中国文明是东方文明的代表，历史上东方文明和西方文明是各领风骚、各有特点的，就物质力量而言，在过去两千年的大多数时间内，亚洲是世界的灯塔。但是由于近代的落后，工业革命的思想基础和客观物质基础在亚洲地区都并不具备，而文艺复兴和地理大发现直接引领了西方的崛起和称霸世界。在美版知乎Quora上，美国网友提问道：亚洲人尤其是东亚人是最聪明的，但如何解释西方文明又是最先进的？这个问题引起各国网友的热议，我们看看他们的观点。
问题
德国网友罗素•约翰斯的回答
There are genetic differences between them. In some other groups, Europeans have more drd47 repeat alleles than East Asians.
二者遗传学上存在差异。在其他一些群体中，欧洲人有更多的DRD47重复等位基因，而东亚人根本没有。
The significance of this gene is that people with this allele are more likely to pursue adventure and have higher curiosity. This is why most of the Nobel prizes are awarded to western countries, while few other countries. To invent and discover, you need a combination of intellectual curiosity and high IQ.
该基因的意义在于，具有该等位基因的人更容易追求冒险，并具有更高的好奇心。这就是为什么绝大部分的诺贝尔奖都颁给了西方国家，而其他国家几乎没有。为了发明和发现，你需要智力好奇心和高智商相结合。
There are more short alleles of the serotonin transporter gene in the East Asian population, which is closely related to conformity and attention to group / collectivism rather than individualism.
东亚人群中有更多的5-羟色胺转运体基因的短等位基因，这与从众和对群体/集体主义的关注密切相关，而不是个人主义。
The frequency of the long allele is only 20% in East Asians and 60% in Europeans. The Ashkenazi Jews are very lucky. Their average IQ is very high. In addition to these characteristics mentioned above, they occupy a dominant position among Nobel Prize winners and scholars.
长等位基因的出现频率在东亚人中仅为20%，而在欧洲人中为60%。德系犹太人非常幸运，他们的平均智商非常高，加上上面提到的这些特点，因而在诺贝尔奖得主和学者中占据了主导地位。
IQ itself is not enough. Although I think many East Asians are extremely smart, they are good at studying and understanding existing systems and theories, but they are not very good at discovering by themselves.
智商本身是不够的，尽管我认为许多东亚人聪明绝顶，可他们善于研究和理解已有的系统和理论，但不太善于自己发现。
There are not many inventions from Asia. Among the 10 most innovative countries, seven are European countries, the United States is the eighth among western countries, and South Korea and Singapore are the remaining two. The world would not have developed if it had not been for the novelty seeking behavior of the West in the past few centuries.
来自亚洲的发明并不多。在10个最具创新性的国家中，有7个是欧洲国家，美国是西方国家中的第8个，而韩国和新加坡则是剩下的两个。如果不是前几个世纪西方的求新行为，世界不会向前发展。
英国网友波泰戈尔的回答
Have you ever thought that it might not be wise to use your racial prejudice to understand the world and how it works?
你有没有想过，也许用你的种族成见来理解世界及其运作方式并不明智？
Europe has not only smart people, but also promoted the rise of Europe's small countries, dominated huge empires and conquered the world.
欧洲拥有的不仅仅是聪明的人，这些人还推动了欧洲蕞尔小国的崛起，主宰了巨大的帝国，征服了世界。
The most important point is the willingness to seek foreign knowledge, test its principles to find the basic laws of nature, and then innovate according to these findings.
这其中最重要的一点是愿意寻求外国知识，测试其原理以发现自然的基本规律，然后根据这些发现进行创新。
Europeans acquired knowledge from China, Persia, India and the Ottoman Empire, and transformed it from an isolated curiosity into a coherent understanding of natural law, which we now call science.
欧洲人从中国、波斯、印度和奥斯曼帝国获得了知识，并将其从个人孤立的好奇转变为对自然法的连贯理解，我们现在称之为科学。
Both Spain and Britain independently invented the steam engine to pump water in the 17th century, and sowed the seeds of turning from biological power to mechanical drive.
西班牙和英国都在17世纪独立发明了蒸汽机抽水，并播下了从生物动力转向机械驱动工作的种子。
The economic benefits are almost incalculable.
这在经济上的好处几乎无法估量。
Thomas Newcomen's steam engine in 1712 was the first commercially successful steam engine. Please note that this is the starting point of the Industrial Science explosion.
1712年托马斯·纽科门的蒸汽机是第一台商业上成功的蒸汽机。请注意，这是工业科学大爆炸的起点。
All non industrial societies can only make this number linearly proportional to their population, and science and technology is a force multiplier that can transform it into geometric growth.
所有非工业社会只能使这一数字与其人口成线性比例，而科技是一种力量倍增器，可以将其转化为几何增长。
Applying this new force to the manufacture of previously expensive and advanced weapons, such as firepower, and using the spare time obtained by machines rather than manpower to train professional troops will greatly improve efficiency and save costs.
将这种新的力量应用于制造以前昂贵和先进的武器，如火器，并利用机器而不是人力获得的空闲时间来训练专业军队，这将极大地增进效率，节约成本。
Why don't East Asian countries do this? This is not complicated. Because they value tradition, stability, obedience to authority and respect for superiors. Of course, it also gives countries in the region a different type of power.
东亚国家为什么不这样做？这并不复杂。因为他们重视传统、稳定、服从权威、尊重上级。当然，它也给了该地区国家一种不同类型的力量。
Most of Europe's greatest innovators are young people. They know how to prove their teachers wrong, and then publicly prove it, and compete with their peers and superiors for recognition.
欧洲最伟大的创新者大多是年轻人，他们知道如何证明自己的老师错了，然后公开证明，并与同龄人和上级争夺认可。
In a society where respect for age and seniority is more important than correctness, this is not a good way to succeed.
在一个尊重年龄和资历比正确更重要的社会里，这不是一个取得成功的好方法。
That is to say, the East Asian countries are much more advanced than any other countries in such a long time. They are proud to comment on those small countries outside the region, but they do not know that they have quietly surpassed themselves. This is not much different from the way Europe and the United States view themselves.
也就是说，东亚各国在这么长的时间里比其他任何国家都先进得多，他们高傲得评点着那些域外小国，却不知他们已经悄悄地超过了自己。这与欧洲和美国目前看待自己的方式没有太大区别。
外国政治经济学专家奥马尔的回答
This is the so-called "high level balance trap".
这就是所谓的“高水平平衡陷阱”。
中国/China
Ancient China had everything it needed for its empire. Wealth, manpower and resources. They do not need anything from the outside world, which is why the Ming Dynasty only sent Zheng He to travel around the world to show China's strength and progress, not to colonize the less developed countries. This level of comfort makes people lazy, doesn't it?
古代中国拥有自己帝国所需要的一切。财富、人力和资源。他们不需要来自外部世界的任何东西，这也是为什么明朝只派郑和周游世界，目的是展示中国的实力和进步，而不是对欠发达国家的殖民。这种程度的舒适会让人懒惰，不是吗？
In addition, in the Qing Dynasty at the end of the 19th century, China's strength declined seriously, and they did not see the need for progress. Needless to say, the court was so corrupt that the gunpowder and sand used in the war during the first Sino Japanese war were mixed together, which led to one of the most humiliating failures in Chinese history.
此外，在19世纪末的清朝，中国的实力严重衰退，他们没有看到进步的需要。更不用说，朝廷腐败严重，以至于第一次中日战争期间用于战争的火药与沙子混在一起，反而导致了中国历史上最屈辱的失败之一。
日本/Japan
Japan also initially resisted Westernization. In fact, they practiced for nearly 230 years until an American named Matthew Perry of the US Navy arrived in Japan with four warships and asked Japan to open up the country.
日本最初也抵制西方化。事实上，他们练习了近230年，直到美国海军一名名叫马修·佩里（Matthew Perry）的美国人带着4艘军舰抵达日本，要求日本开放这个国家。
He issued a one-year ultimatum to Japan and threatened to wage war if Japan did not sign the agreement. Japan had no choice but to agree to the terms of the United States. Therefore, the shogunate general signed the Kanagawa convention, establishing formal diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States, thus opening the era of Westernization in Japan.
他向日本发出了一年的最后通牒，同时威胁说，如果日本不签署协议，就发动战争。除了同意美国的条款，日本别无选择，因此幕府将军签署了《神奈川公约》，在日本和美国之间建立了正式外交关系，从而开启了日本的西化时代。
朝鲜半岛/Korea
In the middle and late period of the Korean era, the DPRK also implemented the policy of closing the country to the outside world until the "Sherman incident". Five years later, in another incident, the DPRK was forced to sign a trade treaty with Japan, and finally signed a treaty with the United States in 1882, promising to abide by international norms relating to the treatment of prisoners. These treaties ended centuries of isolationism, whose military power was so weak that Japan could "enter" and colonize the entire Korean Peninsula without any major resistance.
朝鲜在朝鲜时代中后期也实行闭关锁国政策，直到“谢尔曼将军事件”。五年后，朝鲜在另一次事件中被迫与日本签署贸易条约，并于1882年最终与美国签署了一项条约，承诺遵守有关囚犯待遇的国际规范。这些条约结束了几个世纪的孤立主义，其军事力量当时如此之弱，以至于日本可以“走进”并在没有任何重大抵抗的情况下殖民整个朝鲜半岛。
欧洲/Europe
All East Asian countries have enjoyed centuries of relative peace without any major war. On the other hand, Europe is constantly involved in war. When needed, the first thing people do is to create solutions. As the saying goes, "need is the mother of invention".
所有东亚国家都享有几百年的相对和平，没有任何重大战争，而另一方面，欧洲则不断卷入战争，在需要时，人们做的第一件事是创造解决方案。俗话说：“需要是发明之母”。
Finally, East Asia (including Singapore with 75% of East Asian ancestry) is indeed recorded as having the highest IQ level in the world.
最后，东亚（包括75%的东亚血统的新加坡）确实被记录为拥有世界上最高的智商水平。
We can see today's progress level, because many of the world's top companies are dominated by East Asian companies.
我们可以看到今天的进步水平，因为世界上许多顶级公司都由东亚公司主导。
The United States is also doing its utmost to block the "made in China 2025" plan, because American think tanks believe that this is "a real threat to the US technological leadership". Therefore, the United States launched a trade war in an attempt to undermine the plan. However, this has also successfully strengthened the Chinese people's belief that "made in China 2025" is a necessary plan.
美国也在竭尽全力阻止“中国制造2025”计划，因为美国智库认为这是“对美国技术领导地位的真正存在威胁”。因此，美国发起了贸易战，试图破坏这一计划。但这也成功地加强了中国人的信念，即“中国制造2025”是一个必须进行的计划。
瑞典网友杰森的回答
From the long-term history of 3000 years, the most advanced and richest region at that time has always been China. Other regions have rivaled or surpassed it in a short time (the Mongolian Empire, the British Empire, India and the United States), but in the end, China's huge population enables it to create wealth and innovation, thus maintaining this historical trend.
从3000年的长期历史来看，当时最先进、最富裕的地区一直是中国。其他地区曾在短时间内与之匹敌或超越（蒙古帝国、大英帝国与印度、美国），但最终，中国庞大的人口使其能够创造财富和创新，从而保持这一历史趋势。
Until 1600, China was the most populous country in the world, with more than 100 million people. There are also times when China's technology is used by other countries for destructive purposes. There are also times when China has experienced periods of instability and stagnation, but generally speaking, these periods are temporary.
直到1600年，中国还是世界上人口最多的国家，有超过1亿人口。也有一些时候，中国的技术被其他国家用于破坏性目的，也有一些时间，中国经历了不稳定与停滞交替的时期，但总的来说，这些时期是暂时的。
In fact, the richest region in the past 3000 years has been India. Unfortunately, before the independence movement from the British Empire, India was never unified as a whole.
实际上，3000年来最富裕的地区一直是印度，但不幸的是，在脱离大英帝国独立运动之前，印度从未统一为一个整体。
In addition, the current situation is that after the Ottoman Empire conquered the more favorable Byzantine Empire, it controlled part of the Silk Road, so it was desperately seeking alternative trade routes to China and India. Colonialism is destructive in nature and will not work in the long run. It is a mechanism to reduce the distance and cost of trade with China and India. Various "innovations" and "borrowed technologies have also promoted trade with India and China.
此外，目前的状况是因为奥斯曼帝国征服了更为有利的拜占庭帝国后，便控制了丝绸之路的一部分，因此穷困潦倒地寻求通往中国和印度的替代贸易路线。殖民主义本质上是破坏性的，从长远来看是行不通的，它是一种减少与中国和印度贸易距离和成本的机制。各种“创新”“借来的技术也促进了与印度和中国的贸易。
The three most valuable commodities in history are silk, tea and black pepper. With the exception of American software, no other goods originating from outside China and India are more valuable than these three kinds of goods. In fact, the recorded world history revolves around the profitable trade of these three products.
历史上最有价值的三种商品是丝绸、茶叶和黑胡椒。除美国软件外，没有其他源自中国和印度以外的商品比这三种商品更具价值。事实上，有记录的世界历史围绕着这三种产品的有利可图的贸易。
Once China completes the Modern Silk Road on a global scale, modernizes Africa through trade and infrastructure improvement, and becomes a major player in 5g and other fields, it will reach its peak again. It is expected that China will become the world's largest economy within 20 years. It may dominate for 300-650 years as usual.
一旦中国在全球范围内完成现代化丝绸之路，通过贸易和基础设施改善实现非洲现代化，并成为5G等领域的主要参与者，它将再次达到顶峰。预计中国将在20年内成为世界最大经济体。它可能会像往常一样主宰300-650年。
美国网友贾法尔的回答
It depends on where you are.
这取决于你在哪里。
If you live in a non Asian country, such as the United States, most of the people you see are new immigrants. In the United States, until 1965, we prohibited Asian immigrants. From hundreds of thousands of people at that time, there are now more than 20 million Asian Americans in the United States. This growth is mainly due to immigrants, not births. Most Asian adults in the United States today were born outside the United States.
如果你生活在一个非亚洲国家，例如美国，你看到的大多数是新移民。在美国，直到1965年，我们一直禁止亚洲移民。从那时的几十万人开始，到现在美国有超过2000万亚裔。这种增长主要是移民，而不是出生人口，今天在美国的大多数亚裔成年人都出生在美国境外。
Important facts about immigration:
关于移民的重要事实：
1. American immigrants are filtered, and the best is the best. Why should a country allow stupid or lazy people to emigrate?
1.美国移民是被过滤过的，优中选优的，为什么一个国家要让愚蠢或懒惰的人移民？
2. They work much harder than naturally born Americans: they leave behind everything they are born with and try to make full use of their opportunities, which they do not take for granted. Lazy people do not emigrate at first unless they are dragged down by family members.
2.他们工作要比自然出生的美国人努力得多：他们把自己天生的一切抛在身后，并试图充分利用自己的机会，他们并不认为这是理所当然的。懒惰的人一开始不会移民，除非他们被家庭成员拖累。
Answer this question: on average, Asian Americans are smarter and work harder because we try not to let middle or bottom Asian Americans become Americans. There are also many hard-working and talented non Asian Americans, but their average level has been lowered by other non Asian Americans.
回答这个问题：平均而言，亚裔美国人更聪明，工作更努力，因为我们尽量不让中间或底层亚裔成为美国人。也有很多勤奋和天才的非亚裔美国人，但他们的平均水平被其他非亚裔的美国人拉低了。
One statistic shows this tendency: about 75% of Indian adults in the United States have at least a bachelor's degree, and more than 40% have a graduate degree. For Americans as a whole, these two percentages are 33% and 13%, respectively. So Indians are highly educated, right?
一项统计数据表明了这种倾向：美国大约75%的印度裔成年人至少拥有学士学位，超过40%的人拥有研究生学位。对于整个美国人来说，这两个百分比分别为33%和13%。所以印度人受过高等教育，对吧？
However, what is the percentage of people with a bachelor's degree in India? Maybe 10%. Indian Americans are more educated than the entire Indian population: that is why they are chosen to emigrate. This contrast is really disharmonious for many of my Indian American friends who were born in India.
然而，在印度拥有学士学位的人的百分比是多少？可能是10%。与整个印度人群相比，印裔美国人受教育程度更高：这就是他们被选择移民的原因。这种对比对于我的许多在印度出生的印度裔美国朋友来说真的很不和谐。
An important impact is that no country has chosen the children of immigrants, so the second generation or more Americans have returned to the average level: I know that many Asian Americans born in the United States are mediocre. However, since most adult Asian Americans are the first generation / selected, and the second generation is driven by immigrant parents, one population is not smarter than another, and historical opportunities are more important. East Asia once dominated the world, but now it is the West's turn. It is just to see who can seize the turning point in history.
一个重要的影响是：没有国家选择移民的孩子，所以第二代以上的美国人回归到平均水平：我知道很多在美国出生的亚裔美国人都是平庸的。但由于大多数成年亚裔美国人都是第一代/被选中的，而第二代则受到移民父母的带动，所以一个种群并不比另一个聪明，历史的机遇更重要。东亚曾主导世界，现在轮到了西方，只是看谁能抓住历史的转折周期罢了。