Answered on Quora.
I hate to say it, but I think they have genetically low IQ. This is very sad because it smashes a lot of our hopes for Africa and makes its problems even less salvageable.
Nevertheless, due to something called the Flynn Effect, IQ’s in at least some African countries have risen a lot in only a few decades. I believe Kenya saw a rise of ~30 IQ points. But everyone else’s went up too due to the same effect, so at some point, it’s an arms race. An example would be the question of how fast do I have to be to outrun a tiger? I don’t have to be faster than a tiger to outrun a tiger, I just have to be faster than you!
Nevertheless, assuming that Flynn rises are actual increases in intelligence (I think they are), then Africans are definitely getting smarter. That the rest of the world is too doesn’t matter so much. If Africans get more intelligent, they will be so much better at solving their problems.
There are a lot of tropical diseases, parasites, and malnutrition in Africa which undoubtedly lower scores. Nevertheless, I still feel that there is a genetic lower intelligence that is a huge problem. Personally I think many of the problems of Africa are down to low intelligence.
What I am interested in is the notion of raising IQ. IQ can absolutely be raised in many ways, mostly nutritional. The Flynn rise is partly due to nutrition but also due to better education and also a more complex modern society. The ~30 point rise in Kenya was heavily on vocabulary, mathematics, and general knowledge, and it was thought to be down to better schooling.
Let’s get serious about IQ and do everything we can to raise the IQ’s of Africans in whatever way we can. If we can’t raise it enough by environment, maybe in the future we could monkey with human genes. I am serious. That’s how serious of a problem low IQ is in large populations.
You don’t make a problem go away by saying it doesn’t exist. It just festers, prolongs, and maybe gets worse.
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Agriculture and civilization select a race for intelligence. Caucasians began agriculture about eleven thousand years ago. We began civilization about five thousand years ago. Negroes only adopted agriculture about four thousand years ago. They never developed their own civilizations. They have only recently been exposed to white civilization.
Africans never developed a single civilization? That can’t be true.
Must be “white privilege“.
Dick
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The low average IQ’s of African Negroes dooms them to poverty and means that democracy will not work south of the Sahara Desert.
The only hope I see for sub Saharan Africa is that the Chinese will acquire everything worth owning and rule the area with the assistance of client dictatorships. Benevolent paternalism backed up by a harsh criminal justice system is the only thing that will work there.
Immigration patterns are obviously backwards, of what they should be. People should be going from high IQ countries, to low IQ countries….from Japan, China, Germany etc……to Africa…increasing the number of high IQ humans in African countries, to help them solve their problems.
The problem in South Africa was not too many whites. It was TOO FEW WHITES….whites felt threatened by the large black majority, so they acted like racist assholes. That doesn’t change the fact that high IQ whites basically provide all the professionals to make a modern economy run, in Africa.
So in African nations, the people who are generally the smartest, are the ones that leave to emigrate to high IQ countries. This helps countries like the United States, but hurts the African countries, who can’t afford to lose high IQ people. An example of this was President Obama’s dad, who was a champion African scholar.
Liberals encourage the economic devastation and slow pace of improving the lives of Africans, by encouraging Africans to immigrate to America. Liberals do this because, they claim, “we are not racist”….but if racism is defined as doing things which hurt other races, then liberals are the most racist people, among the white population.
If Africa had 25% of it’s population as Japanese, or Chinese or White…..it’s problems would very quickly disappear. The biggest problem Africa is facing is not environmental degradation, it’s not poverty, it’s not lack of money, it’s not lack of resources, or anything else…..it’s lack of smart people.
Sorry liberals…but that’s the truth. Get your head out of the sand. Your so-called “anti-racism” leads to an awful lot of suffering among our fellow humans in Africa.