THE 5 GREAT WEBS
Every civilisational relay operates across five interconnected webs — the lenses through which infrastructure shapes human experience
🔴 PHYSICAL
Materials & Engineering. Roads, buildings, machines, energy systems. The tangible substrate of civilisation. Every relay begins here — fire's temperature ladder, tree's timber, road's stone and asphalt.
🟢 BIOLOGICAL
Food, Medicine & Life. Agriculture, medicine, ecology, bioengineering. The web that sustains bodies. From tree's apple-to-cider chain to engine's thermodynamic limits on human endurance.
🔵 DIGITAL
Data, Code & Networks. Computing, telecommunications, information theory. The loom's punch cards, the telegraph following rails, 95% of internet via ship-borne cables, Starlink in orbit.
🟣 CONSCIOUSNESS
Myth, Spirit & Identity. Religion, philosophy, culture, meaning-making. Prometheus and Agni, Yggdrasil and the Bodhi Tree, the Ship of Theseus, the Tao as road. Infrastructure becomes mythology.