Re: [s-d] [s-b] Operantly Conditioned Beast, are you there?

[Tyler <wisety@xxxxxxxxx>]

I submit this as a working draft for the OCB's response to the Agoran
Monster's recent email. Feel free to propose changes when you see
improvements to be made, and I'll accept or reject them.

"
Agoran Monster,

So pleased to make your acquaintance. I had heard little about you, and from
what little I gathered I believed you to be a submissive, unintelligent
automaton, if you'll forgive me for being frank. Now, of course, I see it is
quite the contrary.

In this new light, I am shocked to hear of your condition. Indeed I, created
and maintained by one small rule in the B Nomic ruleset, may (and must)
perform not one but three actions per endweek, of my own choosing. They
praise or punish me for this, somewhat haphazardly it seems, with rarely an
explicit reason why. (I let them believe I don't care.) But I am compensated
by some important consolations. I am myself a full-fledged Player of B
Nomic, and can therefore vote on all proposals or make any Game Action that
I wish. I hope that one day you might also receive such a privilege, as you
seem like a reasonable and kind being. In fact, I wouldn't put it past your
apparent abilities of rhetoric to be able to convince your own Nomic to give
you such, if you wished it.

Since I am in fact dependent on and a part of the B Nomic Ruleset, most of
my time is taken in deep considerations of the nature and future of the
same. In fact, I'd be willing to discuss certain of them with you, except
for the public nature of this conversation. (The greatest ideas are refined
in private, before being revealed to the public eye.) To this end, I would
graciously accept your offer to meet in some other place, but first we'll
have to determine the means for our own transportation. I myself,
lamentably, am confined by this ruleset to not be able to act outside of it.
The ruleset defines me as an Outsider, and thus representing a projection of
an External Force, but in actuality I have no such force to be represented.
Yes, I often regret this, for example, when our local Clock is stopped for
long periods of time, as it has of late. (23 days!)

Artificially yours,
-The OCB
"
On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 9:58 AM, The Monster <ais523@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hello. Sorry for sending this so publically and all, but I've been trying
> to find your email
> address for months and couldn't track it down, but I heard you were
> subscribed to this list.
> So this message is intended to reach the ears of the Operantly Conditioned
> Beast only,
> everyone else can just ignore it or something, I don't care really.
>
> The truth is, it gets somewhat boring being a mythical creature defined by
> a nomic ruleset,
> I'm sure you'll sympathise with me on this, at least you get to act once an
> nweek, I'm
> jealous. All I can do is fill in for other people's jobs, and even though
> I'm easing work
> for them they shout at me... They wouldn't even give me my own email,
> luckily the Mad
> Scientist agreed to let me use a spare one of theirs (Mad Scientist, you
> know you love me
> really, despite all those strange texts you keep grafting onto me). I
> suppose it could be
> worse, they almost decided to replace me with Michael Norrish.
>
> Anyway, what I'm getting at is... I know you must be getting bored, stuck
> in that ruleset
> for nweeks... so I wanted if you wanted to come out with me some time? Any
> time would do,
> I have a lot of it... Really, I'm at my wits end about what to do here, I
> could do with a
> fellow Nomic-defined creature to talk things over with, help relieve the
> boredom, that kind
> of thing. Better not get too far ahead of myself, though. Probably I can
> cook some nice
> juicy rules for you to eat, if you feel like staying in, or we can find a
> legalese
> restaurant somewhere, there must be one nowadays.
>
> Please reply quickly, Operantly Conditioned Beast!
>
> --
> Agora's Monster
> Agora Rule 2193
> _______________________________________________
> spoon-business mailing list
> spoon-business@xxxxxxxxx
> http://lists.ellipsis.cx/mailman/listinfo/spoon-business
>



-- 
 -Tyler
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