Re: [s-d] [s-b] Consultation: declarations of invalidity

["Geoffrey Spear" <geoffspear@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Dec 7, 2007 1:26 PM, Ed Murphy <emurphy42@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> BobTHJ wrote:
>
> > In my estimation, every action needs to be valid until it is declared
> > invalid, at which point the gamestate is retroactively changed to
> > reflect that invalidity. Note that this is the way we have handled
> > things all along. My refresh proposal was designed to limit this
> > retroactive calculation to a maximum of one day.
>
> This is still assuming that declaring an action invalid /makes/ it
> invalid.  I don't think we've reached consensus on that yet.
>
> This seems a good time to review the paradigms of Platonism (the
> gamestate has objective existence separate from our records) vs.
> Pragmatism (i.e. it doesn't).  Under Platonism, if an error is
> discovered, then records are adjusted to match what the gamestate
> really was all along.  The related concepts of Plato-Pragmatism (i.e.
> moving away from automatic events and toward announcement-based
> events), ratification (i.e. changing the gamestate to match records),
> and equity (i.e. "this mistake can't practically be reversed, what do
> we consider fair after-the-fact compensation?") all act to get
> Pragmatic effects out of a Platonic interpretation.
>
> In either case, your one-day challenge can be interpreted in a few
> different ways:
>
>    1) After the challenge time limit expires, the action retroactively
>       becomes valid.
>
>    2) After the challenge time limit expires, the gamestate becomes what
>       it would have been if the action had been valid.
>
>    3) Upon a challenge, the action retroactively becomes invalid.  If
>       overturned on consultation, it retroactively becomes valid.
>
>    4) Upon a challenge, the gamestate becomes what it would have been if
>       the action had been invalid.  If overturned on consultation, the
>       gamestate becomes what it would have been if the action had been
>       valid.
>
> 1 and 3 are retroactive, hence explicitly prohibited.  2 and 4 simulate
> retroactivity, hence explicitly allowed.  I favor 2 over 4, both because
> I think it makes more sense, and because it seems to avoid crises.

I'm firmly in the Platonic camp (and I'm likely to support a proposal
creating a totalitarian Republic where Players above, say, level 6 are
the Golden Enlightened Rulers and the Bronze and Silver players are
brainwashed to do whatever we, err they say).

I'm also a believer that a Rule which simulates retroactivity should
do so explicitly, and that it would be a mistake to take a rule
written such that it actually makes retroactive changes and choose to
interpret it as if it was written to simulate retroactivity in some
way we can cleverly devise but failed to do so when the rule was being
drafted in the first place.

It's my intuition that the best solution is periodic ratification of
the various Public Displays.  In the past we've done this through
extraordinary proposals that set the gamestate to be what it would be
if the displays were correct, but it would probably make sense to have
a standard procedure for ratification.  To this end, I intend before
next Ballotday to propose the creation of the Ministry of Time, the
Minister of which (the Doctor) is responsible for ratification of
Public Displays.
-- 
Geoffrey Spear
http://www.geoffreyspear.com/
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