This is almost as good as wanting what is best for each of the sets of interests, i.e., Bitcoin.  The goals of "MP and his band of cronies" are as valuable as everyone else's, and arguably add quite a lot of value to everyone else's interests as well.  Both MP and Gavin (and you and I) want Bitcoin to succeed.  Your enemy here is not MP or anyone else, your (our) enemy is an insufficiently advanced Bitcoin code.

It is all of our failures to advance the code ahead of the adoption rate.  The evidence of failure is that there is the sense of a necessity of a vote with a winning side and a losing side.


We agree on this, except I wouldn't use the words "force legitimate users off-chain" and would favor "make microtransactions uneconomical".
A limit is not pointless, if we crash into it and create a scarcity market for transactions, the result is only this:
Everyone that bought or mined bitcoin today has done so with the current code and has received that for which they paid.
For this, MP is not wrong any more than all of us are.  We may all have different expectations as to what may happen in the future, but we buy or mine when we do, based on the current code.


The task before us all now, is to create a code base that will incentivise the next set of people and money to do so... at least at the rate that bitcoin is inflating, and hopefully also to keep it growing before the swarms to come do damage to it irreparably. 
Where you and I diverge on opinion is that I am not yet happy with the current proposal to do so.  I hope for better, and sooner than 20 years from now.

The fees are pretty tiny, they aren't what supports mining, the inflation supports the mining.  The 20 year proposal bridges the time where this may be projected to change from inflation to fee supported mining.  This may make it particularly dangerous in its assumptions.  We won't really know until we get there.


The limit isn't pointless.  Please understand the reasons satoshi added it before progressing further.


This sentence does even more damage to your position than anything else you have written here.

Does anyone else find it sad, a bit depressing, that this thread has once again devolved into conflicts of personalities instead of ideas?
It doesn't matter what any individual personality supports, what matters is whether the proposition itself is meritorious.  Nobody gets to rest on their laurels no matter how gilded those laurels may be.  

I don't like the current proposal, it is a decent guess, but it doesn't solve the problem.  It is a patch only.  It takes tremendous hubris to imagine that anyone knows what will happen with Bitcoin transaction volumes in 20 years.

Since any proposal that projects future transaction volume will be guaranteed to be wrong, why this proposal?  
- If a proposal is too small, it takes a hard fork to increase it.
- If it is too big, a soft fork can make it smaller, or the miners can use smaller values for their max block sizes.
So the proposal errs on the side of being too big, and wrong for 20 years.

Understanding the reasoning doesn't help me to like it.  I still hope a good better proposal, or at least a road map for fixing the block size issue.  
Instead we have a patch for expediency.  This is a huge opportunity here to make a meaningful contribution to the wealth of the code that is being wasted and put on the back burner for a generation.

It is an interesting perspective and raises some questions.
Does Bitcoin need more users or more investment? 
Does one bring the other? 
Is one more important than the other? 
Or, is it just that investors need more users and users need more investors?

I suspect that to some extent, most of us here are both users and investors, and with some individual weighting toward one or the other.

Bitcoin is also a destination, a community, an experience.  It has intangible benefits.  It is a movement of personal empowerment.  It engenders happiness in ways that few technologies have been able to do.

The greatest wealth of the planet are the productive humans.  Money may allow the harvesting and channeling of that productivity, and there are some VERY bright people in this community. 
This technology-of-money experiment is one of the more interesting and exciting world-changing endeavors, for people.    Where it is going can only be imagined.  I can not say what it needs.  I'm more motivated to work toward maintaining quality in order to keep it from failing.

330Mm

One of the privileges of Nobility which also reoccurs at every advancement through its ranks, is the ability to enter The Noble Palace as well as own shares in The Most Ancient Noble Palace Corporation. 

The price and value of these shares appreciates with both time and the price of CK Gold, which of late has been rising. 

Shares are purchasable only by members of the Nobility and Knights (as the palace overlooks the Jousting Grounds and provides a most opulent catered viewing environment for the games there).
At each level of advancement starting from level 8 you have the option of purchasing one share, 2 at 9, 4 at 10, 8 at 11, etc.
Shares are currently at 5.97Mm each.

The Noble Palace is a grand shared venue for entertaining amongst all its members.  Centrally located this palace faces the Obelisk and HM's Palace, has well lit Southern Amber Room Galleries, Meeting rooms, chapel, library, and is one of the social centers of the nobility to hold court and conduct the business of the city in comfort and splendor.   

It hosts regular meetings of "The Circle" which is a forum for presenting the current discoveries of the age, and boasts one of the more comfortable spaces for formal and casual encounters along with the delightful musical stylings of the renowned minstrel, Steppenwolf, some of whose performances and melodies of the chamber may be heard whilst enjoying the fine food and drink or other repast:

http://picosong.com/LLcH/
https://filetea.me/t1sAqophQkgQwqdo1mPxYtTzA
https://filetea.me/t1s7VhZq3EPQKShfRKo5EmRrQ
https://filetea.me/t1szGSxO51rRPOk7UtFGu5tag

110Mm

280Mm

220Mm

Why should it be the least bit surprising that some thought is devoted to decisions that when made today, may effect the next 20 years?

I wouldn't characterise Gavin as 'insisting' that everyone gets in to Bitcoin.  I think he is making a proposal for the top item on the Hard Fork WishList.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardfork_Wishlist
It is pretty much his job to 'do something' about it, so I don't fault him at all for making the progress he has so far, my position is just that more progress needs be made before this is complete and done.
It is pretty much my job to peer-review stuff like this, (yours too fellow bitcoiners), to offer counter-proposals, to suggest improvements, etc.

In the http://fr.anco.is/2015/gavineries/ conversation, Gavin poses the question: "...how big is 'big enough...but not too small'?"

Satoshi didn't have the answer to how big is 'big enough' either, so he implemented an expedient solution.  
And...This "how big" remains the most fundamentally interesting question.  There isn't a consensus answer yet.  This is a good indication that there is more work to be done here.  The 1MB limit was implemented by fiat.  Satoshi was running the code and put it in back in v0.3 or so, based on his authority of knowing more about it than anyone else, it stuck.


Some argue that we should do whatever Gavin proposes, because we have to do something now or else tragedy befalls us and game over.   The fear is 'ossification', that Bitcoin has become inflexible.  
The problem with this approach is that opposite argument is also valid:  That Bitcoin is too flexible and can change to the whim of special interests which may destroy it, and that Gavin especially ought not have his way because that means control is centralized which makes it vulnerable.
....so I throw out both of these positions.  They are entirely speculative fear-based.  Most importantly, It should not matter who proposes.  If it is the right solution, it will be adopted.
This is what we do not yet have, the right solution.

What we are left with is an expedient change.  The driving fear that the bad guys will take Bitcoin down because it has not yet expanded to handle more transactions.  It is not entirely unreasonable, but neither is it compelling.  Because of this, I remain content to wait for better.

Why?  I don't like extrapolations, I don't like exponential growth, I think x20 is too much of a jump at once (but I don't know what the 'big enough...but not too small' size is either).  I don't like the inherent pessimism of it, (that we won't get to a good answer to this problem for at least 20+ years).

What I do like about the proposal:
1) It is forward looking, and includes some growth over time.
2) It has a historical basis (Neilson's law)
3) It has an eventual expiration (20 years)

As a proposal, I think it has progressed, but I don't think it is close yet to being an acceptable proposal.

I find expressions of certainty regarding the future as cause for suspicion, but I think you sincerely meant this casually, and are thinking it is "unlikely" rather than "certainly isn't going to happen".
Certainty of the future is typically a 'tell' for an unsubstantiated argument by elevating it apriori, and ought be used cautiously.

Consider whether others may reasonably see an opposite future?  One in which the more expensive transactions, especially those where the higher data size is paid by higher transaction fee, may favor high value transactions (such as an SPV proof may be) over a lower value transaction.

The loser in the block size scarcity is not going to be the SPV proofs so much as the microtransactions because the fee may swamp the value of the transaction.  Things like pay per click adverts and changetip cashouts would have to raise the minimum transfer.

As much as I would like Bitcoin to be more useful, it is not worth introducing new unchecked risks.
The block size expansion does increase the trust placed in miners, there is not any getting around this.  Of all the places to put trust, this is likely the best, as it already exists.  Even so it MUST be done with extraordinary care.  Increasing necessary trust arrangements with Bitcoin is not to be done at all if possible, and only if necessary then done as minimally as possible.

Digital plane?
Presumably this is software, which also requires hardware, or 'wetware'.

There may be human cloning occurring on a semi regular basis as well as animal.
There are laws against doing it in many countries, so presumably there is a reason for these laws.  We don't have a lot of laws against unicorn poaching for good reason.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cloning#Current_law
Lots of progress on this came out of the genome project.

Transhumanism, as David eloquently points out, is a very broad study and it covers everything from implants and prosthetic to surgical enhancement and life extension technologies as well as the more theoretical things like the recording and transfer of mental states, sensory and thought.

The current US administration is pushing hard on the mind/brain problem with fundamental research,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/share/brain-initiative
as also the EU, and there is an upcoming meet in Switzerland:
http://thebrainforum.org/

So apparently all the conspiracy theorists worried about government mind control devices were spot on. 

They are selling adverts.
AFAIK, the articles are neither fact checked nor edited.
I like their pricing API though.
I think they were one of the first if not the first to drop MTGox from the index.

It is sometimes astounding how much a legislative body can become less stupid by removing one of its laws against normal exchanges between consenting adults that hurts no one.  This one was low hanging fruit, because it was outlawing Coinbase.com and much of CA's FinTech unintentionally.

I tried to help you.  Enjoy your ignore.  You may count me among your "ignorant". 
I'll take your word for it that you have the objective view and the one true religion. 
One thing you have taught me is that those who know everything already, have nothing to learn.

Yes!  You are a great interlocutor to see the depths of this.
Without the aid of crystal balls and time travel we don't know how much the transaction should cost, AND we don't know the appropriate block size we need at a given block height also.

We agree then, that we don't know the future.  The things to come will make us both wrong many times over, if we pretend otherwise.  

I can't know that SPV client developers may chose to implement some statistical analysis of fees and offer the user best guesstimates based on the fees in the transactions of the current block...  Who knows?  Maybe instead there could be data providers that manage this prediction market well.  Maybe these data providers compete to make it so the clients are very light weight, and they deliver the information to a mobile app through an easy API?  There are bound to be people with better ideas...

What I do know... and I think you would agree... is that Whatever the consensus (consensuses?), there will be some adjustment.  Markets will respond, life goes on.  Furthermore, if the outcome of "no fork" is as tragic as some people imagine, this lack of consensus will build the consensus FOR the fork, yes?   (This would be as much a positive story in the media as a negative one...  So many people are using Bitcoin now!  It is growing up!  Much always depends on who writes the article, for whom, and how.)

We also agree that some people may use something other than Bitcoin, or else Bitcoin will change to accommodate in another way to the degree that is possible (unless and until the fork is made).

My preference is for more science and measurement, and it is possible that I am entirely wrong, which would be great.  Days when I am shown to be wrong are good days.  It means I have learned something important.  

OK, lets get the premise right.  If we ever get to a scarcity market for transactions, it might look a little more like this:

1) Your client would inform you of the amount of fee you should include if you want your transaction confirmed in an average of X-minutes, where you can set X.  If you want it faster, or guaranteed delivery, you pay more.  It becomes an auction market with a new auction every 10 minutes.  Full means full *at that price*.

2) Service Providers and high volume transaction businesses will increasingly do a lot of off-chain ledger-ing (maybe with side chains) and less frequent settlement transactions on the block chain.

3) Back door off-chain payment deals (maybe in fiat) will be made by some high value transaction makers to get preferential treatment by their favorite miner (who is to say that this isn't already happening?)

4) People will save transactions for off-peak times, and combine transactions to economize.

5) Others won't care and will just pay 'whatever'

6) Lots of folks on the internet will complain.

Bitcoin would probably grow a little slower, but please realize that this is an endurance race even though sometimes it feels like a sprint.  Bitcoin can never lose by growing too slowly, only by growing fatal flaws.  It is worth it to be careful.

In the Uber example, if the fees get high enough, more drivers will start driving.
The Max Block Size limit is more like the NYC Taxi Medallions, where there are only so many offered and they get bid up due to scarcity.

Uber is more like the new feature alt coin that sprung up because the the Medallion limit can't handle all the passengers, and it has a nifty interface.
The Max Block Size is a necessary constraint on the free market for transactions.  It is only necessary because the transaction fee cost is not fully apportioned to all the transaction functions, just to the pools who pay for hashing.  Node running and relaying is uncompensated by the fees.  Pools don't 'tip out' to those that supply the transactions, just to the block solvers.

If there were a full economic incentive structure, there wouldn't be much reason to care about spamming attacks, they would just fund the network even more.

YES!  It is not.  That is why I posted it.   It is an example of a too broad body of work that would be silly to require you to read even though it might help you.  Are you starting to catch on?  You are spamming.


As yet, you have been unable to provide any relationship between your favorite lecture series and this narrow topic.
Broadly, perhaps Bitcoin generally, but you are again posting off topic.

You post above says nothing relevant.  It is just another advertisement for the lecture series.  It is becoming increasingly evident that you are not even reading the thread and are just posting more advertisements.  Please take this advice to heart, it will make you a much more effective spammer if you can at least find something from your lecture series to relate, the more specific the better.  Even if you don't care about the discussion and are just here to advertise, you could at least take the time to be good at that.

The way you are doing it instead is going to turn folks off, and that would be too bad because I'm sure it is quite interesting.