Immigrants

I feel uncomfortable with all the Canadians running loose in our country. I hate how they steal our jobs, clog up our hospitals, add to our ethnic diversity, and refuse to speak our language. Our European ancestors learned the language of the Native Americans, so why can't they speak American English?

We should round them all up and ship them to Toronto where they all belong.

They're not all from Toronto you say? Well, as far as I'm concerned, anything north of New York is Toronto.

Further, only people who speak the language of the land should live here. So anyone who doesn't speak Navajo, Cherokee, or any of the 300 languages indigenous to North America should leave the continent.

In case you haven't noticed, that was satire. My subtle rebuke of the some things my friends say that I strongly disagree with.

Now I'm going to speak seriously:

As a linguist, it rubs me the wrong way when people demand that immigrants speak only English, demanding that immigrants never speak their mother tongue. I appreciate the linguistic (and cultural) diversity that immigrants bring. After all, how hard did our European ancestors work to learn the Native American languages?

Refusing to allow other languages to be spoken is shutting the doors to a world of insight that can help you learn about your own language.

Besides, lots of immigrants are too old to learn a new language (especially the ones that are 50+). I admit, there are a lot of immigrants who don't learn English who could. The lost opportunities for them not knowing English is a punishment in and of itself. The law does not need to make it worse. Besides, an evaluation of linguistic capabilities is subjective and imperfect, and therefore if people were legally punished for not knowing English, how could it be possible to make a fair punishment for not speaking English? It would be especially cruel to people who are simply incapable of learning English, because of disability, age, or other factors.

Using the law to force people to speak English would be an example of the stick instead of the carrot, backfiring by instilling fear and demotivating people to lean English. The economic realities of the opportunities that come from knowing English are a very juicy carrot that millions of immigrants chase after, motivating them to learn it. And millions of them DO learn it.

Now you may be thinking, "Kevin, the government already requires English proficiency in order to pass the citizenship test." And you'd be right.

I actually think that the English proficiency requirement for citizenship is a good thing because it provides a positive incentive to chase after, instead of a punishment to dread.

But there are people who think that's not enough, and that immigrants should be raked over the coals for not knowing English.

I am against punishing people who don't have English proficiency, but I'm in favor providing positive incentives to motivate them to learn English.

I roll my eyes whenever someone says, "If I was to emigrate to another country, I'd be expected to learn the language there." Ok, then. Put your money where your mouth is, and live in a foreign country (Japan, for example) and learn their language. Oh, and make sure to find a large community of people from the US to associate with.  My bet is that many people who claim they would learn the language of the land would give up, either because of laziness, fear, incompetence, or other factors, and would default to English. Many would be diligent, persistent, and competent enough to learn the language. But not all.

Now, say that it was impossible to find a fellow American or anyone who spoke English? Then it's more likely that an American immigrant would learn the language of the land. You find similar phenomena in the US: immigrants whose communities are smaller are more likely to learn English. But if their community is large, it's easy to default to their native language, especially after they get discouraged about their abilities to learn a tough language (come on, Americans, you gotta admit that even you mess up English, so you can't blame foreigners for not always understanding English).

And you people who gripe about immigrants not learning English, how hard have you worked to help such people learn English? You might have more room to talk if you volunteer or work at schools for teaching English as a second language (which I have done; you don't see me complaining). But as long as you're too lazy to help anyone learn English, you have no right to complain about immigrants being too lazy to learn English.This country has always prided itself on being a country of immigrants. It truly has always been a country of immigrants. Let's learn from each other, and be understanding of each other.

I mean, English is derived from a tribal language spoken by the Angles and the Saxons. It could easily have become a rare or extinct language, like other languages in Angle-land. Instead of claiming English to be superior and forcing people to learn it, let's acknowledge that it's equal to other languages, and HELP people who struggle to learn it.

Another thing that people often say about immigrants that I often disagree with is, "They bring crime into our country." There are indeed many immigrants who commit crimes. But does that mean that every group of people that has criminals should be unilaterally blocked from or kicked out of this country? If so, then NO ONE could live here. Every race and ethnicity has criminals.

The key to curbing crime isn't necessarily in keeping people out--although I fully support the government's efforts to kick out and keep out individual immigrants that are PROVEN to be criminals. What exactly is the best way to curb crime in the US is a matter for another debate.

In short, immigrants are people, too. So they deserve to be treated with the golden rule.

BYU professors are not general authorities

I thought about adding this to my blog post "Mormon cultural myths debunked," but I figured most people wouldn't notice this addition, so I created a separate post for it.

BYU professors are general authorities, and therefore we should believe them. Please note, the vast majority of BYU professors are not general authorities; most general authorities are not BYU professors. A handful of professors aren't even Mormon. BYU professors are teachers, plain and simple. Most are well meaning, most are members of the LDS church in good standing (which is the kind of person BYU wants working for them). Most of them are right about most things, especially within their academic specialities.

But occasionally they're wrong. Sometimes they say things that are a little off, and every once in a while they say things that are flat-out apostate. So if a BYU professor says something that you feel doesn't really jive with the teachings of the prophets, you're probably right. Take what they say with a grain of salt.

Will chess die?

Technology has made leaps and bounds over the years. We have taught them how to play chess, and they can already beat us at our own game (it's gotten to the point where even the world chess champion can't beat a computer).

Computers have gotten so good at calculating the best moves that it appears that eventually they will "solve" chess. In other words, they will be able to determine the absolute best moves for either side to play in any circumstance in order to guarantee a victory or a draw (there's some debate about whether both sides playing equally as smart would lead to a draw or a victory; I won't go into that in this post).

This possibility leads to an interesting question for debate: when computers solve chess, will chess die? Will people become bored with it and stop playing it?

In my opinion, absolutely not! There are several factors that I think will save the game:

Displays of raw human strength have always intrigued audiences. For example, there is no question that machines can easily outlift human beings. Yet we are still in awe at the astounding strength of muscle men. Compared to other human beings, no one is better. The possibility of outperforming such people still attracts audiences and makes for enjoyable competion.

The same can be said of Olympic runners, like Usain Bolt. Even a crummy clunker car can outrun him, let alone the most advanced racecars and airplanes. Yet the whole world loves to watch him race because his speed compared to every other human being in the world is an awesome feat that we can all admire.

So it's reasonable to predict that the relative strength and weakness of our fellow humans at the chess board will still be fascinating to watch and take part in.

Here's another consideration: Even when computers solve chess, humans may never catch up to computers in a) memorizing or b) understanding all the possible moves it would take to win every single time. A human with either capability would be a genius. A human with both would have god-like powers at the chess board. Such a person would certainly captivate audiences.

It's extremely unlikely that more than one such person would exist. Let's say that happened. What then? It would be an even more intriguing display of talent. Even in the hypothetical, unlikely situation where they always draw every game, chess enthusiasts would still find many moments of instructive brilliance to appreciate.

Let's hypothesize again and assume that one day people completely lose interest in chess.

There is still an ace in the hole for chess, and that is VARIANTS.

A chess variant is any game that puts a new spin on conventional chess. It doesn't necessarily have to be a radical alternation of the familiar game (although there are lots of those). One rule change would be enough to change the outcome of the entire game to keep it interesting.

In fact, that's already been done. Chess has a lot of relatively new rules: in ancient times, the queen used to only move one square at a time diagonally, the bishop moved two squares, castling and en passant didn't exist, etc.

So it's not unreasonable for the international community to agree to a new rule (or several) to change up the game. For example, changing the set-up of the pieces (as in Fischer chess), capturing one's own pieces (useful in a handful of circumstances), no promoting the pawn on the 8th rank, going back to ancient rules, etc.

If people were still thirsty for more variation in chess, there's no shortage of radically alternative variants.

Many of those variants are waiting to be caught on to.

Heck, we could even play chess's cousins, descended from the same ancient game but which look different from "Western chess." For example, Xiangqi, or "Chinese chess."

It appears that computers will not be able to solve chess in our lifetime, maybe even several lifetimes. That's because it has 10^120 possible moves to hash through. Take a second to write a 1 with 120 zeros behind it, just to get an idea of how astounding that number is. No one has yet created a formula that can calculate and solve that puzzle, so right now they have to guess and check all possibilities, one move at a time.

This means that we can be confident that it may be centuries before a computer can solve chess, and even longer to solve all variants. So between the time it will take for computers to solve chess and the countless variants available, you and I can breathe easy knowing that we and our descendants (many generations of them, too) will be able to enjoy chess.

But what happens when computers solve all chess variants (who knows when that would happen)? I guess we'll just have to come up with some other game to play (as if there weren't a million to choose from right now).

Which kind of begs the question: will computers be able to solve every game we come up with? That's a debate for another day.

To my single friends

I ask for  your forgiveness as I indulge myself and speak about
marriage. Specifically, I want to offer a message of hope to those who feel like they may never get married.

To you I testified that the Lord hasn't forgotten you. He has
them graven upon the palms of his hands. He knows what it's like to go
for months without getting asked out or to get rejected again and
again.

Remember that the brethren have made it clear that all who are
faithful l will be blessed with a spouse in this life or the next. However long the wait is, it will seem like a brief moment. When the Lord makes a promise, it's as good as done.

Here's an important reason not to get down on yourself: I believe that discouragement is one of the tools of
the adversary to make us lose faith in the Lord's promises. If you feel like you'll never get married, you might just give up on looking for a spouse altogether.

My favorite example of someone who had to a long time to get married was Elder Oaks' wife. She must have been lovely young lady, but she waited patiently until her 50's. And she married
an apostle. How much worthier of a husband can you have than that?

Now, it might seem easy for me to say that since I'm married. But these thoughts I share with you came to me after 3 years of anxiety and frustration as a an RM itching to get married. So I know what you're feeling.

But when I came the realization that there is always hope for finding a spouse, all of those maddening feelings disappeared. It took another 2 years to find my wife, but,
with the patience that the Lord blessed me with, I felt like I could have waited many more years. But I'm grateful the Lord didn't make me wait :)

Marriage is ordained of God and that it is a commandment. And, like Nephi of old testified, the Lord always prepares a way to fulfill his commandments.