I am trying to think of an idea about how we could allow children tomake thier own decisions based on their maturity, rather than an arbitrary age. One easy (though imperfect) way to do this would be to allow parents to grant their mature children "Adult" status, legaly. I know that some kids who are orphans or wards of the court or something like that can do this and be "adults" before they are 18, but I think it would be a good thing for children who's parents think they are capable of handeling themselves responsablly to be able to do it too.
This doesnt help the kids who have controling or negligent parents, or kids who are really not as mature as their parents think they are. So maybe kids would have to pettition to gain adult status from some system (computerized maybe, or is that too SF to really happen?). I don't know how they would be reviewed, though I think there could be some kind of light psychological testing to see if they are mentally mature enough and perhaps some testing for understanding of fundamental laws of society (like: T/F: "Forcefully taking the posetions of others is illegal"). The administration of all of this would be a challenge for the government to pull off in a way that is not so beaurocratic to be useless, but I think it could be done.
It just occured to me that using this type of system could also work to change our legal system in it's treatment of minors. It would be simple to decide to try a 16 year old as an adult if he had successfully gained "adult" status through testing. I wonder if this system might be further broken down to include all sorts of Rights and Responsablities that young people would gradually gain through testing or age. We could have tests for voting, drinking, viewing porn, etc and as you test for them you would also get responsibilities like taxes, jury duty, draft registration...
I wonder what people thing of this kind of system in general. It would encourage kids to take on as much responsibility as they can, but try to prevent them from taking more than they can handle.
Remember, as long as we have our guns, we can revolt if it gets too bad. As soon as they take our guns away, we're at their mercy.
Hmm, I think that we're at their mercy already if they really make an effort at serious repression. Do you own anything that could take out a tank? Your handguns are just about worthless in any real revolt. More useful weapons, like rifles and shotguns are not nearly as regulated (nor need they be). The current gun control debates are mostly about handguns. I don't know if the second ammendment really means that I should have the right to freely own an M16. I would be the minimum of what I would want if I was really woried about protecting myself from the govenrment.
I really wish sombody would mass market non lethal weapons that could be more common. It would let people be armed for defense if they feel the need, but wouldn't help murders or criminals (much). Probably would be impossible to market in our litigation happy society.
DOD hackers and crackers will be spending a lot of time hacking on Linux, etc. But if you think about what they might do after their military service, and about what they would be doing if they did not join the military, you will see that this is a good thing.
Many people who go into the millitary don't stay in too long. They stay in for 2, 3, maybe 5 years, then they go get a job for some big corporation somewhere (who pays 10 times as much). They get hired because they have got good technical training using high quality equipment and because they have picked up some leadership experience at the same time.
Now, if the millitary trains soldiers in linux hacking, many of them will come out after a few years to find civilian jobs. Certainly some will become a part of the open source community. Then they can (and will want to) write code to fix security holes they know about. They can be part of the next generation of open source coders. I would certainly prefer to run a system coded by former Military intel people, than one made by grown up script hackers.
The military will also direct the hackers and crackers it hires. It will make them keep our nation's interestes protected to the best of their abilities, and to prevent other nations (or terrorists) from attacking us. While the DOD might withhold information about security problems it's hackers find, it is likely to assign those same hackers to finding ways that those problems can be fixed in government systems and in private systems that they depend on (the national power grid for example).
If they hadn't joined the military, many of those hackers and crackers woud be spending their time hacking linux anyway. They would be likely to find some of the same security flaws they would have found for the military, but they will have no reason not to use them against Americans (or our allies), businesses or the government. I would prefer they be working on defending our computers, or attacking systems in hostile countries, rather than have them attack whoever they choose.
Most of all, I would prefer that any military informational warfare to be conducted openly (to some degree), with public knowledge, rather than as a black opp that we never hear about.
I think the best way to show the battle room would be from Ender's perspective. This would allow the audience to see the dissorientation he overcomes as he throws out the spacial orientation that everyone else is stuck with. Shift the camera's orientation as he moves. The idea is for it to be nearly nausiating at first, but steadying as he figures it out and it gets smoother. I can't say that it would be easy to film, I think it could be done really well. Leaving out this concept would take away the part of the story that explains what makes him such a good tactician.
Ender's Game is about the cruelty of humanity, (specifically children on children). Make no mistake, this is no children's movie, Ender is a murderer.
I don't think that disqualifies the story from being "for children". I certainly appreciated the violence and cruelty of the story when I read it when I was 8 or 9. I certainly hope that it could be presented in a way that would make kids ask their parents tough questions, rather than just wish they could kill each and get away with it.
What Hollywood studio would have the balls to show one 7yr old murdering another?
I don't know why Hollywood and really all of American culture thinks that hiding ugly realistic violence, such as in Ender's Game, from children protects them from anything, when they are constantly being bombarded by unrealistic, bang-bang violence in every other movie. I would prefer a child see Ender kick Stilson to death than to see a pro-wrestler fake a single punch. The difference between these two examples is simple: Ender hates himself for winning, unlike the wrestler.
Graff: "Why did you do that to him?"
Ender: "I could have stopped as soon as I knocked him down. But I would have had to do it again the next day, and the day after that. I wanted to win all the fights now."
This part really explains to me the way that the adults want Ender to be. They put him in a situation where he would have to kill to win so he killed. If he hadn't seen another way that it could go, or had done it just because he liked it, then he would have been a monster like Peter was. This was the way we get to know him. I don't know how it could be changed to work with him fighting with Peter, as the script currently has the dialog go. I hope that Mr. Card will put something back in to cover that view we get into Ender's psyche. It really points out why they want him instead of Peter or Valentine.
In any case, I hope that the movie will either live up to the spirit of the book, or just be a good movie on it's own terms. It may be too much to hope for both.
Slashdot Mirror
I am trying to think of an idea about how we could allow children tomake thier own decisions based on their maturity, rather than an arbitrary age. One easy (though imperfect) way to do this would be to allow parents to grant their mature children "Adult" status, legaly. I know that some kids who are orphans or wards of the court or something like that can do this and be "adults" before they are 18, but I think it would be a good thing for children who's parents think they are capable of handeling themselves responsablly to be able to do it too.
This doesnt help the kids who have controling or negligent parents, or kids who are really not as mature as their parents think they are. So maybe kids would have to pettition to gain adult status from some system (computerized maybe, or is that too SF to really happen?). I don't know how they would be reviewed, though I think there could be some kind of light psychological testing to see if they are mentally mature enough and perhaps some testing for understanding of fundamental laws of society (like: T/F: "Forcefully taking the posetions of others is illegal"). The administration of all of this would be a challenge for the government to pull off in a way that is not so beaurocratic to be useless, but I think it could be done.
It just occured to me that using this type of system could also work to change our legal system in it's treatment of minors. It would be simple to decide to try a 16 year old as an adult if he had successfully gained "adult" status through testing. I wonder if this system might be further broken down to include all sorts of Rights and Responsablities that young people would gradually gain through testing or age. We could have tests for voting, drinking, viewing porn, etc and as you test for them you would also get responsibilities like taxes, jury duty, draft registration...
I wonder what people thing of this kind of system in general. It would encourage kids to take on as much responsibility as they can, but try to prevent them from taking more than they can handle.
Steve
Hmm, I think that we're at their mercy already if they really make an effort at serious repression. Do you own anything that could take out a tank? Your handguns are just about worthless in any real revolt. More useful weapons, like rifles and shotguns are not nearly as regulated (nor need they be). The current gun control debates are mostly about handguns. I don't know if the second ammendment really means that I should have the right to freely own an M16. I would be the minimum of what I would want if I was really woried about protecting myself from the govenrment.
I really wish sombody would mass market non lethal weapons that could be more common. It would let people be armed for defense if they feel the need, but wouldn't help murders or criminals (much). Probably would be impossible to market in our litigation happy society.
Steve
DOD hackers and crackers will be spending a lot of time hacking on Linux, etc. But if you think about what they might do after their military service, and about what they would be doing if they did not join the military, you will see that this is a good thing.
Many people who go into the millitary don't stay in too long. They stay in for 2, 3, maybe 5 years, then they go get a job for some big corporation somewhere (who pays 10 times as much). They get hired because they have got good technical training using high quality equipment and because they have picked up some leadership experience at the same time.
Now, if the millitary trains soldiers in linux hacking, many of them will come out after a few years to find civilian jobs. Certainly some will become a part of the open source community. Then they can (and will want to) write code to fix security holes they know about. They can be part of the next generation of open source coders. I would certainly prefer to run a system coded by former Military intel people, than one made by grown up script hackers.
The military will also direct the hackers and crackers it hires. It will make them keep our nation's interestes protected to the best of their abilities, and to prevent other nations (or terrorists) from attacking us. While the DOD might withhold information about security problems it's hackers find, it is likely to assign those same hackers to finding ways that those problems can be fixed in government systems and in private systems that they depend on (the national power grid for example).
If they hadn't joined the military, many of those hackers and crackers woud be spending their time hacking linux anyway. They would be likely to find some of the same security flaws they would have found for the military, but they will have no reason not to use them against Americans (or our allies), businesses or the government. I would prefer they be working on defending our computers, or attacking systems in hostile countries, rather than have them attack whoever they choose.
Most of all, I would prefer that any military informational warfare to be conducted openly (to some degree), with public knowledge, rather than as a black opp that we never hear about.
Steve
I think the best way to show the battle room would be from Ender's perspective. This would allow the audience to see the dissorientation he overcomes as he throws out the spacial orientation that everyone else is stuck with. Shift the camera's orientation as he moves. The idea is for it to be nearly nausiating at first, but steadying as he figures it out and it gets smoother. I can't say that it would be easy to film, I think it could be done really well. Leaving out this concept would take away the part of the story that explains what makes him such a good tactician.
Steve
I don't think that disqualifies the story from being "for children". I certainly appreciated the violence and cruelty of the story when I read it when I was 8 or 9. I certainly hope that it could be presented in a way that would make kids ask their parents tough questions, rather than just wish they could kill each and get away with it.
I don't know why Hollywood and really all of American culture thinks that hiding ugly realistic violence, such as in Ender's Game, from children protects them from anything, when they are constantly being bombarded by unrealistic, bang-bang violence in every other movie. I would prefer a child see Ender kick Stilson to death than to see a pro-wrestler fake a single punch. The difference between these two examples is simple: Ender hates himself for winning, unlike the wrestler.
This part really explains to me the way that the adults want Ender to be. They put him in a situation where he would have to kill to win so he killed. If he hadn't seen another way that it could go, or had done it just because he liked it, then he would have been a monster like Peter was. This was the way we get to know him. I don't know how it could be changed to work with him fighting with Peter, as the script currently has the dialog go. I hope that Mr. Card will put something back in to cover that view we get into Ender's psyche. It really points out why they want him instead of Peter or Valentine.In any case, I hope that the movie will either live up to the spirit of the book, or just be a good movie on it's own terms. It may be too much to hope for both.
Steve