Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[cypherdoc]

The Genesis Block mentions bailouts for TBTF banks.  It does not mention Visa or Paypal.

"banks" were used as a broad term to encompass Visa/Paypal

Poppycock.  Provably false demonstrably wrong poppycock.

The Genesis Block contains the Holy Text as follows:

Code:

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

The Times article cited does not mention Visa/Paypal as being among the banks on the brink of receiving from the Chancellor a second bailout:

    Billions may be needed as lending squeeze tightens
     
    Alistair Darling has been forced to consider a second bailout for banks as the lending drought worsens.
     
    The Chancellor will decide within weeks whether to pump billions more into the economy as evidence mounts that the £37 billion part-nationalisation last year has failed to keep credit flowing. Options include cash injections, offering banks cheaper state guarantees to raise money privately or buying up “toxic assets”, The Times has learnt.
     
    The Bank of England revealed yesterday that, despite intense pressure, the banks curbed lending in the final quarter of last year and plan even tighter restrictions in the coming months. Its findings will alarm the Treasury.
     
    The Bank is expected to take yet more aggressive action this week by cutting the base rate from its current level of 2 per cent. Doing so would reduce the cost of borrowing but have little effect on the availability of loans.
     
    Whitehall sources said that ministers planned to “keep the banks on the boil” but accepted that they need more help to restore lending levels. Formally, the Treasury plans to focus on state-backed gurantees to encourage private finance, but a number of interventions are on the table, including further injections of taxpayers’ cash.
     
    Under one option, a “bad bank” would be created to dispose of bad debts. The Treasury would take bad loans off the hands of troubled banks, perhaps swapping them for government bonds. The toxic assets, blamed for poisoning the financial system, would be parked in a state vehicle or “bad bank” that would manage them and attempt to dispose of them while “detoxifying” the main-stream banking system.
     
    The idea would mirror the initial proposal by Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, to underpin the American banking system by buying up toxic assets. The idea was abandoned, ironically, when Mr Paulson decided to follow Britain’s plan of injecting cash directly into troubled banks.
     
    Mr Darling, Gordon Brown and Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, are expected to take the final decision on what extra help to give the banks by the end of the month.
     
    The banks have taken much of the heat for the economy’s woes. But ministers are said increasingly to accept that attacking the banks will not by itself transform a situation that is jeopardising Britain’s economic prospects.
     
    Insiders point out that Mr Darling’s criticism of mortgage lenders has softened in recent weeks.
     
    After the Bank of England’s radical cuts in interest rates over the past two months, the focus at the Treasury has shifted away from mortgage lending to the pressure being put on businesses by the scarcity of loans, which is emerging as the bigger economic danger.
     
    Richard Lambert, the Director-General of the CBI, said yesterday: “The Government is going to have to do more to restore credit flows across the economy.”
     
    He said that the car industry was especially vulnerable: “Without access to credit or loan guarantees on commercial terms, this vital part of the economy will incur lasting damage.”
     
    The scale of the lending drought was highlighted as separate Bank figures showed that the number of new home loans approved plunged to a record low in November. Only 27,000 mortgages for house purchase were approved by banks and building societies, down from a revised 31,000 in October. It is the lowest level since the Bank began collecting data in 1999. The Bank’s quarterly credit conditions survey showed that banks restricted access to loans of all kinds by companies and consumers in the past quarter, and that they plan to tighten the screws more in this quarter.
     
    Halifax reported that the price of the average house fell by more than £100 a day last year. Its quarterly figures showed that the average house ended the year down in price by £37,178, or 16.2 per cent.
     
    PRESSING THEIR POINT
     
    “The single most pressing challenge to economic policy is to get the banking system to get lending in any normal sense”Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, Nov 26
     
    “They are close to cutting off their noses to spite their faces”
    Lord Mandelson, Business Secretary, accuses the banks of being too conservative, Nov 30
     
    “The banks have to understand that we have put substantial sums of public money in to support them. They, in turn, need to play their part”
    Alistair Darling, Dec 10
     
    “Quite clearly a lot more needs to be done”
    Alistair Darling, Dec 15
     
    January 3, 2009
    Francis Elliott, Deputy Political Editor, and Gary Duncan, Economics Editor

Visa and Paypal make lots of money.  They are not TBTF zombie banks.  They are not even banks; as retail payment processors they have almost nothing to do with BIS money-printing and other commercial/institutional credit related matters!

First you disown the core devs (and Adam Back, because Elders of Blockstream Conspiracy) who wrote and keep running the software you use for your node.

Then you threw under the bus Nick Szabo, who invented not only Bitcoin and Monero (e-cash) but Ethereum (smart contracts/property) as well.

Is anything too sacred to be sacrificed for the instant gratification you believe GavinCoin will provide?

I am guessing the answer is no, because you are now twisting to suit your meaning the Holy Text of Satoshi's Genisis Block.

blah, blah, blah from the Monero pumper.  btw, i see you cleaned up your sig to hide that fact 

[1498257763]

1498257763

[1498257763]

1498257763

[1498257763]

1498257763

[1498257763]

1498257763

[justusranvier]

Hi guise, how's the slow-mo trainwreck going in here? everyone happy? good  

Notice how it went off the rails when you started crappin all over the devs?

Try to keep it in your trousers, remember who's piloting this plane, who's the passengers and stop trying to grab the stick, KK? Ta, tally ho.

What are you, some kind of mafia enforcer?

Are you're saying that if anyone dares to question the #bitcoin-wizards they'll send their sockpuppets around to vandalize conversations as retaliation?

Wanton character assassination, smearing, slander (libel) and sundry rat-bastard tactics are not "daring to question". Let's keep the debates honourable, civil and based on their merits and things will go along just fine. Merely an observation.

How's your closed source projects with Goldman Sachs alumni coming along btw Justus?

Would you mind clarifying your definitions of "honorable" and "civil"?

[iCEBREAKER]

If Satoshi had seen 1MB blocks as being absolutely critical to achieving the goals of the project, similar to the fixed distribution in terms of importance, why not act or write in a way that emphasized that? In fact, he acted and wrote as though the blocksize would absolutely be variable over the time vs technological capability curve. 

The hypothesis we're currently testing is

"If Bitcoin was ever competing with Paypal or Visa, it would not even start. It competes with gold and central banks."

Nobody except MPEX is saying "1MB FOREVER & EVER NO MATTER WHAT."

Of course the 1MB cap will change "eventually" (to use Satoshi's word).

The debate is over when, by how much, in what manner, and (most of all) to what end.

Frap.doc@armchair.net feels he understands e-cash better than the guys (Szabo and Back) who invented ~2/3 of Bitcoin/Monero/Ethereum.

It would be funny, but it's sad watching the Peter Principle apply itself to someone you like.   

Here's a great example, in which Frap.doc doesn't even bother trying to substantiate his wacky, vaguely senile assertion that the bank bailouts Satoshi singularly cited in Genesis had something to do with Visa/Paypal:

The Genesis Block mentions bailouts for TBTF banks.  It does not mention Visa or Paypal.

"banks" were used as a broad term to encompass Visa/Paypal

Poppycock.  Provably false demonstrably wrong poppycock.

The Genesis Block contains the Holy Text as follows:

Code:

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

The Times article cited does not mention Visa/Paypal as being among the banks on the brink of receiving from the Chancellor a second bailout:

blah, blah, blah from the Monero pumper.  btw, i see you cleaned up your sig to hide that fact 

[vokain]

blah, blah, blah from the Monero pumper.  btw, i see you cleaned up your sig to hide that fact  

Did you see the point of the sig? If one were to follow,

"I could not agree more that developers should not be in charge of the
network rules.
Which is why - in my opinion - hard forks cannot be controversial things. A
controversial change to the software, forced to be adopted by the public
because the only alternative is a permanent chain fork, is a use of power
that developers (or anyone) should not have, and an incredibly dangerous
precedent for other changes that only a subset of participants would want."

one might find that,

"A decentralized payment system must not depend on a single person's decisions, even if this person is a core developer. Hard constants and magic numbers in the code deter the system's evolution and therefore should be eliminated (or at least be cut down to the minimum). Every crucial limit (like max block size or min fee amount) should be re-calculated based on the system's previous state. Therefore, it always changes adaptively and independently, allowing the network to develop on it's own.
CryptoNote has the following parameters which adjust automatically for each new block:
1) Difficulty. The general idea of our algorithm is to sum all the work that nodes have performed during the last 720 blocks and divide it by the time they have spent to accomplish it. The measure of the work is the corresponding difficulty value for each of the blocks. The time is calculated as follows: sort all the 720 timestamps and cut-off 20% of the outliers. The range of the rest 600 values is the time which was spent for 80% of the corresponding blocks.
2) Max block size. Let MN be the median value of the last N blocks sizes. Then the "hard-limit" for the size of accepting blocks is 2*MN. It averts blockchain bloating but still allows the limit to slowly grow with the time if necessary. Transaction size does not need to be limited explicitly. It is bounded by the size of the block."

[cypherdoc]

If Satoshi had seen 1MB blocks as being absolutely critical to achieving the goals of the project, similar to the fixed distribution in terms of importance, why not act or write in a way that emphasized that? In fact, he acted and wrote as though the blocksize would absolutely be variable over the time vs technological capability curve. 

The hypothesis we're currently testing is

"If Bitcoin was ever competing with Paypal or Visa, it would not even start. It competes with gold and central banks."

Nobody except MPEX is saying "1MB FOREVER & EVER NO MATTER WHAT."

Of course the 1MB cap will change "eventually" (to use Satoshi's word).

The debate is over when, by how much, in what manner, and (most of all) to what end.

Frap.doc@armchair.net feels he understands e-cash better than the guys (Szabo and Back) who invented ~2/3 of Bitcoin/Monero/Ethereum.

It would be funny, but it's sad watching the Peter Principle apply itself to someone you like.   

Here's a great example, in which Frap.doc doesn't even bother trying to substantiate his wacky, vaguely senile assertion that the bank bailouts Satoshi singularly cited in Genesis had something to do with Visa/Paypal:

The Genesis Block mentions bailouts for TBTF banks.  It does not mention Visa or Paypal.

"banks" were used as a broad term to encompass Visa/Paypal

Poppycock.  Provably false demonstrably wrong poppycock.

The Genesis Block contains the Holy Text as follows:

Code:

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

The Times article cited does not mention Visa/Paypal as being among the banks on the brink of receiving from the Chancellor a second bailout:

blah, blah, blah from the Monero pumper.  btw, i see you cleaned up your sig to hide that fact 

having invested before them must mean something.  i've always said i appreciate their contributions but they didn't invent Bitcoin, Satoshi did, so stop trying to impart his greatness onto them. 

your problem is your reading all sorts of meanings that support your view into 2 slim <140 char messages; the Chancellor's and a tweet, neither of which supports anything you say. 

it's a blowhard argument.  you're acting just like TPTB.

[majamalu]

blah, blah, blah from the Monero pumper.  btw, i see you cleaned up your sig to hide that fact  

Maybe he hid it after reading this:

09:06:10 fluffypony: maybe it's best to think of Monero as something like Freicoin - an experiment in creating something usable and useful

09:06:32 fluffypony: and if it fails it doesn't matter, we're not trying to build a business, we're advancing technology

09:06:32 mircea_popescu: so you are in the endsaying this is more of a hobby than serious.

09:06:35 mircea_popescu: right.

09:07:33 adlai: fluffypony: blockstream is a for-profit company in order to steal your lunch

09:07:48 mircea_popescu: adlai i doubt it'd be his lunch.

09:08:05 adlai: it's a metaphor

09:08:48 mircea_popescu: guy pretty much said hedun expect to eat off it.

09:08:52 fluffypony: yeah

09:08:53 fluffypony: lol

http://log.bitcoin-assets.com//?date=11-12-2014#951147

[cypherdoc]

"A decentralized payment system must not depend on a single person's companies decisions from financial conflicts, even especially if this person company is a composes 2 core developers and 3 commiters. Hard constants and magic numbers in the code deter the system's evolution and therefore should be eliminated (or at least be cut down to the minimum). Every crucial limit (like max block size or min fee amount) should be re-calculated based on the system's previous state. Therefore, it always changes adaptively and independently, allowing the network to develop on it's own.
CryptoNote has the following parameters which adjust automatically for each new block:
1) Difficulty. The general idea of our algorithm is to sum all the work that nodes have performed during the last 720 blocks and divide it by the time they have spent to accomplish it. The measure of the work is the corresponding difficulty value for each of the blocks. The time is calculated as follows: sort all the 720 timestamps and cut-off 20% of the outliers. The range of the rest 600 values is the time which was spent for 80% of the corresponding blocks.
2) Max block size. Let MN be the median value of the last N blocks sizes. Then the "hard-limit" for the size of accepting blocks is 2*MN. It averts blockchain bloating but still allows the limit to slowly grow with the time if necessary. Transaction size does not need to be limited explicitly. It is bounded by the size of the block."

ftfy

[iCEBREAKER]

blah, blah, blah from the Monero pumper.  btw, i see you cleaned up your sig to hide that fact  

Did you see the point of the sig? If one were to follow,

"I could not agree more that developers should not be in charge of the
network rules.
Which is why - in my opinion - hard forks cannot be controversial things. A
controversial change to the software, forced to be adopted by the public
because the only alternative is a permanent chain fork, is a use of power
that developers (or anyone) should not have, and an incredibly dangerous
precedent for other changes that only a subset of participants would want."

one might find that,
"A decentralized payment system must not depend on a single person's decisions, even if this person is a core developer. Hard constants and magic numbers in the code deter the system's evolution and therefore should be eliminated (or at least be cut down to the minimum). Every crucial limit (like max block size or min fee amount) should be re-calculated based on the system's previous state. Therefore, it always changes adaptively and independently, allowing the network to develop on it's own.
CryptoNote has the following parameters which adjust automatically for each new block:
1) Difficulty. The general idea of our algorithm is to sum all the work that nodes have performed during the last 720 blocks and divide it by the time they have spent to accomplish it. The measure of the work is the corresponding difficulty value for each of the blocks. The time is calculated as follows: sort all the 720 timestamps and cut-off 20% of the outliers. The range of the rest 600 values is the time which was spent for 80% of the corresponding blocks.
2) Max block size. Let MN be the median value of the last N blocks sizes. Then the "hard-limit" for the size of accepting blocks is 2*MN. It averts blockchain bloating but still allows the limit to slowly grow with the time if necessary. Transaction size does not need to be limited explicitly. It is bounded by the size of the block."

Bitcoin collapsing.  Monero UP.

[vokain]

"A decentralized payment system must not depend on a single person's companies decisions from financial conflicts, even especially if this person company is a composes 2 core developers and 3 commiters. Hard constants and magic numbers in the code deter the system's evolution and therefore should be eliminated (or at least be cut down to the minimum). Every crucial limit (like max block size or min fee amount) should be re-calculated based on the system's previous state. Therefore, it always changes adaptively and independently, allowing the network to develop on it's own.
CryptoNote has the following parameters which adjust automatically for each new block:
1) Difficulty. The general idea of our algorithm is to sum all the work that nodes have performed during the last 720 blocks and divide it by the time they have spent to accomplish it. The measure of the work is the corresponding difficulty value for each of the blocks. The time is calculated as follows: sort all the 720 timestamps and cut-off 20% of the outliers. The range of the rest 600 values is the time which was spent for 80% of the corresponding blocks.
2) Max block size. Let MN be the median value of the last N blocks sizes. Then the "hard-limit" for the size of accepting blocks is 2*MN. It averts blockchain bloating but still allows the limit to slowly grow with the time if necessary. Transaction size does not need to be limited explicitly. It is bounded by the size of the block."

ftfy

Why a company and not the Network?

[cypherdoc]

Bitcoin collapsing.  Monero UP.
[/center]

see, didn't i tell you you were a Monero pimp?

[cypherdoc]

"A decentralized payment system must not depend on a single person's companies decisions from financial conflicts, even especially if this person company is a composes 2 core developers and 3 commiters. Hard constants and magic numbers in the code deter the system's evolution and therefore should be eliminated (or at least be cut down to the minimum). Every crucial limit (like max block size or min fee amount) should be re-calculated based on the system's previous state. Therefore, it always changes adaptively and independently, allowing the network to develop on it's own.
CryptoNote has the following parameters which adjust automatically for each new block:
1) Difficulty. The general idea of our algorithm is to sum all the work that nodes have performed during the last 720 blocks and divide it by the time they have spent to accomplish it. The measure of the work is the corresponding difficulty value for each of the blocks. The time is calculated as follows: sort all the 720 timestamps and cut-off 20% of the outliers. The range of the rest 600 values is the time which was spent for 80% of the corresponding blocks.
2) Max block size. Let MN be the median value of the last N blocks sizes. Then the "hard-limit" for the size of accepting blocks is 2*MN. It averts blockchain bloating but still allows the limit to slowly grow with the time if necessary. Transaction size does not need to be limited explicitly. It is bounded by the size of the block."

ftfy

Why a company and not the Network?

b/c the company in this case is Blockstream who has an interest in devving SC's which depend on moving tx's and fees off the mainchain.  they have $21M demanding a 10x return asap.  i predicted this kinda financial conflict would occur back in October.

[Peter R]

Here's a great example, in which Frap.doc doesn't even bother trying to substantiate his wacky, vaguely senile assertion that the bank bailouts Satoshi singularly cited in Genesis had something to do with Visa/Paypal:

The Genesis Block mentions bailouts for TBTF banks.  It does not mention Visa or Paypal.

"banks" were used as a broad term to encompass Visa/Paypal

Satoshi actually used the term "financial institution" in the white paper.  He focusses heavily on the transactional aspects of Bitcoin (e.g., the Visa/Paypal angle):

Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments. While the system works well enough for most transactions, it still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the trust based model. Completely non-reversible transactions are not really possible, since financial institutions cannot avoid mediating disputes. The cost of mediation increases transaction costs, limiting the minimum practical transaction size and cutting off the possibility for small casual transactions, and there is a broader cost in the loss of ability to make non-reversible payments for non-reversible services.

There's actually no mention of central banks in the white paper whatsoever (although he does use the term "central authority" twice).  The only mention of gold is in Section 6:

The steady addition of a constant of amount of new coins is analogous to gold miners expending resources to add gold to circulation.

TL/DR: The white paper focusses more heavily on the transactional aspects of bitcoin than on its potential as a replacement for fiat currency/gold.  

[Cconvert2G36]

Well, good, I think we've agreed 2.7 tps is inadequate in the nearish future. We can also agree that the move from 2.7 to 50,000+ of VISA/MC is impossible and undesirable due to its impossibility.

So the only question is, how much it should increase? And what is the methodology for determining the scale of increases? If sidechains begin to pick up some of the load, great.

Plenty of time to debate it out, hear proposals, even vote by using software. The ad hominem slights and MP style roastings seem to be counter productive, though they are fun.

[iCEBREAKER]

your problem is your reading all sorts of meanings that support your view into 2 slim <140 char messages; the Chancellor's and a tweet, neither of which supports anything you say. 

it's a blowhard argument.  you're acting just like TPTB.

Your problem is you are reading into the plain text of the Times article cited in Genesis by Satoshi all sorts of meanings about Visa/Paypal, despite the fact they have nothing to do with commercial credit in general or bailouts in particular, and are thus not mentioned or even alluded to.

It's a blowhard argument.  You're acting just like Frap.doc.

Bitcoin collapsing.  Monero UP.

see, didn't i tell you you were a Monero pimp?

Not quite.  When I have 0.1% of total XMR emission (18.4k), *THEN* I'll be a Monero Pimp!

[cypherdoc]

Here's a great example, in which Frap.doc doesn't even bother trying to substantiate his wacky, vaguely senile assertion that the bank bailouts Satoshi singularly cited in Genesis had something to do with Visa/Paypal:

The Genesis Block mentions bailouts for TBTF banks.  It does not mention Visa or Paypal.

"banks" were used as a broad term to encompass Visa/Paypal

Satoshi actually used the term "financial institution" in the white paper.  He focusses heavily on the transactional aspects of Bitcoin (e.g., the Visa/Paypal angle):

Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments. While the system works well enough for most transactions, it still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the trust based model. Completely non-reversible transactions are not really possible, since financial institutions cannot avoid mediating disputes. The cost of mediation increases transaction costs, limiting the minimum practical transaction size and cutting off the possibility for small casual transactions, and there is a broader cost in the loss of ability to make non-reversible payments for non-reversible services.

There's actually no mention of central banks in the white paper whatsoever (although he does use the term "central authority" twice).  The only mention of gold is in Section 6:

The steady addition of a constant of amount of new coins is analogous to gold miners expending resources to add gold to circulation.

TL/DR: The white paper focusses more heavily on the transactional aspects of bitcoin than on its potential as a replacement for fiat currency/gold.  

i'm quite sympathetic to the concept of making Bitcoin digital gold.  that's why this thread was born.

however, what the 1MB apparatchiks are missing is that Bitcoin really does represent the "ideal money".  and that includes it being used widely in a manner that gold was never able to achieve.  and that means, widespread worldwide adoption that crosses borders and gets into the hands of individuals.  for it to be considered digital gold, however,  i already talked about how that requires cheap reliable dependable tx confirmations.  that is b/c Bitcoin is digital; it can't be held, weighed, shaped, coveted, etc.  all the normal tangible aspects that poor ppl covet or expect from physical gold.  reliability, accessibility, and affordability has to replace the tangibility.

[Peter R]

i'm quite sympathetic to the concept of making Bitcoin digital gold.  that's why this thread was born.

however, what the 1MB apparatchiks are missing is that Bitcoin really does represent the "ideal money".  and that includes it being used widely in a manner that gold was never able to achieve.  and that means, widespread worldwide adoption that crosses borders and gets into the hands of individuals.  for it to be considered digital gold, however,  i already talked about how that requires cheap reliable dependable tx confirmations.  that is b/c Bitcoin is digital; it can't be held, weighed, shaped, coveted, etc.  all the normal tangible aspects that poor ppl covet or expect from physical gold.  

I agree.  I also like your example of the African kid who has to witness--with his own eyes--Bitcoin getting him the things he wants, before he'll ever be able to fathom that those digits on his phone are more valuable than the paper notes his father uses to purchase food from the market, or the little diamonds he once saw a man killed for.

We're not as smart as we think.  We need to see, touch, and experience something before we can really understand that thing.  You can't learn to ski by reading online tutorials--no matter how well you think you grok body mechanics and the laws of physics.  Similarly, the world will only understand (and come to appreciate) bitcoin by getting out there and using it.    

[cypherdoc]

i'm quite sympathetic to the concept of making Bitcoin digital gold.  that's why this thread was born.

however, what the 1MB apparatchiks are missing is that Bitcoin really does represent the "ideal money".  and that includes it being used widely in a manner that gold was never able to achieve.  and that means, widespread worldwide adoption that crosses borders and gets into the hands of individuals.  for it to be considered digital gold, however,  i already talked about how that requires cheap reliable dependable tx confirmations.  that is b/c Bitcoin is digital; it can't be held, weighed, shaped, coveted, etc.  all the normal tangible aspects that poor ppl covet or expect from physical gold.  

I agree.  I also like your example of the African kid who has to witness--with his own eyes--Bitcoin getting him the things he wants, before he'll ever be able to fathom that those digits on his phone are more valuable than the paper notes his father uses to purchase food from the market, or the little diamonds he once saw a man killed for.

We're not as smart as we think.  We need to see, touch, and experience something before we can really understand that thing.  You can't learn to ski by reading online tutorials--no matter how well you think you grok body mechanics and the laws of physics.  Similarly, the world will only understand bitcoin by getting out there and using it.    

thanks for that.  one slight correction above.  in order for that African kid to be willing to replace his desire and faith in gold he will need to be able to transact reliably, cheaply, and safely with Bitcoin.  we actually want all those kids to stop having or wanting to go down 3 ft wide holes 100 yd deep going after a hunk of metal.  now that would be grassroots and the ultimate in decentralization that no bank or gvt could ever shutdown.

[smooth]

If Satoshi had seen 1MB blocks as being absolutely critical to achieving the goals of the project, similar to the fixed distribution in terms of importance, why not act or write in a way that emphasized that? In fact, he acted and wrote as though the blocksize would absolutely be variable over the time vs technological capability curve. 

That's right, but 20 MB is way beyond the technological curve right now and for the next few years at least. It is premature.

Why did satoshi put the 1 MB cap in there in the first place? It was an "anti-spam" function, but why was it important to protect against this sort of spam?

Because the technological curve wasn't up to the task of operating a decentralized consensus system with >1 MB blocks and allowing spam beyond that point would be to allow a successful attack against the system. If it wasn't up to the task of >1 MB a few years ago, what makes anyone think it is up to the task of 20 MB now? It wasn't and it isn't.

[cypherdoc]

If Satoshi had seen 1MB blocks as being absolutely critical to achieving the goals of the project, similar to the fixed distribution in terms of importance, why not act or write in a way that emphasized that? In fact, he acted and wrote as though the blocksize would absolutely be variable over the time vs technological capability curve. 

That's right, but 20 MB is way beyond the technological curve right now and for the next few years at least. It is premature.

Why did satoshi put the 1 MB cap in there in the first place? It was an "anti-spam" function, but why was it important to protect against this sort of spam?

Because the technological curve wasn't up to the task of operating a decentralized consensus system with >1 MB blocks and allowing spam beyond that point would be to allow a successful attack against the system. If it wasn't up to the task of >1 MB a few years ago, what makes anyone think it is up to the task of 20 MB now? It wasn't and it isn't.

b/c i just debunked the main spam attack the Blockstream devs have been scaring everyone with:

Looks like Gavin's plan to get the miners to join his coup d'état is not going so great, lol

http://cointelegraph.com/news/114481/chinese-exchanges-reject-gavin-andresens-20-mb-block-size-increase

LOL, this quote just cut the legs out from Blockstream's main objection to raising the block limit; that being the large block attack  on small miners supposedly facilitated by "superior"  bandwidth connections. Well, the largest miners in the world are telling us they have "inferior"  connections! Lol! What a bunch of amateurs.

“A very large block size would be problematic for miners because the network bandwidth between China, where the majority of mining is done, and rest of the world is heavily restricted. Important proposals like these need to factor in all of the nuances of the global landscape.”

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

I think the woman trying to smuggle the bitcoins into Russia (in her ...) was the most interesting news I've seen for a while. How many other people are evading capital controls with brain wallets and not getting caught? How long until that becomes widespread?