Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 16:34:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Chaos Golubitsky To: _swat.org.swil @ swarthmore.edu Subject: Basic Rules for SWILNews #4 Introduction: SWIL meeting #4 is a game for 3 to 25 people. each player represents a "student" and attempts to gain world domination through the strategic use of propaganda techniques or nuclear weapons. (wait, those are the rules to nuke war... -c) At Swarthmore, however, hard work is not always a guarantee of success. As in the real world, the results of putting your nose to the grindstone are not predictable, and such factors as the chance breakage of the grindstone under pressure may significantly alter the course of events. Basic rule of thumb: pillage, don't loot. (yay, vikings! -d) Attack (SWILBusiness): SWIL's 21st birthday party, with root beer keg, outer space theme (230 glow-in-the-dark stars) 80s music, and lots of dancing, happened in Paces. If you weren't there, you missed out because it rocked. A lot. (guess who's typing? -c) (hey, i think it rocked, too. -d) Lots of people came, and lots of them want us to have another one next semester. Cloak is never organizing anything like this again, but if you want to organize it, she and Amy will tell you how they did it. (lots and lots of duct tape. -c) Sean and Lorrin dj'ed. We think they're cool. Best overheard comment: "Wow! This is better than a DU party... DU's not here." One of our annual Halloween activities is Pumpkin Carolling, in which we go around the neighborhood in costume, visit profs and other residents, and sing at them. Specifically, we sing Christmas carols, filked with lyrics about Halloween. The current set of carols is in the filk box in George. If you want to write more or improve the current ones, feel free to go look at them. George is not a person. George is a free storage space. Specifically, the George C. Hurliman Memorial Library Memorial Library is SWIL's overflow book library and storage space in Tarble 312. If you want to know how to get in, ask a co-president. George is a good studying space because it's quiet, and it also contains the SWIL archives, which are nifty, as well as back issues of BEM and Swapa. However, we share the room with CP&P, so if you go there during office hours, listen at the door first to make sure they aren't using it. (if you hear something, don't continue listening. go away. that's not the point. -d) War is declared when one player turns up a warhead card which has been preceded by an appropriate missile or bomber card. Submit to BEM! Dan Fairchild is our new assistant web slave. Yay Dan! Defense (Dismemberments): Dagger got a large collection of arms this week because there were many sentience proofs. Fortunately, Dave Phillips, our former master of arms, was at meeting to do the honors. Elliot Reed '03: Elliot began by proving that it is impossible for him to prove sentience, since we don't know what he's thinking, so he could be a nonsentient automaton. However, he came up with this proof, so he has been engaging in deliberate rational thought processes, so he must be sentient. Since he proved he was sentient, but proved that was impossible, he did the impossible. Therefore, he must be god. As the author of the periodic table (see the proof from two weeks ago), he is therefore sentient. Since it is unclear that god exists, we voted Elliot sentient and nonexistant, and did not express an opinion on whether or not he is god. Kyra Jucovy '03: Kyra took the materialist view that mind = brain (therefore zombies and automata can't exist). Thus, consciousness implies sentience. However, being human does not necessarily imply consciousness, as evidenced by Kyra's example of the person she knew in high school who always follows popular trends mindlessly. Kyra likes Seinfeld and the Beatles (in accord with popular opinon), but reads science fiction books without Fabio on the cover, so she is neither mindlessly following trends nor mindlessly opposing them. Amy opposed on the grounds that Kyra mentioned Daniel Dennett, but we voted her sentient and hacked off her arm and gave it to Dagger anyway. Dan Fairchild '03: Dan convinced Kyra to pinch him, then stated that it is necessary to understand someone in order to manipulate them, so he understands Kyra. Since he understands her and she is sentient, he must be sentient. We discussed this at great length, determined that Dan may be the power behind Elliot the nonexistant corporeal automaton, then proved him sentient because we were confused. Alecia Magnifico '00: Alecia claimed we were extorting her to prove sentience (by not letting her be the oracle in the pterodactyl hunt unless she did), so she could either provide a proof, or take us to trial. It would be impractical to take us to trial, so she'll provide a proof. She claims she's sentient. If we claim she's not, we have to take her to trial to prove it. So we declared a trial in the state of confusion (which is where we were at the time), with Cloak and Dagger as judges, Amy as prosecution, and Scott as defense lawyer. We then realised that Alecia had made us argue the case for her, and by legal (SWIL) precedent (by a SWIL president, no less), one can be proven sentient for making others do one's dirty work for one. Ultimate Victory (Non-SWILBusiness): It's all irrelevant now. Replacement parts Price List: The mysterious reappearance of the religous, RenFairing co-president - 25 September 1999 Dave "Vehicularly enabled" Phillips Amy' "I don't like dancing!" Marinello (yeah. right. -c) Kara "Here with Amy' for once!" Zor-El Elliot "specialer than you are" Reed (and grammaticaler, too! -c) Rebecca "the one true God" Kuipers Franzi "Aaaaah" Dickson Dan "Ha, ha, I live in Wharton" Fairchild (ooh, i'm jealous. -d) Kyra "Inor Godemon wuzn't here!!! (Yet...)" Jucovy Scott "Blech Knight" Price Ursula "Theoretically awake" Whitcher Drew "This is _70's_, not 80's..." Szafran Jennifer "anatomic soft" Tyson Kira "Ratus ratus!" Goetschius benjamin 'This is a recording' r, george Dan Blim, a tone poem for orchestra, organ, soloists, and double chorus in F# sharp minor. Rebecca "I lost $20" Jones (to whom? -d) (doing what? -c) Ben "Next week in Jerusalem" Newman Peter "Watasuiwa Kamui-desu!" Ma Arcadia "coming soon to a theatre near you" Falcone Tony "I'm not from around here" Long Amy "good party - bad leg" Swift Sarah "boycotting car trips for a while" McNary Joel "Venago County? Beaver County? What kind of State is this" McNary (the state of confusion. i thought we established that. -c) (does it snow in the state of confusion? or at least get reasonably cold? -d, transplanted from boston) Jane "You don't know me" Doe Alecia "prophet of doom...and maybe other things" Magnifico Sonia "theoretically extant" Mariano John "The dancing fool" Finkbiner Robert "My roundsing room is Whittier than yours" McFarland -Cloak and Dagger