btw the recent update is a soft fork yet will still go into effect only with 95% hashpower.
Yet XT will hard fork with only 75%.
Trying to fork without consensus is damaging and irresponsible. Bitcoin was designed to prevent a majority forcing their will on a minority (if it comes to that).
I hope the contentious hard fork will not be successful.
It is impossible for a majority to force their will on a minority in Bitcoin, you can simply choose not to run the code. Saying that we must have an absolute consensus is damaging and irresponsible
95% is not absolute consensus. 75% is too low.
And yes the intention is to force me as a Bitcoin user onto XT/ 101 big blocks. The hypothetical intention as clearly stated by Gavin is to create hard fork with the thinking that remaining services and miners will move onto the new fork and the old one will die. Anybody who is not happy (and that would no doubt be at least a significant minority) will be left with nothing and forced to use big blocks.
The minority chain is less likely to die with 75% consensus compared to 95% consensus. Having 75% consensus increases the likelihood of the old chain surviving if enough people choose to support it, which is the opposite of what you are claiming is the intended effect.
I have a background in political philosophy and to me 75% consensus already seems very high, 95% percent to me seems impossible especially when it comes to contentious issues. Considering that the problem of tyranny of the majority has been solved in Bitcoin, 75% consensus does seem reasonable to me in order to initiate a contentious hard fork. After all 5% of the miners should not be able to forestall and block any change to the Bitcoin protocol.