On Wed, 8 Sep 2010, Warrigal wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 1:23 AM, Kerim Aydin <ke...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> >> > On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 11:54 PM, Warrigal<ihope12...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > > The asset defined is not "white ribbon"; it is "ribbon". Every ribbon
> >> > > then has a color. A white ribbon is a ribbon whose color is white;
> >> > > even though the rules stop using the term "white ribbon", white does
> >> > > not cease to be a color. (Likewise, a rule can have power 3 even
> >> > > though the rules never define 3 as a valid non-negative rational
> >> > > number.) Even if it white did cease to be a color for some reason, the
> >> > > ribbon would have to revert to a default color; there is no reason for
> >> > > a ribbon to stop existing simply because its color ceases to be
> >> > > defined, any more than a proposal or a player would cease to exist if
> >> > > its Title ceased to be defined.
> >
> > Counterargument: "Each color of Ribbon is a currency." (R2199).
> > This implies (by currency definition) that the individual fungible classes
> > of ribbon are in fact distinct enough to cease to exist if their color
> > wholly ceases to be defined. -G.
>
> "A currency" just means "fungible within itself"; it says nothing
> about distinction from other assets. "Fungible" certainly never means
> "ceasing to exist when one of its attributes ceases to be defined"!
>
> If a ribbon can exist without its color being specified by the rules
> *or* white is still considered a color even though it's never defined
> as a color, then white ribbons still exist in some form. I believe
> that *both* of these are true.
No, the operative phrase in currency is "class". That is, each currency
is a specific class of asset, not a subclass. Asset rules do not
specifically provide for subclasses of asset, nor does the ribbon
rule explicitly. Therefore, each color of ribbon is its own class
of thing, and if it disappears from the ruleset, it disappears.
In other words, by strict definition White Ribbons are as different
from Red Ribbons as Leadership Tokens are from ergs. Some rules
that talk of "ribbons" in general create a superclass; a rule that
applies to all classes. But Superclass->class is not the same as
class->subclass.
-G.
