Bitcoin 20MB Fork

[traincarswreck]

At any rate for practical purposes the impossibility of calculating pi to the last digit isn't a significant limit as to what we can actually do.  Getting 'close enough' to squaring a circle gives results indistinguishable from perfect results.  We can these days square a circle bigger than this solar system with an error smaller than the width of a hydrogen atom.  Even though we will never be able to exactly square a circle, we have reached a point at which our inability to do so imposes no practical limit.

Thank you for "playing along".  I have many relevant points but look forward to others responses rather than my long drawn out response.  I must relevate the fact that Mochizuki will have dramatically changed our understanding of this using inter universal geometry.

Even under circumstances where one is only linked by a “narrow pipe” (i.e., such as an astronaut on a space vessel or miners work-ing in an underground mine), it is possible to reconstruct and grasp the situ-ation on the “other side” by making wise use of the limited information available.

That is to say,“inter-universal geometry” allows one to relate the “geometries” that occur in distinct universes.

Here, again we recall from the discussion of Remark 3.6.2, (i), (ii), that it is only by working with such correspondences that may be described by means of set-theoretic formulas that one may obtain descriptions that allow one to calculate the operations performed in one universe from the point of view of an alien universe

I must note that I also was in fact an underground miner which I left to play poker (I doubt we will believe this but its true) and so I must assert my relevance again. And I will also make a small point that Hayek says that Keynes, although a genius was not really an economist, and did not seem to understand international type commerce. And in that by agreeing with Keynes I think we start to disagree with Satoshi, Nash, Szabo, and Smith (and Hayek). (Hayek: https://thewealthofchips.wordpress.com/2014/10/04/what-is-ideal-money/)

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[traincarswreck]

We must keep in mind I am the worlds best poker player and in fact have over 100k games under my belt.

Watch out everyone, he could be bluffing, or maybe not.  

Exactly, thank you.  I am also on 28 tables right now as I type. Now we are playing poker!

[DooMAD]

Forking on a whim, so some VCs who bought $1000 BTCs are that much closer to realizing their dream of everyone using BTC at Coke machines and Starbucks, harms the store-of-value function by diluting the previously more scare and extremely valuable commodity of blockchain real estate.

I feel this brings us to the crux of the matter.  Ultimately, the anti-fork argument boils down to "Bitcoin works for us, and does what we want it to, so we should burn the bridge behind us and protect our interests.  Let's stop here".  

The pro-fork argument says "actually, we're not done yet, let's get some more people (directly) involved with this and see what further innovations we can come up with.  We see a bright future ahead and it will be a change for the better".

You gavincoin people simply won't do the math.  There is no realistic point where a decent fraction of the worlds population can use native Bitcoin and have it remain supportable by anything but the most well situated mega-players.

You people remind me of someone who would put a gallon of gas into their tank and drive off into the desert toward a location 1000 miles away.  You just cannot get there.  You'll die.  'free markets' are not going to magically conjure up gas stations as needed for you.  Really, what passes for your thought processes here seem just that stupid, and then some. 

As usual, you've got it completely ass-backwards.  I'm the one who wants to make sure there's enough fuel to get where we're going.  You're the one who thinks they're going to get somewhere with an arbitrary limit on the resources.

And the best part is, you get to choose.  There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the fork has enough momentum behind it to go ahead.  And when it does, you can stay behind on the old chain and stagnate in a niche with your precious limits, or you can stay with the clear majority and see where things go from here when enough people are on board to really challenge the widely accepted perceptions about how money should work.

If sidechains do eventually come to fruition then it's a win-win either way, but until then, the rest of us don't want to risk the network grinding to a halt because too many people wanted to try out Bitcoin and we hit a wall on some inane limit.  The future potential for sidechains is not a substantial reason to delay this necessary update.  The simple fact is, you can't promise sidechains will be ready in time before we start piling up unconfirmed transactions.

As for the unconfirmed transactions, they'll time out.  If it stresses some nodes, good for the owners to know it now.   It would be the kind of shock which is good for Bitcoin to have now and then.  If Bitcoin only functions based on it's ability to stay ahead of the demand, that's pretty week and lame.

You honestly think the network failing to confirm transactions is good for the future of Bitcoin?  If several blocks in a row end up full and people are left waiting for their transactions to go through, you think that's going to help improve things?  I don't care how much you think you've done the math to support your side of the debate, you haven't considered the consequences and repercussions of placing artificial limits on a system that will work just fine without them.  You've considered about the consequences of removing them, stating it might one day in the distant future lead to centralisation.  But even if that happens, it's far more likely that full blocks will happen first.  Can we please deal with the hurdles in the order that they appear?

[traincarswreck]

 Can we please deal with the hurdles in the order that they appear?

The suggestion has been made that we deal with things from the perspective of an implicate order. http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/DavidBohm-WholenessAndTheImplicateOrder.pdf

How would you feel upon realizing there can be no change, because there is no consensus for it, and entropy suggests this is final (apologies if i used that word wrong!)

[danielpbarron]

If satoshi came online and said

"Lets fork."

Everyone would agree.

I wouldn't. Satoshi did his thing, and I'm glad he's gone now. His code sucked, and there is nothing more he could do for bitcoin except continue to hold his million coins. Now bitcoin is in the hands of #bitcoin-assets, regardless of how you'd all like to pretend they don't exist. When you're done throwing your little tantrums, you can begin the process of becoming a real person.

You spent more time learning to walk, more time learning to colour in the lines, and more time undoing the brain damage wrought by grade skool. Contrary to popular belief, what you need to spend the next 6-12 months doing isn’t tweeting, facebooking, instagramming, meet-uping or conference attending. If you want to be a part of Bitcoin, spending 6-12 months at Mircea Popescu‘s IRC Yeshiva really isn’t too much to ask. If you want to make an impact that will be felt by future generations, there “seems” to be no. other. way.

[tvbcof]

You gavincoin people simply won't do the math.  There is no realistic point where a decent fraction of the worlds population can use native Bitcoin and have it remain supportable by anything but the most well situated mega-players.

You people remind me of someone who would put a gallon of gas into their tank and drive off into the desert toward a location 1000 miles away.  You just cannot get there.  You'll die.  'free markets' are not going to magically conjure up gas stations as needed for you.  Really, what passes for your thought processes here seem just that stupid, and then some. 

As usual, you've got it completely ass-backwards.  I'm the one who wants to make sure there's enough fuel to get where we're going.  You're the one who thinks they're going to get somewhere with an arbitrary limit on the resources.

Well for the love of Christ, what fraction of earth's population doing how many transactions per day?  What is so hard about that question?

As for the unconfirmed transactions, they'll time out.  If it stresses some nodes, good for the owners to know it now.   It would be the kind of shock which is good for Bitcoin to have now and then.  If Bitcoin only functions based on it's ability to stay ahead of the demand, that's pretty week and lame.

You honestly think the network failing to confirm transactions is good for the future of Bitcoin?  If several blocks in a row end up full and people are left waiting for their transactions to go through, you think that's going to help improve things?  I don't care how much you think you've done the math to support your side of the debate, you haven't considered the consequences and repercussions of placing artificial limits on a system that will work just fine without them.  You've considered about the consequences of removing them, stating it might one day in the distant future lead to centralisation.  But even if that happens, it's far more likely that full blocks will happen first.  Can we please deal with the hurdles in the order that they appear?

You are really going to tell me that Bitcoin fails the moment some guy's transaction times out?

Time-outs are a good thing for a few reasons.  One is you can finally try again.  Two is because it educates ignorant people that Bitcoin is a batch system.  Like it or not, that is what it is.  Sorry if it either confuses you to tears or shatter's your myth that it's a good exchange solution for trinkets.

People receiving such an education from time to time isn't just a good thing, it's a great thing!  All of the 'mutability' problems were simply due to ignorant people trying to take short-cuts around the system as it was designed.  Wait for confirmations.  It's a perfectly usable and vastly more robust solution if people do this one little thing.  Again, if it cuts out the trinket-buyers, goodbye and good riddance.  They are nothing but a giant hassle and most irritating to boot.

I don't get pissed very easily, but it really rubs me the wrong way that someone demands their piss-ant $2.00 transaction gets to live on forever on everyone's system who wants to support the solution in a meaningful way.  The main reason is that I would't dream to make such a nonsense request.  From day one I deliberately used off-chain solutions as much as I could for trivial things.  I've spent to many years dealing with the electronic messes left by thoughtless people I suppose.

[bambou]

If satoshi came online and said

"Lets fork."

Everyone would agree.

I wouldn't. Satoshi did his thing, and I'm glad he's gone now. His code sucked, and there is nothing more he could do for bitcoin except continue to hold his million coins. Now bitcoin is in the hands of #bitcoin-assets, regardless of how you'd all like to pretend they don't exist. When you're done throwing your little tantrums, you can begin the process of becoming a real person.

You spent more time learning to walk, more time learning to colour in the lines, and more time undoing the brain damage wrought by grade skool. Contrary to popular belief, what you need to spend the next 6-12 months doing isn’t tweeting, facebooking, instagramming, meet-uping or conference attending. If you want to be a part of Bitcoin, spending 6-12 months at Mircea Popescu‘s IRC Yeshiva really isn’t too much to ask. If you want to make an impact that will be felt by future generations, there “seems” to be no. other. way.

lol wut? like if MP's coding was worth anything for a start.

no but seriously, i esteem MP somehow but having frustrated teenagers bragging and insulting over the interwebz is not very constructive.

seriously this is the lowest attempt at 'recruiting' people to join the #BA i've witness so far.
so cultish, at least Bibi Netanyahoo offered 120 000$ for the jooz to make their aliya..

[tvbcof]

You honestly think the network failing to confirm transactions is good for the future of Bitcoin?  If several blocks in a row end up full and people are left waiting for their transactions to go through, you think that's going to help improve things?  I don't care how much you think you've done the math to support your side of the debate, you haven't considered the consequences and repercussions of placing artificial limits on a system that will work just fine without them.  You've considered about the consequences of removing them, stating it might one day in the distant future lead to centralisation.  But even if that happens, it's far more likely that full blocks will happen first.  Can we please deal with the hurdles in the order that they appear?

Not easily as long as I'm a hodler.

[traincarswreck]

Well for the love of Christ,

Firstly Krishna was blue and so I think probably we can call him "blue-Nash".

Lastly:

The object of a dialogue is not to analyse things, or to win an argument, of to exchange opinions. Rather, it is to suspend your opinions and to look at the opinions-to listen to everybody’s opinions, to suspend them, and to see what all that means.

And so I think these notes will be useful to establish "dialogue" https://thewealthofchips.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/notes-on-on-dialogue-and-in-relation-to-the-block-size-discussion-dialoue/

[danielpbarron]

Now bitcoin is in the hands of #bitcoin-assets, regardless of how you'd all like to pretend they don't exist. When you're done throwing your little tantrums, you can begin the process of becoming a real person.

You spent more time learning to walk, more time learning to colour in the lines, and more time undoing the brain damage wrought by grade skool. Contrary to popular belief, what you need to spend the next 6-12 months doing isn’t tweeting, facebooking, instagramming, meet-uping or conference attending. If you want to be a part of Bitcoin, spending 6-12 months at Mircea Popescu‘s IRC Yeshiva really isn’t too much to ask. If you want to make an impact that will be felt by future generations, there “seems” to be no. other. way.

lol wut? like if MP's coding was worth anything for a start.

no but seriously, i esteem MP somehow but having frustrated teenagers bragging and insulting over the interwebz is not very constructive

Well, MP isn't the one doing the coding.

And as to your "teenagers bragging" line -- I agree. So why don't you kids stop wasting your time on this derpy forum, and join the adults.

[traincarswreck]

I suspect it would be helpful to not start our posts out by laughing at and mocking others posts (what is helpful can be seen to benefit us all!)

I also notice we have so far avoided the question about the possibility that no consensus can be made and therefore such change is impossible.  We should discuss/figure out our strategies in such a case (and therefore the ramifications).

[provenceday]

Will support that Bitcoin 20MB Fork.
do not be too conservative.

let's see what will happen.

[danielpbarron]

I suspect it would be helpful to not start our posts out by laughing at and mocking others posts (what is helpful can be seen to benefit us all!)

I also notice we have so far avoided the question about the possibility that no consensus can be made and therefore such change is impossible.  We should discuss/figure out our strategies in such a case (and therefore the ramifications).

Didn't I kill you already?

But in here you make a valid point. No consensus: no change. Now you have some clue as to why #bitcoin-assets already won, and why this forum thread is a waste of time. Since you spambots have buried it under pages of "discussion," I figure it's worth digging this post back up.

I. "I agree a big discussion is necessary before changes are made, but we shouldn't act like a hard fork is somehow inherently an issue."

Part and parcel of the present dispute is to clearly make the point that Gavin Andresen does not have the authority to enact or create a hardfork of the Bitcoin network, nor any sort of significant clout, cachet, power to influence the matter etc.

This will be useful for the Bitcoin network first and foremost, because Gavin is, by and large, a mentally retarded doofus displaying a shocking amount of Dunning-Kruger syndrome in his assorted dabblings in economics and other hard fields.

This will secondarily but perhaps still notably be useful for Gavin himself. Finally liberated from all that influence he is incorrectly perceived to carry he will be free to live the rest of his life in the relative peace his brain was constructed to handle. To understand his situation, imagine a mentally retarded child living happily in the sands of New Mexico. A rich old man dies in New York, and on the strength of original research, it is considered that the mentally retarded child is the sole inheritor. News makes its way to the happy desert residence that same evening, by telegraph, but the poor monkey knows nothing of it outside of dim rumors. He is not collected enough to understand what "inheritance" rightly means or anything. He does have some sort of an idea as to "being rich" = "lots of icecream", but that's as far as it goes. All sorts of people, much better placed to understand what it all means, all try their hand at, you know, "being friendly". And "neighbourly". And only meaning the best and having the kid's interest at heart. His life, as you might well imagine, turns into the sort of nightmare only homo homini lupus can bring on its brother, and the child lives hell (parce-que l'enfer, c'est l'autres). Once the news makes it through that really, it was all a mistake, no such inheritance exists (as in fact it does not), the simpleton is free to return to his simple prior life, and be happy again.

Help Gavin be a happy idiot, stop trying to make him fulfill shoes too large for his little peabrain.

II. "If the community can't hardfork today we could stop using bitcoin now and look for the better suited alt coin. If bitcoin can't fork-update it has no value."

Obviously Bitcoin "has no value" to you. That is probably because you were expecting to defraud the faith others put in Bitcoin by inflating it. While it's true that welfare states finance themselves that way currently, and in the process create the unwelcome and unwarranted impression in the heads of the nobodies in the street that their voice matters to any degree or is important in any manner, Bitcoin does not work that way. Bitcoin does not work that way intentionally, specifically and by design. So... yeah, pack it and get lost.

"The community" of people that need things can not fork Bitcoin to provide for their needs at the expense of the actual community of people that create things and own things. Related to this, let us reiterate those ancient points about Bitcoin :

TALKING ABOUT BITCOIN, EVEN IF IN A GROUP, DOES NOT MAKE YOU PART OF BITCOIN.

III. I don't understand why anybody would be against a larger block.

The popular name to this is "arguing to ignorance". You might also not understand why anyone would propose you wash, stop collecting broken car engines on plastic foil in front of your dilapidated motorhome or fucking your cousins. What you understand or don't understand is not a proper subject of discussion, and you aren't welcome to try and foist it on intelligent people who aren't your parents.

IV. Satoshi himself envisioned much larger blocks.

The discussion of what "Satoshi himself" did or didn't do, meant or didn't mean, so on and so forth is about as interesting and discussing the Mormon "bible".

This is called "arguing to authority", and it tries to give pecuniary value to that only truly worthless article of all times and places : the esteem of the mob. This may work well in electing United States presidents, ensuring that "while the voting public knows best what it wants, it deserves to get it long and hard". Bitcoin specifically and deliberately does not work in this way.

Bitcoin is not a reflection of your hopes and aspirations, but a check on them. Bitcoin isn't here to make it easier for you to do what you want to do ; Bitcoin is here to make it trivial for others to prevent you from doing what you want to do every time that's stupid. The sooner you comprehend this fundamental difference between Bitcoin and "technology" especially in the "revolutionary & innovative" subsense of that nonsense, the better, for you.

V. The fork is needed because otherwise some people won't be able to use Bitcoin.

Bitcoin isn't for everybody. Creating something useful that everyone can use is an exercise in trying to create something that's useful but worthless. Such a thing may exist, in the sense perpetuum mobile may exist. As far as the science of physics goes, they do not.

Should blocks ever become full, older coinbases will be prioritized over newer coinbases, and larger mining fees and transactions prioritized over smaller mining fees and smaller transactions. This means that someone who wishes to pay for very little with Bitcoin will be forced to use something else, so to speak is forced to "give his seat" to someone richer. This is exactly the point and the intent of Bitcoin : to force the poor to yield to the rich, unversally, as a matter of course.

You may not like this, but that is entirely an emotional problem of yours, which you're welcome to resolve any way you can : stop being poor, take a lot of pills, whatever. You may try to solve it by attempting to make it impossible for the rich to construct tools that they will then use to force you to yield to them, but this will necessarily not work : being rich means by definition they have more resources than you, and whatever you devise they can make a counter.

If you are more practically inclined, and having understood, accepted and come to terms with your fundamental human inferiority as it flows from your poverty, some solutions to your predicament of "I wish to buy myself a basket" have already been discussed :

For the reasons noted and for many other reasons I am pretty much satisfied that Bitcoin is not nor will it ever be a direct means of payment for retail anything. You may end up paying for a month's worth of coffee vouchers at your favourite coffee shop via Bitcoin (so shop scrip built on top of Bitcoin), you may end up settling your accounts monthly at the restaurant in Bitcoin (so store credit built on top of Bitcoin), you will probably cash into whatever local currency from Bitcoin (be it Unified Standard Dubaloos or Universally Simplified Dosidoes or whatever else) but all that is entirely different a story.

Run along now, back to playing in the mud with the other naked kids in your village. Bitcoin's just not for your kind.

VI. This is a clerical issue, because block propagation and other considerations incentivize miners to keep blocks small anyway. The 1MB is just a hard limit getting in the way of things, the marketplace of miners should be allowed to fix block size as it seems appropriate.

While this argument has been disingenuously brought by Gavin himself, the fact is that the proposed inverted bloom filters upgrade would allow all blocks to propagate in constant time, regardless of their size. Just the sort of deceitful poison flowing out of USG through its few remaining (but apparently well entrenched) Bitcoin moles.

VII. The minersⁱ decide.

No, they do not. The miners make some minor decisions in Bitcoin, but major decisions such as block forks are not at their disposition alone, and this for excellent reasons you'll readily understand if you stop and think about it.

There are two specific methods to control miners on this matter, which will make the scamcoin Gavin is trying to replace everyone's Bitcoin with only replace some people's Bitcoin. The first and most obvious is that irrespective of what miners mine, each single full node will reject illegal blocks. This is a fact. If all the miners out there suddenly quit Bitcon and go mine Keiser's Aurora scamcoin instead, from the perspective of the Bitcoin network hash rate simply dropped and that's all. There's absolutely no difference between Keiser's scamcoin and Gavin's scam coin as far as the network is concerned : while one's a scammer that I humiliatingly defeated in the past whereas the other a scammer that I humiliatingly defeat in the future, this makes no difference for Bitcoin. As far as anyone will be able to perceive, miners simply left.

The second and perhaps not as obvious has nevertheless been discussed at length on multiple occasions on #bitcoin-assets. Consider this terse explanation from March. 2013.

mircea_popescu: whoever has enough money to matter is likely to pick one chain for whatever reason
mircea_popescu: since fork means btc can be spent independently on either chain
mircea_popescu: he will sell his btc on one and perhaps buy on the other.
mircea_popescu: as a result prices will rapidly diverge, panicking the mass of users, and the fork is economically resolved.

The situation here is aggravated by the fact that the fork proposed is not simply nondeterministic behaviourⁱⁱ, and so the holdings on the two chains aren't notionally equivalent. Instead, all the holdings on the Bitcoin chain are accepted as valid on both Bitcoin and Gavincoin, but holdings on Gavincoin are rejected by Bitcoin. Consequently, everyone involved with the fork is writing options to everyone in Bitcoin, free of charge. That they have no ready way to finance these should be obvious, and consequently the grim prospects of the Gavin side of the fork should be just as obvious. At least, to people who understand economy to any degree.


i. By which really what's usually contemplated is, "pool masters will hijack the miners pointing at their pools, because they really wish to end up like BTCGuild/ 50 BTC ; that <5% of an entity once around 48% is such a tempting market share."
ii. As Peter Todd aptly points out, the alleged hard fork in Bitcoin's past wasn't a hard fork, but simply nondeterministic behaviour, resulting in two chains which both and roughly to the same degree validated.

VIII. "By the time the hard fork rolls around, all miners (and wallets, and other bitcoin software) will have dormant code ready to switch over and start mining the new fork."

Not so. The various gunk added to Bitcoin (past 0.6 or so) is currently only supported by the scam foundation Vessenes created back when nobody was looking, and everyone's been abandoning ever sinceⁱ.

The actual Bitcoin Foundation is not supporting any of that.

Consider the rate at which the scam foundation has been propping up scams, and the rate at which they blow up. Where is BFL ? Where is MtGox ? Where's all them fearless captn's of industry of yore ?ⁱⁱ Perhaps much more importantly : who has been popping them ? Think long and hard about that before you jump to conclusions about "everyone" and "nobody" and so on. A year ago you thought "everybody" would be impressed by imaginary "brick and mortar stores". I wasn't. That aspect of you is now in jail on unrelated charges. Bear this in mind.ⁱⁱⁱ

The odds of the Vessenes scam foundation surviving until the end of the year are intricately linked to BitPay, their only remaining supporter with actual money^iv, remaining solvent. Which, in spite of "brick and mortar store"-isms and other avatars of the Redditarded discussion, does not really look all that likely. In any case it won't be around for the years being here contemplated, which explains why Gavin's in such a rush, and why all this has to be done "right now".

Why would you help a bunch of scammers ruin Bitcoin on their way out ? And why'd you imagine that if you do you'll be left hodling anything but dust ?

IX. "Hard fork block size politics: do we want decentralized digital gold, or just another Visa? We want both. And there's no reason we can't have both."

Actually, there's a damned good reason "we" can't have both : one of them is nonsense. To grok this, tell me, whom do you know in Mali ?

No, not Bali, that island where preppy sluts go for spring break. Mali, the funny-shaped, landlocked West African nation.

Nobody ? Never even heard of anyone from there, never ate in a Mali restaurant, never bought a Mali anything over the mail, as far as you're concerned Mali could just as well not exist at all ? Well, bless you, the sentiment's exactly mutual! As far as they're concerned, the entire population of Mali couldn't give less of a fuck, and you might as well not exist.

Yet your proposal here is that we take everything of everyone : each pair of underwear, each box of notebooks left over from highschool, each car and set of car keys, each coffee mug, each old printer cartridge, each and every single item of everyone, worldwide, and dump them all into a huge warehouse in San Francisco. And then, you say, you'll give everyone receipts to keep track of their stuff. Obviously the receipts will be rather lengthy and complicated an affair, but all the inconvenience, confusion and sheer effort is worth it, you say. Because why ? "Because there's no reason we can't have both". Orly.

I get it, you're a centralist at heart, you want this globalisation thing where everyone's stuff is locked up in Fort Knox so the misfortunate indigents of Mali get to curse the day your pasty ass showed up forcing "democracy" on them. I don't particularly like this outlook, but who am I to tell you how to live your life.

Nevertheless, there's a damned good reason why you can't have both at my expense. You can't ask demand me and my friends and my business partners run complicated, expensive and ultimately pointless computer systems that are required to distinguish our transactions from Mali bound transactions, avoid double spends and all of that simply because you want the world to be a centrally-planned, single-core thing because you're too intellectually lazy and too mentally simple to accomodate the actual variety of the world in your barren skull. I get it, it'd be much simpler for you to think of "everything in Bitcoin".

This simplicity for you has actual costs in the world. If large classes of transactions among which there is no possible cross-ambiguity remain limited to their own context, there's less hassle for everyone involved. Imagine the common occurence of someone sitting in your seat on the airplane. Fortunately, the tickets carry a seat number, which can be compared, and there you go. Imagine instead the Gavinairport where Gavintickets require everyone in the whole airport get out of their planes, single file to the tickets checking office, and have their tickets checked. Every single time someone sits in someone else's seat. And what'd the TSA say to this ? I can almost see them, "there's no reason we can't have it". Of course there isn't, if nobody gives a shit about people or their legitimate interests.

There's no benefit to making everything wait on everything else if large swaths can be readily isolated that'd absolutely never meet. If my blockchain doesn't have to wait for Mali blocks to propagate, and if it doesn't have to to check against Mali doublespends of transactions nobody in Mali could ever be conceivably involved in under any circumstances, then my blockchain is easier to run, to maintain, to debug and so it can provide for the citizens of Mali exactly the only thing they actually want me to provide : a backup value.

They don't perceivably want nor do they conceivably need main chain transactions for every single quarter of cent / West African CFA franc transaction they undertake. What they clearly need and possibly even want is the ability to turn a pile of however many of these they've saved into a few Satoshi. So they can save that, so they can buy Trilema credits, so they can do the few and precious things where they actually interact with the world at large. There's absolutely no need to make every single move they take dependent on the actions of far removed parties that couldn't care less about their interests, needs or proclivities.

Yeah, yeah, you're thinking "but Bitcoin is decentralized". Sure, it's a decentralized implementation. But it is an implementation of a centralized concept. Bitcoin is universal money, and that's quite by definition central. Even if implemented in a decentralized manner, as all usable money always has to be implemented, it nevertheless is a centralized thing, by the very nature of what money has to be in order to be money. Now why marry to this an obligation that's burdensome on everyone and not really useful to anyone ?


i. Considering Murck left as well, it's not at all clear who's even left whatsoever.
ii. Not to put too fine a point on it :

TomServo: Pretty minor gripe but, "under a regulation that requires he prove his intent to depart the U.S." - how does one prove that? "No - see, my calendar says I have a dentist appt back home in 2 weeks so I'll definitely be gone."
mircea_popescu: TomServo really, he's being about as dumb as nefario. That's always been there, for foreigners, which people who renounce a citizenship become. It is customarily shown by a) substantial assets and b) family ties. The uncomfortable reality that he has neither is obviously something he's not willing to confront, and so it has to be about how bad teh us customs & immigration is. Now, it's all fine and dandy to all agree on how teh us is the empire of evil. However, the notion that they'd err on the side of not letting anyone in is plain ridoinculous.

So Roger Ver is now a bum. Who could have foreseen!

iii. No, I'm not kidding. All these schmucks can go to jail on pretty much anyone's say-so. There's a good reason serious business isn't generally built on the backs of ex-cons, out on parole. Guess what the reason may be ? Could it have anything to do with them being unreliable ? Whether they wish to be or not ?
iv. Yes, this is important. Bitcoin is about money. Not about "ideas", not about "community", not about your delusions of grandeur, importance, influence and so on. Bitcoin.Is.About.Money.

X. A Princeton graduate who resides in Amherst, Massachusetts and has lived his entire life firmly attached to the govenrment tit is going to "save Africa" from imaginary problems it doesn't actually have by inflating the Bitcoin blockchain to the point nobody but his USG owners can maintain a full record. This is good for Bitcoin.

You are an idiot. Go the fuck away.

XI. Raising the limit doesn't force the blocks to be filled. It just gives miners the option to make bigger blocks should market conditions make it to their advantage to do so.

This is not how economics work. Quoting Buffettⁱ :

The domestic textile industry operates in a commodity business, competing in a world market in which substantial excess capacity exists. Much of the trouble we experienced was attributable, both directly and indirectly, to competition from foreign countries whose workers are paid a small fraction of the U.S. minimum wage. But that in no way means that our labor force deserves any blame for our closing. In fact, in comparison with employees of American industry generally, our workers were poorly paid, as has been the case throughout the textile business. In contract negotiations, union leaders and members were sensitive to our disadvantageous cost position and did not push for unrealistic wage increases or unproductive work practices. To the contrary, they tried just as hard as we did to keep us competitive. Even during our liquidation period they performed superbly. (Ironically, we would have been better off financially if our union had behaved unreasonably some years ago; we then would have recognized the impossible future that we faced, promptly closed down, and avoided significant future losses.)

Over the years, we had the option of making large capital expenditures in the textile operation that would have allowed us to somewhat reduce variable costs. Each proposal to do so looked like an immediate winner. Measured by standard return-on-investment tests, in fact, these proposals usually promised greater economic benefits than would have resulted from comparable expenditures in our highly-profitable candy and newspaper businesses.

But the promised benefits from these textile investments were illusory. Many of our competitors, both domestic and foreign, were stepping up to the same kind of expenditures and, once enough companies did so, their reduced costs became the baseline for reduced prices industrywide. Viewed individually, each company's capital investment decision appeared cost-effective and rational; viewed collectively, the decisions neutralized each other and were irrational, just as happens when each person watching a parade decides he can see a little better if he stands on tiptoes.

After each round of investment, all the players had more money in the game and returns remained anemic. Thus, we faced a miserable choice: huge capital investment would have helped to keep our textile business alive, but would have left us with terrible returns on ever-growing amounts of capital. After the investment, moreover, the foreign competition would still have retained a major, continuing advantage in labor costs. A refusal to invest, however, would make us increasingly non-competitive, even measured against domestic textile manufacturers. I always thought myself in the position described by Woody Allen in one of his movies: "More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."

For an understanding of how the to-invest-or-not-to-invest dilemma plays out in a commodity business, it is instructive to look at Burlington Industries, by far the largest U.S. textile company both 21 years ago and now. In 1964 Burlington had sales of $1.2 billion against our $50 million. It had strengths in both distribution and production that we could never hope to match and also, of course, had an earnings record far superior to ours. Its stock sold at 60 at the end of 1964; ours was 13.

Burlington made a decision to stick to the textile business, and in 1985 had sales of about $2.8 billion. During the 1964-85 period, the company made capital expenditures of about $3 billion, far more than any other U.S. textile company and more than $200-per-share on that $60 stock. A very large part of the expenditures, I am sure, was devoted to cost improvement and expansion. Given Burlington's basic commitment to stay in textiles, I would also surmise that the company's capital decisions were quite rational.

Nevertheless, Burlington has lost sales volume in real dollars and has far lower returns on sales and equity now than 20 years ago. Split 2-for-1 in 1965, the stock now sells at 34-on an adjusted basis, just a little over its $60 price in 1964. Meanwhile, the CPI has more than tripled. Therefore, each share commands about one-third the purchasing power it did at the end of 1964. Regular dividends have been paid but they, too, have shrunk significantly in purchasing power.

This devastating outcome for the shareholders indicates what can happen when much brain power and energy are applied to a faulty premise. The situation is suggestive of Samuel Johnson's horse: "A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse, not a remarkable mathematician." Likewise, a textile company that allocates capital brilliantly within its industry is a remarkable textile company, but not a remarkable business.

My conclusion from my own experiences and from much observation of other businesses is that a good managerial record (measured by economic returns) is far more a function of what business boat you get into than it is of how effectively you row (though intelligence and effort help considerably, of course, in any business, good or bad). Some years ago I wrote: "When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact." Nothing has since changed my point of view on that matter. Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

So, no : infinite blocks to not give "the miners" any sort of option, because "the miners" as a collective noun do not exist. There exist individual miners exclusively, and the incentives of individuals are, should the Gavin scam actually be implemented, firmly oriented towards destroying the commons that is Bitcoin.

There's no way out of this problem, and simple ignorance of economy or game theory is not a solution.

XII. The current 1Mb limit is arbitrary. We want to change it. Please ignore the fact that the discussion is about whether to change or not to change, and please ignore that the onus is on whoever proposes change to justify it. Instead, buy into our pretense that the discussion is about "which arbitrary value". Because we're idiots, and so should be you!

Go away.

XIII. Bitcoin has worked fine so far, and is sending the world's elite running for cover - from political to financial to media elites. Clearly this means more of the same won't work in the future, and it must be changed to more closely conform to what these elites like to see, which only coincidentally happens to strictly resemble each and every other previous challenge to their authority, which only coincidentally hapepend to all failed. Because we're idiots, and so should be you! For equality.

Go away.

XIV. We all agree.

Good for you, too bad you're irrelevant. Bitcoin is about money and about power, not about opinion and social media. You can agree until you are blue in the face, that's not what makes a difference. Your public humiliation on this score - in case your shepherd be dumb enough to actually take the field and be humiliatedⁱⁱ - should be instructive for you.

Take notice on the why and the how you don't matter, understand why "MP doesn't cater to my idiocy which makes me want to support anything else" doesn't actually do anything, break through the shell of your own idiocy and start actually developing as a human being already. Going by your infantile behaviour this is clearly the first time you had the chance, but going by the messy state of the world around you it might actually be your last, too. Try and make the best of the very little you have at your disposal.

That'd be it. This third installment actually covers the entirety of the "arguments" brought by the idiots (and assorted incentivised shills / "political activists") pushing this particular attack on Bitcoin. Ridiculous how little they have, considering how much they cost their government, their parents and the Earth generally. But such is life.


i. Really, you should do a lot more reading of MPOE-PR - she is pretty much the only avenue for a tardstalk user to actually relate to Bitcoin. Everyone else there is just hallucinating nonsense.
ii. Seems improbable, if nothing else on the strength of the recent very embarassed Fed release - apparently once MP destroyed their shill in Bitcoin they're not even willing to name Bitcoin at all anymore, it has to be "Digital Value Transfer Vehicles" now. Nothing quite like wounded narcissism in bureaucrats, eh ?

[traincarswreck]

I suspect it would be helpful to not start our posts out by laughing at and mocking others posts (what is helpful can be seen to benefit us all!)

I also notice we have so far avoided the question about the possibility that no consensus can be made and therefore such change is impossible.  We should discuss/figure out our strategies in such a case (and therefore the ramifications).

Didn't I kill you already?

No, I'm unexploitable, trust me.
Link large posts to blogs please!

Ok, is it settled then?  No change.

We don't have to agree, but its helpful to discuss how we feel about this "truth".

[Anon136]

Atleast with a static block size we will always have something that works and delivers on some promises. Of course this would put a cap on the value of bitcoin. All the people hoping to get rich would never see that happen, but then that never was one of the promises of bitcoin. It is true that if we dont massively raise the block size than bitcoin will never scale very well, but atleast we would be sure that we are not killing the golden goose outright. It would still be useful to us in all of the ways that it has always been useful to us. If we go massively raising the block size we may completely destroy bitcoin, it may become so centralized as to be totally unrecognizable. It would scale to world wide adoption but only at the cost of not fundamentally being any different than legacy banking.

I do agree that it should be raised though. 1mb is too small. If my math is right 20mb works out to about a terabyte a year. Thats pretty reasonable. At some point in the future it will make sense to raise it again similarly. I just surely hope that cooler heads prevail and no one gets carried away. There is no way this thing can scale to on chain transactions for everyone in the world for quite a long time yet, and if we pursue that as a goal it will destroy the bitcoin we know and love.

[traincarswreck]

I think the price started to rise again because we are almost at consensus (of no consensus).

[danielpbarron]

Of course this would put a cap on the value of bitcoin.

GTFO. You have no idea what you're talking about.

I think the price started to rise again because we are almost at consensus (of no consensus).

Nope.

[DooMAD]

TALKING ABOUT BITCOIN, EVEN IF IN A GROUP, DOES NOT MAKE YOU PART OF OUR GROUP OF JAW-DROPPINGLY EGOTISTICAL ASSHATS

FTFY.

Oh joy, danielpbarron is back on another recruitment drive, telling us all (by only being capable of regurgitating MP's holy words) that if we're not a member of his little band of arrogant elitists that no one cares about, then we're not a member of his little band of arrogant elitists that no one cares about.  

a) Way to state the obvious.
b) We still don't care about your little playgroup.
c) You're really not as important as you like to think you are.

[cryptocoiner]

Why we should increase block size? Aren't current block size big enough?

[traincarswreck]

I do agree capping bitcoin does not destroy or limit its value, and probably rather the opposite.

But I do not agree this dialogue does not effect price. I think that would be silly to suggest.

‘Tacit’ means that which is unspoken, which cannot be described-like the tacit knowledge required to ride a bicycle. It is the actual knowledge, and it may be coherent or not. I am proposing that thought-to think-is actually a subtle tacit process.

The tacit process is common. It is shared. The sharing is not merely the explicit communication and the body language and all that, which are part of it, but there is also a deeper tacit process which is common. I think the whole human race knew this for a million years; and then in five thousand years of civilisation we have lost it, because our societies got too big to carry it out.