RE: spoon-discuss: RE: spoon-business: A future proposal

["Gavin Doig" <gmd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I'll clarify something - this bad situation doesn't occur when the
> Administrator makes a false statement and we treat it as if it were
> true. There, we _are_ playing the subjunctive version of the Nomic, so
> we only need to back up to the split point and determine what should
> have happened.
>
Fine.

> It occurs when the Administrator makes a false statement, which
> could not possibly be true in the circumstances, and we don't notice.
> (Consider if the misnumbered proposal had never been rectified.)
> After two weeks, we are required to alter the gamestate to what it would
> have been were that statement true, as specified exactly by your rule.
>
No. The gamestate is altered; that's not something that *we* do, that's something that *happens*.

> And there *is* no thread where that statement was true, because it's
> false and we know it; the rules of the game would have to have been
> different at the time for the statement to be true.
>
But there *is*. There couldn't be at the time, no. But rule 129 doesn't somehow travel back in time and change things in accordance with the rules then. It just changes things now. If that means that our gamestate now is one that could not possibly have come about without rule 129... so what? That's the whole point of having a statute of limitations - after a certain time, things which were illegal at the time become legal.

> In a subjunctive game of football, the first is like watching, when a
> dubious penalty is called, what would have happened if it were not
> called. The second would be more like watching what would happen if the
> football were instead a live duck. Not if it had _turned into_ a duck,
> mind you, but if it had been a duck all along.
>
If the admin does accidentally make some kind of "impossible" misstatement, then there's a good chance that it'll be overwritten by a later statement where he doesn't make the same typo (or whatever). And if that doesn't happen, then as soon as we notice the problem, all he needs to do is make the statement, and it will be fixed.

uin.
-- 

_______________________________________________
Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com
http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup

Win a ski trip!
http://www.nowcode.com/register.asp?affiliate=1net2phone3a