{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","author_name":"npub1jkdfcglr59lwnhek94l393g0hhhaj0v5yzz3n5s3p0r9u0576sgs7373ck","author_url":"https://nostr.ae/npub1jkdfcglr59lwnhek94l393g0hhhaj0v5yzz3n5s3p0r9u0576sgs7373ck","provider_name":"njump","provider_url":"https://nostr.ae","html":"📅 Original date posted:2014-04-27\n📝 Original message:On 27/04/14 11:42, Christophe Biocca wrote:\u003e This seems like splitting\nhairs, no? A block isn't a guarantee (it can\n\u003e get orphaned). And as a user of bitcoin (as opposed to a miner), this\n\u003e change cannot affect any payment you ever receive.\n\nDisagree. Maybe we just have a fundamental disagreement about what\nBitcoin is? :)\n\nBitcoin is this perfect /trustless/ mathematical machine, built - most\nunfortunately - upon a foundation of mushy humans.\n\nWe depend specifically upon these three assumptions:\n1. \u003e50% of hashpower will not cooperate to rewrite history\n2. the economic majority will not cooperate to reinterpret history\n3. enough people believe in the illusion of artificial scarcity to give\nit real value\n\nGiven that the above hold, from there up the system operates completely\ntrustlessly, with predictable security parameters. (Of course a block\nisn't a guarantee of anything, but I know the probability that you can\ncause a re-org from depth N with X% hashpower, which allows me to reason\nabout security.)\n\nNow, some people on this thread might point to the above 3 points and\nsay \"that isn't really a trustless system, it's a democratic system.\"\nAnd then advocate that we can do without assumption 2, replacing it with:\n2. the economic majority will not cooperate to reinterpret history\nagainst any good guys, only against bad guys; \"please trust their good\njudgement.\"\n\nThat moves us away from a pure trustless system built upon a small\ndemocratic foundation (as something of a necessary evil in an imperfect\nworld where humans run our computers and use our system) and toward a\n\"democratic system\".\n\nYou don't have to agree, but I hope you can understand the point I'm\nmaking :-) It's a fundamental shift in the nature of the system, and to\nsome people a violation of the social contract. Definitely not splitting\nhairs.\n\nI feel I've now consumed rather more bytes of everyone's inboxes than I\nought to have with this topic. I appreciate you and Mike taking the time\nto reply to a newbie/lurker.\n\n-Gareth\n\n\n\n\n-------------- next part --------------\nA non-text attachment was scrubbed...\nName: signature.asc\nType: application/pgp-signature\nSize: 555 bytes\nDesc: OpenPGP digital signature\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20140427/421557d1/attachment.sig\u003e"}