Here are some questions I continue to ask, that I wish I had a satisfactory answer to (or a clearer formulation of):
- How did protocols make the etymological jump from diplomacy to widespread use?
- What is the relationship between protocols and individual free will?
- Are protocols always anchored to the exchange of some real world, valuable entity?
- Does making protocols explicit increase the rate of rent-seeking behavior?
- What is the nature of protocol accumulation?
- What preconditions are necessary for a large-scale protocol to succeed? (e.g. Montreal protocol)
- Is protocolization cyclic, self-defeating, compounding, irreversible, etc. – does it have a predictable end state or series of states?
- What is the difference between protocols that affect one agent’s outcomes vs. multiple agents’ outcomes? (e.g. caloric restriction vs. air pollution standards)
- Do protocols affect the outcomes of processes and systems by setting the trade-off between efficiency and thoroughness?
- What are the 100 most important words and definitions for protocol literacy?
- How are protocols used in computer simulations?
- Can levels of protocol hardness be discretized into thresholds?
- How do you determine what is required to maintain a protocol?
- What is the line of demarcation between ethical and unethical protocol design?
- Do protocols tend to reduce accountability in a given system?
- How do different forms of protocol governance emerge?
- What is the role of protocols in human-machine interactions?