I've heard Mike mention "benevolent dictator" of his own implementation, but I thought that was in the context of having multiple implementation options for the Bitcoin community to choose from.

Yes it is.  That's why I stole it!  

Subverting Bitcoin's revolutionary potential into yet another consumer payment rail is *EXACTLY* what the BIS shitlords should do, if they seek to preserve their exorbitant money printing privileges.  And Mike_Heam@sigint.google.mil is only too happy to help.

If you wish to use the phrase in your sig or Personal Text (words under avatar pic) that would be great!

Changing the subject I see, BIP101 is also not exponential, it does have an ending point, and its starting point will not be at the limit of our technology.

after all some small blockists think that increasing the blocksize whatsoever would lead to centralization to the point of destroying Bitcoin.

There is no particular negative with bitcoin nodes run on Google, Microsoft, AWS, Digital Ocean, Mom & Pop Hosting Company XYZ, etc. Already today, those without decent resources are incapable of running a full bitcoin node - at least 50% of the planet does not have a recent computer, reliable electricity or a broadband connection. Even if they do, they can't dedicate their resources to running a node and they'll need to use an SPV wallet or a Coinbase-like entity.

Many users will contribute by using hosted services of which there thousands of companies worldwide. While many people seem to think that there's a tremendous difference between hosting a bitcoin node at their residence vs on the cloud, the truth is that there is a minimal difference. All users ultimately rely upon their ISPs, few use Tor or proxies and the greatest decentralization weapon will be mass adoption. Regulators have a much harder time banning something that has taken hold and is widely used.

If Google wants to host a node or provide a CDN for the initial seed, bring it on.

32MB/10min = 447Kb/s.

The stress testing did lead to my old core client crashing multiple times so I replaced it with XT and then 11.1 and then setting parameters and now 11.2 -- life is good.

The 1MB block size is artificially small.  Raising it immediately (or rather as soon as is reasonable) to the maximum handled by the API (32MB?) and then getting to work on exceeding that with segmenting blocks is really the only thing to do.  Propagating headers fast and data afterward seems a likely to be viable approach to me.  If any node can't keep up then cut them loose.  Just one man's opinion.

Now.

I've got sympathies on both sides here; accommodating the lowest common denominator seems too restrictive, but it just so happens that the practical reality of that could mean 100's of millions across important populations like India or China with no capability to run a node. There's gotta be a way of finding a compromise between the two.

Not a massive jump, not a baby step.  Some large miners have agreed they would move to 8MB if needed.  

Although it's more of kicking the can down the road, it's a solid kick which hopefully gives devs enough time to come up with ways to avoid need all transactions on the blockchain.

I am not 100% commited to 8MB, I can change opinions on this matter.

I qualified it But even savings in a bank is actually invested, you're just not the one dong it. Interest is paid to you out of profits from the interest they charge to lend the money that you hold, essentially a partnership. Except in the banking world, they hold all the cards.

Money just sitting in a vault, as I said, is not likely doing you any good. A smallish portion, for emergencies and future speculation, sure, but overall the purpose of money is trade, and that's how you increase your stash.

Economists err if they believe something is wrong when money is not in constant, active “circulation.” Money is only useful for exchange value, true, but it is not only useful at the actual moment of exchange. This truth has been often overlooked. Money is just as useful when lying “idle” in somebody’s cash balance, even in a miser’s “hoard.” (At what point does a man’s cash balance become a faintly disreputable “hoard,” or the prudent man a miser? It is impossible to fix any definite criterion: generally, the charge of “hoarding” means that A is keeping more cash than B thinks is appropriate for A.) For that money is being held now in wait for possible future exchange—it supplies to its owner, right now, the usefulness of permitting exchanges at any time—present or future—the owner might desire.

I love this thread It never dies.

But of more substance, I have to disagree with the "hodl" crowd in most instances. I have gotten to the point where trading BTC is how I make the bulk of my living, and you pretty much have to play that day by day. On the most recent spike, I made really good money, but I make decent money every day. Money sitting in a vault does no good. It's purpose is trade, and that is how you increase your holdings.

Longer term, it's definitely a good play to have some BTC, dollars, diamonds, and etc. in storage, but not the bulk of it. Money in play, whatever form it's in, is where the profits are. And the losses, if we're to be honest, but carefully investing your assets will make you "wealthy elite" far quicker than waiting and hoping.

More then 75% of the mining power supports an increase in the blocksize today.

Miners tend to be highly risk adverse, what I suspect is happening is that they are giving Core the chance to increase the blocksize before January. If this does not happen before then we might see an exodus of the hashing power towards BIP101. Since the fork can not be activated before January anyway, therefore it does make sense that the miners are holding back in order to see what will happen till then, time will tell. One thing that I am sure of however is that Core will not be able to keep the blocksize at one megabyte forever without causing a split in Bitcoin.