After a successful trial run earlier this year, version 2.0 of the Tensions Game is live at Edge City Lanna. Sign up for an IRL session here or visit this forum post to learn more about the game!
Several Summer of Protocol (SoP) members have attended Edge Esmeralda, and soon Edge Lanna. Of the many connections between the Edge City experiment and SoP's research program, there are two particularly striking ones. First, the town of Healdsburg, California (location of Esmeralda) was battling with wildfires, and fire protocols were a major line of research this summer.
Then, just last week, Chiang Mai (site of Lanna) experienced the worst flood it's seen in 500 years. Protocols for shoreline adaptation
The latest iteration of Edge City kicked off on Friday, October 11th. Tensions are already proving to be a useful lens for looking at the month-long event's broader themes (health, AI, hard tech, human organization, and crypto). Longevity and vitality, for example, are somewhat in tension with each other, and this is reflected in the competing philosophies of those interested in all things health. The tension between decentralization and speed of decision-making is another pertinent example.
Tensions are fundamental tradeoffs and dichotomies – the building blocks of an effective, new mental modelling paradigm. By attending daily mental workout sessions and collecting tension cards over the course of the month, attendees of Lanna have the opportunity to sharpen their decision-making and situational awareness.
Things are slowly picking up speed at Edge City Lanna, so stay tuned for more updates.
In addition to updates from the Tensions Game and Protocol Worlds at Edge city Lanna, we'll also highlight work from the immensely productive summer cohort over the next few weeks. There are a lot of topics to cover, ranging from flood management to virtual reality negotiations. First up, a recording of Evan and Tom – who just co-founded Social Web Foundation – presenting their protocol improvement project.
Protocols like ActivityPub are an alternative to the current platform-based social internet. They could provide similar services, without owning and selling your data. In this salon recording, Tom and Evan propose an extension to ActivityPub that would further ensure the privacy of protocol users. We also found out that Evan once competed in a moustache contest.
To complement this technical project, here are two creative works from the lore and literacy arm of SoP:
A Pattern Language for Digital Spaces by Guo Liu
The most habitable environments are incrementally built by the inhabitants, but the specialization in design and construction has limited personal agency in modifying our environment. Pattern language is a way to penetrate that specialization, and it might work for digital spaces as well.
The Caucus by Randy Lubin
This short story explores a possible Liquid Democracy protocol in which citizens have significantly more input on policies and lawmaking. It follows a student who is attending a caucus to vote on a new bill and finds herself confronted with the complicated relationships of delegates, experts, activists, and lobbyists.
Timber
Latest Protocolized P.S. Shoutout to @colin and team, the new Paragraph interface is electric.
Thank you!