The slate star codex article directly on-topic is The Atomic Bomb Considered As Hungarian High School Science Fair Project: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/

The slate star codex article directly on-topic is The Atomic Bomb Considered As Hungarian High School Science Fair Project: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-considered-as-hungarian-high-school-science-fair-project/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-consid... Scott Alexander makes the not-politically-correct but plausible case for genetics having a significant component. And that the grim events of the 20th century may have significantly thinned that genetic reserve. The first couple paragraphs are a pretty good hook: ----- A group of Manhattan Project physicists created a tongue-in-cheek mythology where superintelligent Martian scouts landed in Budapest in the late 19th century and stayed for about a generation, after which they decided the planet was unsuitable for their needs and disappeared. The only clue to their existence were the children they had with local women. The joke was that this explained why the Manhattan Project was led by a group of Hungarian supergeniuses, all born in Budapest between 1890 and 1920. These included Manhattan Project founder Leo Szilard, H-bomb creator Edward Teller, Nobel-Prize-winning quantum physicist Eugene Wigner, and legendary polymath John von Neumann, namesake of the List Of Things Named After John Von Neumann.