What Urbit is • Hacker News Board

Re: What Urbit is

#241

Post by Rusky » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 1:56 AM UTC

loqi wrote: post #240

Rusky wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By definition no, of course. But I have never done a non-trivial amount of open source-style work (coding or otherwise) with someone who shares their political views online, without learning about them somehow. And in fact, every Urbit contributor in this thread who's mentioned this has also heard about Yarvin's political views, and not from this thread. It appears to me there's already a kind of self-selection proce…

Well, if you define "comfortable tolerating his garbage" as "contributes to Urbit despite it being Yarvin's project", then tautological assertion is tautological. There is certainly some self-selection for people who don't throw tech babies out with political bathwater. I count myself as one such person. I mean, I continued using Javascript and Firefox even after hearing about Brendan Eich's political contribution! F…

It's not about your beliefs or what people infer about them. In fact it's not about you at all- it's about the other potential contributors and users that Yarvin is alienating, despite all the claims in this thread that his views don't impact the project.

Re: What Urbit is

#242

Post by loqi » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 8:25 AM UTC

Rusky wrote: post #241

loqi wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you define "comfortable tolerating his garbage" as "contributes to Urbit despite it being Yarvin's project", then tautological assertion is tautological. There is certainly some self-selection for people who don't throw tech babies out with political bathwater. I count myself as one such person. I mean, I continued using Javascript and Firefox even after hearing about Brendan Eich's political contribution! F…

It's not about your beliefs or what people infer about them. In fact it's not about you at all- it's about the other potential contributors and users that Yarvin is alienating, despite all the claims in this thread that his views don't impact the project.

Ah. So basically this[1]?

[1]: https://gist.github.com/djspiewak/3a6ff436865d9e5794e4

I mean, I guess you're technically correct: If nothing else, the impact of his views on the project is that it results in the exclusion of people who choose to exclude themselves from projects created by "the wrong people".

But of course that's trivially true of all projects, so why do you think it's such a problem in this particular case? If you answer "because his views are really bad" while acknowledging that they otherwise have no direct bearing on the technology, you're basically saying "because he's really unpopular".

I have no love of Yarvin's politics, but that sort of cure is worse than the disease.

Re: What Urbit is

#243

Post by ZenoArrow » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 9:18 AM UTC

ineptech wrote: post #216

JeremyBanks wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would benefit from this. I don't doubt that Curtis's views are probably offensive, but I haven't seen a clear description of them to conclude that for myself. I tried reading some of his writing, but it seemed so abstract and obfuscated that I gave up before understanding what he was trying to get across. I've seen one-sentence descriptions of his beliefs and they sound horrible, but I've also seen enough tweet-len…

The closest thing I know of is Scott Alexander's Reactionary Philosophy in an Enormous, Planet-Sized Nutshell [1]. It's more of an essay/argument than an impartial overview, but (besides being a good read by one of the smartest and most interesting bloggers on earth) I think it's the most even-handed, neutral and informative thing you're likely to read about Yarvin's beliefs. (NB - the article refers to Yarvin as "Me…

> "I also reserve the right to edit comments that don’t quite reach that point but are noticeably in need of rephrasing."

Wow, really? I'd consider that worse than removing comments.

Re: What Urbit is

#244

Post by james11 » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 9:08 PM UTC

profeta wrote: post #231

urbit wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Urbit is (or at least is designed to become) a personal server which solves this problem among others. One: a chain of specialized Posix programs would work for that. You would have to be someone who can manage a chain of specialized Posix programs, though. Two: serving as a general-purpose stateful HTTP client is a subset of what Urbit does, though an important subset. It's also a server on a public network. Th…

form the site, i get the feeling that to use urbit i have to be a programmer and a theoretical mathematician... but i confess i did not waste much time on it yet.

Actually, Hoon is designed as a functional language to be used by people who DON'T have a PHD in category theory.

Although I must admit it does look foreign at first because of the symbols, I found it very easy to learn. And believe me, I am not a theoretical mathematician.

Re: What Urbit is

#245

Post by Rusky » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 12:52 AM UTC

loqi wrote: post #242

Rusky wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about your beliefs or what people infer about them. In fact it's not about you at all- it's about the other potential contributors and users that Yarvin is alienating, despite all the claims in this thread that his views don't impact the project.

Ah. So basically this[1]? [1]: https://gist.github.com/djspiewak/3a6ff436865d9e5794e4 I mean, I guess you're technically correct: If nothing else, the impact of his views on the project is that it results in the exclusion of people who choose to exclude themselves from projects created by "the wrong people". But of course that's trivially true of all projects, so why do you think it's such a problem in this particula…

Where we seem to differ is in the importance of those people who avoid Yarvin (or Torvalds, or other more or less abrasive open source contributors), as well as the reasons they avoid him. It's more than merely ideological for many people, it's personal.

I don't acknowledge that his views have no direct bearing on the technology, either, and that's tied up in my first point. We design things for ourselves, for the most part, so by excluding (perhaps inadvertently) people with different perspectives on life, we lose out on valuable input.

Re: What Urbit is

#246

Post by philippeback » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 5:43 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #188

wmf wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe even the most interesting and important project since Xanadu.

It has the cult-like approach of Xanadu - use new terminology, tie it to an economic model, and re-invent everything. Also, there seems to be a cult leader. Jargon: noun (data), nock (interpreter), mint (compiler), span (type), twig (expression), gate (function), mold (constructor), core (object), mark (protocol). It's Newspeak for programmers. The overall concept seems to be a federated social system, like Diaspora.…

Worth learning. Not so easy to do I am afraid.

Nock is very nice. Hoon bends the mind, which is actually a nice thing.

This whole thing bends my mind anyway.

A good option for avoiding Alzheimer by training those neurons... interesting internal feeling trying to grok it for sure.

Re: What Urbit is

#247

Post by jcrites » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 7:35 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #181

yarvin9 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an axiomatic interpreter not based on the lambda calculus. It matters because gensyms suck. More generally, if you are building a two-layered system in which a compiler targets the interpreter, symbols, functions, and scopes are concepts that belong in the high-level language, not the low-level interpreter. (I think Shen is one example of a typed Lisp that targets an untyped Lisp, but obviously I know nothing ab…

> not based on the lambda calculus > It matters because gensyms suck. That makes no sense. The lambda calculus has nothing to do with symbols. Lisp introduced the concept of symbols, but Lisp and the Lambda Calculus are not the same thing. > obviously I know nothing about Lisp That is indeed becoming rather obvious.

The Lambda Calculus does have to do with symbols and is defined in terms of them. Consider how application is defined. "λx.t" is an anonymous function that takes an input and substitutes it for the symbol "x" in the expression "t".

For example, given "λx.x+1" then "(λx.x+1)(z) => z+1". This reduction process is formally defined by the beta reduction rule, which says that "(λx.t)s" evaluates to "t[x:=s]".

"t[x:=s]" means "substitute the value s for the symbol x in expression t". E.g., x+1[x:=5] => 5+1

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus#Beta_reducti...

If by symbol you mean something different than variable, then I might agree, but the heart of lambda calculus is the rule set for lambda abstraction, application, beta reduction. Due to alpha equivalence you could say that lambda calculus is agnostic to symbols however. I suppose it depends on what you mean. (Lambda calculus is defined in terms of capture avoiding substitutions.)

Re: What Urbit is

#248

Post by loqi » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 11:09 PM UTC

Rusky wrote: post #245

loqi wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah. So basically this[1]? [1]: https://gist.github.com/djspiewak/3a6ff436865d9e5794e4 I mean, I guess you're technically correct: If nothing else, the impact of his views on the project is that it results in the exclusion of people who choose to exclude themselves from projects created by "the wrong people". But of course that's trivially true of all projects, so why do you think it's such a problem in this particula…

Where we seem to differ is in the importance of those people who avoid Yarvin (or Torvalds, or other more or less abrasive open source contributors), as well as the reasons they avoid him. It's more than merely ideological for many people, it's personal. I don't acknowledge that his views have no direct bearing on the technology, either, and that's tied up in my first point. We design things for ourselves, for the mo…

Thanks for the clarification. I'm certainly not claiming that people who avoid the project are somehow "less important" as a result of their decision. And I wouldn't doubt that it's personal for them - "mere ideology" also seems like a pretty personal thing!

I think we agree that Urbit would benefit from a larger, more diverse user/contributor base. What wouldn't? We're just ascribing agency in different places. I view the claim that Yarvin is excluding people as a sort of rhetorical sleight of hand. What he's actually done is 1) publish some really unpopular opinions, and 2) build Urbit. It is entirely possible to evaluate 2 on its own merits[1]. So I'm disappointed to see so many people write it off for other IMO less relevant reasons.

It reminds me a bit of a "Christian-friendly" Linux distro I once saw that omitted software written by known homosexuals. Would you also claim that the gay programmers were (perhaps inadvertently) excluding a subset of Christians? I suspect most people would agree in this case that agents of exclusion are the ones actually performing the exclusive act, rather than ones who happened to be "the wrong people" from another group's point of view.

[1]: This is true even in the presence of a strong political influence on the technology. I honestly don't see much of a connection between Urbit and Moldbug's politics, but then the latter never made much sense to me, so maybe I'm missing something. If there are politically objectionable aspects to the software, then by all means object! But plain old guilt by association is a weak argument in any context, doubly so in a technical one.

Re: What Urbit is

#249

Post by lisper » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 12:14 AM UTC

jcrites wrote: post #247

lisper wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not based on the lambda calculus > It matters because gensyms suck. That makes no sense. The lambda calculus has nothing to do with symbols. Lisp introduced the concept of symbols, but Lisp and the Lambda Calculus are not the same thing. > obviously I know nothing about Lisp That is indeed becoming rather obvious.

The Lambda Calculus does have to do with symbols and is defined in terms of them. Consider how application is defined. "λx.t" is an anonymous function that takes an input and substitutes it for the symbol "x" in the expression "t". For example, given "λx.x+1" then "(λx.x+1)(z) => z+1". This reduction process is formally defined by the beta reduction rule, which says that "(λx.t)s" evaluates to "t[x:=s]". "t[x:=s]" me…

> If by symbol you mean something different than variable, then I might agree,

Well, the real question is what Curtis means by symbol, as the answer he gave is rather cryptic. But since he specifically raised the issue of "gensyms", that seems to be a reference to a standard Lisp function that generates symbols, a first-class Lisp data structure, at run-time or, more usually, at macro-expansion time. Since Curtis has complained about macros in the past, I assumed this was what he was referring to. "Symbols" that exist only in the textual representation of the language and not as first-class data types are usually called "identifiers" rather than symbols precisely to avoid this sort of confusion.

In any case, it is an elementary exercise to define a formal computational system equivalent to the lambda calculus that uses integers rather than identifiers. Instead of λx.x you write λn where n is an integer. 0 refers to the value bound by the innermost scope, 1 to the value bound by the next outer scope, and so on. So, for example, λx.λy.x becomes λλ1. But of course, no one does this because it's completely pointless.

Re: What Urbit is

#250

Post by Rusky » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 1:31 AM UTC

loqi wrote: post #248

Rusky wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where we seem to differ is in the importance of those people who avoid Yarvin (or Torvalds, or other more or less abrasive open source contributors), as well as the reasons they avoid him. It's more than merely ideological for many people, it's personal. I don't acknowledge that his views have no direct bearing on the technology, either, and that's tied up in my first point. We design things for ourselves, for the mo…

Thanks for the clarification. I'm certainly not claiming that people who avoid the project are somehow "less important" as a result of their decision. And I wouldn't doubt that it's personal for them - "mere ideology" also seems like a pretty personal thing! I think we agree that Urbit would benefit from a larger, more diverse user/contributor base. What wouldn't? We're just ascribing agency in different places. I vi…

Yes, in a hypothetical platonic code-only way you can separate Yarvin from his work to some degree. But you're underestimating the impact of the word "personal" here- some people avoid communities like this not as a boycott, but for their personal safety or emotional well-being. That's the point where they go from the excluder to the one being excluded.