...

[Zarathustra]

The Gavinista assclown Peter R hypothesized a daemon who could kill Core and allow the green shoots of a garden of new Bitcoin implementations to grow from its fertile ashes.

The warriors with their vulgar language can never win this competition. Next year we will have big blocks.
You are fighting XT while several solutions to replace core are presented. Keep fighting your proxy war!

Silly n00b, BIPs don't "replace core" and XT is dead, so we are done fighting it (the rest is just milking lolcows for comedy).

Since when is "assclown" vulgar?  It just means a clown who acts like an ass (ie a donkey).

Your term "cripplecoin" is far more vulgar and offensive, as it stigmatizes the disabled (eg Hal Finney) with a dehumanizing slur.

You are not done with it. You keep fighting the proxy war against XT because you fear that you'll get big blocks next year.
Whether it will be this or that implementation(s) is not relevant. XT just triggered the turning tide.

XT is making negative progress.  It has regressed from the "fight you" stage back to the previous "laugh at you" phase.  

Unbelievable. You are still fighting against XT.
We repeat: Whether it will be this or that implementation(s) is not relevant. XT just triggered the turning tide.

Can't you smell The Tragedy of the Core?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1173943.0

[kelsey]

XT just triggered the turning tide.

yes everyone now sees hearn and lapdog gavin's true colours  

[iCEBREAKER]

XT just triggered the turning tide.

Ah yes, the well worn platitude (and catch-all excuse for failure) that 'XT was always just Gavin's opening gambit.'

I'm sure.  Just like getting broken on the Blackwater was just Stannis' opening gambit, and ensured his eventual success at Winterfell...  

[iCEBREAKER]

I don't think we really have different design goals in mind here. I agree that there's no point to Bitcoin without censorship-resistance.

Some points:

Blocksize vs. miner rewards. I don't see the link here as strongly as you do. It seems to me it's demand that will drive miner fees, not supply, whatever the blocksize. With an infinite maximum blocksize, anyone mining for profit would simply set their fee requirement to the whatever level they see fit. The differences between full blocks enforced by design and blocks with room to spare seem to me to be:

- resource usage, with the accompanying repercussions. To me, Blockchain bloat is more of an issue than the resources it takes to transmit a single block.
-transaction rate, obviously. Directly related to maximum potential userbase for direct on-chain transactions. Full blocks sets an arbitrary cap on this, and 1 mb was chosen pretty much at random.
-full blocks push out miners not motivated by direct profit. Potentially, those with large stakes in BTC success might see fit to mine even at a loss to secure the network, allowing for a larger amount of transactions. We won't know if there's no space for those transactions.

Total miner fees absent subsidies = (average TX fee) * (# of TX), right?

Full blocks caps # of TX in hopes the fee will rise. Non-full blocks hopes number of #TX will rise so fee doesn't have to.
I don't think you can say offhand that one of these clearly cannot happen.

Incidentally, and this is a bit of a digression but it worries me:
Absent block subsidies, Total miner fees = cost to secure network.

Cost to secure network / x =  cost to profitably attack network.

What is the optimal "x" for network security? How much should we be spending on securing the network? Currently the cost is pretty high thanks to the block subsidy. I'll admit to illiteracy here, an estimate for optimal network maintenance cost as % of market cap must have been hashed out at some point. I don't think aiming for current levels is desirable. Actually, if it turns out the security cost can't be lowered I think I'll have to take a much dimmer view of Bitcoin's prospects.

As for why I think mass adoption is necessary,  I should probably qualify that a bit. I think it's important that the network not consolidate into the hands of a few large players very early on. I'd prefer it never did but that's likely a pipe dream.  Currently, the hypothetical big players of crypto in the future are still small, because they require crypto to build the businesses that will make them big. Big players right now, in turn, are not likely to do anything very interesting at all with crypto, because they're already successful even without it, and are too entrenched in the financial system to risk upsetting it. So in a nutshell, my worry is that capping userbase too low too early will lead to a situation where the only parties with the clout to use the system are those with no interest in running it.

Finally, 2nd layer transactions - in principle I have no problem with these, it's the accompanying reduction in trust that worries me. Not trustworthiness when it comes to single transactions, I worry about cascading failures. The risk would depend on the particular off-chain solution used, but overall I worry that for convenience's sake, pushin most users off the blockchain will result in them choosing convenient, centralized options. I worry we'll end up with most users of crypto actually transacting in IOUs or other nontransparent assets. I worry about linchpins in such systems - what if mt gox had been the Paypal of BTC?

With on-chain transactions, you can prove holdings. It's not done enough but at least it can be done. IMO we need to increase the real trustworthiness of payments in BTC, not decrease them. Otherwise we risk cascading defaults, with people accepting as payment, and passing on again, assets whose backing they're not able to assess.

Solve that for off-chain transactions, I'm all for them. However then I'd ask what we need Bitcoin for if this problem can be solved for a lower resource cost.

Since you believe "there's no point to Bitcoin without censorship-resistance" I must apologize for misidentifying you as a Gavinista.

But you're still a fellow traveler until proven otherwise!  

Propagation for 1MB blocks requires >2Mb upstream, so transmission is currently more of an issue than storage.  This issue is exacerbated by the superlinear validation times of larger blocks (and Galvin's 100k max tx size KwikFix turned out to be a non-starter).

Tx prices are of course a function of supply and demand.  Let's not try to predict or make assumptions about the elasticity of their respective future (especially medium term) curves, because Peter R has single-handedly done enough such crystal-ball-wanking for the entire community.

You've missed the huge issue of powerful/well-connected miners/pools making larger blocks to leverage the advantages inherent to their position at the expense of weaker/less-connected ones.

That's a much larger problem than your (original?) concern about charity miners' voices being silenced.

And as larger blocks cannot be propagated/validated quickly enough, SPV mining (and flaky hacks on the concept) ensue proportionally.

The result is self-defeating; empty blocks increase in frequency as average blocks get larger, thus failing to achive the goal of higher tps despite the cost in orphans/reorgs.

Which brings us to where our design goals differ...

You are stuck in the 'payment network' paradigm, which is at this point inconveniently bound by the lack of Layer 2 and intrinsic limitations/trade-offs of Layer 1.

But in my design goal, payments are secondary (or tertiary) to wealth storage and high-value settlement.

For wealth storage (including fiat hedging and investment purposes), I can "use Bitcoin" simply by keeping my coins safe.  TPS limitations are fairly irrelevant for those applications.

In high-value settlements, paying a reasonable (ie competitive) tx fee is not an issue either.  Who cares about a $1000 fee when you need to settle out a Lightning (or Storm) channel worth millions?

MtGox (Magic the Gathering Online Exchange) was a toy; of course it broke and ended in tears.  You need to start thinking about real Black Swans, such as the ones which will occur if Circle/Coinbase become the Paypal/Visa of Bitcoin, only to succumb to their requisite counterparty/institutional/jurisdictional/geographical/firm risks (probably along with the rest of the Petro-Fiat Empire).

Your objections to 1MB being "random" and "arbitrary" sound like Gavinista whining and social engineering.  The ossification is a feature; you should accept the NSA conjecture and stop worrying about what you cannot change.  If you want to test a theoretical change (like a putative perfect maxblocksize number or adjustment algorithm), start an altcoin or a sidechain, because IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN in Bitcoin.

Worrying about "cascading failures" is a good thing to do.  I expect you will apply that motivation to our fight against features, because the more code (and girth) Bitcoin accumulates the more likely a successful attack vector will emerge.

[brg444]

As for why I think mass adoption is necessary,  I should probably qualify that a bit. I think it's important that the network not consolidate into the hands of a few large players very early on. I'd prefer it never did but that's likely a pipe dream.  Currently, the hypothetical big players of crypto in the future are still small, because they require crypto to build the businesses that will make them big. Big players right now, in turn, are not likely to do anything very interesting at all with crypto, because they're already successful even without it, and are too entrenched in the financial system to risk upsetting it. So in a nutshell, my worry is that capping userbase too low too early will lead to a situation where the only parties with the clout to use the system are those with no interest in running it.

Let me address this part only as iCEBREAKER has done a good enough job at debunking the rest.

The network is already consolidated into the hands of only a few player. An irresponsable increase of the block size risks precipitating this concentration.

It is also important that you reconsider this myth that capping Bitcoin's transactions is a cap on its userbase.

Bitcoin, as is, can provide a refuge for the wealth of ANY person on the planet. It can currently accommodate an infinite amount of capital.

The distinction is important because reality shows us that actual Bitcoin users are by and large not much interested in transacting or spending their coins. A great majority of the coins in existence have been and should continue to sit pretty in their cold wallets for years to come.

Why should we expect this to be different for future users? If you believe, much like I do, that the next trove of adopters is likely to be institutional investors with an interest in Bitcoin as a commodity/asset then why should we be worried so much with the system's transactions throughput? Do you expect the Winklevies to go on a shopping frenzy with their 100,000 coins? The analogy with gold is tired but it remains true: it should be expect that most bitcoins in circulation will be stored in digital vaults and shall remain untouched for a long period of time.

All of this is to say that you should stop focusing on "mainstream" users and what you assume their interest in Bitcoin will be. We should expect these to be last in line in your mass adoption scenario.

[wxa7115]

May I ask where you stand on the underlying issue of what Bitcoin's design goal should be? Do you have an opinion on whether it (on-chain transactions) should be an expensive-to-use settlement network or a cheap-to-use payment network? Personally I feel the latter case - direct mass adoption - would be better if it can be technically supported, which I'm not sure about. If mass adoption is not possible I'm left doubting a settlement network alone is viable. That's my current feel on the matter, I'd be interested to hear what you think.

Myself I'd be interested to know why you apparently feel mass adoption of retail consumer is the only way leading to success for Bitcoin?

You do understand we're trying to build an economy and not the next big start-up?

We are at the historic crossroads predicted by Chaum, a binary choice between unprecedented freedom and eternal authoritarianism.

I don't think the XTurds in thrall to Gavin are capable of understanding we're trying to build an economy and not the next big start-up.  That limitation is fully intentional:

Aldous Huxley, speaking at U.C. Berkeley in 1962, outlines his vision for the ‘ultimate revolution’, a scientific dictatorship where people will be conditioned to enjoy their servitude, and will pose little opposition to the ‘ruling oligarchy’, as he puts it. He also takes a moment to compare his book, “Brave New World,” to George Orwell’s “1984” and considers the technique in the latter too outdated for actual implementation.

“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears…they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.”

About that last quote, I haven’t read Huxley “Brave New World” but, I have read 1984 and it’s a brutal book, is BNW really that bad?

1984 is just heavy-handed satire.  BNW is worse.

More dreadful than Orwell's "boot stamping on a human face - forever" is Huxley's world where humans no longer require facial boot stampings to keep them inline, because they are by nature and nurture ideal slaves.

Then it must a hell of a dystopian book to read, although a bit depressing, oh well I’m going to add it to my queue of books to read.

[tvbcof]

...
About that last quote, I haven’t read Huxley “Brave New World” but, I have read 1984 and it’s a brutal book, is BNW really that bad?

1984 is just heavy-handed satire.  BNW is worse.

More dreadful than Orwell's "boot stamping on a human face - forever" is Huxley's world where humans no longer require facial boot stampings to keep them inline, because they are by nature and nurture ideal slaves.

Then it must a hell of a dystopian book to read, although a bit depressing, oh well I’m going to add it to my queue of books to read.

I'm more and more interested in some of these 'old timers'.  I sense that things were somehow a little bit more 'open source' back in those days.

Huxley, for instance, is from a famous family of scientists, statesmen, etc.  He very likely would have been familiar with the cutting-edge science of the day.  This would include the research into psychology and physiology which were represented in his book.  Nearly 100 years ago when he wrote BNW there was the concept of in-utero hormone manipulations to create the freemartin condition in humans, or at least it was envisioned as possible.  And, of course, the use of psychotropic drugs to manipulate population behavior.  Now we are seeing some fairly striking shifts in sex expression in the population and 'prozak nation' and such.  The funny thing is that about the only thing people can get violently exited about anymore is when they dismiss any possibility that Huxley's visions might be coming to pass as 'conspiracy theories'.

I am also pretty interested in (Lord) Bertrand Russell.  Another person who was likely to be both intellectually capable of understating the cutting edge science of his day and hooked in enough to be exposed to it.  Link to some tid-bits.

I've not read Huxley's BNW for at least 25 years and have not fully read any of Lord Russell's books fully.  These are on my to-read-or-re-read list.

I ran across a 1958 bit of interview of Aldous Huxley a while ago.  I could not find the shorter version, but the full version is worth watching in full for anyone interested in thus stuff.

[erik777]

Pretty sure there's been quite enough of that from both sides.  Now it's time to cut that shit out and discuss proposals on technical merit and not the personalities involved.  Less character assassinations all round, please.

Then again, Mike Hearn has proven time and time again to push agendas that are divisive to the community and toxic to decentralization -- redlists, blacklists... I'm legitimately curious what color lists he produces next.

I'm hoping a pink slip with his name on it. 

[Dogedarkdev]

hey guys, just to jump in and mention what i've been up to with dogecoindark...

i've been focusing on i2p, and a bit on tor. my idea was to create a crypto who's tx's couldnt be monitored and thus anonymity compromised.

so far, i have succeeded. i've even been able to achieve an electrum server running on i2p.

take a peak, you're all more than welcome to criticize, partake on our git repo, join in the conversation about privacy in our irc channel, etc.

but in regards to this conversation, yes i agree wholeheartedly that xt is not a privacy fans ideal evolution from btc. at all.