Comment by Trevor on Make an Extraordinary Effort · 2008-10-08T07:00:11.000Z · LW · GW

Sometimes I do wonder if I ought to be peddling rationality in Japan instead of the United States - but Japan is not preeminent over the United States scientifically, despite their more studious students. The Japanese don't rule the world today, though in the 1980s it was widely suspected that they would (hence the Japanese asset bubble). Why not? In the West, there is a saying: "The squeaky wheel gets the grease." In Japan, the corresponding saying runs: "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down." This is hardly an original observation on my part: but entrepreneurship, risk-taking, leaving the herd, are still advantages the West has over the East. And since Japanese scientists are not yet preeminent over American ones, this would seem to count for at least as much as desperate efforts.

The Japanese don't rule the world today, though in the 1980s it was widely suspected that they would True, however, they didn't blow up their entire financial system and in turn that, seemingly, of the entire planet.

And since Japanese scientists are not yet preeminent over American ones, this would seem to count for at least as much as desperate efforts. http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/08/01/the-us-beats-japan-in-patent-application-filing-for-the-first-time-since-1963-becomes-world-no-1/ http://www.seinan-gu.ac.jp/~djohnson/natural/population.html

Maybe you and I do math differently, but based on population, Japan is cleaning America's clock, assuming patents are a reasonable indicator of innovation.

Any reasonable person, even watching the mainstream media news, could hardly come to any other conclusion than America has backed itself into a corner. It's pretty simple math.

Make no mistake, I understand your point, that America is more dynamic and all that, but as it is, they have set things up almost perfectly to destroy themselves (financially), and the entire world if they get away with it. Perhaps if America had adopted a little more of the "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down" philosophy, we wouldn't be in this predicament.