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Urbit

urbit.org

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Re: Urbit

#251

Post by NaggingGranpa »

pron wrote: post #247
NaggingGranpa wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harmful to whom?

To a far greater portion of human society than those it was perhaps useful for, if anyone.

Yet, it was the horrible, horrible Europe that Moldbug mythologizes and romanticizes that made virtually all advances in science and technology until a few decades ago.

Ancient Greece produced mechanical computers. Only recently did the great civilizations of China and India overcome Hellenic science & technology. Having Mandarins cataloging the Emperor's property is not a great use of human capital.

Re: Urbit

#252

Post by pron »

NaggingGranpa wrote: post #251
pron wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a far greater portion of human society than those it was perhaps useful for, if anyone.

Yet, it was the horrible, horrible Europe that Moldbug mythologizes and romanticizes that made virtually all advances in science and technology until a few decades ago. Ancient Greece produced mechanical computers. Only recently did the great civilizations of China and India overcome Hellenic science & technology. Having Mandarins cataloging the Emperor's property is not a great use of human capital.

What? Non-sequitur much?

While the so-called European Miracle of the past 500 years is a fascinating and complex area of research that will undoubtedly be studied for generations and centuries to come, I wasn't aware that anyone considers modern (18th c. and beyond) romanticist ideology to be the major driving force of science and technology.

Re: Urbit

#253

Post by xrd »

yabadabadoes wrote: post #179
erikpukinskis wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think I am restating the point you are making, and I agree. If this project finds a way to charge me a fair price and provides me with the services now only available under a surveillance capitalist model, then I'm fine with it. As Tim O'Reilly says: "Money is like gas in the car — you need to pay attention or you’ll end up on the side of the road — but a well-lived life is not a tour of gas stations!" This project shouldn't be left by the side of the road

Re: Urbit

#254

Post by zozbot234 »

NaggingGranpa wrote: post #240
pron wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 mak…

What's especially ironic about this is that we do a terrible job of educating even people of entirely average intelligence, never mind 'morons'. But of course this has nothing to do with purported genetic bases of intelligence, and everything with how our "budget(s) devoted to education" are used.

Re: Urbit

#255

Post by tptacek »

NaggingGranpa wrote: post #231
pron wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That seems unlikely, since 'pron has repeatedly identified himself as a (former?) history grad student / PhD candidate, and, in various threads on the site, has gone into enough depth on the topic that I'd be disinclined to doubt them.

Re: Urbit

#256

Post by paggle »

The concept of signing into untrusted hardware to get access to your entire digital life was interesting in around ~2004, when people had enough stuff online to be useful but laptops were heavy and didn’t have network access. With a modern phone, and an LG gram laptop for desktop tasks, there’s no reason to expose yourself to the massive security pwnage of signing in on hardware you don’t own.

Re: Urbit

#257

Post by NaggingGranpa »

pron wrote: post #246
NaggingGranpa wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 mak…

> A dollar wasted on trying to educate a moron could be invested in military R&D. How would you know if that's a dollar better-spent? All humans are pretty bad at flying, yet airplanes are pretty useful. All of technology is spending on the respective meaning of "educating morons." Military R&D is a great example. A weakling with a gun can easily beat a strong sword-wielding knight. In fact, the difference between a…

> How would you know if that's a dollar better-spent?

You bet and you learn which bets pay off. If some bets never pay off, perhaps it's time to cut losses.

> WWI was also very much a product of Romanticism

WWI was very much a product of Germany's ascent as a unified, major power. And, while Oxbridge was wasting time on classics and Latin, the Germans had several research universities working on things that translated into industrial might.

> I'm Jewish

So is Moldbug. You both have the strengths and weaknesses typically associated with your race.

> Have we already established that natural selection in the past ~10000 years since the agricultural revolution has had any significant impact in shaping human society?

Says the Jew. Are you kidding me? How do you think the Ashkenazim became Europe's cognitive elite? Here's a hint: not being able to own land and being pushed into white-collar professions as a result.

Selection can produce results in less than 100 years. Do you think Europe today is selecting for and against the same traits it was 100 years ago?

Re: Urbit

#258

Post by [deleted] »

pron wrote: post #252
NaggingGranpa wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, it was the horrible, horrible Europe that Moldbug mythologizes and romanticizes that made virtually all advances in science and technology until a few decades ago. Ancient Greece produced mechanical computers. Only recently did the great civilizations of China and India overcome Hellenic science & technology. Having Mandarins cataloging the Emperor's property is not a great use of human capital.

What? Non-sequitur much? While the so-called European Miracle of the past 500 years is a fascinating and complex area of research that will undoubtedly be studied for generations and centuries to come, I wasn't aware that anyone considers modern (18th c. and beyond) romanticist ideology to be the major driving force of science and technology.

[deleted]

Re: Urbit

#259

Post by zozbot234 »

pron wrote: post #252
NaggingGranpa wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, it was the horrible, horrible Europe that Moldbug mythologizes and romanticizes that made virtually all advances in science and technology until a few decades ago. Ancient Greece produced mechanical computers. Only recently did the great civilizations of China and India overcome Hellenic science & technology. Having Mandarins cataloging the Emperor's property is not a great use of human capital.

What? Non-sequitur much? While the so-called European Miracle of the past 500 years is a fascinating and complex area of research that will undoubtedly be studied for generations and centuries to come, I wasn't aware that anyone considers modern (18th c. and beyond) romanticist ideology to be the major driving force of science and technology.

"Romanticist ideology" is a remarkably vague term, but I think one could make a case that something like it ended up being very much a factor. Of course, the reverse is also true; in the absence of 18th- and 19th-century science (including advancements in the social sciences, mostly coming from the "humanist" side as Carlyle knew quite well!) no "romanticist" ideology would even exist.

Re: Urbit

#260

Post by retreatguru »

lisper wrote: post #114
ALittleLight wrote: post #15

I have seen Urbit a couple times but never really understood it. From the "Understanding Urbit" page - >Imagine that you can login from anywhere with one name and password. >And when you do, your entire OS appears. >Inside is your whole digital life. All of your communities, conversations, and connections. All of your biometric data and devices. Your entire personal archive in one place that’s secure, private, and de…

Urbit is a front for a nascent cult, kind of like Shen Yun is a front for the Falun Gong [1], or "What the bleep do we know?" was a front for Ramtha's School of Enlightenment [2]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/12/shen-yun-falun-... [2] https://whatthebleep.com/portfolio-item/ramtha/

This is a pretty strong statement. Can you provide details to back it up? I’m interested because Urbit seems at the edge of genius that is ahead of its time and obscure and inaccessible. The hoon programming language seem quite ambitious.
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