The Immigration Debate - Or Is It?

I find myself uniquely qualified to chime in on the immigration debate that has recently been sparked by Arizona's new law.

You see, when I was in Japan I experienced this exact situation. Japanese law allows police to request proof of a person's visa status, and on multiple occasions I was stopped and asked to show my identity card.

You know what? That makes sense to me. I wasn't offended, because I had nothing to hide. It is a country's right to enforce the integrity of the system that gives citizenship to the people living there, as well as a duty; it is necessary to protect the lawful citizens of a nation from those who don't respect the law.

The fact that they are making it illegal on a state level to be in the country illegally (which would be federal law) just goes to show that the federal government isn't effectively addressing the problem. A state ought to have the right to pass a law like this and look after its own, especially when the feds aren't doing anything to resolve the problem.

America has been incredibly lenient on illegal immigration for a long time, and I think it is a good thing that we're going to start taking things a little more seriously. If you are lawfully in the country, you have nothing to worry about.

In my opinion, though this is starting out as an immigration debate, I think that ultimately it will turn into a state's rights battleground. The federal government will try to impose its will on Arizona, and Arizona (and probably Texas) will fight against this. When the dust settles, I can only hope that the states will have reaffirmed their right to govern themselves with minimal federal interference.

Update on Net Neutrality

Recently I talked about a court ruling on how much power the FCC has for regulating the net.

A good friend of mine sent me a very interesting article that shows the FCC isn't in fact as powerless as we thought. Looks like Net Neutrality could still be a reality. Good news after all!

The Age of Litigation (Or: I Exercise My Noble Freedom to be an Asshole)

So instead of considering the fine art of procrastination today, I want to comment on the recent iphone fiasco and Gizmodo in particular. (I'll try to get to the other topic in early May.)

You see, some guy found a prototype of the next gen iphone and sold it to a journalist-blogger website, which started revealing a lot of juicy secrets. Apple didn't like them reporting all about it, so they had the police get involved.

Now we've got a debate over whether or not bloggers are protected under journalist laws, as well as what exactly the laws entitle journalists to do.

In my opinion, it is obvious that this is a case of private property which is still in a prototype stage and that releasing information on it is almost certainly harmful to the company. By purchasing it and then analyzing and reporting on it, Gizmodo did something definitely unethical and probably unlawful.

I agree with the people who claim that journalistic legal protection does not extend to committing illegal acts for the sake of creating a source; they exist so that journalists cannot be forced to reveal sources. There's a significant difference here.

Furthermore, I'm not a particular fan of Gizmodo in the first place. A while back they pulled a "prank" that in my opinion shows that their modus operandi is basically selfish and antisocial.

What they did wasn't a prank, in my opinion. It could have been, if they didn't take it so far, and if they had revealed what they were up to shortly after pulling it. But the worst part in my opinion is their lame justification and complete lack of regret.

They paint their actions by associating them with the noble idea of "civil disobedience", claim that the prank "pays homage to the notion of independence and independent reporting", and say that any journalists who criticize their actions are obviously just corporate lapdogs who have sold out.

Seriously? This is the worst sort of self-righteous closed-mindedness, and it pisses me off. So I'm really not that surprised to know that Gizmodo is claiming a moral high ground and suggesting that the purchase of known stolen property and then revealing trade secrets is somehow related to freedom of information.

Suppose some kid I don't know steals my neighbor's diary, then sells it to me for five bucks because he knows I'm always desperate for any old topic to blog about, and I start revealing Old Man Thompson's secret obsession with Hello Kitty... is this seriously about freedom of information?

The problem with modern day society is that we keep taking ideals of freedom far past their logical extension. The justification of selfish and antisocial behavior, wrapped up in the guise of something noble, is so pervasive that we have to debate about whether or not its wrong to steal something secret and then make it public. This type of thing used to be common sense.

The fact that its not is exactly what's wrong with our modern day society.

**Update 4/30**
Here's some info about the guy who originally found & sold the iphone. Sounds like he's full of regret now that he might get in trouble!

On the fine art of procrastination...

Actually I'll just post about this on Wednesday.

The Eikaiwa Industry

When I was in Japan, I worked for NOVA, which was the largest English conversation school (eikaiwa) up until it went bankrupt. Their bankruptcy was a huge shock to the industry, which was quite the juggernaut throughout Japan's bubble economy and still sizable up until NOVA's late 2007 bust. Many students lost thousands of dollars already spent on prepaid tuition, which is the industry's standard system of payment. Naturally, people lost trust in the industry and the remaining companies struggled to keep what they could of a declining customer-base.

Eventually a large conglomeration which specializes in taking over failed companies and making them profitable again purchased NOVA and took over operations. I stayed on with them (off and on, long story) until I came back home.

A few days ago, Geos (another one of the "big four" names in the industry) went bankrupt. Back before I came home in late 2009, we had been hearing rumors that they were having cash-flow problems... so I can't say that I'm all that surprised. It is interesting, however, to hear that the same company which purchased NOVA is taking over Geos in a similar fashion. Sounds like they were ready to move this time around.

For students, this is a good thing. For the young people who see teaching as a convenient means to support themselves while spending a year or two in Japan, however...

In the eikaiwa industry, pay & working conditions are inevitably on the decline. I think that makes sense given the economy and all, and don't begrudge the companies for making hard decisions. But at the same time, I can't help but feel like the industry is changing irreversibly, and that makes me sad. My time in Japan, made possible by the eikaiwa schools, really helped me to grow as a person and simultaneously have some amazing adventures.

To all my friends still in Japan, good luck in an uncertain future! (Drink some Super Dry for me, will ya?)

**Update 4/28**
The Japan Times has a new article explaining how this is gonna work out. Sounds like the Geos teachers will get a much better deal than the NOVA folks did.

Technology & Human Culture

I've been thinking a lot lately about how technology has really changed the rules regarding socialization. With free social networking sites and voice-chat services, long-distance relationships (both platonic and otherwise) have taken a completely different form from even fifteen years ago.

I lived in Japan for a few years, and was able to talk to my parents for free using the internet. While not a replacement for being able to spend time together physically, it was nonetheless a convenient way to stay in touch and made the distance feel far less than "on the other side of the world".

Now I'm back in America, but I still chat daily with the friends I made in Japan. I'll admit that I'm an incredibly lazy guy, so if snail mail was the only means to keep in touch then I couldn't be bothered.

Another interesting this is how simple it is to talk with people from other countries, nowadays. I've had random people from China & Vietnam contact me on Skype just because they were curious about meeting an American. The ease with which you can reach out to people on the other side of the planet is pretty amazing, and I imagine will go a long ways towards eroding cultural biases all over the world.

Of course, with new technology comes new problems of etiquette. Often times, I'm busy with multiple tasks while I'm chatting, which means I tend to only pay attention sporadically. Countless times, my lack of immediate response is taken by a friend to mean that I'm offended by something.

Another thing: I often hear the joke "it isn't real until its on facebook" regarding break-ups. And don't get me started on how our friendships are now codified and displayed via text! Relationships as well, though they include the convenient "its complicated" catch-all.

I just find the new technological aspect to human social interaction to be quite fascinating.

The Net: Tomorrow's Battleground?

The United States military is asserting its right to "fire back" as a defense not only in real-life, but also on the web. As a completely uninformed civilian, I'd say that sounds reasonable to me. But it makes me think: will tomorrow's world wars be fought in server-rooms and offices?

Many economic and diplomatic experts these days claim another world war is impossible due to the fully internationalized economy; we're all so integrated with each other that it simply wouldn't be possible. Perhaps they are correct when it comes to a physical war, but what if it was a world war fought only on cyber battlefields? (And no, I'm not talking about a first-person-shooter :P)

It is an interesting thing to think about. Would the civilians of this type of war not even know it was being waged? Or would they constantly have their bank accounts disappear, infrastructure destroyed, basic services shut down, etc?

I suppose tomorrow's soldiers might look quite a bit different from the ones we've known previously. Goodbye muscles, hello sickly looking kid with glasses? Haha :)