Hmm perhaps innovation starts as imitation at lower stages of development, and then surpasses imitation at higher stages of development. It's like there's some kind of... material basis for innovation and you have to start somewhere.
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
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Fellas, I’m starting to think innovation is not some innate racial characteristic, but a product of the material conditions and political economy of states.
nonsense. innovation is when a precious boy in a little Lord Fauntleroy suit is given control of his father's business empire
“You MEAN telling me I’m the world’s specialist widdle boy and I should coast through life on my pedigree alone DOESN’T promote innovation? Inconceivable!”
In the 80s knock off electronics came from Taiwan, now it's a high tech hub. If you're playing catch up, it's a waste of time to re-invent the wheel. This especially applies to military hardware, China started by license building and reverse engineering Soviet jets, then they jumped to building their own fighter jet with the J-10, which probably got some assistance from the Israeli Lavi, but it's not a copy of the Lavi. I read the biggest help they got from the Lavi project was the advanced computing that helped them calculate all the aerodynamics. The J-10C that downed advanced French Rafales is a far different plane than the original J-10A. Now China is the first country to fly 6th gen fighters, will will we be hearing that Murica is copying China when they fly their 6th gen fighter(so far it's just CG)?
In the 80s knock off electronics came from Taiwan, now it's a high tech hub.
Exact same process played out in both South Korea and Japan. There's a joke in Back to the Future that references this, where 50s Doc says "of course it broke, it's made in Japan!" and 80s Marty responds "What are you talking about? All the best stuff is made in Japan."
Perhaps there's a reason that this economic process was able to play out in the strategically important American puppet states but not to the same degree in any of the other capitalist countries in the region 
All innovation requires some level of copying. Einstein didn't pop into existence fully formed. Darwin's theories had precursors. There are 10 million designs for heat engines. Anyone complaining about "copying" is almost certainly mad they can't rent-seek. Yes attribution and compensation should be given to those that actually work on things. But 90% of this shit boils down to Trillion dollar company A mad that Billion dollar company B didn't pay them for "their" patent. (They bought it and the guys that actually wrote it up died 30 years ago.)
This 👆🏽but unironically. The number of burger-brains I've seen fuming over China "copying" or "stealing" technology...
Exactly, ideas don't just form in a vacuum they necessarily build on existing ones.
How are they a copycat they built all the panels lmao
a lot of cope in that article
The burger-clutching on this subject is absolutely wild, the US basically did this to get a leg up on Europe. Pure innovation is a first-mover/market leader strategy. It makes no sense for someone who is substantially behind to innovate things that are easily proven to work and easy to reproduce. A China transitions from 2nd place to market leader (in many markets, already the leader), innovation or rent-seeking will be the only choice for next strategy, and they picked the option the US did not pick. This is merely using the optimal strategy and succeeding.
"it is the opposite of an accident" - australian faced with economic planning