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[–] ponchoman275 ago  (edited ago)

It is certainly true that the 20th century rise of Japan, South Korea and China (and many other Asian countries) has been through copying our successful models. No doubt about it. But I think the Koreans and Japanese have already surpassed us in tech, I think it's no coincidence that the some of the largest tech corps no longer just make their stuff there but there is massive R&D in these host countries and lots of tech we currently use has been born in East Asia. China is still copying stuff but I think eventually they will make their own things too.

I think this ability of Asian societies to emulate success of others is ultimately a strength. Sometimes it goes to extreme measures such as when the Chinese are shameless enough to create a replica of the Eiffel tower and it's surroundings but if you're coyping tech, corporate structure and state institutions, from the best to improve your own societies it will ultimately make you stronger. And I think this is something the west lacks, but the problem is especially extreme in the USA. We waste tons of energy and time pointlessly debating about things and having the need to figure it all out ourselves instead of looking at societies who have tried it and basing our opinions on that. To put it in an example from my country. Recently the social democratic party put forth a proposal to create a progressive tax. Suddenly every politician, economist and amateur political theorist just had to make his own exhausting explanation of why it's a good or bad thing going into such theory as if it has never been tried before in any country. But it seems to me that it occured to nobody to just look at the countries that have this tax and deduce the real effects of it. And this is a real problem in much of the west. We all have the need to figure out everything for ourselves instead of looking at the countries that have succeeded. You may say that this will lead to the best system perfectly tailored for our society but it often doesn't work that way and there are so many useless mistakes that could have been prevented if we just learned from the experience of our neighbours, the process is also much slower and will ensure you will always be behind those successful countries playing catch up. East Asians wouldn't really bother with that debate and would just look at whether it has worked or not in other countries. This is just one random example but there are tons of it. You may say East Asians just copy things but a finer way of putting it is that they aren't afraid to use real world experiences, whereas we need to keep reinventing the wheel. I guess you could say it stems down to rationalism vs. empiricism in a way.

And this is why Asians will outperform the west. They've caught up by copying our success, they perfect it and once we've invented the next best thing they will copy it again and perfect it, and the cycle repeats. Make no mistake, I still view western culture and civilization as superior, I'm just talking about the economical and thus political aspect of the world. I think the time has come for us to start copying some aspects of East Asian societies.