Re: [s-b] Contract for the Purposes of Personhood Definition Exploration (PftPoPDE)

[Craig Daniel <teucer@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 12:14 PM, Charles Walker
<charles.w.walker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I agree to the following:
>
> {{
>
> This is a contract known as the CftPoPDE. It is a corporation owned by
> Walker; e can act on its behalf.
>
> }}
>
> I act on behalf of the CftPoPDE to cause it to register itself.
> (Disclaimer: I'm not sure if this works.)
>
> I CFJ on: The CftPoPDE is a player.

I rule the above-quoted CFJ to be FALSE, for the following simple
reason: the CftPoPDE is neither a natural person nor a legal person.

There are at least three possible interpretations of the application
of rule 14, section 3 ("Any term primarily used in mathematical or
legal contexts, and not addressed by previous provisions of this Rule,
by default has the meaning it has in those contexts.") with respect to
the term "person," and none of them supports the personhood of the
CftPoPDE. I will examine each individually.

First, if 14(3) means "person" has its legal meaning, then instances
"person" in the rules cover both natural persons and legal persons,
and corporations are people for the purposes of the game of B Nomic.
If this is the case, then corporations are fully capable of
registering as players. However, "corporation" is nowhere defined in
the rules, and it very clearly counts as a word used primarily with
its legal meaning. If B Nomic accepts the personhood of legal persons,
then those corporations must be legally incorporated, not merely
incorporated within the game of B Nomic as was possible at one time in
the past. Since no evidence exists that the CftPoPDE has been
incorporated in any jurisdiction, it does not exist as a corporation -
merely as a contract which contains text about it being one.
(Contracts exist, but not all contracts are legal persons.)

To be a legal person within the game of B Nomic, in the absence of any
definition of "corporation" in the rules, an entity must establish its
personhood in some jurisdiction. It is worth noting that the game of B
Nomic takes place outside of all jurisdictions (ancient game custom,
strong in the First Era and revived once or twice since, holds that
for purposes of gameplay B Nomic is to be considered a sovereign
nation bound by no other nation's laws) and so a corporation would not
have to be incorporated in any specific legal jurisdiction - it would
merely have to establish its legal personhood within one. (Most
countries apparently require that, to do business within them,
corporations must register as foreign corporations with the local
government. In a way, B Nomic does likewise, but the process is
identical to registering as a player.)

Under the legal interpretation of "person," though, it is quite
clearly possible for corporations to play B Nomic, provided they have
truly incorporated. This CFJ is thus FALSE only because the
corporation alleged to have join the game does not exist.

However, an alternate interpretation is available. By far the majority
of usage of the term "person" does not occur within legal or
mathematical contexts, and so 14(3) could be considered inapplicable -
in which case the word "person" has its ordinary-language meaning.
While "person" is also a word in Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and
Breton, long-standing game custom holds that the ordinary language
meanings of words refer specifically to their ordinary uses in
English. The ordinary senses of the word "person" in English refer
only to what are legally known as "natural persons"; under this
interpretation, no corporation is ever a person for the purposes of
the rules of B Nomic and the CFJ appears trivially FALSE.

A third option is the compromise position, which accepts the legal use
of the term "person" but acknowledges that by the longstanding legal
tradition of most countries corporate personhood is a convenient legal
fiction rather than a literal fact - and that, therefore, the term
"person" on its own always includes natural persons but may or may not
include legal persons depending on context. Under this interpretation
the CFJ is FALSE for the same reasons as the in the first instance,
but possibly also with additional reasons to reject
corporate-inclusive readings of many rules on the basis of game
custom. It is not immediately clear which mentions of "person" in the
rules would or would not be covered under this interpretation,
including whether corporations would be allowed to participate in B
Nomic; however, because the CftPoPDE is not actually a corporatino
this question can be sidestepped for the time being.

Because these three interpretations all indicate the same judgement,
rendering a decision of FALSE does not actually help clear up the
question of what the rule-defined definition of "person" is. It is the
personal opinion of this judge that the second interpretation
presented here is the correct one, but other judges may well disagree
when given a chance to decide the matter. However, the current ruleset
quite clearly sets a bar for the definition of a corporation or other
entity which might qualify as a legal person higher than the contract
in this particular test case.

 - teucer
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