Interview, Podcast
Garett Jones — Immigration, national IQ, & less democracy
- Future open borders experiments may be conducted in Iceland, France, or Northern Ireland over a 50-year period to test long-term institutional outcomes, potentially supporting population densities equivalent to Singapore (300 million people) without destroying institutional quality.
- To preserve the I-7 nations (China, Japan, South Korea, US, Germany, UK, France) as innovation powerhouses, migration policies may restrict open borders to these countries, concentrating "deep root scores" research into a 10-to-20-year timeline before policy implementation.
- The US fiscal gap is expected to be closed over the long run through tax hikes and slower spending growth, specifically involving gradual reductions in Medicaid and Medicare, rather than via hyperinflation, likely placing the burden on the poor and middle class.
- Future inflation is predicted to remain moderate, driven by bondholder pressure and fiscal discipline, while global innovation could be harmed if migration dilutes the average skill level or IQ in the world's most innovative nations.
- Global productivity and institutional quality may improve through public health interventions (e.g., iodine, childhood nutrition) and K-6 education in poor countries, or by adopting "deep root scores" (S, A, T) for migration selection, potentially requiring a "half standard deviation" advantage over US levels.
- Economic freedom in nations seeking EU accession is anticipated to improve due to requirements for laissez-faire reforms, though the EU itself may remain inefficient, while future political systems in the US may shift toward elite technocratic control modeled after the Federal Reserve's long-term appointment structure.
- Risks include potential political instability in Southeast Asia regarding "anti-Chinese pogroms" if high-SAT Chinese migrants are attracted, alongside long-term negative externalities if reducing the median skill level in democracies outweighs the benefits of adding high-elite individuals.
- Cultural convergence ("spaghetti theory") is expected to continue as migrant and native values meet in the middle, while genetic selection for intelligence and embryo testing by willing parents may yield positive future effects.
- Future human conflict is likely to persist due to the brain's tendency to use visible appearance as a focal point, even as specific ethnic tensions fade, and corruption in source countries may negatively correlate with subsequent changes in economic freedom.
- Low productivity firms exiting the market is viewed as a net positive for capital reallocation, preventing zombie firms, though moral hazard in high-IQ societies may increase sophisticated fraud in a zero-sum economic mode.