Quote from: DooMAD on October 16, 2016, 10:32:51 PM

Quote from: Carlton Banks on October 16, 2016, 09:04:02 PM

This is what's so ridiculous about both his and your position; there's nothing wrong with increasing the blocksize in principle, but

only at the right moment in time to suit what the software, the Bitcoin network and the underlying internet infrastructure can support.

2015 was not the right time, and neither was it this year. So that means that software imporvements to increase the capcity of the network are needed, not crude increases in resource usage that threaten the network.

I know you refuse to see that this is the sensible option, but the 25+ Core devs don't see it that way. About 3-4 devs see it your way, and the reasoning hasn't convinced anyone to take a risk on their (literally) backwards schedule to implement scaling up transaction capacity. Like you say, you're welcome to argue or code as you please, but this business of using nothing but bad arguments makes you look like bad losers, at best.

This is probably the most reasonable argument you've presented so far, so I don't know why you couldn't open with that, heh.

Well, I'm glad that you're happy to demonstrate good faith in being constuctive in debate. It seems that not all the fork-happy contigent share your stance.

Quote from: DooMAD on October 16, 2016, 10:32:51 PM

It should be noted that SegWit wasn't even on the table when concerns over the maximum throughput first arose, but now that it is, I am quite happy for us to experiment with that. Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't implement Segwit and other optimisations. I'm happy to have Lightning available as an option for those who wish to use it. But I am absolutely adamant that the average user shouldn't be forced into using Lightning, or worse still, forced off-chain into some hideous realm of digital IOUs, because the main chain becomes an exclusive, elitist club for the new one-percenter-wanabees.

I agree entirely with everything you say there. The "all-or-nothing" absolutist position of saying all transactions should suddenly only be handled by payment channel hubs is something that Franky has managed to drum into everyone's head. The trouble is, I've never actually seen a single example of anyone saying it, not even Poon and Dryffas who conceived the LN concept.

On chain transactions are always going to be more suitable for high-ish ticket one-off purchases, it's difficult to imagine the channel routing that could aggregate a payment like that into something more efficient; those with average or below average wealth make that kind of purchase more than often enough that they will need that facility. And the same is true of LN transactions, tiny repetitive payments make the most use of the Lightning structure, less so the less frequent they are. I'm more than happy to consider whatever other new innovations can be conceived, on their merits. And there's nothing wrong with increasing the blocksize, as we seem to agree, at the right time. Maybe we might still disagree as to when that is, this story is by no means over, but we're at least agreeing on the basics.

Quote from: DooMAD on October 16, 2016, 10:32:51 PM

I don't see that as a "bad argument". I honestly and passionately believe that would be genuinely damaging to Bitcoin if it were to happen.

I feel the same as you did: why didn't you just say it like this before?!

Quote from: DooMAD on October 16, 2016, 10:32:51 PM

As such, I will continue to campaign vociferously against that potential outcome. Contrary to popular belief, I don't want to see the Bitcoin network fall over because no one is able to run a node. But at the same time, I believe it's quite reasonable to assume that two-thirds of a floppy disk won't be enough to cover an entire globe's worth of transactions in the space of ~10 minutes for many years to come. There are no guarantees that SegWit, Lightning and other such proposals will solve the scaling issues. I hope they do. But I still want the option of a blocksize increase if they don't. If I have to rely on an alternative client for that option to be available, so be it.

Ditto. That's my exact position right there.

Quote from: DooMAD on October 16, 2016, 10:32:51 PM

So, with this in mind, I'm quite horrified by the increasing barrage of authoritarian attitudes towards development and the way in which people perceive network "governance". I actually agree that changes should be made (at the risk of misquoting you) "at the right moment in time to suit what the software, the Bitcoin network and the underlying internet infrastructure can support", but I would simply add afterwards: I trust the market to decide when that time is and what code should regulate it. If I didn't, I wouldn't have any money in it.

In fairness to you, I'll happily concede there are people making arguments that "blockstream are the devil, so we should fork yesterday" or "100mb blocksize, plz" or some other such silliness. I'm not actually one of those people, though. You might recall my amended BIP106 proposal, which I thought was pretty damn moderate, personally. And your post in August last year about BIP106, where you were initially drawn to the idea, leaves me wondering how we keep butting heads over this matter and how I keep being personified as some sort of militant loon.

//EDIT: Okay, before you say it, granted, I'm prone to making somewhat troll-ish bait posts, but only when I think you're being unreasonable. Tongue

The problem is how badly the debate has been polarised, but you've really got to look at the way the "2MB yesterday" crowd have been behaving to see how that situation has arisen. The whole cast; Peter Rizun, Franky, VeritasSapre etc just refused to behave like adult debaters. They indulged in nothing but troll debating, every trick there is, they used it. It's not easy to be restrained with people that are only interested in being disruptive, and it's therefore all too easy to mistake someone trying to genuinely argue something ill-conceived for someone trying to make bad arguments disingenuously.

So, we're proving here we can have a productive discussion about this, that we agree on more than we disagree, and that we've been talking past each other a fair amount. What was the point again, lol