nice description of what "summer of protocols" is __actually__ about. am i to understand hardness as being like "rock suitable to drive a pinion into so we can use it for climbing"? "hardness" brings to my mind connotations of "difficulty" and i see you do not mean that at all, quite the opposite - by leaning on the right "hard" things" we make difficult things less so. right?
nice description of what "summer of protocols" is __actually__ about. am i to understand hardness as being like "rock suitable to drive a pinion into so we can use it for climbing"? "hardness" brings to my mind connotations of "difficulty" and i see you do not mean that at all, quite the opposite - by leaning on the right "hard" things" we make difficult things less so. right?
I think hardness as in difficulty also applies. Cryptography is hard to crack, diamond is hard to cut, good laws are hard to circumvent. The difficulty in some directions is what creates the ease in others. Physical hardness is the source of difficulty hardness in these cases. Not all difficulty is due to hardness though.
you mean that some things are difficult because they relate in general to "hard" things or that when you try to move hard things, it becomes difficult? i do not see why "hard" things should make ones work more difficult, if you respect them. like train-tracks - as long as you move along them, all is well, and they are "hard", no?
i understood protocols to be resting on "hard" things.
Yes protocols rest on hard things, but they can do so in part because hardness (material-figurative property) creates hardness (difficult) in certain behaviors, creating enforceable commitment structures. тАЬBurning bridgesтАЭ creates a hard boundary in space by making crossing it difficult. Hard (difficult) to renege on a commitment structures rest on hard material-figurative (property) of some environmental physical attribute. In the burning bridges case you lower the porosity of the boundary so it resembles a hard boundary like glass rather than a porous one like sponge. Often hardness works by creating a sharp and impervious boundary somewhere where it was fuzzy and leaky before.
nice description of what "summer of protocols" is __actually__ about. am i to understand hardness as being like "rock suitable to drive a pinion into so we can use it for climbing"? "hardness" brings to my mind connotations of "difficulty" and i see you do not mean that at all, quite the opposite - by leaning on the right "hard" things" we make difficult things less so. right?
I think hardness as in difficulty also applies. Cryptography is hard to crack, diamond is hard to cut, good laws are hard to circumvent. The difficulty in some directions is what creates the ease in others. Physical hardness is the source of difficulty hardness in these cases. Not all difficulty is due to hardness though.
you mean that some things are difficult because they relate in general to "hard" things or that when you try to move hard things, it becomes difficult? i do not see why "hard" things should make ones work more difficult, if you respect them. like train-tracks - as long as you move along them, all is well, and they are "hard", no?
i understood protocols to be resting on "hard" things.
Yes protocols rest on hard things, but they can do so in part because hardness (material-figurative property) creates hardness (difficult) in certain behaviors, creating enforceable commitment structures. тАЬBurning bridgesтАЭ creates a hard boundary in space by making crossing it difficult. Hard (difficult) to renege on a commitment structures rest on hard material-figurative (property) of some environmental physical attribute. In the burning bridges case you lower the porosity of the boundary so it resembles a hard boundary like glass rather than a porous one like sponge. Often hardness works by creating a sharp and impervious boundary somewhere where it was fuzzy and leaky before.