

A Realization About Japanese and American Superheroes - lionhearted
http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/?p=287

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logic
The observation is interesting (and one I'd never noticed before), but I'm not
sure if I agree with the conclusion.

The "American" approach of discarding what you know when you're almost
defeated and "winging it" seems pretty rational to me. If what you've been
doing isn't working, no matter how "correct" it might seem to be, and you're
about to run out of options, perhaps it's a good time to try a new strategy.

I don't think I'd characterize that as unhealthy.

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jbm
I agree.

Isn't one sign of insanity that you do the exact same thing over and over
again within the same context and expect different results?

I think the Japanese economy and it's various problems are related to the
battleship Yamato problem (keep trying the same thing over and over even when
failure is apparent)

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zdw
I disagree.

Throughout japanese media and culture there's also the thought that "if I just
try hard enough, I'll succeed" despite lack of training. This is demonstrably
false, and similar to giving gold stars for effort.

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stcredzero
If a major blockage is the idea that something isn't possible, then, "if I
just try hard enough, I'll succeed," might indeed win the day. If what is
important is skill and technique, then training might win the day. I suspect
it's not one or the other all the time, rather it's one or the other depending
on context.

That said, at the last moment or in a crisis, training is most likely to win
out, but even this is not absolute.

Artillery crews were once trained to stay by their cannon to defend them at
all costs. However, it was noted that in the face of counter-battery fire,
most of the time the artillery onsite would all still function while the
entire crew might be killed. (Guns being made of metal while people are made
of red squishy stuff.) In this case, the training was wrong and those who went
with their gut feelings (run like hell and take cover) were actually doing the
right thing. Taking cover under counter-battery fire became the new training
norm.

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julius_geezer
During the Tokugawa shogunates, Japan aimed at maintaining a static society,
and did a pretty fair job of it: contacts with the European world confined to
Nagasaki, firearms excluded, etc. During about the same years, the Americans
went from colonists mostly east of the Atlantic fall line to an independent
nation that controlled most of the territory where the contiguous 48 states
are.

I say this not to imply some American superiority, but to point out that
training, in those circumstances, was often irrelevant.

