Open Source Social Practice Protocol（OSTP）
Team member names
- Luo p/acc
- jojo
Short summary of your improvement idea
Technology is built through the participation of various social forces and visions, inspired by transboundary, disruptive, and conflictual social interactions that drive the vector parameters of technological progress. Technological upgrades are inherent within social innovation, which often stems from the “middle ground” of cross-cultural interaction. Establishing a shared community of technology, art, humanities, and multiculturalism in this “middle ground,” through cross-boundary communication, collaborative creation, and communal living, culminates in an open-source social-technology practice protocol. This protocol includes methodologies and toolkits for practice, making technology accessible to the public, while allowing liberating, distributed, and avant-garde social innovations to drive the future possibilities of technology.
What is the existing target protocol you are hoping to improve or enhance?
The symptom of today’s internet technology lies in its loss of social imagination, becoming a tool for governance by state power and capital. Therefore, it is essential to rebuild the distributed network and make web3 cryptopunk again, reviving the social protocols present at the birth of the distributed network—fiercely diverse social movements, open and inclusive cultural collisions, and alternative possibilities for technological imagination.
For example, both the United States and Europe have competitive technological paths concerning the modern Internet. Leveraging the TCP/IP protocol, the ARPA network, born from the American military-industrial-academic complex, incorporated the organizational modes of the counterculture movement and hippie communes. It drew on social concepts of open sharing, community mutual aid, and flexible collaboration, becoming a more compatible network technology path.
What is the core idea or insight about potential improvement you want to pursue?
Hippie-computer Community-network Zomia-Solarpunk
Critical communication studies argue that technological innovation stems from social innovation. The underlying protocol of machines is human nature, and the underlying protocol of networks is society. Technology must be embedded in human experience for cultural modulation; technological paths are shaped by various social forces and political visions that participate, intervene, and mediate. Digital democracy needs to be expressed, perceived, and recognized in people’s daily lives and their specific experiences with machines.
Computers’ symbolic transformation and the Internet’s underlying protocols were co-constructed through the complex historical interactions among the hippie-engineer groups and the military-industrial-commune-club collectives. The value of people, as discussed in the writings of internet pioneer Norbert Wiener in “The Human Use of Human Beings,” lies in their randomness and creativity, not determined by the market; otherwise, the cyber revolution will render most people superfluous. The modern ruling order over labor, termed “governmentality” by French philosopher Michel Foucault, denotes state top-down governance formation, while society generates alternative modes from the bottom up to escape such governance. In the interplay between governance and resistance, temple and market, alternative modes and techniques of governance spiral upward in the technological social history.
Amid global ecological disasters and geopolitical crises, AI as a weapon of slaughter, the Internet as a tool for surveillance, and data laborers as the discarded ones arise from technological innovations detached from social settings, becoming antagonistic to society.
By making technology open-source to the public and establishing a public knowledge spectrum and toolkit, the potential future of technology driven by liberating, distributed, and avant-garde social innovations can be realized.
From an anthropological perspective:
The theory of Zomia highlands is discussed by anthropologist James C. Scott in “The Art of Not Being Governed.” Zomia refers to the tribes living in the frontier highlands. The collision of the Indian-Australian Plate with the Eurasian Continental Plate formed the Himalayas and extended to the largest highland plateau area in Southeast Asia, including the Hengduan Mountains. This region became a refuge for those escaping—war, corvée labor, and taxation—from the plains’ agricultural dynasties. The cultivation methods and social structures of the ethnic minorities and highland residents were designed to facilitate dispersion and autonomy, preventing them from becoming vassals of centralized powers, much like the Fremen of “Dune” who follow prophetic teachings. David Graeber similarly posited that modern social innovation experiments originate from “cross-cultural improvisation zones,” or “middle grounds,” which are typically areas not controlled by states. The social culture and religious beliefs (such as Buddhism) of the Zomia highlanders contribute to a profound understanding of public activities, public goods, and shared spaces. The solarpunk movement, originating from post-millennial science fiction literature, envisions a technologically advanced, ecologically sustainable, and socially just near-future utopia. Chiang Mai, located in the highland basin of northern Thailand under the Zomia sun, has thrived with biodiversity, vitality, and creativity since the hippie trail of banana pancakes in the 1960s, becoming a promised land for international crypto nomads, hippie expatriates, diaspora, and wanderers.
What is your discovery methodology for investigating the current state of the target protocol? Eg: field observation, expert interviews, historical data analysis, failure event analysis
Desktop Research: This involves understanding the public sentiment towards the “black box” of cutting-edge technology through social media analysis, as well as gauging the vision of the technology developer community towards distributed networks. This method can capture wide-ranging opinions and perspectives, providing a broad view of current perceptions and expectations regarding new technological paradigms.
Field Research: This involves identifying and exploring “middle grounds” where technology and society intersect harmoniously. These locations or communities serve as practical test beds for how technology can be integrated with cultural and social norms effectively. Field research is crucial for observing firsthand the dynamics of technology adaptation in diverse social settings, and it can offer deep insights into the practical challenges and successes of implementing technological innovations in different cultural contexts.
In what form will you prototype your improvement idea?
This prototype requires synthesis through team collaboration and communal living, culminating in the creation of an open-source social-technology practice protocol. This protocol will include methodologies and toolkits for social practice, designed to be adaptable across different cultural contexts.
Initial Phase: Establishing a Cross-Cultural Community
The first step involves setting up a cross-cultural community that engages in daily living practices to gather insights and refine methodologies. This phase is crucial for understanding how different cultural practices can integrate with and shape technological use and development.
Pilot Locations: Dali and Chiang Mai
The early pilot programs are planned for Dali in China and Chiang Mai in Thailand. Both locations are known for their rich cultural heritage and vibrant communities, making them ideal for testing how technology can be seamlessly integrated into diverse social fabrics. These sites will serve as experimental zones where participants can live, work, and collaborate on developing the protocol, drawing from local practices and global ideas to create a robust model for social-technology interaction.
Dali Open Source House
Free residency and public programs for for open source art and technology contributors
https://DaliOpen.com
Chiang Mai is a convergence point for multiculturalism, civil society, and digital nomads, and it is also a key node in the Zomia region. We currently have a nomadic curatorial club in Chiang Mai that includes developers, artists, designers, healers, and musicians. In our daily life, through mutual support and creativity, we plan activities across multiple collaborative venues throughout the city of Chiang Mai. Workshop themes include: dyeing each other’s hair, gathering to cook dinners together, music therapy, philosophy of fungi, popularization of AI tools, philosophy of technology, cyborg jewelry, and research on web3.
SOCIAL PRACTICE ART WIKI An attempt to build a Chinese-language database of radical performance social art projects that the public can DIY in their everyday life with zero cost and zero professional background. Also a digital garden for me to learn in public and research in public. https://youcanmake.art
How will you field-test your improvement idea?
- Recruit participants from different communities.
- After releasing the toolkit, share it with more digital nomad and developer communities.
- Organize a tech hackathon focused on social practices.
Who will be able to judge the quality of your output?
- For participants without a technical background, evaluate their acceptance of open-source technology through interviews and survey questionnaires.
- For technology developers, assess whether they are inspired during collaborative creation.
- For community organizers, determine if the methodologies and toolkits provided by OSTP effectively engage the community.
- Assess all ecosystem participants, including a challenging endeavor to gauge the influence of non-human factors within the environmental ecosystem on the outcomes.
How will you publish and evangelize your improvement idea?
- Create a public wiki for sharing information and updates.
- Promote through the global network of digital nomads.
- Publish printed materials through independent publishers like Dodecahedron or Sticker Paper.
What is the success vision for your idea?
The methodologies and toolkits included in the OSTP can serve as catalysts for social-technology practices, activating more spaces for digital nomads. By making technology open to the public, it allows liberating, distributed, and avant-garde social innovations to drive the future possibilities of technology.