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Control and Consciousness of Time

Paper Saffron Huang

Saffron Huang examines how timekeeping protocols shape human consciousness and control, exploring how different temporal measurement systems constrain behavior and coordinate collective action across distributed systems. The paper investigates whether certain forms of timekeeping are preferable to others by analyzing how protocols like sundials and distributed software systems structure human experience and freedom.

Related resources

Paper

Welcome to the Swarm

Fernández examines internet-era swarms as networked collectives coordinated through algorithmic feedback loops, distinguishing them from traditional crowds and exploring their dual nature as vectors for both misinformation and mutual aid. The paper frames swarms as fundamental organizational units of digital society, analyzing how they emerge from interconnected networks of people, bots, and content.

coordination protocol-watching protocols

Rafael Fernández

Lecture

Kickoff

In this kickoff session for Protocol School 2025, an unnamed orientation leader uses the bristlemouth fish (the most abundant vertebrate on Earth, yet unknown to most people) as a metaphor for how protocols pervade daily life unnoticed, introducing 'protocol watching' and 'protocol built' as practices for cultivating awareness. Tim then argues protocols are 'engineered arguments' that produce Whitehead advances, using an Ethereum flash-loan transaction and the concept of 'hardness' (atoms, institutions, now cryptography/code) to show how Ethereum functions as a 'mesoprotocolized world.' Timber closes by advocating a meso-level focus for protocol intervention, introducing the 'carrier bag theory of management,' tension-based protocol design, and a capability maturity model for AI adoption, alongside housekeeping for the week's certificate program.

carrier-bag-theory-of-management engineered-arguments hardness-atomsinstitutionscryptography

Tim, Timber

Fiction

A Chronicle of Lumina

In this issue of Protocolized, a Luminian protocolist named Selene describes life aboard a civilizational satellite where a grand game called the Mosaic—a glass boardgame designed to hold civilizational tensions in equilibrium—structures daily ceremonies and intellectual practice across eight circles of disciplinary expertise. The issue also announces a talk on Public Intelligence with Kevin Kelly and updates on the magazine's science fiction contest.

fiction protocol-watching protocols

Timber Stinson-Schroff