some really excellent thoughts here

It's a mind fuck if you think about it.
That, or a rock and a hard place.

it's both!

to start with, I had no idea that the witnesses had the power that they displayed with the soft fork until they used it. so that power is

• there
• has been used
• will be Justin's if they take him out of fork time-out
• not going away no matter who holds it

and it demonstrates one thing:
Steemit, with that amount of stake out there, is NOT, and never will be decentralized

I will not say you are wrong in your assessment that many investors will be turned off of STEEM and the Steemchain if they see that $money$ get nuked.

OTOH, an investor should be buying into Steemit/STEEM with the understanding that it is a decentralized platform free from the kind of fuckery being displayed by all sides at this point in time (an oligarchy of the top 20 witnessess versus the dictatorship of one owner)...and that oligarchy will remain an oligarchy regardless of Justin's future after the soft fork, the only difference being is that he will have the capability to replace or even nuke the current witnesses if he regains control of Neon Green stake.

returning to a point I made a moment ago

Steemit, with that amount of stake out there, is NOT, and never will be decentralized

@aggroed made the point that Ned's stake was promised by Ned to the community to safeguard the central characteristic of the Steemit platform of decentralization. Once Ned violated that promise, we became a truly centralized system, and therefore nothing to promise an investor than any other altcoin.

So, we now have, as a matter of fact, a choice between the lesser of two evils:

• allow Steemit to become a centralized platform
  -or-
• allow an investor's money to be stolen from him

Either choice can leave a stench in the nose of investors (I would like to see a third way, but until one is one the table, there is NOT one)

Another way to look at it is as a choice between kantian and utilitarian ethics (the choice as to whether morals are absolute or situational, and let me tell you, either approach has it's own problems)

I have my own biases (towards the utilitarian path); for example, in the clash of analogies you argue with @builderofcastles, I would agree with his analogy.

Here we have both Justin and Ned, with proven histories of fucking their own blockchains (I'm to lazy to source justin's history, but I will do so if you would like me to). Fuck both of them. In this case, Ned did not tell Justin that the witnesses could do what they did.

Leaving that stake out there (the Neon Green stake) gives investors these fundamental facts:

• They are investing in a centralized, not decentralized platform
• Control of that platform is in the hands of a proven fucker-of-blockchains
• That fucker-of-blockchains is likely to be an agent of the CCP, or someone who works closely with their goals.

It could very well be, blockchain suicide.

It could be, either way. It could have even died the moment Ned sold off the guarantee of decentralization.

Thank you for the argument; even though I disagree with your value choice, I needed to add the point you shared to the information in my post