I appreciate you sharing your perspective. Below are my rebuttals, and one agreement. > "1- If @TwhitNub101 (AlphaMine) was going to be a malicious actor he wouldn't be genuine in working with the community to throttle his hashpower to begin with." I think it's more accurate to say that if he were purely interested in destroying the chain, he would have already done so. It's clear to me that he is at least *partly* economically motivated. But I think we should be careful in treating him as non-malicious until proven otherwise, and he has given plenty of indication that he is not here for the health of our network. Additionally, I don't think we should assume we know how/when a malicious actor will execute his attack. > "2- If he's willing to work with the community he doesn't pose an immediate threat and the better mitigation would be to have him increase his pool fees..." Again, I feel it's too risky given our current state to relax our guard around anyone controlling so much network hash. Him being availed of it is a threat, even if no attack is yet executed. Further, we can't sit and wait for an attack, because then it will be too late to stop him or deploy counter-measures. > "3- @LukeDashjr has a conflict of interest here as he's trying to stand up a competative[sic] pool so having Luke also be the main judge, jury and executioner of a competative[sic] pool..." I think this would hold more water as an argument if AlphaMine were using DATUM, which allows miners to choose block templates and enables miner decentralization, which is what Luke's pool is using. Anyone using STRATUM v1 must be considered a threat. DATUM pools are of a different kind, and this is therefore not competitive, as I see it. > "4- The optics of allowing Luke to unilaterally ban AlphaMine from Discord and also banning voices like myself from the discussion and subsequently finding a method to kick AlphaMine off the network when they haven't actually executed an attack is..." AlphaMine must be treated as an adversary, given his choice to use STRATUM v1 and the amount of hash he controls. I think *not* banning him simply risks giving a potential enemy the location of all your bases, so-to-speak, and this would be ill-advised. However, I too am concerned about banning *any* dissident voices, as this sets a precedent, and can lead to witch hunts which quickly get out of control. This is my only agreement with your post, but I think it's a vital one. We must be trusted to be individually intelligent and wise enough to come to our own conclusions when exposed to information, or we're doomed. If we can't be trusted to make up our own minds, we are left with censorship, discreditation campaigns, and propaganda, none of which lead us to a good place. Many eyes are on us now, watching and waiting for weaknesses. And they can weaponize paranoia as easily as naivete. We must be careful not to let fear of one drive us into the other.