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

[BitUsher]

An economist would also understand the inherent disadvantageous of central economic planning, which in effect is what Core is attempting to do now, at least in regards to their position on the blocksize related to governance. Essentially I believe that ideally the blocksize limit should not be used to determine the actual average blocksize, blocksize should ideally emerge from factors of supply and demand instead.

The core developers absolutely do believe the market should decide upon the blocksize limit and direction of the codebase. I have never heard the argument from one of them that their should only be one implementation and people should be restricted to only using their repisitory.
Whatever the people want they can get, as its entirely up to them what code they use.

What I see happening here is some are bitter that developers aren't beholden and forced by the will of the people to work on code they philosophically disagree with. This isn't how open source projects work. You cannot force volunteers to design projects the way you prefer. If you disagree you can fork and encourage others to join you. The developers aren't our personal slaves that we can make demands from ... they are volunteers making very important contributions towards our ecosystem.

This is in strong contrast to the opposing view that Bitcoin should be governed top down by Core or that Bitcoin is governed by mathematics and eternal unchangeable principles.

Most of the developers are in favor of a diversity of repositories and implementations. This is very misleading.

[brg444]

The developers are our personal slaves that we can make demands from ... they are volunteers making very important contributions towards our ecosystem.

I think there's a word missing here 

[BitUsher]

There were only a couple devs that wanted to keep the 1MB limit , most were in favor of raising it from my recollection,

By only a couple you mean not a single one at all-- if you are speaking in terms of eventualities. It's always been a question of costs and impacts.

Agreed at this time, but I was referring to months ago where a couple devs like Peter Todd suggesting keeping 1MB . The video is still on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNL1a7aKThs

There definitely has been a slight shift in the discussion, partly promoted by the fact that the LN will need larger blocks to appropriately scale.

[VeritasSapere]

An economist would also understand the inherent disadvantageous of central economic planning, which in effect is what Core is attempting to do now, at least in regards to their position on the blocksize related to governance. Essentially I believe that ideally the blocksize limit should not be used to determine the actual average blocksize, blocksize should ideally emerge from factors of supply and demand instead.

The core developers absolutely do believe the market should decide upon the blocksize limit and direction of the codebase. I have never heard the argument from one of them that their should only be one implementation and people should be restricted to only using their repisitory.
Whatever the people want they can get, as its entirely up to them what code they use.

What I see happening here is some are bitter that developers aren't beholden and forced by the will of the people to work on code they philosophically disagree with. This isn't how open source projects work. You cannot force volunteers to design projects the way you prefer. If you disagree you can fork and encourage other to join you. The developers aren't our personal slaves that we can make demands from ... they are volunteers making very important contributions towards our ecosystem.

This is in strong contrast to the opposing view that Bitcoin should be governed top down by Core or that Bitcoin is governed by mathematics and eternal unchangeable principles.

Most of the developers are in favor of a diversity of repositories and implementations. This is very misleading.

I will get around to re-posting the conversation I had with gmaxwell here, I can show you exactly where this fundemental disagreement lies. I do actually agree with you though. Core can implement whatever they want to implement regardless of what the economic majority wants, however it is important that the economic majority knows that they do have this choice, and that they do not need to adhere to more totalitarian philosophies in regards to Core. This is a question of our political culture within the Bitcoin community, which I still think is going through a awakening and self realization. Which is why I also keep quoting RIP Rowan about how we can only lose our freedom if we become convinced to give up it. The same is true for pre-existing political theory, power always comes from the people, ultimatly it is the people that choose to give up their freedom, and once surrendered it is not as easy to regain.

To answer your question brg444, I will continue to support the Bitcoin network and respect the proof of work consensus. Bitcoin unlimited and Bitcoin XT still operate on the same blockchain as Core does, without a mining majority BIP101 will also not fork the network, we are still both part of the same economy. Therefore in the absence of BIP101 forking the network through proof of work consensus, I still de facto support any blocksize increase Core implements.

[hdbuck]

There were only a couple devs that wanted to keep the 1MB limit , most were in favor of raising it from my recollection,

By only a couple you mean not a single one at all-- if you are speaking in terms of eventualities. It's always been a question of costs and impacts.

Agreed at this time, but I was referring to months ago where a couple devs like Peter Todd suggesting keeping 1MB . The video is still on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNL1a7aKThs

There definitely has been a slight shift in the discussion, partly promoted by the fact that the LN will need larger blocks to appropriately scale.

No that was actually long understood. Only the "fork nao" braindead noise stiffled rational and serious discution about it.

Yet, i'd still argue that corporations have to adapt to bitcoin and not the other way around.

[BitUsher]

I will get around to re-posting the conversation I had with gmaxwell here, I can show you exactly where this fundemental disagreement lies. I do actually agree with you though. Core can implement whatever they want to implement regardless of what the economic majority wants, however it is important that the economic majority knows that they do have this choice, and that they do not adhere to more totalitarian philosophies in regards to Core. This is a question of our political culture within the Bitcoin community, which I still think is going through a awakening and self realization. Which is why I also keep quoting RIP Rowan about how we can only lose our freedom if we become convinced to give up it. The same is true for pre-existing political theory, power always comes from the people, ultimatly it is the people that choose to give up their freedom, and once surrendered it is not as easy to regain.

To answer your question brg444, I will continue to support the Bitcoin network and respect the proof of work consensus. Bitcoin unlimited and Bitcoin XT still operate on the same blockchain as Core does, without a mining majority BIP101 will also not fork the network, we are still both part of the same economy. Therefore in the absence of BIP101 forking the network through proof of work consensus, I still de facto support any blocksize increase Core implements.

We must have different definitions of totalitarian. I don't find an open source project repository that allows for pull requests from anyone , Complete transparency in code, advocates for competing implementations and the right for people to ultimately choose, encourages participation, criticism and testing to be totalitarian. I don't understand how you square those polar opposites.

To be fair the closest I have seen to be "totalitarian" like behavior is some censorship here and on reddit. Spotty censorship that appears to have lessoned, but that wasn't coming from any devs.

I suppose we can be clearer by keep repeating to people Bitcoin is open source protocol where people can come and go as they please and select their implementation they prefer over and over again ad naseum. Would that suffice, or what do you expect?

[brg444]

I do actually agree with you though. Core can implement whatever they want to implement regardless of what the economic majority wants

I am disgusted by what is happening now with Core and RBF, to push such a contentious change without any debate, voting, time or even miner consensus. It is truly horrendous especially considering the harm that RBF can do to Bitcoin. It is also highly hypocritical especially considering their reasoning for not implementing a blocksize increase. I hope that once Core is forked out of power we will be able to reverse these changes and repair the damage that has been done here.

What Core did with the recent hard fork is also rather disgusting, they used the same version number for the blocks as BIP101, they did this on purpose in order to undermine BIP101. This represents a deliberate move by Core in order to circumvent the legitimate decision making process of proof of work.

They should have introduced BIP65 using a hard fork, since introducing it as a soft fork allows them to circumvent the processes of consensus that a hard fork would have necessitated.

I am disgusted by your hypocrisy

[VeritasSapere]

I do actually agree with you though. Core can implement whatever they want to implement regardless of what the economic majority wants

I am disgusted by what is happening now with Core and RBF, to push such a contentious change without any debate, voting, time or even miner consensus. It is truly horrendous especially considering the harm that RBF can do to Bitcoin. It is also highly hypocritical especially considering their reasoning for not implementing a blocksize increase. I hope that once Core is forked out of power we will be able to reverse these changes and repair the damage that has been done here.

What Core did with the recent hard fork is also rather disgusting, they used the same version number for the blocks as BIP101, they did this on purpose in order to undermine BIP101. This represents a deliberate move by Core in order to circumvent the legitimate decision making process of proof of work.

They should have introduced BIP65 using a hard fork, since introducing it as a soft fork allows them to circumvent the processes of consensus that a hard fork would have necessitated.

I am disgusted by your hypocrisy

There is no hypocrisy there. I still disagree with how BIP65 was implemented. I also still disagree with RBF, since it weakens zero confirmation in favor of strengthening layer two payment channels. They did this without the appropriate time and consensus that I think should have been appropriate for such a contentious change, considering their previous position on contentious issues I also find their actions hypocritical.

Furthermore I can disagree with all of these changes, even find them disgusting and hypocritical. This does not change however that the Core implantation does still have the freedom and the right to implement whatever they want, that does not imply however that their actions are not wrong or that I can not disagree with them.

[BitUsher]

There is no hypocrisy there. I still disagree with how BIP65 was implemented. I also still disagree with RBF, since it weakens zero confirmation in favor of strengthening layer two payment channels. They did this without the appropriate time and consensus that I think should have been appropriate for such a contentious change, considering their previous position on contentious issues I also find their actions hypocritical.

RBF had 100% consensus within the dev list(acks all the way down)... Are you suggesting developers petition non developers for specific code changes where the general public can make decisions upon complex topics they barely understand and than demand the developers(volunteers) carry out their will?
Is there any open source projects that work this way you know of?

[brg444]

I do actually agree with you though. Core can implement whatever they want to implement regardless of what the economic majority wants

I am disgusted by what is happening now with Core and RBF, to push such a contentious change without any debate, voting, time or even miner consensus. It is truly horrendous especially considering the harm that RBF can do to Bitcoin. It is also highly hypocritical especially considering their reasoning for not implementing a blocksize increase. I hope that once Core is forked out of power we will be able to reverse these changes and repair the damage that has been done here.

What Core did with the recent hard fork is also rather disgusting, they used the same version number for the blocks as BIP101, they did this on purpose in order to undermine BIP101. This represents a deliberate move by Core in order to circumvent the legitimate decision making process of proof of work.

They should have introduced BIP65 using a hard fork, since introducing it as a soft fork allows them to circumvent the processes of consensus that a hard fork would have necessitated.

I am disgusted by your hypocrisy

There is no hypocrisy there. I still disagree with how BIP65 was implemented. I also still disagree with RBF, since it weakens zero confirmation in favor of strengthening layer two payment channels. They did this without the appropriate time and consensus that I think should have been appropriate for such a contentious change, considering their previous position on contentious issues I also find their actions hypocritical.

You expressed these sentiments because you did not understand what it is you were talking about at the time. I see you still don't.

It's one thing to pretend that you philosophically disagree with code implementation but forming an opinion on something necessarily requires that you understand the issues.

In both instances it was proven that your knee-jerk partisan reaction was based on ignorance of the technical details.

You are simply another disingenuous little shill who I hope we can fork off the community for our own good sake.

[VeritasSapere]

I will get around to re-posting the conversation I had with gmaxwell here, I can show you exactly where this fundemental disagreement lies. I do actually agree with you though. Core can implement whatever they want to implement regardless of what the economic majority wants, however it is important that the economic majority knows that they do have this choice, and that they do not adhere to more totalitarian philosophies in regards to Core. This is a question of our political culture within the Bitcoin community, which I still think is going through a awakening and self realization. Which is why I also keep quoting RIP Rowan about how we can only lose our freedom if we become convinced to give up it. The same is true for pre-existing political theory, power always comes from the people, ultimatly it is the people that choose to give up their freedom, and once surrendered it is not as easy to regain.

To answer your question brg444, I will continue to support the Bitcoin network and respect the proof of work consensus. Bitcoin unlimited and Bitcoin XT still operate on the same blockchain as Core does, without a mining majority BIP101 will also not fork the network, we are still both part of the same economy. Therefore in the absence of BIP101 forking the network through proof of work consensus, I still de facto support any blocksize increase Core implements.

We must have different definitions of totalitarian. I don't find an open source project repository that allows for pull requests from anyone , Complete transparency in code, advocates for competing implementations and the right for people to ultimately choose, encourages participation, criticism and testing to be totalitarian. I don't understand how you square those polar opposites.

To be fair the closest I have seen to be "totalitarian" like behavior is some censorship here and on reddit. Spotty censorship that appears to have lessoned, but that wasn't coming from any devs.

I suppose we can be clearer by keep repeating to people Bitcoin is open source protocol where people can come and go as they please and select their implementation they prefer over and over again ad naseum. Would that suffice, or what do you expect?

Which is essentially what I am doing, reminding people that they do have this freedom of choice. The freedom we have depends on our collective political culture, this is in some ways similar to state democracies. If we see the proof of work concensus as a type of election or vote. Then it can be argued that having an election with only one party is totalitarianism. Having only one choice is the equivalent of having no choice. This is why we need more viable and respected alternative implementations of the Bitcoin protocol, in order to better and more accurately reflect the will of the economic majority.

[BitUsher]

Which is essentially what I am doing, reminding people that they do have this freedom of choice. The freedom we have depends on our collective political culture, this is in some ways similar to state democracies. If we see the proof of work concensus as a type of election or vote. Then it can be argued that having an election with only one party is totalitarianism. Having only one choice is the equivalent of having no choice. This is why we need more viable and respected alternative implementations of the Bitcoin protocol, in order to better and more accurately reflect the will of the economic majority.

This is all fine ... but why use the word totalitarian when those devs are standing shoulder to shoulder with you asking for more implementations and contributing parties? Have any devs suggested otherwise, do you have any evidence that they don't want other implementations?

[VeritasSapere]

There is no hypocrisy there. I still disagree with how BIP65 was implemented. I also still disagree with RBF, since it weakens zero confirmation in favor of strengthening layer two payment channels. They did this without the appropriate time and consensus that I think should have been appropriate for such a contentious change, considering their previous position on contentious issues I also find their actions hypocritical.

RBF had 100% consensus within the dev list(acks all the way down)... Are you suggesting developers petition non developers for specific code changes where the general public can make decisions upon complex topics they barely understand and than demand the developers(volunteers) carry out their will?
This is madness! Is there any open source projects that work this way you know of?

I do think this is unprecedented indeed. I think RBF should have been implemented as a hard fork giving the market the choice this way. Bitcoin is far more political then most open source projects, we also have proof of work consensus. So I do think that Bitcoin should be governed differently compared to most open source projects. Essentially the general public or what I describe as the economic majority should be making these decisions. These are fundamental questions of who decides, I do not think Bitcoin should become a technocracy, you are somewhat proving my point here of the opposing ideology that I am attempting to counter.

[VeritasSapere]

Which is essentially what I am doing, reminding people that they do have this freedom of choice. The freedom we have depends on our collective political culture, this is in some ways similar to state democracies. If we see the proof of work concensus as a type of election or vote. Then it can be argued that having an election with only one party is totalitarianism. Having only one choice is the equivalent of having no choice. This is why we need more viable and respected alternative implementations of the Bitcoin protocol, in order to better and more accurately reflect the will of the economic majority.

This is all fine ... but why use the word totalitarian when those devs are standing shoulder to shoulder with you asking for more implementations and contributing parties? Have any devs suggested otherwise, do you have any evidence that they don't want other implementations?

This is a good question, I will compile a collection of writings attempting to prove this point in regards to Core's mentality in terms of governance. Will take me some time to get it all together, was planning on doing this anyway. I am a bit busy at moment however, but you can expect me to post this in the next few days.

In the meantime I will simply just post this question I asked Greg Maxwell:

If hypothetically more then seventy five percent of the miners supported BIP101 after January. Would Core recognize the will of the economic majority and implement BIP101? If you would implement BIP101 under such conditions you will have my full support. However if you intend to ignore the economic majority and still attempt to push your own agenda while circumventing and undermining the proof of work consensus then I will accuse Core of tyranny and totalitarianism. Which one is it Greg Maxwell, can you answer this question?

He could have simply answered this question and he would have gained a vocal ally, he could still respond now. Instead he responded by criticizing the proof of work consensus while at the same time not actually answering my question, besides from saying that he will stop working on Bitcoin completely if he does not get his way. This alone is enough for me not to support Core anymore, since I would like the implementation that I support to follow and respect the proof of work consensus instead, since I do believe in the greater wisdom of the crowd and the market compared to decisions made by a small group of technical experts.

[Carlton Banks]

Veritas Sapere trying to simultaneously claim that:

• Economic majority got the wrong answer to the question of the blocksize increase
• The will of the economic majority should be respected
• Veritas Sapere can simply assert who the economic majority are and what their position is at any given time
• BIP101 is the worst scaling scheme
• BIP101 isn't such a bad scaling scheme
• Soft forks are a "disgusting" abuse of power
• Devs are free to implement soft forks as they please
• Veritas Sapere does not hold contradictory and/or hypocritical views

Any more, VS? It's an interesting list so far, is it possible that you could make it even more logically incoherent?

[VeritasSapere]

Veritas Sapere trying to simultaneously claim that:

• Economic majority got the wrong answer to the question of the blocksize increase
• The will of the economic majority should be respected
• Veritas Sapere can simply assert who the economic majority are and what their position is at any given time
• BIP101 is the worst scaling scheme
• BIP101 isn't such a bad scaling scheme
• Soft forks are a "disgusting" abuse of power
• Devs are free to implement soft forks as they please
• Veritas Sapere does not hold contradictory and/or hypocritical views

Any more, VS? It's an interesting list so far, is it possible that you could make it even more logically incoherent?

There is not a single hypocrisy in my position that you have successfully pointed out. I also do not think the economic majority is presently wrong in regards to the question of the blocksize. I have already countered the other accusations of hypocrisy. It is not my fault that you seem to be unable to understand the subtlety and nuance of ethics and modern political thought.

I will attempt to explain it again in a more general form. Sometimes people have the right to do things even though these things might be wrong, this is not contradictory, this is respecting freedom and having tolerance. For instance I respect freedom of speech, however there are many things that people can say that are outright horrible and wrong, like hate speech for example. However in order to preserve freedom of speech we need to respect other peoples right to do things that we consider to be wrong. We can also apply this to the censorship in the Bitcoin community. It was wrong for Theymos to censor reddit, yet he did have the right to do so on the forum that he controlled. Can you see how this in fact is not a contradiction but a feature of a good ethical philosophy.

[BitUsher]

So I do think that Bitcoin should be governed differently compared to most open source projects. Essentially the general public or what I describe as the economic majority should be making these decisions.

Well I'm not a fan of democracies or "2 wolves and a sheep decide whats for dinner" but if this is your position than you will have a radically different bitcoin where you need to find some means of having the protocol pay for the developers directly rather than enslave volunteers to do the will of the people. You cannot force a volunteer to do something he/she philosophically disagrees with as they will just walk away, become disinterested , or fork the code.

What you describe more closely resembles DPOS / Bitshares... where there is voting intrinsic in the protocol and developers/representatives funding is paid through the voting process.

Perhaps you should sell your bitcoin and take up that , or fork bitcoin and convert it to DPOS/PoW hybrid.

[brg444]

It is not my fault that you seem to be unable to understand the subtlety and nuance of ethics and modern political thought.

The lulz don't stop. What a charlatan  

[VeritasSapere]

So I do think that Bitcoin should be governed differently compared to most open source projects. Essentially the general public or what I describe as the economic majority should be making these decisions.

Well I'm not a fan of democracies or "2 wolves and a sheep decide whats for dinner" but if this is your position than you will have a radically different bitcoin where you need to find some means of having the protocol pay for the developers directly rather than enslave volunteers to do the will of the people. You cannot force a volunteer to do something he/she philosophically disagrees with as they will just walk away, become disinterested , or fork the code.

What you describe more closely resembles DPOS / Bitshares... where there is voting intrinsic in the protocol and developers/representatives funding is paid through the voting process.

Perhaps you should sell your bitcoin and take up that , or fork bitcoin and convert it to DPOS/PoW hybrid.

Exactly we can agree that we do have fundamentally different ideologies when it comes how Bitcoin should be governed. In regards to Bitcoin being a type of democracy it is better then most state democracies at least because it is ruled by the economic majority, and there is also positive incentive build into the system. What I am describing is Bitcoin, this how I think Bitcoin was designed to be. I also hold the position that if people want a different governance system it should be implemented in an altcoin instead, this alternative vision of Bitcoin should not be implemented onto the Bitcoin we have now. This is why I think the Core developers often talk about the incentive structure of Bitcoin being broken and that they need to fix it, I do not think it is broken, I actually do think it is working now as intended and this is part of the process we need to go through in order for Bitcoin the protocol to grow and evolve into what I suspect most of us want it to become.

[BitUsher]

In regards to Bitcoin being a type of democracy it is better then most state democracies at least because it is ruled by the economic majority, and there is also positive incentive build into the system.

State democracies tend to be representative democracies which are indeed ruled by an economic majority with an illusion the poor and middle class can effect much change. Bitcoin is not ruled by an economic majority alone as you suggest, but a combination of nodes/developers/miners/merchants and exchanges. This means that unlike with an economic majority which control most states, you can have a developer in India without a cent to his name issue a pull request and heavily influence the direction of bitcoin if he can receive a rough consensus and offer something innovative and useful.   

What I am describing is Bitcoin, this how I think Bitcoin was designed to be.  I also hold the position that if people want a different governance system it should be implemented in an altcoin instead, this alternative vision of Bitcoin should not be implemented onto the Bitcoin we have now. This is why I think the Core developers often talk about the incentive structure of Bitcoin being broken and that they need to fix it, I do not think it is broken, I actually do think it is working now as intended and this is part of the process we need to go through in order for Bitcoin the protocol to grow and evolve into what I suspect most of us want it to become.

Great, I look forward to reading your whitepaper when you create your alt. It may be an interesting read if anything.