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by Rusky 3673 days ago
Because people don't just see Urbit, if they end up participating long-term. They see Yarvin, and he definitely is not one to hide his worldview.

As much as some people like to pretend it's only about tech, tech is made by people and it requires them to interact with each other, and that can never be completely confined to code.
1 comments
mixedCase 3673 days ago
>They see Yarvin, and he definitely is not one to hide his worldview.

While talking to Urbit contributors about Urbit?

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Rusky 3672 days ago
By definition no, of course. But I have never done a non-trivial amount of open source-style work (coding or otherwise) with someone who shares their political views online, without learning about them somehow.

And in fact, every Urbit contributor in this thread who's mentioned this has also heard about Yarvin's political views, and not from this thread. It appears to me there's already a kind of self-selection process in Urbit contributors, towards those who are comfortable tolerating his garbage. And that's exactly the problem.

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loqi 3669 days ago
Well, if you define "comfortable tolerating his garbage" as "contributes to Urbit despite it being Yarvin's project", then tautological assertion is tautological.

There is certainly some self-selection for people who don't throw tech babies out with political bathwater. I count myself as one such person. I mean, I continued using Javascript and Firefox even after hearing about Brendan Eich's political contribution! Feel free to draw incorrect inferences regarding my opinion of gay marriage.

I have also toyed around with Urbit, and have (in a sense) made minor contributions. Feel free to draw incorrect inferences regarding my opinion of Yarvin's political writing.

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Rusky 3669 days ago
It's not about your beliefs or what people infer about them. In fact it's not about you at all- it's about the other potential contributors and users that Yarvin is alienating, despite all the claims in this thread that his views don't impact the project.
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loqi 3669 days ago
Ah. So basically this[1]?

[1]: https://gist.github.com/djspiewak/3a6ff436865d9e5794e4

I mean, I guess you're technically correct: If nothing else, the impact of his views on the project is that it results in the exclusion of people who choose to exclude themselves from projects created by "the wrong people".

But of course that's trivially true of all projects, so why do you think it's such a problem in this particular case? If you answer "because his views are really bad" while acknowledging that they otherwise have no direct bearing on the technology, you're basically saying "because he's really unpopular".

I have no love of Yarvin's politics, but that sort of cure is worse than the disease.

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Rusky 3668 days ago
Where we seem to differ is in the importance of those people who avoid Yarvin (or Torvalds, or other more or less abrasive open source contributors), as well as the reasons they avoid him. It's more than merely ideological for many people, it's personal.

I don't acknowledge that his views have no direct bearing on the technology, either, and that's tied up in my first point. We design things for ourselves, for the most part, so by excluding (perhaps inadvertently) people with different perspectives on life, we lose out on valuable input.

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