“Also the absence of anything that looked AT ALL like a bell curve distribution of ability. The battle school kids are all supposed to be massively well selected and trained, yet only Ender, Bean, Valentine and Peter really matter. ”
If you select out the right end of the bell curve from the general population, then you won’t have a bell curve anymore, but rather a fat lower end.
Also, the training was supposed to be a sort of abstract sport to select for leadership skill, coolness under pressure, etc—it wasn’t supposed to be actually training them to fight in space. They did training of the actual spaceshippy stuff later. You could certainly argue they should have started that earlier though.
You should have something that looks like the right end of a bell curve, e.g. very little variation, especially with feedback loops from ability shaping environment shaping ability cut short by the tight external control on environment.
abstract sport to select for leadership skill, coolness under pressure
“The playing fields of Eton.”
But since the final application was video games, why not train under that form of pressure? There is plausibly something to be said for physical activity and proximity to teammates and opponents for building teamwork and leadership.
“Also the absence of anything that looked AT ALL like a bell curve distribution of ability. The battle school kids are all supposed to be massively well selected and trained, yet only Ender, Bean, Valentine and Peter really matter. ”
If you select out the right end of the bell curve from the general population, then you won’t have a bell curve anymore, but rather a fat lower end.
Also, the training was supposed to be a sort of abstract sport to select for leadership skill, coolness under pressure, etc—it wasn’t supposed to be actually training them to fight in space. They did training of the actual spaceshippy stuff later. You could certainly argue they should have started that earlier though.
And to give them experience thinking about tactics three-dimensionally.
You should have something that looks like the right end of a bell curve, e.g. very little variation, especially with feedback loops from ability shaping environment shaping ability cut short by the tight external control on environment.
“The playing fields of Eton.”
But since the final application was video games, why not train under that form of pressure? There is plausibly something to be said for physical activity and proximity to teammates and opponents for building teamwork and leadership.