Re: [spoon-discuss] Step one on the road to InterNomic II

[Daniel Lepage <dplepage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Monday, April 7, 2003, at 08:38  PM, Baron von Skippy wrote:

> Ambassadors are responsible for promoting and propagating trade and/or 
> diplomatic relations between the Nomic they represent (the "home 
> Nomic") and the embassy Nomic. This definition is purposefully 
> open-ended; diplomatic relationships may span a wide range from 
> peaceful trade to open war. In order to promote trade, Ambassadors 
> must protect the ruleset of their home Nomic to prevent theft of 
> definitions of items defined in the ruleset of their home Nomic. As 
> such, Ambassadors may veto any proposal whose passing would create one 
> or more rules or sections of one or more rules which are, in their 
> opinion, overly similar to one or more rules or sections of one or 
> more rules in the ruleset of their home Nomic. When an Ambassador 
> vetoes a proposal, they must provide one or more URLs which will lead 
> to the rules they are trying to prevent the copying of. In order to 
> prevent misuse of this power, the Administrator of the Ambassador's 
> embassy Nomic may override this veto if e feels that the reasoning 
> behind the veto is not sound.

This copyrighting of rules... I'm not sure it works for trade. If we 
develop and produce Whoopass, and try to trade it to another Nomic, it 
seems to me that the other Nomic will be unable to use it unless 
Whoopass is defined for them, too; such a definition would, under the 
copyright restrictions, have to be something completely different from 
its definition here.
Or, if another Nomic decided to invent a currency, we could veto, 
simply because we have BNS; unless their currency is substantially 
different from BNS, it would count as a violation.

> C.5.1.1. Trade
> Objects may be traded between Nomics by first having both Nomics agree 
> to recognize the rule or section of a rule which defines each object. 
> To do this, the Nomic which does not have the object defined in its 
> ruleset may pass a rule with text along the lines of: "<Name of game> 
> recognizes <name of other game> Rule <rule number>." If a rule in the 
> ruleset of one Nomic which defines an object is changed, and another 
> Nomic has recognized the rule, the other Nomic must be notified 
> promptly.

What if another Nomic wants, say, Big Sticks? They'd have to recognize 
B Nomic Rule 301; that also includes Big Rocks, Sirens, Athames, 
Monoliths, Radar, Bait, etc., not to mention also defining The Grid, 
Grid Squares, and abilities of Players.

Or what if something gets, say, Less is More'd out of its original 
rule? If they'd adopted our Big Sticks before Big Sticks were moved to 
301, they'd be left with a rule stating that they adhere to a 
nonexistent rule of ours.

That could cause problems...

Also, this doesn't say anything about substantial changes - what stops 
Nomicron or Agora from selling us objects they define, then suddenly 
changing the definition of said objects to read, "if at any time a 
player of a game possesses one of these, and the game e's in is called 
'B Nomic', then e, and all other players of that game, must forfeit all 
Nomic games they play immediately."?

All your rule says is that they have to notify us of the change; we'd 
still have a rule declaring that we abide by their rule.

> C.5.1.2. The Suber
> There exists a unit of currency called the Suber. For any given Nomic, 
> one Suber can be traded for a number of points (or the nearest 
> equivalent, if and only if the Nomic in question does not have points 
> as a method of scorekeeping/currency) equal to one ten thousandth the 
> number of points (or equivalent unit) needed to win that game of 
> Nomic. Prices of objects to be traded should be defined in Subers in 
> the rules which define them. One Suber is also equivalent in value to 
> one B Nomic Shilling, as defined at 
> http://www.nomic.net/~g6/bykeyword.php?k=Score .

Does that mean that 10000 BNS can be traded in for a win? And games 
without score-based victory conditions have no use for Subers?
This would cause some interesting effects in some Nomics... especially 
ones like MacroNomic that have, or rather had, victory conditions based 
on the accumulation of a scalar quantity, but not a score-based 
quantity... (theirs was by 'Loyalty' to the ruling party).

Better to have each Nomic define its own exchange rate, in terms of 
what that Nomic has.

> C.5.1.3. Use This Section
> In order for a Nomic to have Ambassadors to other Nomics, that Nomic 
> must have a rule or section of a rule which is functionally identical 
> and which does not conflict in any way with Rule 625.C.5.1 and its 
> subsections in the ruleset of B Nomic. Identical phrasing is advised, 
> if possible. (The rule in question can be found at 
> http://www.nomic.net/~g6/bykeyword.php?k=Minister .)

Wouldn't that be a copyright violation? And what stops them from having 
ambassadors if they don't have this section? Seems to me that it's just 
the section they don't have.

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