I could see this coming out either way. It's the sort of hyper literalist
interpretation that Agorans seem to adopt sometimes.
It's really interesting to me, because within my discipline (law), those sorts
of hyperliteralist interpretations simply wouldn't work. Lawyers would just
intuitively know somehow that this kind of interpretive move would be out of
bounds--I'm not really sure why. But it's not necessary out of bounds in Agora,
and I'm not sure why that is either.
> On Jun 10, 2019, at 3:34 PM, Kerim Aydin <ke...@uw.edu> wrote:
>
>
> Interesting catch.
>
> It's the difference between "except by a proposal or rule" versus
> "except as described by a proposal or rule" which is the usual phrasing
> that would work fine - so the question is can we infer the "as described"
> part - which might be a hard sell given how picky we usually are on
> attributing causality. No this hasn't been adjudicated before to my
> knowledge.
>
>> On 6/10/2019 12:10 PM, Jason Cobb wrote:
>> CFJ: "A Player with Blots CAN destroy a Blot in eir possession if e has
>> neither gained blots nor expunged any blots from emself in the current
>> Agoran week."
>> Caller's Evidence ================= Excerpt from Rule 2555/2 ("Blots")
>> [Power=2]
>> Blots are an indestructible fixed currency with ownership
>> restricted to persons.
>> [...]
>> To expunge a blot is to destroy it.
>> [...]
>> If a player has neither gained blots nor expunged any blots from
>> emself in the current Agoran week, e CAN expunge 1 blot from
>> emself by announcement.
>> Excerpt from Rule 2577/1 ("Asset Actions") [Power=3]
>> An asset generally CAN be destroyed by its owner by announcement,
>> subject to modification by its backing document. An indestructible
>> asset is one defined as such by it backing document, and CANNOT be
>> destroyed except by a proposal or rule, other than this one,
>> specifically addressing the destruction of indestructible assets
>> or that asset in particular; any other asset is destructible.
>> Caller's Arguments
>> ==================
>> I argue that when a player announces that e expunges a Blot from emself,
>> then e is the one destroying the Blot. Thus, under Rule 2577, the Blot
>> CANNOT be destroyed, as it was not destroyed "by a proposal or rule, other
>> than [Rule 2577], specifically addressing the destruction of indestructible
>> assets or that asset in particular", but rather by the Player.
>> I argue that Rule 2240 ("No Cretans Need Apply") does not apply, as the
>> definition of an asset being "indestructible" does not occur in Rule 2555,
>> but Rule 2555 rather defers to Rule 2577 for the definition, and then later
>> attempts to override the definition in Rule 2577. Thus the conflict is
>> between two Rules, rather than within the text of a certain rule.
>> If the above two arguments are found valid, then Rule 1030 ("Precedence
>> between Rules") states that the Rule with the higher Power takes precedence.
>> In this case that is Rule 2577. This would mean that Blots CANNOT be
>> destroyed.
>> I thus argue that the ruling on this CFJ should be FALSE.
>> [NB: if there is precedent that I am missing, please tell me and I will
>> withdraw this. I didn't see any historical rulings on "indestructible"
>> assets, and the ones that I found on Blots seemed not to be relevant. I was
>> unable to find precedent on conflicts with definitions solely by searching
>> the statements of CFJs.]
