5 ms·

Sorry, but no. urbit, from the Latin urbs == city, is actually a good bit older than UR. The initials are somehow very compelling - another couple of great li

by yarvin9 11y ago

Sorry, but no. urbit, from the Latin urbs == city, is actually a good bit older than UR. The initials are somehow very compelling - another couple of great literary UR blogs are the Unz Review (unz.com) and Uncouth Reflections (uncouthreflections.com). I will admit that urbit has very few users, as technically we're really not launched at all. We were thinking Strange Loop might be a good place for this, but I guess not.

tptacek 11y ago
I stand corrected about the name. Here's an honest summary of what I think: I find it very easy to see the importance of a serious general-purpose overlay network, since I think that's the future of the Internet, so much so that I think something like Urbit will make IPv6 irrelevant. I'm philosophically inclined to appreciate that work. I find that the programming model you've attached to it --- the Nock/Hoon stuff --- makes it easy to dismiss the work. I think you winkingly acknowledge and encourage that (for instance: the new pronunciation of ASCII characters), but don't really know why. The combination of relentless idiosyncrasy, world-building ambition, and your many tens of thousands of words of (to me) odious philosophical writing leaves me in a place where I can empathize with the dilemma you'd post to a conference organizer. Your defenders on this thread seem to take it as an axiom that you'd just get up on stage, explain why you decided to code in line noise instead of Lisp, and talk about our beautiful overlay network future. I'd like to see that talk, too. But I don't think that's actually an axiom. It's seems just as likely that you'd use your network design as a launching point for a 5 minute digression on the evils of democracy. Later: I just want to be clear that I'm writing for the thread, not directly to you. I don't know which if any of these points you even disagree with.
- valvar 11y ago
  Yarvin has had at least one other talk (that I know of) about Urbit, and he did not so much as mention anything non-technical. I don't see what grounds you have to assume such a thing about him without any prior evidence of such behaviour having occurred previously.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    If you'll read a little more carefully, you'll see that what I'm doing is not making assumptions about what he'd talk about. What you're arguing is that I should make an assumption.
    - nkurz 11y ago
      If you'll read a little more carefully, you'll see that what I'm doing is not making assumptions about what he'd talk about There is a common fallacy whereby people assume that "unknown odds" should be estimated as having a 50% chance of occurring. Your phrase "it seems just as likely" could easily be interpreted to mean that you think there is a 50:50 chance that Yarvin would ignore the tech and speak instead about his political views. Were you to believe this, you'd be making a fairly strong assumption. I don't think this is what you meant, but I think it's a reasonable reading of your words as written. For the respondent to politely point out that Yarvin stuck to the technical details in a previous talk is constructively responsive to this reading. If a reader doesn't interpret something you've written in the way you intended it's possible (but not "just as likely") that the reader is not the one at fault. Telling them to "read a little more carefully" is being unnecessarily rude to someone who was contributing useful information.
- gladius17 11y ago
  I want to personally thank you and your ilk for being such shallow morons that you felt excluding Mr. Yarvin from this conference was a bright idea. What an incredibly foolish mistake for you...and a lucky turn of events for humanity. I bet you actually think "your team" won something just now. But the only thing you've done is ensured you go down in history as the immature fuckwits you sadly are. I'm OVERJOYED that you are personally too stupid to understand what his code is good for. This guy is like a gold coin laying on the sidewalk, being constantly trampled underfoot, which nobody is smart enough to bend down and pick up. Without y'all making him into a martyr, we'd likely have never heard of him, or his project....and the future might have been a very different place. So thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for being an unimaginative, clueless, self-absorbed asshat. We just so happen to have a use for his invention that will make him a multi-millionaire in short order. You'll be reading about Mr. Yarvin in the magazines in a few years. You may want to reflect on what is so seriously wrong with your way of thinking about the world that it causes you to fail, time and time again, to appreciate and respect genius when you see it. Could it be your massively overinflated ego and sense of self-worth? Maybe you're not the special little shit you've always imagined yourself to be. Could it be because you have spent your entire life searching for something to be pissed off and offended about, and thinking of about how you can rank up in society and step on others to do it? Maybe it's because you're busy doing anything and everything but what the geniuses are doing: studying technology, and thinking new thoughts. How many new words and concepts have YOU invented, you judgmental prick? Nathan Klein (Remember that name.)
  - tptacek 11y ago
    On behalf of my entire ilk, or what parts of it I have not yet pickled with whiskey, thank you for the kind words.
newuser88273 11y ago
Just so people don't think there's no third way to think about your work: I get nothing but snake oil vibes from Urbit, but loved the blog, which, among other things, was the venerable art form of Usenet trolling taken to utter perfection.
- gladius17 11y ago
  "Just so people don't think there's no third way to think about your work:" What follows don't really resemble "thoughts." Maybe the word does not mean what you think it means.
tripzilch 11y ago
I thought many of the words in urbit were inspired by a story by Jorge Luis Borges? It's too bad cause I think urbit it super-interesting, and even the weirdness surrounding the blogs (I came across later) were also super-interesting (but I don't agree with most of those, it was like curiosity-interesting). I think the tech-conference should have taken the chance, though. Because it is (thought) provoking.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

by yarvin9 11y ago

tptacek 11y ago

I stand corrected about the name. Here's an honest summary of what I think: I find it very easy to see the importance of a serious general-purpose overlay network, since I think that's the future of the Internet, so much so that I think something like Urbit will make IPv6 irrelevant. I'm philosophically inclined to appreciate that work. I find that the programming model you've attached to it --- the Nock/Hoon stuff --- makes it easy to dismiss the work. I think you winkingly acknowledge and encourage that (for instance: the new pronunciation of ASCII characters), but don't really know why. The combination of relentless idiosyncrasy, world-building ambition, and your many tens of thousands of words of (to me) odious philosophical writing leaves me in a place where I can empathize with the dilemma you'd post to a conference organizer. Your defenders on this thread seem to take it as an axiom that you'd just get up on stage, explain why you decided to code in line noise instead of Lisp, and talk about our beautiful overlay network future. I'd like to see that talk, too. But I don't think that's actually an axiom. It's seems just as likely that you'd use your network design as a launching point for a 5 minute digression on the evils of democracy. Later: I just want to be clear that I'm writing for the thread, not directly to you. I don't know which if any of these points you even disagree with.

valvar 11y ago
Yarvin has had at least one other talk (that I know of) about Urbit, and he did not so much as mention anything non-technical. I don't see what grounds you have to assume such a thing about him without any prior evidence of such behaviour having occurred previously.
- tptacek 11y ago
  If you'll read a little more carefully, you'll see that what I'm doing is not making assumptions about what he'd talk about. What you're arguing is that I should make an assumption.
  - nkurz 11y ago
    If you'll read a little more carefully, you'll see that what I'm doing is not making assumptions about what he'd talk about There is a common fallacy whereby people assume that "unknown odds" should be estimated as having a 50% chance of occurring. Your phrase "it seems just as likely" could easily be interpreted to mean that you think there is a 50:50 chance that Yarvin would ignore the tech and speak instead about his political views. Were you to believe this, you'd be making a fairly strong assumption. I don't think this is what you meant, but I think it's a reasonable reading of your words as written. For the respondent to politely point out that Yarvin stuck to the technical details in a previous talk is constructively responsive to this reading. If a reader doesn't interpret something you've written in the way you intended it's possible (but not "just as likely") that the reader is not the one at fault. Telling them to "read a little more carefully" is being unnecessarily rude to someone who was contributing useful information.
gladius17 11y ago
I want to personally thank you and your ilk for being such shallow morons that you felt excluding Mr. Yarvin from this conference was a bright idea. What an incredibly foolish mistake for you...and a lucky turn of events for humanity. I bet you actually think "your team" won something just now. But the only thing you've done is ensured you go down in history as the immature fuckwits you sadly are. I'm OVERJOYED that you are personally too stupid to understand what his code is good for. This guy is like a gold coin laying on the sidewalk, being constantly trampled underfoot, which nobody is smart enough to bend down and pick up. Without y'all making him into a martyr, we'd likely have never heard of him, or his project....and the future might have been a very different place. So thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for being an unimaginative, clueless, self-absorbed asshat. We just so happen to have a use for his invention that will make him a multi-millionaire in short order. You'll be reading about Mr. Yarvin in the magazines in a few years. You may want to reflect on what is so seriously wrong with your way of thinking about the world that it causes you to fail, time and time again, to appreciate and respect genius when you see it. Could it be your massively overinflated ego and sense of self-worth? Maybe you're not the special little shit you've always imagined yourself to be. Could it be because you have spent your entire life searching for something to be pissed off and offended about, and thinking of about how you can rank up in society and step on others to do it? Maybe it's because you're busy doing anything and everything but what the geniuses are doing: studying technology, and thinking new thoughts. How many new words and concepts have YOU invented, you judgmental prick? Nathan Klein (Remember that name.)
- tptacek 11y ago
  On behalf of my entire ilk, or what parts of it I have not yet pickled with whiskey, thank you for the kind words.

newuser88273 11y ago

Just so people don't think there's no third way to think about your work: I get nothing but snake oil vibes from Urbit, but loved the blog, which, among other things, was the venerable art form of Usenet trolling taken to utter perfection.

gladius17 11y ago
"Just so people don't think there's no third way to think about your work:" What follows don't really resemble "thoughts." Maybe the word does not mean what you think it means.

tripzilch 11y ago

I thought many of the words in urbit were inspired by a story by Jorge Luis Borges? It's too bad cause I think urbit it super-interesting, and even the weirdness surrounding the blogs (I came across later) were also super-interesting (but I don't agree with most of those, it was like curiosity-interesting). I think the tech-conference should have taken the chance, though. Because it is (thought) provoking.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]