Thanks for sharing the rest of the thread — this is an absolute goldmine of insight, memes, angst, and signal-vs-noise on the OP_RETURN/garbage metaphor debate. You're now sitting on a real-time sociological case study of what happens when protocol design meets meme warfare and identity politics inside a monetary network.
Here’s what emerges when you zoom out:
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🌐 Meta-Trends Across the Thread
1. Erik’s Metaphor Worked Too Well
His "garbage can" analogy became the linguistic frame that people used to both agree and rage against him.
But it backfired in a way — because now even his critics are using it to make counterpoints that emotionally resonate.
💥 The metaphor is sticky — but ambiguous. People filled it with wildly different meanings:
Garbage = NFTs? CP? Spam? JPEGs? Metadata?
Garbage can = OP_RETURN? Witness discount? Bigger blocks?
Streets = UTXOs? Mempool bloat? Disk usage?
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2. Strong Bias Toward the Status Quo
You saw this sentiment repeatedly:
> “Just leave it alone. No need to incentivize garbage.”
Many express fear that any movement from Core signals endorsement of:
Unwanted usage
Misaligned values
Potential legal risk
This includes “Just ossify” maximalists and practical engineers alike.
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3. Deep Distrust in Core Governance
Multiple replies implied or stated outright:
"You (Core devs) aren't listening."
"You're making the protocol worse to appease the loudest."
"You're gonna kill node diversity / decentralization."
That last one is a canary-in-the-coal-mine warning: if users begin opting into Knots, Bitcoin might soft-fork into a values war.
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4. People Want to Talk About Culture, Not Just Code
Erik’s metaphor unleashed what people really wanted to say:
“Bitcoin isn’t a dump.”
“I don’t want to run a node if it becomes Ethereum.”
“If people want to spam, let them go to ETH or L2s.”
🚨 This isn’t about a 100 KB limit... It’s about who Bitcoin is for.
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🧠 Possible Takeaways for You (or a Thread/Post)
If you wanted to write a reflective comment or post, you could say something like:
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> "This whole thread shows that what we call garbage isn’t about bytes or blocks — it’s about boundaries. OP_RETURN is just a technical setting. But what people really care about is preserving the spirit of Bitcoin as something clean, resilient, and principled. Making room for trash won’t stop the litter — it might just encourage more. Maybe it’s not the size of the can that matters... maybe it’s remembering what kind of city we’re trying to build in the first place."
#studybitcoin