RE: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
My dim recollection is that it took a kind of high level scam (in the sense of loophole exploitation, there was no attempt to win) to move away from the Mutable/Immutable distinction. But we didn't get straight to the Power system - that came later. The intermediate stage involved the definition of a class of 'Semimutable' rules. A loophole permitted these to take precedence over the Immutable Rules, and hence (temporarily) to amend Immutable Rules with less than unanimous support. -- Steve Gardner via mobile On 2 Jul 2013 09:16, Ørjan Johansen oer...@nvg.ntnu.no wrote: On Mon, 1 Jul 2013, Chuck Carroll wrote: I also have an idea or two about how a group of players could get around the requirement of unanimity for making a rule mutable against a single player determined to prevent all such transmutations. My vague memory is that something like that is how Agora got its Mutable/Immutable distinction changed into the Power system - I think there were no votes requiring unanimity involved. Greetings, Ørjan.
RE: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Wed, 3 Jul 2013, Steven Gardner wrote: My dim recollection is that it took a kind of high level scam (in the sense of loophole exploitation, there was no attempt to win) to move away from the Mutable/Immutable distinction. But we didn't get straight to the Power system - that came later. The intermediate stage involved the definition of a class of 'Semimutable' rules. A loophole permitted these to take precedence over the Immutable Rules, and hence (temporarily) to amend Immutable Rules with less than unanimous support. Ah yes, that triggers my dim recollection too :) [snip] Greetings, Ørjan.
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Sun, Jun 30, 2013 at 10:56 PM, Steven Gardner steven.gard...@monash.edu wrote: On 1 July 2013 14:35, Chuck Carroll games...@chuckcarroll.org wrote: Thanks to all the players, especially my fellow winners, and many many thanks to Fool for running such an enjoyable game. Like others have mentioned, I like the idea of a Nomic with a defined endpoint (being well aware, of course, that there is no guarantee that the endpoint will remain unchanged) in which I can most likely play for just a few weeks. I don't have time to participate in a long-term Nomic now, but would enjoy playing again for just a few weeks on occasion. I'm with Chuck here. I can't commit long term to nomic, but would enjoy playing like this again once in a while. Same time again next year? Maybe using the Initial Set Charles Walker is working on? I like the idea of making the fortnight before the moment of Agora's Birthday an Agoran Holiday, to free up all Agorans to participate in a blitz game. Steve I like this idea, and was the spirit of what I was going for in my proposal to make Agora XX resume annually. The holiday idea is also a good one; could we perhaps replace the current Christmas time holiday? As a student I have lots of time free time around then. It's basically the one time of year I want to play Nomic more than any other. I understand that the holidays can be a busy time for many, but do we really need two weeks off? If people are that busy, they can just check up on the game less. I feel like holidays have hurt the game rather significantly in the past, where after holidays activity just doesn't pick up like it was beforehand.
RE: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
I had intended to vote against 307 (which transmuted 112) but missed the voting period. My opposition was partly against lengthening the game, but more as a tit-for-tat-like strategy, as omd had voted against my first proposal to transmute 110. The interesting thing on transmutation is that a rule might be made Mutable if everyone agreed that it needed to be changed, but not necessarily on how it should be changed, and each side had reason to believe they would win the subsequent struggle on amendments. With 112, you might have some people who might think a minor fix is in order (delaying the end of the game to allow the final set of proposals to resolve), and others who want a significant lengthening of the game. I also have an idea or two about how a group of players could get around the requirement of unanimity for making a rule mutable against a single player determined to prevent all such transmutations. Chuck -Original Message- From: agora-discussion [mailto:agora-discussion-boun...@agoranomic.org] On Behalf Of Fool Sent: Monday, July 01, 2013 1:39 AM To: agora-discussion@agoranomic.org Subject: Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report On 01/07/2013 12:35 AM, Chuck Carroll wrote: Like others have mentioned, I like the idea of a Nomic with a defined endpoint (being well aware, of course, that there is no guarantee that the endpoint will remain unchanged) in which I can most likely play for just a few weeks. But there was a guarantee. Rule 112 was immutable .. any single player could have forced the endpoint. I was surprised at how much it got amended, but I was even more surprised simply by the fact that it got transmuted in the first place!
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Mon, 1 Jul 2013, Fool wrote: On 30/06/2013 5:41 PM, Kerim Aydin wrote: Of course, Blob's version of innocuous wasn't... so we sure didn't have a commanding lead going into the last vote. At the end we knew if everyone in the game voted and spent their points on voting we'd not get through, but just shrugged, decided not to ponder super-fancy stuff and just voted and hoped for the best. But then, why _would_ everyone vote against you? Most of them were about to lose the game anyway. You're right. I was playing with the general boardgame (and Agoran) assumption of when a conspiracy comes to light, unite and try to stop it (and then hope you're in a position to win afterwards). With the game ending one way or the other, that only applied to the points leaders. -G.
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Mon, 1 Jul 2013, Fool wrote: On 01/07/2013 12:35 AM, Chuck Carroll wrote: Like others have mentioned, I like the idea of a Nomic with a defined endpoint (being well aware, of course, that there is no guarantee that the endpoint will remain unchanged) in which I can most likely play for just a few weeks. But there was a guarantee. Rule 112 was immutable .. any single player could have forced the endpoint. I was surprised at how much it got amended, but I was even more surprised simply by the fact that it got transmuted in the first place! Question for omd: did you have a clever way to win had 363 put us into Zeno's Endgame? I came up with a couple thoughts but not particularly compelling ones. -G.
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Sun, 30 Jun 2013, Aaron Goldfein wrote: I like this idea, and was the spirit of what I was going for in my proposal to make Agora XX resume annually. The holiday idea is also a good one; could we perhaps replace the current Christmas time holiday? As a student I have lots of time free time around then. It's basically the one time of year I want to play Nomic more than any other. I understand that the holidays can be a busy time for many, but do we really need two weeks off? If people are that busy, they can just check up on the game less. I feel like holidays have hurt the game rather significantly in the past, where after holidays activity just doesn't pick up like it was beforehand. I like it around the birthday personally (holidays are the opposite of calm for me), but no reason it can't be semi-annual... could we perhaps replace the current Christmas time holiday? As a student I have lots of time free time around then. Haha, ironically, the idea of 'shutting down' in the winter break came from the old student days, because many had internet access only through school (i.e. while actually sitting in a university terminal room) so we lost access except for a minimal quorum who launched some plan while most of the voters were gone :). -G.
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Mon, 1 Jul 2013, Fool wrote: On 01/07/2013 12:35 AM, Chuck Carroll wrote: Like others have mentioned, I like the idea of a Nomic with a defined endpoint (being well aware, of course, that there is no guarantee that the endpoint will remain unchanged) in which I can most likely play for just a few weeks. But there was a guarantee. Rule 112 was immutable .. any single player could have forced the endpoint. I was surprised at how much it got amended, but I was even more surprised simply by the fact that it got transmuted in the first place! It's been years since I played face-to-face nomic, but one thing I remember is that in most of the games I was in, a single early rule change or decision set a single strong theme/point of attack for the whole game. Theory: at that speed, while individual players might go all sorts of directions, there's not enough time to steer a majority consensus of players away from a direction once it gets going. This game reminded me much more of a face-to face game than any online version I've played, was very cool. -G.
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Kerim Aydin ke...@u.washington.edu wrote: Question for omd: did you have a clever way to win had 363 put us into Zeno's Endgame? I came up with a couple thoughts but not particularly compelling ones. -G. Not really, since a quorum would still be required to pass anything and it would still be really easy to lose, but I intended it to have a good chance of ending without a second winner. Still, I was thinking of proposing to move the action to IRC, where we could probably have kept a quorum present up until the last three minutes or so, and maybe created some silly gameplay. It would have worked better without the fail2lose rule.
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Mon, 2013-07-01 at 10:21 -0400, omd wrote: On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Kerim Aydin ke...@u.washington.edu wrote: Question for omd: did you have a clever way to win had 363 put us into Zeno's Endgame? I came up with a couple thoughts but not particularly compelling ones. -G. Not really, since a quorum would still be required to pass anything and it would still be really easy to lose, but I intended it to have a good chance of ending without a second winner. Still, I was thinking of proposing to move the action to IRC, where we could probably have kept a quorum present up until the last three minutes or so, and maybe created some silly gameplay. It would have worked better without the fail2lose rule. If it had passed, I was intending to gather what allies I could and then coordinate a votebomb at some time period short enough that nobody could reasonably interfere. I doubt it would have worked, though. -- ais523
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 01/07/2013 2:54 AM, Chuck Carroll wrote: I also have an idea or two about how a group of players could get around the requirement of unanimity for making a rule mutable against a single player determined to prevent all such transmutations. The majority can kick the minority out of the game, then they have unanimity!
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Mon, 1 Jul 2013, Fool wrote: On 01/07/2013 2:54 AM, Chuck Carroll wrote: I also have an idea or two about how a group of players could get around the requirement of unanimity for making a rule mutable against a single player determined to prevent all such transmutations. The majority can kick the minority out of the game, then they have unanimity! I thought at one point the complete silence at how one becomes a player was quite weak (I guess it came up with the forfeiture-forcing). Walker, consider taking note! -G.
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Kerim Aydin ke...@u.washington.edu wrote: I thought at one point the complete silence at how one becomes a player was quite weak (I guess it came up with the forfeiture-forcing). Walker, consider taking note! -G. Incidentally, I disliked the judgement that a requirement for someone to do something immediately implies a legal fiction that e did it: although it's the only interpretation that gives the clause teeth, that clause could also have been easily written in a way that does not require such implication and I do not think that there is much precedent for its historical use in Agora proper*. Oh well. * There is only one use of shall immediately or must immediately in historical rules that does not refer to automatic effects, and that was just as a synonym for speedily: The Respondant shall immediately investigate the claim of error, and, as soon as possible after the posting of the claim, either admit the claim and issue an official correction to the document, or deny the claim.
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Mon, 1 Jul 2013, omd wrote: On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Kerim Aydin ke...@u.washington.edu wrote: I thought at one point the complete silence at how one becomes a player was quite weak (I guess it came up with the forfeiture-forcing). Walker, consider taking note! -G. Incidentally, I disliked the judgement that a requirement for someone to do something immediately implies a legal fiction that e did it: although it's the only interpretation that gives the clause teeth, that clause could also have been easily written in a way that does not require such implication and I do not think that there is much precedent for its historical use in Agora proper*. Oh well. I disliked the decision of course, but actually liked the meta-decision that, with a blank slate free from Agoran precedence, a single judgement had a range of ways it could go, all within reason, that could swing the dynamics considerably.
RE: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Mon, 1 Jul 2013, Chuck Carroll wrote: A very similar thought had occurred to me, except the Speaker could do even better than independently selecting a Judge for each possible set; e could link the sets in such a way to maximize the probability that the same Judge is selected for each set. I'll demonstrate with a simple case of two proposals and four voters; the actual situation would be more complex but the principle is the same. Heh, that seems so simple in afterthought, I cannot remember if that was ever done in Agora when I was around... Greetings, Ørjan.
RE: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Mon, 1 Jul 2013, Chuck Carroll wrote: I also have an idea or two about how a group of players could get around the requirement of unanimity for making a rule mutable against a single player determined to prevent all such transmutations. My vague memory is that something like that is how Agora got its Mutable/Immutable distinction changed into the Power system - I think there were no votes requiring unanimity involved. Greetings, Ørjan.
RE: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
That was one of the ideas, yes. Not the only one. :) Chuck -Original Message- From: agora-discussion [mailto:agora-discussion-boun...@agoranomic.org] On Behalf Of Fool Sent: Monday, July 01, 2013 12:19 PM To: agora-discussion@agoranomic.org Subject: Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report On 01/07/2013 2:54 AM, Chuck Carroll wrote: I also have an idea or two about how a group of players could get around the requirement of unanimity for making a rule mutable against a single player determined to prevent all such transmutations. The majority can kick the minority out of the game, then they have unanimity!
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 30 Jun 2013, at 03:24, Steven Gardner steven.gard...@monash.edu wrote: On 29 June 2013 22:37, Fool fool1...@gmail.com wrote: It has been my pleasure to be your Speaker for this bit of fast-paced nonsense. I discharge my last formal duty by including the final ruleset below. I will also post an end-of-game statement, and I encourage other players to do likewise. Thanks for playing guys. And happy birthday Agora! Charles Walker, I'd be interested to see you the ruleset you've been working on. Would you mind sending me a copy? I'd be happy to offer you ideas (if I have any ideas) for you to use or ignore as you please. Sure! I shall send you a copy of the first draft as soon as it's done, hopefully sometime in the next few days. I'm sorry the irc session is at a bad time for you. It's a shame for what is, after all, a very Australian game. I can send you the chat logs if you wish and hopefully we can organise something with a more convenient time for the big two-one next year. I'd like to reiterate Steve's thanks of Yally and Fool. I'd also like to congratulate the old timers on their win. Well done! H. Herald, I think patent titles are in order. Perhaps Vigentennial Champion for the winners, Vigentennial Speaker for Fool and something to Yally for sending the message out? -- Walker
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
Reiterating other messages: thanks muchly to the organisers and participants for this speed nomic game. I was pleased to get to make a proposal, judge a CFJ and vote on a bunch of proposals. In other words, it was a great sampler. And as Steve said, the defined end-point was a feature that made for an enjoyably different game. Happy Birthday Agora! Now in the same Australian time-zone as Blob and Steve, rather than the Wellington zone that I was in when the game began, I'm afraid the IRC chat due in 9 hours from now is not likely to see me involved. Have a great one. Michael signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 30 Jun 2013, at 13:01, Michael Norrish michael.norr...@nicta.com.au wrote: Now in the same Australian time-zone as Blob and Steve, rather than the Wellington zone that I was in when the game began, I'm afraid the IRC chat due in 9 hours from now is not likely to see me involved. As that makes three of the four old-timer winners who are not still players of Agora, I think it would be a good idea to organise another irc session and save all the historical chat for that one. Would you like to suggest a time? By the way, Yally, would it be possible to publish a list of which email addresses of former players are still working, based on the mass message you sent out? -- Walker
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
For my part, 9pm local time (1100 UTC), after the kids are in bed, is when I'm more likely to have time to chat. But tomorrow (Monday) night I'll probably be out seeing a friend, and Tuesday I'm leaving for a family holiday for 5 days and I'm unlikely to have internet access. So unless you're willing to wait until next 1100 UTC Sunday night (7 July), you'd best leave me out of your plans. Steve On 30 June 2013 22:34, Charles Walker charles.w.wal...@gmail.com wrote: On 30 Jun 2013, at 13:01, Michael Norrish michael.norr...@nicta.com.au wrote: Now in the same Australian time-zone as Blob and Steve, rather than the Wellington zone that I was in when the game began, I'm afraid the IRC chat due in 9 hours from now is not likely to see me involved. As that makes three of the four old-timer winners who are not still players of Agora, I think it would be a good idea to organise another irc session and save all the historical chat for that one. Would you like to suggest a time? By the way, Yally, would it be possible to publish a list of which email addresses of former players are still working, based on the mass message you sent out? -- Walker -- Steve Gardner Research Grants Development Faculty of Business and Economics Monash University, Caulfield campus Rm: S8.04 | ph: (613) 9905 2486 e: steven.gard...@monash.edu *** NB I am now working 1.0 FTE, but I am away from my desk** on alternate Thursday afternoons (pay weeks). *** Two facts about lists: (1) one can never remember the last item on any list; (2) I can't remember what the other one is.
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 30 June 2013 14:48, Steven Gardner steven.gard...@monash.edu wrote: For my part, 9pm local time (1100 UTC), after the kids are in bed, is when I'm more likely to have time to chat. But tomorrow (Monday) night I'll probably be out seeing a friend, and Tuesday I'm leaving for a family holiday for 5 days and I'm unlikely to have internet access. So unless you're willing to wait until next 1100 UTC Sunday night (7 July), you'd best leave me out of your plans. I don't see why we shouldn't wait (while still going ahead with the session tonight), especially as most people are more likely to be free on weekends. Is this acceptable to most people? Michael? Blob? -- Walker
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
Wait though: 9pm in Melbourne is 11am in London, but 4am in Los Angeles and 7am in New York. Fine for Europeans, but terrible for Americans. Aren't most of the currently registered Agoran players Americans? On 1 July 2013 00:02, Charles Walker charles.w.wal...@gmail.com wrote: On 30 June 2013 14:48, Steven Gardner steven.gard...@monash.edu wrote: For my part, 9pm local time (1100 UTC), after the kids are in bed, is when I'm more likely to have time to chat. But tomorrow (Monday) night I'll probably be out seeing a friend, and Tuesday I'm leaving for a family holiday for 5 days and I'm unlikely to have internet access. So unless you're willing to wait until next 1100 UTC Sunday night (7 July), you'd best leave me out of your plans. I don't see why we shouldn't wait (while still going ahead with the session tonight), especially as most people are more likely to be free on weekends. Is this acceptable to most people? Michael? Blob? -- Walker -- Steve Gardner Research Grants Development Faculty of Business and Economics Monash University, Caulfield campus Rm: S8.04 | ph: (613) 9905 2486 e: steven.gard...@monash.edu *** NB I am now working 1.0 FTE, but I am away from my desk** on alternate Thursday afternoons (pay weeks). *** Two facts about lists: (1) one can never remember the last item on any list; (2) I can't remember what the other one is.
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 30 June 2013 15:28, Steven Gardner steven.gard...@monash.edu wrote: Wait though: 9pm in Melbourne is 11am in London, but 4am in Los Angeles and 7am in New York. Fine for Europeans, but terrible for Americans. Aren't most of the currently registered Agoran players Americans? Yes: apart from me and ais523, I think most players live in UTC -7 or UTC -5 at the minute. We're never going to get a time that's great for everyone, but maybe move it ahead 1 or 2 hours. Or, we could find a time that's good for the Yanks and the Aussies but not as good for the Brits, since there's only a couple of us and as one of the Brits I might find it hard to make next Sunday anyway. I wouldn't mind as long as someone sent me the logs. -- Walker
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 29/06/2013 5:02 PM, omd wrote: Okay, the big question, 364. It affects more than the final scores, it affects whether the surviving player with the most points won, or whether the old-timers jointly won. (_Surviving_ player, if that's where you're going with this... proposal 363 failed. No matter what, you lose.) It also affects whether the game is formally over, or just frozen until next year, though likely nobody cares. As I see it, according to the ruleset and your ruling about amending rules that were immutable at the time of submission, the rule to amend and proposed amendment are identified at the time of submission. Both of the submissions you quoted are consistent with that idea: Walker's might have been submitted with the idea that the rule would be identified at the time of resolution, but it can easily be read as an indirect reference effective immediately, and it was submitted before that ruling in any case. Okay! Good, we're mostly on the same page. However, Steve's wording, I submit the following Proposal: === If there is exactly one Rule which was initially numbered 112, then that Rule is amended to Read: clearly puts the conditional within the proposal, rather than the proposal within the conditional - which would make little sense anyway, as the condition was surely true at the time of submission. Alright, a previous case: 351 (Steve): Amend Rule 344, or the Rule which formerly had that number if there is exactly one such Rule, to read: I think you'll say that's the same thing. Nobody objected to that one. If it has just been: Amend Rule 344, or the Rule which formerly had that number, to read: I think you'd agree that would have been valid. Consider that without the explicit conditional within the proposal, a proposal is still in some way conditional on the rule existing when it passes. Maybe we can just read these all as indirect references effective immediately? The situation was this: the whole rule renumbering thing was a bit of a mess, and players were inserting various magic words in order to cover their posteriors. This was clearly a proposal to amend 112, and the incantation used isn't wrong as such, and is also similar to previous such incantations that worked. -Dan
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
I've hosted and played in non-Nomic Blitz PBM games before, and, while this isn't the most argumentative bunch I've seen by any means, I have to say this group produced the highest quality logical and legal argumentation I've ever seen. I was really impressed. I thought there was some excellent stuff in the calls to judgement, the associated discussion, and the verdicts. Even when I thought it was bogus, I found it to be creative and/or well-executed bogosity. Agoran CFJs take days or weeks. In XX it was 24 hours, and people were online at different times. In some cases it seemed like people were cranking out these fairly long well-reasoned monologues out on the fly. I guess that comes with experience or something? I AM NOT WORTHY. There was some talk of legalism/logicism or idealism/pragmatism. Maybe relative to the group I'm very far off one end of these scales. I also expect the question of _objectives_ made a big difference. On the last turn, a fairly large coalition simply voted themselves joint winners. I'm curious _when_ did this coalition form? And generally, to what extent were people trying to win? As to the ruleset itself: I don't think I have anything new to say about the technical issues. On the higher-level end, I don't care much for win by paradox. And maybe the biggest bug is majority rules. Maybe not so good when things get really competitive. To be sure, these are opinions I held before the game started, and likely are minority opinions. Credit to Aaron Goldfein not only for rounding up the old-timers, but also for coming up with the idea for the game in the first place, about two months ago. Charles Walker posted a wake-up two weeks ago, reminding us that time was ticking. I was a fool who happened to be in a position to pick up the ball and run with it, so I did. And the turnout sure was a lot better than I expected! Thanks to the old-timers and kids for a fun game, it really was a pleasure. And thanks to all Agorans who were not playing XX for putting up with our antics for a couple of weeks. We return you to your regular Nomic shortly... Yours, Dan Mehkeri
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 30 June 2013 18:14, Fool fool1...@gmail.com wrote: Agoran CFJs take days or weeks. In XX it was 24 hours, and people were online at different times. In some cases it seemed like people were cranking out these fairly long well-reasoned monologues out on the fly. I guess that comes with experience or something? I AM NOT WORTHY. Having played for a few years, I still find some of the discussion surrounding controversial CFJs intimidating. To be sure, playing nomic is excellent training in this kind of logical-legal-philosophic thinking. But do any more experienced players want to cite some source of their knowledge? Surely Suber's The Paradox of Self-Amendment and Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas would be at the top of such a list. Lots of players have programming skills and I think that's another excellent way to train the mind to think like a nomic player, although more on the logical side than the legal one. There was some talk of legalism/logicism or idealism/pragmatism. Maybe relative to the group I'm very far off one end of these scales. I also expect the question of _objectives_ made a big difference. On the last turn, a fairly large coalition simply voted themselves joint winners. I'm curious _when_ did this coalition form? And generally, to what extent were people trying to win? As soon as I realised that I was in the lead points-wise, I was overcome with the need to maintain that lead; suddenly all other considerations were unimportant. So yeah, I guess I was trying to win. I suppose that's more of a psychological lesson than a legal one, though. People like shiny prizes. I think the old-timer's cabal was assembled quite early on, but obviously they can tell you more about that. As to the ruleset itself: I don't think I have anything new to say about the technical issues. On the higher-level end, I don't care much for win by paradox. And maybe the biggest bug is majority rules. Maybe not so good when things get really competitive. To be sure, these are opinions I held before the game started, and likely are minority opinions. Well, I don't particularly care about Win by Paradox (it depends if the game ends when someone wins as to whether I would repeal it) and I'm a fan of supermajorities, as is modern Agora. Again, thanks for all your efforts. -- Walker
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 30/06/2013 3:47 PM, Charles Walker wrote: Well, I don't particularly care about Win by Paradox (it depends if the game ends when someone wins as to whether I would repeal it) I realise a win is mostly cosmetic in Agora, but ordinarily it would end the game. Win by paradox would have ended the game in XX. Does a win end the game in the ruleset you're working on? (Note: win by paradox would have only ended XX after 112 was transmuted. Before that, 112 superceded 219 and the latter was of no effect. This wasn't a result of my initial amendment, this was the case in the original ruleset!) and I'm a fan of supermajorities, as is modern Agora. Agoran Power 1 still reaches an awful lot, including wins. -Dan
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 30 June 2013 21:50, Fool fool1...@gmail.com wrote: On 30/06/2013 3:47 PM, Charles Walker wrote: Well, I don't particularly care about Win by Paradox (it depends if the game ends when someone wins as to whether I would repeal it) I realise a win is mostly cosmetic in Agora, but ordinarily it would end the game. Win by paradox would have ended the game in XX. Does a win end the game in the ruleset you're working on? No. (Note: win by paradox would have only ended XX after 112 was transmuted. Before that, 112 superceded 219 and the latter was of no effect. This wasn't a result of my initial amendment, this was the case in the original ruleset!) and I'm a fan of supermajorities, as is modern Agora. Agoran Power 1 still reaches an awful lot, including wins. Sure, but to some extent that's counterbalanced by a culture of protoing and generally discussing changes to the rules before they are made. -- Walker
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Sun, 30 Jun 2013, Fool wrote: I've hosted and played in non-Nomic Blitz PBM games before, and, while this isn't the most argumentative bunch I've seen by any means, I have to say this group produced the highest quality logical and legal argumentation I've ever seen. I was really impressed. I thought there was some excellent stuff in the calls to judgement, the associated discussion, and the verdicts. Even when I thought it was bogus, I found it to be creative and/or well-executed bogosity. Agoran CFJs take days or weeks. In XX it was 24 hours, and people were online at different times. In some cases it seemed like people were cranking out these fairly long well-reasoned monologues out on the fly. I guess that comes with experience or something? I AM NOT WORTHY. There was some talk of legalism/logicism or idealism/pragmatism. Maybe relative to the group I'm very far off one end of these scales. I also expect the question of _objectives_ made a big difference. On the last turn, a fairly large coalition simply voted themselves joint winners. I'm curious _when_ did this coalition form? And generally, to what extent were people trying to win? As to the ruleset itself: I don't think I have anything new to say about the technical issues. On the higher-level end, I don't care much for win by paradox. And maybe the biggest bug is majority rules. Maybe not so good when things get really competitive. To be sure, these are opinions I held before the game started, and likely are minority opinions. Credit to Aaron Goldfein not only for rounding up the old-timers, but also for coming up with the idea for the game in the first place, about two months ago. Charles Walker posted a wake-up two weeks ago, reminding us that time was ticking. I was a fool who happened to be in a position to pick up the ball and run with it, so I did. And the turnout sure was a lot better than I expected! Thanks to the old-timers and kids for a fun game, it really was a pleasure. And thanks to all Agorans who were not playing XX for putting up with our antics for a couple of weeks. We return you to your regular Nomic shortly... Yours, Dan Mehkeri
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
[oops, hit 'send' while I was just starting to type the previous message]. On Sun, 30 Jun 2013, Kerim Aydin wrote: On Sun, 30 Jun 2013, Fool wrote: There was some talk of legalism/logicism or idealism/pragmatism. Maybe relative to the group I'm very far off one end of these scales. I also expect the question of _objectives_ made a big difference. On the last turn, a fairly large coalition simply voted themselves joint winners. I'm curious _when_ did this coalition form? And generally, to what extent were people trying to win? Steve dropped me a note pretty early on (but not at the very beginning). Ironically, it might have been omd's UNDEAD email that inspired em to do so! I guess e dropped a few notes privately then got us all in together. So we all got on email and figured why not. It was pretty simple, Steve asked a few of us if we should try a scam for old- time's sake, we pondered the ruleset for a day or so, then decided that just to go through force-of-numbers on a final vote, rather than a complicated loophole thing. Chuck coined the term The Innocuous Proposals to suggest that we quietly propose things likely to pass to accumulate a war purse for the last push. Of course, Blob's version of innocuous wasn't... so we sure didn't have a commanding lead going into the last vote. At the end we knew if everyone in the game voted and spent their points on voting we'd not get through, but just shrugged, decided not to ponder super-fancy stuff and just voted and hoped for the best. One of the most interesting aspects of the game was not just the DEADLINE, but the fact that there were a couple proposals for the deadline to change. I think, next time, I'd make an early proposal to make a random (increasing each time) chance that the game would end with each set of voting. -Goethe.
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 1 July 2013 03:14, Fool fool1...@gmail.com wrote: There was some talk of legalism/logicism or idealism/pragmatism. Maybe relative to the group I'm very far off one end of these scales. I also expect the question of _objectives_ made a big difference. On the last turn, a fairly large coalition simply voted themselves joint winners. I'm curious _when_ did this coalition form? And generally, to what extent were people trying to win? I didn't find out about Agora XX until June 24 when Blob alerted me to it -- I didn't receive Yally's email to the ancients. I sent the following message to Goethe shortly after I registered: From: Steven Gardner steven.gard...@monash.edu Date: 25 June 2013 09:18 Subject: What is to be done? To: ke...@u.washington.edu Hi Kerim. Or perhaps that should be Goethe. I have no plans at all, and really no idea what is going on, but I feel like we should be conspiring to do something, just for old times' sake. The main thing I can think of to do is of course to try and win Agora XX. My only idea so far is try and get a proposal adopted just before the game ends to amend the scoring rule to declare, say, you, me, Chuck, Murphy and Michael the winners of Agora XX. Five votes might be enough in blitz nomic. But if you've any better ideas you need co-conspirators for, count me in. Steve So the basic idea to try and win and the outlines of how to do it was there from the beginning -- not very stylish, but acceptable given there were only 5 days to go. Personally, I'm a big fan of the Win by Paradox; I've always thought it's the most stylish way to win, and the method most resonant wit the deep spirit of the game. After all, Suber called his book the 'The Paradox of Self-Amendment'; love of paradox obviously runs deep in the game's inventor. I sent this message to all six old timers on 26 June: From: Steven Gardner steven.gard...@monash.edu Date: 26 June 2013 13:49 Subject: Re: For Old Time(r)s' Sake To: Malcolm Ryan malco...@cse.unsw.edu.au Cc: games...@chuckcarroll.org, Kerim Aydin ke...@u.washington.edu, michael.norr...@nicta.com.au, emurph...@socal.rr.com My only plan at the moment is to put up proposal to enact or amend a rule to declare us the winners. There are, at least potentially, 6 of us, and with a 24 hour voting period, that might be enough. From a tactical standpoint, we also need to think about how to vote on proposals being made by others which affect our chances of success. For example, amending rules is tricky when they keep changing numbers! For another example, proposal to extend the game beyond June 30 might complicate matters. Of course I'd prefer to win by by paradox - much more stylish. My instinct is to start with the judicial system - tie that up in logical knots and it becomes impossible to determine the game state - but I've no concrete ideas about how to do that, particularly not in 3 or 4 days. Let's spend the next 24-36 hours exploring ideas. Then we can settle on a plan. To my surprise and delight, Chuck almost immediately discovered the germ of an idea for a plausible Win By Paradox. I would have been very happy to see Chuck declared sole winner in this fashion. But Walker and Michael patiently and ingeniously picked apart his argument. In a fascinating sideline, which Michael pointed out to us in a private message, the path to a win by paradox remained open even after Michael's Judgement on Chuck's second CFJ. As Michael pointed out in his Judgement, Chuck's idea was basically sound, it's just that Chuck had made his move too early, when the relevant rule defining the end of voting periods was the old 205, not the new 333. So a new CFJ, referring to the close of the voting periods of proposals 348-362, might have worked. My final comment on this intricate passage of play is that it also might not have worked. It would have been open to the Speaker to try and 'collapse the game state', a manouevre with a long history in Agora Nomic going back to its early Platonic days, though I'm not sure it has been needed for many years since pragmatism was written so deeply into Agora's ruleset. The set of voters on proposals 348-362 was nearly identical for each of those proposals; there were only minor variations. So the Speaker could have tried identifying each of the different possible sets of Judges for such a CFJ, and rolling a die for each such set. If the same Judge is selected in each of the 'legally possible worlds', then voila! -- instant gamestate collapse, and the legality of selecting that Judge could be determined with finality after all. Alas, all this remained, as they say in chess, 'in the notes'. Steve -- Steve Gardner Research Grants Development Faculty of Business and Economics Monash University, Caulfield campus Rm: S8.04 | ph: (613) 9905 2486 e: steven.gard...@monash.edu *** NB I am now working 1.0 FTE, but I am away from my desk** on alternate Thursday afternoons (pay weeks). *** Two facts
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
Yes, I should be available at that time. Blob On 01/07/2013, at 12:02 AM, Charles Walker wrote: On 30 June 2013 14:48, Steven Gardner steven.gard...@monash.edu wrote: For my part, 9pm local time (1100 UTC), after the kids are in bed, is when I'm more likely to have time to chat. But tomorrow (Monday) night I'll probably be out seeing a friend, and Tuesday I'm leaving for a family holiday for 5 days and I'm unlikely to have internet access. So unless you're willing to wait until next 1100 UTC Sunday night (7 July), you'd best leave me out of your plans. I don't see why we shouldn't wait (while still going ahead with the session tonight), especially as most people are more likely to be free on weekends. Is this acceptable to most people? Michael? Blob? -- Walker
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
I'd say the coalition had its seeds in my first message to Steve, passing on the Agora XX invitation. Our first question was how are we going to win this? I'd like to echo my thanks to all involved. Good times. Malcolm On 01/07/2013, at 3:14 AM, Fool wrote: I've hosted and played in non-Nomic Blitz PBM games before, and, while this isn't the most argumentative bunch I've seen by any means, I have to say this group produced the highest quality logical and legal argumentation I've ever seen. I was really impressed. I thought there was some excellent stuff in the calls to judgement, the associated discussion, and the verdicts. Even when I thought it was bogus, I found it to be creative and/or well-executed bogosity. Agoran CFJs take days or weeks. In XX it was 24 hours, and people were online at different times. In some cases it seemed like people were cranking out these fairly long well-reasoned monologues out on the fly. I guess that comes with experience or something? I AM NOT WORTHY. There was some talk of legalism/logicism or idealism/pragmatism. Maybe relative to the group I'm very far off one end of these scales. I also expect the question of _objectives_ made a big difference. On the last turn, a fairly large coalition simply voted themselves joint winners. I'm curious _when_ did this coalition form? And generally, to what extent were people trying to win? As to the ruleset itself: I don't think I have anything new to say about the technical issues. On the higher-level end, I don't care much for win by paradox. And maybe the biggest bug is majority rules. Maybe not so good when things get really competitive. To be sure, these are opinions I held before the game started, and likely are minority opinions. Credit to Aaron Goldfein not only for rounding up the old-timers, but also for coming up with the idea for the game in the first place, about two months ago. Charles Walker posted a wake-up two weeks ago, reminding us that time was ticking. I was a fool who happened to be in a position to pick up the ball and run with it, so I did. And the turnout sure was a lot better than I expected! Thanks to the old-timers and kids for a fun game, it really was a pleasure. And thanks to all Agorans who were not playing XX for putting up with our antics for a couple of weeks. We return you to your regular Nomic shortly... Yours, Dan Mehkeri
RE: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
To my surprise and delight, Chuck almost immediately discovered the germ of an idea for a plausible Win By Paradox. I would have been very happy to see Chuck declared sole winner in this fashion. But Walker and Michael patiently and ingeniously picked apart his argument. It was actually Steve's message which prompted me to look again at the Rules and current Proposals and see if I could find a paradox. This was at the time when 331 was still in its voting period. I hadn't noticed it at first, but looking at it again I realized the ambiguity if the proposal passed. But it would need different sets of voters on proposals distributed at the same time. I had already voted on 331-341, and doubted that I could rescind one of my votes. (Although it hadn't happened yet, the later CFJ ruling that a vote couldn't be changed suggests that I was right.) Had the same set of voters all voted on 331-341, I would have avoided voting on one proposal in a subsequent distribution to create the ambiguity myself--and I then would have had to wait for someone else to CFJ first; I wouldn't be able to attempt the Win by Paradox based on my own CFJ, since I'd be ineligible to judge my own CFJ and then there wouldn't be any ambiguity about the list of Players from which to select a judge. I was relieved to see that the sets of voters on 331-341 was not identical and so my attempt could proceed, even if it was ultimately unsuccessful. And kudos (or even Kudos) to Walker and Michael on their excellent judgements. In a fascinating sideline, which Michael pointed out to us in a private message, the path to a win by paradox remained open even after Michael's Judgement on Chuck's second CFJ. As Michael pointed out in his Judgement, Chuck's idea was basically sound, it's just that Chuck had made his move too early, when the relevant rule defining the end of voting periods was the old 205, not the new 333. So a new CFJ, referring to the close of the voting periods of proposals 348-362, might have worked. This segues into another complication: due to some travel I had this weekend, I had little to no chance to check email during the last ~20 hours of the game, and even in the ~24 hours before that I had little time to participate. It was during that period that Michael sent the message Steve references above. Steve suggested that either Michael or I attempt the Win by Paradox based on that reasoning; I replied that I wouldn't have time to put together the appropriate CFJ and deferred to Michael, if he wanted to. My timing issue was also why I cast my extra votes and made my points transfer fairly early in the voting period on 364; had I been able to, I would have done that much closer to the end of the voting period in hopes of hiding our strategy as long as possible. My biggest worry about my limited time for participation towards the end of the game was the possibility that I might be assigned a CFJ to judge, and I wouldn't have the time to give it the attention and analysis it deserved (especially given the high bar set by other judgements!). Fortunately, that didn't happen. My idea for the Innocuous Proposals strategy was inspired by the distribution of proposals 331-341, where 9 of the 11 proposals were by omd, and it occurred to me that e might be making proposals more for the points to be had than for the rule changes themselves. And that we could do that, too. My proposal 347 - removing the two points for voting AGAINST a successful proposal - was also made with an eye towards the Innocuous Proposal strategy. With that reward still in place, I had realized, Innocuous Proposals could also earn a lot of points (and resulting Extra Votes) for people voting against the Innocuous Proposals. I realized this with just hours to spare: removal of the two-point reward had to go out in the third-to-last proposal distribution, so the Innocuous Proposals could go out in the second-to-last proposal distribution, and the game-winning proposal in the last distribution. I came up with the name Innocuous Proposals as a parallel (or anti-parallel, if you like) to the Terrible Proposals scam from way back in Nomic World, which someone else had mentioned in passing in our discussions. The particular nature of Goethe's Innocuous Proposals were entirely his own invention, and nicely done, I must say. My final comment on this intricate passage of play is that it also might not have worked. It would have been open to the Speaker to try and 'collapse the game state', a manouevre with a long history in Agora Nomic going back to its early Platonic days, though I'm not sure it has been needed for many years since pragmatism was written so deeply into Agora's ruleset. The set of voters on proposals 348-362 was nearly identical for each of those proposals; there were only minor variations. So the Speaker could have tried identifying each of the different possible sets of Judges
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 30/06/2013 5:41 PM, Kerim Aydin wrote: Of course, Blob's version of innocuous wasn't... so we sure didn't have a commanding lead going into the last vote. At the end we knew if everyone in the game voted and spent their points on voting we'd not get through, but just shrugged, decided not to ponder super-fancy stuff and just voted and hoped for the best. But then, why _would_ everyone vote against you? Most of them were about to lose the game anyway.
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 01/07/2013 12:35 AM, Chuck Carroll wrote: Like others have mentioned, I like the idea of a Nomic with a defined endpoint (being well aware, of course, that there is no guarantee that the endpoint will remain unchanged) in which I can most likely play for just a few weeks. But there was a guarantee. Rule 112 was immutable .. any single player could have forced the endpoint. I was surprised at how much it got amended, but I was even more surprised simply by the fact that it got transmuted in the first place!
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 1 July 2013 14:35, Chuck Carroll games...@chuckcarroll.org wrote: ** ** Thanks to all the players, especially my fellow winners, and many many thanks to Fool for running such an enjoyable game. Like others have mentioned, I like the idea of a Nomic with a defined endpoint (being well aware, of course, that there is no guarantee that the endpoint will remain unchanged) in which I can most likely play for just a few weeks. I don't have time to participate in a long-term Nomic now, but would enjoy playing again for just a few weeks on occasion. ** I'm with Chuck here. I can't commit long term to nomic, but would enjoy playing like this again once in a while. Same time again next year? Maybe using the Initial Set Charles Walker is working on? I like the idea of making the fortnight before the moment of Agora's Birthday an Agoran Holiday, to free up all Agorans to participate in a blitz game. Steve -- Steve Gardner Research Grants Development Faculty of Business and Economics Monash University, Caulfield campus Rm: S8.04 | ph: (613) 9905 2486 e: steven.gard...@monash.edu *** NB I am now working 1.0 FTE, but I am away from my desk** on alternate Thursday afternoons (pay weeks). *** Two facts about lists: (1) one can never remember the last item on any list; (2) I can't remember what the other one is.
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 29 June 2013 13:37, Fool fool1...@gmail.com wrote: Alex Hunt what
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 29/06/2013 9:18 AM, Elliott Hird wrote: On 29 June 2013 13:37, Foolfool1...@gmail.com wrote: Alex Hunt what SMITH! I MEANT SMITH! ARGH! sorry Alex. :(
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Sat, 29 Jun 2013, Fool wrote: And we have a last minute registration, Ørjan. Just in time to lose! Yay! * resolves to read proposals before voting on them in the future :P Greetings, Ørjan, still an old-timer in spirit.
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Sat, 29 Jun 2013, Fool wrote: Proposition 364 (Steve) passes 17:12 with Steve(x6), Chuck(x4), Ørjan, Michael(x2), and Goethe(x4) FOR; Walker(x5), omd(x5), woggle, and Yally AGAINST. This gives Steve 10 extra points for passing a proposal. Then it amends rule 344, re-instates Blob, and the game ends in a joint win by fiat. Kudos to Steve for assembling the team out of retirement, Chuck as the primary strategic architect (hereafter known as The Innocuous Proposals strategy), Blob as the near-spoiler who kept it all interesting, Murphy as the Zen Master of Nomic (Victory via Inaction), and Ørjan in the arrived late to the party but clearly would have been invited category.
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Jun 29, 2013, at 8:37 AM, Fool fool1...@gmail.com wrote: Good day Agorans, Ah... one thing. Didn't we have a ruling that proposals do not take effect until the voting results are announced? Since, unless I'm mixing up time zones on my phone, this was sent after 12:04 UTC, the game ended before the proposal could take effect. Who won? (I also disagree with your ruling regarding 364's existence, which would affect the final scores, but I'll get to that after this is clarified. Also, I believe I did not successfully vote twice on 363.) - omd
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 29/06/2013 1:16 PM, com...@gmail.com wrote: On Jun 29, 2013, at 8:37 AM, Foolfool1...@gmail.com wrote: Good day Agorans, Ah... one thing. Didn't we have a ruling that proposals do not take effect until the voting results are announced? Since, unless I'm mixing up time zones on my phone, this was sent after 12:04 UTC, the game ended before the proposal could take effect. Who won? (I also disagree with your ruling regarding 364's existence, which would affect the final scores, but I'll get to that after this is clarified. Also, I believe I did not successfully vote twice on 363.) - omd We had two rulings by Walker and Michael on Chuck's two CFJs. They both ruled FALSE but by somewhat different paths. You might be thinking of Walker's ruling here. The previous version of poor rule 112, much vandalised and abused over its sorry existence, extends the game to allow the final proposals to resolve, and in any case, it didn't actually end the game Was your vote on 363 a deliberate misvote? Does it matter? Okay, the big question, 364. It affects more than the final scores, it affects whether the surviving player with the most points won, or whether the old-timers jointly won. (_Surviving_ player, if that's where you're going with this... proposal 363 failed. No matter what, you lose.) It also affects whether the game is formally over, or just frozen until next year, though likely nobody cares. For comparison, the first two proposals in this game were: 301 (Chuck): I propose that Rule 211 be amended to read: “Voters who voted against proposals which are adopted receive 2 points apiece. Players whose proposals are adopted shall receive a random number of points in the range 1-10 inclusive.” 302 (Walker): I propose that the Rule initially numbered 211 be amended by replacing a random number of points in the range 1-10 inclusive with 10 points. I do admit that, when it comes to this sort of thing, I'm a hanging judge. But that don't mean I'm wrong! Oh, the Lord loves a hangin', that's why E give us necks... -Dan
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On Sat, Jun 29, 2013 at 4:20 PM, Fool fool1...@gmail.com wrote: The previous version of poor rule 112, much vandalised and abused over its sorry existence, extends the game to allow the final proposals to resolve, and in any case, it didn't actually end the game Ah, my mistake. Was your vote on 363 a deliberate misvote? Does it matter? No... it was a mistake. Okay, the big question, 364. It affects more than the final scores, it affects whether the surviving player with the most points won, or whether the old-timers jointly won. (_Surviving_ player, if that's where you're going with this... proposal 363 failed. No matter what, you lose.) It also affects whether the game is formally over, or just frozen until next year, though likely nobody cares. As I see it, according to the ruleset and your ruling about amending rules that were immutable at the time of submission, the rule to amend and proposed amendment are identified at the time of submission. Both of the submissions you quoted are consistent with that idea: Walker's might have been submitted with the idea that the rule would be identified at the time of resolution, but it can easily be read as an indirect reference effective immediately, and it was submitted before that ruling in any case. However, Steve's wording, I submit the following Proposal: === If there is exactly one Rule which was initially numbered 112, then that Rule is amended to Read: clearly puts the conditional within the proposal, rather than the proposal within the conditional - which would make little sense anyway, as the condition was surely true at the time of submission.
Re: DIS: Agora XX: 13th and final report
On 29 June 2013 22:37, Fool fool1...@gmail.com wrote: It has been my pleasure to be your Speaker for this bit of fast-paced nonsense. I discharge my last formal duty by including the final ruleset below. I will also post an end-of-game statement, and I encourage other players to do likewise. Thanks for playing guys. And happy birthday Agora! First of all: Happy 20th Birthday, Agora! Thanks to all the current players of Agora for playing the game and helping it to reach this milestone. Thanks also to the organisers of Agora XX: chiefly (I think) Aaron Goldfein for his message to many former players, and to our most Honourable (now ex-) Speaker Fool, for doing a terrific and meticulous job as Speaker. Thanks to my fellow Old Timers and co-conspirators, Blob, Chuck, Ed, Goethe and Michael. I had great fun conspiring with you. I think in Chuck's case that despite all our (eleven?) years playing together in Agora, this might be the first time we ever worked together on the same side of a conspiracy! Thanks also to Oerjan, for voting for 364 though there was nothing in it for him. Extra thanks to Blob for passing Aaron's message along to me -- for some reason it wasn't sent to me directly. Agora XX is the first nomic of any description I have played since I left Agora in late 2003. I enjoyed it more than I expected to. A very unusual, maybe unique, feature of this game was the combination of the very fast timer and the defined endpoint - almost like over the table play. This made the tactics interesting. Charles Walker, I'd be interested to see you the ruleset you've been working on. Would you mind sending me a copy? I'd be happy to offer you ideas (if I have any ideas) for you to use or ignore as you please. Cheers, Steve -- Steve Gardner Research Grants Development Faculty of Business and Economics Monash University, Caulfield campus Rm: S8.04 | ph: (613) 9905 2486 e: steven.gard...@monash.edu *** NB I am now working 1.0 FTE, but I am away from my desk** on alternate Thursday afternoons (pay weeks). *** Two facts about lists: (1) one can never remember the last item on any list; (2) I can't remember what the other one is.
