when the entire system is based around whatever the longest chain is.
longest chain ... in a max size of 1Mb.
That excuse doesn't work when bitcoin launched with higher than 1MB blocks in the first place so a "bitcoin can never fork" purist doesn't even have a valid reference point to stand on. The fact is, just about everything regarding bitcoin (and every other cryptocurrency) is completely arbitrary in nature and wide open to rough consensus attack. There are TWO ethereums. There could be 100 ethereums tomorrow. It's pretty much inevitable there will be more than one bitcoin.
This is why it's called a crypto
currency and not
money. Currencies are arbitrary games that people create, while money does not fork or change. I don't have to worry about Adam sneaking into my house and trying to fork my gold or silver. Nobody should even own currency in the first place unless you actively use it or are a forex trader. 90% of this forum are basically acting as forex traders without the skills to do so. It's also far more common for people holding currencies pretending they're stores of value to get horrifically burned than to profit.
We have been over this. Gold and silver coins absolutely can and do fork.
Yes, we did go over this, and claiming gold and silver can "fork" is most idiotic thing I've ever heard. Someone trying to debase or shave the currency is not "forking". Calling that "forking" is laughable. When they tried to do this in Rome, guess what happened? The silver content of the denarius halved and soldiers just demanded twice as many coins for service, with vendors also demanding twice as many coins for goods. There is no "fork", the market values the coins by metal content.
Even if you could manage to trick people by doing this, the metal hasn't forked, it's still sitting there identically to how it was before. Claiming it forked is like claiming if you have a gold eagle laying on the ground and a dog takes a shit on it that it's composition has changed somehow and is thus...forked because something else is laying on top of it.
When the king mixes his old solid gold coins with iron you end up with two different kinds of coins, both with his ugly face on them. That's a fork.
The good news for us is that if you use the wrong fork, you don't have to kiss madame guillotine.