Life On STEEM—2048

It's taken a while to get here, but we're finally off the grid. All of it. Food and water—those had been available since the beginning of the world. Energy took thousands of years to solve, but solutions for the masses have existed for decades. The last to go was communications. What we used to do over public airwaves and landlines is now handled by millions of entry points on a 1 petabyte peer-to-peer network. Data, voice, video—everything freely available.

Of course, the big communication companies—wireless, internet, television—weren't happy to see their multi-billion dollar revenue streams disappear, nor were the governments that relied on those systems to effectively spy and control their citizenry, but in the end, they really had no say or choice in the matter.

Nothing could stop the global power of likeminded souls once we stopped fighting amongst ourselves. Once we figured out that it was the State and their capitalist cronies that were pitting us against each other, the barriers came down rather quickly, and there was nothing that any of the global conglomerates or the various state apparatuses could do about it.

Not that they didn't try. There was a period of three long years where it seemed like all was lost. Systems were failing, people were starving, a deep depression set in and attempting to bring order to chaos, governments imposed martial law and heavily restricted the use of any means of electronic communications.

Thankfully, though, there were tens of thousands of individuals spread far and wide, peaceful, freedom loving people who would not give up the liberties they had been enjoying. Though it required setting up an invisible underground network, one that cost them their lives if they were caught (and too many were), a resistance to worldwide tyranny eventually prevailed.

From those dark days to now, though just a little over a decade gone, feels like a lifetime. Life is good. There are no borders or barriers because there is no one trying to hold onto power and control others. While there is always someone who attempts to take advantage of others, they quickly find out that there is little to be gained by it. It takes too much work, while the rewards are relatively low.

How did we get here? There wasn't any one single event that did it, and all of the small acts involved, even if we could all agree on the most crucial ones, are two numerous to highlight in one sitting.

Suffice it to say that it took off with the development of the blockchain, after enough people realized that abundance was far better than scarcity, that helping each other was far better than merely competing against one another, and that despite our baser natures and our differences in languages, cultures and priorities, that we were all still human beings, one worldwide family, with more in common than not.

This certainly didn't happen overnight. It didn't happen without some compromises and some fairly big sacrifices by many on every side of the spectrum. To be blunt, it didn't happen, unfortunately, until it appeared everything was lost and many people were already dead and otherwise suffering. There were plenty who tried to wake and warn us before that, but our pettiness and our egos and our selfishness blinded us, until it was almost too late.

The thing is, we pushed each other to the brink, and then over, but finally, finally, where it was truly do or die, we willed ourselves back from the edge of the precipice and stood our ground in what eventually became one planetary front united in the cause of individual freedom and sovereignty.

And when that happened, the old systems and ways could not stand against the irresistible force of true human enlightenment.

While we are still wary, we do not fear tyrannical oversight or control. We go about our lives safely and securely because we're all watching each others backs. We're all concerned for the one and the many, the greater good and what's best for the individual. Everyone is allowed to live their lives in the best way they see fit, and the only law is that it not infringe upon the rights of others to do the same.

So, not every thing is perfect, but it's far closer than it's ever been in the history of the world.

I am grateful that I was able to live long enough to see it.

Top Photo by Drew Beamer on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/xU5Mqq0Chck

Second image—[Pixabay](https://pixabay.com/photos/apocalypse-war-armageddon-2570868/