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I have occasionally thought about so-called "economic uncertainty" over the last couple of years. When I was in undergrad a long time ago, I had a course that t

I have occasionally thought about so-called "economic uncertainty" over the last couple of years. When I was in undergrad a long time ago, I had a course that touched on cultural differences. One of the claims was that a significant difference between, for example, American culture and several Asian cultures was that Americans tended to be okay with high uncertainty, while Asians preferred low uncertainty. (Let me say for the record that I have no idea if this is true or not; just something I came across in university.) While the thesis was that this difference held true across many aspects of life, one possible implication was that Americans tended to be more innovative and risk-taking, while Asians tended to be more risk-averse (and conservative in approach) and less likely to fail when finally making an attempt. Maybe this was like "easier to ask forgiveness than permission" versus "look before you leap" mentalities. Then suddenly in the past 5 or 10 years, I have heard and read so many American business leaders and pundits whining and warning about uncertainty in the business climate. Taxes, regulations, supply chains, demand risks, or whatever else, I don't even know. I mean, I understand that uncertainty is a massive risk for entrenched incumbents and stodgey old behemoths, but I have occasionally wondered where the spirit of innovation, risk-taking, and, as TFA discusses, adaptability has gone. (It's all gone to start-ups, of course; maybe?)

fxtentacle 4y ago
I believe you're on to something here. I also heard that research and small startups in the US (and west in general) tend to take on more risk for potentially higher rewards. But companies for years have outsourced everything from production to research to product development. And those contract developers both are culturally risk-averse and they also have strong financial incentives to take on only the minimum of risk necessary to get paid for their research contract. And that's why the innovation speed of large US companies is limited by risk-reduction in Asia.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
You can turn most high-uncertainty situations into low-uncertainty situations via simple mechanisms like insurance. But, some people don't like that, they feel that admitting their successes, and others failures, were partly just random chance, takes away from their feeling of control over their lives and so strongly need to believe they succeeded due to their own efforts (which in their mind helps to guarantee their future luck/success). So the argument was probably really about how much you should remove the uncertainty post-facto, and highly reward the winners and punish the losers, and the high-uncertainty angle was likely pushed by people who had already got lucky, and/or people who thought they would and so wouldn't suffer the consequences. The next generation has to run that experiment again, and learn the lesson anew.
andrekandre 4y ago
> while Asians tended to be more risk-averse that teacher should visit china someday; people aren't afraid to take risks when it comes to entrepreneurship... and japan in the bubble days was quite wild with all kinds of risk taking as well...

fxtentacle 4y ago

I believe you're on to something here. I also heard that research and small startups in the US (and west in general) tend to take on more risk for potentially higher rewards. But companies for years have outsourced everything from production to research to product development. And those contract developers both are culturally risk-averse and they also have strong financial incentives to take on only the minimum of risk necessary to get paid for their research contract. And that's why the innovation speed of large US companies is limited by risk-reduction in Asia.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

You can turn most high-uncertainty situations into low-uncertainty situations via simple mechanisms like insurance. But, some people don't like that, they feel that admitting their successes, and others failures, were partly just random chance, takes away from their feeling of control over their lives and so strongly need to believe they succeeded due to their own efforts (which in their mind helps to guarantee their future luck/success). So the argument was probably really about how much you should remove the uncertainty post-facto, and highly reward the winners and punish the losers, and the high-uncertainty angle was likely pushed by people who had already got lucky, and/or people who thought they would and so wouldn't suffer the consequences. The next generation has to run that experiment again, and learn the lesson anew.

andrekandre 4y ago

> while Asians tended to be more risk-averse that teacher should visit china someday; people aren't afraid to take risks when it comes to entrepreneurship... and japan in the bubble days was quite wild with all kinds of risk taking as well...