Maintaining Everything That Matters
Matthew McDowell-Sweet and Mike Travers discuss Stewart Brand’s recently-published book ‘Maintenance: Of Everything’
CultureTech
Protocolized.
Sci-fi, essays, and articles about the world's invisible infrastructure and strange rules.
Recent essays
30 of 372026 Protocol Symposium: New Nature
Call for abstracts open, due June 14, 2026
Irrigation by Protocol: When Vineyards Delegate Decisions to Networks
When vineyards can speak through data, the question isn’t whether to listen but whether we still know how to read what the vines themselves are saying
The Overloaded Train
In this, our first crossover between two protocol fiction universes, Sachin Benny's Unified Eurasian Train Line passes through Spencer Nitkey's Zoothesia
Inventing New Nature
Defining the Protocol Institute's research mission
All You Can Do Here Is Leave
A rich new series by Elizabeth Maher seeds an extended universe around T.R.O.(L.L.), awarded in our Building and Burning Bridges protocol fiction contest
Protocols for the Long Now
The Protocol Institute collaborates with the Long Now Foundation on three participatory, cross-disciplinary labs – applications are due June 5!
Introducing the Protocol Institute
Building a field and community to steward the planetary-scale process of protocolization
The Headless Empire
The Magazine of Strange Rules
A Primordial Computing Soup
Fostering AI art scenius, creating an open planetary network of robots
The Flesh Perfected Is the Flesh Possessed
The longest single rail line, connecting Lisbon to Laos, is the setting for a bio-thriller in Sachin Benny’s new world-building series
The Fabric and the Brain
Articulating agent ecologies with high-personality planetary computation
The Faithful Channel
A translator maintaining a shadow bridge between superpowers discovers something she cannot unsee.
A Government Guide to Open Protocols
Public sector teams must go beyond the in-house or off-the-shelf dichotomy to take advantage of open protocols, which offer a unique way to manage both software costs and geopolitical exposure
Strangeness, Legibility, Hardness
An update from our Protocol Fiction special interest group
Last-Mile Optimism
Reducing Waste. Eliminating Fraud. Promoting Civic Responsibility. At least that’s what the city bureaucrats said.
Theorizing Protocolization II: Atomic Protocol Questions
Solving real coordination problems to discover the formal laws of protocols.
Have Your Factory Call My Factory
In this installment of our Obliquities editorial column, we argue that the social kernels circulating in intelligence media are the equivalent of industrial intermediates flowing between factories.
Caduceus City
The appearance of a thoroughly protocolized environment is, almost, the perfect cover for dark practices.
American Skyway
The 1st place story in our Building and Burning Bridges contest shows that normal statecraft can only achieve so much when its central arteries become calcified.
One Year of Protocolized
Learn about the past and future of Protocolized after one year of publishing, experiments, and craziness.
The Repossessed
Inside a memory labyrinth, inheritance turns out to be something far more dangerous than money.
Desire Machines
The second place story in our Bridges contest holds a mirror to one of the world's favorite hobbies. A tale of gambling, fandom, and mechanical leviathans, whose bones litter the world...
What is Protocol Fiction?
A first report from our protocol fiction writing group, led by regular Protocolized contributors Spencer Nitkey and Sachin Benny. Join tomorrow, Feb 12 and every other Thursday, at 8am Pacific.
T.R.O.(L.L.)
Something metamorphic lurks beneath this dark bridge. Elizabeth Maher’s inventive story placed third in our Building and Burning Bridges protocol fiction contest.
From Destination AI to Intelligence Media
Introducing Obliquities, our new editorial column. In this first installment we propose a new idea – the social kernel – and begin to examine the logic of intelligence media.
Casio: Adequate Enough to Rule the World
How a cheap plastic watch became a landmark in the world of sci-fi, geopolitics and terror – and what it might mean for contemporary consumer gadgets.
Minor Differences Repeating Forever
The Zoothesia Finale
The Color of Safety
From Birren to OSHA, in reality and on-screen, how does pigment play a role in protecting workers from harm and making mistakes?
Missing Not at Random
Chapter 5 of the Zoothesia Series. What happens when you overload a protocol with information? Narratives begin converging in this strange, penultimate chapter.