When I was about ten, my friends and I used to tell a joke about a potato peelers. The idea was that while the American potato peeler was a real automaton, the Soviet one had a soldier sitting in it and peeling them by hand. We laughed a lot at the Soviet technological backwardness at the time.
The Western innovation is, you bring in Pakistanis or Uzbeks, they drive for less money (thus saving money), put them in cheap cars…
I was reminded of that when I learned about how comparable technological innovation in the West and the East. This time it was taxis. The Western innovation is, you bring in Pakistanis or Uzbeks, they drive for less money (thus saving money), put them in cheap cars, run an internet app like any student group could do, and spend huge money on advertising. It’s called Uber. Dozens of analysts then write glowing commentaries about technological progress, entering a new age, and how continuous improvement cannot be stopped. Meanwhile, in Beijing, they’re testing driverless, automated taxis.
