Is the blockchain's purpose being redefined by the forked Ethereum Community?

[AgentofCoin]

I think the answer to the poll is a factual "yes".  Of course a "community" (that is, at least one miner) can mess with a block chain as much as he wants.  Whether he "should" is a silly question, because by definition, in a trust less environment, there is no "should".

That said, the original cryptographic IDEA of a block chain was that it would remain immutable.  But not because this is a moral law, but rather because it was thought that the non-collusion of interests and the individual greed of participants would have AS AN EMERGING PROPERTY that the block chain would remain immutable.

The ETH/ETC debacle has factually proved that this emergent property doesn't always hold.  In other words, that the supposed cryptographic function of a block chain, namely immutability, is not always guaranteed.

Your question is somewhat like: "can secret keys be stolen ?"
Of course they can.  But if so, then the cryptographic security of what they intended to protect, this cryptographic function, is broken.

"should secret keys be stolen" ?  Of course not.  But that was not the idea of secret keys.  The idea was that one wouldn't steal them even though opponents would try so.

Immutability in a secure blockchain is always guaranteed, unless a hardfork to violate that function is performed.
If the "community" decides to undo the original intention of a blockchain, and revise work, they lose blockchain status.
The "community" effectively "voted" to devolve the blockchain, back into a trusted distributed ledger system.
Which is fine and that "community's choice", but can they still be categorized to be a true blockchain?

According to your theory, if the city police transform into mall security guards, they are still legal police officers
since the citizens can still call them so. The question is, are they still performing city police work, or are they now
just walking the food court and making sure the kids aren't spitting off the escalators? If there is a problem, I'm pretty
sure they call the police and only the police have legal authority granted by the courts to perform certain police actions.

The truth is, they transformed into mall security guards and anyone still calling them police are ignorant.
Likewise, the Ethereum blockchain transformed (by vote) into a distributed ledger and anyone still calling it a blockchain are ignorant.

Your answer is arguing that a blockchain, is a blockchain, because a person can incorrectly define it as such.

[dinofelis]

I think the answer to the poll is a factual "yes".  Of course a "community" (that is, at least one miner) can mess with a block chain as much as he wants.  Whether he "should" is a silly question, because by definition, in a trust less environment, there is no "should".

That said, the original cryptographic IDEA of a block chain was that it would remain immutable.  But not because this is a moral law, but rather because it was thought that the non-collusion of interests and the individual greed of participants would have AS AN EMERGING PROPERTY that the block chain would remain immutable.

The ETH/ETC debacle has factually proved that this emergent property doesn't always hold.  In other words, that the supposed cryptographic function of a block chain, namely immutability, is not always guaranteed.

Your question is somewhat like: "can secret keys be stolen ?"
Of course they can.  But if so, then the cryptographic security of what they intended to protect, this cryptographic function, is broken.

"should secret keys be stolen" ?  Of course not.  But that was not the idea of secret keys.  The idea was that one wouldn't steal them even though opponents would try so.

Immutability in a blockchain is always guaranteed, unless a hardfork to violate that function is performed.
If the "community" decides to undo the original intention of a blockchain, and revise work, they lose blockchain status.
The "community" effectively "voted" to de-evole the blockchain, back down into a distributed ledger system.
Which is fine and their "choice", but can they still be argued to be a true blockchain?

According to your theory above, if the city police transform into mall security guards, they are still police officers
since the citizens can still call them so. The question is, are they still performing city police work, or are they now
just patrolling the food court and making sure the kids aren't spitting off the escalators and the like?
The truth is, they are now mall security guards and anyone calling them police are ignorant.

Your answer is arguing that a blockchain, is a blockchain because a person can incorrectly define it as such.

I don't know if you are being serious or attempting to rationalize and spin the recent ETH HF.

I think we are talking about two different meanings of the concept of "block chain".  One is an intend, the other is a technology.  I was talking about the technology, you are talking about the intend.  Both are linked of course, but the technology is what it is, and the intend is the hope that the technology will achieve, but may fail to do so (and this was my point: it can fail to do so, the technology is not always fulfilling the intend).

The block chain *technology* is essentially a linked list of hashes with some "difficulty" like PoW (in fact, I think honestly that ONLY PoW has a true block chain meaning).   The *intend* of a block chain, most of the time, is to build an immutable ledger and protocol.  However, this intend is to be realized as an emerging property of antagonism of the actors: no single actor has the cryptographic means to do it on his own, and there is not enough incentive for collusion between sufficient actors.  If these conditions are met, the block chain technology gives rise to the block chain intend.

But of course, when there is sufficient collusion and the conditions for emergence of the intend are not satisfied (or the theory doesn't work), then the block chain technology will not necessarily give rise to the block chain intend, which is immutability and stability of protocol.  So the block chain technology can then "do whatever one wants", even change the genesis block every Saturday.  Technologically, this is not impossible, on the contrary.  That was my point.

[AgentofCoin]

...

...

I think we are talking about two different meanings of the concept of "block chain".  One is an intend, the other is a technology.  I was talking about the technology, you are talking about the intend.  Both are linked of course, but the technology is what it is, and the intend is the hope that the technology will achieve, but may fail to do so (and this was my point: it can fail to do so, the technology is not always fulfilling the intend).

The block chain *technology* is essentially a linked list of hashes with some "difficulty" like PoW (in fact, I think honestly that ONLY PoW has a true block chain meaning).

  The *intend* of a block chain, most of the time, is to build an immutable ledger and protocol.  

However, this intend is to be realized as an emerging property of antagonism of the actors: no single actor has the cryptographic means to do it on his own, and there is not enough incentive for collusion between sufficient actors.  

If these conditions are met, the block chain technology gives rise to the block chain intend.

But of course, when there is sufficient collusion and the conditions for emergence of the intend are not satisfied (or the theory doesn't work), then the block chain technology will not necessarily give rise to the block chain intend, which is immutability and stability of protocol.  So the block chain technology can then "do whatever one wants", even change the genesis block every Saturday.  Technologically, this is not impossible, on the contrary.  That was my point.

IMO, the true reason the blockchain was "invented" was for immutability. Take away the intent, and the technology becomes
a series of worthless complex steps that can be performed more efficiently and cost effective with systems that have been in
use since the 80's and 90's. There is no logical purpose for a technological blockchain outside of it's original intent: immutability.


To address you recent comment:
You are saying that Ethereum no longer has the "intent" of a blockchain, though it still uses that technological programming by default.
So it is essentially a false blockchain, so to speak. It is using the blockchain system for a purpose (or "intent") that no longer exists.

So you are disagreeing with me that their blockchain did not transform or devolve into a lower form of ledger system and should now
be called something else, but do think it "fell by community vote" into the form of a "false messiah blockchain" or "empty-blockchain",
since the intent is now abandoned. In a way, it could be called a "zombie-blockchain" since it seems to be running without purpose.

Do you agree with this interpretation?

[dinofelis]

...

...

I think we are talking about two different meanings of the concept of "block chain".  One is an intend, the other is a technology.  I was talking about the technology, you are talking about the intend.  Both are linked of course, but the technology is what it is, and the intend is the hope that the technology will achieve, but may fail to do so (and this was my point: it can fail to do so, the technology is not always fulfilling the intend).

The block chain *technology* is essentially a linked list of hashes with some "difficulty" like PoW (in fact, I think honestly that ONLY PoW has a true block chain meaning).

  The *intend* of a block chain, most of the time, is to build an immutable ledger and protocol.  

However, this intend is to be realized as an emerging property of antagonism of the actors: no single actor has the cryptographic means to do it on his own, and there is not enough incentive for collusion between sufficient actors.  

If these conditions are met, the block chain technology gives rise to the block chain intend.

But of course, when there is sufficient collusion and the conditions for emergence of the intend are not satisfied (or the theory doesn't work), then the block chain technology will not necessarily give rise to the block chain intend, which is immutability and stability of protocol.  So the block chain technology can then "do whatever one wants", even change the genesis block every Saturday.  Technologically, this is not impossible, on the contrary.  That was my point.

IMO, the true reason the blockchain was "invented" was for immutability. Take away the intent, and the technology becomes
a series of worthless complex steps that can be performed more efficiently and cost effective with systems that have been in
use since the 80's and 90's. There is no logical purpose for a technological blockchain outside of it's original intent: immutability.


To address you recent comment:
You are saying that Ethereum no longer has the "intent" of a blockchain, though it still uses that technological programming by default.
So it is essentially a false blockchain, so to speak. It is using the blockchain system for a purpose (or "intent") that no longer exists.

So you are disagreeing with me that their blockchain did not transform or devolve into a lower form of ledger system and should now
be called something else, but do think it "fell by community vote" into the form of a "false messiah blockchain" or "empty-blockchain",
since the intent is now abandoned. In a way, it could be called a "zombie-blockchain" since it seems to be running without purpose.

Do you agree with this interpretation?

I largely agree with the gist of what you are saying: block chain *technology* fails somehow when it doesn't realize *block chain intend*.  However, maybe we differ on the point of view over "who's guilty".

I also consider the ETH block chain to be "damaged" (although strictly technically speaking, their block chain hasn't altered, only the protocol has altered: they didn't rewind blocks - but I was myself one of the first to say that this comes down to the same thing: altering the interpretation of data (the protocol) or altering the data themselves, is up to a point, equivalent).  

However, I don't consider that "the ethereum community screwed up their block chain".   I consider this a failure of the block chain system itself.  The fact that is was POSSIBLE in practice to do so, is what illustrates a "block chain dynamics gone wrong".  The whole intend of a block chain was that one would not be able to pull this off.  One did.  So the block chain technology used by ethereum didn't succeed in obtaining an emergent property of immutability, and the community was capable to alter history to a point, which it was supposed not to be able to do unless strong collusion (which is exactly what happened).

In other words, I don't see the ethereum ETH fork as "a stupid decision by a bunch of irresponsible idiots not realizing what they broke" but rather an illustration of a failure of block chain technology.

In other words, it is similar to a safe that has been broken open.  I could say that it was a totally irresponsible act by the burglar to break open my safe, but I could also consider this as a failure of "safe builder technology".  The equivalent question of the poll is then: "Did the burglar succeed in re-defining the function of a safe ?"
Wheras the function of a safe is never to open, except to the rightful owner of the safe.  No, the burglar redefined that function into "sometimes also open to a burglar who is smart enough".

[AgentofCoin]

...

...

I think we are talking about two different meanings of the concept of "block chain".  One is an intend, the other is a technology.  I was talking about the technology, you are talking about the intend.  Both are linked of course, but the technology is what it is, and the intend is the hope that the technology will achieve, but may fail to do so (and this was my point: it can fail to do so, the technology is not always fulfilling the intend).

The block chain *technology* is essentially a linked list of hashes with some "difficulty" like PoW (in fact, I think honestly that ONLY PoW has a true block chain meaning).

  The *intend* of a block chain, most of the time, is to build an immutable ledger and protocol.  

However, this intend is to be realized as an emerging property of antagonism of the actors: no single actor has the cryptographic means to do it on his own, and there is not enough incentive for collusion between sufficient actors.  

If these conditions are met, the block chain technology gives rise to the block chain intend.

But of course, when there is sufficient collusion and the conditions for emergence of the intend are not satisfied (or the theory doesn't work), then the block chain technology will not necessarily give rise to the block chain intend, which is immutability and stability of protocol.  So the block chain technology can then "do whatever one wants", even change the genesis block every Saturday.  Technologically, this is not impossible, on the contrary.  That was my point.

IMO, the true reason the blockchain was "invented" was for immutability. Take away the intent, and the technology becomes
a series of worthless complex steps that can be performed more efficiently and cost effective with systems that have been in
use since the 80's and 90's. There is no logical purpose for a technological blockchain outside of it's original intent: immutability.


To address you recent comment:
You are saying that Ethereum no longer has the "intent" of a blockchain, though it still uses that technological programming by default.
So it is essentially a false blockchain, so to speak. It is using the blockchain system for a purpose (or "intent") that no longer exists.

So you are disagreeing with me that their blockchain did not transform or devolve into a lower form of ledger system and should now
be called something else, but do think it "fell by community vote" into the form of a "false messiah blockchain" or "empty-blockchain",
since the intent is now abandoned. In a way, it could be called a "zombie-blockchain" since it seems to be running without purpose.

Do you agree with this interpretation?

I largely agree with the gist of what you are saying: block chain *technology* fails somehow when it doesn't realize *block chain intend*.  However, maybe we differ on the point of view over "who's guilty".

I also consider the ETH block chain to be "damaged" (although strictly technically speaking, their block chain hasn't altered, only the protocol has altered: they didn't rewind blocks - but I was myself one of the first to say that this comes down to the same thing: altering the interpretation of data (the protocol) or altering the data themselves, is up to a point, equivalent).  

However, I don't consider that "the ethereum community screwed up their block chain".   I consider this a failure of the block chain system itself.  The fact that is was POSSIBLE in practice to do so, is what illustrates a "block chain dynamics gone wrong".  The whole intend of a block chain was that one would not be able to pull this off.  One did.  So the block chain technology used by ethereum didn't succeed in obtaining an emergent property of immutability, and the community was capable to alter history to a point, which it was supposed not to be able to do unless strong collusion (which is exactly what happened).

In other words, I don't see the ethereum ETH fork as "a stupid decision by a bunch of irresponsible idiots not realizing what they broke" but rather an illustration of a failure of block chain technology.

In other words, it is similar to a safe that has been broken open.  I could say that it was a totally irresponsible act by the burglar to break open my safe, but I could also consider this as a failure of "safe builder technology".  The equivalent question of the poll is then: "Did the burglar succeed in re-defining the function of a safe ?"
Wheras the function of a safe is never to open, except to the rightful owner of the safe.  No, the burglar redefined that function into "sometimes also open to a burglar who is smart enough".

I would have to disagree that it is a failure of the blockchain tech and disagree with your safe example.

As to your failure argument:
At no time, or in any material I have previously read, was there any acknowledgment that blockchain technology
prevents Hardfork revisions to the chain. The only thing the protects the blockchain from HF revisions is the devs/community
themselves. That is the purpose of the Community as being part of the three parts to a blockchain system (Users/Devs/Miners).
Users are not only there to purchase the tokens, but also uphold the original social contract, which exists only for them.

Those individuals are the gatekeepers and if they wish to uphold or destroy their original social contract, it is done by them and
not by the blockchain itself. To say that the Ethereum issue is a failing of the blockchain technology is a cop out and transferring blame.
If a blockchain "ran" without humans involved theoretically, your argument would be that it would still cause a miraculous revisable HF
on it own accord, as a normal process of the blockchain technology itself. That is not true and impossible.

Saying it is a failure of the blockchain, is like saying people intentionally running red lights is a failure of traffic lights, because the
traffic lights are not stopping the drivers from crossing into and past the intersection. That argument is not based on logic or law.


As to your safe/vault example:
The purpose of a safe would be to prevent a theft by storing the valuables within a metal (possibly anchored) box.
If the burglar was able to crack the safe's code or find a fault in the locking mechanism, then your example would be correct.
The safe was not as "safe" as you thought. But that is not what occurred within the Ethereum situation.
There was no breaking or hacking or malicious mining. The "safe breaking" was "authorized" by the "safe makers".

A proper example should be that a burglar was able to trick or coerce the safe company into opening the safe for him.
In this example, the safe is the blockchain, the burglar is the community, and the safe company are the Devs.
If the community can get the Devs to create the updated client to HF, then the blockchain was "broken into"
because the Devs did the will of the community. Thus, the community failed itself by not protecting their blockchain.



To say that it is a failure of the blockchain does not acknowledge that all systems can be edited/hacked/broken,
if someone wants to and in the event of Ethereum, the community wanted to perform an "Chain Edit HF".
The "Chain Edit HF" is an alien party not common to blockchain updates or improvements. It is intervention.

The blockchain technology has always been a balancing act between the separate opposing systems.
If one of those systems fundamentally breaks down (the community), then the whole system fails (the blockchain).
(For completeness, if the miners or the devs "break down", the whole system fails as well.)

[dinofelis]

Ah, I think that I didn't manage to bring over my idea then, I failed at communicating it visibly.

My point was that there are no "safekeepers" of a block chain, but that those "safe keepers" are themselves part of the projected dynamics of an "immutable block chain emergent phenomenon"  (the intend) ; in other words, that the block chain dynamics (including the "safe keepers") is such, that the safe keepers never manage to really hard fork (on the core principles, not on some technical detail).  I see "block chain" on this level as both a sociological and computer science dynamical technology, such that what emerges is an immutable record with immutable principles, and that part of the sociological technology is such that the "safe keepers" *don't manage to fork over immutability or principles*.

I think that *this* is the intend of "block chain technology" (including the sociological technology of using greed and trustlessness of individual agents against one another).

As such, when the "safe keepers" (who are nothing else but gears and wheels in the technology in my view) DO succeed in forking, then my idea is that this is an instance of block chain technology failing.

I would have to disagree that it is a failure of the blockchain tech and disagree with your safe example.

As to your failure argument:
At no time, or in any material I have previously read, was there any acknowledgment that blockchain technology
prevents Hardfork revisions to the chain. The only thing the protects the blockchain from HF revisions is the devs/community
themselves. That is the purpose of the Community as being part of the three parts to a blockchain system (Users/Devs/Miners).
Users are not only there to purchase the tokens, but also uphold the original social contract, which exists only for them.

Those individuals are the gatekeepers and if they wish to uphold or destroy their original social contract, it is done by them and
not by the blockchain itself. To say that the Ethereum issue is a failing of the blockchain technology is a cop out and transferring blame.

My point is that I consider them part of "block chain technology", and that the whole purpose of the technology was that they wouldn't succeed in doing so.

As to your safe/vault example:
The purpose of a safe would be to prevent a theft by storing the valuables within a metal (possibly anchored) box.
If the burglar was able to crack the safe's code or find a fault in the locking mechanism, then your example would be correct.
The safe was not as "safe" as you thought. But that is not what occurred within the Ethereum situation.
There was no breaking or hacking or malicious mining. The "safe breaking" was "authorized" by the "safe makers".

My allegory was misunderstood.  A safe is a system made of hardware (the safe), owners and burglars, and is supposed to be such that whatever the burglars do, they cannot get into it, while the owner can.  Burglars are part of the "safe technology", in the same way as "opponents" are part of any cryptography.
A block chain is made of computer stuff (hardware/software/network) and "community" and is supposed to be immutable in past record and principles whatever the community tries to do.  It is important to understand that "community" is part of block chain technology, in the same way as "opponents" are part of cryptography.  Block chain technology is supposed to work on the basis of human relationships.  With block chain cryptography, one hasn't the usual cryptographic notions of "the gud guys" and "the nasty boys", but everybody is "nasty boy" and "gud guy" at the same time: the community.  Block chain technology is designed such that from that crowd of gud guys/nasty boys emerges an immutable record and immutable principles.

If the burglar succeeds in getting into the safe, the "safe system" failed.  If the community (including the safe keepers) succeeds in altering the past or the principles, then the "block chain system" failed.

A block chain system should be seen as a piece of technology where the community is part of that piece of technology.

What is maybe disturbing is that in block chain technology, the SAME people are "gud guys" and "bad boys".  That's a bit like with a digital signature, where both parties (the signer and the checker) are both gud guy and bad boy: the signer can prove that he signed it (then the gud guy is the signer) and the checker cannot deny it (bad boy).  But the checker can also prove that the signer signed it (non-repudiation).  Here the gud guy is the checker, and the bad boy is the signer (wanting to avoid proof of signature). 
Block chain brings this to a higher community level.  When I am user (part of the community) of a block chain, I'm a "gud guy" when I want to use the block chain to prove ownership of coins and make a payment.  And at the same time, I'm also a bad boy (if I could) because if I could rewind the block chain or alter its principles in my advantage, I would, of course.  The whole point is that sociologically, I will not be allowed to do so, even though all actors in the community would like to alter the chain to their advantage.  But they can't.  THAT is block chain technology: everybody would like to change it, but nobody can.

[dinofelis]

The blockchain technology has always been a balancing act between the separate opposing systems.
If one of those systems fundamentally breaks down (the community), then the whole system fails (the blockchain).
(For completeness, if the miners or the devs "break down", the whole system fails as well.)

Well, the two opposing systems are not "separate" but is each agent in the community: both a gud guy and an attacker at the same time, and that community is part of what I consider "block chain technology".  It rests on the individual antagonism of agents.

[AgentofCoin]

Ah, I think that I didn't manage to bring over my idea then, I failed at communicating it visibly.

My point was that there are no "safekeepers" of a block chain, but that those "safe keepers" are themselves part of the projected dynamics of an "immutable block chain emergent phenomenon"  (the intend) ; in other words, that the block chain dynamics (including the "safe keepers") is such, that the safe keepers never manage to really hard fork (on the core principles, not on some technical detail).  I see "block chain" on this level as both a sociological and computer science dynamical technology, such that what emerges is an immutable record with immutable principles, and that part of the sociological technology is such that the "safe keepers" *don't manage to fork over immutability or principles*.

I think that *this* is the intend of "block chain technology" (including the sociological technology of using greed and trustlessness of individual agents against one another).

As such, when the "safe keepers" (who are nothing else but gears and wheels in the technology in my view) DO succeed in forking, then my idea is that this is an instance of block chain technology failing.

I think what you are really looking for is that the crypto-currency failed, not the blockchain.
A blockchain will do what it is programmed to do.
For example, if you look at the non-forked Ethereum version, their blockchain has not failed (yet) by your interpretation.

My point is that I consider them part of "block chain technology", and that the whole purpose of the technology was that they wouldn't succeed in doing so.

No, the blockchain technology has always allowed for this. if it did not, then there would be no upgrades to any code.
All code updates to any known crypto-currenciy, to my knowledge, all come from either soft forks or hard forks.
To prevent a blockchain from becoming "mutable" is the responsibility of the developers and community, which is
separate from the blockchain. All parts - Users, Devs, Miners, Nodes, Token, & Blockchain all make up the Crypto-Currency.

...

My allegory was misunderstood.  A safe is a system made of hardware (the safe), owners and burglars, and is supposed to be such that whatever the burglars do, they cannot get into it, while the owner can.  Burglars are part of the "safe technology", in the same way as "opponents" are part of any cryptography.
A block chain is made of computer stuff (hardware/software/network) and "community" and is supposed to be immutable in past record and principles whatever the community tries to do.  It is important to understand that "community" is part of block chain technology, in the same way as "opponents" are part of cryptography.  Block chain technology is supposed to work on the basis of human relationships.  With block chain cryptography, one hasn't the usual cryptographic notions of "the gud guys" and "the nasty boys", but everybody is "nasty boy" and "gud guy" at the same time: the community.  Block chain technology is designed such that from that crowd of gud guys/nasty boys emerges an immutable record and immutable principles.

If the burglar succeeds in getting into the safe, the "safe system" failed.  If the community (including the safe keepers) succeeds in altering the past or the principles, then the "block chain system" failed.

A block chain system should be seen as a piece of technology where the community is part of that piece of technology.

What is maybe disturbing is that in block chain technology, the SAME people are "gud guys" and "bad boys".  That's a bit like with a digital signature, where both parties (the signer and the checker) are both gud guy and bad boy: the signer can prove that he signed it (then the gud guy is the signer) and the checker cannot deny it (bad boy).  But the checker can also prove that the signer signed it (non-repudiation).  Here the gud guy is the checker, and the bad boy is the signer (wanting to avoid proof of signature).  
Block chain brings this to a higher community level.  When I am user (part of the community) of a block chain, I'm a "gud guy" when I want to use the block chain to prove ownership of coins and make a payment.  And at the same time, I'm also a bad boy (if I could) because if I could rewind the block chain or alter its principles in my advantage, I would, of course.  The whole point is that sociologically, I will not be allowed to do so, even though all actors in the community would like to alter the chain to their advantage.  But they can't.  THAT is block chain technology: everybody would like to change it, but nobody can.

I think I understand what the real misunderstanding is. You are combining blockchain and crypto-currency.
You argument makes sense if it is applied to the whole crypto-currency. If you apply it singularly to blockchain,
then it does not. The community is not part of the blockchain technology, that is separate, but the community
is part of the crypto-currency. The community may act with the blockchain, but is not a part of the blockchain.

The blockchain only protects the token from malicious actors attacking the ledger directly. It does not, nor never did
protect the token from malicious actors within the community or the developers. If the users and developers (and thus
the miners) "conspire" to alter their blockchain that violates the social contract, then they have taken the risk of
experiment failure into their own hands directly. They are basically in unknown territory.

The only thing preventing a social contract violating hard fork from occurring is the risk that the coin would be deemed
a scam coin or ponzi coin, since it can drastically change the rules whenever the "group" wants. Most investors and users
(in theory) do not want a product that can change so drastically. That would be like buying gold today, but tomorrow the
group decided to change it into coal. You didn't buy coal and don't want coal, you have now been flim flammed (scammed).

What stops the blockchain from violating it's social contract is the risk of the token losing value. If the people do not care
enough about that monetary value or the product type change, nothing is stopping them from altering that coin's blockchain.
The blockchain never failed in its purpose. What has failed is their users/devs to uphold their crypto-currency's social contract.

[dinofelis]

I think what you are really looking for is that the crypto-currency failed, not the blockchain.
A blockchain will do what it is programmed to do.
For example, if you look at the non-forked Ethereum version, their blockchain has not failed (yet) by your interpretation.

I see a crypto currency (at least all crypto currencies I know of) as an instantiation of block chain technology, in the same way that you can say that the signature scheme in bitcoin is an instantiation of ECDS technology.  If an instantiation of a technology fails, I consider that the technology at hand has failed, at least in this particular case, but it illustrates a mode of failure of said technology.

My point is that I consider them part of "block chain technology", and that the whole purpose of the technology was that they wouldn't succeed in doing so.

No, the blockchain technology has always allowed for this. if it did not, then there would be no upgrades to any code.
All code updates to any known crypto-currenciy, to my knowledge, all come from either soft forks or hard forks.
To prevent a blockchain from becoming "mutable" is the responsibility of the developers and community, which is
separate from the blockchain. All parts - Users, Devs, Miners, Nodes, Token, & Blockchain all make up the Crypto-Currency.

I see it differently, and I tried to explain why.  Contrary to most hardware and software development, which is purely technical, cryptography is always a mix of mathematics, physical engineering (hardware/software) AND economics and sociology.  It is a technology that includes social and economical aspects, such as motives for people to break the system.  Symmetric key cryptography was fairly simple sociologically: the world was divided in "friends" and "enemies" and "Key knowledge" made the distinction.  The aim of cryptographic technology was essentially that it was not feasible for enemies to pretend to be friends, but one had to trust all friends.  Signatures were MAC signatures, to be verified (but also eventually to be faked) by friends.

Asymmetric cryptography introduced, for the first time, the integration of friend/enemy status into the same entity.  Non-repudiation of digital signatures illustrates that, but there are many applications of asymmetric cryptographic systems where the friend/enemy status is more involved.

Block chain technology put this to a higher level, by having a whole crowd of mutual enemies, and the principle of block chain technology is that the antagonistic interactions of all enemies making up the "community" (a funny name for enemies) such that immutability (of record and of protocol) emerges as a collective property.  This, to me, is the premise of "block chain technology": how to make, from mutual enemies, a form of immutable record and protocol emerge.

I think I understand what the real misunderstanding is. You are combining blockchain and crypto-currency.
You argument makes sense if it is applied to the whole crypto-currency. If you apply it singularly to blockchain,
then it does not. The community is not part of the blockchain technology, that is separate, but the community
is part of the crypto-currency. The community may act with the blockchain, but is not a part of the blockchain.

My whole point is exactly the opposite: "block chain technology" is the technology that makes somehow immutability emerge from a piece of software, thrown to the lions, so that their fight with this piece of software has exactly this emergent property.

The blockchain only protects the token from malicious actors attacking the ledger directly. It does not, nor never did
protect the token from malicious actors within the community or the developers. If the users and developers (and thus
the miners) "conspire" to alter their blockchain that violates the social contract, then they have taken the risk of
experiment failure into their own hands directly. They are basically in unknown territory.

I see this totally different.  I see the malicious actors as the community, and it is their individual malice and their inability to cooperate, that makes that the block chain technology works.  Everybody in the "community" tries to be malicious wrt. the record, and wrt. the protocol, but ends up not being able to do so, and in the end, from all these lost battles, emerges immutability.

The very fact that the bitcoin "community" cannot decide on a change of block length exactly illustrates this battle which doesn't achieve mutation.

The only thing preventing a social contract violating hard fork from occurring is the risk that the coin would be deemed
a scam coin or ponzi coin, since it can drastically change the rules whenever the "group" wants.

It is exactly this kind of "sociology" that is part of block chain technology and which makes, that in the end, the protocol cannot (significantly) change, no matter what individuals would like.

If individuals making up a crypto currency as instantiation of block chain tech DO succeed, such as with ethereum, I consider that the block chain technology (and especially its sociological part) has failed.

Note that I'm talking about immutability of PROTOCOL and not of SOFTWARE.  As long as the software implements the protocol, it can change, and up to a point, this allows for technical improvements, as long as what is deemed the protocol is unaltered.  So technical hard forks are not the end of block chains, as long as they do not alter a iota to the intend of the protocol.

[AgentofCoin]

I think what you are really looking for is that the crypto-currency failed, not the blockchain.
A blockchain will do what it is programmed to do.
For example, if you look at the non-forked Ethereum version, their blockchain has not failed (yet) by your interpretation.

I see a crypto currency (at least all crypto currencies I know of) as an instantiation of block chain technology, in the same way that you can say that the signature scheme in bitcoin is an instantiation of ECDS technology.  If an instantiation of a technology fails, I consider that the technology at hand has failed, at least in this particular case, but it illustrates a mode of failure of said technology.

No, crypto-currencies do not need or have to use blockchain technology.
PoS coins & other non-minable coins (like ripple) are not using the blockchain technology.
Crypto-currencies do not automatically equal blockchain.
Crypto-currencies technically existed before the blockchain was "invented".

My point is that I consider them part of "block chain technology", and that the whole purpose of the technology was that they wouldn't succeed in doing so.

...

...
Block chain technology put this to a higher level, by having a whole crowd of mutual enemies, and the principle of block chain technology is that the antagonistic interactions of all enemies making up the "community" (a funny name for enemies) such that immutability (of record and of protocol) emerges as a collective property.  This, to me, is the premise of "block chain technology": how to make, from mutual enemies, a form of immutable record and protocol emerge.

No, that is incorrect and a misunderstanding of the blockchain.

Your interpretation contradicts the Satoshi Whitepaper, which directs what the blockchain technology is
and its original intention. It does not include the community in that system. The community is a consensus
mechanism outside the system to affect the blockchain system. They are seperate, but part of the larger system.

Can you please point me toward the references in the Satoshi white paper which explains where it said that
the community couldn't collude to edit or revert a past work in the blockchain is?

I think I understand what the real misunderstanding is. You are combining blockchain and crypto-currency.
You argument makes sense if it is applied to the whole crypto-currency. If you apply it singularly to blockchain,
then it does not. The community is not part of the blockchain technology, that is separate, but the community
is part of the crypto-currency. The community may act with the blockchain, but is not a part of the blockchain.

My whole point is exactly the opposite: "block chain technology" is the technology that makes somehow immutability emerge from a piece of software, thrown to the lions, so that their fight with this piece of software has exactly this emergent property.

Yes, but that immutability applies directly to attacking the ledger, not from community collusion to hardfork the ledger.
Nothing can stop the community from colluding to hardfork and "harm or destroy" their own ledger.
If you do not understand that, then you do not understand what the blockchain does or does not.

Please provide me a link or citation to a credible source where the blockchain is designed to prevent community collusion.

The blockchain only protects the token from malicious actors attacking the ledger directly. It does not, nor never did
protect the token from malicious actors within the community or the developers. If the users and developers (and thus
the miners) "conspire" to alter their blockchain that violates the social contract, then they have taken the risk of
experiment failure into their own hands directly. They are basically in unknown territory.

I see this totally different.  I see the malicious actors as the community, and it is their individual malice and their inability to cooperate, that makes that the block chain technology works.  Everybody in the "community" tries to be malicious wrt. the record, and wrt. the protocol, but ends up not being able to do so, and in the end, from all these lost battles, emerges immutability.

The very fact that the bitcoin "community" cannot decide on a change of block length exactly illustrates this battle which doesn't achieve mutation.

What you are describing is not the blockchain technology at work, but the consensus mechanism at work.
If consensus can not be reached with a sizable amount (over 90% atleast) then there will be no mutation.

You are talking about a malicious community, not a malicious actor(s), and that is a major problem
with that coin's community. Blockchain can never stop the whole community from going bad.

As stated previously, the community are the gatekeepers to their own blockchain.
The blockchain was never purported to be the gatekeeper to the community.
The blockchain was designed to prevent malicious actors, not a malicious community.
If the community is malicious, then they transform that blockchain into their malicious design.
That malicious design in no longer the original design.
It has mutated by the will of the community, not by the will of the blockchain.

The only thing preventing a social contract violating hard fork from occurring is the risk that the coin would be deemed
a scam coin or ponzi coin, since it can drastically change the rules whenever the "group" wants.

It is exactly this kind of "sociology" that is part of block chain technology and which makes, that in the end, the protocol cannot (significantly) change, no matter what individuals would like.

If individuals making up a crypto currency as instantiation of block chain tech DO succeed, such as with ethereum, I consider that the block chain technology (and especially its sociological part) has failed.

Note that I'm talking about immutability of PROTOCOL and not of SOFTWARE.  As long as the software implements the protocol, it can change, and up to a point, this allows for technical improvements, as long as what is deemed the protocol is unaltered.  So technical hard forks are not the end of block chains, as long as they do not alter a iota to the intend of the protocol.

We disagree on a fundamental level as to what "blockchain technology" really is and encompasses.
By your interpretation, it is understandable why you would vote "yes" in the above poll.

You are using the term "immutable" or "immutability" in a way that is not possible within human systems.
Nothing in this universe can be everlasting, forever, or immutable.
Your argument is that you thought the blockchain technology that humans created, surpassed even that of the universe,
by creating immutability, which even the universe could not create through its whole evolution of time and elements
at its disposal. As of now in human history, humans have not created "perfect immutability" nor can I imagine humans will.

If we had blockchain technology with "perfect immutability" then Satoshi would have violated the laws of this universe.

Thus, the blockchain technology did not fail in an unrealistic goal of "perfect immutability",
but the community did fail their blockchain with a reasonable goal of consensus driven immutability.
Their community colluded, through consensus (some argue not true consensus), to change their blockchain, to become mutable.

[dinofelis]

I think what you are really looking for is that the crypto-currency failed, not the blockchain.
A blockchain will do what it is programmed to do.
For example, if you look at the non-forked Ethereum version, their blockchain has not failed (yet) by your interpretation.

I see a crypto currency (at least all crypto currencies I know of) as an instantiation of block chain technology, in the same way that you can say that the signature scheme in bitcoin is an instantiation of ECDS technology.  If an instantiation of a technology fails, I consider that the technology at hand has failed, at least in this particular case, but it illustrates a mode of failure of said technology.

No, crypto-currencies do not need or have to use blockchain technology.
PoS coins & other non-minable coins (like ripple) are not using the blockchain technology.
Crypto-currencies do not automatically equal blockchain.
Crypto-currencies technically existed before the blockchain was "invented".

Then you can say that VISA is also a crypto currency in a way...  I mean with crypto currency, one that has no trusted parties and is perfectly decentralized.  I only know of block chain based crypto that way, but I do not exclude that other technologies exist - I'm simply not aware of any where there is not a form of privilege ("central authority" or "privileged circle of people that can do more than others by design") and hence not a full decentralization (all newcomers are equal to all other participants).

My point is that I consider them part of "block chain technology", and that the whole purpose of the technology was that they wouldn't succeed in doing so.

...

...
Block chain technology put this to a higher level, by having a whole crowd of mutual enemies, and the principle of block chain technology is that the antagonistic interactions of all enemies making up the "community" (a funny name for enemies) such that immutability (of record and of protocol) emerges as a collective property.  This, to me, is the premise of "block chain technology": how to make, from mutual enemies, a form of immutable record and protocol emerge.

No, that is incorrect and a misunderstanding of the blockchain.

Your interpretation contradicts the Satoshi Whitepaper, which directs what the blockchain technology is
and its original intention. It does not include the community in that system. The community is a consensus
mechanism outside the system to affect the blockchain system. They are seperate, but part of the larger system.

Can you please point me toward the references in the Satoshi white paper which explains where it said that
the community couldn't collude to edit or revert a past work in the blockchain is?

The part where he explains the 51% attack.  A colluding community is nothing else but a 51% attack.

I think I understand what the real misunderstanding is. You are combining blockchain and crypto-currency.
You argument makes sense if it is applied to the whole crypto-currency. If you apply it singularly to blockchain,
then it does not. The community is not part of the blockchain technology, that is separate, but the community
is part of the crypto-currency. The community may act with the blockchain, but is not a part of the blockchain.

My whole point is exactly the opposite: "block chain technology" is the technology that makes somehow immutability emerge from a piece of software, thrown to the lions, so that their fight with this piece of software has exactly this emergent property.

Yes, but that immutability applies directly to attacking the ledger, not from community collusion to hardfork the ledger.
Nothing can stop the community from colluding to hardfork and "harm or destroy" their own ledger.
If you do not understand that, then you do not understand what the blockchain does or does not.

Please provide me a link or citation to a credible source where the blockchain is designed to prevent community collusion.

Ok, there is one thing that is not explicitly (but assumed implicitly) in the satoshi white paper: that is that an "honest node" is one that sticks, no matter what, to the protocol.

On page 3, there is "If a majority of CPU power is controlled by honest nodes, the honest chain will grow the
fastest and outpace any competing chains. To modify a past block, an attacker would have to
redo the proof-of-work of the block and all blocks after it and then catch up with and surpass the
work of the honest nodes."

This comes down to say that if a majority of mining hash rate sticks to the original protocol ("honest nodes" - in Satoshi's dream, each node is also mining, which turns out not to be true - non-mining nodes don't matter) then the "block chain tech works as intended".

So if a majority of nodes "votes to be dishonest IN THE SAME WAY" (in other words, hard forks on the principles in the white paper), then of course block chain tech doesn't work any more as intended.

This is where I consider that "a majority of honest nodes" is part of block chain technology.  As there is a talk of "incentive" it is clear that economical and sociological aspects are part of the technology.

The whole trick is that the idea is that even though every individual node DREAMS of being dishonest, as an individual strategy this is a losing proposition, and there is enough antagonism (non-collusion) between nodes dreaming of being dishonest, that THEY CANNOT COME TO A COMMON DISHONEST ACTION (that is, a hard fork of protocol) even though individually, they would desire to do so.

The blockchain only protects the token from malicious actors attacking the ledger directly. It does not, nor never did
protect the token from malicious actors within the community or the developers. If the users and developers (and thus
the miners) "conspire" to alter their blockchain that violates the social contract, then they have taken the risk of
experiment failure into their own hands directly. They are basically in unknown territory.

I see this totally different.  I see the malicious actors as the community, and it is their individual malice and their inability to cooperate, that makes that the block chain technology works.  Everybody in the "community" tries to be malicious wrt. the record, and wrt. the protocol, but ends up not being able to do so, and in the end, from all these lost battles, emerges immutability.

The very fact that the bitcoin "community" cannot decide on a change of block length exactly illustrates this battle which doesn't achieve mutation.

What you are describing is not the blockchain technology at work, but the consensus mechanism at work.
If consensus can not be reached with a sizable amount (over 90% atleast) then there will be no mutation.

My whole point is that "the consensus mechanism" is an essential part of what one calls "block chain technology".

You are talking about a malicious community, not a malicious actor(s), and that is a major problem
with that coin's community. Blockchain can never stop the whole community from going bad.

I consider exactly that block chain technology is based upon the assumption of a malicious community with not enough collusion of interests to be able to corrupt the system.  In other words, with enough antagonism, the most profitable way (= malice) is to remain honest.  To me, THAT is the core property, and the brilliant idea, of "block chain technology": the very fact that non-colluding malice has as only option to remain honest.  From the moment collusion happens (what some call "community consensus"), the technology fails.

I know that this is a somewhat original view, but I think it is the core property of what makes block chain technology work: non-collusive malice that obliges to remain honest.  Too much collusion and collaboration breaks that mechanism.

[AgentofCoin]

I think what you are really looking for is that the crypto-currency failed, not the blockchain.
A blockchain will do what it is programmed to do.
For example, if you look at the non-forked Ethereum version, their blockchain has not failed (yet) by your interpretation.

I see a crypto currency (at least all crypto currencies I know of) as an instantiation of block chain technology, in the same way that you can say that the signature scheme in bitcoin is an instantiation of ECDS technology.  If an instantiation of a technology fails, I consider that the technology at hand has failed, at least in this particular case, but it illustrates a mode of failure of said technology.

No, crypto-currencies do not need or have to use blockchain technology.
PoS coins & other non-minable coins (like ripple) are not using the blockchain technology.
Crypto-currencies do not automatically equal blockchain.
Crypto-currencies technically existed before the blockchain was "invented".

Then you can say that VISA is also a crypto currency in a way...  I mean with crypto currency, one that has no trusted parties and is perfectly decentralized.  I only know of block chain based crypto that way, but I do not exclude that other technologies exist - I'm simply not aware of any where there is not a form of privilege ("central authority" or "privileged circle of people that can do more than others by design") and hence not a full decentralization (all newcomers are equal to all other participants).

No, because for many different reasons.
The most obvious one is that VISA and other payment processors are not their own currency or token.
All those systems are directly pegged to a world recognized currency such as USD, CAD, EURO, YUAN, YEN, and so on.

A blockchain does not automatically equal crypto-currency, and a crypto-currency does not always need to use a blockchain.

My point is that I consider them part of "block chain technology", and that the whole purpose of the technology was that they wouldn't succeed in doing so.

...

...
Block chain technology put this to a higher level, by having a whole crowd of mutual enemies, and the principle of block chain technology is that the antagonistic interactions of all enemies making up the "community" (a funny name for enemies) such that immutability (of record and of protocol) emerges as a collective property.  This, to me, is the premise of "block chain technology": how to make, from mutual enemies, a form of immutable record and protocol emerge.

No, that is incorrect and a misunderstanding of the blockchain.

Your interpretation contradicts the Satoshi Whitepaper, which directs what the blockchain technology is
and its original intention. It does not include the community in that system. The community is a consensus
mechanism outside the system to affect the blockchain system. They are seperate, but part of the larger system.

Can you please point me toward the references in the Satoshi white paper which explains where it said that
the community couldn't collude to edit or revert a past work in the blockchain is?

The part where he explains the 51% attack.  A colluding community is nothing else but a 51% attack.

That part is about attacking the blockchain directly, which does not describe the part that I requested.

I am talking about the part that prevents the developers and users from colluding to perform a reversion
or edit by hard forking (miners follow the devs & users normally). What you are citing is not a consensus
driven hard fork change to the social contract, but a malicious majority hash mining attack directly.

You have combined two different issues that are not related.
The whitepaper does not address what I am requesting, because it is not possible to stop.

I think I understand what the real misunderstanding is. You are combining blockchain and crypto-currency.
You argument makes sense if it is applied to the whole crypto-currency. If you apply it singularly to blockchain,
then it does not. The community is not part of the blockchain technology, that is separate, but the community
is part of the crypto-currency. The community may act with the blockchain, but is not a part of the blockchain.

My whole point is exactly the opposite: "block chain technology" is the technology that makes somehow immutability emerge from a piece of software, thrown to the lions, so that their fight with this piece of software has exactly this emergent property.

Yes, but that immutability applies directly to attacking the ledger, not from community collusion to hardfork the ledger.
Nothing can stop the community from colluding to hardfork and "harm or destroy" their own ledger.
If you do not understand that, then you do not understand what the blockchain does or does not.

Please provide me a link or citation to a credible source where the blockchain is designed to prevent community collusion.

Ok, there is one thing that is not explicitly (but assumed implicitly) in the satoshi white paper: that is that an "honest node" is one that sticks, no matter what, to the protocol.

On page 3, there is "If a majority of CPU power is controlled by honest nodes, the honest chain will grow the
fastest and outpace any competing chains. To modify a past block, an attacker would have to
redo the proof-of-work of the block and all blocks after it and then catch up with and surpass the
work of the honest nodes."

This comes down to say that if a majority of mining hash rate sticks to the original protocol ("honest nodes" - in Satoshi's dream, each node is also mining, which turns out not to be true - non-mining nodes don't matter) then the "block chain tech works as intended".

So if a majority of nodes "votes to be dishonest IN THE SAME WAY" (in other words, hard forks on the principles in the white paper), then of course block chain tech doesn't work any more as intended.

This is where I consider that "a majority of honest nodes" is part of block chain technology.  As there is a talk of "incentive" it is clear that economical and sociological aspects are part of the technology.

The whole trick is that the idea is that even though every individual node DREAMS of being dishonest, as an individual strategy this is a losing proposition, and there is enough antagonism (non-collusion) between nodes dreaming of being dishonest, that THEY CANNOT COME TO A COMMON DISHONEST ACTION (that is, a hard fork of protocol) even though individually, they would desire to do so.

No, we disagree again because you are placing systems within the blockchain that does not exist.
Nodes are not part of the blockchain technology, they are part of the distribution of the blockchain technology.
The blockchain technology does not need nodes to operate.

What you are quoting above has to do with miners attempting to attack the ledger directly.
The quote does not apply to developers or users wanting to hard fork the code to edit a past block.
You are combining two separate systems into one.

This quote and section does not apply to the question that I asked.

The blockchain only protects the token from malicious actors attacking the ledger directly. It does not, nor never did
protect the token from malicious actors within the community or the developers. If the users and developers (and thus
the miners) "conspire" to alter their blockchain that violates the social contract, then they have taken the risk of
experiment failure into their own hands directly. They are basically in unknown territory.

I see this totally different.  I see the malicious actors as the community, and it is their individual malice and their inability to cooperate, that makes that the block chain technology works.  Everybody in the "community" tries to be malicious wrt. the record, and wrt. the protocol, but ends up not being able to do so, and in the end, from all these lost battles, emerges immutability.

The very fact that the bitcoin "community" cannot decide on a change of block length exactly illustrates this battle which doesn't achieve mutation.

What you are describing is not the blockchain technology at work, but the consensus mechanism at work.
If consensus can not be reached with a sizable amount (over 90% atleast) then there will be no mutation.

My whole point is that "the consensus mechanism" is an essential part of what one calls "block chain technology".

But it isn't. You are combining the community consensus with the mining consensus.

You are talking about a malicious community, not a malicious actor(s), and that is a major problem
with that coin's community. Blockchain can never stop the whole community from going bad.

I consider exactly that block chain technology is based upon the assumption of a malicious community with not enough collusion of interests to be able to corrupt the system.  In other words, with enough antagonism, the most profitable way (= malice) is to remain honest.  To me, THAT is the core property, and the brilliant idea, of "block chain technology": the very fact that non-colluding malice has as only option to remain honest.  From the moment collusion happens (what some call "community consensus"), the technology fails.

I know that this is a somewhat original view, but I think it is the core property of what makes block chain technology work: non-collusive malice that obliges to remain honest.  Too much collusion and collaboration breaks that mechanism.

At some points we agree, but at others we do not.
The part that I do not agree is that the blockchain technology does not include any consensus mechanisms.
The blockchain technology WAS designed to prevent miners from being malicious and editing blocks, this is what you are describing.
But the blockchain technology IS NOT designed to prevent the developers or users from being malicious and editing by hard forks.

You believe that the blockchain technology was intended to prevent all malicious actors, whether miners or developers.
I do not agree with that, I have never heard or ever read that, and thus is why we disagree on a fundamental level.
I can't even image how you would be able to stop malicious developers from performing a malicious hard fork.

The fact is, there is nothing within the blockchain technology to stop them since a hard fork comes from outside the technology.

[dinofelis]

No, because for many different reasons.
The most obvious one is that VISA and other payment processors are not their own currency or token.

You may have to rethink that.  Every bank, and every credit money processor issues his own token, making the holder believe that it is another token.  This is the essence of fractional reserve banking: they can "peg" their tokens against another one, as long as they only need to actually do that with a fraction that is smaller than the fraction of their own tokens they hold for real.  VISA, the credit company, issues credit tokens, making the accepters of these tokens think they are dollars or Euros, themselves not "real" dollars or Euros but specific bank tokens of whatever bank is connected to the VISA account with which one paid.

It is the basis of the modern fiat system: pegged tokens with a fractional reserve of "real" tokens of the layer above it.
There used to be gold, there's nothing any more.
The next layer is the central bank with their own tokens, the actual dollars/Euros....
The next layer are the commercial banks, directly holding accounts at the central banks.  Their tokens are "bank accounts" which are pegged to the central bank tokens of which they hold a certain reserve.
The next layer are credit and other financial institutions with accounts coupled to commercial bank accounts.  Their tokens are pegged to the tokens in commercial bank accounts.  VISA is such an example, but a supermarket giving credit is exactly the same.

All those systems are directly pegged to a world recognized currency such as USD, CAD, EURO, YUAN, YEN, and so on.

They are pegged to a few central bank tokens, but they AREN'T central bank tokens, but their own.

That part is about attacking the blockchain directly, which does not describe the part that I requested.

I am talking about the part that prevents the developers and users from colluding to perform a reversion
or edit by hard forking (miners follow the devs & users normally). What you are citing is not a consensus
driven hard fork change to the social contract, but a malicious majority hash mining attack directly.

I don't think that there are different classes of users.  They are all attackers, including miners, developers, traders, commercial people.  That's what decentralisation is all about: no particular status, no privileges, no castes.  So there is not the caste of developer.  Everybody who wants is a bitcoin developer, trader, attacker, ... People are not classified into groups, or the system would be non-decentralized.  We are all the same, so we are all attackers.  We would all modify the block chain record to have more.  We would like to distribute code which forks, and assigns us an advantage.  We would all like to rewind the block chain record when we pay someone.  On the other hand, we wouldn't want to rewind when we receive coins and provide services.  But we would like to crack other people's keys so that we can assign them to us.

Only, WE CAN'T, and the most profitable way to "attack" the block chain individually, is, in the end, to defend its protocol and to play by the rules, no matter how we would all like to change them to our advantage.

THAT, to me, is the fundamental part of block chain technology.  In as much as Satoshi didn't say this (but this is how I understand it), then it is Dinofelis who says so

No, we disagree again because you are placing systems within the blockchain that does not exist.
Nodes are not part of the blockchain technology, they are part of the distribution of the blockchain technology.
The blockchain technology does not need nodes to operate.

Ah ?

What you are quoting above has to do with miners attempting to attack the ledger directly.
The quote does not apply to developers or users wanting to hard fork the code to edit a past block.
You are combining two separate systems into one.

I take this one step higher on the scale of abstraction, and I consider that there are no classes of people called miners, users, and developers.  There are just AGENTS.  They all do what they think is most profitable for them.  Some think that by modifying the code they will make profit, others think that by mining they will make profit, others think that by "using" bitcoin as a means of exchange or speculation, they will make profit, still others think that by trying to cheat on the system they will make profit but these are simply STRATEGIES of AGENTS.  And to me, block chain technology is an invention that makes that out of all this antagonism and non-collusion, APPEARS an immutable system (protocol) with an immutable ledger.

I read Satoshi that way, but in as much that this is not what he meant (we'll never know), or in as much as people don't understand it that way, consider it my view on block chain technology.

I consider "block chain technology" somewhat similar as the invention of life: an emergent property of complex organic chemistry.  "Life technology" is then the fact that competing reproducing organic systems give rise to evolution and more involved forms of life.  If you say that "life technology is only DNA", then I tell you that you are missing the essence of life technology.

[AgentofCoin]

...

It seems there can be no reconciliation of our two view points.
We fundamentally disagree on known definitions and established understandings in many different areas.
You are attempting to rationalize that the blockchain system has failed, by redefining common things and terms.
Interestingly, my original question was based around parties attempting to redefine established cryptocurrency terms.

Thank you for explaining your rational, but I think with your type of reasoning, you are saying that nothing should
be classified and thus things can not be defined, thus a blockchain is whatever the individual thinks or wants it to be
(even what it should have been), thus my original question is without merit, since in your vision of the world the current
human system of classification, categorization, and specialization is improper and possibly immoral.

Because of those reasons, this conversation isn't very interesting nor actually amounting to anything.

[dinofelis]

...

It seems there can be no reconciliation of our two view points.
We fundamentally disagree on known definitions and established understandings in many different areas.
You are attempting to rationalize that the blockchain system has failed, by redefining common things and terms.
Interestingly, my original question was based around parties attempting to redefine established cryptocurrency terms.

The problem with established definitions is that they take sometimes properties of theorems for granted.  By re-defining terms, it is true that conversation becomes more difficult, but on the other hand, that makes one think of implicitly assumed properties that weren't stated or obvious: by excluding them explicitly from the new definition, one immediately sees the difference.

We all agree on the purely engineering side of block chain: it is a software object that is distributed amongst different agents, with "code" (methods) and "block chain data" (attributes) that takes on a specific form, namely a linked list, in such a way that there are cryptographic techniques to add an element to the list ("block") and that there are testing methods to verify whether this happened "according to the rules".

The whole question is: what good is such a software object ?  What purpose does it serve ?  And this is where we make extra assumptions.  Given that this software object is distributed amongst different agents, they can all alter it at their guise, but there's one thing that all of them have to do: the "checking methods" have to agree that the linked list is "according to the rules".  If you distribute an object with code and a chain of which the code says that the chain isn't valid, you won't get anywhere.  But there are (many) ways to alter the chain, and/or alter the code, in such a way, that the new object is saying of itself that it is "OK".   So there must still be a SEMANTIC IDEA that this software object is implementing, because if not, there are miriad of ways to distribute different, and internally consistent block chain objects.

My claim is that the semantic idea of a block chain object - the reason why it was invented - was to implement
1) immutability of the past and of the rules (the *semantic* rules)
2) consensus about the newly added blocks (according to 1) ).

There are essentially 3 ways in which this can fail (in which this kind of software object is not going to implement said semantic idea:
1) If one changes the data of the past while respecting the original rules, this is called a 51% attack.  The software object is constructed in such a way that this is only possible if one can deliver more PoW than those keeping the past as it is.
2) by changing the rules in such a way that the rules are semantically different and have the other agents accept that: a hard fork
3) by not finding a consensus over newly added blocks (this ends up violating one of the rules such as "largest PoW chain wins" but one could pretend not having "seen" the other block chain fork: the code will work.  Imagine the great wall of china blocking bitcoin network traffic).

Now, if the question is, whether the block chain object has failed to deliver its semantic meaning if one of these three things happen, I would say "yes".  Once you consider that these 3 things happening are "normal" block chain behaviour, of course you can still use the engineering object "block chain", but one can wonder what it is semantically good for, if you can change the past, if you can change the semantic rules, or if you cannot find consensus on the next block.  Of course technically it still exists, but what does it mean now ?  

That was my whole point: if you do not consider 1) or 2) or 3) as a block chain FAILURE then the semantics of block chains is anything anybody wants to give to it.

Thank you for explaining your rational, but I think with your type of reasoning, you are saying that nothing should
be classified and thus things can not be defined, thus a blockchain is whatever the individual thinks or wants it to be
(even what it should have been), thus my original question is without merit, since in your vision of the world the current
human system of classification, categorization, and specialization is improper and possibly immoral.

On the contrary.  My point was that IF you consider that the block chain concept DIDN'T fail with ethereum, THEN one has to accept that block chain now has just any semantics any person gives to it.

A limited analogy: a screw driver was invented to drive screws.  You can of course also eat rice with it.  But if you ask whether people eating rice with screwdrivers have redefined the meaning of screw driver, you have to conclude: yes.  There's nothing wrong with buying screw drivers to eat rice with.  But obviously that was not the design purpose.  The analogy fails because the designer of the screw driver didn't have in mind an IMPOSSIBILITY of eating rice with his screw driver, he couldn't care less, while the inventor of block chain had an impossibility in mind.  When this impossibility materialized, you can only call this a failure of the original design, can't you ?

So in as much as we do consider ETH still a block chain, yes, this has re-defined the notion of block chain.  My point is rather that ETH illustrated the failure of the block chain semantics in their case (which means that block chains CAN fail as we just saw one failing).

[AgentofCoin]

...

It seems there can be no reconciliation of our two view points.
We fundamentally disagree on known definitions and established understandings in many different areas.
You are attempting to rationalize that the blockchain system has failed, by redefining common things and terms.
Interestingly, my original question was based around parties attempting to redefine established cryptocurrency terms.

The problem with established definitions is that they take sometimes properties of theorems for granted.  By re-defining terms, it is true that conversation becomes more difficult, but on the other hand, that makes one think of implicitly assumed properties that weren't stated or obvious: by excluding them explicitly from the new definition, one immediately sees the difference.

We all agree on the purely engineering side of block chain: it is a software object that is distributed amongst different agents, with "code" (methods) and "block chain data" (attributes) that takes on a specific form, namely a linked list, in such a way that there are cryptographic techniques to add an element to the list ("block") and that there are testing methods to verify whether this happened "according to the rules".

The whole question is: what good is such a software object ?  What purpose does it serve ?  And this is where we make extra assumptions.  Given that this software object is distributed amongst different agents, they can all alter it at their guise, but there's one thing that all of them have to do: the "checking methods" have to agree that the linked list is "according to the rules".  If you distribute an object with code and a chain of which the code says that the chain isn't valid, you won't get anywhere.  But there are (many) ways to alter the chain, and/or alter the code, in such a way, that the new object is saying of itself that it is "OK".   So there must still be a SEMANTIC IDEA that this software object is implementing, because if not, there are miriad of ways to distribute different, and internally consistent block chain objects.

My claim is that the semantic idea of a block chain object - the reason why it was invented - was to implement
1) immutability of the past and of the rules (the *semantic* rules)
2) consensus about the newly added blocks (according to 1) ).

There are essentially 3 ways in which this can fail (in which this kind of software object is not going to implement said semantic idea:
1) If one changes the data of the past while respecting the original rules, this is called a 51% attack.  The software object is constructed in such a way that this is only possible if one can deliver more PoW than those keeping the past as it is.
2) by changing the rules in such a way that the rules are semantically different and have the other agents accept that: a hard fork
3) by not finding a consensus over newly added blocks (this ends up violating one of the rules such as "largest PoW chain wins" but one could pretend not having "seen" the other block chain fork: the code will work.  Imagine the great wall of china blocking bitcoin network traffic).

Now, if the question is, whether the block chain object has failed to deliver its semantic meaning if one of these three things happen, I would say "yes".  Once you consider that these 3 things happening are "normal" block chain behaviour, of course you can still use the engineering object "block chain", but one can wonder what it is semantically good for, if you can change the past, if you can change the semantic rules, or if you cannot find consensus on the next block.  Of course technically it still exists, but what does it mean now ?  

That was my whole point: if you do not consider 1) or 2) or 3) as a block chain FAILURE then the semantics of block chains is anything anybody wants to give to it.

Thank you for explaining your rational, but I think with your type of reasoning, you are saying that nothing should
be classified and thus things can not be defined, thus a blockchain is whatever the individual thinks or wants it to be
(even what it should have been), thus my original question is without merit, since in your vision of the world the current
human system of classification, categorization, and specialization is improper and possibly immoral.

On the contrary.  My point was that IF you consider that the block chain concept DIDN'T fail with ethereum, THEN one has to accept that block chain now has just any semantics any person gives to it.

A limited analogy: a screw driver was invented to drive screws.  You can of course also eat rice with it.  But if you ask whether people eating rice with screwdrivers have redefined the meaning of screw driver, you have to conclude: yes.  There's nothing wrong with buying screw drivers to eat rice with.  But obviously that was not the design purpose.  The analogy fails because the designer of the screw driver didn't have in mind an IMPOSSIBILITY of eating rice with his screw driver, he couldn't care less, while the inventor of block chain had an impossibility in mind.  When this impossibility materialized, you can only call this a failure of the original design, can't you ?

So in as much as we do consider ETH still a block chain, yes, this has re-defined the notion of block chain.  My point is rather that ETH illustrated the failure of the block chain semantics in their case (which means that block chains CAN fail as we just saw one failing).

The only way I can reconcile what you have and are arguing is a misunderstanding of the words you are using.

For example, if you use the phrase of "a failure of blockchain technology" to mean that the blockchain was designed to prevent an
action, yet that action is currently allowable, then that is incorrect as to what has occurred. But if you use the phrase of "a failure of
blockchain technology" to mean that the blockchain lacks the ability to prevent an action, then that is correct and has occurred (in ETH).

The point is that you seems to be using the phrase as an actual failure in the system, which is wrong since the system was not intended
to fix those issues you address, and fall under consensus mechanisms and not code. In fact, those three issues you address above, do not
and have never existed in the Bitcoin code. If your understanding is that Satoshi did address those in the code, you are misinformed.

On the other hand, if you are just stating that blockchain technology can not programmatically address those three issue in code form,
and that alone is itself "a failure of the blockchain technology" than that is technically correct but using bad word phrasing.

Though, I am sure you are using the term of "failure" to mean an actual failure in the system, which I disagree with, I have attempted
to dissect your words and meanings so that they are made consistent with the actual history and understanding of Bitcoin and the
blockchain, and not an idealized version that the media and others have been perpetrating upon the ignorant masses. If you disagree
with me and intend to argue an idealized version of blockchain technology, then I have no choice but to assume you are purposefully
intending to obfuscate with semantics and word games OR don't know what you are talking about.

Otherwise I do not understand why your argument is: humans are bullshit artists, so thus blockchains can be airplanes, or anythings.

[dinofelis]

The only way I can reconcile what you have and are arguing is a misunderstanding of the words you are using.

As I have to re-define them to address the points I'm making, I cannot "misunderstand" them.  It is true that I have to redefine them, because their standard definitions take implicit properties into account, which are not correct.  As such, I cannot use the standard definitions, but I try to find meanings that are as close as possible to these standard definitions.

I consider that "block chain technology" is a cryptographic system which *includes* a sociological part (as in fact, most cryptosystems do, but this one is more involved).  I consider that this technology is designed to achieve a specific property, which I call "immutability":
1) an agreed-upon history of events, such that once they are agreed-upon, this history is never going to change (no early additions, no early removals of events).
2) an agreed-upon set of rules, the "protocol intend", which gives meaning to the recorded events, which are also never going to change.
We call the realisation of these two properties "immutability".  The GOAL of block chain technology (including sociology) is to realize immutability (of history, and of protocol).

There is a technological part to block chain technology, which is all the thing with software, cryptography, hashes, keys, and all that stuff.  And there is a sociological part to it.  Both elements (the purely technological part, and the sociological part) are MEANS to reach the GOAL of immutability.

The sociological "technology" part of block chain technology is "consensus".  Consensus, in this frame, means: not being able to reach a majority between participants over anything else than the correct history, and the original protocol intend.

The cryptographic technology is such that a majority of miners can impose their will ; the sociological technology, called "consensus" is such that no such majority can be found, if it deviates from the correct history, and the original protocol intend.  Both together are supposed to guarantee "immutability", which was the GOAL of block chain tech.

So immutability can fail, if the crypto fails, if a minority can crack, say, the PoW scheme, can do double spending or whatever.  This is a failure of the technological part of block chain technology.  And immutability can also fail if a majority CAN be found that colludes over something else but the correct history of events and the original protocol intend.

If one of these things happens, the block chain technology has failed in its goal to maintain immutability.

For example, if you use the phrase of "a failure of blockchain technology" to mean that the blockchain was designed to prevent an
action, yet that action is currently allowable, then that is incorrect as to what has occurred. But if you use the phrase of "a failure of
blockchain technology" to mean that the blockchain lacks the ability to prevent an action, then that is correct and has occurred (in ETH).

I fail to see the difference.  The block chain was intended to maintain immutability by preventing the realisation of a majority over anything else but the original protocol and the correct history of events ; however, such a majority was nevertheless found.  So the consensus mechanism, the sociological pillar of block chains, broke down, as something happened that was supposed not to happen (finding a majority over something that was not supposed to find a majority).

The point is that you seems to be using the phrase as an actual failure in the system, which is wrong since the system was not intended
to fix those issues you address, and fall under consensus mechanisms and not code.

You are perfectly right, but the consensus mechanism is a big part of block chain technology.  One pillar is code, the other is sociology, the famous consensus mechanism, that was supposed to prevent being able to find a majority over anything else but the original rules.

On the other hand, if you are just stating that blockchain technology can not programmatically address those three issue in code form,
and that alone is itself "a failure of the blockchain technology" than that is technically correct but using bad word phrasing.

No.  Again, the block chain technology paradigm rests on two pillars: code and sociology.  You cannot put the sociology in the code, but it is nevertheless part of the fundamental hypothesis of block chain tech, in order to achieve its goal: immutability.

If you disagree with me and intend to argue an idealized version of blockchain technology, then I have no choice but to assume you are purposefully
intending to obfuscate with semantics and word games OR don't know what you are talking about.

Uh, of course I'm talking about "an idealized version of block chain technology", namely its intend and goal.  However, to my knowledge, bitcoin still implements that ideal pretty well.  I have no knowledge of bitcoin ever finding a majority to deviate from the original intend of bitcoin, nor of any history that had been totally altered even though that history was generated perfectly according to the intend of the protocol (i'm not talking about buggy code that generated events that are not correct according to the intend of the protocol).

[AgentofCoin]

For example, if you use the phrase of "a failure of blockchain technology" to mean that the blockchain was designed to prevent an
action, yet that action is currently allowable, then that is incorrect as to what has occurred. But if you use the phrase of "a failure of
blockchain technology" to mean that the blockchain lacks the ability to prevent an action, then that is correct and has occurred (in ETH).

I fail to see the difference.  The block chain was intended to maintain immutability by preventing the realisation of a majority over anything else but the original protocol and the correct history of events ; however, such a majority was nevertheless found.  So the consensus mechanism, the sociological pillar of block chains, broke down, as something happened that was supposed not to happen (finding a majority over something that was not supposed to find a majority).

The blockchain was intended to maintain immutability ONLY within itself and not from outside intervention.
Outside intervention is left open so that the protocol can be upgraded by "consensus" when the time is appropriate.
Without this intervention by the devs, the code could never be "upgraded, fixed, or etc.", so version 0.1 would be the only one.
The consensus mechanism exists outside of the blockchain code and there is no sociological code within the blockchain.
The sociology aspect that you are relying upon, is actually based upon a community/miner/node gatekeeper premise.

If the gatekeepers (majority of consensus) wants to destroy the blockchain, it will happen, since Satoshi intended it to.
If Satoshi intended it to, and in fact designed it as so, then the failure rests upon the gatekeepers and not the blockchain tech.
The community failed to maintain their social contract and their "ideals".

The point is that you seems to be using the phrase as an actual failure in the system, which is wrong since the system was not intended
to fix those issues you address, and fall under consensus mechanisms and not code.

You are perfectly right, but the consensus mechanism is a big part of block chain technology.  One pillar is code, the other is sociology, the famous consensus mechanism, that was supposed to prevent being able to find a majority over anything else but the original rules.

The consensus mechanism does not exists within the blockchain and each altcoin's community can set out and
agree to their own consensus mechanism. The consensus mechanism was NEVER intended to prevent changes
to the original rules. The consensus mechanism is ACTUALLY intended to allow for a way to make changes, if
deemed appropriate by the majority of the community. If the community wants to destroy their original social
contract, and they have majority, they will destroy it. Consensus allows possibility for change, not prevent it.

On the other hand, if you are just stating that blockchain technology can not programmatically address those three issue in code form,
and that alone is itself "a failure of the blockchain technology" than that is technically correct but using bad word phrasing.

No.  Again, the block chain technology paradigm rests on two pillars: code and sociology.  You cannot put the sociology in the code, but it is nevertheless part of the fundamental hypothesis of block chain tech, in order to achieve its goal: immutability.

Where in the whitepaper does Satoshi outline what you are saying?
When Satoshi talks about the "consensus mechanism" he is ONLY addressing a way to vote for a change, not to prevent a change.
If majority do not vote for a change, the correct course of action is that no change should occur, under his reasoning.
Like was, if the majority do vote for a change that violates the social contract or other important systems, they can by consensus.
Satoshi designed and intended the "community" to use free consensus to determine the future of a blockchain, not the other way.
A blockchain and it's "technology" can not determine it's own social contract or community consensus.

If you disagree with me and intend to argue an idealized version of blockchain technology, then I have no choice but to assume you are purposefully
intending to obfuscate with semantics and word games OR don't know what you are talking about.

Uh, of course I'm talking about "an idealized version of block chain technology", namely its intend and goal.  However, to my knowledge, bitcoin still implements that ideal pretty well.  I have no knowledge of bitcoin ever finding a majority to deviate from the original intend of bitcoin, nor of any history that had been totally altered even though that history was generated perfectly according to the intend of the protocol (i'm not talking about buggy code that generated events that are not correct according to the intend of the protocol).

The current implementation of Bitcoin (I assume you mean the immutable aspect) is being enforced by the
devs, miners, and users, and not by the blockchain code itself. The current community consensus says not to
change the code to "reverse/roll back/edit" a past work on the blockchain. The current thinking is that it would
violate the intent and goal of the blockchain and the purpose of it's creation.
We can agree that there has been no purposeful change to the Bitcoin blockchain, that would violate
the original intent and goal of Bitcoin/bitcoin.

But it may be possible that around the years of the 2100s, the Bitcoin community could form a majority of consensus to
change the 21 million coin cap to a higher limit, in order to continue the mining process because it is determined that a
small subsidy (0.125btc per block, for example) is needed indefinitely because of factors and understandings that are not
knowable at this time. If that scenario becomes a reality, then the blockchain will change and conform to the wishes of the
new gatekeepers, since the blockchain social contract is not contingent on the blockchain technology, but the community itself.

So, if a blockchain performs a purposeful fork by consensus, and it violates the original social contract,
that community failed itself by going back on their word. In theory, when you participate within a coin and it's community,
you abide by those rules and ideal and would uphold them since you normally participate with things you agree with.
If you wish to fundamentally change the social contract, usually it is due to community ignorance or individual(s) malicious intent.

[dinofelis]

The blockchain was intended to maintain immutability ONLY within itself and not from outside intervention.
Outside intervention is left open so that the protocol can be upgraded by "consensus" when the time is appropriate.

I suppose that by "inside" you mean "code", the technical part, not the sociological part.
Well, it is obvious that that cannot work.  There is absolutely no "code/technical" way to establish consensus if there is no sociological/game theoretical part to the system.

You cannot just have code, without any game-theoretical assumptions, and suppose that any form of immutability will come out of that by itself.  It is sufficient that people change the software, and the block chain can be totally altered, or its interpretation can be totally altered.  If the software checking for the validity of PoW is altered, no amount of PoW will keep what so ever immutable. 

Immutability comes from game-theoretical (and hence also sociological) assumptions, not from code.  If people start propagating altered versions of the block chain, different software checking validity and so on, no piece of code can ever stop that and "provide immutability".  The whole immutability comes from the fact that people will be put in such a situation where it is very unfavourable for them, or essentially impossible to organize for them to do anything else but to STICK to the immutable consensus.

Without this intervention by the devs, the code could never be "upgraded, fixed, or etc.", so version 0.1 would be the only one.
The consensus mechanism exists outside of the blockchain code and there is no sociological code within the blockchain.
The sociology aspect that you are relying upon, is actually based upon a community/miner/node gatekeeper premise.

But it is essential.  If the devs could intervene at their will to change those things that are supposed to be immutable, your block chains would not keep any little bit of immutability, and be totally mutable and random.  The whole point is that even the devs cannot do this.

However, they CAN change the code, as long as this code remains COMPATIBLE with those aspects that are deemed needed to keep immutability, and that itself is the whole game-theoretic premise on which the whole of immutable block chains is based.

That is:
- the devs (or just anybody) can bring out another node software that is perfectly compatible with the former v0.1, but, say, with a fancier GUI, or with faster algorithms, *perfectly* respecting the protocol on the technical side.  You could have myriads of different but compatible node software.

- the devs (but not just anybody) can bring out node software that is technically not totally compatible with the former v0.1 and hence is technically a soft or hard fork, but which RESPECTS IN ALL ASPECTS the INTEND of the former protocol, and just improves a technicality.  The reason why people will upgrade is that the intend of immutability (all the economic implications) is perfectly respected, so there is no reason NOT to upgrade (like accepting a security update to your computer system), and not upgrading can put you with an incompatible node.  In other words, game-theoretically, there's no good reason not to upgrade if people agree that the technicality is improved now.

- and that's it.  The devs, or any other "leadership" shouldn't be able to modify whatever to the intend of the immutability.  If they can, then there is no immutability at all.

If the gatekeepers (majority of consensus) wants to destroy the blockchain, it will happen, since Satoshi intended it to.

Well, I consider that as a failure of the block chain purpose.  If that happens, the block chain didn't do what it was made for, namely keeping immutability of intend.  Once you can do that, anything goes.

If Satoshi intended it to, and in fact designed it as so, then the failure rests upon the gatekeepers and not the blockchain tech.
The community failed to maintain their social contract and their "ideals".

Call it as you like: the system failed.  The "code" didn't fail, but the block chain system failed, because the game-theoretical assumptions turned out not to hold.

The consensus mechanism does not exists within the blockchain and each altcoin's community can set out and
agree to their own consensus mechanism. The consensus mechanism was NEVER intended to prevent changes
to the original rules.

That is a strange statement.  I will tell you why:

The consensus mechanism is ACTUALLY intended to allow for a way to make changes, if
deemed appropriate by the majority of the community. If the community wants to destroy their original social
contract, and they have majority, they will destroy it. Consensus allows possibility for change, not prevent it.

I would rather think that this was a shortcoming of the technology, rather than a feature.  That is, one couldn't think of a mechanism where one could even block a colluding majority from imposing its will (in fact there is one: hard forking).

Because when you think about it, if a colluding majority is the "normal way to alter block chains", then there is nothing wrong with a "51% attack".  It wouldn't be an attack at all.  It would just be the normal majority wanting to alter history, if you keep your viewpoint.

The idea of a block chain was not to have a "majority vote over what was the distant past", although that is what comes technically out of it.  The fact itself that you call a "community where a majority decides to DESTROY their block chain" indicates that you yourself consider that even if a majority decides something, that this is NOT what consensus is about.

Imagine that a majority of bitcoin miners decides that only they will now hold bitcoins, and that all former transactions that assign coins to addresses of which they do not have the keys, are invalid ; for that they have to write a lot of "exception rules' in the code accepting modified old blocks.  Hell, in your viewpoint, such a total alteration of the past would be "consensus" because decided by the voting majority of miners ?  Of course not, this is total breaking up of immutability and - as you actually call it - the destruction of the block chain system.  Nevertheless, the CODE is running correctly, has been altered with majority consensus and "everything works by consensus as wanted by Satoshi" ?

Of course not.

A block chain system is not supposed to be a majority vote system over just anything.  The only thing the majority is supposed to vote over, is the respect of immutability.  If anything else happens, the system fails.  So the game-theoretical part is an essential part of the block chain system, because without it, there's no such thing as immutability, and hence no purpose for a block chain (the code/technical part).

[dinofelis]

Where in the whitepaper does Satoshi outline what you are saying?
When Satoshi talks about the "consensus mechanism" he is ONLY addressing a way to vote for a change, not to prevent a change.
If majority do not vote for a change, the correct course of action is that no change should occur, under his reasoning.
Like was, if the majority do vote for a change that violates the social contract or other important systems, they can by consensus.
Satoshi designed and intended the "community" to use free consensus to determine the future of a blockchain, not the other way.
A blockchain and it's "technology" can not determine it's own social contract or community consensus.

Of course, what I write is my own understanding of block chain technology, not Satoshi's.  But I think I'm actually in agreement with the spirit of his paper.  If it were true that the idea was that block chain technology is there to implement whatever the majority decides, then there would not be any mention of a 51% attack, because that would not be an attack at all, but just an expression of the desire of the majority (majority in Satoshi's paper being measured by computing power).

You cannot at the same time claim that the system is to be the implementation of whatever the majority decides, and talk about "irreversible transactions", and whine about an "attack" if ever the majority as you defined it (namely, the majority of "CPU power" in Satoshi speak - he didn't realize ASICS were possible) decides to revert a transaction - which is his example of a 51% attack.  It would be just "the will of the majority" and everybody should be happy because the system "works".  (that's exactly what happened with ETH).

This, to me, is the clearest proof that "block chain technology" was not meant to be just the implementation of "consensus", defined as whatever the majority (of mining power) decides.

That said, that is what block chain CODE actually implements.  The block chain code principles allow a majority of computing power to change just anything, whatever they agree upon: doing away with past transactions, modifying entirely all the rules of coin creation and difficulty, .... but this was clearly NOT the idea.

To bring both in agreement, one has to make game-theoretic and hence sociological assumptions, namely that no majority ever will be found colluding over a deviation from immutability.  This is why I include them in my definition of "block chain tech".