> For example, despite SK, JP, and Singapore having the best transit in the world by far, their people HATE using it and are desperate to buy expensive, crap cars to avoid using it.

This is pretty bold statement. I certainly would not say that most Japanese in big cities follow this trend. To be fair, in any wealthy, dense city, a small fraction will always buy a car. A well-to-do senior manager at an urban Japanese firm is much more likely to upgrade to "Green Car" (slightly nicer train car), rather than drive a car to work.

Last thought: Are there any highly developed, very dense cities in East Asia/Sino-sphere that do not have amazing mass transit? I struggle to think of any.

> [South Korea, Japan, Singapore] A lot of these nations serve as counter examples to traditional "reddit" or even "HN" orthodoxy on policy

Don't you know those countries don't exist? Whenever a redditor starts talking public policy the discussion is always America vs "the rest of the world", where the rest of the world means Europe. Sometimes they throw in the word "civilized", which is fun. For instance:

"The rest of the world abolished the death penalty."

"The rest of the world tries to rehabilitate criminals instead of punishing them."

"The rest of the world doesn't try to ruin people's lives for using/selling drugs."

So you see, South Korea, Japan and Singapore don't exist!