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Comment by fiatmoney | Hacker News Reader

The word "Asian" does not appear in the article.

The subtext is that the elite is concerned that traditional selection measures like grades & test scores have become totally game-able via a combination of sheer hourly input & collusion / cheating amongst certain subpopulations. This causes their kids to be outcompeted for very limited slots at elite institutions (even more limited due to massive subsidies to push people into the higher ed system, general population growth, and a desire to limit enrolment to preserve the social capital benefits of truly elite institutions).

Naturally there is pressure for those measures to be changed. Whether their characterisation of what's happening is correct is debatable, but that's where a good amount the pressure comes from.

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> We think of this as a problem only of the urban and suburban elite, but in traveling the country to report on this issue, I have seen that this stress has a powerful effect on children across the socioeconomic spectrum.

I didn't read your subtext in the article. I'm not convinced it accounts for very much. Also, Asian Americans make up 5% of the population. What do you think "Asian" has to do with the topic of this text?

If it were explicit, it wouldn't be "sub" text. You really do need to know a bit of context about the state of high school & higher ed admissions before the phenomenon they talk about makes sense. The NYT is kind of notorious for running editorials that only make sense as far as why they would be running, and at this particular time, if you have these pieces of information.

Stanford is 1/4 Asian, plus another 9% "international". UC Berkeley is about 40%, plus another 10% international. And as I said, it's about competition for the elite slots at those and similar places. Look at, eg, the student body composition at very "hardcore", high stress schools like Thomas Jefferson HS, or Gunn HS (recent subject of http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Why-are-Palo-Alto-s-ki... ).

The parents of students in that kind of environment are the intended target of this editorial. It provides them with a coordination point.

I'm not sure what you're trying to imply, speaking of subtext. Are you saying that Asians ("certain subpopulations") actually are helping each other cheat? Or just that the elites think Asians are cheating? And, in either case, the elites want to address the problem of Asian working harder than their kids by encouraging all kids, presumably including their own, to work less?

Either way, I don't see an argument against the article's main thrust, namely "working children into depression, anxiety, and burnout is bad."

the answer to your questions:

yes, yes, and yes.

but there is one more factor:

Asians have way higher IQs than whites.

The 19th & 20th centuries were quite tumultuous for Chinese. I think it was also comparably tumultuous for Korea and Japan.

In the past 150 years in China there were 6 major wars.

1. 1850-1864 Taiping Rebellion (My grandmother's great-grandparents lived this.)

2. 1894-1895 First Sino-Japanese war (My grandmother's grandparents lived this.)

3. 1911-1912 Xinhai Revolution (My grandmother's parents)

4. 1926-1928 Northern Expedition

5. 1937-1945 Second Sino-Japanese war (My grandmother)

6. 1946-1950 Chinese Civil War

Four social upheaval movements:

1. 1919 May fourth Movement

2. 1958 Great Leap Forward

3. 1966 Cultural Revolution

4. 1978 Chinese economic reform

There were also 9 famines during this period with total deaths of 120 million people during this period.

I think these events have contributed to a certain set of attitudes in Asians in the two generations after 1970, i.e Hungry and humble, as our ancestors were during those times, literally; the ones who survived, anyway.

Okay. So your root argument is...completely incoherent? Whatever works for you, I guess.

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