[EdHominem]

> Better start coding, except no one will accept your patches to bump up the 21 million bitcoin supply...not so democratic.

That's a horrible change.

But it's a perfect example of the ultimate democracy. Everyone has the freedom to listen to you, they're choosing not to.

[Frondo]

Well done.

You've just demonstrated the breach with reality in Bitcoin-land that is most personally irritating to me--the conflation of democracy with consensus/mob rule.

Democracy isn't (and never was) just "majority preference that is inferred from behavior". It's the regular, structured process of checking in and putting the rules that affect people up to a group decision, i.e. voting on stuff on a regular basis, and exposing the rules of the system to that process.

Having a regular vote on the # of bitcoins? That'd give it an element of democracy. But bring that up, and you get the kind of nonsense you just gave us.

And it's funny, in bitcoin-land, the very idea of democracy seems really offensive, and I think I know why; I think that the hardcore bitcoin advocates look at bitcoin as a way to get into a system and come out on top. The actual levers of power in the world are closed off to most of us, and getting into them is a long, hard process that involves skills very few in the computer industry have (or want to develop). Bitcoin gives its adherents a way to feel like they're going to be kings in the new world order, and suggesting the democratizing of this system would of course threaten that.

No one in bitcoin-land ever comes back to me and says "Yeah, you're right, we should involve more people in the decisions behind how this thing is run." That power's seductive (well, that fictional, imagined power of being a king in bitcoin-land), I guess.

[EdHominem]

> Democracy isn't (and never was) just "majority preference that is inferred from behavior". It's the regular, structured process of checking in and putting the rules that affect people up to a group decision, i.e. voting on stuff on a regular basis, and exposing the rules of the system to that process.

You don't seem to understand that it's a P2P system. Which authority are you proposing counts the votes and enacts the policies?

And democracy isn't three wolves voting to eat a sheep. How are you a part of the community that you deserve a vote, even if such a silly thing was possible? Why should you get to vote on what other people are doing?

> Having a regular vote on the # of bitcoins? That'd give it an element of democracy. But bring that up, and you get the kind of nonsense you just gave us.

Because it's literally the worst idea you could have, short of replacing all keys with the number 7. The entire point of Bitcoin is a non-inflating currency. Even if you could change this, which thankfully you cannot, it wouldn't be fair to the people who joined in the beginning.

You're saying you'd rather ruin the system for everyone because you aren't a ruler. Which is precisely why the system was designed to keep people like you from getting any power, ever.

> And it's funny, in bitcoin-land, the very idea of democracy seems really offensive

No, the idea of your idea of a democracy being imposed on people who you're mad at because they don't listen to you is laughable.

You clearly just want to vote for ridiculous things - seemingly to punish people for not inviting you in the beginning.

> No one in bitcoin-land ever comes back to me and says "Yeah, you're right, we should involve more people in the decisions behind how this thing is run."

Of course they don't. And rather than think about this you've decided you're right.

If you want to vote, do it with your feet.

[krapp]

Of course, what anarcho-capitalist cypherpunks mean when they talk about "democracy" is fundamentally different than what everyone else means. From that point of view, consensus as dictated by the free market is probably the only legitimate form of democracy.

[EdHominem]

How is everyone expressing their choice not a democracy?

What should happen? Who calls for votes? Who counts them, and who forces everyone to change - or not? In a decentralized model how exactly do we add a central authority without centralizing everything?

And further, why would we want to? So that people who aren't involved can have a say? I don't setup a 1-800 number to let people vote on what I watch for movie night - it's only relevant to those who attend.

Similarly, if you don't like Bitcoin then rather than getting involved just to mess with it, why not get involved in something you do like?