Links of the day
- Opera, both Beijing and classical European, is booming in China due in part to the “build it and they will come” mantra. I find the last paragraph particularly interesting: “They are all looking to China for the survival— the only hope for growth — for all classical music, frankly,” said Shirley Young, chairwoman of the US-China Cultural Institute. “The future of classical music is here.” It’s a little ironic that so few Westerners appreciate their own high culture anymore that it has to find a new home in the East to survive.
- Razib summarizes a study on time preference across nations. It’s interesting to note that testing a four year-old with the marshmallow test can predict where the kid’s average SAT score will be with a 210 point difference between those who could wait and those who couldn’t. The difference is equivalent to the difference between rich and poor kids and greater than the difference between kids w/ grad school parents and those whose parents didn’t finish high school. There’s a cool graph which I’ve copy/pasted here. The college kids were asked if they’d prefer $3.4k now or $3.8k in a month. I don’t think the graph takes into account per capita income or social trust, but interesting nonetheless.
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lol @ the marshmallow test. a 4 yr old sitting alone for 20 mins without eating the marshmallow shows some major self control. there is a pretty funny extended video of the test, one girl starts to eat the marshmallow before the adult leaves the room.