The Genes (Jeans?) of Society

Scott makes an interesting case for why the offensive posture taken by the I.F. and in a moment I want to try (just for the hell of it) to make the opposite case. First, however, I would like to make a modification to the initial idea proposed by Gaff about survival being in our genes to suggest instead the idea of societal genes--that essentially describe the nature of our society. It would be these genes Gaff is actually talking about. The strongest traits in cultures survive while the weaker ones die off. The mistake, of course, in Gaff reasoning with biological or social genes is the fact that he assumes our genes are the stronger ones--This is not always true.

I also believe a good argument can be made against the decision of the I.F. First, there is no reason to assume that we could beat the buggers at their homeworld--given this case we could have simply provoked another attack. Second, this left us totally defenseless should our ships have passed in space or something, while we had no idea about the overall strength of the bugger civilization. Third, it must be assumed that any commander capable of defeating the buggers in their turf would also be able to defend out turf--Ender, our weapon of choice, could perceivably serve either an offensive or defensive role. If, we assume that we must prepare for what is essentially the worst possible scenario in which it is possible to survive then leaving the fleet home would have been the best (if not the only) option. The only reason to send a fleet to attack if we assume that they are going to attack us soon would be one of vengeance, since without communication the deterrence idea of "if you kill us we will kill you" does not work.