> From the letter, quoting Malcolm Gladwell: "Take a random group of 8-year old American and Japanese kids, give them all a really, really hard math problem, an

> From the letter, quoting Malcolm Gladwell: "Take a random group of 8-year old American and Japanese kids, give them all a really, really hard math problem, and start a stopwatch. The American kids will give up after 30, 40 seconds. If you let the test run for 15 minutes, the Japanese kids will not have given up. You have to take it away." I know this isn’t really your point, but like a lot of Gladwell anecdotes this smells like the kind of thing that’s more interested in selling a story than telling a story. Is this from a real study, or is it a story that feels right because it flatters certain preconceptions? Are the Japanese students ultimately more successful, or do they just spend longer failing? Are they more afraid of disappointing adults? Of appearing ignorant? Maybe they’re just more willing to toil pointlessly at arbitrary tasks. What’s the criteria for “giving up”, that they hand back the paper themselves? Maybe they’re done but are ashamed to admit it, something like a salaryman sitting at his desk doing nothing because he can’t bring himself to leave before his boss. Just saying, this has a strong Gladwell-tinged odor of “the real story is probably more complicated and maybe less interesting than you’re trying to make me believe”.