Ethereum hard fork successful with mining majority • Hacker News Board

Re: Ethereum hard fork successful with mining majority

#71

Post by matthewbauer » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:04 PM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #68

TheRealPomax wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That description fits current banking systems just as much.

Except, uh, no. Almost everywhere, there is a ton of legal (and other) recourse, as well as a theoretically neutral arbiter who will listen to you and make a decision. There is some due process. You can argue about the neutrality, the laws, whatever. There's something, and it's recourse for plenty of people/etc. Here, if all your neighbors get together and want to steal your money, they can steal your money, and you…

> Here, if all your neighbors get together and want to steal your money, they can steal your money, and you have no recourse

And this was always possible even before the hard fork. The difference now is that there is an actual precedent for it and apparently at least 51% of Ethereum stakeholders are okay with doing that sort of thing. Anyone actually holding a significant amount of Ethereum should seriously question the original claims that the Ethereum team made on its value.

Re: Ethereum hard fork successful with mining majority

#72

Post by matthewbauer » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:07 PM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #32

TheRealPomax wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That description fits current banking systems just as much.

So if it's not an improvement, why bother?

From what I understand, it's much worse than any human legal system. Theory and precedent have all been thrown out and everyone is at the mercy of whoever can convince 51% of stakeholders. There's no concept of "equal protection" like in a modern legal system.

Re: Ethereum hard fork successful with mining majority

#73

Post by matthewbauer » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:11 PM UTC

ikken wrote: post #21

I think that many people miss the most important thing here: it is not important if a currency hard-forks or not - what is important is that it can . I have no confidence that Bitcoin or any other currency doesn't fork in the future, because it is possible at any moment. The fact that the fork has happened or not changes nothing - it always stays as a possibility. In other words the chance of Ethereum or Bitcoin hard…

> I think that many people miss the most important thing here: it is not important if a currency hard-forks or not - what is important is that it can.

Well, it's setting a precedent that will make the case easier in the future. Bitcoin's hard forks have all seemed to be good faith attempts to fix issues in the protocol. I don't think anyway on the Ethereum team is arguing this is anything other than an extremely arbitrary fork. The fact that 51% of stakeholders agreed to set this precedent should scare anyone from owning Ethereum in the future.

Re: Ethereum hard fork successful with mining majority

#74

Post by matthewbauer » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:14 PM UTC

onestone wrote: post #24

leshow wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you consider 5.5% of the money supply a good participation rate? In the voting on the pools, 80% of people didn't even vote. Therefore it is simply the fact that the fork was the default choice (and is the default in all the wallets), that is the deciding factor of this 'vote' By the way, "> 80% of the hash power was pro-fork." is demonstrably false. only 15% of the hashing power was pro fork, 85% of miners didnt vot…

Yes, I consider it an _excellent_ participation rate. A 5.5% sample size is orders of magnitude larger than that of nearly any sociological study (usually below 0.01%). Passive users by definition agree to follow the active users' decision.

I feel like "passive users" would agree with the status quo? They don't care enough to vote for the fork, so they should have counted as voting against the forks.

Re: Ethereum hard fork successful with mining majority

#75

Post by mrfusion » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:22 PM UTC

Would anyone be willing to explain the background on this? I'll admit I haven't been following it.

Re: Ethereum hard fork successful with mining majority

#76

Post by onestone » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:24 PM UTC

matthewbauer wrote: post #74

onestone wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I consider it an _excellent_ participation rate. A 5.5% sample size is orders of magnitude larger than that of nearly any sociological study (usually below 0.01%). Passive users by definition agree to follow the active users' decision.

I feel like "passive users" would agree with the status quo? They don't care enough to vote for the fork, so they should have counted as voting against the forks.

By that logic there should be no Brexit, as less than 50% of the eligible voters voted for it.

Re: Ethereum hard fork successful with mining majority

#77

Post by zeveb » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

And just like that, the entire point of Ethereum vanished into the ether.

Contracts which contain an implicit item 'we can renegotiate this any time a majority of miners wish' are contrary to what Ethereum was meant to be.

Re: Ethereum hard fork successful with mining majority

#78

Post by pavel_lishin » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:39 PM UTC

clarkmoody wrote: post #61

pavel_lishin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The submissive person in the relationship has all the power; they are the one who gets to say "stop". Maybe when you're into BDSM. You're right that authority comes from submission, but people submit to power . A gun, a hostage, a 51% voting majority.

> A gun, a hostage Those are direct use of force , not authority or power. > 51% voting majority Can still be undermined by civil disobedience, if we're talking about society. Only a small minority in society (the police) use force to get you to submit. The rest submits to the authority of the law. A very small group can undermine the majority through civil disobedience, since they can outnumber the police very quick…

Force compels submission, which grants authority.

Re: Ethereum hard fork successful with mining majority

#79

Post by Lawtonfogle » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:41 PM UTC

Any chance the one who ran this exploit can sue for the money they were due?

If the code IS the contract, then by the contract they are owed this money, no?

Or does this mean the code isn't the contract?

Re: Ethereum hard fork successful with mining majority

#80

Post by tlrobinson » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 5:42 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #22

alexbock wrote: post #6

Looking in from the outside as someone with no involvement with Ethereum, I really don't understand how the people behind it can justify using their privileged position as developers and community leaders to try to undo this. They spent a lot of time talking about how "the code is the contract"... until they stood to be negatively impacted on a personal level by allowing the literal meaning of the code to stand. I'm…

One way to justify it might be to consider this a beta period. It is still early days for this new currency and perhaps when the system is more robust, they will be able to walk away. But the question is whether that day will ever come, or the currency will always need emergency overrides.

That would be fine if they advertised it as such. There's no mention of "beta" or "pre-release" or anything like that on any of Ethereum's marketing materials, AFAICT.