Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

rocks

Active Member
Sep 24, 2015
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Am I missing something or is the BSV rhetoric about "locking down the protocol" and "setting it in stone" not an even more extreme form of Core's "extreme consensus"?
Core "locked down" onto a crippled protocol with a very limited set of opcodes and very limited size which was completely opposite of the Bitcoin protocol, paper and spirit of the project. The problem was this was the wrong thing to lock down onto.

BSV in contrast "locked down" onto exactly what Bitcoin was defined to be, which is the full set of opcodes, unlimited size and unlimited use of those opcodes, in complete alignment with the protocol, paper and spirit of the project. The two are completely different scenarios.

>6 years has been lost wasting time arguing on this. We now have 3 very different versions of bitcoin and there is no point arguing on it anymore, everyone can invest their time on the chain they think will do better and the market place will decide.
 

torusJKL

Active Member
Nov 30, 2016
497
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Core "locked down" onto a crippled protocol with a very limited set of opcodes and very limited size which was completely opposite of the Bitcoin protocol, paper and spirit of the project. The problem was this was the wrong thing to lock down onto.
Core did not really lock down the protocol.

They have created the believe that as long as old nodes still synchronize the chain then every change is fair game.

The fault in this is that if you make the incentives big enough and force people into accepting the new rules than the backwards compatibility is only a fig-leave.

It doesn't matter that old nodes still synchronize if their use case is not possible anymore because everyone else has moved on to the new rule set.
 

Zangelbert Bingledack

Well-Known Member
Aug 29, 2015
1,485
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@Roger_Murdock

"Set in stone" is often stated without specifying agency, probably because English doesn't have a handy way of talking about emergent processes and many people also don't really understand them.

First we need to ask what the idea of protocol is really about.

"Protocol" is the name one gives to a set of rules intended to function as a base that never changes - where it may one day make sense to start anew, but never to fiddle, because the ruleset was chosen precisely such that the value of keeping the ruleset fixed will trump the value of even very substantial improvements.

As such, a well-designed protocol's strongest Schelling point - the ruleset that will be converged upon as conferring maximal value - is not to change except to avoid catastrophe or for some other enormously important reason. This is especially true for a money and contracting system, where builders on top of the protocol need to rely on their constructs working consistently 50+ years hence, and where changes invariably produce financial winners and losers. (Trying to avoid building anything that could be ruined if there were a protocol change is an exercise in futility as it pushes the problem into an even blurrier one of "Schelling point for type and scope of changes we can expect to ever be made," as well as heavily constraining what can be built.)

In short, the idea of "protocol" is that it is useful to have a certain subset of rules (governing a system) that can be counted on not to change within any time horizon relevant to the industry.

For the money, title, securities, etc., for contracts written for these industries, that time horizon is so long that a change to avert a catastrophic issue is the only one likely to ever be adopted.

Core's meddling (and even Satoshi's temporary blocksize limit) in Bitcoin obscures the issue.

Clearly the setting in stone, due to accidents of history, can now not be instantly achieved; however these complications shouldn't be allowed to distract from the points that

1) setting in stone would be highly beneficial, if there is any reason for Bitcoin to have a protocol in the above-described sense

2) once it is set, any further change has an essentially unmeetable bar (save catastrophic situations), and

3) a protocol conferring the original functionality (as far as possible; there are some things that cannot be undone without screwing people, further underscoring the point!) is a very strong Schelling point

One can say Protocol A isn't well-designed and should be replaced by Protocol B, especially if the standard is not yet widely used. But to have it be a goal of a protocol to be flexible and adopt optimizations even when the system is "good enough" at its purpose, and is widely used, is paradoxical. It defeats the very purpose of having a protocol.

Now, for BSV specifically, the general sentiment is that the functionality intended in the protocol of Bitcoin 0.1 is actually far better designed than most think, and can do far more - in fact essentially everything any altcoin can do. It's certainly understandable that those who disagree on this point would, given the still up-in-the-air nature of Bitcoin's meager adoption (whichever ledger), say, "Just a few more optimizations before the ossification completes!" What isn't understandable is to have a so-called "protocol" that just keeps changing, with no eye toward solidification within a realistic timeframe (think halvings, we don't have years to fiddle around). Having a protocol does mean sacrificing one class of potential improvements, and even if that weren't the case I still haven't seen or heard of anything that sounds like a real protocol improvement, let alone one worth breaking all existing user wallets for.

Note also that wallets will soon mean much more than wallets, more like entire authentication systems for...everything. And the protocol's need to be set in stone is already affecting many decisions (can't remove CLTV as who knows who has relied on it up to now), with BSV's relative limited "setting in stone" up to now and the interest of its miners in doing so already driving a Cambrian explosion in apps built on top of the protocol in less than half a year. The unwriter is just the tip of the iceberg. Building on a solid foundation seems to be a massive hit with developers.

Let's not also forget how legality plays into this. A protocol that continues to change will be seen by governments for what Core has proven that it is: a vehicle for control by developers. Core was never about refusing changes, they were about keeping themselves as the sole gatekeepers. They continue to draft protocol changes that subvert the original design, albeit more slowly than BCH. Whatever we think of the existing governments, unnecessarily "bringing it on," as Satoshi said, is pointless.

"You do not make a system that will change the world by finding the big, bad gorilla and kicking him in the fucking nuts!" -CSW

Even if there were no other reason, having a protocol in the true sense is valuable because it takes the One Ring and casts it into the lava.

 
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freetrader

Moderator
Staff member
Dec 16, 2015
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Controlling for "not-control".

Fucking for virginity.

Making (hash)war for great prosperity.
 

Zangelbert Bingledack

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Aug 29, 2015
1,485
5,585
Thought someone might take the bait. Satoshi left too early to finish rearing his child, and now he is back - as a miner. He doesn't control anything but does exert a powerful force by his arguments and inventions. He shouldn't have to do even that, and that is his point. It just happened that he didn't explain it well enough at the start for people like Core to be seen as total imposters.
 

Zangelbert Bingledack

Well-Known Member
Aug 29, 2015
1,485
5,585
Here's a riddle about power and control: What's easier, designing a business model that fits a fixed protocol from 2008, or designing a business model that fits a protocol that you or your friends can change to make your business model work?

One reason the original protocol functionality is such a powerful Schelling point is it doesn't allow for any Blockstream-style "we really need this change that purely coincidentally happens to be the linchpin of our business model." Restoring the original design functions as the only nothing-up-my-sleeve Schelling point, at least for anyone who didn't know about Bitcoin before 2008.
 

bitsko

Active Member
Aug 31, 2015
730
1,532
I was watching Thomas Schelling speak yesterday.

He finds his greatest contribution to game theory is the strategy of conflict and the concept of commitment, in influencing what others think you are going to do.

He was also on the team that came up with the direct line to the soviets which many know as the 'red phone'.

 

Zangelbert Bingledack

Well-Known Member
Aug 29, 2015
1,485
5,585
One thing I got wrong in the post: in fact, blocksize isn't even part of the protocol. 1MB cap doesn't stop a tx from being mined (eventually). Removing the cap doesn't break wallets or other infrastructure (remember, node=miner), just means a few miners cannot follow (and good riddance).

Miners chose to kowtow to Core and only mine 1MB blocks; that was never anything other than their own problem. If the majority had started mining bigger blocks, SPV wallets would have followed right along. The idea that those hashless wonders Core calls "nodes" matter is the silliness that drove all this, the idea being that you'd be breaking the poor "nodes" that "govern Bitcoin."
 

cypherdoc

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2015
5,257
12,995
The fault in this is that if you make the incentives big enough and force people into accepting the new rules than the backwards co
its not even that. SWSF was a delusion /illusion that somehow you retained the ability to verify in real time ALL tx's passing through the network. in essence, old non SWSF nodes are blinded/deprecated to SW tx's. besides, most of nodes don't even sync anymore after emergency hard forks like fixing Corrallo's "worst bug in Bitcoin's history".
 

macsga

New Member
Sep 29, 2015
14
49
Great analysis as always @Zangelbert Bingledack thank you for your contribution. Always something new to learn each time I read something from you.

For the fellows here that think differently I'd indulge everyone with an opposition to face CSW as someone they don't know or, better, someone you are really fond of. Scientifically wise, I'd urge you to try to prove his claims wrong. Don't go for the difficult parts, go for the simple ones and try to do it unprejudiced.

Try to see what engine lies under the hood of the vehicle that Bitcoin is. Try to see why it matters, forget the person, forget the myth or the image. Try to understand the tech. To my understanding (and I don't claim I get it all) this is the most complex scientific project ever created.

Please do your own research. Tell me what you found.
 

cypherdoc

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2015
5,257
12,995
Thought someone might take the bait. Satoshi left too early to finish rearing his child, and now he is back - as a miner. He doesn't control anything but does exert a powerful force by his arguments and inventions. He shouldn't have to do even that, and that is his point. It just happened that he didn't explain it well enough at the start for people like Core to be seen as total imposters.
its actually comforting that CSW sees the irony of the illusive control he appears to be exerting. it worries me too hence my continued attempt to clarify a way out given a worst case scenario of CSW going rogue. I also continue to visualize my support of BSV as having to walk towards a raging inferno of a forest while forcibly having to exit a town that once was ransacked by core and now is being looted and raped by BCH and then tip toeing along the inferno's edge on my way to a new utopia. every once in a while I look back at a burning town with longing only to be amazed and saddened at what has happened but with continued hope that we will not lose our way and go up in flames with everything else.
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Kudos to this forum for not outright banning people over opinion like roger's r/btc has turned to doing under the leadership of bitcoinxio.
yes kudos to @Bloomie for holding steady on this. my once worst fears of him creating a honeypot appear to be assuaged.

now we just have to watch out for guys like @Griffith and @freetrader attempting to expel the entire BU membership in one full swoop reset.
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Here's a riddle about power and control: What's easier, designing a business model that fits a fixed protocol from 2008, or designing a business model that fits a protocol that you or your friends can change to make your business model work?

One reason the original protocol functionality is such a powerful Schelling point is it doesn't allow for any Blockstream-style "we really need this change that purely coincidentally happens to be the linchpin of our business model." Restoring the original design functions as the only nothing-up-my-sleeve Schelling point, at least for anyone who didn't know about Bitcoin before 2008.
I appreciate the new line of attack but must we repackage old arguments that go all the way back to 2014? half a fricking decade ago? :)

ps: given all the fud, I guess so!
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Wow, just in time /s

Could he have come back as a developer before that, to offer a hard fork that Satoshi recommended?
It seems not.
no, you did that, only to inexplicably abandon a project you created just a few short months later for "other interests" only to have it taken over by a dictator who believes in things like 10 block rolling checkpoints, avalanche pre concensus, and replay protections. so now CSW's introducing the two pronged approach.
 
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cypherdoc

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2015
5,257
12,995
btw, I think it's mildly comforting that @shadders & @Otaci hold the github keys to BSV. what legal rights they have over them is another matter but those two guys aren't /shouldn't be too controversial and hopefully hold steadfast to true original principles
 
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