Vitalik Buterin said the Ethereum protocol is more exposed to philosophical influence than general-purpose technologies like C++, and that ideology plays a significant role in decisions such as adopting decentralization and energy efficiency

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Analogy: imagine that C++ had been made by a totalitarian racist fascist. Would it be a worse language? Probably not. C++ is general purpose, there isn't much surface for bad social philosophy to wreck it (or good social philosophy to improve it).

Unlike C++, Ethereum is only partially general-purpose. Many of its core innovations, like account abstraction or the shift to proof-of-stake, rely heavily on developers’ commitment to Ethereum’s broader mission.