Re: [s-d] Why no mutable/immutable?

[Daniel Lepage <dpl33@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Optional!

I think the answer to your question even predates me. B Nomic's  
predecessor, A Nomic, had no immutable rules. A Nomic's predecessor,  
Berserker Nomic, did have immutable rules. I'm not sure what changed  
between games.

As for why we never added them in B Nomic, I think it has to do with  
the more flexible nature of our proposals compared to those in  
Suber's original ruleset. Suber's proposals each contained a single  
modification to the rules. Ours allow arbitrary changes to the entire  
state of the game.

There are two main differences between Immutable and Mutable rules in  
Suber's ruleset. Firstly, immutable rules require a 2/3 vote to  
change, while Mutable rules only require a majority. Secondly, an  
Immutable rule requires two rule changes, and hence two turns, to  
change, because it has to be transmuted and then modified.

The first isn't an obstacle in our system. I could, for instance,  
make a proposal that created a new proposal, set each player's vote  
on the proposal to FOR, and then resolved the proposal. The new  
proposal would pass unanimously if and only if the original proposal  
passed at all.

The second also isn't an obstacle, because I could put "transmute  
rule X" and "amend rule X" in the same proposal.

In other words, the existence of immutable rules wouldn't affect what  
we could or could not do. It would only make the process of doing  
some things more irritating and harder to follow.


Incidentally, you also referred to the current ruleset as "the  
initial ruleset". This is not, strictly speaking, true. B Nomic has  
been running for almost five years. Recently, however, we had a  
drastic slump in activity, followed by an even more drastic server  
failure that knocked out our website.

As of a few days ago, activity began once again, with a new website  
and a complete reset of the rules. The distinction between this and  
between ending the game and starting anew is quite small.

So welcome to the Third Age of B Nomic!

-- 
Wonko

On Nov 20, 2006, at 4:07 PM, Peter Cooper Jr. wrote:

> Andy Jones wrote:
>> Can I ask why the initial ruleset doesn't contain immutable rules?
>
> You can ask. I'm not sure how great an answer you'll get will be,  
> though. :)
>
>> Was this something you just got fed up with?  Or something you'd
>> rather see come out of the gameplay?  Or what?
>
> I've only been involved with the game for almost a couple of years,  
> so we
> may need to wait for Wonko's opinion, as I think he's the one who's  
> been
> with the game the longest (or at least, been active in the game the  
> most
> since it started).
>
> But generally, while I think that some rules have had clauses that  
> made
> them tougher to remove, they can pretty much always be worked around.
> Anything that can make a rule can probably supercede anything in  
> another
> rule that stops a rule removal attempt. Basically, you can make a rule
> that says something like "All rules can be repealed. This rule  
> supercedes
> our current precedence rule, and all other rules, even if they say  
> this
> one can't do that." Or maybe you'd need to go through the trouble to
> creating an entire new ruleset, and then changing the game to  
> follow that
> ruleset instead of the old one. But adding rules to make changing some
> rules harder just makes it harder to change them, not impossible.
>
> And well, if it's an important rule to keep or not to change, then  
> people
> will just vote no on changing it.
>
> With rule changes via loophole (instead of proposal), it's generally
> polite to just use the loophole to fix the loophole, claim a Win,  
> and let
> gameplay continue. If you just irreparibly broke the game, we'd  
> just need
> to start a new game with the rules as they were just before you  
> broke them
> and then not let you join our new game and spoil our fun. But  
> that'd just
> be annoying.
>
> -- 
> Peter C.
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Daniel Lepage
dpl33@xxxxxxxxxxx



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