From owner-agora-officia-@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au Tue Sep 23 10:35 EDT 1997 Received: from gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (majordom-@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au [144.110.168.141]) by cs.brown.edu (8.8.5/8.7.1) with ESMTP id KAA28283 for dp-@cs.brown.edu; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 10:35:09 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordom-@localhost) by gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA09853 for agora-official-list; Tue, 23 Sep 19 ====================================================================== CFJ 930 "No Payment Orders have thus far been successfully executed, for the reason that none exist." ====================================================================== Judge: Chuck Justices: ChrisM (pro-S), elJefe (J), Michael (C) Judgement: TRUE Eligible: Andre, Blob, Calabresi, ChrisM, Crito, Harlequin, Kolja A., Steve, Vir, Zefram Not eligible: Caller: Morendil Barred: On request: Vanyel On hold: Swann Past Judge: Chuck, Elde, elJefe, General Chaos, Michael, Murphy, Oerjan Vlad ====================================================================== History: Called by Morendil, Wed, 16 Jul 1997 08:47:14 +0100 Assigned to Elde, Wed, 16 Jul 1997 09:17:04 +0100 Elde defaults Assigned to Chuck, Thu, 24 Jul 1997 09:39:56 +0100 Judged TRUE, Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:57:34 -0500 (CDT) Published, Tue, 29 Jul 1997 11:26:49 +0100 Appealed by Crito, Wed, 30 Jul 1997 11:14:30 -0400 Appealed by Andre, Mon, 4 Aug 1997 20:30:19 +0200 (MET DST) Appealed by Antimatter, Mon, 4 Aug 1997 11:40:28 -0700 (PDT) Appealed by Steve, Tue, 5 Aug 1997 17:39:17 +1000 (EST) Appeals process begun, Tue, 5 Aug 1997 12:26:52 +0100 elJefe SUSTAINS, Sat, 9 Aug 1997 21:27:10 +0000 Michael OVERTURNS/reverses, Tue, 12 Aug 1997 12:04:33 +0100 General Chaos defaults Murphy appointed as new Justice, Wed, 13 Aug 1997 09:57:56 +0100 Murphy defaults Oerjan appointed as new Justice, Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:42:09 +0100 Oerjan defaults Vlad appointed as new Justice, 15 Sep 1997 18:07:03 +0200 (MET DST) Vlad defaults ChrisM appointed as new Justice, as of this message ====================================================================== Appeals decisions -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Justice elJefe's decision: SUSTAIN CFJ 930 "No Payment Orders have thus far been successfully executed, for the reason that none exist." Judge Chuck relied on the reasoning of CFJ 929: However, at the time of the CFJ, only one Transfer Order could have been submitted, namely the Chancellor's transfer of 9 Indulgences from the Bank to Elde. At that time the Mint (which was Mintor of Indulgences) no longer had Mint Authority due to the effects of Proposal 3533. Thus Indulgences ceased to exist as a Currency by Rule 1579, and so the Chancellor's posting, not referring to any Currency, was not a Transfer Order. The only point in dispute is whether Indulgences continued to exist as a currency after the adoption of Proposal 3533. If they did then the reasoning in the quoted paragraph of CFJ 929 is correct and the judgement of TRUE stands. If not then the judgement in both CFJs should be FALSE, since the Misanthropists' currencies failed to confuse itself with Payment Orders or Transfer Orders defined in the Rules. Quoting from Rule 1579: "If the Mintor of a Currency ceases to exist, or ceases to have the authority to be a Mintor, then all units of that Currency are destroyed, and that Currency ceases to exist." There is unchallenged evidence that the old Mintor for Indulgences ceased to exist, and that no new Mintor was designated. Therefore unless this conflicts with some higher-power Rule, it must be applied. Rule 1435 begins "Indulgences are a Currency." One possible interpretation is that Indulgences were destroyed and ceased to exist at a given instant; but then immediately after that R1435 re-established Indulgences as a Currency without a Mintor, which then is immune to R1579 since it has no Mintor which can either cease existing or lose Mint authority. (*) This has several things wrong with it. Rule 1435 is silent as to whether Indulgences have a Mintor or not, so there is no conflict on this point with R1579. Thus any "re-establishment" of the currency must follow the first sentence of R1579, which insists that each Currency has a Mintor. Further, the whole notion does not give sufficient respect to the natural meaning of "cease to exist". A rule mandating that something ceases to exist does not mean for the thing to have its existence interrupted temporarily and then re-appear. If R1579 is strong enough to destroy Indulgences (or P-notes) as a currency, then it is strong enough to keep them destroyed. This brings us to the central question: _is_ R1579 strong enough to do what it says? Well, does it conflict with R1435? No. R1435 simply says that Indulgences are a Currency; R1579 says that they are in fact a destroyed Currency. (**) This is similar to the repeal of a Rule; longstanding Game Custom holds that a Rule or Proposal which repeals another Rule is not for that sole reason in conflict with it. (***) Thus 1579 did cause Indulgences to cease to exist, and they still cease to exist to the present time. NOTES: (*) This possibility was raised during the discussion of the issues surrounding a similar situation with regards to P-notes, so it is as well to dispose of it here. (**) My fellow learned Justice Michael objected that an earlier version involves a "secret" insertion of "defunct" into the rule. This wording is what I meant. (***) My fellow learned Justice Michael also objected here, pointing out that Rules and Rule changes occupy separate worlds. But I feel this misses the point of my analogy: a Rule Change (proposed or unproposed) is effective only by virtue of Rules that allow it to take effect. Do those Rules (which affect the content of the Ruleset) actually _conflict_ with the Rule being repealed? This would be like having an implicit clause in each Rule that stated "This rule may not be repealed"; game custom says it does not. Similarly, Rule 1479 does not contain an implied "this currency may not be destroyed" as part of its defining sentence. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Justice Michael's decision: OVERTURN/reverse If Indulgences exist, then a Payment Order was executed by the Chancellor when he attempted to transfer 9 Indulgences from the Bank to Elde. If Indulgences exist, then the Indulgence Currency's Recordkeepor is authorised to record and execute Payment Orders (R1596). Thus, if Indulgences exist, the correct judgement for this CFJ is FALSE. The argument that Indulgences do not exist is based on R1579, which states that all Currencies have a Mintor and if a Currency should lose its Mintor, then it is destroyed. It is accepted that an entity known as the Mint was the Mintor for Indulgences before the Pragmatic Currencies reform occurred. By virtue of R1586, we must also accept that the Mint no longer exists, so it would appear that the antecedent of the conditional sentence of the second paragraph in R1597 holds. So, what might prevent Indulgences from being destroyed, as required by R1579? The answer is the precedence taking R1435. This states that "Indulgences are a Currency". This statement must remain true, whatever R1579 says to the contrary. My Fellow Justice elJefe claims that this is possible if one reads "Indulgences are a Currency" as "Indulgences are a destroyed Currency". This is a senseless contortion. We do not need to put the rules through such hoops. We have rules taking precedence over each other all the time. When we read "Indulgences are a Currency", we know that this is equivalent to stating that there exists a Currency whose name is "Indulgences". But now the opposing argument wants us to simultaneously read this as admitting the precise opposite, that this Currency doesn't exist at all. I refuse to make the Rules play such tricks. If a high precedence rule says that Indulgences exist, then the lower precedence R1579 can yammer on about Mintors and the lack thereof all it likes. Indulgences exist. ====================================================================== Original Judgement: TRUE Reasons and arguments: Judge elJefe's reasoning on CFJ 929 applies here as well. ====================================================================== (Caller's) Arguments: (none) =====================================================================