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

[Greg Ritter <gritter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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.

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."

The laws of physics are descriptive, not prescriptive. The describe a 
situation instead of guiding actions within a certain situation.

Physical laws might appear to be violated, e.g. hundreds of years ago it 
was assumed the physical law mean the sun revolved around the earth. That 
the earth revolves around the sun doesn't mean that law was violated, but 
that silly imperfect humans had failed to develop an accurate description 
of the physical law. The physical law doesn't change...our description of 
it changes to adjust to our increasing knowledge about the physical law. 
Which is almost the reverse of prescriptive law. When we discover a 
violation of prescriptive law we don't adjust the law to accommodate the 
violation ("Oh, wait, you mean cars can be stolen?!? Oh, crap, someone get 
the Legislature on the horn, we need to adjust that law!"); we adjust the 
violator to be in compliance with the law and/or the prescribed 
consequences of violating the law ("Here's a nice new prison cell for you. 
Adjust to it.").

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.

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).

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."

Accepting that Nomic rules can be violated, then the purpose of a judicial 
system (in real life or in Nomic) is to determine if a rule has been 
disobeyed, and, if so, what the consequences of disobeying should be.

Sometimes that consequence means reversing actions (e.g. "Here's your car 
back, Mrs. Jones! It was only stolen by someone breaking the law, not 
actually erased from existence like we originally thought when it 
disappeared in the middle of the night! Imagine that!).

In fairness, that also means that sometimes illegal actions are allowed to 
occur without consequence (e.g. "We know you stole Mrs. Jones car 72 years 
ago, you thief. But the car has long since been compacted, melted down, and 
turned into belt buckles and the statute of limitations passed 65 years 
ago, so there's nothing we can do to you, you lucky bastard. And don't 
think we pity you because of the ventilator!)

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." 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!

--gritter