Protocolized
Monster Speculation
Today we launch a new publication dedicated to strange rules fiction
SachinMagazine
Essays, fiction, and protocol thinking — published on Substack.
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Articles
Haikus to Fly By
The Past, Present and Future of the Terminal Aerodrome Forecast
Matthew McDowell-Sweet
Obliquities
Methods, Madness, Monsters and Magic in New Nature
Kicking off the Protocol Symposium 2026
Venkatesh Rao
Articles
Securing Stigmergic Systems
An update from our special interest group for Formal Protocol Theory: rogue agents and a PI Symposium Hackathon
Patrick Nast
Articles
Trust by Protocol
How Estonia engineered legitimacy for its internet voting platform
Jason Collins
Obliquities
How the Protocol Institute is Adopting AI
What building a research institute at 100% adoption actually looks like
Timber Stinson-Schroff
Obliquities
The Crooked Timber of AI
The philosophical perils of conflating discoveries and inventions, and how to overcome them
Venkatesh Rao
Articles
Durable AI Adoption
Introducing the Durable AI Adoption guide, developed in our Special Interest Group for Business
Sachin
Articles
The Character of Public Transit Systems
Kannen leads a tour of the world's public transit systems, revealing what they tell us about the cultures and trust dynamics of the cities they serve
Strata
Obliquities
Challenges: Trivial, Grand, and Whitehead
Introducing the Protocol Institute Challenges program
Venkatesh Rao
Articles
Maintaining Everything That Matters
Matthew McDowell-Sweet and Mike Travers discuss Stewart Brand’s recently-published book ‘Maintenance: Of Everything’
Matthew McDowell-Sweet
Obliquities
2026 Protocol Symposium: New Nature
Call for abstracts open, due June 14, 2026
Venkatesh Rao
Articles
Irrigation by Protocol: When Vineyards Delegate Decisions to Networks
When vineyards can speak through data, the question isn’t whether to listen but whether we still know how to read what the vines themselves are saying
Jason Collins
Protocolized
Protocols for the Long Now
The Protocol Institute collaborates with the Long Now Foundation on three participatory cross-disciplinary labs – applications are due June 5!
Denise HearnObliquities
Introducing the Protocol Institute
Building a field and community to steward the planetary-scale process of protocolization
Timber Stinson-Schroff
Obliquities
A Primordial Computing Soup
Fostering AI art scenius, creating an open planetary network of robots
Venkatesh Rao
Obliquities
The Fabric and the Brain
Articulating agent ecologies with high-personality planetary computation
Venkatesh Rao
Articles
A Government Guide to Open Protocols
Public sector teams must go beyond the in-house or off-the-shelf dichotomy to take advantage of open protocols, which offer a unique way to manage both software costs and geopolitical exposure
Kelly Roegies
Articles
Theorizing Protocolization II: Atomic Protocol Questions
Solving real coordination problems to discover the formal laws of protocols.
Venkatesh Rao
Obliquities
Have Your Factory Call My Factory
In this installment of our Obliquities editorial column, we argue that the social kernels circulating in intelligence media are the equivalent of industrial intermediates flowing between factories.
Venkatesh Rao
Obliquities
From Destination AI to Intelligence Media
Introducing Obliquities, our new editorial column. In this first installment we propose a new idea – the social kernel – and begin to examine the logic of intelligence media.
Protocolized
Articles
Casio: Adequate Enough to Rule the World
How a cheap plastic watch became a landmark in the world of sci-fi, geopolitics and terror – and what it might mean for contemporary consumer gadgets.
Timber Stinson-Schroff
Articles
The Color of Safety
From Birren to OSHA, in reality and on-screen, how does pigment play a role in protecting workers from harm and making mistakes?
Venkatesh Rao
Articles
Finding Fault Lines within the Firm
Disruptive AI tools present an opportunity to observe business protocols that usually remain hidden. This article shares what has been revealed so far about tensions between production and authority.
rafa
Articles
Theorizing Protocolization I: New Nature
Progress through Invisibility and the Planetary Computational Tangle
Venkatesh Rao
Articles
How to Protocol Watch
Issue #84: A miniature hobby for the New Year, suitable for the aspiring intellectual adventurer and without the extravagant overhead of a seafaring voyage.
Timber Stinson-Schroff
Articles
Memory Research Group: Six Months of Reading Backward Through Time
Issue #83: Sometimes What is Remembered Most is What is Most Dynamically Changing
Kei Kreutler
Articles
Disentangling the State of Climate Protocols
Issue #78: A big little idea called durability
Cory Levinson
Articles
Coffee, Diplomacy, Contest News
Issue #76: A host of program updates from Summer of Protocols
Timber Stinson-Schroff
Articles
Bridge Atlas Episode 5: Verifiability
Issue #74: A conversation with Shreya Shankar and Justin Drake
Christine D. Kim
Articles
Bridge Atlas Episode 4: Alignment
Issue #72: A conversation with Alex Stokes and Emmett Shear
Emmett Shear
Articles
Protocol Fiction Aesthetics
Issue #71: macro, neumorphic, arcane, cryptic, fractal
James Langdon
Articles
Bridge Atlas Episode 3: Commons
Issue #70: A conversation with Yancey Strickler and Trent Van Epps
Yancey Strickler
Articles
Bridge Atlas Episode 2: Paradigms
Issue #68: A conversation with Nils Gilman and Josh Stark
Protocolized
Articles
Bridge Atlas Episode 1: Entry Points
Issue #67: Recapping the first Bridge Atlas salon
Protocolized
Articles
Generative AI in Cultural Projects Urgently Requires Protocols
Issue #65: Sociotechnical Tensions, Meetup, Bounties
Nicolás Madoery
Articles
Reflections from Memoria
Issue #61: A Memory Research Group catch-up from Memoria
Kei Kreutler
Articles
SIGP4B Update 4: Drift Stacking
Issue #60: Berlin workshop notes & Bridge Atlas preview
Timber Stinson-Schroff
Articles
SoP Fall Forecast
Issue #49: a flurry of news, events, and opportunities from around the protocol studies ecosystem
Protocolized
Articles
What is Formal Protocol Theory?
Issue #45: An Introduction to the Ongoing Work of SIGFPT
Venkatesh Rao
Articles
A Very Short Introduction to Memory and Technology
Issue #44: From the Memory Research Group
Kei Kreutler
Articles
3 Protocols for Articulating Civilizational Memory
Issue #43: Town Hall on Metropolises, Nation-States, and Cosmopolises
Protocolized
Articles
2025 Protocol Symposium
Come help Accelerate Order! Applications Close August 22
Venkatesh Rao
Articles
A SEA of Distributed AI
Issue #31: Starting at 10am PDT - Guest Talk with Author of AI Snake Oil
Sam Chua
Articles
Ghosts in Machines!
Issue #29: Writing contest, talks start in one hour at 7am PDT.
Protocolized
Articles
Tension Landscapes
Issue #23: Spannungsfelds, Free Ticket to Edge City, SF Meetup
Timber Stinson-Schroff
Articles
Risky Autonomy vs. Walled Gardens
Issue #12: A story about tensions, EigenLayer guest talk, and sci-fi contest extension
Sarah Friend
