4 ms·

As someone who can't stand Yarvin and suspects that Urbit's obscurity is a manipulative tactic to dress up ideas that might not seem so interesting (and a produ

As someone who can't stand Yarvin and suspects that Urbit's obscurity is a manipulative tactic to dress up ideas that might not seem so interesting (and a product that might not seem so attractive) if they were easily accessible, I still find this comment interesting. Right or wrong, it has some plausibility, and I don't see why it should be buried.

Barrin92 6y ago
> it has some plausibility I think talking about 'entryist parasites' and 'urbit insiders shielding themselves from people wanting in', is on its face pretty obviously cringeworthy. Like, is that a problem that Urbit has, hordes of people at the door wanting to jump in, like some coveted nightclub? William Gibson called this very aptly anti-marketing in his Blue Ant trilogy, and like you point out in your first sentence, it's nothing but a manipulative tactic by people who want to inflate the value of what they're selling by making it artificially scarce and exotic.
- retsibsi 6y ago
  You may well be right on this point. But I'm still too ignorant of Urbit to be sure that it's simply pretentious (and fundamentally unimportant except as a fundraiser), rather than a sincere attempt to further Yarvin's political project. His political writing is manipulative, but I think at some level he genuinely means it, and it has influenced a lot of people. And while he plays the character of an outsider genius in a very annoying way, in reality he is clearly at least quite smart. I have no idea how Urbit is supposed to help bring about his neoreactionary utopia, but I worry that dismissing it out of hand might be too complacent. Some of the weirdness could be genuinely strategic, rather than purely the marketing arm of a scam/hype-trap.
- esyir 6y ago
  On the flipside, Any Community that fails to gatekeep sufficiently ceases to exist once it gains traction. The flood of entrants rapidly replaces whatever was there before via sheer weight of numbers.
- centimeter 6y ago
  > is that a problem that Urbit has Yarvin's goal was to preempt this issue before it might become a problem. Don't get mad at me for explaining this - I'm not even convinced any of this makes sense. I'm just articulating Yarvin's arguments. I'm not "selling" anything. I don't have any stake in Urbit.

Barrin92 6y ago

> it has some plausibility I think talking about 'entryist parasites' and 'urbit insiders shielding themselves from people wanting in', is on its face pretty obviously cringeworthy. Like, is that a problem that Urbit has, hordes of people at the door wanting to jump in, like some coveted nightclub? William Gibson called this very aptly anti-marketing in his Blue Ant trilogy, and like you point out in your first sentence, it's nothing but a manipulative tactic by people who want to inflate the value of what they're selling by making it artificially scarce and exotic.

retsibsi 6y ago
You may well be right on this point. But I'm still too ignorant of Urbit to be sure that it's simply pretentious (and fundamentally unimportant except as a fundraiser), rather than a sincere attempt to further Yarvin's political project. His political writing is manipulative, but I think at some level he genuinely means it, and it has influenced a lot of people. And while he plays the character of an outsider genius in a very annoying way, in reality he is clearly at least quite smart. I have no idea how Urbit is supposed to help bring about his neoreactionary utopia, but I worry that dismissing it out of hand might be too complacent. Some of the weirdness could be genuinely strategic, rather than purely the marketing arm of a scam/hype-trap.
esyir 6y ago
On the flipside, Any Community that fails to gatekeep sufficiently ceases to exist once it gains traction. The flood of entrants rapidly replaces whatever was there before via sheer weight of numbers.
centimeter 6y ago
> is that a problem that Urbit has Yarvin's goal was to preempt this issue before it might become a problem. Don't get mad at me for explaining this - I'm not even convinced any of this makes sense. I'm just articulating Yarvin's arguments. I'm not "selling" anything. I don't have any stake in Urbit.