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He strikes me as enough of a self-important dork to say (and mean) something like this, and what I’ve seen of his politics are extremely bad to me, but let’s no
by dwb 5y ago
He strikes me as enough of a self-important dork to say (and mean) something like this, and what I’ve seen of his politics are extremely bad to me, but let’s not lose perspective: we’re talking about an open-source VM here. There’s no lock-in. If I got into it and then found out that it was worse than I’m seeing right now then I would shrug my shoulders and move on.
- lisper 5y ago> There’s no lock-in. There is very rarely any externally visible lock-in. That's not how cults work. Cults work by building a community of people who perceive non-members as the enemy. Urbit builds that community by enticing geeks with the promise of something new and interesting and then keeps them in by leveraging the sunk-cost fallacy (people don't like to admit that all the effort they put into learning Hoon was a waste of time) and all the derision that comes from the outside from people who "don't get it".
- dwb 5y agoI still think this "cult" characterisation is a bit much. Even if Urbit does inspire something like what you're worried about, we're talking about, what, some people being annoying in the comments section? The "followers" spending their time on doomed technology that isn't ideal for their needs? An alleged racist accumulating a bit more cryptocurrency (itself possibly a doomed technology) than we'd like? Compare this with religious cults that ruin people's lives, separate them from their families, and so on.
- lisper 5y agoScientology started off as a fairly innocuous-looking self-help book and look where it is now. These things take time. By the time it is obvious that a nascent cult is fully fledged it is generally too late to sound the alarm.
- dwb 5y agoSure, and I'm not saying it's impossible. But cults based on some deep self-improvement and/or transcendence plus charismatic leadership, I can broadly understand why they developed. Based on an open-source software project, seems much less likely – imho certainly not enough to start openly worrying about it at this stage.
- lisper 5y agoAre you aware that Curtis Yarvin is also Mencius Moldbug?
- dwb 5y agoYes, I even tried to read some of his blog posts under that name before I came across urbit. Didn’t bother finishing any because they were interminable and objectionable in about equal measure. I’m aware of the posited connection between his views (including the whole feudal thing) and urbit; I guess I just don’t see the need to be afraid of a shadowy presence behind the project, given what it is.
- lisper 5y agoThe mere fact that Urbit is still a thing, that it has not yet collapsed under the weight of its own intentionally induced baggage, is worrisome to me. Something is keeping that project alive, and it's not technical merit. I don't see a lot of viable options other than some kind of fanaticism.
- dcow 5y agoI think it’s technically fascinating. Guess it’s just perception. People say the same about bitcoin.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]