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jbusma

Let's take a vote!

Who votes to increase the 21M cap, devaluing your own holdings?

Sir, it appears the nays have it..

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It only takes one veto (bug) to nullify the entire network, CVE-2018-17144 for example.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Common_Vulnerabilities_and_Exposu...

this is actually really cool!

thank you for sharing I didn't know something this critical had been found in recent years

Unforeseen future circumstances could make people more amenable to any kind of changes imaginable. Either way, saying that it's impossible to print more is just not true.

Unforeseen future circumstances could make people less amenable. Saying "we just don't know what the future may hold" in support of a claim is an argument from ignorance.

> Unforeseen future circumstances could make people less amenable

True, but irrelevant. It doesn't matter either way. The point is that it can be done if that is what conventionial wisdom dictates is desirable at the time.

Conventional wisdom also dictates that it is desirable for Bitcoin to handle more than 7 transactions a second - and yet that problem isn't possible for Bitcoin to solve either.

Again, it's an argument from ignorance and gross oversimplification to claim "the future wisdom of the community" will solve problems for bitcoin.

You can equivocate all you like, but accusing me of ignorance doesn't make it so. It's an undeniable fact that it is possible for any of these properties to change and the poster that claimed it was impossible for them to change is wrong. There is no debate here, it's just reality.

I'm not accusing you of ignorance - An argument from ignorance (i.e. argumentum ad ignorantiam) is the name of a known fallacy, which you're making with your claims: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

You're engaged in the fallacy known as "straw-man", where you argue against a point I'm not making. I'm going to state my argument clearly so you can't continue to weasel around it.

The technical properties of bitcoin can be modified, saying that it is impossible to change them is wrong.

This is part of the argument from ignorance - the attempt to push a burden of proof when the claim you made was "Unforeseen future circumstances could make people more amenable to any kind of changes imaginable". I didn't say anything about impossibilities, maybe you're confusing me for someone else?

I dont think anyone with such possibility would put it to vote. They would just do it because they can.

Bitcoin works by consensus though. Nobody can be in that position. the best you can do is make a fork. Those who don't agree with the rule change will keep mining with the old rules in place

You would essentially "vote" with which fork you were choosing to acknowledge with your own node, should you be running one.

Also I'm fairly certain a majority of hashpower, not just users would need to be on board with the change.

You could argue that as the primary beneficiaries of such a change (increase cap => increased distribution to miners) they would be for it, but I think most rational actors see the catch 22 of trying to profit by removing one of the core attributes that makes bitcoin valuable (it's scarcity)

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