notice how stock mkts almost perfectly reflect consumer sentiment/confidence.  or vice versa.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-28/us-economic-consumer-confidence-plunges-10-month-lows-hope-crashes

lets be honest the main problem with LN right now is that it does not exist and to make that happen it first needs to be built and then every wallet and service will need to be retooled to use it. 

But if the above was completed, its definitely worth using.  But does that mean we should also not scale the mainchain?  Absolutely not.  We need multiple options here.

There are secondary problems with LN which we'll only really start to understand as LN starts being used.

1.  Intermediary: If I understand it correctly, you open a payment channel with a LN node, and they open a payment channel with another LN node or with the ultimate destination.  So LN is an intermediary -- but one of Bitcoin's greatest strengths is its "disintermediation" for the many reasons I won't rehash now.  I've listened to well regarded entrepeneurs/technologists give speeches where this is one of their major talking points.  I guess they'll no longer be interested.

2. Fees:  IIRC, a LN payment requires the LN node contain as much working capital as outstanding payment channels.  So a bitcoin payment of quantity A will "utilize" N*A actual bitcoins during the duration of the payment channel(s), where N is the # of hops through the LN network (minimum 2).  LN nodes are GOING to charge a % for the privilege of using their $.  Lately in fiat currencies it costs 1-3% to make a payment.  It even costs that to get cash from an ATM and nowadays merchants just deposit that cash in the bank.  What an awesome racket to get 1% of every single transaction!  Bitcoin wiped away this scam because you could make a transfer for free or so close to free it did not matter (although you might have to wait).  Not going to happen with the LN.

3. No "Blockchain" applications.  Colored coins, etc won't work through LN (because you don't receive the exact coins that the sender sends into the network).  I suppose you could post a txn to the LN with additional data, but you can only post ONE chunk (because your LN payment channel transaction is repeatedly overwritten).  So I guess all the excitement right now around the blockchain as an immutable ledger (which TBH is the only exciting thing happening) will move to an altcoin...

This message is technically incohearent-- there is no such thing as a a "commit key", and "op_return spend" doesn't destroy information if there were; achieving what you suggest simply requires people stop upgrading (which is also part of the reason that we do not use automatic 'push' upgrades)----  but I certantly get the _intent_. and it's one I've forelorely expressed multiple time myself, going back years:

That it would be philosophically ideal and achieve the highest security properites if the system were completely involatile, defined by it's own mechnical construction, and any change to it would simply be a different system which people could voluntarily move to by their own free choice. Through this the system would be immune to whilm, political control, or subterfuge in a much stronger sense.

Sadly, that result currently appears to be pratically be beyond the scope of human engineering abilities-- or at least beyond the efforts expended on any software system I'm aware of thus far.

A particular point that I couldn't disclose the time cypherdoc initially made the argument was that the software the network was running at that moment was vulnerable: http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-July/009697.html

We've had a pipeline of newly discovered non-public vulnerabilties in the Bitcoin protocol running almost all the time since 2012.  I don't have a great answer to that hard questions, but sadly burying our heads in the sand cannot work-- it would just result in a regular series of potentially devistating "emergency" changes, rather than a orderly, planned, resolution.

cash is king in times like these. Bitcoin will probably see some of that redistribution I imagine however

Just make sure 1-5% of your NET WORTH (don't leverage yourself in a bad position) in BTC

Because people believe Yellen will increase interest rates?

I think money is exiting Europe and Chinese stocks and heading into the dollar govt bonds as a flight to perceived safety. If the US does raise rates the dollar bull run will intensify; commodities and EM economies currencies will fall and EM corporate debt issued in usd will be affected. So a raise will beggar thy neighbor and also possibly cripple Us domestically by importing more deflation into an already weak economy.

i'm not sure too many ppl believe that.  after all, raising rates will have profound effects on the national debt interest owed each month for all countries.

i just think we're at the top of another stock cycle that's long overdue to roll over.  how far and how deep is the question.  ppl are anticipating this esp after all the currency crises overseas and liquidating assets for cash; which drives up the demand for USD's.  if the roll gets momentum to the downside, i've said all along that i doubt the US will get lucky again with having both UST's and the USD go up like they did in 2008.  if i had to choose, i'd guess we'd go the way of Japan and watch the USD dump while they do everything they can to save UST's ala JGB's. 

I agree with Satoshi, change it "eventually" sometime in the next ~5 years (after optimization by sidechains/LN and fee markets mature).

"Eventually" will be when we see actual congestion (competitive fees no longer prioritizing tx) or the network otherwise being harmed by the Holy 1MB crapflood regulator.

Accommodating more 'cosmic background spam' with a permanent home in the Mother Chain is the worst reason ever for increasing blocksize.