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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.

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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.

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A Phenomenology of Protocols

Tay develops a phenomenological approach to understanding protocols as human-built systems, arguing that current protocols fail to nurture human flourishing because they were designed without centering human capacity for self-making, character cultivation, and wisdom. She contends that truly human-centered protocols must be reconstructed to be hospitable to human development rather than extractive of human attention and agency.

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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.

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