Critical, individualistic thinking is what the west does best. The east seems to be better at implementation and improvement once provided with a new idea. That’s where we currently stand atleast, who knows how China will do in the future. Maybe they’re the total package but that remains to be seen.

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FloorEgg 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Why conflate critical thinking with individualistic values?

It seems you are unnecessarily muddying the water.

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dyauspitr an hour ago | parent [-]

In my opinion there is a correlation there. I think individualistic societies are better at thinking of new paradigm shifting ideas.

	▲	FloorEgg an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Hmm. I'll think more about this. It makes sense to me that a culture that values collectivistic cohesion would shy away from paradigm shifting ideas (disruption). I also see the correlation between disruptive ideas driven by principled critical thinking over conventional thinking. I guess on some level my assumption is that they are adjacent. Those embedded in a collectivistic culture can think critically but can run into walls within a sandbox of convention. This is how they can be great at iterative improvement and engineering but struggle with paradigm shifting ideas. I think you have a point, but there's definitely some nuance here I'm still untangling.