Scotland's Cultural Trade-Off for Empire

Scotland basically architected the entire British Empire while its own people were being forced

off the land. It is actually wild because while Scots were off running Canada’s government

and dominating Australian mining, the homeland was being totally reinvented. We traded our people

for culture. Italians came in and gave us the fish and chip shops we are obsessed

with, and Irish immigrants established the football culture that defines Glasgow

today. It was a massive trade-off. We got rich off Indian jute,

but the brain drain meant our smartest people built other countries instead of our own.