Astral Codex Ten

Garrett Jones

5 min read

Garrett Jones

Article

Garrett Jones is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 5 times across 5 issues between April 14, 2021 and May 15, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as “Garrett Jones famously recommended 10% less democracy”; “Nate Silver, Tyler Cowen, and Garrett Jones come out in favor”; “18: Garrett Jones on the politics of COVID masking”. It most often appears alongside COVID, Israel, Marginal Revolution.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 5
  • Issue count: 5
  • First seen: April 14, 2021
  • Last seen: May 15, 2023

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Prospectus On Próspera
April 14, 2021 · Original source
Garrett Jones famously recommended 10% less democracy . Próspera goes further: 44% less democracy. The city will be governed by a Council of nine people, of whom five are elected and four appointed by HPI.
Inline links: 10% less democracy
Links For December
December 30, 2021 · Original source
32: Nate Silver, Tyler Cowen, and Garrett Jones come out in favor of “the public health establishment deliberately delayed the COVID vaccine by a month so it wouldn’t make Trump look good before Election Day”. I haven't checked if it’s plausible that public health officials had political motives, but the fact is they made a deliberate decision to make the process take an extra month, and that some four-to-five-digit number of people died because of this decision. Even if we conclude they made this decision for less sinister reasons (like being over-cautious), it deserves to be scrutinized with the same rigor as other decisions that have killed this many people, like the decision to ignore intelligence warnings about 9-11.
Inline links: Nate Silver, Tyler Cowen, Garrett Jones
Links For December 2022
December 28, 2022 · Original source
18: Garrett Jones on the politics of COVID masking:
Links For February 2023
February 09, 2023 · Original source
34: Etirabys: In 1910, Argentina was the 7th richest country in the world. Starting around 1930, it flatlined harder than anyone had ever flatlined before, until now it is only about average for South America, itself a relatively mediocre region. Why? Etirabys brings up fifty years of incessant coups and countercoups centered upon Juan Peron and his opponents. @moritheil clarifies two additional points: first, "though the Peronists are often described as proto-fascist, First Lady Eva would in modern terms be called a social justice warrior . . . Argentina discovered identity politics decades before the US did". This is probably not the sentence you want to read about your country’s governing party if you’re hoping for economic growth. Second, during the period involved, Argentina accepted an extraordinary number of immigrants, especially from Italy (60% of Argentines are now of at least partial Italian descent), reaching percent-immigrant levels more than double the US at its peak. Those immigrants were an awkward combination of Jews and other refugees fleeing Europe just before World War II, and defeated Nazis fleeing Europe just after World War II. These conflicts created the fertile soil for the identity politics half of Peronism. Garrett Jones says that his new book on immigration has a chapter on this. Related quote: “There are four types of economies: developed, developing, Japan, and Argentina”.
Inline links: Etirabys, clarifies two additional points, Garrett Jones says, Related quote:
Galton, Ehrlich, Buck
May 15, 2023 · Original source
Beroe: You can’t assess idea how many benefits it does or doesn’t have, because your principle commits you to putting your fingers in your ears and saying “la la la I can’t hear you” whenever someone discusses the issue. Consider Garrett Jones’ hypothesis that most international differences - eg between developed and underdeveloped countries - are due to IQ. And consider that IQ is mostly genetic and could be improved with eugenics. Bringing all underdeveloped countries up to First World living standards would be the most valuable thing humanity has ever done. Or consider Greg Cochran’s hypothesis that Ashkenazi Jews have a 15-point genetic IQ advantage - there aren’t a lot of Jews starving or in prison. If you could lift everyone up fifteen points, you could come close to ending poverty even within developed countries. Obviously these hypotheses are controversial, but they’re controversial not because there’s a lot of evidence against them but because everything about genetics and society is controversial because of your policy of cutting off all lines of speculation that might lead to eugenics. I maintain that if we discussed these ideas openly, we might find that they held the key to ending global poverty, crime, and disease. Meanwhile, what has Islam given us? Pretty buildings, calligraphy, and hummus.
Inline links: Garrett Jones’ hypothesis, Greg Cochran’s hypothesis