Tianxi Yu (余天曦) on Mahir Wu, Education, and China
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/01/29
Tianxi Yu（余天曦）is a man who’s interested in IQ tests. Here we talk about the Mahir Wu, China, training, education, Henan Province, and more.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Is the decline in the interest in IQ in China similar to the decline in North America and Europe? Were the main Covid-19 years a factor in this?
Tianxi Yu: I don’t know much about Northern Europe, but as far as I can observe, interest in IQ is all the way down. China’s interest in IQ is not low, it’s just from a different perspective than the High IQ Society. For example, we often express IQ through intellectual activities like memory, chess, Rubik’s Cube, etc., rather than IQ tests, which of course is a nice gimmick. the advent of Covid-19 was unfortunate for humanity, and demotivated most of the industry, not just IQ.
Jacobsen: What makes the CAT2 of Mahir Wu so difficult?
Yu: It wasn’t as hard as I thought, it’s just that I haven’t done the test in a long time, as well as spending less time on CAT2, so I didn’t get as high a score as I would think. But compared to CAT1, CAT2 is much more rigorous, and it’s hard to achieve that level of rigor for spatial tests, and it’s by far the set of spatial tests that I recognize the most. I’ve always maintained an appreciation for high-range IQ tests; while it’s not a good measure of everyone’s overall IQ, it’s a good test of imagination and logic, and good tests tend to excel in imagination, which is why I’ve always respected Mahir.
Jacobsen: Bead counting can get very difficult and sophisticated. Can you explain this cultural artifact of math to readers?
Yu: In common parlance, bead counting is to make a planner in the head. Bead counting is based on the intention of the abacus so that the operation process of the abacus is fully “internalized” so that it is completely free from the actual external action of the abacus, under which the internalized mental abacus used to perform calculations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in the mind. The speed of the calculation is much faster than electronic calculator, and the speed of the calculator is very impressive. Often, as long as you hear the title of the report, or see the type of formula, the calculator will be able to answer immediately. Therefore, the bead calculator is one of the best calculation techniques in the world.
Jacobsen: What is OU training?
Yu: Mathematical Olympiad. In an area with a large population or a well-developed education, it is normal to participate in competitions from an early age, and everyone is likely to participate in competitions in several subjects during elementary school, the most popular of which are math competitions. These competitions can be used as a means of meritocracy when advancing to higher education
Jacobsen: One Chinese equestrian friend of mine at the ranch here knows of the Chinese equestrian Olympic team members. That friend went to the University of British Columbia. She said, “The schooling system ruined my childhood.” She laughed. But it had a serious note to it. Is that the kind of curriculum and drilling in Hubei province?
Yu: I used to suffer similarly, and my distaste for teaching to the test probably runs deeper than any of you. For those of you who don’t know, the Hubei paper is one of the toughest in all of China, and the acceptance rate is in the bottom three in China. Since I was a child, I had to participate in various competitions, and by the time I was in high school, I had a deep aversion to studying, and I spent my college years flunking out. But now with the end of my study career, I feel that some things exist with a certain rationality, different countries go through different ways to screen the talents needed, and the talents needed by each country are different. Then my realm has been elevated and I have also started to come out of the shadow of failure and have also started to accept the pain that I have experienced. There is no point in pursuing suffering, but transforming it into manna for growth is what we can do. I would not like to go through what I once went through again, but I am thankful that these experiences I once had have replenished my character.
Jacobsen: Are ordinary people economically stuck in a class in manner similar to the United Kingdom where class is real or in India where caste becomes the determinant of one’s life outcomes?
Yu: Classes must exist, and breaking out of them can be very difficult. The essence of class is still social mobility. If the society is a positive and thriving quality society, then the mobility of class must be strong, and only when the society is in a downturn, the mobility will be weakened or even die. Economic level trapped in a class is a probable thing, but if you can seize the opportunity of the times, there is still a chance to stage a comeback. For example, China’s reform and opening up to the sea entrepreneurship, and later real estate opportunities, and 20 years ago the wave of the Internet. To this day, cryptocurrencies also still have a lot of opportunities, I also in my spare time related to investment, at the beginning of the investment, I lost a lot of money, but now not only come back but also made a lot. But despite all this, I think that reaching the class leap that the world thinks of is still unlikely. I am not encouraging people to enter this market, in my opinion, the vast majority of people cannot make a profit, making money is an ability, not a behavior.
Jacobsen: How do Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and other places compare to China in their style of education?
Yu: Competition exists to varying degrees in mainstream East Asian countries and regions, and the intensity of this competition far exceeds that in Europe and the United States. But statistically speaking, mainland China has the highest level of competition. I didn’t behave well in my college entrance exam year (2018), ranking in the top 5% in Hubei province, and could only go to an average university; if you want to go to a good university（985）, you need to be in the top 2% of the provincial rankings at a minimum, and for Tsinghua and Peking University, two of China’s best universities, you need to be in the top 0.08% of the provincial rankings. This should be a rare situation in the world.
Jacobsen: What is the hardest province on the exams and schooling in China? Why that particular province?
Yu: Different standards of “difficulty” lead to different conclusions. Taking the 2023 college entrance exam data as an example, the most difficult region is probably Henan Province, where if you want to go to 985, you need to reach a provincial ranking of 1.14%, and the Tsinghua and Peking University rate is 0.046%, a whopping 1.31 million people taking the exam. Large populations, underdeveloped local economies, lack of industrial diversity, underdeveloped secondary education, and lagging university development .etc are the main reasons for the difficulty in Henan.
Jacobsen: Do you think the medium term future of IQ societies is a decline rather than stability or growth?
Yu: This has to be analyzed from various aspects. In terms of the nature of society, there are two main directions in which the IQ Society has developed, one is entertainment and the other is functionality. Previously, the IQ Society was known mainly because of the proliferation of media and the broadcasting of related quiz programs, and to this day it is also widely circulated in social media. However, I think the next development should tend to implement rather than too much hype, hype can bring exposure, but it is also time-sensitive, such as the establishment of some talent platforms, to provide companies with high IQ members, so that people with high IQ can get good employment opportunities. Maybe you think my idea is rather low, but employment is a very serious problem, especially in China. At this stage, it is very difficult to get a job in China, and I mentioned the difficulty of competition for civil servants in the last interview, but think about it, if the competition within the government system is so difficult, won’t all private enterprises die? Many industries have withered away, more than 25%of the young people (aged 16-24) are not employable at this stage, and the salaries in most industries are dropping drastically, which makes me think of the scenes of the Great Depression in 1929. Of course, this difficult situation will continue for 20 years or more in my view, so it is important to increase company-employee mobility. In the long run, the world will always be guided by smart people, and as long as highly intelligent people can make a good living in the world as they see fit, I’ll be satisfied, not necessarily in the name of a “society”.
Jacobsen: What does the future of the economy of China look like for the 2020s? Obviously, it’s going to be an important global player. Elon Musk estimates the eventual economy of China to be 2 to 3 times the size of America.
Yu: If you’re saying that China will be a major player in the world economy, then yes, if you’re referring to whether or not China’s economy will overtake the US, I don’t think it’s easy to tell. The US tends to express negativity about the US internally while touting other countries. This is a way of distracting attention from the fact that other countries have inflated confidence and underestimate the US, Japan in the last century being the best example. I don’t think the Chinese government will follow Japan’s previous example, but the populist sentiments of the public are high at the moment, which may affect the government’s behavior. I will not make an accurate prediction of the future development of the economy. For the time being, I think the most likely scenario is that the world will fall into a financial crisis around 2027, which will be a major sign of the recessionary period in this Kondratieff Wave, and the world will fall into a new depression. As for who will become the new economic hegemon, it depends on who will perform the best in this recession, resisting the recessionary potential and at the same time saving up for the new recovery.
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