status: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/#3899
(This document is informational only and contains no game actions).
=============================== CFJ 3899 ===============================
No emergency regulations are in place.
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Caller: Gaelan
Barred: G. (filed with Referee)
Judge: Falsifian
Judgement: TRUE
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History:
Called by Gaelan: 07 Feb 2021 15:32:46
Assigned to Falsifian: 10 Feb 2021 15:15:03
Motion to extend filed: 16 Feb 2021 04:45:41
Judged TRUE by Falsifian: 23 Feb 2021 18:47:12
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Caller's Evidence:
Rule 2614/6 (Power=3.1)
Eclipse Light
[...]
The Prime Minister CAN, in an emergency message and with 3 Agoran
consent, enact, amend, or repeal Emergency Regulations, provided
that the intent to do so was also contained in an emergency
message. [...]
Rule 1006/44 (Power=2)
Offices
An Office is a position described as an Office by the Rules.
Officeholder is an office switch tracked by the ADoP, with
possible values of any person or "vacant" (default). [...]
Rule 2518/0 (Power=3)
Determinacy
If a value CANNOT be reasonably determined (without circularity or
paradox) from information reasonably available, or if it
alternates indefinitely between values, then the value is
considered to be indeterminate, otherwise it is determinate.
Rule 2162/13 (Power=3)
Switches
[...] If a type of switch is not explicitly designated as
possibly-indeterminate by the rule that defines it, and if an
action or set of actions would cause the value of an instance of
that type of switch to become indeterminate, that instance instead
takes on its last determinate and possible value, if any,
otherwise it takes on its default value. [...]
Regulation ER4/0
The Second Regulation of G.ravity
The LAWS OF G.RAVITY is a document that:
1. is labelled LAWS OF G.RAVITY;
2. has the following SHA-256 hash:
d47fb31e9c0c29fa1295371e0938335ae1f917306d59cd593a42f44d4ce39c5e
and 3. has had its SHA-256 hash calculated by G. on or before
02-Feb-2021.
G. CAN, by announcement, cause this regulation to perform any
action that emergency regulations CAN perform as per Rule 2614,
except for any action explicitly described as IMPOSSIBLE by the
LAWS of G.RAVITY.
Caller's Arguments:
Rule 2614/5 allows the Prime Minster to repeal emergency regulations with
3 Agoran Consent, provided that both the intent and the final action were
sent in an emergency message. ATMunn declared the intent to repeal G's
regulations four days ago in an emergency message. Jason supported, and
nobody objected. Today, in another emergency message, e did so. The only
question that remains is whether ATMunn was Prime Minister.
G. attempted to prevent this by using emergency regulation ER4 to remove
ATMunn from the office of Prime Minister. ER4 allows G. to cause the
regulation to perform any action it is permitted to preform, provided that
eir doing so is not prohibited by a document known as the LAWS of G.RAVITY.
This document has not been made public.
Officeholder is a switch, and therefore subject to Rule 2162's determinacy
protections. To determine the value of Officeholder after G's message
purporting to flip it with ER4, one would need to know whether it is
prohibited by the LAWS of G.RAVITY. Because that document is not public, the
value of this switch "CANNOT be reasonably determined... from information
reasonably available". Therefore, G.'s message would have caused
Officeholder to become indeterminate. 2162's protection kicks in, and the
switch "takes on its last determinate and possible value", ATMunn.
Therefore, ATMunn is the Prime Minister, and the emergency regulations were
successfully repealed.
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Judge Falsifian's Arguments:
I judge CFJ 3899 TRUE. This judgement is based on the below reasoning,
which is in turn based on the Caller's arguments.
# Timeline
Here are some events relevant to the case.
2021-02-02 22:27:
G. enacts two Emergency Regulations, called the First and Second
Regulation of G.ravity. The caller's evidence includes the text of
the second one.
2021-02-03 15:16
ATMunn announces intent to repeal all Emergency Regulations:
> I intend, with 3 Agoran Consent, to repeal all existing Emergency
> Regulations.
2021-02-03 15:22
G. purports to remove ATMunn from the office of Prime Minister, and
then to appoint emself in eir place. The key parts of eir message:
> I cause Second Regulation of G.ravity to remove the current Prime
> Minister from Office.
> I cause Second Regulation of G.ravity to appoint myself to the
> office of Prime Minister.
2021-02-04 13:23
Cuddlebeam creates a contract called "LAWS OF G.RAVITY" with the
following text. The text includes the SHA-256 hash from the Second
Regulation of G.ravity.
> Cuddlebeam is the sole member of this contract
>
> These are some cool numbers and letters:
> d47fb31e9c0c29fa1295371e0938335ae1f917306d59cd593a42f44d4ce39c5e
> For G., all actions are IMPOSSIBLE.
2021-02-07 15:23
ATMunn purports to repeal all Emergency Regulations with the
following emergency message:
> On 2/3/2021 10:16 AM, ATMunn wrote:
>> I intend, with 3 Agoran Consent, to repeal all existing Emergency
>> Regulations.
>
> Having received support from Jason and no objections, I do so.
2021-02-07 15:31
Gaelan calls this CFJ.
# The (non-Cuddlebeam) LAWS OF G.RAVITY were not reasonably available
Let us set aside for the moment the possibility that Cuddlebeam's
contract was in fact the LAWS OF G.RAVITY.
Rule 2518/0 "Determinacy" does not elaborate on the meaning of
"reasonably available". I find that for information to be "reasonably
available" in the context of a game, players of the game must be able
to access that information with no more effort than is typically
required to play that game.
Most of the information required to play Agora is published, or can be
determined from published information. If a player wants to determine
an entity's Coin balance, e can typically find the latest published
Treasuror's report that has self-ratified, and then look for actions
that might have changed it, which must also be published. It may take
some effort for em to work out the effects of the rules and work out
the final balance, but this effort is typical of the game of Agora. The
LAWS OF G.RAVITY were not published (unless they were years ago, which
seems unlikely), so they do not meet this standard.
Is publication the only way to make information publicly available? In
theory, other situations are possible. I will consider two hypothetical
examples.
a) A player publishes a hash, and promises a reward to the first player
to find the text with that hash.
In this case, the text would be relevant to the game. But that does
not mean it is needed to play the game. A Chess player can play
Chess without knowing which moves are winning moves. The hidden text
would not be "reasonably available" in this context.
b) A while ago, someone proposed a Flappy Bird tournament, where the
gameplay would not be visible through any public fora. Had this
tournament been initiated, the Flappy Bird gameplay would have been
relevant to Agorans eager to participate in the tournament, but it
would not be published.
In this case, though, it would have been clear to any Agoran where
to find the relevant information. By contrast, G. did not make it
clear where to find the LAWS OF G.RAVITY. Perhaps e would have
divulged them on request (Murphy asked, and we do not know whether
G. responded privately). But e did not say that was the case, and
based on the context, a reasonable player would have guessed that G.
was keeping the document secret. Asking G. would have been a shot in
the dark, not a reasonable method of access.
Even if G. had claimed the information was available on request, it
is not clear it would have met the standard, but we do not need to
rule on that possibility here.
Based on these examples, I conclude that the LAWS OF G.RAVITY (assuming
they were not Cuddlebeam's contract) was not "information reasonably
available" under Rule 2518, because it was not published and it was not
clear how to access it.
# G.'s message did not change the value of the Prime Minister switch
On February 3 at 15:22, G. attempted to cause the Second Regulation of
G.ravity to change the value of the Prime Minister instance of the
Officeholder switch.
It is not disputed that the Second Regulation of G.ravity CAN (or
rather, COULD) appoint or remove a Prime Minister (R2614/6 "Eclipse
Light"). However, the regulation would only have done so if the LAWS OF
G.RAVITY do not describe the actions as IMPOSSIBLE.
To determine whether the LAWS OF G.RAVITY forbade the action, I will
consider two possibilities: either the contract Cuddlebeam published is
not the LAWS of G.RAVITY, or it is.
If Cuddlebeam did not publish the LAWS OF G.RAVITY, then the text of
the LAWS OF G.RAVITY was not reasonably available information, as
explained in the previous section. Therefore, each of G.'s two actions
caused the value of the Prime Minister switch to be in an indeterminate
state (unless, somehow, the switch was already at the target value) and
so, as the caller argues, the value of the switch reverted to its
action before the action was taken.
If Cuddlebeam did indeed publish the LAWS OF G.RAVITY, then either
there is more than one such document, or Cuddlebeam's is the only one.
Perhaps it could be argued that the number of such documents is
indeterminate, or that I should consider Cuddlebeam's to be the only
one. In either case, the result is the same: the final value of the
Prime Minister switch after G.'s attempted actions is the same as the
initial value.
In either case, G.'s message did not change the value of the switch.
# ATMunn is Prime Minister
Our H. ADoP Murphy published weekly reports on January 31 and February
6 listing ATMunn as Prime Minister. Both have self-ratified by now, and
the first had self-ratified by the time this CFJ was called.
Having ruled out G.'s message, I am not aware of any message that
could have changed the value of the Officeholder switch for Prime
Minister between Murphy's January 31 report and ATMunn's attempt to
repeal all Emergency Regulations.
Therefore, I find that ATMunn was Prime Minister when e made eir
attempt.
# No emergency regulations are in place
ATMunn announced intent to repeal all Emergency Regulations with 3
Agoran Consent. Jason supported. As far as I am aware, Jason did not
withdraw support nor did anyone object. Four days and seven minutes
later, ATMunn acted on eir intent in an emergency message (with
"[Emergency]" in the subject line). As Prime Minister, e was authorized
to do so under Rule 2614 "Eclipse Light". Therefore, all Emergency
regulations were repealed.
I see no evidence that any other emergency regulations were enacted
after that. Therefore, no emergency regulations were in place when the
CFJ was called.
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