On 6/12/2022 9:37 AM, Jason Cobb via agora-business wrote:
>> CFJ: "The entity at one point known as Rule 2658 has performed at least
>> one amendment of a Rule."
> The above is CFJ 3966.
> Evidence:
>
> {
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Rule 2658/0 (Power=3)
> The Winds Die Down
>
> When the wind dies down, the following happen in order:
>
> * The following rules are repealed in order: R2620 "Cards & Sets",
> R2623 "Popular Proposal Proposer Privilege", R2629 "Victory
> Auctions", R2624 "Card Administration", R2622 "Pending
> Proposals", R2651 "Proposal Recycling", and R2653 "Buying
> Strength".
>
> * All rules including the text "~>" and "<~" are amended in
> ascending numerical order by removing all text between and
> including each "~>" and the first following "<~".
>
> * This rule is repealed.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> }
I judge CFJ 3966 as follows:
Forgetting about self-amendment for a moment, consider the following
hypothetical rule text:
When the wind dies down, the following happen in order:
* [Something that succeeds if evaluated on its own]
* [Something clearly blocked by a higher-powered rule]
* [Something else that succeeds if evaluated on its own]
The thing blocked by the higher-powered rule clearly CANNOT happen,
because the higher-powered rule conflicts with it. This means, the
higher-powered rule conflicts with the statement "When the Wind
dies down, the following events happen in order" because the events
CANNOT happen in the order written.
One interpretation is "well, we know they didn't all happen in order
because that CANNOT happen - therefore those initial directions are false
and meaningless, the parts of it that CAN happen could have happened in
any order at all, or not happened, and that ambiguity is enough to block
all the things, at least if the things are R105-governed Rule Changes."
The other interpretation, of course, is that the Rule does the first
thing, attempts the second thing but is blocked, then does the third
thing. The blocking rule conflicts with the first sentence, but we just
say "the blocking rule wins for that one particular part, otherwise the
order is as-written".
I'm not aware of any precedents on this, but I find for the second
interpretation, for two reasons:
1. Causality. Our model of precedence and power requires identifying the
actors (i.e. instruments) that make a change to determine what is and
isn't blocked. For example, if the "blocked thing" is a Power-1 Rule
attempting to modify a Power-2 Rule, we say "the lower Rule attempted to
make the change, but was blocked from action by the higher rule" rather
than saying "the ruleset as a whole entity did nothing". Since we place
the causality on each rule individually, the correct model is that the
Rule in question *attempted* to make each change specified in its own
text, and was blocked on step (2) but not (1) and (3).
2. More generally, as a judicial principle, it's better respect for the
R217-principle of "the text of the rules taking precedence" to minimize
the scope of any rules-conflict, to allow as much rules text to be free of
conflict as reasonably possible, and allow R2658 to perform the specified
actions in the sequence that it actually CAN do. And this, in general, is
how we treat actions in other contexts (e.g. a list of unconditional
by-announcement actions in a message). This is entirely in the realm of
custom and playstyle, so it is mostly backup support for reason 1.
Therefore, in this situation, R2658 successfully amended rules of same or
lower power, that are lower-numbered than R2658, before it self-amended
(the self-amendment is the subject of other CFJs).
I find CFJ 3966 TRUE.
-G.
