On Wed, 2019-05-22 at 01:54 +0000, James Cook wrote:
> Basic question about switches: if it weren't for R2125 (regulated
> actions), would I just be able to flip by announcement any switch
> that isn't secured or otherwise explicitly protected by the rules?
> I'm guessing no, since there's no reason to expect that just saying
> something makes it true, but I'm not confident I understand this
> properly.
Right, this is what's known as the "ISIDTID" fallacy ("I say I do,
therefore I do"). In general you can't do something without a mechanism
to do so; when you send emails to the Agoran mailing lists, you're just
sending emails to the Agoran mailing lists, and those don't have any
effect unless the rules say they do.
This is why "by announcement" shows up so often in the rules; it's what
causes the emails you send to actually have an effect (by implementing
the same change you suggest in the email). Sometimes we define other
mechanisms (e.g. "by private communication to the Astronomor"), in
which case the "send to a-b/a-o/backup" method of doing things wouldn't
work. If no mechanism is defined, then Agoran legal fictions generally
can't be changed at all.
I guess "things don't change unless something changes them" is a
principle that isn't actually written explicitly into the rules, which
goes somewhat against the Nomic spirit of "everything is stated by the
rules, thus it can be modified by changing the rules". Rule 1586 might
be a good place for it.
--
ais523
