Secret History #7: Death by Meritocracy — Transcript

Okay, good afternoon, class. So, um, this will be our last class before the break.

We have a three-week break coming up. Um, I hope that during these three weeks you have a chance to reflect on what we've learned because when we come back, we'll continue to build on the ideas that we've learned so far. And so

today I want to talk about the meritocracy. The meritocracy means that people should succeed based on their talent, their ability, and their hard work. And in theory, this sounds like a good idea. And in fact, the school system is built

around the idea of a meritocracy. The good students go to the best universities and then after they graduate, they will get the very best jobs. That's the idea. But what I will show you today is that there are actually lots of problems with the meritocracy.

And what I also show you is that in fact this idea is actually destroying American society.

Okay. So the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to explain to you why America has the world's most complicated admission system. Okay? So in China, when you apply to university, you take the Gaokao, you take an examination

and then based on your test score, you get into university. And this is a system that most countries use. Only in America is a system that's complicated. Your transcript matters, but so do your standardized test scores, the SAT,

the TOEFL, so do your extracurriculars. So do teacher recommendation letters and so do essays in which you have to say to America, "I'm a really good person." Why does it matter if you're a good person? Okay, so it's

the world's most complicated admission system. So what I'll do first is explain to you why we have this system. Okay, so we start off in England in the 1600s.

And at this time in history in England, there's a major conflict between religious belief and the king. Okay, the king is head of the Anglican Church, which is the official church of England. And there's no difference between the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church. The only

difference is in the Catholic Church the head is the pope. In the Anglican Church, the head is the king of England. That's the only difference. In terms of rituals, in terms of belief, it's the same. Now there are people called Protestants who

believe there should be no pope, there should be no king. You should as an individual be able to act as God directly. And you do that by reading the Bible.

So at this time in history there's a major conflict between the Protestants, the Puritans, or the Dissenters, and the king and it leads to wars basically. And so the solution is the king says to the Dissenters, "Hey, there's this new place called America, it's far

away, go there guys and leave me alone." Okay, so the Dissenters go as pilgrims to America to build their own theocracy, what they believe to be the new Jerusalem or paradise on earth, heaven on earth. Now, one core belief of the

Protestants is you must read the Bible in order to understand the mind of God.

Therefore education, literacy, learning, it is the divine imperative. And that's why they established Harvard. Okay. Harvard was a school designed to train people into the religion called ministers in order to study the Bible in order to spread the truth of the Bible. Now Harvard then would encourage

development of other universities, Yale, Princeton. Okay. And collectively they would be known as the Ivy League. Right? So this is how the Ivy League started because America was founded as a religious colony and everyone needed to read the Bible. So

they needed places to study the Bible and so they founded Harvard and then Yale and then Princeton. Okay. But over time as America became more wealthy it became also less religious and so the Ivy League became social clubs.

And what I mean by that is these were just places where the rich of America went to become friends. Okay? It was to build cohesion. Right? And remember we discussed the idea of cohesion where if you commit transgression you become

more cohesive. So these guys did not study. They drank. They dressed up like girls. They had wild parties. They played football. They took risks. Okay?

And they became good friends. And they went on to become the leaders of America.

As America became much more diverse, much bigger and much more wealthy, it recognized that it needed to educate its population and started state schools. Okay, state schools, what we call A&M. Okay, you may have heard the term Texas A&M. Okay, it means Texas Agricultural Mechanical. The

reason why was these schools were built to train farmers, engineers, and soldiers, okay, tradespeople in order to help grow the American economy. Now, and these the system was extremely successful. America was able to industrialize really, really quickly and most people went to these schools. Only

the rich would go to the Ivy League because they were country clubs or social clubs. Over time, as America began to industrialize more and more, it recognized it needed science and technology. So, it basically copied the best universities in Germany and Germany was at this time the

main center of science and technology in the world and so they built something called research universities. Okay. And a couple of the first research universities were University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins. Okay. So at about 1900,

you have this system, okay, of state schools where most people went. If you're a poor person, you go to learn a trade and then you go and get a good job and make good money. If you want to be a professor or

scientist, you went to these research universities. If you were rich, you went to these social clubs called the Ivy League. And quite honestly, it was a really good system. And America should have stayed with this system.

But what happened was who's unhappy now about the system? These guys, right? Harvard, Yale, Princeton. Because if you think about it, over time, they become less and less relevant. Because just because you're rich doesn't mean you're smart. All the smart people are going to Chicago and Johns Hopkins. And so over

time we can expect Chicago and Johns Hopkins to overtake the Ivy League. Okay. And that's why Harvard decided to institute scholarship programs. So it wanted more smart people into its campus. Okay. And this creates something called the SAT. Okay, this is the origin of the SAT. The SAT was founded as a scholarship program to identify the best and brightest students from all over America so that they can come to Harvard and help Harvard be the best university in the world. Okay. Um

but now who's angry about the system? Harvard's not happy that the best students are going to Chicago and Johns Hopkins. So they quit the SAT and now the best students are coming to Harvard. Now who's unhappy?

The rich kids, right? Okay. The alumni, the legacies because before their kids, just their kids can just go to Harvard and have a great time. Now it's hard for them to get in. They have to take a test. And also they're in class

with smarter people. Okay. So now Harvard has a problem. On one hand, it wants the best students in America, but on the other hand, it still wants to maintain good relations with its alumni. So that's why it created a new system.

Okay? In this new system, grades are not the only factor. Test scores are not the only factor. Now it's focused on holistic.

Holistic. Okay. The new word is holistic. Specifically, character. Just being smart is not good enough. You have to be a good person. You have to be a strong and brave and virtuous person. Okay? So, they have a new concept called character. But this word was created to basically keep Jews

out. Okay? Because Jews are really smart, but Jews like to read books. So, they're not good at sports. And so, like that's not good. We need people who are manly.

out. Okay? Because Jews are really smart, but Jews like to read books. So, they're not good at sports. And so, like that's not good. We need people who are manly, who are strong, who are brave. We need white people. Okay? Okay. So they

developed this holistic system and that's why we have the system that we have today where it's not just test scores, it's essays, it's transcript, it's teacher recommendations because they want to identify the Jews and keep them out. Okay. Today we have the system to identify both the Jews and

the Asians to keep them out. Yes. They would they would even identify for your household like they would ask for your profile. Exactly. Exactly. So all the information that they're looking at today is to identify your ethnicity, your um yeah,

they want to keep they basically want to keep Asians out of Harvard. Okay, that's it. It's that simple. All right, but but I'll explain I'll explain more as we go along. Okay. All right. Um so the purpose of all these changes is to

ensure that Harvard remains the institution of power in America. That doesn't make sense. Harvard is not interested in academics. It's interested in power. Therefore, it must ensure that the people who come to Harvard are the ones who are most likely to succeed. And that's why it doesn't want all Asians.

It wants a mix of students. Okay. But I'll explain this later on. Okay. Now, in this new system, there are two key concepts. The first key concept is the idea of secrecy.

Okay. Secrecy. Secrecy just means like I'll never tell you why I let you in or why I didn't let you in. I don't have to. Okay. The other is the idea of discretion.

Discretion means that I can choose to to let in for no reason. Okay? So in China, if you get a really high score on the gao bay or chin has to let you in. Not not in America. You can be the best student in the world. They

don't care if they don't like you. They'll just they'll just say we don't want you. Okay? They have their own institutional reasons to let you in and they'll never tell you. All right? And the system was created to ensure that

Harvard is able to recruit the best students in the world. But what's important for us to remember is from Harvard's perspective, best just means the most likely to succeed, not necessarily the best academically oriented student, not the smartest

student. Okay. So, let let's run a thought experiment. Okay. Let's just say that you are a Harvard admissions officer and you're presented with four students. Okay? You're Harvard, the best university in the world.

Okay? And I give you four students and you you only let in one student, okay?

You tell me who you let in. I'll tell you if you're a good admissions officer or not. Okay? Okay. The first is the best math genius from China. Okay.

Everyone's like, "No." All right. Second is the best basketball player in the world. Okay. Basketball player in America. Okay. Okay. The third is the best student in the world. And the fourth is three generations of Harvard. Okay. So your father, your

grandfather, your great-grandfather went to Harvard. Who do you let in? You guys know the system exactly. Okay. You don't even think about it. Like I let in number four. Okay. Because you know that in the world he is the most

likely to succeed. You're not interested in educating smart people. All you want to do is graduate rich people. Okay. So, let's but let's just say this guy doesn't exist. Then who who do you let in? Exactly. Yep. This guy. Okay. Definitely

not this guy. Okay. Definitely not math teachers from China because you know that he's probably just as a math teacher, right? Math professor. Who? We don't want that. Okay. We don't want professors. We don't want lawyers. We don't want doctors. Want people who will be head of a company. One people who

will become a famous rock star, one people who will become president of United States. That's what we want. Okay. And um yeah, so either one of these two is fine. No. No. Okay. But we want these guys to apply because that

helps us look better, right? We want people to apply so we can reject them so that our metrics look better. Okay. Okay. That does that make sense? Okay.

That's how the system works. All right. So, let me explain why they do this.

Okay. Why is the system system set like this? The best analogy for Harvard, Yale, and uh sorry, go go ahead. Um like does all the uh admission officers in America college doing this intentionally? Okay, that's a really good question.

Okay, so um if you're the Ivy League, you do this because everyone wants to go to the Ivy League. But if you're an average school, you're actually just trying to recruit students. Okay? So, so this is like the school, this is the

mentality of admissions officers for elite schools. But most most schools are just like they want you to come in and pay the tuition. Okay. So, why uh the Yale pick you?

Yeah, I'll explain later on. Okay. Okay. All right. So, so Harvard is first and foremost a venture capital firm. Okay. Okay. You're an investment firm. So, let's let's pretend you're a venture capitalist and I give you two options,

okay? And you tell me which option you pick. Option one is I want to open a restaurant and I need a million dollars from you. Okay? But guess what, guys? My uncle works for the government. So, I can guarantee that he and his friends will

come to my restaurant every single day. And so, there's no risk. There's absolutely no risk involved. I guarantee we'll make at least $500,000 a year. No risk. Five easy money. Okay. Number two is I want to start a website

that that's AI and Bitcoin or and uh um all all this. Okay. problem is I don't even know how to write code. I have no experience writing doing a website and my idea isn't really fleshed out. But if it works, we can make $1 billion, guys.

Okay, so option one is low risk, really good plan, solid returns, $500,000 a year. Okay, option two is concept, vague idea. I have absolutely no experience doing any of this, but I but we could possibly make a billion dollars. Okay.

Which option do you take? Okay. You always take this guys. Okay. Right. Cuz like you don't need $500,000. That's boring. You want a billion dollars and that's the mentality of Harvard. You understand? They want to take a risk on you. They don't want students who are solid and who become a

professor. That's boring. Okay? They want crazy people who will change the world because that makes Harvard look good. Okay. Another saying this is they rather so so they rather have a class where 10 people succeed and 999 fail

rather than a thousand people succeed slightly. Does that make sense? Okay. Why? Because we only remember the 10 people who succeed. We forget everyone else.

Okay, that's the Harvard mentality and that's why they're the most famous university in the world because they're looking to create as much brand name recognition for themselves as possible. Okay? Right? Does that make sense? All right. Now, how do we know if they succeed or not if you're Harvard? Well, remember the class

that we learned last class, which is dissociative personality disorder. And what we discussed last class is in a game, people who are most likely to succeed have this characteristic. Okay? And so I'll explain why using myself as an example because I got into Yale. Okay? So what we're going to do is this.

We're going to examine my application to Yale and then we're going to look at how the admissions officers would perceive application and how they would judge my potential.

Okay, so three things. The first is what my application actually says. Second is they will examine my background and the third is they will then judge my potential.

Okay. All right. So, my application. All right. So, I went to a public high school. It was good, but it's not a private high school. You get better education on a private high school. Plus, it's it's in Canada, okay? Which

is like everyone's kind of stupid in in Canada. Okay? So, and I was like top 10 of 200 kids. So, it's good, but it's not number one. It's not number two. It's just top 10. Okay. I was number 10. My SAT was 1,400 out of 1600. and it's like decent, but

you know, people are trying to get 1550,500 easily. Okay, so um not not that great. I was on a soccer team. I was not athletic. The soccer team just needed players, so I signed up. Okay. Um I was also editor of the school newspaper.

Okay. And I was captain of a quiz team quiz team called Reach for the Top.

Okay, so that's a Canadian thing, but I was captain of it. I organized it. Okay, so these three activities, they're fine, but it doesn't really demonstrate leadership potential, right? You're not like head of student government or you're not head of modern United Nations. All right. Um, on my essay, I

wrote about Richard Feman who is a physicist. It was a really boring essay. It was I mean like anyone could have written I mean like chat chat could have written it. Okay. It was just a bad essay. My teachers I mean they liked me

but they really didn't like me because I seemed aggressive to them. You know I I wanted grades too much. So the word they use is ambitious. They thought I was ambitious. Ambition is a dirty word in Canada. It means you don't play by the rules. It means you're

too aggressive. It means you're too pushy. Okay. All right. So this is my application to Yale. As you can see, it is a decent but not a still application.

So, how did I get in? Well, because there was some information that they could also derive from application that made them interested in me. Okay, the first is that I was poor. So, I couldn't afford the application fee. I had to um apply for a waiver for my my application sorry for for my um

application. Okay. So I was poor because I was an immigrant. So I was born in China in 1976 and my family went over when I was 1980 in 1983 when I was like six. Okay. So I was a poor immigrant in Canada. I transferred high school. So I

was I was I was in a poor high school. Then I went to a rich high school. Okay.

So basically I switched neighborhoods. My family lived in a poor neighborhood and then I applied to go to a rich high school in a different neighborhood. So I I had to take the subway there every day and I spent like half an hour on the

subway. And guess what guys, Canadians don't like that. Okay? Canadians want you to stay where you are and that's it. So when I told my high school principal that I was going to transfer um high school, he got very upset and he said

that I'm going to write a discipline letter. Okay, a discipline letter and it's a very serious thing and I'm going to put in your folder so that when you apply to university they will know that you were suspended from the school and

and like that that's basically like a really bad thing. Okay. Um, so, um, I got this disc this letter and when when I went to the rich high school, I had no friends. Why? Because they didn't like me. Because they don't like it when

someone new comes in. Okay? I didn't know their culture. I I'm sort of like ambitious and I was great grubbing grade grubbing. But the thing is I was desperate because my family was very poor and I wanted a better life. Okay. Okay.

So again, they all they know all this, okay? They know I'm a average student and they know that I'm pushy and ambitious and that's why Yale let me in because it's clear from this information that I had dissociative personality disorder.

Okay, what what does that mean? It means first of all I'm desperate. Okay, desperate means like if I don't get in Yale I'll probably kill myself. I I mean if I didn't get a Yale I would drown. I couldn't breathe. It was a life

life or death issue for me. They can see the desperation. They want that. Okay. Second thing is I was insecure. Okay. If you're insecure person, it means you're not happy with who you are.

It means there's a void in your heart. And therefore, the way to fill the insecurity is through achievement. Okay? So, if I made a million dollars, I wouldn't be happy. I would need to go make $2 million. If I made $10 million,

I would see people around me who had $100 million and and I would be like, I need I need to go make a billion dollars. Okay? So an insecure person sees the world as a competition and um you're always achieving achieving

okay and that's how you succeed okay and the third thing is I was not a moral person okay I was ready to break the rules in order to succeed transgressive okay so I was not supposed to leave leave my poor high school and go to the

rich high school. That's breaking the rules in Canada. It's not illegal, but you're not supposed to do that. And I didn't care. The principal said I couldn't do that. I said to him, "Screw off. I'm still going to do it." I went

to the rich high school. Everyone said to me, "You're not welcome." I said, "I don't care. I'm I'm going to get my good grades and I'm I'm going to get into the Ivy League. I don't need you guys." Okay? So, they saw the desperation. They

saw the insecurity. They saw the hunger and the immorality. And this is part all part of dissociative personality disorder. And that's why they let me in because it's possible I go crazy. Okay, it's it's possible I become depressed,

but it's also possible I change the world. Okay, does that make sense? That's how they think because you're a venture capital firm. They're looking for the riskiest investment with the best possible return. looking for people who can become

president of the United States, who can change the world, who can make a name for themselves. Because if they do that, that makes Yel look good. So you remember the name. Okay. It's all about brand name recognition. Okay. Does that

make sense? All right. Okay. So, you're like, "Okay, well, this is fine, but and what's wrong with the system?" Okay. Why would this be a bad thing? It works. Why would why would this be a bad thing? Well, the problem with this is

because Yale, Harvard, and Princeton are so powerful, not only are they looking for people with trauma, okay, I was traumatized as a child, but they're also traumatizing the world. Okay, if that makes sense. All right. So the meritocracy

um exists to find people with trauma and because it exists it's traumatizing the world. Okay. So let me explain how and why. Any questions so far? Is this all clear? Yeah.

Um so let's say if like the Harvard and Princeton these college students then why why they're still like so famous because um the system is and is is just unreasonable for and unequal for the students who have great uh who who have a good grades.

Okay. All right. That's a really good question. Okay. Why are Harvard students, Harel students, Princeton students so famous? Okay, the reason why is when you do investment, you don't take you don't do all risky investments.

Okay, you always have you always have diversity in your portfolio. So the majority of students are still students who will be successful no matter what.

Why? Because their families are rich. Okay, so if you're so we go go back to example, right? those four you let in the child who had who comes from three generations of Harvard graduates okay and that's a majority of people who get

into Harvard and then you let in the athlete okay so the athlete the legacy these are the people who are the majority those are the safe investments and then you have like 1% of positions for people like me who like you don't really know but there's

potential there so let's take a risk okay and quite honestly it's a crapshoot because Um, it's all very discretionary. So, they're basically, it's all intuition, okay? They don't have a formula for this. They think, "This guy is interesting. Let's just let him in." Okay? And it's possible you on an essay,

you just wrote something really interesting and they laughed and it's like, "Okay, let's let's take a chance on this guy." They have that 1% of of positions available for risk. Okay? Does that make sense? Okay. So, I'm not the average Y student. I'm I'm I'm I'm a marginalized Y student. Okay. So um

this system the meritocracy the way it's set up it creates trauma. Okay so let me explain why. So let's look at university Yale then we'll look at high school.

Okay then we'll look at parenting. Okay so you think oh you get into Yale you can just coast you're happy life is simple. Okay. The fact of the matter is that when you get into Yale, Yale is actually the Hunger Games. Have you read

the book The Hung the Hunger Games? It is a relentless competition because once you're in Yale, you're still competing, but now you you're competing against the most competitive people in the world. Okay? So maybe at the school, you can be the best student. Your parents love you. You have lots of

good friends. You had a student government. You feel really good about yourself. You go to Yale and you recognize that you're a nobody. your parents are far away and you're now in competition with the best students from all around the world who all want to kill you because it's a zero sum game,

okay? Own it, stronger, survive. And so everywhere you go, it's a competition in the classroom. Um, it's a seminar style, so you're with 20 other students and the professors asking you questions and you're all competing to impress a

professor. Okay. Outside the classroom, you're competing to get into clubs and something called secret societies. Okay? But you're also competing for graduate school, for law school, for medical school, for scholarships like the road scholarship. Okay? So Yale, it sounds nice. Once you get in there, from

the first day, it's an endless pursuit of achievement. It's just competition after competition after competition. Wherever you go, you're being judged by someone, okay? You're being judged by the professor or your classmates. and everyone's looking to like basically kill each other because it's a it's a

it's a winner take all system. Okay, so this is very traumatic and it makes you so insecure that you go through life thinking thinking like life is just like that. Everyone's an enemy. I have to achieve and achieve in order to feel good about myself.

I cannot stop working hard otherwise I will be killed by other people. Okay. So people gradu from Yale have a deep sense of insecurity even those who come from the wealthiest families. Okay? They all they're always looking to achieve and

that's what Yale wants. That's what Harvard wants because these are the people who will be most successful in life. Okay? They're not happy with one $1 million. They want a billion dollars. Once they have the billion dollars, they

want $10 million. Okay? It never stops. Okay? So to get into Yale, you have to go for high school. and high school has to train you for Yale. So, it's also a competition, also a Hunger Games. Okay? And to train you for high school, the

your parents have to have a different parenting system. Okay? So, I'll give you two examples of parenting. Okay? The first system, which is a healthy system, you say to your child, I love you unconditionally. No matter what you do,

I will support you. I will always be here for you. And if you say that to your child every day, your child will be happy fulfilled and um secure in life. But the person will probably end up as a teacher. Okay? Now you can also say to your child, I don't

have time for you, but if you win the swimming competition or you place first on uh your math test or if the teacher say nice things about you, I'll take you for ice cream. Okay?

And so it's a system that neglects the child while at the same time demands the child. Okay? And this is trauma. And again, most kids will be traumatized by the system. But there are some kids who will thrive in the system and the trauma will

encourage them or drive them to achieve and achieve and achieve so that they get into Yale so they can compete the Hunger Games so they can go on in life and compete some more. Okay? And that's how the system is set up. And this is what

we call the meritocracy. And and as I'll explain to you later on, it is destroying America and the world. All right? So that's how the system is set up. And guess what, guys? Is it different in China? Not really. Okay? All right. So the

concept of meritocracy has conquered the world. It started in America. It actually started at Harvard, but now it's conquered the entire world. And that's why the world is so messed up. Um, so as you say, the Yale gives you so

many uh negative emotions. So will you still go to there if you got a second chance?

Okay, so that's a really good question. Um, would I go there if I had a second chance? And the answer is probably. Okay, and the reason why is the set system is set up that you don't really have a choice, right? If you want to

move ahead in the world and you're poor, what are your options? Right? So before in America um there are opportunities for poor people to succeed. So for example, George Washington, the first president of United States, he never went to

college. Abraham Lincoln didn't go to the Ivy League. And these are two are considered the two greatest presidents in American history. Unfortunately today, if you look at the presidents, if you look at the top people, they all went to the elite schools. Okay? So the system is set up so that if you if you

want to succeed, you have to go through the Ivy League. But I do not plan to send my kids to the Ivy League. Okay. The last thing I would do is have them in such a competitive traumatic environment as the Ivy League. Okay.

Does that make sense? All right. All right. Any more questions? So, so thank you for your question. Any more questions before I move on? Okay. So, let's do a PBT and I'll explain to you how America is destroying the world. Okay.

Sorry about this. Okay. So I I I actually need to go back to the beginning. Okay. Death by meritocracy. All right. So let's go. Okay. So if you from this um graph, what you can see is this. In the year 1875,

the best universities in the world were actually not in America. They were in Germany. Germany was producing the most Nobel Prize winners. Second was France followed by the UK. Okay. and America was non-existent but because of its investments in research universities it started to move up and up and then it it

won World War II so now it can import all these German scientists and that's why it dominates today so the best universities in the world are now America are in America Harvard Yale and Princeton okay um now as university get better and

better they're letting more students okay and as you can See, more and more American students are now going to college. Before in 1940, it was only about 5% of all males who went to university. Today, it's almost um it's

35% basically. Okay, so that's a huge step. And you would think that with the increase in um college graduates, America will become a much more equal society right?

Well, the opposite has happened. Okay. Um, America has become a much more unequal society. Um, there's something called the genie coefficient which measures inequality. And as you can see, um, these past 20 years, it's gone way up. It's among the highest in the world. Meaning, America right now is one of the

most unequal societies in the world. even though it it mo even though um over a third of its young people go and graduate from college. This is a graph of social mobility.

Okay. So uh the graph the top the top this number shows you um if the number of people who are doing better than their parents as you can see in the year 1940 most people are doing better than their parents but over time it's no

one's doing better than their parents. Okay so your generation um you will not do better than your parents most of you. Okay. um in in income inequality has gone way up the United States, the top 1% control most of the wealth in the United States

as you can see from this map. Okay. So even though America has become wealthier, it's actually going to just the 1%. At the same time, univers universities are becoming much more expensive. Okay? So this is leading to student debt.

You can see how student debt, student loans has gone way up. So in America, student loans, student debt is the only type of debt that you can never ever get rid of. You can't declare bankruptcy. You can this debt cannot be getting be

gotten rid of. Okay? When you die, it passes on to your children. Okay? So um this is a terrible situation for young people in America. This is actually more stark graph where tuition has gone way up but wages have stayed pretty stagnant. Okay.

Um and it's leading to depression among teenagers. Okay. And um also the thing about this graph is the middle class and wealthy students are much more likely to be depressed and identify as depressed than poor students. Right. So this is linear crisis in

America. So why are we why what what has happened? Well, you have two individuals who create the meritocracy. The first is named James B. Conit and he was president of Harvard for a couple decades and he was a person who brought

brought the SAT in order to identify scholarship students and he made Harvard into the best research university in America. Okay. And he was determined to make Harvard into the best university in the world as well as an institution of

power in America. Meaning that it would now decide who wins and who loses in America. The man who would help him is named Harry Tony. He was dean of Harvard who was in charge of a scholarship program. Then he got a new job at a new

new organization new organization called ETS. You know ETSs because it's education testing services. They're the ones responsible for the SAT, the TOEFL, the AP, the GRE. Okay? So, these two together create the modern meritocracy.

And as you can imagine, because you're both from Harvard, the entire system is set up to benefit Harvard. Okay? And guess what, guys? It worked. Okay? So, in the year 1940, 90% of applicants for Harvard got accepted. Now it's gone way down to

5%. Okay, Stanford is even lower. Okay, so now it's so hard to get to Harvard.

At the same time, look at the cash of Harvard. Okay, this is called the endowment. The amount of money they have at Harvard is just ridiculous. They have more money than most countries in the world right now. Their endowment is about $40 billion.

Okay? And it's just the past 30, 40 years. The success of the Harvard alumni is just incredible. The most billionaires in America, Harvard graduates, more billionaires than any other place. Okay? 127 uh billionaires in 2024. Second is Stanford. All right? No one else comes close. But not only that, but it's also anyone

with with over $und00 million. Most of them graduate from Harvard. Okay? 7% of all sorry 7 7% of all people in America who have over $100 million in net worth graduate from Harvard. Okay. Then you have MIT, Stanford Pennsylvania Columbia Yale

Cornell, Princeton. Guess what, guys? Ivy League plus MIT. Okay. Okay. $30 million still Harvard is number one. Okay. All right. So, their graduates are the most successful in America.

Okay, but it's not just rich people. It's everyone in the American elite. Okay, most of them are graduates of the elite universities. Okay, so this is a article in Nature and they looked at all the elite in America and what they

discovered is they all most of them went to certain schools, the elite universities. Um, and this is what's causing a lot of political conflict in America today. All right. So, let's just look at what they found. The red is

Harvard graduates. Okay. The green are Harvard plus Ivy League. And as you can see, Harvard is everywhere. Even among generals, admirals, there's Harvard people. Okay? They dominate in terms of philosophers and professors, but they're everywhere. Even politer prize winners, billionaires, New York Times bestselling authors,

Fortune 500 CEOs, federal judges, senators. Okay, they're everywhere. And that's the power of Harvard. This is a this is a portion of of Harvard graduates compared with the general population. This is the portion of Harvard graduates compared with the

elite. Okay, you see you see the contrast. So Harvard and Ivory League dominate America today. Okay.

Now, what's amazing is Harvard people don't know they dominate Harvard. They don't know their elite. So they did a survey and so they asked people in these elite organizations, how many people do you think in this organization went to Harvard and other elite universities? So the red is the

actual number, the blue is the estimate. So Harvard, they really don't even know they dominate America. Okay. If you ask them like, "No, it's conspiracy theory." No, you spread conspiracy theories. We're just average people. There's no way Harvard controls America. All right. Now, um, as I mentioned at

Harvard, just going to Harvard is not enough. You have to join the elite social clubs, the social secret societies. So at Harvard there's a place like the at Harvard everyone should join a more porcelain club. Okay. Um at

Princeton is the Ivy club. Okay. These are secret societies or they're not really secret but they're senior they're senior societies. Okay. They're clubs that everyone should join. At Yale it's skull and bones. Okay. Skull and bones is the most famous college secret society. They're not that secret because

they they like to brag that that they're um um skull and bones. They're so powerful that they produce a lot of presidents, a lot of rich people. Okay, 2004.

Okay. Um, George W. Bush versus John Kerry. Guess what, guys? John Kerry is the Democratic nominee.

George Bush is Republican nominee, right? They're both skull and bones. They're both Yale skull and bones. Okay. So, it's a rigged game.

Barack Obama. Okay, Barack Obama, Colombia, went to Harvard Law School, but he promised hope and change. He told people in 2008 that the game is rigged against them, that he would be their champion, that he would make America more fair.

Okay? And he won. Why? Because well, sorry. So this is this is his book Dreams My Father. Um it was a New York Times bestseller. It it basically launched his political career. Um he won because in 2008 the US economy

collapsed. Why? Because the US banks, the US political system was controlled by Ivy League graduates, by just people who were friends with each other. And so they cheated. They became corrupt. Okay? They basically destroyed the American economy.

and people protested uh against all this and Barack Obama promised that we come in and do something about it. Okay. Well, he did he did do something about it. All right.

So, his e economic team, he appointed quite a few individuals. These these are the two most famous. Larry Summers who was a Harvard graduate as well as as a president of Harvard and he was treasur secretary under Bill Clinton and he was

the guy who created the mess in the first place and then Tim Gner who's a Dartmouth graduate and he was a treasure secretary. Okay, so these are friends of Wall Street who came in to save Wall Street. So a lot of critics say you know

it's Wall Street who created this mess who destroyed the American economy. they should be punished or at least they should feel some pain. If you just let them go and help them out and save them, then you create a problem called moral

hazard. The idea of moral hazard is if you don't have have any consequences for your mistake, you will do it again. Okay? And then there Summer said, "No, no, you guys are seeing it incorrectly. We have to save the American economy.

The goal is not to save the banks and my friends. the goal is to save the American people and the American economy and that's why we're bailing out the banks by giving them free money. Okay? And then the critics were like, "Well, how about all these

American homeowners who've lost their homes? Shouldn't we help them as well?" And and you know what Larry Summer said? Moral hazard, guys. Do you understand?

Moral hazard. If we help out these ordinary Americans, they won't learn anything. Okay. So, as you can see, people were angry. The banks got saved. The people got screwed over. And guess what, guys? Because because of this, who who did we get? This guy.

Okay, this is why he won. There were millions of Americans who voted for Barack Obama because he promised hope and change. And then they voted for Donald Trump because he promised destroy the system. Okay, that's why we have Donald Trump.

Now, funny story about Donald Trump and Barack Obama. So, Barack Obama and Donald Trump were always adversaries. In fact, Donald Trump led a movement uh which accused Barack Obama of not being being born in America. Um it's he's born

in America, but Donald Trump is saying no, no, he he was actually born in Nigeria. His father is from Nigeria. So, Barack Obama made fun of Donald Trump.

2011 there's a big dinner, the White House correspondence dinner where where Barack Obama gets on gets on stage and he makes fun of Donald Trump. Okay? He says, "Hey, if Donald Trump ever became president, this is what the White House

would look like. It'd be a casino." Okay? And this is funny, right? Donald Trump was in the audience that day and everyone was laughing at him and that's what motivated Donald Trump to become president of United States.

Okay. So thank Obama for Donald Trump. Without Obama, there would be no Donald Trump.

Okay. So it's not just Barack Obama. It's a lot of people in the American political class. They're just soulless um robots. Okay. This this this this man is JD Vance. He's the vice president for Donald Trump. like like Barack Obama, he

wrote a book, a really a bestseller called Hillbilly Elegy. And it's possible he becomes president of the United States as well. Now, you may not know this, but when he first came into prominence, he opposed Donald Trump. He

thought that Donald Trump would be a fascist and be a dictator and all that.

And then suddenly he changes his opinion and said Donald Trump is the greatest guy in the world. Okay, so these guys like JD Vance and Barack Obama, they have no ideas of their own. They're just puppets. They just they just um tell

people what they want to hear. All they know is achievement. Okay. So, another example of this, this man's name is Johnny Kim. Okay? And he'll probably run for president of the United States one day or at least be a US senator.

Why? Why do I mention him? Guess what, guys? He was a Navy Seal, which is a which is the top position you can ever achieve in the military. He was he was a secret soldier. Okay? He was he went to Harvard medical school became a doctor.

Then he joined NASA became an astronaut. This is like the ideal Ivy League graduate. Okay. This is what Harvard wants. Now why is he able to do all this? Well, because this is his Wikipedia entry. Okay. In 2002, the police went into his house and

killed his father. He was there and he saw the police killed his father. He was traumatized for life. His father was a domestic abuser. The father was violent, crazy, hit him all the time. Okay? So, he has dissociative personality disorder.

And in fact, if you look at most of the of these really successful people, they do have dissociative personality disorder. And that's why he was able to do all that. Do all this because he turned the trauma into an energy to drive him to

greater and greater achievement. The problem though is he has no ideas of his own. He's just a puppet, guys. Okay. So, let's conclude and summarize why the meritocracy is so great. Um, it creates this extreme inequality in America. Okay. So, um, it destroyed the school system because all people care

about are the grades now, right? People don't even care about learning anymore. All all they want are the grades. In fact, if you get a bad grade, you'll probably complain to the teacher. In which case, the teacher is not afraid to

teach you because if the teacher tries to challenge you, make you a better student, you'll just complain. Okay? And your and if you don't if you don't succeed, your parents will come and complain. Okay? Uh, traumatized children. Okay. Okay,

if you look at the rate of mental illness in China, in America, it's just insane.

Death of American dream and social mobility, you're not going to be richer than your parents. You're just not. Uh concentration of wealth, power, and status in the 1%, the rich, the riches get richer. Political divide between left and right. Okay, so you have all these political divisions right now in

America. Corruption. So, Wall Street just steals and steals and steals and no one can do do anything about it. destruction of American identity, globalization immigration woke ideology, okay? Uh incompetent and mismanagement. You look at COVID, you look at the fact that America now has $37 trillion in debt. An elite that is

soulless, mediocre, and unimaginative. Okay? Barack Obama, JD Vance, this guy Johnny Kim. Okay? They're just they're just robots. Oh, and Donald Trump. Okay?

So, thank you American meritocracy for destroying the world. Okay. All right, questions, guys. I I know this was a lot to take in, but do you have any questions?

You're all depressed and sad still and shocked. Yeah, we have a question. Thank you. like is there a way to get rid of all those bad uh impacts of this? I mean like is there some suggestions for us to

help us better develop ourself uh not just using this system? Okay, great question. Okay, so the real solution is to destroy the Ivy League. Okay, and there are different ways you can destroy the Ivy League. The best way is to make them public, right?

To make to to have for the government to come in and control them because a lot of the issues stems from the fact that these are institutions that only care about their own power.

Okay? So, the government were in charge. Um, they wouldn't be so powerful and secretive. Okay? So, that's the best solution. It's not going to happen because Harvard, as you can see, it's too powerful as well as Yale. So, um, as an individual,

your best option is to recognize how evil the system is and choose to learn for yourself, okay? Because when you go to Yale or Harvard or Princeton, you think you're learning, but you're not. You're being indoctrinated and being brainwashed and being traumatized to be turned into basically a robot

that's only focused on success. So you need to recognize this. Be truthful to yourself and focus on real learning. Okay. So what do I mean by that? Okay.

So let me um sorry let let me um explain. Okay. So success what is real success? Well before the meritocracy you didn't have to go to college but you you need to have certain values and attitude.

Okay. So, the first was to be open-minded. What and so recognize that you have a lot to learn and ask questions, learn from other people. Okay?

And what people recognized was failure is the best teacher. Why? Because failure forces reflection, right? and resilience which leads to learning. Okay. And this is a model that most people understood before the meritocracy. Keep an open mind, make

mistakes because if you make mistakes, you will learn from them naturally and then you can reflect and then you can be become resilient and then you'll grow and grow and then you will achieve your true potential. Okay. The meritocracy

has destroyed this system. Why? Because now we just want you to focus on grades.

Okay? And to get good grades, you cannot fail. Do you understand? Failure now is a problem. If you fail a class, you may learn a lot from your failure, but it won't look good on your GPA, right? It will destroy your GPA and you won't get

into Harvard. Okay? You don't have failure. You cannot have reflection. You cannot have resilience. Also before you had time for yourself.

Nowadays every minute is organized for you right you come to school the school day is very long then you have lots of homework and then you have activities then you have to have dinner then all that you don't have any you don't even

have time to just think for yourself to just chill and do what you want to do.

Okay it's intentional. Okay. So, destroying reflection. You don't have any resilience and so you can't learn anything. So, the so it's a really bad system because if you're like me, okay, you're just a normal person. Your family your family's

not rich or powerful and you go to Y Harvard, it actually makes you fail in life. Okay, let me explain why. Okay, the first is it makes you arrogant.

It makes you it makes you think I went to Yale therefore I know more than everyone else so I don't have to ask questions. I don't have to learn anymore. Okay. Um second is that it makes you you utilitarian.

You only care about things that help you succeed. You're not actually interested in real learning anymore. Okay. And the third thing is all you care about is success. So you're narrow-minded. you don't want to explore. Okay, you're not so creative anymore.

Okay, so it's it's a great system if you come from a rich family because this system trains you to to go into power. But if you're just like me and you need to work hard and be talented uh and be committed to your passion in

order to succeed, this actually destroys all that. And that's why um probably most traumatized people in America are those who came from poor families who had the dream of going to Ivy League who got in Ivy League and then

they just failed in life because they don't have the ability to succeed. They don't have the reflexive ability. They don't they don't have the resilience.

They're not open-minded. They don't accept failure. They're not committed to learning. They're only committed to success. Okay? So if you're rich, go to Harvard and Yale and Princeton because you'll become more rich. But if you're a poor person,

going to these schools may be a mistake. Okay? Certainly for me, um it was a mistake because after I graduated, I stumbled through life. For me, it was just failure after failure after failure because I want to succeed right away. Okay? I refused to put the time and

effort to learning a real skill and learning a real passion. Um and so um in my 30s, late 20s, early 30s, I became really depressed and honestly I thought about killing myself and um I was playing video games every single day. I just hid in my

parents' basement and so um I was traumatized by it. And it took me a long time to get over the trauma and recognize this is a false system. Okay, Yale traumatized me and I need to relearn to be open-minded, to embrace

failure, to be resilient, to embrace learning. Okay? And that's why I'm a teacher today to teach you guys that to be successful in life, this is the formula. Okay? You don't need Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. All right?

All right. Any more questions, guys? Yep. Well, um, can we do both like open-minded and get the grades and being rich? Okay. Is it a possible thing?

Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you. Okay. All right. Okay. So, I'm I'm going to have to go into some psychology here. Okay. But psychologists have discovered that we have two modes of being. Okay. There's the altruistic mode and there's the utilitarian mode. Okay.

Okay. So, utitarian is what we call fight or flight. Okay. Uh altruistic is just family and connections. So, imagine we're back in the village. Okay. And most of the time we are Yeah.

But you but you said that all the psychology is just brainwashing. Okay. I Yes. Psychology is not all brainwashing. There's some valid validity to it. Okay. And so I'm not saying this is sic fact. I'm just saying this is a good way to understand how things work. Okay. All right. All right.

So you you so in the village we spend most of the time being close to other people, right? We want to be friends with other people. So we help each other out. But sometimes um we have to be very utarian. So for example um if there's if there's not

enough food okay or we're being attacked guess what run man okay so there are these two mindsets and what psychologist have discovered is they are mutually exclusive. It's either one or the other. The other thing that they discovered is the altruistic

mindset is what leads to creativity. Okay. Creativity um and passion and love. Okay. The and the utarian mindset is one that's focused on rewards. Okay. Like grades.

So it is impossible to both want have really good grades as well as help the world. But what's interesting is Harvard wants that. Okay. So in your application, you have to say to Harvard, I have a passion. I will die for my

passion, but at the same time, I want to be a billionaire and I will die trying to be a billionaire. At the same time, I know it's important to be loyal to Harvard. So I I will die being loyal to Harvard. Okay? And the only people who

can do this are people who have dissociative personality disorder. Okay? And they can they can test for that in your application. They're so experienced that they know exactly how you think. Okay? They all like, "Come on, guys. You would not apply to Harvard if you're not if you're not

utilitarian." Okay? Right? But you have to pretend you're not. And that's what makes people crazy. Okay? Because you're basically an actor.

Harvard wants the best actors in the world. They want people to go for like pretending something they're not. Okay? They want Barack Obama. The problem with Barack Obama is he's soless. He stands for nothing. Okay? In 2008, he

promised people hope and change. The moment he gets in office, he's like, "Sorry, man. I was just joking. Why did you believe me?" Okay. Then in 20 2012, when it's time for reelection, he said, "Oh, you know what? I want hoping change." Okay? In

2016, he's like, "You know what? Screw that. I'm I'm I'm gonna go water skiing now." Okay. So, the man is actually soulless, sense of nothing. All right. Any more questions, guys?

Okay, great. So, thanks for today and uh I'll see you guys after the break. Okay, so we'll continue this after the break.