Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[cypherdoc]

i think the problem is that they've identified the wrong fundamental unit in the system. as geeks, they identify with the full node as that unit.

otoh, the economic majority identifies the user as that fundamental unit, which i think is correct. Metcalfe's Law will work off the user who needs cheap, reliable tx's to be onboarded.

and the full node and user are not mutually exclusive. increasing users will result in increasing nodes.

edit:  if you listen to Gavin & Peter's debate on LTB yesterday, the node is all that Peter ever talks about.

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[Zangelbert Bingledack]

I think this is pretty decent good-faith attempt at mitigating financial influence, even though it's impossible to do that completely:

We tried to do a number of things to backup the "cant be evil" mantra. That's why /u/pwuille and /u/nullc have contract clauses allowing them to resign if they view blockstream is doing something they disapprove of in connection with bitcoins interests and ethos and have blockstream pay their salary for a year to work on bitcoin (independently or under some foundation as they prefer).

Personally I don't think either Adam or Greg are being influenced by the Blockstream entanglement yet, but in the future it is a danger. I think they simply formed Blockstream because of their scaling concerns, not the other way around - as their prior records show. I have a pretty good shill detector, and it was going crazy when I first heard about Open Coin / Ripple Labs   In this debate all I see are ideas and clashes of personality, never felt an agenda.

i think the problem is that they've identified the wrong fundamental unit in the system. as geeks, they identify with the full node as that unit.

otoh, the economic majority identifies the user as that fundamental unit, which i think is correct. Metcalfe's Law will work off the user who needs cheap, reliable tx's to be onboarded.

and the full node and user are not mutually exclusive. increasing users will result in increasing nodes.

edit:  if you listen to Gavin & Peter's debate on LTB yesterday, the node is all that Peter ever talks about.

Very interesting point. My criticism is that they see humans as robots, not adapting, trying to solve everything through a code lens. Perhaps this is just an extension of that same logic.

[cypherdoc]

Reddit. i'm not the only one frustrated.  notice how this discussion has been going on since 2010:

from awemany via /r/Bitcoin/ sent 10 minutes ago
show parent

Relevant: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1347.msg23049#msg23049
From frigging 2010, nonetheless.

context full comments (443)reportmark unreadreply

[NewLiberty]

I think this is pretty decent good-faith attempt at mitigating financial influence, even though it's impossible to do that completely:

We tried to do a number of things to backup the "cant be evil" mantra. That's why /u/pwuille and /u/nullc have contract clauses allowing them to resign if they view blockstream is doing something they disapprove of in connection with bitcoins interests and ethos and have blockstream pay their salary for a year to work on bitcoin (independently or under some foundation as they prefer).

Personally I don't think either Adam or Greg are being influenced by the Blockstream entanglement yet, but in the future it is a danger. I think they simply formed Blockstream because of their scaling concerns, not the other way around - as their prior records show. I have a pretty good shill detector, and it was going crazy when I first heard about Open Coin / Ripple Labs

Would you be able to expand on this?
Essentially, what characteristic is it that you are able to identify to determine if some humans are not influenced by money, and where do you see this?

Or are you simply saying that the conflict of interests is not sufficiently large to matter to you, not that it doesn't exist?

[cypherdoc]

Note: While the following is all highly speculative as it must be, and though I'm wont to talk about people rather than actual issues, this case seems to warrant it.

I've been looking into Greg Maxwell quite a bit recently. All the core devs actually (except Wladimir), and the blockstream people. Greg seems a sincere and extremely intelligent fellow with the right kind of bent for the job. The way he knocked the wind out of Stellar's sails on Hacker News was quite something, just as one example.

However, I do sense that he and Gavin have a bit of an oil-and-water dynamic going on. I have never seen them debate directly, though that could be because he was busy recently and "caught a bit flat-footed" on Gavin's proposal, as he said. Seems like classic nerd/jock or cat/dog dynamic (I realize Gavin's also a nerd) with weird passive-aggressive miscommunications aplenty. The thing where Gavin said he spent an afternoon reviewing Greg's idea only to not have it acknowledged reminded me of that especially. Still need both sides of the story, and Gavin has his own subtle ways of being bitchy at times if you read between the lines so I won't draw conclusions.

It's most interesting to me, though, that Gavin and Greg have both proposed a series of 50% increases, yet these two seem as you said the main sticking point for this debate. Pieter seems not very entrenched, and Matt I suspect would go along with Greg and Pieter. Luke I'm not sure but on a hunch I'd say he would go wherever the action is dev-wise, despite his principled stances and eccentricities. He's not Mircea Popescu. Adam overall seems eminently reasonable and would probably not do anything disappointing, but that's just my cursory read.

Perhaps it's time to work some social magic to have Greg relax his position a bit. Since I've been reading almost all his posts, I've noticed he gives little glimmers of sunshine at times. He's not an unreasonable person, and despite his hardline stance I can tell he wants more than anything for Bitcoin to succeed. I could swear he gets less accommodative when Gavin's in the thread, though. The rays of sunshine seem to be buried deep in the comments when he's talking to someone else in a thread where Gavin is absent. Maybe just my imagination.

There are issues among such a group of people that we probably can't hope to understand. The politics, the interpersonal clashes, the miscommunications, the lingering grudges tinting things. Again, I think your implication may be right, this may be more a social issue than a technical one.

do you see his handling of the PressCenter.org situation as being reasonable or were you not around at that time to know?

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Would you be able to expand on this?
Essentially, what characteristic is it that you are able to identify to determine if some humans are not influenced by money, and where do you see this?

I was just remarking offhandedly that I seem to have an unusual ability to read people, though it's only in *some* ways and in some quite limited types of situations.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

do you see his handling of the PressCenter.org situation as being reasonable or were you not around at that time to know?

I got into Bitcoin in mid-2012. Looks like it was before my time, unless I missed something.

[rocks]

i think the problem is that they've identified the wrong fundamental unit in the system. as geeks, they identify with the full node as that unit.

otoh, the economic majority identifies the user as that fundamental unit, which i think is correct. Metcalfe's Law will work off the user who needs cheap, reliable tx's to be onboarded.

and the full node and user are not mutually exclusive. increasing users will result in increasing nodes.

edit:  if you listen to Gavin & Peter's debate on LTB yesterday, the node is all that Peter ever talks about.

Bingo, Satoshi's invention and the core of Bitcoin is the distributed security mechanism. It is the essense of what Bitcoin is and how Bitcoin remains free of external influence. I still fail to see how this distributed security mechanism is in any way effected by an increase from 1 to 20MB blocks. Every single pool could easily handle the change and individual miners are completely unaffected.

But the dev's are focused on node number. It shows a lack of understanding the economics behind Bitcoin that Satoshi invented. Several of the core devs are now publicly saying on Reddit that Satoshi was wrong in his blocksize statements and centralization statements. This is glaring and shows just how little they understand.

Just because some programmer latched onto Bitcoin while it was a small pet project and took their free time to contribute to it, does not somehow certify that person as a superior expert, but that is exactly how they are behaving.

Personally all of this has made me believe more that Bitcoin would benefit from being under the MIT wing. It is a wing I know and trust.

[rocks]

Note: While the following is all highly speculative as it must be, and though I'm wont to talk about people rather than actual issues, this case seems to warrant it.

I've been looking into Greg Maxwell quite a bit recently. All the core devs actually (except Wladimir), and the blockstream people. Greg seems a sincere and extremely intelligent fellow with the right kind of bent for the job. The way he knocked the wind out of Stellar's sails on Hacker News was quite something, just as one example.

However, I do sense that he and Gavin have a bit of an oil-and-water dynamic going on. I have never seen them debate directly, though that could be because he was busy recently and "caught a bit flat-footed" on Gavin's proposal, as he said. Seems like classic nerd/jock or cat/dog dynamic (I realize Gavin's also a nerd) with weird passive-aggressive miscommunications aplenty. The thing where Gavin said he spent an afternoon reviewing Greg's idea only to not have it acknowledged reminded me of that especially. Still need both sides of the story, and Gavin has his own subtle ways of being bitchy at times if you read between the lines so I won't draw conclusions.

It's most interesting to me, though, that Gavin and Greg have both proposed a series of 50% increases, yet these two seem as you said the main sticking point for this debate. Pieter seems not very entrenched, and Matt I suspect would go along with Greg and Pieter. Luke I'm not sure but on a hunch I'd say he would go wherever the action is dev-wise, despite his principled stances and eccentricities. He's not Mircea Popescu. Adam overall seems eminently reasonable and would probably not do anything disappointing, but that's just my cursory read.

Perhaps it's time to work some social magic to have Greg relax his position a bit. Since I've been reading almost all his posts, I've noticed he gives little glimmers of sunshine at times. He's not an unreasonable person, and despite his hardline stance I can tell he wants more than anything for Bitcoin to succeed. I could swear he gets less accommodative when Gavin's in the thread, though. The rays of sunshine seem to be buried deep in the comments when he's talking to someone else in a thread where Gavin is absent. Maybe just my imagination.

There are issues among such a group of people that we probably can't hope to understand. The politics, the interpersonal clashes, the miscommunications, the lingering grudges tinting things. Again, I think your implication may be right, this may be more a social issue than a technical one.

Thanks for the insights, but I keep going back to who the f cares about these guys.

This is not the Federal Reserve, the devs are not board members where we need a certain # of votes from them. Or just because a majority of them say something, that that is law.

Bitcoin is about the user base, that is why I like Gavin's proposal to offer XT and put the vote to the marketplace. This is how ALL forks should be done IMHO. Make an alternative core and force those that want the force to gain majority on the new core.

Fundamentally by proposing this I think Gavin is doing an excellent job of adhering to Satoshi's vision.

BTW, from the voting on reddit today, the pro 20MB crowd seems to be winning.

[cypherdoc]

do you see his handling of the PressCenter.org situation as being reasonable or were you not around at that time to know?

I got into Bitcoin in mid-2012. Looks like it was before my time, unless I missed something.

well, no. it occurred April 2013.

since you said you've been reading all about Greg and the other devs to get a better understanding of them, you should add this to your reading list.  it's a big part of the story to understanding:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=181168.msg1973084#msg1973084

have you ever heard Andreas or Trace Mayer get so mad?  such language!

and then this gem of an interaction in which i participated:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.org/pull/162

note how gmax and Luke pull the same perverted "consensus" argument out of there pocket in a political battle where they, as a minority of 5(?) devs argued their wishes should hold sway over just about the entire community's?  for color, Andreas got so mad, he coded up the alternative press center that exists today in fine fashion.  gmax just yesterday, fails to learn and takes a cheap shot by saying his failed exclusion of Ver back then was "vindicated" by the Ripple action just a couple months ago.  which totally ignores the well functioning, long lasting site Andreas was forced to code up that still includes Ver to this day.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/37vg8y/is_the_blockstream_company_the_reason_why_4_core/crqakk9

[NewLiberty]

Would you be able to expand on this?
Essentially, what characteristic is it that you are able to identify to determine if some humans are not influenced by money, and where do you see this?

I was just remarking offhandedly that I seem to have an unusual ability to read people, though it's only in *some* ways and in some quite limited types of situations.

I don't think they are bad people or have any ill will.
In my experience, over time, people tend to do what they are paid to do. 
I agree that their loyalty is to Bitcoin, however I do see this as a conflict of interest.

The block size debate is one of the pain points where these interest are not aligned at all.  I think that they want to do the right thing, both for themselves and for Bitcoin. 
If Bitcoin fails, Blockstream also has problems, but if there are small blocks, there is a greater need for Blockstream's side chains to ease that problem.

It would be a somewhat more serious conflict of interest if say Western Union were the VC funding for Blockstream or something like that.  So it is not a "major" problem, but it is a problem.

[Adrian-x]

looks like Power hungry protectionism has been going on for a while, below is a link to an announcement of a new Bitcoin client and development gets discouraged quickly by a few core Devs in particular.  

links below

this has been going on for a while

You've actually hit on a separate, but related issue.

There is a subset of toxic people and petty tyrants among the core developers who believe that what they do defines Bitcoin and wish to be the eternal gatekeepers of what is and is not allowed. They can't actually earn that position by virtue of being superior software engineers, so they keep it by resorting to FUD and other underhanded tactics any time some other developers try to get involved.

There's an extremely long list of people who would have tried to step up and participate, but have been effectively shut out by that cartel.

Bitcoin will be in a much stronger and more secure position once Bitcoin Core is deprecated, or is at least relegated to a minority position on the network. Part of the reason will be that the consensus will be derived from software implementations with a better design and higher code quality, and part of the reason will be because of limiting the effect of toxic developers so that more people will be willing to contribute.

PS: I still haven't forgotten that you never bothered to justify your "less decentralized" claim about colored coins.

Justus then posts a link to this thread,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=122013

I singled out the first posts by 2 core Devs. to get a taste for there personality in the wild - early days when everyone was working nicely.  (note if you read it, many other devs. are quite encouraging.)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=122013.msg1331489#msg1331489
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=122013.msg1389749#msg1389749

[NewLiberty]

"The code is the spec."
This is the source of the problem.  It was a shortcut, but one that has costs long term.

Justus is right about that.
Until the code is frozen/deprecated and we have an functional spec, we will have this quandry.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

note how gmax and Luke pull the same perverted "consensus" argument out of there pocket in a political battle where they, as a minority of 5(?) devs argued their wishes should hold sway over just about the entire community's?

Luke presented the idea that the "devs = Bitcoin" and should have ultimate say, before he backpedaled on it. I can understand how devs would think that way, but it's of course silly for the reasons you mentioned there.

As for Greg, he does make unfair points whenever he feels he can veil it sufficiently (though so do Gavin and especially Hearn, from what I've seen - is this part of the core dev culture?), but more importantly he has this weirdly cognitively dissonant "I know best and get to decide, but everyone's equal" thing going on, and he's able to make his writing look watertight so that it can't be proven conclusively so he cannot really be caught on it so easily.

It's like he feels like he doesn't get enough respect for what he does, and is owed more sway in the sense of actual control rather than just influence and core dev status. That impulse explains his comment yesterday when he was lamenting all the work he'd done to make it just so things don't break with 1MB blocks (if not for those optimizations Bitcoin with 1MB blocks would be a "smoking hole in the ground" were I believe his words) and yet no one seems to appreciate it, they just want to march forward with even bigger blocks and keep working the hamster while Gavin gets all the glory.

The old underappreciated tech guy syndrome? (But with high-level writing skills)

[Adrian-x]

note how gmax and Luke pull the same perverted "consensus" argument out of there pocket in a political battle where they, as a minority of 5(?) devs argued their wishes should hold sway over just about the entire community's?

Luke presented the idea that the "devs = Bitcoin" and should have ultimate say, before he backpedaled on it. I can understand how devs would think that way, but it's of course silly for the reasons you mentioned there.

As for Greg, he does make unfair points whenever he feels he can veil it sufficiently (though so do Gavin and especially Hearn, from what I've seen - is this part of the core dev culture?), but more importantly he has this weirdly cognitively dissonant "I know best and get to decide, but everyone's equal" thing going on.

It's like he feels like he doesn't get enough respect for what he does, and is owed more sway in the sense of actual control rather than just influence and core dev status. That impulse explains his comment yesterday when he was lamenting all the work he'd done to make it just so things don't break with 1MB blocks (if not for those optimizations Bitcoin with 1MB blocks would be a "smoking hole in the ground" were I believe his words) and yet no one seems to appreciate it, they just want to march forward with even bigger blocks.

The old underappreciated tech guy syndrome?

I had a smile, the problem here is coders are not machines either. Your post reminds me of a typical plot to a batman movie, or the incredibles, a little humility could have gone a long way.

[cypherdoc]

note how gmax and Luke pull the same perverted "consensus" argument out of there pocket in a political battle where they, as a minority of 5(?) devs argued their wishes should hold sway over just about the entire community's?

Luke presented the idea that the "devs = Bitcoin" and should have ultimate say, before he backpedaled on it. I can understand how devs would think that way, but it's of course silly for the reasons you mentioned there.

As for Greg, he does make unfair points whenever he feels he can veil it sufficiently (though so do Gavin and especially Hearn, from what I've seen - is this part of the core dev culture?), but more importantly he has this weirdly cognitively dissonant "I know best and get to decide, but everyone's equal" thing going on, and he's able to make his writing look watertight so that it can't be proven conclusively so he cannot really be caught on it so easily.

It's like he feels like he doesn't get enough respect for what he does, and is owed more sway in the sense of actual control rather than just influence and core dev status. That impulse explains his comment yesterday when he was lamenting all the work he'd done to make it just so things don't break with 1MB blocks (if not for those optimizations Bitcoin with 1MB blocks would be a "smoking hole in the ground" were I believe his words) and yet no one seems to appreciate it, they just want to march forward with even bigger blocks and keep working the hamster while Gavin gets all the glory.

The old underappreciated tech guy syndrome? (But with high-level writing skills)

i'm open to looking at examples of Gavin's unfairness.  anyone?

we all want recognition but Greg goes over the top.  and this is why he started Blockstream, to be the CEO of something potentially significant where he will get that recognition he so covets.   it's dangerous for a project like Bitcoin though.

Gavin's strength is his maturity and calm demeanor, imo.  he'll win if it comes down to a battle.

[cypherdoc]

"The code is the spec."
This is the source of the problem.  It was a shortcut, but one that has costs long term.

Justus is right about that.
Until the code is frozen/deprecated and we have an functional spec, we will have this quandry.

i read about this here one time but i don't fully understand it nor the implications, not being a coder.

a spec is a written, detailed, normal language description of how the protocol works, is that correct?  wouldn't the current developer's guide qualify as something similar?

where as the code is what actually executes within the operating system and carries out the protocol rules?

and why NL, do you believe it would've prevented what we have going on now?

[justusranvier]

i read about this here one time but i don't fully understand it nor the implications, not being a coder.

a spec is a written, detailed, normal language description of how the protocol works, is that correct?  wouldn't the current developer's guide qualify as something similar?

where as the code is what actually executes within the operating system and carries out the protocol rules?

and why NL, do you believe it would've prevented what we have going on now?

The Bitcoin Core is in such bad shape that fully specifying its behaviour is indistinguishable from impossible.

You could say this is Satoshi's fault. What we now call Bitcoin Core started out life as a prototype and evolved into its present condition - it is not an engineered piece of software.

I think the best course of action would be to acknowledge that the prototype has served its purpose and retire it in favour of treating a non-prototype codebase as the reference implementation for which a specification can be written.

Doing that would have the beneficial effect of increasing the number of developers who can participate, since the reference would be more understandable and better documented.

[cypherdoc]

i read about this here one time but i don't fully understand it nor the implications, not being a coder.

a spec is a written, detailed, normal language description of how the protocol works, is that correct?  wouldn't the current developer's guide qualify as something similar?

where as the code is what actually executes within the operating system and carries out the protocol rules?

and why NL, do you believe it would've prevented what we have going on now?

The Bitcoin Core is in such bad shape that fully specifying its behaviour is indistinguishable from impossible.

You could say this is Satoshi's fault. What we now call Bitcoin Core started out life as a prototype and evolved into its present condition - it is not an engineered piece of software.

I think the best course of action would be to acknowledge that the prototype has served its purpose and retire it in favour of treating a non-prototype codebase as the reference implementation for which a specification can be written.

Doing that would have the beneficial effect of increasing the number of developers who can participate, since the reference would be more understandable and better documented.

but there is truth to the fact that those embedded bugs and general messiness somehow "contribute" to the behavior of how the system works in unknowable but apparently predictable and stable ways which seem to work.  by changing those bugs or trying to clean up the mess, someone somewhere along the line will disrupt the predictability to where how the code operates may become unstable or unpredictable.  that would be bad.  it would take someone or some group truly exceptional to be able to rewrite the entire code and have it function exactly like it does today.  and with billions on the line, that would be a tremendous responsibility for a volunteer, would it not?

[79b79aa8d5047da6d3XX]

Against rewriting an entire codebase
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html

On the importance of having a spec
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000036.html
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000035.html