First, I'd like to point out that you once again take small paras where I state nothing
of any value and address those instead of attacking my main paras directly. Instead
of arguing where my reasoning is wrong, you just argue simple statements I make in
passing or in the preamble.
Given the amount of text, the rather unstructured logical construction, it is difficult for me to know what exactly you want to say, in what way it contradicts what I'm saying, and in what way it is the logical culmination of rational steps of reasoning. So I pick out things I want to react to when I read them. If those are not the points you want to discuss, you should maybe not write them, or structure it somewhat better. I will continue to do what I usually do: react to the pieces that I read and of which I think they are erroneous, unfounded or whatever. If those are not your main points, that doesn't really matter to me. If it does to you, point them out better then.
The purpose of Satoshi's client, and today's client (Core), was that there was a baseline
standard rule set that all other clients and systems could rely upon. That is why it is
considered the "reference client" (Dev Gavin understood this very well at the time).
At some point in the future, the reference client will never again be changed unless in
emergencies or serious bug fixes. The rules will be set in stone forever. Simply,
eventually the system will not need additions or etc since everything could be done
without needing direct modifications to the protocol. If the rules are changed after that
future point that are not to fix serious issues, it is always an attack on the base rules.
First of all,
"purpose" has no meaning in a decentralized system, because each entity in the system has a different purpose, and is assumed to act according to his view of the pursuit of his own purpose.
In order for there to be a "global purpose", there has to be an entity singled out of whose own purpose is the "global purpose". Different entities can have opposing purposes: if I want to steal you, and you want to steal me, we have opposite purposes (an action and a result that is in agreement with my purpose, namely that I stole from you, is not going to be perceived by you as such positive action and vice versa).
But moreover, you clearly see that your very statement is self-contradictory. There is a "baseline standard rule", but which can be "modified", until it won't be modified any more at an unknown point in the future. Attacks are defined as being modifications after the unknown point in the future ; needed modifications are modifications before that unknown point in the future ; who's to define that point in the future ?? Is core attacking bitcoin with Segwit ? Are big blockers attacking bitcoin ? Is that point in the future already in the past, and has bitcoin been attacked already successfully many times ?
"a standard is unmodifiable at a certain unknown point in the future, but in the mean time some of us can modify it". I hope you see that such a statement is entirely impossible in a system that claims to be a decentralized system but is even entirely impossible without a King whose whims are the Law, including His decision of when the famous point in the future is reached (his death ? His abdiction ?) If ever such a point made sense, it would have been if Satoshi said "bye bye now". But he didn't, even. Maybe he was hit by a bus, nobody knows.
Satoshi intended the reference client to be "the center", because that is how all systems
within this universe work.
All systems in this universe are subject to the laws of physics and the emergent properties they induce.
We can only *discover* them, not *dictate* them. Bitcoin is a system that is just as well subject to the laws of physics, of which the emergent properties are the game theory with the cost functions of the entities that "play its game".
Bitcoin's initial protocol is just part of the *initial state*, not its "dynamics". The dynamics of bitcoin is game theory, it is not "the protocol of bitcoin". The protocol of bitcoin is part of its state.
This is why my reference to gravity is pertinent. The laws of gravity are part of the core laws of this universe. Now, you can set off specific systems using gravity, like the Solar system. Maybe your intention is that the solar system is a stable system "under the laws of gravity". Maybe. However, the planets running in stable orbits (the "initial protocol of the Solar system") is just an initial state. It turns out that nothing guarantees this structure to remain so for ever: first of all, its stability over the long term internally is not guaranteed, but moreover, any external event can modify it. The laws of gravity remain valid. But the "protocol of the solar system" not. It was an island of supposed stability under an approximate understanding of gravity, namely Kepler's laws, which are approximate when we understand Newton, and which is itself only approximate when we understand general relativity.
The "laws of bitcoin" are NOT the protocol but is game theory. Whether its protocol remains stable (immutability) or not is to be seen, and is a consequence of its dynamical laws, not because of a "desired design". And we can only *discover* them. Not dictate them. You don't dictate game theory. You discover it.
There is no simple or complex system that exists that has no
center point. Your belief that this may be a problem (since 2010) is not the fault of
Satoshi or Core or the limitations of the human mind, but the limitations of this universe,
and because of that, your argument is distraction and is a waste of time. Thinking that the
reference client needs to also be decentralized is a perversion created from blind hate
and not logic. Satoshi understood there would always be a reference client that all other
system would build from and he understood that at a certain point that client would never
need changing (this contradicts emergent mechanisms).
Ok, but then this is nothing else but a centralized system. If there's only one reference client, and the devs of it do two things:
1) build in an "end of life" into every reference client, to oblige a hard fork after X blocks (like monero does)
2) once everyone is running this one, they give themselves a huge amount of coins in the next release,
then, by definition, this is the sole reference client, and the devs become immensely rich in BTC. It would not be an "attack" because the authors of the reference client are those that have the sole right to dictate the rules (they are the aristocracy). In fact, anyone trying to run *other* software would then have to be considered as an attacker.
I hope you see that your concepts you are advancing, are entirely ill-defined.
There will always be rules and they will
always be dictated through a single center client. That is natural.
Then bitcoin doesn't make much sense. It is a central bank, and the center you are talking about is the board of governors of the FED. We have that already. But moreover, whether bitcoin makes sense or not doesn't even matter: it is now a system that is "up and running" and it will follow the laws of its game theory, whether we think that's OK or not.