diff --git a/_posts/2019-5-4-who-owns-the-stars.md b/_posts/2019-5-4-who-owns-the-stars.md index b57b0846..116dcd67 100644 --- a/_posts/2019-5-4-who-owns-the-stars.md +++ b/_posts/2019-5-4-who-owns-the-stars.md @@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ by Francis Tseng The application that introduced peer-to-peer (P2P) computing to the mainstream was file sharing, services like Napster, Kazaa, Gnutella, and BitTorrent. For me, these programs were the first time the contradiction of artificial scarcity—the imposed scarcity of infinitely replicable digital information—and the excessive measures that were used to enforce it became startlingly clear. Over time, I encountered the term P2P in other settings and alongside other ideas—democratic governance, communalism, autonomy, cooperatives—and I started to see the purchase this idea had beyond file sharing and networking protocols. -[The P2P Foundation’s mission and strategic priorities](https://p2pfoundation.net/the-p2p-foundation/about-the-p2p-foundation), for example, extend the early P2P ideas of open culture and exchange into values of cooperative living and regenerative production. [Scuttlebutt, a more recent P2P social networking protocol, has its own “principles stack”](https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/principles/) that similarly advocates pluralistic exchange and mutual interdependence. It’s beautiful how, at least in the ideal scenario, by using a P2P service we are helping others access it as well. P2P is both an acknowledgment of our shared needs and an example of how cooperation helps us fulfill those needs. +[The P2P Foundation’s mission and strategic priorities](https://p2pfoundation.net/the-p2p-foundation/about-the-p2p-foundation), for example, extend the early P2P ideas of open culture and exchange into values of cooperative living and regenerative production. [Scuttlebutt, a more recent P2P social networking protocol, has its own “principles stack”](https://scuttlebutt.nz/docs/principles/) that similarly advocates pluralistic exchange and mutual interdependence. It’s beautiful how, at least in the ideal scenario, by using a P2P service we are helping others access it as well. P2P is both an acknowledgment of our shared needs and an example of how cooperation helps us fulfill those needs. Over the years, I’ve followed along with P2P projects because of these shared values, and I always find it exciting when new projects emerge. It seems that P2P is experiencing something of a renaissance, likely due to the frenzy around blockchain (which purports to offer something similar to P2P) and the increasing popular anxiety around centralized internet services like Facebook. @@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ The second, and more urgent, question is: who and what are we supporting by supp ## Context -In order to discuss Urbit’s design, we need to have an understanding of the politics of its creator, Curtis Yarvin. [Curtis Yarvin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin) is innocuously described on Wikipedia as an “American political theorist and computer scientist,” but to many, he is better known as [one of the intellectual forebears of the alt-right](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/behind-the-internets-dark-anti-democracy-movement/516243/). From 2007 to 2014[^1], working under the pen name Mencius Moldbug, Yarvin writings, which among other things espoused anti-democratic ideas and scientific racism and helped introduce many of what are now understood as the alt-right’s foundational ideologies to a wider public. The term “red pill,” which describes the process of reactionary radicalization and the community around it, was first used in this way by Yarvin.[^2] Defenders of Urbit are quick to dismiss any inclusion of Yarvin’s politics in discussions about Urbit as unfair or irrelevant, and might point out that Yarvin left the project in January of this year.[^3] However, given that Yarvin basically laid out the general design for Urbit independently, as he worked on it alone for 11 years[^3] and in parallel with his political writings[^4], and that Urbit, as a P2P project, is a fundamentally social and thus incorporates ideas about how people should be organized, Yarvin’s politics should be considered as something that influences his design decisions and his long-term vision for the project. [Dog-whistles](https://lobste.rs/s/z5j1hq/urbit_2017#c_4z4gik) have been identified in some of his writing about Urbit and its design, including his [leaning on Nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt](https://urbit.org/posts/essays/the-dao-as-a-lesson-in-decentralized-governance/) for questions around Urbit’s governance. +In order to discuss Urbit’s design, we need to have an understanding of the politics of its creator, Curtis Yarvin. [Curtis Yarvin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin) is innocuously described on Wikipedia as an “American political theorist and computer scientist,” but to many, he is better known as [one of the intellectual forebears of the alt-right](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/behind-the-internets-dark-anti-democracy-movement/516243/). From 2007 to 2014[^1], working under the pen name Mencius Moldbug, Yarvin writings, which among other things espoused anti-democratic ideas and scientific racism and helped introduce many of what are now understood as the alt-right’s foundational ideologies to a wider public. The term “red pill,” which describes the process of reactionary radicalization and the community around it, was first used in this way by Yarvin.[^2] Defenders of Urbit are quick to dismiss any inclusion of Yarvin’s politics in discussions about Urbit as unfair or irrelevant, and might point out that Yarvin left the project in January of this year.[^3] However, given that Yarvin basically laid out the general design for Urbit independently, as he worked on it alone for 11 years[^3] and in parallel with his political writings[^4], and that Urbit, as a P2P project, is a fundamentally social and thus incorporates ideas about how people should be organized, Yarvin’s politics should be considered as something that influences his design decisions and his long-term vision for the project. [Dog-whistles](https://lobste.rs/s/z5j1hq/urbit_2017#c_4z4gik) have been identified in some of his writing about Urbit and its design, including his [leaning on Nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt](https://urbit.org/blog/the-dao-as-a-lesson-in-decentralized-governance) for questions around Urbit’s governance. To save space I’ll provide only a very brief overview of Yarvin’s political philosophy—if you like, you can read more about it [here](https://thebaffler.com/latest/mouthbreathing-machiavellis), [here](https://www.viewpointmag.com/2017/03/28/the-darkness-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-artificial-intelligence-and-neoreaction/), [here](https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-moldbug-variations-pein), and [here](https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-faq/).