Unlike stacks and platforms, protocols tend to define and regulate flows of codified behaviors rather than stocks of technological artifacts.
does this feed into improvisational ability? Because it's about flow more than artifact, it can more easily substitute or replace one artifact with another? This means the process is easier to replicate with other means when one becomes defunct or there is a better or more suited way?
Protocols often serve as boundaries between related spaces, separating regimes of behavior via soft or hard rules of engagement. What is the nature of such boundaries?
TOPOLOGY!! might be nice to do some drawings? Surely Lewin has something on this?
Protocols often mediate evolving relationships, especially ones with a natural adversarial element and endemic potential for conflict. These relationships often involve agents with long-term memories, creating an evolving historical context the protocol must handle. How do protocols accomplish such complex mediation?
I like the Underlay solution to conflicting information, which is that all old and new versions are retained and the individual must set constraints and filters to determine 'truth'. May not be useful for more technical applications. It does however point to the fact that there will be bias, perhaps it's about making the bias transparent — favouring first truth or more prolific or higher status, etc?
One gap I don't know how to solve is the continued making of meaning that condenses vast quantities of discussion and thinking data into a symbolic representation like squishing a concertina that can be built on in the future in a very constructivist way. How can computers do this in the sticky way humans do?
How do protocols mutate, and what are the limits on the mutability of a protocol beyond which it begins to lose coherence, identity, and utility?
Initial hunch is that this is related to 'good protocols' and 'bad protocols'.
Reminds me of Deep Laziness, where structure preserving figures are indefatigable?
Would also look at 'play'. Perhaps this is a feature of good vs bad protocols? If play can overlap with protocols then mutation might happen to satisfy continuation desire by augmenting to enable continued challenge (as skill improves so complexity continues — challenge and skill as the axes for Flow) see Good Business
Would need it to become more embodied over time? (see Problem of Embodiment in the Sociology of Knowledge letter)
What is the relationship between protocols and agency? Do protocols assume or require a set of participating agents with autonomy or free-will?
Initial thoughts — review later I mean, if I had to pull in some Bandura, it's bi-drectional determinism? Right? So it's influencing behaviour as an environmental factor that could also be done by thinking?
If I think about Csikszentmihalyi in Good Business on culture as a game, perhaps rules are to games what protocols are to culture? If culture is a set of norms that keep you from anomie / entropy and make spaces for alienation, then the agency of the individual may be developed over time (control over consciousness) that may allow for greater expression over agency to follow or not follow protocols. In this sense, protocols would be the default, and intentionally not following protocols (probabilistically not by chance) might require agency? That is if we are following the definition that good protocols have the Schelling point or become default and are almost invisible untill they break.
Bureaucracy may be an example of a deeply frustrating protocol?
What is the structural relationship between small-p protocols, in the sense of specific atomic behaviors like handshakes, and big-P protocols in the sense of entire behavior complexes, such as the one governing diplomatic relations among countries?
maybe come back to this - would this be dialectical? - would it be anthropologically traceable? - would attributing behavioural expressions to some underlying value systems be too hermeneutical?
easiest answer for now might be that small-p could be used as an archetype to explain big-P, but it would be a story or myth to help understand, like Zizek's toilet joke?
We offer the following working definition as a starting point:A protocol is a stratum of codified behavior that allows for the construction or emergence of complex coordinated behaviors at adjacent loci.
this is nice
Good protocols tend to form persistent Schelling points in spaces of problems worth solving, around solutions good enough to live with – for a while. And surprisingly often, they manage to induce more complex patterns of voluntary commitment and participation than are achieved by competing systems of centralized coordination.
"inducing more complex patterns" reminds me a little bit of Peter Cotton's Microprediction, does a market form around an idea? Is a protocol one of these ideas?
Appreciate the 'problems worth solving'
Because it's fresh in memory, I like this as illustrated by Chasing Venus
centripetal
wouldn't this be centrifugal? later in the paragraph, the insides are discussed as positive, so, we are seeking to overcome centrifugal forces? The ones pulling us out?
Good protocols, in short, are the embodiments of A. N. Whitehead’s famous assertion that “civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.” Not only do good protocols deliver civilizational advances, they do so in sustainable ways. “Stability without stagnation” (a guiding principle of the Rust programming language[3]) is the condition good protocols aspire to, and surprisingly often, manage to achieve and sustain for long enough to produce and consolidate significant civilizational advances.
reminds me of 'culture as a game' from Flow theorist and that Flow is actually more automatic and less effort intensive overtime. Book: Good Leadership
Deep-rooted problems get patched over and over with evermore complex surface-level fixes, leading to increasing fragility.
"building the plane while we are flying it and it's on fire over a boiling ocean. pls fix."
Good protocols learn, grow, and mature in ways that catalyze thoughtful stewardship and sustained generativity.
Very important! Need room for growth.
Also aligns with the continuation desire of play (properties of play) and tendency to change the rules when it becomes too stressful or boring (in the flow channel)
emergence of a good protocol is the recognition and diffusion of good solutions that are also easy to imitate
side note: relates to "How to meme your data" idea. In that it is easily reproducible and iterable, maybe overlaps with composable
potential link to Stigmergy too?
they “make it profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.”
Similar ideas can also be found regarding the influence of context on the expression of behaviour in the individual in Adam Grant's "Give and Take" book
The idea is about the context shaping the behaviour of the individual so that Giving is incentivised
Surprisingly often, protocols herd collective problem-solving behaviors away from tragedies of commons into regimes of serendipity.
see commons notes above
also reminds me of this incredible presentation from Tony Hsieh talking about potential for serendipity in the context of cities in this video
Related to ideas of 'surface area of luck', for which I've struggled to find an exact source. - Sari Azout talks about surface area of luck - Dror Poleg talks about Mathematical surface area here - Also used in this Multidimensional Citations paper
On the public end of the spectrum, good protocols for environmental stewardship can bring endangered species back from the brink of extinction, and restore delicate ecosystems.
Reminds me of some of the work of the Center for New Economics like: - Community Land trust program - The Commons Program
and I imagine this is strongly referencing the Yellowstone story? More here in this amazing Wollheben book
they go beyond solving the nominal problem to catalyzing generative flourishing around the activities they codify
I like the term "generative flourishing", hopefully this will be defined later. :)
These outcomes are often achieved in the face of non-trivial levels of defection, free-riding, and other bad-actor patterns.
really glad this is covered too. Nice broad definition. Other times I've seen this sort of scale or model where the system is robust enough to derive most of it's value from a small amount of contributors feels like it belongs in the Internet Scale Businesses discussion
Vehicular traffic comprises millions of objects, each weighing up to several tons, moving at high speeds in close proximity. Yet traffic is able to flow reasonably safely thanks to a relatively small set of rules, starting with a consensus about which side of the road to drive on.2.
Interesting overlap here, been digging into "scarcity" recently, that suggests that "slack" is a super important factor in roads working well (roads work bad when more than 70% full). I wonder if this holds for protocols too. Scarcity book
Joseph Lister
A moment of silence for Ignaz Semmelweis, Siddhartha Mukherjee did not forget you — book
gloom and doom which often accompanies theoretical views and cultural commentary.
Not sure which theoretical views and cultural commentary is predominantly gloom and doom. Would associate conservative statements (rather than extreme valence) with theory, perhaps this is relating to more popular media like internet bloggers and news sources / op-eds & opinions? twitter? Are these sources too ephemeral to take seriously?
Unsure.
built around default expectations of obviously worse outcomes dominating obviously better ones, and worst-case behaviors driving systemic outcomes.
this feels immediately like it might hold some water, not sure if because it's similar to entropy or because of... Not sure whether to trust feelings of agreement This is an interesting statement to me. Perhaps it's because it seems to bridge between catastrophising (which is arguable pathological), and risk management (which acknowledges there is infinite down side and limited upside) Also wonder how trust factors into this and context?
Concern here is: using emotion to get logical buy in, which is fair, but worth knowing that this is a feels like not an is
Wonder if this might also relate to play and the 3Cs
built around default expectations of obviously worse outcomes dominating obviously better ones, and worst-case behaviors driving systemic outcomes.
this feels immediately like it might hold some water, not sure if because it's similar to entropy or because of... Not sure whether to trust feelings of agreement This is an interesting statement to me. Perhaps it's because it seems to bridge between catastrophising (which is arguable pathological), and risk management (which acknowledges there is infinite down side and limited upside) Also wonder how trust factors into this and context?
Concern here is: using emotion to get logical buy in, which is fair, but worth knowing that this is a feels like not an is
Wonder if this might also relate to play and the 3Cs
“wicked.
Quick search says
The concept of "wicked" problems originated from design theorist Horst Rittel and professor of design methodology Melvin Webber in 1973[1]. They introduced the term to describe complex and challenging problems that are difficult or impossible to solve due to incomplete, contradictory, and changing information[2][3]. Rittel described ten characteristics of wicked problems in his paper "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning"[2]. — source Perplexity
Personal origin point for this: Exploring the Problem Space by Entelect Report