My "economic majority" phrasing becomes a little confusing here because we must continually ask, "A majority among whom?" A large enough minority with enough difference of opinion from the majority will break away and become the economic majority of a community of people who agree with their values. There are still reasons why each little economic community with varying beliefs about ideal money will not necessarily fork off: size is an advantage, voice can still work if the minority makes convincing arguments, etc.
Here is where I personally think this runs into problems. Again I'll use the gold default as a historical example. Here after FDR defaulted it was perfectly possible for a minority of people to refuse the new fiat system and still transact with each other using the old system (physical gold). The problem was the minority of people (gold bugs) was too small to be effective, they were marginalized and the majority of the world moved on without them.
I don't think the "community of people who agree with their values" will necessarily be large enough, if history is any guide (which I believe it is).
It wasn't possible for the minority to transact in gold, because of the government ban on gold possession from 1933 through 1974. Especially by 1975 it was far more cumbersome to transact in gold than to use the established banking and new credit card system.
In the historical case, once again, the "exit" dynamic was very seriously hindered. In Bitcoin it isn't.
The easier and more common it is to change bitcointhis community's economic majority ledger, the easier it is for a demographically elected government (or any gov) to co-opt bitcointhis community's economic majority ledger.
Here's the semantic issue rearing its head. If you change it to my phrasing it sounds incorrect, doesn't it? The economic majority of the people in Bitcoin now prefer the system as it is, without government modification. The government can fork it however it wants, and it may get the majority of US citizens to go along with it, but
this economic majority (most current bitcoiners) will go on using Bitcoin Classic. The dark markets will go on using Bitcoin Classic. Everyone who wants to offshore their wealth will go on using Bitcoin Classic. Hard money folks who understand Bitcoin will go on using Bitcoin Classic.
This thread started with a statement that making bitcoin easy to fork often will be a good thing. My argument is be careful what you wish for because it there are powerful forces which will try to change it into something against it's founding principles.
Forking Bitcoin Classic is not changing Bitcoin Classic. It is making a competing system with, in this case, neutered features.
Why would those who are interested in Bitcoin precisely for the features the government doesn't like be willing to jump ship to the government-approved version?This is why I stated I prefer that bitcoin remains a rules based system as much as possible outside of the influence of man. The more we enable forking to be common, the more that breaks down and the easier it become for governments to push regulation/etc in.
Bitcoin is a consensus-based system where the consensus is about a set of rules. It is not fundamentally a rules-based or math-based system. It is whatever this economic majority agrees on. No one is bound to use Bitcoin Classic over a fork, and vice versa. It's impossible for it to be unforkable without being closed source and centralized.
Also, it's not that forking should be common, it's that it should be easy to do. Just because it's easy to fork it doesn't imply it will happen often. Network effects, among other things, prevent forking over smaller issues.
In summary, I still see absolutely no danger or concern. So far I think it's entirely a case of confusing terminology and the counterintuitive aspects of fully forkable systems.
