50% of Bulgarians who take Mensa test pass and are only bested by Israelis

[poiuytrewq0987]

Bulgarians rank second among the most intelligent peoples in the world, overtaken only by the Israelis, shows data of the country's office of Mensa, the organization established to identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity.

To become a member of Mensa-Bulgaria one have to be 18 or more years old, collect 148 points for Advansed Raven's test used in Bulgaria and pay annual dues.

More than 2000 Bulgarians have proved their intellectual abilities (i.e. above 148), but the annual membership fee is paid regularly by about 600 people, most of them men.

Earlier in the month Mensa Bulgaria refuted reports about an IQ test placing Bulgarians among the least intelligent nations in Europe. The survey, conducted by Prof Lynn, a lecturer at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, ranked Bulgaria 20th out of the 23 European nations.

Mensa Bulgaria plans to introduce new IQ tests and to host the world's puzzle championship. The contest is scheduled to take place on October 7-12 in the winter resort of Borovets. More than 100 participants from 30 countries are expected to join the event.

There are some 100,000 Mensans in 100 countries throughout the world.

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=61402

[Archduke]

It's well known that we are the smartest on the Balkans. :D

[Incal]

If this is true then why Bulgaria's current situation? I'm not trolling at all, it's just a genuine question.

[Methmatician]

It must be those Asian genes.

[Sikeliot]

I guess you guys are more Ancient Greek than you thought then.

[Anglojew]

Interesting.

[Archduke]

If this is true then why Bulgaria's current situation? I'm not trolling at all, it's just a genuine question.

May i ask whats the current situation of Bulgaria?

[Lithium]

The reaction of the members above is so NOT suprising (excl.Incal with his good question)
If we are that smart it's because we are Bulgarian, not because we have Ancient Greek or Asian ancestry.

[Incal]

May i ask whats the current situation of Bulgaria?

It's not Europe's most prominent country to say it in a way.

[Archduke]

It's not Europe's most prominent country to say it in a way.

What do you expect when we lost both World wars and were under Communism?

Prosperity in Bulgaria is bound to happen, just look some statistics about our growth, debt, etc. And this thread proves my point perfectly.

[poiuytrewq0987]

It's not Europe's most prominent country to say it in a way.

We've had multiple national catastrophes and odds tided against us for us to be put in this position. The first of all, the collapse of Simeon's Bulgaria and later Samuil's Bulgaria paved the inevitable occupation of Bulgaria by the Byzantine Empire by Basil II. It's actually fortunate of Greeks that Basil II came by because without him then all of Greece and Anatolia could have fallen to Bulgaria or at least Tsarigrad would have become a permanent part of Bulgaria. The fact we managed to preserve our identity despite 200 years of Byzantine occupation is a testament to the strength of our Bulgarian consciousness.

When we freed ourselves from the Byzantines we went on to rebuild our empire but because of Bogomilism and its relative anarchist ideas that encouraged people to break free of the state, not pay any taxes, nor participate in important functions that allow a state to prosper, it weakened Bulgaria and made the rise of a weak Serbian Empire possible. It also made possible the conquest of Bulgaria by the Ottomans. Then after 500 years we managed to regain our independence and it was not one bit surprising that we came out the strongest of all Balkan nations.

In the Balkan wars we were easily the most powerful state. The Ottomans couldn't beat us one on one nor Serbia, neither the Greeks or Romanians. However they all had one thing in common. The conquest of Bulgarian lands and the conversion of ethnic Bulgarians to their identity. Alas the second Balkan war was started to correct the Serbo-Greek advance on Bulgarian lands but unfortunately for us, we didn't have a decisive victory and so Romania and Turkey intervened and annexed Eastern Thrace and Southern Dobruzha from us.

In WW1, we finally pushed the limits of our people, and mobilized more than one million soldiers, for a nation of 4 million. Our Balkan wars army was more than 600,000 so that's an increase of 400,000 plus soldiers. However our economy couldn't handle the constraints of feeding such a huge army at the same time also feed the civilian population. The exploitation of our goods by German soldiers certainly didn't help. We eventually collapsed since our state couldn't handle such a prolonged war as we were running short of goods and weapons to keep waging war. I still believe we did rather admirably for a nation of only 4 million, to be able to hold back a coalition of Serbs, Greeks, French and British in Macedonia for a very long time.

In WW2, well, we tried again but without siding with anyone and remained neutral until Hitler had forced us to declare a symbolic war on the allied nations. This didn't end so well for us but we ended up as the only Axis nation to keep territorial gains after the war. We were allowed to keep the result of the Treaty of Craiova and Southern Dobrudja was retained.

The Cold War was a profound time for the nation since despite not doing so well GDP per capita and communism had created Macedonism to a point it changed an entire people and erased their Bulgarian consciousness... the nation itself still became stronger and the population increased from 4.5 million post-WW2 to 9 million (would be about 11 million if we didn't lose Macedonian Bulgarians) by 1989. Our industry was at its zenith, and we had totally urbanised but the unfortunate and sudden collapse of communism allowed for a chaotic transition which made it fairly easy for former communist leaders to take advantage of the situation and become mini-oligarchs. The Constitutional Court whose judges were ex-communists allowed this to happen, unfortunately.

Bulgaria is not a prominent country... because of multiple national catastrophes and disasters. If those things didn't happen then the country could have become a sort of a Poland in the Balkans but alas things don't always work out the way we want them to. :)

[archangel]

lol let the lies through your veins :)

[Nurzat]

bulgarians and generally balkanites have lowest average IQ in europe. the result you're showing off with ONLY means that in bulgaria the mensa test is taken mostly by highly intelligent people, which are anyhow rare... not only in bulgaria, but all around the world...

http://i.imgur.com/Qo4mQ.png

[legolasbozo]

What do you expect when we lost both World wars and were under Communism?

Prosperity in Bulgaria is bound to happen, just look some statistics about our growth, debt, etc. And this thread proves my point perfectly.

We lost whole empire after WWI, we had a great debt crisis with İMF in 2001, we were almost bankrupted. But today;

İmport

2001 31.334.216.356 $
2011 134.954.361.571 $


Actually, i don't want to talk about South Korea.. So these are just excuses.

[Gospodine]

bulgarians and generally balkanites have lowest average IQ in europe.

I guarantee you there has not been any comprehensive testing done in the Balkans regarding intelligence due to a whole host of political, financial and social factors (no Universities/Institutes/Researchers are interested in the damn place firstly); the same way comprehensive genetic, statistical and archaeological data on the Balkans is incredibly difficult to find and even harder to verify to ensure it has no political, ethnic nor religious bias.

Secondly, in regards to this the thread and the bogus value of IQ tests, what I said here:
http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1342124&postcount=307

And finally, no Bulgaria is not the most intelligent country in the world after Israel (and neither is Israel). Don't be silly guys.