I do have a half-written tech report detailing how a cartel of miners could force a change in the rules; but that has become common (if still denied) knowledge by now, so it would probably be rejected for that (if not for ideologocal reasons).
So let's say a majority of miners change the rules in a way that the rest of the bitcoin community does not agree with, then what?
What prevents the core developers from just changing the hash function, rendering all mining hardware useless and let the whole mining business start from scratch? Yeah it would be pretty messy, but the mere existence of that option keeps the miners in check.
That is the conventional argument that is used to dismiss that problem. It is like the Captain "defeating" a sailor''s mutiny by taking off in a small lifeboat and declaring it to be "the real ship"...
The Core developers would have to convince all bitcoin users to get into that small boat with them and discard the coins that they have on the carte's branch of the chain. Good luck on that...
can you explain to me the reason why miners would form a cartel to destroy bitcoins value?
Wouldn't it be vastly preferable if the good professor were to formalize his thoughts and publish them in a scientific journal, where his ideas could be subjected to all due academic rigor by his peers?
Dr. Stolfi is an academic who, according to his signature, at least, has an 'academic interest in Bitcoin' - and there now exists an academic journal created precisely for such academics.
I, for one, would much rather see Dr. Stolfi's support his ideas re: Bitcoin in a more formal atmosphere than to read yet another eight-paragraph opinion from yet another opinionated poster on this thread, wouldn't you?
I think we should all encourage Jorge to publish. I would be interested to see if he actually has ideas with academic merit or not.