Protocol Reading List - Top 20

General
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Here’s a reading list (mostly external to SoP) to get started thinking about protocols. Some books, some blogs. First set of links are more non-fiction, academic, or specification-like. Geared towards teams applying to the Protocol Improvement Grant. Second list is shorter and includes some examples of protocol memes and fictions, for PILL applicants. Happy reading :nerd_face:

PIG Reference List

  1. The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols [Link]
  2. What Makes for a Successful Protocol? [Link]
  3. Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization [Link]
  4. If Code is Law, Protocols Are Good Manners That Help Us Get Along [Link]
  5. Men, Machines and Modern Times [Link]
  6. The Checklist Manifesto [Link]
  7. Why the Internet Needs the Interplanetary File System [Link]
  8. The Nature of Technology [Link]
  9. Atoms, Institutions, and Blockchains [Link]
  10. Thin Rules and Thick Rules [Link]
  11. How Complex Systems Fail [Link]
  12. Seeing like a Protocol [Link]
  13. Decentralization in All the Things [Link]
  14. Cognition in the Wild [Link]
  15. Book-Smart, Not Street-Smart: Blockchain-Based Smart Contracts and The Social Workings of the Law [Link]
  16. On the Origin of Laws by Natural Selection [Link]

PILL Reference List

  1. XCXD #2347: Dependency (Nebraska Guy) [Link]
  2. Die a Vibe or Live Long Enough to Become a Protocol [Link]
  3. Who Could Write Protocol Fiction for Speculative Infrastructure? [Link]
  4. Bureaucratic Heroism [Link]
  5. The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction [Link]
  6. There Is No Antimemetics Division [Link]
  7. Protocol Entrepreneurship Diagram [Link]

(P.S. Last summer’s reading list - loooots of links.)

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Awesome! I don’t think I’ve read most of these

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Timber, thank you for the invitation, I am keen to try to get some funding for my protocols and to learn how to improve them But the first link, what makes a good protocol, does not link to a corresponding enough resource. The link opens a post about rules which is too broadly related to protoocls and does is not imho what the title says it is. am I wrong? please send a link to what makes a good protocol to start with. I ll be working on something asap and look forwrd to be connecting with everyone

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Hey paola, I’d recommend The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols as another good starting point. Let me know what you think!

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great start, thank you- why is still in draft form? I figure it got out of hand, such a huge topic, looks like unfinished work that VR never went back to. important to have an outline, guidlines, maybe do some asynchronoous brainstorm, asking participants to to enter their criteria, elaborate them, rank them in order of importance, what do you think? I participated in a seminar not long ago

what makes a good procol

and may be able to dig up a quick starter recipe, the field is vast. the point is: we need quick instructions to do everything, in a changing world, limited time to learn, just figure what to do: have a protocol for everything but be aware of the limitations (degree of certainty, risks and other possibilities) will follow up

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