During the Paschal Vigil we've been hearing twelve prophecies, the fourth one being the story of Israelites crossing the Red Sea.
[...] And the Lord said to Moses: Stretch forth thy hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and horsemen. And when Moses had stretched forth his hand towards the sea, it returned at the first break of day to the former place: and as the Egyptians were fleeing away the waters came upon them, and the Lord shut them up in the middle of the waves. [...] But the children of Israel marched through the midst of the sea upon dry land, and the waters were to them as a wall on the right hand and the left: and the Lord delivered Israel on that day out of the hand of the Egyptians. And they saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore, and the mighty hand of the Lord had used against them: and the people feared the Lord, and they believed the Lord, and Moses His servant. Then Moses and the children of Israel sung this canticle to the Lord, and said:
Let us sing to the Lord, for He is gloriously honored: the horse and the rider He hath thrown into the sea: He has become my Helper and Protector unto salvation. [...]
Israelites rejoiced their liberation and the death of Egyptians. But what about angels that were seeing this? Midrash, a Jewish traditional interpretation, tells us:
The ministering angels wanted to sing their song, for the angels would sing songs to each other, as it states: “And they called out to each other and said”, but the Holy One, Blessed be He, said: The work of My hands, the Egyptians, are drowning at sea, and you wish to say songs? This indicates that God does not rejoice over the downfall of the wicked.
Jewish tradition understands something that people crossing the sea didn't. This is clearly shown in subsequent chapters of the Exodus book. Israelites have quit Egypt but did Egypt quit Israelites? They have been liberated externally but they have remained slaves mentally. The entire generation had to pass away for the nation to walk away from the desert, when it's a trip that should have taken about several weeks (actually, they reached Kadesh Barnea that quick, but were too afraid to move forward and fight, just as you would expect from a slave).
What can Bitcoin Cash community learn from this story?
After Genesis block, a lot happened in the Bitcoin community and it somehow ended up enslaved in Blockstream hands, small blocks propaganda, maximalism, SoV and other bullshit. We've had our own Exodus led by our own Moses. And now we're wandering in the desert despite there's a roadmap. People even similarly complain about Moses being a bad leader in between rejoicing Egyptians failures.
Just look how many r/btc topics are about Egyptians. Lightning bad, Liquid bad, r/bitcoin censorship, u/nullc bad, Blockstream bad. How many topics are recycled years-old stories. If we've left Egypt why are we still mentally in there?
What is freedom? It's not just an ability to think or do what we want. Thoughts can be compulsive, so do actions. Is it freedom to hate something or is it a compulsion?
This is the wisdom of the midrash. Angels were rebuked for wanting to join a celebration that was supposed to be rejoicing freedom but it was a dance of mental slaves rejoicing the harm of former masters.
Freedom is a power of doing what is ought to be done. Wish your enemies good luck and move forward not looking back at them.
We're also wandering through the desert longer than it's needed to in a strictly technical sense. We are still tied to the Core codebase full of design decisions taken around 1MB blocks assumption. We're running in place backporting bugfixes from Core.
Freedom means responsibility. It means self-ownership. Without taking code ownership we'll be still wandering in the desert enslaved technically by Core codebase which provides us safety but not freedom. Just like Israelites over and over referring back to how safe it was in Egypt.
When the bad leader Moses wasn't delivering, people rebelled. Many times. Always with a poor outcome.
The Bitcoin Cash Pope herby condemns the infights between "Team ABC" and "Team BCHN" and even more so the tribalism emerging around them. Solutions are preferred over accusations. Start with understanding (not presuming but understanding) reasons behind each position. Both teams have brilliant talents and it's a pity they escalated hatred between each other. The initial IFP proposal sparked alternatives like Flipstarter or ABC Fundraiser campaign, all having their own, unique sets of tradeoffs.
Easter is the solemnity of hope. Let us hope the Bitcoin Cash community learn freedom faster than Israelites.
With papal blessing,
Tendo Pein
I appreciate the message of understanding positions. Empathy is just generally in short supply. However it is also necessary for us to be constructively critical and admit mistakes. Although some people certainly have other issues with ABC, BCHN was not created to fight with ABC. BCHN was created with two main and I think very constructive purposes.
1) to help us dodge the bullet (as interpreted by those who think it is a very dangerous thing) fired by releasing IFP with BIP9@66% on a 3~4% chain, now 1.5 ~ 2% chain. From this perspective, it is much better to let the ABC team downsize and figure things out in the meantime than to inject something, against ABC's own guidelines and in the middle of huge outcry, that many think would permanently damage BCH. This motive has nothing to do with hate.
2) to initiate the first steps toward a meaningful, cooperative, competitive, multiple implementation ecosystem from a consensus perspective. We want to have one but we just don't in reality because practically all mining is currently done through ABC clients. This motive also has nothing to do with hate.
On the contrary, the BCHN lead maintainer has taken great pains to be inclusive, communicative and open. Some people on both teams have certainly been much less diplomatic.