First, I'd like to point out that you once again take small paras where I state nothing
of any value and address those instead of attacking my main paras directly. Instead
of arguing where my reasoning is wrong, you just argue simple statements I make in
passing or in the preamble.
Given the amount of text, the rather unstructured logical construction, it is difficult for me to know what exactly you want to say, in what way it contradicts what I'm saying, and in what way it is the logical culmination of rational steps of reasoning. So I pick out things I want to react to when I read them. If those are not the points you want to discuss, you should maybe not write them, or structure it somewhat better. I will continue to do what I usually do: react to the pieces that I read and of which I think they are erroneous, unfounded or whatever. If those are not your main points, that doesn't really matter to me. If it does to you, point them out better then.
If that is how you see my responses, that is fine and your opinion.
But everything I say leads into my next statement, so when you say
it is "the rather unstructured logical construction" I find that to be what
you are doing since your conclusions are not based on your prior statements.
It is as if your conclusions are found first and then you attempt to backtrack
them by philosophy.
In order to stop wasting both of our time, I will just state what i think
without much elaboration and I will try to keep it as brief as I am possible.
The purpose of Satoshi's client, and today's client (Core), was that there was a baseline
standard rule set that all other clients and systems could rely upon. That is why it is
considered the "reference client" (Dev Gavin understood this very well at the time).
At some point in the future, the reference client will never again be changed unless in
emergencies or serious bug fixes. The rules will be set in stone forever. Simply,
eventually the system will not need additions or etc since everything could be done
without needing direct modifications to the protocol. If the rules are changed after that
future point that are not to fix serious issues, it is always an attack on the base rules.
First of all,
"purpose" has no meaning in a decentralized system, because each entity in the system has a different purpose, and is assumed to act according to his view of the pursuit of his own purpose.
In order for there to be a "global purpose", there has to be an entity singled out of whose own purpose is the "global purpose". Different entities can have opposing purposes: if I want to steal you, and you want to steal me, we have opposite purposes (an action and a result that is in agreement with my purpose, namely that I stole from you, is not going to be perceived by you as such positive action and vice versa).
I disagree. The "purpose" of Bitcoin is that the "separate entities", which may
have "separate purposes", when working as a whole in accordance to the base
rules, create a larger reinforcing decentralizing system that Satoshi intended.
Each separate entity is not really separate, but feeds into the other and
ultimately they all have the same purpose, and that is to resist and survive
only for the benefit to the whole.
But moreover, you clearly see that your very statement is self-contradictory. There is a "baseline standard rule", but which can be "modified", until it won't be modified any more at an unknown point in the future. Attacks are defined as being modifications after the unknown point in the future ; needed modifications are modifications before that unknown point in the future ; who's to define that point in the future ?? Is core attacking bitcoin with Segwit ? Are big blockers attacking bitcoin ? Is that point in the future already in the past, and has bitcoin been attacked already successfully many times ?
If you think it is contradictory, take it up with Satoshi. He seriously believed
that at a certain point, the reference client would never need changing, since
if it could change in the future or through time (emergence), the value of the
token is never true or finalized. The token becomes amorphous.
Attacks are defined by "
an action that violates the current base rule set
WITHOUT majority Consensus". SegWit can not be an attack, unless it is
forced upon all others. Big blocks are not an attack, unless it is forced upon all
others. Attacks only occur when "
one entity is attempting to force the other
entities to follow". Simply, if Miners and Non-Miners are in "Consensus", there
is never an attack, there is never a "follow", there is always a "together". But if
any "follow me" situations occur, it is by design an attack on the whole.
"a standard is unmodifiable at a certain unknown point in the future, but in the mean time some of us can modify it". I hope you see that such a statement is entirely impossible in a system that claims to be a decentralized system but is even entirely impossible without a King whose whims are the Law, including His decision of when the famous point in the future is reached (his death ? His abdiction ?) If ever such a point made sense, it would have been if Satoshi said "bye bye now". But he didn't, even. Maybe he was hit by a bus, nobody knows.
No, some of us cannot modify Bitcoin. It has only ever been modified by
"Consensus" alone. If the separate entities (Miners, Non-Miner Verifying
Nodes, Exchanges, Services, Devs, Users) all agree to "move together" then
a modification occurs. Without that, there is never a modification. The rule set
is always secured until a "Consensus" type is performed. Anything other than
a "Consensus" is always an attack by one of the entities.
The time in which the protocol never changes is determined when the time
arrives in which it becomes impossible to do so by Consensus. If that time
has arrived, then so be it. If not, and we can reach a "Consensus" soon, then
we clearly have not reached that the point Satoshi envisioned.
Satoshi intended the reference client to be "the center", because that is how all systems
within this universe work.
All systems in this universe are subject to the laws of physics and the emergent properties they induce.
We can only *discover* them, not *dictate* them. Bitcoin is a system that is just as well subject to the laws of physics, of which the emergent properties are the game theory with the cost functions of the entities that "play its game".
Bitcoin's initial protocol is just part of the *initial state*, not its "dynamics". The dynamics of bitcoin is game theory, it is not "the protocol of bitcoin". The protocol of bitcoin is part of its state.
Game theory is not an emergent property. If it becomes emergent, that
means it has been exploited and the experiment's original theory failed.
Game theory with humans assumes they are constrained within rules in
accordance with their animalistic nature. That base nature is not dynamic.
It is considered predictable under normal circumstances.
Bitcoin is not dynamic nor emergent. Our understanding of its parts may
be dynamic and emergent in our attempt to fully grasp its full meaning,
but that does not make the system itself that. The source code does not
evolve and transform on its own, only by human hand through collective
Consensus. Anything else is an misunderstanding, an exploit, or an attack.
When you say that Bitcoin's protocol is just in an initial state that changes
in time, you neglect to add that the change is always done so by Consensus.
At no point in the past has Consensus changes been made that outright
violate the rule set, other than when Satoshi himself added the 1MB Cap.
Otherwise everything else has been non-violating additions to the rule set.
This is why my reference to gravity is pertinent. The laws of gravity are part of the core laws of this universe. Now, you can set off specific systems using gravity, like the Solar system. Maybe your intention is that the solar system is a stable system "under the laws of gravity". Maybe. However, the planets running in stable orbits (the "initial protocol of the Solar system") is just an initial state. It turns out that nothing guarantees this structure to remain so for ever: first of all, its stability over the long term internally is not guaranteed, but moreover, any external event can modify it. The laws of gravity remain valid. But the "protocol of the solar system" not. It was an island of supposed stability under an approximate understanding of gravity, namely Kepler's laws, which are approximate when we understand Newton, and which is itself only approximate when we understand general relativity.
You are conflating the universe's laws of gravity with solar systems and
their individual planetary evolutions through time. They are two separate
things in actuality. The proper representation by using your example type
is this:
Reference Client = Universal Laws of GravityMiner, Nodes, Devs, Exchanges, Etc, = All bodies subject to Gravity.
The dynamics and emergence of the Universe does not actually exist.
Only it subsystems (planets and other bodies) can be consider dynamic and
emergent. In addition, even space/time is a subsystem of the laws. The rules
set of this universe is clearly not changing currently.
So, I disagree with your perspective on this issues.
The "laws of bitcoin" are NOT the protocol but is game theory. Whether its protocol remains stable (immutability) or not is to be seen, and is a consequence of its dynamical laws, not because of a "desired design". And we can only *discover* them. Not dictate them. You don't dictate game theory. You discover it.
No, I disagree. Your belief assumes that Bitcoin is dependent on humans.
In reality, when thinking machines become more common and human miners
are replaced, immutability will remain as a byproduct of the base rule set,
where as human game theory will be considered an obsolete aspect of the
original experiment. Game theory is not actually dynamic nor emergent upon
the Bitcoin system and was only added because the current human element
needs incentives to not violate the rule set outright.
There is no simple or complex system that exists that has no
center point. Your belief that this may be a problem (since 2010) is not the fault of
Satoshi or Core or the limitations of the human mind, but the limitations of this universe,
and because of that, your argument is distraction and is a waste of time. Thinking that the
reference client needs to also be decentralized is a perversion created from blind hate
and not logic. Satoshi understood there would always be a reference client that all other
system would build from and he understood that at a certain point that client would never
need changing (this contradicts emergent mechanisms).
Ok, but then this is nothing else but a centralized system. If there's only one reference client, and the devs of it do two things:
1) build in an "end of life" into every reference client, to oblige a hard fork after X blocks (like monero does)
2) once everyone is running this one, they give themselves a huge amount of coins in the next release,
then, by definition, this is the sole reference client, and the devs become immensely rich in BTC. It would not be an "attack" because the authors of the reference client are those that have the sole right to dictate the rules (they are the aristocracy). In fact, anyone trying to run *other* software would then have to be considered as an attacker.
I hope you see that your concepts you are advancing, are entirely ill-defined.
No you jump to wild conclusions that do follow what is actually occurring and
occurred in the past. No one, not even the devs of the reference client, has the
power you claim they do. The power only comes through "Consensus", anything
outside of "Consensus" is an attack.
If an attack was performed and successful, the reference client code prior to the
attack will be used and redistributed to all non-attacking parties who will use the
original reference client code instead. Basically, if the devs performed such an
action, the whole community moves back without them. The devs can not perform
actions upon the rule set without majority consent from all other subsystems and
participants. For some reason, you don't understand that. You actually think
someone solely within the system or outside system has total power. That is
wrong and isn't based in anything. Even if Satoshi returned, he has no direct
power over the system, only the minds of it's human participants.
Bitcoin's rules are almost always resistant, since if violating base rules are created
and enforced somehow (which is impossible outside Consensus), all dissenters just
fork the code and fork the chain and leave the attackers behind. Its very simple.
Attackers can not "steal" the chain or token, without our consent to be "stolen"
from. That was the simple answer to the puzzle.
There will always be rules and they will
always be dictated through a single center client. That is natural.
Then bitcoin doesn't make much sense. It is a central bank, and the center you are talking about is the board of governors of the FED. We have that already. But moreover, whether bitcoin makes sense or not doesn't even matter: it is now a system that is "up and running" and it will follow the laws of its game theory, whether we think that's OK or not.
You are semi-correct.
Bitcoin is a central bank like system, but the "governors" are all the network
subsystems and other participants who decide rules by Consensus. We do not have
that already in our current society. Satoshi created Bitcoin so that "everyone" could
determine the rules together, not by a handful of individuals. That is why majority
Community Consensus is important in Bitcoin. If those decisions are left to human
markets or just the miners soley, then you have created a central bank that is
equally to the current world central banks.