BUIP005 (passed): Settings information via coinbase-txn & user-agent

[Lee Adams]

First off, I think it is great that we can debate uncensored like this without resorting to personal attacks.

Solex

Ignoring the economics of the price plummeting because of a 100% attack, wouldn't this just be a licence to print money? Same difficulty, no competition.

I'll ignore your second point, because I simply do not understand it... my fault, not yours.

My point is, until BU is adopted, can we please keep it as simple as possible[1]. At the moment, It is very easy to deflect Adam's arguments because it makes no sense without a gamable voting option. It becomes a confusopoly when BU introduces too many things at once.

Does this point make sense to you?

[1] Nodes are able to be easily configurable to set their own limits.

 

[solex]

> this just be a licence to print money
No. But let's leave this.

You have mentioned Adam's arguments twice.

Bitcoin is a complex adaptive system (as per below) and BUIP001 significantly enhances its adaptive qualities in one key area: the block limit problem.

John Holland writes:

Emergence is a regular phenomenon in complex adaptive systems (cas). A cas consists of a large number of interacting individuals, called agents, that adapt or learn as they interact. Examples, with the corresponding agents in parentheses, are: markets (traders), ecosystems (organisms), the immune system (antibodies), biological cells (proteins), and so on. Some of our most complex current problems center on cas:

• strengthening the immune system (antibodies)
• preserving ecosystems (organisms)
• understanding the evolution and acquisition of language (humans)
• controlling spam, viruses, and other intrusions on the Internet (sites)
• encouraging innovation in dynamic economies (firms)
• predicting the effects of trade laws on global trade (governments)

All cas that we have examined closely exhibit a phenomenon that I'll calllever points, "inexpensive" actions that yield desired outcomes. In a game, a lever point is, say, a pin in chess; for the immune system, a vaccine is a good example. We mostly discover lever points in cas by trial and error, but a good theory would give us a principled way to find them. Pieces of that theory exist, but a general theory of cas is a deep and difficult problem. Still, it is clear that this young discipline has much to contribute to our understanding of the world

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/holland-emergence.html

Adam Back opened a BCT thread and a Reddit post about BU and in both OP's gave a brief summary of it and some objections in his own words. It is clear that Adam simply does not understand how BU (Core with BUIP001) actually works, which means he can't usefully critique it. This is not massively surprising because biology and social sciences are much more likely see useful high-order properties from CAS than some disciplines like cryptography which Adam is expert in. @Zangelbert Bingledack's heroic efforts to educate in the threads seem fruitless.

Mike Hearn had the same initial roadblock to "get" or "grok" what BU is about. It would be interesting to know his views now.

 

[Peter R]

Any update on the progress with BUIP005?

 

[solex]

@Peter R
The 2-week period for public discussion ends on the 15th, so this BUIP can be voted on from that date.
@YarkoL has written the user-agent change. The coinbase-txn change can be done pretty quickly as it is straight-forward. Assuming the vote is passed then it is up to @theZerg to approve and merge the two pull requests.

However, there is a balance when rolling out official releases as the users quickly get fatigued with too many updates, so ideally a bunch of completed BUIPs should be in any single release.
Like you I agree it would be significant publicity for BU to demonstrate to the wider community how the emergent consensus actually happens in practice, and this is needed sooner than later.

One thing we should do in parallel is get a page ready on the website showing the stats in a friendly manner (maybe pulling data from bitnodes). I am thinking of a chart with EBS on the x, and EAD on the y, both logarithmic.... but you are the graphics guru

 

[theZerg]

I recommend that we vote FOR this BUIP

 

[solex]

VOTING IS OPEN for this BUIP

If you are in the membership then please go to this thread to cast your vote:

### VOTING IS OPEN for BUIPs 2, 4, 5, 10 & 13 ###

 

[solex]

Voting for BUIP005 is now closed