Plus, consensus changing once doesn't necessarily mean it's easier to change again, unless those who decided they couldn't follow along volunteered to fork away, meaning their voice would hold no weight in future forks. Think about it.
I am thinking about it. There is a dynamic called precedence, which works in a lot of practices. Once a pattern or practice is established that becomes the standard for the future.
If everyone who is involved in securing the network now remains part of the network after a fork, it's no easier or harder for consensus to change again in future because every participant still has the same power they always had. There's still no change in the consensus mechanism. It's still not a change in governance. You're still wide of the mark.
What the fuck are you talking about? There is no such thing as everyone staying the same. Stakeholds and participants are constantly changing in the real world, and power is partly distributed by participation and effort. So if a standard is established in which a change is made because of this much hash power is accumulated, for example, then that would be a guideline for future decisions for change. I don't know why you are trying to personalize this question regarding consensus.
Obviously participation levels change over time as a natural ebb and flow, but we're talking about what happens during a fork. The point is, a consensual fork in and of itself doesn't necessarily change the level of participation. Or to put it another way, a bucket can hold more or less water depending on how far you decide to fill it up, but if you tip all that water into a second bucket, the act of moving the water from one bucket to another doesn't change the amount of water you had in it (unless it gets messy like a contentious fork might). So again, a fork doesn't necessarily make it easier to fork again in future, unless some of the people securing the network decide they don't want to participate anymore because they don't approve of the new fork. And precedence or not, it doesn't mean Bitcoin will start forking for shits and giggles whenever a new idea gets proposed. It will only happen if and when consensus decides so. Which is how it has always been. And
if that's how it has always been, it clearly isn't a change in governance.
I doubt that any kind of analogy of bitcoin value to water in buckets is fitting to crypto, financial, political and/or social competition and/or cooperation concepts.
Also, you have now asserted that forking is consensual.
Sure there are not going to be very many issues if a change is consensual, so if you assume some matter is consensual then you are changing the parameters of reality by assuming the very thing that it is in contention -- namely how is consensual is defined and at what threshold levels.
In other words, a contentious hardfork is problematic, and a consensual hardfork is not problematic, and if you assume the hardfork to be consensual, then of course it is not problematic and you win.
It seems to me that you are assuming facts that are not yet in evidence because we still don't know what miners and nodes are going to do because some software is still being developed and they don't have the software to run to show what they are doing in order to verify whether a matter is contentious or not and what consensus levels are being reached for the various options that are going to be available.
All said, it sounds as though you want to make the argument that just because you don't think the rules should change, that no one can change them, but can't quite bring yourself to say it.
Sure, it is easier to win a battle if you make up the grounds of the battle and then declare your own victory.
I have no problem with change; however, if there is a rule that is already in place that says, we change the rules upon reaching y level of consensus, and then you come in and try to change the rule with x level of consensus (and x is less than y), then you have attempted to change the rule without reaching an adequate level of consensus. It does not mean that you are wrong, you just have not reached an adequate level in accordance with the existing rules in order to change the rules. Once you reach the adequate level, then I am more than happy to live with the new rules whatever they might be.
and even if some of those changes do occur over time, as you mentioned with your examples, it does not mean that there is not going to be resistance to various more extreme attempts, such as attempts to hardfork at lower consensus levels.
It's entirely up to those who choose to run the code what level of support they're willing to accept before taking the plunge. Nothin' you can do to stop 'em, but you don't have to join 'em. And still not a change in governance if they can form the longest chain and have sufficient node support and economic activity to propagate that chain. Again, that's just how Bitcoin works.
There is not only ONE way that things can turn out, so get off of your lecturing about how bitcoin works high horse. Do you really know what is going to happen?
You are correct that people can do whatever the fuck they want and to see whether others follow them, and they can do that with 10% or 50% or 80% ... Of course. I can also chose whether or not to follow. I am not locked in. There are a lot of people who can chose what to do. Do you know what they are going to do? I doubt it. All we have are buckets of probabilities and we can attempt to make approximations of outcomes based on what we perceive to be the various options and how we believe various actors will act.