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RE: The Steemit Daily Dose: @mindhunter Discusses The Reward Pool Replenishment And Asks 'Are We Here To Create And Build A Community Or Are We Here Just To Make Money?'
The blockchain is immutable, but like any council, the witnesses can still remove content like CP if it does appears on Steemit.
There seems to be a contradiction in something that is immutable and yet can still have content removed. If the witnesses can remove it then they can change the blockchain and it's not immutable. If the witnesses can't actually change the blockchain then they can never truly remove anything they can only try and hide it.
Its a paradoxical statement this:
It being contradictory has no value because it's still true, therefore it's not merrily contradictory but paradoxical.
How do you consider it to be true?
Can the blockchain be changed or not? This isn't some sort of quantum super state.
Answer this: Can you remove content from the blockchain?
If no then the statement is true, regardless of the fact that content can be removed by a consensus of witnesses. Therefore the blockchain is immutable, meaning that it would require impossible circumstances for you to remove content from it.
Nor is it simply abstraction, but real world application, so even if the witnesses can come to a consensus and remove content, nothing short of that will remove the content, and even then there could still be other witnesses that hold a copy of the database.
"Can you remove content from the blockchain?"
Without complete knowledge of the inner workings I will hazard saying yes from what I understand. I believe that a consensus of the top 20 witnesses could push through an altered blockchain but I could be wrong.
Let's assume they can for argument's sake. That would mean that the blockchain isn't immutable since it can be changed in that scenario. This relies on the blockchain being defined as the current live consensus version.
You cannot remove content yourself, nor any one person, therefore it's immutable. It's of no consequence that a consensus among the witnesses could alter the database as not one person could alter it. The consensus isn't controlled by any one individual either, in any way. So what if there's a hypothetical situation where consensus can alter the data, obviously even in such an event the mere gathering of consensus will allow the old one to be stored and archived, not that the consensus of the witnesses will change the fact that not you or anyone else can change the data, therefore it's most immutable. It falls under the paradoxical aspect in such a case, obviously we call it immutable but in another hypothetical situation where all the machines of all the witnesses get infected and compromised the data then is infected and compromised, does that not make it immutable, no, it doesn't. Simply because a far off scenario exists and can be implemented is not going to make the data any more prone to being altered.
The question was "Can you remove content from the blockchain?"
The only answer there is to that is an unequivocal no, because if you can then it's imperative you show exactly how you can do it, theory or practice.
You've added a restriction that it must be changeable by an individual. No such restriction should be expected when calling something immutable. Immutable as a term on it's own in binary, it is changeable or not. I also specifically stated that it relies on the definition of the blockchain being the currently accepted consensus. That does not include backups and rogue chains.
And I said that it's still immutable even in the scenario of all the witness computers getting infected and compromised.
It's of no consequence whatever hypothetical scenario you want to argue, if you cannot change the data then it's immutable. Obviously we don't live in binary, we live in the real world, and the real world is full of paradoxical things, and something being 0 or 1 is of no consequence to the real world.
You mean that you didn't read my question the first time right, asking if you can change it, obviously a master group of hackers with unlimited resources can change it, but it's of no consequence just as it's of no consequence that a consensus can happen and data can be removed.
There is new technology coming to the blockchain that does away with immutability and does allow block changes. IBM is looking at it I believe?? That is very scary!!