RE: spoon-discuss: RE: spoon-business: Ballot, nweek 6

["Gavin Doig" <gmd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Text of p319, the text you wanted to replace r129 with:

> "2 Nweeks after the Administrator, in a Public Forum,
> makes any statement about the rules or game state,
> the rules and gamestate shall be altered what they
> would be had that statement been true at the time it
> was made, unless in the intervening time any player
> objects to the statement in a Public Forum, in which
> case the usual methods for determining the current
> rules and game state shall apply. "
>
> Okay.  So far we don't have a definition of "game state",
> so one could reasonably interpret "game state" to
> mean the collective set of conditions as established in
> the context of the game.  That would include, let's see...
> rules, proposals, CFJs, the player list, the players'
> dimensions and attributes and titles, the gremlins in
> existence, the locations and statuses of said gremlins,
> the grid and its contents...If that isn't all of it, it's
> certainly enough to work with.

Fine.

> So it's nweek x.  The following events occur:
> - I bean Bean with Beano.
> - Scoff proposes five proposals.
> - Wonko moves one unit to the left on the grid.
> - Dan pays off his 100-point debt to Luigi.
>
> The Administrator recognizes all of these actions and
> says that Bean gets beaned, that Scoff's proposals
> have such-and-such numbers at revision 0, Wonko
> is now at grid location (a-1,b) and Dan is debt-free.
>
Right.

> By the text you proposed, one of three things happen:
>
> - Bean's beaning, Scoff's proposals, Wonko's new grid
> location and Dan's now-zero debt all come into existence,
>
Yes. Not because the *admin* says so (well, except the proosals, which *the* *rules* *say* need to be recognized), but because the *rules* say they do.

> but two nweeks later they happen again: Bean is beaned
> again, Scoff's proposals are resubmitted or are at revision
> 0, Wonko is returned to (a-1,b) and Dan's debt is zeroed
> out; or
>
Why would this happen? What part of my proosal says that? It doesn't say "what they would be if the statement were now true", it says "what they would be had that statement been true at the time it was made". Would it be clearer if I made it "what they *now* would be had that statement been true at the time it was made"?

> - Bean's beaning, Scoff's proposals, Wonko's new grid
> location and Dan's zero debt don't happen for another two
> nweeks, in which case Scoff's proposals don't appear on
> the ballot, Wonko stays in place, and Luigi breaks two of
> Dan's limbs because his debt isn't paid.
>
Why would this happen? Rule 17 defines when things happen - when they reach a public forum.

> - Bean's beaning, Scoff's proposals, Wonko's new grid
> location and Dan's zero debt all happen, but they're not
> reflected in the game state in nweek x because the
> game state is still being altered by events reported by
> the Administrator in nweek x-2.  Which means someone
> looking at just the game state while planning actions is
> working with flawed data.
>
This doesn't even makes sense. The game state *is* the things that have happened (or the results thereof, if you prefer). Something happenning is equivalent to it being reflected in the game state.

d) None of the above.
Bean's beaning, Scoff's proosals, Wonko's new grid location, and Dan's zero debt all happen (assuming they are all legal) when they reach a public forum. The admin reports this to a public forum. Two nweeks after the admin's report, the game state is changed to what it would be, had the things he said been true when he said them. But they *were* true when he said them. So *nothing* *changes*. But say that Rob accidentally made 23 proosals, and the admin then recognised them all. For the next 2 nweeks, no one notices. After the 2 nweeks are up, the game state changes to what it would be had the admin's statement that he'd recognised them all been valid. So what changes? Well, the true / actual game state comes into line with our version of it. As far as we're concerned, nothing changes, because we never noticed the problem.

> If you want there to be a Statute of Limitations on
> Administrator actions, why not just say so, rather
> than saying the game state is altered? 
>
Our current statute says that actions become "legal", which isn't even a rule defined term, and is broken in other ways anyway. This *is* a statute. A statute, by definition, changes the game state - it makes illegal things, legal. This does the same thing, except it only applies to actions that the admin recognises (which recognition currently has no rule-based standing). That means that things like my "I repeal rule 10" don't even get a look in, and if the admin says "I repeal all the rules" we can call him on it, and stop it.

> Or are you insisting the game state is something
> totally separate from what the Administrator says
> it is? 
>
Well, yes.

> If that's the case, there's no authority on what the
> game state is, and every single action needs a CFJ
> performed to establish its legitimacy.
>
Well... no. For the most part, we can know if actions are legal or not just by looking at them. We only need to CFJ if we're not sure whether our records match the game state, or we're not sure what the true game state is.

In your (twisted, wrong) Pragmatist view, this proosal only eliminates our current, broken statute rule, because you'd argue that things the admin says become true anyway. In the (vastly superior) Platonist view, this (effectively) makes you right (in as much as things the admin says become true, anyway).

uin.
-- 

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