Kinetics is the study of forces acting on systems and the motion that results. We borrowed the word for the group's working identity, United States Kinetics Group, because it describes what we are actually interested in: not systems at rest, but systems changing state.
A protocol becomes the connective layer for a new kind of software. A material becomes cheap enough to build with. A neighborhood changes hands. A regulation moves a market. In each case the system is the same before and after, but its state is not, and the moment of change is when understanding is worth the most.
Our method is simple and slow. Find a system that is about to change state. Understand it better than anyone, with evidence that can be checked. Build or own the thing that moves it. Hold it for a long time. The first two steps are research. The third is engineering or acquisition. The fourth is what makes the rest worth doing.
The mark we use, a hollow circle, a rule and a solid dot, is a diagram of that: the state something was in, the transition, and the state it is in now. It is also a reminder of the order. You do not move a system you have not understood.