Summer Of Protocols

The Summer of Protocols is a summer (2023) research program plus an all-season ongoing conversation, comprising an active online events track and a newsletter... https://summerofprotocols.com/ https://paragraph.xyz/@protocolized

Complex coordination problems have an air of doomed intractability about them. We speak in fatalistic terms of economics being a “dismal” science, of sociological phenomena being dominated by the “tragedy of the commons,” of organizations being hopelessly “captured,” and of complex problems being “wicked.” Even our simplest mental models of coordination and cooperation problems, such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma in game theory, are built around default expectations of obviously worse outcomes dominating obviously better ones, and worst-case behaviors driving systemic outcomes.Yet, in practice, we routinely solve coordination problems reasonably well. Workable solutions materialize, pushing through the gloom and doom which often accompanies theoretical views and cultural commentary. In light of this foreboding context, the outcomes appear almost suspiciously lucky, or serendipitous.

Venkatesh Rao: The program grew out of a pilot project I led over the last 3 months, on the foundations of protocols. My collaborators and I just released a draft of the pilot study, The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols, meant to prime the pump.

(Underwritten by the Ethereum Foundation.)