I plan to focus on protocols as systems of social control, and their relationship to and impact on individual agency. A few goals here:

• Tell a comprehensive history of protocols that extends beyond technical protocols. My guess is that all protocols are fundamentally social in nature, but manifest at several layers of governance (psychological, physical / built environment, social, technological, cultural), which each utilize different tactics for social control. I'll look at historical examples at each of these layers
• Describe the next chapter of history. I’ll consider how protocols are evolving today: from technical, "strongly expressed" protocols, to hard-to-pin-down, "weakly expressed" methods of exerting control. Protocols are generally thought of as liberating, but when incorrectly applied, they also have the potential to reduce our agency and creative output, effectively arresting development

👉 Follow along with my working notes – updated every few weeks

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