On the docket
This week's salon guest is EF researcher Trent Van Epps! He will be joining us at 1PM ET (5PM UTC) on Wednesday, March 27 to talk about Capital and Enclosure in Software Commons: Linux & Ethereum. You can find the pre-reading and link to the livestream here.
More goodies for your Protocol Kit
Module 2 essays and artifacts are live!
The broad themes of this collection of kit inserts are memory and time, which are arguably central concerns in the study of protocols. Throughout the program, many of us found ourselves circling these themes repeatedly and were left convinced that to study protocols is to study memory and time.
Anchoring this exploration, we have Kei Kreutler’s essay, Memory as Orientation, and Chenoe Hart’s study of spatial addressing schemes, Addressable Space. The other essays, artifacts, and fictions explore the many subtleties of the core themes and offer ways to develop your intuitions around them.
This package also includes a bit of institutional memory-making of our own: the archival form of the pilot study that kicked off this program, The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols.
Call for Applications is still open
Both PIG and PILL application volumes are picking up, with eight RFCs posted on the forum so far. There are 18 days left to apply! Share your RFCs early and make sure to get your whole application in by April 12, 2024.
The program is open to ideas from any background, blockchain or not. If that open-endedness is paralyzing, it might be helpful to know that the following domains are of particular interest for SoP 2024:
Protocols for AI and robotics
Protocols for governance and public policy
Protocols for management and organization design
Protocols for art and culture production
Protocols for climate action/terraforming
Know someone brilliant working in these domains? Send them our way!
Latest from the world of protocols
Last week, Venkat and Tim ran an information session about SoP 2024. A guest talk by Jonathan Grant and Nils Clark followed immediately after, which turned out to be a great starting point for people dreaming up protocol improvements. Their challenge to us:
How can we use protocols to improve planetary-scale governance?
People are sharing pictures of their new Protocol Kits in this forum thread. If you're a freshly anointed member of The Fellowship of The Kit, be sure to capitalize on this chance to show off your loot!
Protocol Watch caught some great IRL protocols this past week, including car control standards, bird feather collection, and – drum roll please – the famously protocolized Mission Burrito of Chipotle.
