The Great Tron-Steem Debate - Is A Preemptive Strike Ever Justified?

in #tron5 years ago

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

That was said by the novelist Evelyn Beatrice Hall in her biography about the French philosopher Voltaire.

I remember hearing a paraphrase of that quote in my twenties, and I thought to myself; that is a good way to live your life. Because it is often more important to defend rights, than any particular individual point of view. This is because those rights often take a long time to establish, yet can be eroded in the blink of an eye.

In my last two articles concerning the takeover of Steemit by Justin Sun, I have tried to take an objective look at what has gone on, whilst taking a look at the potential legal implications connected with the takeover. In this one I want to explore with you, whether the initial actions by the Steem witnesses was justified or not.

A (very) Brief History of Steem-Tron

19 days ago, @justinsunsteemit CEO and founder of the Tron network, announced that Tron had acquired Steemit.

Within his initial announcement on various platforms, Sun mentioned that he would like to migrate Steem over to the Tron network.

This prompted a huge backlash from the community who were afraid that they were about to be co-opted into an inferior chain.

Justin then sent out a bunch of damage control tweets saying that Steem would not be migrated unless the community wanted it, effectively climbing down from his earlier statement.

Fast forward to a few days ago, and the witnesses placed a restriction on the Steemit Incorporated Steem wallet, blocking Justin's access to it, which they called softfork 22.2.

Justin then reacted to this by somehow getting the crypto exchanges Binance and Poloniex to steal Steem funds so as to power up new witness accounts so that they could undo the original actions by the Steem witnesses.

Okay, you're all caught up now, let's move onto the moral implications of what happened.

Justin's Minority Report

The 2002 film Minority Report, taken from the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name, and starring Tom Cruise, was about a futuristic society whereby crimes are caught and punished before they are committed.

In order to allow this to happen, the police department use information by "precogs" - the name given to officers with psychic abilities - to find out about crimes that are going to happen in the future, they then go and find these future criminals and arrest them in the present.

The film explores the moral question of whether a police force should be able to act without any strong evidence simply because they believe a crime is about to take place.

When the Steemit witnesses decided to block Justin Sun from getting access to the Steem ninja-mine, they acted because they believed that Justin was going to take all of that Steem and use it for his own gains, which they say, would have corrupted the Steem blockchain and put everything that has been built up over the last four years in danger. In other words, they issued a Minority Report to Sun.

Their argument is that @ned, the ex-owner of Steemit Inc. had made promises that the Steem sitting in the company account, currently around 65 million Steem, down from an initial amount of about 200 million, was not to be used for anything other than aggrandising the community.

There were even some witnesses who argued that the entire sum should be burned so that nobody could get their hands on it.

The problem is, as far as I know, there were no documents signed to this effect, therefore the witnesses were taking Ned at his word.

From Justin's point of view, he has bought a company which has 65 million Steem as part of its assets. Then, some people who don't actually work for the company, stop him getting a hold of the assets to which he legally obtained. Which is why he has referred to the witnesses as hackers.

So was the preemptive strike correct?

The Argument For Yes

A supporter of the actions taken by the witnesses might point to the fact that Justin had alluded to the fact that he was willing to move the Steem coin over to Tron, thus destroying the Steem blockchain.

Even though Justin seemingly climbed down in a later tweet, he still did not contact the witnesses to reassure them that the ninja-mined Steem was safe.

Another argument is that the ninja-mined stake was never meant to be used for personal gains, rather it was a delegated stake that was meant to act as an assurance to all token holders that it would never be sold.

You could also argue that Ned should not have sold Steemit without making Justin aware that there was a prerequisite attached to the ninja-stake of 65 million Steem.

Lastly, you might also say that Ned was being a good custodian of those funds, and Justin's sudden inclusion into the mix was confusing, and because he did nothing to rectify that confusion, they were forced to take action before any real harm was done.

In short, without these actions, you might say, that Steem and with it steemit.com, would die.

The Argument for No

Whilst you may not agree with Justin's plans for Steemit (which will probably never come to light now), does not mean you have to agree with the way he has been treated.

Ultimately the ninja-mined Steem has been there since the beginning of Steemit's life.

The vast majority of it has already been used in various ways. Some was given to initial miners, some of whom are current witnesses, and as far as I'm aware, none of them have offered to give back their ninja-mined Steem.

Some of it has been used to bail Steemit out of a financial hole they found themselves in a while back.

Some of it has been sold and the proceeds of which, have gone straight into Chairman Ned's personal bank account.

There is no legal document anywhere that says the owner of Steemit is not allowed access to these funds.

Possession, as they say, is nine tenths of the law. If you own something, it is yours, and thus you can do with it as you please.

These are all very strong arguments, and adding to those the witnesses could have frozen these funds when Ned was in charge, but they didn't.

Speculation

Perhaps not all, but definitely some of the witnesses are motivated by the power they had under Ned. There was an unwritten rule between the ex-chairman and the witnesses, and that agreement was;

If you don't mess with anything I want to do, you will remain a top witness. Cross me, and I will use the @freedom vote to get you out of the club.

The witnesses were very happy with this situation, some of them even enjoyed the fruits of a ninja-mined stake. However as soon as the shouts of the King is dead! Long live the King! were ringing out in the streets, they quickly moved to protect their power, as now there were no guarantees that they would remain in the top witness club with a new owner who has enough Steem to create his own witnesses and get them out.

I do believe that their fears over the "community" being damaged were real, however I think they are less altruistic than they are letting on. Because of the facts I've laid out above, it would seem their reasons are a lot more selfish than appeared at first glance.

Conclusion

Regardless of what Justin had planned for Steemit, the witnesses were wrong to freeze the stake.

I believe if you support this, then you are also supporting future preemptive strikes.

What if the witnesses deem that I might be about to do something against their interests?

What if you are one day considered a potential bad actor because of something you may or may not do in the future? Will you support a minority report then?

Like I said at the top, I don't necessarily support Justin, initially I thought his purchase of Steemit would be a good thing for the community, however he has lost the moral high ground by stealing people's funds on the exchanges, and I don't see how he can continue as owner of Steemit.

However this does not detract from the initial action against him being totally and utterly wrong.

He has bought something legally, and now he has the right to do with it what he sees fit. I may not like what he does, but I will vociferously defend his right to do it.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? DO YOU BELIEVE THAT THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS? ARE THE WITNESSES RIGHT TO BLOCK ACCESS TO STEEMIT'S NINJA-STAKE, OR HAVE THEY COMPLETELY OVERSTEPPED THE MARK ON THIS ONE?

AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!

Cryptogee

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Possession, as they say, is nine tenths of the law. If you own something, it is yours, and thus you can do with it as you please.

Here's where a lot of the legal analysis about the Binance coup goes wrong. You don't have possession of money in a bank account. It can be frozen, seized or given a 'haircut' for a number of reasons, often without a warrant or court order.

How does this translate to magic internet money? Ownership is determined by consensus. I was opposed to Ethereum invalidating the DAO hacker's balance, because the founding principle was 'code is law'. The same goes for Bitcoin. Both have validating nodes that limit the power of miners (how much is a topic of debate).

On the other hand, Steem is not based on 'code is law'. Witnesses have the full power to accept or reject transactions. That's exactly why it's so dangerous to have one party run all the witness nodes. And limits on Steemit's stake were already in the code without being implemented. It was a danger, but on balance, it was used to develop and promote Steem rather than to end it. And it was a protection against the kind of collusion we've seen on Lisk and EOS.

Anyway, Sun didn't file a court case, he retaliated. And by doing that, he proved our fears were well-founded. Remember that he recently used his founder's stake to vote for Tron validators.

The witnesses said that the change did not have to be permanent. I think it was to try and preempt what Justin tried to do anyway. If he has enough witnesses he can do what he likes. He could take all their Steem and shut them out. There is no indication the witnesses would have expanded this action to anyone else, but he and Ned imply otherwise.

I see this as a battle between businessmen and idealists. The business guys want complete control by any means possible. That would make the blockchain pointless.

I'm not saying the witnesses were totally in the right, but the portrayal of them as money grabbers is disingenuous. Many don't even cover their costs.

It's a precarious situation as any of several big players could tip the balance in witness votes. I would hope the parties can keep talking and find some way to make Steem viable to continue.

I would hope the parties can keep talking

Did you not listen to the last conversation and the attitude of our top witnesses? It was pathetic

pathetic is a great way to explain it! Those top witnesses are fucking idiots who have no business being in a meeting determining the future of steem. I have never been so ashamed to call myself a steemian after listening to that shit show! I immediately unvoted all the witnesses I could identify after they made ridiculous remarks (or demands lol). Which was most of the old top 20 LoL..

yeah, i did. i even made a few comments on the comments.. I have never been so ashamed to call myself a steemian :(

Exactly. I did the same a week ago.

I'm glad to see some people understand what I am trying to say ;) !BEER


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It was a shitshow. Embarrassing to say the least.
They lacked the wit to hold a negotiation. Some asshole even left the meeting for apparently no reason because Justin refused to do what he commanded, even though Justin had earlier stated he was willing to remove that tweet.

I've not had time to listen. The witnesses need to prove themselves now.

I've not had time to
Listen. The witnesses need
To prove themselves now.

                 - steevc


I'm a bot. I detect haiku.

you should really make time to listen to it before blindly backing these witnesses.. It was cringe-worthy with all the toxic comments and demands the witnesses were making... I have never been more ashamed of our "leadership"... It is truly pathetic..

hi! glad I found another person who views this predicament on steem with both 2 sides of the coin's point of view. as for the soft-fork, I don't agree with that too.

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You've pretty well summed up my thoughts on the whole bloody mess.
Things should have never gotten to the point where the witnesses did what they did. It's mismanagement and short-sightedness.
I can't read Ned's or Justin's minds but I can see the fruit of their actions and it's callous and uncaring and selfish...IOW's capitalism! And saying that doesn't make me a communist as I reject that the state should own the means of production.

Never supported the softfork to freeze someone's stake. Never will
Never supported what justin did by voting in his own witnesses. Never will

I do believe that their fears over the "community" being damaged were real, however I think they are less altruistic than they are letting on. Because of the facts I've laid out above, it would seem their reasons are a lot more selfish than appeared at first glance.

100% Agreed!

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I agree with every word in your post, especially the speculation part. I would even name it fact part.
Most of the top witnesses are powering down.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? DO YOU BELIEVE THAT THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS?

(IFF) you subscribe to "the rule of law" (THEN) "special" "emergency" "temporary" "powers" should NEVER be implemented.

Live by the law, die by the law.

Making up new rules for fabricated "emergencies" is a core ethical violation (patriot-act).

Everybody knew the ninjamine was a "problem" but their fundamental mistake was to "trust" ned. Never trust a human to do anything except act in their own personal self-interest.

BLOCKCHAIN should be TRUSTLESS.

If ned was so trustworthy, they would have VOLUNTARILY divested the ninjamined stake. They could have EASILY done this by slowly dumping at least 50% of the ninjamine onto the OPEN MARKET (and transferred the proceeds to steemit or whatever he promised to do).

sURE this would have lowered the market-price of steem tokens (better reflecting the TRUE-market-value), but this is not necessarily a "bad" thing. A reliable micro-payment system is a major paradigm shift away from traditional models and a low market-price of steem would lower the bar for new accounts (allowing regular people to "compete" with the "big-fish" (oligarchs).

@themarkymark and @freebornangel and @tarazkp and @abh12345 and others have repeated told myself and others,

"if you don't like it, then start your own blockchain".

They should take their own advice.

Looks to me that that is exactly what the witnesses did.
Then tron did it, now it is the witnesses' turn, again.

Nobody started their own blockchain yet.

They're quibbling over control of the existing blockchain.

Yep, if tron wants to disband steem, let them get a fork to do it on.

Sign me up!

Why not both?

Just to be clear, I want absolutely nothing to do with a TRON-STEEM hybrid.

If "the community" moves to setup some sort of "steem-classic" FORK with some new rules that safe-guard against any future centralization efforts (generally, without targeting specific accounts), I'm 100% on-board with that.

Yes, but I didn't turn down bsv just because bch is a better coin, IMO.
I would've taken the bch from btc, too, but all I had was steem.
Now I got even more.
All hail, the steem reward pool and any forks of it that give me free coins!

DPoS is a plutocracy, if the minority does not agree with the direction they can - you guessed it - fork off. everything else is just begging for problems