South Korea just steals and takes credit for everything Japan makes. They're like China, but they get away with it better.
Japan is also infamous or famous for stealing ideas from the West and then put their spin on it and improve upon it.
The World’s Most Innovative Economies
111–120 of 122 posts
Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies
#112Looking at the ranking, I am flabbergasted South Korea is picked #1. South Korea getting picked even in top 20 would've been shocking. But #1?
Let's consider some of the odds that were in the way.
1. no modern education or social institutions were in South Korea until early 1900s. The Korean peninsula of 1900 was little different from 500 years ago, when the Chosun Dynasty was formed.
2. What little gain made during the Japanese occupation (1910-1945) was razed during the Korean War.
3. the country faced a massive refugee crisis during the Korean War. Granted Syrian and other current refugee crises are tragic, but the Korean refugee crisis was just as bad, if not worse. Cold winter than can freeze you to death. No overland escape route for South Koreans.
4. no natural resources like oil to sell
5. massive military expenditure commitment, including 2-3 year military service every young male has to go through.
And yet they kept at it and moved up the list.
Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sweden, having a much smaller government with fewer conflicting factions Lol. In contrast to the US, Sweden has a somewhat functioning democracy with more than 2 mainstream parties.
But I think Sweden, and the rest of Scandinavia (I'm Norwegian) has a less adversarial political system. We're used to coalitions, so most political parties are careful not to burn bridges totally. We also often have broad negotiated compromises where the US is more likely to have bitterly fought battles leading to a small majority where the losers ends up trying hard to reverse the decision afterwards (witness the A…
I think the same contrast applies between most northern European countries on one side and Us plus UK on the other as far as adversarial politics is concerned.
But I think it is not just politics, everyday life is less adversarial too here in Norway. I've been living here for over thirty years now and all the interactions that I have with the state are less complicated than they were when I was the UK (where I come from). I generally feel that people in the civil service, health system, etc. are genuinely trying to be helpful and not obstructive. Systems seem to be designed to work for the individual and not just for the treasury. For instance when you pay for medicine or treatment there is a cap and when that is exceeded you are refunded automatically in your next year's tax settlement.
Of course it's not perfect but it seems that there is a stronger sense of solidarity here than in the English speaking countries.
Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies
#114This makes 0 sense to my heavily biased brain. As a Swede that is keeping a close eye on the domestic market, I can't find that many "innovations" taking place in most commercial sectors. R&D means quack-all if you cant translate that research into good and services that the citizens of said country can take advantage of.
Everything is relative. How many other countries had systems like BankID, Swish, doing their taxes online as well as with Skatteverket, etc etc when those came out? how many of those countries have populations smaller than Sweden? How much innovation comes out of Ohio which has a larger population?
Norge? :-)
Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you elaborate on the getting used to Jantelagen?
There's a lot that goes into it and I can't claim that everything I believe can be strictly related to Jantelagen. That said, I believe that it takes longer to introduce and have accepted new ideas in a Scandinavian workplace. Further, I believe that how new ideas are introduced tends to be more indirect than in an American workplace. This runs ostensibly contrary to the idea that Sweden is innovative. From my Americ…
I am currently in your same situation, and I have to agree that this change in behaviour was needed in order to integrate with the scandinavian mindset.
Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Except Sweden is in the top 5 in anti-depressant use. I think the problem here is that we can dismiss religion wholesome, perhaps even all spirituality, but there's nothing to cushion the fall." Correlation does not mean causality. Saying atheism leads to anti-depressant use is like saying eating ice cream makes people drown. (Yes, I borrowed that from the wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_doe…
And to add to this, Swedish people score among the highest for happiness. I'd like to see the other commenter explain that...
Uh, did you miss the part of Sweden being one of the largest consumers of anti-depressants? Remove those drugs and retake the survey and see how well Sweden does. Of course, that's not practical, but dismissing the effects of these drugs is being disingenuous here.
Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
And to add to this, Swedish people score among the highest for happiness. I'd like to see the other commenter explain that...
Uh, did you miss the part of Sweden being one of the largest consumers of anti-depressants? Remove those drugs and retake the survey and see how well Sweden does. Of course, that's not practical, but dismissing the effects of these drugs is being disingenuous here.
It's hardly the largest
http://www.businessinsider.com/countries-largest-antidepress...
Also, as the article states "It's difficult to say exactly what the data tell us.
Antidepressant use is not an accurate window into rates of depression. Instead, the popularity of antidepressants in a given country is the result of a complicated mix of depression rates, stigma, wealth, health coverage, and availability of treatment."
US seems to be leading the pack and from cross referencing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irreligio...
if we do bad statistics, we can conclude that since sweden has lower antidepressant use and higher secularity than US, religion actually causes psychiatric illness.
But what the data actually tells us is that it's pretty damn hard to pull any causality between secularism and antidepressant use.
Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spirituality does indeed seem to be outside the scope of science, because it's not real. If it were real, it ought to be amenable to scientific investigation. The notion that it's real but can't be scientifically investigated makes no sense to me.
Spirituality is not outside of science. We can study humans in the psychological states raised by practices in the spiritual traditions http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/07/dalai-lama... . The challenge from scientific point of view with human traditions is that they are a mishmash of established techniques affecting measurable outcomes and superstition, and sometimes it's quite hard to tell from the poi…
To the extent that spirituality encompasses aspects of psychology then clearly it can be studied, but it hardly seems useful to call it "spirituality" then.
Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read somewhere that the chance of having higher intelligence is reflected in how self-sufficient you are. People with higher intelligence tend to manage just fine with a small social group with weak connections. The more social you are the more likely that you have lower intelligence. Sort of suggests that following the collective, being an ant in a colony may have negative effects on intelligence over a few generati…
Except its because the collective has given smart people these entitlements. "Hey this guys pretty smart, lets give him tenure." Did you personally pay the taxes to run that university? Did you make those policies? How much of an island do you think 'smart' people really are? Or "Hey this guy is pretty good at business, lets give him low taxes to reward him and keep him happy." I think its difficult for successful pe…
>Lets remember, the idea of the meritorious succeeding is rare in society. Up until recently you had to be a non-woman, non-slave, and at the very least come from a wealthy or political family. Or perhaps sidestep this by having powerful political patrons but then still be under the gun of, say, the inquisition.
In most historical human societies, the way to "succeed" was to threaten to kill other people unless they gave you what you wanted.
Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looks like top tax bracket in Sweden is $90k -- at $90k, CA marginal is 42%. So a delta of 14% -- still probably worth it, especially at lower incomes where student loans and health care a higher percentage of earnings.
The question for me is if our government doesn't provide any of those services why aren't we paying half that number?
Because you have the vital job as an American taxpayer of subsidizing oil companies, drug companies, military contractors, investment banks, and land speculators.