Economic OS 2.0

CStreet

24 Feb 2026 — 8 min read

What if this collapse we're all swirling through is simply a portal to a complete economic overhaul? What if we all collectively hit the fuck it switch and return to local economies, mutual aids and the salons of the past to support our humans as we barrel through to the other side of capitalism?

Let’s reimagine our own regenerative economy. One that is built on mutual aid, reciprocity and equanimity. Let’s bake the compassion and empathy into how we transact with one another again. Let’s redefine how we exchange value in a way that creates circular economies.

We didn’t always have this cut throat economic structure that made suppression and colonization the only pathway to profit. For centuries, we had patrons, salons, mutual aid networks and hyperlocal markets that weren’t just “weekend feel good farmer’s events” but real markets where humans bartered, traded goods, stories and engaged in community on a deep and sustaining level.

But first, I'm gonna rip the band-aid off my own story the past year or so, as I sometimes do, so that everyone caught in a similar web (and there are millions of us) can find some solace in my ridiculous (and very real) story. If you want to skip the vulnerability and just go right to the support page, here ya go.

Since November 2024, I’ve been un/under employed. My story is not unique, it is now common. And I harbor no shame in sharing this story because I have done the deep shadow work on my own scarcity mindsets and I know these are systemic, structural problems, not a reflection of my skills or abilities at adulting.

The past year+...hundreds upon hundreds of job applications submitted, ghosted or rejected (literally only 2 interviews and both used me for leverage for their targeted hire), side gigs that become ephemeral when no one is looking, proposals sent and ghosted, experimental services built but easily replaced by the next AI model update– everyone knows many people who are living this exact story. Or worse.

The biggest challenge of it all, besides survival, is not internalizing the structural failures that make this a reality for millions.

We need to reimagine our economic operating systems and we need to do it fast. Like, yesterday. The government has been co-opted by the oligarchs and gutted. Our neighbors are disappearing off the streets. Our jobs are evaporating completely and no knowledge or screen worker will be spared. We’re all just moving the deck chairs on the Titanic, looking to the horizon for more life boats and seeing nothing but icebergs.

The lies of “trickle down economics” and the “free market” are just that– lies. The market was never free and the economics never trickled down, resources only flowed up. And that class at the top pushed the systemic failures onto the laborer and the government, convincing people that if they "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps like the generations before them, they'd build that American dream."

Those of us who grew up in the Regan years, under that trickling slogan have now lived the full arc of this failed theory with 3-4 massive economic collapses throughout our professional careers and a current concentration of wealth that most likely ends in violent class warfare.

Now WE are the ones being crushed by a labor market that only ever viewed us as dispensable because the market is “free”. I’m calling bullshit on all of it– as many of my fellow GenXers (and most of GenZ/Alpha) are doing now in real time as we watch our expertise and our knowledge completely decimated by tech-billionaires and corrupt pedophiles cosplaying as politicians.

Enough.

Let’s reclaim our sovereignty and build different economic systems that support everyone, not just the wealthy or those who tow the line of the patriarchy, but a system of reciprocity and mutual aid.

Let’s bake the compassion and empathy into how we transact with one another again. Let’s redefine how we exchange value in a way that creates circular economies. Let’s lean into our communities and support one another.

I am a producer. A storyteller. A photojournalist. A writer. A community builder. A strategist. A tantrika. A technologist. An advisor. A mentor. A daughter. An auntie. A dog mom.

I produce powerful conversations with my co-host Taylor at The Human Layer. We tend a massive knowledge garden spawned from our conversations. We’re spiritual and philosophical guides (dare I say “elders” in a niche technological ecosystem that skews very young). We will never place our podcast in the marketplace with sponsors or ads (we tried last year and it felt slimy AF). We believe too deeply in our art to expose it to the toxicity inherent in the extractive systems of the existing marketplace.

I help impact orgs and startups tell their story through strategic communications. I built a CommsOS system to help founders and leadership teams create consistent outputs using AI that, in theory, preserve the humanity in their content (and aren't pure slop). I built this because AI kept eliminating my expertise. The “just let the intern do the comms” mentality is prevalent in almost every org and it’s why so many fail slowly over time. Outsourcing the communications of your org’s mission to an untrained machine or someone with zero communications experience or instinct is a recipe for failure. It's a cancerous tumor that slowly consumes the host. I’ve seen it thousands of times over the decades and had a front row seat for a few of those failures. I’m testing this system now with a handful of non-profits and will make the process open source once I’m done.

I rage write. I transmute bullshit into beauty in an attempt to use my tantra practice to compost the absolute devastation of late stage capitalism and collapse at the hands of the ruling class. My essays will never be behind a paywall nor will they be at the mercy of the algorithms owned by the ruling class. I publish on open source software, to the blockchain when possible and keep my essays and teachings free for all. I share them via email, Blusky (decentralized-ish) and LinkedIn (the only algo that I share my writing through).

I’ve been a volunteer at a journalism DAO for 5 years now. We’re merging with a sister DAO and inheriting a 501c3 to support our work. We build decentralized protocols and apps to support independent journalists, the preservation of fact and will be creating incubators for builders and journalists looking to retool their skills for an economy in transition. My CommsOS will be open source and distributed through our incubators (once I finish testing it with my initial cohort of non-profits, we’re 1/2 way there). Please email me at [email protected] if you'd like to support our mission.

I’m an advisor for 4 orgs/non-profits in the areas of emergent technology. These non-profits are focused on helping students, learners and every day people adapt to systems in flux through emergent events, credentialing, AI education, safety and decentralization.

I do all of these things outside of the formal economy. No one pays me for any of it (except the startup comms work), and I do this work because its how I contribute to the future I want to manifest for the generations behind me.

I have tried to find methods of monetization for most of it, simply to enable me to keep doing it all at scale, but those efforts did not work. And if you’ve been following my journey here long enough, you’ve seen many of those experiments roll out, then roll back in. I’m a firm believer in experimentation– with everything. I never completely kill an idea that didn’t catch, I simply compost it all and keep what resonated. Then I incorporate the best parts into the next experiment.

So here we are. Redefining how we make a “living”, finding ways to ensure that we actually are “living” and not just crawling to the next mirage of stability in whatever extraction play du jour is offering the illusion of sustenance and survival. Many of you are in the same boat as me. I know because you tell me so, and I see your posts.

And many of you also know that you’re one executive decision to increase stockholder profits away from watching a lifetime of knowledge work evaporate.

If that happens to you, dear one, I ask that you don’t internalize the system designed to extract your gifts and discard you when they’re done. I ask you to protect the skills, the beauty of your craft and the passion that led you down the path of your work and try to find another place for those skills to be of use for others – but also of use for your soul.

The amount of sheer brilliance and talent that the economy is shedding now is beyond heartbreaking. But, the rebirth of those skills in your own regenerative container is where the beauty in the collapse lies.

To be clear, collapse is here and that is the twisting feeling in the pit of our stomachs that we’re all experiencing but many haven’t named yet. If, like me, you’ve been scraping survival off the shoe of the oligarchs for the past 12-24 months, that turning of the stomach is your daily reminder that you actually have been removed from the system and survival is on you. But the catch is, there are no more bootstraps to pull yourself up by. The ruling class went ahead and cut that shit off when they let you go.

And while the stress of survival in 2025-26 is no joke and shouldn’t be minimized if you are on this journey, or will be soon, remember this: humans are resilient. We are creative creatures and many of us are wired to seek alternatives and find ways of thriving outside of the traditional mechanisms capitalism sold us as the be all end all of identity and existence.

If any of this resonated and you’re ready to participate in some regenerative economics here’s your next steps:

Go to here and support in whatever way you’re called to (sharing is support too).
Fork that page and make it your own. I built my site on Ghost.org, which I love and trust and is open source. Also insanely simple to use and the monthly costs are affordable if you're using their platform for distribution. Start with the free version and go from there.
Find some hyperlocal groups on meetup.com in your area of expertise and go to their events. Listen and learn. Find like minds and seek out those who are building alternative economic systems or mutual aid orgs. They are present at almost any technology or communal aid meetup.
Go find someone on LinkedIn from your personal or professional networks who is in the abyss of un/under employment and just send them some love. If they’re local, invite them out for coffee. If they’re far away, just ask them how you can support and let them know they’re in your thoughts. It really does matter. I wouldn’t have made it this far without my humans. Period.
Have coffee/tea dates with your “people” – the 3-5 humans in your close circle who witness your struggles, share their own challenges and together you find co-regulation and deep, soul-level connection. My calendar may not be filled with Zoom meetings now, but it is filled with long, beautiful conversations with a handful of humans I love deeply, my ride or die bitches & bastards, and we just let it all hang out and ground down together. It’s the only way this collapse is survivable.

Please share this with someone in a similar boat. And if you’re not in that boat yet, but can see the icebergs on the horizon getting bigger and the danger more imminent, start building your exit ramps now. Stand up your portal to channel your passion, share your gifts with the world and find a means of reciprocity for your community.

What have you got to lose? Nothing.

And what do you have to gain? Everything.

If this landed and you want to participate, just click this button or visit this page to learn more about the work you can support.

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