
Integrity
Since there are many new developments in the ecosystem, this is an ideal time to take a look at one of our long term impediments to decentralization with the involvement of the entire community, old and new.
really gets on my nerves. The fact that it wasn't just top 20 witnesses in the conspiring freeze on @justinsuntron's newly acquired company AND personal stake (which he bought fair and square), you cannot honestly say that there was any community involvement beyond that closed circle in the chats this past week or so. That being said, I will not be updating to 22.2.
It Must Have Been Hard

Why I Don't Agree With It
Any Hard (or Soft fork) that proposes to fork out any account or limit the actions of an account on the Steem blockchain we will oppose now and in the future and anyone on the Steem blockchain should be able to do with their stake whatever they want.
Quoted from a comment @blockbrothers (who also has my witness vote - good on ya @brittandjosie) made on the @softfork222 bombshell. I am of the same mind here. Even if some of the tokens were 'ninja-mined', which we'll get into in a second, he still bought them all. With his own money. I feel it sends a very tyrannical message to any future investors that may want to come in and make any changes.

'Ninja Mining'
No.
It's not like Steemit Inc. came in on false premises to 'ninja mine' a bunch of coins to pump and dump them. They saw a future here and were determined to make it happen. THAT is why they were so heavily vested in the very beginning.
It was also very brand new and I'm sure early miners had troubles, but the fact remains, there was no ICO, there was no pre-distribution, there was nothing. It started from zero. One company had a vision which actually (in my opinion) had some morals since they never used it to sway any witness votes but just help others via delegations. Until Dan left. That's when this power was implemented. Then again, @ned was also threatened with sanctions in the same manner @justinsuntron now is under.

FEAR
So what they did, in their FEAR, UNCERTAINTY & DOUBT (FUD), was eliminate a potential threat to the blockchain. In a very angry undertone, I will say thank you, but think it was accomplished the wrong way. I mean, you guys froze his assets. No ability to power down, withdraw, vote, anything! All he can do is delegate and I am really scratching my head why that was even left on there. I'll be watching to see where and if they delegate to anything suspicious.

What They Won't Say
I'm sure they have their reasons, and quite frankly I don't care. I've had to power down before too. However, Steem is also an income, and nothing to bat an eyelash at in the higher ranks. Would you want to lose that? Would you want to go from sipping bottled water to straining it from moss? I guarantee you almost none of them will admit it, but it definitely figured in to the equation and decision to sanction Sun like a third world country trying to crawl out of the dirt. Especially since there were some 'developers and investors' at that closed cabinet.
Goal Achieved?

If you seriously think that for one second, this will not ultimately have any ramifications, you all are fooling yourselves into a drunken madness that even I can't achieve with the most hallucinogenic drugs on the market. You think he got where he is by forgetting about things that happened 2 days ago? 2 weeks ago? 2 years ago? I guarantee you he's keeping score. Do you not understand he's a multi-billionaire? He's super busy, and y'all were impatient and quite frankly impertinent to the deal he made.
Let's make this clear. STEEM is not is not Steem is not Steemit. He did not buy the blockchain. He bought some STEEM and a company named Steemit. He may have been misled, but then again, @ned didn't know the difference either. Or did he?
To really do what you feared, he (Sun) would have to either bought 17 witnesses off and voted them (which who knows, maybe this is a all a bullshit publicity stunt), or set up 17 witnesses of his own making and voted them to the top. Which, by the time any of that could have been accomplished, I'm sure the Steem community itself would have been aware and countered it by placing votes where they needed to be.
Love Me or Hate Me

We don't care who you are, we're a closed circle and nobody is going to eat unless we say they can. Spade is a spade. Greed is greed. Protection of the chain? To an extent. But surely, there were other ways to accomplish your goals. He was under no mandate to speak to any witness whatsoever unless he so chose. You forced his hand.
People don't like being forced to do things. I think that's called communism or something. I don't know. I'm most frustrated with the actions taken and the lack of actual community involvement in the decision. Just tells me that you don't really care about the community. Isn't that what pissed you guys off about Steemit Inc before? The lack of communication? Y'all are funny.

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