heroes of the storm is a free to play 5v5 team hero brawler game. fairly similar to league of legends and dota.
http://heroesofthestorm.com
i like it and would play some games with blog readers if they are interested and will play on the North America server. (you're allowed to play on NA from elsewhere, but you could lag). if you play with me you could get some insight into how i think about things, and get some criticism on a topic where you might find it easier to listen to than philosophy criticism.
i have some hero recommendations for new players and some reasoning.
i think it's important to pick a small number of heroes to get good with, rather than just playing everyone.
in order to play in hero league you need to be able to play every role: damage dealer, tank, and healer. there's a hero pick system where you won't always get what you want and may have to play the role your team needs.
and a hero can only be picked once, so someone else could take your hero first. they are also adding bans to remove some heroes during the hero choosing process.
so you need more than one hero for each role, in case you can't get your first choice.
the more popular the heroes you pick are, the less chance of getting them. my favorite hero right now is Li-Ming. but she's the most popular hero in the game. she's one of the 10 heroes played in around 85% of games. there's around 50 heroes and the next most popular hero sees 50% usage, and it drops a lot from there since the average popularity of heroes has to be around 20%. see http://www.hotslogs.com/
so if you play Li-Ming, it pretty much increases the number of heroes you need to be comfortable with, since getting to use her is really unreliable. in order to have a damage dealer you play available, you need just about as many with or without Li-Ming.
heroes of the storm is also a hard game, so i recommend starting with easier heroes. many people overreach and say "i'll learn it" but they'd have a better time, and learn more, if they started with something more approachable. (similar to people trying to start with Fox in SSBM, then quitting before getting any good. that's dumb. they should have started with a hero they could get halfway decent with faster.)
the hardest heroes to play are the melee damage dealers, abathur, and the lost vikings.
my recommendations:
healing:
1) lili (22.3% popularity). she's one of the easier heroes to use effectively.
2) malfurion (25.3% popularity) can be your backup if lili is taken. his healing is somewhat similar to lili (big aoe team heal as his ultimate, and you can stay in back).
tanking:
1) leoric (9.8% popularity). if you die, he comes back to life faster than regular heroes. that makes mistakes less punishing. he clears lanes well.
2) chen (8.4% popularity) can be your backup. he's hard to kill and doesn't have to worry about running out of mana. he's a good laner.
damage:
1) raynor (34.7% popularity). he has extra range and a low amount of button pressing. one of the easier heroes to control. he's fragile and doesn't have great area of effect damage.
2) kaelthas (23.9% popularity). chainbomb can do a ton of damage to the other team, especially at lower player skill levels, without much effort. lots of area of effect damage. fragile but you can stay in back.
3) nazeebo (11.4% popularity). another fragile ranged damage dealer. a typical team has 1 tank, 1 healer, and 3 damage dealers, so that's why we're doing another backup damage dealer. nazeebo's attacks are reasonably easy to use while staying to the back, and he's unpopular.
with these 7 heroes, you'd have a pretty good chance of being able to play whatever role is needed. this would let you learn some of the easier heroes to be effective with, not learn too many at once, and get off to a good start.
(you need 10 heroes minimum unlocked to play hero league currently. this will be raised to 14 soon when they add 2 bans per side. however, being ready to play only these 7 will usually be fine.)
heroes of the storm receives frequent patches which improve some heroes and weaken others. at the time of writing, all of the heroes i suggested are pretty good. not necessarily the best, but plenty good enough. some heroes are actually bad enough to be a problem, so i avoided them.
i'd also recommend you pick two roles to focus on more, and one less, in order to better concentrate your learning on fewer heroes. if you prioritize two of the roles over the other one, you'll usually be able to play one of those two.
extra ideas:
- Gall. Gall is one head of a two-headed ogre, Cho'Gall. you have to play him with a friend. what's good about Gall is you don't have to do movement. you just shoot stuff while your friend controls moving around. so he's probably the easiest hero in the game. but you can't play him by yourself.
- Murky. places an egg where he can respawn in a few seconds if you die. not being punished much for deaths is really nice when you're new. he has an unusual playstyle.
- if you like a particular hero, you could ask about him/her. some of the heroes are a bad idea to start with, but a lot would be fine.
this list is very different from McIntyre's:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dHrNgcsNqg3Doe0ZciPvCY4SnWdboC-QXrpgxS7gFMs/edit?pli=1
he's a pro player. his list revolves around heroes that can win games even if your team is bad, assuming you play really well.
when you play a hero, don't just pick random talents. google a guide or use hotslogs by clicking on the hero, e.g.:
http://www.hotslogs.com/Sitewide/HeroDetails?Hero=Li%20Li
at the bottom you can see which talent builds people actually use and get the best win percentage with. those are a great place to get started. you can adjust your talent choices more after you know what you're doing.
Edit: Kaelthas was nerfed in a patch. You could get Valla instead. See the comments.
Elliot Temple
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AIPAC Helps Evil
This is a reply to a tweet. I needed more than 140 characters. DD finds it worrying that Bernie Sanders skipped AIPAC. Lulie defended his vague, bad comments with the bizarre suggestion that self-destructive Jews are a new, notable thing that's particularly worthy of being worried about:
AIPAC betrayed Israel on the Iran deal. AIPAC continues to work to help the left, not Israel. And they still get snubbed by Bernie anyway.
You know what's really worrying? That a supposedly pro-Israel group won't call out and condemn Bernie, Hillary or Obama. What's worrying is AIPAC being thought by most people to actually be pro-Israel. With "friends" like AIPAC and ADL, we're in big trouble.
What's worrying is the Democrat who is actually going to win the nomination is extremely anti-semitic – and merely going and giving a speech at AIPAC has DD off her back and focusing on the wrong issue.
Reality: Obama, Hillary and Bernie all want to destroy Israel. Everyone willing to know this kind of thing has known it since, say, 2009. Bernie skipping AIPAC is a minor non-event that makes no difference to the overall dynamics.
You know what's more worrying that Bernie skipping? Type AIPAC in google and the top hit right now for me is: "AIPAC condemns Trump attack on Obama".
That's a much bigger problem than Bernie. But everyone should have already known AIPAC is part of the problem.
You know what actually kinda worries me? That not even Cruz, who is by FAR the best on Israel of the candidates (including all the ones who dropped out already), would boycott AIPAC for its treachery. When the best politicians we have won't stand up to AIPAC, that's kinda scary. (When the worst won't stand up to AIPAC for the OPPOSITE REASONS... who cares?)
DD and Woty think it's worrying that an anti-semite skipped a lefty event for not being far enough to the left. They are painting a false picture of reality in which AIPAC isn't lefty. They are part of the problem. What AIPAC does is give cover to bad people. Yet DD and Woty are pressuring AIPAC to appease the left even more – to somehow be more inclusive – when AIPAC ought to go the other direction and start having some standards. DD and Woty are missing or denying the reality that AIPAC has already gone waaaaaaay too far left – well into the territory of routinely aiding evil.
@curi42 @DavidDeutschOxf @RutiRegan B/c it's self-destructive for a Jew not to be in favour of Israel, and sad for US that B sucks so much?You know what's way sadder for the US? That Hillary and Obama want to destroy Israel. They're way more important.
AIPAC betrayed Israel on the Iran deal. AIPAC continues to work to help the left, not Israel. And they still get snubbed by Bernie anyway.
You know what's really worrying? That a supposedly pro-Israel group won't call out and condemn Bernie, Hillary or Obama. What's worrying is AIPAC being thought by most people to actually be pro-Israel. With "friends" like AIPAC and ADL, we're in big trouble.
What's worrying is the Democrat who is actually going to win the nomination is extremely anti-semitic – and merely going and giving a speech at AIPAC has DD off her back and focusing on the wrong issue.
Reality: Obama, Hillary and Bernie all want to destroy Israel. Everyone willing to know this kind of thing has known it since, say, 2009. Bernie skipping AIPAC is a minor non-event that makes no difference to the overall dynamics.
You know what's more worrying that Bernie skipping? Type AIPAC in google and the top hit right now for me is: "AIPAC condemns Trump attack on Obama".
That's a much bigger problem than Bernie. But everyone should have already known AIPAC is part of the problem.
You know what actually kinda worries me? That not even Cruz, who is by FAR the best on Israel of the candidates (including all the ones who dropped out already), would boycott AIPAC for its treachery. When the best politicians we have won't stand up to AIPAC, that's kinda scary. (When the worst won't stand up to AIPAC for the OPPOSITE REASONS... who cares?)
DD and Woty think it's worrying that an anti-semite skipped a lefty event for not being far enough to the left. They are painting a false picture of reality in which AIPAC isn't lefty. They are part of the problem. What AIPAC does is give cover to bad people. Yet DD and Woty are pressuring AIPAC to appease the left even more – to somehow be more inclusive – when AIPAC ought to go the other direction and start having some standards. DD and Woty are missing or denying the reality that AIPAC has already gone waaaaaaay too far left – well into the territory of routinely aiding evil.
Elliot Temple
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Don't Trust Trump, He's Not a Conservative
How Not To Fight Our Enemies by David Horowitz:
The mob that came to disrupt the Trump rally in Chicago was neither spontaneous nor innocent, nor new. It was a mob that has been forming ever since the Seattle riots against the World Trade Organization in 1999, whose target was global capitalism. The Seattle rioters repeated their outrages for the next two years and then transformed itself into the so-called “anti-war” movement to save the Saddam dictatorship in Iraq. Same leaders, funders and troops. The enemy was always America and its Republican defenders. When Obama invaded countries and blew up families in Muslim countries, there was no anti-war movement because Obama was one of them, and they didn’t want to divide their support. In 2012 the so-called “anti-war” movement reformed as “Occupy Wall Street.” They went on a rampage creating cross-country riots to protesting the One Percent and provided a whipping boy for Obama’s re-election campaign. Same leaders, same funders and troops. In 2015 the same leftwing forces created and funded Black Lives Matter and lynch mobs in Ferguson and Baltimore who targeted “white supremacists” and police.
Behind all the mobs was the organized left – MoveOn.org, the public sector unions run by Sixties leftovers, and the cabal of anti-American billionaires led by George Soros. The mobs themselves were composed of the hate-filled foot soldiers of the political left. [...] The plan is defeat Republicans in November so that the destructive forces they have set in motion in the Democratic Party can finish the wrecking job that Obama started.
[...]
And what has been the reaction of the presidential candidates, particularly those who propose to save the country? It is to blame Trump as though he and not the left had instigated the riot. If you play with matches like Trump did, opined Hillary Clinton, you’re likely to start a fire. [...]
According to the proudly positive John Kasich, it was Trump who created the “toxic environment” that led to the riot – not the fascist movement that has been metastasizing in our universities and streets for more than a decade.
Great stuff. I agree.
Cruz and Rubio also said bad stuff about this like Kasich.
He is often guilty of over-reach – “punch him in the nose” directed at one disrupter, but this is hardly the sin his detractors suggest in comparing him to Mussolini. That is a much great violence to the man who is its target. Aside from Trump’s compulsive over-reach what is wrong with anger in the current political context?
An aside: it's not a compulsion. It's bad ideas. Those bad ideas have consequences. It's not an isolated mental illness to treat as a singular quirk and ignore. It matters. It doesn't matter that much relative to a lot of the other election issues. But one should argue that Trump is mistaken rather than dehumanize him as sick (a human being that is, in this aspect, broken) because he thinks differently than you do.
as someone who until very recently held high opinions of Rubio and Cruz
But why have a high opinion of Rubio? Rubio has been such a lying amnesty-pusher for years. Cruz went to the senate and actually stood up for good ideas. Rubio, like most politicians, isn't willing to fight for good ideas and actually get things done. Instead, he betrayed his campaign promises and worked with the Democrats to advance their agenda.
And as to Cruz, yes he's getting the mob "protestors" issue wrong. But he's still the best candidate by far. Trump has said much worse, as Horowitz must know. See:
Trump: I'm All For Free Speech, But Anti-Islam Cartoon Contest Was 'DUMB!'
Geller works with Horowitz, so he's definitely familiar with this.
Geller wrote a new piece about this yesterday, making the connection between Trump's attack on her free speech and then complaining about having his own speech at a rally shut down:
Trump Decries Attack on His Free Speech – What About Garland, Donald?
Flashback: Donald Trump said, “I watched Pam earlier, and it really looks like she’s just taunting everybody. What is she doing drawing Muhammad? I mean it’s disgusting. Isn’t there something else they could be doing? Drawing Muhammad?…They can’t do something else? They have to be in the middle of Texas doing something on Muhammad and insulting everybody? What is she doing? Why is she doing it? It’s probably very risky for her — I don’t know, maybe she likes risk? But what the hell is she doing?”
Cruz got Garland right. Trump got it horribly wrong. Trump's mistake on Garland is worse than Cruz's current mistake. Yet Horowitz is writing like Cruz is somehow now not as good as Trump. None of the candidates are perfect – not even close – but Cruz is much better overall.
Trump isn’t the enemy. Like you he is opposed to the Iran deal, supports a secure border, recognizes the Islamist threat, wants to reduce taxes and make the country solvent, and is greatly expanding the Republican base.
This is the most interesting part of Horowitz's article to me, because it gets to the heart of Trump. If only Trump was actually like this I'd be pretty happy with him as a second choice. If Trump actually was like the people voting for him believe, he'd be a pretty good candidate.
The problem is he's not.
Trump is squishy on the Iran deal, as Cruz revealed at the last debate. Trump won't rip it to shreds immediately, like Cruz. Instead, Trump plans to try to renegotiate a better deal. As if Iran could be a negotiation partner. Iran doesn't want a deal and doesn't want peace, they want to kill us – the "Great Satan" – as they frequently say in public.
Trump doesn't recognize the Islamist threat correctly, as revealed with his Garland comments and his "neutral" position on Israel and the Palestinians. Cruz is a great friend of Israel. Trump absolutely isn't. Trump thinks that the Palestinians, like the Iranians, can be partners in peace to negotiate with.
Is a guy who dislikes Israel, and dislikes Pamela Geller, going to be all that good on Muslim issues generally? That doesn't make sense.
Trump has made it clear he can change his mind to whatever he wants. He's malleable. Will he really go through with the moratorium on Muslim immigration? I doubt it. Trump reportedly told the New York Times, off the record, that he doesn't mean all of what he's been saying about immigration. And then he told Ben Carson that he doesn't believe all the outlandish stuff he's been saying.
The problem with Trump is he's a leftist at heart and if he's President we're going to get little if any of the hard-right policy-making we want. Trump will make deals, make compromises, and actively pursue a variety of leftwing agendas from funding Planned Parenthood with taxpayer dollars to having the taxpayer take care of everyone's healthcare to preventing any cuts to entitlements to generally refusing to cut down the government at all. Trump only wants to remove waste, fraud and abuse, not actually have a smaller government. Trump wants the government to be better run and make better deals, but he doesn't want to fundamentally change it much. That won't make our country solvent.
And Trump easily caves in to pressure and whims – and lifelong New York values – because he lacks strong classical liberal principles. Hence he called Scalia a racist. And Trump was in favor of letting in Syrian refugees before he was against it.
Will Trump be good on capitalism? No, he's a protectionist. Will Trump even be good on immigration? He gave two pro-amnesty CPAC speeches. One of the few areas Trump might actually be good – which no one is talking about – is energy.
Trump funded and praised the likes of Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid. And he praised Obama in 2009. Is this a guy who is really going to reverse Obama's policies and fight for Republican ideas?
Trump has spent a lifetime being a leftist participating in crony capitalism. He doesn't know how to confront and flush out the administrative state. He's going to get to DC and be surrounded by the fourth branch of government – unelected leftists who run everything – and he's going to start making deals and getting along with everyone instead of fighting them and burning it down. He won't take no prisoners.
Ted Cruz has a track record of standing up to the establishment Washington Cartel. Trump has no credibility that he will do that, and actually has repeatedly said he won't. Trump says he'll get along with people like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, and even the Democrats who Trump mistakenly believes are reasonable people that you can work with.
Trump fundamentally doesn't understand our adversaries. You can't make a deal without common ground and some shared values. You can only work together when you share some goals. Either Trump shares a lot of values with the left, or he's naive and misunderstand how thoroughly evil the left is. Or, I think, both. As Daniel Horowitz put it:
Trump keeps saying we need to make deals just like Reagan did with Tip O’Neill. What he needs to understand is that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the entire modern Democrat Party are nothing like O’Neill. You can’t work with them and he needs to learn that.
Elliot Temple
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Excellence Takes Effort
Someone posted this to FI list today:
Studying hundreds of chess diagrams is not natural talent.
http://www.amazon.com/Combination-Challenge-Lou-Hays/dp/188067386X
See the cover picture? The entire book is filled with diagrams like those, each one a puzzle to solve. And that's it. No badges, no congratulations, no praise, no funny stories, no fluff, just diagram after diagram after diagram. You do one. Then you do another. And, eventually, you turn the page. And after you study hundreds of them, you get faster at it and you find more similar stuff in your own games. Chess skills like looking ahead and visualizing positions are a skill you develop.
Reading books and taking tons of lessons is not natural talent.
Going over your games with others to find mistakes and get tips is not automatic. It doesn't just happen. It's not natural.
These are the kinds of things I did large amounts of, intentionally, to improve at chess. For years and years.
(The people who fail at FI and give up and leave usually never put in 1% the work I put into chess. Literally. And FI is harder than chess.)
I've been bad at a wide variety of other games, too. All of them...
I did not start out good at RPGs. I worked at it. I read tons of guides, forum discussion, etc. I watched video of how others play. I thought about how to do better. I practiced. I took action to improve over the course of well over 10 years.
I was not a natural at Hearthstone. First I played Magic the Gathering. I started out terrible. I read tons about it, looked into how pros played, practiced, etc. I got OK, not that good. That laid some groundwork for Hearthstone which is a similar kind of game. Regardless, I started out bad at Hearthstone. When I was trying to be good at Hearthstone, I put lots of time and effort into it. And not just messing around and playing naturally. I studied stuff. I did math. I recruited good players to collaborate with. I wrote articles with my ideas. I tested strategies in a methodical way. I tried to figure out what skills and knowledge I needed to win and focussed on getting that. Rather than playing whatever I found most natural to my personal style (typically mages across many games, and typically somewhat defensive longterm play), I played whatever I thought was good and would help me do well (like a lot of aggressive Warlock). I make an effort not to have a personal style when it matters. Play to win. Learn to be flexible and learn how to play every style. This isn't automatic but it's doable.
I was not a natural at Duet or Infinity Blade. I practiced the dexterity. I am no natural at Super Smash Brothers Melee. That takes a learning process: http://curi.us/1715-ssbm-training-1-marths-sh-double-fair
Do you think I'm a natural at Exile? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0m3De1fQzc That speed run involved rather non-natural steps such as downloading and reading source code in C, and finding info from dead forums with archive.org.
It's always like that – being good takes intentional effort applied strategically. And after you get good at dozens of things, yes you can learn faster. There's some carryover. You can re-use some skills from some previous games on a new game. And you can re-use the methods of learning themselves on new games.
And it's not just new games that require learning. McIntyre, a top Heroes of the Storm players, struggled with Greymane, a new hero. He was already good at the game but had to put in a bunch of thought and practice to figure out how to play Greymane well. And it wasn't love at first sight. His initial impression of Greymane was negative.
There's a common misconception among bad players that games are easy for good players, that good players have (natural) "talent", etc. And there is a common belief by many good players that it didn't come automatically to them at all, they sucked at first and put in tons of work. The good players frequently actually remember sucking and struggling to get better. They're right.
It is possible to practice wrong. Some people put a lot of time into something and still suck. You can spend time on a game without learning much. But no one gets really good without working at it. Effort is necessary but not sufficient. It takes rationally-directed effort to get good. LOTS of it. Tons of bad players just massively underestimate how much effort being good is, and kinda give up early and don't really play to win and learn even if they do keep playing. And tons of people think if they play a lot they will get good automatically, whereas good players often did some more organized forms of practice and did more thinking about the game instead of just playing. And people who get good more often make spreadsheets, do math, do in-game experiments to test things, etc, etc. Top players usually put effort into learning the game, rather than just playing a bunch and hoping they'll naturally get better somehow.
pretty sure being great at playing games comes naturally for elliotYou're totally wrong about me.
Studying hundreds of chess diagrams is not natural talent.
http://www.amazon.com/Combination-Challenge-Lou-Hays/dp/188067386X
See the cover picture? The entire book is filled with diagrams like those, each one a puzzle to solve. And that's it. No badges, no congratulations, no praise, no funny stories, no fluff, just diagram after diagram after diagram. You do one. Then you do another. And, eventually, you turn the page. And after you study hundreds of them, you get faster at it and you find more similar stuff in your own games. Chess skills like looking ahead and visualizing positions are a skill you develop.
Reading books and taking tons of lessons is not natural talent.
Going over your games with others to find mistakes and get tips is not automatic. It doesn't just happen. It's not natural.
These are the kinds of things I did large amounts of, intentionally, to improve at chess. For years and years.
(The people who fail at FI and give up and leave usually never put in 1% the work I put into chess. Literally. And FI is harder than chess.)
I've been bad at a wide variety of other games, too. All of them...
I did not start out good at RPGs. I worked at it. I read tons of guides, forum discussion, etc. I watched video of how others play. I thought about how to do better. I practiced. I took action to improve over the course of well over 10 years.
I was not a natural at Hearthstone. First I played Magic the Gathering. I started out terrible. I read tons about it, looked into how pros played, practiced, etc. I got OK, not that good. That laid some groundwork for Hearthstone which is a similar kind of game. Regardless, I started out bad at Hearthstone. When I was trying to be good at Hearthstone, I put lots of time and effort into it. And not just messing around and playing naturally. I studied stuff. I did math. I recruited good players to collaborate with. I wrote articles with my ideas. I tested strategies in a methodical way. I tried to figure out what skills and knowledge I needed to win and focussed on getting that. Rather than playing whatever I found most natural to my personal style (typically mages across many games, and typically somewhat defensive longterm play), I played whatever I thought was good and would help me do well (like a lot of aggressive Warlock). I make an effort not to have a personal style when it matters. Play to win. Learn to be flexible and learn how to play every style. This isn't automatic but it's doable.
I was not a natural at Duet or Infinity Blade. I practiced the dexterity. I am no natural at Super Smash Brothers Melee. That takes a learning process: http://curi.us/1715-ssbm-training-1-marths-sh-double-fair
Do you think I'm a natural at Exile? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0m3De1fQzc That speed run involved rather non-natural steps such as downloading and reading source code in C, and finding info from dead forums with archive.org.
It's always like that – being good takes intentional effort applied strategically. And after you get good at dozens of things, yes you can learn faster. There's some carryover. You can re-use some skills from some previous games on a new game. And you can re-use the methods of learning themselves on new games.
And it's not just new games that require learning. McIntyre, a top Heroes of the Storm players, struggled with Greymane, a new hero. He was already good at the game but had to put in a bunch of thought and practice to figure out how to play Greymane well. And it wasn't love at first sight. His initial impression of Greymane was negative.
There's a common misconception among bad players that games are easy for good players, that good players have (natural) "talent", etc. And there is a common belief by many good players that it didn't come automatically to them at all, they sucked at first and put in tons of work. The good players frequently actually remember sucking and struggling to get better. They're right.
It is possible to practice wrong. Some people put a lot of time into something and still suck. You can spend time on a game without learning much. But no one gets really good without working at it. Effort is necessary but not sufficient. It takes rationally-directed effort to get good. LOTS of it. Tons of bad players just massively underestimate how much effort being good is, and kinda give up early and don't really play to win and learn even if they do keep playing. And tons of people think if they play a lot they will get good automatically, whereas good players often did some more organized forms of practice and did more thinking about the game instead of just playing. And people who get good more often make spreadsheets, do math, do in-game experiments to test things, etc, etc. Top players usually put effort into learning the game, rather than just playing a bunch and hoping they'll naturally get better somehow.
Elliot Temple
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Starting Fights
lots of people think "i don't start fights, but i do fight back".
but there are lots of fights between people who BOTH think like that. so who started it? a misunderstanding started the fight, then someone started fighting "back" in response to a misunderstanding.
the "fight back" type people FREQUENTLY end up being the first one to be mean and fighty. cuz they routinely think the other guy already started a fight, when he hadn't. so they end up initiating pretty often, sorta by accident, but they deserve a lot of blame here.
people also misunderstand how severe an attack was. like it could be someone really was attacking you, but only weakly, and you misunderstand it as strongly. the misunderstandings can be about degree of attacking, not just whether or not they were attacking.
if you wanna be a better, nicer person, you gotta at least REALLY check for misunderstandings and make sure things are REALLY REALLY EXTRA SUPER CLEAR before you think someone is attacking you and fight back.
also, even if you were correct that someone is attacking you, it's often best not to fight back anyway. lots of attacks can be ignored, like if someone insults you what are you going to gain by fighting back? it'd usually be better to drop the matter.
note i'm not talking about like a guy coming at you with a knife. if he's shooting a gun at you, go ahead and fight back!
but if you think someone insults you, then it could easily be a misunderstanding. same with mean jokes, social slights & snubbing, voice tones, facial expressions, and "unconstructive" criticism. this stuff is more subtle and much easier to misunderstand than physical violence.
but there are lots of fights between people who BOTH think like that. so who started it? a misunderstanding started the fight, then someone started fighting "back" in response to a misunderstanding.
the "fight back" type people FREQUENTLY end up being the first one to be mean and fighty. cuz they routinely think the other guy already started a fight, when he hadn't. so they end up initiating pretty often, sorta by accident, but they deserve a lot of blame here.
people also misunderstand how severe an attack was. like it could be someone really was attacking you, but only weakly, and you misunderstand it as strongly. the misunderstandings can be about degree of attacking, not just whether or not they were attacking.
if you wanna be a better, nicer person, you gotta at least REALLY check for misunderstandings and make sure things are REALLY REALLY EXTRA SUPER CLEAR before you think someone is attacking you and fight back.
also, even if you were correct that someone is attacking you, it's often best not to fight back anyway. lots of attacks can be ignored, like if someone insults you what are you going to gain by fighting back? it'd usually be better to drop the matter.
note i'm not talking about like a guy coming at you with a knife. if he's shooting a gun at you, go ahead and fight back!
but if you think someone insults you, then it could easily be a misunderstanding. same with mean jokes, social slights & snubbing, voice tones, facial expressions, and "unconstructive" criticism. this stuff is more subtle and much easier to misunderstand than physical violence.
Elliot Temple
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Reddit Censorship
I tried to participate in a reddit AMA ("ask me anything") for Ann Coulter. I was immediately banned:
That's everything I said. Then:
A few minutes later the moderators changed their mind and made it a permanent ban because, apparently, I'm a "moron". (I had said nothing further.) What's moronic about doing fact checking and research regarding Ann's writing? I found a clear error in Adios America which should be fixed. Instead I get banned:
That's everything I said. Then:
A few minutes later the moderators changed their mind and made it a permanent ban because, apparently, I'm a "moron". (I had said nothing further.) What's moronic about doing fact checking and research regarding Ann's writing? I found a clear error in Adios America which should be fixed. Instead I get banned:
Elliot Temple
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Fallible Ideas for Lulie
I wrote 26 new Fallible Ideas essays!
Elliot Temple
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H1B Visas
H1B visas allow immigrants for filling high tech jobs. They're getting attention currently from anti-immigration presidential candidates like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.
Some right wing people like the idea of H1B visas, contrary to the Republican presidential candidates. H1B visas sound compatible with the free market. What's wrong with educated immigrants coming here to work? Isn't that part of free trade? Doesn't capitalism mean competing in a global marketplace?
A fired Disney employee gave emotional testimony about the H1B program recently. He said Disney workers were forced to train foreigners to replace them at their jobs with threats of withholding their severance pay if they didn't do it. And they were lied to about the availability of other Disney jobs to transfer to.
A lot of people are upset. Some libertarians don't care. They say, "Too bad, anyone should be able to be fired for no reason at any time".
I looked at how H1B visas work. To bring in foreign workers, you have to agree to pay them market wages and you aren't allowed to displace American workers from their jobs.
Disney brought in foreign labor as a cost cutting measure. They wanted to fire Americans and pay the new workers less money. This is a blatant abuse of the H1B program. Whatever you think immigration policy should be, it's bad when companies break the law.
The H1B visa program is only meant to bring in workers for tech jobs that a company couldn't find an American to do. The point is not to get cheaper labor, it's to get labor at all when there's a shortage. Disney is abusing the spirit of the program and violating the clearly written terms of how this law works.
None of this is ambiguous. Let me show you some of the conditions involved with bringing in H1B workers:
Labor Condition Application for Nonimmigrant Workers ETA Form 9035 & 9035E
Wages: Pay nonimmigrants at least the local prevailing wage or the employer’s actual wage, whichever is higher, and pay for non-productive time. Offer nonimmigrants benefits on the same basis as offered to U.S. workers.
Displacement: Non-displacement of the U.S. workers in the employer’s workforce
Secondary Displacement: Non-displacement of U.S. workers in another employer’s workforce
Recruitment and Hiring: Recruitment of U.S. workers and hiring of U.S. workers applicant(s) who are equally or better qualified
If you want more of the fine print, look here.
Finally, I want to explain, from a free market capitalist perspective, why the H1B visa program is crony capitalism, not free market competition.
Capitalists might think, "if the foreigners will work for lower wages, that's a good thing and they should be hired".
But, workers who come here with the H1B program can't really change jobs. They are stuck with the company sponsoring their H1B visa. So they don't get to freely compete on the market, and therefore they get underpaid.
US citizenship has value. The H1B program lets some government-favored companies hand out valuable US citizenships – which the company is given for free – and then pocket that value in lower wages paid to the immigrants. And that's in addition to the lower wages they can pay to people for the several years where firing them would mean they get deported.
American workers cannot compete on wages with workers who are underpaid because they can't change jobs, and who take lower pay in return for immigrating. That isn't an ideal of capitalism, it's government distorting market wages. And it's a way for companies with friends in the government to get ahead – crony capitalism.
Edit: My mistake: H1B is a temporary work permit. It can last for 3-10 years but they don't get citizenship. Consequently it's called a non-immigrant visa. Thanks Justin.
This doesn't substantially change any of my arguments. A permit for staying in the US has value, just as handing out a citizenship would. And with the H4 visa, they can bring in their wife and kids, who may be able to work or go to school in the US too, while the H1B visa lasts.
H1B workers still have less job mobility than domestic workers.
And people here on an H1B visa are allowed to seek a green card and try to stay permanently. It can be a step which helps them immigrate. Wikipedia says:
Even though the H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa, it is one of the few visa categories recognized as dual intent, meaning an H-1B holder can have legal immigration intent (apply for and obtain the green card) while still a holder of the visa. In the past the employment-based green card process used to take only a few years, less than the duration of the H-1B visa itself. However, in recent times the legal employment-based immigration process has backlogged and retrogressed to the extent that it now takes many years for guest-work visa holders from certain countries to obtain green cards. Since the duration of the H-1B visa hasn't changed, this has meant that many more H-1B visa holders must renew their visas in one or three-year increments for continued legal status while their green card application is in process.
Elliot Temple
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