Gratuitous:
"Allowed to act on behalf" in R2532 is a specific and intentional reference to
"allows [...] to act on behalf" in Rule 2466:
When a rule allows one person (the agent) to act on behalf of
another (the principal) to perform an action, that agent CAN
perform the action if it is POSSIBLE for the principal to do so,
taking into account any prerequisites for the action.
So in this particular context, "allowed to act on behalf" implies "CAN act on
behalf".
At least that was the direct and specific intent when I wrote it - I intended
illegal actions on behalf of zombies to fail because they weren't "allowed",
therefore blocking the CAN in R2466. Intent doesn't always mean much, and
I can see that the link to R2466 isn't abundantly clear, but that "allows" in
R2466 should definitely be considered in this context.
What's more interesting to me on this case is whether it "would be impossible"
for the zombie to pay. It requires evaluating a future conditional to see if
a current bid is legal. In this case, the strict impossibility (lack of
funds) would have been easily overcome before the end-of-auction if Corona had
given Quazie a Coin before the auction ended. Do we decide the impossibility
based on the immediate condition (Quazie not having a coin during bidding)?
If this were the intent, why not just cancel the bid when it happens and not
at the end of the auction? The Rule clearly allows bidding if you expect to
be able to pay in future (e.g. if you expected the beginning of the month to
happen before the auction ended, to give you salary).
I tend to think "impossible" in this future conditional should apply only to
things clearly impossible that can't be made possible with expected resources
without a rule change - e.g. bidding i, or aleph-null, or more coins than a
player could reasonably expect to accumulate, in an attempt to spike the
auction. If Corona fully intends to give Quazie a Coin, and Corona has a
coin, I don't think you could say it was Impossible (when the bid was made)
for Quazie to pay at the end of the auction.
On Thu, 19 Apr 2018, Aris Merchant wrote:
> I point my finger at Corona for violations of Rule 2532, "Zombies",
> and/or Rule 2466, "Acting on Behalf", committed by causing Quazie to
> violate Rule 2550, "Bidding". I CFJ, barring G., on the statement
> 'Rule 2532, "Zombies", enables zombie owners to act on behalf of their
> zombies.' I CFJ, barring Corona, on the statement 'Corona has
> violated of Rule 2532, "Zombies", and/or Rule 2466, "Acting on
> Behalf", by causing Quazie to violate Rule 2550 "Bidding".'
>
> [For reference, I don't really see how a violation could have been
> committed, but this is all rather unclear and I'd like to see what
> people think."
>
> Arguments:
>
> If Quazie bid in the auction, e committed a violation of Rule 2550,
> "Bidding", and in particular the provision that "A person SHALL NOT
> bid on an Auction if it would be impossible for em to pay that amount
> at the conclusion of the Auction." Quazie did not have any money at
> the time of the bid, and did not get any by the end of the auction. We
> clearly do not hold em culpable for this violation, given that we do
> not in general hold people responsible for violations they could not
> reasonably have avoided, but the violation remains nevertheless.
>
> If Corona successfully caused Quazie to bid, e violated Rule 2466,
> "Acting on Behalf", and specifically the provision that "A person
> SHALL NOT act on behalf of another person if doing so causes the
> second person to violate the rules." What remains in question is
> whether or not Corona's action succeeded. There are three
> possibilities: it succeeded, it failed in this specific case, or it
> never works at all. I believe that it is one of the later two.
>
> The crucial question is one of interpreting Rule 2532, "Zombies".
> which states that "A zombie's master, if another player, is allowed to
> act on behalf of the zombie (i.e. as the zombie's agent) to perform
> LEGAL actions." The phrase "allowed to" is ambiguous, it could mean
> CAN or MAY, although I find it somewhat unlikely that it means both of
> them at once. If it means CAN, then the action failed because the
> action was ILLEGAL, and the affixed conditional resolves to false.
>
> I believe that the phrase probably means MAY. Granted, the Rule 217
> factors suggest that the phrase means CAN, but I don't think that they
> can overturn the presumption to the contrary in this case. I'm not
> saying that "allow' can never mean "enable', but reading "allowed to"
> to mean "able to" doesn't really sound right. For instance, seems
> reasonable for someone to say "I will allow you to open your mind",
> but (to my ears) it sounds ridiculous to say that "you are allowed to
> open your mind". I think the only reason there even appears to be
> ambiguity is because of preconceived notions of what the zombie rule
> means. Reading the text without judgement, the MAY reading is the
> obvious one. Under this reading, there is no provision anywhere that
> says that an owner CAN act on behalf of a zombie, so e can't.
>
> -Aris
>
