Metabology is the study and design of the protocols, formal and informal, that govern how energy, matter and information actually move through societies. Ideology tells you what we intend. Metabology tells you what we're building.
How the word moved
In December 2025, in Ideology vs. Metabology, I described it as a wiring diagram of the material world, with energy and information as figure instead of ground. In January 2026 I called it a hyperproblem, the middle realm between norms and grids that we need to keep metabolic order going. In April 2026 I tightened it to the analysis of protocols, formal and informal, that move energy, matter and information. By May 2026 I was situating habitability inside it.
In my words
"Metabology reveals the world we are actually building."
from Bhumics. Weekly Planet #18. Ideology vs. Metabology, 22 Dec 2025
"It is less like a moral code and more like a wiring diagram."
from Bhumics. Weekly Planet #18. Ideology vs. Metabology, 22 Dec 2025
"Metabology is a science of connection."
from Bhumics. Weekly Planet #18. Ideology vs. Metabology, 22 Dec 2025
Related
- Depends on Protocol - metabology is the study of protocols.
- Depends on Metabolics - it generalizes the bits-and-volts analysis.
- Inherited from Bruno Latour - I rerun Latour's argument with "metabolic" where he had "social".
- Contradicts Vaclav Smil - for Smil energy is the ground; for me energy and information are the figure.
- Related Metabolic Order - it's what metabology has to maintain.
- Related Hyperproblem - metabology belongs to the domain of the hyperproblem.
- Related Habitability - I situate habitability within metabology.
- Related Stack - metabologies are both stacks and protocols.
Still open
I keep wavering between designing protocols top-down and fitting statistical models to ledgers. We may need AI as an essential intermediary, and I don't know yet which way it goes.