Shireroth

I was reminded of this when I read about Shyriath's new political ideas. I originally wrote them for the Programmers Guild of Shireroth (hm, too bad I never really got around to doing much for that)... Scott picked up on it and wanted to put them into Imperial Law, but the idea was shot down by some people... I've forgotten who, but at least either Nick or Joseph was involved... anyway, the rules:

Diamond Rule
All rules in this document shall be interpreted in the most rational and generally useful way.

Rule of Malevolence-Proofness
There are no loopholes in these rules.

Golden Rule
If you try to use these rules to make somebody else's life hard, others are allowed by these rules to make your life hard.

Rule of Relative Completeness
These rules are relatively complete.

Rule of Positive Affirmation
Yes, you may.

In my opinion as an older and more foolish person than the one who wrote that, the Golden Rule is a bit too obvious and the rule of Malevolence-Proofness a bit too undefined to really work... and the Diamond Rule sounds a bit weasely... so how about this set of rules?

Rule of Morality
Do the right thing.

Rule of Relative Completeness
These rules are relatively complete.

Rule of Positive Affirmation
Yes, you may.

I dunno, I'd say keep the Golden Rule too at least. Obvious it may be, but there are always people who either miss the obvious, or pretend to miss the obvious, if it's not stated explicitly.

And the point of this would be?

Meditate on it. If you don't see the point, then I retract the proposal.

Last time I saw this.. Scott tried to tack it onto the Charter... Needless to say.. this was opposed by more then a few... well.. mostly us traditionalists who saw it as pointless and problematic to add into law..

But as Shyriath said.. Social change cannot be legislated...

While I'd generally agree on rules like Golden Rule, it falters a bit in practise, I would expect. In particular, it seems to be a good excuse to start an infinite loop. Malevolence-Proofness (and so forth) counters this as by the rules, but the problem lies in who decides what a loophole is. Is infinite-looping a loophole, because it violates usefulness? Will people to be able to tell if what they do is useful when they start one of those infinite-loops? If an authority tells them, then they might come to shut up about it, but it can still seem rather... arbitrary.

I assume we have the same problem with "Do the right thing", though at least there's no immediately obvious way of infinite-looping in that set of rules, as it does not expressly tell you what to do when someone does not do the right thing, and makes your life miserable.

I agree on the statement of social change, by the way. Since Dark Arcadia attempts meritocracy, there's a lot of what must come prepackaged so to speak, when someone joins it - so we're quite aware of the problem. We've tried for the whole year of our existence to come up with some semblance of a set of rules for it, but, 'lo behold... it just doesn't work. 'course, I expect meritocracy is a lot more fragile than this, but it does give me reason to believe it can't be done.

Ah.. but for it's entire existance... Shireroth has worked on balance of meritocracy and oligarchy/nepotism. (I never truly denied it...) So a non-legislated meritocracy can work. I choose my ministers based on who has the skill to do it, who I can trust* and seniority.. Original Dukes are chosen usually on who's around, who's active, and seniority if it applies. And a measure of trust. But as Ministers have more direct control of sensitive things such as Forums and the site.. and the wiki... I need to be able to trust them more**...







*Who I trust tends to be people I consider friends, since if I didn't trust them, they would not be my friends... thus the constant appearance of nepotism that I've been accused of in the past. Locke wasn't my friend, and I never trusted him, thus I never wanted him in any positions of power.. and once Rakesh lost my trust... I sought to remove him..

**Some might even argue that certain ministries are more important or powerful then the Dukes.. or even the Landsraad. Especially the MiniInto or MiniInfo...

But as Shyriath said.. Social change cannot be legislated...

Not legislated as such. I like the ideas of these rules, and I'd like to see them kept; but obviously they can't be actual laws. Think of them as more of a code of conduct. A "suggestion". Put them somewhere prominent, and say, "We're not going to MAKE you follow these rules, but we're not responsible for what happens if you don't".

Kaiser Mors V wrote:So a non-legislated meritocracy can work.

...that's what I said.

Is it? oh.. well.. then I confirm the truthiness of it!

Kaiser Mors V wrote:So a non-legislated meritocracy can work.

That's what she said.

Couldn't resist. :P

META RULES!!

Or, to paraphrase a former American President, That depends on what the word "is" means.......

I never know the context of that line... so it never really made much sense to me...

*non-American, thus, doesn't get the reference, but vaguely remembers someone telling her it originated from Clinton, with a different word than "is" (though, no, I don't know which, though like many, I have a colourful imagination)*

I think the word was actually "it"

Is, it. All of these little annoying words. Aphaultanigationism!

is is a verb.. it is.. a... noun (after a fashion).. bit of a difference..

Ah, but such a small difference. IT is IS, only one notch down the alphabet. They a neighbors, and have so much in common.

And yet are so different... things would never work out between them.. but you often seem them together.. it is a fact of life.. they date.. but never for long....

Wasn't their a guy in Lovely named ISIT? Must have been their love child from that crazy night in the Alpha-Bits........

HAHAHA! dangly bits...