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In Episode 3 of The Human Layer, we sit down with Graven from FlowState and SuperFluid DAO delegate to explore how streaming money could transform open source funding, creator support, and community resilience.
Together—with me holding the community thread, Taylor bridging philosophy and systems, and Graven grounding us in pragmatic infrastructure—we unravel how traditional grant ecosystems, while valuable, often reward noise over depth. As Graven puts it plainly: “I can’t be successful in that environment.” These systems break concentration and force creators into cycles of marketing over making.
It shifts funding from a transactional one-off to a continuous, relational flow—mirroring the evolution from boxed software to SaaS. With this shift comes a different kind of contract: supporters aren't just acknowledging past work; they're betting on future value creation. This creates alignment, predictability, and the space for deep work to thrive.
But this episode goes far beyond economics.
We dive into how communities can compost chaos instead of fracturing under pressure. Conflict, if metabolized properly, can become fertile ground for growth. From my experience in dev and impact communities, I emphasize how each context demands its own “playbook”—one that recognizes nuance, emotional complexity, and the power of collective transformation.
Taylor’s healthy skepticism sharpens our inquiry, while Graven grounds our abstractions in open source systems thinking. We surface a shared insight: long-term resilience requires both intimacy and coherence—a fractal architecture of small, high-trust pods connected through interoperable scaffolding.
As the conversation turns toward emerging tech, particularly AI, we find ourselves on what we call “the razor’s edge.” Can we use AI to bridge ancient wisdom with modern dilemmas, or are we just building smarter tools for extraction? We recognize we’re in another Oppenheimer moment—where the stakes exceed our control, and our myths must evolve just as fast as our models.
In this episode, we name the stakes, challenge the narratives, and sketch the early architecture of a future built on flow, compost, and meaning. Join us for a bourbon-fueled exploration of what it means to preserve the human layer—when the systems around us are rapidly transforming.
