Signal Seeking, Business Alchemy, and a Primal Plea for Moral Imagination

Q3 | 2025

AuthorAuthor

Taylor Kendal & CSteet
July 11, 2025

Greetings seeker,

As a reminder, you can still go retro and access the full Archive here and dig into my latest frames of focus here: LEF | THL | FW3 | TIS

For Q3, my aim is towards relative brevity in contrast to the Q2 marathon, Meaning, Mirrors, & Myth Engines, which I expect very few (for good reason) digested in full.

As I referenced last quarter, we've entered a new world order. The training wheels have come off, and if you’re anything like me, you too have entered a deeply complex love/hate “situationship” with AI. But it's within this unsettling, liminal space that I have found a small class of professional signal seekers, alchemists, and moral imagineers experimenting at the intersection of man, machine and morality.

My goal this quarter is to examine and elevate this new emergent class by reflecting on Season 1 of The Human Layer (THL)— a decentralized myth engine for a world in collapse. Not unlike this quarterly, THL is much more spiritual alchemy than a traditional business venture. So consider this a clarion call for the misfits.

If what follows resonates, please reach out.

❝

…because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are [often] the ones who do.

As preface, I have to express my respect and gratitude to CStreet—a friend, fellow myth-maker and the tireless engine behind The Human Layer and DesertRat Productions. Thank you for your relentless pursuit of what’s right and true!

As we bring Season 1 to a close, I can't help but be in awe of what's unfolding. Not because we built it, but because the signal is landing (deeply) with the right people. When you start a project like THL, there's no clear path towards fruition. There's nothing but a big vision, intuition, and the fear that no one will get it and the daily slog to bring it to life will all be for not.

The initial traction, both in metrics and DMs, proves the thesis of that big vision. We aren't there yet, but knowing the signal resonates with so many aligned seekers is validating and points to what’s possible.

With over 275 downloads across just 5 episodes—and zero marketing budget—we’ve proven something many are struggling to articulate, but feeling viscerally: people are hungry (and the chaos of the world around us is acting as a catalyst) for new models and forms of media that nourish rather than extract.

The true mission of this project emerges with every deep dialogue, every transmitted signal, every integrated lesson; an unlock that shows we're building the civilizational infrastructure many desperately seek as the systems we've lived within crumble at our feet. Crystal and I are building a mycelial network of knowledge weaving through the soils of our society and seeking the connections and nutrients of aligned builders that will grow the fruits our communities so desperately need.

  • Knowledge preservation systems that outlast individual creators

  • Community organizing models that demonstrate post-extractive collaboration

  • Economic experiments that prove gift economies can fund meaningful work

  • Relational templates that show how humans can work together, with purpose and without violence

What We've Discovered Together

The signals created in these first few months tapped into a resonance already present in the collective—extraction, centralization, power and late-stage capitalism are poisoning us. But our deeper human layers hold the antidote—community, preservation, protection and regenerative systems are all being built and supported by the same emergent technology that threatens us.

For a taste of what we’re cooking, here’s a recap of our first few episodes:

❝

Our exploration of post-capitalist frameworks have resonated with those seeking and building alternatives. This reaches beyond proof of concept and indicates a much deeper need to explore AND BUILD solutions for a post-extraction society.

But beyond downloads, what emerged was unexpected: a living demonstration of knowledge as commons. Each conversation became a seed, planted in our Knowledge Garden, growing into essays, frameworks, and resources that belong to all of us.

The Infrastructure We've Built

While you've been listening, we've been building:

  • A Knowledge Garden ready to transform ephemeral podcasts into extensible networks of forgotten wisdom and insights

  • The Exhale a community sanctuary for neo-technologists ready to forget the algorithm and remember their humanity

  • Gift Economy Infrastructure ready to model positive-sum reciprocity over soulless transaction

This isn't just a podcast. It's a prototype for how media could work in service of communities rather than corporations. The Human Layer is the Mother Node for a post-extractive mycelial media network that creates civilizational infrastructure with living epistemological frameworks at the heart.

Season 2: Feeding the Hyphae

So, what's next? Well, everything. Check out our 2025 Roadmap!

On the Books For July:

What Season 2 Holds:

  • Deeper dives into knowledge architecture systems

  • Living experiments in post-extractive media

  • Living Epistemological Frameworks—what they are and why they matter

  • Practical frameworks for building your own knowledge commons

  • Stories of organizations successfully preserving wisdom for future generations

An Invitation to Co-Create

As is the case with many altruistic impact efforts, we've self-funded everything and we've reached the limit of what bootstrapped passion can sustain. To make Season 2 everything it could be, we need patronage and partnership.

Four Ways to Join the Movement:

🌟 Become a Season 2 Sponsor ($5K): Co-create episodes, weave your mission into our narrative, and get first-mover access to all Knowledge Architecture frameworks we develop. We're selecting just 3 sponsors who align with our vision of media as medicine.

🏛️ Become a Mythic Patron ($25K/year): This isn't sponsorship—it's co-creating civilizational infrastructure. Quarterly strategy sessions, deep implementation support, and recognition as a founding patron of the knowledge commons movement.

💫 Join The Gift Economy: Any amount that feels aligned helps us maintain independence while proving alternatives to advertising-based media. Every contribution strengthens the commons.

🤝 Share with a Friend: Money matters, but myths transcend. Help us grow the movement by spreading the word. Share an episode, introduce us to a kindred spirit, or invite someone into the mythic fabric we’re weaving. Every ripple matters.

What We're Really Building

The Human Layer is more than content—it's a living laboratory for the future of knowledge sharing through community cultivation. We're the mother node in a new digital network, demonstrating how communities can create, preserve, and share wisdom purposefully and perpetually without extraction.

Your listening, sharing, and engaging has proven the model works. Having read this far proves your willingness to seek out the signal. Now we're ready to grow (with or without you) so we can empower more communities to create their own knowledge architecture systems and join this movement.

A Personal Note (CStreet)

Creating The Human Layer has been an act of faith—faith that others feel the same urgency to build alternatives to surveillance capitalism's media model. Your response to Season 1 confirmed we're not alone in this vision.

As we prepare for Season 2, I'm reminded that the best technologies are indistinguishable from magic. What we're building together—knowledge as commons, wisdom as heritage, media as medicine—might just be the magic our times demand.

Thank you for being part of this emergence. Thank you for believing that another way is possible. See you in the Knowledge Garden…

~Crystal
Founder, The Human Layer

A Personal Note (Tayken)

For me, THL began as an intuitive hunch—part philosophical wager, part act of defiance. A sense that beneath the noise, something more resonant was trying to break (perhaps even speak) through us. Like McKenna once said, “Nature is not mute, it is man who is deaf.” Season 1 reminded me: we’re not alone in learning to hear again.

What we’re building isn’t a brand or a platform, it’s a shared signal. A neo-ritual and rite to return to deeper meaning in a world high on spectacle and starving for truth.

I believe clarity is a form of kindness—and that consciousness, when directed with care, can be our way out of the maze. So thank you—for showing up clear-eyed, curious, and courageous. For stepping into the discomfort of the real with us. For believing, like Thompson, that “when the going gets weird, the weird must turn pro.”

As we head into Season 2, I carry a deeper conviction that wisdom is not a relic, and media doesn’t have to be a weapon. Instead, it can be a ritual, a signal, and a shared awakening. Thank you for waking up with us—for staying curious when cynicism would be easier, and for showing up… awake, weird, and ready.

If you know, you know. If you're ready, you're welcome. See you in the garden.

~Tayken
Co-Producer, The Human Layer

P.S. Know an organization that loses critical wisdom when people leave? They might be perfect for our Knowledge Architecture Systems pilot program.

Reply and let's explore.

The Human Layer: Where knowledge returns to the commons
Join the Exhale | Visit the Garden | Support the Movement

Ok, on to the good stuff...

Taykentots I'm currently snacking on:

I love hearing back and always reply, so don't hesitate. 


With ❤️ and skepticism,
TAYKΞN
LEF | THL | FW3 | TIS

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