Online Identity in Ender's Game

There is something about finals week that makes me want nothing more than to hunt down my favorite children's books as a way to relax in between bouts of studying. In keeping with this goal, I borrowed the Orson Scott Card novel Ender's Game from a neighbor. Then I remembered the storyline in which 12-year-old Peter and 10-year-old Valentine plot to take over the world. Their first step in their plan is to publish their writings on "the nets" using false names and adult personas. Take a look at the following passage:

They stayed away from the nets that required use of a real name. That wasn't hard because real names only had to do with money. They didn't need money. They needed respect, and that they could earn. With false names, on the right nets, they could be anybody. Old men, middle-aged women, anybody, as long as they were careful about the way they wrote. All that anyone would see were their words, their ideas. Every citizen started equal on the nets.

Bear in mind that Ender's Game was written in 1985! Sections of the book date back to the 70s, although I confess that I am not enough of an Ender fanatic to know whether the passage I mention was in the original novelette. Regardless, I find Card's description of the freedom to create a new identity online eerily prophetic. I remember reading this book as a kid and thinking that it was completely unrealistic that people could gain prominence for their writings when no one had ever actually seen them in person. Given the current state of things with the blogosphere, Card was clearly right and I was clearly wrong.