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Why is Bitcoin forking?

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Re: Why is Bitcoin forking?

#41

Post by hga »

dragontamer wrote: post #28
hga wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That old problem has of course been addressed, e.g. by using things like gold certificates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_certificate Which add their own set of problems, but at least you get a clear signal when they get repudiated. Or you use banks, letters of credit from them ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_credit ), etc.

Except Gold Certificates are fake money. Many crashes in the 1800s were about Banks issuing too many certificates for the amount of Gold that was actually stored in their vaults. Gold Certificates are no different than credit cards or fractional reserve banking. The bank makes a promise without proving anything, and people are expected to trust the banks for things to work out. And when the poop hits the fan, people…

Except Gold Certificates are fake money.

Which might be why I said:

but at least you get a clear signal when they get repudiated.

When, not if. I think this may be better than how fiat money "works", but obviously opinions vary.

Re: Why is Bitcoin forking?

#42

Post by andrepd »

troymc wrote: post #36
Taek wrote: post #15

For people who have not been following along, the Bitcoin block size debate has been very intense and pulled out a lot of interesting psychology from the Bitcoin community. Most of the core devs of Bitcoin are strongly opposed to increasing the blocksize to 8mb. 2 people in particular, Mike Hearn and Gavin Andresen, have been making very strong political pushes to get the majority of Bitcoin users to favor their bloc…

"Dr. Hoenikker used to say that any scientist who couldn't explain to an eight-year-old what he was doing was a charlatan." - Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle The argument that "I understand this and you don't, so you don't get a vote" seems like a lazy way to suppress democratic process. A better alternative is, "This might seem complicated, but really it's not; here's a simple but complete explanation to help you make a…

>This might seem complicated, but really it's not; here's a simple but complete explanation to help you make an informed decision.

But sometimes things are complicated, and there's no simple but complete explanation...

Re: Why is Bitcoin forking?

#43

Post by kybernetikos »

zzalpha wrote: post #31
bhouston wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having a qualified opinion on something like the blocksize debate likely requires around a year of studying the academic properties of Bitcoin. I do not like statements like that -- it basically says unless you know as much as me (and if you knew as much as me you'd agree with me), you can not have an opinion. It is pretty exclusionary. Most people can get up to speed fairly fast than that if they have access to go…

I have absolutely no horse in this race (I'm here for the schadenfreude), but to be honest, when it comes to deeply technical decisions, I think this is entirely fair. I wouldn't expect Linus to listen to my opinions about the Linux task scheduler. Why should the Bitcoin community listen to some random guy's unsupported opinions about block size? This isn't about politics or being nice and listening to everyone. This…

Bitcoin is a technical solution to what had previously been a political problem. It is not surprising that people in the bitcoin community are more aware than people at large that technical decisions have political ramifications.

Even the normal political problems that governments concern themselves with typically have technical aspects as well as their social values aspects, and while democracy can hopefully allow us to take many different peoples ideas of what constitutes the good life into account, we don't expect them all to have a complete understanding of the technical aspects of each decision.

It's quite possible that random guys might have relevant things to say about the values that inform the block size discussion even if they don't understand the details of the technical discussion.

Re: Why is Bitcoin forking?

#44

Post by presty »

Taek wrote: post #15

For people who have not been following along, the Bitcoin block size debate has been very intense and pulled out a lot of interesting psychology from the Bitcoin community. Most of the core devs of Bitcoin are strongly opposed to increasing the blocksize to 8mb. 2 people in particular, Mike Hearn and Gavin Andresen, have been making very strong political pushes to get the majority of Bitcoin users to favor their bloc…

fwiw, it doesn't really matter what "everyone" says and decides. at the end of the day, it's what the miners decide to do that matters

Re: Why is Bitcoin forking?

#45

Post by zzalpha »

paulhauggis wrote: post #30

This is common with many things now. The people in the know are treated like gods that cant be wrong. The global warming debate comes to mind.

This is actually a very instructive example.

In the GW debate we have folks saying things like "I'm not a climate scientist but I know global warming is a lie". That's pretty similar to this case where there's this belief that the opinions of non-technical folks should be held in the same esteem as those of technical folks.

I think this comes down to the same basic cultural trend: a desire for everyone's opinions to be of equal value regardless of individual merit, a deep distrust of science/engineering/etc, an assumption that by reading a couple of echo chamber blog posts anyone can become an expert on anything, and a rejection of any and all authority.

It's really pretty fascinating, if troubling.

Re: Why is Bitcoin forking?

#46

Post by andrepd »

dingaling wrote: post #40
zzalpha wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have absolutely no horse in this race (I'm here for the schadenfreude), but to be honest, when it comes to deeply technical decisions, I think this is entirely fair. I wouldn't expect Linus to listen to my opinions about the Linux task scheduler. Why should the Bitcoin community listen to some random guy's unsupported opinions about block size? This isn't about politics or being nice and listening to everyone. This…

> I wouldn't expect Linus to listen to my opinions about the Linux task scheduler. Why not? As an end-user your opinion is very important, you're the one that has to live with the detached decisions that Linus makes regarding the scheduler.

Do you think you are entitled to an opinion on the design of the brakes of your car? Or on the structure of the foundations of your house? Because you are the one who has to drive the car/live on the house. Unless you have technical expertise in that particular field, your opinion on technical matters has zero value.

Re: Why is Bitcoin forking?

#47

Post by Confusion »

troymc wrote: post #36
Taek wrote: post #15

For people who have not been following along, the Bitcoin block size debate has been very intense and pulled out a lot of interesting psychology from the Bitcoin community. Most of the core devs of Bitcoin are strongly opposed to increasing the blocksize to 8mb. 2 people in particular, Mike Hearn and Gavin Andresen, have been making very strong political pushes to get the majority of Bitcoin users to favor their bloc…

"Dr. Hoenikker used to say that any scientist who couldn't explain to an eight-year-old what he was doing was a charlatan." - Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle The argument that "I understand this and you don't, so you don't get a vote" seems like a lazy way to suppress democratic process. A better alternative is, "This might seem complicated, but really it's not; here's a simple but complete explanation to help you make a…

Right, it's completely ridiculous that I had to study for months to understand the transport properties of a nabotube with magnetic contacts, after having studied for years to obtain the base knowledge to start that project. The prof should have been able to explain that to me when I was 8 years old. Obviously he doesn't understand his stuff and neither do I.

Or could it maybe, just maybe, be that it is entirely reasonable that it takes years to have sufficient background understanding before an expert can convey the knowledge you need to study for another few months to actually understand something and also have an expert opinion on it?

Re: Why is Bitcoin forking?

#48

Post by zzalpha »

dingaling wrote: post #40
zzalpha wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have absolutely no horse in this race (I'm here for the schadenfreude), but to be honest, when it comes to deeply technical decisions, I think this is entirely fair. I wouldn't expect Linus to listen to my opinions about the Linux task scheduler. Why should the Bitcoin community listen to some random guy's unsupported opinions about block size? This isn't about politics or being nice and listening to everyone. This…

> I wouldn't expect Linus to listen to my opinions about the Linux task scheduler. Why not? As an end-user your opinion is very important, you're the one that has to live with the detached decisions that Linus makes regarding the scheduler.

I picked that example for a reason.

Task scheduling is deeply complicated. Optimising for one set of cases hurts others, so it's an exercise in hard tradeoffs. It also has deep knock.on effects in other parts of the system.

I do not have the expertise to make proper judgements regarding choices in that space. The breadth of knowledge and experience required greatly outstrips my own.

Moreover its a space where subjective experience is the worst possible measure. So my gut feeling as a user is utterly useless in making appropriate technical choices in the space.

Re: Why is Bitcoin forking?

#49

Post by perfTerm »

dingaling wrote: post #40
zzalpha wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have absolutely no horse in this race (I'm here for the schadenfreude), but to be honest, when it comes to deeply technical decisions, I think this is entirely fair. I wouldn't expect Linus to listen to my opinions about the Linux task scheduler. Why should the Bitcoin community listen to some random guy's unsupported opinions about block size? This isn't about politics or being nice and listening to everyone. This…

> I wouldn't expect Linus to listen to my opinions about the Linux task scheduler. Why not? As an end-user your opinion is very important, you're the one that has to live with the detached decisions that Linus makes regarding the scheduler.

So he might expect Linus to listen to his opinions on the end user experience, but maybe not to his opinions on how it should be implemented technically? Would that be fair.

I'm pretty sure giving people the time of day is an admirable trait and can teach you many things regardless of their expertise. It's after the fact that you disregard the cruft.

It's like the Republican debates for me, I can't seem to find any common ground with these candidates but then I find a few nuggets that I do like (such as Jeb Bush's funding of crisis birth centers and increasing the adoption rates in Florida through better funding and education for adoption centers. Even if I'm pro choice I think those are good ideas). Of course, the Republican debates are two to three hours long so it's very thankful they're not very often and you need to find the balance so that you're not just wasting your time.

I think it's fair to say that there is no black and white answer to this issue and you really have to go on a case by case basis to maximise your use of the information contained in the people around you.

Re: Why is Bitcoin forking?

#50

Post by 3pt14159 »

zzalpha wrote: post #31
bhouston wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having a qualified opinion on something like the blocksize debate likely requires around a year of studying the academic properties of Bitcoin. I do not like statements like that -- it basically says unless you know as much as me (and if you knew as much as me you'd agree with me), you can not have an opinion. It is pretty exclusionary. Most people can get up to speed fairly fast than that if they have access to go…

I have absolutely no horse in this race (I'm here for the schadenfreude), but to be honest, when it comes to deeply technical decisions, I think this is entirely fair. I wouldn't expect Linus to listen to my opinions about the Linux task scheduler. Why should the Bitcoin community listen to some random guy's unsupported opinions about block size? This isn't about politics or being nice and listening to everyone. This…

The difference is that the opinion has political and economic outcomes, and not everyone involved has a year to devote to learning about Bitcoin, so it essentially amounts to "just trust us, we won't enrich ourselves by fucking you". Which has been said by people involved in banks and currencies for centuries. If you want to say something like that, better follow it up with links to a list of the academic papers that one would need to get up to speed, otherwise I have no way of verifying that the problem is more difficult than my current understanding says it is.

Furthermore, a year is a really silly measurement of time for how long learning something will take. If you have some background knowledge in the field, then most individual blind spots can be cleared up in a month or two of full time study. It took me about 2 months from not knowing how Bitcoin worked to implementing my own cryptocurrency with a novel PoW approach. This stuff isn't that hard.

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