What do you consider the most influential cognitive traits that contributed to European success?

submitted by SoylentCapitalist from self.debatealtright

With the exception of IQ, low time preference and perhaps divergent thinking were the most influential. East Asians have a higher IQ on average, but have had weaker and less innovative societies in recent centuries. This is one of the better arguments for why IQ isn't everything in my opinion.

Creativity has been shown to only correlate positively with IQ until around 120.

Below an IQ level of 120, a correlation between IQ and creativity is observed, whereas no correlation is observed at IQ levels above 120.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00254/full#:~:text=Below%20an%20IQ%20level%20of,intelligence%20or%20above%2Daverage%20intelligence

all 11 comments
sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun

[–]send_nasty_stuffNational Socialist 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Besides the more obvious ones you mentioned I'd say: fictional world building. This allows for great literature, invention, creative thinking, strategizing, etc. Living in your head can also help stave off boredom, pain, or adapt to new surroundings. It can help you endure hours of practice at a new skill. It can work in tandem with creating long term goals. Fictional world building creates more elaborate musical, artistic, and religious expressions which can then lead to strong social bonding.

I can't really point to another race of people that does this quite like Europeans do.

Another influential cognitive trait: broad spectrum empathy. Many races don't empathize very strongly. Whites do it broadly and intensely. So much so we create elaborate religious, government and cultural cues to cope with the burden.

European men especially are strong cognitive empathizers, i.e. we have the ability to put ourselves into strangers perspective. Many whites are compassionate empathizers which means we not only envision a strangers emotional state but become moved to action by another's predicament or possible future predicament. This trait allows us to create elaborate schooling/military systems, it gives us the ability to forgive in a more complete way than other cultures; making us more flexible. Which I would suspicion is why Christianity found a home in Europe.

[–][deleted]  (5 children)

[deleted]

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

    I'd say the post-WW2 paradigm there has really destroyed and corrupted what was good about the culture/religion but they still seem to be able to create works of beauty despite the hypercapitalism ravaging their society.

    [–]negrogreBeing black is anti-white 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

    I'm curious as to what. Years ago I would have said that New Hollywood made some great fiction but that has turned out to be a mistake.

    [–][deleted]  (2 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]negrogreBeing black is anti-white 0 insightful - 1 fun0 insightful - 0 fun1 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

      I've never heard of the Human Condition. It is supposedly one of the most influential Japanese film serials.

      [–]Blackbrownfreestuff 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

      The new Smithsonian nigger museum distributed this poster about white traits just recently. It sounds like they were trying to disparage whitey, but it backfired.

      https://d.newsweek.com/en/full/1610610/smithsonian-aspects-white-culture.webp?w=450&f=2af39218175efa379af3434273711858

      https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian-race-guidelines-rational-thinking-hard-work-are-white-values-1518333

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

      Some of the "traits" listed there are quintessentially liberal and are quite cancerous to our entire race, especially Anglos. I'm particularly talking about rugged individualism and the Protestant work ethic. I recommend reading Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism by Larry Siedentop.

      [–]EthnocratArcheofuturist 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

      Our sense for exploration and crossing new frontiers is arguably one of our best traits. Europeans always go further than other races.

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

      Humility. You've probably heard the term "losing face", typically in Asian cultures, where a subordinate is essentially not allowed to critique/defy a superior under any circumstances. Both because the subordinate would be embarrassed to point out the error and that the superior would be made to feel stupid.

      The book Why Europe? by Jack Goldstone goes into this a bit regarding the ascension of Europe.

      The author goes in to positive things that helped with this and negative things to avoid. When you compared them to the state of the modern West, it's hard not to see stagnation and decline. You can probably think of a word or two to describe each point. You can also see how some of these in excess or applied incorrectly are leading to decline.

      First, a cluster of remarkable new discoveries led Europeans to question and eventually reject the authority of their ancient and religious texts to a degree not found in any other major civilization

      Second, Europeans developed an approach to science that combined experimental research and mathematical analysis of the natural world

      The third key factor was the infusion of the British Lord Chancellor Francis Bacon’s ideas regarding evidence, demonstration, and the purpose of scientific investigation.

      A fourth key factor was the development of an instrument-driven approach to experiment and observation.

      A fifth key factor was a climate of tolerance and pluralism, rather than of conformity and state-imposed orthodoxy, and of Anglican Church support for the new science.

      The sixth key factor was the easy support for entrepreneurship and the close social relations among entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers, and craftspeople.

      Obstacles

      First, a dependence on selling natural resources can trap countries into low levels of development.

      A second obstacle to modern economic growth is investment in the wrong kinds of education.

      A third obstacle to modern economic growth is a lack of opportunities for people with training, ideas, and talent to create new industries.

      A fourth path to poverty is creating closed economies.

      Finally, one more path to poverty, much rarer in the world today but fairly common in most of history, was for religious orthodoxy to stifle innovation or for religious education to dominate and displace scientific and technical education.

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

      Why Do Northeast Asians Win So Few Nobel Prizes?

      Most scientific discoveries have originated from Europe, and Europeans have won 20 times more Nobel Prizes than have Northeast Asians. We argue that this is explained not by IQ, but by interracial personality differences, underpinned by differences in gene distribution. In particular, the variance in scientific achievement is explained by differences in inquisitiveness (DRD4 7-repeat), psychological stability (5HTTLPR long form), and individualism (mu-opioid receptor gene; OPRM1 G allele). Northeast Asians tend to be lower in these psychological traits, which we argue are necessary for exceptional scientific accomplishments. Since these traits comprise a positive matrix, we constructed a q index (measuring curiosity) from these gene frequencies among world populations. It is found that both IQ scores and q index contribute significantly to the number of per capita Nobel Prizes.

      From ancient natural philosophy to modern physics, the history of science has been dominated by Europeans. It would not be controversial to state that the most distinguished scholars in the world post-1900 have been Nobel laureates and Fields medalists. Table 1 shows the number these prominent people by racial category, which is taken from Lynn (2007), and here extended to 2014. Table 1 shows that Europeans have won 0.6 Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals per million, whilst the Northeast Asians have won only 0.03 per million, which is about one twentieth of the Europeans' achievement.

      https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.2466/04.17.CP.4.15

      [–][deleted]  (3 children)

      [deleted]

        [–]EuropeanAwakening14 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

        Europeans are responsible for 97% of all of the scientific inventories and inventions from 700 BC to the present. That's how.

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

        Who?