Ender's Game

Post #15,333 by kmself 10/26/01 7:54:36 PM Reply	Ender's Game [link\|http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/review/games/2001/10/26/army-games.htm\|Video games get army backing] 10/26/2001 - Updated 02:08 PM ET LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -- The U.S. Army, in an unprecedented alliance with Hollywood and a major university, is providing funding and technical advice for video games that aim to hone the skills of the next-generation of military field commanders. The Institute for Creative Technologies, which is jointly operated by the United States Army and the University of Southern California said Thursday it would develop two combat video games, with financial and tactical backing from the Army. [...] The games will allow players to control entire groups of soldiers, ICT said, with CS-12 allowing the player to take the role of a company commander and C-Force putting the player in the role of squad leader. [...] `-- Karsten M. Self [link\|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com\|kmself@ix.netcom.com] What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?`
Post #15,347 by Ashton 10/26/01 11:09:43 PM Reply	Machiavelli Lives. Oh swell... Thanks, Karsten - I think, you #$^ Messenger. We must append this to the Jesuits' former stark admission.. give me a child til age.. 5. Expect to need cannon fodder? start the conditioning now - pointedly. Perhaps feedback will improve their score, refine the games - and we shall include M.Q. as well as I.Q. in future transcripts. Naturally enough too - this will be about 'defense' (We no longer have a War Department anyway; was the Defense euphemism incorporated during or post-WWII? I forget). I suppose we might give credit for this unusual display of directness ~ a case of inadvertent honesty* ? Can direct subsidy of the NRA be far behind the next wave of capital gains perks for the Ruling class? Funding for a special HS class in Armaments 101 - can be augmented by dropping any remaining Arts/Music classes - those sappy fringe benefits for the effete. Can't wait for the DEA to begin instruction in ratting out those abominable pot-smokers; turn in a buddy: get a free DVD on strafing techniques in mountainous country. Your PassPort Reg. will ensure credit for your M.Q. if your body count on the test section is high enough. We'll be in a hurry to create the new generation of Enders: fuzzy gun-bunnies for the crib? Paint-ball guns with washable colors to save mom cleanup - of course! Maybe a superimposed cross-hairs on the kids' Tee Vee - get 'em used to sighting-in? Short-stock .22s for the 6 year old prodigy - in bright colors and with a Swoosh\ufffd on the stock. Mo ommm - everyone's got one! Alligator holsters that clip to that book-bag - Oh..! just the marketing! causes little shivers all over .. Kinda brings one of those lumps to the throat again. Especially the Doctrine Command Bureau ... The U.S. Army will provide funding, but its Training & Doctrine Command bureau will also be involved in game development, ICT said. ... "What I hadn't anticipated when we started down this road was how particularly relevant (the games) were going to become," Korris said. Who needs fiction books about Dystopias ? Especially since war is such good bizness - now we can invest daughters as well as sons. I wonder if that lump in throat is - real cancer.. and not just the obvious metaphor? A.
Post #15,354 by boxley 10/26/01 11:46:08 PM Reply	whats yer problem momma wouldnt let you play with plastic army men? Cowboys and Indians were verbotten? Never played the board game risk? Never sat in on meetings to see how far the panthers could go in agitprop without a major gun battle breaking out? SDS meetings? Come On and get a clue. If the army is going to help design the games, the games will suck big time. You have been there. Picture your commander directing the geeks on how this game should go. At the age of 10 I was being taught to shoot by Ukeraine freedom fighters to hit targets with a 30-06 at long ranges and being told I would be a good little facist/communist killer. Didnt hurt me a bit:) the NRA is a good org. Consider this if the Black Panthers were NRA members would that have been worth anything when they showed up at the capitol with they rifles? thanx, bill tshirt front "born to die before I get old" thshirt back "fscked another one didnja?"
Post #15,358 by Ashton 10/27/01 12:06:36 AM Reply	Au contraire mon fr\ufffdre.. Years of military school. Qual. on M-1, BAR other toys. I understand and appreciate that kids Will play at blowing up things, do like fireworks, pull wings off flies. (I've made explosives of all sorts, shaped charges, helped make primers for Speer Inc. in Idaho, dynamite fab at Atlas Powder) yada. As to NRA - indeed they teach safe use of firearms, best they can. And that's fine: for those parents who want their kids to play with these things / and for kids who have an interest + aptitude + that parental OK. Not Ok with even subtle pressure from Govt: You ought* to want this conditioning/training - Kid!* Different when: so overt involvement of Military Doctrine folk literally &^$(&$ conditioning the young. Overtly. Get it? Hitler Youth. Young Communist League. You may be right. Their bureaucratic hierarchy shall likely render this a laughable exercise. Still it's the thought that counts: 'we' are permitting this action [so far]. We are funding it. Throw in the Pledge of Allegiance opening screen: Where is it different from Hitler Youth and Erwache! (Awaken!) ?? I.
Post #15,360 by boxley 10/27/01 12:21:20 AM Reply	Simple they arnt forcing kids to play it. Play this or mom and dad goto concentration camps. War gaming is long been a sport designed by and for the military. Aside from history lessons learned from mistakes of the past it gives one incentive. Bring your men home alive and take your objectives. My boys will have a clear indoctrination about your rifle is your friend and the buddy system. The fragging course will be optional:) All in all synthetic re-enactment goes out the window after your buddy from basic takes a round thru the nose. Combat is reflexive action, and unless trained physically over and over again the brainstem takes over and likely gets you killed. Example newbie patrol gets on the field and takes heavy fire from a concealed rifle pit. Does his/her hands twitch for a joystick as he drops the rifle? Maybe but if he survives the instinct it will be because when ambushed heavy directed fire and offensive actions may save you. thanx, bill tshirt front "born to die before I get old" thshirt back "fscked another one didnja?"
Post #15,366 by Ashton 10/27/01 12:49:40 AM Reply	No doubt that experience is er.. experience. Which 'helps'. If what yer training - with Government oversight - is a new crop of universal field grunts, rather than allowing natural selection (!) via those who will choose this vocation by instinct. As always before this. Babies should not be shooting at man-silhouette targets. Period. But video has already escalated that mindset into a game, so this is no doubt moot - however gross. Creeping gradualism = conditioning, by any other name. IMhO this represents a qualitative change akin to Hitler Youth - requiring implicit OK of the population (whether too preoccupied to notice, or not). It ought to be voted on - just as Hitler was at least 'voted' into power via some simulation of a political process. Not that I imagine it will get any more attention than UCITA, the DMCA and the upcoming SCSSA-whatever - and the next loaded tax break for the 4000ish millionaires' "estates" - under rubric of 'National Security'. No, I do not expect this to be even a blip on the smoke screen. We have to decide (as someone else observed) whether we are next to be a full Imperial Power [and train accordingly] or want to pull back a bit towards our isolationist roots .. it appears this shall occur by accidental sequence and not by - any sense of the voting (minority) population. So be it. I won't have to live with the consequences, but your kids will. A.
Post #15,403 by boxley 10/27/01 8:16:30 AM Reply	hear ya on that last sentence :( wasnt planning on giving them full brifings and training on how to act. I went thru my shit so they wouldnt have to and know it seems I must. thanx, bill tshirt front "born to die before I get old" thshirt back "fscked another one didnja?"
Post #15,593 by Arkadiy 10/29/01 3:40:08 PM Reply	Odd. On the one hand, the video games _do_not_ promote violence (see Mr Katz at Slashdot). On the other hand, if Governement wants to help building better, more realistic games, that's Hitler Youth. On the third hand :), if a Governement was trying to prevent some more realistic games from going to market, you would be first in arms to say that they are overstepping their domain. Do I smell some contradictions here?
Post #15,610 by Ashton 10/29/01 6:47:59 PM Reply	Just the omnipresent one. Freedom of speech or whatever - guarantees that the execrable, the maudlin and even the destructive admonition - must be allowed perusal (with the freedom always to ignore said). We have to allow the BS and count on an educated citizenry to discriminate. (!) I remarked on the difference between a Gov't Sponsored effort to 'train new combatants' and your other examples. Ender's Game is indeed a nicely crafted exploration of such a program - with the added incentive of its motive being (fictionally) an imagined hostile force aimed at the entire planet. (Hey! in the end, they'd just made an error about our sentience! = easy to do, given our local behavior, No?) Today's situation might borrow from all of the above. I have no solutions for the ignorance of our Rulers and of our population - of a few billion other opinions on This planet / how we might catch up ?? in the Propaganda War (the actual one, that is). Ashton
Post #15,638 by Arkadiy 10/29/01 9:56:25 PM Reply	Nowhere near the omnipresent one. I really fail to see anything coming anywhere close to Ender's Game - entire gaming reality for small children aimed at creating perfect fighting human - one who do not trust anyone at all, including the teachers. (For another view of that, check out "Ender's Shadow"). What this reminds me of is another gaming company that was making a flight simulator. They had to use Freedom of Information Act to get the data on aerodynamical performance of various US aircraft. And now the Army is voluntiring similar data just for publicity. I think it's a good idea.
Post #15,672 by Ashton 10/30/01 1:57:34 AM Reply	Maybe it doesn't matter. Seen as a game only - who is to care about the designers, if it's merely commercially successful? For that matter: who is to be certain that: we won't be facing a mini-Ender's dilemma over the next several decades (?) This is just the beginning.. A.
Post #15,705 by Arkadiy 10/30/01 9:56:03 AM Reply	Ender's dilemma ...may be facing us right now. I wish I could shake that thought off, but I can't. Logically, we can't say that becase we seem to have communication channels open - at least formally. But I am still afraid that it will come down to a choice between "us" and "them". And the choice will be ours to make. Ender's world is so nice and crisp comparing to ours!
Post #15,737 by inthane-chan 10/30/01 12:03:23 PM Reply	Children of the Mind presented a third option... ...that when the power of the one with the choice is invulnerable to the society which threatens it, they can sit back and wait it out. The hard part is determining if you're powerful enough. "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Post #15,761 by Arkadiy 10/30/01 2:21:27 PM Reply	Took a while to parse the answer... I need to reread the second book. I am not sure that Children of the Mind were about "invulnerable power". More to the point, our power is not invulnerable. If we let our opponent have his way, we cease to exist as a culture. (that may happen even if we have our way... But that's another topic)
Post #15,371 by a6l6e6x 10/27/01 1:52:53 AM Reply	Ukrainian freedom fighters? Really? I thought those guys, hiding out in the Carpathians, were wiped out in the late 1940s. Alex Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
Post #15,405 by boxley 10/27/01 8:22:42 AM Reply	Wall here is the story from what I remember The old man was a police chief in a town in the Ukraine. When the Germans rolled thru he took to the hills with the partisans as being a police chief he was a target. When the russians rolled back the other way he wasnt already a communist so he was a target. Slipped out in early 50's with wife and one son. They bought a farm in middle of no where and up till 1970 lived small heavily armed convinced the KGB would still try to take them out. That farm had .50 cal fully auto weapons, lotsa rifles and shotguns. The Son worked with my dad who died in 1970, the last time I was in that area was at the funeral. The son who was my fathers friend told me the story so I cannot verify it. thanx, bill tshirt front "born to die before I get old" thshirt back "fscked another one didnja?"
Post #15,421 by a6l6e6x 10/27/01 10:59:52 AM Reply	Interesting. Thanks for reply. As imric says "Paranoia is a survival trait." Alex Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

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