The decision making process of bitcoin is one of the wonders in the world

[johnyj]

The great thing about this ongoing core vs XT split is that people will have a chance to understand how should they make decision in bitcoin network

Bitcoin is a voluntarily participated monetary system, it is totally up to the user himself to decide if he accept a set of rules or not

This decentralized model is vastly different from today's society, where most of the people used to wait for the authorities to tell them what to do, be it their parents/professor/mayor/president or God. But in bitcoin they have to make a choice based on their own understanding, research and judgement

This is not a easy task, requires lots of understanding about how bitcoin works under the hood. And to make things worse, both sides of the core devs constantly adding exaggerated claims in the debate. But that's the cost of freedom, with increased freedom comes increased responsibility

However, similar to the society, when complexity raised above certain level, it becomes impossible for normal people without enough skill and time to understand what is going on, they have little choice but listen to their trusted authorities, and the decision making is more and more politicized

To avoid falling into such kind of situation, it is important to keep the things simplified and easy to understand, so that majority of participants can still make decision based on their own understanding. People never need to vote for the validity of 1+1=2, since that is enough simple for everyone to reach a consensus

So, any change that increase the complexity of bitcoin network will have a tendency to increase people's decision making difficulty in future, thus politicize it. These kind of change should always be avoided when people are making their decision

[Amph]

he can accept what he want, but if the majority will follow a different route, he will be forced to do the same, there is no way of having a system where everyone will be happy, because he was free to accept what he believe was the right thing

if you think about it, have a consensus by few people and to have a central autorithy made of a group of people isn't so different...however this remain vastly better than any crap imposed by a central authority