2015-07-02 18:38 GMT+09:00 rysiek
Dnia niedziela, 28 czerwca 2015 20:52:43 Sean Lynch pisze:
Wow, that's a low blow. Arguing by authority, and then a false dichotomy: "either you know more about Bitcoin than X, or you should not have a voice at all on this"
Might I suggest considering arguing on the merits instead, next time? :)
Perhaps if you bothered to read more than the last message in the thread you would realize that I already attempted that. I think your expectations are a bit high when there are people on the thread arguing that we should really consider the opinions of those making death threats. IOW listen to the terrorists.
But that's exactly why I was so surprised. I filter out the people that make no sense or deat5h threats, but when I see a person that usually seems to make sense, and yet lands a straw man, I'm taken aback. :)
Saying Gavin knows quite a lot about Bitcoin is not an argument of authority. It doesn't make him right, but it does make him very likely to be right. Certainly more likely than the heapings of shitty arguments, especially those that are technically disconnected from what bitcoin is. When you listen to the arguments about blocksize it usually goes something like: Pro: * Cheaper transactions * More truly Bitcoin transactions * Simplest way to scale There's some derivative arguments regarding poor people's access to Bitcoin and a herd of applications that just require cheap access to the blockchain. I think the most noteworthy argument is: * Bitcoin becomes more competitive/attractive as a result of cheaper transactions Con: * We can already fit quite some txs * the blockchain will be less wieldable * the bandwidth required to keep up with the blockchain (regardless of storage) will increase * we can scale externally The derivative arguments here are also poor people's access to Bitcoin, wrt bandwidth, but the argument holds up much worse as SPV would work just fine over those rare very slow connections. Then there's a lot of downright fearmongering like "only institutions will run full nodes". Economically that's just not true, and technologically it's not important - crypto features allow usability immediately (simplefied (commercial) APIs, "blind" tx broadcasting), strong guarantees *very *quickly (SPV), and certainty and independence if you'd like it (a pruning full node), and history novelty at only minor hassle (less than a day's work). Even a 100 fold increase in blocksize would not radically change this. It's pretty annoying to have an even bigger blockchain, don't get me wrong on that, but that's just the way Bitcoin works: a blockchain that grows with use. There's no reason for it to truly upset you, either. Running a full node is already something you don't do for no reason at all. I can't really make this argument as well as I like. The point is that if you have a reason you would still do it later, and if you don't you don't already. Some people noted that the pruning makes it possible to run a full node on their phones. Cool! But there's no reason to. In fact, you won't because it'd drain your battery. We'll be okay without the one silly geek that does it anyway. So.. these points were already hard to argue against clearly. Then there's "we can scale externally".... The trouble is that there's so many ways, like pinning (sidechains/mastercoin), exclusively inter-institutional settlement, debt based moneys ("the bearer of this token is entitled to..."), and all of them could work! In fact, we could just abandon Bitcoin alltogether! And that's the core of my counterargument: we don't have to cripple Bitcoin, so let's not. Let's not make it more complicated than it has to be. If we do scale externally, let it be for exceedingly good reasons and at exceedingly competitive prices. Mostly I see people haggling over nothing on Reddit, and even here. There's also confusion about roles in the Bitcoin ecosystem, and about ideals. Then there's confusion about consent, and how to manage it. It's probably because all those things are badly fleshed out. Hard-to-achieve consensus has advantages; Bitcoin will be technologically stable. The roles will shift anyway. Ideals are not inherent, only cold hard currency is. It's implications depend on culture and math, both generally not very well understood. Reddit has never been conducive to quality argument - at fantastic loss to everyone but the populists. I think, ultimately, that giving Gavin ultimate authority for 10 years then freezing the whole ordeal would probably work out rather well. I think it's ran afoul of his control too soon. We already have some weird bugs in Bitcoin. Then there's some strange (unstudied) economical effects like the halving (and why not gradual decrease?). I'm sure lots of people found similar oddities from their perspectives. There's just not much to do about it anymore now. The Chinese mining pools stamping their document regarding increasing the blocksize to 8mb was extraordinary. They ignored Gavin's 20mb or anything proposal ("or anything" probably mostly to make 20mb seem reasonable). They stamped - a thing completely outdated in the West, yet common in Asia (and pretty badass). They are a group of Chinese making law for everyone. (not-a-magnet-or-similar-document-oriented-link: http://i.imgur.com/JUnQcue.jpg) Gavin appeased them and provided for unattended growth with a period 8mb increase. Smart move. So - conclusively - Gavin is a hero, the Internet's retarded, Bitcoin is in policy jail but it likes it there. Oh, and the free-est market of the world is already significantly run by Chinese. If you read this far, thanks.