Bitcoin XT - Officially #REKT (also goes for BIP101 fraud)

[Carlton Banks]

This whole discussion is a confusion over voluntarism and the free-market.

By Veritas definition, the USD is a free market.

I'm sorry for entertaining this whole thing   muyuu is right, we ought to stop trying to stick the free-market label on everything

It's true. The free-market can solve a vast majority of problems better than central planning can, and given a proper chance to prove it, likely all problems. But a free-market of software nodes making the decision is the ideal model for governing aspects like blocksize; letting node operators choose freely just invites people with bad incentives to abuse the freedom. People like Peter R try to gently imply they want the former, when in truth, they're proposing the latter.

[VeritasSapere]

This whole discussion is a confusion over voluntarism and the free-market.

By Veritas definition, the USD is a free market.

I'm sorry for entertaining this whole thing   muyuu is right, we ought to stop trying to stick the free-market label on everything

I never defined the free market concisely myself on this thread, I gave different examples of how different ideologies define and understand the free market, my point being is that our subjective ideology actually influences and changes our definition and understanding of free markets. The question of whether USD is a free market or whether it exists within a free market, depends on who you ask. This is certainly a topic that people with wide ranging ideological backgrounds do disagree on.

[VeritasSapere]

This whole discussion is a confusion over voluntarism and the free-market.

By Veritas definition, the USD is a free market.

I'm sorry for entertaining this whole thing   muyuu is right, we ought to stop trying to stick the free-market label on everything

It's true. The free-market can solve a vast majority of problems better than central planning can, and given a proper chance to prove it, likely all problems. But a free-market of software nodes making the decision is the ideal model for governing aspects like blocksize; letting node operators choose freely just invites people with bad incentives to abuse the freedom. People like Peter R try to gently imply they want the former, when in truth, they're proposing the latter.

You are saying that people should not have this freedom because you think they will abuse it?

When you allow people to have freedom, you also need to allow them to make bad choices. You cant have it both ways, it is the consequence of freedom. I personally think it is worth it, since it brings about more good then harm overall in the greater society and civilization over the long term.

[Carlton Banks]

You are saying that people should not have this freedom because you think they will abuse it?

I don't "think" this, it's an observable fact.

The bitcoin network gets attacked. It gets attacked by people like Coinwallet.eu, for instance, who broadcast hundreds of thousands of transactions to the network all at once, then pretending they are being helpful by means of providing the bitcoin network with an independent "stress test".

But of course, that's just the market expressing it's will, no? The anti-spam transaction measures that the Bitcoin dev team (XT has it's own "solution") have implemented for the 0.12 release in 2016 should just be abandoned in favour of letting bad actors dictate the price of transactions, yes?

[Peter R]

The free-market can solve a vast majority of problems better than central planning can, and given a proper chance to prove it, likely all problems. But a free-market of software nodes making the decision is the ideal model for governing aspects like blocksize; letting node operators choose freely just invites people with bad incentives to abuse the freedom. People like Peter R try to gently imply they want the former, when in truth, they're proposing the latter.

You are saying that people should not have this freedom because you think they will abuse it?

When you allow people to have freedom, you also need to allow them to make bad choices. You cant have it both ways, it is the consequence of freedom. I personally think it is worth it, since it brings about more good then harm overall in the greater society and civilization over the long term.

I don't "think" this, it's an observable fact.

It seems that there are two different ideologies in play:

1.  It should be easy for people to express their free choice regarding the block size limit because Bitcoin is ultimately a product of the market (bottom-up / emergent phenomenon).

2.  The block size limit should be set by a group of experts because people will make poor choices (top-down / policy tool).

[Carlton Banks]

The free-market can solve a vast majority of problems better than central planning can, and given a proper chance to prove it, likely all problems. But a free-market of software nodes making the decision is the ideal model for governing aspects like blocksize; letting node operators choose freely just invites people with bad incentives to abuse the freedom. People like Peter R try to gently imply they want the former, when in truth, they're proposing the latter.

You are saying that people should not have this freedom because you think they will abuse it?

When you allow people to have freedom, you also need to allow them to make bad choices. You cant have it both ways, it is the consequence of freedom. I personally think it is worth it, since it brings about more good then harm overall in the greater society and civilization over the long term.

I don't "think" this, it's an observable fact.

It seems that there are two different ideologies in play:

1.  It should be easy for people to express their free choice regarding the block size limit because Bitcoin is ultimately a product of the market (bottom-up / emergent phenomenon).

2.  The block size limit should be set by a group of experts because people will make poor choices (top-down / policy tool).

You cannot determine only those 2 viewpoints from what I said, Peter, because I subscribe to neither.

The nodes should determine what the value is, not the developers. But the software itself in the nodes should make the determination, not the node's human operators. I've been saying this all along; dynamic blocksize limit is the best solution to me. And that's not what you're saying at all, Peter.

[Zarathustra]

To say the block reward is market-set is beyond idiotic. There is no effective market mechanism doing that, by design. The protocol does.

The block reward is set by the protocol which is decided on by the free market, the market is incentivized not to change the block reward, this is why and how Bitcoin works.

The argument goes like this: since the free market of peers dictates what code determines consensus then it should follow that any parameter within Bitcoin is a subset of a "free market" decision.

Agreed.

So 1MB it is, says the free-market!

Agreed, until the free market decides that it wants to increase the blocksize, the incentive to do so will align more as the blocks continue to grow. Since rendering transactions unreliable and increasing the cost of transactions is not necessarily in the best interests of the network as a whole.

Exactly.

[hdbuck]

To say the block reward is market-set is beyond idiotic. There is no effective market mechanism doing that, by design. The protocol does.

The block reward is set by the protocol which is decided on by the free market, the market is incentivized not to change the block reward, this is why and how Bitcoin works.

The argument goes like this: since the free market of peers dictates what code determines consensus then it should follow that any parameter within Bitcoin is a subset of a "free market" decision.

Agreed.

So 1MB it is, says the free-market!

Agreed, until the free market decides that it wants to increase the blocksize, the incentive to do so will align more as the blocks continue to grow. Since rendering transactions unreliable and increasing the cost of transactions is not necessarily in the best interests of the network as a whole.

Exactly.

errr, i surely cant wait for you n00bs to fork off in january.

[muyuu]

This whole discussion is a confusion over voluntarism and the free-market.

By Veritas definition, the USD is a free market.

I'm sorry for entertaining this whole thing   muyuu is right, we ought to stop trying to stick the free-market label on everything

I never defined the free market concisely myself on this thread, I gave different examples of how different ideologies define and understand the free market, my point being is that our subjective ideology actually influences and changes our definition and understanding of free markets. The question of whether USD is a free market or whether it exists within a free market, depends on who you ask. This is certainly a topic that people with wide ranging ideological backgrounds do disagree on.

It's funny you say that, because every time you talk about "free market" you come with things that have nothing to do with the concept. You also insist that it has something to do with ideology to see something as a "free market".

It seems that there are two different ideologies in play:

1.  It should be easy for people to express their free choice regarding the block size limit because Bitcoin is ultimately a product of the market (bottom-up / emergent phenomenon).

2.  The block size limit should be set by a group of experts because people will make poor choices (top-down / policy tool).

Bitcoin was designed so that its code-defined parameters couldn't be redefined by users ("bottom up") and this is a feature. Imagine if gold could be redefined by holders of gold merely by their agreement. It would be the anti-gold: gold works as a store of value because its properties cannot be changed in a feasible manner (and certainly you cannot alter the gold of others no matter how much support your "ideas" have).

Bitcoin's "physical properties" are its code. When, like in the case of the blocksize cap, there is a general agreement that one of these "physical properties" of Bitcoin should be changed, it's important to understand the contradiction this entails to something that is intended to be money/store of value to introduce changes to it. Bitcoin is in this sense in a strong contradiction of being both still experimental software that requires changes, and that ideally it would need zero changes so the "physical properties" analogy of "digital gold" stands on its own.

The problem here is not one of ideologies, as largely (except Mike Hearn and an increasing number of mainstreamers, who are socialists and statists) the ideologies of bitcoiners are strongly for free market capitalism.

It's a problem of vision / understanding. Either see Bitcoin as a payment channel tool or as a distributed database, not money and not commodity, in which case obviously introducing major changes and revisions is a "software" thing. For this school of thought, destroying the underlying assumption that the main properties of Bitcoin cannot be changed is not a big deal. This kills Bitcoin as a store of value. I'd argue that some even want this to happen. This is why I'm not that surprised when you say that if people want, let them introduce inflation in Bitcoin and stuff like that. Or when you interchangeably talk about forks of the chain and forks of the code.

The block size limit like any other parameters of Bitcoin were set by either Satoshi or the devs after him. This is "2" as you said above, and this is the way Bitcoin as we know it. The market balance mechanisms were also set up by developers. You blow up the stability of these mechanisms and you have made Bitcoin utterly pointless. The very system is made so that users running arbitrary protocols just doesn't work for them. What you suggest by "1" is political money and it will never work. Why don't you just try it separately and leave the Bitcoin network alone?

[muyuu]

They posted this yesterday:



Do you guys think this is satire or actually serious?

[iCEBREAKER]

They posted this yesterday:

https://i.imgur.com/Uo3vFvC.png

Do you guys think this is satire or actually serious?

I can't even Poe's Law anymore, since the Gavinistas.

Look at this circlejerking; it would be impossible to ridicule or parody because it's already beyond absurd.

https://np.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/3sapgm/psa_rbtc_will_only_succeed_if_we_all_participate/

[hdbuck]

They posted this yesterday:

https://i.imgur.com/Uo3vFvC.png

Do you guys think this is satire or actually serious?

I can't even Poe's Law anymore, since the Gavinistas.

Look at this circlejerking; it would be impossible to ridicule or parody because it's already beyond absurd.

https://np.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/3sapgm/psa_rbtc_will_only_succeed_if_we_all_participate/

lel

If we want /r/BTC to be a success, we all need to chip in by submitting interesting links, and sharing interesting comments on links submitted by others. Simply reading the content here is not enough. Together we can make this the most enjoyable Bitcoin sub-reddit in the world!

[VeritasSapere]

The free-market can solve a vast majority of problems better than central planning can, and given a proper chance to prove it, likely all problems. But a free-market of software nodes making the decision is the ideal model for governing aspects like blocksize; letting node operators choose freely just invites people with bad incentives to abuse the freedom. People like Peter R try to gently imply they want the former, when in truth, they're proposing the latter.

You are saying that people should not have this freedom because you think they will abuse it?

When you allow people to have freedom, you also need to allow them to make bad choices. You cant have it both ways, it is the consequence of freedom. I personally think it is worth it, since it brings about more good then harm overall in the greater society and civilization over the long term.

I don't "think" this, it's an observable fact.

It seems that there are two different ideologies in play:

1.  It should be easy for people to express their free choice regarding the block size limit because Bitcoin is ultimately a product of the market (bottom-up / emergent phenomenon).

2.  The block size limit should be set by a group of experts because people will make poor choices (top-down / policy tool).

You cannot determine only those 2 viewpoints from what I said, Peter, because I subscribe to neither.

The nodes should determine what the value is, not the developers. But the software itself in the nodes should make the determination, not the node's human operators. I've been saying this all along; dynamic blocksize limit is the best solution to me. And that's not what you're saying at all, Peter.

You are essentially saying that people should not have the free choice. Someone does have to choose however, you can not escape this fact, under the scenario you describe it is obvious that the Core developers would choose for us. They would effectively control and decide on the future of Bitcoin under this model. I strongly disagree with this approach. I do think that this might be at the crux of our disagreement. It most certainly is an ideological disagreement, even if you disagree with that and claim truth and scientific validity it does not change that for me this is an ideological issue. In political thinking the question is often asked of whom decides, in the case of Bitcoin I think that the people or what is referred to as the economic majority should decide.

In order to achieve what you are suggesting you would have to either radically change the protocol and take the freedom out of the protocol, which i think is actually impossible to do since people can still choose to run it or not, unless you combine Bitcoin with the power and force of the state. The other way to achieve what you think would be the ideal governance model of Bitcoin would be to convince enough people that they do not have a choice or that they should defer their decision to the experts or authority instead. Neither of these scenarios seems particularly appealing to me so I definitely favor a bottom up approach where ultimately it is the users/peers that decide on the future of Bitcoin collectively in a distributed and decentralized manner, even if that means that we might sometimes not be able to agree with each other which would most likely lead to inevitable splits in the future.

This is the price of freedom, I can see how having a totalitarian approach can be appealing, no politics just centralized control by the technocrats, no splits just complete consensus and everyone has to agree with the center all of the time and for the rest of time. If enough people believed this it could work, but I am a freedom loving person so I would not want to be part of such a totalitarian construct.

[hdbuck]

^ you have freed00m choice to use it or gtfo of bitcoin.

simple. no one is forcing anyone..

[valiz]

The developers aren't forcing anyone to run the code. This means freedom. The rest is useless blabber 

[VeritasSapere]

The developers aren't forcing anyone to run the code. This means freedom. The rest is useless blabber

Both you and HDbuck are actually missing the point that I was making. Which is that the economic majority decides on the future of Bitcoin. However if the economic majority does not believe in the principles of freedom and decentralization then Bitcoin would start to reflect this. Bitcoin reflects the will of its participants, therefore if the will of its participants does not favor decentralization and freedom then Bitcoin could become less free and more centralized. This is where chain forks might actually be very useful in preserving our freedom even if that is not what the rest of the world desires. This is a hypothetical future that might become more real as more people adopt Bitcoin, since this would water down the ideological demographic of Bitcoin users.

Another important point that I was making was that muuyuu and Carlton are advocating a top down approach to governance whereas I am advocating a bottom up approach, which is an important distinction and very important for Bitcoin going into the future.

[VeritasSapere]

Bitcoin was designed so that its code-defined parameters couldn't be redefined by users ("bottom up") and this is a feature. Imagine if gold could be redefined by holders of gold merely by their agreement. It would be the anti-gold: gold works as a store of value because its properties cannot be changed in a feasible manner (and certainly you cannot alter the gold of others no matter how much support your "ideas" have).

Bitcoin's "physical properties" are its code. When, like in the case of the blocksize cap, there is a general agreement that one of these "physical properties" of Bitcoin should be changed, it's important to understand the contradiction this entails to something that is intended to be money/store of value to introduce changes to it. Bitcoin is in this sense in a strong contradiction of being both still experimental software that requires changes, and that ideally it would need zero changes so the "physical properties" analogy of "digital gold" stands on its own.

The problem here is not one of ideologies, as largely (except Mike Hearn and an increasing number of mainstreamers, who are socialists and statists) the ideologies of bitcoiners are strongly for free market capitalism.

It's a problem of vision / understanding. Either see Bitcoin as a payment channel tool or as a distributed database, not money and not commodity, in which case obviously introducing major changes and revisions is a "software" thing. For this school of thought, destroying the underlying assumption that the main properties of Bitcoin cannot be changed is not a big deal. This kills Bitcoin as a store of value. I'd argue that some even want this to happen. This is why I'm not that surprised when you say that if people want, let them introduce inflation in Bitcoin and stuff like that. Or when you interchangeably talk about forks of the chain and forks of the code.

The block size limit like any other parameters of Bitcoin were set by either Satoshi or the devs after him. This is "2" as you said above, and this is the way Bitcoin as we know it. The market balance mechanisms were also set up by developers. You blow up the stability of these mechanisms and you have made Bitcoin utterly pointless. The very system is made so that users running arbitrary protocols just doesn't work for them. What you suggest by "1" is political money and it will never work. Why don't you just try it separately and leave the Bitcoin network alone?

To be honest I am shocked that you are even trying to defend a top down approach for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is not the same as gold, it is better, we can sent it across the world with low cost and its fundamental properties can be changed unlike gold. Bitcoin is both a commodity and a currency, it is both a payment channel and a distributed database. It can do all of these things without compromising the fundamental principles of decentralization and freedom. These different capabilities of Bitcoin actually reinforce each other in a synergistic fashion. I think you are constructing a false dichotomy by saying that we must choose between these different features.

I think that Bitcoin should be governed through a bottom up approach since this is what most closely resembles the principles of decentralization and freedom. I also think that this is how Bitcoin was designed to function and how it technically functions today. This can be subverted purely through the culture and believe of its participants, it seems like you are now actually advocating such a believe by saying that individual users should not make these decisions for themselves independently.

At least it is clear now where you stand, you want their to be top down governance of Bitcoin, I want bottom up governance. These are fundamentally incompatible concepts. I advocate freedom of choice which could lead to a split when fundamental disagreements arise. You seem to be advocating totalitarianism, tyranny of the majority or even tyranny of a minority, since without using proof of work as a way to measure consensus, consensus will be whatever Core says it is. Their governance might be benign but I refuse to entrust the future of Bitcoin with such a small technocratic elite.

People can decide for themselves what kind of a Bitcoin they want and by extension what kind of a world they want. Even if you insist that people should not have this choice over the future of Bitcoin it does not change that people do have this freedom of choice. So everyone please choose wisely, consider the advantages of freedom.

[muyuu]

To be honest I am shocked that you are even trying to defend a top down approach for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is not the same as gold, it is better, we can sent it across the world with low cost and its fundamental properties can be changed unlike gold. Bitcoin is both a commodity and a currency, it is both a payment channel and a distributed database. It can do all of these things without compromising the fundamental principles of decentralization and freedom. These different capabilities of Bitcoin actually reinforce each other in a synergistic fashion. I think you are constructing a false dichotomy by saying that we must choose between these different features.

I'm defending the only Bitcoin that ever existed vs the esoteric ideal you have that I frankly don't think it would ever work, but you are free to try it on your own blockchain.

I think that Bitcoin should be governed through a bottom up approach since this is what most closely resembles the principles of decentralization and freedom. I also think that this is how Bitcoin was designed to function and how it technically functions today. This can be subverted purely through the culture and believe of its participants, it seems like you are now actually advocating such a believe by saying that individual users should not make these decisions for themselves independently.

At least it is clear now where you stand, you want their to be top down governance of Bitcoin, I want bottom up governance. These are fundamentally incompatible concepts. I advocate freedom of choice which could lead to a split when fundamental disagreements arise. You seem to be advocating totalitarianism, tyranny of the majority or even tyranny of a minority, since without using proof of work as a way to measure consensus, consensus will be whatever Core says it is. Their governance might be benign but I refuse to entrust the future of Bitcoin with such a small technocratic elite.

People can decide for themselves what kind of a Bitcoin they want and by extension what kind of a world they want. Even if you insist that people should not have this choice over the future of Bitcoin it does not change that people do have this freedom of choice. So everyone please choose wisely, consider the advantages of freedom.

You are taking concepts and ideals completely out of context.

It's not just Core saying no to BIP101 or XT, it's the miners too, and the vast majority of the nodes. The message couldn't be clearer, are you suggesting it's fairer to have a sufficiently aggressive minority overrule that?

[VeritasSapere]

To be honest I am shocked that you are even trying to defend a top down approach for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is not the same as gold, it is better, we can sent it across the world with low cost and its fundamental properties can be changed unlike gold. Bitcoin is both a commodity and a currency, it is both a payment channel and a distributed database. It can do all of these things without compromising the fundamental principles of decentralization and freedom. These different capabilities of Bitcoin actually reinforce each other in a synergistic fashion. I think you are constructing a false dichotomy by saying that we must choose between these different features.

I'm defending the only Bitcoin that ever existed vs the esoteric ideal you have that I frankly don't think it would ever work, but you are free to try it on your own blockchain.

I am defending the original Bitcoin, your concept of top down governance is not how Bitcoin works technically, you might be able to enforce it through a culture of believe, but that does not change the ultimate reality which is that if the economic majority turns against Core, it will be left in the dust. You can deny this all you like but the truth is on my side.

I think that Bitcoin should be governed through a bottom up approach since this is what most closely resembles the principles of decentralization and freedom. I also think that this is how Bitcoin was designed to function and how it technically functions today. This can be subverted purely through the culture and believe of its participants, it seems like you are now actually advocating such a believe by saying that individual users should not make these decisions for themselves independently.

At least it is clear now where you stand, you want their to be top down governance of Bitcoin, I want bottom up governance. These are fundamentally incompatible concepts. I advocate freedom of choice which could lead to a split when fundamental disagreements arise. You seem to be advocating totalitarianism, tyranny of the majority or even tyranny of a minority, since without using proof of work as a way to measure consensus, consensus will be whatever Core says it is. Their governance might be benign but I refuse to entrust the future of Bitcoin with such a small technocratic elite.

People can decide for themselves what kind of a Bitcoin they want and by extension what kind of a world they want. Even if you insist that people should not have this choice over the future of Bitcoin it does not change that people do have this freedom of choice. So everyone please choose wisely, consider the advantages of freedom.

It's not just Core saying no to BIP101 or XT, it's the miners too, and the vast majority of the nodes. The message couldn't be clearer, are you suggesting it's fairer to have a sufficiently aggressive minority overrule that?

You are changing the subject, the majority of miners do support an increase in the blocksize, this however is irrelevant in regards to us discussing what we think Bitcoin is and should become.

I do not mean to be so dramatic but these two opposing conceptions of Bitcoin governance are the equivalent between totalitarianism and freedom. I am confident that I am on the right side of history.

[hdbuck]

BIPs are dead enders anyway.

Of substantial primacy is the fact that there is far greater client heterogeneity on the Bitcoin network than the developers of the Bitcoin Core client would have people believe, and Bitcoin network client variety is the greatest among miners and other infrastructure operators. Running the latest version of "Bitcoin Core" is aberrant behavior among miners who largely use bespoke software, including software that does not fully validate blocks as typical full Bitcoin nodes do. Mining is competitive and pool operators compete for any degree of optimization they can because even 1 megabyte blocks are large enough to introduce substantial delays if they are fully verified before mining on top of them.

Further it is impossible to depend on any sort of voting system to implement forking changes to miner behavior in a smooth manner. There is no way to actually confirm that the real behavior of actual clients on the Bitcoin network conforms to expectations which may follow from the version strings the client broadcasts.

This incident highlights the importance of the Bitcoin Foundation's work to maintain a stable reference implementation Bitcoin network client capable of operating as a full node. With the influence of Gavin Andresen and his fellow developers of the Bitcoin Core client waning to new lows as their attempts to force misguided efforts at "Bitcoin Improvement" fail through broken methods, assumptions, and implementations it is time for any last pretense of Bitcoin Core's development having any actual relationship to the actual living core of the Bitcoin Network to be discarded.

http://qntra.net/2015/07/chain-fork-reveals-bip-process-broken/


Ergo BIP66 forking fiasco: http://qntra.net/2015/07/another-post-bip-66-fork-dies-after-3-blocks/



Thx for teh lulz tho you buncha circle jerking reddit turds.