Asian question for folks outside of california

[Xavier_Onassis]

Innovation is one thing, capitalism is another and communism is another still.

Communism has, of course, discouraged innovation. Eastern Europe used coal in huge amounts, and never did they come up with any way of making it less polluting. Lysenko's bogus biology was adopted as official despite being obviously bogus, as noted by the fact that two thousand years of circumcision did not decrease the foreskins of Jews by one bit, and anyone who questioned it was thrown in prison as a revisionist.

Capitalism is somewhat more friendly to innovation, but note how long it took American cars to adopt disc brakes, unibody construction, and more efficient engines. A 1982 v-6 Buick Regal I once owned had 231 cubic inches and a pitiful 85 horsepower. Now they can get that from 80 cubes. Only when competition and regulations forced change did the innovators get any attention.

Hollywood is certainly a capitalist place where innovation is ignored. How many times are they going to repeat Halloween, Die Hard, Beverley Hills Cop? There are 95 sequels currently in some stage of being made.

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/866031/95_movie_sequels_currently_in_the_works.html

Creativity is more valued in European films than in Hollywood films. I think Bollywood is even worse.

Note all the disparagement of solar power, geothermal power, wind power, tidal power that people are spouting.

Not all creative ideas will work: there is always some chance of failure. People claim they like creativity, but they will still buy tickets to Halloween 23 more readily than to a film that is truly innovative.

As a rule, Mercedes and BMW launch something innovative, and then Lexus and perhaps Infiniti make it user friendly. It has been years since Mercedes has been at the top of the least frequent repair ratings of Consumers Report. There is much to be said of micro-innovation that makes good ideas workable.

[Christians4LessGvt]

and it's all just an accident most of the worlds greatest technological
achievements of the last century have come from free market pro business societies

you speak of a lag of disc brakes....when are toilets like Cuba, North Korea
or a whole host of communist countries going to even be able to produce/invent
something like a car?...hell they mostly have trouble putting rice on the table
much less worry about disc brakes, jet propulsion, MRI machines, or software programs.
Some change the world (free market)....others follow. (the rest)

[Xavier_Onassis]

Bureaucracies are the natural enemies of innovation. They can be capitalist or communist bureaucracies, it does not really matter. The main difference is that the Communists can throw the innovators in jail and the capitalists can only fire them and throw them into poverty.

North Korea is not any sort of example of typical communism. As I said, it is a hereditary Confuscist monarchy.

[kimba1]

several times I hear innovation is like a drunken sailor. never a straight line. side to side forward then backwards with a few stumbles.

[Plane]

http://www.economist.com/node/21531002

The USA spends more on R&D than most of the rest put together, but the purportion of R to D favors D and real innovation gets less than marketing .

What is China doing to educate its young engineers and scientists?  If they do a good job now the payoff will be lots of new ideas as their R&D teams gain experience over the coming decades.

Can China become a place that expatriot Chineese want to return to?

[kimba1]

much less worry about disc brakes, jet propulsion, MRI machines, or software programs.

don`t know about the others,but MRI is most likely not from capitalism. that tech is actually based on astronomy technology and that stuff is rarely profit driven . i believe jet propulsion was scifi inspired innovation which the u.s, found too nerdy and the germans used for the v2 rocket.

[Christians4LessGvt]

Plane....as you can see Communist China nor Japan is anywhere close to the United States on the 2011 Innovation Index. Of course I am not surprised to see a built in bias in this index that separates China and Hong Kong. Honk Kong was long innovative before the Chinese took over and it is unfair to separate the two now...because either Hong Kong is a part of China or it's not. By  separating them this index allows China to be in the top 10. It would be like separating the US into two segments the US and then having a separate entry under Silicon Valley. It's bullshit but typical of the usual attempts to build up China into something they are not. Most of China is a poor 3rd World Country. But other than that the index is quite interesting. Of the top 15 innovators in the world only two are Asian and one of two shouldn't even be there...but either way only two of the Top 15.

Global Innovation Index 2011 rankings of the world's most innovative countries:



http://www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/2011/07/10/global-innovation-index-2011-country-rankings/

[kimba1]

I`ve talked about this before the primary common ground for the growth of all growing civilizations is exposure and mixing of other cultures. .remember america was once called a melting pot, that`s the primary cause of innovation . the credit capitalism can claim is encouraging it. as i stated before it`s a easy fix so don`t discount asia in five years in this regard. as stated before america is focusing away from research and more into developement so innovation will slow down in america.

Strangely I notice how tech dependent education is nowadays. I think that may cut down the availabity of education to the average person to a noticable margin in the future. ex. a comon purchase used on a student loans is a computer.

[BT]

I'm not sure where you are getting that research is in decline in the US.One thing we do well is innovate.

[Christians4LessGvt]

remember america was once called a melting pot,

was?
it's still the biggest melting pot in thw world.

[Xavier_Onassis]

it's still the biggest melting pot in thw world.

====================================
Since 9-11, we have lost a lot of the foreign scientists that  we used to get because it is harder for them to get student visas and harder for them to stay after they graduate. Canada is getting a larger share of science and engineering students because of this.

Only a small  minority of people are good at research. It is, however a essential that we get as many such peple as we can.

[Christians4LessGvt]

regardless we are still the largest "melting pot" in the world
with far larger amounts of people coming to the US than Canada.
and as the chart shows we have more innovation than Canada.
now please find other ways to say some place else is better.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Melting pot is one thing, innovation is another.

As I said, we are losing out because of student visas and graduate students being forced out of the country.

According to what you posted, the US is 7th, Canada is 8th.

Hong Kong has a different educational system and a different government than the rest of China.

If you want meaningful factual knowledge, it is informative to list Hong Kong separately.

If you want to have a jingoistic pissing contest, then you could combine the two.

[kimba1]

Not quite a melting pot if thiers abit of resistance of exposure to other culture from the immigrants. Ex. Talking to a muslim about life in general. I did and learned a much greater meaning about charity.being around people with differing concepts is how innovation gets going

[Xavier_Onassis]

I agree with that.

"melting pot" as I understand it, has to do with intermarriage between dissimilar groups.