Descriptions:
Video Description
The American Dream has a hidden gatekeeper: the meritocracy. Professor Jiang overturns the warm story of talent and hard work, tracing Harvard from a Puritan Bible school to a forty-billion-dollar machine that picks the ambitious and traumatized for power. Standardized tests, legacy admissions, and secret societies keep the game rigged, he argues. But the lecture ends with hope — real success means open-mindedness, failure, reflection, and resilience, not a famous diploma.
Full Video 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 a mission system okay so in china when you apply to university
you take the gaokao you take 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 does your standardized test scores the sat
the toefl so does your extracurriculars so does teacher recommendation letters and so does 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 um religious belief and the king okay
the king is head of the anglican church which the official church of england and there’s no
difference between the anglican church and the catholic church the only difference is a catholic
church the head is the pope and 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 access 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 the puritans uh 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
uh 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 prostitutes
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
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.
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 so it started state schools, okay?
State schools.
What we call A-M-M.
Now, you may have heard the term Texas A&M, okay?
It means Texas Agricultural Mechanical College.
These schools were built to train farmers,
engineers, and soldiers, okay, tradespeople,
in order to help grow the American economy.
Now, and this 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, America, as it began to industrialize
more and more, it recognized that 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.
And a couple of the first research universities
were Chicago University, the University of Chicago,
and John Hopkins, okay?
So in the about 1900, you have this system, okay,
of state schools where most people went.
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 wanted 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, Young, 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,
it wanted to welcome more smart people into its campus.
And this created something called the SAT.
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 could come to Harvard
and help Harvard be the best university in the world.
Okay?
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 could just go to Harvard
and have a great time.
Now it’s hard for them to get in,
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 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 who are strong who are brave we need
white people 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 even identify for your household
like they will 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’s that simple all right 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 it doesn’t make sense harvard’s 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 let in for no reason.
Okay, so in China, if you get a really high score on the Gaokao,
Beidao or Tsinghua has to let you in.
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 say, we don’t want you, okay?
They have their own institutional reasons to let you in,
and they’ll never tell you, 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 orientated student not the
smartest student okay so let let’s run a thought experiment okay let’s just say that you are a
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 can only let in one student, okay?
You tell me who you let in,
and 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, nah, 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
old, 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 just say this guy doesn’t exist. Then who do you let
in? Exactly, yep, this guy, okay? Definitely not this guy, okay? Definitely not the math teacher
from China because you know that he’s probably going to end up as a math teacher, right? Math
professor. 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, want people who will become a famous
rock star, want people who will become President of the United States. That’s what we want, okay?
And 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?
Does that make sense?
Okay, that’s how the system works.
Alright, so, let me explain why they do this, okay?
Why is the system set like this?
The best analogy for Harvard, Yale, and,
sorry, go ahead.
Like, does all the admission officers
in American college doing this intentionally?
Okay, that’s a really good question, okay?
So, 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 this is like the school,
this is the mentality of admissions officers
for elite schools.
But most schools are just like,
they want you to come in and pay the tuition, okay?
So why did Yale pick you?
Yeah, I’ll explain later on, okay?
All right, so Harvard is, first and foremost,
venture capital firm okay okay your investment firm so 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 will make at least five hundred thousand dollars a year no risk easy money okay
number two is i want to start a website that that’s ai and bitcoin or and uh um all on 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 one billion dollars guys
okay so option one is low risk really good plan solid returns five five hundred thousand dollars
a year okay option two is concept vague idea i’ve actually no experience doing any of this
but i but we could possibly make a billion dollars okay which option you take okay you always take
this guys okay right because like you don’t need five hundred thousand dollars 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 now
we’re saying this is they rather so they rather a class where 10 people succeed and 99 fail rather
than a thousand people succeed slightly doesn’t 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
the most famous university in the world because they’re looking to create as much brand name
recognition for themselves as possible okay all 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
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 gonna do is this.
We’re going to examine my application to Yale,
and then we’re gonna 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 a better education at a private high school.
Plus, it’s in Canada, okay?
Which is like, everyone’s kind of stupid 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.
this top 10, okay? I was number 10. My SAT was 1,400 out of 1,600. And it’s like decent, but
you know, people are trying to get 1,550, 1,500 easily, okay? So not that great. I was on a soccer
team. I was not athletic. The soccer team just needed players, so I signed up, okay? 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 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 model United Nations all right um on my essay
I wrote about Richard Feynman who is a physicist it was a really boring essay
it was I mean like anyone could have written it I mean like chat to be chief
Chat GPT, I 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 wanted grades too much.
So the word they use is ambitious.
They thought I was ambitious.
Ambitious 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 stellar 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 apply for a waiver for my application, sorry, for my application, okay?
So I was poor because I was an immigrant.
So I was born in China in 1976, and my family went over in 1983 when I was like six, okay?
So I was a poor immigrant in Canada.
I transferred high school.
So 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 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 gonna transfer high school,
he got very upset, and he said that,
I’m going to write a discipline letter, okay?
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 like that that’s
basically like a really bad thing okay um so um i got this this one letter and 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 grubby great 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
does that mean it means first of all i’m desperate okay desperate means like if i don’t get any yell
i’ll probably kill myself i i mean if i didn’t yell 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 two
million dollars if i made 10 million dollars i would see people around me who had 100 million
dollars and i would be like 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 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 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
gonna 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 gonna get my good grades and i’m gonna 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 all part of dissociative personality disorder and that’s why they let me in because
it’s possible i go crazy okay 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 they’re a venture
capital firm they’re looking for the riskiest investment with the best possible return looking
for people who can become president states who can change the world who can make a name for themselves
because if they do that that makes yale 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
is 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
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 harbor in person that these college students then why then why they’re still like
so famous because the system is just unreasonable and unequal
for the students who have good grades?
OK, that’s a really good question.
So why are Harvard students, Harvard Yale students,
Princeton students so famous?
The reason why is when you do investment,
you don’t do all risky investments.
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.
So if you go back to the example, right?
Those four, you let in the child
who comes from three generations of Harvard graduates.
And that’s the 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 you don’t really know, but there’s potential there,
so let’s take a risk, okay?
And quite honestly, it’s a crap shoot,
because it’s all very discretionary.
So basically, it’s all intuition, okay?
They don’t have a formula for this.
They just think, this guy is interesting,
let’s just let him in, okay?
And it’s possible, on an essay,
you just wrote something really interesting,
and they laugh, and it’s like,
okay, let’s take a chance on this guy.
They have that 1% of positions available
for risk, okay?
Does that make sense?
Okay, so I’m not the average Yale student.
I’m a marginalized Yale student, okay?
So 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 of 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 coach, 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 Hunger Games?
It is a relentless competition,
because once you’re in Yale, you’re still competing,
but now you’re competing against
the most competitive people in the world, okay?
So maybe at this school, you could be the best student.
Your parents love you, you have lots of good friends,
you’re head of student government,
you feel really good about yourself.
You go to Yale, and then 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 is strong or survive.
And so everywhere you go, it’s a competition.
In the classroom, it’s a seminar style,
so you’re with 20 other students,
and the professor’s 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 Rhodes Scholarship, okay?
So Yale, it sounds nice, but 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 basically kill each other
because 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 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, guys, from Yale have a deep sense of insecurity,
even those who come from the wealthiest families, okay?
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 million dollars,
they want a billion dollars.
Once they have the billion dollars,
they want 10 million dollars, 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?
To train you for high school,
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 the 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 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 now 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 a system and the trauma
will encourage them or drive them to achieve and achieve and achieve so that
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 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
of the 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
yell 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 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 united states he never went to college
abraham lincoln didn’t go 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 ppt and i’ll explain to you how america is destroying the world okay about this so 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 won World
War II so now you can import all these German scientists and that’s why it dominates today
so the best universities in the world are now America or in America Harvard, Yale and Princeton
okay um now as universities get better and better they’re lending 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 five
percent of all males who went to university today it’s almost um it’s 35 basically okay that’s a
huge step. And you would think that with the increase in college graduates, America would
become a much more equal society, right? Well, the opposite has happened. America has become a much
more unequal society. There’s something called the Gini coefficient, which measures inequality.
And as you can see, 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
over a third of its young people go and graduate from college. This is a graph of social mobility,
okay? So the graph, the top, this number shows you 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 incoming quality has gone way up
the united states the top one percent 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 just to
just the one percent at the same time universe universal becoming much more expensive okay so
and this is leading to student debt you can see how student debt student loans has gone way up
so in america student loan 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 rid get 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.
So this is leading to a crisis in America.
So why are we, what has happened?
Well, you have two individuals who create the meritocracy.
The first is named James B. Conant and he was president of Harvard for a couple of decades
And he was a person who brought in 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 Chauncey.
He was dean of Harvard,
who was in charge of the scholarship program.
Then he got a new job at a new organization called ETS.
You know ETS 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 they’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 into 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 billionaires in 2024.
Second is Stanford, all right?
No one else comes close.
But not only that, but it’s also anyone
with over $100 million.
Most of them graduate from Harvard, okay?
7% of all, sorry, 7% of all people in America
who have over $100 million in net worth
Graduates 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 they’re graduates
on 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 an 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, and this is what’s causing
a lot of global 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 Pulitzer 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 portion of Harvard graduates
compared with the general population.
This is the portion of Harvard graduates
compared with the elite, okay?
You see the contrast.
So Harvard and Ivy League dominate America today.
Now, what’s amazing is Harvard people don’t know if they dominate Harvard.
They don’t know they’re 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.
And you ask them, like, no, it’s conspiracy theory.
No, you’re spreading conspiracy theories.
We’re just average people.
There’s no way Harvard controls America, all right?
Now, as I mentioned, at Harvard,
just going to Harvard is not enough.
You have to join the elite social clubs,
the secret societies.
So at Harvard, there’s a place called,
like at Harvard, everyone wants to join
the porcelain club, okay?
At Princeton, it’s the Ivy Club.
These are secret societies.
Oh, they’re not really secret,
but they’re senior societies, okay?
They’re clubs that everyone wants to join.
At Yale, it’s Skull and Bones.
Skull and Bones is the most famous college secret society.
They’re not that secret,
because they like to brag that they’re Skull and Bones.
They’re so powerful that they produce a lot of presidents,
a lot of rich people, okay?
2004, okay, George W. Bush versus John Kerry.
Guess what, guys?
John Kerry’s 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, Columbia, 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’ll be their champion,
that he would make America more fair, okay?
And he won.
Why?
Because, well, sorry, so this is his book,
Dreams of My Father, it was a New York Times bestseller.
It basically launched his political career.
He won because in 2008, the U.S. economy collapsed.
Why?
Because the U.S. banks, the U.S. 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 against all this.
and Barack Obama promised that he would come in
and do something about it, okay?
Well, he did do something about it, all right?
So, his economic team, he appointed quite a few individuals.
These are the two most famous.
Larry Summers, who was a Harvard graduate,
as well as a president of Harvard.
And he was Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton,
and he was the guy who created the mess in the first place.
And then Tim Geithner, who was a Dartmouth graduate,
and he was the Treasury Secretary, okay?
So these are friends of Washington who came in
save wall street so a lot of critics say you know it’s wall street who create this mess who destroy
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 any consequences for your mistake you will do it again okay and
then there is 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 friend 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 do 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 brock obama because he promised hope and change
and then they voted for donald trump because he promised to destroy the system okay that’s why
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
which accused Barack Obama of not being born in America.
He’s born in America, but Donald Trump is saying,
no, no, 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 Correspondents’ Dinner,
where Barack Obama 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 the 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 robots, okay?
This man is J.D. Vance.
He’s the vice president for Donald Trump.
Like Barack Obama, he wrote a book,
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 to 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 says,
Donald Trump is the greatest guy in the world, okay?
So these guys, like J.D. Vance and Barack Obama,
they have no ideas of their own.
They’re just puppets.
They just tell people what they want to hear.
All they know is that, 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 U.S. Senator.
Why do I mention him?
Guess what, guys?
He was a Navy SEAL, which is the top position
you can ever achieve in the military.
He was a secret soldier, okay?
He went to Harvard Medical School and became a doctor.
Then he joined NASA and 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 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.
It creates this extreme inequality in America, okay?
So it destroyed the school system
because all people care about are their grades now, right?
People don’t even care about learning anymore.
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’s not afraid to teach you
because if the teacher tries to challenge you
and make you a better student, you’ll just complain.
Okay, and if you don’t succeed,
your parents will come and complain, okay?
Traumatized children, okay?
If you look at the rate of mental illness in China,
in America, it’s just insane.
Deaf American dream and social mobility,
you’re not gonna be richer than your parents,
you’re just not.
Concentration of wealth, power, and status in the 1%.
The rich is just getting 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 anything about it.
Destruction of American identity,
globalization, immigration, woke ideology, okay?
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, J.D. Vance, this guy, Johnny Kim, okay?
They’re just robots.
Oh, and Donald Trump, okay?
So thank you, American meritocracy,
for destroying the world, okay?
All right, questions, guys.
I know this was a lot to take in,
but do you have any questions?
You’re all depressed, and sad, and shocked.
Yep, we have a question, thank you.
Like, is there a way to get rid
of all those bad impacts of this?
I mean, like, is there some suggestions for us
to help us better develop ourself,
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, okay?
To make, for the government to come in and control them.
Because a lot of the issue stems from the fact that
are institutions that only care about their own power okay so the government were in charge um
they won’t be so powerful and secretive okay so that’s the best solution it’s not gonna 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 me um explain okay so success what is real success well before the meritocracy you didn’t
You don’t have to go to college,
but you need to have certain values and attitude, okay?
So the first was to be open-minded.
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 it all in mind, make mistakes,
because if you make mistakes,
you will learn from them naturally.
And then you can reflect,
and then you can become resilient,
and then you will 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.
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,
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
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’re gonna yell in 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 before i know more than anyone 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 so 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 a dream of going to ivy league who got in every
league and then they just failed in life because they don’t have the ability to succeed they don’t
have the reflective ability 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
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.
Certainly for me, 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.
I refuse to put the time and effort to learning a real skill and learning a real passion.
And so, in my 30s, late 20s, early 30s,
I became really depressed.
And honestly, I thought about killing myself
and I was playing video games every single day.
I just hid in my parents’ basement.
And so, I was traumatized by Yale.
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 gonna teach you 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, 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 gonna 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 utilitarian is what we call fight or flight, okay?
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 said that all the psychology is just brainwashing.
Okay, yes, psychology is not all brainwashing.
There’s some validity to it, okay?
And so I’m not saying this is scientific fact.
I’m just saying this is a good way
to understand how things work, okay?
All right?
All right, so in the village,
we spend most of the time being close to other people, right?
We want to be friends with other people,
we help each other out but sometimes um we have to be very utilitarian so for example um if there’s
no 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 psychologists have discovered is they are mutually exclusive it’s
either one or the other the other thing that they discovered is the ultrasonic mindset is what leads
to creativity okay creativity um and passion and love okay the and the utilitarian mindset
is one that’s focused on rewards and like grades so it is impossible to both want to have really
good grades as well as help the world but what’s interesting is harvard wants that okay so 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 will die being loyal to harvard okay the only people
who can do this people 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
you’re not, you’re deterrent, 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 that’s something they’re not, okay?
They want Barack Obama.
The problem with Barack Obama is he’s soulless.
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?”
And in 2012, when it was time for re-election,
he said, oh, you know what?
I want hope and change, okay?
In 2016, he’s like, you know what, screw that.
I’m gonna go water skiing now, okay?
So the man is actually soulless, sense of nothing, right?
Any more questions, guys?
Okay, great, so thanks for today,
and I’ll see you guys after the break, okay?
So we’ll continue this after the break.
Source: Predictive History