Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Peter R]

@humanitee

Let's not worry about what the rules ought to be for a moment. Let's imagine that everyone agrees what the rules ought to be, and we're just trying to ensure that the rules enforced by the code are the rules that we think are being enforced. Imagine that there are, for example, seven consensus libraries that were all developed independently but designed to do the exact same thing. Now if a node implementation chooses any three libraries and makes majority decisions, then it should be nearly unforkable.

Let's say the probability of a fork event in a given year for Implementations 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 are all 1 : 1000. If these events are uncorrelated, the probability of a fork event using a 2-of-3 majority method is 1: 1,000,000! This huge reduction in failure probability is why commercial airplanes have triple-redundant sensors.

 

[humanitee]

@Peter R

I see what your saying. I don't see why that wouldn't work, it's just a lot more work. The problem is, you need many implementation in various languages to make Bitcoin more robust, and then you need many implementations in the same language to achieve what you are talking about.

I think it could be done, but it'd be operator overloading for days and being familiar with X many code bases.

There's also always the possibility that you introduce a bug in your code that breaks under edge cases (ie. doing a comparison wrong, not catching a small change in one of the implementations, and so on). This could still cause a fork.

 

[rocks]

But there are various stages of consensus:
1) Fuck you there isn't consensus
2) We agree on some core principles but we don't agree on certain other principles, but we agree on enough to hobble along.
3) We are all running literally every mathematical principle and formula in unison (loosely speaking).

The blockchain is a 3, but the features surrounding it can be a 2. If multiple implementations shared portions of market share then a single one failing would only cause a minor fork on part of the network instead of effecting the whole.

What #2 multiple implementations provides is the ability for users to demonstrate their preferences over new features. Imagine if there are five equally popular implementations, then one implementation adds new functionality most agree with. If the other implementations do not add that functionality then users will migrate to the implementation with it until it becomes the dominate version, and consensus is achieved. Similarly if any implementation added a feature many disagreed with, that implementation would lose users and become irrelevant.

Without #2 there is no feedback mechanism for users to provide their preferences, and without that we end up with an unelected board of directors who run the show. #2 is more complicated, but it works and is valuable.

 

[humanitee]

@rocks

All good points, I am in agreement and have thought similarly. The chasms between 1-2 and 2-3 are wide, we don't want a slow hobble, more like a 2.6 slight hobble. The trade off, as you have noticed, is between features and complete consensus.

 

[cypherdoc]

https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoinxt/comments/3nn7od/rbitcoin_censored_gregory_maxwell_is_one_of_the/

 

[Bloomie]

Noosterdam was just banned for 7 days even though he used the 'np' prefix (i.e., he didn't slip up):

Noosterdam seems like a nice guy. If anybody's in contact with him, please invite him to the forum.

 

[lunar]

@Smoothie

In between his numerous strawman arguments, Trace talks a good talk and makes lots of very valid points, however he's clearly putting the cart before the horse. He talks of trying to find out how much people are willing to pay to use Bitcoin? When he should be asking how much it costs to run the network? Miners are the only ones who know how much it costs to run and are the only ones capable of making the choice of which transactions are 'Financially worth forwarding'.

The fee market he wants to force into existence will happen naturally,

 

[Melbustus]

...
Miners are the only ones who know how much it costs to run and are the only ones capable of making the choice of which transactions are 'Financially worth forwarding'.

The fee market he wants to force into existence will happen naturally,

Yup. It blows my mind a bit that so many people who give so much lip service to free markets don't immediately see that. That's actually been one of the most baffling things about this whole debate to me.

 

[awemany]

[...]
I'd prefer it if theymos permanently banned as otherwise the temptation is too great, but I think from now on I will try and avoid that place. I think most people have made up their minds by this point and I think the discussion has moved on from should we or not increase the blocksize to should we or not be ruled by authoritarians who censor and ban in reddit and irc, some of them core devs like Patrick.

Welcome to the club.

 

[kyuupichan]

Good to find this thread here.

@Bloomie - any idea why, when the tab with this forum is the selected one in the browser, the browser eats 100% of one CPU core, but when a different tab is selected it doesn't? Something about the Javascript is chewing huge CPU resources. It's not mining in the background or something is it?

 

[sickpig]

@kyuupichan I didn't notice before you mentioned but scrolling the page makes both firefox and chrome chewing more cpu that it seems to be needed, especially the former. That said nothing happen if tab is selected but not scrolled/used.

@Bloomie if you think it's the case we can create a new thread in the proper section, I'm available to provide additional data/profiling.

 

[cypherdoc]

Up_we_go

 

[Bloomie]

@kyuupichan and @sickpig Using the wrong Imgur link to embed images eats up a huge amount of resources, but people refuse to use direct links to images, beats me why. But yes, please start a new thread to troubleshoot.

 

[cypherdoc]

GMO! --> GMI!

 

[cypherdoc]

 

[Aquent]

"
Gregory Maxwell via bitcoin-dev Mon, 05 Oct 2015 14:31:33 -0700

On Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 9:27 PM, Peter R via bitcoin-dev
<bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> Once again, let’s use the current gridlock
Allow me to state unequivocally-- since we've had problems with people
stating non-factuals as fact without getting adequately clear
correction--, there is no gridlock here and an effort to manufacturer
one for political reasons will not be successful."

Lmao

LET MY MAKE MYSELF VERY CLEAR:

there.... is.... NO... gridlock heeeeeeeee

LOL

 

[cypherdoc]

@Aquent

wait, what part of the above post was from gmax?

http://bravenewcoin.com/news/when-will-bitcoin-cross-the-chasm/

 

[AdrianX]

My thoughts on a few of the trending issues.

First I’m open to the notion that soft forks are subversive in nature in comparison to hard forks. (It’s ironic we think of them as soft and harmless)

Secondly the rather virulent reaction to all the banning of people participating this reddit:

Thirdly the energy and effort being expended to protecting Bitcoin Core as the leading implementation, when it’s obvious that it would be much harder to change the block limit if there were 5 or 6 implementations of Bitcoin.

And to some degree

... the technical challenges of building multiple implementations of Bitcoin's consensus code.

It’s just dawned on me that what we have come to think of Bitcoin as the hard rules that allow one to write transactions to the blockchain (calling this the “consensus code”) is rather unevolved.

Why there would be any technical challenges is because Bitcoin is more a patch work of undocumented soft forks than the consensus code that validated and writes blocks to the blockchain.

Tinkering with this patchwork of soft forks has many implications. First and foremost it is a direct assault on the ingenuity used to solve problems without compromising the consensus code, here ego is the primary obstacle to overcome. These soft forks are not guaranteed and or may not even be needed.

The issue is many of these soft forks have been accepted by over 90% of the network and it’s very likely that most of the Core developers actually believe Bitcoin is a software development project that they control and manage. It’s likely they will continue to implement changes to Bitcoin (soft forks) that enable there for profit businesses (Gmax has said he intends to do this explicitly.)

The problem being, that if there were other implementations many of the soft forks that are currently accepted will be re evaluated some may even be tweaked, improved or removed.

This is a threat to anyone how has an invested interest in the implementation of a soft fork. By threatening that implementation is a threat to Bitcoin Core the software development project and as such needs to be defended by those with invested interest. Bitcoin the protocol fortunately is not being challenged.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Multiple implementations make it easier to up the blocksize limit, if the market wants that.

 

[Aquent]

The bit in quotes:

https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-October/011420.html

Der iz no gridlock herez haha, love that guy