The main reason for writing a scifi story was the the realization that among the political interested people there seemed to be next to no one who had any personal hope, that there might be a possible future that will not lead to a human or planetary catastrophe.
I believe, that if there is no hope left, then political work and action becomes useless. The only thing motivating it would be anger and hatred.
Yes, I agree with so many others that we should not close our eyes to the horrific political, economic and environmental realities of our times.
And I believe deep in my heart, that it is indeed the wide-spread realization and acceptance of the truth, no matter how disconcerting, which will give us a truly realistic hope for a better future.
For now what I witness is an attitude of utter hopelessness in all areas including academia and literature and especially in those areas of literature which concern themselves with the future, that is science fiction.
Over and over again it comes down to the same theme: The future is dystopian, this is inevitable and there’s nothing we can do about that.
The lesson to be drawn from this is of course:
Live in the present, enjoy your life, eat, drink and be merry (party as much as you can) for tomorrow you will die (or rather humanity will die).
And maybe they are right, maybe all of the Cassandras are right.
Maybe Armageddon will come and the world will end tomorrow.
But there is something inside me, a tiny little spark called hope, which doesn’t allow me to give up on the world and on the future quite yet.
I look at the children of today and I know they deserve a future, one that isn’t a dystopian mess. They deserve neither a slum-like total surveillance state with a boot on every human face, where war is peace and freedom is slavery nor a scientific dictatorship with Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon humans held together by the generous use of Soma.
“A Time-Travel Story” is written under a pseudonym.
This was done, because I do not see myself as an original author, but as someone who has collected information from thousands of sources and brought them together to make a story. This story is a vehicle for the information, and it is supposed to bring a spark of hope into a dark environment.
If this will be successful remains to be seen. What I hope for myself is, that others will be inspired to write about their own hopes for the future.
In “A Time-Travel” a potential non-dystopian future is portrayed. In this future nearly all of the world’s population, although it has risen to approximately 10 Billion people, lives in so-called “villages”.
A “village” in Hope’s world is a sovereign political entity of several thousand people, normally containing smaller entities called “communities” of several hundred people each. Direct democracy in village councils(all adults in the village are members of it) is the most important part of the political make-up of Hope’s world. But this is not a majority rule democracy, but one that demands a 95% agreement of the whole adult population before decisions can be finalized, which means long discussions and many compromises.
In Hope’s world every village has its own economic and political rules. While Hope’s village is more community oriented even in clothing styles, other villages Hope talks about are in every way more individualistic. In Hope’s village industrial production is private, while food production is “community” owned and transport- and energy-infrastructure is owned by the “village”. In those other “villages” food- like all other production is private as well.
The monetary system of Hope’s world is based on local currencies for the every day use within the “villages”, and a single interest-free international currency for trade, based on the “floating money” principle between the “villages”.
As a result of today’s war-culture, which is believed to have brought humanity on the edge of self-destruction, in Hope’s future preserving the peace is of the highest priority, to the point where all children have to undergo a traumatizing virtual war-scenario by the age of twelve to teach them what war means for the victims. As a consequence of this the people live in a near paranoid fear of war and of everything that might even potentially lead to war or violence.
This fear in turn leads to a certain narrow-mindedness.
While in Hope’s world religious tolerance is of extreme importance and religions are the foundation of public ethics, dissent on other important issues is punished by exile. This practice will eventually lead (in the story) to a dangerous blow-back.
Of course, there are many other possibilities for a peaceful future than a world which is so decentralized that the real power of political decision making lies with every local village council.
Maybe in the future there will still be power-centers, but many different ones in a multilateral world. In that world different economic and political models could also co-exist.
One possibility of an alternative monetary system is the one described in the “Money as Debt III” Video, where money is created via self-issued credit by nations as well as smaller entities like towns and cities, but also by private companies and even private individuals. This would also lead to a decentralization of economic and political power.
What I see as most important however is, that we all accept, that it doesn’t have to be “my way or the highway”. We do not have to insist on a single economic system world wide.
Why not try out different ones in small areas and look what works best?
Why not try something totally new?
Why should it be necessary to abolish religion or restrict it to one’s own home to reach your economic goals?
Why do we have to fight each other and call each others’ deepest convictions superstitions or worse?
Why should it not be possible to cooperate though we might disagree with one another on certain points?
There are a multitude of good possibilities, but unless we open our minds to them and cooperate with one another, none of them can become reality.
A Time-Travel Story will be 7-part series and it can be downloaded for free on:
Eve's Thoughts 
What, you mean we’re *not* all gonna die?!
I appreciate your unseemly optimism.
Thanks for sharing this, and best wishes with your oddly-non-hopeless upcoming series.
I don’t know why otherwise-smart folks, some of them as old as I am, act as if they can’t remember anything before yesterday’s evening news.
I’d like to believe that you and I aren’t the only ones immune to the Dark Overlord’s amnesia-inducing drug insidiously introduced to global water supplies. Now there’s an idea for a story.
Speaking of which, here’s a bit of snark I’ll inflict upon an excessively-angsty world:
It’s a scenario that might get you a movie deal – – –
Tidal waves and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions caused by global warming and the collapse of the Antarctic ice cap kill everyone in all coastal cities. Except for survivors who (what else?) die, helpless, hopeless, and after a lot of preachy dialog and screaming, when attacked by giant flying man-eating zombie cyborg piranha created when unregulated GMO corn pollutes – – – – you get the idea.
Think Frankenfish and The Terminator Meet Splice and Death on a Factory Farm in Zombieland. Actual movie titles, although I don’t recall anyone trying to combine the relevant bits of each. 😉
More seriously, some shameless self-promotion. I about the (real) Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894, and why I’m pretty sure that science, technology, and being human won’t either solve all our problems *or* kill us all, last week: “Climate Change, Whirligig Icebergs” ( http://brendans-island.com/catholic-citizen/climate-change-whirligig-icebergs/#manure )