I think it's great that a relatively recent CfJ got overturned like this,
because I believe that challenging past views for the better, is good.
A bit of a thought experiment, because this situation reminds me a lot of
the Ship of Theseus:
- Theseus nomic is made (which has pretty much the same text as Agora minus
the Contract stuff), with Aguy Bguy and Cguy. Contracts aren't defined.
- Then, Contracts are made and defined as Agora has it now in Theseus nomic.
- Aguy Bguy and Cguy gradually leave, as Dguy Eguy and Gguy join,
registering and "agreeing to be bound" to Agora, a requirement that
Contracts also have - to agree to be bound by them.
- Now, like a contract, Dguy Eguy and Gguy have agreed to be bound by an
agreement, with such an agreement having existed while Contracts as a rule
has existed like any other contract would need.
Is Theseus nomic a contract now, or not?
On Wed, Mar 4, 2020 at 7:24 AM Gaelan Steele via agora-business <
agora-busin...@agoranomic.org> wrote:
> CFJ 3813 asks us whether Agora is a contract.
>
> As noted by the caller, CFJ 3706 (Feb 9-14, 2019) asked a similar
> question. It was judged TRUE by G.
>
> As I see it, the questions before me are:
> 1) Was CFJ 3706 judged correctly?
> 2) Has there been a change in circumstances since then that would affect
> that ruling?
>
> I’ll start with the second question. It appears that the version of the
> rule in question there was 8139/20. (The court admonishes G. for failing to
> include revision numbers in his rule citations, by the way.) The current
> rule, 8139/22, is largely similar, with the following changes:
> * Lowered the minimum party count to one.
> * "may make an agreement” -> "may publicly make an agreement”
> * “agreement between parties” -> “consent of all parties” throughout
> * The new stuff about provisions being public and the body/annex
> distinction
> * A requirement that things be permitted "explicitly and unambiguously”
> * Clarity in wording about asset changes
>
> Nothing here changes the fundamental nature of what a contract is. The
> addition of “publicly” is closest, but the agreements that form Agora were
> all (AFAIK) made publicly, so that doesn’t change anything.
>
> Therefore, this CFJ is TRUE iff 3706 was correctly judged TRUE. This
> leaves open the question of whether I should overturn that judgement. I
> certainly *want* to—Agora as a contract is unintuitive and inconvenient to
> deal with as Notary, and results in contract rules applying to Agora, which
> is weird. But can I?
>
> There is one point in 3706’s logic that at least isn’t clearly to me. I’ve
> reproduced it below: {
> - R1742 states that “Any group of two or more consenting persons (the
> parties) may make an agreement among themselves with the intention that
> it be binding upon them and be governed by the rules. Such an agreement
> is known as a contract.” This simply applied the label “contract” to
> this type of agreement.
>
> - Therefore, the “contract” label applies to Agora.
> }
>
> The R1742 quote in question could be interpreted in one of two ways:
> 1) It simply describes an existing thing that people can do "may make an
> agreement among themselves with the intention that it be binding upon them
> and be governed by the rules” and gives it a name.
> 2) It defines a new type of game action (forming a contract), analogous to
> creating a proposal, calling a CFJ, or any other action that is only
> possible because a rule defines it as such.
>
> G. went with #1 in his judgement, but did not explain eir decision or
> address the possibility of the second interpretation within the judgement.
> Before the judgement, G. initially seemed to believe #2 (
> https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2019-February/053314.html):
> {
> Here, contracts are defined by how people MAY create them. This rule is
> not written retroactively (e.g. "all agreements that people have made in
> the
> past that fit these criteria are defined as contracts"), but such that it
> takes a specific, initial act of agreement to create contract. The Rules
> predate this creation mechanism. And Agora was not re-created by this
> creation mechanism since then. Therefore it is not a contract, in the
> R1742
> sense.
> }
>
> D Margaux responded with something vaguely resembling #1 (
> https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2019-February/053315.html):
> {
> I don’t see why it needs to have been created as a contract to be a
> contract. To me, it seems like “contract” is merely a term defined to
> encompass a certain class of entities (viz., agreements between players
> that are to be governed by the Rules). That class appears on its face to
> include Agora itself. Not sure why under the text of the Rule it makes any
> difference that Agora (and the agreement(s) that created Agora) preexisted
> the class defined by the Rule. Still seems like Agora is a member of that
> class of entities.
> }
>
> Personally, I find that the phrase “players may” strongly implies the
> definition of a game action under a common-sense interpretation (although
> it is inconsistent with Agora’s usual use of the word MAY). Nevertheless,
> the fact that players have read it both ways strongly indicates that the
> rules are “unclear”, so let’s look at the four factors.
>
> Game custom: Contracts specifically have been implemented both ways under
> various past rulesets, so there’s no strong precedent here. Other entities
> are also mixed: proposals and CFJs are entities explicitly created by
> announcement, but pledges and players are written as reflections of
> real-life phenomena.
> Common sense: The players’ common senses seem to be divided on the issue
> of the interpretation of that specific sentence, but generally the
> treatment of Agora as a contract is not consistent with common sense—I
> don’t think a casual reader of the ruleset (if such a thing exists) would
> consider that Agora might be a contract.
> Past judgements: G’s past judgement here followed interpretation #1, but
> did not discuss interpretation of that sentence, so I do not weigh it
> heavily.
> Best interests of the game: Both Agora as a contract, and the general
> possibility for things to unexpectedly become contracts, are bad for the
> game. This would require the Notary to duplicate the work (or at least the
> reports) of both the Rulekeepor and the Registrar, complicating eir work
> and creating unnecessary noise in the report. It also opens the possibility
> for many rules to apply to the rules themselves in counterintuitive ways,
> making the game harder to understand.
>
> All of the factors either are neutral or support interpretation #2.
>
> Therefore, Agora is not a contract, because it was not created by the
> R1742 mechanism, because it didn’t exist yet. I judge CFJ 3813 FALSE.
>
> Gaelan
