# Does your money align with your mission? *organic article by cstreet* Fiat currency, the US Dollar in my world, remains a violent, colonial currency backed by weapons and dark triad power dynamics. Functioning in that world as a business owner has always been an absolute struggle for me. **And now, given the state of my country, I want nothing to do with the dollar.** But, I still live in a reality that requires me to pay an exorbitant amount just to live in America, so I must play the game.  So...how do we play this game and not succumb to the worst aspects of capitalism? How do we navigate these economies in transition and still sleep at night with a roof over our heads and food in our bellies? Because if the powers that be have their way, **we’ll have sold our souls to this devilish dollar and will still be sleeping on the streets with empty bellies.**  > We return to the fundamentals of our technology and drastically shift our mental models from USD to ETH. USD equals debt, violence and colonization. **ETH represents energy, networks and community.** USD represents a dying regime of extraction, greed and death. ETH represents sovereignty, value and autonomy.  Our Ethereum ecosystem, and crypto in general, has serious issues surrounding narratives, and in many instances the wounds are self-inflicted. **For whatever reason, our ecosystem has chosen to NOT create one cohesive narrative for all of us to understand and claim as our North Star.** In the absence of that narrative, because goddess forbid someone in a system filled with petulant manchildren deploy something called “marketing” to get everyone on the same page, centralized corporate chains, money laundering politicians and CEOs steeped in Dark Triad mentalities can swoop in and appropriate our technology and force it into narratives that are extractive, toxic and destructive. When this happens repeatedly, like in our current cycle, good people who came for the sovereignty leave in dismay and disgust while curious humans new to our tech look at the promotion of “pimping, squirting and casinos” and run far away from us.  > As they should. When we continue to allow these extractive forces to define our mission, or at least give the illusion of mission, we are not doing our ecosystem any favors. We have the ability to pivot from those extractive models, from those greed-driven personalities and say “No More”.  We draw a line in the sand and claim our narratives. We take a “show don’t tell” approach to our technology and how we deploy it and we shed light on a different path. **A path of energy exchange, of sovereignty, of community-- and we bring those who are curious or who resonate with our passion along with us.** And eventually, we’ve created a movement of humans seeking a different method of traveling through our world.  > Eventually, we create a human layer that acts as a vaccine to the extractive powers consolidating power within our ecosystem-- and beyond. My colleague and I sit at a fascinating intersection with our emerging project-- we get to redefine how we function in this ecosystem and how we interact with the world through myth-making and value exchange. We get to state that, from this day forward, we will only transact and engage in value exchange through the network we are committed to strengthening and have been for years.  Returning to fundamentals is necessary. **We must stop using our tech to tap into the worst of our human emotions, even if that casino pipeline eventually leads to “mass adoption”.** We must say “ENOUGH” to centralization of our sovereignty. And we must also say...”follow me instead.” So, we’re saying “follow me instead” at *The Human Layer.* We’re changing our mental models with “money and fiat” and shifting to “energy and value”. And we invite you to do the same, as a community. --- Check out our ETH Fundamentals Manifesto; [[We No Longer Price in Empire- A Declaration of ETH-Native Sovereignty]] & [[Mental Model Shift]] Join us!