Immutable how? Everything exists in a larger context. Mathematical immutability, or rather, computational infeasibility, is not something outside of space and time, yet I sense that some people (IT professionals, of course - hammer/nail and all that) seem to think that it is some cosmic absolute, and rage that the larger context has broken into their delusional thinking. They need to make their categories consistent.
The larger context is war.
No need to get metaphysical. Clearly, events outside the realms of the designed system can lead to mutability of the data.
However, when the designers of said system are actively working to undermine immutability, then it raises serious questions. In such a case, how can immutability be claimed at all?
I was denying the metaphysical view of immutability, while offering a matryoshkal view of context.
Their claim of immutability is valid in a certain context. You know how insurance contracts often have an “acts of God clause”? It doesn’t mean they are lying about their promise to insure you.
Best one yet in the Hitler series.
In fact, if we look at the situation now, where a community of people have the choice to reverse or not to reverse the Ethereum blockchain by a hard fork, we can conclude that the block chain has no character of immutability.
We can agree that now, there are indeed two potential future states for the chain, and that the switch depends on human debate, human pondering and human decision taking ( and human relation with money … ).
Depending on the choice of some people, the chain will either keep the same, or will change.
So basically the chain is immutable as long as we don’t mute it.
So, if we take the thinking further, the Ethereum code doesn’t provide immutable contracts.
Then this implementation of smart contracts is … void, and is simply an accumulation of complex technical processes. In the end the contract has no different value than a signed paper, and is subject to human interpretation. ( which may be good or not good, I am not trying to elaborate on that point )
In my opinion this leads to the thinking that the main selling point of Ethereum, namely offering trust-less and immutable contracts, is just … air. No need to wait for the result of the fork / no fork debate, to me eyes it is now already proven that the only value of the ETH coin resides in a hype and marketing based speculation bubble.
If we want such trust-less immutable contracts ( again, I am not pushing an opinion here ), it will take another , non blockchain based, implementation.
Great post! Exactly my thinking.
I am sure some will still want to automate contracts, but people have been doing that for years through non-distributed software anyway, which makes no promises of immutability.
Distributed, blockchain technology is supposed to have ushered in immutability, with consensus being used to guide future behavior. Indeed, the credibility and usefulness of ethereum rests on this.
So, we can go to ethereum for an expensive, distributed, mutable contract or we can have a cheap, centralised, mutable contract. It isn’t looking nearly as good for ethereum now.
Ofc, I am dwelling at the extremes, but it sets a precedent. Maybe such forks will become common place? Maybe a forking committee will be established to deal with many contract disputes. Some will call this acceptable, but it is far from what many had envisaged smart contracts to be about.
The bug exploiter is now in the same category as Satoshi, Osama bin Laden, Jesus, Hitler and Spartacus. I.e., a concept rather than an actual person. Every man and his dog is gonna claim to be Spartacus and trollololol on the forums. It is just noise now.
I’m a little surprised at how some computer people muddle binary and analog concepts (“the blockchain is not immutable in a cosmic sense” == “it is as disposable as toilet paper”). Like I said, hammer/nail, with “ones-and-zeros” being the hammer.
Superb reasoning indeed @nice !
This line needs a little finetuning maybe, humbly allow me to add a few things.
You surely meant “In the end the [digital smart] contract has no different value than a signed paper [contract], and is subject to human interpretation”. Although I understand what you mean (and you are absolutely right, for the moment), there is a difference however. And that difference was supposed to make or break what Ethereum/DAO are doing. First, what is a smart contract? I think the Wikipedia definition covers it rather well.
“Smart contracts are computer protocols that facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract, or that make a contractual clause unnecessary. Smart contracts usually also have a user interface and often emulate the logic of contractual clauses. Proponents of smart contracts claim that many kinds of contractual clauses may thus be made partially or fully self-executing, self-enforcing, or both. Smart contracts aim to provide security superior to traditional contract law and to reduce other transaction costs associated with contracting.”
Source: Smart contract - Wikipedia
So, what you are referring to is only a part of the smart contracting concept. I would like to call a hard-fork: the law enforcers prohibit the execution of a major contract because the results are so much unwanted, and in this case they can only prevent the outcome by doing a hard-fork. At the same time, all other aspects of smart contracting still stand kinda strong. Kinda, because a hard-fork is shaking the foundations of smart contracting really hard, I have to admit.
Maybe a bit extreme comparison, but when the army was around the time that two planes hit the Twin Towers, they most probably would have shot the planes down before they hit the towers, right? That’s how I see a hard-fork.
Says an autistic passenger on one of the planes: “But, but, I have a ticket! A contract, I tell you! If the journey can be ended because of external considerations then it is absolutely worthless! The ticket is no different than some litter I picked up in the street!”
Exactly, but the principles of flying by plane and working in a skyscraper still stand strong.
Exactly? 
Can you pick up some litter in the street and use it to go on a plane trip?
Do you envisage that such rollbacks will be a commonplace, maybe a daily occurrence? perhaps the blockchain will be rolled back to its genesis block, like the old joke about being overtaken so much on the freeway that you’re actually going backwards?
Any human system makes exceptions for threats to the existence of the system itself. Crying that that should not be is pointless.
Agreed, my precise idea was :
“In the end the Ethereum implementation of a digital smart contract has no different value than a signed paper contract and remains subject to human interpretation.”
@Traktion summarizes very well the consequence :
I would say this assertion stands both for a signed paper contract or a digital smart contract, so far.
Wanna bet? Really? 
Seriously, for me it always comes back to the wise words I picked from a columnist who wrote about his failed BitShares project experience “it cannot fix the fundamental incompatibilities between individual self interest and community decision making”. And this, exactly this, will make a smart contract implementation very difficult, if not impossible, I think.
Gotta smile at the mutual-admiration society here, but that, and anecdotal tales, and repetition, does not make a case.
Ethereum contracts are immutible in practice, assuming nobody involved in the contract has the ability to enact a hard fork of Ethereum to alter the outcome of the contract, so for general use Ethereum contracts can be considered immutable.
I am waiting to see if this is the case.
Well, for me it does. That quote provides enough umbrella view on the case for me, that I think I can judge and discuss the details with a few anecdotes and tales. Because I’m not a techie I cannot fully judge the technical issues and solutions that Etherreum/DAO are providing, however, my common sense, my guts feeling, my trust in my judgement, tells me, I’m making a strong case. Maybe not a case on your intellectual level, but still a case lol.
Talking about a case, the ultimate best case would be, a working smart contract implementation. How should that have handled the current DAO drama?
Finally, someone gets it, although I would add the proviso that the potential roller-back has to perceive that it is in his interest to do the roll-back despite the potential negative impact. Much easier to do with a paper contract, which exists in isolation, rather than with a smart contract cryptographically bound into a sequence with millions of others. it has to be worth undoing all those other contracts to roll back that one.
You´re right, but there is a problem with “general use”, which can be pretty much every thing. This is why the current case COULD cause a massive loss of trust and Bitshares somewhat shows that (even though I think that Bitshares was less revolutionary than Ethereum is, so I can envision a different scenario here).
I think it is totally fair if miners decide to fork. It´s really up to them no matter what which chain they want to follow. What I find problematic is how the solutions are introduced. There is clearly a lot of top-down thinking which doesn´t suit Ethereum well - then again, one might argue it´s fair due to the infancy of the project.
Anyway, I think it´s an interesting twist that “the attacker” offered to pay miners who oppose the fork (even though I don´t really understand how this contract would hold). A lot of interesting stuff ungoing. Glad not to be invested
Pretty good article about this subject was posted here today, for who’s interested.
https://prestonbyrne.com/2016/06/20/failing-fast-vs-failing-unnecessarily/