Re: spoon-discuss: Re: spoon-business: Moderation among the justice reform

[Eric Gerlach <egerlach@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 17 Jan 2002, Greg Ritter wrote:

> At 11:22 PM 1/16/2002 -0500, you wrote:
> >Okay everyone, I'm getting the feeling that there are two distinct camps 
> >among the justice reformers.  As I see it, those are:
> >
> >a) Players may do whatever they want, things that have happened have 
> >happened and cannot be reversed.
> >b) Players may attempt to do whatever they want, but an action which is 
> >against the rules is not allowed to occur.
> 
> Hello? You're missing the actual situation:
> 
> c) Players may do or attempt whatever they want, but an action which is 
> against the rules can be reversed or allowed to occur.
> 
> I think you believe this is the "mass-hallucination" effect that needs to 
> be gotten over, but your "mass-hallucination" is a hallucination itself, 
> dude. No such thing.

Okay, "mass-hallucination" was a term I used for simplicity.  It was a bad
one... and I'm hoping we can move away from it... more to follow (details
at 11!)
 
> That concept is your stumbling block and is echoed here in the Writings of 
> Uncle Psychosis (with which you expressed agreement):
> 
>       "In most cases, it's impossible to disobey the law; nomic laws aren't 
> like
>       legal laws, they're more akin to physical laws."
> 
> Which, to put it simply, is utter and complete nonsense.
> 
> The rules of the game are just that: rules. NOT physical laws. A rule is "a 
> prescribed guide for conduct or behavior" (c.f. http://www.m-w.com). It 
> *guides* actions, it does not *limit* actions in the fashion that the "laws 
> of physics" do. This is the key distinction between a rule or a law that 
> can be violated and an inviolable "law of physics."

Well, the problem with your argument is that Nomic is a self-describing,
closed system.  Being as that is the case, and rule 10 says that we have
to *always* perform conduct in accordance with the rules, no, you can
never violate the rules.

Your "flying man" example later does make a point, but I will show that
the analogy isn't as good as another.

> <snip>
>
> You can disobey prescriptive rules and laws all you want. Walk to the 
> corner and steal a car. You've just disobeyed a law (the legal kind). 
> Post  40 proposals in one nweek. You've just disobeyed a B Nomic rule. Try 
> to violate the "law of gravity" though and you'll find yourself in a pickle.

Here's the rub:  If you make 40 proposals in one week, only the first
three "exist" as proposals (under current ruleset).  The rest were just
noise in the public forum.
 
> <snip - to be pasted back later>
>
> As long as you insist on treating prescriptive Nomic rules as if they are 
> descriptive physical law, then you're going to ultimately fail in any 
> judicial reform because, by its very nature, physical laws *don't need* 
> judicial forces to determine if they've been violated.
> 
> Nomic rules, however, are not inviolable. If you attempt to create a 
> judicial system that treats Nomic rules as if they are inviolable, though, 
> then you're dooming that system because, since because a violation of an 
> inviolable law can't "exist," the inevitable violations will only be 
> interpretable as "mass hallucinations" (e.g. Boy: "Hey, Ma, that man is 
> flying." Mother: "Shut up, Bean. A flying man would be a violation of the 
> laws of physics. Clearly, you've been hallucinating." or Boy: "Hey, Ma, 
> that man posted 40 proposals." Mother: ""Shut up, Bean. Forty proposals 
> would be a violation of the rules of Nomic. Clearly, you've been 
> hallucinating."

But here's the difference:  we can't *see* what is happening in the little
Nomic world we've created.  The conversation should read more like:

Boy: "Hey, Ma, that man said he posted 40 proposals."
Mother: "Silly, Bean. Forty proposals would be a violation of the rules of
Nomic. Clearly, e has lied to you."

That is the big difference.  You can *say* you do whatever you want, but
what you actually *do* is regulated by the rules... you can lie about what
you're doing, but if the rules don't allow it, it doesn't happen.  If you
manage to dope all the players and the administrator into believeing you,
well done.  But you never really did it...

> If Nomic laws were like physical laws, then there would be no need for a 
> judicial system. You can't disobey laws of physics, so we don't have courts 
> to prosecute violations of the laws of physics, right? (E.g. "Excuse me, 
> Mr. Bean? Yes, would you kindly stop floating in mid-air. We need to take 
> you into custody for violating the Law of Gravity.") The reason we have 
> judges and courts to interpret and adjudicate laws and Nomic rules is 
> because Nomic rules (prescriptive) are NOT AT ALL like laws of physics 
> (descriptive).

We need a judicial system to weed out the liars and interpret the laws.
The rules are not 100% clear.  Sometimes you might lie about making an
action without even knowing it (you thought it was okay!).  And so someone
has to call you on it so we're all clear.

This isn't a physical world.  It's a rhetorical world.  We need to think
of things in terms of rhetoric, not physics.

> <snip>
> 
> In this approach, appeals, statutes of limitations, reparations, changes 
> (e.g. discounting the last 37 of the 40 proposed rule changes) etc. are not 
> logically inconsistent, i.e. do not result in "mass hallucinations."

Never said they did.  Statutes of limitations make the game *much* easier
to play, because they make any reported action actually true after one
nweek.  I'm actually 100% pro appeals as well (in one form or another).

> They 
> might be complex and uncomfortable and hard to work with, but they are not 
> hallucinations. And hallucinations are MORE complex, uncomfortable, and 
> harder to work with!

They're harder to work with because by allowing any action you're making
the game unnecessarily complex.  Rob "Plunder" Speer demonstrated that
perfectly.  I don't think I can do a better job.  However, I am optimistic
that the first proposal can be fixed so that stuff like that can't happen.

Now, the original reason I made the two proposals was to try to make
consistent rulesets for the two modes of thought.  Maybe none of them will
pass, maybe one will pass, maybe both will pass (I'm going to revise to
make sure that this doesn't cause problems).  I wanted to avoid this
philosophical debate, and see what "the masses" thought of both ideas.

Our current judicial system is broken.  I want to fix it in a democratic
way.  So, please give input to the proposals... and we'll let the masses
decide.

Bean