Since this is my first judgment, I might have made obvious mistakes
or gone against custom. Please advise, if that's the case. Otherwise,
comments are still welcome.
{
I could be anoying and judge this CFJ “TRUE” just because it is, strictly
speaking, true that you *can* federate with innanimate objects; it's just that
that federation might not be considered a person, or able to become a player.
But I won't be. So, first, I'll establish the interpretation of the statement
I'll use, given the context.
First of all, in the statement, the word “possible” is not capitalized:
> confederation with an inanimate object is possible
so I'll take it to mean the general sense of the word, and not the one defined
in R2152. Even so, the “possibility” here refered to is not the mere
possibility of performing such an action (as that would be a discussion of
general semantics outside of the game, earning the judgment of “IRRELEVANT”),
but rather the possibility of a “person”, as defined by the rules, to include
inanimate objects. So, the interpretation of the statement that I will judge is
the following:
> It is possible for a person to be a confederation including an inanimate
> object.
Despite what we might imagine at first glance, we don't actually need to tackle
the issue of the personhood of any entity. The question is whether it is
possible for a person to be some specific kind of entity. It that kind of
entity is impossible to exist, than we are done.
This is harder to decice, in this case, because the rules are almost silent
about the notion of a “confederation”. It is mentioned en passant, as a given
concept, though the rules do indicate that:
* A confederation is group resulting from people (recursively construed) having
“confederated”.
* Those people performing such action must have done so with the intent of
forming a single person as defined by R869.
Luckily, the plain meaning of the word supports the idea that participants of a
confederation must have become part of it in an intentional way. Other meanings
could be used, if game custom would justify, but it doesn't seem to be so,
particularly in light of the legislative history of the rule (cf. [1]).
It is worth noting that the intention of this rule's drafting was to explicitly
exclude inanimate objects from becoming persons or part of people. While this
was accomplished in the former case via the “able to willingly communicate
original ideas” predicate (as inanimate objects, by definition, cannot act
intentionally at all), in the later case the restriction is more tenuous. As
per the predicate, an inanimate object could be part of a person, because the
fact that a part of a person is not capable of something does not mean the
whole cannot be (my left leg is incapable of expressing original ideas, but I
am not).
That is, the only conclusion I come to is that a person cannot be,
specifically, a “confederation” including an inanimate object – but that is
because there is no such thing. It is conceivable, though not decided here,
that a person could include an inanimate object by other means, as the rules do
not prohibit a group of entities to be a person while not being a
confederation. The question of whether that person could become a player is
another one entirely, as it would touch on the subject of consent. The relevant
questions would be:
1. Whether an inanimate object is capable of consenting to being bound by the
rules (probably not);
3. Whether the rules binding a group-person results in them binding the
individual members of such a person (I don't know); or
2. Whether the object needs to consent. This is not clear-cut, as the rules
only say that “[t]he Rules CANNOT otherwise bind a person to abide by any
agreement without that person's willful consent.”. However, an inanimate object
is not a person, as per the definition in R869 (it cannot act willfully), so
this doesn't apply. That is: a person could include an inanimate object, which
would have its behaviors bound by the rules (somehow), but that is not
prohibited. The salient point is that the rules don't require entities in
general to consent to be part of a group-person.
Therefore, considering:
* that it is not possible for a person to be a kind of entity if that kind is
empty; and
* that a confederation is a group of entities that willingly form such a group
under the definition of R869; and
* that an inanimate object is incapable of acting under will (by definition);
I judge CFJ 4113 FALSE, with the caveat that the question was narrower than the
asker probably intended, and that a larger question would possibly result in
another judgment.
Additionally, I submit for legislative consideration the arguments presented
above about people possibly containing inanimate objects while not
confederated, and the fact that the rules don't explicitly require members of a
person to consent to being members for the purposes of forming a person under
R869.
[1]:
https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-business/2021-January/045695.html
}
--
juan
Judge of the hour
