
Detect Magic |

Continuing the discussion started here.
I think it's probably a good idea to clearly define what we mean when we say "East" and "West". When someone says something to the effect of, "The East is leading the world in technological advances" they really need to make clear what countries they are talking about.
It may be true, for instance, that Japan leads the world in some fields of technology (such as robotics). Still, it is inaccurate to attribute this innovation to the whole of "the East". Perhaps we should rephrase this discussion as "Japan vs. the West".
Two of the most active eastern countries (China and India) have only recently industrialized. To say these countries might be centuries in advance of "the West" is unwise (unless I am mistaken; perhaps they contribute in ways unknown to me).
Further, grouping all European countries, the U.S. and Australia together as "the West" seems rather strange as well.
We could really use some factual evidence (for either side). Until then, the positive-claim that "the East" is more technologically advanced than "the West" is unproven.
And finally, might I posit a claim? In our modern, world economy, would it not be true to say that all technologically advanced countries contribute and build off one another? Should we even be having this discussion (assuming anyone follows the link, haha)?

Sleet Storm |

It may be true, for instance, that Japan leads the world in some fields of technology (such as robotics). Still, it is inaccurate to attribute this innovation to the whole of "the East". Perhaps we should rephrase this discussion as "Japan vs. the West".
Muahahahah...common delusion. Germany is the world leader in robotics.At least according to sales numbers.
Robotics is not just entertainment.Asimo might impress, but in the end its just a toy.

Orfamay Quest |

Well, "sales numbers" is a lousy proxy for technological advancement; sales numbers are driven as much by cost and manufacturing quality as by technology. Otherwise we'd all be driving Teslas. For another real-world example, my understanding is that the best/most advanced consumer electronics are built by Sharp, but the business itself is failing (it just announced record losses a bit ago) in part because it can't compete on price.
Having said that, the idea that "the East" is technologically superior to "the West" is ludicrous. Look, for example, at the numbers for Nobel prizes: China has 8, France has 65, and the USA has over 300. Even restricting our attention to "technical" prizes (e.g. not Peace or Literature) granted "recently" (post 1999), China has 1, Germany has 6, France has 6, Israel has 6, Japan has 11, the UK has 13, and the USA has something like 84 -- I think, in fact, the USA has won as many Nobels since 2000 as the rest of the world combined.
I'd argue, in fact, that the USA is technically dominant over the entire rest of the world.
But not "by centuries" or even "by decades," or there wouldn't be any prizes won by any of the other countries. Remember that thirty years ago (1983) there was barely an Internet (something like 500 hosts, and it was still the military-only ARPANET), commerical cellular phones were just arriving on the scene, and camcorders were invented but not yet available. The cutting edge of interface design was the Apple Lisa. Laptops didn't come out until 1985, Doppler radar didn't happen until '88. Even the CD wasn't around thirty years ago (invented 1984).
Today, a country even thirty years behind the leader wouldn't be able to compete at all in the high-tech arena.

AnnoyingOrange |

I don't think technological advancement is a question of east or west, like the OP stated technological advances continue to build of each other, and advances happen where there are investments, thus economy and technical advances are very much linked. The US has long been the place to market and develop your advances as the biggest consumer market, whether that means it is the most technically advanced country is up for debate. A healthy economy is where advances happen.

Orfamay Quest |

I don't think technological advancement is a question of east or west, like the OP stated technological advances continue to build of each other, and advances happen where there are investments, thus economy and technical advances are very much linked. The US has long been the place to market and develop your advances as the biggest consumer market, whether that means it is the most technically advanced country is up for debate. A healthy economy is where advances happen.
No, that's just bad economics. A healthy economy isn't necessarily a technologically advanced one; look at the number of healthy tourist economies that don't have a lot of technological development or even infrastructure. Who needs a high-end university when you can sell white-sand beaches and scuba diving? Conversely, you can say what you like about the politics and command economy of the former Soviet Union, but you can't deny their technological abilities (bear in mind, for example, that they were the first to put a human into orbit).
Tech advances simply require spending money on R&D. You can get that money to spend from a healthy market economy, or you can get that money in a command economy by not spending it on other things like roads and bridges.

Sissyl |

Regarding Nobel Prizes: You don't get one for things you do NOW. You get it for leading the way twenty or thirty years ago. So, yes, the US leads, but at the moment, it's still the tail end of what things were like in the postwar era.
Regarding Soviet: All authoritarian societies produce massive, idiotic, truly ludicrous prestige projects. This is not a function of their economic or scientific excellence, but rather of their willingness to pay an extreme price for the stuff they want. As someone said: With vision, dedication and an infinite number of disposable slave workers, there is no end to what you can accomplish!

Sleet Storm |

The Nobel Prize is no measure of technological advancement,its uasually awarded for spearhead research.And even then its biased.Not everyone that makes a breakthrough in one of the fields can get one.
By the way the US does not have over 300 Nobel Prizes, the so called "Nobel Prize for Economics" is not a Nobel Prize its awarded by the swedish national bank and it was never in Alfred Nobels will.

Orfamay Quest |

Regarding Nobel Prizes: You don't get one for things you do NOW. You get it for leading the way twenty or thirty years ago. So, yes, the US leads, but at the moment, it's still the tail end of what things were like in the postwar era.
But that kind of puts paid to the idea that "the East" was "several centuries ahead of the west in tech. and still are"; as recently as the 1990s, US technological dominance was more or less unquestionable.
Regarding Soviet: All authoritarian societies produce massive, idiotic, truly ludicrous prestige projects. This is not a function of their economic or scientific excellence, but rather of their willingness to pay an extreme price for the stuff they want. As someone said: With vision, dedication and an infinite number of disposable slave workers, there is no end to what you can accomplish!
Nothing in there I disagree with, except to point out that R&D itself is often a "massive, idiotic, truly ludicrous prestige project," and the single best predictor of scientific excellence is one's "willingness to pay an extreme price for the stuff they want." Especially in technology (as opposed to pure science), the easiest way to get something new that you want is to pay to have it invented. Whether the payment is made through the National Science Foundation, through the X Prize, or through the Rossiiskaya Akademiya Nauk is largely irrelevant.
We can, if you like, argue about who if anyone dominates the technological world in April 2013, and we can revisit the argument next month, but that seems like a poor use of time for either of us. Insofar as there are any clear-cut frontrunners today, they appear to be the Western-style democracies that invested heavily in R&D in the post-war period and continued to invest after the Cold War. Russia fell back when the government felt it could no longer afford to invest in Soviet-style massive research projects after the fall of the SU, Japan took a huge hit in the Lost Decade, and China basically missed the entire Industrial Revolution (but is doing a remarkable job of catching up).
The key underlying factor, though, is not "Eastern exceptionalism" or "market economy exceptionalism" or anything like that. It's a question of how willing you are to spend money to develop technology, both to catch up to the current leaders and to improve on the state of the art once you've caught up.
The first group that puts a manned mission on Mars will probably become the leader in space-related technology. But this could be Monaco, if they are willing to spend enough money and no one else is.

Sissyl |

I have no real objections. The only thing I would like to add is that there is a clear difference between scientific breakthroughs and refinement. Refinement can be bought, much as you say, but you really need a permissive environment and gifted people for breakthroughs. It is the deep divide between applied research and basic research.

thejeff |
It's also hard to tell because you can coast on past investment in research for quite awhile. Fundamental breakthroughs and basic science are expensive and hard to predict. It often takes decades to go from "interesting curiosity in the lab" to "viable technology", so when you stop investing in the basic research you can keep generating cutting edge technology for years, but eventually you exploit all the old breakthroughs.

Shadowborn |

I'd argue, in fact, that the USA is technically dominant over the entire rest of the world.But not "by centuries" or even "by decades," or there wouldn't be any prizes won by any of the other countries. Remember that thirty years ago (1983) there was barely an Internet (something like 500 hosts, and it was still the military-only ARPANET), commerical cellular phones were just arriving on the scene, and camcorders were invented but not yet available. The cutting edge of interface design was the Apple Lisa. Laptops didn't come out until 1985, Doppler radar didn't happen until '88. Even the CD wasn't around thirty years ago (invented 1984).
Today, a country even thirty years behind the leader wouldn't be able to compete at all in the high-tech arena.
I think you're overlooking South Korea.

Lumiere Dawnbringer |

the main eastern companies i meant, not the whole continents, sorry for my hyperbole
were Japan, Korea, India, and China.
those are your 4 main industrialized countries
but as an example, Americans are very dependant on Japanese Technology. whether electronics to entertain themselves and waste time, more fuel efficient vehicles for long commutes, or cell phones for advanced communication. there is little you can do wrong with japanese technology.
the chinese also invented gunpowder, firearms, toilet paper, and paper money. when the flintlock and matchlock were fairly new to england and the US. the chinese already had a form of repeater rifle and a form of repeating crossbow. it took 200 more years to produce a western equivalent.
the chinese were also responsible for most of the railroads built in the US.
Korea and India, shared a lot of concepts with China and for a while, they traded ideas.

![]() |
Continuing the discussion started here.
I think it's probably a good idea to clearly define what we mean when we say "East" and "West". When someone says something to the effect of, "The East is leading the world in technological advances" they really need to make clear what countries they are talking about.
It may be true, for instance, that Japan leads the world in some fields of technology (such as robotics). Still, it is inaccurate to attribute this innovation to the whole of "the East". Perhaps we should rephrase this discussion as "Japan vs. the West".
Two of the most active eastern countries (China and India) have only recently industrialized. To say these countries might be centuries in advance of "the West" is unwise (unless I am mistaken; perhaps they contribute in ways unknown to me).
Further, grouping all European countries, the U.S. and Australia together as "the West" seems rather strange as well.
We could really use some factual evidence (for either side). Until then, the positive-claim that "the East" is more technologically advanced than "the West" is unproven.
And finally, might I posit a claim? In our modern, world economy, would it not be true to say that all technologically advanced countries contribute and build off one another? Should we even be having this discussion (assuming anyone follows the link, haha)?
Can you even define what kind of discussion you're having?

![]() |
the main eastern companies i meant, not the whole continents, sorry for my hyperbole
were Japan, Korea, India, and China.
those are your 4 main industrialized countries
but as an example, Americans are very dependant on Japanese Technology. whether electronics to entertain themselves and waste time, more fuel efficient vehicles for long commutes, or cell phones for advanced communication. there is little you can do wrong with japanese technology.
the chinese also invented gunpowder, firearms, toilet paper, and paper money. when the flintlock and matchlock were fairly new to england and the US. the chinese already had a form of repeater rifle and a form of repeating crossbow. it took 200 more years to produce a western equivalent.
the chinese were also responsible for most of the railroads built in the US.
Korea and India, shared a lot of concepts with China and for a while, they traded ideas.
Keep also in mind that if a certain fifteenth century Chinese emperor did not order all of the ships of exploration burnt, you and I may well be speaking Mandarin now. Not necessarily from conquest, but from economic neccessity.

Detect Magic |

...the chinese were also responsible for most of the railroads built in the US.
I feel you're being disingenuous (or just aren't well informed) when you say that China was responsible for the construction of railroads in America. Chinese laborers were used, but they were not engineers or technicians. They weren't the ones designing or planning the construction.

Detect Magic |

...the chinese also invented gunpowder, firearms, toilet paper, and paper money. when the flintlock and matchlock were fairly new to england and the US. the chinese already had a form of repeater rifle and a form of repeating crossbow. it took 200 more years to produce a western equivalent.
That may be so, but it was Germany that invented rifling. We wouldn't have modern firearms without such innovation. Again, this is an example of one culture building upon another's technological achievements.

Bruunwald |
4 people marked this as a favorite. |

There are many other aspects to this discussion that, if looked at honestly, would point to the issue being much more complicated than is implied.
For instance, there are many, many, many technologies that have been invented in the West, which were improved-upon in the East, which were then vastly improved in the West, which the East then made cheaper. Cheaper may SEEM more advanced, but it's often not.
In any case, I get sick of these East-vs-West discussions for precisely that reason: there is just too much bias, bigotry and misinformation on both sides to have any real discussion on it. I mean, I could probably find you five American kids at the next Anime convention I go to, who would tell you the Japanese INVENTED television, animation, and motion pictures, and do it without any irony, because they not only do not know better, but the WANT to believe it. In reality, world history is all about the sharing of ideas, going BOTH ways, but in a modern discussion, there is too much self-hate and general hatred of the West to discuss the matter fairly (though I don't think anybody would deny that SOME western countries such as the US are falling behind in SOME - NOT ALL - areas).
So, really, I'd love to hear a room full of real historians and anthropologists put the real sharing of technologies and cultures around the globe in an honest perspective, but short of that I don't see these discussions fostering anything but more bias and more misinformation.

-Anvil- |

Continuing the discussion started here.
We could really use some factual evidence (for either side). Until then, the positive-claim that "the East" is more technologically advanced than "the West" is unproven.
This is a fun thread.
Here's a link to a Cracked article about a writer that lived in Japan. http://www.cracked.com/article_20118_5-things-nobody-tells-you-about-living -in-japan.html
The first thing on the list is that Japan is surprisingly low tech.
I was also surprised that their homes don't have heat.
Japan did give us the modern Video Game, Saki and delicious, delicious sushi rolls though. So I can forgive their PR people over-hyping the tech level in order to sell us Westerners a new LED TV.
And just for the record in my games I've kept the "far east" themes out of my games- not because I don't like them but because, like the real world, those themes only exist in a specific location and the PCs just haven't made their way there.

-Anvil- |

Katanas can cut through tanks. Check and mate.
Uhhh, no?
Mythbusters tried something similar with Katanas cutting through the barrels of WWII machine guns.
Even when heated to red hot from firing, a Katana barely chips the gun barrel.
And seeing as tanks are made to be bulletproof from anything smaller than a 50mm round, I doubt they are any more susceptible to a katana blade.
Also saying a country has a higher "tech level" is kinda fallacious in most cases. There are too many fields of science and technology to really make a blanket statement like that in regard to many leading world superpowers. Sure you could make that statement if you're comparing the US to Uganda, but not the US to Japan.
For example I'm pretty sure South Korea kicks our butt in anything even related to electronic gaming and entertainment. But I bet their military is years behind ours in terms of technology. We now have smart bullets for crying out loud.
For an accurate comparison you would have to compare each specific tech industry to the same tech industry in another country.

-Anvil- |

Regarding Nobel Prizes: You don't get one for things you do NOW. You get it for leading the way twenty or thirty years ago. So, yes, the US leads, but at the moment, it's still the tail end of what things were like in the postwar era.
Uh no, that's not how Nobel Prizes work at all. In the science fields they are actually for work published in that year. For an example google the guys that discovered graphene or the guys that discovered carbon nanotubes.
Now that's not to say they didn't have several years of research and testing prior to officially publishing their results to the scientific community, but the nobel prizes for sciences are very current.

![]() |

Sissyl wrote:Regarding Nobel Prizes: You don't get one for things you do NOW. You get it for leading the way twenty or thirty years ago. So, yes, the US leads, but at the moment, it's still the tail end of what things were like in the postwar era.Uh no, that's not how Nobel Prizes work at all. In the science fields they are actually for work published in that year. For an example google the guys that discovered graphene or the guys that discovered carbon nanotubes.
Now that's not to say they didn't have several years of research and testing prior to officially publishing their results to the scientific community, but the nobel prizes for sciences are very current.
The 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins for the elucidation of the structure of DNA. Watson and Crick had published in 1953. Querying the Fount of All Knowledge, the discussion on timing of prizes notes
Since the Nobel Prize rules forbid nominations of the deceased, longevity is an asset, one prize being awarded as long as 50 years after the discovery.
The 50-year gap was the 1966 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, awarded to Peyton Rous, for his discovery of tumor-causing viruses in chickens...in 1916.

-Anvil- |

The 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins for the elucidation of the structure of DNA. Watson and Crick had published in 1953. Querying the Fount of All Knowledge, the discussion on timing of prizes notes
Wikipedia wrote:Since the Nobel Prize rules forbid nominations of the deceased, longevity is an asset, one prize being awarded as long as 50 years after the discovery.The 50-year gap was the 1966 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, awarded to Peyton Rous, for his discovery of tumor-causing viruses in chickens...in 1916.
OK so after some more reading it seems to depend on the field, the immediacy of the use for the applicable science, the general interest to the world at large... etc.
For every award that takes 50 years like the one you mention, I found an example of one that happened almost immediately.
For example graphene in 2010 [urlhttp://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2010/press.html[/url]
Al Gore 2007 [url http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/gore-prize-present.html[/url]
Richard Smalley, Carbon Nanotubes 1996 [url http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Smalley[/url]
So...apparently it's whenever the nobel prize panel really feels like it. Those lazy bastards...

Shadowborn |

Shadowborn wrote:Katanas can cut through tanks. Check and mate.Uhhh, no?
Mythbusters tried something similar with Katanas cutting through the barrels of WWII machine guns.
Even when heated to red hot from firing, a Katana barely chips the gun barrel.
And seeing as tanks are made to be bulletproof from anything smaller than a 50mm round, I doubt they are any more susceptible to a katana blade.
Replying to my obvious facetiousness with a staid and solemn rebuttal simply raises the hilarity. Congratulations, you just became my straight man. Wakka wakka wakka.

![]() |
So...apparently it's whenever the nobel prize panel really feels like it. Those lazy bastards...
It's a bit more complicated than that. In addition to a bunch of other criteria, the prospective winner has to be alive. The Nobel prizes are not given posthumously.

![]() |

John Woodford wrote:
The 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins for the elucidation of the structure of DNA. Watson and Crick had published in 1953. Querying the Fount of All Knowledge, the discussion on timing of prizes notes
Wikipedia wrote:Since the Nobel Prize rules forbid nominations of the deceased, longevity is an asset, one prize being awarded as long as 50 years after the discovery.The 50-year gap was the 1966 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, awarded to Peyton Rous, for his discovery of tumor-causing viruses in chickens...in 1916.OK so after some more reading it seems to depend on the field, the immediacy of the use for the applicable science, the general interest to the world at large... etc.
For every award that takes 50 years like the one you mention, I found an example of one that happened almost immediately.
For example graphene in 2010 [urlhttp://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2010/press.html[/url]
Al Gore 2007 [url http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/gore-prize-present.html[/url]
Richard Smalley, Carbon Nanotubes 1996 [url http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Smalley[/url]
So...apparently it's whenever the nobel prize panel really feels like it. Those lazy bastards...
Fifty years is the most extreme case, although Barbara McClintock did the research that earned her almost forty years before her Nobel. The examples you gave are closer to the typical--Andre Geim, one of the laureates for graphene, first published in 2004, won the 2007 Mott Medal and Prize for his graphene work, and shared the 2008 EuroPhysics prize for his graphene work. Granted, six years isn't comparable to fifty, but it wasn't as though the Nobel Prize folks handed out the award the year that Geim published. Smalley won in 1996 for buckminsterfullerene, not nanotubes, and his first paper on C60 was published in 1985.

Sissyl |

One very good method to get a Nobel prize is to figure out and make useful a new way of measuring something, or to find a widely applicable production method. If it sticks, and becomes some form of standard, you might have one a number of years down the road. If you want a peace prize, you apparently have to either be the american president, or otherwise a top american politician.

-Anvil- |

-Anvil- wrote:Replying to my obvious facetiousness with a staid and solemn rebuttal simply raises the hilarity. Congratulations, you just became my straight man. Wakka wakka wakka.Shadowborn wrote:Katanas can cut through tanks. Check and mate.Uhhh, no?
Mythbusters tried something similar with Katanas cutting through the barrels of WWII machine guns.
Even when heated to red hot from firing, a Katana barely chips the gun barrel.
And seeing as tanks are made to be bulletproof from anything smaller than a 50mm round, I doubt they are any more susceptible to a katana blade.
D'oh. This is what happens when I try to read threads quickly and reply while at work.