One other aspect of Agoran common custom is that this is a legal
game before a logic/mathematical one, and we've used in the past
legal reasonableness to sidestep the more trivial paradoxes.
Especially true in the current, slimmed-down ruleset.
In legal terms, "Unanimous" means "having the agreement and consent
of all". (Merriam Webster).
By Rule 1503, the Rules are a binding agreement between players,
and the proposal process is defined (prima facie) as a means of
determining consent to changes in the terms of the rules as an
agreement.
A part of this process (R955) legally declares a decision to be
"Unanimous" under certain voting results, without further
definition of the term Unanimous. Note that while we've used
the mathematical arguments so far, unanimous does not in fact
have a mathematical definition, implying the legal or common
language usage is a better guide. We should use the legal
sense of the term, in that certain conditions (quorum and no
AGAINST votes) legally determine that all parties to the agreement
have consented to a change in that agreement.
And if all parties to an agreement have consented, it would
substantially abridge the rights of the Players in R101 if we
*didn't* assume prima facie that the change was valid. Therefore,
not accepting a definition of "Unanimous" as consent to change,
and throwing out the change, would legally violate R101.
[Note that this only applies as long as "Unanimous" as defined
in the Rules is reasonably like the common language definition.
Currently, a vote that meets quorum and has no AGAINST votes
is unanimous by the Rules and by common sense: if the rules were
re-written so that "unanimous" were defined as "if the dictator
says so", that would be so far different from the common language
definition that we should throw out the prima facie argument and
declare the definition as contrary to R101 rights.]
I like this line of thought. It's a good first test of the new
R101. It befits our custom of legal practice and the new legal
game that the new Rules were meant to foster. It's what I was
trying to get at in choosing one arbitrary mapping over another
by common custom. It does not contradict my earlier justification
of selecting a reasonable ordering for the index. Who knows,
maybe even Kelly would like it.
-Goethe
