Was it something like "yeah it is a functional system... hey have I mentioned how much potential you have for whenever you feel like dedicating your life to slavery?"

...or was it just the guy rambling on a blog of his under a pen name?

It's pretty obvious to anyone that the guy's views are obscenely offensive, but if the guy is strictly professional when it comes to Urbit, treats everyone with the same respect and works just fine along with many people that despise his views, how are the project's goals tainted?

Is it? From what I've seen so far all the controversy has come from taking statements out of context.

However, I take your main point that it doesn't need to impact on Urbit.

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.

While talking to Urbit contributors about Urbit?

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.

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.

[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.

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.

I think we agree that Urbit would benefit from a larger, more diverse user/contributor base. What wouldn't? We're just ascribing agency in different places. I view the claim that Yarvin is excluding people as a sort of rhetorical sleight of hand. What he's actually done is 1) publish some really unpopular opinions, and 2) build Urbit. It is entirely possible to evaluate 2 on its own merits[1]. So I'm disappointed to see so many people write it off for other IMO less relevant reasons.

It reminds me a bit of a "Christian-friendly" Linux distro I once saw that omitted software written by known homosexuals. Would you also claim that the gay programmers were (perhaps inadvertently) excluding a subset of Christians? I suspect most people would agree in this case that agents of exclusion are the ones actually performing the exclusive act, rather than ones who happened to be "the wrong people" from another group's point of view.

[1]: This is true even in the presence of a strong political influence on the technology. I honestly don't see much of a connection between Urbit and Moldbug's politics, but then the latter never made much sense to me, so maybe I'm missing something. If there are politically objectionable aspects to the software, then by all means object! But plain old guilt by association is a weak argument in any context, doubly so in a technical one.

Is this supposed to be in his favor?

EDIT: For clarity

You're putting words in 5F36B5F62640's mouth.

And to be absolutely honest, anybody reading this can see that you're the one attempting to make people feel unwelcome in this community.

Edit: The commenter has now upgraded his comment but the original with added emphasis is quoted above.

Rather than attacking me personally, is there something I missed or was incorrect about?

I'm not attacking you personally, nor am I speaking to you personally. I am just pointing out to anybody reading this, that you just tried to smear somebody.

Of course, whether you did so on purpose is another matter.

To restate, then: "Wait, so your argument is that only Native Americans would feel unwelcome in this community?

Is this supposed to be in his favor?"

I appreciate your dedication to accuracy, and I must assume this satisfies your complaint.

Yes, that is no longer accusatory; and it is correct: there are other sets of people that would no doubt feel unwelcome in such a community.

I think in a practical sense their fear is overblown as 'Code is law'. However people generally make decisions based on consensus reality.