The Mystery of Jewish Success

It’s nice to think all humans are born equal, but nature doesn’t really wish to cooperate in this modern humanist endeavor. Imagine for a moment there’s an ethnic group of people who have a big pile of genetic disorders. One in every five of them, carries at least one mutation linked to the following ailments:

-Bloom Syndrome

-Canavan Disease

-Cystic Fibrosis

-Familial Dysautonomia

-Fanconi Anemia Type C

-Gaucher Disease

-Glycogen Storage Disease, Type 1a

-Maple Syrup Urine Disease

-Mucolipidosis IV (ML-IV)

-Niemann-Pick Disease Type A

-Tay-Sachs Disease

-Walker-Warburg Syndrome

I’m trying to figure out what the universalist egalitarian position would be on this. You could suggest that these people are “inbred”, but it seems rather racist to me, to suggest that an entire ethnicity would be inbred. But that’s what you would be suggesting, if you were to say so in regards to these genetic disorders. You would be saying that Ashkenazi Jews are inbred and need to go extinct, by reproducing only with non-Ashkenazi Jews. To me that seems like racism of the type Hitler endorsed in the Nuremberg laws.

The other option you have, would be to say that these genetic disorders play some sort of important function, whereby carrying just one copy delivers an advantage, whereas inheriting two copies causes these known genetic disorders.

To me that makes perfect sense, we known this phenomenon exists for sickle cell disease, where inheriting one copy of the defective alleles results in protection from malaria, while two copies result in the lethal disease.

So unless you consider Jews to be genetically inferior carriers of disease, a rather racist position if you were to ask me, your best bet would be to suggest these alleles must serve some sort of benefit for the Ashkenazi Jewish population.

So what could be the benefit of these mutations? Well, we already know the answer for some of these mutations. Torsion dystonia is another example of an Ashkenazi Jewish disease. The carriers of one mutation have an IQ 10 points higher than non-carriers and those who have the disease itself have an average IQ of 121.

But let’s just grab our list again and check out what these mutated genes are actually known to do in the human body. You’ll find a surprising number are linked to brain function in some manner.

Bloom Syndrome

Beyond my level of understanding, sorry.

Canavan disease

Linked to a deficiency in Aspartoacylase. This is an enzyme found in the brain that breaks down N-Acetylaspartic acid. So, with one mutated enzyme, your levels of N-Acetylaspartic acid remain higher. High concentrations are linked to creativity and better working memory performance.

Cystic Fibrosis

Also common in ethnic Europeans, thought to be linked to reduced diarrhea risk.

Familial Dysautonomia

A disorder of the nervous system, linked to the IKBKAP gene.

Fanconi Anemia Type C

This mutation is found in a gene that plays a role in neural stem cell proliferation.

Gaucher Disease

Caused by a deficiency of the enzyme glucocerebrosidase, which cleaves a chemical called glucocerebroside, commonly found in the brain. Ashkenazi Jews actually have multiple separate mutations that are linked to this disease. Explanations proposed include increased fertility, higher IQ and reduced risk of type 2 diabetes.

Glycogen Storage Disease, Type 1a

Metabolic.

Maple Syrup Urine Disease

Metabolic

Mucolipidosis IV (ML-IV)

Caused by mutations in the MCOLN1 gene, which produces an ion channel in nerve cells crucial for metabolizing waste.

Niemann-Pick Disease Type A

Caused by a severe deficiency of the acid sphingomyelinase enzyme. This enzyme breaks down sphingomyelin. Sphingomyelin is mainly found in in the membranous myelin sheath that surrounds some nerve cell axons. It works as an insulator of nerve fibers. In other words, a mild deficiency of the sphingomyelinase enzyme may lead to better insulation of nerve fibers.

Tay–Sachs disease

Tay–Sachs disease is caused by a genetic mutation in the HEXA gene on chromosome 15, which codes a subunit of the hexosaminidase enzyme known as hexosaminidase A. It breaks down GM2 gangliosides, which are highly abundant in the brain.

Walker-Warburg Syndrome

A syndrome associated with brain and eye malformations. In the Ashkenazi population it’s caused by a recessive mutation in the FKTN gene, which produces Fukutin. Fukutin plays a role in brain development, through regulating neuronal migration.

Conclusion

So we have 8 out of 12 Ashkenazi genetic disorders that clearly play some role in brain function.

So now you have to ask yourself: Do 66% of Ashkenazi Jewish genetic disorders impact brain development because they are just hopelessly inbred, or do these mutations help out the people who carry one copy, at the cost of a genetic disorder in those who carry two copies?

The latter would be my position. It seems to me that carrying one copy of these genetic disorders results in cognitive benefits, essentially equivalent to “overclocking” the brain.

I’m not the first one to propose this idea of course, Harpending and Cochran did so back in 2006.

But it seems to me that anyone who really bothers to study human genetics can’t just get away with pretending we’re all the same. When Ashkenazi Jews in Israel want to marry other Ashkenazi Jews, they first tend to screen their genes, to make sure they don’t both carry the same mutations.

That’s just not how things work for Dutch people. We don’t have a big pile of genetic mutations linked to brain-function that cause birth defects if we happen to carry the same recessive allele. It’s the Ashkenazi Jewish population who ended up carrying a large number of these mysterious recessive alleles, not the Dutch.

To me, these recessive alleles help explain another mystery. The Jews are 15 million people, 0.2% of the global population, but 44% of the best chess players and 22% of all Nobel prize winners.

I’ve often seen it suggested that Jews have such success in global politics and business because they conspire. However, they actually have much greater success in chess than they do in politics and business and I find it hard to believe that Jews would achieve a conspiracy to beat the goyim in chess.

My suggestion is that the Ashkenazi Jews simply inherited certain genetic mutations that helped them perform their jobs well in medieval Europe. Jews were not allowed to own land, but had to find jobs in cities, often related to medicine and finance. As a consequence, it was important for them to have a high level of intelligence to do their jobs well. In addition, persecution meant that Jews had to be very good at befriending Christians and anticipating shifts in societal attitude, by migrating to places where they were tolerated.

Jews who were less successful at surviving in this lifestyle forced upon them in medieval Europe were more likely to die or to find themselves with no other option than to convert to Christianity.

My suggestion for people is that from a purely pragmatic perspective, it’s wise to simply accept the reality that Jews occupy a prominent position in society and to seek to befriend them, rather than fearing or hating them.

What have the Jews done with their big brains? They have made good movies, theater performances and scientific discoveries. Some have also become very wealthy of course, but hating people for their success at business is a pitiable form of envy. Do you hate me for buying Tokyo Tekko at a low price and telling you to buy stock too? I hope not.

I also think it’s important for Italians and Jews to realize they are relatives of each other. The Ashkenazi Jews are largely descended from Jewish men who sought out Italian wives.

We should try to treat everyone with respect, but we should not pretend that the human species is somehow immune to evolution. We are all products of evolution and evolution is entirely indifferent to political correctness.

Unfortunately, the other side of the coin is of course that if it’s possible for Jews to have an average genotypic IQ a few points above white people because of genetic differences, it’s also possible for people to have an average genotypic IQ a few points below white people due to genetic differences.

This in turn means it would be wise to be careful with immigration policies, to avoid causing a decline in the average IQ of a country through mass immigration from parts of the world with a lower average IQ.