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Have the American orbit countries in West Europe/Canada/Latin America developed more of a grind mentality to reflect American culture? Have Japan and South Korea developed less of a grind? I think these things have far too much domestic cultural inertia to drift more than marginally.
All of these sound like good things to me. Is there any real loss to society if the bottom falls out of the market for Western luxury goods or the prestige laundering at private universities? If Patek Phillipe disappeared today no one but the negligibly few who are directly employed/invested would appreciably suffer.
No, but the US had to adopt strong protectionate policies to stop that from happening. America's outsourcing phase was intended at moving the now necessary exploitative practices to 3rd world countries to keep competing with the east asian grind. ofc, outsourcing only works as long as you hold the leverage. Once those nations upskill, they bite the hand that feeds them. In industries that are free for all (like tech), the culture is indeed becoming a 996.
Europe's economic decline is what happens when nations stop trying to keep up. You either enter a slow decline or suck it up and join the grind.
It starts slowly at first, followed by a transition all at once. China has been kind of historically incompetent at producing novel art or aesthetics....so they may fail because of their pathetic marketing. But, that's more the west winning by default than them valiantly resisting a cultural transition.
Btw, Patek Philipe was an example, the tip of a much larger iceberg. I mean every luxury boutique band that creates aspiration, every fast fashion brand that copies it and every indie artists who creates quirky renditions of those same designs.
We loved your aesthetics. Your people do seem to be better at imagining the unimaginable.
I'd like to know what an Indian, diaspora or not, thinks of India. There was someone (mrvanillasky?) who posted something before, but I think he's nuts and I didn't take it seriously. If you have time to write something, that would be great.
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