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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 th

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.

antielectronite 7y ago
Yeah I'm seeing all kinds of weird analogies/ abstractions that try to explain what this thing is but not a single use-case or an example of somebody getting utility out of it. Is this a parody?
- miss_haru 7y ago
  Use case: this conversation, except between our own computers. Typically, we 'log in' to 'our accounts' on some company's server and use whatever fuctions the company grants us. They are not really our accounts in any meaningful way. If one were to be banned by hackernew(or twitter), she would have no access to her data, social connections, et c. In the urbit world, any data you have authored and any messages you have received are YOURS. They are forever available on your own server. It is simply not possible for 3rd parties to ban/delete/control your conversation, when the model is peer to peer.
  - kart23 7y ago
    Ok, so what's stopping one party from changing the data? How would one party prove they have the right data? Is this like blockchain messaging?
    - miss_haru 7y ago
      No, this is not blockchain messaging. "How would one party prove they have the right data?" Before two urbit servers communicate, they exchange and verify public signing keys. Then, all messages are signed with verified public key. If you mean what's stopping one party from changing their local copy of your data.... Nothing that I know of. But they're the only ones who will see their local data.
Waterluvian 7y ago
Based on all the things the intro page says about where all my social connections are and such, I think Urbit is a web browser.
cryptozeus 7y ago
that is what I thought, looks like some kind of joke but from other comments it is not.
chippy 7y ago
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.
- Merg 7y ago
  I mean, significant mental investment sound like typing "sunk cost fallacy" to me. The whole Urbit system could be described in terms of linked-lists and S-Expressions. Even languages as obscure as K, J or APL have better reasoning than Urbit. Obscurity only leads to smaller number of people wanting to explore something. Only people who stays with it are "believers" and not experts.

antielectronite 7y ago

Yeah I'm seeing all kinds of weird analogies/ abstractions that try to explain what this thing is but not a single use-case or an example of somebody getting utility out of it. Is this a parody?

miss_haru 7y ago
Use case: this conversation, except between our own computers. Typically, we 'log in' to 'our accounts' on some company's server and use whatever fuctions the company grants us. They are not really our accounts in any meaningful way. If one were to be banned by hackernew(or twitter), she would have no access to her data, social connections, et c. In the urbit world, any data you have authored and any messages you have received are YOURS. They are forever available on your own server. It is simply not possible for 3rd parties to ban/delete/control your conversation, when the model is peer to peer.
- kart23 7y ago
  Ok, so what's stopping one party from changing the data? How would one party prove they have the right data? Is this like blockchain messaging?
  - miss_haru 7y ago
    No, this is not blockchain messaging. "How would one party prove they have the right data?" Before two urbit servers communicate, they exchange and verify public signing keys. Then, all messages are signed with verified public key. If you mean what's stopping one party from changing their local copy of your data.... Nothing that I know of. But they're the only ones who will see their local data.

Waterluvian 7y ago

Based on all the things the intro page says about where all my social connections are and such, I think Urbit is a web browser.

cryptozeus 7y ago

that is what I thought, looks like some kind of joke but from other comments it is not.

chippy 7y ago

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.

Merg 7y ago
I mean, significant mental investment sound like typing "sunk cost fallacy" to me. The whole Urbit system could be described in terms of linked-lists and S-Expressions. Even languages as obscure as K, J or APL have better reasoning than Urbit. Obscurity only leads to smaller number of people wanting to explore something. Only people who stays with it are "believers" and not experts.