Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Coinbase reallocation to discourage Finney attacks

From: Mike Hearn <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 12:17:34 +0200

>
> Proving that you can convince the economic majority that the
>
interpretation of existing blocks is in any way up for grabs would set a
> dangerous precedent, and shake some people's faith in Bitcoin's overall
> robustness and security (well, mine anyway.)

Hmm, then I think your faith needs to be shaken. Bitcoin  is money, and
money is a purely artificial social construct. The interpretation of what a
bitcoin means, or what a dollar means, has always been and always will be a
human decision taken in order to achieve some socially useful goal. How
could it be any other way? Do you want humanity to be enslaved by its own
money?

This notion that the block chain encodes some kind of natural, immovable
law that's above human judgement is a very strange one to me - I guess it
comes from the fact that encryption *is* based on some kind of natural law.
Without the key you can't decrypt a message no matter how strong the
consensus is. But Bitcoin doesn't use encryption anywhere, just digital
signatures. The only thing approaching natural law, that stops majority
consensus controlling everything, is lack of information. Hence all the
discussion around privacy and anonymity that goes on all the time.