To The Unknown Pod Episode 12 - Bitcoin and the Decline of the American Middle Class

I think you misunderstood the fire movement. They're not trying to get a 25x return. They're trying to reduce their spending so that having a nest egg that is 25x their annual spending is easier. And then live a lifestyle that allows them to withdraw 1/25th (4%) every year. The growth they need to sustain that is to merely match inflation. They don't need 25x to do that.

Also, "Bitcoin is already an index of human incentive" is the most insightful thing I've heard in a while. I'm shamelessly stealing that.

As a PNRI, not all of us are stuck in the fiat mindset. I personally am as all in on Bitcoin as I can be until I actually retire. It's my long term savings. It's my checking. My paycheck goes directly into Bitcoin. We are not beholden to our generational ideas. And it is each of our responsibility to question our assumptions. Which has fed my orange pill.

Boost!!

Boost!

Meant to say filtering. Dyac.

I don't think keeping transactions with op_return > 80 bytes is censorship. In exactly the same way that I don't think letting minors create more than 21 million Bitcoin is censorship. Calling both of those censorship is demagoguery.

I am running BIP110. And you made an argument against it that made me reconsider. The argument was that BIP110 changes Bitcoin because it allows a minority to force their opinion on the majority. After thinking about it, I do not come to the same conclusion. I don’t think that BIP110 changes anything with respect to this risk. And opposing BIP110 doesn't mitigate that risk. This is a feature of Nakamoto consensus that exists today and will continue to exist regardless of which way BIP110 is resolved. If this risk didn’t already exist today, BIP110 couldn’t leverage it. There are two ways (that I’m aware of) to reject BIP110: 1. Almost all miners refuse to mine BIP110 blocks 2. Those opposing BIP110 exercise a URSF: user rejected soft fork. This effectively splits the chain. If BIP110 is rejected, those will remain the only ways to reject a different minority driven soft fork in Bitcoin. Heck if BIP110 becomes the only type of blocks that miners mine, those will also remain the only ways to reject a different minority driven soft fork in Bitcoin. So opposing BIP110 doesn't mitigate the risk that a minority can control the direction in Bitcoin. That will continue to exist regardless of which side wins. So I’m going to continue to run BIP110 because I think it does mitigate some significant risks for Bitcoin. But I’m willing to have my mind changed. BTW Intransigent minorities are a feature of complex systems not just Bitcoin. Taleb wrote about them in his book Skin in the Game. Here's the relevant chapter discussing it: https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dic…

Such a great summary of the changes that dramatically increase aviation freedom! Thanks for all the preparation put into this!

Re video, it's great when there are visuals that help convey information. But as soon as people do that the audio version suffers and I tend to switch to the video version only. Is there some way to stream sats while watching the link to the video feed?

Boost

,..=,*

This is an overly terse follow-up from my previous cut off boost. Whichever way BIP110 is eventually resolved, the risk of a minority forcing their opinion on Bitcoin doesn’t change. Consider: that risk exists today. It’s what BIP110 is trying to exploit. The opposition to BIP110 is to not change anything. If nothing changes then that risk still has to exist. Meanwhile I continue to run BIP110 because I think it does mitigate some risks to Bitcoin (although not that one). We can quibble about how big those risks are. I said earlier that this is a function of Nakamoto consensus. It’s actually a function of complex systems. Taleb wrote about this in his book Skin in the Game. Here's the relevant chapter discussing it: https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dic…

Re: a soft fork, I have posted a question on Matthew Kratter's videos: if we only have 20% of node runners switching to knots why do you think we have sufficient consensus to force the miners to mine the soft fork blocks?

Really great conversation!

"or core v30" earned a boost.

"Learning is discovering that you're wrong on a regular basis" Very succinct and useful phrase.

I'm posting this below the 2000 sat limit because I don't need you to read it on the pod but I know you read all of these and wanted to give a different perspective As a pilot, there are some outcomes that are so catastrophic that we build in lots and lots of mitigations so that we don’t EVER encounter them. An example is fuel. Running out of fuel increases the likelihood of a crash to nearly 100%. Meanwhile the actual incidence of fuel related crashes in commercial aviation is very close to 0. The fact that the incidence is close to 0 doesn’t mean we can safely remove fuel reserve requirements, or proper fuel planning processes. This is how I see the SPAM debate. There are some outcomes (e.g. illegal data in the chain) that are so bad that, even if we haven’t seen it yet, we have to build as many mitigations as possible. If the US government can prosecute the samourai developers despite Section 230, it’s hard to imagine that node operators that knowingly host illegal data would also be immune from prosecution as a way to attack Bitcoin. So we have to build in multiple layers of mitigation to prevent that catastrophe. With Core deciding to open up OP_RETURN to 100k bytes, they’ve taken away one of those mitigations. For me personally, best case scenario: OP_RETURN goes back to 83 bytes and the inscriptions bug gets fixed. Barring that, what is the next best mitigation in order to prevent the catastrophic result of illegal data on the chain? Certainly a soft fork is a far worse option. But it might be the next best option. Still I’d much rather that core come to their senses. If not, that more people run knots - or some other bitcoins that allows for filtering OP_RETURN. Only after both of those fail, would I like to see a soft fork. Because we can’t tolerate the catastrophic result of illegal data on chain.

Personally I'm focused on decentralization of nodes. Anything that diminishes node sovereignty is a departure from Bitcoin. This seems to me what core is doing.

"Fractional reserve is just banking" this seems like it translates to: If you need someone else to hold your Bitcoin for you, you risk rehypothication. Doesn't bitcoins qualities allow me to not need an external bank?

I had so much fun getting together with this great community! Looking forward to the next. Also I got some free eggshells.