Mathematics and its Potential for Disconnect from Reality

I remember reading Enders Game by Orson Scott Card as a college student.  I hated science fiction and could not understand its applicability to my life.  Ender, the main character, is manipulated for his genius.  He is playing what he believes is a game (video simulation) but he's actually saving the world from disaster by killing aliens called the "Buggers". His entire life, he has been trained and groomed to eventually kill the enemy, unbeknownst to Ender.




This whole scenario is similar in my career in the military.  As a Field Artillery Officer, I learned Collateral Damage Estimate methodology.  What I was learning to do was quantify and assess how many people would be killed by engaging a specific target.  In my assessments, I would give a status to each target by which commanders could decide whether to authorize engagement of it or not.

The technical aspects of the job created a disconnect just as it had in Ender.  Living breathing human beings are relegated to nothing more than an equation and a status diluted through technical military jargon.  A "CDE 5 High" was a target that would result in so much carnage that the President of the United States or someone he has designated can authorize shooting that target.


This makes me think of the recent civilian deaths in Yemen and Mosul, Iraq.  For such carnage to occur, leadership has to be disconnected from the real life implications of war.  Specifically, killing civilians on the battlefield has become merely a cost of doing business.  When candidate Donald Trump promised to "carpet bomb" ISIS, he meant it.  This position was politically popular to his voting base, as well.

This disconnect runs through American society.  I attribute this to the byproduct of having a volunteer professional force where less than 1% of the U.S. populations serves.  By so doing, we have created a class of Enders willing to play the game of zapping Buggers.  People become targets on a virtual screen.  The methods by which they engage these targets becomes whittled down to a mathematical equation which needs to be solved.  The people actually deciding which targets to engage (i.e. which people to kill) have no attachment to the whole process.  The end result is the killing of innocent people done in the name of intellectual exercise by way of dehumanization.