[curtisf]

"Consensus" in this post refers to the "consensus problem", which is a fundamental and well-known problem in distributed systems.

It's not about political consensus.

However, the paper that introduced it and proved it possible, Lamport's "The Part Time Parliament", used an involved (and often cited as confusing) "Parliament" metaphor for computers in a distributed system

"Consensus" in distributed systems need not be limited to majorities; it really just requires no "split brain" is possible. For example, "consensus" is achieved by making one server the leader, and giving other servers no say. A majority is just the 'quorum' which remains available with that largest number of unavailable peers possible.

[jerf]

As feedback to the author, I made the same mistake initially. It was only around halfway through when I realized the voters in question didn't necessarily care what they were voting for in the usual preferential or political sense, only that they were trying to have any consensus at all.

Looking back at the page again from the top, I see the first paragraph references Paxos, which is a clue to those who know what that is, but I think using "There’s a committee of five members that tries to choose a color for a bike shed" as the example, which is the canonical case for people arguing personal preferences and going to the wall for them at the expense of every other rational consideration, threw me back off the trail. I'd suggest perhaps the sample problem being something as trivial as that in reality, but less pre-loaded with the exact opposite connotation.

[hammock]

> it really just requires no "split brain" is possible. For example, "consensus" is achieved by making one server the leader, and giving other servers no say.

Which is funny, because that actually describes political consensus as well, functionally, even if it’s not what people typically think of as the definition.

If you can effect enough of the right censorship or silencing or cancelling, you can achieve consensus (aka no split brain, at least no split with agency)