Disaster Protocols

The terrible fires in Los Angeles are a reminder that the climate is a difficult force to contend with. Many of our commons, from national parks to public transportation infrastructure, are vulnerable to natural disasters. Protocols have a long history as a preventative shield as well as a tool to ensure a swift and effective response. Several Sop alumni continue to focus on the tensions between disaster prevention and disaster companionship. Their shared goal is to improve protocols that could reduce the economic, environmental, and emotional damage caused by increasingly impactful weather events.

In Shoreline Adaptations to Flooding in Urban Waterways, Danielle Butler and Celeste LeCompte present a catalogue of protocols available for even civilians to implement in urban centers. Complete insulation from waterfronts can reduce situational awareness, limit positive lifestyle opportunities, and create its own hazards. Playback their symposium salon to learn about modern water management protocols.

Jiordi Rosales and Nathalia Scherer spent the summer of 2024 improving controlled burn protocols in California as part of their project Fire Protocols & Attention as Autopoietic Space. Forests evolved in a climate with regular fires, but decades of suppression led to the buildup of ladder fuel and other problems. Proactive burning is one of many important processes for keeping forests both healthy and resistant to canopy fires. Learn more here.

Hardened Commons Workshops

One of the SoP Program Directors gave a talk at a large insurance company this week, covering key protocol science concepts including tensions and hardness. This is the fourth iteration of this talk and workshop, and it continues to resonate with professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds.

A hardened commons is a system for producing or stewarding shared resources that is made exceptionally resilient to capture, enclosure, and other common vulnerabilities of commons through technological means. Some examples of protocol technologies: Encryption, strong contracts regimes, unbreakable commitments, physical defenses/weapons, insurance.

Coming Soon: Protocolized 2.0

As part of a not-so-secret plan to upgrade Protocolized, we are accepting pitches for longform contributions. The aim is to create a publication that's a hybrid between old Astounding science fiction magazines and contemporary science journals like Nature. Each issue will feature a research essay, case study, or short story as well as an artisanally hand-prompted “cover” image generated by a renowned AI.

To submit your pitch, complete this form and we'll get back to you if there's a potential fit. If your pitch is accepted, the expectation is that you will have a 1,200 word piece ready to go within two weeks. We have a number of small grants set aside to fund this work. Time to protocol-pill the world!