My dad (we're Taiwanese) once told me the difference between Asian and Western societies is mostly in fault tolerance strategies - how each society prevents imp

My dad (we're Taiwanese) once told me the difference between Asian and Western societies is mostly in fault tolerance strategies - how each society prevents important societal systems and functions from failing. Asian societies beat the fear of mistakes into you from a young age - everyone being so afraid of doing anything wrong that few things go wrong. Hence, they tend to build systems that depends upon no one making mistakes, and it often works out. Western societies assume mistakes will always occur and build systems that accounts for failure with contingency plans and backup strategies to ensure mistakes are limited in their damage. I've thought about this a lot with the pandemic. Initially, strategies of staving off covid aligned very well with Asian society (shaming everyone into the proper behavior of wearing masks, getting checked, staying at home if you're sick, etc). However, this strategy relies on no one making mistakes (basically, everyone behaving). Contrast that to the US, where getting people to behave was nigh impossible, but with vaccinations, you don't care if some people misbehave because after herd immunity, the system is stabilized. The Asian strategy of fault tolerance is easy to roll out, quickly followed, and effective - but brittle and non permanent. It relies on people not making mistakes ever, and with human behavior, mistakes are bound to happen. In contrast, the Western strategy is a lot more work, a lot slower to roll out, but a more permanent solution. Solve it once and for all, and move on. Of course, a mix of both strategies is best; put on the short term band-aid of following orders, and follow it with the robust solution of herd immunity. And it seems that both sides messed up because of ideological blind spots.