Skip to content

One Tension to Rule Them All

Article Timber Stinson-Schroff

This issue introduces the concept of tensions as a framework for understanding complex systems that goes beyond traditional trade-off thinking, developed through the Tensions Game workshops run across multiple iterations with diverse professionals. The author argues that tensions enable problem management in infinite-game scenarios and represent a budding principle of protocol science with applications for protocol designers, entrepreneurs, and engineers.

Related resources

Article

Brackish Strategy

This monthly note examines how conflict and competition are essential rather than avoidable elements of business strategy, critiquing the popularity of Blue Ocean Strategy's conflict-averse approach. Drawing from the first month of the Protocols for Business Special Interest Group, the author argues that successful corporate strategy requires embracing trade-offs, arguments, and tensions rather than seeking uncontested markets.

article editorial organizations

Timber Stinson-Schroff

Article

Chore Protocols

This issue explores chores as a fundamentally under-theorized domain and proposes protocols as a solution to the persistent coordination failures that plague communal living arrangements. The editorial argues that while anarchist approaches fail in practice due to human inconsistency, protocolized systems can provide the structural support needed to sustain cooperative maintenance without relying on fallible human operators or institutions.

article editorial protocol

Daniel Kronovet

Article

Constructing the Evil Twin of Ai

This issue reports on SIGFPT's latest activities, including discussions on process calculi and the upcoming exploration of motion languages from robotics as a framework for understanding protocols. The editorial reflects on protocols as fundamentally different from AI systems—the "evil twin" relationship—while announcing new initiatives like the Tan Paper project and writing bounties.

AI article editorial

Venkatesh Rao