How are hard forks made?

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The Steem Blockchain has an innovative Witness-based system that allows improvements to be made to the protocol more rapidly than other blockchain protocols. All that is necessary for a Steem hardfork is for the top 20 witnesses, who are chosen by the users, to adopt the changes based on their assessment that the code is bug-free and does not pose a threat to the security of the blockchain.
Unlike a softfork, a hardfork is not backward-compatible: unupdated nodes will not recognise the new blocks as valid.

Source: https://www.steem.center/index.php?title=Hard_Fork

Some brief background.

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First, let me say that I am not against the idea of a budget proposal, or changes to the platform in the interest of creating a more thriving and robust creative community here at Steemit.com.

After all, this is a social media site that was launched in view of being open-source and community generated, maintained, and governed. That said, it is also a stake-weighted voting platform, and this aspect of Steemit seems to be disturbing on some level or another to many users.

Over the course of my 1 and a 1/2 years on the platform, I have heard—at various times and to various degree—complaints that the “game is rigged” and that this or that user, this or that article, or this or that project, deserves more Steem, more support, more views, more attention...basically just more...than someone or something else.

The whales run the whole thing. It’s a scam.

”We” need to distribute the rewards more evenly for minnows.

(entity A, B, or C) was paid too much! I worked my ass off and didn’t get anything!

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Why I will not vote for @ura-soul as witness, and stand against the recent budget proposal submitted by @jerrybanfield.

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I have no personal issue with either of these individuals, per se, but feel that the attitudes and philosophies they are attempting to introduce to the leadership of the platform—whether intentional or otherwise—are extremely dangerous.

It is important to note that there is absolutely nothing illegitimate about the act of making a proposal for a hard fork (which would be needed to cut the witness rewards in half for the top 20 witnesses, inflate Steem, and cut SP interest as per @jerrybanfield ‘s plan).

Steemians could adopt the new chain if they wanted. Anyone can theoretically make a fork. I am saying it shouldn’t happen because in my view the proposal is half-baked, overzealous, and self-centered. Ultimately, what I am saying is, the attitude behind the “necessity” of such a fork is one that would likely drive Steem and Steemit into the ground if adopted en masse. That attitude is one of entitlement and a misunderstanding of basic economics and property.

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Nobody “owes” anyone anything.

One may have the greatest idea in the world. It doesn’t mean that one is then automatically owed funding by others for development of said idea. To be fair, neither @ura-soul nor @jerrybanfield explicitly state this (though @ura-soul has come close in our conversations), but the element in Jerry’s proposal that suggests a large pay cut for the 20 top witnesses to fund his new idea is interesting. He says “we” an awful lot in his proposal, but I think that simply saying X and X “should happen according to me, so we need a fork,” instead of actively creating the app or project on top of the existing chain is a red flag. As @andrarchy has suggested several times in the @jerrybanfield proposal comment thread the ideas being put forth could be fully accomplished via the existing chain without cutting funding to much needed witness, and attempting to force a fork on those who do not want one. Why is the first recourse to attempt to cut back the funding of others? Why not cut back your own, first, and ask others to join you voluntarily?

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As @andrarchy states in the comment thread:

I quote @jerrybanfield regarding the proposal:

To make the 200,000 Steem available, we can remove Steem power interest and reduce top 20 witness rewards by 50% or increase inflation by the same amount.

So “we” can take away interest from others who may be using it to benefit their own projects being developed to enhance the Steem experience, cut pay in half for the people putting in the most work maintaining the chain, or systemically destroy the currency by inflating it?

These do not sound like revolutionary or great ideas to me. This sounds like pie-in-the-sky dreaming after too many cups of coffee. Why undercut basic economic principle and punish others for their productivity and work in reaching their positions/developing their projects/add-ons? Why seek to make Steem more like the failing USD by inflating it?

I quote @ura-soul:

The current situation is that developers, for example, are expected to dedicate significant amounts of their lives to creating solutions for Steem with no guarantee of remuneration for their efforts

Well, first, yes. If one has brought nothing to market, why is one entitled to remuneration? Entrepreneurs would laugh at this notion.

If we want to help and incentivize developers by making a Steem pool for them, that’s great, I’m all for that. But why are hard fork and pay cuts needed for this? Build your own initiative and raise the money! As I mentioned before, if the majority of witnesses agree with Banfield and @ura-soul, this can go through. I am simply saying, for the sake of Steem, I hope it doesn’t.

Just say NO to drugs! Like this one,
that makes individuals hallucinate that effort and even intent can be measured. Doesn’t this sound a lot like the labor theory of value?

Again, quoting @ura-soul:

'Proof of Stake' is not just 'proof of wallet' - it is proof of intent, effort, time and value.

Really? Proof of intent???? Proof of...effort??? Who is the arbiter of such things!?

It would be fatal to any economics-based platform to base the whole foundational model on non-mathematical ideas such as these. Where in the Steem whitepaper is proof of stake defined as “proof of intent”? This is absurd. Proof of stake is speaking of vests and monetary stake in the platform. @ura-soul may be a very spiritual name, but when it comes to econ, if you forget ura body, then u r dead.

More critical problems with the proposal (quotes are from @jerrybanfield in the proposal post linked above):

• No dissent:

No downvoting would be allowed on proposals to ensure those with the most positive support win regardless of who disagrees just as is the case in the witness voting system.

Voting for witnesses is categorically different than voting for platform/blockchain-wide changes, and to disable dissent would be a fatal error, as it is dissent which often helps organizations of individuals avert catastrophe and errors brought on by simple oversight or outright malicious planning by rogue actors.

Every Steemian must now keep up on every proposal, otherwise the lack of action is viewed as consent, and an action in the negative (dissent) is not even permitted.

• Abitrary cuts in rewards:

At steemit.com/budget every 28 days about 200,000 Steem generated from what we were getting in interest and witness rewards will be available for payouts to the proposals.

No, Jerry, not what we were getting when it comes to witnesses. As you are not in the top 20, you would be taking no witness pay cuts, right?

• Based largely on “what if”:

One day a flip will happen and Bitcoin will go the way of all the apps and websites we have stopped using because we no longer needed them. In ten years as Steem overtakes all of the other top websites in the world, maybe we will build a garden of Eden where we live and give up needing to go online to feel like we are connected.

Maybe. I hope so. But this proves nothing about the efficacy of idea behind the proposal.

• Abolition of interest on Steem Power which incentivizes long-term investment:

When we look more closely at this objection, we see that there is no point in paying interest on Steem power because if Steem has value, interest becomes irrelevant as the price increases. If Steem does not have value interest is also irrelevant because the interest will not cover the losses.

How do you know the interest I make is not relevant to me? Are you kidding?

Steem is not, and should not try to be, a competitor to your local bank’s certificate of deposit.

Why not?

• Based on broad, baseless assumptions:

We pay most of our new Steem back to those that already have the most in the form of interest to Steem power holders, witness rewards, and payouts to mostly top authors to help encourage ongoing participation out of fear that if we stop, they will leave us.

Yes, Jerry, this is a stake-weighted voting platform and folks have worked very hard and paid a lot to be where they are. And no, the reason I vote for who I do is not fear they will leave, but because I like their content and want to support them and incentivize them to keep creating. It may seem a subtle difference, but it’s a critical one. That’s kind of the whole idea of this platform. Incentivize content creators.

On top of that, we prove by adding budget proposals that WE TRUST the top witnesses and WE TRUST top Steem power holders to continue making valuable contributions and holding Steem with less rewards in the short term in exchange for much more value in the long term because of a higher Steem price.

Prove it. Prove that disincentivizing these individuals will help the the platform grow. Not with feel good fluff about Dash, but with actual economic principle.

I’ll close with this. An extremely telling admission by @ura-soul:

“In a pure sense, it is impossible to 'own property' without violating someone...”

Is this the type of economic nonsense we want present in the governing leadership of Steem? The idea that property is violence? This is Communism, and I am not being hyperbolic. I find it funny how outwardly compassionate these ideas can sound, while when you pull back the top layer, underneath is often found little more than schemes that benefit a few, first and foremost.

I am not saying this is intentional, necessarily, but it is extremely dangerous, all the same. It’s a cancer that has the potential to eat this whole platform alive. Always beware of people pontificating on the “greater good,” in the absence of supporting the individual as the ultimate minority, and pinnacle/foundation of all legitimacy as regards consent, money, and property.

As @andrarchy said in the comments on Jerry’s post. All of this stuff can be built on top of the existing chain. Isn’t interesting that the first idea that comes to mind is not “We can do it,” but “someone else can fund it”?

One final thought from @smooth on the same comment thread that bears repeating:

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To summarize, the Steem blockchain is set up so anyone can change it. I AM NOT SAYING IT IS ILLEGITIMATE IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, TO PROPOSE A CHANGE.

I am simply speaking out about the dangerous assumptions, outright economic fallacies, and philosophical leaps of logic slipped subtly into this new proposal. I stand firmly against it. I hope if I am wrong here I will be corrected and happy to find out that, indeed, @ura-soul and @jerrybanfield believe in free market principles, and the legitimacy of individual self-ownership and property.

~KafkA

!

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Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as Facebook and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)