Maybe the motivation is to make the Bitcoin blockchain the ONE blockchain to rule the world  

With sidechains anyone could build on top of the most secure blockchain in the world. could it be possible their motivation is to add value to the Bitcoin blockchain

We're going to have to agree to disagree. I'm not going to try the "you're too stupid to understand" argument which you seem to fall back on - we just fundamentally disagree on what are acceptable levels of consensus or fragility.

Internet adoption didn't dramatically accelerate until the World Wide Web. Bitcoin is still looking for that "killer app".  There are many potential candidates, but what will take off is probably something we haven't even thought of yet. 

who will bother to open an account with coinbase to buy bitcoins so they can buy stuff while paying a high fee ?? whats the point.. pay high fees.. instead use a debit card doesnt cost end user nothing to use a debit card and its easy.. no reason to use bitcoin that has multiples of issues that we all are aware of .. and if you are a gun owner and support the second amendment then you need to oppose the implementation of the "blockchain blacklists" code. i happen to be one of the "dwayne" brothers and i think your "blockchain blacklists" is a real cute trick. obviously there is only once choice.. cripple bitcoin with low bandwidth, slow payments with high fees ...... RIP XT or bitcoin make your choice.

about to get smacked down by the bear troll fud (i gotta get me one these cameras!) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIhCNbdIFT4

Unfortunately, Satoshi's breakthrough, that made bitcoin possible, was to give all the power to the miners -- with the proof-of-work trick to keep them from cheating.  That would have worked if mining had remained well-distributed, so that it would be practically impossible to convince a majority of them to sabotage the system. 

But it did not happen that way, basically because the price shoot up to 100 or 1000 times what it should have been, given its usage.   With that hyperinflated price, and the fixed block reward, mining become a very profitable activity, that was worth carrying out in an industrial scale, by entities distinct from the users.  Then the mining industry got concentrated in a few companies because of economies of scale.

Bitcoin was created to be a peer-to-peer payent system that did not require trusted third parties, including central authorities.  Strictly speaking, bitcoin is broken right now; because the top 5-6 miners are third parties that must be trusted not to abuse their power.  With the BIP100 discussion, bitcoiners seem to be gradually becoming aware of that fact: it will be the miners that will decide whether, when, and how to change the block size limit

Bitcoin may still get "cured" if mining becomes again distributed among the users.  However, I do not see how that could happen, unless the price crashes to such a low level that no one will want to mine for profit, and mining becomes again a client activity -- say, a convenient alternative to buying bitcoins, that an ordinary person could use  to get some bitcoins to pay for coffee or whatever.

Taking away the power from the miners -- in particular, forcing them to process all transactions issued by clients -- would require reforming bitcoin to the core.  It seems that another Satoshi-level ingenious idea would be needed do that without introducing some trusted central authority.

I presume that your concern about XT is that it and BIP 101 succeed without core adopting it, right? Most on this list don't really seem to be worried about that given that miners aren't jumping onboard (yet). If XT were to somehow 'takeover' then my point is that BIP101 would get merged into core since there's no way core would just continue on with <25% hashrate, no coinbase or bitpay, etc.

The point being is that no matter what big blocks BIP ends up being finally adopted, there will be and should be multiple software clients available to end users which makes some sort of dictatorship completely impossible.

You absolutely don't understand or are being willingly misleading about this "centralization" issue. There is quite simply no other choice but for us to support a centralized (read unique) consensus code. That's pretty much the only way Bitcoin works. It happens that the core developers have historically been the one trusted with maintaining this code and updating it. Several implementations have been built around this consensus code. Most of them have little support for very valid reason: their implementation is generally considered less tested and therefore potentially less secure than core implementation. Now should we blame core for attracting the most competent developers in the space? Would it be rational to ask of them to each start dividing their work between different implementations just for the sake of "decentralization"?

The centralization issue you refer to is nothing more than a lack of man power. That is, only a scarce amount of people are reliable and technically able enough to handle the highly fragile development of Bitcoin. It is no wonder the guys currently leading core are some of the world's most advanced experts in their own field. This expertise cannot be easily replaced or dismissed "because decentralization". It is absolutely unproductive and irresponsible to try to advance decentralization of Bitcoin development by encouraging incapable people to start messing around with their own implementations and risk breaking consensus.

(2) Max blocksize is nothing but a hardcoded upper limit. If miners really have an interest in creating artificial scarcity then they can already do so, collectively, by changing the default fee settings. No need for a vote to set a hard upper limit when they could have adhered to any arbitrary limit all by themselves before. The entire scarcity through max blocksize debate reminds me of an alcoholic who, on one of his good days asks someone else to locks away his booze, to be protected from himself on one of his bad days.

you're oversimplifying an economic problem

I think what VeritasSapere is getting at is that Bitcoin's greatest point of centralization is presently Development:

< bunch of non sense zipped >

Solex made in interesting observation here:  Node count has actually increased with the release of Bitcoin-XT.  If we had even more competing clients to choose from, perhaps we would see a further increase in node count as people ran nodes to express the vote for the direction the protocol should take.  In my opinion this would be a very big positive because it could simultaneously increase node count AND decrease development centralization around Core.  

I don't know whether engaging people who are happy to present such willfully dishonest arguments is genuinely productive in the long term. It suggests that these people and the arguments are worth addressing. Unfortunately the dishonest arguments cannot be separated from the others of a single participant, but we could separate those participants who use dishonest strategies from the debate. I don't address them.

If the business plans are public, id like to read them.   Link, please?

If BIP 101 succeeds, what makes you think that I won't be able to switch back to Core or only-bigblocks with a different set of developers? Is Core just going to give up?

Don't you see how the 'dictator' arguments in FOSS and software forks is a logical fallacy? People exercising their free will but not doing what you want does not equal dictatorship.

Laws can be enforced if there is enough will to do so. (not always....but in this case the bigger mining plants have physical address and people, so it would be fairly easy to shutdown)

If miners start messing with a worldwide financial ledger, it's like poisoning the water purification plants. It'll have negative consequences for them. But like I mention before, I rather see bitcoin become resilient enough so this won't be necessary.

//I'm talking 20+ years from now when bitcoin is BIG.

1. Again:  This was debated for 3 years.   Gavin was forced to release something with Mike Hearn
because Greg and the kids on the blockstream wouldn't play ball.   If they really wanted to
release something, they would have worked with Gavin so the solution is more to their preferences.  Either
their interests in Blockstream prevented that, or they lack leadership/communication/team
skills.  Either way is a problem.  I think when you boil it down, they just don't see the urgency
as Gavin does.  Maybe that's because of their other solutions like the lightening network.
Maybe they are willing to stall Bitcoin and take bigger risks.  They don't want to take technical
risks purportedly, but they are willing to risk slowing down adoption.  There is a risk/reward.
and part of their reward is blockstream business activities.  This is what you seem to deny.

Absolutely not what happened. You can read about it here.

2.  This leads to the next point.  Gavin says a fix is urgently needed.
I say an imperfect fix IS better than no solution.  Gavin
essentially said "Core devs won't agree, but we need bigger blocks,
so I'm going to do the best thing I can and release Bip 101 on Mike's fork."
No one ever said Bip 101 was perfect, but who are you to say its "broken"
and its worse than no solution?  I guess you know more about bitcoin than
Gavin so we should listen to you.  
---  

The only way your position even makes sense is if you truly believe its not
important to have bigger blocks asap.  It must mean you agree with the devs
who aren't ready to raise the limit. Somehow it doesn't scare you.  You're not
worried about scalability.  Again, risk/reward.  But you won't be getting the
rewards that blockstream and its investors get by taking their side. 

But you won't be getting the rewards that blockstream and its investors get by taking their side. 

If their plan is to, say, help banks integrate Bitcoin with side chains, and charge the banks consulting fees, and the sidechains only would be necessary if the blocksize is small

FTFY

You can argue who is to blame, Gavin or Greg Maxwell.
But consider this:  One of them ultimately made a scalability solution available,
the other didn't

Another thing you don't seem to grasp is that before XT blockstream developers was in position to block any Core development about the block size incentivised by their conflic of interest. This situation is so obvious to everyone but you. Funny isn't it?

First of all, I'd like to clarify that I don't think there is something really that bad about the Lightning Network itself. It may be a good idea for microtransactions or something like that. But it definitely should not finally replace traditional blockchain transactions. Blockstream developers have some very interesting ideas too, but that's off-topic here.

Can you answer one simple question for me? Because I've been reading materials on the topic for over 2 weeks now, but I haven't found the answer.
If, as you say, Blockstream's economic model won't be based on the fees coming from the LN, then it will based on what? How do investors plan to profit from "voluntary development"? I believe you have no answer. Even if the things are not as bad as I described, there is absolutely clear conflict of interests.

The next question is why if the LN and BIP101 8 Mb (or even Gb) blocks can coexist, and, as you say, Blockstream won't profit from the LN, there is so much censorship about it? Who is behind the censorship in the "open-source peer-to-peer without-needing-an-intermediary" community? Everyone agrees that block size should be increased. Well, even if someone is afraid that Mr. Anderson and Mr. Hearn may become "evil", why not to implement BIP101 into the Core? As for me, the answer is clear. BIP101 implementation with its 1 Gb blocks obviously will be not as profitable for Blockstream as if it were 1 Mb blocks. That's why we have this BIP100 nonsense.

But this is not accurate.

For example, Nick Szabo  said that "a rapid block size
increase is a huge security risk" and thought
Bip 103 type solution was more reasonable.

Jorge Timon drafted a consensus based block
size retargeting algorithm.

(Neither of them said we need to keep the
blocks at 1mb.)

Those are two just examples I bothered to
research just now.

You seem to be twisting facts.

You seem to be in denial about the fact
there's a problem (conflict of interest
or otherwise) with the leadership of
Bitcoin development under the blockstream
core devs.