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If people who opposed bitcoin had less attitude, and more arguments, and less unsupported assertions about what can and cannot scale, then I would be more conce

If people who opposed bitcoin had less attitude, and more arguments, and less unsupported assertions about what can and cannot scale, then I would be more concerned about bitcoin. Bitcoin can, as of now, scale to support the current needs of 10 billion humans. Some of those solutions are still being completed (eg: beta, not golden master) but there's little theoretical risk, and while there will be bugs there's little indication of anything stopping it, should that level of adoption be desired. Most likely you don't understand what bitcoin actually is.

lightedman 9y ago
"Bitcoin can, as of now, scale to support the current needs of 10 billion humans" If every single human were mining, no, it certainly could not. If there are only a few miners and a bunch of participants, maybe. To boot, Bitcoin can't even support my needs. It's too slow for transactions unless I pay some other middleman, it can't cut my gemstones, it can't solder my LEDs, it can't run my Verilog sims, it can't raise my cat or feed my husband. Bitcoin doesn't sate my thirst nor does it provide me with my medicine - actual needs. "Most likely you don't understand what bitcoin actually is." I don't need to understand bitcoin to understand that we tried exactly this back in the 70s and apparently people didn't learn the lesson THEN. Distributed permissionless databases simply can not scale if everyone participates. The technology then, as now, simply does not exist to handle that amount of storage and bandwidth. It likely won't in another 50 years, if we even make it that far. Having over 30 years of experience in computers and networking and databases, I look at this and say "Go back to school, one with a proper education involving some actual history regarding computers and databases and networking." All you learn is how to code and don't learn about what's already been done or tried, so everything is new to you when it was already seen, tested, or envisioned before I was even born.
- tCfD 9y ago
  Is there a specific project you are referring to here? I'm very interested in the earlier history of research that tested the premise of global-scale decentralized control.
  - lightedman 9y ago
    No, but we originally tested this with hierarchical databases back in the late 70s. And as it shows once again, the way it grows as more people participate in holding copies of everything is unsustainable. New people need to download the entire thing, current people need to update to accept the new people. Bandwidth and storage jumps higher and higher, and that's before you start counting actual 'monetary' transactions.

lightedman 9y ago

"Bitcoin can, as of now, scale to support the current needs of 10 billion humans" If every single human were mining, no, it certainly could not. If there are only a few miners and a bunch of participants, maybe. To boot, Bitcoin can't even support my needs. It's too slow for transactions unless I pay some other middleman, it can't cut my gemstones, it can't solder my LEDs, it can't run my Verilog sims, it can't raise my cat or feed my husband. Bitcoin doesn't sate my thirst nor does it provide me with my medicine - actual needs. "Most likely you don't understand what bitcoin actually is." I don't need to understand bitcoin to understand that we tried exactly this back in the 70s and apparently people didn't learn the lesson THEN. Distributed permissionless databases simply can not scale if everyone participates. The technology then, as now, simply does not exist to handle that amount of storage and bandwidth. It likely won't in another 50 years, if we even make it that far. Having over 30 years of experience in computers and networking and databases, I look at this and say "Go back to school, one with a proper education involving some actual history regarding computers and databases and networking." All you learn is how to code and don't learn about what's already been done or tried, so everything is new to you when it was already seen, tested, or envisioned before I was even born.

tCfD 9y ago
Is there a specific project you are referring to here? I'm very interested in the earlier history of research that tested the premise of global-scale decentralized control.
- lightedman 9y ago
  No, but we originally tested this with hierarchical databases back in the late 70s. And as it shows once again, the way it grows as more people participate in holding copies of everything is unsustainable. New people need to download the entire thing, current people need to update to accept the new people. Bandwidth and storage jumps higher and higher, and that's before you start counting actual 'monetary' transactions.