By Georges Grosjean, a human being among others and initiator of RESET 2050.
Humanity’s future belongs to humanity. Not to those who know how to win an election, hold on to power or buy the means to be heard.
Winning a campaign proves neither the ability nor the willingness to serve the common good. Communicating is not understanding. Staying in office is not governing. I refuse a freedom that amounts to choosing a colour from a palette we are forbidden to change.
Our anger and fear are audiences for those who stage them, careers for those who turn them into power, and profits for those who own the channels. These interests reinforce each other. Meanwhile, we are asked to work harder, for longer, with less meaning.
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I do not reject effort. I reject effort presented as a destination. Especially when the lesson comes from those who share the burden least.
Our world and our lives are finite. We can change financial rules, borders, traditions and rituals. We invented them. We cannot vote away physical limits. The question is not whether rules can change. It is who changes them, for whom, and towards what.
That is why I am building RESET 2050 around an explicit ambition: global participatory democracy. Now. Not a planetary strongman. People taking responsibility together for their future, deciding what life is for before becoming trapped in arguments about how to administer it.
I am a Belgian engineer and entrepreneur writing a personal book, with publication intended for 2027. Alongside it, I am preparing a transnational organisation. The book is mine. The organisation will not be my property.
I do not claim to have invented everything. Far from it. I connect knowledge and proposals developed by others, and add some of my own. Other initiatives are working towards related aims. We need to find each other and build the capacity to act together.
The proposed framework, the Constellation, brings together human dignity and the planetary limits of Kate Raworth’s Doughnut with the psychological and social forces that move us. A framework grounded enough to guide decisions, open enough to be corrected. Shared rules, not identical lives.
This work involves giving things up. Including things I enjoy. I like meat. I like flying. I am not speaking from outside the problem.
But beyond those efforts, I want a life worth living: time recovered, security, opportunities to learn, care, meet and create. Less time consumed by compulsory work, without replacing employment with insecurity. Limits do not forbid us to grow. They force us to choose what we want to grow.
I am not proposing another permanent battle inside the same system. I propose turning our backs on that framework and building something else. But this cannot mean fitting humanity into my imagination.
So I am asking for yours.
Describe one day of your life in 2050, twice.
Face A: the world you want to inhabit. Face B: the world you fear.
Where do you wake up? How do you eat, work, travel or care for someone? What has changed in your relationship with other people and the living world? What have you given up? What have you gained?
A few sentences are enough to begin. You can develop them later, revise them and change your mind. This is not a literary competition. You do not need to endorse all my proposals to contribute.
It is politics: naming what we want to live together.
The aim is an evolving map of imagined futures, across countries and languages. Not a representative opinion poll, and not a mandate claimed on behalf of humanity. We can make agreements, disagreements and aspirations visible, then confront them with knowledge, consequences and other people’s rights. From there, develop proposals, milestones and decisions.
Imagine this exercise undertaken by millions, repeated throughout our lives. Why not every year? Our imaginations are stiff from disuse. Let us put them back in motion.
Your interest matters. Approval matters too. Neither is enough. Have you ever taken the time to describe the world you want to live in, rather than only reacting to the one presented to you?
Give yourself that time. Then invite someone else. If you belong to a collective, a publication, a workplace or a community, help carry this invitation beyond my circles and yours.
We do not need permission to imagine and organise democratically.
2050 is not a date to begin. It is a horizon for results.
Only acts matter.
Discover RESET 2050 and write your Face A and Face B.
The pilot welcomes adult contributors. Its interface is available in English; the contribution agreement and privacy notice are currently in French. Contact ggr@reset2050.org before submitting if you need an English explanation.
