Slashdot Mirror
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?
Like so
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Ender spend the rest of his life paying for his evils......
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.
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.
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
Get a Grip... and read the article. For one thing, yes in "Enders game" there was confusion and the "enemy" was destroyed, when in essance they were supposidly peaceful. However, they attack Earth first, unknowingly, and assumed we weren't a true life-form. Earth defended itself the best way they could...
This xenocide correlation bullshit is just assanine, that's not what the article is saying. It actually says very little about "ender's game", but... the point is using High-Tech Simulations to train Army and MARINES. The post says Army when a big part of the article is talking about Marine sims too.
As a former Army Captain... Sims work, and save you tax money. Our Military is the best fighting force in the world... and the most compassionate and ethical. Simulations also help soldiers learn how to deal with media, civilians and wounded enemy. That's why we are the best.
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.
Where the hell do you get this pathetic thinking from? The attitude of the leaders trickles down to the lower levels. The military literally reflects the attitudes of the top generals, the president, and his advisors.
Ask anyone in the military. You will see slight differences in the behavior of each unit that precisely reflect the leadership of that unit.
You want to know why the Iraqis are putting pregnant women in car bombs? It's because the people in the military are just as brutal, sick, and demented as Saddam is. They largely reflect their leadership.
When you see a private run for cover with a child in his arms, he is doing that because he knows that is what his sergeant and lieutenant would do. The sergeant and lieutenant would do the same because they are told to do that by the captains and colonels. The captains and colonels do that because that is the ethics taught to them by the generals. The generals teach those ethics because that is what the president wants them to do.
Your stupid argument that the little guy is good but the top brass is bad is idiotic. The little guy reflects the behavior and morals of the top brass and commander in chief.
In fact, the true hero of this entire conflict is President Bush. He sticks to his morals. He did what is right despite public opinion polls and opposing pressure. He refuses to bend his ideals to satisfy a few people for a few days. He refuses to go back on his word. He is bringing dignity and freedom to a country that has been ravaged for twenty years. What is in this for him? What is he going to take home at the end of the day? The answer is nothing. In fact, he stands to lose a lot more than you imagine. How would you like to know that you were directly responsible for young men and women being tortured and brutally killed? Yet, despite this, he pushes on, not because it is easy, but because it is right.
He is doing all this, sacrificing his political career, sacrificing his peace of mind, all to bring freedom to a couple of people in a faraway land that nobody seems to care about. He does this to ensure that our children will grow up without planes crashing into their office buildings, and without worrying about being burned alive by savage terrorists.
It's people like you that make Saddam Hussein think he stands a chance, and give aid and comfort to the enemy. If you would've stood with your president from the beginning, Saddam would've left long ago, and we would've ended the torture that is the daily lives of the Iraqi people years ago.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
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.