Subject: Ackanomic Digest V2 #88
From: [email-masked] (Ackanomic Digest)
To: ackanomic-digest

Ackanomic Digest         Sunday, May 18 1997         Volume 02 : Number 088

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Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 23:12:22 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Is YORL Acka?

Maybeb I should be sending this to the yorl list itself, but let me just
ask here, as I'm curious:  What relation does Ye Olde Rusty Lantern have to
the rest of Ackanomic?  It's not in the Rules, so seems to have a totally
unofficial existence, but the yorl mailing list uses "Acka:" anyway...was
there any intention of bringing it into Acka?

Also, the game looks like a bunch of fun, but also looks like it might be
close to ending...would it be worthwhile for me to join?  By that I
mean--is it not as close to ending as it looks, and/or is there likely to
be another game starting up after this one is over?

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Song In The Other Room--George Michael:Praying For Time
Current Book--Liavek:Festival Week
If a Stealth craft crashes in a forest, does it make a sound?

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 11:45:29 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Uri Bruck <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Status 

MetaMorph stand for change, for a dynamic ruleset. 

Niccolo Flychuck

On Fri, 16 May 1997 [email-masked] wrote:

> > 
> > Join MetaMorph!!!!!
> > 
> > 
> > Niccolo Flychuck
> 
> I will join MetaMorph, I don't were MetaMorph is standing for, but I 
> guess that I can morph the morals of MetaMorph after joining :)
> 
> CarsesraC 
> - --               |
> \.             /;       
> \`--.._      //:        
> '\/////\  __/;' 
>  '\////\`\`)' [email-masked]          
>      \/'  |    
>      :'_\'\    
>     / | '" "'  
>     ~~~
> 
> ------------------------------
> 

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 10:40:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Matt Miller <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: Ooops.

I approve of snowgod's joining MetaMorph.

IB

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 09:31:05 -0900
From: Phil Ackley <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acka: CFJ 382 Verdict 

This has been judged false.  Guess who gets the Goose?

Call For Judgment
Subject: Pragmatic Paradox
Initiator: Guy Fawkes
Judge: /dev/joe
Judegement:False

Statement:
If a player attempts to create a Trinket whose value exceeds
the number of A$ in his possession, and the impossibility of this act
goes unreported for the next two weeks, following the two-week period of
non-reporting, it appears equally legal and illegal for that player to
trade the impossibly created Trinket (in the case where manipulation of
that Trinket has not been attempted since its creation).

Guy Fawkes' Reasoning:
As (Mohammed?) once said, "Retroactivity is blood in the water for paradox
sharks."

In this scenario (Actually, any situation where the acceptance of an
impossible change to the game state has a effect on the legality of later
actions would have worked), a player attempts to create a Trinket which e
cannot afford.  Rule 506 governs the creation of Trinkets.

> A player may create a Trinket by publically announcing its name,
> description, and value, as long as the player has
> at least as many A$ as the announced value. Upon doing so, the
> stated amount of A$ is transformed into the
> Trinket, and the creating player becomes the owner of the Trinket.

Clearly, the for a player to create a Trinket with a higher value than e
has A$ is against the Rules.  Rule 713 defines two classes of such
actions, a class of illegal actions (non-retractable errors), which
occur, but are punishable, and a class of of impermissible or impossible
actions (retractable errors), which cannot occur, although the attempt is
punishable.  Both these classes fall under the broader category of
Crimes, which also includes actions which are entirely within the rules
but nonetheless punishable, such as submitting substantially similar
proposals.

> To perform an action specified by the Rules to be Illegal is a Crime. An
> action specified by the Rules to be "impermissible" is, by contrast,
> impossible. However, an attempt to commit such an action is a Crime
> [even though the action itself does not occur].

A reading of the Trinket rule, as well as game custom and practice (take,
for example, CarsesraC's recent attempted creation of the A$1000 "rule
book of rings" trinkets) classifies the attempted creation of a Trinket
whose value exceeds the account balance of the creating player among the
"impossible" or "impermissible" (retractable) class of rule violations.
It does not occur, and the attempt to make it occur is a Crime.

Rule 713 goes on to attempt to add an element of pragmatism to impossible
and illegal actions.  Herein, however, lies the paradox.

> If, however, the illegally or impossiblility of a publically knowable
> change to the game state goes unreported for at least 14 days, the
> action or inaction which caused that change is considered legal, but it
> is still a Crime. The change is deemed to have occurred retroactively to
> the time of the attempt. The preceeding does not apply to the case of
> events which occur automatically, but whose occurrance is not (or
> erroneously) reported [e.g., loss of the Great Trombone]. This
> paragraph has precedence over rule 103.

As established above, the act of creating a Trinket for which one has
insufficent A$ is not an illegal act for the purposes of Rule 713, since
Rule 713 uses illegal to specifically refer to the class of
non-retractable, yet punishable, Rule violations.  It is, instead, an
impossible or impermissible act in the sense of Rule 713, which uses
those terms to describe retractable errors -- violations of the rules
which do not occur.

In the scenario with which this CFJ concerns itself, after the two-week
period of non-reporting, the "pragmatism clause" generates a retroactive
change to the game state; namely, it causes that particular instance of
the (in this case) impossible action to "legal, but... still a Crime".
This amusing arrangement of words is not in itself paradoxical, for Crime
in specfic Ackanomic usage refers to a very broad class of actions with
little in common save that they are all subject to CFCJ.  Some Crimes are
against the Rules and others are not.  "Legal" is used throughout the
Ruleset to refer to actions, names, entities, and other facets of the
game state which do not violate the rules.  Therefore, the effect of the
Rule 713's retroactive game state change is to cause the hitherto
impossible Trinket creation to become legal (within the rules), though to
remain a Crime (an action punishable by CFCJ).

>From both a legalistic point of view (the impossible/impermissible class
of game state changes is against the rules, whereas legal changes to the
game state are not) and in common language (an impossible event cannot
occur; therefore all events which occur are not impossible), the effect
of the "pragmatism clause" is to retroactively cause the normally
impossible Trinket creation to be not impossible.

(Aside: The purpose of the retroactivity is clear.  Had after creating
it, Player A traded it to Player B, who donated it to the Museum thereby
raising his BV above A$5000 and winning the cyle, causing the position of
Archaeologist to transfer from Player C to D, allowing D to create a new
OMCL, which was immediately used by Player E to obtain...  Rewinding the
game state for the other, unexpected but true thread is difficult if not
impossible, perhaps destroying weeks of play.)

However, this useful retroactivity causes a paradox: because Rule 713
changed the game state to make the impossible Trinket creation legal at
the time of the Trinket's creation, the Trinket creation is no longer
impossible (it occurred, didn't it?), and so Rule 713 is deprived of a
legal basis for altering the game state to its current one.  Of course,
if Rule 713 doesn't alter the game state, then the Trinket creation is
impossible, allowing it to be altered by Rule 713, thus depriving Rule
713 of the ability to alter it, and so forth...

It's a rephrasing of the time paradox of going back in time to murder
one's ancestor.

Retroactivity _is_ blood in the water for paradox sharks.

/dev/joe's reasoning:
The situation described in the CFJ is (briefly) that a player attempts to
create a trinket with more A$ than he owns, the impossibility of this is
not reported for 14 days, and then the third paragraph of rule 713 kicks in,
retroactively making the action legal.

Guy claims that the retroactivity causes a paradox, that once Rule 713
makes the action legal, Rule 713 no longer applies since the action is
no longer impossible or illegal, and that this causes Rule 713 to have
never triggered in the first place, which means it *can* trigger, etc.

However, Rule 713 only retroactively makes things legal.  It doesn't
retroactively make things illegal, nor does it retroactively undo its
own effects.  The only thing it does retroactively is make an illegal
or impossible action become legal.  So once the conditions for making
the illegal trinket creation retroactively legal occur, Rule 713
retroactively makes it legal.  After this, it cannot retroactively make
it legal again because the conditions for doing so cannot be met again,
but this doesn't matter because the action is already legal.

If the illegality of the creation of a trinket worth more A$ than a
player has goes unreported for 14 days, the creation becomes legal.

Sometimes when paradox sharks smell blood, blood is all they swallow.
The bleeding man hasn't totally escaped yet though -- there may still
be a paradox with this rule, but this isn't it.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 13:49:29 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Is YORL Acka?

> Also, the game looks like a bunch of fun, but also looks like it might be
> close to ending...would it be worthwhile for me to join?  By that I
> mean--is it not as close to ending as it looks, and/or is there likely to
> be another game starting up after this one is over?
	Ye Olde Rusty Lantern was originally intended to join Acka's
G&C compendium.  The game has turned out to be very buggy, though, and
so we're still play-testing.
	It's probably very likely there'll be another game after the
current one ends, but as for when this one will be finished, your
guess is as good as mine (it may be quite a while.)

- -- 
Mohammed

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 13:54:12 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Acrobot

#retract proposal 2007
#thanks

- -- 
Mohammed
Brainy fools trapped a crazy running back last year.

------------------------------

Date: 17 May 1997 14:41:20 CST/CDT
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Ackanomic Digest V2 #87 

Red barn wrote something to the effect that:

>Ifit weren't for the fact that the rules were forever changing, the
game would be automateable.

- --Perhaps, but that depends onwhat the static rules were.  There exist
several legal moves within the present ruleset that I personally believe
cannot feasibly be automated.  What about the (not too hard to imagine)
case of someone submitting a "Repeal rule xxx" proposal for each and
every rule in the ruleset.  How many active proposals would it take to
crash the Acrobot?  And if a Chromatic Repeal did crash the bot,
Mohammed would still be under the obligation to distribute the
proposals, even if he found them unretrievable due to the bot's
crashing.  If nomic is ever to be successfully automated, the code in
the bot must be as fluid as the rules of the game itself.

Guy Fawkes

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 15:58:37 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Ackanomic Digest V2 #87

> How many active proposals would it take to crash the Acrobot?
	Not too many.  My quota maxes out at just over 19 megabytes.
Given that the proposal header alone is around 60 bytes, and about
half of my quota is already full (on a good day :o), a mere hundred
thousand very short proposals would certainly be too many.
	(The bot itself keeps proposal records in a variable-length
array that can handle an arbitrary number of entries, up to however
much virtual memory odin has-- probably enough for most reasonable
situations.)

- -- 
Mohammed
omitting certain classified details :o)
Nuns from Zaire spat at seven lions in Mexico.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 16:04:05 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jason Orendorff <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: P1976 rejected (correction)

On Sat, 17 May 1997, Acrobot wrote:
> Proposal 1976
> Trinket Name And Description Changes
> Alfvaen
	[deletia]
> Alfvaen attempted to bribe Tammany A$ 5 to vote YES, but didn't have
> enough A$.
	This is probably wrong.  The bot's finance data is *way* out
of date, a bad thing certainly since I'm supposed to be the financier
around here.
	That does not affect the outcome of the proposal but does
affect Alf's pocketbook.

- -- 
Mohammed
The one and only politician spat at storks this autumn.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 15:57:00 -0600 (MDT)
From: Aaron Humphrey <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka:  P1976 rejected (Trinket Name And Description Changes)

> Proposal 1976
> Trinket Name And Description Changes
> Alfvaen
> 
> Votes cast by active players:  12 / 17 = 70.588235%
> Yes:  4    No:  8     Present:  0   ...Proposal rejected.

I guess I don't get to do a parade, then...:-(

> YES votes:
> 	Atilla the Pun
> 	IdiotBoy
> 	Alfvaen
> 	snowgod

However, I _am_ now a fully Active player, at last, which I'm happy
about...and I imagine you Whamiol holders are even moreso.

- --
- --Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.terranet.ab.ca/~aaron/)
Current Song--Donna Fargo:Funny Face
Current Book--Liavek:Festival Week
All leads roam to Rhodes.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 17:23:03 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Joseph W. DeVincentis" <devjoe>
Subject: Acka: Taking care of business

1. Traveling
I will be out of town from tomorrow through about Thursday evening;
I will be checking my email periodically, and responding to anything
important, but probably not updating the web pages.  Everything is now
updated through P1976's results.

2. Newly Active Players
> Proposal 1976
> Trinket Name And Description Changes
> Alfvaen

> YES votes:
> 	Atilla the Pun
> 	Alfvaen

As a result of this proposal, both these players became active.
This triggered the whamiols (a little less than 26 days since they
were last triggered).  Note that Habeous Corpus has 2 whamiols
that just triggered twice each, for a whopping 60 points.
Habeous Corpus's and my victory eggplants are destroyed
(due to scores > 0).

#award Habeous Corpus: -1 victory eggplant: score > 0
#award /dev/joe: -1 victory eggplant: score > 0

3. Player States
According to my records, the following players are still pending:
  Sunflare, CV1701.

According to my records, the following players are still non-voting
since the quorum failures (May 8):
  Techno, Calvin N Hobbes, Robert Sevin, CarsesraC

If this is correct, Calvin N Hobbes has been removed from the office of
AckaPhysicist and Robert Sevin has been removed from his senate seat
as of May 15 (see R207, 254, 401).  However the offices are supposed
to be filled, the process should get started, but please verify that
I didn't miss one of them changing back to voting status.

4. Internomic
I don't remember if it was reported, but the senate unanimously voted YES
on Internomic proposal 335 (before May 15).

5. Score Report
The current scores are:
(yes, the top two scoring players are currently ineligible to win a cycle)

Score   Ackanomic Name    Status Real Name
- -----   --------------      1234 -------------
45      Habeous Corpus       N   (Ed Graham)
41      Guy Fawkes           Ag  (Robert Shimmin)
38      IdiotBoy             A   (Matt Miller)
25      Techno               N   (Jerome Herrman)
21      /dev/joe             A   (Joseph DeVincentis)
18      Bascule              A   (Matt Black)
16      You can call me Al   A   (Wally Holland)
13      Mohammed             A   (Jason Orendorff)
13      Vynd                 A   (John McCoy)
7       mr cwm               A   (Eric Murray)
7       snowgod              A   (Phil Ackley)
3       Atilla the Pun       A   (Micah Smukler)
0       Sunflare            NP   (Phil Bordelon)
0       Ackers               Ii  (Sean Crystal)
- -1      Alfvaen              A   (Aaron Humphrey)
- -1      Red Barn             A   (Daniel Knapp)
- -2      CV1701              NP   (Chris Vogt)
- -2      Niccolo Flychuck     A   (Uri Bruck)
- -2      two-star             A   (Alexandre Muniz)
- -2      Antimatter           A   (Ross Morgan-Linial)
- -5      breadbox             A   (Brian Raiter)
- -5      Calvin N Hobbes      N   (Thierry Joffrain)
- -6      ThinMan              Av  (John Bollinger)
- -11     Robert Sevin         Nv  (Mitchell Harding)
- -12     CarsesraC            N   (Jeroen M.W. van Dijk)
- -15     fnord                A   (Michael Thomas)
- -93     Malenkai             Vv  (Randy Hall)

Status: 
Column 1: N=New R=Returning (for Pending players)
Column 2: A=Active, P=Pending, N=Non-voting, V=Vacation, I=On Ice, D=Dead
Other columns: v=Victory Eggplant, g=Chartreuse Goose,
f=Frobbed Widget of Yendor, i=Involuntary (last put-on-vacation)

/dev/joe

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 15:48:15 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brian Raiter <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Acka: Taking care of business

> 5. Score Report
> [...]
> -93     Malenkai             Vv  (Randy Hall)

Poor Malenkai! The player who has won by score more often than anyone
might just set a record for the lowest Ackanomic score ever!

(In fact, perhaps he already has. "Keep 'Em In The Game" has been a
rule ever since the second week of Ackanomic, and the Victory Eggplant
modification was made only last October.)

breadbox

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End of Ackanomic Digest V2 #88
******************************