The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols Venkatesh Rao, Tim Beiko, Danny Ryan, Josh Stark, Trent Van Epps, and Bastian Aue 1. Introduction Complex coordination problems have an air of doomed intractability about them. We speak in fatalistic terms of economics being a “dismal” science, of sociological phenomena being dominated by the
The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols | Summer of Protocols
DRAFT Version 0.99, March 6th, 2023
Dangerous Protocols - Summer of Protocols
Protocols are frequently touted as the liberating alternative to walled technological gardens, but the historical purpose of protocols has always been to simplify decision-making and reduce human agency. How do we reconcile these two narratives? I explore the dangerous side of protocols, and how their ability to drive coordination means they also have
Knowledge Networks and the Politics of Protocols
Harmony without loss of Variety; Variety without loss of Harmony.
Theorizing Protocolization II: Atomic Protocol Questions
Solving real coordination problems to discover the formal laws of protocols.
The emergence of consensus: a primer
The origin of population-scale coordination has puzzled philosophers and scientists for centuries. Recently, game theory, evolutionary approaches and complex systems science have provided quantitative insights on the mechanisms of social consensus. However, the literature is vast and widely scattered across fields, making it hard for the single researcher to navigate it. This short review aims to provide a compact overview of the main dimensions over which the debate has unfolded and to discuss some representative examples. It focuses on those situations in which consensus emerges ‘spontaneously’ in the absence of centralized institutions and covers topics that include the macroscopic consequences of the different microscopic rules of behavioural contagion, the role of social networks and the mechanisms that prevent the formation of a consensus or alter it after it has emerged. Special attention is devoted to the recent wave of experiments on the emergence of consensus in social systems.
Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization
How Control Exists after DecentralizationIs the Internet a vast arena of unrestricted communication and freely exchanged information or a regulated, highly
Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech
So I finally finished reading this and while I agree with the recommendation, I’m a little wary of some of the context it’s rooted in ideologically and I’m wondering if others have thoughts on these things. Equality in the marketplace I think the main problem with the text is that it relies heavily on the idea of “marketplace of ideas,” leaning heavily on the idea that protocols are actually good for markets specifically because they make competition more perfect (because there’s better knowled...
We need network societies, not network states — The Collective Intelligence Project
Balaji Srinivasan's The Network State posits a choice between reaction and stasis. A brighter future does not await through network states, but through network societies.
Routledge International Handbook of Complexity Economics | Ping Chen,
The Routledge International Handbook of Complexity Economics covers the historical developments and early concerns of complexity theorists and brings them into
How can open social protocols fail us in 2025 | shazow.net
Let’s compare the possible failure modes of various open social protocols: ActivityPub/Mastodon ATProto/Bluesky Farcaster/Warpcast Some scenarios I’d like to …
Decentralized Syndication — The Missing Internet Protocol
The Internet is decentralized by design. It came into being not at once, but in parts. New protocols were added on top of previous ones…
The Purpose of Protocols
Every open social protocol generates shared resources, but none has produced a governance framework adequate to those resources. So who fills that vacuum?
The Purpose of Protocols
Every open social protocol generates shared resources, but none has produced a governance framework adequate to those resources. So who fills that vacuum?
Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech
What is clear is that there is no simple solution to these challenges, and most of the ones that are normally presented tend not to deal with the reality of the problems or to understand the technical and societal challenges that likely make them impossible.
