The Culture Transplant | Garett Jones

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Garett Jones is Associate Professor of Economics and BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at the Mercatus Center, George Mason University.

His first book, published in 2015 by Stanford University Press, is entitled Hive Mind: How Your Nation's IQ Matters So Much More Than Your Own, and was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal. His second book, also with Stanford, published in 2020, is entitled 10% Less Democracy: Why You Should Trust Elites a Little More and the Masses a Little Less, and was reviewed in The Economist. 

You can follow Garett on Twitter here. You can also read our review of The Culture Transplant, here.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

2:30 Garett summarises his books

4:25 What is The Culture Transplant about?

5:15 Superficial assimilation

6:45 The role of trust

15:40 A curious thought experiment

20:05 Stronger family values aren't always good

24:08 Trading off closer family connections for big societal gains

26:30 Grading nations based on State organisation, Agriculture, and Technology

30:35 The economic problems with ethnic diversity

36:22 Elites & diversity

39:42 The elite's apathy to normal people's hostility to ethnic diversity

42:45 Open borders' advocates' unstated assumptions

45:30 The can opener of commitment

47:00 What Thor can teach us about the importance of ancestry

49:50 How many of Garett's findings will actually replicate?

51:40 How important are p-values?

54:15 Economics is slowly turning woke

55:45 Should young economists give up on university?

58:05 If Garett were dictator for a day...

59:56 Sneak peek of Garett's three answers

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