Its funny how you are aligning yourself with the cyberpunks, without actually qualifying what that means and how that is supposedly helping your argument. It seems like you are attaching yourself to a movement in order to lend your views credence. However I do not see how the cyberpunk movement is even relevant in this case. It is not clear based on the ideology of that movement which path seems to be most inline with that particular ideology. I could easily argue that increasing the blocksize is more inline with the cyberpunk movement. I do not see the point to this however since this does not actually strengthen my argumentation whatsoever, I would only be attempting to make myself look better.
A cypherpunk is any activist advocating widespread use of strong cryptography as a route to social and political change.
I think this does actually describe the believe of most Bitcoiners well, except for those Bitcoiners that are still denying the political aspects to what is happening here, which is ironic considering the political roots of the cyberpunk movement. I think the best way to effect the most social change is to allow for increased adoption and global use of this technology. BIP101 best accomplishes this by having steady predictable growth and by not allowing the stream of transactions to be blocked, unlike what Core is presently suggesting.
It is good to recognize however that if Bitcoin is intended for global adoption that eventually the economic majority who rules Bitcoin will at a certain point not be primarily made up of cyberpunks, unless we succeed in spreading this philosophy faster then Bitcoin spreads, which I think is unlikely. Over time this ideology will become more and more diluted within Bitcoin and its influence over its direction will waver. I think this is oke, it is what would achieve the most social and political change after all.
I do not actually want increased anonymity within Bitcoin, within a certain extend. Better IP obfuscation would be fine however anonymizing the links between transactions for instance I would be opposed to. This is because I would like to see banks, governments and corporations operate on the Bitcoin blockchain, this would create a better world, its effects are rather profound actually in terms of the amount of problems this would solve. This is why having a transparent blockchain is so important.
I am a big fan of alternative anonymous cryptocurrencies, I think these are great for private use when we do desire more privacy. I suppose what I am saying here is that maybe it is wrong to attempt to "force" this cyberpunk vision onto Bitcoin considering that was never the intention to begin with, it might also be worth contemplating that mass adoption, ease of use and low cost might actually be desirable if our objective is to gain as much adoption as possible for the duel reason of both securing the network and helping to bring about the most social and political change.
If history is any guide, Bitcoin will not likely become a settlement system unless it first has widespread adoption as a payment system
At least Bitpay gets it, so does Coinbase. I know you guys do not like these companies and you are happy to stand against them however I am happy to stand with them, after all it is companies like these that are more likely to represent the economic majority, when it does come down to a vote.
I have also recently been thinking that I would be happy to see Bitcoin split, this would allow the market to decide over time which chain will be considered superior. I am confident that the big block chain with an abundance of transactional capacity and low fees would rise to the top eventually, it is basic economics really. I have come to realize that some of these ideological differences are irreconcilable, which might indeed necessitate such a split. I believe hard forks serve as an important governance mechanism within Bitcoin, this is how fundamental disagreements within Bitcoin should be resolved.
It could be however that once that time comes, that the small blockists will be in the minority. After all Satoshi was a greater big blockist then I am, I suppose according to your reasoning that would mean Satoshi was not a cyberpunk, I disagree obviously but you are free to believe what you want. Time will tell, either way I am confident that the original vision of Satoshi Nakamoto will triumph, one way or another.
In my discussions with various members of Core, I have reached the conclusion that most of them simply disagree with the design of Bitcoin, which by design allows the consensus rules to be changed by a sufficient majority of miners and users, independent of what any group of technocrats wish. It is important to remember not to attribute malice where ignorance is equally explanatory. All of the devs I engage with are very strong in cryptography and computer science, which may make them less accepting of the fact that at its core, Bitcoin relies in the economic self-interest of the masses to govern consensus, not a group of educated technocrats. As an educated technocrat myself I can understand the sentiment. It would be better if math and only math governed Bitcoin. But that's not how Bitcoin is actually governed. At the end of the day, if social engineering and developer manipulation can kill Bitcoin, well then we're all betting on the wrong horse.
