Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[tvbcof]

(sorry for the OT)

if memory serves somewhere in the last few dozens of pages there was a debate
involving climate change,  I've just found this interesting article titled
"What's really warming the world"

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/

There are other threads on this topic here already.  Why pollute this one? 

You're absolutely right.

Again sorry for being off topic.

Just for reference, those of us who's interests include the global climate change issue/scam (if they have a range of interests at all) have a lot of fun on another epic thread here:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=374873.0  All are welcome and a lot of scammer minions have fallen.  Most of the time it only takes a few days.

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[polyclef]

No. No hostile forks.

[justusranvier]

No. No hostile forks.

if 75% of the network wants to go with large blocks and 25% want to force smaller blocks, which fork is the hostile one?

[tvbcof]

No. No hostile forks.

if 75% of the network wants to go with large blocks and 25% want to force smaller blocks, which fork is the hostile one?

I suppose by that argument the Russian revolution (to use one of countless examples)  was, by definition, not a 'hostile' fork since it was democratic.

In any conflict, once the first shot is fired all involved parties are are appropriately labeled 'belligerents'.  As to who 'started it', that is left to the history books and these are, as they say, 'written by the victors.'

[justusranvier]

I suppose by that argument the Russian revolution (to use one of countless examples)  was, by definition, not a 'hostile' fork since it was democratic.

In any conflict, once the first shot is fired all involved parties are are appropriately labeled 'belligerents'.  As to who 'started it', that is left to the history books and these are, as they say, 'written by the victors.'

The fundemental error here is failing to recognize the voluntary nature of currency adoption.

Gavin proposed a change to Bitcoin that users are free to accept or decline.

That some developers interpreted this as a threat and turned it into a battle only shows the weakness of their position.

The proper response would have been to convince people to not choose the change by explaning why they would be better of by doing so.

Instead, they acted with outrage over the idea that somebody proposed something without their permission and was doing a better job of convincing people that they'd benefit from his proposal instead of theirs.

This is not a sustainable position for them. Money is only as valuable as there are other people willing to accept it, and nobody is in a position to force anybody to accept Bitcoin.

People who act on the expectation that their opinions are right by default because they were there first and so aren't subject to continual validation in the marketplace of ideas are going to end up losing everything.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

If/When an actual problem with capacity occurs everyone that I know of (except perhaps MP) is perfectly amenable to increasing capacity through simplistic block size increase methods.  In that case, unlike today, it will be much more easy to gain the 'consensus' that Bitcoin needs.

If so, then people can all take a chill pill and stop with the scaremongering on both sides. We're probably a lot closer to consensus than we think if the FUD is all cleared away.

I expect we are far from 1MB being stifling, as long as the fee market works properly, and conversely I also suspect that the cap isn't really needed at all. But for the sake of conservatism and consensus, we should just keep moving up the cap modestly so that it stays similar to its usual position well above where it would be actually functioning as much of a cap. If problems arise on either the "fees too high" or "blocks too big" (or "spammers just use up all the extra space") side, we can make the necessary adjustments by either increasing the cap or getting the fee market working better. If we get both problems, we'll actually be in a double pinch and have to innovate our way out, but I don't think we're anywhere close to that even being a possibility yet.

The debate now, assuming the FUD is wiped away, seems to come down to, "Is it better to hit too-high fees first, or too-big blocks first?" I can see the argument from an optimization perspective that too-high fees is smoother and results in more economization and innovation, but on the other hand if it starts to hinder adoption that would be self-defeating and could even reduce decentralization because people who otherwise would have adopted and run full nodes will turn away.

I think from looking at how everyone is acting and reacting in this debate that it is clear people's opinions (even of most devs) will generally move away from any pain that develops, so I see no danger of Bitcoin being "stuck" or stonewalled into a position that is painful for anyone, at least until we get to the "double pinch" scenario above, where both full blocks and high fees are a problem, but again that should be way far in the future, where we really can likely rely on things like Lightning Network and whatever other alien tech exists then.

TL;DR: Not worried.

[Odalv]

I suppose by that argument the Russian revolution (to use one of countless examples)  was, by definition, not a 'hostile' fork since it was democratic.

In any conflict, once the first shot is fired all involved parties are are appropriately labeled 'belligerents'.  As to who 'started it', that is left to the history books and these are, as they say, 'written by the victors.'

The fundemental error here is failing to recognize the voluntary nature of currency adoption.

Gavin proposed a change to Bitcoin that users are free to accept or decline.

That some developers interpreted this as a threat and turned it into a battle only shows the weakness of their position.

The proper response would have been to convince people to not choose the change by explaning why they would be better of by doing so.

Instead, they acted with outrage over the idea that somebody proposed something without their permission and was doing a better job of convincing people that they'd benefit from his proposal instead of theirs.

This is not a sustainable position for them. Money is only as valuable as there are other people willing to accept it, and nobody is in a position to force anybody to accept Bitcoin.

People who act on the expectation that their opinions are right by default because they were there first and so aren't subject to continual validation in the marketplace of ideas are going to end up losing everything.

Maybe it would be fine if 8 GB block-size supporters spin-of their own XT-coin sidechain.  :-) (My advice is to use 2wp so you can go back later.)

[TPTB_need_war]

I'm more of the opinion that Bitcoin will succeed, provided that it does not fail, and that a misstep can easily be worse than doing nothing.
Intelligent people may disagree with this.

The question is, what more qualifies as "doing nothing":

• Letting Bitcoin operate with constantly full blocks, which has never been done before, or
• Continuing to let Bitcoin operate with non-full blocks, effectively uncapped,* as it always has

   ?


*Of course a large part of the debate is over whether the current hard cap is actually doing anything. So the appeal to conservatism implied by "doing nothing" just pushes the question back.

Your question presumes omniscience thus it is not falsifiable. Junk science.

For example, it may be the case that the vulture capital is waiting for the exponential block size scaling before they unload the masses into Bitcoin via Paypal, Coinbase, Circle, Facebook, 21 Inc, etc.. With the intent of forcing out ephemeral miners and achieving distributed centralization and KYC regulation every where.

Actually that outcome is the one I think is nearly assured no matter which direction we go, because one could speculate that they've also invested in pegged side chains as an alternative where those entities can push the masses into a side chain which extracts the BTC value out of Core, and then they cut loose the hashrate on Core (and any other merged mind side chains) and send it off into nowhere, nowhere land.

Then again, I am onto their plans and working on the antidote.

[tvbcof]

Maybe it would be fine if 8 GB block-size supporters spin-of their own XT-coin sidechain.  :-) (My advice is to use 2wp so you can go back later.)

I would totally use XT as a sidechain, and may even support it from an infrastructure perspective though most likely the google-type entities will subsidize my use and very possibly will give me 'cash back.'  As long as XT is open source that I can compile myself and verify the 2wp implementation, I've got no problems doing so.

I would even use XT if/when it sprouts blacklisting since that will probably be a requirement in my jurisdiction and vendors will not realistically be able to use an 'unsafe' currency solution.  When I want to buy trinkets from TigerDirect I don't really give a shit about these things.

[TPTB_need_war]

I suppose that all depends on the definition of "success".

My definition of success is perhaps modest to some, but it is still far away:

Bitcoin being the protocol and the coin of the internet realm.

If it achieves this, it could well become much more, but this is the success for which it is designed.

Knowing your way of thinking, yes; it is a modest target for something that incorporates so many different things in just one package. Maybe the "beginning of success" would've been more appropriate.

Side chains are absolutely essential if you want BTC to evolve and fulfill such a goal.

Without side chains, you can assuredly kiss that hope goodbye, because for example we can see now that Bitcoin as currently designed is not decentralized because it requires all this politics on the issue of scaling.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

I'm more of the opinion that Bitcoin will succeed, provided that it does not fail, and that a misstep can easily be worse than doing nothing.
Intelligent people may disagree with this.

The question is, what more qualifies as "doing nothing":

• Letting Bitcoin operate with constantly full blocks, which has never been done before, or
• Continuing to let Bitcoin operate with non-full blocks, effectively uncapped,* as it always has

   ?


*Of course a large part of the debate is over whether the current hard cap is actually doing anything. So the appeal to conservatism implied by "doing nothing" just pushes the question back.

Your question presumes omniscience thus it is not falsifiable. Junk science.

It's a question of perspective. There is no correct answer to what "doing nothing" really means, but it's being used as an argumentative tactic among the block-increase skeptics. I'm simply pointing out that neither side has a clear-cut, definitive claim that they are the ones proposing "doing nothing" or "maintaining the status quo" or "taking the conservative position."

[TPTB_need_war]

(sorry for the OT)

if memory serves somewhere in the last few dozens of pages there was a debate
involving climate change,  I've just found this interesting article titled
"What's really warming the world"

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/

Obfuscation is an effective form of propaganda.

Edit:

There are other threads on this topic here already.  Why pollute this one?  

You're absolutely right.

Again sorry for being off topic.

Saw this after posting. Any way it was relevant to this thread because the disbelief in "conspiracy theories" is claimed as some objective argument against those of us who believe such an elite vulture capital has a takeover plan for Bitcoin.

Just for reference, those of us who's interests include the global climate change issue/scam (if they have a range of interests at all) have a lot of fun on another epic thread here:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=374873.0  All are welcome and a lot of scammer minions have fallen.  Most of the time it only takes a few days.

Right, I (as AnonyMint) was there at the start. But it went on and on an on, so I departed.

[smooth]

I'm more of the opinion that Bitcoin will succeed, provided that it does not fail, and that a misstep can easily be worse than doing nothing.
Intelligent people may disagree with this.

The question is, what more qualifies as "doing nothing":

• Letting Bitcoin operate with constantly full blocks, which has never been done before, or
• Continuing to let Bitcoin operate with non-full blocks, effectively uncapped,* as it always has

   ?


*Of course a large part of the debate is over whether the current hard cap is actually doing anything. So the appeal to conservatism implied by "doing nothing" just pushes the question back.

Your question presumes omniscience thus it is not falsifiable. Junk science.

It's a question of perspective. There is no correct answer to what "doing nothing" really means, but it's being used as an argumentative tactic among the block-increase skeptics. I'm simply pointing out that neither side has a clear-cut, definitive claim that they are the ones proposing "doing nothing" or "maintaining the status quo" or "taking the conservative position."

Following MP's advice and never changing the protocol (thereby avoiding what he calls creating an altcoin) is an objective definition of doing nothing. It is not the only one, and it might be one that leads to Bitcoin's failure (if the original protocol was not sufficiently well designed to succeed) but at least it is objective.

[TPTB_need_war]

I suppose by that argument the Russian revolution (to use one of countless examples)  was, by definition, not a 'hostile' fork since it was democratic.

In any conflict, once the first shot is fired all involved parties are are appropriately labeled 'belligerents'.  As to who 'started it', that is left to the history books and these are, as they say, 'written by the victors.'

The fundemental error here is failing to recognize the voluntary nature of currency adoption.

Gavin proposed a change to Bitcoin that users are free to accept or decline.

The point being made is that if Bitcoin is controlled by politics, then it is no longer decentralized thus I pointed out has already failed on 1 of 2 of its goals. The solution to the Bzyantine's Generals Problem is useless, if politics can subvert it. Which is my rationale for arguing that hard money is a delusion.

[tvbcof]

I suppose by that argument the Russian revolution (to use one of countless examples)  was, by definition, not a 'hostile' fork since it was democratic.

In any conflict, once the first shot is fired all involved parties are are appropriately labeled 'belligerents'.  As to who 'started it', that is left to the history books and these are, as they say, 'written by the victors.'

The fundemental error here is failing to recognize the voluntary nature of currency adoption.

Gavin proposed a change to Bitcoin that users are free to accept or decline.

That some developers interpreted this as a threat and turned it into a battle only shows the weakness of their position.

The proper response would have been to convince people to not choose the change by explaning why they would be better of by doing so.

Instead, they acted with outrage over the idea that somebody proposed something without their permission and was doing a better job of convincing people that they'd benefit from his proposal instead of theirs.

This is not a sustainable position for them. Money is only as valuable as there are other people willing to accept it, and nobody is in a position to force anybody to accept Bitcoin.

People who act on the expectation that their opinions are right by default because they were there first and so aren't subject to continual validation in the marketplace of ideas are going to end up losing everything.

I personally see the bloat push as a threat because it is exactly how I would attack the system if I were chartered to come up with a strategy for doing so.  That is the first thing that hit me years ago when I put my mind to figuring out how it could be done.

This bloat push has happened periodically over the last number of years.  It was strong enough for me to diddle around philosophically with a variety of ideas, most of which pivot off of my initial conception of how to safely scale using subordinate chains.  Thankfully a lot of folks who are a lot more dedicated and a lot more capable than myself have carried this ball forward and have made giant progress toward a genuine scaling scheme which not only solves the scaling problems but adds a lot more capabilities that I didn't even imagine.

If you see 'outrage' on the part of the core devs and folks like me, it is mostly associated with the way Hearn (and by extension, Gavin) went about trying to get bloat stuffed in.  Covertly meeting with power-players inside and outside the ecosystem and trying to switch to a 'benevolent dictator' mode of code control seems outrageous to many of us because it is outrageous.

I think that the 'proper response' from the Blockstream guys and other's of their ilk would be to take off the gloves and go bare knuckles against the attackers, but they seem to cultured and to busy doing real work.  That's probably just as well because my instinct on this could well be wrong.

[TPTB_need_war]

I think that the 'proper response' from the Blockstream guys and other's of their ilk would be to take off the gloves and go bare knuckles against the attackers, but they seem to cultured and to busy doing real work.  That's probably just as well because my instinct on this could well be wrong.

Playing politics is precisely playing into the failure mode for Bitcoin. That is why I argued they should use only back channels and otherwise STFU and code.

The victory comes from code, not from talk.

Talk to explain new technologies is fine.

[rocks]

I suppose by that argument the Russian revolution (to use one of countless examples)  was, by definition, not a 'hostile' fork since it was democratic.

In any conflict, once the first shot is fired all involved parties are are appropriately labeled 'belligerents'.  As to who 'started it', that is left to the history books and these are, as they say, 'written by the victors.'

The fundemental error here is failing to recognize the voluntary nature of currency adoption.

Gavin proposed a change to Bitcoin that users are free to accept or decline.

That some developers interpreted this as a threat and turned it into a battle only shows the weakness of their position.

The proper response would have been to convince people to not choose the change by explaning why they would be better of by doing so.

Instead, they acted with outrage over the idea that somebody proposed something without their permission and was doing a better job of convincing people that they'd benefit from his proposal instead of theirs.

This is not a sustainable position for them. Money is only as valuable as there are other people willing to accept it, and nobody is in a position to force anybody to accept Bitcoin.

People who act on the expectation that their opinions are right by default because they were there first and so aren't subject to continual validation in the marketplace of ideas are going to end up losing everything.

Well said, and I think a lot of people see it this way.

There are lots of people who understand Bitcoin well enough and back a blocksize increase. Them being simply told they are unqualified to have a view/voice and to trust the "experts" without any sensible counter arguments, has turned them off as well it should.

And lots of people will remember this when it comes time to propose the SC fork.

[tvbcof]

...
There are lots of people who understand Bitcoin well enough and back a blocksize increase. Them being simply told they are unqualified to have a view/voice and to trust the "experts" without any sensible counter arguments, has turned them off as well it should.

And lots of people will remember this when it comes time to propose the SC fork.

It's hard not to notice that you guys are highly proficient at ignoring 'sensible counter arguments' as though they didn't exist.  It's OK.  I understand...which is not to say that I would stoop to your level, but anyway...

Not embracing the 'SC fork' (soft) would be a monumental mistake by anyone who is sitting on sha256 ASIC gear.  I'll let you ponder that and/or wait to find out why.

[justusranvier]

It's hard not to notice that you guys are highly proficient at ignoring 'sensible counter arguments' as though they didn't exist.

A lot of those 'sensible counter arguments' take the form of:

"There's a tradeoff between scaling and decentralization."

"Can you explain what exactly you mean by 'decentralization' and how to measure it?"

"...no."

[iCEBREAKER]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-who-is-most-exposed-to-a-greek-default-2015-06-23

“The private sector “has almost no direct exposure to Greece anymore,” wrote strategists at J.P. Morgan Cazenove, in a Monday note urging clients to get back into German stocks.


So the whole 2011-2012 Greek loan restructuring was basically a strategy to move the bagholders from rich powerful bankers and investors into the hands of the general population (as taxed by their governments), wasn't it?

EDIT: the entire system is broken.  Let private lenders lend to eurozone countries at essentially no risk (that's moral hazard of bailouts).  Then bail out the country and the private lenders using public money because of political/social concepts like one unified europe.  

How about letting governments default on loans WITHOUT kicking them out of the eurozone.  How about a government bankruptcy -> elect a new govt, fire the top 10 central bankers and any other bankers the other central banks deem responsible and have a 5-10 year probationary period where their local central bank cannot give euro-creating loans.

they're lying:

Don't worry your pretty little head about ^that^ sort of gloom and doom FUD.

Per Gavin, "the financial crises is over" and we can (because Netflix) all count on the current economic boom to provide us with broadband in line with the idealistic expectations of Nielsen's Law.