I say what people accept as Bitcoin is what Bitcoin is - you reply no, Bitcoin should be governed by node owners, miners, developers, etc
Now you are arguing a straw man, I never said this. Bitcoin is ultimately what the economic majority wants it to be and the economic majority is made up of people. I think that the miners act as a type of proxy for the economic majority in the governance mechanism of Bitcoin, which we now call the consensus mechanism.
No straw man. You always say Bitcoin should be governed by 'economic majority', whatever that means.
I still don't understand what you define as being 'economic majority'. If it has something to do with what people accept as being Bitcoin.
Yes it does, it is the equivalent of saying that the people rule Bitcoin. However unlike state democracies where the peoples vote is supposed to be equal, that is not the case in Bitcoin. The greater stake in Bitcoin a person has the greater influence this buys. This is why I think that economic majority is a more accurate term for this discussion.
then I don't think the miners act as a type of proxy for them. They only mine what is profitable to mine (price of the coin forked coin altcoin vs. quantity and quality of competition for that mined coin).
This is exactly how the mining incentive works and how the miners are incentivized to follow the economic majority. Since it is the economic majority that gives any cryptocurrency its value, miners will chase profit and therefore do whatever is in the best interests of the network. This is why the miners are such a suitable proxy for the economic majority, furthermore proof of work is the only effective way to "vote" in Bitcoin, since nodes can be trivially Sybil attacked. We can not have a good governance mechanism in Bitcoin without an effective "voting" mechanism, so that the will of the economic majority can be accurately reflected.
Consensus is an emergent property which flows from the will of the economic majority. Proof of work is the best way to measure this consensus. The pools act as proxy for the miners, pools behave in a similar way to representatives within a representative democracy. Then in turn the miners act as a proxy for the economic majority. Since the miners are incentivized to follow the economic majority. In effect the economic majority rules Bitcoin, in other words the market rules Bitcoin. Bitcoin relies on the economic self-interest of the masses to govern consensus.
I also think there is no governance mechanism for Bitcoin and there shouldn't be one, same as for gold.
I do think that you are wrong on this point. The rules of gold can not be changed, the rules of Bitcoin can be changed, this is one of the reasons why Bitcoin is better then gold. Since Bitcoin does represent a community of people that follow certain common rules, any change to these rules or even just continuing to uphold these rules requires a form of governance. This is a human necessity that can not be escaped, even anarchism requires forms of governance. Fortunately Bitcoin already has a governance mechanism build into the protocol.
They vote with their CPU power, expressing their acceptance of valid blocks by working on extending them and rejecting invalid blocks by refusing to work on them. Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this consensus mechanism
This brings me back to a very important point. If Bitcoin is what people accept it is, then it follows that if the majority of people want a two megabyte blocksize and we justifiably fork to express this will, then Bitcoin with a two megabyte limit is Bitcoin. This is the contradiction that has been pointed out to you in your position previously, which so far you have still failed to acknowledge.
What contradiction?
The contradiction of saying that Bitcoin is defined by the will of its participants, yet at the same time claiming that changing the blocksize means that it is no longer Bitcoin or that this is somehow not justified or to dangerous, even if an increase in the blocksize is what the economic majority wants. Credit where credit is due, you do acknowledge this contradiction in your following statement.
Ok, so... fork off right now to express your will for a 2MB max blocksize. You are confident the 'economic majority' (whatever that means) wants the 2MB max block size. What keeps you from forking?
You don't need 75% of hashpower to perform the fork. It is not a limitation.
With the recent statement from the Chinese miners it seems like we will most likely fork the network at 90%. I agree, we could even fork with a mining minority, it is technically possible, forking with a high degree of consensus is preferable however, which is why I think it is wise to give this more time to find more consensus on these issues.
But you are still trying to convince people what is good for them and how Bitcoin should be governed. Let them be free. Use your freedom, fork off, and let them come by their free will. Don't use persuasion. If the forked altcoin is better, they will come. And it will reign supreme. And it shall be called Bitcoin.
Agreed, however there is nothing wrong with attempting to persuade people over to my point of view, just like you are presently doing. It is through discussions like these that we can attempt to discover higher truths in the market place of ideas. That is a good thing, seems contradictory to me for you to criticize such efforts.
By repeating your points over and over, your discouse becomes similar to marketing techniques and propaganda.
I suppose many old arguments are repeated and I end up repeating the same old counter argument, when my theories are proven wrong or my ideological opponents theories cease to exist or become less credible in the eyes of others, I am sure that then I will become less repetitive as well.
