped through societies during this period, dividing humanity and pitting communities against one another. These were years of mass confusion and delusion. Many consciously experienced humanity’s rock bottom, the seafloor, and once there could regain their orientation and begin the process of surfacing. This experience was akin to recognizing the swamp flower for the first time. Any activity that transcended dominant divisions of human activity and consciousness (e.g., race, class, nationality, political party, religion) bore the mark of this flower. The first step, for many, was idealizing their willpower to freely dedicate their actions to the ideals of another being, regardless of circumstances. In other words, to act like the swamp flower. This impulse originated in culture first, specifically on the streaming platforms. “Daydreamer” premiered in 2028, the first feature-length movie without significant sensory-suggestive elements, marking the ascendance of subject-participated media and the end of the CGI-era. These new filmmakers sought to respect the audience by withholding all the usual audio and visual techniques in order to give our imaginations room to exercise. As filmmaking began to support the free imaginations of people, other cultural disciplines followed. Science and education were reimagined. Minds were reborn. Most significantly, journalism began to evolve away from covering the news in a sensational, bulletin-like manner and towards painting a slow, holistic portrait of understanding, deeply researched portals of figures and events from different perspectives, reported simultaneously, that highlighted humanity’s full range of experience. The finest journalists were the most sensitive and worked almost exclusively in groups of people from different backgrounds; their work inspired many breakthrough developments in human activity, notably the first oil well voluntarily capped by energy executives. These developments offered fertile soil for the imagination to acknowledge paradoxes within themselves, a reality future generations would come to harness as the foundation for all cooperation. As the late co-leader María Francés shared at the first Global Convention on Cooperation, “We become lower case “d” democrats in life when we practice lower case “d” democratic thoughts.” This was the “psychic shot” heard around the world. Once humanity began recognizing that their thoughts shape reality, whole clubs and organizations began forming that worked to enhance one’s thinking to be more open, creative, compassionate, and courageous in the face of alarming division. A new flower sprouted in the swamp of humanity.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xw2uGpZ4oKmZgR1_lQBIE0JGfW1k9WF91yeSCdx6m-Q/edit?usp=sharing

My name is Stuart Johnstone, and I convinced hundred of millions of people to give their spare change to those in need.
This is how it happened… 

January 1st, 2050 

As I’ve grown older, January 1st has become increasingly less blurry. I’ve seen sixty-nine New Year’s Days, and I can remember about forty percent of them. Somewhere around the age of thirty-nine, I decided to stop drinking on New Years Eve. Call me crazy, but I wanted January 1st to be an opportunity for unhindered self-reflection. I wanted to be able to gaze back on the year before with blistering clarity, to really understand achievements and failures. As I aged, this ability to self-reflect became stronger and stronger. By January 1st, 2050, it was like my super-power. I was able to look back on 2049, and all the previous years, and see everything as if it was happening there and then. And, as it happens, 2049 was the best year of my life. It was the year I finally felt like somebody, the year I could finally say ‘my work is done’. 

The two events that shaped my 2049 happened because of something I started in 2024. More on that shortly. All you need to know right now is that, by 2049, I had helped to deliver over one trillion dollars to people in need all over the world. To honour this achievement, I was invited to Buckingham Palace to receive a knighthood from King William V. A few weeks after that, I was flown upper-class to Washington DC for a private celebration with President Ocasio-Cortez. Most of the time, when you meet great people, they will look straight through you. They might pretend to care, but most of them would rather be somewhere else. This King and President treated me like a long lost relative they’d waited their whole lives to meet. It was as if I was the superstar, and they were the little people basking in the moment of their lives. Who’d have thought it! These surreal and life-affirming experiences made me ask the question again: ‘How did I get here?’ 

Back in 2024, the world was a shit-show. At least, that’s how I saw it. In the UK, The Conservative Party was busy wrecking the country, adding insult to injury after leaving the EU eight years before. In the US, Donald Trump, a man who had effectively committed treason by inciting civil war, was about to become President for the second time. Wars were breaking out all over the world. The Israeli’s continued to ravage Palestine after the Hamas terror attacks the year before. Russia and Ukraine were still locked in conflict after two years. The US and the UK were bombing Houthi targets in Yemen following incursions into neutral shipping lanes. Even after the lessons of World War Two and numerous other conflicts in the twentieth century, it seemed like World War Three could break out at any time. While the masters of war executed their plans, individuals and communities weren’t faring much better. The rise of social media over the previous twenty years had created a generation of prima donna’s – people obsessed with themselves and motivated only by the number of likes their latest video was getting. Smartphones had become so ubiquitous, that they were like another body part, welded organically to the hand. Nobody looked up from these things, unwittingly substituting real life and real meaning for virtual nonsense. Communities were disintegrating all over the world. Money that had previously been available to fund local projects was disappearing fast, leaving families without help and kids to roam the streets. In my own neighbourhood, nobody spoke to each other, and I was convinced that if I’d been burning to death on the sidewalk, nobody would have stopped to help. Of course, some people had a different view of the world. But my view, perhaps influenced by my own idealistic mindset, was that it was a shit-show. 

The spark that changed my life came from a mundane piece of life admin. I decided to open an online bank account! I had resisted doing this for years because I was a finance traditionalist. I liked to keep my cash in a bank I could visit, where I could talk to real people and feel confident the place could not be compromised by hackers. I even kept some money under my bed! By 2024, my friends had convinced me to open a bank account via a smartphone app. The process turned out to be straightforward, risk-free, and the rewards far outweighed what I’d previously been used to. So, before too long, I was an online banking convert, taking advantage of every reputable app that came along. One of these online banks offered a product they called the Round-Up account. It gave the saver the option to round up purchases to the nearest dollar and save the balance in a separate account earning a high interest rate. It meant that if I spent $19.50, I’d save fifty-cents and earn eight-percent interest on it. Over time, this rounding up added up, and I was left with a small pile of savings from contributions I didn’t miss. After all, who misses spare change? At first, it seemed like a no-brainer. Then, after a while, I started to think about it more deeply. After six months of making contributions into my Round-Up account, I was left with only $150. This included all the interest that had been added to it. For a man earning a decent salary and with higher-than-average savings, this was money I didn’t need. Sure, it would help me buy a nice dinner or a few bottles of vintage wine, but it wouldn’t make any real difference to my life. That’s when I had a thought. THE thought. 

By a stroke of outrageous luck, the opportunity to voice this thought came around one month later. The company I worked for, a global advertising agency, hosted talks by interesting and important people in society. These people were invited in from the world of business, politics, media, technology – anybody who had something interesting to say or a unique view. The speaker in this session just happened to be the CEO of the online bank that offered the ‘Round-Up’ account. I know what you’re thinking. It sounds like he’s making it up! I assure 

you this happened exactly as I say. After he’d spoken for forty-five minutes or so, I put my hand up and took my chance. ‘I’ve used your Round-Up account for six-months’ I said ‘and I don’t really need the money. What if, instead of keeping the money you round up for yourself, you give it away to people in need?’. At first, the CEO looked bemused. In a world so focused on individual success, why would anybody want to be so altruistic? Had he not heard this idea before? Was it not obvious? It appeared not. After a long pause, he smiled and held the microphone up to his mouth. ‘You know’ he said ‘I’d like to say that we’d thought of that, but we haven’t. Nobody in the organisation, to my knowledge, has put this idea forward’. Then, he walked to the front of the stage and looked straight at me: ‘Let’s take this offline, and we’ll see what we can do’. 

A week or so later, I found myself sitting in the CEO’s office. I couldn’t believe it. He’d remembered our exchange at the agency and invited me in to discuss my suggestion. I expected him to give me thirty-minutes and send me away with a branded notebook. But this couldn’t have been further from the truth. Over the next few hours, we discussed the state of the world, corporate social responsibility, Donald Trump, The Super-Bowl, The Beatles, Martin Scorsese and, eventually, the Round-Up account. He asked me how I thought they could turn it into a tool for good. At this point, I realised I hadn’t really thought it through. ‘Well’, I said, ‘the first thing I’d like to say is that you have an opportunity to do something no other bank seems to be doing – an opportunity to change the world and lead other corporations to do the same’. I don’t know where this babble came from! ‘Mmmm’, he said, ‘Do you think people will actually go for it?’. I went on to explain my belief that people’s basic nature is good, and if asked in the right way, they would embrace the chance to be altruistic. ‘Spare change’ I said ‘means nothing to most people. Give them the option to give it away! If they don’t want to, they don’t have to’. I suggested that the bank should set up a fund, managed by a Foundation within the organisation, and invite applications from individuals and communities that needed money. ‘It’s an opportunity’, I said, ‘to bridge the gap that government can’t bridge, to remove the red tape, and to get money to people in need quickly and seamlessly’. The CEO stood up from his desk, walked across the room and shook my hand: ‘It’s a great idea. I’ll talk to my team’. 

A month or so went past, and I heard nothing. I accepted it had been an exotic little adventure that would come to nothing. Something to tell the Grandchildren about. I continued to gripe about the world and see the worst in everything. Then, out-of-the-blue, on a lazy Friday afternoon, I got a call from the CEO. ‘We’re doing it!’ he said, ‘It’s actually going to happen!’. It turns out the CEO had left our meeting and gone straight to his board, recommending that they offered a Round-Up Giveaway option ASAP, and setting the ball rolling on the infrastructure needed to manage and distribute funds. He told me he’d given his team a deadline to get the option live, and that there would be a global advertising campaign launching to support it. ‘And’ he said, ‘we want you to be in the TV ad’. 

By mid-2024, I’d gone from being a nobody to having my face beamed into living rooms across the world. I was told the TV ad for the Round-Up Giveaway account was seen by 1.5 billion households in 165 countries. The script had me discovering the Round-Up option, enjoying it for a while, then having the light-bulb realisation that I didn’t need the money. ‘This is your chance’ I say in the ad ‘to discover your true nature, to feel good at the end of the day, to make giving the new receiving – Round-Up and Giveaway Now!’ I press the ‘Round-Up Giveaway’ button on the app, and the script cuts to a young family, smiling in a park on a sunny day, with two kids playing on glimmering playground equipment. The TV ad was part of one of the biggest advertising campaigns in history. Media platforms – including the likes of Google and Meta – lined up to offer free advertising space. My face, along with the Round-Up Giveaway option, was splashed across TV’s, cinema screens, newspapers, magazines, social media, buses, trains, and stadiums globally. From that point forwards, I couldn’t look back, and nor did I want to. I embraced the role, praying to God that people would do as I predicted and ‘Round-Up and giveaway’. 

By now, you’ve probably guessed that it worked. In fact, it worked better than anybody could have imagined. The Round-Up Giveaway account, and the advertising campaign that supported it, created a wave of Altruism-mania that kept going and growing. Around twelve months after the launch, it was announced that it had generated over one billion dollars for those in need. It had changed the lives of more people in one year than government programs had in the last decade. Other online banks had followed suit in offering a version of the Round-Up Giveaway, and they had all been as successful in encouraging people to give away. The real explosion came in mid-2025, when the first high-street retailers decided to offer a version of the program at point-of-sale. They gave people the option of rounding up store purchases, however small, so even a kid buying a candy bar for 99 cents could choose to give away 1 cent. It was beautiful. Before too long, it was difficult to find any stores that weren’t offering the option to round up spare change and give it away. From Macey’s to Merv’s Vintage Sweets, they were all doing it, paying the proceeds into funds set up by online banks, who worked with a cross-section of experts to qualify applications. It spread like wildfire all over the world, and the flames turned out to be eternal. 

By the end of 2025, I had become one of the most famous people in the world. In January 2026, I won Time Magazine’s Person of the Year award. In 2027, I won the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2029, I had my life dramatized in a movie that went onto win Oscars. Whilst I didn’t become rich, I enjoyed a level of adoration few could ever dream of experiencing. I was on cloud nine. 

Despite all this, nothing gave me more satisfaction than meeting the people whose lives were changed by the Round-Up Giveaway. I made a point of meeting as many beneficiaries as possible, and their stories kept me pushing to expand the program. 

In 2024, for the first time ever, corporations worked with individuals and communities without any ulterior motive, to help those most in need. As I had predicted when I first suggested the idea to the CEO, it brought out the best in people, and tapped into their innate desire to be altruistic. It thrust the idea of giving, alongside spending and saving, into the mainstream, and evolved into a true movement. In turn, it changed the lives of people all over the world in the best possible ways. I met individuals who were able to overcome serious personal challenges. I visited communities that achieved fundamental change and progression in years rather than decades. In some cases, Round Up Giveaway helped to improve the outlook for entire countries. How did this happen? It happened because the program replaced unfit solutions offered by government, getting rid of red tape and delivering help fast. The Round-Up Giveaway offered the fundamental change the world needed, a change that finally unleashed the unrealised dream of People Power. 

Now, in 2050, I can genuinely say we live in a society that is much less motivated by personal gain – so different from 2024. Things are bright, things are positive, and people work together. 

And I still give away my spare change every day… 

Looking back on what we did in 2024, it was certainly not in our plan nor was it an inevitability that our queer community activism would contribute so substantially to the transformation of our world. Obviously, however, the opening of our small LGBTQIA+ community center on the island of Key West, Florida served as a catalyst for enacting a new world view in the state of Florida, in the United States, and, ultimately, in the wider Earth community. With our byline “Love is love. Community is everything.,” Queer Keys managed to influence the hearts and minds of people in a way that cut across politics, environmentalism, economics, and difference.

My dear friend Janiece and I founded Queer Keys in 2021 to address a total lack of LGBTQIA+ programs and resources in our community, which happened to be a small island called Key West at the southernmost point of the contiguous United States. Key West was known as a haven for gay men and other members of the queer community since it emerged as a refuge for men living with AIDS in the 1980s. By the time Janiece and I moved to the island and met each other in 2019, however, the ethos of community that had permeated the island in the late 20th Century had started to lose ground to the profit-motive of commercialism and tourism. Big money was being spent to market the island as an LGBTQIA+ vacation destination and the drag queens still barked at the passersby every night, but the familial nature of queer community was dissolving as the need to cater to the ever-increasing number of tourists took over. When the almighty dollar became the main source of purpose on Duval Street, t-shirt shops hawking MAGAwear were juxtaposed against the rainbow crosswalks.

We started our LGBTQIA+ youth group in 2021 soon after we learned about a young queer high schooler who ended their life because of a lack of support and a hostile environment. From the seed of our first youth group with 3 attendees that met in a donated space at the local Methodist church, we grew our organization into a full-service LGBTQIA+ community center. We opened our doors to the public in an 800-square-foot retail space next door to the homeless youth drop-in center and across the street from the local strip club in May of 2024. Our center had a space for people to drop in and relax, an LGBTQIA+ library of books that were being banned by our state government, a local resource center to provide referrals for services, and a wellness center for counseling and STI-testing.

The wider context for the opening of our center was dark. Florida, under a far-right governor who had made an unsuccessful bid to run for President, was leading the charge in dehumanizing, scapegoating, and attacking LGBTQIA+ people, particularly transgender people. Laws were being passed that made it harder for trans people to access healthcare, for trans people to use public facilities and get accurate state-issued identification, for accurate gender and sexuality education to be taught in schools, for people to find justice for discrimination, and many other forms of state-sponsored violence against queer people. The state was making it harder for immigrants to access support, for black history to be taught, for poor folks to access food stamps, and for Key West to protect its natural environment from enormous cruise ships. All-in-all, Florida was a state run by a white supremacist, patriarchal, nationalist, power-and-profit hungry government that reflected the purposes of the larger far-right movement in the United States and abroad.

When we opened our center, people commonly told us that we were doing something different. We attempted something that we weren’t sure would work by marrying a mutual aid framework to a traditional nonprofit structure. Queer Keys operated as a traditional 501(c)(3) organization with a board of directors and programs funded by donations and grants, but we consciously kept our focus on the people that needed the most help, sought ways to empower people rather than pick and choose who was deserving of support, removed barriers to care, and ensured that our leadership reflected our community. We maintained a structure of “trickle-up social justice,” a phrase coined by trans activist Dean Spade, wherein we structured our programs and services by focusing on the individuals existing at the intersections of the most lines of oppression, knowing that those existing in more privileged states of existence would automatically benefit from that work. Our teams always reiterated to each other that we worked for our people, not for our donors.

Our center was a lively community hub. The youth program turned into an advocacy and activist group, with young queer people organizing public rallies at Bayview Park down the street and addressing inequities in their schools, such as gender-neutral bathrooms. Our Trans Trust Fund, which began as a means to provide funds and case management to trans folks seeking access to gender-affirming care, complete with rides to Miami because there were no Key West doctors willing to stick their necks out to help the trans population, grew into an entire medical clinic of its own. Our parents and caregivers group formed a network of adults who worked together on behalf of their queer young people, offering childcare services, safe transportation, and family gatherings. We started a community garden that was used for community dinners and feeding anyone who was hungry. Queer Keys formed strong community bonds with the Bahama Village Music Program, the Keys Immigrant Coalition, the Key West chapter of the National Organization of Women, the Florida Keys Children’s Shelter, and other organizations that filled the gaps for the people of Key West and the Florida Keys. By 2030, we had achieved a level of community-wide coordination that allowed our island to boast that no one was hungry, unhoused, or uncared for in Key West, Florida.

One thing that allowed our work to cut across so many boundaries and to make so many connections with different kinds of people is that gender and sexuality are universal – everyone participates in these distinct-yet-related parts of the human experience. Queer Keys training and educational programs taught participants about the spectra of gender and sexuality, and taught people how to first understand themselves before trying to understand another person. For as RuPaul famously says, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?” We taught that queer people are not a separate category or species, but a natural expression of human diversity. We had straight, cisgender grandfathers leaving our trainings with big grins, thanking their trainers for helping them to understand what all the young folks were talking about. Our organization led by example, by treating everyone who came through the doors of our community center as a sibling in our “One Human Family.” And if we couldn’t help address someone’s needs, we knew another organization that could.

We received our fair share of backlash in the early days. Far-right activists smashed our front windows a few times. The first time it happened in 2025, we were pretty shaken. But a few local faith organizations – Unity Spiritual Center, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Old Stone Methodist Church, and the One Island Family Unitarian Universalist Congregation – gathered their resources and bought us brand new windows in just under two weeks. After that, each time our windows were smashed a local window shop replaced them and our newly formed “Angel Coalition” covered the costs. The smashing stopped about a year and 7 panes later. A local political hopeful running for city council tried to smear us in a debate by referring to our youth program as a “grooming school,” utilizing rhetoric that had become common among far-right politicians. His opponent was the incumbent and a friend of our organization, however, and she was able to speak from experience about the lives our program had saved. She was met with a standing ovation, and she won the election by a landslide. Even the governor of Florida mentioned us in a speech once, saying he knew of a group of queer (in air quotes) radicals in Key West that were turning the whole island into a “confused, communist wasteland.” And, actually, this was the moment our work went national.

After the governor spoke about the queer radicals in Key West, a producer from The Daily podcast from the New York Times reached out to ask about our organization. Ultiamtely, Queer Keys was featured in the August 6, 2027 episode that talked about LGBTQIA+ issues in Florida and how the state government was codifying oppression in the state law. The episode highlighted our community-level work as an effective means of building resiliency for a community that experienced a continuous onslaught of attacks from those in power, sharing information about our youth programs and health funds, our community garden and free dinners, and our guiding principle of caring for the most systemically disenfranchised. It also talked about the way that the island community had rallied around our work, and the way in which our community center inspired people on the island outside of the purview of our mission to take a vested interest in caring for one another. After this episode aired, our donations skyrocketed, which ultimately led to our increased capacity and the 0% destitute statistic our island achieved by 2030.

In addition to the national attention and boost in funding, that podcast led people in other cities and states, particularly in states that were experiencing high rates of anti-trans and anti-queer legislation, to found queer community organizations based on our mutual aid non-profit model. These groups formed strong bonds with other organizations in their communities working on justice issues related to immigrants, people of color, people living with disability, unhoused people, indigenous people, women, mental health, the environment, etc. If the capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal profit motive was destroying it, coalitions rose up to address that part of the destruction. Slowly but surely, the profit machine lost momentum as people started to reach across their differences and create connections more valuable than the dollar. People realized that a future, any future, was only possible by caring for one another and addressing issues that did not necessarily affect them directly. After this movement spread throughout the US, it spread across the globe. People trying to hold on to power through old paradigm methods simply could not do so. Power to the people actually took hold, and regionalized, leaderless coalitions became the source of human organization.

There is something about seeing a person that is different from you, perhaps radically different, and approaching them with kind curiosity rather than suspicion. It allows you to stop objectifying the other and lets you hear them when they tell you who they are and what they need. Acknowledging that multiplicity and difference are endemic to the human population, and that we are still an enormous family, seems to have opened something in human consciousness that allowed people to see that animals, plants, and all other beings on the planet are also part of our wider family. The ripple effect is real.

Looking back on how quickly Queer Keys work informed a national-cum-global movement, I am still tickled by how daunting it all seemed at first. There were so many moments when my team and I questioned whether or not we were doing the right thing, whether gaining visibility threatened our ability to keep helping people, and whether or not we had the wherewithal to keep going. However, it turns out that our message of community-over-everything was just what people were hoping to hear, and it spread like wildfire. My graduate school professor, the cosmologist Brian Swimme, always encouraged his students to follow our creative passions because the impetus that comes from within is the creative nature of the universe itself. I experience the biggest cosmic giggle that permeates my body when I think about the lived truth of that statement, and how a small group of people in Key West, Florida sparked a community revolution that literally set things straight across the world.

The effects of climate change still came. The extreme weather patterns continued, sea-level rose, species continued to go extinct, and diseases continued to spread at higher rates. However, our means of addressing these issues became focused on care for the other and solutions rather than care for the self and blame. In 2050, we’re finally starting to hear from our scientists that the Earth systems are beginning to right themselves. And just like when the world stopped in 2020 during the COVID pandemic, and we all watched the waters and the skies clear, I know that Earth will return from the brink. Hope has arrived.

    I can’t believe it’s 2050. Earth is finally a cooperative place for humanity, animals, and the environment. Looking back, the following account is what I did to help transform the world. I did not try to change the external world, but made every attempt to change myself to be my best self. It all started with changing my life to follow my passions and interests. This had a ripple effect across the community that I lived in. I always believed that following your bliss or happiness will lead you to living a rich life. I have always tried to embody that bliss. Richness can be measured in free time to pursue your own business, hobbies, and skills. To me, following my passion for reptiles and amphibians was how I could connect to my higher-self and positively influence society by educating people about these misunderstood animals. 

    In the spring of 2024, I decided to follow my passion of workinging with and educating people about reptiles and amphibians by opening a serpentarium or reptile zoo. This had been a childhood dream of mine and I was finally able to pursue that desire. With the serpentarium getting underway, I also found it important to start growing all my own vegetables and fruits on what would become my small homestead. I also raised backyard chickens. I have always believed in leading by example. Any surplus food that was not used by my family was given away to neighbors and strangers in need. This was a big help to my local community. It allowed me to make meaningful connections with those who lived around me. My kindness was contagious. Those who I gave vegetables, fruits, and eggs too were inspired to give away their surplus things.

    Working on my homestead allowed me to have a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of life. This Oneness was very important to me. Following my passion of homesteading and owning a serpentarium allowed me to feel connected to God. My wish for humanity was that others would be able to pursue their own talents and desires. With that being said, though, I realized that changing the world would be a hard feat for just a simple man like myself. However, I knew that how I treated others would have a ripple effect. The world could be changed if kindness and selfless service took hold. 

    At the serpentarium, I made sure to pay my employees a living wage and provide health insurance. Both of these are very important to me and good employers should lead the way by doing both. I valued my employees because without them I would not be able to pursue this dream of having a serpentarium. My love of life was highly contagious. Following my passions started to inspire others to take a leap of faith and follow theirs. Because of my actions with the serpentarium and farm, some of my friends started pursuing art, their own small businesses, practicing alternative medicine, and homesteading. 

    Others left careers that they were no longer inspired to work in anymore. In particular, one of my friends quit practicing law to pursue his creative talents and to have a better work-life balance. As the years went by, I decided that I wanted to open a local meditation center where people could focus on their spiritual development. I have always found meditation to be extremely positive in calming a racing mind.  The center aimed to help people connect with their inner peace. Looking back, while I may not have done something grand in the eyes of some people, I did live a life that gave me purpose and passion, which was enough to positively influence society. We each took small steps and actions that lead to society changing for the better. 

    Following our inner desires is how we collectively fixed the planet. In the process of following these passions, we helped each other when it was needed and encouraged others to follow their own inner guidance. Society changed from the bottom up because we individually changed. We did not wait for an external savior to come save us. We made the changes that were suited best to our development and pursued them. The message I wanted to share was simple: find your calling and answer it. The world would be a better place if we were each happy in what we were doing. This happiness will allow us to positively influence others. We each took a role in this pursuit and subsequently changed our reality. 

It’s 2050, and the world is right-side up again. We were living backwards and upside-down for centuries, forgetting that we’re part of nature, treating other humans like trash, plundering the planet we call home. I can hardly believe it, but all that has changed. Now we live in patchwork cooperative communities stretched across most of what used to be the United States.

What was the shift that moved us from opposition to cooperation? It was the realization that no one is coming to save us — that we have to take care of each other. The climate crisis was the main driver, a series of environmental disasters and economic collapse exacerbating a political crisis that reflected a loss of faith in governing structures. In response, a cultural shift combining several currents led to a rejuvenation of empathy. The mode of transformation? An expanse of networks, like mushroom mycelia, that started at least partly on Substack, through which the new culture spread, took root, and blossomed.

The change happened over three phases: Phase 1 saw a shift from digital to analog, where the mycelium networks became something truly original. Phase 2 describes the move from networks to infrastructure, where we sowed the seeds of the counterculture. In Phase 3, we were powerful enough to affect system change and bring about a new cooperative world.

Some call it anarchy, some call it communism, some call it utopia — regardless, it’s ours and we made it, and we’ll do everything we can not to go back to how things were.

But how did it happen? What’s the secret to changing such deep-seated animosity? Well, in a word, people started doing things for themselves.

People start forming networks

My Substack publication acted as a catalyst and a node for the networks that would eventually turn our world inside-out. Anarchy Unfolds is about preparing the world to come, crafting viable alternatives here and now. As my audience grew into the thousands, we were able to do much more together. We traded ideas, shared news about projects and activities we were part of, and invited each other to participate. I did interviews and hosted virtual meet-ups where we talked strategy and gave ourselves space to dream. In my writing, I tried to seed healthy ideas into the world, inspiring people to think and act differently. The Anarchy Unfolds readership became an active community, not only a passive audience — and importantly, they began to form relationships with each other outside my publication.

I was not alone — many others on Substack were on the same wavelength. We connected via the platform’s powerful networking tools, but we didn’t stop there. We began to use our writing in the digital space to amplify our analog lives.

Building on campaigns like Substackers Against Nazis in late 2023-early 2024, we used online organizing to drive participation in real-life marches, demonstrations, and protests; cultivating an active resistance to the systems of violence and their culture of greed. Like Solarpunk Stories, we curated positive news from our collective memberships; little victories and small joys that had an outsized impact on nurturing a culture of hope and generosity. Like Radical Reports for the goodguys, we kept tabs on our growing movement, making sure everyone was in the know and no one was left behind.

That spirit of care translated into mutual aid groups, modeled after the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the 2020s. People crowdsourced help for those in crisis: they organized food drives for the hungry and grocery runs for the busy, swapped childcare and eldercare, crowdfunded exorbitant medical bills, and gave prisoner support in the form of letters, visits, and bail funds. They helped keep the lights on and heat and water running, especially for those affected by natural disasters.

At that time, existing mutual aid networks and activist projects tended to be hyperlocal or siloed in a particular community. The emerging mycelium networks on the other hand kept a pulse on everything at once. They didn’t need centralization to do this. Through overlapping systems of communication, all direct and interpersonal, they accomplished what so many organizations and institutions so far had failed to achieve: an autonomous, leaderless movement, a perfect blend of digital and analog.

This care work was inherently politicizing — people quickly ran into legal challenges while trying to share what they had, which illuminated the systems and their inequities in stark contrast. In the early 21st century, even feeding the homeless was illegal in some places. They also had cash bail, private insurance companies, and other evils we find hard to imagine. Even so, in the beginning stages political action merely spun off from the networks; it didn’t swell from the coordinated movement of them all at once. Such spontaneous order would come later, supported by a robust system of alternative, sustainable infrastructure.

People start growing their own food

The mycelium movement reached another phase of development when people began to meet their needs outside the state and capital. Urban agriculture got the spotlight, and sustainable techniques like hydroponics, aquaculture, and composting proliferated throughout the networks. People started raising micro-livestock, ripping up pavement to plant food forests, and of course cultivating mushroom logs. Almost overnight, it seemed as if everyone had their own vegetable garden.

If Phase 1 was simple sharing through mutual aid and food drives, and Phase 2 was the revival of urban agriculture, Phase 3 saw massive agricultural reform in rural areas. The huge monopolies were broken up, government subsidies dried out or shifted focus, and monoculture was slowly but surely replaced with permaculture. There was the narrative that these country bumpkins were slow on the uptake, clinging to conventional methods when the cities had evolved to sustainable practices. In reality, the city slickers got all their ideas from their rural counterparts — the hippie culture and pioneering ecologists, who themselves got it from indigenous people.

These moves were timely too, as global supply chains were rocked by increasingly intense and frequent natural disasters, as well as military conflict. Food security was a matter of survival. Eventually, as government capability crumbled and corporations dissolved, the previous global supply chains collapsed — food production became localized out of necessity. Slowly, through the mycelium networks, a new way of exchange allowed folks from different regions to share surpluses freely with one another. Some used a gift economy and refused to keep count, others figured out direct exchanges at price. In any case, no one involved in the networks would dream of exploiting someone over food. Even when times were tough, the idea was that we had enough to go around if we agreed to share.

People start collecting and treating their own water

It’s remarkable that capital managed to commodify something as fundamental as water, but they’d done it. In response, people in the growing mycelium networks began to take it back. Phase 1 saw the dissemination of wisdom about how to collect, purify, and store water, giving individuals and households some measure of autonomy in the face of frequent droughts and unstable urban reservoirs.

Phase 2 saw alternative plumbing and waste management systems sprout up to counter municipal utilities. People stored water for their whole neighborhoods in silos and water towers, rigged up to their own tanks, greenhouses, and gardens. In concert with the movement for food independence, bioremediation became the new trend: graywater recycling, composting toilets, floating trash islands, and careful cultivation of microbial life meant less pollution, cleaner water, and much more water retention in the soil.

In Phase 3, legal battles over local water independence ballooned into regional and national fights over access to rivers and lakes — and eventually the ocean itself. Big cities were no longer permitted to drain bodies of water dry. Urban sustainability became a must, as people empowered by the networks brought water back into the commons. Bottling companies had their rights stripped, and were only allowed an administrative role, alongside former government utilities, as distributors of a free resource according to the demands of the mycelium. Big Fish also had to go — most of the plastic waste in the ocean was fishing nets, and most industrial waste ended up dumped in the ocean. At the height of their power, the networks were strong enough to coordinate rapid and wide-ranging restoration efforts, especially across coastlines. In a matter of years, our beaches were healthy and our taps trustworthy again.

People start making their own electricity

As mentioned, the mutual aid groups in Phase 1 helped folks keep the lights on, especially those impacted by natural disasters. In Phase 2, solar tech reached its zenith, with ever cheaper and more accessible installations, devices, and materials. Local power grids sprang up alongside water systems, and legal battles ensued over disconnecting from the grid.

Phase 3 meant taking on the power companies. They were dismantled and replaced by localized decision-making and maintenance, which was increasingly easy to do as they kept declaring bankruptcy after causing disasters like the PG&E California fire in 2019. The hard part was convincing the government to let people build and operate their own systems.

The biggest win here was taking down Big Oil. A tipping point was when the airline industry became the first to get rid of overhead and become the first worker-owned and operated industry. This set off a domino effect, and soon other industries followed, especially truckers and shippers — postal and delivery services were suddenly not-for-profit, and the planet thanked us for the dramatic decrease of waste. This buildup of sustainable practices and values meant that the auto industry also failed, leaving cities and communities free to rebuild themselves without cars at the center.

People start creating their own information systems

When the mycelium networks were first getting started, people shared info on privacy, security, and platforms as we learned how to balance the digital-analog space and act together. In Phase 2, DIY culture became cool again: repair cafes started popping up, which quickly led to right-to-repair laws. People were making, sharing, and fixing their own devices, and connecting them via distributed mesh networks such as those pioneered by HydroponicTrash. Decentralized social media platforms, like the fediverse, saw a surge in popularity and were widely improved upon. Open-source technology flourished, spurring on an anti-copyright movement that eventually challenged intellectual property rights.

By Phase 3, the knowledge commons was making a comeback. Largely in response to the demise of journalism and the dark age of traditional social media, public projects like Wikipedia, The P2P Foundation, GitHub, and Z-Library took over the scene. Planned obsolescence fell out of style, and streaming services atrophied because they couldn’t keep up with the free alternatives. Eventually Big Tech lost their legal monopolies over the information system.

Another tipping point in the battle for free knowledge was the closing of the schools. Public schools were already under attack from several angles, and unfortunately that never let up. Private schools puttered on in gated communities, buoyed by rich donors and reclusive elites, but for the majority of people education became an organic and integrated part of everyday life — not a separate world where young people are siphoned off and confined to classrooms while the rest of us work. Libraries became an epicenter of the new counterculture, fiercely defended as the physical institutions necessary for maintaining this new way of life. The knowledge commons was immaterial, but people viscerally understood the need to have physical spaces, a real-life commons too, to keep this thing from falling apart.

People start managing their own land

In the 2020s, no one could afford rent anywhere in the United States on a single minimum wage income. So from the start, people in the mycelium networks understood how crucial housing and land ownership was. We helped each other move, pay rent, and avoid getting evicted, sharing furniture, babysitting, and household chores. Many folks also moved in together, making the queer fantasy of polycule communes a regular urban reality. Co-housing was different than having random roommates, because it was through the networks that people met each other and developed trust.

Phase 2 brought in co-housing on another level: community land trusts (CLTs), like those pioneered by Koinonia and others in the mid-1900s, became an effective model for collective land ownership. People experimented with tiny-homes, mobile homes, becoming digital nomads, and living off-grid. Urban planning, finally free from the auto industry, created more green space, mixed-use buildings, and walkable cities. Public rest installations, inspired by The Nap Bishop, became a staple of the new culture.

Of course we had to take on the landowners, construction companies, and developers, and in Phase 3 we did. People asserted their right to determine the kinds of buildings and physical spaces they live in. CLTs grew large enough to drive out developers, and tenant unions imposed rent caps and demanded affordable housing.

A huge turning point was housing the homeless. By the 2020s, there were about 650,000 homeless people in the US, and over 15 million unused properties. Well that was a quick fix! But good gracious was it a painful slog to get there: that process involved occupying public and private facilities until the authorities ceded, like in Sunvault. It meant protecting squatter settlements, like in southern Spain. Thankfully, by this point the mycelium networks were so established that we were able to mobilize large numbers of people almost anywhere in the country, and especially in urban centers. All unused properties were seized and redistributed, not by the government but by private citizens ourselves, working in concert with each other for the greater good.

In fact, the entire world began to understand just how serious we were about autonomy and independence when one city got nominated to host the Olympics and flat out refused. What’s more, Big Brother couldn’t do anything about it.

People start defending themselves and solving their own conflicts

We found ourselves on the wrong side of the law almost from the beginning. It’s not that we were contrarians just looking for a reason to buck the system — it’s that so many of life’s basic necessities were bound up in red tape. So we began coordinating legal aid for each other through the burgeoning mycelium networks, as problems arose in every other sphere. We also did prisoner support, reciprocal exchanges where folks would send encouragement and supplies in, and our friends behind bars would send letters and updates back. When the authorities caught on this quickly became illegal, which simply escalated the tension and increased the volume of communications sent to and from the prisons.

At the same time, as we moved into Phase 2, we developed alternatives outside the legal system to solve conflicts. Abolitionists led the way, with centuries of experience in fostering peace instead of violence. People realized they could help victims get to safety or confront a perpetrator the same way we organized everything else. We called the police less often, and dealt with domestic violence directly. Sharing childcare and eldercare meant that parents got more support, and the co-living experiments meant that people had a broader community around them to help avoid or recover from abuse and neglect.

Letting go of the appeal to authority led to a general rewriting of relationships, where the sharp lines between friend and family blended — where folks established a more collectivist culture to counteract individualism, one based on free association and mutual interest, not blood relations or religion. It’s all chosen family. And just like with agricultural reform, straight white guys got a lot of credit for popularizing what feminists, queer folks, and indigenous peoples had been at for a long time. But we don’t hold it against them — better that we all get enlightened, no matter how who or when!

The stakes were high: legal action from someone inside a network against another person in that network caused problems for the whole network, if not put the whole community at risk, so it’s better to do it yourself. Also some elements were clandestine, and people generally understood that they’ve got a good thing going on and didn’t want to ruin it for themselves or others.

This was the heart of the cultural shift: we really can rely on each other, especially because no one else is coming to save us. We are all we need.

The networks grew fast — outpacing the courts, who couldn’t keep up with the complexity. In Phase 3, this of course led to the biggest confrontation with both the state and capital. We took on the whole carceral system and its monopoly on violence. As the government realized what it was up against, they started arresting more and more of our leaders and public figures — which was a huge mistake. We had already ceased to rely on them to solve our problems. Now they were tearing apart our families. Especially as more white folks found themselves behind bars, racial solidarity against mass incarceration grew exponentially.

By far the biggest moment was when a whole prison got torn down. We formed a combined internal-external force that overwhelmed the prison guards, the families of the guards, and every politician and corporation invested in the prison. The symbolism was staggering, the slave labor stopped immediately, and the networks proved that chaos doesn’t erupt when law and order break down, because we were more than willing to welcome the former prisoners home — they’d been connected to us for so long already.

At that point, to stop a total revolution, the state had to make a choice: either bring in the tanks, or make major concessions to keep existing. But they knew that if they did try to put down this rebellion by force, they faced mutiny from the military. Recruiters had been decreasingly successful, seeing as fewer people needed the military for basic needs, and as the nationalist brainwashing had been cut down to size in the information revolution. Also, who was helping veterans and their families? We were.

So the bloodshed never happened. The state backed down — and it was clear they wouldn’t stand up again.

People start doing what they want when they want

The story of how we killed the economy — no more work, no more money — deserves a whole volume in itself, so I’ll just lay out the contours of what happened.

In Phase 1, while the mycelium networks were just getting started, the first layer of resistance was in sharing goods and services free of charge, and distributing the monetary burden of large bills to the collective. It was also about the division of labor, especially domestic and household labor, the key linchpin of sexism and ageism towards women and children. Women especially benefited from the growing networks, and children enjoyed a much larger and more welcoming social world.

Then Phase 2 was about directly interrupting the supply-demand-production chains with moneyless (or money-less) alternatives, and using money as a tool for collective wellbeing. This looked like buying property, moving resources, building infrastructure. Phase 3 increased direct confrontation with work and capital, in that people started refusing to participate in the economy — especially as workers, but also in other ways, as propagandists or managers, and it began to die by attrition.

The ultimate win in this sphere came about when the work system collapsed: corporations become co-ops, and their assets were redistributed — not as a top-down imposition, but in response to the groundswell of popular resistance.

People finally demanded free healthcare, and refused to pay insurance bills. The stock market collapsed, which dealt a death-blow to the wealthy, who could no longer speculate on credit or debt. Banks dissolved, or transformed into credit unions and mutualist funds. International financial institutions were broken up, re-localized, and made largely irrelevant in areas where currency lost its value. The end of work meant that people controlled their own schedules; no more rush hour, no more traffic, no more pollution.

People start making their own decisions, together

Let’s go back to the beginning: we started with the nitty gritty of coordinating analog and digital connections — sowing the seeds of the counterculture. The key here is that there was no organization or institution, no centralized place, where all the decisions happened. A culture of reciprocity and care emerged, as people began to imagine and appreciate the scale of what was happening.

It quickly became clear that no one person could call the shots. Instead, there was a sort of absolute autonomy of the nodes. Whoever was there in the flesh got to make the call. This also quickly distilled the need for fast and honest communication, spurring on the Phase 2 innovations. Instead of a massive centralized database, we had a vast array of relationships. Not one single place for everything, but a thousand places with a thousand things moving in concert.

What kept the networks from splintering or being co-opted is that we were already splintered — we were already a distributed, decentralized network of autonomous cells held together by powerful relationships of care and trust. You can’t shut us down; we have our own power. You can’t turn the internet off; we have our own internet. You can’t arrest and kill our leaders; we make our own decisions independently, and everything we say and do is saved in a thousand digital spaces ready to be re-disseminated.

When it came time for a prison break, very few objected. There was a sense that this new society was making decisions as a whole, without having to say it. After the first prison fell, the rest felt like it happened almost without trying, such was the release of all the built-up tension.

Sure, some detractors left and complained to their international friends about how their country was descending into anarchy, oh the horror, but anyone part of the mycelium networks knew what was up. At this point we were internationally linked, so the militaries of the world couldn’t intervene without risking revolution at home. Hence the social contagion spread around the globe. Others picked up what we started and took off running with it.

Conclusion

And that’s the story of how we threw off the shackles of capital, smashed the remnants of the state, and entered a period of joyful celebration — unleashing a festival, carnival, bacchanal spirit that the world had scarcely seen.

And not a moment too soon: our energies are now 100% on ecological restoration. Mother Earth is running a high fever, and things are gonna get way harder before they get easier. But since we literally just birthed a new world, I think we’ll manage. Won’t you join us?