Summary
Proposals made on unreasonably short timelines to decision and/or implementation are, ipso facto, made in bad faith. For example, something “proposed” to be voted on with a day’s notice, implemented without review and rush-shipped in a software release a few days later, and taken live on mainnet a few days after that. (Never mind that from a software engineering perspective, that is sheer lunacy. Is this financial software, which could lose people’s money from a bug, or a hobby project?) Any such proposal must be dismissed out of hand.
Baseline requirements for making a proposal must include a timeline which, in the circumstance, reasonably allows for community discussion, the development and consideration of counter-proposals, etc. It is a threshold requirement: When the threshold requirement is not met, the rest of the proposal need not be considered.
Motivation & Details
As of yesterday, as briefly documented below, the Do Kwon/TFL strategy became crystal clear to me:
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Move ASAP, to get onto the ground of accomplished facts. Accomplished facts are extremely difficult to undo. Effective opposition takes at least a little bit of time to develop, for it is reactive instead of proactive. Redouble this when Do Kwon/TFL have, as I can now see, influence practically indistinguishable from a totally centralized authority. Take the initiative, change the facts on the ground so rapidly that opponents are left with their heads spinning, and then—well, then you got what you want.
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For the purpose of #1, use tricks and surprises to keep opposition aiming at a moving target. This not only keeps them off-balance, but also directly wastes their time and renders their work obsolete before it’s even done. For example: Friday’s hardfork proposal was a shock to anyone who believed that Terra had a real, decentralized, permissionless blockchain. It instantly rendered obsolete a proposal on which I myself had spent the whole day working (I don’t mean working on the forum post; it also includes brainstorming and prototyping potential implementations). Undoubtedly, it must have done the same to others, too.
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Punctuate #2 with strategic silence. When you’re not shocking them, keep them guessing. Apply this most to information that would be needed to make a rational plan for recovery—for example, what happened to LFG funds, and exactly how much it has left. Bonus points if you can keep them busy investigating such matters, while you move forward with forking away their coins or their coins’ value.
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Overall, keep opponents of the hardfork running like proverbial headless chickens. Let them waste their time and energy arguing pointlessly on forum megathreads that go nowhere, on Twitter, etc. Let them futilely struggle to develop viable counterproposals, which can be vetoed simply by ignoring them. (Is this thing supposed to be decentralized?) Just make sure they are kept busy with a Lunatic delusional belief that they can make a difference here.
By way of my own example:
Friday’s hardfork proposal blindsided me, and it was offered on far too short a timeline. I took the bait. Then, after I posted prolifically on this forum from Friday to Monday, where I did I go? Did I give up, or get lazy? No! I decided that I will no longer play the above game.
Instead, it’s better for me to ignore this forum, get myself organized, and lay the groundwork for not only effective opposition to the fork, but also the potential development of much better alternatives. (For obvious reasons, I will not pre-announce any ideas of any nature whatsoever.)
My time is valuable. It must not be wasted anymore.
It is the decision that I made, when I saw this on 05/17:
It is ridiculous. Should I react by wasting my time arguing on a forum?
Effective opposition can coalesce. Better leadership can emerge. New ideas can arise and take form in implementation. But only when opponents are not chasing rainbows.
When there is no critical emergency (such as the critical bug called the “Master of Stablecoin Unbounded, Self-Accelerating LUNA Mint”), any proposal made on a timeline so obscenely rushed must be met with a flat no. No matter who makes it.