OT- Anyone read Old man's war?

[Randallw]

I found a good book the other day, Old Man's war by John Scalzi. Reminiscent of Starship Troopers and The Forever War. I wondered if anyone else had read it. I particularly like it because, putting aside Drakes Equation, it deals with all the aliens as I believe is necessary. We aren't going into space to make friends, and neither are they, we need to take what we can for the good of humanity.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Ah, yes, the 'shoot them before they shoot you' theory. Amazing how well that works.

Almost self-fullfilling.

[Randallw]

In this case it's shoot them before they eat you. I think there are at least 3 races mentioned that have a taste for humans.

Along with ignoring the Drake equation, as I said, it also avoids mention of the the difference in proteins.

One bloke, an ex-diplomat, thinks wouldn't it be better to talk and negotiate rather than resort to violence. He gets killed by 10,000 alien choral singers. During training one recruit says he feels sorry for the enemy. The sergeant hits him in the face with his own weapon and says these are aliens not humans, he doesn't want to hear any nonsense about feeling sorry for them.

Ex-military from earth get singled out because they have to learn they're not fighting other humans. These are aliens.

It's only from last year, so not too old.

[mrscrogg]

His next two books are out already and both pretty good - keeps you interested

[Suicide Junkie]

Along with ignoring the Drake equation, as I said, it also avoids mention of the the difference in proteins.

That's what makes it so popular!
You can eat all you like, but since the food can't be processed, it works better than a diet.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Let's look at this logically.

I have no desire to eat an alien. No sane human being has a desire to eat an alien.

Human beings are aliens. Just ask any alien.

Therefore, why the dealing with aliens as if they are raving menaces?

Because human brains can only deal with so many people. The more people we have to deal with, the less data storage we have to define them.

So, our family has pages and pages of data. Our friends, also pages.

That jerk who cut us off in traffic? One line, and you just read it.

So of course we yell at him. Everything we know about him says that he's an idiot...And he's not as 'real' to us as people we actually know. At best, he's a blurred face and a vehicle.

This is also the basis of racism. Iraqis. Iranians. Blacks. Jews. Whites. The farther people are away from us, the easier it is to catogorize them as 'them'.

And, of course, aliens aren't real people. After all, real people...Are just like us.

Fortunatly, we have the ability to be better than our 'natural man'.

For one thing, we can expand our definition of 'people'.

[Atrocities]

narf poit chez BOOM said:
Ah, yes, the 'shoot them before they shoot you' theory. Amazing how well that works.

Almost self-fullfilling.

Otherwise known as gun boat diplomacy.

[mac5732]

I think I read that a long time ago, sounds familiar, but not sure