Yes, UASF announced a split first, so Cash announced a split in response.  I thought I made that clear.  You don't need a domain whois search to show when UASF started, because that was literally the first thing listed in the timeline I posted.  Try to keep up.  But UASF didn't happen.  There was dedicated code for UASF.  If you wanted a compiled version of that code, you had to get it from a repository which was forked from Core's.  It even says so right at the top of the page:



But when the time came, hardly anyone was running it.  UASF was a dismal failure in terms of actual participation.  It was an empty threat with no real weight behind it.  The BCH split clearly had a little bit more impetus, since it actually resulted in a legitimate fork.  You could certainly argue that the threat of a fork was enough to set events in motion, but then it could also be argued that they were jumping at shadows and, in the end, UASF was a big pile of nothing.  

SegWit was activated by miners.  Argue about it all you like, that's what actually happened.  It's only a "bilateral split" (see, I'm still on-topic   ) in the sense that neither side were going to back down and something had to give.



So tell us how you'd prevent anyone from doing that without jeopardising permissionless freedom.  Show your work, don't just provide an "answer".  How do you stop any one of the billions of human beings on this planet from creating code that divides the Bitcoin community?  Please explain.  I'd love to hear this.



Which developers are you referring to?  They don't all have to agree.  Developers are not a single, unified entity.  And they certainly don't "need" to make a new proposal just because you think they should.  Some of them did come up with new proposals.  Not all of them were well received.  That's how the split occurred.  People didn't agree.  You can't make them agree.  People do whatever they want, regardless of how much you whine about it.  And again, if we had to wait for all the developers and the entire community to agree on everything, you wouldn't even have that client you're running right now.  Every single argument you've ever put forward about consensus would result in a worse Bitcoin than the one we already have now.  I strongly recommend you stick to what you're good at and focus on that fee priority thing instead.