On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 4:57 PM, Kerim Aydin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Ratification *creates a legal fiction* but doesn't change the past, whether > or not that legal fiction is about physical or virtual things doesn't > matter.
Right, it creates the legal fiction that the current gamestate is what it would be, had the ratified document been "completely true and accurate at the time it was published". But for physical things, what does this mean? Suppose we have a rule that only players wearing hats may vote, and that I -- while not wearing a hat -- announce at 10:00 PM that I *am* wearing a hat, and that I then -- still not wearing a hat -- attempt to vote at 10:05 PM. Suppose further that the hat-wearing announcement goes on to ratify, and the vote results do not. What has been ratified in this instance is that I was wearing a hat at 10:00 PM. The ratification has nothing to do with whether I was wearing a hat at 10:05 PM, so the vote should be unsuccessful despite the ratification. However, this would not be the case if the wearing of hats were a legal fiction, the state of which is simply assumed to be continuous. -root
