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> Western countries don't really have the infrastructure, housing or education necessary Why do non-Western elites send their kids to Western countries for uni

> Western countries don't really have the infrastructure, housing or education necessary Why do non-Western elites send their kids to Western countries for university educations? > increasingly not alternative ways of competing either like creativity, influence or equality. Which non-Western countries are competing on creativity?

charles_kaw 4y ago
>Why do non-Western elites send their kids to Western countries for university educations? Elites. We have the best education for elites. Not for everyone, which is a large part of the problem.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  Should be very easy for you to rattle off a list of countries doing better then. You may find the below link helpful in your quest. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_...
  - dmix 4y ago
    Those rankings are for 15 yr olds. The US definitely is #1 when it comes to high-end university schooling. Even among high schools and prep schools the nation-wide US average might be mediocre in public schools but when it comes to the higher-end private schools the US is still easily #1 https://www.prepreview.com/ranking/world/high-school-ranking.php https://www.prepreview.com/ranking/world/high-school-ranking...
    - barry-cotter 4y ago
      Who does better than the “West” at non-elite education then? Surely non-elite must include a lot of people who never go to university. The PISA or TIMMS rankings are about as good a ranking of those as you’re going to get.
      - dmix 4y ago
        The conversation you're replying to is about elite education, not the performance of the average American student... That's a whole different conversation.
texaslonghorn5 4y ago
> Why do non-Western elites send their kids to Western countries for university educations? So that they can plug themselves and their kids into massive, powerful, prosperous, global alumni networks.
petestream 4y ago
> Which non-Western countries are competing on creativity? They aren't, that's the point. Countries like China, Japan and South Korea are very good at pulling everyone in the same direction by following rules, having hierarchies, exchanging favors, working long hours, handing out punishments and whatnot. Far better than any western country could because we aren't at that point in time (and maybe Japan isn't now either). What they end up lacking is things like creativity. The problem is that western countries are also increasingly lacking opportunities to exercise creativity. There is few ways these days to in good faith drop out of school and crash on someones couch to do something else you rather want. Which has to some extent been the foundation of new industries.
- catawbasam 4y ago
  Solar PV, battery technologies, and smart phone transaction systems are areas where China is playing a leading role. They are competitive in EVs and Automated Vehicles. I'm sure there are others. The US isn't even in the game any more for many consumer products.
- dsq 4y ago
  Creativity isn’t something that just spontaneously appears or flourishes. It requires an appropriate environment. Most of the great achievements of the ancient Greeks happened in a fifty to hundred year span of time. Much of today’s population’s drive is dissipated into online entertainment.
padiyar83 4y ago
> Which non-Western countries are competing on creativity? As I see it, Asian economies like India, China, Japan, South Korea offer a reasonable competition to Western economies today. 1. Samsung is a very viable competitor to Apple in hand held + wearables creative space. 2. Indian fin-tech solutions IMO today are some of the best in the world. All I need is a phone to shop for things (from buying a car to paying for parking) and have not used a credit/debit card for a year now (I live in India). Same in Indian edu-tech space. A lot of kids have quit school and are learning at home. Full time. I have not seen this happen anywhere before. 3. Toyota's are way more reliable than BMW's, Audi's and Ford's. 4. TSMC vs Intel is another good example. I foresee a lot of innovation happening in Asia right now to go global in this and next decade.
- DubiousPusher 4y ago
  Um, TSMC sources many parts which are made exclusively in America. The machines TSMC uses for all of its highest end semiconductor work come from a company called ASML which whilst being a Dutch company sources many of its most sophisticated parts from the U.S. and Europe. But before we bother to argue about what is and is not a knowledge economy, humor me this one possibility. Perhaps there is no such thing as a "knowledge" economy. At least not in a mass sense. Maybe instead the design knowledge which will drive automation is derivable from only a fraction of the population. That is only a small fraction of the population is capable or necessary for producing this knowledge. Perhpas the Utopia in which every child achieves a doctorate in engineering, medicine, etc was just a fantasy. Perhaps the people who most perpetrated this story were motivated to. Because they were either complicit in the dismantling of the West's lower middle class economy or perhaps because they were apologists of untrestrained "free markets" and they needed a way to square their dogma without seeming cruel. Perhaps the consequences of globalization minus the dogmatic fantasy of "everyone will be educated into being einstein" left the nagging uncomfortable suspicion that growth had its limits and someday we would have to admit that the only answer to making sure an equitable portion of wealth made its way into everyone's pockets wasn't an endless growth, every mom blasting their womb with Bach, an STM on every crib nerdocracy but instead gasp dare I say it? Redistribution!?
  - 4y ago

charles_kaw 4y ago

>Why do non-Western elites send their kids to Western countries for university educations? Elites. We have the best education for elites. Not for everyone, which is a large part of the problem.

barry-cotter 4y ago
Should be very easy for you to rattle off a list of countries doing better then. You may find the below link helpful in your quest. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_...
- dmix 4y ago
  Those rankings are for 15 yr olds. The US definitely is #1 when it comes to high-end university schooling. Even among high schools and prep schools the nation-wide US average might be mediocre in public schools but when it comes to the higher-end private schools the US is still easily #1 https://www.prepreview.com/ranking/world/high-school-ranking.php https://www.prepreview.com/ranking/world/high-school-ranking...
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    Who does better than the “West” at non-elite education then? Surely non-elite must include a lot of people who never go to university. The PISA or TIMMS rankings are about as good a ranking of those as you’re going to get.
    - dmix 4y ago
      The conversation you're replying to is about elite education, not the performance of the average American student... That's a whole different conversation.

texaslonghorn5 4y ago

> Why do non-Western elites send their kids to Western countries for university educations? So that they can plug themselves and their kids into massive, powerful, prosperous, global alumni networks.

petestream 4y ago

> Which non-Western countries are competing on creativity? They aren't, that's the point. Countries like China, Japan and South Korea are very good at pulling everyone in the same direction by following rules, having hierarchies, exchanging favors, working long hours, handing out punishments and whatnot. Far better than any western country could because we aren't at that point in time (and maybe Japan isn't now either). What they end up lacking is things like creativity. The problem is that western countries are also increasingly lacking opportunities to exercise creativity. There is few ways these days to in good faith drop out of school and crash on someones couch to do something else you rather want. Which has to some extent been the foundation of new industries.

catawbasam 4y ago
Solar PV, battery technologies, and smart phone transaction systems are areas where China is playing a leading role. They are competitive in EVs and Automated Vehicles. I'm sure there are others. The US isn't even in the game any more for many consumer products.
dsq 4y ago
Creativity isn’t something that just spontaneously appears or flourishes. It requires an appropriate environment. Most of the great achievements of the ancient Greeks happened in a fifty to hundred year span of time. Much of today’s population’s drive is dissipated into online entertainment.

padiyar83 4y ago

> Which non-Western countries are competing on creativity? As I see it, Asian economies like India, China, Japan, South Korea offer a reasonable competition to Western economies today. 1. Samsung is a very viable competitor to Apple in hand held + wearables creative space. 2. Indian fin-tech solutions IMO today are some of the best in the world. All I need is a phone to shop for things (from buying a car to paying for parking) and have not used a credit/debit card for a year now (I live in India). Same in Indian edu-tech space. A lot of kids have quit school and are learning at home. Full time. I have not seen this happen anywhere before. 3. Toyota's are way more reliable than BMW's, Audi's and Ford's. 4. TSMC vs Intel is another good example. I foresee a lot of innovation happening in Asia right now to go global in this and next decade.

DubiousPusher 4y ago
Um, TSMC sources many parts which are made exclusively in America. The machines TSMC uses for all of its highest end semiconductor work come from a company called ASML which whilst being a Dutch company sources many of its most sophisticated parts from the U.S. and Europe. But before we bother to argue about what is and is not a knowledge economy, humor me this one possibility. Perhaps there is no such thing as a "knowledge" economy. At least not in a mass sense. Maybe instead the design knowledge which will drive automation is derivable from only a fraction of the population. That is only a small fraction of the population is capable or necessary for producing this knowledge. Perhpas the Utopia in which every child achieves a doctorate in engineering, medicine, etc was just a fantasy. Perhaps the people who most perpetrated this story were motivated to. Because they were either complicit in the dismantling of the West's lower middle class economy or perhaps because they were apologists of untrestrained "free markets" and they needed a way to square their dogma without seeming cruel. Perhaps the consequences of globalization minus the dogmatic fantasy of "everyone will be educated into being einstein" left the nagging uncomfortable suspicion that growth had its limits and someday we would have to admit that the only answer to making sure an equitable portion of wealth made its way into everyone's pockets wasn't an endless growth, every mom blasting their womb with Bach, an STM on every crib nerdocracy but instead gasp dare I say it? Redistribution!?
- 4y ago