[nyolfen]

>A network designed and organized based on a particular principle can impose that principle on the way that people on the network act, interact, and relate on the network in ways that a Linux distribution cannot. I am not certain whether this accurately describes Urbit. Statements from the project and its developers have suggested to me that this has been a goal, but they may have retreated from that since.

this is certainly the case -- the scarcity of resources (about 4b cryptographic identities called 'planets', along with an associated reputation system) is meant to introduce something like proof-of-stake, where incentives are created that make it more expensive to act in bad faith (trolling[1], spamming) than the bad faith behavior is worth.

this is an interesting read the head developer wrote a few years ago about these subjects: https://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2010/03/future...

[1] 'trolling' in this case would be determined by local 'communities' on the network, and not a central authority a la the current internet (fb, twitter, etc)