The Moraility of Ender

[haas mark]

I have provided you with the meaningful distinction: Genocide refers to destroying a sub-group of the same species, a sub-group with which you are biologically equipped to communicate. Xenocide refers to destroying another species, with which you may not be able to communicate.

I know you believe this to be a meaningful distinction, but it is based upon an abstraction. In both cases, we're talking about the deliberate wholesale annihilation of an intelligent people. You can as easily say that you may not be able to establish communication with a different tribe/nationality of human beings, but that certainly does not provide an exception to the essential crime of genocide.

All you do is justify why you should be sayin xenocide and not genocide.

[

What you have so far failed to justify, is your assertion that the reasoning regarding genocide is applicable, even when effective communication is impossible.

In actuality, I have. You insist that there is a difference to be found which somehow eliminates the magnitude of the crime of genocide simply because communication may be difficult.

It is on a special plane that it is different....that is fundamental. sub-species vs. species? Hmm....sounds like a difference to me!

That is the meaningful distinction, and that is the one you wish away by saying that effective communication will always be possible.

In other words, understanding mathematical values is totally beyond the comprehension of an alien intelligence? How?

How is it fathomable that it is not? Are oyu sure that the buggers would have thought of humans as a lesser being, unable to comprehend the meaning of such mathematical values?

Verilon and I (and OSC, for that matter) are saying that there may be a situation where communication is not possible, and that, in those circumstances, xenocide may become a justifiable course of action.

Now you're repeating yourself. I've answered this point above.

You have answered it. With justification to our point.

You are saying that, either that situation will never occur (an assertion you have not proven), or that, even if the situation does occur, it will still never provide justification for xenocide (another assertion you have yet to prove). That is two unproven assertions to none - which means, up to this point, you lose.

Wrong. I am not required to provide Absolute Proof of every term. I have merely to demonstrate that reasonable alternatives existed to the situation laid out, and that Orson Scott Card, either through intent or incompetence, set up a series of wholly arbitrary conditions in his plot which resulted in a false dilemma offering only one solution. It doesn't help his case that several of the conditions he sets forth in his own text undermines the very logic of his plot and ones arising from some very sloppy writing on his part.

Well, we are asking you for proof. Besides, you have not even attempted to demonstrate either point. And again, I ask you to tell me this when Mr. Card and yourself have recorded eveidence. And any reason why you ignored the post of mine above? If you missed it, my fault, I know that you are only human. And although I could go into a horrible ad hominem right here, I will refrain. And why is it sloppy writing? May I have an example?

[Patrick Degan]

As I recall, the Buggers, lacking radio and thus conveniently for the plot having no means of establishing communication, attacked Earth because they did not sense intelligent beings on the surface. Never mind how ludicrous a proposition this is considering that the engineering works on the planet surface themselves should have been a dead giveaway of intelligence and at a more basic level that you really cannot effectively navigate in space or chart the stars accurately without radio astronomy and radar.

And this justifies killing off every other planet? They couldn't sense the beings on the planets, obviously, or they would not have killed them off. As well, the Hive Queen DID manage to contact Ender through the game. It was a weird happenstance, but then that would be justifying the "unkilling" before it took place, wouldn't it? No, that would be against your opinion, so it MUST be wrong...

What's that, Verilon?

As well, the Hive Queen DID manage to contact Ender through the game. It was a weird happenstance...

Why, thank you for helping me to undermine Nick's argument. You've just established that communication between humanity and the Buggers was not impossible.

As for the Buggers "killing off every other planet", kindly tell me how that justifies genocide by us against them in return? Two wrongs make a right?

[haas mark]

No, I don't think so. I'm not required to argue an infinite regress of conditions to satisfy you. I merely need to demonstrate that a) there is no moral validity to the concept of defensive genocide,

Who said anything about it being moral aside form you? IIRC, I never once said it was moral, but that it was justifiable in means of fiction. But say this happened, IRL? What then, would you say? Especially if you were in Ender's position? If it meant defending your entire species, as well as every other species on the planet?

b) that reasonable alternatives existed to the commission of a fundamentally immoral action, and

It may be fundamentally immoral, but it makes it no less or more acceotable given the circumstances.

c) that Orson Scott Card failed to consider all the angles or the implications of his plot when he was writing his book.

Since when has that been a criterion before writing a book? The author writes the book they want to write - the audience then reads out of it what they choose to see. Take a look at Aldous Huxley's foreword to the recent reprint of "Brave New World" - he himself says that if we were to write BNW now, it would be a very different story (he had to restrain himself from tinkering). No author in history of human existence has ever considered all the angles before writing a book - why are you holding OSC up in particular as an example of this?

Verilon and I read Ender's Game, and we see a novel which presents an interesting moral dilemna - and then a series explores some of the effects of that crisis on the future development of humanity.

You read Ender's Game and see what? An instruction manual for genocide? You're reading things into it that just aren't there - and that says more about you than it does about the book.

[haas mark]

As I recall, the Buggers, lacking radio and thus conveniently for the plot having no means of establishing communication, attacked Earth because they did not sense intelligent beings on the surface. Never mind how ludicrous a proposition this is considering that the engineering works on the planet surface themselves should have been a dead giveaway of intelligence and at a more basic level that you really cannot effectively navigate in space or chart the stars accurately without radio astronomy and radar.

And this justifies killing off every other planet? They couldn't sense the beings on the planets, obviously, or they would not have killed them off. As well, the Hive Queen DID manage to contact Ender through the game. It was a weird happenstance, but then that would be justifying the "unkilling" before it took place, wouldn't it? No, that would be against your opinion, so it MUST be wrong...

What's that, Verilon?

As well, the Hive Queen DID manage to contact Ender through the game. It was a weird happenstance...

Why, thank you for helping me to undermine Nick's argument. You've just established that communication between humanity and the Buggers was not impossible.

Maybe so, but did you see the amount oif effort that was involved for the Hive Queen to get to Ender? DO you realize that iot wass nearly impossible? THat he had to get further through the game than ANYONE ELSE EVER HAD IN THE HISTORY OF BATTLE SCHOOL?

As for the Buggers "killing off every other planet", kindly tell me how that justifies genocide by us against them in return? Two wrongs make a right?

When you're defending your entire planet, it does. Yes, when you're defending you're entire planet, your VERY EXISTANCE.

[Patrick Degan]

And then prove that this reasoning is applicable to a known enemy, who has actively tried to destroy you, with whom you are unable to communicate - as opposed to an enemy who thinks in a manner very similar to you, and with whom you are able to communicate quite effectively.

You are being deliberately obtuse. You actually believe that the difficulty of communication can justify a fundamentally immoral action?

There are qualitative differences between these two situations Patrick - we are saying that those differences might be enough to alter the moral assessment of the situation.

See above.

And demonstrate that those alternatives actually are reasonable, and not due to you misunderstanding the realities of the situation. Demonstrate that those alternatives resulted in an "acceptable level of risk", with respect to the continued existence of humanity.

In other words, there's no reason to even make the attempt, so let's just kill them all. I will ask you again: what is there about contact based upon mathematics which would be impossible for an alien race to comprehend? And nobody has said that the Earth military should not continue defensive preparations to meet the oncoming warfleet. Or is it your proposition that the attempt to establish communication is mutually exclusive to the defence effort?

The author writes the book they want to write - the audience then reads out of it what they choose to see. Take a look at Aldous Huxley's foreword to the recent reprint of "Brave New World" - he himself says that if we were to write BNW now, it would be a very different story (he had to restrain himself from tinkering). No author in history of human existence has ever considered all the angles before writing a book - why are you holding OSC up in particular as an example of this?

In other words, plausibility and plot-logic are not actually requirements for good writing. It's not actually necessary for Orson Scott Card to consider how idiotic a notion it is to posit an alien species which develops spacefaring technology without ever stumbling upon the invention of radio and radar.

I hate to have to remind you of this, but one of the very purposes of this website is the examination of science fiction works and concepts for their plausibility, and science fiction's requirements along these lines are more exacting upon it because the believability of a work absolutely depends upon plausibility. Take that away, and you may as well have the Buggers as demonic creatures from the Netherworld who were able to zap their way into our plane, eat people like popcorn, then pop out again.

Verilon and I read Ender's Game, and we see a novel which presents an interesting moral dilemna - and then a series explores some of the effects of that crisis on the future development of humanity.

As you wish.

You read Ender's Game and see what? An instruction manual for genocide? You're reading things into it that just aren't there - and that says more about you than it does about the book.

I defy you to produce a single quote where I suggest any such thing as "an instruction manual for genocide" as the object of EG. As for "seeing things that aren't there", I'm seeing precisely what's there: a ludicrous attempt to justify the concept of defensive genocide —which you yourselves have been defending in the course of defending the book.

[Nick]

That is the meaningful distinction, and that is the one you wish away by saying that effective communication will always be possible.

In other words, understanding mathematical values is totally beyond the comprehension of an alien intelligence? How?

Beyond their capabilities? Probably not. Beneath their interest? Possibly.

Or are you asserting that it is impossible to develop spacefaring levels of intelligence without also generalising your sense of morality beyond your own species?

Yes, that is the way humans are going, but is this a necessary precondition for spacefaring intelligence? Since we have a sample size of exactly one, I would say maybe not.

So, we conjecture that it is possible for there to be a spacefaring race which is not interested in communicating with other species.

What do you do about such a species (or what appears to be such a species)? The answer of course, is going to be "it depends on the details of the situation" - but the possibility that the only available course which is going to be effective is xenocide. This scenario is unlikely - but, a priori, must be consider as a possibility (a remote, unpalatable one - but a real one).

You are saying that, either that situation will never occur (an assertion you have not proven), or that, even if the situation does occur, it will still never provide justification for xenocide (another assertion you have yet to prove). That is two unproven assertions to none - which means, up to this point, you lose.

Wrong. I am not required to provide Absolute Proof of every term. I have merely to demonstrate that reasonable alternatives existed to the situation laid out,

So you are backing away from your previous bald claim that xenocide could not be justified under any circumstances? Concession accepted.

and that Orson Scott Card, either through intent or incompetence, set up a series of wholly arbitrary conditions in his plot which resulted in a false dilemma offering only one solution.

Umm, what? What do you think a story is? It is a matter of setting up a conflict and working through that conflict. Of course OSC set up his novel to create the conflict he wanted people to think about - there wouldn't be much point, otherwise!

Every plot point the author introduces is arbitrary - it depends on the story you want to tell. In the story, it was not a false dilemna, it was a real dilemna! You can't just say "I would have written the story differently such that the dilemna never came up!". It wouldn't be the same story!

It doesn't help his case that several of the conditions he sets forth in his own text undermines the very logic of his plot and ones arising from some very sloppy writing on his part.

Oh yes, OSC is far from a perfect writer (but then, there isn't any such thing). Check out the deus ex machina he pulls out in Children of the Mind after writing himself into several awkward corners. However, this fact is not germane to your original assertions regarding the reprehensibility of Ender's Game.

[Patrick Degan]

What's that, Verilon?

As well, the Hive Queen DID manage to contact Ender through the game. It was a weird happenstance...

Why, thank you for helping me to undermine Nick's argument. You've just established that communication between humanity and the Buggers was not impossible.

Maybe so, but did you see the amount oif effort that was involved for the Hive Queen to get to Ender? DO you realize that iot wass nearly impossible? THat he had to get further through the game than ANYONE ELSE EVER HAD IN THE HISTORY OF BATTLE SCHOOL?

The effort involved is not the point. Your concession of telepathic contact between Ender and the Hive Queen undermines Nick's attempted argument that communication was totally impossible between the two species. It also offers yet a third alternative to resolving the plot that Card could have taken but didn't.

As for the Buggers "killing off every other planet", kindly tell me how that justifies genocide by us against them in return? Two wrongs make a right?

When you're defending your entire planet, it does. Yes, when you're defending you're entire planet, your VERY EXISTANCE.

I am forced to conclude at this point that you simply do not grasp the implications of the position you are attempting to defend here. I've already laid out how the threat to Earth involved very slow moving fleets of spacecraft crawling their way across interstellar space at slower-than-light velocities, which limits the scope of the alien attack and gives decades to prepare for any given attack wave. Dealing with these threats does not require genocidal action. You have undermined Nick's thesis that communication was impossible between the races, thus we have one avenue by which contact and eventual negotiation between the two races was feasible, and again, genocide is contraindicated.

Instead, Ender's government does not even attempt to explore the alternatives. They simply decided upon a course of extermination of an entire culture down to the last member. Orson Scott Card, intentionally or carelessly, is making an argument that genocide is justifiable under "certain conditions" —a proposition which simply has no validity, no matter how much you attempt to argue otherwise.

[haas mark]

And then prove that this reasoning is applicable to a known enemy, who has actively tried to destroy you, with whom you are unable to communicate - as opposed to an enemy who thinks in a manner very similar to you, and with whom you are able to communicate quite effectively.

You are being deliberately obtuse. You actually believe that the difficulty of communication can justify a fundamentally immoral action?

And it can't?

There are qualitative differences between these two situations Patrick - we are saying that those differences might be enough to alter the moral assessment of the situation.

See above.

All you do is make your post longer so that we have to read through more of nothing. This is stalling, and you know it. You could have JUST as easily put it all into one quote, but you feel it is necessary to keep us "entertained" with meaningless "See aboves."

And demonstrate that those alternatives actually are reasonable, and not due to you misunderstanding the realities of the situation. Demonstrate that those alternatives resulted in an "acceptable level of risk", with respect to the continued existence of humanity.

In other words, there's no reason to even make the attempt, so let's just kill them all. I will ask you again: what is there about contact based upon mathematics which would be impossible for an alien race to comprehend? And nobody has said that the Earth military should not continue defensive preparations to meet the oncoming warfleet. Or is it your proposition that the attempt to establish communication is mutually exclusive to the defence effort?

There was nothing determined about attempt to communicate through mathematics, and I think you think that even though math seems to be the universal language, is it possible that the buggers have lost a need for it, beyond counting (you have to read into Xenocide to get what I'm saying). Maybe not even then? Maybe they've lost all need for mathematics because they (A) all know what one another is thinking, and (B) communicate through images and ideas, not words and numbers. Maybe this is too hard for you to comprehend, a non-mathematical society?

The author writes the book they want to write - the audience then reads out of it what they choose to see. Take a look at Aldous Huxley's foreword to the recent reprint of "Brave New World" - he himself says that if we were to write BNW now, it would be a very different story (he had to restrain himself from tinkering). No author in history of human existence has ever considered all the angles before writing a book - why are you holding OSC up in particular as an example of this?

In other words, plausibility and plot-logic are not actually requirements for good writing. It's not actually necessary for Orson Scott Card to consider how idiotic a notion it is to posit an alien species which develops spacefaring technology without ever stumbling upon the invention of radio and radar.

Apparently not. This is why I asked you earlier what types of books you like to read. You'd probably be like Cyril and say that the Wheel of TIme series is very shoddy work and blahblahblah. But that doesn't detract from the fact that other people are always going to like the series whether you ever did or will. And it seems to me, by now, that your sole intentionof reading these books was to rip them to shreds when you were done. It is the same as food...you eat it thinking that it will be disgusting, and it will be disgusting. Maybe you thought that it was going to be hogwash form the start, maybe not. I can't say. I read the book not knowing what to expect, and liked it. Which is just one morer thing you're going to have to deal with, whether you choose to accept it or not, whether you like it or not.

I hate to have to remind you of this, but one of the very purposes of this website is the examination of science fiction works and concepts for their plausibility, and science fiction's requirements along these lines are more exacting upon it because the believability of a work absolutely depends upon plausibility. Take that away, and you may as well have the Buggers as demonic creatures from the Netherworld who were able to zap their way into our plane, eat people like popcorn, then pop out again.

And why is it so implausible for these events to happen? You act as if there will never be another sentient species out there, much less a helluva lot more intelligent than we. Take away the fact that it is fiction, and you no longer have science-fiction. That is what you are trying ot do. And you have no idea what happened in Xenocide with popping in and out, so you have no room to speak in that area.

Verilon and I read Ender's Game, and we see a novel which presents an interesting moral dilemna - and then a series explores some of the effects of that crisis on the future development of humanity.

As you wish.

Personally, all I ask is that you at least take a leap of faith that it *might* actually be a better book than you are trying to say it is.

You read Ender's Game and see what? An instruction manual for genocide? You're reading things into it that just aren't there - and that says more about you than it does about the book.

I defy you to produce a single quote where I suggest any such thing as "an instruction manual for genocide" as the object of EG. As for "seeing things that aren't there", I'm seeing precisely what's there: a ludicrous attempt to justify the concept of defensive genocide —which you yourselves have been defending in the course of defending the book.

You see it as just that: an instruction manual for xenocide: take Ender, train him, put him in a "simulator," tell him to pull the trigger, BOOM! And can you justify AGAINST defensive genocide? I have yet to seer you do that, sir.

[haas mark]

What's that, Verilon?

As well, the Hive Queen DID manage to contact Ender through the game. It was a weird happenstance...

Why, thank you for helping me to undermine Nick's argument. You've just established that communication between humanity and the Buggers was not impossible.

Maybe so, but did you see the amount oif effort that was involved for the Hive Queen to get to Ender? DO you realize that iot wass nearly impossible? THat he had to get further through the game than ANYONE ELSE EVER HAD IN THE HISTORY OF BATTLE SCHOOL?

The effort involved is not the point. Your concession of telepathic contact between Ender and the Hive Queen undermines Nick's attempted argument that communication was totally impossible between the two species. It also offers yet a third alternative to resolving the plot that Card could have taken but didn't.

Obviously, you can't stand the slightest complexities in anything. You'd psychoanalyze a children's book given the chance (or so it seems).

As for the Buggers "killing off every other planet", kindly tell me how that justifies genocide by us against them in return? Two wrongs make a right?

When you're defending your entire planet, it does. Yes, when you're defending you're entire planet, your VERY EXISTANCE.

I am forced to conclude at this point that you simply do not grasp the implications of the position you are attempting to defend here.

With what means and justification?

I've already laid out how the threat to Earth involved very slow moving fleets of spacecraft crawling their way across interstellar space at slower-than-light velocities, which limits the scope of the alien attack and gives decades to prepare for any given attack wave. [/quote

That you have. The fact of the matter is, it's irrelevant. We are no longer discussing where they are, or how they got there, or how long it took to do so, but WHAT THEY ARE DOING.

Dealing with these threats does not require genocidal action. You have undermined Nick's thesis that communication was impossible between the races, thus we have one avenue by which contact and eventual negotiation between the two races was feasible, and again, genocide is contraindicated.

And might I add that the effort that was invoilved. I reiterate that it was nearly impossible, and that the Queen almost did not get to him on time. As much as you'd like to think otherwise, it is a vital argunment.

Instead, Ender's government does not even attempt to explore the alternatives.

IIRC, they DID make every effort to communcate with the buggers, thaty they had though of at the time. You try communicating with a sentient species just moments beofre your nearly-inevitable destruction.

They simply decided upon a course of extermination of an entire culture down to the last member. Orson Scott Card, intentionally or carelessly, is making an argument that genocide is justifiable under "certain conditions" —a proposition which simply has no validity, no matter how much you attempt to argue otherwise.

And I would like to see you argue that it isn't allowed in ANY circumstance. You have yet to show me that xenocide (XXXXXXXX) is not allowed in any circumstance. Please elaborate on that.

[Patrick Degan]

That is the meaningful distinction, and that is the one you wish away by saying that effective communication will always be possible.

In other words, understanding mathematical values is totally beyond the comprehension of an alien intelligence? How?

Beyond their capabilities? Probably not. Beneath their interest? Possibly.

You're joking, right? This is a very basic method of contact. Mathematical values are universal. Their very communication signals intelligence. The Buggers attacked humanity because they mistakenly assumed that we weren't intelligent. Or are you now going to attempt to argue that basic curiosity and analysis of a mathematically-based signal would be beneath their consideration?

Or are you asserting that it is impossible to develop spacefaring levels of intelligence without also generalising your sense of morality beyond your own species?

Yes, that is the way humans are going, but is this a necessary precondition for spacefaring intelligence? Since we have a sample size of exactly one, I would say maybe not.

Oh, by all means, do tell us how you develop physics without investigating and exploiting the electromagnetic spectrum! I'm waiting for this one.

So, we conjecture that it is possible for there to be a spacefaring race which is not interested in communicating with other species.

Yes, if we're interested in indulging bullshit as logican reasoning, we do. You've missed the point —the Buggers totally lacked radio-based technology aboard their spaceships. Nevermind that you actually need radio/radar-based systems to actually navigate and chart accurately the star positions in order to even be able to fly in space! Communication is an unavoidable byproduct of the process.

In the book, the Hive Queen says that their attack upon humanity was unintentional, a mistake. You however seem to be suggesting a malign neglect for the necessity of communication which would be operative even if the Buggers had radio. Which is it? Are the Buggers evil, or is it that their attack upon humanity was a mistake?

What do you do about such a species (or what appears to be such a species)? The answer of course, is going to be "it depends on the details of the situation" - but the possibility that the only available course which is going to be effective is xenocide. This scenario is unlikely - but, a priori, must be consider as a possibility (a remote, unpalatable one - but a real one).

Only if you can buy into the concept of justifiable genocide, that is.

I am not required to provide Absolute Proof of every term. I have merely to demonstrate that reasonable alternatives existed to the situation laid out,

So you are backing away from your previous bald claim that xenocide could not be justified under any circumstances? Concession accepted.

Don't you try that "concession accepted" bullshit with me, boy. You get that only if you cherry-pick your way through my posts and quote me out of context. NOWHERE do I allow for any justification for genocide under any conditions.

and that Orson Scott Card, either through intent or incompetence, set up a series of wholly arbitrary conditions in his plot which resulted in a false dilemma offering only one solution.

Umm, what? What do you think a story is? It is a matter of setting up a conflict and working through that conflict. Of course OSC set up his novel to create the conflict he wanted people to think about - there wouldn't be much point, otherwise!

Yes, we know what a story is, thank you. I see you decided to ignore those niggling little considerations of plausibility and ethics, since you seem determined to find one bullshit defence after another for a fundamentally untenable position.

Every plot point the author introduces is arbitrary - it depends on the story you want to tell. In the story, it was not a false dilemna, it was a real dilemna! You can't just say "I would have written the story differently such that the dilemna never came up!". It wouldn't be the same story!

No, it was a false dilemma because OSC short-circuited every plausible condition and course of action to create an arbitrary and artificial case for "defensive genocide".

OSC is far from a perfect writer (but then, there isn't any such thing). Check out the deus ex machina he pulls out in Children of the Mind after writing himself into several awkward corners. However, this fact is not germane to your original assertions regarding the reprehensibility of Ender's Game.

Since you admit that OSC makes stupid plot mistakes which he has to try to write his way out of, you concede the possibility of his not thinking through the ramifications of the plot he set up in EG. I'd say that was quite germane to the argument. It does possibly let off OSC on the charge that he is advocating justifiable genocide by deliberate argument, though it does leave him wide open to the unavoidable charge that he is quite simply a sloppy writer.

[Nick]

You are being deliberately obtuse. You actually believe that the difficulty of communication can justify a fundamentally immoral action?

If the party I am trying to establish communication with is actively attempting to kill me? Yes.

Despite your efforts to deny it, it is analagous to the policeman confronted by the maniac armed with the gun. The policeman knows that if they shoot, the maniac is likely to die. If they charge in for hand to hand, they're likely to get shot themselves and achieve nothing. If they hesitate too long, someone else might die. They've yelled at the guy to put the gun down, and been ignored.

So they shoot - and perhaps the maniac dies. They wish they had a stun gun or something. But a firearm was all they had, so the maniac - who might have been curable - is now dead.

Ender's Game is the above scenario writ large - instead of a cop and a maniac with a gun, you have humans and Buggers. The cop decided that in order to preserve his existence, and the existence of the people he is meant to protect, he had to shoot (and likely kill) the maniac. The human military, for various reasons, decided that the only effective means to defend humanity was to destroy the Bugger homeworld.

Was their assumption right? As it turns out, no - the buggers were willing to communicate. But it is like the situation with the cop discovering the maniac had run out of bullets - information discovered after a decision made under time pressure, does not affect the correctness of the earlier decision.

It is entirely possible that the military of Ender's Game made the wrong call - but it is easy to make that judgment with the benefit of the omniscient third party or the historical viewpoint. If you were in that situation, with the information they had, can you really say they were completely unjustified in what they did?

In other words, there's no reason to even make the attempt, so let's just kill them all. I will ask you again: what is there about contact based upon mathematics which would be impossible for an alien race to comprehend? And nobody has said that the Earth military should not continue defensive preparations to meet the oncoming warfleet. Or is it your proposition that the attempt to establish communication is mutually exclusive to the defence effort?

No, I am assuming that the effort had already been made, when they were first confonted by the Bugger warships. Isn't trying to establish communication the first thing you would try?

If the buggers were interested in communicating, don't you think they would have stood off a bit, and tried to establich communication on their own? If they were interested in co-habitation, don't you think they might have spotted something and left us alone?

In other words, plausibility and plot-logic are not actually requirements for good writing. It's not actually necessary for Orson Scott Card to consider how idiotic a notion it is to posit an alien species which develops spacefaring technology without ever stumbling upon the invention of radio and radar.

How idiotic a notion is it to posit ships that can travel faster than light? Or instantaneous communication across the galaxy? These things are called plot devices. They exist to make the plot work the way the author wants it to - not because they match real-life physics.

OSC's physics is self-consistent, but frequently differs from real-world physics in key areas (ala Star Wars hyperdrive).

I hate to have to remind you of this, but one of the very purposes of this website is the examination of science fiction works and concepts for their plausibility, and science fiction's requirements along these lines are more exacting upon it because the believability of a work absolutely depends upon plausibility. Take that away, and you may as well have the Buggers as demonic creatures from the Netherworld who were able to zap their way into our plane, eat people like popcorn, then pop out again.

The requirement is for self-consistency, not for actual real world physics. We just assume that real-world physics holds unless the author presents a plot device which clearly contradicts that concept (e.g. Star Wars hyperdrive & hypermatter)

You read Ender's Game and see what? An instruction manual for genocide? You're reading things into it that just aren't there - and that says more about you than it does about the book.

I defy you to produce a single quote where I suggest any such thing as "an instruction manual for genocide" as the object of EG.

I'm trying to figure out why you are so vehement in attacking the book - notice the question mark?

As for "seeing things that aren't there", I'm seeing precisely what's there: a ludicrous attempt to justify the concept of defensive genocide —which you yourselves have been defending in the course of defending the book.

Actually, I'm defending the justifiable xenocide issue completely separate from the book issue - I happen to think that it is remotely conceivable that humanity may encounter a situation where carrying out xenocide is an option which must be considered (I hope that we never confront such a choice - but I'm willing to speculate about the possbility that we might).

I defend the book because it is an interesting exploration of the concatenation of circumstance which might be needed to bring that situation about. Not to mention being a damn fine book.

[Patrick Degan]

]You see it as just that: an instruction manual for xenocide: take Ender, train him, put him in a "simulator," tell him to pull the trigger, BOOM!

I defy you to quote me on that.

And can you justify AGAINST defensive genocide? I have yet to seer you do that, sir.

Because the concept of "defensive genocide" has no validity to begin with. Just what part of that is so damn difficult for you to comprehend?

They simply decided upon a course of extermination of an entire culture down to the last member. Orson Scott Card, intentionally or carelessly, is making an argument that genocide is justifiable under "certain conditions" —a proposition which simply has no validity, no matter how much you attempt to argue otherwise.

And I would like to see you argue that it isn't allowed in ANY circumstance. You have yet to show me that xenocide (XXXXXXXX) is not allowed in any circumstance. Please elaborate on that.

Um, I've been arguing that THIS ENTIRE FUCKING THREAD! Are you so far gone that the very concept of a fundamental wrong is beyond your grasp? And I see you STILL insist that some bullshit semantical distinction actually makes a valid difference.

[Patrick Degan]

You are being deliberately obtuse. You actually believe that the difficulty of communication can justify a fundamentally immoral action?

If the party I am trying to establish communication with is actively attempting to kill me? Yes. Despite your efforts to deny it, it is analagous to the policeman confronted by the maniac armed with the gun. The policeman knows that if they shoot, the maniac is likely to die. If they charge in for hand to hand, they're likely to get shot themselves and achieve nothing. If they hesitate too long, someone else might die. They've yelled at the guy to put the gun down, and been ignored. So they shoot - and perhaps the maniac dies. They wish they had a stun gun or something. But a firearm was all they had, so the maniac - who might have been curable - is now dead.

You can keep bringing up this old saw as many times as you like, and it still amounts to a bullshit false analogy. Killing a maniac who is trying to kill me would not subsequently entitle me to ensure that I will be safe by annihilating the maniac's entire family and all his friends. Evidently, you've never heard of the concept of "proportionality of response".

Ender's Game is the above scenario writ large - instead of a cop and a maniac with a gun, you have humans and Buggers. The cop decided that in order to preserve his existence, and the existence of the people he is meant to protect, he had to shoot (and likely kill) the maniac. The human military, for various reasons, decided that the only effective means to defend humanity was to destroy the Bugger homeworld.

Sure. I'm shot at by a criminal lunatic, and this entitles me to then go on to exterminate not only the perp but his entire family and all his friends, and everybody in his neighbourhood as well. I can just conduct a wholesale massacre simply to ensure my perception of safety. That is, unless it's considered that I've just committed mass-murder far beyond any conceivably justifiable response in proportion to the initial threat. That's more the analogy you're reaching for, even though you don't realise it.

Was their assumption right? As it turns out, no - the Buggers were willing to communicate. But it is like the situation with the cop discovering the maniac had run out of bullets - information discovered after a decision made under time pressure, does not affect the correctness of the earlier decision.

Except the cop isn't faced with a situation where a time-lag of decades exists between action A and action B. But humanity and the Buggers are. Decades provides time for communication and alternatives. The threat is not immediate by any stretch of the imagination and certainly does not justify a genocidal counteraction.

It is entirely possible that the military of Ender's Game made the wrong call - but it is easy to make that judgment with the benefit of the omniscient third party or the historical viewpoint. If you were in that situation, with the information they had, can you really say they were completely unjustified in what they did?

They had decades to make their decisions, and were not faced with the immediate arrival of the entire war machine of the Buggers on their doorstep. There was no immediate threat of annihilation in force.

In other words, there's no reason to even make the attempt, so let's just kill them all. I will ask you again: what is there about contact based upon mathematics which would be impossible for an alien race to comprehend? And nobody has said that the Earth military should not continue defensive preparations to meet the oncoming warfleet. Or is it your proposition that the attempt to establish communication is mutually exclusive to the defence effort?

No, I am assuming that the effort had already been made, when they were first confonted by the Bugger warships. Isn't trying to establish communication the first thing you would try?

So because attempt A fails, that means you never make attempt B or any subsequent attempts —you just go right to playing the genocide card.

Try reading Joe Haldeman's The Forever War. Not only does he deal with some of these same issues as in EG, he does so far more intelligently.

If the buggers were interested in communicating, don't you think they would have stood off a bit, and tried to establich communication on their own? If they were interested in co-habitation, don't you think they might have spotted something and left us alone?

Do I have to remind you yet again of the plot of the novel you're so vigorously defending? The Buggers did not sense intelligence on our part because they received no telepathic signal. They didn't think they were dealing with an intelligent race (and again, never mind the ludicrous number of implausibilities inherent in Card's premise). The war, in essence, was the result of a mistake. The Hive Queen herself admits this to Ender.

In other words, plausibility and plot-logic are not actually requirements for good writing. It's not actually necessary for Orson Scott Card to consider how idiotic a notion it is to posit an alien species which develops spacefaring technology without ever stumbling upon the invention of radio and radar.

How idiotic a notion is it to posit ships that can travel faster than light? Or instantaneous communication across the galaxy? These things are called plot devices. They exist to make the plot work the way the author wants it to - not because they match real-life physics.

What a pathetic argument. Yes, we have "plot devices". Yes, we employ "suspension of disbelief". This does NOT relieve the requirement for plausibility or internal self-consistency in the plot. These points are why, among many reasons, that BragaTrek™ finds itself under continual attack for stupidities such as "deuterium ore" or "cracks" in a black hole's event horizon. There's suspension of disbelief and there's utter bullshit.

OSC's physics is self-consistent, but frequently differs from real-world physics in key areas (ala Star Wars hyperdrive).

Never mind that it asks us to swallow the ludicrous notion of a science which can develop space travel and nuclear fusion propulsion but somehow miss out on investigation and exploitation of the electromagnetic spectrum along the way.

The requirement is for self-consistency, not for actual real world physics. We just assume that real-world physics holds unless the author presents a plot device which clearly contradicts that concept (e.g. Star Wars hyperdrive & hypermatter)

The requirement for self-consistency applies to plot logic and plausibility. You have yet to outline a course of scientific development which leads to space travel and nuclear rocketry but bypasses the development of radio. That simply does not make sense on any level.

I'm trying to figure out why you are so vehement in attacking the book - notice the question mark?

Gee, stupid plot, plausibility holes you can fly whole warfleets through, and a very questionable moral premise. Am I going too fast for you?

Of course, I can ask the opposite question as to your vehemence in defending the book, can't I?

I'm defending the justifiable xenocide issue completely separate from the book issue - I happen to think that it is remotely conceivable that humanity may encounter a situation where carrying out xenocide is an option which must be considered (I hope that we never confront such a choice - but I'm willing to speculate about the possbility that we might).

No, you're simply dancing around the uglier implications of the alledged principle you're trying to validate.

I defend the book because it is an interesting exploration of the concatenation of circumstance which might be needed to bring that situation about. Not to mention being a damn fine book.

Well, there's no accounting for taste.

And with that, I shall resume this exchange at a later hour.

[Nick]

This is going to be my last contribution for today - more tomorrow (it's way past my bedtime).

In other words, understanding mathematical values is totally beyond the comprehension of an alien intelligence? How?

Beyond their capabilities? Probably not. Beneath their interest? Possibly.

You're joking, right? This is a very basic method of contact. Mathematical values are universal. Their very communication signals intelligence. The Buggers attacked humanity because they mistakenly assumed that we weren't intelligent. Or are you now going to attempt to argue that basic curiosity and analysis of a mathematically-based signal would be beneath their consideration?

In response to your question, this is talking about hypothetical alien intelligences in general, not buggers in particular. And you are assuming that just because an alien species discovers that their victims are intelligent, they are actually going to care.

Or are you asserting that it is impossible to develop spacefaring levels of intelligence without also generalising your sense of morality beyond your own species?

Yes, that is the way humans are going, but is this a necessary precondition for spacefaring intelligence? Since we have a sample size of exactly one, I would say maybe not.

Oh, by all means, do tell us how you develop physics without investigating and exploiting the electromagnetic spectrum! I'm waiting for this one.

Look at the preceding paragraph Patrick - we are not talking about the electromagnetic spectrum here.

So, we conjecture that it is possible for there to be a spacefaring race which is not interested in communicating with other species.

Yes, if we're interested in indulging bullshit as logican reasoning, we do.

You asked the question about alien intelligences, and categorically stated that xenocide could never be justified. This bald assertion is entirely separate from the specific example of the Buggers.

You've missed the point —the Buggers totally lacked radio-based technology aboard their spaceships. Nevermind that you actually need radio/radar-based systems to actually navigate and chart accurately the star positions in order to even be able to fly in space! Communication is an unavoidable byproduct of the process.

Do you really think OSC is so stupid as to write his novels without recognising this? Ender's universe is NOT the real universe. Ender's Game doesn't go into this much (because that isn't the focus), but the other books do. The buggers don't use EMR, because they use something else, which humans don't use. In fact, the 'hand-wavery' OSC uses to describe how the buggers percieve without using EMR is the same hand-wavery he uses to justify the ansible.

The 'physics' of that universe are bizarre - but self-consistent.

In the book, the Hive Queen says that their attack upon humanity was unintentional, a mistake. You however seem to be suggesting a malign neglect for the necessity of communication which would be operative even if the Buggers had radio. Which is it? Are the Buggers evil, or is it that their attack upon humanity was a mistake?

Confusing the two issues - the malevolent sentients was regarding your rejection of even the possibility of justifiable xenocide. The buggers, as you say, was purely a result of humanity and the buggers using almost entirely orthogonal sensory apparatus.

I am not required to provide Absolute Proof of every term. I have merely to demonstrate that reasonable alternatives existed to the situation laid out,

So you are backing away from your previous bald claim that xenocide could not be justified under any circumstances? Concession accepted.

Don't you try that "concession accepted" bullshit with me, boy. You get that only if you cherry-pick your way through my posts and quote me out of context. NOWHERE do I allow for any justification for genocide under any conditions.

Then you need to justify the assertions that I asked you to justify. You know, the ones where you responded "I don't have to justify that"? If you can't justify it, then you must accept that it is something you accept on faith. Since neither I do not agree with that statement, and you can't provide a rational justification for your belief in it, then you are not justified in saying we are wrong. So respond to my request, or your concession of the point "defensive xenocide may be justifiable in certain circumstances, even if we don't know exactly what those circumstances would be" stands.

No, it was a false dilemma because OSC short-circuited every plausible condition and course of action to create an arbitrary and artificial case for "defensive genocide".

A situation where defensive xenocide even becomes remotely conceivable is obviously going to be unusual. But you have just conceded the larger argument (again) - OSC was able to create a scenario where defensive xenocide was an option. While the mechanism he used (orthogonal senses) can't happen in the real universe, are you absolutely, 100% certain, that it is impossible for a situation to develop which would cause reasonable-minded people to start considering the possibility of xenocide?

Since you admit that OSC makes stupid plot mistakes which he has to try to write his way out of, you concede the possibility of his not thinking through the ramifications of the plot he set up in EG. I'd say that was quite germane to the argument. It does possibly let off OSC on the charge that he is advocating justifiable genocide by deliberate argument, though it does leave him wide open to the unavoidable charge that he is quite simply a sloppy writer.

No I think OSC was quite deliberate in what he wrote in Ender's Game - I happen to agree with him.

EDIT: Fixed the quote markers & a couple of typos. I also removed a comment where I attributed something to Verilon that he never actually said (I had 'Verilon and I' - but I'm not sure if Verilon actually agrees with me on that particular point). Time to sleep. . .

[haas mark]

And can you justify AGAINST defensive genocide? I have yet to seer you do that, sir.

Because the concept of "defensive genocide" has no validity to begin with. Just what part of that is so damn difficult for you to comprehend?

The part where you told me why. I seem to have missed that somewhere.

And yes, my semantics are valid.

[haas mark]

Oh,. and you seem to miss the ENTIRE POSTS OF MINE THAT ARE AS LONG AS YOUR OR LONGER. As well as the fact that I *did* ask you to calm down in your language. You bash me using abusive language for no good reason. If you keep it up,. I'll appeal for you to get a not-so-nioce title. Debates are supposed to be rational, not bashings. Now at least reply to my posts that are more that two paragraphs long. And as I have a Russian class to get to, I will be back in a couple of hours.

And please tone down. No abusive language. I very rarely use it in my debates, and I swear like a sailor. You could at least show me the same respect I show you.

Thanks.
Ver.

[Vendetta]

For those who still think that Genocide and Xenocide can be different things.

The prefix Geno, from the greek genus refers to a type. Genocide refers to the annihilation of a thing based on it's type.

The prefix Xeno, from greek via latin, means foreign or strange. It does not necessarily refer to the sci-fi concept of alien species, but to ANYONE or any thing not of the speaker's etnicity, nationality, or whatever. (compare te common human term xenophobia as applied to hatred of other human ethnicities)

Xenocide, by it's definition, IS genocide. Wiping out an entire type of thing, but based specifically on a criterion of strangeness or foreignness.

[Vendetta]

The part where you told me why.

Basic tenet of universal morality, hell if you've read Speaker for the Dead Card actually TRIES to tell you why (he just weakens his position because he retconned Ender as his vehicle for doing so).

If you are in fact a functioning human being, not one of those fucked up loonies who thinks 'that Hitler, he had the right idea', you should understand the point that annihilating entirely a race of people, even if they're foreign, is never morally justifiable, EVEN in self defence, and ESPECIALLY when absolutely NO alternatives have even been TRIED!

[haas mark]

The part where you told me why.

Basic tenet of universal morality, hell if you've read Speaker for the Dead Card actually TRIES to tell you why (he just weakens his position because he retconned Ender as his vehicle for doing so).

If you are in fact a functioning human being, not one of those fucked up loonies who thinks 'that Hitler, he had the right idea', you should understand the point that annihilating entirely a race of people, even if they're foreign, is never morally justifiable, EVEN in self defence, and ESPECIALLY when absolutely NO alternatives have even been TRIED!

Why don't you put yourself in the same situation then?

Degan: I'll get back to your posts in a bit....I'm just a bit fried on this right now.

[Patrick Degan]

the concept of "defensive genocide" has no validity to begin with. Just what part of that is so damn difficult for you to comprehend?

The part where you told me why. I seem to have missed that somewhere.

And yes, my semantics are valid.

Not at all. The prefix xeno refers vaguely to the different, the foreign, or the alien. It is a term which can apply equally to different human racial groups or nationalities and classically has been used exclusively in that context.

You have fallen hook, line, and sinker for OSC’s attempt to make a distinction between one form of directed annihilation aimed at a race from another form on the specious grounds that because one form is aimed at a nonhuman intelligence, that cannot be considered equal to the directed annihilation of a human nationality or racial group.

Take that sort of logic a step or two down, and you can say that killing blacks isn’t the same as murder if you deny that blacks are human to begin with —an opinion that was held at one time by white Europeans who denied the humanity of entire races of people. Or declare that Jews are subhuman, and you can safely kill them off and not have any qualms of conscience about committing mass murder.

OSC makes this bullshit distinction because, deep down, he is advocating the invalid principle of defensive genocide. You and others make this bullhshit semantical distinction to hide from the implications of the position you’re trying to defend.

I said this before and I will say it again: The problem is that when you can make one exception to the proposition that the annihilation of an entire people/race/species is unacceptable, morally and ethically, simply because a piece of fiction invites us to do so, it becomes just a tiny bit easier to excuse or turn a blind eye to genocidal atrocities in the real world, even if you now insist that it is not possible, out of sheer intellectual laziness.

Oh,. and you seem to miss the ENTIRE POSTS OF MINE THAT ARE AS LONG AS YOUR OR LONGER. As well as the fact that I *did* ask you to calm down in your language. You bash me using abusive language for no good reason. If you keep it up,. I'll appeal for you to get a not-so-nice title. Debates are supposed to be rational, not bashings. Now at least reply to my posts that are more that two paragraphs long.

Bashing? Abusive language? Do I refer to you by epithets or obscenities? No. Do I launch wholesale ad-hominem attacks? No. Try making your appeal to the moderators against me and you’ll fail, because nowhere can any of my posts be even remotely interpreted as a flame or a personal attack. Good luck trying to find evidence because it simply is not there in the thread record.

And please tone down. No abusive language. I very rarely use it in my debates, and I swear like a sailor. You could at least show me the same respect I show you.

Style-over-Substance fallacy. Even if I were “swearing like a sailor” as you claim, the tone is part of the give and take on this board, and until far more stringent rules of etiquette are imposed by the moderators and the board owner, you’ve got no valid avenue of complaint —other than to say the occasional usage of the word bullshit or fuck offends your delicate sensibilities. That’s part of the environment here. Adapt.

As Harry Truman once said: If you can’t stand the heat, get out of Nagasaki.

[haas mark]

I meant you seem to like the words bullshit, fucking and damn. Please refrain.

I'll get back later...I plan on sleeping...

[Patrick Degan]

In response to your question, this is talking about hypothetical alien intelligences in general, not buggers in particular. And you are assuming that just because an alien species discovers that their victims are intelligent, they are actually going to care.

No, we are talking about universal concepts and logic. Part of your entire case has been that "no possible avenue of communication existed". I have demonstrated that at least one did exist (and the book and your ally Verilon provided a second one right from the pages of the book). Now you attempt to retreat behind the smokescreen that the Buggers might have discovered that we were intelligent, but didn't care. Sadly, the Hive Queen's exchange with Ender at the end of EG undermines that argument as well.

Or are you asserting that it is impossible to develop spacefaring levels of intelligence without also generalising your sense of morality beyond your own species?

Yes, that is the way humans are going, but is this a necessary precondition for spacefaring intelligence? Since we have a sample size of exactly one, I would say maybe not.

Oh, by all means, do tell us how you develop physics without investigating and exploiting the electromagnetic spectrum! I'm waiting for this one.

Look at the preceding paragraph Patrick - we are not talking about the electromagnetic spectrum here.[/quote]

Um, you are aware that radio is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, aren't you? Stumbling across radio communication is unavoidable in any developing science aimed toward artificial power generation and ultimately spaceflight.

You asked the question about alien intelligences, and categorically stated that xenocide could never be justified. This bald assertion is entirely separate from the specific example of the Buggers.

No, it isn't, no matter how much you dearly wish it was.

You've missed the point —the Buggers totally lacked radio-based technology aboard their spaceships. Nevermind that you actually need radio/radar-based systems to actually navigate and chart accurately the star positions in order to even be able to fly in space! Communication is an unavoidable byproduct of the process.

Do you really think OSC is so stupid as to write his novels without recognising this? Ender's universe is NOT the real universe.

I think OSC is stupid enough to write his novels without knowing that the discovery of radio communication and radar are allied developments which are unavoidable in the development of physics and engineering. Without radio, you cannot hope to accurately measure the speed of light and therefore interstellar distances. Two things which are rather integral to spatial navigation in interstellar travel.

Ender's Game doesn't go into this much (because that isn't the focus), but the other books do. The buggers don't use EMR, because they use something else, which humans don't use. In fact, the 'hand-wavery' OSC uses to describe how the buggers percieve without using EMR is the same hand-wavery he uses to justify the ansible.

Whatever principle the ansible may be based upon, it is certain that it is the end-product of a line of technological development which included the discovery of radio communication, which itself resulted in radar, which opened the door to radio astronomy, by which more accurate starmaps are possible and without which you haven't a hope in hell of finding your way around the galaxy. You're going to say that Bugger science can somehow skip the discovery of radio communication and go on to develop the engineering and astronomy necessary to make interstellar travel feasible.

And even if the Buggers don't use radio or the ansible, I've already outlined an artificial means of establishing basic contact as a first step toward initiating deeper communication.

The 'physics' of that universe are bizarre - but self-consistent.

As long as you ignore scientific plausibility, that is.

In the book, the Hive Queen says that their attack upon humanity was unintentional, a mistake. You however seem to be suggesting a malign neglect for the necessity of communication which would be operative even if the Buggers had radio. Which is it? Are the Buggers evil, or is it that their attack upon humanity was a mistake?

Confusing the two issues - the malevolent sentients was regarding your rejection of even the possibility of justifiable xenocide. The buggers, as you say, was purely a result of humanity and the buggers using almost entirely orthogonal sensory apparatus.

First —even if we grant your hypothetical other race of malign aliens, the same objections to committing genocide against them apply. The actions of the one race do not justify the commission of an act of directed annihilation in return. And if you grant that the Buggers were not pursuing malign intent against humanity and the war was the result of the inability to communicate, then you further undermine your case and Card's.

So you are backing away from your previous bald claim that xenocide could not be justified under any circumstances? Concession accepted.

Don't you try that "concession accepted" bullshit with me, boy. You get that only if you cherry-pick your way through my posts and quote me out of context. NOWHERE do I allow for any justification for genocide under any conditions.

Then you need to justify the assertions that I asked you to justify. You know, the ones where you responded "I don't have to justify that"? If you can't justify it, then you must accept that it is something you accept on faith. Since neither I do not agree with that statement, and you can't provide a rational justification for your belief in it, then you are not justified in saying we are wrong. So respond to my request, or your concession of the point "defensive xenocide may be justifiable in certain circumstances, even if we don't know exactly what those circumstances would be" stands.

Burden of Proof fallacy. You are asking me to provide Absolute Proof and attempting to say that if I fail to do so, then I've conceded the point. There is no such thing as absolute 100% proof of anything, and it is beyond reason to demand such and you know it.

I have outlined, in clear terms, why there is no validity to the principle of defensive genocide. In the course of your attempts to argue that "the situation necessitated the action", I demonstrated that such was not the case —and on that flimsy framework you now attempt to say that I'm contradicting my own case. Once more: nothing in attacking a specific point of your arguments represents any retreat from my fundamental assertion that there is no validity to the principle of defensive genocide. Nowhere do I make any such concession and the only way you can mine such an imaginary concession is if you take my own arguments out of context and toss the material which is inconvenient to a wholly arbitrary conclusion on your part.

A situation where defensive xenocide even becomes remotely conceivable is obviously going to be unusual. But you have just conceded the larger argument (again)

I am not responsible for your fantasies, Nick.

OSC was able to create a scenario where defensive xenocide was an option.

Only if you employ Hitler's brand of logic.

While the mechanism he used (orthogonal senses) can't happen in the real universe, are you absolutely, 100% certain, that it is impossible for a situation to develop which would cause reasonable-minded people to start considering the possibility of xenocide?

Again —Burden of Proof fallacy. Nothing in this life is ever 100% certain. But in answer the second part of your challenge, when any group of people begin contemplating genocide as a solution, they have slipped beyond the pale of civilised rationality.

Since you admit that OSC makes stupid plot mistakes which he has to try to write his way out of, you concede the possibility of his not thinking through the ramifications of the plot he set up in EG. I'd say that was quite germane to the argument. It does possibly let off OSC on the charge that he is advocating justifiable genocide by deliberate argument, though it does leave him wide open to the unavoidable charge that he is quite simply a sloppy writer.

No I think OSC was quite deliberate in what he wrote in Ender's Game - I happen to agree with him.

Then you would count yourself as pro-genocide? Is that the position you really want to stake out for yourself?

[Nick]

OK, time to strip out Patrick's strawman bullshit (i.e. completely missing the point of the cop/maniac analogy, extending it in all sorts of ways which I never supported, as well as claiming 'circumstances justifying xenocide are remotely conceivable' is the same as 'genocide of other human groups is OK'), consolidate and summarise. . .

The book:
In the novel Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card contrives a situation whereby humanity (or rather, certain elements of the human miltary), view the destruction of an entire alien species as the only possible means of ensuring human survival.

I don't think we disagree on this.

Your (Patrick's) viewpoint:
Starting from the premise that systematically destroying another group (another species, or a sub-group of your own species) is not only always morally wrong, but can in fact never ever be justified at all, you see Ender's Game as reprehensible because it sets out to contrive a situation where xenocide is seen as an unfortunate necessity.

My viewpoint:
Patrick, the part of your stance I have a problem with is the never ever part. You assume it is true, and immediately switch off the analytical part of your brain with respect to that assumption. When someone challenges you, all you are left with is mindlessly repeating "xenocide is never acceptable", "xenocide is never acceptable, "xenocide is never acceptable" like a goddamn broken record.
Verilon and I, along with Orson Scott Card, keep the analytical parts of our brain engaged, and ask the following questions:

1. "Is it even remotely conceivable that in very restricted circumstances, xenocide might be considered as a viable course of action?"
2. "If the answer to the previous question is a reluctant yes, what are the sorts of conditions that might need to be satisfied?"

This is the real sticking point - we question an assumption that you believe to be self-evident, and you are left with nothing other than repeating "it's self-evident". If it was really self-evident, we wouldn't be having this argument.

So, what do I think the conditions justifying xenocide might start to look like? Well, the following is a starter list - I suspect an actual collection of all of the conditions might be even more stringent:

• The enemy constitute a clear and present danger to the survival of the human species.
• The enemy have not displayed any characteristics which might be taken to indicate a willingness to negotiate or compromise.
• All attempts at establishing any form of communication have failed.
• Any and all available defensive strategies have an unacceptably high probability of failure.
• Any and all available containment strategies have an unacceptably high probability of failure.
• Any and all limited offensive strategies have an unacceptably high probability of failure.
• An all out offensive (potentially resulting in racial destruction) has a lower probability of failure than any of the other strategies.

This is a far cry from your strawman distortion of 'justifying genocide'. It is, in fact, the exact same list of criteria used on a person-to-person level by the cop who decides to shoot the maniac. A cop shooting an offender will shoot for the chest - getting fancy and trying to hit the gun or a limb is seen as unnecessarily chancy.

No instance of attempted genocide in recorded history has met even one of those criteria. By questioning our assumptions, we are in a stronger position to vilify genocide, because we can point to the fact that not one of my criteria could possibly be meant by combatants of the same species.

In Ender's Game, OSC set out to satisfy those criteria by constructing an enemy with orthogonal sensory apparatus, and an industrial output which exceeded that of humanity by several planets to one. He succeeded well enough that he actually makes a plausible case for justifiable xenocide. Whether the situation in Ender's game actually satisfied them. . . well, if the answer to a moral question is obvious, it is hardly worthy of the name "moral dilemna" is it?

In the real world (without OSC's weird philotic physics), orthogonal sensory apparatus is highly unlikely. However, a scenario where communication is impossible simply because the other side isn't interested in listening is a remote possibility.

All I can say is, I hope such a situation never arises - it is not a decision I would wish on anyone.

[Nick]

There is one other tangent I'd like to follow up. . .

Oh, by all means, do tell us how you develop physics without investigating and exploiting the electromagnetic spectrum! I'm waiting for this one.

Look at the preceding paragraph Patrick - we are not talking about the electromagnetic spectrum here.

Um, you are aware that radio is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, aren't you?

Why yes, I am indeed aware of a great many things to do with elementary physics. Perhaps you would care to actually read the fucking question:

Or are you asserting that it is impossible to develop spacefaring levels of intelligence without also generalising your sense of morality beyond your own species?

Stumbling across radio communication is unavoidable in any developing science aimed toward artificial power generation and ultimately spaceflight.

In the real world, yes. In the universe of Ender's Game, no. (orthogonal sensory apparatus, remember?)

[haas mark]

FUck. I lost the argument....I'll get back to this later. But Degan: again, you are very harsh in your words, using "bullshit" "damn" and "fuicking" quite frequently. If you are not going to at leats tone down your language, I see no point in argument. And I only asked that oyu use xenocide becuase it is the term used in the book. We're debating the book, no longe that genocide and xenocide are different, k?