11:25PM
You say protocols, I say rule sets
Thursday, December 24, 2009 at 11:25PM ARTICLE: The Protocol Society, By DAVID BROOKS, New York Times, December 22, 2009
Nice piece by Brooks.
Will sound awfully familiar to readers of this blog. Just substitute "rule sets" for protocols. Algorithms work nicely too!
Been saying it for over a decade (all the way back to TheRuleSets.Project days): America's most important exports are its rules.
We consider it soft power; others view it more harshly (or hard-ly).
(Thanks: Eric Fisher)
Reader Comments (1)
“Economic change is fomenting intellectual change. When the economy was about stuff, economics resembled physics. When it’s about ideas, economics comes to resemble psychology.”
Economics is still about stuff and in support of how to make the best use of stuff; nothing has changed there. I don’t think that Brooks is saying that using “protocol” somewhat interchangeably or as nuanced alternative to the term “technology” constitutes a paradigm change in how we view technical knowledge of how to make the best use of physical stuff. I do think that Brooks is saying that the study of the marketing and the economics of technology (protocols) is expanding in scope and importance and that economics as a science and as a practical application is seeking and finding useful parallels and ideas and commonalities with other sciences and their applications. This reaching to other sciences (beyond the physics of stuff) for ideas and approaches does not necessarily mean that there isn’t still a lot in the discipline (physics) that remains useful and that will become more useful and suggestive to thought and innovation for economists however they are inspired and lead by the realities of a changing world.