July 21, 2009

Speaking of getting into the University of California ...

There's this:
American Children Like Me Are Lazy And Insolent And Must Try Harder

By Jimmy McDonalds

Hello, reader! I am a young boy from the United States, and like most other American children such as me, it seems there is nothing I enjoy more than lazing about from morning until night, eating sweets, and wantonly disrespecting the wishes of my elders.

But I am beginning to realize that my behavior—and the behavior of all typical American young people like me—is in every way unacceptable. What is more, my lack of obedience goes completely unchecked, since my parents, teachers, and government authorities will do nothing to stop it.

Sleep, eating, and Mickey Mouse. That's what I like best. Most days, when I am not gorging myself on cheese hamburgers or wasting my time collecting baseballs, I tend to speak to adults as if they were my schoolmates or mere common insects, instead of figures to be feared and respected. Did you know the amount of effort I put forth in my daily life is not even one-tenth that of children my age in other countries?

Also in the news:
Well, I've Sold The Paper To The Chinese

By T. Herman Zweibel
Publisher Emeritus (photo circa 1911)

As the longtime publisher of this news-paper, it is my duty and unrestrained pleasure to inform you spittle-soaked readers that I have sold The Onion and all of its various holdings to a syndicate of industrious China-men from the deepest heart of the Orient. ..

Any-way, I wish you all the best of luck making sense of the dis-jointed drivel contained in this inaugural issue of the Chinese Onion. ... Oh, and in accordance with the contractual terms of the buy-out, let me remind you all that Yu Wan Mei Fish Time is the best Fish Time, perfect eating for you and me and so delicious. That is all.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you want the TRUE Chinese experience, you have to go to UC Irvine. Accept no substitutes.

Anonymous said...

Why let these slacker white kids into the UC system just because a much smaller fraction of them have the same innate talent as Asians? The handful of the very brightest whites who can make a difference due to their freakish talents get in anyway.

When I was at Berkeley, every Asian I knew was studying something challenging that would have a practical value to society. I never knew any who took BS or makework courses/majors like so many non-Asians. In terms of societal investment, Asian UC students contribute far more honest returns (starting from scratch) than any other racial group.

Does society really need more unfocused and entitled cafe society layabouts or women studies warriors? I would die if my kids wasted the prime years of their intellectual life making pottery bongs or birdhouses out of milk cartons (which I've seen in studio arts and ecology).

Although I enjoyed the natural brilliance of my few white prodigy friends at Cal more than the OCD striving of my Asian friends, there were a surprising amount of non-Asians who were simply wasting space at a place like Berkeley.

Anonymous said...

The (kindof) Asian Steve Sailer.

American Consumer Mass said...

Best Onion ever - those China-men sure know how to turn a phrase.

Anonymous said...

When I was at Berkeley, every Asian I knew was studying something challenging that would have a practical value to society. I never knew any who took BS or makework courses/majors like so many non-Asians.

I'm guessing that's because you yourself were majoring in "something challenging that would have a practical benefit to society" and thus most of the Asians you met were doing likewise. It's called biased sample. And for the record, there are plenty of Asians at Cal taking soft majors.

hcl said...

There goes Steve from his crypto-WN phase of maybe 5 years into open "Angry White Man" mode. He's steaming mad!!!

Anonymous said...

The most annoying aspect about the chinese government is that they don't really care about, response to western media, and they seem to get strong support from most chinese.
Make fun of them, demonize them, belittling them........ don't seem to matter to them, they keep going, going and going ..........

Anonymous said...

hcl said...
There goes Steve from his crypto-WN phase of maybe 5 years into open "Angry White Man" mode. He's steaming mad!!!


College Admissions Panic (it ought to be in the DSM) does funny things to both kids and parents.

Anonymous said...

something useful... biased sample

Do you really believe that making pot holders in arts class or stomping around campus to take back the night as a feminist studies major is equal in rigour or value to society as majoring in chemistry, engineering, computer science or biochem? Are you that much of a pomo relativist that you don't see any different intrinsic societal value between these fields of study only a "sampling bias"?

And for the record, there are plenty of Asians at Cal taking soft majors

Of course there are - 40-50% of the student body is Asian. If you think my personal experience does not reflect the general trends you're deceiving yourself.

Anonymous said...

Do you really believe that making pot holders in arts class or stomping around campus to take back the night as a feminist studies major is equal in rigour or value to society as majoring in chemistry, engineering, computer science or biochem? Are you that much of a pomo relativist that you don't see any different intrinsic societal value between these fields of study only a "sampling bias"?


Zeeeeeeuuuuummmm goes the airplane!

Anonymous said...

Of course there are - 40-50% of the student body is Asian. If you think my personal experience does not reflect the general trends you're deceiving yourself.

Dude, I double-majored there--one hard, one soft--and there were plenty of whites in my hard major and plenty of East Asians in my soft major.

eh said...

Zwiebel is actually the German word for onion. Did they know that and just misspell it?

Anonymous said...

Dude, I double-majored there--one hard, one soft--and there were plenty of whites in my hard major and plenty of East Asians in my soft major.

I was a 2-3 courses short of triple majoring in a hard, soft and liberal arts major (CS). I took more than my share of elective liberal arts courses as well.

Are you arguing that Asians disproportionally concentrate in GLBT studies and studio arts and not are disproportionally concentrated in engineering or pre-med science courses? Does this really match your experience at Cal?

The only exception I saw were challenging but less directly remunerative fields like math and physics were not as disproportionally Asian. CS was not as unbalanced, and the softer life sciences (bio/biochem not ochem/pchem) were even more diverse. Even within the traditional liberal arts, Asians seem to tend toward the pragmatic like econ over philosophy or French.

In general I found whites the brightest and most interesting students but brightest are always a very small percentage. Far more numerious were the dim and/or lazy whites who avoided hard classes to enjoy their time (I encountered virtually no blacks or hispanics in core courses except outside the classroom).

If this comes across as reverse-racists, I apologize. I do think America needs to cut a lot of fat and incentivize our kids (white or other) into more productive studies and careers.

It won't be pleasant to watch anxious parents like Steve fighting for a share of a shrinking pie for their kids but hopefully it will focus our collective minds.

Toadal said...

Anon says: Does society really need more unfocused and entitled cafe society layabouts or women studies warriors? I would die if my kids wasted the prime years of their intellectual life making pottery bongs or birdhouses out of milk cartons (which I've seen in studio arts and ecology).
...
For some students 'soft' courses are as maddening as 'hard' courses are frustrating for others. Unfortunately, many 'soft' courses substitute precision and certainty with lazy opinionizing and downright political indoctrination.
...
In Richard Feynman's "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" he writes in 'Always Trying to Escape'. When I was a student at MIT I was interested only in science; I was no good at anything else. But at MIT there was a rule: You have to take some humanities courses to get more "culture". Besides the English classes required were two electives, so I looked through the list, and right away I found astronomy --- as a humanities course! So that year I escaped with astronomy.
...
Perhaps as a student, Steve Sailer gravitated to the precision of statistics for the same reasons Richard Feynman gravitated to physics?
...
BTW it appears the Onion's new Chinese owners-masters had encountered this earlier Local story and ran with it.

Area Man First In His Family To Coast Through College
Daniel will be the first Peterson to graduate with a half-assed American studies major.

An excerpt: At 17, he received a letter of acceptance from UMN, and at that moment committed himself to five years of sleeping late, drinking often, and sneaking by with a 2.7 GPA. After scuttling plans to major in video game design, Peterson enrolled in the school's American studies program, vowing never to sign up for any class that met before 11 a.m. or required him to write a term paper over five pages.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, many 'soft' courses substitute precision and certainty with lazy opinionizing and downright political indoctrination.

I wonder if Toadal grasps the irony of his own words. It's delicious.

Anonymous said...

Far more numerious were the dim and/or lazy whites

Hmmm.

Anonymous said...

Far more numerious were the dim and/or lazy whites

"Far more" is an exaggeration. There are several reasons for this real and perceived difference:

* Asian are more reserved than American-born whites who have less inhibition displaying their knowledge (or lack thereof) in the classroom. A caveat, the very brightest (usu whites) I encountered were generally aloof and difficult to identify in a crowd.

* Asians cluster in more fields where intellectual limitations are more objective and quantifable, so Asians more accurately understood their cognitive limits. More whites in the less/non-quantitative liberal arts fields fall prey to the human tendency to over-estimate one's own intelligence, esp the young who lack the experience of swimming in deeper waters.

* Culturally, independent of fields of study, Asians also have the lowest self-esteem while Blacks have the highest, including regarding one's intelligence. This results in a higher percentage of dim Asians keeping their mouths shut, flying under the radar and not overreaching in fields they are not competitive in.

* Asians are probably better at selecting majors that maximizing their abilities guided by practical economic concerns. I met numerous Asians who transferred from more difficult fields where they were average or struggled into less difficult fields where they did well enought to get into grad/prof school: Eng->Bio, pre-med->pre-dental, Math->Stat, science->econ, etc.

* Finally, Asians are probably admitted more on academics than white are. Relatively few Asians are athlete or JC tranfer admits like whites. For ethnic balance, admissions officers also probably also discriminate against Asians to keep the numbers down, even as high as they are now.

Anonymous said...

I was a 2-3 courses short of triple majoring in a hard, soft and liberal arts major (CS). I took more than my share of elective liberal arts courses as well.

And yet, somehow, during your entire time at Berkeley, in all those soft courses you took,

When I was at Berkeley, EVERY Asian I knew was studying something challenging that would have a practical value to society. I NEVER knew ANY who took BS or makework courses/majors like so many non-Asians.

Hmmmm....