Or that 2-4-8 is a vastly different proposition (being as it stops at 8MB)
Surely the more pragmatic approach would be to see what the average connection and bandwidth availability is later when we're approaching 8MB and have the
option to keep going
if it's safe to do so?
I agree, but that's baked into a 2-4-8 cake anyway. If 8MB was reached as you say, then the option still exists via hard forking again. Except if you're running a post-fork XT network; the hard forking mechanism can't be used once Mike's proposed blockchain checkpoints get introduced.
(another mindless XT argument debunked; they constantly claim that hard forks are possible using the proposed XT codebase, when XT has been re-designed to prevent any further hard forks)
Just so I'm clear on how this 2-4-8 works, obviously we need a hard fork to get the ball rolling. Then going from 2 to 4 and from 4 to 8 doesn't require a hard fork, but going beyond 8 means we've made a guess about the future now and have drawn a line in the sand based on nothing more than a hunch?
I'm not either, it's an assumption. But people don't use expressions like 2-4-8 when they actually mean doubling without limit, so it's a safe assumption.
From the very start of this discussion, people have repeatedly stated that we can't make assumptions about the future, so why are we assuming that 8 is as far as we should go? People argued that "kicking the can down the road" is the wrong approach, but taking a guess at a future limit and carving it in stone now is precisely that.
You're correct: these are arbitrary numbers to some extent. Guesstimate increases that are "not-too-big" and "not-too-small", so not based on any kind of attempt to solve the problem permanently. I take a similar view, which is why I prefer a dynamic limit, but there aren't any proposals like that have attracted any significant consensus so far.
And the checkpoints thing was an idea. A bad one, granted, but never implemented (or did I miss something?), so I don't see why it's still being picked at.
You can choose that chracterisation if you want, but seeing as it's just one more dangerous idea out of many to come from one man, I think the point deserves reiterating. What makes you think that Mike won't bring the idea back (as he does with so many of his ideas that others previously rejected)? Post-fork perhaps?