Why Romania excels in international Olympiads • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#121

Post by close04 » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 10:41 AM UTC

alecco wrote: post #115

hemabe wrote: post #102

I noticed this phenomenon several years ago and came to the following conclusions: Romania is strongly multi-ethnic. Germans from Saxony and Swabia immigrated to Transylvania 800 years ago. A thousand years ago, people from northern India immigrated, whom we now know as Gypsies and who make up 8-10% of the population. In the south, the country was besieged by the Ottomans/Turks for 400 years. The cognitive difference…

Absolutely. That whole region (let's say Balkans+) has several different groups of people who are very different culturally and ethnically. And for some reason the press would blame whole countries for the crimes of specific minority groups . " Bulgarian gangs stealing cars", " Romanian gangs exploiting the UK benefits system", and so on. I lost count of how many times I had to clarify to friends and family: "No, tha…

> No, that's not representative of that country at all

That goes for almost every country, no matter how culturally or ethnically homogeneous they are. This is how stereotypes work.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#122

Post by Plankaluel » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 10:44 AM UTC

I have to say:

After all the talk in the article how the Romanian system makes part of the population perform higher by throwing a lot of the resources at them, lowering the performance of the people that are already below average. Which is a problem for Romania because a lot of the highly educated people leave the country afterwards ...

I was not really prepared for the final sentence where the author recommends as a solution that more countries should do it like that.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#123

Post by koolba » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 10:53 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #106

koolba wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just intellectual challenge that parents are unwilling to entertain. It’s part of a wider problem of avoiding any and all confrontation. The moment a child shows any disinterest, the activity is shut down. It’s why you have a generation of kids that only eat chicken fingers and french fries. The average parent is unwilling to even teach their children to eat and enjoy actual food. Why bother when you can jus…

Of course, you are an enlightened parent that is better than all those other parents that spoil their children and prevent them from achieving all that they could do. More seriously, though, good and bad parents exist everywhere. It is intellectually lazy to call other people's kids tendie eaters because you think they are underserved. Grow up, man.

> It is intellectually lazy to call other people's kids tendie eaters because you think they are underserved.

It’s anecdata for sure, but it’s not a metaphor. I literally mean the parents are eating “real food” while regularly feeding the children just butter noodles and chicken fingers. The diet is a microcosm of their entire upbringing.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#124

Post by jojomodding » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 11:04 AM UTC

PunchTornado wrote: post #81

The author is Jordan Lasker (also known by internet handle Crémieux). Much of Lasker's work and commentary focuses on race and IQ, and he has promoted eugenics. On X and Substack, Lasker is known for compiling charts on what he calls the "Black-White IQ gap"

The way he investigates how many of the winners from Romania are "Jews" (because apparently you can tell that by looking at their name and picture or whatever) is also very sus.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#125

Post by ibobev » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 11:08 AM UTC

Actually, throughout Eastern Europe, there was an excellent math and science curriculum during the socialist era. Despite all the negatives of this system, the good education was one of the huge positives. In the last 30 years in Bulgaria, there has been a significant decline, but some good traditions are still maintained, at least in the elite schools.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#126

Post by sinuhe69 » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 11:11 AM UTC

progbits wrote: post #101

laserbeam wrote: post #68

As a Romanian who has been very involved in Olympiads as a kid, I can tell that most of this is accurate. I’ve also lived in Denmark at university for several years and can contrast educational systems from first hand experience. The sorting the author describes absolutely DOES happen in Romania. Exactly as he describes it, “getting into a good school” is incredibly important for students and parents here. I’d also l…

I have mixed feelings. "Educating the masses" is important, at least to a certain baseline, otherwise we get failing democracies due to manipulation of uneducated voters. But it's important to still have a separate track for the best students. Those will grow up to do the important work and move the society forward. If you put them into a mediocre class it will waste their potential.

I can only agree. Higher education for the mass is dangerous, especially when there are not enough jobs for them and they have to take a heavy loan to finance their education.

Peter Turchin has developed a mathematical model to predict the collapse of a society and one of the main factors is an over-supply of graduates (or elites). Adding to it the dynamics of AI and smart robots, the effect of over-supply can be only exacerbated further.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/us-societa...

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#127

Post by victorbojica » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 11:13 AM UTC

com2kid wrote: post #75

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #9

There are many factors - most of them economic and cultural - but it all starts with an intense maths syllabus in school, Soviet Union style. Here's the current one for 5th to 8th grade: https://www.scribd.com/document/184259748/The-Romanian-Maths... Most kids are overwhelmed by the complexity and volume (homework is brutal) but those few with an aptitude for it thrive and are picked up quickly by teachers looking to…

That is roughly equivalent to what I did in honors math in the 90s in the US. Looking over the math curriculum in the same school district today, the current level of instruction doesn't even come close. Standards have sadly fallen.

School in Romania in the 90s was way harder than it is now. Standards have dropped (a lot) here as well.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#128

Post by oefrha » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 11:17 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #108

oefrha wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scientific and technological breakthroughs are created by the few. Always been, always will be. Fewer than 1 in 10,000 people are responsible for the current AI breakthroughs for instance, and I’m being conservative. You don’t need a fat right tail to completely change your country; of course, most of your tiny number of excellent individuals leaving for richer countries is a different problem altogether.

No, it's the same problem. Nobody wants to live in a country where everyone is impoverished and illiterate.

You do realize that if you go by "national averages" American math education is pretty bad right? People aren't leaving for countries with great national average in math. That's basically irrelevant.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#129

Post by jajko » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 11:18 AM UTC

progbits wrote: post #101

laserbeam wrote: post #68

As a Romanian who has been very involved in Olympiads as a kid, I can tell that most of this is accurate. I’ve also lived in Denmark at university for several years and can contrast educational systems from first hand experience. The sorting the author describes absolutely DOES happen in Romania. Exactly as he describes it, “getting into a good school” is incredibly important for students and parents here. I’d also l…

I have mixed feelings. "Educating the masses" is important, at least to a certain baseline, otherwise we get failing democracies due to manipulation of uneducated voters. But it's important to still have a separate track for the best students. Those will grow up to do the important work and move the society forward. If you put them into a mediocre class it will waste their potential.

What is more important, raising next generation of Musks (albeit ideally much less broken sociopathic piece of shit as current one), or avoiding next generation of Trumps?

Both of those can add tons of societies (or avoid their downfall), but all of them have 1 in common - they are spoiled rich kids with 0 connection to lives of ordinary folks from Day 1. One of biggest tricks Trump pulled was convincing folks he is one of them, and understands and shares their plight.

So it seems we are already getting at least aome brilliant folks up where they belong, and lower rate of those ain't outright catastrophe for aociety. On the other hand - dumb trivial to manipulate general population can't be saved by producing more smart brilliant folks, populistic corrupt a-holes will still overcome them.

So I would focus on general education level much more, based on above. General prosperity over future trillionaires.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#130

Post by oytis » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 11:31 AM UTC

sinuhe69 wrote: post #126

progbits wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have mixed feelings. "Educating the masses" is important, at least to a certain baseline, otherwise we get failing democracies due to manipulation of uneducated voters. But it's important to still have a separate track for the best students. Those will grow up to do the important work and move the society forward. If you put them into a mediocre class it will waste their potential.

I can only agree. Higher education for the mass is dangerous, especially when there are not enough jobs for them and they have to take a heavy loan to finance their education. Peter Turchin has developed a mathematical model to predict the collapse of a society and one of the main factors is an over-supply of graduates (or elites). Adding to it the dynamics of AI and smart robots, the effect of over-supply can be onl…

Oversupply ov elites has been a major factor of political and social progress so far.