Pledging Allegiance to All Humankind

A Personal Tribute to The Venus Project

By Harald Neslein  Sandø

What if the future of humanity wasn’t a dystopia to fear, but a vision to build? 

What if we stopped pledging allegiance to lines on a map, and instead pledged allegiance to each other?

That’s what The Venus Project (TVP) dares us to imagine — and for some of us, that imagination sparked an entire life path.

How I Met The Venus Project

Back in 2008, after years of reflecting on what a truly humane and sustainable world could look like, I discovered something that felt like the answer I had been waiting for. The Venus Project’s vision of a global resource-based economy, guided by science and human well-being rather than profit and politics, struck a deep chord. It didn’t just inspire me — it challenged me. It made my own thoughts and dreams feel suddenly more real.

Then in 2010, after moving to Sweden, I heard that The Venus Project was doing a World Tour with support from The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM). I had been working in video production, so I reached out to the organizers and asked if they needed someone to film the Stockholm lecture. They did.

The talk was electrifying — not only because of the ideas presented, but because of the clarity and urgency behind them.

🎥 You can watch the full 2010 lecture here:  

👉 The Venus Project in Stockholm (2010)

Filmed and edited by me, with additional footage from others.

After the lecture, I had the chance to speak briefly with the founders — Jacque Fresco and Roxanne Meadows. I learned they had been dreaming of turning their vision into a feature film for over 30 years. That stuck with me. I offered to help. I wasn’t a Hollywood screenwriter, but I had a background in video and storytelling, and I suggested that we could co-create the story by inviting input from the global TVP and TZM communities.

They politely declined. They were holding out for a professional writer from the film industry.

I respected that. But something had already started growing inside me. A spark I couldn’t ignore. So I did what I had offered them — but on my own. I launched a project called Waking Up, starting with the site wakingupmovie.com, and invited people from the TVP and TZM Facebook groups to collaborate. The response was overwhelming.

People from around the world wanted to be involved — submitting one idea after the other to the storyline. I made it clear that all contributions were to be donated. This wasn’t about ownership. It was about vision.

Still, none of the early ideas — including my own — felt quite right. I knew something deeper was needed. Something that went beyond blueprints and utopias. It had to be a real story. A human story.

So I kept writing. And writing. And writing. <and ended up writing 99% of the screenplay myself

From Spark to Story

Years passed. I lived through many changes, including a massive stroke in 2015 that reshaped my entire life. But the idea never left me. And eventually, what started as a movie concept evolved into a novel: Waking Up – a journey towards a new dawn for humanity.  

Not a feature film — at least not yet — but a short film-and a book so far.. A novel that explores what it might mean to awaken into a world without fabricated scarcity built on a Natural Exchange System instead. A story that imagines not just a better world, but an experience of it — one that still honors the complexity of being human.. 

The DNA of The Venus Project runs through this book. Though it’s not officially affiliated, it shares the same dream.

Honoring the Founders

None of this would have happened without the tireless work of Jacque Fresco and Roxanne Meadows — the visionaries behind The Venus Project.  

Jacque, with his background in industrial design and systems thinking, spent his life imagining how we could restructure society from the ground up. Not just patch the broken machine — but design a new one that actually serves humanity and the Earth. Roxanne, with her relentless dedication, filmmaking skills, and grounded intelligence, helped turn his vision into something the world could actually see and hear.

Together, they built not only a physical research center in Venus, Florida, but a philosophy that continues to inspire thousands — including me.

They didn’t just propose another ideology. They offered a design — a plan rooted in cooperation, technology, and empathy. And they’ve stayed true to that mission for decades.

Why The Venus Project Still Matters

Today, as climate chaos worsens and inequality deepens, The Venus Project is more relevant than ever. It dares to say: war, poverty, and human suffering are not inevitable. They’re symptoms of outdated systems — not human nature.

TVP reminds us that with enough vision, science, and collaboration, we can design a world where everyone thrives. A world where we no longer compete over resources, but share them intelligently. A world not of sacrifice, but of synergy.

A New Kind of Allegiance

The phrase “Pledge allegiance to all humankind” isn’t just a slogan. It’s a reorientation. A declaration that we are ready to outgrow tribalism, nationalism, and artificial division.  

That we are citizens of one Earth — and stewards of each other.

 Closing Words

This tribute is my thank you. To Jacque. To Roxanne. To everyone who still dares to believe that a better world is not only possible — it’s necessary.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s already being born through us..

Let this be my pledge.  

To all humankind.

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About the Author:  

Harald Neslein Sandø is a Norwegian writer, filmmaker, and visionary currently living in Spain. His debut novel Waking Up imagines a post-scarcity world awakened from the illusion of money.