[s-d] Re: [s-b] CFI: All is Not Made Right.

[Daniel Lepage <dpl33@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Nov 3, 2004, at 1.30 AM, Jeremy Cook wrote:

> I make the following CFI:
>
> Defendant: Wonko
>
> Statement:
> The following attempts to change the gamestate by Wonko were not legal.
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 08:32:49PM -0400, Daniel Lepage wrote:
> > Ok, I would say the time is right for a little god-mode loophole I'd
> > been sitting on for a bit...
> >
> > If there do not exist Cards called 'Red','Green', or 'Indigo', I 
> > hereby
> > create the following cards; if they do exist, I modify them to have 
> > the
> > following properties:
>
> [snip]
>
> > Then I move the cards around in such a way that the current cards page
> > shows accurately what cards people have (this is still showing last
> > nweek's set up).
> >
> > I cause all players and other objects to cease to be Stained with
> > Tomato juice. I destroy all Tomatoes.
> >
> > I create four tomatoes in the possession of PersonMan.
> >
> > I create and destroy tildex as needed so that the current TildexCount
> > Page is accurate.
> >
> > Then I award myself a Win, and modify r699 to read:
> >
> > {{
> > __The Slightly Less Important Not-So Default Case__
> >
> >   Any action is legal if a majority of all Players cannot distinguish 
> > it
> > from an otherwise-legal action.
> >   This rule takes precedence over all other rules except rule 33.
> >
> > }}
> >
> > I can do this because the current wording of r699 states "Any action
> > indistinguishable from a legal action by at least one Player is 
> > legal."
> > The Voice has not posted in over an nyear, and eir nomic email account
> > seems not to be receiving messages, so I submit that e is not watching
> > the game and thus cannot distinguish my actions from a set of legal
> > actions, so all my actions are legalized by r699.
> >
> > Moreover, the fact that I'm claiming that I can do these things 
> > clearly
> > indicates that *I* also cannot distinguish them from legal actions.

Man, that's gonna look ugly on the CFIs page...

> Argument:
>
> "indistinguishable" means "cannot be distinguished". We have no way of
> knowing if the Voice is reading the list archives or not, and
> regardless, both he and Wonko are capable of distinguishing them as
> follows:
>
> Making a claim does not indicate that you think your claim is correct.
> Defendant's argument seems to be:
>
> 1. If I cannot distinguish these actions from legal actions, they're 
> legal.
> 2. I claim I can do these things.
> 3. Therefore, I cannot distinguish them from legal actions.
> 4. Therefore they're legal.
>
> Step 3 does not follow. In fact, if they are not legal, e is certainly
> capable of distinguishing, and it is circular to argue that the actions
> are legal because e can't distinguish them, and e can't distinguish 
> them
> because they are legal.
>
> Since no rule other than r699 gives any authorization for these 
> actions,
> and Defendant's r699 argument does not follow, the actions are illegal
> by The Default Case.

 Defendant's Analysis:: I believe the Plaintiff has misunderstood my 
argument. It runs as follows:

  I claimed that I couldn't tell the difference between my actions and 
legal actions.

  If this was true, then my actions were legal under r699.
  If this was false, then my actions weren't legalized by any rule and 
thus were illegal.

  Now, I still maintain that my claim was true, but it actually doesn't 
matter. What r699 says, in effect, is that if we can't prove that an 
action was legal one way or another, then it's assumed to be legal. And 
it seems clear to me that there's nothing I can say that will convince 
you that I was being truthful; but there's nothing you can do to prove 
that it wasn't.

  So really, the reason why my actions were legal is because none of 
you could distinguish them from legal actions - their legality depended 
on my state of mind, which even I can't be entirely certain about 
sometimes.

  So my argument relies on r699 twice: under r699, if I claim that I 
can't tell if an action is legal, then it can no longer be proved 
whether or not that action was legal; then by r699 again, it must be 
legal.

==== Historical tidbit ====
  The second use of r699 is what it was actually intended for, btw: it 
was put into place long ago when we had an object called the Cursed 
Sushi of Babel. A player holding the Cursed Sushi of Babel was 
forbidden from making posts to the public fora without first putting 
the intended text into AltaVista's 'BabelFish' translation engine, and 
translating it into Korean and then back.
  To make sure this wouldn't stop players from being able to talk, a 
clause was added permitting the holder of the Sushi to translate their 
message into Pig Latin instead, but only if Babelfish wasn't working as 
of when e tried to use it.
  r699 was put in after one player (the Baron von Skippy, I believe) 
sent in a message in Pig Latin, and claimed that Babelfish had been 
conveniently down when e tried to use it. E also added that there 
wasn't any way we could prove it if e were lying.
  After much debate, the consensus was reached that if an action may or 
may not be legal depending on external facts that can't be verified, 
then it's assumed to be a legal action. r699 was proposed (by The 
Voice) to formalize this mindset in the rules.

I mention this because it's a precedent supporting the claim that if 
you can't prove that I could distinguish my actions from legal actions, 
then we have to assume that any actions based on that are legal.

Judge assignment forthcoming.

--
Wonko

"How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?"
	-Charles De Gaulle

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