%% #capture | #protocol #science #fiction Alexander Galloway talked about Protocols as horizontal power — so I imagine it might be possible to build a story style where infrastructure either enhances or destroys some set of characters in a plot. Antimeme. https://qntm.org/scp Check this in relation to [[2024-06-28#^47d1ae|Pill Metaphor]]. Protocol horror should be a thing, like cosmic horror. I don’t mean a bad and oppressive Kafka protocol, more like vast voids suggested by protocols. Like Terry Pratchett Auditors of Reality. Might write a short story about a protocol so efficient and so complex that no one understands it / but we can’t live without following it Physics. You invented physics. Okay, the other piece of cosmic horror that protocols have reminded me of is (perhaps already discussed here) but is from the LessWrong forums labeled “the most dangerous thought experiment of all time” called “Roko’s Basilisk” resulting in the ban of the original poster. Personally, I don’t think it’s that bad, but the premise is essentially that there’s a all powerful AI that *could* come about and punish anyone who didn’t help do it’s bidding, including its creation, and it could retroactively torture anyone who didn’t. (For full context, history, d r a m a, and raw content, here’s linkage: https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/rokos-basilisk but also fun facts, it may just be the reason why Elon slid into Grimes’ DMs) 

 The way I’ve always thought about Roko’s Basilisk has been in the context of AI, which is where most of the conversations seem to go, but more in the context crypto, with human greed being the protocol—it doesn’t really matter here what the tokenomics are as long as they’re based on getting more people to buy in. The “punishment” is merely the wistfulness or regret of not buying in earlier, until eventually the circumstances are right where you eventually do, as does everyone. 

 This also reminds me of the Gift of the Magi, and the game theoretics in that. (https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/1-the_gift_of_the_magi_0.pdf) Not intelligent enough, and nearly impossible to reason with. Part of the horror is trying to trick the immune system into doing something it doesn't want to - it does it for a bit - then it backfires This fills me with abject horror, actually. Because we think of protocols that we construct as rational but the agents carrying them out oftentimes are not. A protocol INSIDE of you is communicating and reasoning at a different wavelength than a protocol you’re inside of. Which erm speaking of cosmic horror, what are WE the immune system of? %% #idea Problem solving in open worlds leads to protocols.