[sharun]

As an Indian all I can say is don't even bother addressing western delusions about themselves. Time will be the judge on the quality of innovation a culture built on celebrity worship, instant gratification and mindless consumption can produce.

[csa]

While I agree that your characterization of "innovation" might be accurate in terms of measures like column-inches or click-through rates in today's online media, I think history will look much more favorably on the lasting contemporary innovations from western nations that withstand the test of time.

While I have great hope for innovation in various Asian countries moving forward, I'm not sure that there will be many purely homegrown major innovations from these places for the next decade or three.

FWIW, I think that the catalyst for Asian innovation will be the exploration of areas that many religious westerners find inappropriate -- stem cell research, genetics research, etc. The question is whether then will be truly independent, or whether there will be a brain drain from the west that helps lay the foundation (much like Europeans did for the US in the twentieth century).

Regardless, we are in exciting times.

[muninn_]

Because people in China and India don't have celebrities or Facebook accounts? If you want to be critical, at least try to be fair.

[EliRivers]

It does seem to have worked out well for them so far.

[nihonde]

It's like knowing that the emperor has no clothes and letting him show his bare ass until the inevitable cold of winter claims him.