I would really love some feedback. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EQUALITY (Power 1.0)
For the purposes of this rule, a Player Property is defined by a set of values (its range) and a way of naturally and unambiguously assigning at each point in time a value in that set to each player at that time. For the purposes of this rule, a Criteria on a set of values is defined by a subset of that set of values specified naturally and unambiguously. For the purposes of this rule, a Class is a set of players defined as those whose value under a clearly specified Player Property is inside the set of a clearly specified Criteria. Equality is a natural player switch tracked by the Nomos. The Protected Classes is a singleton switch tracked by the Nomos with values on lists of Player Properties, without repetition, defaulting to the empty list. To protect a class means to set The Protected Classes to its former value with the specified Player Property appended. A Player Property is protected if it is listed in The Protected Classes, and unprotected if it isn't. A Policy is a document unambiguously specifying a Class of players. A Policy is Discriminatory if the specified Player Property of its Class is protected. A player CAN, with agoran consent, protect a class, by specifying the Player Property to be protected. A player CAN, once a week, by announcement, enact a Policy, provided that Policy is not Discriminatory. When e does so, the players in that Class have eir Equality increased by one. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Just to be clear: my idea is to create an exploratory experiment on the concept of protecting classes of people. I want to see the limits of how can formalistic reasoning protect against discrimination based on certain characteristics. As far as I understand, in law (at least U.S. law) the idea is that a rule is valid, despite desproportionally affecting individuals in certain protected classes, if it can be shown that it is the least burdensome way to accomplish certain valid policy goals. That is, a rule is discriminatory if it affects protected classes disproportionally in any way. I.e., if the criteria it establishes is not independent (in a statistical, or event-based sense) to the protected criteria. Since this would rule-out basically any meaningful legislation, there are provisions for allowing this indirect discrimination when it is justified. So, the rule I'm proposing is exploring how far we can get in protecting classes (through politically motivated action) when all that is forbidden is *direct* discrimination. There are some restrictions, though: the “natural” criteria is to avoid certain logical sheananigans that would sidestep the protections. I know, it isn't formal, but I can't think of a better alternative. -- juan
