The Barry Silbert segwit2x agreement with >80% miner support.

[JayJuanGee]

and that this issue has been used as an attempt to change governance

*sigh*

How many times does it have to be said?

Developers.  Are.  Not.  Governors.  

Please get this batshit insane notion out of your head.  And I mean all of you.  Everyone on this forum who thinks any developers are somehow in charge or in control.  You are fundamentally and utterly wrong in how you perceive governance.  If someone was using the issue to claim that we need to change the way in which the consensus protocol works, that would be a change in governance.  Every time some UASF supporter talks about excluding the miners from the equation altogether and forcing a POW change, THAT is a change in governance.  

A hard fork resulting from a significant majority of those securing the network (that's a mix of both mining nodes and non-mining full nodes) freely choosing to run code enforcing new rules is exactly how Bitcoin was designed to work and is NOT a change in governance.  Stop talking shit.

If you want a coin where governance is dictated by developers, go away and use Ripple.  You simply don't belong here.

Thanks for your perspective, yet I am not going to concede that I am talking about this matter incorrectly...

Maybe we are getting caught up on semantics, yet the main framework of my contention should be obvious.

The fact of the matter has been that since XT, Classic and BU there have been various whiny attempts to complain that bitcoin is too stagnant and bitcoin needs to be able to change more easily and bitcoin was designed to be able to change easily... blah blah blah.. therefore hardfork and hardfork frequently in order that bitcoin can adjust to changing markets and become more competitive with modern payment systems blah blah blah.. bitcoin is broken the way it is and therefore it should be easier to change.

Those are attempts at changes in governance because they attempt to make bitcoin easier to change based on false premises and by assertions that there are technical problems and that bitcoin is broke and bitcoin should be x, y or z and it is not achieving.. blah blah blah.. Arguing that there is an emergency in order to deceive and trick into lowering consensus levels and consensus mechanisms.

So whether you disagree with my understanding or not or my use of the term 'governance", my point remains valid that there are ongoing complaints about the system that is in place (concededly evolving with the passage of time as you mentioned examples of possible ways to evolve) in order to attempt to lower various consensus thresholds and to make bitcoin more moldable, and even if some of those changes do occur over time, as you mentioned with your examples, it does not mean that there is not going to be resistance to various more extreme attempts, such as attempts to hardfork at lower consensus levels.

[-ck]

Not all who have the desire to learn have the capacity to learn....

And most who have the capacity don't have the desire.

[aoihs00]

I hope this is not start of bad era. Is it going to increase the credibility of our bitcoin or just gonna make it worse? I am feeling that big whales are coming into effect with this amendment are trying to do something beneficial for themselves. Isn’t it?

[bitofc]

whatever it is, bitcoin is looking set to get segwit activated through soft fork.
the hard fork to 2MB looks very not convincing, not only the code is not properly reviewed, and a bit rush.  But with such a huge network, without backward compatibility is always a bad idea, unless it is absolutely needed, and definitely need a more careful detailed plan than segwit2x is currently doing.  But segwit 2x is definitely a good way to resolve current tension between different parties.

[DooMAD]

Developers.  Are.  Not.  Governors.  
[...]
A hard fork resulting from a significant majority of those securing the network (that's a mix of both mining nodes and non-mining full nodes) freely choosing to run code enforcing new rules is exactly how Bitcoin was designed to work and is NOT a change in governance.

Allow me to _slightly_ disagree (although I support your conclusion - a hard fork supported by miners & economy is perfectly legit for me).

Developers have a kind of "informal" (de facto) power not granted by the protocol, but that was probably taken into account when Bitcoin was conceived. I would describe it as social leadership.

Miners and economic nodes - the two groups you're referring as the two main power holders - do not decide "out of thin air" what client/protocol version they run. They must choose from the available implementations. If they want to create an own implementation, there are a lot of costs for them because they would not only probably need to pay developers, but also they'd need a marketing fund to assure most Bitcoin users run compatible software.

That is only a descriptive analysis - I simply recognize that people perceive developers as "leaders", but that should not mean that I think they should dictate development. But they are an important power group. One of the reasons is probably that good developers are scarce, and so there is not much competition between development teams - so not every idea can get enough traction to be transformed into an implementation that works (and is essentially bug-free enough for a multi-billion dollar network like Bitcoin).

With the small caveat that it doesn't always have to be a single group of developers, I'd go with that, yes.  There's an equilibrium to maintain.  The direction can't be entirely dictated by nodes, miners or developers, so each have an important role to play.

Thanks for your perspective, yet I am not going to concede that I am talking about this matter incorrectly...

Maybe we are getting caught up on semantics, yet the main framework of my contention should be obvious.

The fact of the matter has been that since XT, Classic and BU there have been various whiny attempts to complain that bitcoin is too stagnant and bitcoin needs to be able to change more easily and bitcoin was designed to be able to change easily... blah blah blah.. therefore hardfork and hardfork frequently in order that bitcoin can adjust to changing markets and become more competitive with modern payment systems blah blah blah.. bitcoin is broken the way it is and therefore it should be easier to change.

Those are attempts at changes in governance because they attempt to make bitcoin easier to change based on false premises and by assertions that there are technical problems and that bitcoin is broke and bitcoin should be x, y or z and it is not achieving.. blah blah blah.. Arguing that there is an emergency in order to deceive and trick into lowering consensus levels and consensus mechanisms.

So whether you disagree with my understanding or not or my use of the term 'governance", my point remains valid that there are ongoing complaints about the system that is in place (concededly evolving with the passage of time as you mentioned examples of possible ways to evolve) in order to attempt to lower various consensus thresholds and to make bitcoin more moldable, and even if some of those changes do occur over time, as you mentioned with your examples, it does not mean that there is not going to be resistance to various more extreme attempts, such as attempts to hardfork at lower consensus levels.

I only recall people saying that the code shouldn't ossify completely to the point where no change can ever be made.  The notion that consensus should be easier to change was a smallblockist strawman and a baseless accusation from what I remember seeing.  Maybe I just missed that particular argument, I don't know.

Plus, consensus changing once doesn't necessarily mean it's easier to change again, unless those who decided they couldn't follow along volunteered to fork away, meaning their voice would hold no weight in future forks.  Think about it.  If everyone who is involved in securing the network now remains part of the network after a fork, it's no easier or harder for consensus to change again in future because every participant still has the same power they always had.  There's still no change in the consensus mechanism.  It's still not a change in governance.  You're still wide of the mark.

[Lauda]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1290358.msg20028136#msg20028136
What do they have what I do not?

Decred is a scam project (and before some ignorant idiot starts defending shitcoins, not long ago they claimed that Core developers were leaving Bitcoin to join it). Decred has majority capital vote which is horrible. Bitcoin does not work like that.

One of biggest mistakes of Bitcoin was not focusing to fix the 1M problem properly while it was still small project.

Upping the limit or even removing it isn't a fix of any kind. Doing either one has severe negative side effects.

Even the SegWit2x is not final solution to the scalling problem, but there is no better working code with enought support to get implemented right now.

SegWit2x code is way too rushed. The original Segwit code is the most superior one (albeit using BIP9 with corrupt miners was a mistake).

[Alttrader203]

I like the fact that bitcoin has no governance. That is how you keep it decentralized.

This way, no government can pull the plug.

However, as we are all interested in bitcoin for whatever our reasons are, we want it to be able to develop.

By simple rules of nature: if you can not evolve, you will not survive.

Hence, we need to have some way of creating consensus.

I really hope that we can talk to each other to understand why people suggest certain things, without making this a political governance issue.

In the end: if any group feels they are owning bitcoin governance, bitcoin will fail.

We all own it. We all have our say. But we cannot reject proposals, even if they come from a group that threatens bitcoin with a fork.

[dinofelis]

I like the fact that bitcoin has no governance. That is how you keep it decentralized.

This way, no government can pull the plug.

However, as we are all interested in bitcoin for whatever our reasons are, we want it to be able to develop.

By simple rules of nature: if you can not evolve, you will not survive.

Hence, we need to have some way of creating consensus.

I really hope that we can talk to each other to understand why people suggest certain things, without making this a political governance issue.

In the end: if any group feels they are owning bitcoin governance, bitcoin will fail.

We all own it. We all have our say. But we cannot reject proposals, even if they come from a group that threatens bitcoin with a fork.

I think this is the fundamental misunderstanding and the fundamental contradiction in "crypto currency development".

But first, one should make a distinction between the protocol and the code.
The rules of bitcoin, the protocol, is a contract between all users.  It is "the law of bitcoin".
The implementation of these rules is the code.  It "runs bitcoin".

Of course, the code is free to evolve, to become more efficient, there can be many code implementations.... as long as it respects "the law".   This is similar to having several e-mail clients and servers, while they all talk SMTP.  There can be very efficient implementations, and there can be much simpler implementations that are not so efficient.  It doesn't matter.  Everyone can write in principle his bitcoin node or bitcoin miner software, as long as it sticks to the protocol, there's no problem.

However, a change in the protocol is something entirely different.  This is not "evolution of code", it is "modification of the law", or "modification of the contract".   This is the DEFINITION of politics: the power to change the law, the rules, the contract.  Given that bitcoin handles real-world economic value, any such change in rule will make winners and losers.  The losers will not agree (but may be overwhelmed by the power of the political decision, lobbied by the winners).

The entire invention of a decentralized system was to have NO POLITICAL POWER, and hence, essentially, to have immutability of the rules.  The only solution to having no political power, is to have no possible change of the rules.

The true problem is that bitcoin's rules are badly set up.  They didn't solve certain issues, they put in artificial limitations, but one has no solution to this problem in bitcoin's economic model.

It is absolutely possible to have a system with a LAW that is immutable and doesn't need to evolve.  But then, that law should have been conceived to be, indeed, immutable.  Bitcoin's law wasn't, because at its conception, these notions weren't fully understood.  Changing bitcoin's law into something more workable will need (centralized) political power, which will bring economic advantage to those being able to exert that power (like in all modifiable law systems, where an aristocracy can modify the law, and in doing so, serve its own advantages, and comforting their position).

[JayJuanGee]

Thanks for your perspective, yet I am not going to concede that I am talking about this matter incorrectly...

Maybe we are getting caught up on semantics, yet the main framework of my contention should be obvious.

The fact of the matter has been that since XT, Classic and BU there have been various whiny attempts to complain that bitcoin is too stagnant and bitcoin needs to be able to change more easily and bitcoin was designed to be able to change easily... blah blah blah.. therefore hardfork and hardfork frequently in order that bitcoin can adjust to changing markets and become more competitive with modern payment systems blah blah blah.. bitcoin is broken the way it is and therefore it should be easier to change.

Those are attempts at changes in governance because they attempt to make bitcoin easier to change based on false premises and by assertions that there are technical problems and that bitcoin is broke and bitcoin should be x, y or z and it is not achieving.. blah blah blah.. Arguing that there is an emergency in order to deceive and trick into lowering consensus levels and consensus mechanisms.

So whether you disagree with my understanding or not or my use of the term 'governance", my point remains valid that there are ongoing complaints about the system that is in place (concededly evolving with the passage of time as you mentioned examples of possible ways to evolve) in order to attempt to lower various consensus thresholds and to make bitcoin more moldable, and even if some of those changes do occur over time, as you mentioned with your examples, it does not mean that there is not going to be resistance to various more extreme attempts, such as attempts to hardfork at lower consensus levels.

I only recall people saying that the code shouldn't ossify completely to the point where no change can ever be made. 

Part of the argument is that there is no reason for the change, and change should be easier to make.. . but there was no real technical justification.. besides the desire to make change easier.

The notion that consensus should be easier to change was a smallblockist strawman and a baseless accusation from what I remember seeing.  Maybe I just missed that particular argument, I don't know.

Sounds like you missed the point.

Plus, consensus changing once doesn't necessarily mean it's easier to change again, unless those who decided they couldn't follow along volunteered to fork away, meaning their voice would hold no weight in future forks.  Think about it. 

I am thinking about it.  There is a dynamic called precedence, which works in a lot of practices.  Once a pattern or practice is established that becomes the standard for the future.

If everyone who is involved in securing the network now remains part of the network after a fork, it's no easier or harder for consensus to change again in future because every participant still has the same power they always had.  There's still no change in the consensus mechanism.  It's still not a change in governance.  You're still wide of the mark.

What the fuck are you talking about?  There is no such thing as everyone staying the same.  Stakeholds and participants are constantly changing in the real world, and power is partly distributed by participation and effort.  So if a standard is established in which a change is made because of this much hash power is accumulated, for example, then that would be a guideline for future decisions for change.  I don't know why you are trying to personalize this question regarding consensus.

[DooMAD]

Plus, consensus changing once doesn't necessarily mean it's easier to change again, unless those who decided they couldn't follow along volunteered to fork away, meaning their voice would hold no weight in future forks.  Think about it.  

I am thinking about it.  There is a dynamic called precedence, which works in a lot of practices.  Once a pattern or practice is established that becomes the standard for the future.

If everyone who is involved in securing the network now remains part of the network after a fork, it's no easier or harder for consensus to change again in future because every participant still has the same power they always had.  There's still no change in the consensus mechanism.  It's still not a change in governance.  You're still wide of the mark.

What the fuck are you talking about?  There is no such thing as everyone staying the same.  Stakeholds and participants are constantly changing in the real world, and power is partly distributed by participation and effort.  So if a standard is established in which a change is made because of this much hash power is accumulated, for example, then that would be a guideline for future decisions for change.  I don't know why you are trying to personalize this question regarding consensus.

Obviously participation levels change over time as a natural ebb and flow, but we're talking about what happens during a fork.  The point is, a consensual fork in and of itself doesn't necessarily change the level of participation.  Or to put it another way, a bucket can hold more or less water depending on how far you decide to fill it up, but if you tip all that water into a second bucket, the act of moving the water from one bucket to another doesn't change the amount of water you had in it (unless it gets messy like a contentious fork might).  So again, a fork doesn't necessarily make it easier to fork again in future, unless some of the people securing the network decide they don't want to participate anymore because they don't approve of the new fork.  And precedence or not, it doesn't mean Bitcoin will start forking for shits and giggles whenever a new idea gets proposed.  It will only happen if and when consensus decides so.  Which is how it has always been.  And if that's how it has always been, it clearly isn't a change in governance.

All said, it sounds as though you want to make the argument that just because you don't think the rules should change, that no one can change them, but can't quite bring yourself to say it.

and even if some of those changes do occur over time, as you mentioned with your examples, it does not mean that there is not going to be resistance to various more extreme attempts, such as attempts to hardfork at lower consensus levels.

It's entirely up to those who choose to run the code what level of support they're willing to accept before taking the plunge.  Nothin' you can do to stop 'em, but you don't have to join 'em.  And still not a change in governance if they can form the longest chain and have sufficient node support and economic activity to propagate that chain.  Again, that's just how Bitcoin works.  

[Netnox]

whatever it is, bitcoin is looking set to get segwit activated through soft fork.
the hard fork to 2MB looks very not convincing, not only the code is not properly reviewed, and a bit rush.  But with such a huge network, without backward compatibility is always a bad idea, unless it is absolutely needed, and definitely need a more careful detailed plan than segwit2x is currently doing.  But segwit 2x is definitely a good way to resolve current tension between different parties.

2MB may prove to be a very short-term solution. Looking at the growth in the number of users, I have to say that within the next 12 months, the increased 2MB block size will also prove to be inadequate.

[JayJuanGee]

Plus, consensus changing once doesn't necessarily mean it's easier to change again, unless those who decided they couldn't follow along volunteered to fork away, meaning their voice would hold no weight in future forks.  Think about it.  

I am thinking about it.  There is a dynamic called precedence, which works in a lot of practices.  Once a pattern or practice is established that becomes the standard for the future.

If everyone who is involved in securing the network now remains part of the network after a fork, it's no easier or harder for consensus to change again in future because every participant still has the same power they always had.  There's still no change in the consensus mechanism.  It's still not a change in governance.  You're still wide of the mark.

What the fuck are you talking about?  There is no such thing as everyone staying the same.  Stakeholds and participants are constantly changing in the real world, and power is partly distributed by participation and effort.  So if a standard is established in which a change is made because of this much hash power is accumulated, for example, then that would be a guideline for future decisions for change.  I don't know why you are trying to personalize this question regarding consensus.

Obviously participation levels change over time as a natural ebb and flow, but we're talking about what happens during a fork.  The point is, a consensual fork in and of itself doesn't necessarily change the level of participation.  Or to put it another way, a bucket can hold more or less water depending on how far you decide to fill it up, but if you tip all that water into a second bucket, the act of moving the water from one bucket to another doesn't change the amount of water you had in it (unless it gets messy like a contentious fork might).  So again, a fork doesn't necessarily make it easier to fork again in future, unless some of the people securing the network decide they don't want to participate anymore because they don't approve of the new fork.  And precedence or not, it doesn't mean Bitcoin will start forking for shits and giggles whenever a new idea gets proposed.  It will only happen if and when consensus decides so.  Which is how it has always been.  And if that's how it has always been, it clearly isn't a change in governance.

I doubt that any kind of analogy of bitcoin value to water in buckets is fitting to crypto, financial, political and/or social competition and/or cooperation concepts.

Also, you have now asserted that forking is consensual.

Sure there are not going to be very many issues if a change is consensual, so if you assume some matter is consensual then you are changing the parameters of reality by assuming the very thing that it is in contention -- namely how is consensual is defined and at what threshold levels.

In other words, a contentious hardfork is problematic, and a consensual hardfork is not problematic, and if you assume the hardfork to be consensual, then of course it is not problematic and you win. 

It seems to me that you are assuming facts that are not yet in evidence because we still don't know what miners and nodes are going to do because some software is still being developed and they don't have the software to run to show what they are doing in order to verify whether a matter is contentious or not and what consensus levels are being reached for the various options that are going to be available.

All said, it sounds as though you want to make the argument that just because you don't think the rules should change, that no one can change them, but can't quite bring yourself to say it.

Sure, it is easier to win a battle if you make up the grounds of the battle and then declare your own victory.


I have no problem with change; however, if there is a rule that is already in place that says, we change the rules upon reaching y level of consensus, and then you come in and try to change the rule with x level of consensus (and x is less than y), then you have attempted to change the rule without reaching an adequate level of consensus.  It does not mean that you are wrong, you just have not reached an adequate level in accordance with the existing rules in order to change the rules.  Once you reach the adequate level, then I am more than happy to live with the new rules whatever they might be.

and even if some of those changes do occur over time, as you mentioned with your examples, it does not mean that there is not going to be resistance to various more extreme attempts, such as attempts to hardfork at lower consensus levels.

It's entirely up to those who choose to run the code what level of support they're willing to accept before taking the plunge.  Nothin' you can do to stop 'em, but you don't have to join 'em.  And still not a change in governance if they can form the longest chain and have sufficient node support and economic activity to propagate that chain.  Again, that's just how Bitcoin works.  

There is not only ONE way that things can turn out, so get off of your lecturing about how bitcoin works high horse.    Do you really know what is going to happen?

You are correct that people can do whatever the fuck they want and to see whether others follow them, and they can do that with 10% or 50% or 80% ... Of course.  I can also chose whether or not to follow.  I am not locked in. There are a lot of people who can chose what to do.  Do you know what they are going to do?  I doubt it.  All we have are buckets of probabilities and we can attempt to make approximations of outcomes based on what we perceive to be the various options and how we believe various actors will act.

[BillyBobZorton]

whatever it is, bitcoin is looking set to get segwit activated through soft fork.
the hard fork to 2MB looks very not convincing, not only the code is not properly reviewed, and a bit rush.  But with such a huge network, without backward compatibility is always a bad idea, unless it is absolutely needed, and definitely need a more careful detailed plan than segwit2x is currently doing.  But segwit 2x is definitely a good way to resolve current tension between different parties.

2MB may prove to be a very short-term solution. Looking at the growth in the number of users, I have to say that within the next 12 months, the increased 2MB block size will also prove to be inadequate.

What growth? Look at the mempool, most of the time it's far from full. Transactions are cheap. It's only when the mempool gets spammed out of nowhere that people cry about bitcoin. Ver and co spam the network to get the big block narrative going and confuse noobs into thinking increase the blocksize is a must now or else we'll die. Bollocks.

[DooMAD]

and even if some of those changes do occur over time, as you mentioned with your examples, it does not mean that there is not going to be resistance to various more extreme attempts, such as attempts to hardfork at lower consensus levels.

It's entirely up to those who choose to run the code what level of support they're willing to accept before taking the plunge.  Nothin' you can do to stop 'em, but you don't have to join 'em.  And still not a change in governance if they can form the longest chain and have sufficient node support and economic activity to propagate that chain.  Again, that's just how Bitcoin works.  

There is not only ONE way that things can turn out, so get off of your lecturing about how bitcoin works high horse.    Do you really know what is going to happen?

You are correct that people can do whatever the fuck they want and to see whether others follow them, and they can do that with 10% or 50% or 80% ... Of course.  I can also chose whether or not to follow.  I am not locked in. There are a lot of people who can chose what to do.  Do you know what they are going to do?  I doubt it.  All we have are buckets of probabilities and we can attempt to make approximations of outcomes based on what we perceive to be the various options and how we believe various actors will act.

OMFG learn to read, already.  Where did I say that was the only way it could play out?  I said if it happens, it's not a change of governance.  If or whether it happens with 99% support or 51% support, longest chain wins if it has sufficient nodes and tx.  How is that simple concept so hard for you to wrap your head around?  I even said you don't have to follow along, so I can't understand why you're repeating my same point back to me like some brain damaged parrot.

I doubt that any kind of analogy of bitcoin value to water in buckets is fitting to crypto, financial, political and/or social competition and/or cooperation concepts.

Also, you have now asserted that forking is consensual.

Sure there are not going to be very many issues if a change is consensual, so if you assume some matter is consensual then you are changing the parameters of reality by assuming the very thing that it is in contention -- namely how is consensual is defined and at what threshold levels.

In other words, a contentious hardfork is problematic, and a consensual hardfork is not problematic, and if you assume the hardfork to be consensual, then of course it is not problematic and you win.  

It seems to me that you are assuming facts that are not yet in evidence because we still don't know what miners and nodes are going to do because some software is still being developed and they don't have the software to run to show what they are doing in order to verify whether a matter is contentious or not and what consensus levels are being reached for the various options that are going to be available.

Since analogies only seem to cause you to get even more lost on what the point actually is, I won't bother in future.  I'm not saying all forks are consensual, again, learn to read.  I'm saying that in the ideal event of a consensual fork, there's no shift in the balance of power or the consensus mechanism.  I'm also saying that in the event of a contentious fork, that could cause an imbalance and you might actually have a valid point (yay for you).  Because if some of the users securing the chain choose to fork away, that might well have a bearing on subsequent forks being easier to achieve if there are less voices of dissent.

So if you're quite finished grabbing the wrong end of the stick and then trying to stab me with it, I suggest we just agree to disagree.

[mike4001]

What growth? Look at the mempool, most of the time it's far from full. Transactions are cheap. It's only when the mempool gets spammed out of nowhere that people cry about bitcoin. Ver and co spam the network to get the big block narrative going and confuse noobs into thinking increase the blocksize is a must now or else we'll die. Bollocks.

Still not a bad thing to go the 2 MB blocks even if currently 1 MB would be sufficient.

In a couple of years it will not be and then we have double the headroom.

[jbreher]

Part of the argument is that there is no reason for the change, and change should be easier to make.. . but there was no real technical justification.. besides the desire to make change easier.

Are you sure you're not describing the versionbits modification part of The SegWit Omnibus Changeset?

[JayJuanGee]

[edited out]

OMFG learn to read, already.  Where did I say that was the only way it could play out?  I said if it happens, it's not a change of governance.  If or whether it happens with 99% support or 51% support, longest chain wins if it has sufficient nodes and tx.  How is that simple concept so hard for you to wrap your head around?  I even said you don't have to follow along, so I can't understand why you're repeating my same point back to me like some brain damaged parrot.

If we are saying the same thing with different words, then maybe we agree?  Why do I get the feeling that we don't agree?  Must just be me, no?  We are arguing over semantics..   Oh?

[edited out]

Since analogies only seem to cause you to get even more lost on what the point actually is, I won't bother in future.  I'm not saying all forks are consensual, again, learn to read.  

Seems to me that you were suggesting a hardfork that would be consensual without really defining what consensual would be except that people would like to follow it... for you consensual seems to be anything that people follow, go figure!!!

Regarding my reading, if you are making arguments that are all over the place and internally contradicting, then of course, you should expect that I might get confused about what point(s) you are attempting to make.

I'm saying that in the ideal event of a consensual fork, there's no shift in the balance of power or the consensus mechanism.  

Yeah of course, if there is consensus (at what ever level that is deemed non controversial), then that seems to be just a reinforcing of the current rules - and even a confirmation of an agreement that the rules are working for that particular application.

I'm also saying that in the event of a contentious fork, that could cause an imbalance and you might actually have a valid point (yay for you).  

Of course, I have a point.  This is the crux of the argument to determine at what point (or what consensus) threshold a hardfork would be imposed and still be considered to be safe to write off the minority - 95% seems pretty good for those kinds of scenarios, but of course, it could still work out at a lower consensus threshold, even if it would be more risky. 

We both likely recognize that there is a continuum here.. The lower the consensus threshold in a contentious hardfork, the more risk of an actual chain split... The inverse is true, too.  The higher the consensus threshold, the less risk of an actual chain split.  The actual number in which to achieve nonsplitting is not any kind of exact science and reasonable people will likely have different opinions about making such predictions regarding how others might behave, whether that is a minority of 5% or a minority of 20%, or some in-between variant.

Because if some of the users securing the chain choose to fork away, that might well have a bearing on subsequent forks being easier to achieve if there are less voices of dissent.

It does not really matter that much, and maybe there is a kind of inevitability that some users are going to feel more strongly about forking and less value about keeping the chain together.  Maybe it would stop at two splits, but maybe there would be further splits.  It is not easy to determine.  We could imagine that having more than 1000 alts, already that there would be considerable desire to NOT create another alt - but the problem with this thinking is that we cannot really control human behavior, and any fork splitting might not be calculated to create another alt, but instead of the belief that they are going to become the longest chain, as we already seem to agree on some variation of this.

So if you're quite finished grabbing the wrong end of the stick and then trying to stab me with it, I suggest we just agree to disagree.

I doubt that we are done yet, and sure, I am o.k. with agreeing to disagree at some point - even if I might not be clear about which parts we are agreeing to disagree about.  Seems that we are largely disagreeing about semantics including what is potentially likely outcomes in the future based on some of the cards that are on the table or what might be in the deck or in the hands of the other players including whether the other players are bluffing or if they have sufficient cards to either win or to double down with confidence. 

Hahahaha... some of what we are arguing about seems to be unknowns or how we think another player may play his hand.    What a dumb argument you started.!!!!       

[JayJuanGee]

Part of the argument is that there is no reason for the change, and change should be easier to make.. . but there was no real technical justification.. besides the desire to make change easier.

Are you sure you're not describing the versionbits modification part of The SegWit Omnibus Changeset?

In terms of your frameworks, I don't know what I am describing.

I thought that I was describing part of the dynamic of the historical propositions of XT, Classic and BU, which was that they were wanting to achieve a change in the governance - but they were arguing that there was a technical necessity that was justifying their position.. so each time, there was a threat of a hardfork in the soon future in the event that core did not accommodate in order to make the technical change (which was argued to be an upgrade to 2mb blocksize limits).  Initially, in about late 2015, Segwit was communicated as a compromise change to the code that would partly address scaling issues without a need to hardfork or to immediately implement a 2mb increase or further increases or changes to governance that would allow increases to be easier in the future... or even the automatic increases that were initially part of the XT proposition.

Anyhow, I was just suggesting that the arguments about technical necessity were merely guises to allow for easier future changes by either having the changes automatic or changing the process in order to allow for easier future changes (which are all significant changes to governance - that makes it much more difficult to make changes to bitcoin).

Initially, in late 2015, it seemed that a large number of folks were onboard with segwit; however, with the passage of time, there has been more expressions of disagreement about it - but still seemingly that a lot of the disagreements have been dressed up in terms of concerns about technicalities, when in reality there are underlying motives that are ongoing attempts to change governance and to make it easier to change bitcoin in terms of how BIPs are made, discussed, tested and implemented through procedures followed by core...and seemingly some hate regarding the influence over the procedure of some of the core personalities.

[-ck]

Okay and back on topic, it looks like a showstopper bug has shown up in their segwit2x code.

They've hit the >1MB hard fork on testnet which refuses to accept a block unless it is bigger than 1MB:
https://github.com/btc1/bitcoin/issues/65
At this point there aren't enough transactions to create a second block with more than 1MB of transactions on testnet, leading to a fork with 6000 blocks that aren't using the 2x code and the two forks not speaking to each other.

They argue that mainnet is busy enough that there will always be blocks with more than 1MB of transactions so it won't be a problem.

This is utter bullshit as over the past week I've seen my mempool easily get down below 1MB of transactions now that the transaction spam has ended on mainnet. Making a followup block mandatory 2MB when nothing forces mining to do so is a showstopper IMO.

Now they're all scrambling and arguing how to tackle it... This is going to be interesting. I might start selling popcorn.

[jbreher]

Okay and back on topic, it looks like a showstopper bug has shown up in their segwit2x code.

They've hit the >1MB hard fork on testnet which refuses to accept a block unless it is bigger than 1MB:
https://github.com/btc1/bitcoin/issues/65
At this point there aren't enough transactions to create a second block with more than 1MB of transactions on testnet, leading to a fork with 6000 blocks that aren't using the 2x code and the two forks not speaking to each other.

Nevermind. I seem to have misunderstood what -ck was saying.

Showstopper? Doesn't look like it. Code working as intended. On reaching specified block height, block must be over 1MB to be valid. There are not enough transactions on the test net to hit 1MB before block mined. Why not? Someone threw massive hashpower at the testnet all of a sudden. 6000 blocks mined in 24 hours. Troll? Extreme tester? Doesn't matter. When mining slows sufficiently such that transactions can accumulate, chain will fork.  Actually sounds like a success case to me.