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United States Technology

South Korea Leads World In Innovation; US Drops Out of Top 10 (bloomberg.com) 125

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: South Korea returned to first place in the latest Bloomberg Innovation Index, while the U.S. dropped out of a top 10 that features a cluster of European countries. Korea regained the crown from Germany, which dropped to fourth place. The Asian nation has now topped the index for seven of the nine years that it's been published. Singapore and Switzerland each moved up one spot to rank second and third. The Bloomberg index analyzes dozens of criteria using seven equally weighted metrics, including research and development spending, manufacturing capability and concentration of high-tech public companies.

Korea's return to the top spot is mainly due to an increase in patent activity, where it ranks top, alongside a strong performance in R&D and manufacturing. Second-placed Singapore, which has been allocating budget funds to help workers and companies transition to a digital economy, also scores high for manufacturing -- and its globally competitive universities put it top of the tertiary education gauge. Switzerland, a leader in financial and biological technology, ranks near the top in both of the index's research categories. Germany's loss of the crown follows a warning two years ago by Juergen Michels, chief economist of Bayerische Landesbank, who said the country lacked skilled workers and a proper strategy for next-generation technology. As the two biggest economies, the U.S. and China account for much of the world's innovation. But both saw their rankings decline this year.

The U.S., which topped the first Bloomberg Innovation Index in 2013, dropped two places to 11th. The country scores badly in higher education, even though U.S. universities are world-famous. That underperformance was likely made worse by obstacles to foreign students, who are usually prominent in science and technology classes -- first due to the Trump administration's visa policies, and later to the pandemic. China, which fell one place to 16th in the 2021 index, is locked in a battle with the U.S. over key aspects of innovation policy. Other gainers in this year's index include India, which climbed back into the top 50 for the first time since 2016, and Uruguay, which qualified for the first time. Algeria and Argentina were among the countries that fell furthest.

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South Korea Leads World In Innovation; US Drops Out of Top 10

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  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @08:05AM (#61022712)
    they think they are measuring? Lots of patent activity? foreign student considerations? etc.
    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by arbiter1 ( 1204146 )
      Its Bloomberg so My guess is there is some political reasons why it happened as to maybe take 1 last jab at last president who the Owner hates. Which magically we will return to top 10 the next time they do this "index"
      • by Synonymous Cowered ( 6159202 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @08:38AM (#61022784)

        Its Bloomberg so My guess is there is some political reasons why it happened as to maybe take 1 last jab at last president who the Owner hates. Which magically we will return to top 10 the next time they do this "index"

        Yes, for a country that has ranked 9th, 8th, 11th, and 9th in the previous 4 years, the possibility that next year it might jump from 11th back into the top 10 (the same way it did 2 years ago) could only be explained as "magically".

      • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @09:55AM (#61023028)

        Choosing to post such a story may have a political stance behind it, however being posted do you have any evidence that the material is trying to lie or deceive us?

        Many of the "News" sources blaming traditional News sources for being partisan political, are actually entertainment sites/stations that pose to be News. Where their main goal is get and hold on to viewers who will see its Ads that it will sell.

        But the fact is, the United States has been getting metaphorical Fat and Lazy for a long time, even before Trump took office.
        After WWII The United States was the only large country who's infrastructure wasn't ravaged by War. So Post WWII America was in a strong position, where it was the world leader, as it had the money and the resources to help out anyone who was being friendly to them. As it had a full range of fairly modern factories, that hadn't been burned out. Then during the Cold War, much of Europe's growth was stifled by the threat from the Soviet Union, and they were still leaning on the United States for protection from that threat.
        So for the 1950-1970's especially the United States was really unstoppable. In the 1980's Japan finally being rebuilt started to show off being a major innovator and economic driver, however Japan is also a small country, with limited resources, so it couldn't sustain such a boom. But in the 1990's after the end of the Cold War, we started to see American Innovation slow down, while the rest of the world has caught up, Leaving the United States with a system of an aging infrastructure, old outdated factories, where a lot of the economy is based on out of date products. Where many countries who are now rebuilt are just in a much better position to deal with the problems, and now can compete against America where they weren't able to do so before.

        America got use to its unstoppable position, put less collective effort into innovation of the new and better, and just focused on finding ways to do what it does for faster and cheaper. We have positioned ourselves in a "Race to the Bottom" where we are just trying to be cheaper than our competitor. We are not focusing on being better, or bringing much new to the field.
        We have/had a few good spots of innovation for America.
        Apple with its iPhone design sparked a new way of using portable computers.
        Tesla making electric cars that people wants to drive
        Google bringing web based services to the public.

        However Apple is starting to loose out on the newer phones by other makers like Samsung and LG where they are making equivalent products, so Apple either needs to keep costs down, to stay competitive. Because there hasn't been a new cool new device from Apple in a while.

        Tesla is a newer company, however other car makers seem to be investing in Electric Cars now, with many interesting products expected later this year or in 2022. We will need to see how Tesla can handle having competition in its own market.

        Google while rather big on innovation, actually has the opposite problem where it usually fails to deliver a good long term solution. Google is notorious for dropping ideas, vs improving on them, if they get board with it.

        To be an innovative country, we cannot just assume that just because we are America we will win, They are real competition out there.

        • Eventually we'll slide to being as irrelevant as Russia in leading the world. Only retaining respect because of the significant danger we pose to the world. A century from now, Europe and Asia will be wringing their hands trying to figure out what to do with us.

        • by hackingbear ( 988354 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @12:58PM (#61023936)

          The decline of the USA is primarily due to two seemingly contradicting phenomenons: slackness of its people and greediness of its government.

          As the USA becomes the number 1 superpower with high living standard post WW2, its people, especially the younger generations, naturally want to enjoy more instead of working hard. They bargained for labor union protection or shunned dirty manufacturing jobs for comfortable office jobs. They handed the challenging scientific / engineering fields to educated immigrants. (This is actually natural to all developed economies as the same can be seen in Europe, Japan, and even China today. And this is good for the rest of the world. Think about that: if the people of a successful nation keep working hard and smart forever, where would be opportunity for the poor countries?)

          At the same time, the US government and its military industry complex were extremely greedy in defeating all other nations, especially the number 2 guy, militarily and international control.

          * In attempt to get an upper hand against the Soviet Union, the US insisted to let Republic of China to become one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council which backfired decades later as PRC took the seat.
          * In attempt to win over the whole Korean peninsula, the US military crossed over the 38 latitude after pushing back the North Korea force and marched all the way to the border of China, that caused China to fight with the US and, despite of much much weaker military and economy, eventually forced the US to quit without winning [wikipedia.org], thereby establishing China's credibility on the world stage.
          * In attempt to control Vietnam, the US lied about being attack and launched the Vietnam War, ended up with a life-long humiliation.
          * In attempt to win the Cold War [*], the US betrayed its ally Taiwan ROC and befriended with PRC, raising up the super Asian dragon whose economy is projected to overtake the American's in just a few years, while the Soviet Union became Russia and still remains a military threat as before.
          * In attempt to wrestle controls of Afghanistan from the Soviet, the US bred Osama bin Laden who later launched the 9/11 attack.
          * In attempt to win against Iran, the US sold chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein.
          * In attempt to revenge against Saddam Hussein, the US fabricated accusations of WMDs and launched the Iraq War which ultimately led to the 2008 Financial Crisis.
          * Today, the US is about the repeat the same mistake it had on China: try to fight China by allying India whose population will soon surpass that of China's.

          You see. The US has done all of these despite being the number 1 superpower but yet not powerful enough to defeat the number 2 superpower alone.

          Instead of coexisting with the number 2 superpower and lead by large margin, the US insist on defeating whoever is the number 2 superpower. Nobody will defeat the US Empire except its own greediness.

          [*] This was confirmed by Henry Kissinger [nationalreview.com] the architect of the US-China relation, as opposed to the claim, repeated recently by US politicians, especially officials in the Trump administration, that the US befriended to China in attempt to bring "democracy" to China.

          • by sjames ( 1099 )

            Innovation doesn't come from working hard at your job, it comes from working hard at your hobby. If you work 60 hour weeks in the boiler room style open office at work making sure the TPS reports are done in triplicate, you are not coming up with great new things. If you are busy filling out 60 page proposals and clarifying what you meant by "is" on page 33 4th paragraph 3rd sentence, you are not coming up with great new things.

            If you are waiting in line at the DMV and jumping through flaming hoops for the

      • ITs typical modern american to blame everything on politics, most non Americans I know have nothing good to say about the good old USA, its pretty obvious without a report the USA is on a decline and has been for a while.
        • ITs typical modern american to blame everything on politics, most non Americans I know have nothing good to say about the good old USA, its pretty obvious without a report the USA is on a decline and has been for a while.

          The actual modern American, is unfortunately handcuffed to politics right now, as tens of millions of unemployed citizens that used to thrive quite nicely in shuttered industries, are now highly dependent on the government dole that is hardly showcasing support, particularly when compared to other countries.

          Most Americans would have never had a reason to care this much about politics. But right now, political decisions are affecting almost every citizen.

      • Its Bloomberg so My guess is there is some political reasons why it happened as to maybe take 1 last jab at last president who the Owner hates. Which magically we will return to top 10 the next time they do this "index"

        I doubt it. We've spent some years being anti technology, anti innovation, and anti science. We've concentrated mostly on pecuniary extraction of capital, and that doesn't allow for much innovation. Maybe for apps that allow you to invest in stocks, but I'm having trouble thinking of many. Any help there?

        The world moves on with or without us, and just like science doesn't give a damn what we think, neither does the rest of the world.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      It's almost like the article said what it measures!

      "The Bloomberg index analyzes dozens of criteria using seven equally weighted metrics, including research and development spending, manufacturing capability and concentration of high-tech public companies."

    • by nickovs ( 115935 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @09:23AM (#61022926)
      If you'd looked at the article you, would have discovered that they are scoring countries in sever broad categories: R&D intensity, Manufacturing value add, Productivity, High-tech density, Tertiary education efficiency, Researcher concentration and Patent activity. If you had looked closely at the footnotes on the table that shows the scores in all of these areas, you would have found that they give the details of the quantitative measures that were used to come up with these scores, and notes about how they aggregate those seven into a single rank. In fact, if you'd looked at the article you wouldn't need to just wonder what they are measuring, you could know!
      • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        That's a long "RTFA".

        [Sig.] If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?

        The standard response from evangelicals is "God always existed". Thus, he doesn't need a creator of his own. Interesting work-around, you gotta admit.

        • Interesting work-around, you gotta admit.

          "Interesting" isn't the word I would use. I think the word you're searching for is, "Space Ranger".

      • The problem is that these are randomly chosen metrics with profound measurement issues that give a superficiality of "numbers" but have no such accuracy. Then you say one nation scores 198.5687 and another scores 174.371 and you are pretending to have a meaningful number there when you really don't. So yeah, this is just another listicle, such as which countries are the best to take a vacation in, as measured by an index of seltzer water prices in top hotels -- Spain has a 124 whereas Italy is only 112! Oh

        • The problem is that these are randomly chosen metrics with profound measurement issues that give a superficiality of "numbers" but have no such accuracy

          A poor metric is better than no metric, though if you have a poor metric you shouldn't pay attention to fine distinctions, because those are likely to be artifacts of the details of what you chose to measure and how. But large variances and overall trends can still be highly informative and useful.

          This particular metric seems pretty reasonable to me, though.

      • Still doesn't explain how the US companies, and more precisely those in Silicon Valley are outrageously dominating the world in every domain that is related to innovation.

        It's not like the world is not trying to compete with Google, Amazon, Tesla, or SpaceX. But they failed miserably because the pace of innovation by those companies is just crazy, plus they suck literally every talent out of the planet.

        So I can understand why people question the metrics and the conclusions. Researcher concentration is a j

    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Ability to read the summary.

    • I wonder if you understand what they are measuring and what this index shows or if you just looked up the word used in the title in the dictionary...

    • they think they are measuring? Lots of patent activity? foreign student considerations? etc.

      And are any of the criteria normalized to the size of the country? China and the US are so large that any non-normalized metric should have them near the top due to sheer size.

      "The Bloomberg index analyzes dozens of criteria using seven equally weighted metrics, including research and development spending, manufacturing capability and concentration of high-tech public companies." The term "concentration" suggests some sort of normalization. Manufacturing "capability" sounds very mungible. No country in

    • This is all based on Ramen consumption, the only technology metric that matters.

    • Good question. Their largest company Samsung didn't innovate anything, just copied the iPhone.
  • It's a win-win.
  • by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @08:19AM (#61022750) Journal

    That underperformance was likely made worse by obstacles to foreign students

    I really struggle with this one. Because first off the USA has a diverse domestic population of people with lineages from all over the world. We are also a large enough population that we really should be able to produce plenty enough 1%ers (in terms of best and brightest of humanity; not money) to be innovation leaders without 'importing people' who are as yet unaccomplished. Attracting people who have already demonstrated they are 1%ers is a little different ball of wax. The foreign students though for the most part of would be folks yet to enter science or industry.

    Call me a nationalist or whatever names you like; but I would much rather see us focusing on fixing whatever the issues are that preventing our own children from being innovation leaders than on trying to import even more of other peoples kids from across oceans.

    • "preventing our own children from being innovation leaders" we could start by sending them to school and teaching!
      I know, to much to ask from our educators in America.
      Heck, American Universities are so advanced and exclusive many American children struggle to qualify.
    • guess what china with almost 5x time the pop...
    • I think that statement was only to explain why the US had dropped. It has long been held up by imported brainpower, and the US educational system has been pretty lackluster for a while.

      • by Hodr ( 219920 )

        Keep in mind that one of the items they judge is the "concentration" of high tech companies. Not the number of these companies, the quality, the size, the impact, just the number per capita.

        This is an odd way of defining "leading", it would be as if Liechtenstein leads the world in athletics because they have the most Olympic medals per capita.

        And without digging into the research methodology, I suspect that research spending is relative to the size of the economy, which has the same argument going against

        • Yes the patent thing is a little bit odd. I have a number of patents, but some of these were filed at the urging of my boss who was trying to increase the numbers on his team. Honestly, there are several of them that I would not have approved if I worked for the USPTO. I felt like they were obvious. But then I actually looked at a bunch of the patents that were being awarded across the country. So much crap. So I guess if the company wants to give me a bonus for this stuff, I'll take it.
    • there's no reason why we can siphon the best talent while also supporting the next generation. But the hard part is it means actually supporting them. This means giving people things, like education and the money they need to support themselves while they're being educated.

      Other countries are doing that. We're not. The reason for this is that we get to have those educated people without spending the money it takes to educate them. You've got to decide if you want our country to spend that money or not.
    • by iikkakeranen ( 6279982 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @03:28PM (#61024514)

      America has had an anti-intellectualism problem for decades. It just isn't cool for Americans to be smart let alone scholarly. The highest paid people in education sector are football coaches. Half the country literally tries to prohibit teaching of actual science in favor of religious fiction, and one of the two major parties has a stated goal of defunding education. The other party "meets them in the middle" by only defunding education a little bit at a time. I don't know if this is a problem that can be "fixed" because it's ultimately an ideological/religious issue. The populace believes that education is inherently elitist and/or sinful, and they sure as hell won't pay for poor people to go to school.

  • Not because "critical theory" has taken over department after department, turning them into Marxist indoctrination factories, but because we aren't taking enough foreign students? How are Americans supposed to become more innovative by teaching foreign students to innovate when we only seem to teach ourselves how to hate everything that made us so innovative in the first place?

    No, we aren't becoming less innovative because we aren't helping other nations become more innovative, it is because we let polit

    • by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @08:38AM (#61022786) Homepage
      Education is where it is because it became too busy trying to 'leave no dumbass behind' instead of helping the smart people.
      • by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @09:03AM (#61022862) Journal

        That is true but its also a symptom itself. We fell into 'leave no child behind' in education 'solution' because we allow globalism to remove entire pillars of our economy. Not only did we send most of the jobs that innovate making something with your hands over seas we created a culture that looks down on the people who do the ones that remain for the most part.

        At least until we have general purpose robots that can match or beat a man in every way in terms of dexterity, strength, environmental tolerances there is a need for both kinds of work, physical and mental and treating one is more important than the other or somehow 'better' is just a value judgement and not one based in any real fact.

        However that is where we are; your chances at having a comfortable middle class life style in American are rapidly diminishing if you are not a knowledge worker of some kind. So the interventionists responded by doing what they always do and intervened even more and doubled down on this everyone needs college degree theory of economic growth; rather than evaluating if their demolition of the old nationalist constructs actually promoted the "general welfare." I don't think it has, I think in absolute terms its delivered greater GDP growth but its bringing increasing wealth concentration. The rising tide isn't lifting all ships, its clearly swamped some and leaving the little ones behind.

        • One way to look at it is that mundane, repetitive labor is going automated or at least being reduced to the point where the supply far exceeds the demand. In a way I think that is a good thing because I do not believe that it is healthy for competent human being to do that sort of work. There may be some folks who cannot do anything else, but I think the number of people who are that way because of an injury, defect, or genetics is very small. We teach too many people to become like that in the way we use o
          • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

            Well it does not have to be that way exactly. Even assembly line workers can be rotated from station to station. However I don't think there is anything wrong with someone being satisfied doing that sort of work.

            Not everyone lives to work. Some people really do choose to work to live. Some people just want to chase their own hobbies and standing at an assembly line lets them think about their artistic ambitions for the evening and weekend puts food on the table and pencils in their box.

            Its also not some r

      • You have no idea what you are talking about because "no child left behind" was actually a mask to do exactly the opposite - remove funding from schools in poorer communities. The problem is that, at the early schooling level, there is no way to know up front who the "smart people" are. So if you remove education from people because they are poor, you are artificially removing "smart people" from meeting their potential because only "rich people" get good schools.
        • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

          You have no idea what you are talking about because "no child left behind" was actually a mask to do exactly the opposite

          No it wasn't. It was an attempt to punish failure and reward success. It worked mostly as you describe in practice because the measures of success were defined in myopic way and tended to measures absolutes where such policies should probably be looking at rates and direction of change.

          One could make the similar equally disingenuous claims about common core, and say its scheme to generate equity rather than equality by ensuring everyone gets an equally crappy instruction based on awful curricula poorly matc

      • there are tons of programs to segregate the smarter kids. That's not the problem. The problem is college is too expensive, heck grade school is too expenesive. We've slashed budgets and that means huge classes. That means kids don't get the help they need unless their parents are rich and can afford private tutors and/or do the tutoring themselves.

        The problem is we don't want to spend the money to educate kids. The reason you're seeing so much foreign labor and so many foreigners in college instead of k
      • You don't need to help the smart people, they are smart
    • You certainly were taught to "hate everything", European anchor baby. :P

      You disqualified when you referred to non-psychopathicism as "Marxist", and put SJWs and sane people in one bucket together, when really, you and SJW would go together in one bucket really well. (Hey, maybe you'll cancel each other out! ^^)

  • by coofercat ( 719737 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @08:33AM (#61022768) Homepage Journal

    What have the South Koreans ever done for us? ...Phones?

    Well, of course the phones - that goes without saying. But besides that, what have the South Koreans ever done for us?

    • Kimchi? *throws up sour fire*

      • Ha. I really like good Kimchi. But I do get a kick out of watching people who have never had it try to dig into it like it is a salad.
        • It is a testament to Korean ingenuity that they developed a way of making bok choy not only palatable, but delicious. Parallel pickling developments arose elsewhere with harsh winters.
    • Okay TVs. But apart from phones and TVs what have they ever done from us. Okay kitchen and laundry appliances, but apart from phones and TVs and kitchen and laundry appliances, what have the south koreans ever done...

    • by vix86 ( 592763 )

      LCD and OLED screen technology, Samsung and LG are beating the pants off of everyone.
      Chip fabrication, Samsung has one of the cutting edge chip fabs in the world, right next to TSMC in Taiwan.
      Samsung has also consumed the TV, Phone, and home appliance sector in recent years.
      Samsung is also making ground in the battery manufacturing sector as well.
      Hyundai now owns one of the most advanced robotics companies (Boston Dynamics).
      Oh and car companies, Hyundai and Kia,

      They've also been exporting Korean Pop music a

    • And their phones weren't even innovative, they copied the iPhone.
  • by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @08:36AM (#61022776)

    We're all benefitting from it.
    Nobody's harmed.
    How selfish does one have to be, to treat it like a competition?
    And separating the groups by country borders is also arbitrary and nationalism.
    Using patents to measure it, is just patently ridiculous. Not only because the importance of a patent is ignored.

    How about we list the coolest innovations of the year for the entire planet? Sorted by usefulness.
    (Tech cancer like touch screens or wireles charging or surveillance being of negative usefulness, aka harmful.)
    That would get everyone somewhere, and be more useful than this crapticle.

    • by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @08:44AM (#61022814) Journal

      How selfish does one have to be, to treat it like a competition?

      One does not have to be selfish at all to treat it like a competition. Not all competition has to be cut throat, you have to fail so I can win type. "Innovation" isn't a zero sum game. Because I invent some stuff in no way means you can't also.

      As long as we are all just seeing who can run the fastest by trying to run faster its not selfish at all. Its only when we start knee-capping one another it becomes a selfish pursuit and there is no requirement we do that.

      • Because I invent some stuff in no way means you can't also.

        As long as we are all just seeing who can run the fastest by trying to run faster its not selfish at all. Its only when we start knee-capping one another it becomes a selfish pursuit and there is no requirement we do that.

        The international patent system would like a word with you....

        That fucking thing is all about knee-capping one another and making damn sure I invented something so you can't also.

  • Then why do the people work so many hours and have a life owned by their work ?
  • This is Obviously all Biden's fault!111
  • That underperformance was likely made worse by obstacles to foreign students, who are usually prominent in science and technology classes -- first due to the Trump administration's visa policies, and later to the pandemic.

    And S.Korea's place at the top of the list is thanks to its famously open-armed attitude towards immigrants in general, and foreign students in particular.

    • by Xarius ( 691264 )

      Think about it for a moment: the foreign students the USA were importing are staying in South Korea and other places. The real issue is why kids in the USA aren't as smart or driven as kids from anywhere else.

  • Innovation 1000 patents for the better adhesive do not necessarily innovation make.
    I'm not sure measuring innovation is something empirical.
    There is quality, and quantity where as quality is probably more important and harder to measure.

    The article is paywalled , does anyone have a list of what they actually looked at?

  • Blaming Trump for things that have been happening for decades. "That underperformance was likely made worse by obstacles to foreign students, who are usually prominent in science and technology classes" Crock o' beans! The US taught these foreign students who go back home and set up industries to compete with the US. Meanwhile, American students are farting around with useless degrees in touchy-feely crap.

  • by LostMyAccount ( 5587552 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @12:15PM (#61023724)

    I think a big problem with innovation is the number of giant companies with hugely profitable business lines whose customers face big switching penalties.

    These companies accumulate huge cash hoards you'd assume would be used to innovate new products. Yet their market dominance and switching penalties for their customers means that they only have to innovate incrementally and in many ways superficially.

    They also wind up comparing nearly guaranteed returns on their cash in short-term securities, like Treasuries, and decide that investing in innovation is odds-on likely to return less net profit than just keeping them parked in Treasuries.

    The economic down side is that this money doesn't circulate in the economy.

    I wish I had answers, but we're in this weird spot where securities markets are more valuable than product innovation and large entities have almost non-existent motivation to spend their money.

  • This is exactly why the Biden administration needs to mandate that every screw and every bold used in any government-funded project is Made in the USofA.

    Competing in a global marketplace is hard! Making laws is easier.
  • Oh yeah? (Score:5, Informative)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @12:40PM (#61023846)

    The US .. in the last 20 to 30 years developed and improved:

    Biotech:

    mRNA vaccines
    CRISPR gene editing technology.
    DNA sequencing technology

    Computers:

    Self driving cars - Tesla and Waymo lead
    CPU design - nVidia, AMD, Intel lead
    CPU design software - Synopsis, Mentor graphics etc. nobody is even close.
    3D graphics design software - Maya, Unity etc.
    CAD software - Autodesk
    Game design software - Unity, Unreal engine
    Web design frameworks - Vue, Reactjs etc.
    Social media - invented Facebook, instagram, twitter, youtube
    Gig economy - Invented Uber, Airbnb, Taskrabbit etc.

    Engineering:

    Re-usable and self-landing rockets - SpaceX leads
    Improved Methane rocket engines (Russians pioneered it, but the investment required to make it commercially viable)
    Mars probes, sent probe to Pluto
    Electric cars - Tesla leads
    Robotics - Boston Dynamics -- nobody has anything close
    Warehouse Logistics - Amazon

    Meanwhile, China only figured out the metallurgy to make a ballpoint pen's nib in 2017. Google it if you don't believe me.

    • > Robotics - Boston Dynamics -- nobody has anything close

      True, but even they're owned by the South Koreans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • in the last 20 to 30 years developed

      Cool story. Nothing at all to do with the Innovation index though. Maybe look up what is being discussed before angrily posting an irrelevant counterpoint. They aren't sitting around counting developments.

      Mind you the China thing: "figure out the metallurgy" is another great way of showing you've got NFI what you're talking about. China outsourced production of a commonly made component to other countries. That's a cost benefit thing nothing more. There are far more complicated constructions than the tip of

  • You want to do *basic research* at a company? On company dollars? Rather than just refine what works? But... that cuts ROI!

    Overwhelmingly, most basic research, the stuff that leads to jumps and new things, comes from universities... and even a lot of that, is GOVERNMENT FUNDED. (Example: the NIH funds about 60% of all basic biomedical and bioscientific research in the US.)

    And the GOP hates education, because someone with an actual education may call their lies lies, and vote against them due to "enlightened

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