status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#4032 (This document is informational only and contains no game actions).
=============================== CFJ 4032 =============================== There are some persons right now who have more than 0 Rice. ========================================================================== Caller: Yachay Judge: ais523 Judgement: TRUE ========================================================================== History: Called by Yachay: 25 May 2023 19:17:23 Assigned to 4st: 25 May 2023 23:36:45 Judged TRUE by 4st: 27 May 2023 17:40:02 Motion to reconsider group-filed: 28 May 2023 03:15:50 4st recused: 08 Jun 2023 22:59:57 Assigned to ais523: 13 Jun 2023 18:42:28 Judged TRUE by ais523: 16 Jun 2023 23:56:48 ========================================================================== Caller's Arguments: [none provided so far] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gratuitous Arguments by G. This CFJ was called on 25-May-23, when only one Rice Harvest had occurred, and Rule 2682/0 was in effect. The report in question is here: https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-official/2023-May/017077.html No factual errors have been noted in this report, in terms of who sent messages attempting to either make Rice Plans or to sign rice plans either via direct consent or contract. The question is wholly interpretive, in that all signatures allegedly applied to the Rice Plans were governed by this clause of R2682/0: > A Rice > Plan has an active player's Signature as long as that player is > consenting to it. This clause is written passively, without our general standards like "CAN sign by announcement" etc. And R2519/2 covers consent for "actions" not continuous states so it's unclear how that applies. Basically, if signing Rice Plans works as generally intended by the rule's author, then this CFJ is true, with the persons with more than 0 rice indicated in that report. Judge 4st initially judged this CFJ and eir original judgement is included below, but a Motion to Reconsider was filed for that judgement, and 4st was later recused. The players supporting the motion to reconsider generally gave the reason that Judge 4st's arguments called "having a signature on a plan" a kind of "continuous action" that players were "continually agreeing to" which didn't generally match Agoran conceptions of actions as instantaneous events (sorry if this is a very coarse summary of the objections). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rule 2682/0 (Power=1) The Rice Game The Ricemastor is an office, in charge of tracking Rice, Rice Plans and Signatures. Rice is a fixed asset, ownable only by players. Any active player can create a Rice Plan by announcement, if e hasn't done so yet in the current week. Rice Plans can have Signatures, and each Signature must be of an active player. A Rice Plan has an active player's Signature as long as that player is consenting to it. An active player can destroy a Rice Plan that e has created by announcement. A Harvest occurs at the beginning of each week. When this occurs: - If there is only one Rice Plan with the most Signatures, that Rice Plan is Harvested. - If there is more than one Rice Plan with the most Signatures, the one that was created earliest is Harvested. - In all other cases, nothing happens. And then all Rice Plans are destroyed and the Harvest ends. Rice Plans consist of two lists of players, with each list having no repeated players, and the lists can be empty. One of these lists is its Rice Up list, and the other is its Rice Down list. When a Rice Plan is Harvested, for each player listed in its Rice Up list, if that player is active, e gains 1 Rice; and for each player listed in its Rice Down list, if e has at least 1 Rice then e lose 1 Rice. If after a Harvest there is a single active player with at least 2 Rice and more Rice than any other player, then that player wins the game, and all Rice is destroyed. When the game has been won in this manner three times, this rule repeals itself. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Judge 4st's Arguments: Evidence: Rule 2682/0 (Power=1) The Rice Game The Ricemastor is an office, in charge of tracking Rice, Rice Plans and Signatures. Rice is a fixed asset, ownable only by players. Any active player can create a Rice Plan by announcement, if e hasn't done so yet in the current week. Rice Plans can have Signatures, and each Signature must be of an active player. A Rice Plan has an active player's Signature as long as that player is consenting to it. An active player can destroy a Rice Plan that e has created by announcement. A Harvest occurs at the beginning of each week. When this occurs: - If there is only one Rice Plan with the most Signatures, that Rice Plan is Harvested. - If there is more than one Rice Plan with the most Signatures, the one that was created earliest is Harvested. - In all other cases, nothing happens. And then all Rice Plans are destroyed and the Harvest ends. Rice Plans consist of two lists of players, with each list having no repeated players, and the lists can be empty. One of these lists is its Rice Up list, and the other is its Rice Down list. When a Rice Plan is Harvested, for each player listed in its Rice Up list, if that player is active, e gains 1 Rice; and for each player listed in its Rice Down list, if e has at least 1 Rice then e lose 1 Rice. If after a Harvest there is a single active player with at least 2 Rice and more Rice than any other player, then that player wins the game, and all Rice is destroyed. When the game has been won in this manner three times, this rule repeals itself. Rule 2519/2 (Power=3) Consent A person is deemed to have consented to an action if and only if, at the time the action took place: 1. e, acting as emself, has publicly stated that e agrees to the action and not subsequently publicly withdrawn eir statement; 2. e is party to a contract whose body explicitly and unambiguously indicates eir consent; 3. the action is taken as part of a promise which e created; or 4. it is reasonably clear from context that e wanted the action to take place or assented to it taking place. Rule 2125/13 (Power=3) Regulated Actions An action is regulated if: (1) the Rules limit, allow, enable, or permit its performance; (2) the Rules describe the circumstances under which the action would succeed or fail; or (3) the action would, as part of its effect, modify information for which some player is required to be a recordkeepor. A Regulated Action CAN only be performed as described by the Rules, and only using the methods explicitly specified in the Rules for performing the given action. The Rules SHALL NOT be interpreted so as to proscribe unregulated actions. This judgement was called due to this sentence: "A Rice Plan has an active player's Signature as long as that player is consenting to it." Specifically: whether that sentence allows players to consent to rice plans. So firstly, let's go over "consent". Consent, in natural language and in Agora, is undefined when applied to things that are not actions. In natural language, we don't consent to contracts: we consent to things the contract will do. We don't consent to sex, we consent to the act of sex, and specifically, we consent to particular actions of it. So, just to be perfectly and absolutely clear and unambiguous: consenting to non-actions is undefined and unreasonable to assume, firstly based on Agoran lack of definition, and secondly based on natural language lack of definition. So: this sentence is written poorly based on current Agoran culture and tradition. There are three primary ways to read this sentence atomically. The first is that the "it" in the sentence refers to "that rice plan". A rice plan is not an action. Thus, it makes no sense to be consenting to a non-action, and this is unreasonable to assume. The second is that the "it" in the sentence refers to "that rice plan has that player's Signature." However, this is a state of something: how can we consent to a state of affairs? However, similar to previous examples, we DON'T consent to states of affairs: we don't consent to whether sex happened, but rather, whether it is going to happen, and we don't consent to contracts, but rather what the contract will do. Thus, we reach that third interpretation: we are consenting to that rice plan obtaining or not obtaining your signature. You consent to the change, the action that occurs, or you reaffirm consent that inaction is acceptable: that no change is acceptable. (It is not strictly necessary to reaffirm consent to Inaction, but you can say no or yes to something many times if you'd like to get your point across. Note that inaction can be interpreted as an action in of itself. EG this is how tardiness works: we don't apply the blots to Time, we apply the blots to the player.) Since players are consenting to actions, I should clarify: what does it mean to say "I consent to this rice plan."? This is shorthand for the action: much like "I consent to this contract" and "I consent to sex". Again, it is unreasonable to assume consent to a non-action. Now: with regard to "is consenting to it". This is the final nail we should hammer down. What does it mean to be consenting to something? In R2519, consent is treated like an action in clauses 1 through 3. However, in clause 4, we see some of the natural language definitions appear. This makes consent work in most reasonable situations if it could otherwise not work. However, most of the consent presented for rice plans currently falls under clause 1: we publicly agree to rice plans. If there's any concern about whether we have consented to rice plans, then we can also apply clause 4: it has been reasonably clear that we assented to said rice plans. The full process goes like this for consenting to rice plans, and the signatures being applied: 1. A player consents to a rice plan. 2. The signature is added to the rice plan, as the player consented to this step in 1. 3. That player does nothing with regard to that rice plan. 4. The player is already consenting to that rice plan having that signature (under clause 4 of R2519), so the signature is not removed. If for some reason, the signature was removed, then the signature would be added back to the rice plan, as the player has already indicated reasonably and clearly that e would like that to occur (again, clause 4 of R2519). 5. That player consents to that rice plan (again). 6. If for some reason, the signature was removed, then the signature is added to the rice plan, otherwise, the rice plan already has the signature and no change to consent to occurs, and this is fine. The player has now indicated reasonably and clearly that e'd like the signature to be added, a second time, and this violates no rules. (similar steps occur for withdrawal of consent.) Finally, to close this case: in general, as a point of law, clear public attempts to consent work. The Ricemaster Report is reasonable evidence for who tried to consent, and since I'm [for independent logical reasons] judging that clear attempts work, we can assume the ones in the report worked. THUS, I judge the CFJ to be true. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judge ais523's Arguments: The main question at issue in this CFJ is how to interpret "A Rice Plan has an active player's Signature as long as that player is consenting to it". The first thing to note is that the use of "as long as" means that this is clearly a continuously evaluated condition; there's no wiggle room or ambiguity in that wording, and no need to apply rule 217 tests. In other words, this part of the rule is creating a definition: in rule text that rule 2682 is sufficiently powerful to define the meaning of, "a Rice Plan has X's signature" is a synonym for "X is consenting to {the Rice Plan / the Rice Plan being signed}". There is some doubt about whether the thing being consented to is the Rice Plan itself, or the status of the Rice Plan being signed, which will be covered later in this CFJ judgement. In Agora, consent is normally given in terms of consenting to an action. However, the concept of consent is a concept that's meaningful for states rather than actions. (A real-world example is that you can "consent to have your data stored by [a particular company]"; the initial storing of the data is action-like, but what makes this a state is that (in some jurisdications) if you withdraw your consent, the company then has to delete the data, and thus consent is continuously required for the data to be stored.) The plain language of the rule is that in the context of Rice Plans, consent is being evaluated as a state rather than as an action, so it's necessary to interpret what it means at Agora to consent to a state. Rule 2519 gives a definition of "consent" as it applies to actions. This definition does not directly apply to consenting to a state, meaning that the rule 217 tests apply (the text is "silent", in the language of rule 217). It seems clear that the relevant definition should either be a) the natural-language definition of "consent" or b) the rule 2519 definition adapted to apply to states rather than actions. These possible definitions are hardly in conflict, in this case: the rule 2519 definition is pretty close to a natural-language definition of consent as it is: > A person is deemed to have consented to an action if and only if, > at the time the action took place: > > 1. e, acting as emself, has publicly stated that e agrees to the > action and not subsequently publicly withdrawn eir statement; This definition can be applied equally well to actions and to states, and is compatible with the natural-language definition in the case where the player is telling the truth in their speech actions. Rule 217 strongly comes down on the side of "assume that a player's granting / withdrawal of consent via public statement is truthful": we need to have some sort of concrete evidence of consent / its withdrawal in order to make the game playable (speaking to "the best interests of the game" and "common sense" factors), and it is already against the rules to lie in a public message, with game custom being that public messages are the standard way to inform players about a fact and have the game take notice (thus the "under penalty of No Faking" that is sometimes seen when a fact that wasn't previously relevant to the game is needed to, e.g., resolve a CFJ). Thus, the rule 217 tests conclude that we should probably apply this one to states in addition to actions. > 2. e is party to a contract whose body explicitly and > unambiguously indicates eir consent; This one is a little trickier: it expresses the principle that the binding nature of contracts takes precedence over attempts to withdraw consent, something that isn't obvious from the natural-language meaning. As such, there's some scope for interpretation available as to whether this overriding happens *in general* or whether it happens *specifically for actions rather than states*. However, the two possibilities are not at odds with each other in the case of a contract that can be freely amended (e.g. a contract, as opposed to a pledge, that has only one party); such contracts effectively serve as a record of consent that can be revoked at any time. It is not necessary to judge this CFJ to worry about what would happen if a player were bound, by unamendable contract e could not escape from, to consent to a Rice Plan that e did not want to consent to; that would only be relevant if an attempt of that form affected whether a rice-yielding or non-rice-yielding Rice Plan were harvested, a situation which doesn't seem to have occurred here. The normal case, in which a contract serves as a record of consent, clearly works under both the rules-based and natural definitions. > 3. the action is taken as part of a promise which e created; or This one isn't relevant in the case of Rice: the Harvest occurs automatically/platonically, and Promise cashing happens instantaneously, so there's no way that a promise could be performing an action at the time of the Harvest. > 4. it is reasonably clear from context that e wanted the action to > take place or assented to it taking place. This one is basically stating that consent from the natural-language point of view can be treated as consent from the Agoran point of view, if there's evidence of it. The reasoning here is analogous to that from definition 1. As such, the vast majority of the potential ambiguity turns out to be inconsequential; common sense and the best interests of the game dictate that we should have some clear way to determine whether players are consenting to a Rice Plan or not, such a method should logically be the natural-language definition of "consent" modified to be based purely on evidence that's observable to Agora, and that is pretty much what the rule 2519 definition is. Even if rule 2519 didn't exist, the resulting definition of "consent" for Agoran purposes would be pretty much what rule 2519 says anyway, and thus when checking consent to a Rice Plan, we effectively let those definitions guide us. (The only potential ambiguity is as to what happens if a player attempts to withdraw consent when a contract is forcing em to consent, but that situation is not at issue in this CFJ.) Does it matter whether a player consents to a Rice Plan, to the harvesting of the Rice Plan, or to the signature of the Rice Plan? The preceding discussion implies that it doesn't, because both the natural- language definition and rule 2519 item 4 imply that what is important is making it clear from context that the consent exists, rather than using the exact correct sequence of words; there's only one context in which Rice Plan consent is relevant, and thus making it clear that you're trying to consent to that Rice Plan being selected for the Harvest is all that's required for the rules to consider the consent to exist. Based on this reasoning, snail's Rice Plan was the plan harvested on 22 May 2023 (the only occasion on which a Rice Plan could be harvested prior to the calling of this CFJ). It had at least three players consent to it (the below-quoted messages each apply to the plan in question): On Thu, 2023-05-18 at 23:51 -0500, secretsnail9 via agora-business wrote: > I create the following contract: > { > Parties to this contract consent to all Rice Plans with snail in the > Rice Up list. > } On Fri, 2023-05-19 at 09:23 +0200, Yachay Wayllukuq via agora-business wrote: > I consent to that Rice Plan having my Signature. On Fri, 2023-05-19 at 13:19 -0400, Beokirby via agora-business wrote: > I create and become party to the following contract: > { > Parties to this contract consent to be signatories to all Rice Plans > with beokirby in the Rice Up list > } There was only one other Rice Plan that could have received three or more Signatures, juan's. That plan was unambiguously signed by juan, Janet, and me. There was one potentially ambiguous signature, by 4st; however, that ambiguity applies equally to both juan's plan and snail's plan (4st either signed both, or neither). As such, it is unambiguous that snail's plan had at least as many signatures as every other Rice Plan, at the time of the relevant Harvesting; and it was submitted earlier than juan's, thus would beat it on a tiebreak. Because snail's plan caused at least one player to gain Rice when harvested, there were indeed persons who (at the time CFJ 4032 was called) had more than 0 Rice. I judge CFJ 4032 TRUE. ==========================================================================