On 8/18/2022 9:07 AM, juan via agora-discussion wrote: > Kerim Aydin via agora-business [2022-08-18 07:51]: >> I submit the following Proposal: >> Title: "Time B Safe" >> AI: 4 >> co-authors: Jason, Murphy. >> --------------------------------- >> >> Amend Rule 1698 (Agora Is A Nomic) by replacing: >> adopted within a four-week period. >> with: >> adopted within a real-world (UTC) four-week period. >> >> [ >> In discord, a Power-5 Rule was suggested: "Rules to the contrary >> notwithstanding, this rule CANNOT be changed in January or February of >> 2023". >> >> Up until the time a proposal to change this rule could take effect before >> January 2023, Agora would not be ossified. But then you cross a time >> boundary and Agora would become ossified. One *possible* interpretation of >> >>> If any other single change or inseparable group of changes to the >>> gamestate would cause Agora to become ossified, or would cause >>> Agora to cease to exist, it is cancelled and does not occur, rules >>> to the contrary notwithstanding. >> >> is that the "cancelled change" would be time passing! With the conclusion >> that time had (as a legal fiction) stopped, with no way of getting it >> started again. So this proposal puts an extra protection on time by making >> it clear that only "real world" time is relevant. The title a reference B >> nomic, an established nomic some years back that was killed when they >> accidentally stopped time or at least couldn't get it started again. >> ] > > I'm not sure this couldn't be circumvented. First of all, because the > rules don't define the notion of time in any way. The only reasonable > interpretation is that it refers to time-the-physical-concept, whatever > that is. So several issues come about.
So just to be clear, this isn't intended to be a block against a malicious attack. If someone got the ability to pass an AI=3 rule change they could always purposefully get around this. The purpose here to make it painfully clear in the definition that "for these purposes, we're defining real-world time, we can't use R1698 to accidentally infer a kind of "game time" that stops. The *possibility* of accidentally stopping time (that is, for "real time" deviating from "game time" due to a logical argument and rules text) was suggested as a potential unexpected outcome in CFJ 3580, although it was all very hypothetical: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/?3580 Overall, there may be other interpretations of an ossification situation that get us out of any such mess; this proposal is meant to make it just a wee bit harder/less plausible for a judge to make a convincing "time has stopped" argument. > * I can't think of something that could be reasonably called an *action* > that causes the event of “being in january”. In any case, that > transition only happens at a single point in time. It's not "actions" that are blocked by R1698 but "changes": > If any other single change [would ossify the game] > it is cancelled and does not occur And "time changing" is arguably a change. However, it's quite possible that "time ticking forward" is not a change per se but what happens in the absence of change (i.e. in common language we speak of "changing clocks" when we make them deviate from ticking forward, not when they tick forward normally). So maybe I'm worrying about nothing here. > * Time keeps ticking forward. When March would come, all would be > resolved anyway. I don't think that matters for R1698 on January 1 when you're entering the ossification state. If we create the legal fiction that time can't progress into Jan 1 without temporary ossification, we'd never get to March. > * Can one perform actions without time? We don't know, because the rules > don't define it. So we should use our common-sense, which says that > no, you can't. So *that* would ossify Agora and thus not be allowed. > The minimal set of changes would have to be that the rule was never > created in the first place. > > * It is in the best interest of the game to interpret all of this in a > way that makes gameplay still possible. Yes it's quite likely that this is protecting against something that's common sense anyway - but again we've got enough history of legal fictions (like the abovementioned CFJ) that it might be a good precaution anyway? > In the end, my particular arguments don't matter too much. I'm just > saying I think there are enough of them for us to deal with such a rule. >
