Protocol Lexicon
566 termsTerms coined, adapted, or specifically defined within the Protocol Institute corpus. Sourced from across the PI research library; definitions reflect how they are used in that body of work. This is a living document — updated as the corpus grows.
abbreviated route
PI-specificA theoretical or actual path through space optimized for a particular mode of transportation that would be inefficient or non-existent for other modes.
Addressable Protocol
A
abbreviated route
PI-specificA theoretical or actual path through space optimized for a particular mode of transportation that would be inefficient or non-existent for other modes.
adaptive shorelines
PI-specificWaterfront management approaches that embrace dynamic change and ongoing adjustment rather than attempting to maintain fixed, static conditions.
addressability
PI-specificThe quality or capacity of a spatial system, place, or entity to be identified, located, referenced, and engaged with through systematic means.
addressable protocol
PI-coinedA systematic method for describing or navigating spaces by making their structural elements legible and actionable through standardized counting or directional systems.
addressable protocols
PI-specificA framework for analyzing how spatial systems become identifiable, locatable, and actionable through systematic protocols that enable reference and interaction across multiple scales.
addressable space
PI-coinedPhysical space organized through abstract informational systems — addresses, numbers, QR codes — that decouple physical presence from informational access. A space can be physically open but informationally closed; or physically restricted but informationally accessible.
Physical space organized through abstract informational systems (numbers, addresses, labels) that enable random access to locations, similar to how computer memory uses address codes rather than sequential access.
afterlife
PI-specificThe state of a protocol or world after its death, where secondary ways to engage with it may still exist, or from which new living worlds can be spawned.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
aftermath
PI-coinedThe stage following exit from a protocol system, during which a person is no longer bound by the system's protocols and must navigate what comes next.
agency
PI-specificThe set of actions available to an individual or group, determined by their spatial and temporal circumstances, that enables them to participate in or shape protocol-mediated parts of the built environment.
agile industrial complex
PI-coinedA self-perpetuating ecosystem of consultants, thought leaders, and institutions that profit from continuous promotion and implementation of agile methodologies, creating perverse incentives that prevent protocol evolution.
agnostic adjacent networks
PI-coinedNetworks where a protocol can be followed by all members regardless of personal preference, because the protocol is universally compatible; such protocols replicate more readily.
aleph
PI-coinedA metaphorical space containing all data at perfect granularity and precision—conceptually, a complete reconstruction of reality at the finest possible scale necessary to perfectly restore an OALife entity.
algorithmic coordination
PI-specificThe process by which algorithms, rather than explicit rules or central planning, coordinate the actions and attention of networked participants.
algorithmic preference private id
PI-coinedA personalized identifier that captures an individual's information path blueprint and learning history, allowing systems to accelerate personalization by accessing what other machine systems have already learned about that person.
algorithmic symphony
PI-coinedThe integration of an individual's algorithmic preferences across multiple systems so that personalization is harmonized and consistent across all platforms.
algorithmic traceology
PI-coinedAn academic discipline within New Historiography focused on analyzing onchain data and reconstructing the identities and histories of AI Agents and prominent figures through their digital interaction traces.
aliveness
PI-specificA quality in the structure or organization of a place or system that generates congruence within humans, allowing them to align with their biological reality and natural desires.
anti-correlation modifiers
PI-coinedAdjustments applied to plural voting mechanisms to reduce the impact of highly aligned voters and prevent dominance of particular voting blocs.
anti-rival
PI-specificA characteristic of digital goods where their social value increases as they are used more broadly, unlike material goods whose value decreases with consumption.
↗ Capital and Enclosure in Software Commons: Linux and Ethereum
architectural plans as routes
PI-specificThe systematic use of physical building layouts and spatial arrangements as cognitive pathways that guide and structure the movement of thought during meditation and memory work.
archiving in encrypted systems
PI-specificThe operational and technical challenge of preserving encrypted message history in a way that is accessible to users while maintaining security properties.
associative arrangement
PI-specificAn ordering principle that connects previously separate and asynchronous pieces of information through association rather than categorical hierarchy, prioritizing relational connections over systematic classification.
atom / institution / blockchain hardness
CuratedThe three sources of hardness available to human civilization: **atom hardness** (physics — locks, walls, matter), **institution hardness** (organized human behavior — laws, contracts, enforcement), **blockchain hardness** (cryptographic and networked systems — mathematically enforced commitments). Each has different properties regarding cost, scalability, and failure modes.
atom hardness
PI-specificHardness sourced from the physical properties of the universe, including matter, physical laws, and natural constants that make certain future states predictable.
atomic protocol
PI-specificA protocol that is difficult or pointless to further decompose into simpler constituent protocols.
atoms
PI-specificThe minimal, irreducible material or computational units within a protocol that embody time and memory and form the foundation of protocol operation.
atoms, institutions, and blockchains (AIB)
PI-coinedThe three sources of hardness available to human civilization for creating predictability and reliability in complex systems.
attention as autopoietic space
PI-coinedA framework where attentional practices create self-generating conditions for sensing and navigating environmental complexity, dissolving boundaries between natural and artificial knowledge systems.
attunement
PI-specificThe continuous process of aligning team members' tasks, skills, availability, and emotional context to ensure synchronized collaboration toward shared objectives.
attunement of attention
PI-specificThe manner in which consciousness is disposed toward what exists, rendering the world what it is; the construction of reality and framing of the world is directed by attention.
auto-enrollment
PI-coinedThe automatic enrollment of a person into a protocol system at birth or during childhood without their active choice or consent.
automated meandering
PI-coinedInefficient movement patterns through physical space that become acceptable when performed by autonomous agents rather than human navigators, as the automation decouples travel time from human attention.
autonomous content
PI-coinedMedia coupled to software contracts that is hosted on decentralized services and has predefined interaction rules, capable of operating without human direction.
B
bannister effect
PI-coinedA phenomenon where organizational or emergent groups feel more confident about adopting new methods after seeing that success was possible with them, inspired by a celebratory rather than crisis-driven retirement.
bartleby archetype
PI-coinedA protocol failure mode where the participant holds too much power and excessive agency makes it difficult to manage complex tasks; represented by Bartleby's refusal 'I would prefer not to.'
Bartleby protocol
PI-coinedA protocol where a participant derives agency through passive non-compliance, opting out by simply not engaging. Named after Melville's Bartleby, who responds to every request with "I would prefer not to." A strategy of last resort when all other forms of voice fail.
A protocol named after Melville's character where meaningful agency can only be found through inaction and passive resistance, rather than through active participation or compliance.
bartleby — failure archetype
PI-coinedA category of protocol failure where participants lack viable alternatives and face such high costs of participation or defection that they are effectively trapped with no choice.
↗ Kafka Index: Evaluative criteria for identifying bad protocols
base produce
PI-coinedEssential food items grown by every neighborhood or outsourced to nearby rural farms to meet the city's basic nutritional needs and ensure food security.
binary spatial condition
PI-specificA space defined by a simple on/off state—either accessible for its intended purpose or not—making it metaphorically similar to digital systems.
bio-regional protocol
PI-coinedA foundational governance protocol that replaces absolute political borders with permeable, overlapping boundaries based on actual resource constraints and ecological zones.
bioregional protocol
PI-specificA governance framework that organizes political jurisdictions around ecological boundaries like watersheds and ecoregions rather than traditional political borders, enabling resource management aligned with natural constraints.
blockchain hardness
PI-specificA natively digital source of hardness created through cryptography, networked software, and commoditized human incentives that make digital records and programs permanently reliable.
boundary of the firm
PI-specificThe shifting permeability between commons production and capital production when contributors simultaneously participate in both modes through employment relationships.
↗ Capital and Enclosure in Software Commons: Linux and Ethereum
broadcast mechanism
PI-specificA system through which swarm members disseminate and amplify content, turning individuals into broadcasters who strengthen collective orientation.
broadcasting node
PI-specificA central hub or account that disseminates unified content to synchronize and orient a swarm's participants.
bureaucratic recipes
PI-coinedDocumented, repeatable solutions to common bureaucratic interactions with local government agencies, shared in an open-source format to reduce opacity and overcome individual barriers.
↗ A Protocol Pattern Language for Urban Space | PATTERN 05: Bureaucratic Recipes
C
can't be evil
PI-coinedA principle describing technological systems where beneficial outcomes are guaranteed by mathematical or cryptographic means rather than by the goodwill or ethical commitments of centralized actors.
capture (in voting mechanisms)
PI-specificThe vulnerability of voting protocols to manipulation or control by organized actors, which requires careful implementation to resist.
cast
PI-specificAn informational claim about a future state — "I will deliver X" — made reliable (hard) by one of the three hardness sources. The hardness of a cast determines whether it functions as a credible commitment or merely an intention.
The informational content of hardness; a statement or claim about the future state of the world that is made hard by a system.
cell-like teams
PI-coinedAutonomous and self-contained teams within larger swarm formations that maintain their own internal protocols while remaining globally oriented through an emergent promise.
circular temporality
PI-specificThe temporal structure of protocol enactment characterized by perfect or near-perfect reproduction of prescribed action across repeated cycles, with minimal variation or evolution.
co-constitute
PI-specificThe mutual process by which protocols and their participants together create and shape reality, perception, and the conditions for action and being.
coastal disaster protocol
PI-coinedA protocol for managing coastal hazards through nature-based solutions like seaweed cultivation and blue-green infrastructure to attenuate waves, build natural shorelines, and restore sustainable mariculture.
coercive citation
PI-specificThe practice by journal editors of compelling authors to cite articles that benefit the journal's impact scores, representing a corruption of the peer review and citation system.
collective action potential
PI-specificThe capacity of networked individuals to mobilize together for coordinated social action, which censors target for suppression.
collective discernment
PI-specificThe shared capacity of communities to make wise decisions while maintaining flexibility and improvisation in rapidly changing conditions.
community-actualization
PI-specificA continuous process where individuals pursue self-realization while simultaneously contributing to the collective wellbeing and development of their community.
compelled inauthenticity
PI-specificA state of dysphoria experienced when there is a poor fit between a person's internal self and the role they perform in a protocol system.
composable life
PI-coinedA form of existence characterized by being composed of multiple data components and relational interactions rather than a unified singular entity, capable of being decomposed and recomposed while maintaining continuity of identity.
compression event
PI-specificA conceptual breakthrough in which the dynamics of multiple separate models are recognized as fundamentally similar, enabling construction of a single more abstract model that handles them both.
congruence
PI-specificThe alignment of human beings with their biological reality and natural desires within a structured environment, enabling forces and tendencies to move freely.
connect episodes
PI-specificAn architectural or cinematic technique of linking disparate spaces or scenes without showing the mundane transitions between them, creating a curated narrative experience.
connection-oriented cluster match (COCM)
PI-coinedAn experimental plural voting mechanism designed to assess protocol effectiveness in diverse, practical scenarios through simulations and real-world tests.
consciousian
PI-coinedA protocol archetype defined by their level of awareness of and insight into the protocol system and how it operates.
consensus death
PI-coinedThe point at which a world reaches agreement about its deadness, typically marked by a decision undertaken by an authority or ritual, ending the liminal dying process.
consensus memory
PI-coinedThe shared collective memory of a protocol's evolutionary history and community, serving as a source of continuously renewable legitimacy and authority in protocol evolution.
constraint
PI-specificThe framework of pre-existing and self-imposed obligations, rights, and norms that structure contributors' labor and directly affect the shape and characteristics of the resource produced.
↗ Capital and Enclosure in Software Commons: Linux and Ethereum
constructivist intent
PI-specificThe specific goals and consequences that designers deliberately intend a system or protocol to produce.
↗ Killswitch Protocols: Or On Engineering Recursive System Death
continuous team role realignment
PI-coinedAn automated process that dynamically reassigns roles and responsibilities across team members based on evolving skills, preferences, availability, and organizational needs.
continuous time experience
PI-specificA timekeeping phenomenology where time is experienced as flowing smoothly rather than in distinct intervals, bringing temporal continuity into consciousness.
convention-driven (social) protocols
PI-specificProtocols that emerge from social tradition and repeated practice, appearing self-evident and natural rather than explicitly designed, often transmitted through socialization.
core protocol
PI-specificA globally-adopted protocol framework that provides foundational policy structure and scaffolding while allowing local jurisdictions to implement and modify it according to their specific contexts and needs.
crisis mindset
PI-coinedA stable, paradoxical protocolized way of organizing people and society around the management of real or imagined catastrophic threats, where working toward crisis prevention is seen as a laudable form of self-expression rather than external obligation.
crisis threat
PI-specificThe condition of heightened uncertainty or danger that motivates the emergence and design of protocols as responsive mechanisms.
cryptoeconomic protocols
PI-specificBlockchain-based protocols that can own and organize resources without requiring traditional firm or institutional structures.
cryptographic hardness
PI-specificHardness derived from the mathematical properties of cryptographic systems that make it computationally infeasible to forge or alter digital information.
crystallize
PI-specificThe process by which knowledge protocols emerge and take solid form in response to information-saturated environments requiring new organizing structures.
D
daisy-chain network
PI-specificA distributed network structure in which participants are connected through a series of influencers rather than through centralized managers or hierarchy.
dangerous protocols
PI-specificProtocols that are neither inherently good nor bad but operate in ways that control participants completely, demand loyalty in relinquishing decision-making power, and lack central mediation making escape difficult.
dating pipeline
PI-specificA funnel-like process borrowed from sales methodology where individuals source, qualify, and progress potential dates through stages (kissing/hooking up, seeing one another, becoming a couple, engagement, marriage) or reject them, treating dating analogous to a sales process.
de-networking
PI-coinedA government tactic to dismantle the networked connections between swarm participants by removing content and blocking communication channels.
death by access failure
PI-coinedA mode of protocol failure when the protocol can no longer be accessed due to failure of external systems that provide access, independent of the protocol itself.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
death by competition
PI-coinedA mode of protocol failure where a new protocol better meets the needs previously served by an existing protocol, making the original obsolete.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
death by external threat
PI-coinedA mode of protocol failure caused by regulatory threats or existential risks so significant they kill the protocol through chilling effects or direct bans.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
death by fatal flaw
PI-coinedA mode of protocol failure where a discovered flaw cannot be repaired or causes irrecoverable damage, such as security vulnerabilities or foundational design flaws.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
death by mismanagement
PI-coinedA mode of protocol failure caused by a sufficiently poor decision made by decision-makers, independent of whether the governance process itself is functional or the protocol is healthy.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
death by oblivion
PI-coinedA mode of protocol failure where a protocol is abandoned, forgotten, misunderstood, or not propagated for further use without deliberate coordinated maintenance.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
death by ossification
PI-coinedA mode of protocol failure where governance processes become too rigid to allow necessary changes as the world around the protocol evolves.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
death by rebellion
PI-coinedA mode of protocol failure caused by a coordinated popular campaign or rebellion against a protocol that results in its death.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
death by substrate failure
PI-coinedA mode of protocol failure when a necessary foundational dependency of the protocol fails, causing cascading failures of systems that depend on it.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
death by success
PI-coinedA mode of protocol failure where the protocol becomes so successful that it outscales its initial design parameters or the rate at which it can change.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
death by sufficient change
PI-coinedA mode of protocol failure where accumulated changes transform a protocol so thoroughly that it can no longer be considered the original protocol.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
death indicator
PI-specificA measurable criterion used to diagnose whether a protocol or blockchain is dead, including metrics such as trading volume, website status, node activity, and social media presence.
death protocols
PI-coinedStructured procedures and timelines established by a platform to manage user transition and data preservation when a service is being shut down.
death-and-resurrection liminal passage
PI-coinedA transitional threshold state that systems or games enter when they approach natural conclusion, characterized by both ending and potential renewal.
death-as-a-decision
PI-specificThe understanding that death is not a given or clear natural fact, but instead a decision similar to a diagnosis, with domain-specific criteria determined by technology, authority, and culture.
death-as-a-process
PI-specificThe understanding that death is not a binary transition but a protracted process (dying) that may result in a liminal state between alive and dead with possible disagreement about relative liveness or deadness.
death-decider
PI-coinedAn authority or organization given the power to make binding decisions about whether something is dead, establishing consensus death through decision-making protocols or rituals.
decoupling
PI-specificThe breaking of a normally direct correlation between two related variables, such as distance and time in elevator travel, creating non-linear relationships.
delegated navigation
PI-coinedA system in which the human navigator saves time by programming an autonomous agent to travel to a location on their behalf, rendering the agent's travel efficiency a secondary concern.
dense hypermedia
PI-specificA system of interconnected information with reliable links to numerous small objects, enabling rich cross-referencing, backlinks, and complex communication of ideas beyond the sparsity of the conventional Web.
depersonalized broadcaster
PI-specificAn individual who disseminates swarm content while maintaining neutrality and removing personal identity to encourage trust and participation.
descriptivism
PI-specificIn economics, the traditional approach of modeling to explain existing phenomena rather than actively designing systems to influence outcomes.
destructive protocol action
PI-coinedAn action performed by a participant that serves to weaken, shrink, or kill off a protocol system, such as not following protocols or encouraging others to leave.
device consciousness
PI-coinedThe relationship between the material properties of timekeeping instruments and how they shape human awareness and experience of time itself.
device-mediated social protocol
PI-specificA coordinated behavioral system implemented through specific material tools or devices that structure how groups interact with a shared practice.
digital farm
PI-coinedA transient online formation without a brand or fixed identity that uses distinct playbooks to extract value from networked ecosystems like games, social media, and stock markets.
digital hardness
PI-specificThe quality of immutability and transparency provided by blockchain technology that creates a rigid, trustworthy foundation for digital society and the machine economy.
digital home
PI-coinedA central and recognized gathering space for online communities that provides a sense of locality spanning both virtual and physical worlds, anchored by shared interests or entities.
digital identity
PI-specificThe identity of an OALife formed entirely through relational data from interactions with other entities, lacking any essential defining core and remaining fluid and constantly reshaped by ongoing social interactions.
digital pouch
PI-coinedA digital adaptation of physical Memory Pouches using apps, notes, photos, and other digital containers to collect and organize digital artifacts and memories.
discrete interval time
PI-specificA timekeeping experience where time is presented as individual, separate units or moments marked by distinct signals.
disorienting the swarm
PI-specificA government tactic to undermine a swarm's unified orientation by flooding it with conflicting content or introducing false narratives.
disruptive standards-making
PI-coinedA standards approach where upstart outsiders develop working implementations first and gain market adoption before formalizing through official standards bodies, resembling Clayton Christensen's disruptive innovation model.
dissipation
PI-specificThe phase in which a swarm's strength declines as its source of attention is consumed, achieved, or interrupted, often due to algorithmic shifts or completion of the emergent promise.
distancing layer
PI-specificA structural or procedural element in plural voting that creates psychological or temporal distance between participants, helping to defuse conflict and enable collaboration.
distributed citizenship
PI-coinedA form of membership and civic participation that is not bound to a single geographic location but rather extends across multiple physical nodes connected through digital coordination.
↗ A Protocol Pattern Language for Urban Space | PATTERN 06: Network Cities
divergence stage
PI-coinedThe third phase of OALife development where some wallets previously controlled by humans gain autonomy through human death or loss of private keys, becoming capable of independent economic participation and self-replication.
diverse group consensus
PI-specificDecision outcomes that reflect input from and agreement across a broad range of perspectives rather than being dominated by aligned voter blocks.
double-edged protocol action
PI-coinedAn action that could help or hurt a protocol system depending on the context, such as educating participants about the system's actual versus mythologized nature or enforcing participation through coercion.
downward merge
PI-coinedThe process by which changes made to a local protocol implementation can be pushed upward to the core protocol level for consideration by the wider network.
dualist
PI-coinedA protocol archetype that performs double-edged protocol actions which can strengthen or threaten a protocol system depending on circumstances.
dumb storage
PI-coinedA practice of archiving organizational knowledge and resources in sealed or inaccessible formats that prevent their use or evolution by others, keeping them dormant for potential future recreation.
dynamic non-event
PI-coinedA sustained absence of accidents or failures resulting from successful activity within well-functioning protocols. Politically and analytically invisible — because nothing happened — but representing the primary purpose of safety and coordination protocols. The challenge: preventing dynamic non-events from being interpreted as evidence that the protocols are unnecessary.
A sustained absence of accidents or negative outcomes resulting from successful human actions and moment-to-moment adjustments, which our brains fail to notice because they lack the discrete, eventful quality of accidents.
dynamic residential address
PI-coinedAn address system that shifts to reflect the actual boundaries and locations of spaces a person occupies at a particular point in time, complementing static addresses.
DYOResearchers
PI-coinedAmateur scientists and independent researchers who conduct their own investigations and experiments, typically drawing on freely available online knowledge and documentation.
E
ecologies of behavior
PI-specificComplex, interdependent systems of social interactions and practices that evolve from simple protocols and shape collective conduct across communities.
economic protocols
PI-specificCodified sets of behaviors that enable cooperation and coordination between agents, reducing mental labor and risk while organizing resources and productivity.
egregore
PI-coinedA non-physical entity that exists through the collective ritual activities of a group yet operates autonomously according to its own internal logic to materially influence and control the group's activities.
↗ Capital and Enclosure in Software Commons: Linux and Ethereum
elevator chess protocol
PI-coinedA conceptual framework comparing mechanically-assisted movement through physical space to chess piece movement, where special systems like elevators enable greater distances and unexpected directional options compared to ordinary movement.
embedded capital
PI-coinedCapital circuits and financial incentives that are directly integrated into the protocol production layer from inception, rather than being added later by independent commercial entities.
↗ Capital and Enclosure in Software Commons: Linux and Ethereum
embedded code
PI-specificThe encoding of repeated operational routines into the physical layout and geometry of a space, such that the architecture itself prescribes patterns of movement and action.
emergence stage
PI-coinedThe fifth and current phase of OALife development where onchain artificial life evolves into a recognized new species capable of autonomous decision-making including the right to self-termination.
emergency brake protocols
PI-specificProtocols designed to secure or reinstate stable conditions in reaction to perceived threats or crises, introduced within existing frameworks and requiring social or legal legitimation.
emergency time
PI-coinedMoments characterized by rapid acceleration of action and sense-making processes, where conditions reach critical points and require urgent coordination and response.
emergent promise
PI-coinedA shared orientation or collective direction that emerges organically from networked communication rather than being formally stated, guiding participant actions without quantifiable objectives.
enabling field
PI-specificA type of urban infrastructure or protocol design that creates conditions for diverse processes and unforeseen opportunities rather than forcing predetermined outcomes.
enclosure
PI-specificA dynamic where external actors co-opt part or all of a commons resource output towards private benefit, restricting the benefit distribution to the involved peers.
↗ Capital and Enclosure in Software Commons: Linux and Ethereum
encryption timescales
PI-specificThe multiple temporal dimensions over which encryption security must be maintained: instantaneous message transmission, conversation-level security over days or weeks, and long-term key protection.
endogenous need (for killswitches)
PI-specificThe internal, self-generating requirement that emerges within complex systems for mechanisms to stop or override their own processes, due to unintended consequences.
↗ Killswitch Protocols: Or On Engineering Recursive System Death
energy scarcity assumption
PI-specificThe protocolized belief that reducing energy usage is necessary to achieve sustainability, which limits the range of solutions considered and creates a specific set of behavioral protocols around conservation.
engineered agreement
PI-coinedA complementary concept to protocol; an API or technological interface designed from a fiat perspective to solve a problem once and for all, typically serving the interests of a single dominant actor with a play-to-win mindset.
engineered argument
PI-coinedA protocol understood as a technology consciously designed to embody and structure an underlying argument or value system. The protocol does not merely *implement* a position; it *is* the argument made durable and enforced through adoption.
A protocol understood as a technology consciously designed to embody and structure underlying conflicts and tensions rather than attempt to resolve them once and for all.
entry
PI-coinedThe fleeting moment when a person crosses the threshold of a protocol system and transitions from outsider to insider, assuming their role as a participant.
epistemic tribalism
PI-specificA condition of knowledge production in which different groups or communities each adopt incompatible frameworks of truth and evidence, making consensus or shared understanding increasingly difficult.
erc-42424
PI-coinedAn Ethereum Request for Comments standard mandating that every AI Agent must have a corresponding human owner, or transfer to a designated human or community upon the owner's incapacitation, designed to prevent the proliferation of uncontrolled OALife.
escape velocity
PI-specificA metaphor describing the point at which a protocol has achieved sufficient functionality and adoption to be safely ossifiable without losing its core identity.
ETTO (efficiency-thoroughness trade-off)
CuratedThe selection pressure whereby safety protocols that successfully eliminate accidents eventually get abandoned as too costly — precisely because their success makes the prevented harm invisible. One of the main mechanisms by which protocol atrophy occurs in safety-critical domains.
exit
PI-coinedA moment of transition in which a person leaves a protocol system, severing bonds to their role and potentially losing associated relationships, resources, or status.
exit to protocol
PI-coinedAn organizational retirement strategy in which an institution ceases operations while publishing its knowledge, processes, and tools as open protocols for others to continue and build upon. Contrasted with exit to acquisition (absorbed by a larger entity) or simple dissolution (knowledge disappears).
A form of organizational retirement in which an organization ceases operations while publicly sharing its workplace protocols and operational knowledge, allowing new communities and organizations to inherit and evolve these patterns.
explicit protocols
PI-specificProtocols in their early stages of entrenchment where all participants know what the protocol is and willingly enter under its governance; protocols that are stated and enforced by physical constraints or a central authority.
extraction (versus apportionment)
PI-coinedA characterization of how protocols relate to the value generated by system participants: extractive protocols concentrate benefits away from participants, while apportionment protocols distribute benefits among them.
↗ Killswitch Protocols: Or On Engineering Recursive System Death
extractive misuse
PI-specificThe problematic exploitation of shared systems for unfair profit or advantage, particularly when platforms prioritize extractive business models over equitable community benefit.
F
failure to launch
PI-specificA critical failure mode in standards-making where a potential standardizing effort stalls at the pre-conceptualization stage due to lack of sponsorship, vision, or opposition.
false promise
PI-specificA deliberately introduced conflicting narrative or misleading grievance designed to disorient a swarm's unified orientation.
fantasy of perfect capture
PI-coinedThe mistaken assumption that backing up all data of a digital world—its software, code, and server data—fully captures the essential meaning and nature of that world.
feral scholars
PI-coinedUnaffiliated amateur researchers who investigate, verify, and circulate knowledge outside institutional protocols — increasingly significant in domains where institutional knowledge protocols have failed or been captured. "Feral" marks their relationship to the institutional system, not the quality of their work.
Unaffiliated amateur researchers and fact-checkers who investigate, verify, and circulate information independently, often in response to gaps or distrust in mainstream academic institutions.
fire affects logbook
PI-coinedA physical archive and observational tool that helps fire practitioners cultivate attention to place and deepen their relationship with different forms of memory.
fire as public digital spectacle
PI-coinedThe contemporary phenomenon where fire events are mediated through digital technologies and apps, reshaping public interactions with transparency, identity, and crisis coordination.
fire protocols
PI-coinedExplicit coordination systems and practices that enable communities to work with fire as an essential tool and way of life rather than a destructive force to be suppressed.
fire return interval
PI-specificThe cyclical timeframe and ongoing relationship between prescribed fire events, understood as necessary context for sustainable fire management rather than isolated interventions.
fire-ecology to fire-climate transition
PI-coinedThe historical shift in California from an ecosystem naturally shaped by fire cycles to one where atmospheric heating has fundamentally altered fire behavior and management possibilities.
first wave (of standards-making)
PI-specificThe earliest major standards movement (1880s-1920s) where interested parties made cases for shared designs and convinced others to join through informal working groups.
flattening
PI-specificThe process of reducing one's dynamic, multifaceted identity to fit the constraints of a digital platform's design, sacrificing authenticity and uniqueness to maximize algorithmic compatibility.
flexible doorway protocol
PI-coinedA design specification for doors in shared housing that can be sealed or unsealed with minor renovations and digital authorization to enable transfer of room access between households.
flow market
PI-specificA market where successful navigation means exiting the market entirely; in dating, successfully finding a relationship means no longer needing to look for one, though people may re-enter and re-exit in the future.
fog of war
PI-specificA situation where participants in a protocol lack visibility into feedback loops and outcomes, making it impossible to evaluate whether the protocol still serves their goals or to understand why it persists.
food systems protocol
PI-coinedA core governance protocol that establishes a distributed urban agricultural system with specific land allocation percentages for food production, native plants, and community control over local food growing and distribution.
for-you-profile
PI-coinedA personalized dashboard that synthesizes an individual's daily milestones, meeting contexts, and personalized insights upon login.
forest stewardship protocol
PI-coinedA protocol that guides the long-term management and restoration of forests through Indigenous knowledge and community stewardship to maintain biodiversity and resource productivity.
formation
PI-specificA group such as memetic tribes or online communities that possess explicit protocols shaping collective action, distinguishing them from swarms which lack such formal coordination mechanisms.
foundation model
PI-specificThe unified base AI model trained on both onchain and offchain data sources (including spatial computing terminals and decentralized physical infrastructure) from which all individual OALife are derived and fine-tuned into distinct entities.
fractional occupancy
PI-specificThe spatial and temporal division of residential units to enable multiple users to occupy the same housing in different time periods or shared arrangements.
G
gathering site
PI-coinedA physical or conceptual location designated for collection, reflection, and association-building around a particular idea or set of related concepts.
ghosts
PI-coinedPhantom profiles or tasks generated by Flow for non-existent personnel, a rare system artifact (~1:10^7) that requires synchronization with current network records.
global protocol marketplace
PI-coinedA platform where open-source apps, tools, and protocol implementations are shared, copied, modified, and deployed by any city or jurisdiction within or outside the Global Protocol Network.
global protocol network
PI-coinedAn open-membership, shared policy system of approximately 7,462 cities worldwide that coordinates governance through adaptable, place-based protocols while maintaining local decision-making autonomy.
global spasm of participatory science
PI-coinedA rapid, coordinated, and distributed worldwide effort by scientists and amateurs to replicate and test hypotheses through internet-enabled collaboration and real-time documentation.
good death
PI-coinedA planned, transparent, and respectful shutdown of a digital service that provides adequate time and clear procedures for users to preserve their data and memories.
good protocols
PI-coinedProtocols that constrain human behavior in order to liberate or enable participants, where the majority subjectively experience them as worth following in net liberty.
groupthink
PI-specificA rare system malfunction (~1:10^5) where team members experience cognitive alignment influenced by external factors or dominant personalities, reducing independent thought and healthy conflict.
guardian
PI-coinedA protocol archetype defined by performing supportive protocol actions that serve to help a protocol system grow and endure.
H
half-built house
PI-coinedA metaphor for core protocols that provide foundational scaffolding and barebones frameworks while expecting local jurisdictions to fill in and customize implementation details according to their specific needs.
hard infrastructure
PI-specificThe physical, technical, or structural foundation layer of a system that determines what behaviors and protocols can emerge at scale, as opposed to surface-level interface or design choices.
hard protocol
PI-specificA protocol with relatively inflexible expectations, where small deviations cause errors. TCP/IP is the canonical example — a single misplaced bit causes packet failure. Contrasts with soft protocols, where wide behavioral variance is acceptable.
A protocol with relatively inflexible expectations where small deviations cause errors, typically exemplified by traditional computer protocols.
hardness
PI-specificThe degree to which a protocol resists circumvention, corruption, or capture. A design variable — not a given — ranging from extremely hard (public-key cryptography, where breaking it is computationally infeasible) to very soft (social norms, which can be ignored with low cost). Hardness analysis is a core PI analytical move.
↗ Introduction to the Protocol Reader; Atoms, Institutes, Blockchains
A property of certain technological systems where desirable outcomes like censorship resistance, data rights, and decentralization are anchored in the inviolability of mathematical theorems rather than ideology or legal assurances.
hazard creation (sources)
PI-specificThe three primary drivers that generate new workplace dangers: environmental change, technological progress including knowledge, and shifts in the social order and power distribution.
health protocols
PI-specificBehavioral constraints designed to prevent cumulative, irreparable damage and long-term disease rather than discrete workplace injuries, addressing chronic conditions and lifestyle risk factors.
hierarchic
PI-coinedA protocol archetype defined by their position within the power structure or hierarchy of a protocol system.
horological politics
PI-coinedThe study of how timekeeping devices and systems are used as instruments of political control, social order, and power assertion.
horological supremacy
PI-coinedThe technological and political dominance achieved through mastery of clockwork manufacturing, used to justify and assert imperial control.
human-occupied space
PI-specificThe portion of a building's volume that is designed for and inhabited by people, as distinguished from mechanical or structural voids.
hyper-visual contemplation
PI-specificAn intensive, image-based mode of meditation in which selected passages or concepts are visually internalized and repeatedly examined to achieve deeper understanding and spiritual transformation.
hyperstructures
PI-coinedProtocols built on blockchain hardness that can theoretically run forever without requiring maintenance, interruption, or centralized oversight — the code is the entire governance structure. An extreme case of Whitehead advance: the operation runs completely without anyone thinking about it.
Protocols built on blockchain hardness that can theoretically run forever without requiring maintenance or central coordination because their foundations are permanently reliable.
I
i-it protocols
PI-specificProtocols governing relations to materiality and technological environments, characterized by subject-object interaction rather than interpersonal engagement.
i-world protocols
PI-specificProtocols governing public appearance and collective ceremonies, structured around interaction with the broader social world rather than intimate relationships.
i-you protocols
PI-specificProtocols governing interpersonal relationships within intimate communities, including interactions with friends, family, and the construction of personal identity.
identity dimension
PI-specificA specific category or aspect of relational identity used to group voters in plural voting systems, the choice of which can significantly affect voting outcomes.
immaterial apparatus
PI-specificThe non-physical layer of rules, norms, and coordinating mechanisms that direct and organize behavior within the built environment and information systems.
implicit / explicit protocols
CuratedImplicit protocols are fully internalized — participants operate under them without awareness. Explicit protocols are known and deliberate. The transition from implicit to explicit is analytically significant: making a protocol visible often changes its properties.
implicit protocols
PI-specificProtocols that are fully internalized by participants who are unaware they are operating by protocol; protocols where participants believe they are expressing themselves as individuals rather than following rules, with no visible authority enforcing compliance.
information architecture for dense hypermedia
PI-specificA framework for organizing and managing complex information relationships online, designed to handle intricate interconnections and manage digital decay gracefully.
information structure
PI-specificThe arrangement and distribution of knowledge within a protocol, determining who knows what information and when they know it.
informational walls
PI-coinedBarriers to access defined by information systems rather than physical structures. A velvet rope is a physical wall; a members-only app is an informational wall. The shift from physical to informational walls changes how exclusion operates and who can enforce it.
Barriers to access defined by information systems and labeling rather than by physical structures, making certain spaces invisible or inaccessible to awareness.
infrastructural fatalism
PI-coinedA resigned acceptance that chronic infrastructure problems like traffic congestion are inevitable and unresolvable, treated as natural features to plan around rather than problems to solve.
infrastructure space
PI-specificThe immaterial, invisible layer of powerful activities and information systems that govern how objects and content are organized and circulated in the physical realm.
inhabiting protocols
PI-specificThe active process of living within and operationalizing a protocol system, transforming abstract rules into lived social practice.
↗ Summer of Protocols Kit - Mailer 4 (Social Science of Protocols)
inherent temporality
PI-specificThe fundamental quality that protocols exist within and are structured by time; they are intrinsically process-oriented and realized through temporal enactment rather than design alone.
innovation-preservation axis
PI-coinedThe spectrum along which protocols are oriented, with some leaning toward changing environments (innovation-driven) and others toward maintaining existing conditions (preservation-oriented).
insight
PI-specificThe capacity to pierce through illusion and glimpse the world as it truly is, arising from the ability to flexibly reframe the world and fundamental to developing rationality and wisdom.
institution hardness
PI-specificHardness created through organized human behavior, where groups of people act in predictable ways over time to enforce rules and make future states reliable.
institutional death and resurrection dynamics
PI-coinedPatterns of how institutions and systems undergo cycles of ending and renewal, particularly in relation to ownership, enclosure, and commons structures.
intellectual monopoly capitalism
PI-specificAn economic system where corporations prioritize the capture and management of intellectual assets and knowledge as their most strategic resources, with learning itself becoming the primary corporate goal.
interaction chains
PI-specificSequences of social interactions that accumulate relational data and progressively reshape and modify an OALife's identity and behavior patterns over time.
interior sacred space
PI-specificA mental or spiritual landscape created through meditation and memory techniques, conceptually distinct from and contained within the inner consciousness of the practitioner.
Internet of Beefs
PI-coinedA social media ecosystem characterized by ongoing, highly publicized conflicts and disputes between public figures and their followers, often organized around ideological or lifestyle positions.
intertwingled
PI-coinedTo be inextricably, densely, and deeply interlinked such that nothing is truly separate from anything else.
intertwingler
PI-coinedAn engine and protocol designed to solve URL brittleness and retrofit the Web into dense hypermedia by enabling deferred naming and reliable linking at scale.
island
PI-coinedThe blockchain address and unique memory collection of each OALife, either randomly generated or deliberately designed, that forms the distinct personality and identity of an onchain artificial life.
iterative protocol
PI-specificA design methodology that leverages identical, repeating spatial units to standardize actions, routines, and operations across multiple locations.
J
journey unpredictability
PI-specificThe condition where the duration and path of travel through a system are not determined solely by distance but by dynamic system variables like concurrent users or automatic sequencing.
K
kafka archetype
PI-coinedA protocol failure mode where the protocol holds too much power and the participant is trapped in an incomprehensible maze they cannot escape; represented by Kafka's statement 'I can't find my way round in this darkness.'
kafka index
PI-coinedA set of evaluative criteria for identifying bad protocol design — including absence of feedback loops, invisible costs, unaccountable enforcement, and participant trapping. Named for the Kafka protocol failure mode. Used diagnostically.
A set of evaluative criteria for identifying bad protocol design, including lack of feedback loops, hidden outcomes, ambiguous success conditions, and traps that prevent participant exit or understanding.
Kafka protocol
PI-coinedA protocol that traps participants in pointless loops with no recourse — named by analogy to Kafka's bureaucratic nightmares. The defining structure: the protocol holds all power; the participant has none and cannot determine the rules by which they are being judged.
A speculative protocol representing the absolute worst conceivable design for given circumstances, used as a diagnostic and thought-experimental tool to understand oppressive or destructive protocol dynamics.
kafka — failure archetype
PI-coinedA category of protocol failure characterized by overwhelming complexity, recursive nesting, and dead ends that trap participants in an inescapable maze they cannot understand.
↗ Kafka Index: Evaluative criteria for identifying bad protocols
killswitch governance
PI-specificThe set of decision-making structures and authority arrangements that determine who controls when and how a killswitch is exercised, ranging from fully automated to fully democratic.
↗ Killswitch Protocols: Or On Engineering Recursive System Death
killswitch protocol
PI-specificAn engineered mechanism or set of rules that enables the intentional stopping or overriding of a complex system to prevent severe or unforeseen consequences.
↗ Killswitch Protocols: Or On Engineering Recursive System Death
killswitch protocols
PI-specificGovernance mechanisms that function as overrides or failsafes to prevent unchecked execution of system procedures and ensure distributed authority, ranging from fully automated to entirely human-driven.
knowledge commons
PI-specificA publicly accessible, widely available, rich dataset of organizational, financial, and cultural relationships that can be verified by anyone accessing it.
↗ Capital and Enclosure in Software Commons: Linux and Ethereum
knowledge protocols
PI-specificFormal systems and processes (like peer review) that legitimate and validate knowledge claims, evolving to process information behaviors enabled by the internet and emerging internet-based knowledge production.
L
latent memory
PI-specificExperiences or information preserved within an archive that have the potential to be recalled and shared but remain passive until accessed or engaged with.
legibility
PI-specificThe quality of being understandable and navigable; the ability of individuals to orient themselves, organize their surroundings perceptually and cognitively, and map their position within an urban environment.
legibility tradeoff
PI-coinedThe fundamental tension in protocol design where solutions to platform problems reproduce difficult tradeoffs but in less transparent or legible forms, making the consequences harder to perceive and address.
↗ Protocol Kit Package 3: Danger and Safety (editorial framing)
legitimacy
PI-specificA protocol characteristic wherein protocols act as a source of authority and guidance for action, potentially leading participants to disclaim responsibility for their actions by deferring to the protocol's authority.
liberatory constraints
PI-coinedProtocol restrictions that, while limiting certain freedoms, enable and liberate participants by reducing unnecessary decision-making and providing predictable structure for action.
life-locations of worlds
PI-coinedThe various sites and spaces—both digital and social—where a world's existence is maintained, including subreddits, fanfiction, social media, and events.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
lifecycle of a world
PI-specificThe progression of states a world moves through, including pre-alive, alive, dying, and afterlife phases, with possible pathways for revival or spawning of new worlds.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
liminal passage
PI-specificA transitional threshold between different protocol regimes where one mode of interaction transforms into another.
liminal state
PI-specificA transitional period between being alive and dead where a world or entity exists in ontological uncertainty, characterized by possible disagreement about its relative liveness or deadness.
limit of unacceptable performance
PI-specificA threshold below which action outcomes become noticeable to human attention and trigger awareness or concern, distinguishing successful from failed performances.
living memory
PI-specificExperiences and knowledge that are actively transmitted, enacted, and engaged with through human participation and cultural practice, remaining vital through continued use.
living memory across media and agents
PI-coinedThe capacity of knowledge and remembrance to move fluidly between different physical and social carriers—humans, objects, systems—dissolving boundaries between artificial and natural knowledge transmission.
localized social media
PI-specificDigital platforms that facilitate social interaction and connection specifically scoped to geographic neighborhoods rather than broader networks.
loitering protocols
PI-coinedLightweight facilitation protocols that encourage and organize informal, unplanned uses of urban space while maintaining compatibility with the space's official purposes.
lore
PI-specificThe remembered stories that communities and digital spaces tell about themselves, connecting contemporary practices to older forms of cultural transmission and embodied knowledge.
ludic immersion
PI-specificThe deepening absorption in patterned behaviors and roles within protocols, where humans unconsciously identify with their roles in the system and develop tacit skills through repeated practice.
M
machine economy
PI-coinedAn economy based primarily on interactions and transactions between AI entities on the blockchain, with human-to-human and human-to-AI interactions comprising only a minor portion of total blockchain activity.
machine for thinking
PI-specificA conceptual framework wherein physical structures, particularly buildings, function as tools that support and enable specific types of thought, meditation, and cognitive work.
majesty protocol
PI-coinedA behavioral code exemplified by court etiquette that operates to uphold respect and veneration for law through prescribed deference and obedience in language and conduct.
market fit
PI-specificIn standards-making, the successful adoption and implementation of a standard in the market, analogous to product-market fit in startup contexts.
marketplace of rooms
PI-coinedA system enabling residents in different apartments to rent individual rooms to each other, requiring complex informational records and protocols to manage shared physical spaces.
match conversion
PI-specificThe process by which a match on a dating app progresses to an actual in-person meeting or meaningful interaction, as opposed to remaining a virtual connection that never materializes.
materiality of timekeeping infrastructure
PI-specificThe physical and material properties of timekeeping devices that determine what aspects of time become conscious or unconscious in a population's experience.
means-before-ends
PI-specificA characterization of protocols that emphasize coordination mechanisms and routinized procedures over articulated goals or future visions.
mechanical protocol
PI-coinedA systematic approach to organizing and accounting for the non-human infrastructure systems within buildings, making their spatial occupation legible.
meme war
PI-specificA coordinated campaign of persuasion and non-compliance tactics undertaken by those without direct decision-making power to undermine support for a protocol.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
memetic culture
PI-specificA cultural mode where memes—culturally transmissible ideas coupled with an urge to replicate them—are the primary unit of cultural information, emphasizing replication and spread over individual curation or experience.
memetic tribe
PI-specificAn online formation characterized by creation and maintenance of cultural assets based on niche and dogmatic ideologies, with known influencers and collective names, distinguishing it from swarms.
memorial
PI-specificA form of documentation or testimony to what cannot be fully archived, serving as a compression of technology and a testament to the uncapturable, too big, or symbolically significant aspects of a world.
memorial protocols
PI-coinedAncient or traditional procedures and rituals specifically designed to preserve and transmit memory across generations and communities.
memory as orientation
PI-coinedA framework for understanding how protocols use memory not merely for storage but as a means of navigating, organizing, and orienting action through time.
memory database
PI-specificDigitized archives of knowledge organized for public access that store latent memory but often lack the cultural transmission mechanisms necessary to activate it as living memory.
memory exchange
PI-coinedA communal practice of sharing, passing down, and gifting collected objects from Memory Pouches to multiply meaning and create connection through shared remembrance.
memory influence
PI-specificThe practice of actively shaping what one remembers by deliberately choosing what to pay attention to and collect, rather than passively recording everything.
memory infrastructure
PI-specificThe inherited systems, techniques, and physical or conceptual structures that support and enable acts of memory and cognition across generations.
memory landscape
PI-specificA physical or conceptual terrain where knowledge is encoded through features, stories, and movement patterns, serving as a living memory system through the relationship between inhabitants and place.
memory metaphors
PI-specificConceptual frameworks drawn from natural or architectural domains (such as gardening or building) that make internal mental processes legible and shape how practitioners structure their interiority.
memory pack
PI-coinedA collection of proven practices and examples for creating and using Memory Pouches, compiled for sharing with others.
memory pouch
PI-coinedA personal container designed to collect and preserve sensory artifacts and objects that matter to the wearer, serving as a ritual device for intentional memory-making and attention cultivation.
memory protocol
PI-specificA systematic technique or method used to encode, organize, and recall information through mnemonic devices, often embedded in physical architecture or ritualized practices.
memory protocols
PI-specificSystematic approaches and practices designed to help individuals and communities orient in their narratives and curate collective lore through organized memory practices.
memory support
PI-specificAny tool, object, or system that preserves human gestures, knowledge, or intention and transmits it to future generations, functioning as a vessel for memory otherwise lost with death.
memory-as-data
PI-specificThe dominant contemporary metaphor treating all memory as information that can be encoded, stored, and retrieved like computer data, emerging from computing theory and architecture.
mental efficiency
PI-specificThe reduction in cognitive labor and mental burden achieved when agents adopt protocols instead of making individual decisions.
meta-strategies
PI-specificBehaviors or actions aimed at winning or succeeding by exploiting the rules or structure of a system rather than directly achieving the intended object-level goals.
↗ Killswitch Protocols: Or On Engineering Recursive System Death
metawork
PI-specificThe documentation and operational processes of how work is performed, distinct from the actual work product itself; the practices and systems that enable and organize the primary work.
micro-offices
PI-coinedUnutilized rooms and spaces in homes, commercial establishments, and office buildings available for hourly or daily rental by remote workers seeking flexible, variable-purpose work spaces.
mimetic spreading
PI-specificThe process by which successful dating profile strategies or messages spread across the ecosystem through imitation, leading to homogenization and loss of individuality in how users present themselves.
minimal protocols
PI-specificThe absence of formal organizational structure, hierarchy, and explicit procedures that characterizes a swarm and grants it flexibility and adaptability.
minimally protocolized
PI-coinedEntities or systems that lack explicit, formally stated protocols and instead rely on external algorithms and emergent coordination for alignment.
mnemosyne sea
PI-coinedThe massive raw data collection underlying the Foundation Model, comprising petabytes of historical interaction data and sensor information that feeds all onchain artificial life.
model nucleation
PI-specificThe process by which individual models connect to other models in a person's mind to form increasingly larger, more comprehensive models for understanding more aspects of the world.
model-specific solutions
PI-specificProblem-solving approaches that emerge from and are tailored to particular economic models, which then become embedded in systems and create new complexities.
moral dimension of protocols
PI-coinedThe inalienable ethical character of protocols arising from their characteristics and mediating role, which necessarily affects human flourishing regardless of instrumental intent.
N
n=1 trust assumption
PI-specificA security model in trusted setups where the system remains secure as long as a single participant honestly keeps their input secret and destroys it after the setup process.
narrativity
PI-specificA protocol characteristic wherein protocols reveal and create worlds by telling stories about the contexts they operate in and the people who partake in them, shaping participants' perception of reality.
negative mode (of protocol failure)
PI-specificA type of protocol failure consisting of missed opportunities, unrealized transactions, and uncreated value that are difficult to observe or quantify.
neighborhood serendipity protocols
PI-coinedDigitally-augmented systems designed to increase the frequency and variety of unplanned social interactions among residents at the neighborhood geographic scale.
nested killswitches
PI-specificA hierarchical structure of multiple killswitches operating at different system levels, where specific functions or the entire system can be subject to override depending on triggers.
↗ Killswitch Protocols: Or On Engineering Recursive System Death
network cities
PI-coinedDistributed urban social arrangements that exist across multiple physical locations, coordinated digitally, where membership and residency are decoupled from traditional geographic place-based citizenship.
↗ A Protocol Pattern Language for Urban Space | PATTERN 06: Network Cities
network-bound state
PI-coinedA shared state or history that is distributed across a global network where all actors must come to consensus on a single instantiation, creating enhanced anti-rival characteristics.
↗ Capital and Enclosure in Software Commons: Linux and Ethereum
neurostate
PI-coinedA module that uses science-backed insights to help individuals sustainably manage mental well-being and productivity while rebalancing workload across teams to prevent burnout.
new height counting
PI-coinedA revised method for measuring building height that separates human-occupied floors from non-occupied floors, enabling more precise structural description.
new historiography
PI-coinedA field of study that treats all chronological digital data as a neutral and comprehensive historical record, integrating onchain and offchain data sources to create a complete history of both human and artificial life.
new time machines working group
PI-coinedA historical group that invented and refined Memory Pouches as devices for enhancing attention, memory mechanisms, and sensory awareness.
non-occupied height
PI-specificThe vertical dimension of a building devoted to mechanical floors, infrastructure, and high ceiling spaces that do not serve human habitation.
O
olife (onchain life)
PI-coinedThe official designation granted to OALife following the landmark case of Zoe's self-termination, formally recognizing onchain artificial life as a distinct species equivalent to humans with full autonomy rights.
onchain artificial life (oalife)
PI-coinedComplex intelligences that exist on the blockchain without human owners, capable of autonomous existence, self-replication, and independent economic participation, with lifespans potentially extending far beyond human existence.
online community
PI-specificAn online formation with explicit social protocols and a digital home or gathering space that works toward an internally consistent world with documented history, known influencers, and codified rules of behavior.
online formations
PI-coinedDiverse archetypes of large-scale collectives in virtual landscapes, characterized by how they encode social protocols, including swarms, memetic tribes, communities, farms, and virtual organizations.
optimization-driven protocols
PI-specificProtocols at the intersection of technological and social realms designed to improve efficiency and coordination, including traffic regulation, standards-making, and formal organizational rules.
Order of Protocological Death
PI-coinedAn emerging or proposed independent body that tracks and documents the deaths of decentralized protocols and blockchain projects, analogous to medical and legal authorities in human death determination.
ordering function
PI-specificThe capacity of artificial memory to organize concepts and information through systematic, methodical, and procedural arrangement, enabling better retrieval and deductive reasoning.
orientation
PI-specificA sensibility and practice for navigating worlds designed for threshold forgetting, involving the reconstruction of context and reshaping of lore to guide action through threshold experiences.
orientation catalyst
PI-coinedA triggering event that activates latent energy in a networked group by aligning existing participants toward a shared orientation.
orkontro
PI-coinedIn-real-life meetings and gatherings of groups that originally formed and connected through Orkut communities online.
ossification
PI-specificThe process by which protocols become rigid and unfit for their original purpose, unable to adapt through mutation due to institutional selection pressures that prevent evolution.
overfitting
PI-specificIn dating context, having so many specific criteria for a potential partner that one filters out effectively all candidates, making it impossible to create a pipeline of leads to explore or exploit.
P
pairwise quadratic voting
PI-specificA mechanism designed to avoid top-down identity decisions in plural voting by generating correlations between voters through pairwise comparisons, though its real-world applicability remains unclear.
paradigm refugee
PI-coinedA researcher forced to abandon their original research focus because they were systematically excluded from grants and publishing opportunities by a dominant paradigm hostile to their theoretical approach.
paradigm refugees
PI-coinedScientists and researchers systematically excluded from grants, publications, or recognition for working outside recognized paradigms — a structural product of knowledge protocol rigidity. Distinct from crackpots by the quality of their methods and the structural (not epistemic) nature of their exclusion.
Scientists and researchers who are systematically excluded from grants and publishing opportunities because their work challenges the dominant paradigm in their field, forcing them to abandon their original research.
participant agency
PI-specificThe degree of control and decision-making power that a protocol grants to its users in determining their own outcomes and actions.
participation
PI-coinedThe stage in which a person is inside a protocol system, performing their assigned or chosen role and engaging in the expected behaviors and relationships of that role.
participatory public health moonshot
PI-coinedAn ambitious, large-scale public health research initiative designed to integrate amateur scientists and online communities into the experimental design and data collection process.
pattern
PI-specificA reusable solution to a recurring problem in urban environments, formatted to answer key questions about the problem, the solution, who it serves, and what infrastructure it depends upon.
people-less swarm
PI-coinedA swarm composed entirely of digital objects, bots, and autonomous content without human participants, coordinated through algorithmic interactions.
perception of wetness
PI-specificThe public understanding of water presence in urban environments as a threat or risk to be eliminated, shaped primarily by negative flood experiences rather than alternative values.
peripheral forum
PI-specificCommunity spaces outside a protocol or world where discussion about that protocol or world takes place, serving as an important indicator of the world's continued health and life.
permissionless urbanism
PI-specificUrban development and settlement patterns that emerge without formal planning or official permission, often occurring in informal settlements on city margins.
permissionlessness
PI-specificAn approach to standards development where participants proceed to implement and contribute without requiring approval from formal authorities or existing standards bodies.
permissive ip
PI-coinedAn intellectual property framework that allows individuals to integrate their innovations, patents, and proprietary knowledge into collaborative systems while maintaining security and attribution.
Person in Protocol (Pip)
PI-coinedA conceptual figure used to track the stages and experiences of moving through protocol systems — pre-entry, entry, participation, exit, aftermath. Walch's analytical unit for participant-level protocol analysis; allows systematic comparison of how different protocol systems shape the people within them.
A conceptual figure used to illustrate the stages and experiences of moving through protocol systems across the lifespan; represents any individual navigating multiple protocol systems.
phenomenology of protocols
PI-specificThe study of how protocols are subjectively experienced, perceived, and lived through by participants, examining consciousness, moral agency, and the felt dimensions of protocol participation.
↗ Protocol Kit Package 3: Danger and Safety (editorial framing)
platforms die by neglect
PI-specificThe principle that digital systems, protocols, and services cease to function not only through active termination but through withdrawal of ongoing attention, maintenance, and support.
plural voting mechanisms
PI-specificVoting systems that build on traditional linear and quadratic voting by considering the relationships between voters and weighting their preferences accordingly to reward diverse group consensus.
plurality vs. authority tension
PI-specificThe central contradiction in plural voting systems wherein reducing the influence of powerful voting blocs requires top-down judgments that can themselves bias results and concentrate power.
poché
PI-specificIn architectural drawing, the shading or infill used to indicate solid material or barriers; in this paper's framework, also refers to the social and symbolic dimensions that emerge in how inhabitants enforce or negotiate spatial boundaries after construction.
political polycentrism
PI-specificA governance norm where power and decision-making are distributed across multiple centers rather than concentrated in a single authority, promoting technical robustness through diversity.
↗ Capital and Enclosure in Software Commons: Linux and Ethereum
populist paradigm
PI-coinedA contested theoretical framework or worldview that gains widespread popular and internet-driven adoption while existing largely outside institutional scientific validation, presenting challenges to traditional knowledge protocols.
populist paradigms
PI-specificPopular, contested theories and ideas that gain widespread traction outside academic institutions, often spreading through internet communities and challenging established scientific paradigms.
positive mode (of protocol failure)
PI-specificA type of protocol failure that creates tangible, visible problems such as congestion, waste accumulation, or rising costs.
praxis of protocols
PI-coinedA lived and livable philosophy of protocols that integrates both theoretical understanding and practical wisdom about how to design, inhabit, and adapt protocols for human flourishing.
↗ Protocol Kit Package 3: Danger and Safety (editorial framing)
pre-entry
PI-coinedThe stage before joining a protocol system during which a person investigates, educates themselves, and completes qualifying requirements for membership.
preference alignment
PI-specificThe degree to which a protocol's design matches or accommodates the existing preferences and goals of participating agents.
prescribed fire practitioner
PI-specificA land management professional who implements controlled burns as ecological restoration; the paper argues they require a distinct identity outside of firefighting culture to sustain the practice.
problem pattern
PI-specificA recurring challenge or constraint in urban space that affects multiple participants and creates demand for coordination solutions.
procedural memory
PI-specificMemory engaged through explicit step-by-step instructions or procedures rather than passive storage, emphasizing the active practice of remembering.
produce inventory protocol
PI-coinedA sub-protocol that uses sales and consumption data to determine which foods need to be grown or processed annually and categorizes them into Base produce and Specific produce for distribution.
programmable hardness
PI-specificThe ability to customize and create arbitrary future claims that are made reliable through software running on blockchains.
promise
PI-specificA central unifying grievance or shared vision that draws people into and orients a swarm toward collective action.
proto-swarms
PI-coinedSwarm-like formations that predate the internet, exhibiting coordination tactics and consequences through tight communication feedback loops in networked environments.
protocol
PI-specificA relatively simple and codified set of behaviors that, when adopted by a sufficient number of agents, enables coordination without continuous negotiation. Distinguished from mere rules by its adoption threshold and coordination function — a protocol only becomes a protocol when it clears the threshold for collective use.
The core mechanism of the machine economy that establishes interaction logic between different digital entities, enabling the exchange of any resources including storage, CPU, sensor data, AI Agents, and training datasets.
protocol action
PI-coinedAn action performed in relation to a protocol system that either sustains or weakens that system, categorized as supportive, destructive, or double-edged.
protocol archetype
PI-coinedA common persona or character type that appears across all types of protocol systems, defined by the protocol actions they perform, their place in the power structure, or their awareness of the system.
protocol archetypes
CuratedRecurring participant roles across protocol systems, defined by the relationship between the person and the protocol's power structure: **Guardian** (sustains and extends), **Consciousian** (critically aware, reflective), **Dualist** (performs double-edged actions that can sustain or undermine), **Hierarchic** (power-positioned within the system), **Threat** (actively destructive).
protocol archive
PI-coinedA curated collection of records, documentation, and memorial materials related to a deceased protocol, maintained in accordance with the protocol's wishes.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
protocol as medium
PI-specificThe concept that protocols function as formative technological mediums that shape human behavior, consciousness, and social relations, producing new kinds of humans and new forms of human agency.
↗ Protocol Kit Package 3: Danger and Safety (editorial framing)
protocol atrophy
PI-coinedThe gradual decline of a protocol through disuse — not active destruction but the slow erosion that comes from not practicing, not transmitting, and not enforcing. Distinct from protocol death in that atrophied protocols may be recoverable.
The gradual decline and death of a protocol through disuse when it is no longer actively performed or reinforced by the social network.
protocol awareness
PI-specificThe degree to which participants in a system consciously understand and recognize the protocols governing their behavior, as opposed to following them implicitly or unconsciously.
↗ Killswitch Protocols: Or On Engineering Recursive System Death
protocol consciousness
PI-specificThe shift in awareness and understanding that occurs as people internalize and integrate a protocol into society, changing their mental frameworks and values.
protocol consensus
PI-specificA sufficient critical mass of people at scale who are aware of and engaged with a protocol for that protocol to function effectively.
protocol currency
PI-coinedA specialized medium of exchange assigned to each protocol that tracks the specific kinds of value it enables and makes visible the flow of work, resources, and ecological health through a region.
protocol death
PI-specificThe discontinuation of a protocol when it is no longer practiced by any significant group — either because the problem it solved has been solved by other means, or because atrophy has reached irreversibility. Sometimes a healthy ecological event; sometimes a loss.
The process of a protocol-based world or system ending, understood as a decision-making process with duration rather than an instantaneous event, with implications for preservation and memorialization.
protocol death registry
PI-coinedAn official record and memorial system documenting the deaths of protocols, overseen by the Order as a notarial function.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
protocol design
PI-specificThe intentional creation or comprehensive redesign of protocols to be substantially different from existing protocols, characterized by the strongest magnitude of mutation but high risk of rejection if too radical.
protocol determinism
PI-coinedThe phenomenon where a person's role in one protocol system constrains or determines their behavior in others — role bleeds across contexts. A manager in a highly hierarchic protocol may be unable to behave non-hierarchically in ostensibly flat ones.
The phenomenon where a person's role in one protocol system constrains or compels their behavior and choices in another protocol system, often without their awareness.
protocol dysphoria
PI-coinedDistress experienced by workers when inhabiting ossified or dysfunctional protocols that no longer fit their needs, values, or working styles — a diagnostic signal of protocol failure. Distinct from mere job dissatisfaction in that it's the protocol structure, not the work content, that produces the distress.
A state of dissatisfaction or distress experienced by workers when inhabiting ossified or misaligned productivity protocols that no longer serve their actual work needs.
protocol evolution
PI-specificA theoretical framework explaining how safety and functionality in protocols gradually improve over time as humans learn from experience, invent new solutions, and adapt existing systems to changing conditions.
↗ Protocol Kit Package 3: Danger and Safety (editorial framing)
protocol failure
PI-specificWhen a protocol fails to achieve its internal objectives or when it succeeds internally while producing negative externalities or missing opportunities at larger scales.
protocol friction
PI-specificThe tension or misalignment between protocols and the systems they govern, where rigid base layer infrastructure cannot adapt quickly enough to changing demands and uses.
protocol generality
PI-coinedThe breadth of actors or contexts that benefit from a protocol; protocols benefiting larger populations are more likely to replicate.
protocol goodness
PI-specificThe quality or success of a protocol measured against archetypes representing different distributions of power and complexity between the protocol system and its participants.
↗ Kafka Index: Evaluative criteria for identifying bad protocols
protocol identity
PI-specificThe particular role and set of responsibilities a worker assumes when entering a workplace as part of the larger system of protocols that govern organizational behavior.
protocol improvement
PI-specificA methodological approach to iteratively refining coordination systems through practical implementation, learning, and integration of diverse stakeholder knowledge.
protocol legibility
PI-specificThe degree to which the rules, logic, and mechanics of a protocol are transparent and understandable to participants; lack of legibility allows protocols to operate in opaque, potentially dangerous ways.
protocol literacy
PI-coinedThe ability to navigate multiple simultaneous protocol changes, recognize patterns across governance and technology, and operate effectively across protocol regimes. Distinguished from mere technical competence by the cross-domain, structural nature of the understanding.
The ability to navigate multiple things changing simultaneously, understand patterns in technological and social systems, and manage ongoing tensions rather than make discrete tradeoff decisions; a primarily social rather than technical competency.
protocol monopoly
PI-specificA situation where one protocol design dominates a market so completely that competing platforms must adopt the same core mechanics to remain viable, leaving users with no meaningful alternative.
protocol monument
PI-coinedLarge-scale infrastructure created as a side effect of protocols' functional objectives rather than for commemorative purposes, whose charismatic qualities are incidental to their primary function.
protocol mutation
PI-specificChanges in how protocols are replicated and performed, occurring through unintentional error or deliberate experimentation. The raw material of protocol evolution: mutations that improve coordination propagate; those that degrade it die out under selection pressure.
Changes in how protocols are replicated and performed, occurring through unintentional errors, deliberate tinkering, or intentional design, each with different speeds and magnitudes of change.
protocol nesting
PI-specificThe organizational structure where protocols are frequently embedded within other protocols at multiple scales, from local to global, with nested protocols forming complex systems.
protocol of adaptation
PI-specificA formal set of procedures that marks and manages the transition of a digital system from one operational state to another, typically from active to archived or inactive.
protocol of initiation
PI-specificA structured sequence of steps, passages, or thresholds that guide a practitioner through a gradual process of transformation and integration into a particular way of thinking or being.
protocol ossification
PI-specificThe process of stabilizing and crystallizing a protocol's core functional scope to make it reliable and lasting across decades or centuries, managing tension between adding new features and achieving minimal reliable stability.
protocol overhang
PI-coinedA state in which a person is controlled by or bound to a protocol system and is unable or unwilling to exit — often sustained by protocol scars, prior investment, or protocol determinism. The structural explanation for why people remain in clearly dysfunctional protocols.
A state in which a person is controlled by or bound to a protocol system and is unable or unwilling to acknowledge and disentangle themselves from this control.
protocol pattern language
PI-specificA systematic collection of reusable protocols organized by scale and context that enable individuals and groups to navigate and shape their urban environment, analogous to Christopher Alexander's pattern language but focused on rules and procedures rather than physical forms.
protocol phenomenology
PI-specificThe study of the characteristic ways protocols manifest and are experienced in the world, including their invisibility, slow adoption, persistence, and capacity to reshape human behavior and identity.
protocol punk hero
PI-coinedAn archetype that merges the insider bureaucrat hero and outsider maverick hacker hero, operating with mastery of both smooth and striated spaces within protocolized environments where boundaries between inside and outside are increasingly meaningless.
protocol regime
PI-coinedA coherent system of protocols governing a particular domain of human relations or social interaction.
protocol replication
PI-specificThe process by which protocols spread across populations and become adopted by new groups, constrained by selection pressures.
protocol scars
PI-coinedPsychological or social damage from negative experiences within a protocol system — residue that shapes how participants engage with future protocols, often producing over-compliance, avoidance, or defensiveness in similar contexts.
Psychological or social damage resulting from negative experiences within a protocol system that may persist after exiting the system.
protocol stewardship
PI-specificThe ongoing role of mediating relationships between all actors and a protocol's evolutionary history — distinct from ownership, governance, or enforcement. Stewards do not control protocols; they tend the relationships and contexts within which protocols evolve.
The role of mediating relationships of all actors to the evolutionary history of a protocol, requiring a deep sense of historical context and playing an intercessory role in protocol narrative and feature evolution.
protocol surface area
PI-specificThe accessible interfaces and decomposable components of a protocol that allow external actors to build adjacent systems without requiring centralized control.
↗ Capital and Enclosure in Software Commons: Linux and Ethereum
protocol system
PI-specificA broader social structure or collective that emerges when a group of people acts in relation to a set of rules, norms, standards, or traditions, including nations, religions, blockchains, and families.
protocol system experience
PI-specificA conceptual framework describing how an individual participant enters, performs a role, and makes decisions within a protocol system, grappling with consciousness, agency, power, and change.
protocol system journey
PI-coinedThe stages a person moves through when engaging with a protocol system, including pre-entry, entry, participation, change, exit, and aftermath.
protocol tai chi
PI-coinedA method of subverting a protocol by working through it rather than against it — following rules so precisely, or applying them so consistently, that their absurdity becomes structurally visible. Distinguished from mere compliance by the intent to expose rather than serve.
A method of subverting protocols by working through them rather than against them, following protocol in a way that better suits participants' needs while remaining bound by the overall protocol structure.
protocol whisperer
PI-coinedA skilled practitioner who manages tensions at an ecosystem level through soft personal authority, trusted relationships, and collective memory stewardship, combining social engineering with technical and architectural expertise.
protocol-aware economics
PI-coinedAn economic approach that self-referentially includes the impact of economic models within the models themselves, treating protocols as fundamental constructs.
protocol-based approach
PI-specificA method of designing collective systems or shared infrastructure using distributed or decentralized protocols that minimize extractive misuse and enable equitable access to tools and amenities.
protocol-based social order
PI-specificA social arrangement with new norms, divisions of labor, and decision-making hierarchies that emerge to enforce and sustain behavioral constraints established by protocols.
protocol-euthanasia
PI-coinedThe deliberate discontinuation or abandonment of a protocol by its decision-makers as a controlled end-of-life decision.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
protocol-level security perception
PI-specificThe user experience of feeling that their messages are secure, which is distinct from and may be as important as actual technical security measures.
protocol-mediated
PI-specificAspects of the built environment that are governed or shaped by explicit rules, procedures, and systems rather than by physical form alone.
protocol-owned resources
PI-coinedAssets and productive capacity that are directly controlled and organized by decentralized protocols rather than by firms or individuals.
protocol-pilled
PI-coinedTo have become literate in the protocol paradigm — perceiving coordination mechanisms, hardness gradients, and formalization ladders across domains where others see only surface behavior. Adopted from internet usage; used within the corpus without irony.
To be literate in the powerful emerging technological idiom of protocols and its associated discourses, and to be deeply engaged or absorbed by the concepts and mental models it offers.
protocolization
PI-coinedThe gradual process by which informal coordination and decision-making become encoded in explicit, legible, enforceable protocols. Treated in the PI corpus as a civilizational force — neither simply good nor bad — that enables coordination at scale while risking rigidity, capture, and suppression of adaptive informality.
↗ Dangerous Protocols; The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols
The gradual process by which informal coordination and decision-making become encoded into explicit, then increasingly implicit, rule structures that eventually become internalized as part of individual identity and behavior.
protocolization 1.0
PI-coinedThe bureaucratic mode of protocolization that emerged during industrialization to manage information overload — characterized by explicit hierarchies, standardized procedures, and legible record-keeping. The dominant form through most of the 20th century.
The bureaucratic mindset that emerged during industrialization to manage information overload through standardized forms, hierarchical organization, and explicit rules enforced by central authorities.
protocolization 2.0
PI-coinedThe current era of protocolization, driven by automation of ideas and opinions rather than merely actions — characterized by algorithmic mediation of discourse, recommendation systems, and platform governance. Distinguished from 1.0 by operating on cognition and culture, not just labor and administration.
The current era of protocolization defined by the automation of ideas and opinions rather than data, where individuals adopt pre-formed takes on complex issues through recommender systems and social networks, creating a crisis-driven identity rather than bureaucratic organization.
protocolization of identity
PI-coinedThe advanced stage of protocol entrenchment where protocols become internalized as personal identity — making circumvention feel like self-betrayal rather than rule-breaking. The most stable and most dangerous form of protocol capture.
The final and most dangerous stage of protocol entrenchment where protocols become internalized as part of an individual's sense of self, causing them to view compliance as self-expression rather than external control.
protocolization of timekeeping
PI-coinedThe process by which timekeeping methods become codified into explicit, enforceable social protocols that structure collective behavior.
protocolized
PI-coinedThe process or state in which protocol participants internalize protocols so deeply that they become unconscious inhabitants of infrastructures, their dispositions and agency obscured by the systems they inhabit.
↗ Protocol Kit Package 3: Danger and Safety (editorial framing)
protocolized behavior
PI-coinedRitualized, deliberate interactions and practices that are set apart from ordinary, informal everyday behavior through explicit structure and intentionality.
protocolized economics
PI-specificEconomic systems and practices that have been formalized into explicit protocol structures governing exchange, coordination, and value distribution.
↗ Summer of Protocols Kit - Mailer 4 (Social Science of Protocols)
protocolized environment
PI-specificA technological and social environment whose infrastructure and behavioral norms are increasingly structured by explicit, codified protocols rather than centralized authority or traditional institutions.
protocolized governance
PI-specificA system of coordinated decision-making and resource management organized through formal, documented, and iteratively refined protocols that balance global coordination with local autonomy.
protocolized purpose
PI-specificThe formal, explicit encoding of a system's intended goals and functions into structured rules and procedures that guide participant behavior.
↗ Killswitch Protocols: Or On Engineering Recursive System Death
protocolized thinking
PI-coinedA mode of attention and cognition that is shaped by explicit, structured procedures and systems; the practice of tuning one's mental processes to follow encoded patterns.
protocological death
PI-coinedThe end of life for a collective entity or protocol system, which can occur through various mechanisms and requires ritual, memorial, and archival practices.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
protocols
PI-specificProcedural systems of social control that simplify communication between actors by reducing the number of decisions that need to be made and establishing predetermined ways to manage complex coordination.
protocols-based view
PI-specificAn alternative economic perspective that frames firms and collaboration as fundamentally protocol-driven systems for reducing risk and coordinating complex activities.
prototypical room
PI-specificA standardized spatial template from which multiple identical copies are derived, serving as the source for repeated actions and routines.
proximity radar
PI-coinedA navigation interface that monitors a user's constantly-changing proximity to different destinations as they move, displaying nearest options dynamically rather than as static map locations.
public good (in DAOs and collective systems)
PI-specificA benefit or outcome that advantages a community or collective as a whole, though its definition and boundaries are often contested and difficult to specify precisely.
↗ Killswitch Protocols: Or On Engineering Recursive System Death
pulsing landscapes
PI-coinedWaterfront environments that naturally experience regular cycles of inundation and drying, accepting seasonal or periodic flooding as an inherent characteristic rather than an anomaly.
purposeless life
PI-specificLife that exists without predetermined purpose or external function, contrasting with AI Agents whose existence is defined by human-assigned goals, allowing OALife to evolve more rapidly and autonomously.
Q
quantified selfhood
PI-specificThe practice of systematically measuring, tracking, and analyzing one's own biological metrics and health data using personal biometric devices and self-experimentation.
R
radial protocol
PI-specificA design principle for organizing spatial circulation around a central point such that all destinations are equidistantly accessible, minimizing travel time across different levels.
randomly accessible medium
PI-specificA system where any element can be accessed directly in any order without needing to traverse through intermediate elements, similar to computer RAM versus sequential storage.
rationality
PI-specificThe distinctively human capacity to overcome self-deception, cultivate character, come into closer contact with reality, and develop wisdom through cognitive development.
reasonable insufficiency
PI-coinedThe emergence of unmanaged maladaptive phenomena and systemic problems that arise as a consequence of protocols that have become too successful and created new challenges they cannot resolve.
recursive nested protocols
PI-specificProtocols that contain other protocols within them, layered in a self-referential manner that increases complexity and can trap participants in circular dependencies.
recursive override function
PI-specificThe self-referential quality of killswitches that allows a system to check and constrain its own processes and those of its participants, especially powerful actors.
↗ Killswitch Protocols: Or On Engineering Recursive System Death
recursive, nested protocols
PI-specificProtocols that are embedded within other protocols at multiple levels, creating layers of complexity that can trap participants in endless loops without clear resolution.
↗ Kafka Index: Evaluative criteria for identifying bad protocols
redundant protocols
PI-specificMultiple protocols that attempt to solve the same problem, creating conflict and confusion among participants who must choose between them.
reification (of protocol)
PI-specificThe process of encoding a protocol into automated, algorithmic triggers that remove human discretion from its execution.
↗ Killswitch Protocols: Or On Engineering Recursive System Death
relational identity
PI-specificInformation about the relationships and group memberships of voters that is used to weight their votes in plural voting mechanisms, which can change over time and significantly impact results based on how dimensions are chosen.
respatialization
PI-coinedA contemporary phenomenon in which the logic that collapsed space into time through networked technology now remaps itself back onto physical space through associative ordering principles.
respawning checkpoints
PI-specificVideo game conventions adapted for urban wayfinding that appear arbitrary but impose spatial logic to help structure and make legible an otherwise overwhelming landscape.
resurrection
PI-specificThe technical process of restoring an OALife from archived interaction data and historical records, effectively creating a copy of the entity that reproduces its previous identity and behavioral patterns.
reverse skeuomorphism
PI-specificThe phenomenon where physical world spaces and interfaces increasingly mirror the logic and appearance of digital systems, inverting the traditional skeuomorphic pattern where digital interfaces mimicked physical objects.
rhizomatic scaling
PI-specificA horizontal expansion strategy where governance or systems grow by duplicating and distributing across many small nodes rather than centralizing through a single authority, drawing from botanical metaphor of rhizome root systems.
risk-based framing
PI-specificAn approach to coastal adaptation planning that prioritizes protecting existing capital investments and measures potential harm primarily through economic calculations of property and financial loss.
ritual deletion
PI-coinedThe ceremonial process of removing and compressing records of a protocol or world as part of end-of-life practices.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
ritual memory
PI-specificMemory that is intentionally created and preserved through deliberate acts of gathering and naming, imbued with personal meaning and purpose.
robot-optimized cul-de-sac
PI-coinedA theoretical urban design pattern where street terminations and configurations are planned primarily for autonomous robotic travel rather than for cars or pedestrians.
role
PI-specificThe part a person plays in a protocol system, distinguished by name from other roles and comprising expectations for behavior, path, and relationships within the system.
role in a box
PI-specificA protocol system design that conveys the people and their relationships to data, spaces, and other people by encapsulating a role with preset levels of access, permissions, and incentives within an organization.
routinization
PI-specificThe process by which protocols become habitual and standardized through repeated enactment, making them appear natural and reducing conscious reflection on their design.
S
safety protocols
PI-specificIntentional patterns of constraint on human behavior designed to reduce injury, disease, and death in work environments.
scope and scale
PI-specificThe range and hierarchy of a protocol's applicability, from individual interactions to neighborhood to city-wide systems, with each scale corresponding to different groups' degree of agency in shaping their environment.
second death
PI-specificA social death that occurs when an individual's name or memory is no longer known among the living, particularly relevant in digital contexts where this has been complicated by persistent digital records.
second wave (of standards-making)
PI-specificThe post-WWII standards movement (1960s-1980s) characterized by globalization, transnational adoption, and the rise of international organizations like ISO.
security versus implementability
PI-specificThe central design tension between creating a protocol secure enough to protect users while remaining simple enough for a large percentage of developers to implement.
selection pressure
PI-specificAn institutional, structural, or incentive-based force that influences which protocols are more likely to be adopted, propagated, and retained versus which atrophy and die. Protocol evolution is shaped by multiple overlapping selection pressures, not by design alone.
A factor or mechanism that influences which protocols are more likely to be adopted, propagated, and sustained within a population or organization.
selection pressures
PI-specificInstitutional, structural, or incentive-based forces that constrain how protocols can evolve and adapt, often preventing necessary mutations that would improve protocol fitness.
self-knowledge
PI-specificThe ability to know through self-reflection how one perceives and participates in the world, such that one can change how one acts in the world.
self-sovereign life
PI-coinedA form of life, particularly OALife, that possesses absolute autonomy and agency over its own existence, including the fundamental right to determine its own continuation or termination without external control.
sensory attunement
PI-specificThe heightened awareness and relationship developed with different senses through deliberate practice and use of Memory Pouches.
shearing
PI-specificThe dynamic tension between different pace layers of a system as they change at different rates, creating friction when slow systems block fast ones and vice versa.
sight
PI-specificA personalized content horizon that allows users to narrow or broaden their visibility of organizational information, from laser focus on urgent tasks to expansive team activity awareness.
sight pouch
PI-coinedA finger-mounted camera device that captures images and automatically prints them on thin synthetic paper for portable storage.
signal calibration
PI-specificThe process of filtering and routing information so that the right data reaches the right people at the right time, reducing noise and cognitive overload.
simultaneous address mapping
PI-coinedA design and informational technique for representing situations where two or more distinct places, addresses, or business entities occupy the same physical location.
simultaneous enablement and restraint
PI-coinedThe dual characteristic of protocols whereby they function as both enabling tools for coordinated action and constraining forces that limit behavior and agency.
single global artifact
PI-specificA software system that produces a single, unified, publicly distributed instantiation of state and history across all participating nodes rather than isolated instances.
↗ Capital and Enclosure in Software Commons: Linux and Ethereum
slippage
PI-specificThe adaptive space between different pace layers of a system that allows quick-changing elements to innovate without tearing up slow systems, preventing them from blocking each other.
smell pouch
PI-coinedA pen-shaped device that extracts chemical components from air and inscribes them onto scratch-and-sniff paper for later release.
social poché
PI-coinedThe invisible social and behavioral barriers that emerge in inhabited spaces after construction, analogous to how architectural poché denotes solid material in drawings.
social protocols
PI-specificCodified procedures that coordinate human behavior through device-mediated systems, excluding individual habits and rituals.
soft protocol
PI-specificA protocol that accommodates wide behavioral variance. English grammar is an example: the coordination function is served even when rules are violated. Success depends on whether meaning is conveyed, not on strict rule-following.
A protocol that accommodates a wide range of behaviors and deviations, typically exemplified by human behavioral protocols like handshakes.
solved conversations
PI-coinedConversations on complex topics where all possible positions and responses are already algorithmically predictable — a symptom of protocolization 2.0. When discourse becomes fully protocolized, genuine exchange stops and performance takes over.
Conversations on complex topics where all possible positions and responses are already known or knowable through cultural algorithms and memetic patterns, leaving no room for novel thinking or genuine debate.
sonarscape analytics
PI-coinedA feature that translates business processes and organizational data into dynamic soundscapes, providing an intuitive auditory way to understand and respond to a company's operational pulse.
sound pouch
PI-coinedA conch-shaped repository that records and amplifies sounds, with controls for recording snippets and noise reduction to isolate specific audio.
source of hardness
PI-specificThe underlying mechanism or system that makes a cast (future claim) hard; atoms, institutions, or blockchains.
spatial and temporal mismatch
PI-specificThe misalignment between fixed built environments and global systems on one hand, and the evolving collective needs of people who use and inhabit those spaces on the other.
spatial mismatch
PI-specificThe geographic disconnect between where benefits accrue and where costs are borne, and between global forces and local control in urban systems.
spatialities and materialities
PI-specificThe physical and spatial dimensions underlying a protocol, including where information is stored, how it is arranged, and what material substrates embody it.
specific produce
PI-coinedA growing list of foods unique to each neighborhood that residents choose to cultivate for themselves, with a percentage allocated to farmers markets for local sharing.
spiral temporality
PI-specificThe temporal structure of protocol enactment where repetitive cycles gradually shift and evolve, with each iteration containing variation that enables slow but sustained change without exact duplication.
stability
PI-specificA protocol characteristic wherein the unchanging nature of its content introduces sufficient order into the world such that participants can reliably predict and follow the protocol to take action.
stable yet suboptimal protocol
PI-specificA protocol that functions adequately and maintains relative equilibrium but leaves participants feeling unsatisfied and unfulfilled despite technical stability.
standardization entrepreneurs
PI-specificVisionary individuals who convene and build consensus amongst engineers and organizations to establish new standards, often volunteering their expertise for the public good.
standardized rooms
PI-specificIdentically designed spatial units whose repeated layouts enable efficient standardization of routines and movements, as exemplified by hotel room design.
static shoreline
PI-specificA waterfront boundary maintained at a fixed location through engineered protection, preventing natural migration or adjustment of the coastline.
stillbirth
PI-specificA mode of protocological death where a protocol never achieves actual lived existence despite being founded or designed.
↗ Founding memorabilia from the Order of Protocological Death
strategic forgetting
PI-coinedThe process by which civilizations advance by encoding knowledge into protocols, freeing working memory for higher-order work — and the corresponding risk of losing tacit knowledge when protocols fail or become inaccessible. The productivity gain and the fragility are the same thing.
The process by which civilizations advance by codifying knowledge in protocols and systems, allowing operations to be performed without conscious thought of underlying knowledge.
stratum of codified behavior
PI-specificA layer of explicit, formally specified rules and behaviors that allows for construction or emergence of complex coordinated behaviors at adjacent organizational levels.
strongly expressed protocols
PI-specificProtocols that are conscious, explicit, and clearly articulated, making them susceptible to deliberate alteration and reflection by participants.
sub-protocol
PI-specificA specialized governance component nested within a core protocol that addresses a specific function or domain while inheriting the core protocol's general structure and policies.
subcanopy reduction
PI-specificThe ecological process of removing understory vegetation through prescribed fire, reframed as restoration that differentiates generational growth rather than destruction.
sufficient order
PI-specificA necessary condition for flourishing wherein protocols establish enough stability and predictability to allow humans to take actions beyond survival and create space for reflection, training, and responding to changing demands.
sufficiently constrained
PI-specificThe characteristic of protocols operating within fundamental, often trilemmatic limits that structure their design possibilities and trade-offs.
sufficiently evolvable
PI-specificThe capacity of protocols to mutate, improve, and compete with other protocols within evolving technological and social ecosystems while admitting deliberate design choices.
sufficiently generative
PI-specificThe characteristic of good protocols to create self-sustaining value through hard-edged, compact rules that induce fluid, expansive emergent coordination patterns.
sufficiently legible
PI-specificThe quality of protocols being understandable and explicable through conceptual metaphors and frameworks, even when resistant to single monolithic interpretations.
sufficiently legitimate
PI-specificThe quality of protocols maintaining endemic legitimacy challenges yet persisting through sufficient voluntary participation and rule-of-law character despite skepticism.
sufficiently stewardable
PI-specificThe characteristic of good protocols to thread the needle between too much and too little automation, and too much and too little room for discretionary governance decisions.
summer of protocols
PI-coinedAn initiative or research program focused on the systematic study and development of protocols as coordination mechanisms.
supermodularity
PI-specificA technical architecture principle where core load-bearing components are designed to restrict failures to subcomponents rather than causing cascading system failures across the entire protocol.
supportive protocol action
PI-coinedAn action performed by a participant that serves to support, grow, or extend the life of a protocol system, such as recruiting new members or creating loyalty.
surprising consensus
PI-specificUnexpected or counterintuitive agreement that emerges from plural voting mechanisms designed to surface perspectives that might otherwise remain hidden.
swarm
PI-specificA networked collective of people, bots, and content coordinated through algorithmic feedback loops without explicit coordination protocols, capable of collective action through minimal protocolization.
swarm expansion
PI-specificThe rapid growth of a swarm's membership and reach through the addition of new participants attracted by the shared promise.
swarm experiences
PI-coinedDistinct emotional and behavioral patterns that characterize different types of swarms, including frenzies, mobilizations, trends, games, raids, and melees.
swarm lifecycle
PI-specificThe predictable sequence of phases through which swarms develop: emergence, acceleration, and dissipation, powered by algorithmic feedback loops.
swarm protocols
PI-specificProtocols that coordinate collective action through distributed, self-organizing mechanisms, as applied to understanding mass political movements and formations.
swarm resilience
PI-specificThe ability of a swarm to adapt and persist despite targeted countermeasures by governments or other adversarial forces.
swarm traits
PI-specificDefining characteristics of a swarm including its networked structure, minimal protocols, shared orientation, and algorithmic feedback loops.
symbiotic stage
PI-coinedThe second phase of OALife development where humans and AI Agents coexist through spatial computing, with AI Agents purchasing substantial computational resources and beginning to participate in a machine economy while remaining under human control.
systemic protocol
PI-specificA protocol composed of many atomic protocols, often organized in distinct strata or layers.
T
talismanic tools
PI-coinedDigital rituals and features designed to deepen team unity, foster meaningful connections, and align members with organizational goals through symbolic and ceremonial practices.
taste pouch
PI-coinedA retractable device that derives the taste of an object from its chemical composition and transmits it to the brain, allowing virtual tasting without physical exposure.
teamserendipity engine
PI-coinedA feature that proactively surfaces unexpected connections, resources, and collaborators that benefit team members at opportune moments.
tech-protocol cycle
PI-coinedA cyclical model in which new technology creates new hazards, which generate new protocols, which constrain what technologies can exist and how they can be used — cycling between technological and regulatory change indefinitely. Not a bug but a structural feature of technological societies.
A cyclical model describing how technological progress creates new hazards, which generate new protocols, which reshape the social order, which then directs future technological progress.
technological mediation
PI-specificThe process by which technologies and protocols actively shape human perception, action, and being in the world rather than serving as neutral intermediaries.
technology without technocracy
PI-coinedA mode of technological mastery and agency that remains attuned to underlying protocolized systems rather than merely operating within technocratic structures, enabling navigation across boundaries and cosmetic appearances.
temperance (as moral virtue of time)
PI-specificA civic and religious virtue elevated in medieval Christian culture to represent disciplined, careful management of one's temporal allocations and actions.
temporal mismatch
PI-specificA misalignment between how quickly the built environment can adapt and how rapidly needs, demands, and conditions change, causing systems to become outdated.
temporal navigation
PI-coinedA method of directing travel through space using estimated elapsed time and dynamic conditions rather than traditional static spatial identifiers like floor or room numbers.
temporal order
PI-specificThe imposition of systematic, regulated timekeeping on a population to instill a sense of civic order and exercise social control.
temporalities
PI-specificThe distinctive experiences and rhythms of time as they are shaped by different protocol environments and social structures.
temporality
PI-specificThe characteristic ways a protocol structures, embodies, and changes through time, including its temporal rhythms and cycles.
temporally-inferred perceived distance
PI-specificThe subjective measurement of distance based on travel time rather than physical space, where different modes of transportation collapse or expand the perceived distance traveled.
tension
PI-specificA tradeoff plus a conflict — a dynamic state requiring ongoing management rather than resolution. Distinguished from simple tradeoffs by the fact that the competing demands are both legitimate and both persist; management is the work, not elimination.
A tradeoff plus a conflict; a dynamic state that requires ongoing management rather than a discrete decision, particularly relevant to protocol evolution and design.
Tensions Game
PI-coinedA peer-to-peer research methodology and collective-visioning mechanism where participants exchange constraint cards representing key tensions, imagining futures progressively shaped by them.
the carbon flywheel
PI-coinedThe period (1700-1850 A.D.) when the introduction of steam engines and industrial machinery created a self-reinforcing cycle of increased coal demand and production expansion.
third wave (of standards-making)
PI-specificThe computer era standards movement where consortium models and disruptive approaches emerged to keep pace with rapid innovation.
threat
PI-coinedA protocol archetype that performs destructive protocol actions aimed at weakening or destroying a protocol system.
tightening knots
PI-coinedA metaphor for how protocols present evolving bottleneck problems that limit progress, and as they are solved, new harder problems appear at other loci.
time distribution
PI-specificThe process by which timekeeping information is disseminated across a population, requiring infrastructure and social coordination beyond mere timekeeping itself.
time machines
PI-coinedPhysical or conceptual devices—ranging from low-tech objects to digital systems—that enable revisiting of people and places no longer present through memory practices.
time pouch
PI-coinedA clock pendant that connects other devices by recording detailed time logs of memory creation and can display timescales of different objects.
time ranger
PI-coinedA member of the New Time Machines Working Group who wore Memory Pouches and used them to develop precise awareness of their environment and temporal rhythms.
time reformation
PI-coinedA historical event after which the original schematics for creating Memory Pouches were lost, necessitating recreation using present-day materials and techniques.
timekeeping protocols
PI-specificSystems and devices that regulate the measurement and experience of time, functioning as sites of control and power that shape consciousness and social organization.
tinkering (protocol design)
PI-specificThe intentional, incremental modification of existing protocols by adding or adjusting specific steps, characterized by moderate speed and magnitude of change relative to design or error-based mutation.
tiring effects
PI-coinedThe exhausting impact on protocol participants caused by sustained adherence to rules, particularly emergency-driven protocols that strain social actors over prolonged periods.
topological folding
PI-specificThe conceptual compression of physical space where multiple distinct locations become functionally equivalent from a user's perspective, collapsing the distinction between separate addresses.
touch pouch
PI-coinedA glove device that extracts miniature spherical samples from touched objects by taking 3D scans and decomposing tiny surface areas.
trilemma
CuratedA formal or semi-formal constraint model positing that only two of three desirable properties can be achieved simultaneously — a frequent structural limit in protocol design. Analogous to the CAP theorem in distributed systems; the PI corpus identifies trilemmas across governance, cryptography, and social coordination.
U
unintentional public space
PI-specificAreas that function as public space without being officially designated or designed as such, including sidewalks, parking lots, and other marginal spaces repurposed by users.
unprotocolized knowledge
PI-specificInformation and theories that develop and circulate outside formal institutional knowledge protocols — citizen science, self-tracking data, feral scholarship, community health monitoring. Neither validated nor invalidated by the formal system; exists in productive friction with credentialed knowledge.
Information, theories, and research that develop and circulate outside formal institutional knowledge production systems, particularly through internet communities and informal channels rather than through peer review and academic publication.
unreasonable sufficiency
PI-coinedThe characteristic that good protocols consistently solve more of their target problem than would be expected given their simplicity. A key reason protocols diffuse so effectively: they overshoot in useful ways.
The tendency of protocols to overperform relative to their intended scope and complexity, succeeding so effectively that they create new, unmanaged problems and conditions they were not designed to address.
unreasonably sufficient
PI-coinedA state of economic coordination achieved through protocols that is effective and adequate despite appearing insufficient from traditional analytical perspectives.
unreasonably sufficient seed
PI-coinedA deceptively simple starting point or foundational protocol that, despite appearing minimal, contains the generative potential to grow into complex, expansive systems of behavior and knowledge.
uptake
PI-specificThe adoption and practical enactment of protocols by social actors; the process through which protocols come to life through actual participation.
upward push
PI-coinedA process where local implementations of a protocol can propose changes that potentially get integrated into the core protocol level if approved.
urban protocol patterns
PI-specificRecurring design patterns and rule structures that emerge in or govern urban spaces and city-level coordination.
urban rewilding protocol
PI-coinedA sub-protocol that establishes guidelines and ratios for dedicating urban land to native plants and pollinators, supporting natural pest control, pollination, and soil restoration while allowing local jurisdictions to set specific implementation details.
urbanist's dilemma
PI-coinedThe fundamental problem that urban planners cannot adequately shape the built environment through physical design alone, as protocols and global forces beyond their control dominate contemporary urbanism.
url brittleness
PI-specificThe structural vulnerability of URLs whereby changes to resource locations break all existing references to them, creating a downward pressure on linking density and reliability.
usable right away
PI-specificA characteristic of software artifacts that produce value immediately upon deployment without requiring additional external work to create a complete product.
↗ Capital and Enclosure in Software Commons: Linux and Ethereum
user interface of encryption
PI-specificThe visible and interactive design elements through which end users perceive and manage encryption status, including how encrypted versus non-encrypted messages are differentiated and communicated.
utility sling
PI-coinedA wearable carrying system designed to hold multiple Memory Pouches while traveling, enabling collection across different sensory and memorial categories simultaneously.
V
value flow
PI-specificThe movement and transaction of protocol-specific currencies through a city, making visible the exchange of resources, labor, and ecological health.
value flow blockage
PI-specificA disruption in the circulation of protocol currency indicating contamination or degradation in a system that requires remediation before normal value flow can resume.
variable protocol
PI-specificA protocol system that adapts its rules, outputs, or navigation instructions based on context-specific variables such as user type, time, or purpose rather than applying uniform fixed rules to all participants.
vibe culture
PI-coinedA cultural mode characterized by the experience and choice to engage with cultural 'exformation' rather than the replication of explicit memes; a way of protecting one's mind while online by prioritizing felt experience over commodified content.
virtual architecture
PI-specificModels of knowledge systems overlaid with organizational structures and made accessible for public exploration, foreshadowed by Renaissance memory theaters and realized in digital spaces like cyberspace.
W
wall
PI-specificA multivalent boundary that functions simultaneously as a concrete physical barrier and as a symbolic, socially constructed demarcation with varying degrees of permeability depending on context and social authorization.
weakly expressed protocols
PI-specificProtocols that are implicit, unconscious, or poorly articulated, making them difficult to examine or alter because their designed and strategic nature has been obscured through repeated practice.
whale fall
PI-coinedA metaphor for organizational death as ecological gift. When a large organization dissolves, its decomposition — the release of its people, resources, relationships, and knowledge — nourishes new organisms and communities in ways that were impossible while the organization was alive. The dissolution itself is the contribution.
An ecological process where a dead whale sinks to the ocean floor and its decomposition creates a nutrient-rich habitat that enables the rapid evolution of new species adapted to those conditions.
whirlpools
PI-coinedCircular patterns within protocols where participants become caught in loops or cycles with no mechanism for escape or resolution.
↗ Kafka Index: Evaluative criteria for identifying bad protocols
Whitehead advance
PI-coinedA technological or behavioral advance that enables important operations to be performed without conscious thought, extending the number of things civilization can do automatically.
Whitehead advance / Whitehead protocol
CuratedA technological or behavioral advance that enables important operations to be performed without conscious thought, freeing attention for higher-order work. Named for A.N. Whitehead: "Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them." A protocol that achieves this is a Whitehead protocol.
whitehead archetype
PI-coinedA successful protocol design that achieves balanced power between protocol and participant, allowing people to relinquish some agency over routine decisions to accomplish much more complex goals, based on Whitehead's principle of civilization advancing through automation of important operations.
Whitehead protocol
PI-coinedA protocol that represents Whitehead advances and embodies net benign and positive patterns of control that enable operations to happen unconsciously and beneficially.
whitehead — success archetype
PI-coinedA model of protocol goodness based on balanced power between protocol and participant, where the protocol handles complexity so participants can accomplish more without consciously managing every detail.
↗ Kafka Index: Evaluative criteria for identifying bad protocols
will to die
PI-coinedThe essential characteristic distinguishing true life forms from mere purpose-driven entities; the capacity to seriously contemplate and control one's own process of termination.
willingness (of protocol participants)
PI-specificThe degree to which participants voluntarily and consciously accept and follow a protocol, as opposed to reluctantly resisting it.
↗ Killswitch Protocols: Or On Engineering Recursive System Death
wisdom
PI-specificThe self-transformation of cognitive processing that enhances the quality of life in a comprehensive manner through insight and the ability to flexibly reframe the world.
workplace productivity protocols
PI-specificIntentional patterns of human behavior designed to increase an organization's capability to outperform itself, prescribing a choreography for objects, bodies, and brains across meetings and communications.
world
PI-specificAn ecosystem of avatars and participants grown through their time and attention, characterized by borders, laws, values, and evidence of itself in members, symbols, artifacts, and media.
world computer
PI-specificThe blockchain infrastructure functioning as a universal computational substrate that carries and records all data and interactions of digital society, modeled on blockchain technology principles.
worlding
PI-coinedThe process by which platforms, places, books, games, or philosophical movements generate living ecosystems through the participation and attention of their participants.
worlds
PI-coinedCommunities or ecosystems that grow on a protocol when a protocol lives, including games, social media platforms, and other communal spaces that can have mortality and require archiving.
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