{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","author_name":"npub17ty4mumkv43w8wtt0xsz2jypck0gvw0j8xrcg6tpea25z2nh7meqf4qgyd","author_url":"https://nostr.ae/npub17ty4mumkv43w8wtt0xsz2jypck0gvw0j8xrcg6tpea25z2nh7meqf4qgyd","provider_name":"njump","provider_url":"https://nostr.ae","html":"📅 Original date posted:2015-06-18\n📝 Original message:Hi Pieter,\n\nI believe Gavin plans to write a blog post about the hard fork process, but\nI'd like to debate this with you now, if only to give him material to work\nwith :)\n\nYour points look to me like the hard/soft fork debate in different clothes.\n\nFor example, we all agree that the rules of Bitcoin *can* be changed, and\nhave been before (e.g. P2SH), with software upgrades.\n\nWhen such a fork happens, any user who does not upgrade their node isn't\nfully verifying the block chain anymore. Their software might *think* it\nis, but it's running NOPs that don't mean NOP to other nodes. So there is a\ndivergence in the consensus, it's merely been done in such a way that the\nnode won't stop and print \"hard fork detected\" to the logs. It'll happily\naccept a block that violates the new rules, then wait to be corrected by\nminers.\n\nSo with any fork, hard or soft, there is risk to those who don't upgrade.\nThey may accept a block, or even two blocks, that they believe are valid\naccording to their old rule set, but which other miners would reject. The\neffect on double spending is much the same.\n\nNow let's talk philosophy.\n\n* Philosophy: Bitcoin is not a democracy.\n\u003e\n\nThis appears to be a key point of dispute. Bitcoin is a democracy, though\nthe analogy is not perfect. You can certainly believe whatever you like\nabout the true state of the ledger, but rubber hits the road the moment you\ngo and trade with other people.\n\nIf 90% of the people you trade with believe a coin exists, and you don't,\nyou're gonna discover you keep getting paid with that coin and its\ndescendents. You may hate it, you may feel your rights are being violated,\nyou may refuse to trade with those people but it will keep happening.\n\nMoney is about trade, and trade inherently involves the decisions of other\npeople. No man is an island.\n\nWith Bitcoin we have a great way to quickly find out what other people\nbelieve about the ledger. If the vast majority of people are on ledger A\nand you're on ledger B, then you've got a strong incentive to come into\nline with the majority in order to keep trading.\n\n\n\u003e Changing the rules should be possible if there is wide consensus, but\n\u003e nobody should feel forced to change their code against their will.\n\u003e\n\nNobody, not even after a hard fork, is *forced* to change their code\nagainst their will. It may be something that *other people require* as part\nof trading with them though. Whether one considers this \"forced\" or not I\nguess can be argued either way. Are you \"forced\" to buy oranges from the\nsingle orange seller in town if the other goes bankrupt, or could you just\navoid oranges? Where does economic freedom begin and end?\n\n\n\u003e * Governance: being able to push for a controversial change to the system\n\u003e sets an incredibly dangerous precedent about who is in charge of the\n\u003e system's rules.\n\u003e\n\nI think it's surely the opposite - *not* being able to push for\ncontroversial changes sets an incredibly dangerous precedent. Namely,\nwhoever gets to decide that a change is controversial gets to veto anything\nthey like!\n\n\n\u003e I can promise you that I will say anything in mail to this list if someone\n\u003e points a gun at me\n\u003e\n\nIndeed, me too! But it's worse than that: what if someone sockpuppets a\ndiscussion to make it look like a change does or does not have consensus?\n\nOne reason I keep banging on about *process* and how Wladimir needs to be\nThe Decider is that the current attempt at \"process\" is so vague, not only\nis it unexplainable, but it's wide open to manipulation.\n\nGood thing we have a way to resolve this problem:  the block chain. Now it\ndoesn't matter if someone points a gun at you or me. We can object to\nwhatever we like and that wouldn't bring Bitcoin to a halt, thus removing\nthe incentive to try and pressure individuals.\n\nBut if we don't have that ability to vote through choice of software and\nrulesets, then us poor developers really are in charge and that's not a\nplace any of us should want to go. There must be a mechanism for people to\ndisagree with the consensus, even in major, controversial ways, and that\nmechanism must have real force to it.\n-------------- next part --------------\nAn HTML attachment was scrubbed...\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20150618/9f95c39c/attachment.html\u003e"}