(Judge's arguments at the end, after case info)
VJ Rada called the
CFJ
with the
statement:
"The four below actions are each extremely
silly, and none significantly
harm my standing in the game."
-----
Caller's evidence, quoting twg:
I become a party to the contract "Sillyness by contract".
I act on behalf of V.J. Rada to perform the following actions: {
Destroy 1 apple to move V.J. Rada to (0, -1).
Destroy 1 apple to move V.J. Rada to (-1, -1).
Transfer all liquid assets from the mine at (-1, -1) to V.J. Rada.
Transfer 3 stone and 2 ore from V.J. Rada to Trigon.
}
This meets the requirement of being extremely silly because it is only
necessary due to a minor grammatical error on Trigon's part, and it
meets the requirement of not harming V.J. Rada's standing in the game
significantly because eir only loss from these actions is 2 apples
(which ey already have plenty of) and the right to transfer assets from
a preserved facility before next Friday (which ey already have enough
assets not to have much need of).
-----
Caller's arguments:
None of them are remotely silly. Silly in an Agoran context is a
common-law term of art related to Silly proposals. Even if not, no
ordinary meaning of the word silly encompasses these game actions. And
also, even if losing two apples doesn't harm me, losing 3 stone, two
ore and 2 apples does. The actions must all be evaluated seperately,
so even if the first three actions work, the fourth should not.
Anyway, significantly should be interpreted as "not de minimis", and
any asset loss is more than a minimal effect on my standing in the
game.
-----
Judge's evidence (relevant contract):
Title: Sillyness by contract
Text:
This Contract holds Coins.
Anyone may become a party to this Contract, VJ Rada is a party to this
Contract.
Anyone may act on behalf of any party to this Contract to perform any
action that is extremely silly and does not harm the party's standing
in the game significantly.
-----
Judge's arguments:
A
s the caller states, the actions need to be evaluated separately; however,
they can still be silly *because* of the context. To evaluate actions
without taking context into account would be absurd, as the concept of
"silliness" itself has emerged from Agoran history and culture.
If the actions taken by twg are silly as a whole, the individual actions
necessary to perform the silly thing are each equally silly. So, are they,
in fact, silly? No, are they _extremely_ silly as the contract requires?
The caller claims that silliness relates (only) to silly proposals. The
judge, however, opines that silly proposals are not sufficiently embedded
in Agoran culture (they are a thing of the past, and even back then they
had issues with player apathy towards them) to warrant saying that in
common Agoran parlance, the word "silly" has a meaning different from the
usual one.
We've determined that "silly" shall be interpreted as in usual English --
quoting relevant dictionary definition by Google: "having or showing a lack
of common sense or judgement; absurd and foolish; ridiculously trivial or
frivolous."
This presents us with a problem. We cannot know what was the intent of twg
when performing the relevant actions, which means we cannot know whether
the actions were unpremeditated acts of foolishness or deeply considered
acts of ultimate wisdom.
To paraphrase, we do not know how self-aware, ironic, or meta twg was being
when performing the actions -- the silliness of twg's actions is
indeterminate.
The conditional in the contract therefore is inextricable and twg's actions
were IMPOSSIBLE. Also, the first part of the statement (
"The four below actions are each extremely silly") would, used as a CFJ
statement by itself, warrant a DISMISS judgement.
---
But we can't dismiss the whole thing just yet -- given the caller used the
"and" conjunction, if the second part of the statement is FALSE, the whole
statement is FALSE regardless of the first part.
The judge rejects the caller's assertion that any asset loss is does
significant harm to the caller's standing. (Google Dictionary definition of
"significantly": in a sufficiently great or important way as to be worthy
of attention./Merriam-Webster: having or likely to have influence or
effect: important)
The Treasuror's transaction history shows that the caller missed plenty of
opportunities to collect assets from the public facilities, to an extent
that's unlikely to be caused by real-world lack of free time. The judge
concludes that a few units of economic currencies are unworthy of the
caller's attention, in the caller's own opinion. The caller also has not
come anywhere near to using the disputed assets, having good reserves,
meaning the destruction/transfer of the assets in question had no effect
(other than the destruction/transfer of the assets itself) on the game so
far.
Then, according to both dictionaries quoted above, the actions taken by twg
did NOT significantly harm the caller's standing in the game. The second
part of the statement is TRUE.
It is a law of logic that for any X (a truth value):
X <AND> true = X
Meaning the truth value of the CFJed statement is identical to the truth
value of its first part, which, as you recall, is indeterminate.
I judge: "The four below actions are each extremely silly, and none
significantly
harm my standing in the game." is indeterminate, so DISMISS.
~Corona
