So the essay would start, "It was 26 years ago, when all of a sudden..."
All submissions for instant transformation are invited. You know, other intelligent life could do it: we bow down to a superior intelligence that wants us to be its equal and has the power to create instant awakenings.
I clicked around. Some behind paywalls. Last one that you contributed to will take time to go through, but of what I saw none are dealing with what we can do now to create system change. Hopefully money prizes will get some thinking to happen. You are such a light and would love it if you'd submit something, plus help with the word-of-mouth I'm depending on to let people know about it.
Excellent idea. Perhaps you would consider a 2150 option as well. Roughly equal to the "seventh generation" concept of Indigenous peoples. I'm 76 and I've done some calculations that suggest that my grandchildren's grandchildren, should my descendants choose to or are able to reproduce, will be about my age in 2150 (125 years from now). It is sobering to be able to hug my grandkids and know they may be hugging their own grandkids some day. What will they have gone through??!! (My own grandparents were born 1890-1900, roughly 125 years in the past.)
Incidentally, 76 years is roughly a statistical lifetime (I'm entering an OT period! <s> ) I think we should start measuring time in "lifetimes," rather than centuries, a rather "cold" number in my opinion. History takes on a different feel, at least for me, when I realize that two (concatenated) lifetimes ago from now (by my suggested measure) was about 1875 and two more lifetimes 1725, when Enlightenment ideas were first stirring.
It's an angle we don't usually see from but sometimes I reflect on, like how when my parents were born cars were just being introduced, and even when you go back to the Civil War, that seems like the ancient past, it was just 160 years ago. I set it at 2050 because it's critical that we make it till then and I'm looking for how that would happen.
I love this idea and its reverse engineering approach as well as how it’s been personalized by starting with what i did to bring that future into reality. I’ve texted the link to myself so I can keep it in existence but the thought process has already started. Thank you!
I do that a lot, where something is challenging to respond to and I write something but keep tweaking it, and by the time I finish it is usually so different from where it started and much better. I keep finding bigger, deeper places to come from. Looking forward to seeing where you end up!.
I love that you ask us to start with an Action we can take. I submitted a piece to Grist Magazine;s Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors contest (not published, likely because they prefer indigenous voices, and rightly so!) Putting on my change-the-world-one-baby-step-at-a-time Hat 👒
Glad to hear that. It's stab I took. It's more daunting to look at the world without any lens and starting with yourself gives it a grounded beginning. I hope it doesn't scare people off sand that they'll see that any idea can be fancifully teased to get yourself in the story. "I was sitting next to MacKenzie Scott at a play and she took off with what I told her...." That sort of thing.
Interesting that you mention Ms. Scott. As I was dreaming up my wild ‘how we can change the world’ story, I shared it with a young man who works at a spa that Jeff Bezos frequents. The potential for brushing up against a person with big capacity for change intrigues me.
But there are rules. You need to write as if it's 2050 and look back on how the world got saved. You'd have to think deeper, like how about the families that the culprits belong to? How did it work out for them? That sort of thing. There's something satisfying about off-with-their-heads as a creative activity, where we get to sock it to the forces of ignorance and evil, and I would like to read your diabolical fantasy written to conform to the rules of submission.
i love this question sooooooo much!!! thanks Suzanne! i just submitted :) woot!
Why should we should wait for 26 years to see significant results,
when we can imagine a new world in a few seconds? :-)
Imagine we agree to put resources in commons, and to converge at a large scale...
So the essay would start, "It was 26 years ago, when all of a sudden..."
All submissions for instant transformation are invited. You know, other intelligent life could do it: we bow down to a superior intelligence that wants us to be its equal and has the power to create instant awakenings.
Always an important mind game, with power! Here are some interesting predecessors, some with different aims: TIME: https://time.com/5669022/climate-change-2050/. WIRED: https://www.newphilosopher.com/videos/the-world-in-2050/. Times of India: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/readersblog/howtous/what-will-the-world-of-2050-be-like-42572/. National Geographic (for 2070): https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/issue/april-2020. One Day in 2050: imaginary newspaper articles on different subjects, one per day for the 365 days in 2050 (I was part of this): https://www.oneday2050.org/
I clicked around. Some behind paywalls. Last one that you contributed to will take time to go through, but of what I saw none are dealing with what we can do now to create system change. Hopefully money prizes will get some thinking to happen. You are such a light and would love it if you'd submit something, plus help with the word-of-mouth I'm depending on to let people know about it.
I'll try, it's already diarized! xx
Writing from 2050 is a unique thing. The mind doesn't work in that direction so it's a challenge to get things into that format.
Excellent idea. Perhaps you would consider a 2150 option as well. Roughly equal to the "seventh generation" concept of Indigenous peoples. I'm 76 and I've done some calculations that suggest that my grandchildren's grandchildren, should my descendants choose to or are able to reproduce, will be about my age in 2150 (125 years from now). It is sobering to be able to hug my grandkids and know they may be hugging their own grandkids some day. What will they have gone through??!! (My own grandparents were born 1890-1900, roughly 125 years in the past.)
Incidentally, 76 years is roughly a statistical lifetime (I'm entering an OT period! <s> ) I think we should start measuring time in "lifetimes," rather than centuries, a rather "cold" number in my opinion. History takes on a different feel, at least for me, when I realize that two (concatenated) lifetimes ago from now (by my suggested measure) was about 1875 and two more lifetimes 1725, when Enlightenment ideas were first stirring.
It's an angle we don't usually see from but sometimes I reflect on, like how when my parents were born cars were just being introduced, and even when you go back to the Civil War, that seems like the ancient past, it was just 160 years ago. I set it at 2050 because it's critical that we make it till then and I'm looking for how that would happen.
What an intriguing idea. Is there a word limit or any other specifications?
So glad you are intrigued. No word limit -- just some advice.
All you need is here: "It’s January 1, 2050. How, in 2024, did we pull off saving the world?" https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/an-essay-contest-its-january-1-2050
Can you submit more than one entry to the contest?
Sure. Just make them all good!
I love this idea and its reverse engineering approach as well as how it’s been personalized by starting with what i did to bring that future into reality. I’ve texted the link to myself so I can keep it in existence but the thought process has already started. Thank you!
I do that a lot, where something is challenging to respond to and I write something but keep tweaking it, and by the time I finish it is usually so different from where it started and much better. I keep finding bigger, deeper places to come from. Looking forward to seeing where you end up!.
I love that you ask us to start with an Action we can take. I submitted a piece to Grist Magazine;s Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors contest (not published, likely because they prefer indigenous voices, and rightly so!) Putting on my change-the-world-one-baby-step-at-a-time Hat 👒
Glad to hear that. It's stab I took. It's more daunting to look at the world without any lens and starting with yourself gives it a grounded beginning. I hope it doesn't scare people off sand that they'll see that any idea can be fancifully teased to get yourself in the story. "I was sitting next to MacKenzie Scott at a play and she took off with what I told her...." That sort of thing.
Interesting that you mention Ms. Scott. As I was dreaming up my wild ‘how we can change the world’ story, I shared it with a young man who works at a spa that Jeff Bezos frequents. The potential for brushing up against a person with big capacity for change intrigues me.
Great! But only one among infinite clever ways to inject yourself.
But there are rules. You need to write as if it's 2050 and look back on how the world got saved. You'd have to think deeper, like how about the families that the culprits belong to? How did it work out for them? That sort of thing. There's something satisfying about off-with-their-heads as a creative activity, where we get to sock it to the forces of ignorance and evil, and I would like to read your diabolical fantasy written to conform to the rules of submission.
Go for it!