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Urbit

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Re: Urbit

#231

Post by NaggingGranpa »

pron wrote: post #229
zozbot234 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eugenics emerged in modern times as a Progressive -era policy. It seems kind of vague and perhaps misleading to link it to Romanticism, when actually it follows along the exact same lines as the secular, "scientific" Humanism that you evidently find so appealing.

It emerged as a result of both . Reactionary/romantic ideals have always co-opted what they viewed as scientific knowledge or technology in the service of their imagined past. That progressive ideals may have also ultimately employed horrific tools goes without saying, and that some conservative forces have sometimes opposed them is also true. But that's my point: any presentation of history as some appealing narrati…

Ignorant? He probably read more old books than you -- which does not mean he understood much. He spent 7 years of early retirement burning his dot-com loot on Amazon.

Re: Urbit

#232

Post by NaggingGranpa »

pron wrote: post #230
NaggingGranpa wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's well-known that the Nazis imported eugenics from Yale and Oxbridge. And eugenics was publicly defended by people all over the political spectrum until 1939. After 1945, it went underground. It never went away. Moldbug can preach his Carlyleism all he wants. In the end, the unleashing of energy will be due to people researching the genetic basis of intelligence and IVF. The pathological bloviators preach, the uns…

> In the end, the unleashing of energy will be due to people researching the genetic basis of intelligence and IVF. I'm not so sure. There is a core problem here, and that is that intelligence is not all that it's made up to be. It takes no more than a glance at the current American president to see that. That intelligence (by which I mean relative intelligence) is some ultimate power is, itself, a myth perpetuated b…

You don't need to understand intelligence that well to change the world. A little predictive power can go very far.

In the end, it's a bit like playing roulette. A small edge and many bets will make you rich.

> I see no inherent reason why any discoveries regarding intelligence would have bigger consequences than discoveries about charisma.

It was not charisma that cracked Enigma and built the A-bomb. Better brains means better weapons, which means conquering and annihilating stupider tribes. It's the history of Mankind.

Charisma helps uniting tribes. But united tribes of many hunter-gatherers can be slaughtered by a handful of machine guns produced by boring industrialized societies.

Re: Urbit

#233

Post by Akababa »

chippy wrote: post #174
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).

Reminds me more of the cult-like Scientology with their "thetans" and whatnot.

Re: Urbit

#234

Post by iudqnolq »

yebyen wrote: post #228
iudqnolq wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not making an argument from math. I'm not making an argument from first principles. First the names were feudal. Then the names were changed to not be feudal. This strongly suggests the design was feudal. Yarvin's other writing make it clear it's plausible he'd design a feudally inspired system, as he writes they are superior to democracy. I'm arguing based on Yarvin's demonstrated intent. (Citations not repeated…

The original Urbit system also included a scheme of political "banners" so that you could avoid speech which was unpalatable to you, in order to allow conscious self-organizing into groups of like-mindedness, and as I recall also wrote about the idea that political speech being shared across these boundaries was necessarily violent (and as such clearly undesirable, as all violence.) edit: this system was removed, I s…

There's also the voting power for sale. It's not completely clear to me what the power of the senate is, but it seems more than deciding the size of the namespace from the voting info on Github

Re: Urbit

#235

Post by pron »

NaggingGranpa wrote: post #232
pron wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the end, the unleashing of energy will be due to people researching the genetic basis of intelligence and IVF. I'm not so sure. There is a core problem here, and that is that intelligence is not all that it's made up to be. It takes no more than a glance at the current American president to see that. That intelligence (by which I mean relative intelligence) is some ultimate power is, itself, a myth perpetuated b…

You don't need to understand intelligence that well to change the world. A little predictive power can go very far. In the end, it's a bit like playing roulette. A small edge and many bets will make you rich. > I see no inherent reason why any discoveries regarding intelligence would have bigger consequences than discoveries about charisma. It was not charisma that cracked Enigma and built the A-bomb. Better brains m…

> A little predictive power can go very far.

Yeah, but I don't think intelligent people are better at predicting things (weighted by impact). Again, look at the current US president; or at stock traders.

> It was not charisma that cracked Enigma and built the A-bomb.

No, but arguably neither would have been done when they were done if it weren't for a war that started largely due to charisma.

> But united tribes of many hunter-gatherers can be slaughtered by a handful of machine guns produced by boring industrialized societies.

But it's not high relative intelligence that brought us industrialization. Those same people who were later industrialized had had hundreds of thousands of years of hunting-gathering.

Re: Urbit

#236

Post by yebyen »

iudqnolq wrote: post #234
yebyen wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original Urbit system also included a scheme of political "banners" so that you could avoid speech which was unpalatable to you, in order to allow conscious self-organizing into groups of like-mindedness, and as I recall also wrote about the idea that political speech being shared across these boundaries was necessarily violent (and as such clearly undesirable, as all violence.) edit: this system was removed, I s…

There's also the voting power for sale. It's not completely clear to me what the power of the senate is, but it seems more than deciding the size of the namespace from the voting info on Github

Sale is one way the power gets more concentrated or distributed, perhaps unfortunately universal truth in today's world, not only for Urbit galaxies.

I am a galaxy holder and, as the record may show if the record remains intact, all I did was show up and keep coming back, at a time when lots of people were not coming back due to technical issues or whatever other issues.

I'm also not sure what actual power I have as one of these senators, for whatever that's worth (it's not clear to you, it's not clear to us!) although I have heard these galaxies keep going up in value, I will note second that at least as of today, I have not benefited in any way financially from this notion of value that I received.

Re: Urbit

#237

Post by iudqnolq »

yebyen wrote: post #236
iudqnolq wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the voting power for sale. It's not completely clear to me what the power of the senate is, but it seems more than deciding the size of the namespace from the voting info on Github

Sale is one way the power gets more concentrated or distributed, perhaps unfortunately universal truth in today's world, not only for Urbit galaxies. I am a galaxy holder and, as the record may show if the record remains intact, all I did was show up and keep coming back, at a time when lots of people were not coming back due to technical issues or whatever other issues. I'm also not sure what actual power I have as…

Thanks for sharing your perspective. I think we can all agree it would be great if the internet became more private, secure, accessible, and decentralized. I hope Urbit provides that because I hope anything provides that. Whether it lives up to its promises will depend on so many factors I'm not interested in getting involved, but I wish you the best of luck. I'll be cheering if you succeed, for what that's worth.

Re: Urbit

#238

Post by zozbot234 »

pron wrote: post #229
zozbot234 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eugenics emerged in modern times as a Progressive -era policy. It seems kind of vague and perhaps misleading to link it to Romanticism, when actually it follows along the exact same lines as the secular, "scientific" Humanism that you evidently find so appealing.

It emerged as a result of both . Reactionary/romantic ideals have always co-opted what they viewed as scientific knowledge or technology in the service of their imagined past. That progressive ideals may have also ultimately employed horrific tools goes without saying, and that some conservative forces have sometimes opposed them is also true. But that's my point: any presentation of history as some appealing narrati…

> But that's my point: any presentation of history as some appealing narrative leading to a conclusion is wrong

All simplified models are wrong. Some are useful. (And it's very hard to avoid 'appeal' being a critical factor in the popularity of any model or narrative. It acts as a single point of failure in any truth-seeking mechanism, including academia and the like. This of course explains much about the popularity of some contemporary ideas.)

Re: Urbit

#239

Post by yebyen »

iudqnolq wrote: post #237
yebyen wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sale is one way the power gets more concentrated or distributed, perhaps unfortunately universal truth in today's world, not only for Urbit galaxies. I am a galaxy holder and, as the record may show if the record remains intact, all I did was show up and keep coming back, at a time when lots of people were not coming back due to technical issues or whatever other issues. I'm also not sure what actual power I have as…

Thanks for sharing your perspective. I think we can all agree it would be great if the internet became more private, secure, accessible, and decentralized. I hope Urbit provides that because I hope anything provides that. Whether it lives up to its promises will depend on so many factors I'm not interested in getting involved, but I wish you the best of luck. I'll be cheering if you succeed, for what that's worth.

Likewise! And thanks to you too!

Re: Urbit

#240

Post by NaggingGranpa »

pron wrote: post #235
NaggingGranpa wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to understand intelligence that well to change the world. A little predictive power can go very far. In the end, it's a bit like playing roulette. A small edge and many bets will make you rich. > I see no inherent reason why any discoveries regarding intelligence would have bigger consequences than discoveries about charisma. It was not charisma that cracked Enigma and built the A-bomb. Better brains m…

> A little predictive power can go very far. Yeah, but I don't think intelligent people are better at predicting things (weighted by impact). Again, look at the current US president; or at stock traders. > It was not charisma that cracked Enigma and built the A-bomb. No, but arguably neither would have been done when they were done if it weren't for a war that started largely due to charisma. > But united tribes of m…

> I don't think intelligent people are better at predicting things

I never claimed such a thing. I meant predictive power when it comes to allocating resources, especially from the budget devoted to education. A dollar wasted on trying to educate a moron could be invested in military R&D.

> a war that started largely due to charisma.

Charisma? Do you mean Napoleon? Or von Bismarck? You don't need much charisma to make the French and the Germans kill each other. Who was the charismatic leader that made the Danes go to war with the Prussians?

With such a strange statement, you outed yourself as a non-European. No matter how many history books you read, some things you will never understand. In that regard, you are exactly like Moldbug. Just do not claim that Rousseau invented nationalism, please. My aged heart cannot take that much.

> Those same people who were later industrialized were just as intelligent during the hundreds of thousands of years of hunting-gathering.

You're implying that a hunter-gatherer society, an agricultural society and an industrialized society select for the same traits. And that the initial distributions were the same. Think Fokker-Planck. How likely is that? Zero probability, I would say.

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