Piling every proof-of-work quorum system in the world into one dataset doesn't scale.
And that is where I think it gets interesting:
Here is a thought experiment: what if we decreased the block size to support just one transaction per minute (ten transactions per block)? Would more or fewer people use it? Would the Bitcoin system overall be more or less valuable? I think any reasonable person would agree that a one-transaction-per-minute Bitcoin would be less valuable than the seven-transactions-per-second system we have today.
What is value? Is value price? I hope not.
Is value the thing that we need, and so we should optimize bitcoin to be that thing the best we can? Or...is value the thing that causes is to become more what we want to become. Or in other words, if we locked in 1 transaction per block, would society be doomed, or would it adjust faster to this slow system?
Is it correct in the future that our transactions on the blockchain continue to increase over time? Or should we as a society (and will we), learn to thrive and pass efficiency in other better and new and more efficient ways than even the blockchain. Do not be so quick to answer these questions and I think neither was Gavin so quick or the others...
But what Ice seemed to point out when they called my article on securing decentralization through NE, is that the longer we keep these conversations and parameters open, the less secure and less psychologically secure this "system" is. We can have infinite networks, systems, and currencies etc...
There can only ever be 1 bedrock. I don't know if we (generally) understand this.