Why have East Asian countries been 3rd world until recently, despite high IQ?

submitted by [deleted] from (self.debatealtright)

[deleted]

all 19 comments
sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun

[–]EuropeanAwakening14 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The Chinese have had advanced civilizations for thousands of years. Japanese and Koreans for a long time, too. Average IQ isn't everything, though. They may have less geniuses per capita, less creativity, and a different spirit that isn't Faustian.

[–]radicalcentristNational Centrism 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Average IQ isn't everything, though. They may have less geniuses per capita,

I've never seen evidence for this claim and in fact, it contradicts data on how they perform in school.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/1995-SAT-vs-Income-Education.png

Asians always come out on top in fields that require the most brain power. Only in the $0 ~ 20,000 category do White people have a slight advantage but I feel like that's due to America being their home turf, or because Afghans and Filipinos are counted as "Asians" and drag their overall score down.

If you go to an actual High IQ Asian country like South Korea, the standards are set really high just based on the fact every High School kid gets 90% or higher in class. That's far from looking stupid or even average intelligence. Getting employed by a world status company like Samsung also requires that you far outpace your peers.

[–]Nombre27 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (10 children)

On average, I think they lack the ability to think creatively and lack the Faustian spirit. From that, they just failed to develop various technologies and explore.

Example. Zheng He's ship. I believe the smaller ship is one of Columbus'. So while they were capable of building a ship that dwarfed European ships, they don't seem to have cared to explore in the same way that Europeans did.

Another example. Developing gun powder for fireworks but never realizing the potential military applications.

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

China already had multiple military applications using gun powder before Europeans obtained a recipe or created their own variants. They used gunpowder for explosive arrows, fire lance which gave extra kick to a polearm, explosives, cannons and guns. The first gun that was commonly used was a disposable side arm called a fire-emitting lance which would fire a pellet from a bamboo tube. This weapon was used on horseback or defending walls because it could be prepared in advance and used immediately. They also iterated upon this design and created a hand cannon which had a triggering mechanism and a barrel made out of a cast iron tube. The first gun was already made at least around 1000 AD and Europeans didn't really start using gunpowder until the 1300s.

I don't think Asians are really lacking anything in comparison to Europeans in the past. Europeans only started to ascend with more modern fire arms like muskets, percussion weapons and the industrial revolution. After the proliferation of personal computers, It is difficult to say which race is ascendant because Jews basically have their grasp on every major country.

[–]Nombre27 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thank you for that, I stand corrected.

[–][deleted]  (4 children)

[deleted]

    [–]Nombre27 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

    No, I haven't.

    [–]YORAMRWWhite nationalist, eugenicist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

    What did the deleted comment say?

    [–]Nombre27 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    I can't recall right now. Sorry.

    [–][deleted]  (2 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]UserAetheria 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

      I believe this to be the correct answer. Also the words "first world" and "third world" are too binary. You'd almost certainly rather live in "third world" East Asia than "third world" Africa.

      [–]radicalcentristNational Centrism 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

      "3rd world" is the wrong term. Unindustrialized seems like a better word.

      And even then, you had one Asian country [Japan] who manage to catch up and keep pace with Europe very quickly.

      There was a 1904 war they fought against Russia, and beating them marked the first time an Asian country could stand against a European great power.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War

      But because Japan was so cramped and the island itself didn't have much resources, they were forced to expand in order to keep up with other empires at the time who were already doing the same thing (i.e France or Britain had already colonized much of the world, giving them an infinite amount of resources to pull from).

      [–]TheJamesRocket 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

      China made three separate attempts to embark on an industrial revolution, and failed each time. It was only after their fourth attempt (when they had Western assistance) that they succeeded.

      [–]literalotherkinNorm MacDonald Nationalism 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

      I reject the notion that they were 'third world'. Late to industrialisation and insular perhaps but China and Japan still had rich and long lasting cultures that were obviously the creation of intelligent people.

      [–]DragonerneJesus is white 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

      One of the biggest issues that Asia has had in the past 5000 years is a culture known as the scythians/goths/huns/tartars/mongols that consisted of basically huge armies just wandering around on horseback, with chariots, wagons, cows, sheep, and so on. They didn't have nations or a civilization or a settlement, instead they would walk around from place to place with hundred thousands of people.

      Imagine that you're a a small city state and a huge army of 300.000 people, men, women and children, come visit you to take your stuff frequently. This was what they did. These tribes would war against each other too, but if a civilization grew too huge, they would "harvest them".

      Guns and nation states solved the "mongol question" as laid out in the Adam Smith book Wealth of Nations. This was a way for the civilized people to combat these huge swarms of people ruining and destroying everything on their path.

      With that said, it should be stated that we do see great Asian civilizations too. If you want to go into alt-history, things get even more interesting in regards to these civilizations, but I wont go into details about that here because a lot of the info is questionable and without a lot of evidence.

      [–]Nombre27 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

      If you want to go into alt-history, things get even more interesting in regards to these civilizations, but I wont go into details about that here because a lot of the info is questionable and without a lot of evidence.

      Mind going into it a bit?

      [–]DragonerneJesus is white 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

      A lot of it simply so out there, that I don't even know where to begin without sounding like a complete nutcase. If you want to dive into these types of topics I can suggest you to watch Robert Sepehr who has also done some videos on ancient China.
      Here are some of his videos:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAUIspPfzqU
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0IYmJj9_7s
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQREYTGlfgM
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGqvEz73s-c
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCYdLZn_dZw

      His videos are about caucasians in ancient China and asia. Pyramids in China. Caucasian mummies in China.

      After him, you can look into more obscure alt-history but a lot of it has also been hijacked by lunatics, some of whom that advocate that mountains are giant tree stumps. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa8z1cejAJU) Due to the hijacking that's going on, I don't want to promote any of this to people here. Robert gets my approval though, but he is introduction-level alt-history. "Survive the Jive" is good too, but I don't remember him doing anything on ancient asia, at least that I've seen.

      I just checked, and he has one video on China:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB8eeVd7R_M
      and one on India:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSVZB3zJ35I

      I would rather not promote any of the crazier stuff to people here.

      [–]Nombre27 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

      Thanks for the links. I'm superficially familiar with Sepehr.

      [–]FoxySDTWhite Nationalist 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

      It tends to be a staple on the alt right that IQ is very important in the development of advanced cultures/countries.

      This is true but first you should know that the correlation between national IQ and GDP p.c. is between 0.59 - 0.7 depending on which type of correlation you use. This means that IQ alone explains between 35-50% of variation in GDP p.c. And while this is more than any other single variable (by far) there is still huge chunk unexplained.

      To see what explains the rest we need to look at those countries whose GDP p.c. is higher (or lower) than what their IQ would predict and examine their specific local factors. When you do this you will notice discernible patterns among them. One cluster of such countries are Caribbean islands who live off of Western tourism and foreign investments. The others are Middle Eastern countries who got rich thanks to their large oil reserves.

      Doing the same analysis, this time for countries with GDP p.c. lower then what they "should" have (among which is China) you will notice that the common variable among them is former or present socialist government. These include Eastern European nations, China, Mongolia, N. Korea, Vietnam. So to answer your question - it's due to socialism. Yes, IQ does mater a lot but there are things that can ruin your economy even if you have high IQ population.

      You can read chapter 4 of Richard Lynn's book Intelligence A Unifying Construct for the Social Sciences for more detailed explanation.

      [–]chadwickofwv 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

      Freedom is what allowed the west to industrialize and progress. This is something which is still completely alien to countries such as China, North Korea, the former USSR, and Japan until relatively recently. Fascist governments of all types actively suppress creativity because someone who can think for themself is a danger to those in power. This prevents them from advancing at any more than a snail's pace.

      [–]IkeConn 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

      Japan doesn't have illegal immigrants or many minorities; they force you to assimilate and yet the whole world gives them a pass on being racist. That's pretty fucking smart.