[ballofrubber]

Arguably a lot of discussion is open to anyone (Bitcoin mailing list, Core github repo), where anyone is free to post their opinion on topics themselves.

It is not democratic as in "you have a vote to force others to comply to the majority", but more a democratic in "you can try to convince enough people that the major chain becomes how you like it, while the others run a minority fork".

People think "where the money goes, is where the miners go", but the blocksize wars showed that "where the users go, is where the miners go". Miners themselves don't decide on bitcoin rules, users do.

So I personally think that bitcoin is not necessarily democratic, but still highly people/community vs money driven.

[TeMPOraL]

> "you can try to convince enough people that the major chain becomes how you like it, while the others run a minority fork".

FWIW, that is also true for fiat. You can become an economist, or a journalist, or a politician, or a pundit, and try to convince your country to do economics differently. It's a tall order, but it's been known to succeed. If this seems harder than the equivalent for blockchains, it's only because cryptocurrencies have much fewer users, so your voice seems more powerful.

[ballofrubber]

Good point. I think the subtle difference is that the traditional political democracy coerces the minority to use the system how they like it (ofc. not everywhere, maybe more on the money/legal tender side of things), whereas with Bitcoin there is no coercion by the majority. The majority would accept one set of currency, while others might use another, however markets will probably always decide on a winner when it comes to currency, which could feel as if you are "forced". Definitely a nuanced topic.

[jrumbut]

This is a terrifying definition of democracy, "you don't get a vote but there is an informal and non-binding channel to lodge complaints."

That's not democratic at all!

[andirk]

Democracy can be defined as a popularity contest; democracy does not = good. When I and others say "democratized money", it's not to say it is identical to the definition of democracy as it pertains to a populous voting 1 person 1 vote. More like "money that is not controlled by a single source but rather as large a group as cares to participate who also have access to and knowledge of the tech".

[ballofrubber]

It might not be "democratic", to me personally it seems fair as you are not forced to run the rules that are imposed by others. It might not be the wise decision, but the market will decide on the "better" rules.

[webXL]

> "you have a vote to force others to comply to the majority"

is less terrifying to you?

[nyolfen]

i urge you to compare this to any presently-existing monetary system or software project

[UncleMeat]

I can send Putin an email. If I'm sufficiently convincing he might decide to call off his illegal invasion of Ukraine. That doesn't change the nature of his autocracy.

[ballofrubber]

I don't know if this is comparable.

Even if UN would finally vote to deem the invasion illegal (note: it apparently is not by the democratic votes of the UN), it probably wouldn't be stopped either.

I think comparing real world war scenarios with how consensus is found in decentralized open source protocols is a bit intellectually dishonest