On Thu, Feb 20, 2020 at 7:20 PM Jason Cobb via agora-discussion < agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote:
> On 2/20/20 9:48 PM, Kerim Aydin via agora-discussion wrote: > > So if the 2017 definition of "contract" clearly did NOT include the > Rules, > > then (when the rules changed in 2018) there had to be a "moment of > > becoming a contract" for the rules, presumably when the 2018 proposal was > > adopted. However, making something a contract requires someone's > explicit > > consent - how was the consent given? You could say something like "well, > > by the voting" but that doesn't sound like explicit consent to create a > > contract to me. > > > > I would say that each consented to being bound by the rules of Agora > when they became a player (assuming nobody became a player under > coercion, or anything like that, which seems really unlikely), and, > since they were still a player, had not actively revoked eir consent, so > they arguably continued to consent to each incarnation of the rules > afterwards. > > Additionally, the rules never say you have to consent to the agreement > itself being a contract, so long as you consented to the agreement itself. > Agreed on all of those points. > > Also fun: the first clause of the 2018 proposal (8054) was: "Destroy all > > contracts". > > > > -G. > > Ouch. So, does that cause the destruction of the rest of the contracts > to fail, or just Agora? Agora definitely wasn't a contract at the time, so no harm done. But, if Agora had been a contract, then yes, the clause would have failed completely. The reason is that it said "destroy all contracts", rather than "destroy each contract". I believe we've held that actions referring to all members of a group are atomic, whereas the "each" language makes each one a separate action that can fail independently. Incidentally, the language for the transitional period ending *does* say "each" instead of "all", so I'd hope it just works fine and doesn't apply to Agora. The reason I'm not 100% sure is that after the each clause it says that "and then" the rule amends itself by deleting the paragraph. I'm not sure what impact part of the "each" section feeling has on the "and then". Normally, when you say "I do X and then Y", if "X" fails, so does "Y". I think the most sensible reading in this case is that the "each" section succeeds and then the rule proceeds even in the event of a partial failure of the "each" section. I'm not convinced a judge will agree with me on that though. -Aris
