There's more to Thailand than delicious food, elephants, and yowling hordes of sunburnt Australian and English tourists getting hair braids and 'totally spiritual' tattoos whilst drunk on cheap buckets of rum. There's also a thriving TV and film culture, and a really innovative scene for TV commercials. We're not just talking 30 second slots, but epic, extended versions with detailed and emotional storylines.

The video at the top of this article landed on YouTube a few days ago, and it's by a security camera company, of all things. Watch the video, then we'll talk. Go on, I'll be here waiting for you once you're done. Promise.

How did you go? If you're anything like me, the ending certainly pulled at the heart strings. What did it make you think about?

For me, the video tapped into a really broad idea. That we know so little about the people that we judge and dismiss, that it's very difficult to know whether they deserve our negative judgement (except those Australian tourists drinking the buckets of rum). I can't help but think that the major global debate about migration and refugees at the moment is an example of this. Even amongst my circle of friends down at the pub, there are some amazingly loud, strong opinions about who the asylum seekers are, and what they are or aren't entitled to expect from the world. And with every additional pint of crisp, refreshing lager, those opinions get louder and louder.

So what does it all mean? 

Overall, I feel no more interested in purchasing a security camera, so we can dismiss that part. On the rest of it, it's reminded me to ask myself the following question a bit more often: is it worse to be generous to someone who doesn't actually deserve it, or to be cruel to someone who actually deserves our generosity? In my mind, giving people the benefit of the doubt, even if the wisdom of hindsight reveals that they didn't deserve it, is the classier way to go. Our legal system is built on the idea of "innocent until proven guilty", and I see it as a pretty solid basis for a moral system, too.

Thousands of the asylum seekers who have come to Europe in recent months have done everything they could to build lives for their themselves in their home countries, but eventually fled from a situation that had become highly dangerous. Through no fault of their own, their lives are at a crossroads, and they come to Europe in dirty clothes, pleading for compassion. I hope that the governments of Europe do everything they can to show compassion and believe in the good in people. It'd be awful to look back in a few years time, and realise that we elected governments that behaved like the shop owner in the video at the top of this page.