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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31777 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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Are Asians/Indians considered more intelligent than whites? I know they list over there a supposed racial hierarchy on average intelligence (though they try to make the hierarchy sound like more), but I’ve always thought the Asians are smarter thing has too many other variables at play. Primarily that there are a lot of Asians on planet earth and the ones who make it to the west go thru a strong filter. Second reason is western civ is the current tech leader. This hasn’t always been true but has been for a few hundred years. In short we westerners see dumb whites at Wal-Mart but we only see smart Asians who made it thru Visa processes.

Japan, South Korea and Taiwan don’t come to your mind when thinking about rapid capitalist technological development? Even when they chose the civilisational path of building extreme commie hermit kingdom, East Asian North Koreans probably did better than any other nation in the history probably.

Also the claimed IQ diff between Europeans and East Asians is about 5 points. Pretty minuscule with limited consequences if true.

“Current tech leader” is not the same as successful rapid technological catch up. That’s just copying shit westerners did and technological transfer.

Seems these comments are similar to my thoughts - probably some truth to higher Asian IQ but it’s smaller and difficult to prove.

None of those countries (especially Japan) are playing catch up or copying stuff for decades at this point. They all lead in some pretty advanced tech fields.

What does China lead in? Japan?

But on net they are still behind the west.

Taiwan I guess you can give chips too.

High speed rail, efficient ports (Japanese and Chinese ports are the best in the world, the US doesn't even have the best ports in North America), AI image/facial recognition and hypersonic glide vehicles.

High speed rail, efficient ports

Are those technological issues or byproducts of Western bureaucracies and labor dynamics making it very hard to actually erect a best in class port/train infrastructure?

I'd say its largely due to regulation and union issues but that's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Would you develop really efficient port-technology if it was bureaucratically impossible? It only makes sense to make the tech really well if you can profit from its implementation. Yes, there are automated ports in Europe, they did invent the tech. But the Asian ports are the best at using it now, as with HSR. The US is particularly bad at these things, HSR and ports.

Having a capable government/planning system/labor market is just as important as having technological capacity. Organization of people is a kind of technology, just like organization of matter. People talk about the Chinese working on 'Chinese time' where they get things done quickly.

What does a technological issue even mean in a globalized world? A shortage of money to buy the thing you need? Inability to train/pay engineers that are needed to maintain it? Not having the industrial capacity to cost-effectively produce it at scale? Not having connurbations of know-how that allow quick manufacturing and iteration? Not having laws that allow it?

Not knowing how to make the necessary widget is maybe relevant for semiconductors, AI and missiles but everything else is human factors like organization, political priorities and wealth.

I bet this article would be really useful but it's dead: https://www.joc.com/article/us-ports-no-rush-follow-shanghai-automation-path_20171211.html

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