Ender's Game Notes

I had been meaning to read this highly-acclaimed work of contemporary
science-fiction when I found it in an airport book shop during a
layover in Singapore.

I think the acclaim is well-deserved. It is an exciting and
thought-provoking story written in a page-turning style. I can
recommend it to any science-fiction fan. 

However, it doesn't quite make the top shelf of my science fiction
collection.

"Ender's Game" has been adopted as a kind of manifesto by military
personnel and "Gifted Student" program subjects. As someone who came
up through the U.S. public education system with the "Gifted Student"
label occassionally slapped on me, I can sympathize with that point
of view. If I had read Ender during my school days I almost certainly
would have thought, "That's me!" and made it my favorite
book. However, reading the novel as an adult, some of the thematic
material seems naive.

* Unchained Intellect Uber Alles

One theme that does not resonate with me now that I am old is the
idea that human intelligence has no limits beyond those self-imposed
by inhibitions and societal constraints

"Ender's Game" gives several prominent examples.

:SPOILERS:
- Ender's superior intelligence allows him to overcome battle room
  opponents, personal enemies, and the Buggers after he has been
  forced to give up social expectations to avoid violence,
  proportionality when violence is unavoidable, the belief that
  adults or loved ones will provide fair challenges or intervene to
  protect him from harm.

- Peter and Valentine overcome scruples about the position of
  children expected by society and manipulate world events with their
  political writing.

- I.F. trainers, though adverting to be less intelligent than Ender
  and his siblings operate a system that identifies potential
  tactical genius candidates and educes Ender's tactical genius
  through a training environments that abandons such social values as
  protection of children and fairness.

:END:

It is ironic that a novel that has been accused (unfairly) of
advocating fascism seems to feature so prominently typical left-wing
themes of (over-)confidence in the human ability to plan rationally
and the oppressive nature of social conventions.

It may come down to just the difference between youthful optimism and
self-confidence and the pessimism/realism of experience. Where I once
believed that a smart guy like me could solve any problem given
enough time to think it through, I now know that every human success
takes some combination of intelligence, effort, and luck or
Providence

Furthermore, the big problems in life, life after death, world peace,
finding a good spouse, are not subject to rational solution,
regardless of the combination of resources you assemble. I don't know
whether that's because the universe is irreducibly chaotic at some
level, or because the big problems simply transcend human
comprehension.


* Existential struggle justifies otherwise immoral actions

:SPOILERS:
- Ender uses disproportional force against Stilson and Bonzo,
  justifying it as the only way to disuade further bullying or
  attempts on his life.

- I.F. trainers refuse to protect Ender from life-threatening
  situations because they believe Ender learning to overcome them on
  his own is essential to his training to save humanity from the
  Buggers.

- I.F. command chooses to commit genocide (xenocide) on the Buggers
  in order to prevent them from destroying humanity.
:END:

In an existential struggle, actions that would normally be
considered immoral are necessary and justified.

Regardless of whether or not I agree with it personally, this theme
is one I still find relevant, even in my old age, and maybe even
moreso.

Do the ends, or at least some highly important ends, justify the
means, or is the road to Hell paved with good intentions? The latter
is the consensus in contemporary Western societies, and is supported
by New Testament scripture. However, this principle is tempered by
concepts like self-defense, just war, and lesser evil. For example,
"Thou shalt not kill," but I may justly take a life if that person is
threatening my or another's life; I must honor my father and mother,
but not if they are urging me to steal from another (unless the theft
will save someone's life?...).

But a topic of current political debate is the question of whether or
not different moral rules apply to collective action, actions taken
by or on behalf of a soverign state. Is it just to go to war based on
the suspicion that the enemy has obtained particularly destructive
weapons? Is it justified to waterboard a prisoner if it is believed
he holds information on a planned attack that could cost thousands of
lives? Is it permitted to send a remote-controlled drone to kill a
known terrorist when there is some chance that other innocent people
will also be killed in the explosion?

"Ender's Game" answers "yes" to all of the above.

:SPOILERS:
In the cases of Ender's fights wth fellow students, conventional
morality would have him avoid the conflict, seek protection from an
authority figure, or as a last resort fight back "fairly", to use no
more than proportional force with some leeway to compensate for his
size disadvantage in both cases. 

However both times Ender consciously chooses to fight back with more
than proportional force (unintentionally killing both opponents) for
reasons that go beyond dealing with the immediate threat. When
fighting Stilson, Ender reasoned that the show of exessive force was
necessary to dissuade Stilson and all of his companions from bullying
him in the future. In the fight with Bonzo, the danger was even
greater because Bonzo was determined to kill Ender, and the Battle
School teachers were conspiring to withhold all assistance from Ender
as part of his training. Ender reached a conclusion similar to the
previous fight. 

The teachers of the Battle School, represented by Colonel Graff, take
an even more morally ambiguous position. They intentionally withold
emotional support and physical protection from Ender, believing it
the only method of training him to become the commander who can carry
out the Inernational Fleet's strategy to defeat the Buggers. The
greater ambiguity stems from two facts:

1. The subject of their morally problematic (in terms of conventional
   morality) methods, Ender, is unrelated to their ultimate enemy,
   the Buggers, and does not pose any threat to the teachers or to
   humanity.

2. There is no guarantee that their treatment of Ender will actually
   lead to the achievement of their ultimate aim, the preservation of
   humanity. Ender may fail to complete his training; He may not
   achieve the level of proficiency necessary to make the strategy
   succeed; The strategy may be flawed and not achieve the aim even
   if executed successfully.

The position of International Fleet commanders who approved the
strategy of genocide against the Buggers is even more
problematic. Putting aside questions of the strategy's plausibility
and soundness, can genocide, almost universally repugnant to
contemporary sesibilitis, ever be justified? 

Other science fiction writers have invoked game theory in speculation
that a spacefaring species may logically conclude that the risk to
their own survival posed by any other spacefaring species is too
great and follow-up any first contact with preemptive genocide by
course.

The I.F. commanders seem to have made a similar calculation regarding
the Buggers, though only after staving off two attacks and witnessing
Bugger behavior they (mistakenly) interpreted to indicate genocidal
intent against humanity. They believed that the survival of the human
race was at stake. However, these Bugger actions were folowed by
perhaps several decades of no contact before the I.F. devised and put
their strategy into action.

:END:

While Ender's actions against his personal antagonists may have been
justified even according to conventional morality, the author is
unconvincing in arguing that the actions of the Battle School
teachers in Ender's training, or the I.F. command's strategy of
genocide were justifiable.

* Failed test



Ender not necessary to final victory over the Buggers.

The decision to make a genocidal preemptive strike against the
Buggers with the M.D. device was made and put into action by
I.F. command decades before the beginning of the plot. Was a
super-intelligent master tactician like Ender really necessary to
launch such a one-shot doomsday weapon? Why did Mazer's explanation
of the "final test" discourage the use of the M.D. device if it was
the only way for Earth forces to defeat the Buggers? Why trick Ender
into using the M.D. device if I.F. command made the decision to use
the genocidal weapon decades before Ender was born?

-> Speculative explanation:

   - Only Ender's tactical skill could direct the massively
     outnumbered Earth fleet to within range to deploy the
     M.D. device against the planet.

   - Ender's morality would have prevented him from using the
     M.D. device against the Buggers if he'd known he was not in a
     simulation.

   - Mazer's false warning was Brer Rabbit-style reverse
     psychology. Command anticipated Ender would throw the final test
     on pupose to trigger his expulsion from Command School and
     suggested a "sure fail" tactic that was what they actualy wanted
     him to do.
 


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