Actually, I'd say the fact that he has to publicly ask for exchanges to stop the trades, and can't simply press a button or send out an order, shows the decentralization.
Decentralization doesn't prevent coordination.
Decentralization doesn't prevent coordination.
Exchanges are in a difficult position once the 'head' of ethereum tells them to stop. It's a sign that the blockchain might be forked, so any further trades they make might be undone - they simply have little choice but to stop after being told to do so.
Not at all. This is a classic "coordination problem". It is advantageous for many participants in the overall system to take an action, but only if the other participants are ALSO taking the action. In such a case, a widely followed and popular leader is one possible coordinating mechanism. And it does not give that popular leader the ability to do ANYTHING, only things that actually ARE popular but require coordination.
That's the exact opposite of decentralized. Are we going to have to redefine the word?
How do you imagine decentralised decisions happening otherwise? Everyone choosing their own solution without ever talking to each other and seeing what is most popular?
My idea of "decentralized" includes things like "continues to function perfectly well if any one person or small group is removed from the process" and "continues to function perfectly well if any one person or small group becomes malicious".
In this case, if Vitalik Buterin were not around to announce the problem, someone else could announce it and that would provide a coordinating signal for all of the independent players to act on. If Vitalik Buterin were malicious and decided to announce a rollback of a big spend he had done, then the independent miners and mining pool operators would (I hope) choose to ignore the announcement and refuse to participate.
I guess to me, having a centralized group or individual make decisions seems to violate "decentralized", but having one of several possible groups or individuals make announcements which signal the population to take action does not.
I didn't stop eating excess salt until my doctor asked me to do so - and it was totally in my interest.
This is, of course, absurdly optimistic.
The reason for this is that ethereum exchanges are not decentralized and the "program" that the owners of the exchanges execute on their brains partly allows "dynamic mental code update" by Vitalik Buterin.
And the governmental powers-that-be can press a button and prevent citizens from exchanging cash?
The anti-fiat crowd should think for a minute on how money actually works in practice.