|
The following is yet another unconventional forum method of proposing a revolutionary societal concept ...
November 12th, 2026
The young man, with a superficial knife wound to his side, desperately ran along the Manhattan sidewalk, yelling out for help and panting heavily as he passed by one closed shop after another. It was eleven past midnight, and, as onlookers walking both sides of the street did naught but stare at his life-and-death predicament, he desperately needed a place in which to find sanctuary—an open and lively business.
He turned his upper body around as he continued his run (which was slowing to a jog), aware of his wound but without knowledge as to its severity; he was convinced that the large, shadowed figure hurrying its way about 40 metres behind was the same tall gorilla who had slashed him—for but his money and his relatively cheap (about $20) wristwatch: a grand total of 45 bucks.
The young man would’ve gladly handed over everything he had of any value, but the huge thug was not at all used to such willingness, at least not without having to shank the poor sap with the goon’s seven-inch lock-blade.
“I’ll give you anything you want!” the young man shouted, even shorter of breath. “What the hell do you want?!”
Then he saw it—a brightly-lit neon-light sign, part of which blared out “OPEN,” just above the door of one of a half-dozen or so nightclubs in that small section of Manhattan: “Oh … thank God!” he gasped, arriving at the Plexiglas-protected entrance-fee-collection booth, with the nightclub’s Plexiglas-fortified entrance door (entirely covered from the inside by an opaque, red, felt curtain) and red brick sidewall right next to where he stood. He could clearly hear the sweet, soothing sound of boisterous, open-for-business activity from within
He grabbed the door handle and released a blunt grunt, as the door refused to budge an inch. This isn’t happening! he thought loudly within his weary mind’s ear. And out came another grunt as he again futilely pulled at the solidly locked door. But the light’s on! his thoughts continued, as he panicked and yanked at the door twice more. Why the f---’s it shut?!
“Uh … Thirty bucks, sir.”
“What … ? Where the …?” he muttered, desperately looking about for the disembodied demand.
“I said, thirty bucks cover-charge … if you want to get in.”
He looked at the booth beside him and the 18ish booth attendant within, staring back out at him apathetically.
“What? Thirty dollars?” he said, letting out a small breath, behaving as though he’d never seen a nightclub’s pay-booth before; he then fumbled while pulling out a twenty from his right pocket and a five from his left. He reached into his back pockets but grasped naught but lint. “All I have is twenty-five—really!” he began to beg, turning his head to see how close his would-be mugger was to him.
There, only about 15 metres away, stood the unrelenting gorilla, though still mostly a shadow figure barely illuminated at all by the streetlight, staring, glaring back at him.
“Look, mister, do you have thirty bucks or not? … Hey, I have to use the can.”
The booth attendant walked through a back door, shutting it hard behind him. The booth’s light then went dim, although the nightclub’s innards remained quite active, and the neon light was still on, bright. He was, however, nonetheless quite locked out, to unsuccessfully fend for himself, simply because he was five dollars short.
Indeed, his sole, surviving family member, his 19-year-old sister—who was sunk deep into much frustrated grief and anger—had those exact words engraved on her big brother’s gravestone: “His brief life cut short simply because he was five dollars short. Brandon Gridner, February 29, 2002 – November 12, 2026.”
June 7th, 2052
The momentum had been building exponentially on a national, continental and eventually on an international scale for the preceding quarter century—indeed, ever since the gratuitous killing of Brandon Gridner, all for naught but an incredibly small amount of money and material. It was quite unusual, especially for the New York region of all places, but his story, his completely avoidable death due to but $5, intensely resonated with the people of the U.S. as well as Canada from that day on as being a violent event that was simply much too meaningless.
Thus, one of the greatest weights behind the historically-unprecedented, revolutionary movement to gradually, over an approximately five to six year period, eliminate all global monetary systems was the enormous and inexcusably immoral gap between the gratuitously-wealthy top-two-percent of the entire planet’s population and the bottom 98 percent, consisting of low-income and almost no-income labourers with little access to sufficient monetary means to maintain a minimum quality of life, let alone lifestyle.
Thus, Earth’s populace found itself at its most crucial juncture in time involving its entire quality of existence. Either the planet’s peoples made a 90-degree turn to ‘the left’ or perpendicularly to ‘the right’: One direction would result in a world of peace, a pristine environment, and no hunger, wants, incessant though needless illness and suffering; the other direction, however, would be regressive, imminently leading humanity (not to mention its fellow Earthly creatures) back to, though this time on a fully global scale, nightmarish, coal-dust-dark, Industrial Revolution apocalypse existence. Eventually, it would become a catastrophic-level planetary “event”; not just a recurrence of the bitter past, but rather something most horribly prolific and profound.
But as it would greatly turn out, the diverse peoples and cultures of the planet wisely chose the correct ‘turn’ through which they’d make a grand change to absolutely everything that truly mattered on ‘spaceship’ Earth.
In but a few decades, the formidable United Nations, through the requisite, full co-operation of every country, had initiated, managed and maintained an extremely (though at first much unexpectedly) successful environmental “purification project” involving all of Earth’s air, land and sea – so successful, in fact, that centuries of severe eco-toxification was actually halted then reversed to an impressively purified level of eco-system sustainability unmatched throughout recorded history.
“It turned into, like, some form of Star Trek version of Earthly society,” one Grade 8 student was famously quoted and immortalized by TIME magazine on April 10, 2138.
July 10th, 2142
Ninety hopeful years had passed since Earth’s populace, placing their unconditional trust into the United Nations, made the most profound choice of their entire history and, they’d discover, their future as a planetary collective of its entire history and future—the people, 10.23 billion in number, redirected their destiny towards the complete elimination of all pollutants and, needless to say, all foul producers of all bio-toxic elements.
Meanwhile, truly effective population control finally became a progressive reality, soon granting non-existent status to such past ordeals as the mass famines of Africa during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Furthermore, due to the complete elimination of all forms of planetary pollutants (especially ozone-depleting, carbon-based, and other, greenhouse gases) over decades of environmental progress, previously very-precarious, irregular seasonal, global weather systems stabilized, significantly alleviating the overwhelming quantity and intensity of mass, crop-devastating floods and drought. Although, because of human ingenuity involved in the matter, much credit was reserved for the rise of agricultural efficiency and eco-friendly fertilization of crops worldwide.
Just as profound, wars, be they ‘civil’ or transnational, and genocide became totally unacceptable destructive concepts of the seemingly distant past. At-peace global nations had evolved to a point at which repulsively-barbaric inhumanity was, simply put, absolutely intolerable. And the same respect for life extended to all mammals and animals, translating into all food-animal production and slaughterhouses becoming naught but past, unfortunately-entrenched institutions; thus, vegetarianism became the culinary art form to perfect for the 22nd century and well beyond.
Also progressive and profound was the refreshing concept of all nations’ societies no longer utilizing their innately inequitable monetary systems; indeed, such systems, which had instigated blatantly unethical and immoral conduct—e.g., already wealthy people making hugely gratuitous sums of money solely from other people’s very meager sums of money, or severe lack thereof, salvaged from their blood and sweat—for a so very long Earthly period. All stockpiles of gold bullion no longer were to represent individuals’, corporations’ and nations’ Earthly value but rather would be melted down for productive use as constructive elements for “clean, green” technologies (etc.).
In the stead, every person on the planet performed his or her talent(s), mostly acquired through universally-accessible (i.e., free) higher education or training, productively and contributively towards positive societal purposes, to varying degrees of progression, and in the manner which they truly desire. Thus, all citizens would learn and adapt the skills and professions of their choice, to their own fulfillment, to experience a real sense of accomplishment and satisfaction—without having to endure any anxieties over potential or actual financial-related obstacles whatsoever. And, of course, regardless of how beneficial to humanity that a person’s choice of societal contribution (i.e., ‘profession’) is considered (or even just perceived) to be, every human life is sincerely valued by the planet’s populace and various institutions (e.g., a hospital) the very same as the next human life.
In a solely and unconventional moral sense, every person would think for one’s self, how exactly does a person truly, justly “earn” $100 billion? One would conclude that to “earn” so many billions of dollars, a gratuitously-wealthy person would have to be performing some super humanitarian feat for Earth’s populace or the much-wanting eco-systems around most of the world; eliminating starvation, or alleviating a great deal of the mass suffering—e.g., through the charitable mass-distribution of much-needed medicines—occurring 24/7 around so much of this world. It simply cannot be done, everyone eventually agreed, with a strong sense of moral accuracy.
‘Payment’ or ‘wages,’ however, were no longer distributed within the same marginalizing, standard structure (as was the case for millennia) with morally unjust gaps in personal wealth and therefore quality of life and lifestyle. Rather, people were accorded fully-secured, computerized “credits” according to the time and effort that they performed as well as according to their education/training as well as the “humanity and environmental responsibility” involved in their choice of profession. There would not, however, be any societal tolerance of superfluously massive credit accumulation—such a concept of ‘compensation’ was decidedly left behind in the dysfunctional past—yet not a single nation nor citizen would be left to want for any necessity of life or of reasonable comfort of lifestyle.
Soon enough, there was no longer any lingering, humanly temptation to needlessly hoard any form of monetary wealth. Theretofore, no one would experience any compulsion to do so.
Frank G. Sterle, Jr.
White Rock, B.C., Canada
|
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
