> Wasn't the whole point that "no one" could modify the block chain or the results of a contract?

If you hold this view you're going to be very unhappy with the many innovations we'll see in the blockchain space in the coming years: Almost every technology in the future is going to put the desires of the community ahead of any specific piece of code- Computer code is a tool, not the final decision maker.

Forking to add features and expand capabilities is great. I'm not arguing against that. I disagree with forking to undo the effects of a hack on a contract.

You speak as if this was an individual's decision. It was not. Vitalik may be influential, but it was not his decision to fork. The community decided so, by a significant majority.

Didn't the majority of the people deciding to fork stand to profit? I.e. they would restore their DAO funds? That's my understanding and makes me not want to touch Ethereum with a 10ft pole. Seems very much like mob rule vs a system of rules and contracts.

No, the people deciding to fork were the ETH holders. A lot of them owned DAO tokens, but not a majority, probably about 10%. There was a coin vote before the fork which showed about 85% support, and the result was confirmed by the market after the fork (ETH is about 10x more expensive than ETC).

>Computer code is a tool, not the final decision maker.

Yeah, especially in systems where the fundamental model is code is law