Eastern Innovators?

[Atom]

Someone said that the USA was lagging behind Japanese innovation re. technolpgy.

In fact Japanese are well aware of their lack of innovation, realize they are copiers of other people's ideas and are actually trying to do something about it. But with their aging population that seems unlikely.

Much of the rest of Asia is only a source of cheap labour, hardly innovative at all.

 

[peta9]

Someone said that the USA was lagging behind Japanese innovation re. technolpgy.

In fact Japanese are well aware of their lack of innovation, realize they are copiers of other people's ideas and are actually trying to do something about it. But with their aging population that seems unlikely.

Much of the rest of Asia is only a source of cheap labour, hardly innovative at all.

Okay, then keep innovating like you do. Good for you.

 

[cosmictraveler]

Someone said that the USA was lagging behind Japanese innovation re. technolpgy.
.

Who is "someone" , you make a very feneralized statement without any support as to where you get your facts from. Are you just giving us your opinions again, or is this from a research company?

 

[peta9]

"Rejection of cultural factors

Even though Richard Feynman and Francis Crick have relatively low IQs, Asians are stereotyped lack creativity to innovate like these scientists. [37]

Some do not believe that Asians are uncreative because of communism. They will mention that the Soviet Union, despite its communist government, competed with the United States, such as the Space Race. They will also mention that the People's Republic of China stole the Soviet Union's weapons because Asians do not know how to design them. However, they failed to mention the differences between the governments of Soviet Union and the PRC; and the level of economic development before their communist takeovers.

Eurocentrism in education made people not recognize Asian geniuses.

Some estimate the intelligence of nations by comparing the number of "geniuses" in distinct nations. For instance, some claim that there are less "Asian" geniuses than white geniuses. However, contradictory results can be concluded by comparing different races in nations. For example, there are much less (percentage wise) Asian Nobel Prize winners than whites in Asia, yet there are more Asian-American (percentage wise) Nobel Prize winners than whites in the U.S. Therefore, comparing different races within a country is suggested to get best results."

 

[Read-Only]

Someone said that the USA was lagging behind Japanese innovation re. technolpgy.

In fact Japanese are well aware of their lack of innovation, realize they are copiers of other people's ideas and are actually trying to do something about it. But with their aging population that seems unlikely.

Much of the rest of Asia is only a source of cheap labour, hardly innovative at all.

Billy, have you even paused to think that their approach might be smarter in the long run? R&D costs BIG money - TONS of it! So rather than put so much time, effort and expense in trying to develop something new, why not take the ideas of others (at THEIR expense), make improvements on them and start mass production?

It certainly paid off for the Japanese in the areas of automobiles, cameras and consumer electronics (computers, TVs, VCRs, etc.).

 

[spidergoat]

I guess Billy hasn't seen the robots yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m_cCP1wn94&mode=related&search=

 

[Exhumed]

LOL. I love the part where it bends its knees and sticks one arm forward and one back

--

Anyway Billy, how about a source for your claims? How many Western innovations really came from imported Asian talent? Lots.

I think it is fair to say that the days of Japanese copying are well over by now. They used to copy quite heavily, but that seems irrelevant now.

Tell me Billy, who invented this?

The Japanese, of course.

Anyway... I don't doubt that the West is lagging and will continue to lag. High technology isn't as important to us. Also they place a higher emphasis on education, particularly scientific. Meanwhile in the US we have politics getting in the way of science (stem cells).

Some estimate the intelligence of nations by comparing the number of "geniuses" in distinct nations. For instance, some claim that there are less "Asian" geniuses than white geniuses. However, contradictory results can be concluded by comparing different races in nations. For example, there are much less (percentage wise) Asian Nobel Prize winners than whites in Asia, yet there are more Asian-American (percentage wise) Nobel Prize winners than whites in the U.S. Therefore, comparing different races within a country is suggested to get best results."

Probably because of the high populaton percentage of the uneducated poor.

 

[Atom]

<< Anyway Billy, how about a source for your claims? How many Western innovations really came from imported Asian talent? Lots. >>

When you say "Asian talent", then who are you talking about? Pakistanis? Malaysians? No. You're not talking about "Asians" at all. You're talking about Indians, Chinese and Japanese Americans.

 

[Stryder]

I guess Billy hasn't seen the robots yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m_cCP1wn94&mode=related&search=

The Japanese have always been ahead in Robots, they actually have had robot's throughout their entire history in the form of robotic 'puppet' theatres etc. (I should really use the term 'Automaton', since the puppet theatres were automatic repetitive actions)

If somebody has the time they might even be able to find a source on it.

 

[Atom]

<< Meanwhile in the US we have politics getting in the way of science (stem cells). >>

The only block on stem cell research in the US is on the use of federal funds to create human embryos for the purpose of extracting stem cells. It doesn't mean Genentech or anyother private company or institution can't do stem cell research.

In fact the state of California had a referendum in which the voters of that state approved a $5 billion bond issue to fund stem cell research so I would expect, given that enormous pile of cash that if there is anything useful to come from the use of fetal stem cells it will be developed in the USA!

But stem cells are like any other cell in that they are specific to the person they came from and while they can become any type of cell you desire they can't just be taken from foetus A and implanted in person B without the same sort of problems one encounters with taking any tissue from one person and transplanting in another. It may well be the the most promising developments in this field will be extracting adult stem cells from within one's own body and using them to repair damaged tissues in one's own body.

 

[Exhumed]

<< Anyway Billy, how about a source for your claims? How many Western innovations really came from imported Asian talent? Lots. >>

When you say "Asian talent", then who are you talking about? Pakistanis? Malaysians? No. You're not talking about "Asians" at all. You're talking about Indians, Chinese and Japanese Americans.

Not particularly.

 

[Exhumed]

<< Meanwhile in the US we have politics getting in the way of science (stem cells). >>

The only block on stem cell research in the US is on the use of federal funds to create human embryos for the purpose of extracting stem cells. It doesn't mean Genentech or anyother private company or institution can't do stem cell research.

It's a little trickier than that. The people who wanted to do that research and were in a good position were working in buildings that had already received federal funding, so they legally couldn't conduct it there.

Whether it is right or wrong, the point at hand here is that it has severely weakened an area of science. This is just one example of our comparative lack of priorities in science, which is why I brought it up.

 

[Michael]

In fact Japanese are well aware of their lack of innovation, realize they are copiers of other people's ideas and are actually trying to do something about it. But with their aging population that seems unlikely.

I just don't agree.

I think it just seems like Japanese a copying "our" technology.
You have this feeling that the tech is "ours" - and in a way maybe even "yours". Somehow "you" are associated with this tech. When in reality the tech is from someone who happened to live here and was building on the tech from someone else before them who maybe lived here. The Japanese are building on that same tech and in no different of a way.
Building on something from before is inventive. Everything is built on something. Japanese used to build on Chinese culture but we (English) built on Roman who built on Greek who built on Egptian ...
I always think of innovation as building on something before and when the spark ignites all credit to the inventor. done. My Chinese buddy said, we wrote the Art of War - oh you did? Yes! Which part did you write

There are many creative Japanese people. I love a lot of the inventions and cultural ideas that come from Japan.

 

[spidergoat]

The US helped rebuild Japanese infrastructure after WWII. That allowed them to have the latest technology, while ours took time to replace. That, combined with some innovative quality control that was too advanced for US manufacturers to accept, gave them a significant advantage. That's why Japanese cars have such a good reputation. Of course, the Japanese are smart in their own right, and have built upon their good fortune.

 

[Michael]

That, combined with some innovative quality control that was too advanced for US manufacturers to accept, gave them a significant advantage.

Japan sells Singapore technology to stream line their ports that is illegal to sell in Japan.

What comes around ...

I also have read that the Japanese got a boost off the Korean War.


Did you know that Europeans just assumed Christianity was necessary to reach their level of civilization. Even many agnostics Europeans thought this a criteria. As they went from people to people, country to country, continent to continent they never encountered anyone they considered as civilized as their own aristocracy. Not even China. Until, at the very last, the ends of the earth and absolute last little bit of untouched land that was left - they entered Japan.

It was shocking for them.

Michael

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Some estimate the intelligence of nations by comparing the number of "geniuses" in distinct nations. For instance, some claim that there are less "Asian" geniuses than white geniuses. However, contradictory results can be concluded by comparing different races in nations. For example, there are much less (percentage wise) Asian Nobel Prize winners than whites in Asia, yet there are more Asian-American (percentage wise) Nobel Prize winners than whites in the U.S. Therefore, comparing different races within a country is suggested to get best results.

It has been suggested that the Confucian culture inhibits innovation. When one is raised to revere one's elders and all authority figures, one is more likely to use one's intellect to develop incremental improvements to existing, respected ideas, than to be a maverick and invent something new and different.

Did you know that Europeans just assumed Christianity was necessary to reach their level of civilization. Even many agnostic Europeans thought this a criteria.

An opinion that could only be held, ironically, after the Enlightenment began loosening Christianity's iron grip. Before then, the ignorance and squalor of Europe would have satisfied today's definition of "Third World."

As they went from people to people, country to country, continent to continent they never encountered anyone they considered as civilized as their own aristocracy.

This was because when they encountered an artifact that was superior to their culture they could not understand it. They laughed at China's paper money because they did not have the context to comprehend the advantage it provides to an economy. When the literacy rate in Europe was something like five percent and they could not imagine the value of universal literacy, they could not understand the advantage of China's writing system, which facilitates incremental literacy. When all of Europe's nation-states were constantly changing kings, borders and languages, they could not understand the benefit of China's continuity of nationhood going back for thousands of years.

Until, at the very last, the ends of the earth and absolute last little bit of untouched land that was left - they entered Japan. It was shocking for them.

At a time when the Roman invention of sewers had not been carried forward, European cities "cleaned" their streets by running a herd of pigs through them once or twice a year to eat the garbage (and presumably convert it into pig feces). In Japanese cities, government employees swept and washed the streets regularly.

 

[Atom]

<< An opinion that could only be held, ironically, after the Enlightenment began loosening Christianity's iron grip. Before then, the ignorance and squalor of Europe would have satisfied today's definition of "Third World." >>

Thats a bit of a myth...of course the further you go back in time the shorter and more brutish the death but it merely lazy thinking when you consider the amount of Cultural items produced durng the so-called "Dark Ages"..there nothing 'dark' about this period in History. Whereas the enlightenment merely enslaved people who had previously lived in Villages perfectly happily.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Thats a bit of a myth...of course the further you go back in time the shorter and more brutish the death but it merely lazy thinking when you consider the amount of Cultural items produced durng the so-called "Dark Ages"..there nothing 'dark' about this period in History.

Yes, I know that there were outbreaks of innovation during that millennium. Nonetheless, taken as an era, it was an era of cultural backsliding. One of the greatest inventions of the Romans was the sewer, and there is no better illustration of the ignorance and squalor that characterized the Christian Era in Europe than the fact that its cities were built without sewers. There was a complete breakdown of civil government. This was mirrored in the arts, where only the narrow set of motifs that could be seen as supporting or inspired by the Church were used. This was the period when, ironically, the Muslim Arabs preserved the writings of the European Classical period. Even basic hygiene that we take for granted, such as bathing, was not only forgotten but actually prohibited, since immersion in water except for baptism was construed as a "sin" and anyone who could swim competently must be possessed by the devil. The water supply in Europe was so polluted by sewage runoff that even the ignoramuses who polluted it knew better than to drink it. The reliance on ale and wine for quenching thirst kept the population lightly buzzed all the time, reinforcing their slapdash performance until coffee was imported from Ethiopia.

Whereas the enlightenment merely enslaved people who had previously lived in Villages perfectly happily.

This seems to be a common theme of yours. It comes across as slightly sophomoric when the only reason you and I can even be colleagues and have this discussion is that we both have computers with internet access. Surely your computer is installed in a home with a solid roof, electric or fossil-fuel heating, a refrigerator and cooking appliances, and plumbing that delivers potable water and disposes of your wastewater cleanly? In addition to the connectivity of the internet you probably also enjoy hearing music and/or seeing a comedy or dramatic performance more than a few times a year? Since you can read and write you probably took advantage of an educational system? You undoubtedly have a wide circle of friends from disparate cultures, not just your neighbors?

And you say with a straight face that you would be happier trapped in a medieval village and the nearby area you could cover on foot?

Sure.

 

[Exhumed]

It has been suggested that the Confucian culture inhibits innovation. When one is raised to revere one's elders and all authority figures, one is more likely to use one's intellect to develop incremental improvements to existing, respected ideas, than to be a maverick and invent something new and different.

It was actually peta9 who said that that thing about nobel prizes, but I didn't quote it right.

IMO the age of big advancements is over... or asleep. The more advanced we are the less impact our intelligence will have. It takes a good deal of creativity to be able to make improvements on out most advanced areas of science. I think Billy Chyldyshe and others are underrating the difficulty involved with some things which might appear as "small".

Is it accurate to say we are at a point where most technology is just going to come in big leaps rather than gradually? So 99.99% of us, Asian or not, are left with making small improvements. The .01% that doesn't is so small that it won't make any reflection on the group they came from.

Even though Billy started this with an example of innovating technology maybe we should use another example than science, because of the reasons I just gave. Science has limits on the impact of creativity, now more than ever.
So why not use art or something else? Something of greater capacity for creativity to work on (though maybe some people think art is a repetition of fundamental patterns? )

I'd actually like to use a "real time strategy" computer game as an example. Starcraft has proved to be a balanced game. Simple but room enough for infinite creativity. It can be considered an amateur sport where top players are paid hundreds of thousands. So I think it is a legit example...when lots of money is involved people will perform at high levels.

Anyway, if you look at who the best gamers are in Starcraft, they are all Korean. After about 10 years of Starcraft there is one foreigner who may be good enough to be in the top 30, out of hundreds of thousands who've tried. Creativity is important in Starcraft because maps change frequently which change the viability of strategies. Players have to choose between economy, defense, offense. Choose where to attack with terrain and unit factors. Then they have to manage their units advantages as the battle takes place. There are a lot of factors, including faking out your opponent (faking a strategy or army move). There are so many factors the game can't be simplified and creativity has remained at almost constant value since the third year of the game...yet "uncreative" Koreans dominate. And by dominate, I mean they toy with their competetion. Foreigners can't even make a team to play on, but they compete when there is a "world cyber games" or similar event, where representatives from each country play for a 25000$ USD prize. In Starcraft they get toyed with. In shooting games like counter strike there is little national distinction.

Take a look at a prime example if you doubt the quality of this game as a a measurement of creativity. http://teamliquid.net/tlpd/players/225_BoxeR/highlights
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbMI...mliquid.net/tlpd/players/225_BoxeR/highlights

Same vid but the first one is larger screened.

It starts out in black and white which might be hard to follow, but color comes later.

 

[Michael]

Exhumed,

I've never played Starcraft - is it single or multiplayer? Do AI play - are they any good?