>>14351599The East has some incredible inventions under its belt but, historically it's always had a sort of "that'll do" attitude towards science, math, and technology.
Like take glasswork for example. China invented glass and glass manufacturing techniques a little later than the West, but still managed to come up with some of the same rudimentary early technologies for manufacturing and crafting with it... but as soon as they got to that point they just sort of said "eh, this glass shit's okay, but I think we'll just stick with ceramics for our teacups and plates and crap" and then sort of just left glass as an entire material and technology path by the wayside for ~1500 years. During which time the West and Middle East realized the implications of optics, learned to develop lenses, telescopes, microscopes, eyeglasses, etc. that allowed for some *major* scientific and technological breakthroughs.
Or look at gunpowder and firearms. China invented gunpowder a little over a thousand years ago, did some tinkering with rudimentary rockets, fireworks, ceramic bombs, and crude fire lances. Then they got to a point around 1000 AD where they just sort of said "eh, whatever, that'll do" and never really made any significant efforts to advance the technology beyond the one-time-use 'shock' weapons. When gunpowder ended up in the hands of Middle Eastern and Western empires they pushed it to its limits - complex firearms and artillery, the entire concepts of rifling, shots, sabots, cartridges, reloading actions, etc. all came out of the Middle East and the West.
