The soft fork accepts the mess-up and moves forward without the lost ether. The hard fork does not accept the mess-up, instead it creates a new chain off the original chain and recreates the lost #ether thus creating a fork.

You now have the decision for what path to be on - soft or hard fork.

notice how when you fork there are now new paths - the soft and the hard (no pun intended)

#Decentralized Philosophy, and Economic Implications

How I see it is this the #softfork accepts the faulty of the code, fixed it, and moved forward with growth without an unnatural response.

The #hardfork I believe is synonymous with a government bailing out a bank with tax payer money (stimulus). The system, in this case #theDAO unnaturally learns, and corrects. The ether is restored.

This is opposite of a natural #system like nature. For example a player of a natural system is not rewarded for misbehaving thus it corrects itself correctly when it misbehaves because more is on the line - there is no safety net. Where as a system with a safety net knows that if a mess-up were to occur again someone is there for them.

I hope this helps!