My highlights:
A protocol system emerges when a group of people interacts with a rule. Protocol systems are always tow things at once–individuals and a group. How it feels to experience a protocol system as an individual?
Protocols: rules created by humans that shape the behaviour of groups op people. Protocols can be explicit or implicit and they go by plenty of other names: norms, laws, standards, customs, traditions, taboos, contracts, commands, regulations, manners, morals, values, expectations, et cetera. Protocols tell us the shoulds, oughts, and have-to’s and my view of them closely resembles the anthropological concept of culture.
The purpose of a rule or an “ought” is to guide the behavior of an individual. There are rules of behavior in protocol systems whose purpose is to constrain personal choice.
Under my definition, the category of protocol systems contains pretty much all group activities. The biggest bucket of human systems incorporating social institutions, sociotechnical systems, and human organizations of all types and sizes.
A role is the part a person plays in a protocol system. Your role is how you are known to others and it has a name that distinguishes it from other roles within the system. Given that we each participate in many protocol systems, each of us “in [our] time plays many parts”, some simultaneously and some sequentially.
For each role in a given protocol system there are expectations–protocols–for how a person in that role should behave, what path they should follow, and how they should relate to others inside and outside the system. Explicit or implicit. Performing a protocol role successfully yields certain rewards (tenure!), while an unsuccessful performance has negative consequences, potentially including being cast out of the protocol system or even death.
The role you play within a protocol system has major consequences for your life experience. If you have a role with little power in a protocol system (say, a woman in a patriarchal system), your choices, resources, opportunities, and experiences are very different than if you had a powerful role in the system (say, a man in a patriarchal system).
Sometimes people have the ability to pursue preferences about what role to play in a protocol, in other cases they do not. Sometimes people believe they are autonomously choosing to join a protocol system and take on a certain role, but don’t realize they are taking this action because their role in a different protocol requires it, what I call protocol determinism.
A role can be mistaken for “who you are” or “your identity”, implying that it is a fundamentally unchanging aspect of the self when instead a role is a subject to change, rejection, or readoption once a person gains awareness or insight.
If there is a bad fit between your internal self and your role, you can suffer from a sense of compelled inauthenticity, or dysphoria, while if there is a good fit, and you authentically align with your role, you can thrive. If the role or protocol system feels inalterable, the suffering from dysphoria can be intense, affecting all facets of your life.
A protocol action is an action performed in relation to a protocol system that either sustains or weakens that system.
- Supportive protocol actions serve to support, grow, or extend the life of a protocol system.
- Destructive protocol actions serve to weaken, shrink, or kill off a protocol system.
- Double-edged protocol actions occupy a middle ground and can be either supportive or destructive depending on the context. When you take them, you are taking a risk.
Ultimately, I think a protocol system dies when people stop performing supportive protocol actions in relation to it. This explains why protocol systems must keep taking in new participants to perform supportive protocol actions. Protocol systems require lots of tending to form and endure, and they are vulnerable to smaller but potent set of destructive protocol functions. Certain tyeps of protocol systems can be resilient over centuries.
If truth, openness, and ongoing assessment are values of the system, then performing double-edged protocol actions (like truth telling or pointing out issues) may strengthen the system by enabling change. If truth, openness, and ongoing assessment are not values of the system, then performing duble-edged protocol actions may keep the system alive for a long time, but may ultimately sign its death warrant when conditions for the less privileged in a protocol system become unendurable.
There are common personas, or protocol archetypes, who appear in all types of protocol. Some protocol archetypes are defined by the protocol actions they perform, while others are defined by their place in the power structure of a protocol system, or by their awareness of or insight into the protocol system.
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Guardians: the performers of supportive protocol actions.
- auditor: assesses whether the participants in a protocol are complying with it.
- booster: to build loyalty and enthusiasm. Encourage rituals and practices to demonstrate membership in the system.
- clinger: resist change to existing protocol systems. Fear change, hold tight to the familiar even if it is harmful to themselves or others.
- designer: creates the protocols of a protocol system, embedding power dynamics and moral choices.
- enforcer: ensures that the protocols are followed by participants through whatever means. They enact the decisions of the auditors on the penitents.
- evangelist: promotes the protocol system to outsiders and encourages them to join. They may sometimes be an indoctrinator. Often provide incentives.
- follower: in thrall of a protocol, or to people with power, status, or high skill within protocol systems. They follow protocol to the letter. They may lack insight into the protocol they participate in.
- indoctrinator: provides information about the protocol to others. They are unlikely to provide information that is negative. They may provide false or misleading information, and unlikely to encourage critical thinking.
- influencer: shapes a person’s view of a protocol, or the way the world is. They may pressure or encourage others through various positive or negative consequences to join the protocol, or to make certain decisions once they are participants.
- maintainer: caretaker of the protocol system, performing tasks necessary to keep it operational. They often receive little glory, credit, or compensation for their work.
- paragon: follows the protocol or has a reputation of following it, regardless of the moral legitimacy of the protocol. Held up as an example.
- penitent: has broken protocol or is believed or portrayed to have broken protocol, and has accepted the consequences. Serve as examples.
- scapegoat: takes the blame for negative outcomes. Often serves as a unifying force for the people blaming them. Can be a participant or an outsider.
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Threats: perform destructive protocol actions.
- ally: supports or aids fodder, penitents or heretics
- heretic: does not agree with the rules or practices of the protocol. Risk everything.
- leaver: exits their native protocol, searching for a better situation elsewhere. May require abandoning resources, relationships, status and more. Exiting the native protocol may not be by choice.
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Dualists: can perform double-edged protocol actions.
- soldier: protects the protocol from outsiders, takes resources from outsiders for use by the protocol, and uses force to make outsiders join the system. Defend and expand the protocol. Some volunteer, some may be forced.
- educator: provides information about the protocol. Provides multiple points of view, information about power structure, history, costs and benefits. Encourage to view the information received with a critical lens and to think for themselves.
- leader: draw people to listen to their recommendations or orders. Charisma, vigor, vision or intelligence. Inspires or compels participants to take action. Likely has awareness, and may or may not have insight.
- outsider: does not participate in a given protocol. Offer alternative perspectives. They can ask questions about practices of the protocol that may prompt introspection and examination in insiders.
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Hierarchics: defined by their place in the power structure of the protocol system.
- flatterer: fawns over those in positions of power or status. They seek to be associated with power, because of benefits. Overlook or hide flaws in those they flatter, may defend them against legitimate criticism. May seek to exercise power through those they flatter, may engage in backstabbing or retribution.
- fodder: lose more than they benefit from a protocol. Often their sufferings or losses benefit others. They are resources consumed by reapers. May become heretics when they gain awareness or insight or when their suffering becomes too great.
- reaper: people who benefit more than they lose from the protocol. More power and often more resources.
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Consciousians: defined by their awareness of and insight into the protocol system.
- abider: have both insight and awareness. Dysphoric in their role, despite this remain.
- floater: lacks awareness. They don’t see the water they swim in, so lack agency.
- hypocrite: has awareness and insight. Recognizes they are in it and present themselves publicly as paragon even though they either don’t follow the protocol, understand that they are a reaper, or know they are a bad fit in their role.
- learner: in the midst of gaining awareness and insight.
- sage: has both awareness and insight. A lifelong learner, keeps their awareness and insight up to date, and engages in self reflection.
People will often play more than one role.
Pre-entry: may investigate what they need to do to gain entry, prepare themselves for entry, then educate or otherwise prepare themselves for entry, and finally complete the qualifying requirements.
Entry: they move from an outsider do an insider, transforms into a participant and assumes their role in the system.
Participation: once inside the system, perform their role (assigned or chose) For a given role, there are protocols for behavior, how to interact with participants and outsiders. May also perform protocol actions and sever as one or more protocol archetypes.
Change to protocol or role: change in a role may be driven by feelings of a poor fit within the role and to escape the resulting dysphoria, while change in a protocol itself may be driven by a larger scale mismatch/dysphoria for a group of people or desires for technical or efficiency improvements.
Exit: a moment of transition. Saying goodbye to their role and potentially relationships, resources, or status as they go. This could be devastating. It could be freeing and exhilarating.
Aftermath: no longer bound by the protocols of their former system, but they may be adrift and unsure of where to go next. Might join another protocol system, or they might build their own protocol system and persuade others to join. May also attempt to re-enter their former protocol system or just wander aimlessly. May also have protocol scars or some protocol afterglow.
At each of the inflection points they must make a decision about what to do next. A moment of agency, where they must decide whether to stay on the protocol’s path, or to make a decision on their own. I’m not sure if it’s even possible to make an autonomous decision, so many things can get in the way:
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lack of awareness: may not even be aware that they are engaging with a protocol system. The protocol will always provide the answer. They can play their role, perform protocol actions like recruiting others or defending it from critique, and auto-enroll their own children, all without awareness that they are responding to the protocol, and not necessarily their own wants or desires. Awareness allows to be an observer of themselves and the protocol system along with participating in it. Without awareness, you may never examine whether you agree with these disciplinary protocols, and, through your behavior, may unwittingly pass along those same practices (and protocols) to your own children. Awareness is to know they are entering, participating in, or exiting it; that they play a certain role within it; that there are alternatives to joining or participating in this particular protocol system; whether they entered the system by choice or under the influence or control of others; and that the protocol is influencing their thoughts and actions.
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lack of insight: may lack deep knowledge about the protocol system, unable to truly asses the pros and cons of their decision. Insight allows a person to make a meaningful choice about their participation and role within the protocol system. Evaluation of their personal costs and benefits of their participation in the protocol, the effect of the protocol on others, the moral worth of the protocol or their participation in it. Insight is to understand how a protocol is structured, the various roles people play in the system, how power works within the system, and the effects positive and negative the protocol has on people inside and outside of the system.
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protocol overhang: when a protocol reaches beyond its active participants. They are unable or unwilling to acknowledge it and disentangle themselves from it. Protocol overlap when two or more protocols are linked together for a person, and participating in one requires participating in all. Protocol determinism when choice to enter a protocol or take a particular role is dictated by their role in a separate protocol; it works to invalidate autonomy in downstream protocols. Protocol outreach or conquest when a member of a protocol attempts to persuade an outsider to join their protocol; conquest is forcing somebody to join a protocol system, or even when one protocol subsumes or takes over another one. Protocol scars are ongoing injuries or damage physical, mental or emotional, that endure after you leave a protocol. Protocol scars can limit autonomy going forward unless they are addressed by theory of other efforts at recovery. Protocol afterglow are positive traits, memories, or goods that stay with you after you leave a protocol.
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interactions: inside and outside the protocol, interactions with these people impact choice at moments of truth. Can increase or decrease autonomy. Exercising autonomy is not as simple as raising your levels of awareness or insight. They may still feel unable or be physically unable to make a change to their situation. The protocols of protocol systems come with a signal of desirable behavior and a consequence for not engaging in it. Fear of the consequences is often enough to make a person alter their behavior.