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Ah, interesting. I hated Ender's Game when I read it (more than a decade ago) for the same reasons but now...

Yep.

The part how Ender and his friends eagerly pursued to xenocide a sentient species because they had been trained and condition not to believe what they were doing had any real world effects until the rug got pulled out from under them feels too real given how people treat politics as. "Just a game!"

I do not like Orson Scott Card but man he was kind of on the nose about the future.

Lolsob

No! Let's do it now. Organize for revolution. #revolutionNothingLess

He also predicted drone swarm warfare Orson Scott Card was a prophet

Same.

Right?! I just listened to it again, and it seems mildly far fetched, and yet, it’s reality.

Create an online persona and through it achieve power was like an instruction manual for 2024.

crazy how science fiction writers have the ability to see into the future. It's almost like we should be heeding more of the warnings of history... 🤔

I'd say I seriously doubt species come equipped with a self-destruct button, but we seem to have pressed ours.

I remember the good old days when science fiction was more fiction...

The unrealistic part is that they'd become wildly popular by posting intellectual essays on social philosophy instead of dank meming each other into power. Card was an early adopter of social media and "BBS will save humanity!" is a recurring theme in his 90s work

Same. But i wish it was Peter.

But they jumped the shark by the last book. First book was by far the best. Yes, it reflects the times we live in now with tech savvy children ruling the world.

It was actually meant to be a tongue-in-cheek/satirical post about propagandizing anti-propaganda (which I happen to actually agree with), but I'll just be quiet now. But yes, I don't deal with AI much, but am a Software Eng, and LLM/bots are rampant & easy to make elizaos.github.io/eliza/docs/t...

Propaganda, sales techniques, and nonverbal communication shortcut that process.

As the voice of Valentine and Demosthenes, I agree with you. #audiobooks

I laughed when I heard trump was running in '16. I never thought he would win. I never thought he would win again after the disaster of his first term, but here we are. Maybe the earth is flat?

The books were excellent

Ha! I hadn’t seen that one.

Of course, Orson Scott Card wasn't inventing the idea. He had seen how effective judicious sock puppeting could be on BBSes and the early internet, and was just extrapolating what would happen as they became more universal.

And how American COINTPRO works.

Anyone reckon the odds on Card being a MAGAt or a Muskie?

Didn’t read the book but saw the movie! Amazing, I feel like America is in the last game! It’s real!

I think that a lot. And then I wish it was the Green brothers.

I read that book on a school bus in like 1990 and couldn’t even imagine something like that. Then the world caught up.

Same.

Once, power belonged to kings. Then, to generals. Now? To whoever s**tposts the loudest. Ender’s Game treated it as a subplot—turns out, history was always written by the ones with the best engagement metrics.

Fiction only looked more interesting than real life in the past because the level of mundane stupidity was filtered through history books and the news. Except for the Joseon imperial historians, bless them and their dedication.

I think about this a lot. Waaaay ahead of its time.

The only unrealistic part was that the intelligent, moderate persona was the one to become Hegemon

all of the ideas that Orson Scott Card stole from other authors have been great ones!

Ooooh check out the ender’s shadow series for more on that plot line.

MY GOD YES I think about this all the time!!!!

Card really fucking called that one.

Ender's Game predicted coming to power through posting on the net. The Sprawl Trilogy predicted that the technology will lead to the rise of the hyper rich, who will become inhuman. The Diamond Age predicted that corporations and the hyper rich will achieve sovereignty.

We are a simulation in a higher dimensional video game, and the players have grown bored.

My favorite book and I’ve never thought about this but you make a really good point lol.

🤣

Was thinking exactly this a few days ago

when I first started on FB I used to let my shitposting account's argue with each other because that was the only useful fun bit of anything that I got from those books

Damn, you're right.

Deep cut, but right with you

Not yet...

Orson Scott Card also predicted the creation of South Sudan in Shadow of the Giant.

It was also my favorite part of the book

Get with the times It's what you just did

Being a man (most likely a man) of the people is almost a requirement of authoritarian figures...and that most often means anti-intellectual. Reminds me of that Blazing Saddles scene...

Orson Welles actually sat next to Hitler at a dinner and described him as completely unremarkable and forgettable. faroutmagazine.co.uk/adolf-hitler... They're not geniuses, they're mediocre men who resent the world treating them as such. Musk, Trump, Hegseth, Vance, etc. Empty losers at heart.

At least at first. History shows how it went afterward.

The book was also written before the internet was largely a thing, so he also predicted not only how to gain power from the internet, but also like *the internet itself*. Wild. Too bad he’s such a homophobe, but it prepared me for the JKR moral betrayal 😅

Who’d thunk that a film about the dumbing down of a civilization—would be an actual historical event? Feel as if another dimension stole my body and switched me to a clusterf*ck world.

I was just thinking about this

I’ve thought about this for years with growing dread

Yeah, me too. The lack of ability to communicate among species is what I keep coming back to

Who knew that all people actually want is someone to tell them how angry they should be about absolute nonsense and bull crap? I want a leader who isn't a walking, talking shit post 🤧

Shit posting got us into this mess and its gonna get us out

I’m at Orson Scott Card at a sci-fi convention and sadly he’s an asshole and that just completely ruined my ability to enjoy anything he’s written

The idea that somebody would act as dumb as him on purpose is INSANE. I'm not talking about his speech patterns or choice of simple vocabulary, I'm talking about the absolute nonsense he's constantly spewing. He WISHES he was smart, and ACTS like he knows everything. But he is the opposite.

Please read my response. I agree...book learning he's dumb. What I said is he clearly understands aspects of human nature, and how to manipulate that nature to his own ends. That's clear.

At least the Wiggin siblings were intelligent

I think about this part of the book and the associated xkcd comic every time Curtis Yarvin is brought up lmao

Endgame should have included a diagram 👇🏽 to explain the ultimate goal?

I've said it before: Yarvin, Thiel, and Musk want to be the Hegemon, but none of them are actually as smart as Peter. They think they are, but that's part of the problem.

In retrospect, the entirety of the Enders' series feels like someone explaining fascism as it calcifies around them, and the regret that they cannot help but give into it.

I was an old man when I read the whole series. I too was confused by that part.

And Peter's a pretty low bar

The other part of the overall novels - typical of Card's work - is the not-so-hidden thread of cruelty, particularly to children. That, too, has become more realistic over time, far more than I would have liked.

This topic was used in Seven Eves as well