Re: spoon-discuss: Re: spoon-business: Use Them or Lose Them

[Wonko <dplepage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Quoth Rob Speer,

> On Tue, Mar 26, 2002 at 01:50:12AM -0500, Glotmorf wrote:
>> On 3/25/02 at 11:08 PM Rob Speer wrote:
>> 
>>> I propose: __Removal of Cruft__
>>> {{
>>> 
>>> 1. Repeal rule 204/1. [[ It doesn't work, because it attempts to
>>> legislate what rules can do. This is impossible. Not screwing with time
>>> should be a matter of game etiquette. ]]
>> 
>> And we all know Nomic is an etiquette-based game.  Right.  R204, among other
>> things, prevents paradox in the form of "This rule never existed" rules.  I
>> like that, especially if Bean's sociopathic proposal goes through.
> 
> Any rule which wanted to be annoying like that would override rule 204.
> If necessary it would have an absurdly high Chutzpah. But people know
> to vote against rules that give themselves too much Chutzpah, and people
> should know to vote against proposals that change the past.
> 
> If 204 were put at some godly amount of Chutzpah and prevented anything
> from having more Chutzpah than it, then a proposal could temporarily
> repeal 204 to get its work done.
> 
> It is unworkable to make a rule that limits what Proposals can do, so
> why pretend we can?

Because we can. We can't limit what proposals can *intentionally* do -
there's always a "de-activate the entire ruleset except what's need to pass
this rule" possiblity, but we certainly can limit what proposals can
accidentally do. I can't think of a good example right off the top of my
head, but there's always the possibility that an error in a proposal could
result in the rewriting of large sections of the past. As long as we have
204, historical rewrites can *only* be intentional. Then it still is a
matter of ettiquette.

Besides, this way an intentional time-changing proposal is more obvious,
because the "suspend this rule" bit needs to be there, so it's harder for
some crafty proponent to rewrite the rules without the rest realizing it.


>>> 2. Modify rule 214/1 to read:
>>> {{ The value of the Clock must be displayed in public view. If the Clock
>>> is Off, the value of the Watch must be displayed in public view. }}
>> 
>> Have we defined what "public view" is?  Would spraypainted onto a Brooklyn
>> subway wall count?
> 
> That wouldn't be especially visible to the public of the Nomic. Though,
> "nweek 11, nday 2" would be quite a fascinating piece of graffiti.

What's wrong with what we've got now?

>>> 3. Repeal rule 215/0.
>>> 
>>> 4. Remove the two last paragraphs of rule 216/0. (Sorry - the 'proposing
>>> multiple rules' mechanism is entirely messed up. My bad.)
>> 
>> Um...it worked in my Nomilogue #1...
> 
> Huh. Now that I look at it, it _does_ make sense. It didn't make sense
> back when we had no title delimiters.
> 
> The examples are irrelevant, though, so I'll change my proposal to take
> those out.
> 
>>> 5. In Rule 260/1, change the text
>>> {{ with the text "*name* gets a Kick in the Ass." }}
>>> to
>>> {{ indicating that e is giving that player a Kick in the Ass, and the
>>> reason why. }}
>>> 
>>> 6. In proposal 300/1, change the text
>>> {{ A second rules listing will be added to the game state }}
>>> to
>>> {{ A second rules listing is part of the game state }}
>> 
>> Iffy, since the second listing doesn't exist at the moment.  Does this mean
>> it is valid for the game state to contain a second listing, whether or not it
>> actually does?
> 
> It doesn't? What's this Keywords List, then?

Um... Why don't we just say that each rule can have attributes called
Keywords? Why do we need "A second rules listing" in the game state? And if
there's a list of keywords, isn't part of the gamestate by definition?

--Wonko

"If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use? Two strong oxen or
1024 chickens?"
    - Seymour Cray (1925-1996), father of supercomputing