If they had went through (or do so before he gets it moved over the next 12 weeks) with stealing his stake, it would be a death blow for trust. No rational person would feel safe putting their money into Steem. They could be next.
I have read several of the top witnesses posts asking him to stop the power down. They can't seriously think he would. Not sure if he is simply moving it to hide or going to sell it, but I imagine he is just as fed up with Steemit as many say repeatedly they are with him. He gets called out a lot, and whether the points are deserved, some of the calling out is vicious. If he decided to cash out and shake this off his feet a wealthy man I could understand. Many here seem to hate him. And for all the hits he takes, it seems to me that it has largely been his ninja stake that has kept the lights on while most have sucked off the Steemit teat to handle their nodes and delegation needs.
I don't fully understand this perception, but I've been reading it a lot.
There's a reason why Ethereum is a lot more valuable than Ethereum Classic, and it's because Ethereum decided to "steal" the stake of the DOA hacker. Consensus trumps immutability. No one on Ethereum is worried that they are next.
Steemits, not a hacker. So it shouldn't be treated the same.
Not the same thing. As was pointed out, Ned isn't a hacker. He didn't steal his stake. If people don't like how he is using it, they should go create their own chain free of him instead of trying to take his away from him. If they can in good conscience take his stake, they could just as easily rationalize taking mine or yours.
Where does one draw the line? @ned makes the claim that the money is being used for development, and the community feels like this development is costing 10 times more than it should. If the community feels like this money is being stolen, then maybe it is. It's all a matter of opinion.
Of course this is all a thought-experiment because the fork is never going to happen. It's very obviously far too contentious to actually happen. In addition, that stake can be used to swap in pro-Steemit witnesses. How many witnesses need to agree on a fork? 17? Yeah, not going to happen.
Ah see well from the perspective of the DAO hacker and ETC, no theft occurred.
The rules of the contract were not broken.
The reason for rewriting the blockchain is irrelevant.
All that matters is if the community has the consensus to do it.
Of course, your points are valid, and we are on the same side. I would not vote to fork @ned's stake away. These arguments obviously make consensus harder to achieve.
At the same time I also respect consensus. I won't be a sore loser if my side doesn't win. Or maybe I will and the chain will fork. Depends on how big both communities are and how worth it the fork would be.
Yeah this chain would have more cred and trust than the new one hehe. The lip and smack talk of many against Ned is hard to see. So much abusive talk.