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I think it is important to note that Japan has been as ethnically homogeneous as it is today, and has presumably had the same inborn disposition for intelligence as today, for a very long time, yet Japan has only been well-functioning for some periods of its history. In the past it often experienced massive internal conflicts and social dislocation. 80 years ago it was massacring loads of civilians and supporting an authoritarian government that had gotten it into an obviously near-hopeless war.
Obviously everything that I have said about Japan is also true of Europe.
Pointing to modern examples of well-functioning societies that are ethnically homogeneous and have high IQ fails to explain why those societies have been, historically speaking, only intermittently well-functioning even though presumably they were also ethnically homogeneous and had high inborn disposition for intelligence in the past.
For example, as I have pointed out before, Northern Europeans went from being backwoods savages at around 1 AD to being the world's leaders in science at around 1600 AD. Did they become more ethnically homogeneous and develop higher inborn disposition for intelligence over the course of that time?
Slavs are another example of high intelligence not necessarily corresponding with well-functioning societies. Despite having IQs nearly on par or on par with Western Europeans, and routinely producing exceptionally intelligent scientists, engineers, and artists, Slavic societies tend to be mired in the sort of corruption and dysfunctional politics that remind one of stereotypes of Africa or South America.
I don't get your point here. Japan was very well functioning when they were massacring each other during the Sengoku Jidai. As was Europe during the Thirty Years War and the World Wars. They fought those wars with aplomb and skill.
That they used their great talents for such terrible ends is a tragedy, but it says nothing about how well functioning they were. They could not raise and command such powerful armies if they weren't well functioning.
The Sengoku Jidai was a huge breakdown of central authority, civil war, and constant factional warfare.
The closest modern equivalent would probably be a narco-state like Brazil or Colombia. I'm not sure you would call these societies well-functioning.
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Basically yes! Many things happened since 1AD to impact northern European genetics, including the church ban on cousin marriage (leading to less clannishness), harsher punishments for violent behaviour, and the accidental pressure for high IQ in Jews due to usury laws.
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Could you elaborate? I hadn’t heard about this. Or do you mean external conflict like Nanking?
Yep, I meant what they did to non-Japanese during their wars, although I am sure that, being authoritarian, they also killed some of their own.
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