Urbit • Hacker News Board

Re: Urbit

#221

Post by pron » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 3:13 PM UTC

NaggingGranpa wrote: post #219

pron wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for two problems: his understanding of the material is well below that of a first-year history student (he's a layman more than an amateur), and any decent college book or course contains far better references. Second, there is nothing new about his positions. They're a rehashing of the old mainstream, that was rejected over time because of societal and technological changes he doesn't know and certainly doesn…

> his understanding of the material is well below that of a first-year history student Met plenty of history grad students in grad school. Well-read but intellectually very limited, and very herd-minded. But, then, I did not go to an Ivy with a tradition of excellence in the humanities. > Second, there is nothing new about his positions Of course there is, it's just the nutty cypherpunk stuff like crypto-locked nukes…

Oh, I have no doubt Yarvin's writings could unleash something, if only because they already did. They're a rehashing of what became mainstream opinions following Romanticism [1]. Eugenics [2] was taught in numerous universities at the beginning of the 20th century. Clearly, some people can find Romanticism appealing today for the same reason they found it appealing in the 19th c., and they will find it appealing, yet again in the 23rd. The only defense is knowing how and why it arose the first time around, and why it was ultimately rejected.

If you want to read a book about the struggle of Romanticism and Humanism, read Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain.[3]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Mountain

Re: Urbit

#222

Post by iudqnolq » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 3:13 PM UTC

yebyen wrote: post #218

iudqnolq wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The words changed from feudal to stellar. The concept is the same.

One of the core concepts of Urbit's naming schemes' origin and systemic ethos is that by naming a thing (or by reusing an existing name for a perhaps closely related thing) you confine and constrain the newly created thing in ways you may not have anticipated. Why for example in Urbit terms you may have "gates" and not functions, "battery" and "payload" instead of methods and objects, or functions and parameters, bec…

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 because they're exactly the same as my original comment earlier in the tree)

Re: Urbit

#223

Post by yebyen » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

pjior wrote: post #27

There are users in this thread that aren't fully disclosing that they work for Urbit, despite commenting about the software from a third-party perspective. Just a heads up.

Software is always a third-party. The builders of the system are not the system itself. There was a great talk at RubyConf last month which touched on this, called "Collective Problem Solving in Music, Science, Art"

We interact with the software through representational interfaces, and just as we learn from it and re-program it, our interactions with the system color our experiences and may in turn also re-program us!

I do not work for Urbit, but I will gladly disclose that I am a stakeholder (galaxy owner) and so will probably have a greater than casual interest in this type of post.

Re: Urbit

#224

Post by NaggingGranpa » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #216

NaggingGranpa wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cold leftovers can still be highly nutritious to those raised on processed, mythologized, state-endorsed pseudo-history.

I don't know what to say except that as someone who has studied history professionally for some years, Yarvin's history is far more mythologized than the "state-endorsed pseudo-history." Hell, Yarvin's writings were the state-endorsed pseudo-history from about 1820 to 1920. They read like a text by a Reiki guru about quantum physics. It, too, can be surprising by pointing out that the Newtonian mechanics you learned…

Mythmaking and mythbusting do not have to be mutually exclusive. If one can recognize the former, the whole can be edifying.

Re: Urbit

#225

Post by NaggingGranpa » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 3:21 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #221

NaggingGranpa wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> his understanding of the material is well below that of a first-year history student Met plenty of history grad students in grad school. Well-read but intellectually very limited, and very herd-minded. But, then, I did not go to an Ivy with a tradition of excellence in the humanities. > Second, there is nothing new about his positions Of course there is, it's just the nutty cypherpunk stuff like crypto-locked nukes…

Oh, I have no doubt Yarvin's writings could unleash something, if only because they already did. They're a rehashing of what became mainstream opinions following Romanticism [1]. Eugenics [2] was taught in numerous universities at the beginning of the 20th century. Clearly, some people can find Romanticism appealing today for the same reason they found it appealing in the 19th c., and they will find it appealing, yet…

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 unsung soldiers and scientists make things happen.

Re: Urbit

#226

Post by zozbot234 » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 3:22 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #221

NaggingGranpa wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> his understanding of the material is well below that of a first-year history student Met plenty of history grad students in grad school. Well-read but intellectually very limited, and very herd-minded. But, then, I did not go to an Ivy with a tradition of excellence in the humanities. > Second, there is nothing new about his positions Of course there is, it's just the nutty cypherpunk stuff like crypto-locked nukes…

Oh, I have no doubt Yarvin's writings could unleash something, if only because they already did. They're a rehashing of what became mainstream opinions following Romanticism [1]. Eugenics [2] was taught in numerous universities at the beginning of the 20th century. Clearly, some people can find Romanticism appealing today for the same reason they found it appealing in the 19th c., and they will find it appealing, yet…

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.

Re: Urbit

#227

Post by NaggingGranpa » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 3:26 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #226

pron wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I have no doubt Yarvin's writings could unleash something, if only because they already did. They're a rehashing of what became mainstream opinions following Romanticism [1]. Eugenics [2] was taught in numerous universities at the beginning of the 20th century. Clearly, some people can find Romanticism appealing today for the same reason they found it appealing in the 19th c., and they will find it appealing, yet…

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.

Once the full implications of evolutionary biology are grasped, eugenics will inevitably become part of the religion of the future, or of whatever complex of sentiments may in the future take the place of organized religion. It is not merely a sane outlet for human altruism, but is of all outlets for altruism that which is most comprehensive and of longest range.

- Julian S. Huxley (co-founder of UNESCO), 1936

Re: Urbit

#228

Post by yebyen » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 3:30 PM UTC

iudqnolq wrote: post #222

yebyen wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the core concepts of Urbit's naming schemes' origin and systemic ethos is that by naming a thing (or by reusing an existing name for a perhaps closely related thing) you confine and constrain the newly created thing in ways you may not have anticipated. Why for example in Urbit terms you may have "gates" and not functions, "battery" and "payload" instead of methods and objects, or functions and parameters, bec…

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 should have mentioned, although I'm not sure it substantially changes the design of the overall system at all.

Some of Yarvin's writings are at best eccentric, but as he has not been a part of the project for some time already, I think it's fair for today's contributors to the project to ask you to set aside his intent, or your impressions of it.

I don't want to make any enemies here, but I'm not sure how one can objectively establish that a design is feudal, or what that would mean. I'm going to take a stab at it, as I don't want to simply dismiss your argument out of hand.

Oxford defines feudalism as:

> The dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which the nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service, and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants (villeins or serfs) were obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labour, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection.

If that means: a system where we carve all the land up into /8 and dole them out, then divide those tracts into /16, and further into /24 and /32, and so on, then sure, Urbit is feudal. I think that's as far as the point can stretch, though. Planets are not "beholden" to their stars, as far as I understand it, they are mostly independent entities after the initial bootstrapping process is over. There's no planet tax or military organization, protection, etc.

Did you have a somehow different interpretation that you were trying for?

Re: Urbit

#229

Post by pron » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 3:34 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #226

pron wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I have no doubt Yarvin's writings could unleash something, if only because they already did. They're a rehashing of what became mainstream opinions following Romanticism [1]. Eugenics [2] was taught in numerous universities at the beginning of the 20th century. Clearly, some people can find Romanticism appealing today for the same reason they found it appealing in the 19th c., and they will find it appealing, yet…

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 narrative leading to a conclusion is wrong, regardless of whether it's done intentionally by a scholar wishing to push an agenda, or unintentionally by name-dropping, bloviating ignoramuses like Yarvin.

Re: Urbit

#230

Post by pron » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 3:41 PM UTC

NaggingGranpa wrote: post #225

pron wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I have no doubt Yarvin's writings could unleash something, if only because they already did. They're a rehashing of what became mainstream opinions following Romanticism [1]. Eugenics [2] was taught in numerous universities at the beginning of the 20th century. Clearly, some people can find Romanticism appealing today for the same reason they found it appealing in the 19th c., and they will find it appealing, yet…

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 by people who consider themselves particularly intelligent. You'd hear similar things about beauty from beautiful people. Clearly, many great works were done by people who were not amazingly intelligent, and people who were amazingly intelligent have done some amazingly stupid things. Personally, I think charisma is far more important. I see no inherent reason why any discoveries regarding intelligence would have bigger consequences than discoveries about charisma.