Wary Herbert nails it:
"Modern Japan has very few of the world’s natural resources—oil, forests, precious metals. Yet this archipelago has given rise to the world’s third largest economy. Nigeria, by contrast, is blessed with ample natural resources, including lots of land, yet it is one of the planet’s poorer nations. Why is that? Why is there not a simple link between natural bounty and prosperity?
A detrimental physical environment consists of malnutrition, disease and environment pollutants—all of which can directly affect the developing nervous system—and thus working memory and attention—and also create a social burden that interferes with education and learning. The social environment also shapes individual and national intelligence. This includes the sheer amount of schooling, because practicing thinking makes people better thinkers. It also includes the existence of a “cognitive elite”—people with enough advanced education to familiarize them with the cognitive artifacts needed for problem solving. And it includes family, which plays the role of motivator, encouraging children to learn things like trigonometry even when they can’t see the value. Small families are better; large families are associated with drops in both cognitive and economic well-being.
National intelligence also requires a national “willingness to listen,” Hunt argues. No nation can come up with all of its own cognitive tools, but nations can borrow if they are open to new cognitive advances elsewhere. When Japan’s leaders decided to isolate the country from the world in the 17th century, the intelligence of its people declined. It’s not that they were unaware of modernization; they rejected it. When the nation reopened its cultural borders in the 19th century, national intelligence bloomed."
"Modern Japan has very few of the world’s natural resources—oil, forests, precious metals. Yet this archipelago has given rise to the world’s third largest economy. Nigeria, by contrast, is blessed with ample natural resources, including lots of land, yet it is one of the planet’s poorer nations. Why is that? Why is there not a simple link between natural bounty and prosperity?
A detrimental physical environment consists of malnutrition, disease and environment pollutants—all of which can directly affect the developing nervous system—and thus working memory and attention—and also create a social burden that interferes with education and learning. The social environment also shapes individual and national intelligence. This includes the sheer amount of schooling, because practicing thinking makes people better thinkers. It also includes the existence of a “cognitive elite”—people with enough advanced education to familiarize them with the cognitive artifacts needed for problem solving. And it includes family, which plays the role of motivator, encouraging children to learn things like trigonometry even when they can’t see the value. Small families are better; large families are associated with drops in both cognitive and economic well-being.
National intelligence also requires a national “willingness to listen,” Hunt argues. No nation can come up with all of its own cognitive tools, but nations can borrow if they are open to new cognitive advances elsewhere. When Japan’s leaders decided to isolate the country from the world in the 17th century, the intelligence of its people declined. It’s not that they were unaware of modernization; they rejected it. When the nation reopened its cultural borders in the 19th century, national intelligence bloomed."
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