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Researcher Salon with Sarah Friend | Good Death

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Sarah Friend presents her Summer of Protocols research 'Good Death,' arguing that protocols and digital worlds (MMOs, blockchains, NFT projects) don't have a binary alive/dead state but undergo a liminal 'dying' process followed by a social decision of death, analogous to the historical evolution of medical death diagnosis (heart death vs. brain death) and anthropological rites of passage. She introduces Venkatesh Rao's concept of 'world' as what grows atop a protocol, examines memorials embedded in blockchains (e.g., Hal Finney-style tributes), dead-blockchain lists, and Ethereum's difficulty bomb as a case of engineered protocol mortality, closing with questions about what archives or memorials are appropriate for dead digital worlds.

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Topics

brain-death-and-legalsocial-death-analogies-applied-to-protocols dead-blockchain-lists-and-order-of-protological-death death-as-process-vs-death-as-decision-liminalliminal-state ethereum-difficulty-bomb-as-momento-mori-protocol-mortality-mechanism fiction memory protocols research researcher-salon world-per-venkatesh-raos-worlding-framework-as-what-grows-on-a-protocol