Re: DIS: [proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification
On Fri, 14 Feb 2020 at 17:34, Alexis Hunt via agora-discussion wrote: > On Sat, 1 Feb 2020 at 11:17, James Cook via agora-discussion > wrote: > > This is a counter-proto to Alexis's "Ratification by Legal Fiction", in > > the sense that I think it also fixes the problem of ratification > > failing due to minimal gamestate changes being ambiguous. It is a more > > radical change and makes the use of ratification less concise, but in > > my opinion the reward is that it greatly increases simplicity and > > certainty in what the effect of ratification actually is. > > > > I proposed something like this in July when I was arguing for > > "ratification via closed timelike curves". At the time, Aris argued > > that this makes complicated (see > > https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2019-July/055130.html > > --- search for "Also, how is this a rules simplification?"). To be > > fair, I had claimed in my that thread that what I was proposing was a > > rules simplification, and in this case, I'm not exactly making that > > argument. I'm arguing that it makes the rules simpler to understand, > > even if it makes the text longer and forces us to describe different > > cases explicitly. > > > > I am curious to hear people's opinions. I personally would be much more > > comfortable if ratification worked like this, but I'm not sure others > > will feel the same way. > > I've finally had the time to read it through, and I think that the > core approach we're advocating here is basically the same. The only > difference is the way that we express it, really, something that I > would like to scale down to my version, likely incorporating omd's > proto downthread. I'm not sure I agree that the core approach is the same. Maybe I'm missing something. For reference, here are excerpts from our protos about how ratification works: When a retroactive event is ratified, rules to the contrary notwithstanding, the gamestate is modified to what it would be if the event had occurred at the event time. When a document ... is ratified, a legal fiction is established that, at the time of the document's publication ... the text of the document ... was wholly true and correct. My intention is that when a player is computing the effect of a retroactive ratification, e will never at any point have to stop and make a judgement call about the most harmonious, or minimal, or reasonable way to resolve two contradictory facts. I think yours does not do that: legal fictions will naturally contradict the inconvenient facts they are trying to override, so there will always be some sort of judgement involved in deciding how to reconcile them. This may be intentional on your part, but it certainly doesn't seem like the same approach as mine. > My main concern is that in some cases, the lack of clarity is actually > valuable. For instance, if memory serves, it has been held that the > self-ratification of a distribution can modify properties of a > proposal, rather than merely creating a new similar proposal. This is, > I think, an advantage, and something where it is nice to still have > space for interpretation by the courts. We pay for this advantage in ambiguity. I would rather have the orderly operation of the game rely more often on manual intervention and well-written rules than have it rely on judges picking up the pieces. - Falsifian
Re: DIS: [proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification
On Sat, 1 Feb 2020 at 11:17, James Cook via agora-discussion wrote: > This is a counter-proto to Alexis's "Ratification by Legal Fiction", in > the sense that I think it also fixes the problem of ratification > failing due to minimal gamestate changes being ambiguous. It is a more > radical change and makes the use of ratification less concise, but in > my opinion the reward is that it greatly increases simplicity and > certainty in what the effect of ratification actually is. > > I proposed something like this in July when I was arguing for > "ratification via closed timelike curves". At the time, Aris argued > that this makes complicated (see > https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2019-July/055130.html > --- search for "Also, how is this a rules simplification?"). To be > fair, I had claimed in my that thread that what I was proposing was a > rules simplification, and in this case, I'm not exactly making that > argument. I'm arguing that it makes the rules simpler to understand, > even if it makes the text longer and forces us to describe different > cases explicitly. > > I am curious to hear people's opinions. I personally would be much more > comfortable if ratification worked like this, but I'm not sure others > will feel the same way. I've finally had the time to read it through, and I think that the core approach we're advocating here is basically the same. The only difference is the way that we express it, really, something that I would like to scale down to my version, likely incorporating omd's proto downthread. My main concern is that in some cases, the lack of clarity is actually valuable. For instance, if memory serves, it has been held that the self-ratification of a distribution can modify properties of a proposal, rather than merely creating a new similar proposal. This is, I think, an advantage, and something where it is nice to still have space for interpretation by the courts. -Alexis
Re: DIS: [proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification
On Sat, 1 Feb 2020 at 19:41, omd via agora-discussion wrote: > > On Sat, Feb 1, 2020 at 8:17 AM James Cook via agora-discussion > wrote: > > This is a counter-proto to Alexis's "Ratification by Legal Fiction", in > > the sense that I think it also fixes the problem of ratification > > failing due to minimal gamestate changes being ambiguous. It is a more > > radical change and makes the use of ratification less concise, but in > > my opinion the reward is that it greatly increases simplicity and > > certainty in what the effect of ratification actually is. > > Proto-proto: Overturn CFJ 3337 > > [Treat the scope of ratification the way I always assumed it should be > treated... including when I wrote the current wording of Rule 1551, > back in 2010. (Previously, Rule 1551 had stated that "the gamestate > is minimally modified so that the ratified document was completely > true and accurate at the time it was published; I added the "what it > would be" clause.) > > I believe this is orthogonal to your counter-proto; it could go > together with it, or it could serve as a basis for a more conservative > fix. For what it's worth, if you *don't* want these semantics, I > think you should have Rule 1551 say so more explicitly; in particular, > you should clarify the meaning of "what it would be".] > > Create a new Power-3 Rule, titled "Gamestate": > > The gamestate of Agora consists of the Rules, together with all > other entities and properties defined by the Rules. It does not > include a mutable record of its own history: when the Rules > refer to past game states or events, they refer to the actual > past. Nor does it include a list of 'legal fictions', or false > statements about external reality to be treated as true for game > purposes. A rule may state or imply that 'X is treated as if it > were Y', but this is considered an attempt to redefine X, > subject to the usual standards for definitions. I fully support this and would like to see it in next week's distribution. It would help clear up one of the issues that I was having with my proto as well. -Alexis
Re: DIS: [proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification
On Mon, Feb 3, 2020, 02:10 Aris Merchant via agora-discussion < agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > On Sun, Feb 2, 2020 at 10:43 PM Tanner Swett via agora-discussion > wrote: > [...] > > For what it's worth, I like this language (even though it will certainly > > never make it into Agora, for being too vague): > > > > A rule of lower power cannot enact, repeal, amend, override, subvert or > > interfere with a rule of higher power. > > We already have that, essentially? It's mostly in Rules 2140 and 1030, > and secondarily in 217. > Right. I'm saying that if I had things my way, we'd *replace* those rules with this. —Warrigal >
Re: DIS: [proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification
On Sun, Feb 2, 2020 at 10:43 PM Tanner Swett via agora-discussion wrote: > > On Mon, Feb 3, 2020, 01:05 omd via agora-discussion < > agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > > > Hmm... Good point. It shouldn't be. The point was to clarify that > > even if the gamestate doesn't have a list of legal fictions, legal > > fictions can still exist due to rules (which are themselves part of > > the gamestate). > > > > Ah... so maybe your intention was to prevent rules from getting away with > stuff like "this rule is treated as though its power were 5"? > > For what it's worth, I like this language (even though it will certainly > never make it into Agora, for being too vague): > > A rule of lower power cannot enact, repeal, amend, override, subvert or > interfere with a rule of higher power. We already have that, essentially? It's mostly in Rules 2140 and 1030, and secondarily in 217. -Aris
Re: DIS: [proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification
On Mon, Feb 3, 2020, 01:05 omd via agora-discussion < agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > Hmm... Good point. It shouldn't be. The point was to clarify that > even if the gamestate doesn't have a list of legal fictions, legal > fictions can still exist due to rules (which are themselves part of > the gamestate). > Ah... so maybe your intention was to prevent rules from getting away with stuff like "this rule is treated as though its power were 5"? For what it's worth, I like this language (even though it will certainly never make it into Agora, for being too vague): A rule of lower power cannot enact, repeal, amend, override, subvert or interfere with a rule of higher power. —Warrigal >
Re: DIS: [proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification
On Sun, Feb 2, 2020 at 5:27 AM Tanner Swett via agora-discussion wrote: > > On Sat, Feb 1, 2020, 19:41 omd via agora-discussion < > agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > > > A rule may state or imply that 'X is treated as if it > > were Y', but this is considered an attempt to redefine X, > > subject to the usual standards for definitions. > > > > What's the purpose of this? Does that mean if there were a rule saying > "George Washington is treated as if e were still alive", this would be > considered an attempt to redefine George Washington? Hmm... Good point. It shouldn't be. The point was to clarify that even if the gamestate doesn't have a list of legal fictions, legal fictions can still exist due to rules (which are themselves part of the gamestate). Perhaps it should say: A rule may define legal fictions to be used by other rules that it takes precedence over. Or perhaps Falsifian is right that it would be better to just remove that part.
Re: BUS: Re: DIS: [proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification
On Sun, 2 Feb 2020 at 01:10, Aris Merchant via agora-discussion wrote: > This is certainly a hell of a lot simpler than the alternative. You've > dealt pretty convincingly with my complaint about generality; it's not > general, but it looks like the lack of generality doesn't actually > turn out to be a big deal. I still think that this is potentially less > fun than Alexis's proto. I'd really like to hear what Alexis thinks. > This does certainly have a lot of aesthetic appeal and would be a lot > easier to apply in practice... Thanks! Yes, curious to hear from Alexis. Mine and omd's definitely seem to be at odds with eirs. There could be some dramatic votes coming up. - Falsifian
Re: DIS: [proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification
On Sun, 2 Feb 2020 at 13:27, Tanner Swett via agora-discussion wrote: > On Sat, Feb 1, 2020, 19:41 omd via agora-discussion < > agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > > > A rule may state or imply that 'X is treated as if it > > were Y', but this is considered an attempt to redefine X, > > subject to the usual standards for definitions. > > > > What's the purpose of this? Does that mean if there were a rule saying > "George Washington is treated as if e were still alive", this would be > considered an attempt to redefine George Washington? > > —Warrigal This part worries me. Are we sure the rules don't depend on legal fictions about external reality? I like the first two sentences of the proposed rule text, but am scared of the last two. - Falsifian
Re: DIS: [proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification
On Sun, 2 Feb 2020 at 00:41, omd via agora-discussion wrote: > On Sat, Feb 1, 2020 at 8:17 AM James Cook via agora-discussion > wrote: > > This is a counter-proto to Alexis's "Ratification by Legal Fiction", in > > the sense that I think it also fixes the problem of ratification > > failing due to minimal gamestate changes being ambiguous. It is a more > > radical change and makes the use of ratification less concise, but in > > my opinion the reward is that it greatly increases simplicity and > > certainty in what the effect of ratification actually is. > > Proto-proto: Overturn CFJ 3337 > > [Treat the scope of ratification the way I always assumed it should be > treated... including when I wrote the current wording of Rule 1551, > back in 2010. (Previously, Rule 1551 had stated that "the gamestate > is minimally modified so that the ratified document was completely > true and accurate at the time it was published; I added the "what it > would be" clause.) > > I believe this is orthogonal to your counter-proto; it could go > together with it, or it could serve as a basis for a more conservative > fix. For what it's worth, if you *don't* want these semantics, I > think you should have Rule 1551 say so more explicitly; in particular, > you should clarify the meaning of "what it would be".] > > Create a new Power-3 Rule, titled "Gamestate": > > The gamestate of Agora consists of the Rules, together with all > other entities and properties defined by the Rules. It does not > include a mutable record of its own history: when the Rules > refer to past game states or events, they refer to the actual > past. Nor does it include a list of 'legal fictions', or false > statements about external reality to be treated as true for game > purposes. A rule may state or imply that 'X is treated as if it > were Y', but this is considered an attempt to redefine X, > subject to the usual standards for definitions. I would like to exclude the past from the gamestate. Having it there is unintuitive to me, and I was surprised to learn about it. On the other hand, we have to be careful. For example, Rule 2034 describes ratifying that an Agoran decision "had the number of voters indicated". Would that still work after this change? We could probably fix it by a careful re-wording of the quorum rules, but there are probably lots of other examples like this. Also, in my thesis [0], I listed a few examples where having the past in the gamestate allow ratification events to reduce uncertainty. Copied here: * Rule 2555: "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." * Rule 2496: Whether a player can earn a reward depends on whether they have fulfilled the condition in the past 7 days, and also on whether e has already claimed that reward. [This is out of date, but there's a similar issue in the new version.] * Many rules allow or require a player to take an action "in a timely fashion" after a past event. It's not the end of the world if ratification no longer directly helps us in those cases. E.g. even if it's unclear whether I should have earned a reward, a self-ratifying Treasuror report will still resolve the ambiguity. I think my personal dislike of past-in-gamestate would probably be enough for me to vote for getting rid of it, but only after someone takes a careful look through the rules. And of course it would be nice to hear from others, e.g. I think Aris said e likes having the past in the gamestate. - Falsifian [0] https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-business/2019-June/040456.html
Re: DIS: [proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification
On Sat, Feb 1, 2020, 19:41 omd via agora-discussion < agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > A rule may state or imply that 'X is treated as if it > were Y', but this is considered an attempt to redefine X, > subject to the usual standards for definitions. > What's the purpose of this? Does that mean if there were a rule saying "George Washington is treated as if e were still alive", this would be considered an attempt to redefine George Washington? —Warrigal >
Fwd: BUS: Re: DIS: [proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification
(TTttDF forward.) On Sat, Feb 1, 2020 at 8:17 AM James Cook via agora-discussion wrote: > > This is a counter-proto to Alexis's "Ratification by Legal Fiction", in > the sense that I think it also fixes the problem of ratification > failing due to minimal gamestate changes being ambiguous. It is a more > radical change and makes the use of ratification less concise, but in > my opinion the reward is that it greatly increases simplicity and > certainty in what the effect of ratification actually is. > > I proposed something like this in July when I was arguing for > "ratification via closed timelike curves". At the time, Aris argued > that this makes complicated (see > https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2019-July/055130.html > --- search for "Also, how is this a rules simplification?"). To be > fair, I had claimed in my that thread that what I was proposing was a > rules simplification, and in this case, I'm not exactly making that > argument. I'm arguing that it makes the rules simpler to understand, > even if it makes the text longer and forces us to describe different > cases explicitly. > > I am curious to hear people's opinions. I personally would be much more > comfortable if ratification worked like this, but I'm not sure others > will feel the same way. > > The bit added to Rule 2034 about setting the list of voters is rough; > probably it would be better to change the quorum rules to make it > clear that "number of voters" can be a fictional number associated > with a decision, and then in R2034 just say the number of voters is > set to whatever was indicated. > > > Title: Retroactive Events > AI: 3 > Chamber: Efficiency > Text: > > [Comment: The purpose of this proposal is to replace the "minimally > modified" language of Rule 1551 with something easier to determine. It > accomplishes this by replacing ratification of documents with > ratification of explicitly-specified events, which may be cumbersome to > use, but should be easier to interpret. It also eliminates the use of > ratifying "portions" of documents, which I think is was bit vaguely > specified.] > This is certainly a hell of a lot simpler than the alternative. You've dealt pretty convincingly with my complaint about generality; it's not general, but it looks like the lack of generality doesn't actually turn out to be a big deal. I still think that this is potentially less fun than Alexis's proto. I'd really like to hear what Alexis thinks. This does certainly have a lot of aesthetic appeal and would be a lot easier to apply in practice... -Aris
Re: DIS: [proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification
On Sat, Feb 1, 2020 at 8:17 AM James Cook via agora-discussion wrote: > This is a counter-proto to Alexis's "Ratification by Legal Fiction", in > the sense that I think it also fixes the problem of ratification > failing due to minimal gamestate changes being ambiguous. It is a more > radical change and makes the use of ratification less concise, but in > my opinion the reward is that it greatly increases simplicity and > certainty in what the effect of ratification actually is. Proto-proto: Overturn CFJ 3337 [Treat the scope of ratification the way I always assumed it should be treated... including when I wrote the current wording of Rule 1551, back in 2010. (Previously, Rule 1551 had stated that "the gamestate is minimally modified so that the ratified document was completely true and accurate at the time it was published; I added the "what it would be" clause.) I believe this is orthogonal to your counter-proto; it could go together with it, or it could serve as a basis for a more conservative fix. For what it's worth, if you *don't* want these semantics, I think you should have Rule 1551 say so more explicitly; in particular, you should clarify the meaning of "what it would be".] Create a new Power-3 Rule, titled "Gamestate": The gamestate of Agora consists of the Rules, together with all other entities and properties defined by the Rules. It does not include a mutable record of its own history: when the Rules refer to past game states or events, they refer to the actual past. Nor does it include a list of 'legal fictions', or false statements about external reality to be treated as true for game purposes. A rule may state or imply that 'X is treated as if it were Y', but this is considered an attempt to redefine X, subject to the usual standards for definitions.
Re: DIS: [proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification
On Sat, 1 Feb 2020 at 16:30, ais...@alumni.bham.ac.uk wrote: > On Sat, 2020-02-01 at 16:17 +, James Cook via agora-discussion > wrote: > > This is a counter-proto to Alexis's "Ratification by Legal Fiction", > > in the sense that I think it also fixes the problem of ratification > > failing due to minimal gamestate changes being ambiguous. It is a > > more radical change and makes the use of ratification less concise, > > but in my opinion the reward is that it greatly increases simplicity > > and certainty in what the effect of ratification actually is. > > A problem that the current rules have, and that I don't think this > fixes: what happens if a ratification simulates a change to the past > gamestate that would prevent the ratification itself from having > occured, or from causing it to do something different? > > I'm not sure what the correct answer to this is, but I think it's a > question worth thinking about. If I understand Alexis's proto right, it deals with that by simply declaring that if establishing a legal fiction would prevent that same legal fiction from being established, it's not established. So perhaps add something to Rule 1551 like "If a ratifying a retroactive event would prevent that ratification from occurring, the ratification does not occur in the first place."? I suspect there will still be ways to get paradoxes. May be an inevitable consequence of having such a powerful tool available. - Falsifian
Re: DIS: [proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification
On Sat, 2020-02-01 at 16:17 +, James Cook via agora-discussion wrote: > This is a counter-proto to Alexis's "Ratification by Legal Fiction", > in the sense that I think it also fixes the problem of ratification > failing due to minimal gamestate changes being ambiguous. It is a > more radical change and makes the use of ratification less concise, > but in my opinion the reward is that it greatly increases simplicity > and certainty in what the effect of ratification actually is. A problem that the current rules have, and that I don't think this fixes: what happens if a ratification simulates a change to the past gamestate that would prevent the ratification itself from having occured, or from causing it to do something different? I'm not sure what the correct answer to this is, but I think it's a question worth thinking about. -- ais523
DIS: [proto] Retroactive Events: a refactor of ratification
This is a counter-proto to Alexis's "Ratification by Legal Fiction", in the sense that I think it also fixes the problem of ratification failing due to minimal gamestate changes being ambiguous. It is a more radical change and makes the use of ratification less concise, but in my opinion the reward is that it greatly increases simplicity and certainty in what the effect of ratification actually is. I proposed something like this in July when I was arguing for "ratification via closed timelike curves". At the time, Aris argued that this makes complicated (see https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2019-July/055130.html --- search for "Also, how is this a rules simplification?"). To be fair, I had claimed in my that thread that what I was proposing was a rules simplification, and in this case, I'm not exactly making that argument. I'm arguing that it makes the rules simpler to understand, even if it makes the text longer and forces us to describe different cases explicitly. I am curious to hear people's opinions. I personally would be much more comfortable if ratification worked like this, but I'm not sure others will feel the same way. The bit added to Rule 2034 about setting the list of voters is rough; probably it would be better to change the quorum rules to make it clear that "number of voters" can be a fictional number associated with a decision, and then in R2034 just say the number of voters is set to whatever was indicated. Title: Retroactive Events AI: 3 Chamber: Efficiency Text: [Comment: The purpose of this proposal is to replace the "minimally modified" language of Rule 1551 with something easier to determine. It accomplishes this by replacing ratification of documents with ratification of explicitly-specified events, which may be cumbersome to use, but should be easier to interpret. It also eliminates the use of ratifying "portions" of documents, which I think is was bit vaguely specified.] Amend Rule 1551 (Ratification) to read in full: A "retroactive event" is a change to the gamestate, or other hypothetical event (the "event"), together with a time in the past (the "event time"). If not otherwise specified, the event time defaults to the time at which the retroactive event was originally published. When a retroactive event is ratified, rules to the contrary notwithstanding, the gamestate is modified to what it would be if the event had occurred at the event time. Such a modification cannot add inconsistencies between the gamestate and the rules, and it cannot include rule changes unless the message or rule describing the event explicitly and unambiguously recites either the changes or the resulting properties of the rule(s). If the description of a retroactive event is too ambiguous or convoluted for its effect at the event time be reasonably determined, or the description internally inconsistent, that event cannot be ratified. Ratification is secured with power threshold 3. Amend rule 2201 (Self-Ratification) by replacing the text from "When a public document" through "contents of the message" inclusive with: When a public document is continuously undoubted for one week after publication and the rules associate any "self-ratifying" retroactive events with that document, those retroactcive events are ratified. If the document specifies a time before its own publication as the time at which was accurate, that is used as the event time; otherwise, it is the time at which the document was published. Amend Rule 2162 (Switches) by replacing item 3 in the only list with: 3. Optionally, exactly one office whose holder tracks instances of that switch. That officer's (weekly, if not specified otherwise) report includes the value of each instance of that switch whose value is not its default value. A public document purporting to be that officer's report is associated with the following self-ratifying event: flip all instances of the switch to the values listed in the report, or to their default value if they are not listed in the report. Amend Rule 1607 (Distribution) by replacing the last sentence with: A public document purporting to be a Promotor's report is associated with the following self-ratifying retroactive event: modify the proposal pool to contain exactly the proposals listed in the report, with exactly the text and attributes listed in the report. Amend Rule 107 (Initiating Agoran Decisions) by replacing the last paragraph with: A public notice purporting to initiate an Agoran decision is associated with the following self-ratifying retroactive event: if the notice did not cause the decision to be initiated, but nonetheless identified the matter to be decided, then initiate it
