Due to MH's long track record of proposing really bad ideas, followed by his latest attempt to force them with both a code fork and a protocol fork with his pipe dream of taking over the code running Bitcoin
That is false and you know it.
People are free to choose. Can you explain to me how is that in any way forcing?
If people don't like his code, then fine. They don't run it and that's it.
You fail to see that absolutely anyone is allowed to fork bitcoin. You, me, your neighbours dog. It's not even a question of debate. It's a hard irrefutable fact. The code is there on GitHub, free to fork and in the end its popularity among the network decides if that fork becomes "the Bitcoin".
Why do you guys have to turn everything into some ridicilous ad-hominems. It sounds like some poor tabloid journalism. It's like people discussing if Snowden/Assagne/Manning is naive/narcistic/criminal/gay/rapist or not instead of discussing the data they have presented us with, which is the only thing that matter. It's the same here. Personalities are irrelevant.
The code is the only thing that matters and people can choose, now and forever, like it or not.
I'll break it down for you...
"attempt to force"
attempt: the time period in which people can still choose... today.
force: the point where no one can choose... if he were to win the majority of client installs and successfully fork the protocol.
Right now, you have a choice. Today it is just an attempt. If he succeeded in his attempt, then it would become force... due to checkpoints, centralization (black/white/red lists, passports, tainting), a new status quo, etc. in his own words, "a benevolent dictator".
There is a very big difference between being a benevolent dictator of your own implementation of Bitcoin and actually being the dictator of Bitcoin. This is a very important distinction. It is not wrong to be in charge of your own implementation of Bitcoin when people are free to choice whatever client they want, that is where the choice lies. Having multiple implementations of Bitcoin is good for decentralization and freedom.
The "benevolent dictator" seeks both, and can achieve both IF 75% of nodes adopt XT. You are assuming that XT will be the same as Core has been in the past. Based on Hearn's previous proposals, that looks very unlikely. If he puts his ideas into XT, and 75% of people use it, good luck turning back the clock and undoing the damage. His ideas are designed to centralize power to ultimately make it impossible to undo. E.g., if he introduces trusted third-parties through tainted coins, he'll have the power to destroy anyone's bitcoins who oppose him.
