Weird post. I am running my own Urbit, happily learning FP and network concepts along the way. I’m not even a programmer or an engineer, so it can’t be that obscurantist, and it certainly isn’t vaporware.
I’m very interested to know how an operating system can be racist.
It’s a purely functional operating system, and it’s pretty neat. It’s also open-source. The author’s naughty blog posts play absolutely nothing into this.
It's certainly hidden behind a layer of indirection where you first have to peel off 'how exactly is this anything at all' - a tricky and futile enough proposition. It's like a LaRouche movement for computer nerds, if you bend over backwards to be nice about it.
So what do you get when you peel off the layer of indirection?
I am curious about how an operating system project can be this political, but i'm reluctant to dig into it myself, because any time spent learning about Urbit is clearly absolutely wasted. But if you've already done that work, could you share your findings?
I'm somewhat uncertain of the precise distinction but we should focus on what we appear to agree on - any time spent learning about Urbit is absolutely wasted and thus, it does not belong on HN.
Kind of ironic to complain about indirection while not actually answering my question. Can't say this response has done much to help me understand how it's racist.
The dude who came up with it is a racist. He named bits of his proposed OS after an obscure racist. It's a level of indirection, but not a very complicated one to traverse, at least, not for the racist part.
