status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3887
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).
=============================== CFJ 3887 ===============================
On October 11, 2020, G., nix, and Jason won the game.
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Caller: Falsifian
Judge: Murphy
Judgement: TRUE
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History:
Called by Falsifian: 21 Oct 2020 15:34:49
Assigned to Murphy: 23 Oct 2020 14:58:19
Judged TRUE by Murphy: 25 Oct 2020 18:48:40
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Caller's Arguments:
The basic issue here is that R2449 says "When the Rules state that a
person or persons win the game, those persons win the game", and it's
not clear whether the Rules stated that anyone won the game.
We talked about this a bit in IRC/Discord. Here is a summary of points
brought up by various players. (I'm looking at my log from October 18
UTC; some messages sent from 03:15-03:39 and some sent from
20:15-20:20).
* R2449 says a person wins when the Rules state they win. Does that mean
that's the only way to win?
* Proposals 8094 and 8097 were wins by proposal, more recent than the
current text of R2449.
* Relevant because win by proposal is another case where the rules
don't directly state someone wins.
* These wins don't seem to have been questioned, so at least it seems
Agorans intended it to work / game custom is that it works. But on
the other hand "it was game custom to consider auctions working for
a whole year when they didn't" (maybe referring to the incident
around CFJ 3712).
* "taking effect is a way to do anything" / "if taking effect couldn't
do anything possible at the power level, it couldn't even transfer a
coin at R2125"
* "I don't think taking effect makes the rule the agent though."
* Maybe a win by proposal doesn't do anything since 2449 refers to the
text of the rules. 'I think that argument would be like "they might
win but it doesn't necessarily do anything"'
* G. says when starting the scam e was genuinely curious about whether
winning by proposal was broken. 'It's a nice question of deference,
whether a rule stating generally "an instrument CAN apply the changes
is specifies" means that the rules "state" that someone wins the game
when an instrument does so.'
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Gratuitous Evidence by G.:
https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-business/2020-October/044977.html
On 10/10/2020 5:58 PM, Kerim Aydin via agora-business wrote:
>
> I demonstrate the following rulebending form:
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> G., nix, and Jason hereby each earn a Black Ribbon.
>
> G., nix, and Jason hereby (simultaneously) win the game (method: rulebending).
>
> G. is hereby awarded the patent title Desultory Dictator.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> [Note: above is the long-promised bling for the conspirators. RL has been
> heavy in the last month, but hope to make an effort to clean up/patch the
> dictatorship in the coming week].
>
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Judge Murphy's Arguments:
Rule 2449 (Winning the Game) does say "When the Rules state that a
person or persons win the game, those persons win the game", thus Rule
2125 (Regulated Actions) says that persons only win the game as allowed
by the rules. But Rule 2449 doesn't explicitly require the Rules to
/directly/ state that a win occurs. Game custom is that indirect
statements (e.g. wins by proposal circa early 2019) are effective, and
I consider it in the best interests of the game to uphold that
interpretation (despite the obvious scam nature of the instances cited
in this case).
This is different from e.g. CFJ 3712, where game custom regarding
dependent actions was overturned upon discovering that the text of a
relevant rule (2124, Agoran Satisfaction) was explicitly broken at the
time (inadvertently preventing any form of dependent action other than
With N Notice from being completed). I don't remember whether the
auction issue was that or something else, but I'm pretty sure it was
some similar type of explicit breakage.
Rule 2633 (Rulebending) states that a relevant Rulebending Form "takes
effect as an ephemeral instrument", the same phrase uncontroversially
used by Rule 106 (Adopting Proposals). As no other potential points of
failure were identified, I find that the Form in question successfully
granted these wins. TRUE.
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