In the vast digital landscape where connection tools grow more sophisticated daily, we face a profound paradox: our economic systems increasingly fail to recognize authentic human value. While conventional economies treat people as interchangeable productivity units and digital platforms reduce us to engagement statistics, millions find their contributions systematically undervalued or entirely invisible.

This was my reality as an engineer at a large company when I was struck with an insight I believed had incredible value for humanity. All it needed was support and the opportunity to spread. What followed was a five-year odyssey to understand what makes ideas valuable. I bounced between corporate roles, launched a startup that faltered because I prioritized understanding over profit, and joined another startup only to be fired after requesting resources for research they never hired me to conduct.

Throughout this journey, I gradually realized that value emerges as a function of networks and trust within those networks. I could observe numerous networks and identify knowledge that could help them, yet I couldn't get them to implement it—either for free or for payment. The traditional economic infrastructure simply lacked the mechanisms to recognize the type of value I was creating.

"The Memetic Foundation of Human Value" represents the culmination of this search. This paper proposes a radical reconceptualization: human value is fundamentally memetic. Our worth emerges from the ideas we generate, transmit, and transform within communities that recognize us. Unlike material resources, these memetic contributions aren't limited by physical scarcity—they multiply through sharing and recombination. Yet our economic systems remain structurally blind to this abundance, creating artificial scarcity where natural abundance could flourish.

The paper explores how communities function as sophisticated memetic filters—selectively amplifying, modifying, or rejecting ideas based on shared values. In this framework, true prosperity emerges when every person has access to at least one community that "sees" their unique value and can amplify it beyond its original context.

For me, this research represents a profound catharsis. It explains why I struggled to find recognition within traditional economic structures: I was creating value that existing systems couldn't properly measure or reward. Meanwhile, those who could see the value in my work often lacked the resources to support it—precisely because they themselves existed outside conventional value recognition systems.

The implications extend far beyond my personal experience. When we understand that "being seen" is the foundation of economic value, we can restructure our platforms, institutions, and investment models to ensure this fundamental right. This insight offers a pathway toward practical applications for marketers, product developers, and community builders—helping products go to market more efficiently by reducing them to memes that can be converted into information products at lower cost than physical ones.

This allows ideas to spread and take root while necessary physical infrastructure develops at its naturally slower pace. By recognizing the memetic nature of value creation, we can design systems that unleash unprecedented levels of human flourishing while addressing the fundamental failures of existing models.

The paper outlines both theoretical frameworks and practical applications, including Build In Public University, Chaos Marketing strategies, and Human Insurance concepts. These aren't merely theoretical constructs but actionable approaches for creating economies that treat humans not as resources to be extracted but as memetic fountains to be nurtured.

In sharing this work, I finally feel seen—not just for what I can produce, but for the ideas I've championed. My hope is that these concepts will help others who, like me, have valuable insights that don't fit neatly into existing economic frameworks. Perhaps more importantly, I hope it will inspire the creation of new systems where everyone has access to at least one community that recognizes their unique value—where being seen becomes not a privilege but a foundation for collective prosperity.