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I think this is by design. Prior to the current stellar analogy the founder described this using terms from feudalism. > In one design sketch for Urbit, Yarvi

I think this is by design. Prior to the current stellar analogy the founder described this using terms from feudalism. > In one design sketch for Urbit, Yarvin made the link between monarchies and the platform more explicit, classifying users as “Lords,” “Dukes,” and “Earls.” The design behind the titles, he writes, “is standard Lockean libertarian homesteading theory.” At the end of the sketch, Yarvin indicates that he’s reserved a special title for himself: “The prince (because he spent 8 years working on this project, without being paid), has reserved 32 duchies for his exclusive personal benefit."The founder is an alt-right philosopher that believes we should replace democracy with a corporate structure in which some residents in a country are shareholders and have voting rights. https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/21/14671978/alt-right-mencius-moldbug-urbit-curtis-yarvin-tlon https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/21/14671978/alt-right-menciu...

joe_the_user 7y ago
Why exactly would one need to subordinate one's self to such bizarre ideologically machinery just to run a device-independent OS? I could run space on the cloud somewhere and log into my server from whatever local system? It's kind of a 1990s model but still.
- bronzejaguar 7y ago
  You don’t, and the article is outdated and “titles” no longer exist.
  - iudqnolq 7y ago
    The words changed from feudal to stellar. The concept is the same.
    - yebyen 7y ago
      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, because these things do not work exactly like the familiar constructs from your well-known languages that you're perhaps already familiar with. It would then also be tempting to make them work more like the things they are being called like, or "anthropomorphize" them into those things, for lack of a better word, giving them traits which they don't innately have in spite of being part of a perfectly workable functional system. There is also certainly a difference in concept between an aircraft carrier and a galaxy (although both may invoke imagery of energetic nuclear processes powering them, it's hard to argue they are the same or even similar), or differences between a destroyer and a planet, submarine and comet, although it's true that the addressing math hasn't changed, ... I think you'd be hard-pressed to make an argument that IPv4 and IPv6 are feudally inspired, and they both use very similar maths to pieces of Urbit that we're talking about.
      - iudqnolq 7y ago
        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)
        yebyen 7y ago
        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?
blotter_paper 7y ago
I can't find that quote by searching the text of the linked article. I was looking for it because I'm skeptical of the claim that Yarvin supports a society with multiple shareholders of political power. I read the archives of Unqualified Reservations when Urbit was first released, and I was left with the impression that Yarvin supported the rule of literally one person. This is the closest quote I've found so far, but I bet there are more specific ones (lacking the however-selected clause which invites without requiring the possibility of multiple stakeholders) in the archive: > And all organizations, big or small, public or private, military or civilian, are managed best when managed by a single executive. Hence: royalism. However he or she is selected, the title of such an executive, in a sovereign capacity, is King or Queen—or, at least, anything else is a euphemism. Emphasis his: https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2010/02/from-mises-to-carlyle-my-sick-journey/ https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2010/02/from-mises-...
- iudqnolq 7y ago
  I accidentally omitted a newline between the quote and my commentary, and it's too late to edit now. The Verge: "In one design sketch for Urbit ... has reserved 32 duchies for his exclusive personal benefit." Me: "The founder is an alt-right philosopher... are shareholders and have voting rights." If you search for the first sentence of the quote you'll find it.
  - blotter_paper 7y ago
    Aah, thanks for the clarification.
- oldfanthroww 7y ago
  Moldbug (whom I would distinguish from Yarvin as you would a comedian's stage persona) in advocating for neocameralism proposed rule by a CEO-king. This person like a conventional CEO would hold great personal power in their organization. Unlike a king the CEO would be elected by the board and responsible to the shareholders. You can read more in the posts about Patchwork. >Emphasis his If you mean to emphasize the ruler's gender, I don't think that is right. Moldbug is rather fond of Queen Victoria.

joe_the_user 7y ago

Why exactly would one need to subordinate one's self to such bizarre ideologically machinery just to run a device-independent OS? I could run space on the cloud somewhere and log into my server from whatever local system? It's kind of a 1990s model but still.

bronzejaguar 7y ago
You don’t, and the article is outdated and “titles” no longer exist.
- iudqnolq 7y ago
  The words changed from feudal to stellar. The concept is the same.
  - yebyen 7y ago
    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, because these things do not work exactly like the familiar constructs from your well-known languages that you're perhaps already familiar with. It would then also be tempting to make them work more like the things they are being called like, or "anthropomorphize" them into those things, for lack of a better word, giving them traits which they don't innately have in spite of being part of a perfectly workable functional system. There is also certainly a difference in concept between an aircraft carrier and a galaxy (although both may invoke imagery of energetic nuclear processes powering them, it's hard to argue they are the same or even similar), or differences between a destroyer and a planet, submarine and comet, although it's true that the addressing math hasn't changed, ... I think you'd be hard-pressed to make an argument that IPv4 and IPv6 are feudally inspired, and they both use very similar maths to pieces of Urbit that we're talking about.
    - iudqnolq 7y ago
      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)
      - yebyen 7y ago
        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?

blotter_paper 7y ago

I can't find that quote by searching the text of the linked article. I was looking for it because I'm skeptical of the claim that Yarvin supports a society with multiple shareholders of political power. I read the archives of Unqualified Reservations when Urbit was first released, and I was left with the impression that Yarvin supported the rule of literally one person. This is the closest quote I've found so far, but I bet there are more specific ones (lacking the however-selected clause which invites without requiring the possibility of multiple stakeholders) in the archive: > And all organizations, big or small, public or private, military or civilian, are managed best when managed by a single executive. Hence: royalism. However he or she is selected, the title of such an executive, in a sovereign capacity, is King or Queen—or, at least, anything else is a euphemism. Emphasis his: https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2010/02/from-mises-to-carlyle-my-sick-journey/ https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2010/02/from-mises-...

iudqnolq 7y ago
I accidentally omitted a newline between the quote and my commentary, and it's too late to edit now. The Verge: "In one design sketch for Urbit ... has reserved 32 duchies for his exclusive personal benefit." Me: "The founder is an alt-right philosopher... are shareholders and have voting rights." If you search for the first sentence of the quote you'll find it.
- blotter_paper 7y ago
  Aah, thanks for the clarification.
oldfanthroww 7y ago
Moldbug (whom I would distinguish from Yarvin as you would a comedian's stage persona) in advocating for neocameralism proposed rule by a CEO-king. This person like a conventional CEO would hold great personal power in their organization. Unlike a king the CEO would be elected by the board and responsible to the shareholders. You can read more in the posts about Patchwork. >Emphasis his If you mean to emphasize the ruler's gender, I don't think that is right. Moldbug is rather fond of Queen Victoria.