At the same time these guys can go anywhere right and get paid big money . So it’s not only about the money.
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Asia will face a bigger problem with its current educational model in the next 10-20 years when AI can do math and solve equations better than a human robot test taker. AIs IQ will far surpass human IQ in the near future
True, but that won’t change as the ones who did best in their tests are also generally the ones running the country and thus the cycle continues. Problem solving is generally not tested in multiple choice tests answers based on memorization. There are many assets to being smart one of them is being taught how to “think” or at the very least they should not be discouraged from being able to “think”.
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Id like to think the ones who did best on their tests are running the countries at least it would be merit based vs guangxi/family based…maybe in Singapore but in Taiwan and Korea I doubt it… The ones running the country are usually the children of the rich and influential regardless of personal qualifications, IQ or capability
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I agree at the top level yes you are right, but the civil service is packed with Tai Da graduates. That’s kind of what I meant by the people who run the day to day operations of the country.
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I find this to be pretty smart . 
It would be, if the video wasn’t in reverse… 
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Civil servants now are sons and daughters of civil servants. With little incentive to stay, BTW. It takes a very special kind of person to nail those civil servant tests from Ming dynasty. Smart? In a specially determined and narrow manner.
From an educator raised on Paulo Freire and the multiple intelligence theories… this is a very complicated matter. I am more of an environment more than nature kind of gal… to a point.
To me, IQ scores speak of availability of resources, mainly school resources, food resources, safety, and all those factors that play into education. If you have a safe environment, like Taiwan, where people have their meals and take care of their children and children are surrounded by books and music and art, obviously they will be smarter than if left on their own in a house watching tv because parents work and the streets are dangerous. Or worse: if there is no food, there is no learning.
Plus all those piano/violin lessons give them Taiwanese kids a mental competence edge, developing their mind in the same way playing soccer for a favela kid that kicks a ball all day has great eye/feet coordination and could become the next Pele.
I read somewhere that due to starvation, North Koreans have lower IQs and this will take several generations to surmise. I also read recently that the richest Venetian families have been so since the 15th century. There is a certain holding power to those riches.
In the old country, the rich tend to be not very smart, because there is a lot of inbreeding. The most dangerous criminals tend to be the bastards of the elite. One of our presidents, everyone knows he is the son of one of the maids and his blue blood father, but anyone that has held proof of that has died painfully. Brilliant guy, admired abroad…lethally corrupt, criminally despotic ruler. He married another blueblood, kids came out…not right. Had a concubine for years, those kids were OK, sent them abroad, have forged great futures.
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How dare you connect the dots so succinctly! There must be anecdotal evidence that disproves your theories!
Sounds like 16th-Century England 
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Completely agree that IQ is influenced by a wide range of environmental factors. The challenge for a low-IQ population is to make decisions that bring positive factors into place.
Two things known to lower IQ, air pollution and lead poisoning (not mutually exclusive).
Some people in Taiwan have probably taken a good dose and need to be forgiven on occasion .
For me, as we become more advance. The challenge for society will more and more be about finding a place low IQ people. They are not going to be rocket scientists but they still need to be productive. It’ll be harder and harder to find things they can be productive for as automation takes jobs they could do and increasingly more complex jobs become.
Even in a low IQ population, it’s not that they’re just less smart. They just have more people that have lower IQ. We lose that perspective when we average a large group. If we average the world, the average person would have 1 testicle, named Mohammad, and would be Chinese lol.
That’s a good point … and the meaning of “low” is shifting upwards. You need an IQ of well over 100 to figure out modern business and tax laws, for example, which means either (a) a lot of jobs for lawyers and accountants or (b) more and more people who will be excluded from starting small businesses.
There used to be lots of jobs for those with not much brains but a lot of conscientiousness (and perhaps some manual skills that their egghead bosses didn’t have). People like that were valued and respected. They’re now finding it harder and harder to find a fulfilling niche for themselves.
Sam Harris agrees to believe genes determines 50-80% of a person’s IQ. And even says there is not much you can do to change that.
Who is Sam Harris ?
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He’s a very intelligent philosophical atheist. The world continues to debate which contributes more, nature or nurture.
Scientists that study such things say the data is leaning more and more towards nature versus nurture.
You may remember him from his graffiti…Kilroy 
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I thought the brain had not fully developed until 21 years of age? I also would doubt that the same person taking the test at lets say 16, 21, 31, 41, 51 and 61 years of age would get a similar result each time. Has an experiment like that been done?
Additionallly if you had identical twins and you educationally deprived one of them , would they get similar results in doing such tests as puzzle solving ? I doubt it.
He likes to say outrageous things to get press. Then claim he was taken out of context. Like the time he said Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves with their exclusive religious practices.
He also likes to exploit islamophobia.
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