The Country Which Has Had The Most Impact on The Modern World

[PanzerJaeger]

Nothing? When was the last time you heard of exploding chairs in america? Or a New York man hole shooting 50 feet in the air? Yeah the western engineers and architects screw up, but rarely in such spectacular ways. Heck, where else do you find exploding watermelons?

Look up the American 'muckrakers' of the early 20th century and read some of their works. My favorite, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, details some of the egregious practices in the American meat packing industry. Here's a spoiler: workers often fell into rendering tanks and were simply ground up with the rest of the meat and sent out to grocery stores around the country. China is certainly not unique among developing nations in demonstrating the dark side of industrialization.

Furthermore, it should be noted that the Chinese manufacture products to the specifications they are given. Chinese companies are capable of designing and building technologically sophisticated products, but it is often the case that Western companies contract Chinese manufacturers to produces products in the cheapest manner possible with very few questions asked. They often find out that you get what you pay for.

I'm just trying to keep things in perspective. Asian growth is relative growth. While I'm glad that modern prosperity is spreading in the region I'm not in awe of it like others. It's hard to pin this down to a single country or political entity because, like others have shown, it's about Western culture and the exchange of ideas. China, in particular, is much more involved in intellectual theft than innovation.

I'm taking a much longer term perspective. Individual Asian economies will grow and falter, but the region will be the center of world economic activity in not so distant future. With that comes the ability to have the kind of global impact discussed in the OP.

[Greyblades]

Look up the American 'muckrakers' of the early 20th century and read some of their works. My favorite, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, details some of the egregious practices in the American meat packing industry. Here's a spoiler: workers often fell into rendering tanks and were simply ground up with the rest of the meat and sent out to grocery stores around the country. China is certainly not unique among developing nations in demonstrating the dark side of industrialization.

Yikes. Maybe i'm more hung up with the chinese because I'm spoiled by western industry that is generally forced to be standards by governments and the idea that sort of thing still goes on is surprising.