https://xcancel.com/excellion/status/2082000347480936835
Some of the highlight he raised were:
1) He’s not opposed to consensus level changes to combat spam, but is more concerned about the process. He feels more dev support is required, & that makes perfect sense. I guess my only issue is what happens when one is ignored?
2) I agree it shouldn’t be this ‘rushed’, but as @Excellion himself said in WBD, Luke has been effectively pushed out core, & this discussion has been suppressed. So even though it does seem rushed, this would be the expected response. So where is the middle ground?
3) The idea that ‘mob rule’ is a bad idea, & if successful, where does it lead to? This is a genuine concern, & as both Samson & I mentioned, this is a result of a breakdown between devs & users. I think we need to heal & mend that breakdown, from both sides. Not sure how though.
4) I think the most significant point raised is “what next?” I don’t think anyone knows the answer, & I’m sure we’ll find out eventually, but for something as important as Bitcoin, the viable alternative fiat, what are the next steps if BIP110 succeeds or even fails?
My personal conclusion is that there are definitely a lot of negative unknowns if BIP110 succeeds, & also some positives, & I honestly don’t know which will have the NET positive outcome. Nobody can say for sure they know either, on both sides of the fence.
But as long as the governance issue remains unresolved, I don’t see this type of conflict ever ending. I don’t feel spam, big blocks or whatever were really the cause, but rather not knowing how to manage a decentralised network of ppl who all have different ideas & interests
Again, thank you again @Excellion for taking the time to share your insights on this, I found it genuine, refreshing and honest. It would be nice if @mattkratter were to consider this dialogue, & Samson’s views, & to make an attempt to extend an olive branch of reconciliation.
We literally all need to chill out, & make a serious attempt to mend our differences. That starts by having honest conversations, understanding of ppls perspectives & most importantly, an end to all the ad hominem attacks & name calling.
At the end of all of this, once this is all over (as it WILL end at some point) we’re going to have to look each other in the eye & cooperate for the greater goal. That’s not going to happen if we all hate each other. We don’t need to love each other, but just all behave.
quoting
naddr1qq…7mumThe following is a reply to the following tweet made by Samson Mow. https://xcancel.com/excellion/status/2081556974706020507
He made that tweet in response to mine where I highlighted that I felt he switched his position since 10 months ago. Not that switching one’s position is a bad thing, but it was just an observation I made.
Anyway, he made an honest reply, made in good faith, and I’m just giving my feedback as I see it. What do I hope to achieve from this? A positive outcome, hopefully to learn something and to maybe help us all learn something about the issue.
And here is the reply ——
I’d like to publically thank you for your reply (as I’ve already thanked you privatly). You took the time to clarify your stance, & it was very insightful. I’d like to first highlight some of the things I liked & agree with, as I think it’s important in honest dialogue to acknowledge when the other party have made a sound argument. I don’t have a paid twitter account, so unfortunately my reply will be broken up into smaller chunks, or it can be read in one chunk (and formatted) here on Nostr. I also took the time to re-watch your interview with WBD, just so that I could refresh my memory, as I was pretty sure of what I heard back then, so I may make a few references to that video in my reply with time stamps. What Bitcoin Did
Things I Liked and agreed with
“I hate spam & ordinals garbage”, “I support efforts to limit spam even if cat and mouse”, “Core should not have removed OP_RETURN limits”
Needless to say, we are on the same page here, and it’s pretty much what you said in your WBD interview. It would have been wrong to assume that your stance was otherwise. However, thank you for reiterating this nonetheless.
“There are people in Core, and closely associated with Core, who said a lot of stupid things that did not help their cause.”
On both sides. This is exactly how small technical issues develop to tribal fighting. And I would extend this by saying that neither side should contribute to that by saying things that give the same outcome. No need to add fuel to the fire by jumping into the same issue.
“There are structural problems and a risk of groupthink in the Core organization.”
Again, something that can happen on either side. We can both agree on this point while also agreeing that such structural problems are more a significant problem for the default implementation than it is for a smaller mirror one (which I’ll touch on later on). But still something both sides need to be aware of.
“We absolutely need skilled developers working on maintaining and securing the Bitcoin codebase. Bitcoin is a very complex piece of software that needs a lot of eyes reviewing and testing all changes.”
That is 100% true. I’ve been on that exact journey myself, to hopefully one day contribute to the codebase in some way. But looking at how some of the main characters have behaved, I have to be honest in saying that it has put myself and others off the idea, as I’m sure you would agree. Nobody wants to contribute to something that fundamentally is hostile to you, even if your contributions have been positive. I think we both can agree on that point. Let me know if you disagree.
“I believe we should move towards ossification, but ossification does not mean you just stop all development. Security is a moving target that needs constant resources to maintain.”
Thats a big discussion, which you also touched on in your WBD interview, and I think a bit out of scope of the original question, but I generally agree. However, is it possible that your personal view of ‘ossification’ is influencing your position towards bip110? Indirectly giving you a personal bias? Honest question.
“I still believe we should combat spam. OP_RETURN is not even the biggest problem I see. UTXO bloat is what I would address if I could snap my fingers and make it happen”
Yes, I remember this clearly from your interview with WBD, and it was your argument about the requirement to keep the utxo set in ram that disadvantages some miners that really resonated with me When I herd it. I would say more about this point, but later on.
“Ultimately we need to get along and we're all Bitcoiners.”
I totally agree. Both in that this will be the natural end result, but also in that this is what we need. But I have to point out that part of that ‘getting along’ is not calling the other side names or ridiculing their opinions and concerns. Something you yourself mentioned in your WBD interview, where you said:
“Personal attacks and attacks on individuals are more prevalent now than thinking things through” 1:01:25
We have to bite our tongues twice before we choose to comment, and weigh the consequences of our behaviour. It’s not feasible to expect us to eventually reconcile when we spent months calling the other side names and accused them of all sorts. That goes for both sides by the way. So statements like “BCashJr”, “ridiculous forks”, ”retarded forks” are as harmful as calling the other side “pedos” and “Andy”. I think its a fair request to ask both sides to stop, rather than simply focusing only one side while doing it with the other.
Not sure, needs clarity
This section focuses on points I’m not too sure what to make of your view. It needs clarity. It could be that we essentially agree, and it would therefore be from the previous above category, but it could easily be something else. So lets begin.
“Spam not existential”, “Even if some devs said stupid things, they cannot sneak changes into the code to destroy Bitcoin.”
Well, I would say you need to clarify this, as this seems to be a subjective opinion that’s contingent on your definition of “existential” and “destroy Bitcoin”. If the network still churns out blocks every 10 minutes, but it’s become this system that only the wealthy and centralised institutions can run a node, then can we say it’s “destroyed”. If honest monetary txs can’t get into a block, or they can’t open/close a ln channel in a meaningful timeframe because of said spam, so much so that ppl no longer use bitcoin nor can they trust it, then is it now existential? This seems like a hyperbolic scenario given to discredit a genuine point of contention. So could you please clarify what is meant by “Destroy Bitcoin”.
I’ve spoken directly with Luke on this issue, and I understand that he genuinely feels this is a serious long term issue, and it doesn’t help to simply hand wave it away. Either way, this issue needs clearly defined parameters. Especially the latter comment that devs can’t sneak changes into the code to destroy Bitcoin. You said in WBD:
“Core could ram something through that people don’t like…and they could ram something through thats detrimental to the network” 43:02 And you said: “It is the reference implementation and the default…there was the issue with the inflation bug” 43:15
So you seemed to have now a more positive view of core than you did 10 months ago. 10 months ago you said theres serious issues going on that justifies serious doubt and suspicion, and they could push code that harms Bitcoin, but now they can’t. So could you clarify why the change in perspective towards core? I personally felt that your view before was more nuanced and balanced, because no matter how good core is, of course mistakes can happen, and like you said in WBD, there needs to be more testing and less ‘new features’.
“I never supported BIP110. BIP110 is not a serious or viable proposal.”
Well, I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “support” because there are many ways in which you could “support” a thing. I think one of the reasons why many felt your changed your tune is because you expressed many of the same sentiments and feelings as those who are in favour of BIP110, so I guess they (myself included) felt you understood out position and motivation. It’s possible for one to agree in principle, but not in practice, which seems to be the situation here, but it’s not clear what exactly you mean by “I never supported BIP110”. Do you mean the specific proposed changes related to making certain policy rules now consensus rules and plugging certain exploits that surfaced as a result of Taproot? Or you don’t support the idea of forcing it through via UASF? You even alluded to certain policy rules becoming consensus rules in WBD when you said:
“It’s not in consensus, at least not yet…” 23:00
And you didn’t express such a condecending pov back then, but it wasn’t explicit so that doesn’t mean you supported bip110 or not, nor am I suggesting you must Support it now. Just that you didn’t seem as opposed to the idea back then
As for why you don’t think it is a viable proposal, then that’s exactly what I wanted to discuss, which unfortunately has not been addressed yet. So far, you’ve only explained how (and even why) your stance hasn’t really changed, and I do appreciate that, but at no point have you answered the original question as to ‘how’ is it a bad idea. I was hoping to have a nuanced discussion about that as opposed to the surface social/political issues. So it would be useful, if possible, to point to why the few points of code changes is a bad idea. Maybe pointing to exact types of txs people use every day that will be affected or how the network will grind to a halt due to it. Things of that nature.
Where I Disagree
Below are the points I would say i disagree with, and why I disagree. Nothing I say is written in stone. It’s simply my thoughts as it is now, and I’m welcome to change any position I have provided a good argument is given, much like I would expect the same from you. I believe thats the basis of a healthy discussion.
”OP_RETURN limit is policy and not consensus”
Which is true
“So it didn’t matter if they removed it or left it alone”
That seems to be a somewhat dishonest statement to make, especially when you said in WBD:
“Filters do work and have worked for a very long time” 21:02 And
“Dust relay fee limits is a filter that works…”22:15
Yes, because it was a policy rule, anyone could of put a non-standard tx into a block and mined it themselves or give it to a miner, pay a high enough fee and get it in, but to suggest it did nothing is simply not true. You and I both know it. The simple description of it being a ‘policy’ dictates that it does/did something, as you yourself said to Adam Back yourself:
“Adam said if you don’t agree you can just change them, but if they don’t matter, then why change them” 35:15
If people found their way around the standardness rules, as in the case of ordinals, then what would make sense is to do something to make those rules effective again, as they were objectively before, not remove them. Something we agree on. You said you agree with stopping spam, and you agreed with limiting the op_return at the policy level. You agreed with it because it actually did something and because it was effective. So in terms of this limited scope, what exactly would be the problem moving this to the consensus level given how effective it ‘was’ at the protocol level? Or phrased another way, if limiting it at the protocol level didn’t break Bitcoin or harm it, why would it harm Bitcoin if not implemented in a way that prevents people routing round the limitation?
But for the sake of dialogue, can we agree that the above statement of it “not mattering” is simply not accurate?
”I cannot force Core to do anything”
A statement of truth, but this reminds me of an arabic saying كلمة حق أريد به الباطل “A statement of truth that is used to achieve falsehood” I’ll explain this after the next quote.
“I can voice my opinion on what they are doing, but it is ultimately their project and they can do what they want.”
We all acknowledge that you cannot force voluntary contributors to do what you want, which is not what anyone really wants. But the issue where this started, as you know, was for someone doing something where there was clear disagreement. So true, we cant force an action, but how about not doing something that many clearly didn’t want done? Or how about someone contributing this action that ‘nobody wants to do’ but then being shut down from doing it? This is something you also said in WBD:
“I can see why there’s massive mistrust of core” 34:00 “Refusal to not stop in doing something or at least pause makes it reasonable to think something else is going on” 34:25
Also, regarding the statement “it’s their project”, I disagree. If I wrote tomorrow a Bitcoin node implementation entirely in Swift, either on my own or as a small team, such a statement would be somewhat true. It’s true due to the fact that it’s a small optional non-default implementation. But core isn’t just ‘another implementation’, it’s THE implementation of Bitcoin. The default software for anyone to run. It has most definitely entered into the realm of a ‘public good’. If core was less than 50% of all nodes out there, even if still the majority implementation, then I would agree, because there would be enough diversity so that their individual actions wouldn’t have that significant an impact. But thats not the world we live in. Which is something you yourself expressed in your WBD interview.
So as Core is the main implementation, we need to have proper governance, which it seems like we dont have that right now. Something you also mentioned in WBD and I’m pretty sure you still hold that position.
So until we have this world where core is less significant than it currently is, they cannot hide behind “well if you don’t like it, fork the codebase and do your own thing”. Attitudes like this is what got us to where we are now, where some have done exactly that, and now we have fighting. It’s ultimately what breaks any collective project.
So on this point, can we agree that core shouldn’t be ‘their implementation’, its ‘our implementation’ that was left behind by satoshi to the whole of mankind. It’s back to governance, which I think we fundamentally agree on this issue.
“What about my criticisms of Core? Why did I stop? Well, it's because the angry mob is out for blood now.”
I agree. I, like yourself, know some individuals that contribute to core and I don’t consider them ‘compromised’. But what you just said here IS a change in stance which some have pointed out. Admittedly, it doesn’t mean you went from a stance of supporting bip110 to now not supporting it, but it does mean you agreed with the sentiment that led to the problems but now don’t want to talk about it now that it has escalated. I agree, on both sides people should be respectful, and we both know that BOTH sides in general are not. So if you were really neutral in that regards, you should not participate in that mutual hostility with comments like BCashJr etc while blocking people for saying “Andy”. This firmly puts you in the “tribe core” which is not really what we need. We need neutrality and honest dialogue, not more tribal behaviour while pointing your finger at other tribal behaviour.
And on the issue of your comments like “BCashJr” etc, this is a clear divergence from your previous stance. You clearly said in WBD:
”Bring Luke back into the fold, BCore has to remove a lot of maintainers” 57:40 “Ocean is a sizeable portion of the network now” 1:01:01 “It’s personal, they don’t like Luke and they don’t like Ocean”1:01:15
Which held Luke in clearly a more positive view. You defended him, highlighted how he has been wrongfully pushed out of core and explicitly said he should be brought back, but now 10 months later, he’s now BCashJr? What happened? You even said at the beginning of the video:
“I lean more towards knots” 8:30
But now you seem openly hostile. For me, it was this that led me to feel that you’ve totally changed your position. A position of general support to hostility. To the point where you block people for saying Andy but you yourself call Luke BCashJr?
None of this is meant to be a personal attack on you at all. I’m just highlighting what I feel is a clear change in position and behaviour, and I would appreciate some context as to why thats happened.
Strawman arguments
“If you're quoting things I posted before and framing them as a "gotcha," or evidence to put me on trial for "betraying BIP110," you're only showing your own ignorance of the subject matter.”
To be fair, I find this a bit unnecessarily hostile. But I’m happy to overlook this, along with other similar comments, as I’m sure your feed is filled with plenty of equally or even greater hostile responses that were totally out of order. You don’t know me so there’s no reason to expect you to know my sincerity or not. But needless to say, it wasn’t to ‘prove’ you’ve changed, but simply explaining what I’ve perceived. You’ve adequatly responded and it was a great response. You didn’t need ai to prove the consistency of your stance, lol, i take your word for it.
“On that WBD ep I said eventually someone would air dirty laundry, and that did happen. While there are some immature and problematic individuals, that doesn't mean you "fire all the devs." That's the Bcash rallying cry, and it's asinine.”
Well, I assume you’re giving a general reply to what ‘people say’ because I’ve never said that all the devs need to be fired. I agree that it’s just a hyperbolic statement to say, while acknowledging that this is a natural outcome to be said when people see dubious behaviour and don’t see a clear path to fix it. You literally said it yourself in wbd. That’s literally why we have revolutions. Because of a breakdown in engagement between those in charge and those who want to be heard. I’ve placed this in the Strawman category purely because it’s not something I’ve never said. But for core to be ‘saved’ it really needs to resolve its governance issues. Thats my personal view.
Conclusion
If I were to summarise the most important points mentioned above I’d say: - Fundamentally, if you were to contribute positively to this open discussion, it would help to specifically highlight what makes bip110 such a bad idea. A breakdown that doesn’t open up discussion about people, behaviours or opinions, but solid technical rationals. For example, if limiting op_returns were so useful for many years at the policy level, and didn’t harm Bitcoin at all, what exact harm do you perceive will happen integrated at the consensus level? Literally 2 lines of code, why would it be harmful in your view? One of the advantages of taproot was the fact we wouldn’t need if statements, as we could embed each if clause in a separate branch. Thats one of the stated advantages, so how would temporarily removing it only in taproot (it’s still available in all pre-taproot scripts) harm how Bitcoin is currently being used by people today that would harm or break Bitcoin? Or what about it makes it such a bad idea? What exactly about limiting the number of leafs in a taproot address to 2^7 leafs is harmful for Bitcoin to be money as it’s being used by people today? I’m being deliberate with my wording not to include fringe use cases that can’t be simply worked around in other ways and to fundamentally isn’t being used by anyone today in any real way. I think Addressing these points and other is what would really move the needle for people who believe bip110 is a good idea. - Its easy to say ‘doing nothing’ is the safer option, which seems to be your stance right now, as you haven’t suggested what else we could do instead of bip110, but would you agree that its counter productive to come out listing all the problems we all see thats there but then to say “oh well, I can’t do anything about it either”? Not everyone agrees with that approach, and many feel that running bip110 is part of their protest about the current state of affairs.
I would genuinely suggest reading the blog post of @SimonDixonTwitt here for another balanced approach. Not everyone who runs bip110 are fanatical individuals. I would say most are just like you and I Simon Dixon on BIP110
Thanks for your time and I look forward to your feedback to my reply.
