It is democracy. Some centralist/authoritarian devs and teir followers think it is centralism/authoritarianism/fascism, but it isn't.
Democracy:
A system of government in which power is vested in the people, who rule either directly or through freely elected representatives.
I'm not sure if you're being serious about this or not.
Great! So you found a forum post spanning exactly 10 days in 2013. And then? Where is the continuous 3 years debate you speak of?
I do not think that the debate was ever continuous. However, the block size debate started a few years back (I'm not sure when exactly). If you have watched some podcasts, I'm sure that someone mentions this exact thing.