Ender’s Game is Already a Reality for the U.S. Military(spectrum.ieee.org)

36 pointsby robabbottvor 13 Jahren42 comments

spectrum.ieee.org

Ender’s Game is Already a Reality for the U.S. Military

http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/enders-game-is-already-a-reality-for-the-us-military/?utm_source=techalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=110713

42 comments

hoshvor 13 Jahren

Is it just me, or does this article (and the people it talks about) get fixated on the technology?

"I almost think it’s passé at this point ... Ender’s Game is happening. It’s already done."

The technology is not what I remembered Ender's Game for.

GeneralMayhemvor 13 Jahren

Unfortunately, it's all the movie is memorable for.

alexeisadeski3vor 13 Jahren

-----SPOILER ALERT-----

Children are being tricked into unknowingly fighting wars for the US military? Really?

notahackervor 13 Jahren

They sure are. They're being enlisted to fight aliens with a remote control starfleet, and somehow the space opera elements are least implausible part of the whole scenario :)

meyvor 13 Jahren

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toys_(film)

stcredzerovor 13 Jahren

A Buzz Lightyear RTS would sell. If it was done well, it would even continue to sell.

lazugodvor 13 Jahren

Toys is a different film from Toy Story.

stcredzerovor 13 Jahren

Whoops. I'm not so sure a Robin Williams based RTS would sell. (Though he's been in enough movies, you could probably have 3 entire factions based on his characters.)

bentcornervor 13 Jahren

It would have been interesting if they adapted Ender's Game to a more modern-day setting. Sort of like "The Wizard" meets "Spec Ops: The Line".

mladenkovacevicvor 13 Jahren

My nephew is into Skylanders, and the other day at Toys'R'Us I noticed that they are now selling Skylander dog-tags.

samstokesvor 13 Jahren

Upvoted for accurate criticism of the title, but... spoiler alert?

jffvor 13 Jahren

Ender's Game is 30 years old.

Additional spoilers for you:

* Vader is Luke's father

* Frodo makes it to Mt Doom

* Rosebud was the sled

bentcornervor 13 Jahren

> Ender's Game is 30 years old.

Not everybody has read the book (or heard of it), but may have been exposed to marketing for the movie and be interested in watching it (or reading the book first). I think it's fair to show a spoiler warning for a movie that came out just this month.

diminotenvor 13 Jahren

The movie doesn't treat this as a twist.

Want to know how I know this?

http://joyhog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Enders-Game-pos...

"This is not a game."

Right there, on the poster, is literally the "twist".

They wrote the movie assuming you read the book. Sorry, but this isn't a spoiler.

bentcornervor 13 Jahren

IMO that's only if you know about the book. If I hadn't read the book I would consider it as a statement showing the seriousness of their training (i.e., "this isn't a game, we're training you for a war, so don't fool around and please take this seriously.)

ryusagevor 13 Jahren

Ironically, after seeing the trailer, that poster, and even the comment above with the spoiler alert, your comment right here is the thing that just made me think, "Ohhh, the kids in the movie are fighting a war WITHOUT EVEN REALIZING IT?"

So, you know, whatever, but yeah I think it's a spoiler.

kayoonevor 13 Jahren

Agreed. Just watched the latest trailer a couple of days ago and it was absolutely clear that the kids were fighting a real war. Quotes like "we have to tell them the truth" make that totally clear imo

gknoyvor 13 Jahren

I could have sworn that they mentioned it in the trailer, as well. I'd have to watch it again to be sure.

bentcornervor 13 Jahren

They do, but again, if you haven't read the book you won't connect the dots.

lukifervor 13 Jahren

Perhaps you're unaware that new humans are added to the world every day. I sure wish I hadn't known the ending to Planet of the Apes, just because it was released before I was born.

dshanahanvor 13 Jahren

Apparently your friends are nerdier than mine. I'm 34 and that post would be a spoiler alert to all of my friends. Somehow Ender's did reach a huge swatch of my generation.

sp332vor 13 Jahren

I remember one librarian mentioned that it was her most-stolen book. She meant it as a big compliment :)

dasil003vor 13 Jahren

Well thanks for fucking ruining Citizen Kane for me.

But seriously, Frodo getting to Mount Doom is not a spoiler because it's expected. Vader being Luke's father is unavoidable in popular culture because people quote it all the time.

Ender's Game on the other hand has a huge twist and is obscure enough that it can remain hidden. It went unspoilt for me for probably 25 years, and it's not like the book was unknown to me during that time (I probably heard of it in 1993, but only read it in 2008).

Ygg2vor 13 Jahren

Don't forget the biblic one:

* Jesus dies, but gets better.

laxativesvor 13 Jahren

The title makes it sound amazing in a bunch of different and misleading ways, but all the demos look like cheap toys and video games.

stcredzerovor 13 Jahren

JWARS was an amazing simulation system that the US defense department had in the 1990s. They could simulate entire theaters of war down to individual soldiers at 10000x speed.

The problem with good, accurate simulations in the defense department, is that higher-ups who do not like the results that come out of them will have them killed politically. This is what happened to JWARS. (This is also what happened to the war game where a 3rd rate power sank a US aircraft carrier. http://wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/3793 )

theoriquevor 13 Jahren

The troublesome thing is when unpredictable things happen far outside the boundaries of the expected battlespace.

Who would have guessed that a small band of Islamic fundamentalists would

- overstay their (legal) visas

- do some flight training

- hijack commercial aircraft to use as giant suicide bombs

In hindsight, it looks logical, but on Sept 10, 2001, who was thinking of this?

stcredzerovor 13 Jahren

In the war game where the US carrier was sunk, no one expected one side to switch off their electronic communications and go back to motorcycle couriers.

http://wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/3793

scotty79vor 13 Jahren

Tom Claney. In 1994. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_of_Honor

theoriquevor 13 Jahren

Good point, and you're absolutely right.

I'm guessing, however, this was not part of mainstream military doctrine or scenario planning.

jacquescvor 13 Jahren

Reminds me of what I read about pre-WWI. The German army used to stage huge tactical mock battles. The only rule was the Kaiser's side had to always win.

tpurvesvor 13 Jahren

My understanding is that this is still generally true of all war games. Deemed bad for morale otherwise.

jmhobbsvor 13 Jahren

You should read about MC02. When the wrong side wins, they just change the rules and start over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

pavel_lishinvor 13 Jahren

Well, if you keep losing your war games, you should probably keep playing until you win.

I recall reading a story where someone kept winning against the US side in a war game, and instead of changing tactics, the guys running the US side just kept adding more and more restrictions to what the opposite team was allowed to do, until they finally lost. (Wish I had a link to the story. [EDIT: jmhobbs has it, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6770236)

Huh, kind of like Ender's Game, except for the loss part.

stcredzerovor 13 Jahren

> the US side just kept adding more and more restrictions to what the opposite team was allowed to do, until they finally lost.

I just finished watching a documentary about a German "aggressor" squadron that inherited a bunch of Mig-29s through the reunification of Germany. When they take part in exercises, they generally have lots of restrictions placed on them. (To make sure the students can "complete" a full course of scenarios.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQByetpFgKM#t=104

tomca32vor 13 Jahren

I would love to know more about this. Do you have any resources for me to look at? I haven't found anything good, just short mentions of JWARS and a very long video lecture of a terrible production quality

alterovor 13 Jahren

Cheap movie promotion?

D9uvor 13 Jahren

     raise the heavy rifle in my hands... an exact replica of an M16

An M16 is far from being a "heavy rifle." What other bits of this "reality" are unrealistic?

xauronxvor 13 Jahren

I think the author was trying to convey that it was an actual rifle in his/her hands, and not a plastic toy/digital.

D9uvor 13 Jahren

My bad for conflating the meaning of reality in reference to the use of VR with the reality of my own experience.

chcvor 13 Jahren

I think the point is more that "heavy" is relative. It feels heavy in his hands, not that it's heavy compared to a bunch of stuff that he doesn't know about.

hgavor 13 Jahren

I count it as being ridiculously heavy compared to what it could and ought to be.

Sure, it's not a 9.5 pound WWII era M1 "Get Off My Lawn" Garand, or the 12.5 pounds almost a machine rifle the Swiss adopted in the last '50s, but it could sure go on a diet, especially with all the stuff people want and need to hand off of it, like quality optics. For less than a pound more I could get a FN SCAR in 7.62 NATO, and its got a much fancier standard stock and plenty of accessory rails; not counting sling attachment points, it's pretty close to being a semi-auto Scout Rifle.