[jude-]

No one is arguing that blockchains don't require a priori out-of-band agreement between the human operators on what the rules of the network are in order to work. Please don't be daft, and try and stay on topic. All distributed systems require this.

What is being argued is that each PoS node requires an out-of-band indication as to which fork is the canonical fork before it can boot up. Nodes in PoW systems do not need this -- the protocol lets them figure it out automatically.

Considering that the whole reason for building blockchains is to minimize the trust required between the humans that build and operate them, this puts PoS systems as a whole at a disadvantage -- booting a PoS node requires strictly more trust in other humans than PoW.

Also, just because your preferred blockchain undergoes hard forks all the time because it lacks protocols for in-band upgrades and for multi-stakeholder decision-making, doesn't mean that all blockchains are so lacking.

[DennisP]

Well, you're missing my point, but since you're using phrases like "daft," "stay on topic," and "I thought you knew better," I think the productivity of this discussion has come to an end.

[jude-]

Pigeon meet chessboard.

[DennisP]

Pig meet mud.