>I also think that the UASF is a good idea. Hashrate follows coin price. If the UASF has the higher coin price, the other chain will be annihilated. If the UASF has a lower coin price, the user activated chain can still exist (though their coins can be trivially stolen on the majority chain).
I don't think that's true. Say there are two forks of Blahcoin. Alice thinks there's a 55% chance that Fork A will succeed. Bob thinks there's a 55% chance that Fork B will succeed. Alice trades all of her Fork B coins for all of Bob's Fork A coins. Now, Bob and Alice both have a stake in one fork or the other succeeding. Alice starts spending more time around Fork A users; Bob starts spending his time with Fork B users.
A year passes, and Alice and Bob meet again. Bob tells Alice that Fork B has been doing much better than Fork A, and is trading at ten times the price. Alice replies that it doesn't matter, since Fork B will soon split into B1 and B2. After all, if Fork B surrendered its principles once, it can do so again. Bob replies that Fork B represents the true spirit of Blahcoin. Alice replies that all of the people whose opinion she respects believe that Fork B violates principles set down by the Founder (peace be upon him.)
Bob disagrees, and cites an annotated collection of the Founder's writings, which clearly show that if a situation like what provoked the Great Fork happens, Fork B is in the right. All of the people Bob knows (except Alice) agree that this shows Fork A is invalid. Alice replies that Bob is committing the bandwagon fallacy; even if a thousand people believe that red is green, that does not make it true. Also, the collection takes several of the Founder's comments out of context. If one looks at comments made prior to the release of Blahcoin, they lay out a framework that envisions Fork A. Bob replies that Alice can't use statements made prior to the release of Blahcoin to establish original intent; the system hadn't been designed yet.
Bob points out that Fork B has a higher total chainwork. Alice scoffs. She posits a Fork C, which is exactly like Fork A, except that chainwork is defined to be the previous definition plus a quadrillion. Bob finds that ridiculous. Fork C would transgress upon intrinsic principles of Blahcoin. No more than Fork B does, Alice replies.
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Each sentence above is true from some point of view. Each person sincerely believes in the rightness of their position. Is there some objective measure, that both Alice and Bob can agree on, that resolves this? I don't think there is. Bob and Alice will sneer at each other for being idiots forever. The schism will never resolve.
Satoshi Bless,
--Nick