I think there is presently a fundamental disagreement within the Bitcoin community, which is related predominantly around questions of governance. I believe like many others do that consensus is an emergent property which is best reflected through proof of work which acts as a proxy for the economic majority. This is in strong contrast to the opposing view that Bitcoin should be governed top down by Core or that Bitcoin is governed by mathematics and eternal unchangeable principles. These two conceptions of Bitcoin governance are at odds with each other. It has become very clear to me especially after the conversations I had with gmaxwell on this thread that Core ascribes to the latter conception of Bitcoin governance, which I am in strong disagreement with. This has increased the need for alternative implementations especially as Core is presently attempting to fundamentally change the economic policy of Bitcoin in a way which I disagree with.

Part of this difference of perspective can be ascribed to peoples intellectual backgrounds. I can understand that for an engineer or scientist having a system governed by pure mathematics and science would be appealing. However I do not believe that is the case, Bitcoin is governed by the economic majority. People with economics background tend to understand and be more comfortable with the idea of allowing the free market to determine such things. An economist would also understand the inherent disadvantageous of central economic planning, which in effect is what Core is attempting to do now, at least in regards to their position on the blocksize related to governance. Essentially I believe that ideally the blocksize limit should not be used to determine the actual average blocksize, blocksize should ideally emerge from factors of supply and demand instead.