Re: [s-d] [s-b] Consultation: Retroactivity

["Jamie Dallaire" <bad.leprechaun@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 6:51 AM, Geoffrey Spear <wooble@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> I submit the following Consultation:
> {{
> Does an otherwise legal action that purports to "retroactively
> simulate" something have any effect on the gamestate?
> }}
>
> Reasoning:
>
> Rule 4E26 prohibits any retroactive effects.  It allows retroactivity
> to be simulated, but it does not allow simulation to be done
> retroactively. The intent of the simulation clause of Rule 4E26
> clearly requires that actual actions be specified, and make sit
> possible that those actions change the gamestate in ways that appear
> to be retroactive though they occur either instantaneously in the
> present or at some time in the future, not in the past.  It is clearly
> *not* intended that the sort of "X is hereby retroactively simulated"
> handwaving that has plagued B Nomic far too often recently can
> magically fix the gamestate.


I answer the above Consultation FALSE.

Reasoning: I defer to the Supplicant's Reasoning in most respects. Indeed,
retroactive simulation is not only impossible as per Rule 4E26, but it is
also quite futile. If we were to permit changes to gamestate to occur
retroactively, why would we need to retroactively "simulate" them rather
than simply retroactively "execute" them? That said, I do think that is can
be necessary to do a little bit of handwaving once in a while, in order to
fix horribly broken gamestate. Had the Supplicant's recent point about
Emergencies not having been properly conducted for over a year been valid,
for instance, it would have been in B Nomic's best interest to do just that
sort of handwaving.

Oracularity: [[This is another one of those cases, in which it may be best
to pretend that what we've generally agreed worked (with respect to
retroactive simultion in Proposals, Oracularities, Refresh Proposals, maybe
even Tweaks) in the past actually did work. Otherwise, I have no idea what
the current gamestate is... That said, it may or may not be a problem
(though I don't want to try and find out) because of the 7-day rolling
ratification window that we've got going. Let's hear it for ruling from the
bench!]] Set the gamestate to what it would be if all past instances of
"retroactive simulation" of, or of "retroactively simulating", changes to
gamestate, when they were generally accepted as valid at the time they were
enacted, had actually been instantaneous simulations of retroactive changes
(and therefore actually valid).

Billy Pilgrim
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