RE: spoon-discuss: RE: spoon-business: Game Action

["Donald Whytock" <dwhytock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Uh...dude?  You're up to triply posting now.

						Glotmorf


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 1/31/02 at 1:11 PM Gavin Doig wrote:

>> If someone does something we don't like, and it's contravened
>> by the rules, hooray!  They did something illegal, and
>> depending on your platonist/pragmatist point of view it either
>> never happened or is reversed.  An example would be Uncle
>> Psychosis's "Join me, judge, and we will rule this nomic" CFJ,
>> which simply on the face of it was a direct contradiction of the
>> text of the rules.
>>
>The CFJ was perfectly legal. If you take the view that "force of law" is
>equivalent to "equal status with the rules", then it would even have
>worked had it been judged true. But anyway...
>
>> On the other hand, if someone does something we don't like,
>> and the rules don't prohibit it (e.g. the "YEA" vote loophole),
>> I think the spirit of fair play dictates that we let it fly, even if it
>> means awarding that player a win.  And we did let it fly, in that
>> case.
>>
>Absolutely.
>
>> Unfortunately, some of our interpretations of the rules have got
>> a bit twisty in their efforts to avoid some undesirable state, and
>> that's what was at the heart of Glotmorf's CFJs.  In particular,
>> the non-player entities voting issue.  We had a ruling from Rob
>> that since a rule says how players *may* vote, this constitutes
>> a complete regulation of all voting practices, and non-players
>> may not vote.  This seems to me to be completely against the
>> letter of Rule 18, since it means that any rule specifying any
>> way in which something *can* be done automatically prohibits
>> it from being done any other way.
>>
>OK, let's examine that for a bit. The letter of rule 18 says "Whatever is
>not prohibited or regulated by the Ruleset is permitted and unregulated".
>Note the "or regulated". To regulate means "To control or direct according
>to rule, principle, or law". I fail to see how a rule specifying how
>something can be done is not controlling or directing it.
>
>> It got even more twisty with Baron von Skippy's ruling
>> that essentially boiled down to "this is false because
>> I think it would ruin the game".  Pardon me if this is
>> the naive raving of a wide-eyed nomic newbie, but I
>> thought part of the game was trying to break the
>> game, legally, in interesting ways.
>>
>I'd agree that that's not the kind of reasoning we should be applying, and
>that that is indeed one of the main aims on nomic. His analysis being
>wrong doesn't, however, prevent his ruling from being correct. And I'd
>question whether this kind of attempted abuse of rule 18 is either legal
>or interesting...
>
>> Anyway, here's the situation: I'm trying to do something
>> highly unlikable but legal.
>>
>Heh. :-) Argument by asssertion. You're trying to do something which is
>legal under one interpretation (which I'd agree with Rob is "utterly
>brain-dead") of rule 18.
>
>> I'm with Glotmorf--let's once and for all decide what our
>> policy is in this situation.  Either we embrace the spirit
>> of fair play or we quash unwanted actions in any way
>> possible.  And our interpretation of Rule 18 is going to
>> be at the heart of that...
>>
>What a fantastic use of false dichotomy. The issue isn't between fair play
>and the (sensible) more restrictive interpretation of rule 18, it's simply
>between the 2 interpretations of rule 18. Using the first definition isn't
>unfair simply because it would cause your scam not to work.
>
>
>> Either
>>
>> 1)  Any rule specifying any way in which something
>> *can* be done automatically prohibits it from being
>> done any other way.
>>
>> or
>>
>> 2)  Everything is permitted unless expressly prohibited,
>> with the exception of rule changes.
>>
>Which is *not* what rule 18 says. It says "prohibited *or* *regulated*".
>
>uin.
>--
>
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