we're good bro
Hi again.
So, i decided to look into urbit, and it was a unique experience.
If you dont know what urbit is, urbit is more like an operating system. Built on top of an operating system.
Created by tlon, now under the urbit foundation, it has a large community.
The operating system is based on knock, a functional tree-like byte language. Most networking, commands and all or most the apps in urbit is compiled to knock. Because knock is functional by design, it has no state. Meaning that you can copy urbit directory (aka your pier) and put it on a different operating system, and continue where you left off, without any issues.
Hoon, is the assembly language of knock. Hoon is not like a normal assembly program with registers. It is based on knock, therefore it goes against the most intuitive knowledge in favor of pure functional programming.
Hoon code is very difficult to read in the beginning, because it does not use words. However with some practice (and going though hoon school) your mind will snap into place. From there, it is pretty easy to build simple scripts. If you understand functional programming, and lambda calculus (with learning lean4 for theorem proving), then it is really easy to snap yourself really easily.
Urbit, due to its stateless design and its pseudo-anonymity, allows you to create a sovereign digital identity, without any outside control. That which is now paramount, as age verification and privacy breaking rules are becoming rampant.
You can self host your instance, however you will most likely have to buy a name of via ethereum. So it wouldn’t be recommended.
Instead, Tlon can host it for you. Tlon will give you a name, and an identity. There you can enter Urbit and see what’s to offer..
You can find me as ~nidsym-bilpur
Urbit was created, possibly as a joke, by Curtis Yarvin, aka Mencius Moldbug, a well-known neo-reactionary, associate of Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance. The design of the system reflects Yarvin's politics, in that the ownership of the network follows a feudal model. The "sovereign digital identity" thing is more of an aesthetic than a reality. Arguably galaxy owners have self-sovereignty? A planet owner is just a serf.
Interesting article, not much on the technical side:
The Rise and Fall of UrbitYou got a point,
Sure, The Head of tlon (Yarvin), is a controversial figure, and sometimes sabotages the community at points.
The community is so much detached from the outside world.
Most of the applications, are mostly dead, and the remaining ones are scattered across urbit, without any software that allows you to find it.
And, unless if you are useing tlon, you have to buy an identity using ethereum.
That which has its own problems by itself.
But I am only doing this because I am bored, and the schools blocking policies are so draconian, to the point that sites like internet archive are blocked. So, I am left with this.