[Bnomic-private] CFI -- Prop 958

[Wonko]

Quoth Glotmorf,

> On 9/15/02 at 11:05 AM Wonko wrote:
> 
>> Quoth Glotmorf,
>> 
>>> Does it strike you just how weird it is, the sides each of us are taking
>> on
>>> this?
>>> 
>>> On 9/14/02 at 10:36 PM Wonko wrote:
>>> 
>>>> [[I hate to do this, but hey, that's what the rules say. *sigh* There
>> goes
>>>> 4.8 mill. :-( ]]
>>>> 
>>>> Quoth Glotmorf,
>>>> 
>>>>> I make the following CFI:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Statement:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Voting in favor of Proposal 958 is in violation of Rules 897 and 636;
>>>>> therefore, affirmative votes for Proposal 958 cannot be counted.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Analysis:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Shillings are objects.  Wonko's shillings are in Wonko's possession.
>>>> Rule 897
>>>>> says "B Nomic Shillings may only be manipulated as specified in the
>>>> rules."
>>>>> Rule 636 says "no player may modify the state of any object in
>>>> possession of
>>>>> another player, without the other player's explicit permission in a
>>>> public
>>>>> forum."  Wonko did not give permission in a public forum for eir
>>>> shillings to
>>>>> be modified.  Therefore, it is illegal for any player to vote in favor
>>>> of a
>>>>> proposal that modifies Wonko's shillings, e.g. by transferring them to
>>>> the
>>>>> Bank.
>>>> 
>>>> Rule 15 states that "When a proposal passes, the following effects
>> occur in
>>>> order:
>>>> *<snip>
>>>> * The effects specified in the proposal occur in the order listed in the
>>>> proposal. "
>>>> 
>>>> It supercedes rule 897, therefore proposing to manipulate shillings is
>>>> legal.
>>> 
>>> Nice try, except for Rule 10: "All game entities and the Administrator
>> must
>>> abide by all the Rules in effect, in the form in which they are in
>> effect. No
>>> Proposal may attempt to temporarily circumvent the Rules. No Game Action
>> may
>>> circumvent or repress the Rules at any time. This Rule shall always take
>>> precedence over all other Rules."
>>> 
>>> Therefore, the proposal can't circumvent r897, since it has to obey all
>> the
>>> rules.
>> 
>> The proposal isn't required to obey each rule individually, it's required
>> to
>> obey the Ruleset as a whole. Thus, it's not required to follow r897 if
>> another portion of the Rules says that it doesn't have to. In this case,
>> rule 15 is the rule which says that it MUST be implemented. As r15
>> supersedes r897, r15 is the one that the proposal is required to follow,
>> and
>> r897 doesn't restrict it.
> 
> If the proposal is required to obey the ruleset as a whole, then no individual
> part of said ruleset can be taken out of context of the rest of it.  Which
> means one can't just say that a proposal is automatically implemented because
> r15 says it is.  Said proposal must be legitimate according to the rest of the
> ruleset too, including that part that says shillings can only be manipulated
> the way the rules say.

No, it only must be legitimate according to all the rules which supersede
r15. For the rest, r15 takes precedence and the proposal is implemented
anyway.

>>>> As for rule 636, the act of voting does not modify the shillings, it
>>>> modifies the player's vote (and possibly also the proposal - that's
>>>> subject
>>>> to interpretation). The actual modification of my shillings is
>> performed by
>>>> rule 15 when it implements the proposal, and thus rule 636 doesn't get
>> in
>>>> the way.
>>> 
>>> To say that r15 is the acting agent for the actions in a proposal is like
>>> saying a road is an acting agent for the actions of the driver of a car.
>> R15
>>> doesn't cause proposals to be implemented; it only dictates when, if at
>> all,
>>> they should be implemented.  The administrator is not the acting agent
>> for the
>>> proposal's actions; he merely updates the semiphysical manifestation of
>> the
>>> game state to reflect them.  Even the proposing player isn't the acting
>> agent
>>> for the implementation, since all e does is make an implementation using
>> eir
>>> proposal possible.  The acting agent for implementing a proposal is the
>> body
>>> of players that vote in favor of it, and who are thus responsible for it
>> being
>>> implemented.
>> 
>> Rule 15 is most definitely the object which causes a proposal to be
>> implemented. Without r15.H, proposals could be made, voted on, and deemed
>> to
>> have passed/failed, but since nothing ever tries to implement them, they'd
>> never *do* anything. Your driver analogy breaks down because the driver can
>> drive without the road (though e may not enjoy it), whereas proposals
>> cannot
>> be implemented without r15.H.
>> A better analogy might be if a driver were driving by telling the road
>> what e wanted to do, and the road was moving em accordingly. The road is
>> then one actually responsible for doing the moving; the driver is just
>> requesting to be moved. A proposal is, after all, nothing more than "a
>> formal request for a set of Rule Changes or other changes to the game
>> state".
> 
> And said request is decided on by the bulk of the playership.  With their
> affirmative votes, the proposal becomes a set of changes to the game state to
> be performed.  Somehow I suspect said changes would get performed despite the
> absence of a specific sentence in Rule 15 saying they shall be.

No, they wouldn't. That's why every Nomic ruleset you'll ever see will have
a sentence like that in the ruleset.

-- 
Wonko