<i>This is essentially how China is run: you take a standardized test when you're eighteen or so, and that test determines your life. If you do well, you have power, and if you do poorly, you don't.</i><p>I wonder how China's Steve Jobs did on the standardized test when s/he was eighteen.  Our Steve Jobs hadn't even met Wozniak by that point.<p>There are many types of intelligence and only one type is measured by standardized testing.  Indeed is it probably all the other types that will become increasingly important as society adjusted to its complete saturation with technology.  Ken Robinson's TED talk addresses this far better than I could: <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_...</a>.  If you only watch a few TED talks, Ken's should certainly be one of them.<p>As you point out, the picture you paint of China is strangely appealing to those on HN (myself included).  I think our types tend to be good at standardized testing and we enjoy highly efficient systems.  However there is a massive cost to such a system because the Steve Jobs of the world are less likely to thrive.  Once you look past the initial appeal of efficiency, it becomes a scary ideal indeed.