Lightning adds centralization to the scheme to alleviate some pains of decentralization. I don't think any additional techno-babble is necessary here. Lightning is more centralized that vanilla Bitcoin.
At the very least, regardless of whether you spout "techno-babble", you could explain why you think it is a "centralization scheme that completely obviates the entire point of Bitcoin". So far all you have done is make the claim without any reasoning explained to back up your point whatsoever.
It also requires: opening the channel and closing the channel, for which Bitcoin's astronomical fees are still present. You also must trust the lightning network itself, which is susceptible to myriad of attack vectors, including forced expiration of transactions, fraudulently closing the channel while the counterparty is offline, and so on.
Yup, Lightning requires opening a channel. But there are also options like channel factories that will allow for new channels to be created or closed in the same way that lightning transactions are without requiring on-chain transactions. What do you mean you must trust the lightning network? Can you elaborate on that further? I'm not claiming that there are no attack vectors possible. But it is important to understand what the word "trust" means and I don't think it is being used appropriately here. Also, as I specifically said previously, lightning network is an active network and if you're going to use it, you must be present for it. So yes, this means that you must either always be online with your channels (or at least online frequently enough to watch your channels with the csv_delay you set for your channel peers) or use a watchtower that can watch your channels for you. There is a huge risk in attempting to close a channel fraudulently. Even if your peer has been offline for some duration like you say, you never know a forced channel close is being watched by someone. If you get caught trying to close a channel fraudulently, then you risk losing
all the funds in the channel as a penalty by your peer.
The examples you've given haven't been clear enough for me to point at why they're absurd, but I can know with complete confidence that they are not apples-to-apples comparisons
I gave you my real-world numbers for my actual lightning node that I have been hosting for over 3 years now. I am not sure why you assume they're "absurd". The numbers are absolutely real and if you actually used the lightning network yourself and hosted a node yourself, you'd have a similar experience. It seems odd that you're claiming something with complete confidence for something that you obviously have not used.
I think it's harmful and runs counter to virtually everything I believe in: accountability, democracy, environmental responsibility, the common good, equity, etc.
The strange thing is that I feel it exemplifies all of those things.
Bitcoin is accountable in the sense that it is 100% transparent and 100% auditable. That lends itself well when it comes to accountability. It is hard to hold a system accountable if there is no transparency in how it operates and you can't audit what it does. I think there will need to be human accountability that comes from governance and legislation, but bitcoin itself is absolutely accountable. Contrast that with our central bankers of today that aren't even elected officials in most instances. Central bankers are almost never held accountable for poor policy that is put in place.
Bitcoin exemplifies democracy in the truest sense. Democracy literally means "rule by the people" and that is what bitcoin does. It is a network operated by the people and anyone can participate it. Again, contrast that with central banking that is ruled by nepotistic politicians and bureaucrats.
I've already spoke earlier to its environmental impacts. At the end of the day everything we do has an energy cost. Every output in our economy consumes energy to produce and operate. Bitcoin is no different and I spoke earlier about how it would be foolish to write off bitcoin because of its early life energy costs during its production phase without acknowledging its future efficiencies that could be gained. In the grand scheme of things, bitcoin's climate impact will be negligible and if there is any future efficiencies to be gained from it (which I believe there are), then I think it is worthwhile to pursue. Bitcoin, after all, is agnostic to the type of energy it consumes.
I think bitcoin also speaks to the common good. Our current KYC/AML regulations do the opposite of just that. They punish the common good through enacting massive surveillance and privacy violating regulations all to try and punish an extremely small minority that commit crimes. KYC/AML law is widely regarded as being complete failures at what they set out to do. Not only do they violate our personal freedoms, but they also fail to actually catch a vast majority of money laundering crime (less than 1%). Bitcoin fights back for those freedoms with the acknowledgement that there might be a small percentage of people that utilize it in their crimes.
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JFC-08-2017-0071/full/htmlhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/haileylennon/2021/01/19/the-false-narrative-of-bitcoins-role-in-illicit-activity/I also feel bitcoin is in the pursuit of equity. Bitcoin does not discriminate against who you are. It doesn't matter what your race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, education level, or political party is, you can still use bitcoin. Bitcoin will not redline you.
Miners. Developers. They're a hell of a lot more human and a hell of a lot more centralized than you're letting on... And getting more so centralized by the day.
That last part is factually false. Mining has been getting more decentralized over the last several years and there are now more developers actively developing with bitcoin than ever before. I agree they are human, but bitcoin as a decentralized governance system takes away a lot of the governance risk you'd have compared with a centralized organization.
C'mon man. We can all read the thread and see what you said. But let's beat this dead horse: You said: "Vast amounts of currency debasement and record levels of inflation. Currency collapses in many places around the world. Over 2 billion people world-wide are experiencing double digit inflation"
debasement and record levels of inflation... experiencing double digit inflation. Moving along...
My point still stands and a cherry-picked statement with a YoY exchange rate is hardly refuting of the points I laid out. One search for "bitcoin" and the name of any of the countries I've mentioned and you'll find examples of citizens who've lost the trust in their native currencies and have decided that bitcoin is where they can put their wealth instead.
It can. But it doesn't necessarily. This is quacky Libertarian economics. In a sufficiently growing economy, the monetary base can increase and simultaneously experience deflation.
I agree. I've already had this discussion with ChpBstrd and that lasted for several pages, so I doubt there will be anything new brought up on this topic, but if you'd like you can read the discussion we had on it. It started around page 20. I agree that other deflationary pressures (technology, savings, aging population, etc) can mask the impacts of inflationary monetary policy, but they in no way diminish its impacts. No matter what, its impacts are felt through the economy regardless of whether the price of goods rises. I didn't mean to imply that monetary inflation always yields price inflation, so I apologize for the miscommunication there.
A few points:
1. No. You don't. Developers can change these rules at any time, so long as there's sufficient agreement.
2. Why is this a good thing? This, too, is Libertarian economics talk. Virtually all economists would tell you: having a monetary policy that responds to change is strictly superior to one that is static. There's a reason no modern economy is still on the gold standard. And when it's been tried in recent history, it's been catastrophic.
I would argue that the uncertainty brought about by fiscal policy and the current modern monetary theory of running deficits in exchange for currency debasement is far more damaging to the economy than a stable currency supply ever would be. You, like ChpBstrd, make the claim that when it's been tried it was catastrophic and yet neither he nor you will provide examples of a deflationary spiral from a rigid monetary base that was not preceded by a crashing bubble.
You did not arrive at these things out of genuine concern for the people of Venezuela or the people of Lebanon. You arrived at this after reading some Bitcoin Magazine article or some such nonsense.
If I am to engage with honest debate with you, I expect there to be a certain level of civility. Insinuating anything about how I arrived that the beliefs I hold when you know little about me is hardly in the best spirits here. You can debate me and the remarks I've made on their own merit as they stand here without the generalizations of however you may see others who may hold similar views as my own. In reality, I think you'd find that I am quite the mash of beliefs as are most people when you get to know them.
Let's look at the shining city on the hill for Bitcoiners: El Salvador. Bitcoin is their national currency! What's happening? How's that going? Bitcoiners' favorite Dictator, Bukele, just suspended human rights protections in El Salvador. Even in this hellscape, 86% of businesses report having never conducted a single transaction in bitcoin.
You won't find me courting dictators like Bukele at all. I even think forcing businesses to accept bitcoin as a currency is bad policy all the same as it is bad policy to force business to accept any other form of currency. That being said, I don't think the statistic you laid out is hardly the negative stat you think it is; with 14% of business having accepted bitcoin after only a year in without any prior infrastructure in place.
Dude! Bitcoin just went down like 8% yesterday! As you said: it is massively volatile. Holding it short term is still a massive risk exposure, often much worse than the shitty currencies you're poo-pooing.
It can be volatile, but that being said it is an uncertain volatility. When you're in a currency collapse like Venezuela, Lebanon, Zimbabwe, Turkey, etc. you're faced with a feeling of certain of collapse. When the currency is debased beyond any means of recovery, people will lose trust in it and will flee that feeling of certain loss into something like bitcoin even with its uncertain volatility. As I said, price inflation is relative to the region of goods you're in and we can often even see the price of bitcoin rise independent from global markets in these regions facing currency collapse as bitcoin liquidity struggles to meet the increased demand. You don't need to take my word for it though, the increased usage of bitcoin in these regions stands as evidence on its own regardless of how you feel about it.