Subject: Re: Simplex: Putting down the rebellion.
From: McAllister <bzm@sonic.net>
Date: Friday, September 11, 1998 19:45:24

At 9:11 PM -0700 9/11/98, Mueller wrote:
>I. As the description of Muscle Man Murphy notes:
>
>"A thingie is anything that exists in Simplex (Citizens, Laws, law defined
>anythings, and anything else that exists in the game).
>
>A public action is any communication to all the citizens of Simplex which
>can effect a thingie."
>
>While anyone can declare anything they like about non-thingies,
>declarations about thingies (which explicitly includes citizens) are public
>actions and can be vetoed by MMM.

The definition of these terms was a public action of Tom Mueller, the force
of which may or may not be accepted by other players. For the sake of
discourse I will attempt to abide by the hypothetical definitions, but I am
not yet convinced that I am bound to do so, since none of these rules are
defined in the rule set.

>II. Tyrrell
>
>He said:
>
>>I stress that this is not a public action, if public
>>action were to be defined as "A public action is any
>>communication to all the citizens of Simplex which can
>>effect a thingie,"
>
>therefore, the real life person Tyrrell McAllister either:
>(1) Did not change any thingies like his citizen, or
>(2) Did, and was inaccurate here.
>
>If he did, then he modified the state of his citizen such that it would
>vote however it wanted. In this case, Muscle Man Murphy vetos this.
>
>If Tyrrell did not, then there is nothing here but a statement regarding
>the Real Life people Tom and Tyrrell who (according to Tyrrell) are not
>playing the same game because one refuses to listen to the other. More on
>this below.

My statement did not change anything about the thingie citizen Tyrrell
(Tom's option #1). The section Tom quoted here is a statement about the
thingie citizen Tyrrell, not just real Tyrrell. Tom is inaccurate when he
implies that thingie citizen Tyrrell refuses to listen to thingie citizen
Tom. I explicitly stated in my original message that thingie citizen
Tyrrell is bound by the rule set to acknowledge the existence propositions
(including Tom's) and laws, including those laws which were originally
propositions of Tom's.

>With the mechanical details out of the way, let me now be explicit in my
>rebuttal of the philosophy underlying what I will now refer to as the Head
>In The Sand Rebellion.
>
>Beginning with Tyrrell, the idea was put forward that because the laws do
>not require it, no person had to recognize any other person.

I did not intend to put forth the idea that a person needn't recognize
another person. The rule set explicitly states that propositions by any
citizen must be recognized and responded to with a certain class of
responses (Laws #104, #108 etc.)

>Philosohpically ... I conclude that if
>the Head In The Sand Rebellion was successful, the game as it was is dead
>because we now have at least three distinct realities: Mine, The one
>excluding me which Julian and Tyrrel hold. And Jeff's which holds that
>almost no thingies exist, including me, Tyrrell and MMM. In short, I find
>that if we discontiue communication in a game of communication, the game is
>over.

There are not seperate realities. All of us must, at the very minimum,
abide by the same rules and respond to each others propositions. My
statement only asserts that at this time in the game the rule set has no
provisions which compele one player cannot force another to bow to their
will by any tool but law.

>I created another system which defined itself as
>encompassing everything in the game (thingies). It was not Law, but it had
>effects that the law permitted it ot have. I pointedly kept MMM from doing
>anything against the laws because he couldn't. But he had the effect of
>regulating the game where the laws were silent _UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF
>THESE LAWS_. He is as strong as a law where they are silent. When the
>Head In The Sand Rebellion cited 115 they did not mention the "addendum" to
>it, which was all the things allowed to occur by this law such as MMM who
>closed all these loopholes. The actions of the Head In The Sand Rebellion
>were subsidiary to the actions of MMM by virtue of the fact that he was
>there first, and gained authority first.
>
>At this time, I'd like to remind you that actions with retroactive effects
>are prohibited by MMM so the time precedence so solid.

I agree that the time precedence is solid. This is why I did not use a
public action to counter Tom. What I did do was inform the public of a
property of the thingie citizen Tyrrell, which had been in existence since
the beginning of the game. This statement asserted that thingie citizen
Tyrrell was only bound to recognize laws and propositions. Whatever a
hypothetical thingie might claim, and however 'strong' these claims might
be, the simple fact is that the claims are not themselves laws, as defined
in Law #101. Since they (the actions of this hypothetical creations of
Tom's) are not Laws, thingie citizen Tyrrell is not bound to follow them.

In other words, 115 allows Tom to create a thingie which orders others to
make certain actions, but these orders, though allowed to be given under
Law, are not Laws (as defined in Law #101), and only Laws and propositions
must be recognized by players.