I'm starting to suspect they have the same people behind them.

Either that or Loper OS http://www.loper-os.org/

Urbit was my first thought too, at least in the ambition of starting afresh with alien assumptions. I can understand this a bit better and it doesn't trigger my "this is all batshit insane" detector. Also, decrement probably isn't O(n).

decrement is not O(n) in practice just as addition is not horribly slow when defined in idris

I have a chapter in preparation that addresses the comparison with Urbit.