hemabe

In Germany (and probably in the UK too), you now have to be very careful about what you write online. There is actually a section 188 that makes insulting, defaming, or slandering people in political life a criminal offense. You can now face heavy fines for minor insults (“idiot”) or even have your home searched. A VPN can be useful here.

I noticed this phenomenon several years ago and came to the following conclusions: Romania is strongly multi-ethnic. Germans from Saxony and Swabia immigrated to Transylvania 800 years ago. A thousand years ago, people from northern India immigrated, whom we now know as Gypsies and who make up 8-10% of the population. In the south, the country was besieged by the Ottomans/Turks for 400 years. The cognitive differences between these ethnic groups are enormous.

Some time ago, I asked ChatGPT to find the winners of the Math Olympiads, their schools, and their places of birth. Most of the Olympiad winners attended elite schools in Bucharest, with few math participants coming from the south of the country and no participants who could be classified as Gypsies. But surprisingly many participants come from Transylvania.

In 2023, for example, a computer science Olympiad participant from Orăștie (Hunedoara County) won a silver medal. Orăștie is located in Transylvania and historically had a Saxon community. Brașov (Kronstadt) also recently produced medal winners: in 2025, a student from the Meșotă College in Brașov won silver at the Chemistry Olympiad. Cluj-Napoca (Klausenburg) also appears on the list – a student from the Bălcescu Lyceum there won silver at the Linguistics Olympiad in 2024. Timișoara (Temeswar)—also a western city with German history—was represented by a student (Carmen Sylva College) with an Honorable Mention in linguistics. These examples support the thesis that educational centers in the former Habsburg regions produce above-average talent.

Is there any further information about the ethnic origin of the Science Olympiad participants? I would be grateful for any information (even if it does not confirm the thesis).

Germans have an average IQ of around 100 (it used to be 105 before immigration). Turks have an IQ of 85-90. If you are not biased, you can clearly see these differences in everyday life. With a few exceptions, the intellectual achievements of fellow citizens of Turkish origin tend to be rather low. The situation is different when you look at migrants from high-IQ countries, such as China (who have an IQ of 104). These children often achieve amazing results, for example in the International Science Olympiads. The US is actually only able to achieve top places in the Math Olympiad thanks to Chinese migrants. Almost the entire US team consists of people with a Chinese background. Look at this picture of the US-Team for 2023 if you want to know, what I mean: https://maa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screen-Shot-2024-...

IQ is largely genetic, even if some people claim otherwise. The evidence for this is now overwhelming: even when different ethnic groups grow up in very similar conditions in the same country, the PISA (which correlates r=0.9 with IQ) scores measured vary greatly. For example, among second-generation children in Germany, there are significant differences in PISA scores. Polish children achieve similar or even better scores than German children. Turkish children, on the other hand, remain at the same poor level that their parents (the first generation of immigrants) achieved in the tests.

Twin studies and studies of adopted children also leave no doubt that there is a very strong genetic component that determines IQ. Even Wikipedia assumes that heritability can be as high as 80%.

Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article174706968/OECD-Studie-...

And yet, in the US, the first start-ups are offering the possibility of testing embryos for their IQ.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/oct/18/us-startup-c...

China could not only be ‘equal’ but ‘better’ than the USA - we should get used to the idea. China has an average IQ of 104 out of 1.4 billion people, while the USA has an IQ of 97. In purely statistical terms, this means that the USA has around 700,000 people with an IQ >= 140. China has 11,480,000 people with this IQ. This human capital will make the difference.

Let's see what happens, if donations for Edward Snowden are ranked #1 at the end of the year... :)