
Urbit for Normies - pcr910303
https://urbit.org/blog/urbit-for-normies/
======
mnemonicsloth
I got tired or waiting to find out what Urbit actually does, so I checked
Wikipedia:

 _Urbit is a decentralized personal server platform. The platform seeks to
deconstruct the client-server model in favor of a federated network of
personal servers in a peer-to-peer network with a consistent digital
identity._

I think every comment I've read so far contains an objection to being called
"Normies," so I won't belabor that here. I will say that if the HN audience
(highly interested, highly competent) tunes out before you can make your pitch
you are doing marketing wrong.

~~~
rogual
As far as I can ascertain, Urbit consists of a sensible, worthwhile goal, and
many man-years of work building bizarre, contrarian executable artifacts that
have nothing to do with that goal.

------
oscribinn
Let's say I want to host a video, and I'm a "normie" that only has a cell
phone. Under this model, my device is my server, so I'm hosting it off my cell
phone. I want my friends to be able to see it whenever, but I don't want to
have an internet connection at all times just for my friends to see my video.
How can I achieve this on this network without a "broker" to host the video?
Peertube is a "solution", but its a failure for widespread adoption because it
adds complexity compared the mainstream solution. You're only going to draw
average users to your platform by providing a superior user experience - very
few posting even here can sincerely say that they don't sacrifice their
privacy for convenience on a daily basis.

Additionally, they mention that your ID accrues "reputation" on the urbit
network, which makes it pretty ballsy to bring up comparisons to Reddit
because their system of upvotes and "karma" is one of the major structural
failings making their platform unsuitable for free speech (same thing here
tbqh famalamalampai). Thus the behavioral problems of modern social media
(excessive virtue signalling, witch hunts, shadowbanning) are only amplified
by this system, the tyranny of the majority extended into every aspect of your
networked computing experience.

Overall I think this is a cool idea for certain applications where it has
potential, but they're not pitching it just for those applications, they're
pitching it as a technology to replace the entire current internet model with,
and that's just not going to happen.

------
AlabasterAxe
Urbit sounded interesting but I dug into the source code a bit and found that
the core of the whole system (the Nock language) has "loobeans" instead of
booleans in which 1 represents false and 0 represents true at which point I
nope'd out pretty hard.

~~~
wolfgke
In electrical engineering (digital technology), there exist both circuits
where

* High (voltage) represents 1 and Low (voltage) represents 0 (positive logic) and

* High (voltage) represents 0 and Low (voltage) represents 1 (negative logic)

With this background, loobeans don't seem so strange anymore.

~~~
DagAgren
In electrical engineering, there are practical reasons to do this.

Here, there are none, except to be contrarian. Being contrarian is not the
same as being clever, and this is very much not clever.

~~~
wolfgke
> In electrical engineering, there are practical reasons to do this.

> Here, there are none, except to be contrarian.

I know that in electrical engineering, there exist good reasons. But doubt
whether the reason for loobeans is to be contrarian. I rather suspect that if
you look deeply into the architectural details of Nock, you will find a good
reason for loobeans, too. In this sense, I suspect that loobeans are
"contrarian" is rather a welcome side-effect than raison d'être.

~~~
DagAgren
This entire project is built from basically 95% contrarianism.

It is contrarianism, pure and simple.

------
hprotagonist
step 0: maybe don't use "normies" on your official project page.

I've peripherally know _about_ urbit for, at this point, multiple years, and
have not the first clue what it really is or does or attempts to solve.

~~~
ianbicking
This article, and every other article, goes to great length to talk about the
problems they attempt to solve: computing (and storage?) separated from an
individual device, personal ownership of an identity, and communication
channels between those identities and presumably the computation that works on
those identities' behalf. With a bunch of privacy stuff and maybe some ability
to fund this computation?

Where every article fails is in saying how they accomplish it and what any of
it means in practice. We're both baffled on that point.

------
ianbicking
I'm still looking for "Urbit for normal developers."

For instance there's a notebook, from the way this article talks about it I
would assume it's a collaborative notebook (otherwise it's pretty boring).
What kind of data structure is used to store it? How are edits communicated
and conflicts resolved? Assuming conflicts require some domain-specific
computation to resolve, where does that computation happen? Is there an access
control list, or some secret that gives access? How would revoking access
work? How do changes come in and out of the user agent/browser? Where is the
program that manages this hosted? How do I get updates to that program?

~~~
ianbicking
I poked around and I think I understand Urbit now. I wrote down my
speculations here:
[https://twitter.com/ianbicking/status/1249862161758916609](https://twitter.com/ianbicking/status/1249862161758916609)

This satisfies some long-held desire to unpack the mystery. But now that I
know what it is, I know that in fact I'm not interested in it, and
(unsurprisingly) it's not the future of computing.

------
juped
I really love the Urbit system. But I'm not sure why anyone posts about it
here - it has never attracted substantive discussion and I don't think it ever
will.

~~~
imustbeevil
Why do you love the Urbit system? What applications are you currently using it
for? Why did you choose it over an alternative?

------
marcusestes
Yarvin's formative influence on this project will prevent it from ever
achieving scale and that seems problematic for a decentralized system that
relies upon an active network of peers.

His neo-reactionary thinking bled directly into the architecture of Urbit and
I don't think there are very many "normies" out there who would support it, if
they realized all of the long-term implications of a feudalistic social
computing system.

~~~
threwawasy1228
I think the larger problem slowing down their growth is not his "neo-
reactionary" thought bleeding into the architecture of Urbit. I think a big
part of it is the massive technical debt that Yarvin straddled the project
with via his C code. It is written in a hard to read style that I at least
have never seen before anywhere else.

[0]
[https://github.com/urbit/urbit/tree/master/pkg/urbit](https://github.com/urbit/urbit/tree/master/pkg/urbit)

~~~
marcusestes
Yeah, seems like a bottleneck constricting in two dimensions: technical _and_
social.

~~~
Apocryphon
This is a pretty short critique about apparent issues with Urbit, from a non-
ideological viewpoint and detached from referencing the author- though a reply
points out those technical criticisms may have been inspired by ideology!

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13597419](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13597419)

~~~
threwawasy1228
That is definitely a very insightful post you linked, but I think the project
is terrible even if you block out every single possible connection between the
tech and ideology. I quite literally mean that I can't read the code. They
designed a variable and function naming convention which obscures what the C
code is doing. The naming is all nonsense syllables and seems deliberately
intended to confuse anyone trying to audit the code.

The app for example claims to be end-to-end encrypted peer to peer
connections. Is this true? Is it implemented correctly? I'm not sure they
could find a reputable security auditor who would willingly subject themselves
to this codebase regardless of how much pay was offered.

------
recursive
As far as urbit is concerned, I'm definitely a normie, but I still don't get
it. Where is all this stuff? Running all of megacorp's stuff takes a bazillion
servers. If we're not going to use those anymore, where is my data going to
live? How can I access everything from anywhere if there is no centralization?
Will my "urbit computer" be running on other people's physical computers? Can
I decide to run an infinite number of infinite loops? Will it be running on my
physical computer? What if my hard drive dies? Do I lose all my stuff?

How does it actually work?

~~~
tylershuster
Your data lives on your computer. And on the network, to anyone to whom you
have given access. If your hard drive dies, you lose your stuff. But you might
be able to recover the shared information.

------
gherig4
The first 7-8 paragraphs are about the author (Hint: I don't care.), the next
few are a technical description. As a "normie" I'm not reading 15 paragraphs
in to see how it can help me

As a consumer, what benefit does it provide to me? "Normies" are going to
bounce way before they see what the answer is. Drop the derogatory term and
tell me how this helps me from the start.

~~~
A4ET8a8uTh0
It is weird. I had a similar reaction. My immediate focus was on the use of
the word 'normies' as opposed to the original subject of that post. I wonder
if the author shot him/herself in the foot by using such language.

~~~
meowface
The project also already shot itself in the foot on arrival, due to the
creator's other work. (He's one of the most prominent modern far-right
philosophers/writers. Among other things, known for staunchly criticizing
democracy and advocating for monarchism and authoritarianism as a better
system.)

------
pgt
The derogatory term "normies" hampers the explanation of Urbit. I can't help
from commenting on that term, instead of helping to spread Urbit, which is the
opposite of what Urbit wants. Whatever it is.

~~~
lliamander
Perhaps it's a matter of perspective, but I don't see it as derogatory. Rather
I see it as a reflection of the way which questions about Urbit are typically
asked. I.e. "Can someone explain what Urbit is and why it's relevant to a
_normal person_ like myself?"

~~~
scott_s
Except that "normie" is the name a particular in-group gives to their out-
group. It's not a name that out-group adopted. Most normal people seeing
"normie" will both intuit what it means (a normal person), but also recognize
the person using it is also signaling in-group status.

~~~
GavinMcG
And, I'd add, gives to them specifically to be dismissive and to imply that
the out group is failing to (or maybe isn't able to) understand things with
the special insight the in-group has.

~~~
nineteen999
Insults are in the ears of the beholder. A bit of context goes a long way,
when you realize that that the "in-group" is miniscule, and the the "out-
group" is the vast majority.

If you frame it that way, it should be obvious that the "in-group" in this
case would appear, on the surface, to be a bunch of deluded eccentrics, hardly
anything to feel insulted about.

------
DoreenMichele
Hello mr. "normie" author:

1\. Try rewriting this and putting your use cases first.

2\. Try explaining to people what it does for them. Why is this better than
other platforms?

3\. Next, give a little technical jargon ("decentralized personal server
platform blah blah blah) and link to meatier standard stuff getting into the
tech.

4\. As a zillion other people have said, ditch the word "normie." If you have
to spend that much time justifying the use of that word, it's probably doing a
disservice to your marketing efforts.

Try something like: "Tech for the ordinary joe." or "High tech solutions for
people who don't have or want a CS degree." or "Privacy and control of your
data for everyone."

------
dj_mc_merlin
> Have you ever tried to use a command line? Exactly. It’s a terrible way to
> work

Not the best line. Don't see the point in marketing a p2p network to people
who can't even use cli.

~~~
jtms
Yeah agreed... wtf is he even talking about? "terrible way to work" is an
absurd thing to say - I use a command line for easily 90% of my work and would
argue its a FAR SUPERIOR way to get things done efficiently. This sentence
alone makes me dubious of this entire project.

------
logical42
So far I’m not sure if people realize that this is a (non-serious) reference
to a Borges short story:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlön,_Uqbar,_Orbis_Tertius](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlön,_Uqbar,_Orbis_Tertius).

~~~
cl3misch
Do you mean the article or Urbit itself?

------
stillsut
Even in the case where the Urbit container and network are perfectly
implemented and widely adopted, I'd imagine privacy as of the average user if
not most users would continue to be compromised:

The plebs would end up authorizing liberal permissions to to watch some out-
of-network UrbitTikTok video, even as we screamed at them not to. And the devs
would be forced to enable some phone-home capabilities in exchange for access
to their pro tools. Or go the jailbreak route and play a constant game of cat
and mouse. In essence, if you're on the consumer side, it seems like you're
not in a position to negotiate privacy terms regardless of whether you access
the network in a centralized or p2p way.

------
jtms
I have zero motivation to spend any time at all finding this out myself, but
let me guess, this somehow involves a blockchain.

~~~
marcusestes
It actually doesn't (except for the fact that PKI registration is handled on
Ethereum).

~~~
jtms
From the Urbit homepage: "Urbit ID is a decentralized digital identity system.
Your Urbit ID is a username, network address, and crypto wallet."

So yes it absolutely involves a blockchain.

~~~
marcusestes
Don't mean to be pedantic but those requirements do not require a blockchain.

See: [https://urbit.org/blog/why-urbit-probably-does-not-need-a-
bl...](https://urbit.org/blog/why-urbit-probably-does-not-need-a-blockchain/)

------
Avamander
No screenshots anywhere of anything as far as I can see. This is a strong
signal for me that the project is not suitable for neither a demo or an
example.

I would also like to see comparison with Keybase that actively competes in the
same area, but actually has a viable product.

------
aarpmcgee
Can anyone speak to the difference between Urbit and Holochain, or any other
comparable efforts in this space?

~~~
tidrel-tabpub
This is a question I'm probably better suited to answer than anyone in the
world, since I used to work on Holochain in 2018 and I've worked on Urbit
since 2019.

They solve a similar set of problems from completely different directions.
Chiefly, they are both trying to create infrastructure for running distributed
programs that run primarily on the devices of the user in such a way that the
user has total control over their own data and not in a horribly inefficient
way like blockchain-based dApps.

Urbit has a bottom-up approach while Holochain has a top-down approach. Urbit
is about building powerful infrastructure for individual users to manage their
own data and, from there, networks of users may be built that can run their
own apps and share data amongst themselves however they like. Holochain
instead starts by focusing on building networks of users that share data in a
prescribed fashion, and how each user manages their own data outside of
Holochain is up to them.

I see them as complementary, almost dual to each other. Urbit is about
creating infrastructure for individuals that can then form networks, while
Holochain is about forming networks that individuals can then join. Urbit
starts as close to bare metal as you can get (its a whole operating system,
programming language, and assembly-level instruction set) and starts getting
thin around userspace, while Holochain lives entirely in userspace. Stack them
on top of each other and your entire computer from the GUI all the way down to
the processor instruction set is oriented around user data privacy and
efficient distributed computing!

In a future where both Urbit and Holochain take off, people could use Urbit to
manage their personal data and cryptographic property which would be fed into
Holochain apps. There would be a bridge between the Urbit PKI and the
Holochain PKI so that your identity in one is linked to your identity in the
other.

Both projects aspire to create something like a "universal interface" along
the lines of WeChat, except not a dystopian privacy invasion nightmare.

I could write more about this all day. If you have any further questions I'd
be happy to answer. I'm mostly excited to have met someone else using
Holochain and Urbit in the same sentence.

------
mjfl
Urbit is a prank.

~~~
MFLoon
Is it really? It seems like an enormous amount of effort for a prank. 18k
commits on the main repo, tens of thousands of words of explanatory blog posts
and documentation, etc.

~~~
bitwize
That's how you know it was a successful prank: enough people fell for it for
enough time to make all those commits and docs!

See also postmodernism which I still believe to be long-form trolling by
Derrida et al., yet has attracted considerable scholarship and wields enormous
influence over culture.

------
mdszy
Ah yes, urbit, because feudalism is a perfect model for widely-used software.

~~~
nnq
..care to explain?

~~~
ardy42
> ..care to explain?

The developer of Urbit is better known as an advocate for "neo-ractionary"
ideas, which I believe includes things that look like neo-feudalism:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment)

IIRC, some of these political ideas are reflected in the design choices of
Urbit.

~~~
bitwize
Yarvin has crank tendencies that show up in Urbit, but the ones that do show
up have less to do with his politics and more to do with his penchant for
obscurantism. He wants to be seen as a thought leader, in politics, computing,
and elsewhere, but both the ideas in Urbit and his political ideas are either
relatively straightforward to someone learned in the art, or highly
objectionable. So they are wrapped in matryoshka-doll nestings of obscure
notation with the promise "Just accept it for now, it'll all make sense in the
end."

~~~
MFLoon
Was just perusing the Hoon tutorial out of curiosity, and it's wild how alien
of a language it is. To my eyes it's like a bastard child of brainfuck and
common lisp; look at the "simple Hoon program" they give in section 1.1 as
your first introduction to Hoon code
[https://urbit.org/docs/tutorials/hoon/list-of-
numbers/](https://urbit.org/docs/tutorials/hoon/list-of-numbers/)

Also, the interpreter won't parse integer literals without thousands
separators (which are periods). JackieChanMindBlown.png

~~~
oscribinn
That doc and the language itself reads like a parody of obscure functional
programming languages with obtuse syntax and semantics.

Keywords are RUNES and RUNES have CHILDREN, CHILDREN can be RUNES and the
programs chains the RUNES until there are no CHILDREN. Functions are GATES and
tuples are CELLS and you run programs as GENERATORS from your SHIP's DOJO.

~~~
bitwize
It's like he's... being frustratingly, abstrusely different _for the sake of
being different_.

