Lots of overlap here between the role of an anthropologist and a protocol scientist. Both looking at commonplace things with fresh eyes.
When he returned from Papua New Guinea, Whitehouse became a bit of an amateur “ritual spotter,” noticing strangeness everywhere—in what had previously seemed familiar. And it wasn’t just the bizarre customs of England’s elite universities. “Why place gifts under a special tree and wrap them in coloured paper? Why should one shake hands with an uncle but kiss an aunt?”
Does make me wonder though – can one be both a protocol scientist and a protocol entrepreneur? The latter is focused on ‘what is’ and the latter is focused on ‘what ought to be’.
I think that part of realizing “what ought to be” and is a solid understanding of “what is” in a given context. In the sense, don’t try to change it if you don’t understand how it came to be that way in the first place.
Chesterton’s Fence vibes. A wise protocol entrepreneur has an ‘ought’ but also a good understanding of ‘what is’ and why it is what it is. A naive protocol entrepreneur just has an ‘ought’. Understanding the status quo isn’t necessary but definitely a great thing have in terms of not wasting effort and/or being needlessly destructive.
And, inversely, I’d say that protocol scientists / philosophers are at their best when they know ‘what is’ but are indifferent about the ‘ought’. If one has strong opinions about what a protocol should look like, one probably lacks the objectivity necessary for analyzing it.
Protocol entrepreneurs can benefit from a protocol science background; protocol scientists shouldn’t have entrepreneurial tendencies
This is an interesting conclusion. It is a one-way relationship. This is what I usually tell my students, “let the problem talk, you won’t solve it if you think it has to fit this or that scheme”.