That isn't the point either.  The fact is that my nodes will continue to run quite fine; rejecting your blocks.  I will be using bitcoin, and you will be using some alt-rule-chain that I don't consider to be bitcoin.

My coins will be spendable in both chains.  

The thing is that if 10% (or even 1%) of the Bitcoin USERS do not accept the change, the change will not happen: because the economic consequences will be too-large.


We are not working in a democracy here.  We are working with a "do what the you want, but I'm not going to change my code mkay."
For this change to be successful, the bar isn't 50%, or 90%, or 99%, but rather closer to 99.9%.

But, for such a change, even 1% can veto it... That is what makes Bitcoin so great!  The economic problems caused by 1% forking makes it not worth for the 99% to implement the change.

YAY!

I see the block size (and frequency) as much as economic rules as the total number of coin is.  I disagree with Satoshi that it is just something that we can 'change.'

I'm part of that sticky group of people that WILL NOT accept a larger block size.  I doesn't matter what other people say; or the reasons that they give.  Frankly, I would reject (with my full node, and SPV nodes) any non-bitcoin chain.  Any block breaking the 1mb/10min avg limit will not be a bitcoin for me.


However I am not worried.  I know that Bitcoin will be just fine with a 1mb block limit; as MarkM so eloquently put is, we need to get over having only one chain, but rarther think of having a ecosystem of hundreds of merge-mined chains that all fullfill different roles.


One of the reasons, (there are many), that I work on Open Transactions is that I believe that we need secure and cryptographically auditable off-chain transactions.  Making the need for more than 7tx/s on the Bitcoin block chain much (completely?) negated.

The best part is that I am in control of this problem.  Even if every other person moves to larger (or more frequent) blocks, I know my bitcoins are safe, and for-me bitcoin will keep-on working. (well other than the attack of a drastic lower hash-rate maybe)

So yes, I think that there is AT LEAST a key 10% of the Bitcoin user population (including me) that will veto any such changes.

still very low volume:

Like!

I think that the wiki dose a pretty good job at it...  However we need to be more active in moving over content from the forum to the wiki.

Just wanted to say that cypherdoc's subscription is excellent.  I would highly recommend people to subscribe to his insights. 

I want a button like facebook or google plus so I can 'like' comments. 

Lets not get ahead of ourselves here.  I expect that we will have a multi-layered system the vast majority of the transactions being made off-chain.

Additionally; who is to say that one wouldn't want to verify their house transaction with a smart-phone.

People completely mis-judge the free-market.   If you have to use alt-chains because the fees are so high, well isn't that a success of bitcoin already!  By no stage has bitcoin failed then.

The argument for larger blocks is VALID for a proticol that isn't Bitcoin.  However it is a catch 22, for Bitcoin.  It only becomes a problem if Bitcoin is a success.  If Bitcoin is a success, by definition it isn't a problem.

http://www.esecurityplanet.com/patches/oracle-responds-to-java-security-flaws-with-50-fixes.html

If you are on windows, go to Programs and Features, uninstall all "Java".

If you still need java you can get the latest version from here:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

Jeweller, thank you for your great questions, I’ll endeavour to answer them.

First I wish to point out that that I believe that a bitcoin-like protocol that has no block-size limit. Where the miners choose the ‘best block’ based upon two factors: block size and difficulty, would be still economically secure. I suggest miners would orphan blocks that are too-large (thus too-expensive to maintain). (The network would find some sort of equilibrium).

If I was to pull out the continuous issue here:
Max_Block_Size is both a network and economic issue.

Changing the max block size has real economic consequences that can be split into two areas:  Fees and Uses.

Fees:
While I don’t think that the network needs a low Max_Block_Size to remain secure, that shouldn’t be up to my own analysis.  People may have invested into Bitcoin because they believe the 1MB limit to be the value required to maintain a secure network.

We don't know if Bitcoin had a different limit if they would have invested in the first place OR NOT.

Uses:
In 10-years, a modern smartphone/computer will be able to run the full processing node if the Max_Block_Size remains 1MB.  This is a clear economic benefit for Bitcoin: Decentralized Bitcoin verification.  In fact in a few years, virtually every computer will be able to process the entire blockchain without issue thus making Bitcoin extremely unique in the realm of payments.

We don't know if Bitcoin had a different limit if they would have invested in the first place OR NOT.


So I believe that the Max_Block_Size is clearly a moral issue, more than a practical issue.  Just like the Maximum Bitcoins, or Generation Rates.




Keep on using the smaller chain.  Although I could double spend my coins in the larger chain for my own benefit.


Yes.

If it is better for my purposes than Bitcoin I would move over.  However I believe that the network effect will be that bitcoin is always my first store of value.

Cool I'll keep a lookout for it!

This is a very interesting game-theory question.

I have done some preliminary analysis of the problem and have found that gmaxwell may not be correct on this assertion.  (I used to support the razing of the max block size limit; however I now reject it on moral ground.  The same moral grounds that I would reject any change of the number of coins; that it would make any past uses of the protocol under a false pretence)

Now I will try and explain why a bitcoin-like protocol could be secure without the max-block-size limit.

The core issue is the mixing up ‘cost-to-attack’ with ‘active hash rate,’ when in the long run they separate to be quite independent qualities.   While the vast majority of the miners income is from mining blocks for new bitcoin; there happens to be a very strong causation, this causation doesn’t need to hold.

The first thing that we can define is the ‘damage cost of double spends’ this cost can be modelled defined by the equation:
cost = time x value
time: real number between 0 and 1
A double spend a long time after a transaction, for a large amount is a very costly (up to the full cost of the tx).


In the free-market, in the long term, the market will sustain any fraud rate that is less than the cost of reducing it.  (aka, it is cheaper to buy insurance than to increase the difficulty of an attack).
I see no reason why a bitcoin-like protocol wouldn't be subjected to the same principles:  The network will spend the absolute minimum on maintaining its security. (Either via hashing or via insurance).

So what is the cheapest form of network security? Dynamic response to threats.
Bitcoin miners incur virtually no cost; unless they are actively mining.  Bitcoin insurance companies could amass huge collections of bitcoin miners and turn them on when it is cheaper for them to out-mine the double-spend than pay the insurance out.

The bitcoin network will look quite easy to attack; well until you try and attack it.
This will raise the COST TO ATTACK (that is a constant); while the COST TO DEFEND is at a minimum; only the minimum number of miners are turned on to defend the chain when it is attacked.
Otherwise a background mining operation will be run by bitcoin companies for ‘general network health.’

This has been discussed again and again.  This is a hard-limit in the protocol, changing it is as hard as changing the total number of coins... ie. virtually impossible.

Many people have invested into Bitcoin under the pretence that the hard-limits of the protocol do not change.

Even if a super-majority wanted the change.  A significant amount of people (myself included) will reject the chain.  Thus creating a fork.

Stupid people do stupid things. (like ban drugs).

This forum is great! Just make sure you make liberal use of the 'ignore' feature.