The reality of immigration

So, yesterday I watched this YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORGw6phQvoI

I want to comment upon the nature of immigration as a whole, the problems and finally observe the true reality of immigration.

I'll start this by pointing out I'm not a native of the nation in which I now reside, so therefore I am an immigrant, but unlike most immigrants I'm in NO illusions about myself or others like me. I'm also, generationally, British with Welsh ancestry on one side and American heritage on the other. So I'm not what the average person thinks of when they think 'immigrant' but I am typical of all the things immigration encompasses for better and for worse.

I want to say, that my oppinion of immigrants is actually rather low and that includes of my self. This is not due to any problems of self esteem, I've plenty of that, this is the factual reality of what my choices mean of me as a person.

However, obviously I don't hate on immigrants, and historically theres more immigrants than nationals the world over (due to a very long history of warfare and and even longer history of weak, pathetic humans or just people who are scare and not wanting to die or generally want more).

So what's good about immigration?

1. Freedom of choice to live where you want to live
2. Mostly profitable, both for the absorbing nation and the immigrant
3. Most often advantagous to the immigrant
4. Allows people in difficult positions an escape

So that is about all I can think of for positives and, as I go through this, I'll explain why really none of these things are a good thing. Lets see whats bad about immigration (it's difficult to form direct contrasts so I'll compare good and bad at the end):

1. A person generally is imposing themselves upon the nation to which they migrate
2. The migrant is abandoning a host nation and ceasing to try to improve or enrich that nation
3. It allows a person to ignore a serious world problem for their convinence and benefit (meaning their resistance is not a force of change but a force of support)
4. People abandon family connections and relatives (even when bringing some with them, they abandon their ancestors effort and identites or worse impose them on the new nation bringing with them all the problems which had them leave the old one)
5. By not standing and facing the problems where they live, they support the continuation of those problems (though, when those problems are seemigly impossible or matters of life or death, its really easy to understand these weaknesses of character, but it does ultimately mean often one receives a shameful pupet that will run when things are no longer to their convinence or benefit, which is the WORST kind of neighbour in a crisis). 

Now, lets deal with a few negative, and racists myths of the negative order:

1. Some people have oppinioned all immigrants are lazy:

          This is paitantly false and a evil lie when said unmittigated. The very act of uprooting yourself from somewhere, moving somewhere new and starting a whole new life is very far from lazy. However, in fairness to the root of this observation, whilst immigrants are not lazy in the immediate sense, most being very hard workers, in a bigger sense every immigrant is unwilling to work under the conditions they find themselve in their home nation, or in rare circumstances unable to work due to totallitarian regeme, they have chosen a move to benefit themselve which presumably means to get similar benefits where they are is either very hard or imossible (either way taking much more effort). So whilst not lazy in any real sense, they have chosen the easier path, which is, in essence a form of lazyness. Though, way less lazy than most of the people in the nations they move TO.

      2. People have suggested all immigrants are criminals

          This is again a lie, but if one removes the "all" replacing it with some it's a truth, but it's not a very useful one because some none immigrants are criminals as well.

     3. It's regularly said that immigrants steal nationals jobs

          This is pure self entitlement, jobs in a healthy nation are done by those either, wanting them, suited to them or at worst forced to do them to survive. Typically jobs taken by immigrants are given because an immigrant generally asks for less. They are usually used to difficulties in finding work so they tend to take jobs for way less than they might earn. In this respect they do bring down wages for the nationals. Though this isn't such a bad thing, on the whole. People need some competition otherwise everything becomes royal (one deserves more).

So clearly those above three staple opinions are at best ill informed at worse self entitled bullshit.

However, just because none of these are true does not mean the underlying concerns are not problems. Immigrants are generally, whilst not lazy, advantage seekers. They generally seek to avoid problems and seek advantage and that is generally not the type of person I would choose to be surrounded by. Now, of course, there are in reallity many kinds of immigrant. I emigrated from a very good nation, to at first try to find love and then afterwards to be with good people who focus on the right and better things in life and this is the truth of many immigrants. I'm definitely not lazy in the big picture way, I work 8 hour days and 5 days per week with 3 weeks holidays a year. Though, I am lazy in a certain way because I've had a very good upbringing (IMO) and been greatly advantaged by a loving caring family structure.

So, this is a point where it gets very complex, coming down to the fact that theres various sorts of immigrant, some worthy some not so much. Sometimes the comparison is relative, compared with some I am worthy, compared to others who give of themselves so much for others (such as my mother) I am rather pathetic.

What I do see though is that my emigration shows that I was unable or unwilling to support the nation which initially gave me support and a place to be. Whilst I have a range of reasons for my choices as all immigrants do, I see the reality is that I have not supported my birth nation and instead support a guest nation.

So, why is immigration bad over all, do I oppinion?

1. Immigration is most often a person running out on some life challenge or choosing to solve that challenge by deciding its unsurmountable for them (e.g. It's a weak choice, of a weak person, though being weak doesn't make you bad, but you are being weak).
2. Immigration (excepting minor exchanges of healthy happy people at boundaries) generally supports some underlying corruption, either in the exited place or in the entered place, or both. Even when no such corruption can be observed, its often there in the reasons they choose to move, because working where they are they do more work or get less reward than where they go to. Somewhere, something is unfair and without that person moving in for lower reward to the outside people it would force people to behave properly to those presently unwilling to work for that figure. If its a matter of not having the skills in the nation, that points to a problem in education or possibly some lacking in intelligence or lazyness in the receiving location.

So, why then am I still am immigrant? well, frankly it worked for me. There are many people immigration does work for and theres often enough benefit to be able to decide on the balance that the benefits make the negatives overlookable in a complex world. Would I have prefered not to migrate? Frankly yes I would have, I applied repeatedly for jobs in my host nation and didn't get considered but in my guest nation people saw my tallent and snapped it up. The fact this happened doesn't make my immigration good, but it could be argued to have made it inevitable.

So, when your thinking about immigrants, think how YOUR behaviours as a national are infact attributing and giving rise to its inevitability. Every time you turn down a national because they have too high expectations or you take on an immigrant because its making your bottom line look good, your supporting or enabling the problems of immigration.

Therefore, whilst I do see all the problems, I also see the truth of immigration which is whilst immigrants are demonstrably weaker people (relative to one who stays in the nation in a similar condition and circumstance), not everyone is always able to be strong and sometimes the people with the support of their birth nation are weak, but with the support of their host nation are unstoppable.

Think on these things next time you want to complain for or against immigration.

After thought:

Can their be good immigration and what should that look like?

So, there is certainly good immigration in theory. A good immigration would be where people move not because it's required but because its desired on all sides and all their affairs are in a good order both where they leave and where they arrive (no dependant left behind, no forced reason to move). My immigration is close to a healthy immigration, I had no forced reason to leave my home nation and the benefits I received where not my reason for leaving it. So I ask myself, why still my over all opinion of immigration is bad? I answer myself, I have weakened my larger family, I have chosen to benefit myself rather than sacrifice for the family or birth nation as a whole, and I see how that is disingenuious. Then, I don't feel I really knew how or was able to contribute really in the circumstances I came from, or at least, I was unwilling to contribute for what I saw as very little. So basically the answser is greed. I don't feel I'm greedy to the extent many corporations are greedy, but I do think I've taken advantage of a way of getting more for myself when many around me have given of their time for less to support the whole (in my birth nation). So, as an immigrant, we are lazy and greedy, BUT probably less than the people who are causing our immigration.

Insane future, Microsoft can spy on you when your device is OFF

So when I first heard about this I was, "yeah right" but then I read into it and was blown away.

For those interested, check out position 37:48 in the linked video (https://channel9.msdn.com/events/BUILD/BUILD2011/HW-456T) I'll quote them here:

"Again I want to underscore that, Connected Standby is on, its logically on, but it looks OFF to the End User"

This means, Microsoft, on supported devices, can even turn ON your "off" device (should they wish).

Whilst I believe Microsoft aren't really using this feature deliberately to spy (they already have simpler mechanisms to coerce user cooperation such as Windows Live and being unable to use most interesting software without being online) it does mean the option exists.

Fedup with BAD game design

The problem with gaming having become profitable is there is now a huge troop of companies funding gaming with zero care for good games.

It was good for a while whilst Notch owned Minecraft, but he sold out and now Minecraft is another game where the creators aren't creating any more for making a fun game but 100% for making a profit. Which of course is much easier to make by coercing the players into a situation where they will have a crappy time unless they pay continually. Everyone needs to work and earn money, the problem is not that it's paid, the problem is what's being paid for is a type of randsom.

Though, this is a general blog about bad game design, so lets talk about what makes a game bad.

The following is a shortlist of thing which really destroy a 3D first person game:

• Invisible Walls (plot elements aside)
• Purely Linear Progression
• Removal of player control (e.g. beaming/teleporting/transporting or otherwise removing the players control, excepting some situation where that removal is a temporary and overcomeable plot element)
• Pointless repeating patterns (e.g. Grinding)
• Money = Power (this warrants a quick explain)

When I say Money = Power, I'm refering to the stupid mistake made in so many games where the collecting of monies (marks, tokens or whatever) is a goal to buy better equipment. This really removes the game aspect. The game is played whilst the money is earned then once the money is earned it just increases the strength of the equipment so more money may be earned. This always leads to a dull, repeatitive and boring game. What needs to be happening, is the progression of equipment ect. needs to be part of the play. Have subgames to improve armor etc. instead.

I'm facing a particuarly irritating situation in Champions Online right now, I started a mission called Bunker Site Bravo and now I want to end it and I am unable to leave to return to the main map.

History being constantly reinvented by the modern internet

Lately, I've been realising how humanity is constantly reinventing history (at least in terms of what history means for the future and present). I was always aware this happened, to a degree, but had held at the back of my mind the fanciful idea that there was infact one true history and some people where telling it right and others wrong. This, I now realise, is clearly a nonsense; I'm here to explain why I believe this now nonsense:

The majority of recorded history is, infact, the story of a group of people or some idea of a person and their perspectives on events. Lets look at the item which opened my eyes to the truth, the story of the Treaty of Versailles (an unarguably important event in history) when looking at this event, the story teller (internet Historians) seek to attribute world causes to a small number of individuals who are believed to, and seen to, have huge influence. This in itself is misleading, these individuals are indeed renowned in their respective societies and beyond, but what affect they have on people is down to the people themselve who are making these people fit into their own agendas and beliefs. Putting this another way, its not the President which changes the nation but the nation which changes the President (but of course the President's actions are chosen to engadge the nation).

So, the reality is, life is complicated and diverse and there isn't one simple cause or even set of causes (though they can and do exist, they can't be said to be the cause of the larger outcome only a factor and influence). There is no "true" history beyond observing some event happened with some evidences to show that it happened; What history quickly becomes online is an oportunity for people to make bold claims, the most popular of which, that have the least objection become what is commonally regarded as historic fact.

The problem is, that all history before and after the time and event selected is speculative. As a simple example, if I go into the street and make a speech that the world should be more kind and loving and afterwards the world is generally seen to improve, was that really my doing? or was infact I just stating a truth of the age and due to that evidential truth change occured. Also, even if my inflence is massive meaning I have huge followers, its likley the reason I have huge followers is I'm many things to many people. Meaning I'm just embodying a change or set of changes already in progress.

So, what history becomes is poltitics, litterally.

So far, I've stated something but not really made anything useful out of the observation. So lets see...

How can "history" be better?

Well I would say that we can start by stopping attempting to connect massive complex changes to small numbers of influencial individuals. We can start more admitting that there isn't one true history, only human stories which help us to understand whats happened in the past as a opinion of an author. We can look at the past as events and stories told about the events. We shouldn't even hold viewpoints as to the meaning or causes of events, beyond pointing out influences and likely outcomes. Prehaps proper historians do do exactly that and its just the modern internet era which forgets because people like convinence history. A tale told which allows them to feel informed and happy about being informed without the need to think too much or research.

Stupid decisions in Firefox browser (Space IS NOT PAGE DOWN, unless your Mozilla)

I was trying to use Firefox today and had a web-game that needed me to press space. The game worked and space did what it was supposed to in game, but due to moronic decision of the Mozilla Firefox contributers (no idea which one, and I haven't the time to check) space bar automatically causes a page down. WHAT THE FUCK. WE HAVE A KEY ON THE KEYBOARD FOR PAGE DOWN!!!!! ITS A DEDICATED KEY! Space Bar is a dedicated key too! It's a key it insert a SPACE NOT FUCKING CAUSE A PAGE DOWN EVEN.

I cannot begin to explain how much this fucks me off.

There is ZERO justification for overriding normal key behaviours in the browser (at the level of the browser itself, the web page, sure can do as it likes but it shouldn't be having to fight the damn browser to get normal key behaviours).

Bethesda's games becomming pointless

A long time ago, when Bethesda released Oblivion I was awed by the game design. This was a game which is truely epic! The whole engine was amazing, and the number of possible eventuallities huge (and nearly all at player discretion and choice). It was and is a game that can be played over and over for 100's of different experiences even within the same story lines.

Roll forward, and Bethseda do it again with Fallout 3, but there is the beginnings of a distressing trend. There are several missions where the player can have zero effect on eventualities. Whilst I turn a blind eye to certain forced eventualities (the main plotline for example) in the spirit of allowing some degree of story telling (but even there its just lazy, or at best they are unwilling or unable to devote sufficient time to make it the best it can be). For example, in Oblivion it was first impossible to kill the king, then subsequently it was impossible to save his life. These both irked and irritated me. To say to a player, or explain to a player "for the best game experience don't kill the king" or "let the kind die, it leads to a better game experience" is entirely fine, but let the player choose!!!!!

What I was glad about in Oblivion is the fated King was of the more 'rare' sort or scripted eventuality. Most characters lived or died at the players offices and even to the point of it being cool that some game play isn't even available unless you rush off and save the primary character right away.

I did understand some players where frustrated that plot elements where not available due to characters required for them being dead or missing, but to me that all added to the game and meant I can still play the game today and find something new, because by fortune, luck or simply my own efforts within game a character survived that didn't in other games opening up new gameplay.

Now, recently I made the relative mistake of purchasing Bethesda's "Wolfenstien II, The New Colossus" which begins with a sceen in which an evil protaganist is forcing the player to "make a choice" between which of your comrades he executes. That's fine as a plot element. What is bullshit, is that choosing not to making any choice is not a choice! In a well written game, a player is always presented with three choices in a dialog, which should boil down to, "Yes", "No" and "Obstain". When the player is given these three choices, the action can proceed anyway it likes, but the players voice should be always heard, and where possible have effect. So even if the villan of the peiece decides to not listen to the player, the player's got to be the character they wanted to be within the story (hence good gameplay and player experience).

Now sadly, with Bethesda's "New Collosus" game, they made it junk because in the opening sceen the player has ONE choice and its really an obvious NON choice. To look to their left, or look to their right. Now, regardless of how the game needs to proceed next, this is already removing from the player their role in the game. It's ceasing to be a game and becomming a movie, with movable camera and, I argue, no gamer wants a movie with a moveable camera they want, effectively, a roll playing experience where, usually, they are the hero.. but it's their choice and the game should support them choosing to role play the villan too. What it MUST NOT DO, is force the player to be the hero, or force them to be a villian, because it ceases to be a real game and becomes and engine of control.

I have refused to play their game. I've stopped buying their games. Since it feels obvious Bethesda has gone from a group of passionate role players providing an engine for that activity (Morrowind, Oblivion etc) to being a company trying to sell 'good stories' wrapped in popular themes. As much as I do enjoy a good story, I only love it when I'm making it happen (also they have not responded to my correspondence on this matter)

I feel Bethseda, in its past games, managed to walk a good line. In Fallout 3, there where several moments of misstep, but nothing too horrendous.

Some example moments which made Fallout 3 the poorer as a game are:

1. That it is impossible to choose to save the occupants of Tenpenny Towers
2. That all children are invunerable in the game
3. That in the US Paratrooper sceen in "The Guns of Anchorage" it's not possible to attempt to save the Paratrooper (I have no issue with a scripted death sceen where it's difficult to rescue or the rescue leads to a poorer outcome plot wise, just keep it possible)
4. The invunerable Wherner in "Into the Pitt"

For all those complaints, at least Bethseda attempts to honour player choices in the majority of cases, so I'm not hating on them as a company but just the direction they are sliding. Though I presume this is as more greed enteres its operation and as it becomes focused on players as a 'money resource' instead of people passionate about role playing making a greate game.

Sick of $@#(*$ Steam and Valve

Let's talk about Valve and Steam in human terms:

Imagine if you once went into a shop, and you saw a small comic in the shop that caught your eye. Now imagine the shop keeping being very charming and telling you how amazing the comic was and how cheap you could buy it!

Imagine now you pick up the comic and goto pay. Now, the shop keeper says "Please, give me your home address, Date of Birth and Email", your still keen for the comic, so maybe you think "well, I'm sure it will be fine".

So you pay for the comic, and as you pay you receive an email advertising the next comic. You leave the shop, and on the way home you wonder why the shop keepers assistant is shadowing you all day. He's not doing anything, he's just sitting their smiling and if you ever ask him or address him he says "Enjoying your comic?". So you tune him out. You arrive home and now theres a small crowd with the shop keeper, all whispering about your journey home. Their all standing at a good distance and being sure to not bother you, but every so often one of them smiles and a note appears in your mail box about some service offered.

So, again you tune out this growing group of gawkers. You get into your house and close the door, but sitting outside just in the public area is the shop assistant. Always smiling taking notes of everything you do. You decide to take a read of your comic. Outside your house, theres a huge rush of action, people shout to one another "she's on page one!" others run away and talk and just out of earshot they are talking about every other reader of the comic on page 1.

You get used to ignoring the crowd now living permenantly just outside your door, used to the benine smiles and constant commentary and behind your back wispering regarding what you do with their comic.

Then, you find a page and you love that page, you go back to read it several times and outside theirs a quiet commotion and then emails arrive suggesting you try this and that and those representitive simile into your window at you. Meanwhile, the comic has begun to embed itself in all your other daily activities. It's already hooked into your email and now it begins to watch what you do online. The massive crowd of people peering in from outside tell you "not to worry!", "it's all so we can improve the comic!" with a vacuus smile.

So, now, your sick of all these people watching you so you go outside and vocally try to shoo them away. They make consilitory noises but make no move to go and ineed chatter futhur about your behviour. You beginning to get mad so you set your dogs on them (turn on your internet security) and, faced with that level of force they scatter.

Ahah, you think to yourself, now I can relax and enjoy my comic in privacy. So you open it  up.

Page 1: Blank.... Page 2: Blank.... your favourite page "inaccessible":.

You remember then how you made a "copy" of your comic "just incase" you lost it, so you fish that out...

The copy is completely inaccessible. Worse the people outside come into your room and begin to rearrange your furnature.

You move to complain and they say, "The comic requires us to all be sitting outside watching you when your read it". Faced with a choice, you could lose page 1 and 2 you think to yourself... but not my beloved page! You reluctantly let the people come back in and mess with all your furnature and the comic is again readable (and now not only are the people outside, but many have moved into your garage some are in your car and one is riding around on your bike).

Finally, resolved,  you accept this constant crowd of smiling snoopers outside your house, and that none of your equipment is now in your direct control (but they are all very nice and get off right awa y when you need your stuff, so nice of them). Some move in because you find the new pages of your comic you buy aren't accessible without these new house guests.

Now, they start being more forceful. You open the comic one day, and page 1 is totaly different and alot smaller. You can't read it without it changing and not in a way you want.

This is Steam and Valve and it's SICK. We live in a world of greedy vendors unwilling to produce items for sale and ownership then they can have the first without granting the second.

We NEED to change the law. Sales MUST come with ownership.