Why the Bitcoin rules can't change (reading time ~5min)

[markm]

Yes but low value is not necessarily a bad thing.

If primary chain coins reach a trillion dollars per coin, the 0.005 fee for transacting on it might very reasonably deter people from moving their trillions back and forth just for fun or practice, and also deter them from buying lunch and some rounds of drinks with them for the folks who happen to be at their favourite upscale restaurant-and-bar to show off their eliteness. Meanwhile they still might prefer to use a lower-fee chain, probably with lower value coins on it, when the Joneses are not watchng them waiting to be unimpressed.

Meanwhile I am now wondering just what kind of footprint you do actually need in order to slip under the radar of your local repressive regime while running your local fifth column's backbones?

-MarkM-

[greyhawk]

How are you gonna run an upscale restaurant and bar if no one comes by to show off? 

[hazek]

I'm still confused on your argument. Why do you want Bitcoin not to change? You even started your post of confirming the fact that Bitcoin has already changed in the past. Shouldn't you just leave Bitcoin and make your own currency? One that can't change? If it has already changed in the past, why are you fighting so hard that it would never change again?

Especially a change that has been anticipated and talked about since the very beginning:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1347

Raising the max block size was always part of the plan

That may well be but me not being able to validate the rules I consented to are being followed most certainly wasn't.

I don't care how Bitcoin works, as long as principles I consented to are adhered to and one of those principles is that I can validate that the rules are being followed. I said in the OP I'm not opposed to rule changes per se, but I am opposed to rule change that would change that or the effects of which would inevitably change that.

[markm]

I suspect it is more about exactly how much to increase the block size, including how many years the increase will give us before we end up relenting to yet another increase, then another, then another, then another, as the privileged and entitled and elite continue their normal expectable gameplan of disenfranchising everyone else.

Oh and maybe also forcing the footprint of a full node to such a scale that they can easily sniff out all resistance cells and free speech movements and dissidents and so on.

-MarkM-

[ElectricMucus]

How are you gonna run an upscale restaurant and bar if no one comes by to show off? 

you are thinking about this the wrong way.
Dining at this restaurant would look like this and to enable micro-transactions with every bite you need tons of transactions/sec a good reason to use an alt-chain.

[wtfvanity]

I'm still confused on your argument. Why do you want Bitcoin not to change? You even started your post of confirming the fact that Bitcoin has already changed in the past. Shouldn't you just leave Bitcoin and make your own currency? One that can't change? If it has already changed in the past, why are you fighting so hard that it would never change again?

Especially a change that has been anticipated and talked about since the very beginning:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1347

Raising the max block size was always part of the plan

That may well be but me not being able to validate the rules I consented to are being followed most certainly wasn't.

I don't care how Bitcoin works, as long as principles I consented to are adhered to and one of those principles is that I can validate that the rules are being followed. I said in the OP I'm not opposed to rule changes per se, but I am opposed to rule change that would change that or the effects of which would inevitably change that.

??

Is what mark is saying accurate?

I suspect it is more about exactly how much to increase the block size, including how many years the increase will give us before we end up relenting to yet another increase, then another, then another, then another, as the privileged and entitled and elite continue their normal expectable gameplan of disenfranchising everyone else.

Oh and maybe also forcing the footprint of a full node to such a scale that they can easily sniff out all resistance cells and free speech movements and dissidents and so on.

-MarkM-

[Peter Todd]

You're priviledged in your space and bandwith capacity. What about those not so lucky? Those on volume capped lines? What about Africa, where most people outside of major cities still connect via 56k dial-up if even?

This is the great thing about the current 1MiB blocksize cap: you can run a full node on a 56k dial-up connection. Yes, you'll have to get a copy of the blockchain somehow to start, probably by finding someone local with a copy, or getting a copy delivered to you on DVD's by mail, but once you have that copy a 56k dial-up modem is fast enough to keep up with the full blockchain. The real-world speed of a 56k modem is about 4KiB/second. On the other hand even if every single block is 1MiB that's only 1.7KiB/second. You'll have to leave your node running at least 50% of the time to keep up, and trying to mine using that node won't be practical due to the huge orphan rate, but it really is possible.

[evoorhees]

I don't think any discussion of Bitcoin development should be based on assumptions that it's important to listen to those with 56.6kbps modems. Bitcoin should not be designed around the lowest common denominator of technology, just to dictate that "everyone can run it."

It should be usable by most people, but there's no reason to get hung up about fringe use cases like 56.6 modems.

[wtfvanity]

I don't think any discussion of Bitcoin development should be based on assumptions that it's important to listen to those with 56.6kbps modems. Bitcoin should not be designed around the lowest common denominator of technology, just to dictate that "everyone can run it."

It should be usable by most people, but there's no reason to get hung up about fringe use cases like 56.6 modems.

That's not what havock is arguing for although he uses that argument for his argument. He wants bitcoin exactly the way it is no ifs and or buts about it.

[Piper67]

It may also be worth considering that the majority of those of us running a full node might be more amenable to arguments from reason than to intransigent positions allegedly taken on principle, but which more and more sound like someone's painted themselves into an intellectual corner.

56.6k modem is unreasonable.

[hazek]

I don't think any discussion of Bitcoin development should be based on assumptions that it's important to listen to those with 56.6kbps modems. Bitcoin should not be designed around the lowest common denominator of technology, just to dictate that "everyone can run it."

It should be usable by most people, but there's no reason to get hung up about fringe use cases like 56.6 modems.

I just want to make sure people understand that this isn't my argument at all. I don't care about those with 56.6k connections, I care about me. I don't care about the 1Mb limit, I care about me. I want to be a sovereign user of Bitcoin and I don't care about how that is achieved or what costs it carries. And if I can't get that from Bitcoin, I'm out.

It's really simple.

[dave111223]

Nothing like a bit of fear mongering to get people upgrading and running the latest full client...

[Kempelen]

I just want to make sure people understand that this isn't my argument at all. I don't care about those with 56.6k connections, I care about me. I don't care about the 1Mb limit, I care about me. I want to be a sovereign user of Bitcoin and I don't care about how that is achieved or what costs it carries. And if I can't get that from Bitcoin, I'm out.

Good riddance.

[notig]

Because as Ben Franklin told a woman the Americans got a republic if they can keep it (turns out they couldn't) so too I'm here to tell you that you have an excellent money system on your hands, if you can keep it.

An excellent money system that can only handle 7 transactions per second. I think we are going to have to go with satoshi on this one.

Satoshi - October 04, 2010, 07:48:40 PM  -It can be phased in, like:

if (blocknumber > 115000)
    maxblocksize = largerlimit

It can start being in versions way ahead, so by the time it reaches that block number and goes into effect, the older versions that don't have it are already obsolete.

When we're near the cutoff block number, I can put an alert to old versions to make sure they know they have to upgrade.

[Piper67]

Hmmmm, so discarding the 1MB limit is actually going to be the cause of the libertarian fringe leaving Bitcoin? And it will allow the Bitcoin economy to grow?

I'm liking this idea more and more by the minute!

[wtfvanity]

And if I can't get that from Bitcoin, I'm out.

[acoindr]

I don't think any discussion of Bitcoin development should be based on assumptions that it's important to listen to those with 56.6kbps modems. Bitcoin should not be designed around the lowest common denominator of technology, just to dictate that "everyone can run it."

It should be usable by most people, but there's no reason to get hung up about fringe use cases like 56.6 modems.

hazek isn't arguing about 56.6 modems.

I think it's about balance. The thing is Bitcoin is billed as a currency that users can own, on their own. They don't have to trust anybody. The minute you start decreasing their ability to have a say (and check) of what goes on with the currency you've moved away from it being a currency they own on their own. That doesn't mean higher end users can't use it, but it pushes some people out.

To qualify as "grassroots" access I think you have to look at the typical technical capability of, say, average U.S. consumers. The world follows the U.S. as a benchmark on things (for example, see the Big Mac index). So, you want to grab technical specs from there I think, if it's a goal at all.

[wtfvanity]

I don't think any discussion of Bitcoin development should be based on assumptions that it's important to listen to those with 56.6kbps modems. Bitcoin should not be designed around the lowest common denominator of technology, just to dictate that "everyone can run it."

It should be usable by most people, but there's no reason to get hung up about fringe use cases like 56.6 modems.

hazek isn't arguing about 56.6 modems.

I think it's about balance. The thing is Bitcoin is billed as a currency that users can own, on their own. They don't have to trust anybody. The minute you start decreasing their ability to have a say (and check) of what goes on with the currency you've moved away from it being a currency they own on their own. That doesn't mean higher end users can't use it, but it pushes some people out.

To qualify as "grassroots" access I think you have to look at the typical technical capability of, say, average U.S. consumers. The world follows the U.S. as a benchmark on things (for example, see the Big Mac index). So, you want to grab technical specs from there I think, if it's a goal at all.

That's not what hazek is arguing. He doesn't want the block size limit changed PERIOD. Ignore the fact that he can easily confirm 10x the limit today on whatever laptop he's using, it's as is or he's out.

[hazek]

I don't think any discussion of Bitcoin development should be based on assumptions that it's important to listen to those with 56.6kbps modems. Bitcoin should not be designed around the lowest common denominator of technology, just to dictate that "everyone can run it."

It should be usable by most people, but there's no reason to get hung up about fringe use cases like 56.6 modems.

hazek isn't arguing about 56.6 modems.

I think it's about balance. The thing is Bitcoin is billed as a currency that users can own, on their own. They don't have to trust anybody. The minute you start decreasing their ability to have a say (and check) of what goes on with the currency you've moved away from it being a currency they own on their own. That doesn't mean higher end users can't use it, but it pushes some people out.

To qualify as "grassroots" access I think you have to look at the typical technical capability of, say, average U.S. consumers. The world follows the U.S. as a benchmark on things (for example, see the Big Mac index). So, you want to grab technical specs from there I think, if it's a goal at all.

That's not what hazek is arguing. He doesn't want the block size limit changed PERIOD. Ignore the fact that he can easily confirm 10x the limit today on whatever laptop he's using, it's as is or he's out.

False and it's exactly what I'm arguing and I've explained this so many times already that if you don't understand by now I simply cannot bother to do it again.

[wtfvanity]

By increasing the limit by 1%, that decreases your ability to have a say and check it. And you're against that... wrong?