The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols

Good protocols, in short, are the embodiments of A. N. Whitehead’s famous assertion that “civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.” Not only do good protocols deliver civilizational advances, they do so in sustainable ways. “Stability without stagnation” (a guiding principl

A protocol is a relatively simple and codified set of behaviors that, when adopted by a sufficient number of participants (human and/or artificial) in a situation, reliably leads to good-enough outcomes for all.

Good protocols, in short, manage to catalyze good enough outcomes with respect to a variety of contending criteria, via surprisingly limited and compact interventions.

Good protocols do not just treat solutions to problems as works-in-progress, with bugs and imperfections to be worked out over the long term, but the specifications of the problems as works-in-progress as well. Good protocols learn, grow, and mature in ways that catalyze thoughtful stewardship and sustained generativity. Bad protocols on the other