I'm in total agreement about the dangers here. It seems absolutely insane to institute these kind of untested changes on a production system. These belong in some other coin, not Ethereum.
Furthermore it's insane that miners are just going along with this plan. They think since they hold Ethereum now that they will receive greater future rewards - but this is literally a parable that we warn our children about - "The Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs".
If these changes were simply switched on then they would have absolutely no chance of standing, there would be an immense backlash. VB is exploiting social-engineering to push these changes with the whole "Ice Age" scheme. Gotta boil that frog slowly.
Proof of Stake was part of the original plan for Ethereum. Everyone knew going in that it would transition to it. The entire development team, not just Vitalik, has agreed to use ice ages to encourage the entire community to hard fork, to prevent orphan chains from emerging every time one of these planned changes is implemented.
It's unfair and inaccurate to describe the execution of a long-established plan that has been part of Ethereum since the beginning as some sort of nefarious plot being pushed through using manipulation.
Does it really make sense to push an untested, highly criticized, and drastically different security architecture onto a live $20 billion system? Especially from a team that has a history of borking updates (Spurious Dragon)?
If there was an ounce of sanity here you'd at least have a 12 month trial period in an altcoin to iron out the kinks.
Furthermore it's insane that miners are just going along with this plan. They think since they hold Ethereum now that they will receive greater future rewards - but this is literally a parable that we warn our children about - "The Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs".
http://www.mythfolklore.net/aesopica/perry/87.htm
If these changes were simply switched on then they would have absolutely no chance of standing, there would be an immense backlash. VB is exploiting social-engineering to push these changes with the whole "Ice Age" scheme. Gotta boil that frog slowly.