Ender's Game Reflection

I agree with Tim that forcing people to address the IF’s choices regarding how to deal with the buggers as though we were the people responsible for the decision and the consequences eliminated the middle ground, but it did so because making the decision personal prevents us from being able to take the easy way out by justifying both positions. I don’t think that this exercise was a bad idea, and I don’t think that people became so entrenched that they could not see the other side. I think that we seemed to be strictly standing for our positions because we were not allowed to have a middle ground. Making the decision a more personal question caused us to have to make firm justifications for whichever side we chose instead of just sitting on the fence.

Though I disagree with much of what was said during class, I enjoyed the discussion because the different opinions were so far opposed that it allowed us to look at the same evidence and see it in completely different ways.

I still think that because of the nature of human thought and drives, when working with the available information, I would make the same decision as IF, as long as attempts at communication continued to fail. I do believe, however, that some form of communication could have been reached if we had sent a small party of people to their world when we arrived, if only to ascertain whether their attitudes still remained hostile. Granted, if they were still hostile, it would be a suicide mission, but it would have at least been a final attempt at getting through to them without having to sacrifice our own people to destroy them.