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Ender's Game Influences US Army Training
PortWineBoy writes "Although we've been bombarded in the last few weeks with techno tales of the U.S. Army, I found this
story in the NY Times (FRRYYY) to be quite interesting. The director of the Army's simulation technology center said that Ender's game influenced how and what they will build for future training." Begin Mazer Rackham Analogies...
Didn't Ender's tactics involve genocide?
influenced by "power puff girls" as well.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
This is how we expect to come out ahead in Iraq?
Like so
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Ender spend the rest of his life paying for his evils......
Given the skillz of the Iraqi army, "whack-a-mole" is a better training simulator.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
What parts were they emulating?
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
"Who are these guys?"
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Ender's Game and the following books are all great. But I'm not sure that we need a bunch of army commanders who haven't hit puberty yet who are lied to and told that they are really playing a top-secret version of C&C Generals, that just happens to play out in real time and not have a pause?
Also, the whole book is basicaly about child abuse sponsored by the governemnt. Interesting reading, but maybe not the ideal way to create well-adjusted officers.
imagine a 1337 4rmy equipped with rocket launchers and bfg's. sign me up!
Not another stroke to Orson Scott Card's ego! If you've ever heard him speak you know what I mean...
Your statement about the British view of war versus the American view of war reminded me why Americans kick butt and why the British are only so-so.
See, Americans go into war with one objective: to win. They bring bigger guns, better trained forces, and strategies that will ensure complete and total victory with a minimum of casualties. The interaction with the people is more of an afterthought. After all, if you can't win, it doesn't matter how well you interact with the local populace.
The British treat it like it is a damn dress-up game. I've even heard that they take off their helmets and put on those ridiculous berets when they enter a city. They say it is to show respect. I think it is to do the Americans a favor and draw out the snipers. Sure, they may interact better with the people, but dead people aren't as nice as live ones.
And the British can joke about the Americans all they want. They came all dressed up in uniforms and organized neatly not too long ago. A bunch of farmers kicked them out for good. I don't think those farmers knew the first thing about manners, but you know what, it was only their skill with the musket that mattered.
And your silly comment about war not being a video game just isn't true anymore. Most of the killing and destruction is done from miles away in the cockpit of a jet fighter, from the cabin of a tank, or on board a missile carrier. It sure seems like a video game from that range.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Orson Scott Card is one of the best writers in todays time. Ender's game had brilliant military strategies. Ignoring the Xenocide and child millitaries it has some wonderful concepts. Ender had few advantages over other 'armies' but he always pulled out ahead. Why? Because he kept the enemies guessing. They had no clue what was comming next. I think this is a good idea for our future millitary. Just so long as we keep ourselves controled.
A fellow that I knew a few years back was very much into the life of being in the Air Force. He really wanted to be a pilot and had friends that were in there as pilots.
I mentioned in passing that I was reading that book, and he said he hadn't read it but really wanted to because that was one of the required books along the way to becoming a fighter pilot.
I never really paid much attention to it, and I hvae no clue if it is true having never been though any of that myself (and neither has he) - but he swore that it was mandatory reading at the academies.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I'm trying to get my head around how this will actually help any kind of armed force. Simulations _are_ useful for doing wargame situations etc... But how are you supposed to simulate humans?
I can just see marines that have been through hundreds of simulations walk on to a battlefield and into a landmine, because the simulation never said anything about that.
Simulation closes peoples minds. Training is important, but you can't forget how unpredictable a human is. The trainee walks on to the battlefield (or whatever he/she is being trained for) and thinks s/he is ready, but a simulation can not possibly exhaust every situation.
Just a thought...
As a representative of everyone else in the universe..
no.
Goes to show that just because yawning is contagious, your challenge made me resist the feeling easily. I wasn't even tempted to yawn, or had to suppress one. It just didn't happen. Sorry. Yeah, I know off-topic. Here ya go: Ender would have yawned.
-------
The article may be alluding to something like Command & Conquer (or Warcraft) meets Doom (or Flight Simulator), where you can both play as a grunt or a tactician. Tacticians define missions, and the individuals attempt to execute it. Imagine what a game that would make.
Here in the US Army, and the US Marine Corp, we use various computer simulations and "games" to train for combat. Helo pilots use these fancy simulators, as do the mechanized armor guys. Not only do we use graphics simulation, but also there are computer generated missions/scenarios (not like video games) that adapt to how you chose to execute a mission. For instance, you are given a situation, and you have several choices you can make, and then the system responds to your decisions (sometimes increasing the difficulty if you make a stupid decision) and presents you with a changed situation. I'm sorry, the Army psychologists do a better job at describing these new tools.
Anyway, these are in their infancy, but the Army plans to expand upon this to help soldiers expand their ability to make sound decisions. I.E., think about the consequences before you do something. The goal here is that if you can become comfortable with making logical, thought-through choices at the computer, then in battle or what-have-you, you will fall back on this "naturalized" ability.
What happens when the lines between simulation and reality are blurred to the point where it IS Ender's game. Where are battalion of super soldiers swoop down and decimate their opponents with no though to reaction to it all. Like in Ender's game, where what seemed like another game was war, genocide.
While I think it would be absurd to be less efficient than possible, the spirit of American warfare must be upheld. We are not interested in conquest. After WW2, America could have taken over the world. McArthur was about to! If we are truly interested in liberation, freedom, and the plight of all men then these ideals should be a the forefront of the military's thinking. Not saying they aren't, but it certainly is not a part of "tactical simulations" like Counter Strike or Unreal Tournament.
If there are tools that are less painful than reading through a book and can give them a better sense of what it might be like, we need to use them.
Oh dear lord. They're worried about making troops READ? A BOOK?! Heaven forbid how painful that can be versus getting injured or worse in the line of duty. Really now, I may be misunderstanding the context, but for them to think of reading as an invconvenience and not an educational experience, I hardly trust them to manage war simulation or the pain involved with actual war.
Shouldn't You expect more from your DJ?
Of course, no one's forcing them to buy Big Mac's and Michael Jordan or Shaq jerseys.
NY Times (FRRYYY)
The Marine Corps also encourages the reading of Sun Tzu's Art of War - centuries old and still a great set of military insights. Also encouraged is Starship Troopers - which is best read as an ode to the infantry, and exemplifies the esprit de corps that the Marines strive for.
A pilot, in those days, was the only unfettered and entirely independent human being that lived in the earth.-Mark Twain
You have grown so complacent in your lifestyles, you have so lost touch of 'reality' (oh the irony of your reality TV), that you have elevated even warfare to the status of competition.
The original poster's point wasn't that British troops are sissy's and have better tea time manners, it was that the US troops have become the newest form of "GI Joe" toys that you can buy shrink wrapped at a Toys'r'us.
War isn't that... War is dirty. War is evil. It's going to the very edge of humanity and looking into the abyss. You people think you can handle it all because you're the best trained, best equiped... You aren't worth squat...
If you want to somehow pride yourself in warfare, you should go and bow to the ground in front of the people you call "camel jockey's"... These people, terrorists, are the shit... they are people who've carried and used Kalashnikovs out of necessity, not boredom, from when they were 12.
You should go see people who've lived their entire lives with the constant threat of sniper fire in Sarajevo... kids in their early teens.
You should go see african children, 8 year old children, who hack down an old man crossing the street with a machete just to grab a journalist's attention...
To come back to your striving ideology, you might think putting money into your national soccer team is gonna make you good, but the reality is that kids like Maradona grow up in slums in Brazil having nothing else in their lives... that is why they are so good... not because they bought it.
Ok, this is creepy, in light of the fact that I love playing America's Army: Operations.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
In other news, many birth order analysts have also been heavily influenced by Ender's Game, and have written a new book entitled Seeking the Third, in which they compare children's traits to the three Wiggin's children based on the order of their birth.
"First-borns tend to have strong world domination tendencies" says Dr. Oliver Knapthf, one of the contributors to the book, "they are frequently deceptive geniuses who should be watched closely and never trusted."
In chapter five, "Embracing the Seconds", second-borns (called "Valentine's") are referred to as the glue that often holds families together.
Though the book seems to favor third-borns (a surprising number of the authors are "Thirds"), giving them such titles as "the Saviors of mankind" and "misunderstood saints", Dr. Knapthf claims this is not true. "They are all necessary. The evil first-borns and the torn, empathic second -borns; you can't achieve a Third without a First and a Second."
I am currently at Quantico's Officer Candidate School (in TBS phase) and we haven't read Ender's Game yet. If we do read it, it's likely for one of our upcoming Leadership Classes.
HU-RAH!
I also agree with another poster that the application of the 3D fighting space is not a challenge for any of us. We have so much time conducting these training scenarios that doing the actual fighting is second nature. (though we continue to study, train, and expand our knowledge of theater tactics) The reason we are here now, is to be leaders of men.
the us marine corps' recommended reading list for "Doctrine, Training, and Tactics" has ender's game for corporal-sargeant! no word yet on shadow of the hegemon for secretary of state :D
1. Leak RawFlug II to Kazaa
2. Massive numbers of Peacenik/Commie college students download and play stolen government software to get back at 'the man'
3. College Students Unwittingly Command really cool remote control robots and MechWarrior style mantanks.
4. US wins oil war.
and STRAIGHT TO NUMBER 5: Profit!!!
but I can't see how "The enemy's gate is down" will help us in the war in Iraq...
;)
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Modern troops are well trained. They are taught not only how to use their tools, and how to react, but WHY. I would think that they do a fair bit of reading to learn these things. Having them read a fictional story, which considering my science fiction bias, is not exactly dull doesn't sound like a stretch. Oh well..it is the New York Times..generally good stories but too often the reporter injects a bit too much of their own bias and preconceptions.
Blar.
..Sounds like he is cursed with having two last names.
- Life is what keeps you occupied while you are waiting to die
First of all, I've never served in any branch of the military, much less combat. However, having played my share of first person shooters, I really must say that it's poor training for actual infantry operations, etc. The main problem is that when you're playing a FPS, your not moving, and not keeping track of what's exposed to incoming fire.
In contrast, paintball teaches all of the same skills of small unit infantry combat as FPS, and in addition, you train your "muscle memory" in regards to shouldering your gun (yeah, the military call 'em rifles, but I have trouble calling my paintball gun a "marker."), aiming, coordinating movement and taking cover from incoming fire.
If the US military's game, I'm sure there are quite a few weekend rec ball players out there who wouldn't mind playing the part of the Iraqi Army on some huge paintball field in West Texas or Arizona. However, this scenario risks the possibility that a rag-tag band of college paintball geeks totally decimate the 4th Infantry, so I could see why the military might not want to go for this.
To email me,subtract my nick from my email address, starting with the second character. (hint: adto.uiuc.edu is wrong)
http://www.usna.edu/Library/Marineread.htm
The main focus of the book for me was that Ender's primary character trait was the ability to get people to want to do as he asked them to do (OK, ordered - it took place in a military setting). As they did so, they learned that their abilities were more than they'd ever imagined. The conclusion of the book is a warning that Nuremburg was real, and that everyone is responsible for his own actions. And yes, that war is not a game.
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
As if there ever was a question whether the Iraq could stand up to the United States militarily. Not even the Iraqi government claimed any chance to defend the country indefinitely.
The US might well sport the most dominant military force in all history, but the fact that you can - surprise, surprise - bomb the hell out of a repressed, deprived and embargo'ed third wirld country certainly doesn't entail that you can do the same to other countries. The goal should not be to "free" Iraq, if anything the goal should be to "free" Iraq with certain other premises: few to no civilian casualties, low to no damage to civilian infrastructure, effective ways to bring in humanitary aid, a smooth transition to a just post-war system.
Also, the United States have bought what you call the most dominant military force at a time when a dominant military force has lost many of its uses: you can't (and don't need to) conquer the world with it, and you can't even defend American citizens with it - an army is no use against domestic terrorism.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
As unsettling as I find this, I also find it appropriate.
History has always demarked a division between civilians and military, both in the traditions of service, and deeper, in the psyche. Plato demarked the guardian's education as beginning with fiction [337a]. And it was a key to this education that it twisted the basic nature of those who would be guardians, demarking them mentally from the populace. This is a key concept in the training of warriors that has survived in literature and drama through the ages (in our time, you need only see the unifying concepts behind group-identity put forward in studies of the German troops of WWII, or Card's work, let alone the psych studies that _do_ point out a greater tendancy to follow orders and act cohesively with a rigorous group-constructed identity).
Is it any wonder that a society adept at mass production would find ways to mass produce those things that still must be men and not machines?
Is this a criticism of the men and women who serve? By no means. The psychological conditioning they receive is no less responsible for their survival and success than their physical training.
Is it grounds for a critique of an immature, and childlike race (mankind) who still finds war regrettably necessary? Perhaps. At least, however, it's highly unlikely that the children of those so trained will value war as highly as we do today.
He was pretty much responsible for creating the current Japanese system of government.
>>>>>>>>>
Careful. A lot of people just see that situation as an example of American imperialism streching out through history. I don't completely agree with that idea (America was hardly imperialistic, in the traditional sense, compared to countries like Great Britain or France) but tact is somewhat important here. That said, we lucked out with Japan. The Japanese were the kind of pragmatic (think Romans) people that could stand to be force-fed someone else's culture, if they saw some benefit from it in the end. Acting, in the future, based on that model would be unwise to say the least.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Karma whoring is now insightful.
Reposting venerable Simpson's quotes for the multi-hundredth time is funny.
And sarcastic presentation of the facts is flamebaiting.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
. . . I haven't got enough memory.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
I am your Captain, and I am giving you a direct order: get influenced by my fiction. Well, I'm not a Captain, so you don't have to follow the order; however, I read Orson Scott Card's how-to book about writing sci-fi before I wrote my fiction; therefore, there's gotta be at least one or two cool ideas in it which can influence someone cool to do something cool, eh?
Umm.. NO. The Japanese Constitution was written by a bunch of international scholars who worked in the Occupation forces as technical advisors, including the famous Viennese woman Beate Sirota, who managed to slip in the women's suffrage clause (despite vehement Japanese objections). The Japanese constitution was drawn from various historic constitutions of the US, Russia, Germany, and France, amongst others. Go read "Embracing Defeat" by John Dower if you want the full story.
Indeed. Here's what happens when it goes wrong. Looks/sounds sadly familiar, don't it? (Start with the top item.) Right down to bickering over who gets the spoils of war.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Let's see:
Born in Leicester. USAF Dad, Irish Mother. Raised mostly in the West of Ireland (but also in France, Germany, UK, Ireland, and U.S.), gaelic speaker, love the English, and the Irish, ex-US-military.
And I'm not unique. In fact, I'll bet you'll find that a majority if the U.S. troops in the field today have a personal family history that goes back to Central America, Vietnam, and beyond.
In other words, the U.S. soldiers of today are the Tommys of yesteryear.
So please, quit with the snotty Brit attitude.
Pat
--
668: Neighbour of the Beast
This is the article, in concentrate form:
The use a Half-Life/Quake3 engine game (think America's Army) to run "simulations", no games
They tell them the story of Ender's game, about a group of soldiers who think they're fighting video game aliens but are actually killing real life forms.
This explains to them, in terms they can understand, that when you're playing America's Army (or whatever the simulation is called internally), you need to think this is real. This isn't a game.
I can't believe everyone is going on about the politics of Enders Game and how they're teaching it to the troops when all they're doing is providing a modern fable which isn't corny or written by Aesop.
The enemy gate is down...
I'm surprised there was no mention of Americas Army in that article - I'm aware that the games primary focus is as a PR tool, however I would have thought it could also be used as an effective tool for training and simulation. Hell, even better on the PR angle, let the players who clock up 10+ hrs of AA per week that they can continue playing the game when they join up and it counts towards their training time, and watch them line up......
Anyone who thinks Ender's game has nothing to do with religion and other goals of propaganda doesn't know who John Locke was.
It's true that there are many people who are forced to live extremely hard lives, who have grown up with violence and have carried guns since they were 12.
But is this what we're supposed to revere? This is one of the reasons why America *needs* to maintain the mightiest military in the world.
Of course war is dirty, but it's sometimes the only way. It's a practical necessity of life, and always will be. And the American military can and will handle it in the way they have been trained to do.
And while many Americans have no doubt become complacent, don't let that fool you. They are also resilient and quite fierce when provoked, as the Iraqi military is finding out, again.
My hippie parents have told me my whole life that the video games I've been playing are just part of a government scheme to train an entire generation into an army of super-soldiers. Because locking, loading and firing an M-16 is just like pressing the CTRL key. Yeah, I thought it was funny too, until I got drafted. The B2 I fly controls just like Star Fox.
What? Noone told me!! When did Doom IV come out? Oops, gotta go out and buy a new computer to run it!
anything i tell you will cloud your opinion.
I recommend this movie as a political farce.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
War isn't that... War is dirty. War is evil.
War is not evil. War can be waged for liberty, self-defense or to stop a genocide.
War is a tool, a nasty sharp tool. It's what you use it for that make your endevor evil or, perhaps, good.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Oh, yeah, we went to Japan, and said "If you don't start wearing blue jeans and eating hamburgers, we're going to murder your children and rape your wives!" We went to Germany and said, "Because you stupid Krauts lost, we are going to torture you with shopping malls and action movies!" And we turned around to China and say, "Soon, your daughters will be our slaves because we will conquer you with the might of our FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS!"
Or did we just luck out with Japan? I guess we also lucked out with Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Italy, the UK, France, Spain, Eastern Europe, Russia, and far more countries you will never know about. I guess we are still lucking out with Vietnam, China, Afghanistan, Iraq, and yes, even Cuba. I guess our policies of "kill the bad guys, let the others vote, and leave unless they want you to stay" just doesn't work, does it?
What could be more tactful than that? We see a dictator, building up weapons that can harm us. We realize that there won't be a peaceful resolution to this, so we're going to have to disarm him forcefully. Sooner is better than later because if we wait too long, he might actually get the weapons that can really hurt us. And while we're at it, it's not a bad idea to upset the entire history of the country by setting the people free and letting them create their own government. So we go in, and ruin thousands of years of culture by banishing slavery, "murdering" treacherous people who oppose freedom, and encouraging people to think about their own future rather than place it in the hands of a dictator. When things become stable, we slowly pull out, and let the government, elected by the people, take over. We get a more peaceful world, they get a peaceful government, and everyone is happy. But at what cost? I can't see any negative effects, other than the disruption of their culture as they move away from being slaves who live in hovels into full-fledged equal citizens in their country.
Now there is one more intersting point. Why do McDonalds and Burger Kings and shopping malls dot the landscape of Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, UK, France, Germany, and any country that is free? Why do they wear blue jeans, drive big cars that produce that dangerous chemical CO2, and try to earn as much money as they can?
The answer: It is not because we force them to adopt it. It is because it is actually a better way of living than anything else. We seem to like it, because we choose to live in it. They seem to like it because they adopt it. Nobody is forcing anyone here. They do it because they want to.
Our "empire", if you could call it that, is an empire of FREEDOM. We give people freedom, knowing that it will only make us and them more powerful, rich, and happy.
Our founding fathers saw the day when people would come to us and ask us to set up their governments. Our founding fathers knew that we would be a "shining city on a hill". Now that we are, are you complaining because everyone in the world wants what we have, and we are more than willing to share it with them? Are you complaining because they are richer and happier and freeer than they ever have been since the beginning of their history?
Or are you complaining because freedom really does work, even for poor peasants and backwards countries like Japan once was? Are you really complaining because your "ideals" (ie, communism or socialism) are really a horrible nightmarish world, where no one is safe, and no one is rich, and freedom is the only answer to cure all of the world's ills?
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
A MMOFPS with real life settings and physics?
Those who plan their wars based on Ender's Game are doomed to fight wars based on Dune.
There is one thing that our soldiers could be learning from Enders Game though: make sure that your enemy cannot hurt you again.
In each circumstance that "tested" him, he made the decision to completely obliterate the enemy. To make sure that the enemy could not hurt him again. Whether it was a bully in school, or the "simulations" that they used against him (and frankly, I think at that point he was trying to eliminate the "simulations" and the people that were making him perform more than the actors in the "simulation".
Analogies to today? Al Queda attacked the US. Make sure they they are not capable of doing that again. I suppose Iraq is an extension of that (although I don't quite see how) But now that we've started, we need to make sure that the current Iraqi government will no never again have the power to hurt us. While I don't think we should have started this war, we're committed now and must complete the action; destroy the enemy and their capacity to make war completely.
I just hope we can draw a line between where this conflict stops and the next begins...
Typical anti-war rhetoric.
Take someones comment, put a sarcastic "indeed" on the front, then put a link in with all the negatives that have been compiled throughout history for going to war.
Be more original. Go be a human shield or something. Not that I am endorsing that, but geez, what you are doing now is mere flatualance.
The thing I find most interesting about this discussion is the way people keep referencing the novel as if it really happened. Almost as if it were a story from our history instead of a work of fiction by an extremely creative mind.
I read a few pages of Ender's Game everyday at work. It's one of only a small handful of non-technical books I keep on my desk. It's a very worn paperback copy, and it rests between my two copies of Paradise Lost and my well-worn copy of Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus. I've probably finished the book 10 or 12 times in the past four years. And I think I know the reason we keep referring to the story as if it were fact.
Ender is a geek. He's bright and talented to the point where the only way people in competition with Ender can hope to succeed is by bringing him down. I know we've all read story after story and post after post about how difficult it is to grow up exceptional. (Remember the post-Columbine stories?) We don't simply relate to Ender. We aren't simply empathizing with him. Ender is us, and we are him.
Now that I've said all of that: It's cool that Mr. Card wrote a book that tells some of the truth about leadership and building a team. It's neat that he got it so right. But let us not forget that it is a work of fiction, and it worked out for Ender because that's the way the author wanted it to. Just because it worked in the story doesn't mean that it'll work in reality. We should glean what we can from Orson Scott Card's insight into human nature, but I can't imagine using any work of fiction as a training manual.
Ender's emotions and reations are real to me. I relate to his experience in some way. But we can't lose sight of the fact that Ender's actions and successes were part of a plot in a work of fiction. Any similarity between the fictional environment of the Battle School and reality is a testament to the imagination of the author, and not a sign that this book should be taken as Gospel.
This space for rent.
However there are more of them than there are of us And Hi-Tech is a force multiplier the French learned thst at Argrncort The Longbow was the Hi-Tech Sir John Hawkwood lost 400 men the French lost 12000 Knights
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
The rush to Baghdad. The enemy's goal is down!
Or alternatively, to people who don't know who John Locke was, Ender's Game has nothing to do with religion.
Apart from a few names, and the backgrounds of some characters, religion isn't raised as an issue to be dealt with in Ender's Game. The main purpose things like religion, nationality and culture serve in Ender's Game is to act as focii for government suppression.
On the other hand, propoganda certainly is an issue. Most of the Peter/Valentine narrative is a massive propoganda campaign, not to mention all the editing of the war vids, etc.
And I'd agree with the original poster that religion (and a whole host of metaphysical ideas) are discussed more in depth in later books.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Assume sarcasm where none was intended, and throw a hissy-fit when someone points out a historical example when meddling got us to where we are today.
Surprise, I am reluctantly in favour. I just think we'll have to be very careful afterwards not cause another 89 years of problems.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
What happens to the troopers that get killed in the game? They've just had a lesson in the fact that a momentary lapse, or even nothing they themselve did wrong, has just got them killed. Imagine how nervous you'd be after that on a real battlefield, after 200 sessions, thinking "My odds of coming out of this are 30/70." My next thought would be "Screw this for a game of soldiers," and then over the fence at the first opportunity. I may (or may not) appear later, once the dust's settled, for tea and medals.
Let's face facts: basically you're training soldiers to expect to die in a combat situation, and reinforcing that far more often than you would if you were limited to real-life exercises for their training. I don't think this will work out in the long run.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
really. Well the end anyways.
we train this kid endlessly, then say "Here is this weapong that will destroy anything, golly what should we do?"
so he uses his brilliance to point it at the planet... hmmm jeez, tough one.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The goal should not be to "free" Iraq, if anything the goal should be to "free" Iraq with certain other premises: few to no civilian casualties, low to no damage to civilian infrastructure, effective ways to bring in humanitary aid, a smooth transition to a just post-war system.
yep. in progress.
Also, the United States have bought what you call the most dominant military force at a time when a dominant military force has lost many of its uses: you can't (and don't need to) conquer the world with it, and you can't even defend American citizens with it - an army is no use against domestic terrorism.
how about making the world a safer, better place (exactly what its being used for now)?
a completely dominant military force does everything better than a weaker military force:
- wins wars faster
- takes less casualties
- causes less civilian casualties
- inflicts less enemy casualties since they surrender faster
it would be irresponsible for a country to have the most successful social and economic system in the history of the world and NOT buy the greatest military in the history of the world too.
His books are good. But not great. Ender's game is a definite Read. His delving into religion and philosophy in later books are lacking. He tried to do too much.
Bitter and proud of it.
just a short note, thanks for a sane post:
high feelings but no racial hatred and managed to avoid bickering in the face of provocation too
A blog I run for the wealth
Need I say more?
I joined the Navy in '92 (left in 96) and worked on a destroyer as an Electonic Warfare technician. Sitting on watch staring at a SLQ-32 console often had me thinking I was playing a video game. A big part of the job was figuring out who was who. The first "long" cruise we went on (only two weeks - heh) standing 12 hours of watch a day, working for 6 more hours, and getting 4 hours of sleep a night warped my thinking in that I was no longer figuring out who the ships were on my scope, I felt I was creating them! I'd pick up a signal, build a track, decide who it was, and viola, there it was! These ships were nothing but signals and icons to me.
Getting off the ship in San Diego was a huge wake up call... I had been "creating" the USS Rubin James, USS Ingersol and others. But as I walked down the pier, there they were, very real ships with hundreds of very real people walking off heading out to the bars and night clubs...
Scared the hell out of me.
Never never never smoke crack before geometry class!
uhh we didn't lose Mogadishu we lost something like 30 guys... and how many of the enemy did we get? in the thousands, that dosnt sound like a loss to me, It's only the media that made it out to be a loss, but in reality it wasn't.
now i assume when you say Mogadishu, you are talking about the Black Hawk Down confrontation becuase thats what comes to mind when you say Mogadishu.
Sun is Warm, Grass is Green
Arrogance? or ignorance?
What's your criteria for citing the US as the most successfull social system? Or were you actually talking about the Mayan's or something? Everywhere I look in the states, I see injustice, I see oppression, I see domination by the wealthy... I see lack of freedom. But above all, I see loss of culture, degeneration, and basic alienation from humanity.
You are definitely not the most successful social system in history. Period.
And you know what, I'm right, and you're wrong (for once there is such a clear line)... "why?" you would ask: because at least one person (me) - but many others - will disagree with you that you are the most successful social system. It's that simple. You are *not* utopia.
The more vast your assertions are, the easier they are to prove wrong.
"the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
----------
Samuel P. Huntington
Ever been to Japan lately? Besides the occasional McDonalds, you will find that things are really quite different there. People's notions of freedom are very different, and they have very different motivations than Americans.
Bombs only change the landscape. If the world were to agree on the main virtue of its American ruler, it would be the accuracy of which its bombs land.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
History has shown that an inflexible man is the worst kind ... An unwavering rightousness is the biggest trap of a weak mind
That is an ignorant statement and ironically you demonstrate the inflexibility and unwavering righteousness you demean. An obvious example of your error is Winston Churchill. His inflexibility and unwavering righteousness with respect to Hitler was correct, Neville "Peace in Our Time" Chamberlain was wrong. History actually shows that there is no one answer. One situation, one time and place calls for flexibility, another calls for inflexibility. You are as romantic of the previous poster; your romance is merely a mirror image of his.
Is there anyone else that is good at getting people to do what they want but no longer does so for moral reasons? People aren't toys to manipulate to your own game. I used to be a major sociopath that sort of viewed humans as toys or pets. Controlling the majority of people is really easy.
c io .htm
Life is much MUCH harder now that I've decide it's wrong to behave that way. It seems you can't really advance much in life unless you are an asshole. (I can say that about sociopaths since I am one.)
The main reason I decided being manipulative was wrong ss that it's very easy to have less and less respect for the people you manipulate. It becomes easy to abuse them in other ways. You tend to think of people as belonging to you as livestock might. It's easy to get into brutality and sexual abuse and things such as that.
When I see somebody that seems to have a lot of power or be some great leader I have to wonder how they got there.
http://home.datawest.net/esn-recovery/artcls/so
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
zulux wrote:
> War is not evil.
Well, there is the concept of a just war, where war was/is considered acceptable under certain special circumstances. But even a just war is a last resort when all else fails, and with today's communication technology and organizations like the UN, there are a whole lot of other things for a civilized nation to try before going to war.
> War can be waged for liberty,
It can be, if it is yourself you are liberating (American Revolutionary War). However, if you try to liberate another nation against the will of its people, you have violated a principle of liberty called "sovereignty", and are no longer going to war for liberty's sake, but to conquer.
"World Book" gives a slang definition for "liberate": "to rob or plunder, especially in wartime." This is the definition Iraq learned for the word when the British showed up the first time to "liberate" them.
> self-defense
Perfectly acceptable when nasty conquerors show up at your doorstep and start bombing the heck out of your beautiful capital city. But in these modern times, you might want to look up UN resolution 377 (Unite for Peace). Under that resolution, if the poor invaded country can get either seven Security Council members (no veto allowed) or a simple majority of the General Assembly to agree to it, the UN can form a posse and ride to the rescue. Of course, the naughty invader runs around trying to bully and bribe their way into "no" votes, but the resolution has been used successfully ten times in the UN's history. Iraq is working on number eleven, and our tax money is going into yet more bribes.
> or to stop a genocide.
Saving lives, always a great cause. Just be careful not to kill more of the victimized group than the genocidal maniac was planning to. Otherwise, there isn't much point...
> War is a tool, a nasty sharp tool. It's what you use it for
> that make your endevor evil or, perhaps, good.
Tanks, bombs, and bullets are nasty sharp tools. War is the action of sending thousands of your people out armed to the teeth to kill their people until they surrender and let you have your way. Actions generally have moral values attached to them. Mass murder coupled with mass property damage (the end result of war) is generally considered very evil. In certain very special circumstances (the just war theory) humanity has pretty much agreed to overlook the evil of the action because of the intended result is necessary and unable to be gotten without going to war.
Except for the just war exception to the rule, war is utterly evil, and is close kin to tyranny, genocide, and terrorism, sharing the same tools. To the Air Force pilot, he seems to be delivering a "package" with his plane, and releasing it with video game like controls. To the civilian it hits by accident, it is like being inside the World Trade Center towers on the morning of September 11, 2001: terror, agony, a very ugly death, grief and rage on the part of the surviving loved ones. One's country better have a seriously good reason to inflict this on another country.
That's why it is so important to go the last mile, then fifty further miles, using diplomacy to solve the problem peacefully. Well, it is for the rest of us; for genocidal maniacs who get off on pictures of mutilated dead people, of course war is going to be a favorite pastime (btw, such people are sick as well as evil).
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
a completely dominant military force does everything better than a weaker military force
A funny thing about military power is that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy: Build yourself a great military to deal with the "world's threats", and the world's threats will build a military in turn. i.e. The US continually built up arms to counter what they saw as a great Soviet menace, causing the Soviets to do so in kind. Of course if you build your military too powerful, such that smaller countries don't have a chance to make an exercise at least restrictively costly for you, smaller countries who feel threatened will resort to alternatives: Is there anyone who doesn't think that the Iraq situation has done more to proliferate WMDs than every before? Hint: Every little country, say the Irans, Cubas and North Koreas, have more of a motivation than ever to acquire a force to counter what could be the next "regime change". I'm not speaking politically here, and am making no commentary on the war but that the logical conclusion is that it will naturally lead to the militarization of "evil" nations.
And how do you plan on doing that? Attacking every country that is anti-american? Doing that will only fuel more terrorism. And to counter that terrorism, you attack more countries, which fuels more terrorism ad infinitum
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Are you a :
First Born
Second Out
Third Turd
Freaky Fourth
Fucked up Fifth
Sexy Sixth
Evil Seventh
Cowboy the Eighth
Adopted you insensitive clod
I DARE you to find a missing option among those!
For the sake of decency - if the woosy editors wish they can change option 5 to 'Feckless Fifth' - this means lazyish!
Well, that can be arranged.
A harmless electrical shock can be very painful and should definitely improve the realism and raise the stakes.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
You are comparing apples and, well, brocolli or something, you've escaped the whole fruit category.
_ 1.pdf
First of all, the assumption that only males 15-64 work is erroneous. The very same CIA web site provides a number of 1.3 million for the labor force. I can understand missing that. However, for the US you then transition from the GDP/(number of people in labor force) to average income. While those two measures are related, they certainly aren't comparable.
"This is the first time you've said this to me."
Read his earlier post in this thread again. You just weren't reading closely. Look for the text "then home [how] come the UN had to set up a food for oil program?"
Finally, why did you use the number of people working as the sample space? First of all, it's not terribly useful. High unemployment of unskilled workers creates an improvement in that economic measure. More importantly, it doesn't speak to your original claim "Iraqi and Kuwaiti citizens on average make more $ than American citizens on average." You didn't say "working citizens," just citizens. An important factor confounding an evaluation of your original claim is that over half of the Kuwaiti population is non-nationals, and thus not citizens. (1.16 million out of 2.11 million).
The numbers did not work out.
Given your haphazard method of analysis, it is inappropriate to blame anyone else for not following your math. vicious_sloth deserves an apology.
Actually, I have one more bone to pick. "Face it, We just have a greater population of slaves than these countries do." What basis do you have for making this statement, other than some antipathy for the US? What's the income line for being a slave? Or was the term not meant seriously, and just used for inflammatory effect?
Real slavery still exists. See this site:
http://www.freetheslaves.net/edpack/edpack
Is there a problem with the income disparity in the US? Yes. Is the cure worse than the disease? I don't know. I am afraid it might be, but it is an issue about which reasonable people can disagree. However, income disparity does not equal slavery, and your frivolous use of the term belittles the suffering of the estimated 27 million slaves in the world today. (Source is the website cited above.)
is a fallacy. War doesn't create terrorism. As a matter of fact peace and prosperity have created more terrorists than war ever will.
To sit back and say "we can't strike them because they will bomb us more" is stupid.
We need to let it be known that:
1. Terrorism will bring swift and huge consequences to any nation state that is associated with it.
2. That peaceful means of negotiation exist.
3. That blind obedience of any mantra -- wheather political or religious -- is guaranteed to limit your future.
The total population of the world will not be heald captive by a small percentage. A melting pot approach (US/Roman) will have a much better chance of dominating than a nation/state that understands and tolerates only a single religion/race/way of life.
Get over it.
At what point in this article was anything aside from video games mentioned? For all we know, the poster could be making up the reference to Ender's game. Look more carefully at the articles posted at /. and compare them with the poster's summary.
what?! where do you get this information from?! think oil?! you actually think the money made from oil goes to iraqi citizens and not to Saddam's weapons programs? if Iraqi people made so much money, then home come the UN had to set up a food for oil program?
Just to inform you: after the Gulf War, Iraq was not allowed to export oil (their government declined the offer to sell oil in limited quantity to meet the peoples' needs - you can blame Saddam for it), until in 1995 the oil for food program was established. According to the UN, 72% of the profits went to the humanitarian program. (food, medicine, etc).
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
techinque for finding textfiles of novels on the web.
.txt files that contain the complete work. You may have to repeat the search with the ommitted results included.
1) find a legitimate excerpt (e.g. a sample chapter) on the web
2) copy a sentence fragment that is unique to the book, but mundane enough that it wouldn't be quoted on peoples' "cool quotes" pages. (something like "jammed against Ender's seat back, hurting his chest")
3) paste it inside of quotation marks in a google search.
4) the top result will probably be the legitimate excerpt you found earlier. The other results will probably be
Here's what such steps yield for Ender's Game
5) Once you've found how good the book is, give your eyes a rest and buy the book or at least check it out of the library.
The requested URL
And how do you plan on doing that? Attacking every country that is anti-american? Doing that will only fuel more terrorism. And to counter that terrorism, you attack more countries, which fuels more terrorism ad infinitum
And by locking up criminals, we just encourage more criminals to rise up and take their place. Therefore, we must let all criminals run free through the streets. We can't stamp out crime completely, so we shouldn't try at all.
Every little country, say the Irans, Cubas and North Koreas, have more of a motivation than ever to acquire a force to counter what could be the next "regime change".
Totalitarian dictatorships don't actually need any encouragement to do nasty things.
But in England, the franchise is called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, not Ninja Turtles...
Philip Sandifer's academic website
Be more original. Go be a human shield or something.
Will the volunteer human shields be qualifying for Darwin Awards?
9/11 happened because the Americans have been far too tolerant of the forces that have been aligning against them.
I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying "You haven't lived unless you grew up in a shithole. Everyone should live in shitholes!"?
IT IS NOT A COUCH SPORT! PEOPLE'S LIVES ARE INVOLVED.
But more importantly, the future of civilization is involved. I would prefer one without totalitarian dictatorships. I've heard that they're bad news.
Of course, the naughty invader runs around trying to bully and bribe their way into "no" votes, but the resolution has been used successfully ten times in the UN's history.
Has it ever been used against the U.S.? Do you really think that the U.N. could mount a "posse" against the U.S.?
But more interestingly, contrary to the U.N.-love-in types, w.r.t. the attempted 18th Iraq resolution, I really don't see how the presence or absense of a rubber stamp from half-a-dozen bought-off third-world dictatorships should create or remove a moral justification on anything. (Well, maybe a couple of them aren't technically dictatorships.) Is this your notion of legitimacy? Most of the countries throughout the world are bullshit dictatorships. Should they be the basis of moral justification in the world?
That's why it is so important to go the last mile, then fifty further miles, using diplomacy to solve the problem peacefully. Well, it is for the rest of us; for genocidal maniacs who get off on pictures of mutilated dead people, of course war is going to be a favorite pastime (btw, such people are sick as well as evil).
Diplomacy only works when there is someone serious on the other side of the table. Where's your moral outrage for the 100-million civilians that have been killed while the U.N. has sat on its ass and watched? Are only the deaths inflicted by the U.S. worth noticing?
Iraq could be ours already.. with no lose of human life on our side.. none at all.. if we weren't trying to be nice guys and protect the average Iraqi citizen.
Moderators may rate this guy a troll, but what he's saying is true. If the U.S. was really so bad, they could have taken Iraq in a couple of days. It's only because they're trying to minimize civilian losses that the war is taking longer and taking more coalition losses.
Everyone is always riding America's ass and is so cynical about their motives, but I have to wonder what they are smoking. Most of the world outside of your comfy chair is a shithole, and I for one am glad that there is a force working to lift some of the world out of "shithole" status. Pacifists and their wishful thinking will never cause the end of war, but the spread of democracy will. I have to think that in some sick way, pacifists actually like most of the world being a shithole just so they'll have something to compain about.
After reading the article, I can say I feel mislead. I clicked expecting to find something about how the government has just built some giant gravity-defying rooms, but instead I find that the goal of the military is to make our soldiers fight without even knowing their fighting.
IMHO, they got the wrong things out of Enders Game. There is value in soldiers not knowing the reality of fighting... But that makes any Big Brother scenario all the more scary.
It reminds me a little of the movie Toys (Plot Outline: An eccentric toymaker finds his family business horribly misused by his militaristic uncle who is bequeathed control of the company). Where a has-been general trains some youngsters to play video games, while in fact they're controlling RC weapons of war.
Scary, isn't it!
An online Starcraft RPG? Only at
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
God Almighty! Where's the fucking 'colour this comment white, hide it before the anger overwhelms me and i go fucking postal and start slaying americans JUST IN CASE they think like you' button?
If you can't see this, click here to enable sigs.
Powell Doctrine parts 1 and 2:
1) Overwhelming military force, because drawn out wars force moral compromise and prolonged damage to civilians and soldiers.
2) Never enter war without a clear, publicized political end-point, and never enter without exhausting other methods of reaching that end-point.
We've got #1 down, I agree I'd rather have this thing over quickly.
WTF happened to #2? Just cuz you got sick of CNN reporting on the lead-up to the war doesn't mean we ever put up a credible diplomatic effort... if the public studied diplomacy ad avidly as warfare in this country, we wouldn't have anyone getting away with saying that we had.
An unfortunate consequence of a dominant military is that it can make the people making political decisions reckless and lazy.
Maybe we could use a few years as a non-'superpower' to sharpen those skills.
Look people, this is the New York Times. They're putting their articles and content, which is their entire business, on the web for free, and all they ask is that you register with them. Unlike many other sites, you can really trust that the info you give the NYT will be confidential; they're not going to risk losing any of their reputation for a few lousy bucks. Privacy policy here.
In other words: If you're going to mooch their content, do it on their terms instead of using a stupid loophole in their system.
God Almighty! Where's the fucking 'colour this comment white, hide it before the anger overwhelms me and i go fucking postal and start slaying americans JUST IN CASE they think like you' button?
Then they weren't tolerant enough?
"Captain Gentile said. "I had a fratricide incident. But it's good to make those mistakes now so I don't make them six or seven months from now in Baghdad.''"
So it will take months? What happened to the war hawks saying this will be faster than Afghanistan and Kosovo?
Has anyone see "Pretender"? The show about the "pretenders" which were capable of assuming any identity. I haven't read Ender's Game but it sounds similar in that kids were used for military simulations and other things of the sort.
Yet the United States, when it felt militarily overwhelmed by the Soviets (although that turned out to be a giant fraud to sell military equipment: The US always eclipsed the soviets), developed a wide range of biological, nuclear (including tactical nuclear), and chemical weapons.
Or did you mean the events on 9/11/2001?
It seems like roughly 480 of the current 512 posts are Offtopic. Oh, but what I wouldn't do for moderator points right now...
Eagles may fly, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Maybe I should have. I knew Card was a Mormon. So was the founder of Cardston, one Joseph Ora Card. His little homestead is preserverd at the southern end of town. There is a little plaque there, saying he was the first Mormon to leave Utah and settle in Canada.
Orson Scott Card's book "Seventh Son" takes place around 200 years ago in a parallel universe where magic works -- little magic -- not world-shaking magic. In the sequel his little hero spends some time learning native magic.
And Scott dedicates that book to an ancestor of his, whose life was saved by natives on the Canadian frontier.
Well, I heard the native's version of this story too.
First a little context. The Blood Reserve is about 600 square miles. Their own name for themselves is Kainai, which translates as "Many Cheifs". They were part of the Blackfoot Confederacy. They were one of the Plains Nations which had depended on the Buffalo.
Well, their version is that Joseph Ora Card arrived on the land Treaty Seven had granted them, and threw himself on their mercy. His wives and children were ill. Would the natives feed them? Would the natives let them stay, over the winter, in this little valley?
The elders were compassionate. They let Card, and his sick family, stay over for the winter.
That winter they were struck by a horrible smallpox epidemic. Two thirds of the natives died that winter. They had more serious problems to deal with than to wonder why the Card family had not left, as they had promised.
In their version Card wrote to Utah, and invited all his friends to come join him.
The Oldman River forks just upstream from Lethbridge. The natives oral tradition is that Treaty Seven granted them all the land between the two branches of the Oldman River, to the border with the USA. There is a Blackfoot Reservation just the other side of the border there. Is possession 90% of the law? Mormons settled all the land south of Cardston, to the US border.
The natives believe that Card stole a big strip of their land.
Personally I think Orson Scott Card was extremely insensitive to write that dedication, given the animosity between the natives and the Mormons in that part of the world.
What is the genocide connection? Where did the natives get smallpox? Might it have been from Card's family? His wives and children were sick. That would certainly be tragic. In fairness, there are other theories of how the natives came to become infected. Still Joseph Ora Card doesn't seem to have hesitated to take advantage of the natives who had been kind to him.
(*) The Canadian government calls them "reserves". The American government calls them "reservations".
All the Marxist/Maoist/Communist/Green Party weenies to moderate you down.
Don't you know that capitalism, not Communism is evil? That capitalism, especially global corporatism, is just slavery cloaked in a fancy name? And that Communism is where real freedom is (even if you don't have food to eat, and "loyalty squads" will come beat you if you say anything bad about the regimine like in Cuba).
You would think that after killing over 100 million people over the past century and enslaving close to 2 billion people, the Communists and their sympathizers would have some shame.
This is likely to be a problem, regardless of whether it's 'muddy boots' training or a computer simulation. If you train wrong, and haven't learned how to adapt, you're in for a world of hurt.
Another problem is that war games/simulations can be rigged to provide the desired result. This is likely to be a problem with either 'muddy boots' training or computer simulations, too.
But it seems like it would be easier to secretly rig a computer simulation to accomplish this. Read more about recent rigging of war games: General says Millennium Challenge 02 'was almost entirely scripted'. This had real people giving orders, and the general in charge of the OPFOR found out about it. But if it had all been computer-based, how hard would it be to stack the deck in secret?
About 5 years ago General Krulak, Commandant of the Marine Corps, released a list of books he recommended Marines read. Enders game was one of them. It was mainly one of the whole "Place of the military in society" things.
Damnit, why wasn't I informed?
I'm the stranger...posting to
The big surprises aren't surprising with two weeks of hindsight: Iraqi civilians aren't jumping for joy at our arrival, because they got bit last time and they don't trust us to finish the job this time. Are there strategic simulations for the top brass and the administration? A good simulation can dispel your assumptions and delusions, and the planners could have benefitted from some of that a month ago.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
Ender's Game?
America's Army is a free FPS using authentic US army gear and scenarios. Whether attack or defense your team is ALWAYS the US and the oppoonent is ALWAYS (a) eastern european ski-mask wearing terrorists or (b) turbin headed middle eastern terrorists. Most of the scenarios focus on CQB... ie exactly the kindof combat that Ender's Game focused on in the tournaments and exactly the kind the US army has found/will find itself in. Think Somalia, Gulf war, etc.
No, you didn't. The first person the Japanese elected wasn't too friendly towards the Americans. Obviously.
So the Americans decided to annul that election and the Japanese had to vote again...but the guy who had won wasn't on the ballot.
Isn't history interesting?
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
"Do you really think that the U.N. could mount a "posse" against the U.S.?"
Considering the fact that the US spends half of it's national budget on the military (and thus more than the next 16 nations combinied), it would be difficult.
It also explains why Americans so favour the military option: gotta use that toy to validate spending so much money on it...otherwise budget cuts are made to that lovely bundle of cash.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
And where was the US when this kind of stuff happened in Rwanda?
You can only claim morality when you are consistent. Otherwise you're oppertunistic.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Can you spot the logical phalacy in that statement?
Try http://gncurtis.home.texas.net/ for hints!
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Rwanda is just one example of the US turning a blind eye to tyranny when it is not in our economic interests to stop it. Look at East Timor for another example. 200,000 dead and we didn't lift a finger, because the agressor, Indonesia, is our ally and American Big Oil has large holdings in Indonesia. What finally got Indonesia out of East Timor? Diplomacy and the U.N.
Let's just see how many Evil Tyrants we go after when we finish with Iraq. My guess is none.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"Did anyone here ... actually read the f*ckin article?"
Come on. This is Slashdot. Do you really need to ask that question?
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
What's your criteria for citing the US as the most successfull social system? Or were you actually talking about the Mayan's or something? Everywhere I look in the states, I see injustice, I see oppression, I see domination by the wealthy... I see lack of freedom. But above all, I see loss of culture, degeneration, and basic alienation from humanity.
With all our injustices, America still provides the most free society in the world. We have the most liberal civil rights. We have the most liberated education system (anyone can go to college). We are one of the youngest countries in the history of the world. We are an experiment, and a successful one at that.
The fact is: Vastly more people want to come here than leave here. If you compare our 4th amendment and its right of privacy to France or England (both very progress, free countries) it is head and shoulders above when it comes to protecting the individual. Go read the laws before you bother argueing. Compare the social system in England, where it still pays to be born with the right blood. Compare to the overly socialistic control of France.
I am tired of false modesty about this: The fact is, liberty works, and America has a better version. Period. There is no moral equivelence here, the fact is if you give people the most freedom, they will be the most prosperous. America needs lots of improvements, but its still the best game in town for equality and liberty. Go argue, sure, ok fine, it doesnt matter because it doesn't change it, no matter how anti-us you are.
But we have to seal our borders OFF because everyone wants to be here. Think about that. There must be a reason. Call it arrogance if you want, but most countries could do better to look at our social and economic system, to serve as a model. The facts back that up.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
or you have a very poor sense of what you are reading.
If you read the book, and I mean read it without a skewed Idea about what it is going about, it is about how mature children are, or at least how mature they feel they are. Ender happens to be our hero, the buggerwars, the game, thats all secondary to how Ender feels, and Enders struggles. It is not about government sponsored child abuse.
In fact, if you feel that you need "more" proof, in the beggining of the Enders game that I bought 6 years ago in the science fiction section at Walden Books, it has a preface by Orson Scott Card describing his intentions with the book, and why he wrote it.
So it is obvious you are very much completely wrong, and having been modded up in this case, especially when the skew means something in maybe 2 people who read only at your mod level is very bad. Because it allows ignorance to propagate.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
If you haven't notice, locking up criminals who commit petty crimes doesn't make sence.
Better yet, while in jail, we provide the weight training to improve the physical conditioning and the contact with other criminals (some are more serious) so that when the person leaves jail, they are better able to commit crimes.
The notion we have about jail in the country is directly from the quakers and not improved by much. Instead of going after the root cause of these social problems, we just go after revenge. Perhaps we need to be concerned with poverty and education within the US and in the world, as opposed to just paying lip service to "no child left behind".
Here's my attempt to answer your question:
m _goodguy_030310.html
--------------
http://www.cbc.ca/news/iraq/issues_analysis/sadda
"American companies were allowed to sell chemical precursors to the Iraqis. Washington in the 1980s licensed dozens of other firms to ship biologicals to Iraq - deadly viruses and toxins, the sort of stuff Washington is now demanding Iraq destroy.
It's known the U.S. provided satellite intelligence and advice to Iraq. But there have been recent reports, based on interviews with military advisers at the time, that American strategists actually helped with battle and strike plans that resulted in use of chemicals."
------------------
Check out this site:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
Scroll all the way down to Document 1, and read the summary:
Shortly after the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war, the U.S. embassy in Ankara reports that Turkish ports have a backlog of goods awaiting transshipment to Iraq, and that a substantial amount of Israeli goods transit Turkey for "Islamic belligerents," including Israeli chemical products for Iran. It remarks on "Israeli acumen" in selling to both Iran and Iraq.
If you click on the link for Document 1, and go to the last page of the PDF file, you'll notice:
"been waiting for a month to get a certificate of origin claiming U.S. provenance for a shipment of seventeen thousand tons of Israeli "chemical products" bound for Iran. He admired Israeli business acumen in selling to both sides."
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And I read somewhere that the US allowed the Pfaulder corporation to supply Iraq with blueprints for a chemical warfare plant. Try doing a search on Google.
Everyone is always riding America's ass and is so cynical about their motives, but I have to wonder what they are smoking. Most of the world outside of your comfy chair is a shithole, and I for one am glad that there is a force working to lift some of the world out of "shithole" status.
Yeah, sure. If the US was really about helping the world, consider this: The money spent on this war could be, instead of killing of thousands of innocents, used to pay of the foreign debt of most of the third world. Debt which ensures that those countries will _never_ recover and be prosperous, simply because they need to service the debt, instead of making the lives of their people better. And we're talking dozens of countries here, not jst one or a few.
But, since that wouldn't be remotely as good for bussiness as is 'freeing' iraqi oil, don't expect it to happen any time soon.
Dude, wake up and smell the coffee. There are absolutley no altruistic motives behind government actions. Not in the US, but not in the French or German actions either. Every and all altruistic and moral justifications are merely an after-thought designed to justify the actions and positions.
Pacifists and their wishful thinking will never cause the end of war, but the spread of democracy will.
I feel the US administration is about to get a really unpleasant reality check regarding the illusion that you can forcibly bring democracy to a country.
Democracy building is a very slow and time-consuming process. A process that needs to begin with the people getting the idea of democracy. I don't believe the iraqi people have the slightest notion of what democracy is. The culture there simply doesn't recognise it. It will take years and years before any Iraqi government will strive to be anything but Saddam-by-other-means.
Trust me, I have some first-hand witness experience in democracy-building processes, living in ex-communist European country. Democracy was brought about by the people wanting democracy and people fighting for it. But, still, people mostly didn't get it. Unfortunately, especially those in charge. It took some 10 years to really bring democracy about, with some serious 'whip and carrot'-ing by the international community.
I must say that I really don't believe the US has the will and/or staying power to really bring democracy to Iraq.
Case in point: Afghanistan.
So obvious it's not even funny...
a completely dominant military force does everything better than a weaker military force:
- wins wars faster
- takes less casualties
- causes less civilian casualties
- inflicts less enemy casualties since they surrender faster
Which was/is clearly demonstrated in Israeli-Palestinian conflict, right?
Do you want to know why these people have to have these Kalashnikovs, or why the 8 year old has to kill the old man crossing the street for his clothes or food, it's because the F*CKING leaders of thier land/country are CORRUPT!!!! Their so called "leaders" are building palaces and hording food and polished marble for themselves. Keeping basements full of money and killing people for enjoyment all in the name of "helping their fellow countrymen." These warlords in Africa just care for power and money, they don't care who they step on. This dictator in Iraq and leaders in other Middle Eastern countries just care for power and money, while these idiot religious people have to f*cking clue what it means to be human and have humanity. These leaders in the Baltic countries, ie Yugoslavia and in Sarajevo care only for power and ethnic purity and couldn't give a shit of "the other dirty people".
Ohhh, but what happened, the United States went into Sarajevo to stop the killings of Muslims (who Middle countries say we are trying to wipe out). These shitty liberals need to get their story right. You need to get your story straight and find these reasons for these things happening. I'm not saying that the US doesn't has its fair share of corrupt officials, but we have the laws that let us examine what they are doing and rectify it.
Also, this is why you may see refusals to deploy "cheating" weapons. Take Iraq (please): from the perspective of the Baath party, losing the war is unimaginable catastrophe: they cease to exist, and their institutional will is to fight to the bitter end. But to young Joe al-Schmoe, PFC, if the country falls it means that he gets a short vacation in a POW camp, then a new government that he also doesn't get a say in. It's not quite as bad for him.
Interestingly, that is why the media war is so important. The Iraqis want to convince the populace that their backs are against the wall to stiffen their will to fight ("The Zionists want to kill us all, then forcibly convert us all to Judaism
We'll see how this all rolls out in the news.
After the first invasion they *knew* we were legit, but they came anyway. I'm glad Ender beat the crap out of them. Too bad in the later books the surviving alien egg took hypnotic control over him and made him miss the obvious truth.
The author knew who John Locke was, and lionized him in the book.
Now you're getting into the methods of analysing a text. Where is meaning constructed? Is the only meaning in a book what the author intended? Or can the reader, through their new perspective, bring new meaning to the text? The current view is both; that meaning is constructed somewhere between the reader and the author.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I'm wondering how 400 billion out of a 2 trillion dollar budget could be considered "half". Why favor the military option? Gee, maybe because the diplomatic options was about as effective as using harsh language.
Semantics and pragmatics are separate, but even if the text is misunderstood by many, the intent exists, and can be inferred by many more.
Ah, there's the rub. To continue they need money. And with the U.S. Government military spending reaching new peaks, all it takes is those who own the debt to say, ''no more money'' to end the dominance. And that day is approaching, and with GWBush, sooner every day.
And then, may the killing come to an end....
Shannon Mann
A comment overheard in a corn field `If you have better ideas, lets hear them. I am all ears.'
Actually, it's more like 460 billion (since Bush just got another 100 billion from congress) out of 1.2 trillion, but hey, don't listen to the foreigner who knows more about your budgetary situation than you...
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Some would say the misunderstandings of many are just as valid as the intent of the author.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Hey! Be careful how you speak of my birthday!
There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
-- David D. Friedman
If it's due to the ignorance of the author, that's valid. If it's due to the ignorance of the audience, then the author has gotten away with the literary equivalent of a trojan horse, hiding his message in a work that is getting popular on surreptitious means.
I think we're really just reiterating the same points now. It seems to me that our opinions divide on what is to be the ultimate authority of a text. You seem to be of the opinion that the author is the only one who can see definitively what the truth of a text means. I think that multiple meanings, some intended by the author, some not, can all be excavated from the same text, and that all are equally valid.
;p
At this point, we should just agree to disagree. Nobody's looking anyways
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
It's fine that nobody's looking. No posturing going on.
We're not disagreeing on the deconstruction of the text. I've always argued that the author loses control of the work once he places it before an audience.
But I've never believed that subliminal messages didn't exist just because most of the audience failed to recognize them. That part of the audience that does recognize them infers the author's real intent. You probably already have read it, but check out The Annotated Alice, a thorough essay on the backstory of Alice in Wonderland. Also look up the real meanings of The Wizard of Oz. The author's intent in those two works became obscured partly because the references were obscure in scope, but also because they were artfully shrouded. Card's allegory doesn't hardly try, but because most SF audiences are somewhat ignorant of religion and politics and real-world war, it ends up being obscurant.
Ender's Game and its sequels have an ulterior motive. Card may have meant it to be more clear, but he got lucky and made a bunch of money instead.
Well the *75* billion he just got is for the war, and will not be a permanent increase.
2 .h tml#Revenues
And 30 seconds with google shows me that federal government receipts (in 2001) to be 2,019 billion dollars.
http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2001/guide0
Or do they not count social security taxes as taxes in Europe? If that's the case, you all must have reeeaally low taxes.
Shame you posted this as anonymous coward as it was well written. I am not American - rather Australian, but we have even more cultural diversity. Its great huh.....
Despite 9/11 and the events that caused it, America is still an amazing and fantastic experiment in what humans are capable of. More power too you... be proud but humble.
m