Hej, yeah, lots in there, love the optimism obviously ... and it helps musing about it in the spirit of Atlantis, hehe.
A protocol is a set of rules, for sure, and actually we are already living in societies based on protocols. Nation states' constitutions, the UN mechanism etc. are all protocols. But they are enforced by institutions run by humans. And without getting too much into details here, the vast majority of humanity is currently not (yet) in a state to enforce protocols in a way that doesn't corrupt the protocol framework eventually. One might say that the global hegemonial societies are currently going through a period of overreaching corruption that is bound to bring about fundamental change. An interesting question is how much of that corruption is intentional and how much is done unconsciously.
In any case, I think with the example of money, we are witnessing that a protocol so far enforced by humans working in institutions (fiat monetary system), has the potential to be run more efficiently by a digital protocol, Bitcoin. It works in a decentralized and trustless way, something non-digital protocols weren't able to achieve. The separation of powers in a nation state, checks and balances, is aiming at decentralization, but obviously can't come close. That's why I was asking if you mean digital protocols, because that seems to be the only way to enforce a protocol in a decentralized way.
In a way, and that's been my argument for a while now, we humans are weaseling ourselves out of our responsibility to fix our psychological problem of corruptedness, by transferring enforcement power to decentralized digital sets of rules. For our own sake, I think it's high time we address our psychological problems first and foremost, raise our state of consciousness. But if decentralized protocols can help us thrive in the transition phase, so be it.
What I'm interested in is to sketch out more vividly and 'realistically', how it would be possible to transfer enforcement power to decentralized protocols other than the monetary system. Even with Bitcoin, there are debates to be had what's needed to actually run a healthy, thriving monetary system on Bitcoin. Are auxiliary protocols for different functions needed?
And then there's always the question of adaptability of protocols to changing circumstances. We may agree that if a core decentralized protocol runs in alignment with the laws of nature, it can be set in stone. But other areas need to be malleable and then who decides about the changes of the ruleset? The people through a voting mechanism? How is that run best?
These are questions I'm interested in exploring and exchanging about.
