RE: Deescalating and working towards a mutually beneficial solution
I agree with much of this post, but not so much this part:
I don't buy the argument forking is theft. I don't buy the argument it's piracy. I buy the argument that I get to choose what code to run that will benefit the most stakeholders, which to me is whatever keeps the population of Steemians growing.
And our disagreement is the beauty of DPoS. People can vote based on who they trust most to secure their funds. We can also discuss back and forth our understanding of property and maybe come to better conclusions all around.
To me, a blockchain has to stay immutable and only in the most unusually incredible circumstances should something be modified. If the code breaks, for example, that might be a reason to set things right. If there was theft, that might be another reason. If we're talking Utilitarianism, I see your perspective, but I personally prefer self-ownership and how property rights are derived from that principle. If DPoS blockchains are just about whatever the majority want, then there really isn't any real property here from the framework I'm using. (More on my moral perspective on an old post here).
I was about to post on exactly the same point. Glad I read comments before I comment!
I completely agree with you on this point. If the standard for witnesses is 'the greatest good for the greatest number' then we are not talking about property rights at all, IMHO, but essentially communism.
We have agreements, written and tacit, that govern our possession and use of Steem, Steemit, and etc. If they can just be abrogated by a majority, then we don't have a rule of law, but of a mob. This is an important point for those that maintain 'code is law', because code is infinitely mutable. It can just be rewritten on a whim.
While I have great respect for all concerned parties in these discussions, particularly not leaving out @aggroed here, I hope he has a chance to reconsider that principle and discovers that he actually does mean that property rights are as sacred as they can be made to be, rather than simply what is convenient for growth, or whatever.
That latter point is the scary one, as he may find swifter growth more pertinent than private property rights - today. If he remains not strongly committed to property rights, and later growth is less important than some other matter, say decreased centralization, or even logo color, then what is to stop a fork on that future day to take people's property in order to turn the logo blue?
I am not a fan of ninjamines. I do not see that I have any right to tokens so created prior to my participation on Steem. Those two views aren't irreconcilable, and Steem either tolerates the past without becoming predatory or, IMHO, it loses all credibility with investors.
If Witnesses can take away one guy's stake, they can take mine too. If they can censor that guy, they can censor me too. Sauce for geese, and sauce for ganders.
Forking away stake needs to be behind a line drawn so deep that only existential need can cause us to cross it, or we can have no confidence that it isn't so shallow that it can just be crossed whenever it's convenient.
'First they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I said nothing. Then they came for the communists, but I was not a communist, so I said nothing. They came for the gypsies, homosexuals, and those born with defects, but I was not one of them, so I said nothing.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak up for me.' (paraphrasing a Holocaust survivor).
Thanks!
I agree. I get the frustration. It's shared amongst many in the community, but I vehemently disagree that it's acceptable to fork out someones stake because you don't like what they're doing with it. I appreciate the witnesses that are coming out and letting their positions be known and I hope everyone reading these votes where their opinions lie.
I also just want to say I strongly disagree that there is any scenario where a fork like this would end up being what's best for Steem overall and that it's a hard sell to talk about working together in the same post with an open threat.
I'm echoing @lukestokes reply with STRONG emphasis on this..
Didn't Steem already restart once. I believe ninja premine happened twice. It already doesn't have this immutable property you are talking about.
Aggroed has put in a ton of work to improve steem, so his opinion is prob different than others who have done much less work.
Btw, look at what happened after Ethereum forked out Ethereum Classic. Who even talks about it?
I'm not saying I agree with the fork but it should def be an option on the table.
We are the actors relevant to this present situation, and we were not involved in the ninjamine. What happened then was not our responsibility, and what happens now is.
See my full reply to @lukestokes above for why I think we should keep our hands off other people's stakes today.
tl;dr do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If we start taking folks money, no one will put their money where we can take it - and Steem will die.
Okay, lets just pretend it never happened and so we have no problem.
But wait....
My point is that we came here after the mining was over. If we put money into Steem after the mining, and now claim to be offended by the mining, that's on us. If you didn't know about the mining before investing, you didn't do due diligence. If you did, and you're now claiming it's a problem, you're being disingenuous.
Either way, it's not our stake.
Good luck finding anyone who'll invest under those rules.
Any blockchain including steem operates under these rules.
If any big bitcoin miner announce that they never accept any block with your transaction - say goodbye to your funds.
And we see that reflected in investment. Cryptos remain a marginal segment, with those least trustworthy being least adopted. I'm not saying cryptos are less trustworthy than fiat, merely that substantial investors have more trust in traditional mechanisms than novel code based mechanisms. Every time a HF changes the rules, crypto becomes less trustworthy, and investors take note.
Traditional investment is regulated such that investors are protected by regulators, and insofar as they do so, investors can have confidence that they can invest per their interests and due diligence being rewarded only by their intelligence, or penalized by their misunderstanding. Sadly, it is glaringly evident that regulators are corrupt, and what we see in global markets is crony capitalism, which is why money is increasingly focused into the accounts of banksters, rather than competent investors.
Crypto was intended to defeat crony capitalism corruption (ostensibly) but cannot do so by recreating the untrustworthiness of fiat markets. Folks that disregard that trust is paramount and instead seek gratification and corrupt profiteering kill the goose that lays the golden egg: trust.