Urbit • Hacker News Board

Re: Urbit

#171

Post by chippy » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 11:33 AM UTC

Rainymood wrote: post #63

Is this some kind of over-the-top joke that I'm not in on? I've browsed and read but honestly still can't understand what Urbit is. When I saw the picture of the stone with the thing on top I thought I was finally "in" on the joke, but they seem to continue on.

It's intentionally made to feel like that. It's exclusionary and puts a barrier to learning explicitly to only allow people in who have made significant mental investment.

It's not worth it to me, I'd rather do other things and this is almost absurd levels of exclusion but I like the obscurity-as-a-quality-control method approach in general for some projects.

Re: Urbit

#172

Post by scarejunba » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 11:37 AM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #133

About the author, Curtis Yarvin: > Curtis Guy Yarvin (born June 25, 1973), also known by the pen name Mencius Moldbug, is an American far-right political theorist, blogger, and computer scientist.[1][6] He is known, along with fellow "neo-reactionary" thinker Nick Land, for developing the anti-egalitarian and anti-democratic ideas behind the Dark Enlightenment. Yarvin and his ideas are often associated with the alt-r…

You can read his blogs yourself to find what he thinks but ultimately, as a non-white person, I did not notice any odd behavior from him. We were able to talk tech without any weirdness.

I’m not prescribing anything here, like how you should treat him etc. just describing that he’s capable of talking tech reasonably despite the political stuff he posts.

Re: Urbit

#173

Post by dbtx » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 11:39 AM UTC

toyg wrote: post #151

nabla9 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the One True Way" never works, It works for Apple.

Only because they explicitly refuse to solve a large amount of problems, focusing narrowly on certain profitable ones.

I hear that their more satisfied customers cheerfully instruct the others to adjust their expectations and habits and to buy the insurance.

Re: Urbit

#174

Post by chippy » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 11:42 AM UTC

cryptozeus wrote: post #97

All I see is ocean and stone images. Please if you are reading this, hire a marketing firm. I am sure you have worked hard on this but I can't understand what your product is. How can that be that you want to be the last computer but most can't even understand first thing about it.

> most can't even understand it

That is the point, they want it like that!

The crazy idea is that only those who have devoted significant time can understand it and should use it (and I suspect that it plays into some kind of non egalitarian idea about how society should be structured with only elite brainy people on top).

Re: Urbit

#175

Post by scarejunba » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 11:44 AM UTC

This project is described in the most abstruse form that it can be. I, too, did not comprehend it until I went there and tried it out (and got the T shirt ;D)

It’s ultimately a hosted OS (it resides on top of Linux) with an immutable file system with the additional purpose that you build applications distributed-first in a manner where clients store their own data. There’s also other stuff in there obviously with Hoon and Nock and all that.

The Ethereum stuff came after so obviously it’s not crucial to the idea. The planets and all that are just names so you can communicate. The names are anonymous but persistent, sort of like if Neal Stephenson’s PURDAH was just a name.

Re: Urbit

#176

Post by dessant » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 12:02 PM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #134

The goal is noble, but Urbit is destined to become a case study in the dangers of isolation and obstinacy. This project has gone so deep into its own inner sanctum that they've lost tabs on wider reality. While the result may have glimmers of technical excellence for brave souls to excavate some day, the impact of the juxtaposition between latent expertise and overwhelming derangement is enough to scare away (literal…

> If you wake up in the desert, unsure how you got there, you’ll be fine so long as you remember your Urbit ID and passkey.

https://urbit.org/understanding-urbit/urbit-id/

Re: Urbit

#177

Post by mellosouls » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 12:03 PM UTC

tawm wrote: post #150

mellosouls wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia has an unfortunate habit of labelling anything as "far right" that is described as such by left wing or gullible journalists in left of centre mainstream publications. Mencius Moldbug may be far right, but he may alternatively just be a thinker not afraid to challenge liberal received wisdom. It's ok to disagree and fervently oppose but it's unfortunate when we descend into soundbite mud-slinging in service…

>It's ok to disagree and fervently oppose but it's unfortunate when we descend into soundbite mud-slinging in service of that opposition. And where does anyone do that? As far as I'm concerned your post is just concern trolling.

In the Wikipedia quote where he is described as far right, as I clearly indicated.

Re: Urbit

#178

Post by Nursie » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 12:04 PM UTC

jbotz wrote: post #154

dgellow wrote: post #133

About the author, Curtis Yarvin: > Curtis Guy Yarvin (born June 25, 1973), also known by the pen name Mencius Moldbug, is an American far-right political theorist, blogger, and computer scientist.[1][6] He is known, along with fellow "neo-reactionary" thinker Nick Land, for developing the anti-egalitarian and anti-democratic ideas behind the Dark Enlightenment. Yarvin and his ideas are often associated with the alt-r…

Thanks for the heads-up. Although I'd like to evaluate the technical merits of this project independently of the political ideology of the people behind it, knowing this I won't be sending any money their way for "planets" or such, which I might otherwise have done. Not one cent.

In this case the two are hard go separate because the originator of urbit pretty explicitly wrote his politics into the system.

Re: Urbit

#179

Post by yabadabadoes » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 12:09 PM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #129

nootropicat wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part you buy is dns that runs on ethereum (iirc), but with artificial scarcity because they want to make money. This part is completely pointless, because the actual system could work as well on ens directly, or even dns. The actual urbit is like docker with standard API for communication between all apps on different containers, but it runs on a lisp-machine like architecture, except instead of lisp there's a ne…

The place where a company puts a paywall is always arbitrary. Google puts it at the ad auction, and tries to give away devices and services for (close to) free. Apple puts it at the device purchase and tries to give away the software for (close to) free. These decisions are arbitrary. You just make a bet that you can be attractive in a certain light, and you charge money in that light, and try to make every adjacent…

I just read urbit.org's introduction that sounds like a FSF or EFF release on how we are going to take back computers. You seem to be saying this is sleazy Astroturfing (a .org manifesto) by a company that wants to compete in the system it just condemned.

Re: Urbit

#180

Post by mellosouls » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 12:16 PM UTC

sterlind wrote: post #155

mellosouls wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia has an unfortunate habit of labelling anything as "far right" that is described as such by left wing or gullible journalists in left of centre mainstream publications. Mencius Moldbug may be far right, but he may alternatively just be a thinker not afraid to challenge liberal received wisdom. It's ok to disagree and fervently oppose but it's unfortunate when we descend into soundbite mud-slinging in service…

I'm on the left. I think Urbit is quite neat as a technology. Yarvin has very unusual political views, so I'm not sure where to put them, or if you'd consider this "sound-bite mudslinging" (if you do, please suggest a more palatable way of providing evidence:) He seems pro-monarchy: Was royalism a perfect system? It was not. But if we imagine a world in which the revolutions and civil wars of the last four centuries…

I'm also on the left and found your comment very useful and informative. Again tho, my reference to mud-slinging is in the Wikipedia quote I replied to; I've no idea why you would think I might categorise your comment equally.

As for his categorisation as far right; I've already acknowledged he might be (I haven't read much by him), but being prepared to discuss right wing ideas and challenge mainstream thinking should not mean either him or his technological projects are classed as not to be dealt with.