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Secret History #8: Death by Bureaucracy | Predictive History | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Secret History #8: Death by Bureaucracy
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Core Theme
The lecture argues that modern universities and broader societal organizations have become overly bureaucratic, prioritizing administrative interests and rent-seeking behavior over their original purposes of education, research, and genuine societal contribution, leading to inefficiency, inflated costs, and a decline in meaningful work and democratic participation.
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Okay, so welcome back from the break.
Today I want to talk about an incident
that happened in October 2015 at Yale
University. What happened was this um
Halloween is coming up and in Halloween
people like to dress up silly, get
drunk, have a good time.
and a university department called the
intercultural affairs committee sent an
email to students saying it's Halloween
you guys want to have fun that's fine
but please be sensitive
about the feelings of other people. So
for example do not dress up like a panda
because we have Chinese students and
they might be offended if you dress up
like a panda. Okay, so this email went
out to all the students at Yale
and one teacher who works at a resident
residential college called Silleon.
Okay. So Yale the university is divided
into dormitories called residential
colleges and she is a dean with her
husband of this college called Silleon
and to her students she writes an email
and says that she didn't agree with the
university email. She says that a
university is a place for you to
explore, experiment
and make mistakes. So
yes, be sensitive
about the feelings of others,
but we trust you to make mistakes and to
recover from them. Okay.
So um the debate was essentially over
safe space versus free space. The
university said that safe space is
important. We must respect the feelings
of others.
But the dean of Sillein, her name is
Erica Kustakis. She believes the idea of
free space.
So a university is a place for debate,
for questioning, for experimentation.
And yes, feelings will be hurt. That's
part of the growing up process, the
intellectual process. So let me ask you
a question. Do you guys agree with
number one who argues for safe space or
number two Erica Kakus who argues for
free space? What do you think?
Can sorry can can you speak into the mic please?
please?
>> Of why do I
>> Yeah. Why do you believe number two is
cor number one and number two is
correct? Oh, because I think that
university is a place that you could
explore yourself, you know, jump out of
your comfort zone and try the things
that you never had experienced before.
>> Okay. Who disagrees? Who believes it's
more important to respect the feelings
of others?
>> And like if if the college prohibit
these on dressing that maybe be
offensive to other uh students. It's
just in the campus. If you like walk out
in the society, it still will have the
people like wants to uh dress maybe like
a panda or something. So, um I think it's
it's
I think it's like necessary to like to
um to well
well
uh Yeah.
>> Okay. All right. Any other opinions? Any
other opinions?
Okay. So, you say we start the rules, right?
right?
I think I think it depends on who
decided. It feels like for myself I
think free space will be more important.
I need to explore what I want but for
being as a leader being as a head of the
college I think safe space will be more
important for them because they need to
take in control.
>> Okay. Right. But the problem is this is
a conflict. Right.
>> If the teachers care about safe space
you cannot have free space. >> Mhm.
>> Mhm.
>> Right. So the question then is what do
you think in principle is more important
free space or safe space?
>> Safe space. >> Okay.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. All right. Okay. So yeah. So most
students believe safe space is more
important and this marks a generational
shift because when I was growing up
there's no debate. It was just assumed
that free space is more important
because if you're not allowed to make
mistakes, if you're not allowed to
explore, if you're not allowed to argue
with other people, if your feelings
don't get hurt, you will never grow as a
person. Okay? So, this marks a
generational divide or generational gap.
Okay. So, um
we're going to look at what happened
because of this debate. So, the students
who read the email were offended
that Erica Kristakus was arguing for
free space because they believed that by
doing this you're going to hurt our feelings.
feelings.
All right? And so, let's look at what
happened. And remember, this is Yale University.
So what's happening is that
when Chris Nicholas Kristakis, the
husband of Erica Kristakis
went to a meeting, he was surrounded by students
students
>> and they're confronting you. Okay,
there's like 100 students
racism here telling you that you are
being racist. You were being offensive.
You admitted that you hurt us. Why can't
you say sorry
One at a time, please one at a time.
It's very easy for any trivial world of
mine to be misinterpreted. So, I'm one
at a time. I'm happy to speak to you as
much as you want. I can't speak as much
because I have other students that need
time as well. So, unfortunately, a
little bit.
>> Okay. So,
look, I'm not saying which side is
correct. Okay? Both sides have
legitimate points. Both sides have
problems. But you will notice that he
the professor, he's much older than the students.
students.
And the students are treating him, you
can see their faces, right? They're
treating him with some contempt
and that's not appropriate.
>> And when I was growing up, we didn't do this.
this.
>> If you didn't like a professor, you
thought, well, he's an And but
you know what? Most professors are
because they're professors.
Okay? You didn't you did not go and like
stalk the guy and complain to him.
That's kind of disrespectful.
All right. So the question then is why
is this happening? So I want to show you
And this video is kind of crazy.
introvertly learn.
you understand that as your decision of
matter, it is your job to create a place
of comfort and home for the students
that live in Silus.
>> You have not done that. By sending out
that email, that goes against your
position as master. Do you understand that?
that?
>> No, I don't agree with that.
>> Then then why the did you accept
the position? because I have
>> Bob hired you.
>> Okay, so this is not appropriate. Okay,
again both sides have legitimate points,
but this is not appropriate, right?
Because what she's saying to him is you
work for us. Your job is to make us feel
at home. And his response is that my job
is to help you learn. My job is to help
you grow. And that means openness. That
means debate. That means pain. And her
response is, "I don't want that crap. I
want to feel good. I want to feel at
home. I don't be challenged."
And if you think about it, that defeats
the entire point of university.
So again, I'm not saying who's right. Um
I'm not saying who's wrong, but clearly
there's a problem here. And when I went
to Yale a long time ago, we didn't have
any of this. In fact, this sort of
incident where a student would curse a
professor, it was unimaginable to us.
Okay. So the question then is why is
this happening? And
there are three explanations for why
this is happening. The first explanation
is parenting.
These kids grew up in very privileged
households and their parents are very
protective of them
and their parents treat them like
friends and so these kids are spoiled.
Okay, that's the first explanation. The
second explanation is the idea of a
consumerous mentality. So
So
in a university the idea is that the
students are consumers. the customers
and the customers are always right. What
the customers want you have to give
them. So if the customers want a safe
space, they want to come and enjoy their
time at university and they don't really
challenge that the professors have to
meet their demands otherwise he should
not have this job. Okay. And this is a
mentality that we call neoliberalism
or consumerism.
Okay? That's the second explanation.
Okay. The third explanation is ideological.
ideological.
So the idea is that at universities,
universities are overrun by leftwing
professors who teach students that
society is racist against minorities
who happen to be, you know, black and
female. and they must overturn the white
racist supremacist structure and you do
that by telling white professors who are privileged
privileged
that they are racist.
Okay, so these are three standard
explanations for why this is happening
because this sort of stuff is happening
quite a lot in America.
What I want to argue to you today is
that there's actually another
explanation which I think is much more
compelling. And the explanation is that
universities have become bureaucracies.
Before universities existed to teach you
how to think,
to help professors do cutting edge
research that helps a society improve or
innovate. But today universities
including Yale, Harvard, all the
universities have become bureaucracies
that exist in order to promote the
interests of the administrators who want
to sit in their office, get really nice
uh get get a really big salary and feel
good about themselves. Okay, that's the
argument I will make to you today. And
what I will show you is that this is not
just true for universities. It's true
for every major organization
in America and in the western world and
arguably all around the world. Okay,
that's the argument I will make to you
All right.
Okay. So today's lecture is death by
bureaucracy. how the idea of
bureaucracy, the bureaucratic mindset is
taking over the world. All right, so
let's talk about another incident at
Yale. Okay, this is Yale Law School and
a student named Trevor Colbert. He sends
an email. He has a party. He sends an
email to all the students at Yale Law
School. And there there are actually not
that many students at Y Law School.
There's maybe 300, okay? But all the
students get it. and he says that he's
going to organize a party and it's it's
a trap house party. And you know, it's
it's a bit of a joke because trap house
means actually a drug house, a place
where drug dealers sell uh drugs. But
black students, African-American
students, read the email and they're
offended and they're like, "Are you
making fun of black students?" So, they
write a letter of complaint to the deans
of Yale Law School. And there are two
deans who investigate. Okay, their names
are Eldic and Koskov. Okay, and they
said and what Trevor Cobert does is he
actually records the meeting. Okay,
secretly 20 for 20 minutes they talk.
And basically
Colbert does not believe he did anything
wrong. He sent an email and he said it
it was a funny email. He thought it was
funny. Okay. But the deans tell him,
"You think it's funny, but other
students found it offensive. So, you
need to apologize.
And Cobbert's like, "Okay, well, I'll
tell you what. If these students thought
that what I wrote was offensive, then I
will talk to them. We will talk together
about why they found my email offensive
and we will settle this amongst
ourselves." And the dean's like, "No,
no, no. We want to we want to help you
guys out. We want to protect you guys.
We're afraid that you guys meet, you
guys will fight even more. And Trevor
Corbert's like, "Well, I want to hear
what they think. I don't want to hear
this from you. I want to hear what they
think." Okay. And and then what happens
is that the deans start to threaten
Trevor Colbert. They basically tell him,
"These things amplify over time, so you
must apologize right away for your
sake." Okay? and they tell him, "Listen,
if you do not apologize, then this might
affect your career. This might affect
your social circle." Okay? So, they're
threatening him. And
what they say is, "We're doing this for
your sake." Okay?
Eric says he worries about the email
affecting students reputation, not just
here, but when you leave. You know, the
legal community is a small one.
And he says, "You know what? I will
write the email for you. I will craft
And
cost warns that escalation is a
possibility if the student doesn't
apologize. Okay, so this is coercion.
And again, the student, it's not clear
what the student did wrong. Some
students found it offensive, but it's
not clear what rules or what laws, what
regulations Trevor Covert broke. Okay,
it's not clear. So why is this
happening? Okay, my argument to you is
that it's happening because
these guys cost and elic they need
things to do because being a dean of a
university, it's not a real job, right?
They're professors who teach, there are
researchers who do research, but deans
actually don't do anything. So when you
have a bureaucracy,
bureaucrats go make problems for
everyone in order to create solutions
for everyone.
Okay? So another way of saying this is
20 years ago, 30 years ago when I was a
student at Yale, if you had a problem,
you had to go talk to a professor
because there was no one else to talk
to. Nowadays, you can talk to like 20 or
30 different deans, dean of student
affairs, dean of student faculty
relation, who knows? Okay, but there are
like all these offices they can go to
and quite honestly the same at the
school as well, right? If you don't like
me as a teacher, there's like four or
five different people you complain you
can complain to and quite honestly a lot
of you do complain. Okay, so I know
about this and and what this is
happening is these university have
become bureaucracies.
Now the question then is why the
bureaucracies and the answer is in the
beginning as a university you have to
build up your reputation right so you
work hard uh you focus on teaching you
focus on research so it's a struggle to
become a global brand once you become
that global brand there's nothing else
to do there's no more ideology there's
more struggle so what happens is the
people in charge start engaging in rent
seeking behavior they take advantage of
the position in order to make their life
easier and then they pass on this
privilege to their friends and then to
their children and this creates a
bureaucracy and the university starts to
exist in order to
empower these people at the expense of
students and professors.
Okay. All right. So to show you how
ridiculous this has become,
here's an example. This is from CNN,
okay? And this is the year 2020. A
University of South California professor
is under fire for using a Chinese
expression students alleg sounds like an
English slur. Okay? So, there's a
Chinese word that sounds like an racial slur,
slur,
>> an insult in English.
>> These two words actually do not sound
the same.
Okay. They It's not the same as the
English word, but it sounds a bit
similar. So, what happened was some
black students, African-American
students who are not in his class, okay?
>> Wrote a letter of complaint. And
honestly, if you read it, it sounds like
a joke. It sounds like a prank, right?
So, let's read it together. Let's let's
Okay, so this is professor Greg Patton,
and he's just teaching communication
Chinese. He's just teaching Chinese to
his students on how to communicate in
China when you do business. Okay? and he
and he says, "Look, nga, it's just a
feeler. It doesn't really mean
anything." And he says it a few times,
but there's no
there's no bad intention what he's
saying, right? I mean, he's he's just
pointing out a fact. So, what these
students write is this phrase clearly
and precisely before instruction is
always identified as a phonetic hunter
and a racial derogatory term and should
be carefully used especially in the
context of speaking Chinese within the
social context of the United States.
Okay, so this is a ridiculous idea
and honestly
it sounds like a joke. Okay, it just
sounds like these students are playing a joke
joke
and and the prof and the administration
just ignore this, right? Guess what happens?
happens?
The dean, okay, the head of the business school
school
announced that a different professor
would take over teaching Patton's class.
He fired Patton. And then he said,
"Professor Patton repeated several times
a Chinese word that sounds very similar
to a vile racial slur in English.
Understandably, this caused great pain
and upset among students. And for that,
I am deeply sorry. It is simply
unacceptable for faculty to use words in
class that can marginalize, hurt, and
harm the psychological safety of our
students. We must and we will do
better." Okay,
he's being
It's a joke. It's a prank. And and he's
taking it very seriously. Why? Because
he's trying to protect his job. He's
trying to look good. He's trying to
explain why I'm the leader because I
protect everyone.
Okay. So then again, what is why is this
happening? Well,
again, the idea of bureaucracy. So this
is a University of California, San
Diego. This is student enrollment. Okay,
so you can see a slight increase in
student enrollment. But look at this.
Senior management, deans,
administrators, managers. Boom. Okay. Boom.
Boom.
This is called rent seeeking behavior.
This is people in power take advantage
of their power to give jobs to their
friends who do nothing every day. And
because of that, they're always looking
to cause problems for everyone else,
especially professors who do real work.
Okay. So, let's just look at
universities. As you can see, um the
blue is teaching. So, what's really
interesting is that
the investment in teaching has gone
down. Okay? So, the investment in
teaching has gone down the blue. Okay?
But look at this. The red is administration.
administration.
So over the past from 1980 to today,
over the past 40 years, universe have
put less money into both um
administration as well as maintenance,
but have put more money into
administration, into bureaucracy.
Okay, this is where your money is going,
guys. All right, so this is Illinois.
You see a massive surge in managers at
but the same time student enrollment is
All right. So this is a paper written
about the Swedish education system. The
higher education system system. Okay.
It's it's no different anywhere else.
All right. So let's so the argument is
that bureaucracy is ballooning in
Swedish higher education. So let's look
at some interesting statistics. All
right. So what's happening is that this
chart tells you that teachers
are teaching more and more students. Okay?
Okay?
>> Teachers are teaching more and more
students but administrators
are managing less and less students. And
the reason why is
teachers are fewer and fewer but
managers are more and more. That makes
no sense. Okay.
Okay. Um,
Um,
so you can see that teachers and
researchers it's pretty flat. Okay. It
hasn't really expand that much but
secretaries people who do real work it's
going down but managers are going up.
Okay. So if the university is facing
problems the first thing you should cut
are the people who do no work. Right?
But it's the opposite. People who do no
work the managers keep their jobs and in
fact they pay themselves more. the
professors and the maintenance and the
secretaries lose their jobs to cut costs.
Okay. Um
this is how much they're paid. As you
can see over the same time period,
secretaries are getting paid less and
less. Teachers are getting paid less and
less. But look at this. Managers are
Uh these are the different departments,
okay, of a university. So, as you can
see, okay, the the the jobs, the
departments that do real work, IT, uh,
HR, they're going down, but management
is going up,
right? So, the people who do absolutely
no work,
their jobs keep on going up and up, and
And as I said, the problem of
bureaucracy is not only do managers do
nothing every day, but they expect
others to do more work. Okay. So,
professors, researchers, teachers,
they're doing more work because the
managers are giving them more paperwork
to do, okay, like evaluations and all
that. So, professors spend all now
almost 20% of their workday on paperwork
given to them by managers.
And this paperwork is not necessary.
It's just given to them to justify the
This is America. We go back to America.
And as you can see, um, this is a
university called Galidat debt. And as
you can see over a 20-year period,
there's a blue are the salaries of
professors, and it's pretty stable.
Okay, you went from 72 to 86. Not a huge
increase, but look for managers. Okay,
the president, it doubled from 141 to 28
280. it doubled. Right now, the salaries
Um,
this is Connecticut. At Yale, the
president makes $2 million a year. At
Wesland, he makes $3 million a year.
Okay. Um, this is a private university
called Stratford University. And they
went bankrupt. Right now more and more
universities are going bankrupt because
obviously you have too many managers and
all they do is
um get huge paychecks for doing nothing.
Eventually you're going to go bankrupt,
>> Okay. Sorry to interrupt, but the school
the school board is not stupid. So I
mean this is a fact. And so why why
don't they just change anything?
>> That's a great question. Okay. The
reason why is they're all friends. the
school board, the president, the vice
president, they're all friends.
And that's why they can do this because
they control all the power. They're all
friends. And it's in their best interest
to steal together, right? Because if you
steal by yourself, then you might get
caught. But if you steal together,
then you're untouchable. Okay? So this
is exactly what happens at Stratford
University. The university goes
bankrupt. And because the president and
the vice president are stealing from the
university, stealing because they are um
not only collecting huge paychecks, but
they're also expensing everything to the
university. So for example, they buy a
car or they have a gym membership, they
charge the university. And if the
university can't pay for it, what they
do is they lend money to the university. Okay?
Okay?
All right. So Schultz is a president. He
lists himself and his wife as the
biggest creditors claiming that the
university owes the couple 2.5 million
for eight promisory notes. Okay. So, the
university could not pay uh their cars
or their house mortgages. And it's like
and the sourc [Music]
[Music]
went bankrupt like okay now you have to
pay me back.
All right. So, so again how were they
able to do this? Because the filings
also shed light on payments to
university insiders in its final year of
operation. The college paid out of over
30,000 in segments to seven trustees. So
the people at the top were getting paid
off even as university was going bankrupt.
bankrupt.
Though the filing doesn't differentiate
which expenses were Richards and which
were Maryann's, the filings for 2020
alone showed over 18,000 in lease and
insurance payments for the shorts cars.
Okay, so they had cars and they were
making university pay for these cars
over 4.7 million in loan payments and
collateral return to Eagle Bank on
behalf of Schultz. Okay, so they also
making the university pay for their
houses as well. And then you're like,
how could they do this? Well, the answer
is because in America, the rich always
wins in the court system.
>> So whoever is able to hire the best
lawyers always wins out and they have a
lot of money. The university is
bankrupt. They don't have a lot of money
so they will win out. Okay. So I point
this out because this is going to what
this is what's going to happen to many
universities over the next 5 10 years in
America because you have a system where
you have the managers at the top. They
all best friends. They're all stealing
from the university together and
eventually the university will bankrupt.
So that's America. Okay. But it's not
again it's not just universities. This
is every bureaucracy. is every
organization is happening like this. So
you look at Canada in Canada you can see
a rise of 9% in the population but look
at the government okay it's went up by 26%.
Um in America you can see a sharp
decline in manufacturing jobs starting
in about the 1980s because these jobs
are being offshored to China but at the
same time you see this steady increase
in government jobs. Okay. So people in
America are doing less real work and
more and more people are becoming bureaucrats.
Okay.
So as you can see
the growth in the government is usually
in management. Okay. People will real
work no it's pretty flat but look at the
managers look at the administrators.
Okay they're going way up and it's a
All right. So how do we know the
government doesn't really do anything?
Okay, so there's a study that shows us
that um it's looking at rules. Okay, so
rules help society be more efficient. So
as you can see um the number of rules
have gone down actually number of
significant rules, rules that actually
impact you day-to-day have gone way
down. But this is interesting, the
paperwork has gone up.
Okay. So, this tells us the managers,
the administrators in the federal
government of of the United States, they
don't do anything but produce paperwork
that's meaningless. Has actually no
impact on the lives of ordinary people. Okay.
Okay. Let's look at the milit military.
So, everyone believes that America has
the world's greatest military because it
spends the most on the military and has
all these high-tech weapons, right? The
problem is a bureaucracy in the military
right now. So you see what's happening
is an increase in management because the
ratio of manager officer to soldier is
going down. Okay? So you have more
officers and less soldiers. That's a
problem. You're fighting a war.
All right? So um in the Civil War, and
this is the 1860s, you had one officer
for every 14 soldiers. Now it's one to four.
four. Okay.
Okay.
The biggest problem is the increase in
generals. Okay. So you can see three and
four star generals have increased the
most. In World War II
um America had about 12 million
soldiers. They had seven generals who
are fourstar. Today America has about
1.2 million soldiers. They have 40
fourstar generals. And this is a huge
problem. Why? Because
if you're a fourstar general, you have a
lot of privileges beyond your salary.
So, uh, this is from Raymond Dubas who
works in the Pentagon and he writes
about the perks of a fourst star
general. A fourstar has an airplane. A
three star often doesn't. Can a three
star get an airplane when he needs it?
Not always. Okay. So, a four-star
general always has his own personal
airplane. What is his personal airplane?
It's called a G5. This is what a G5 is, guys.
guys.
>> This is what a G5 is. This is his own
personal plane. It's always there for
him. If he if he doesn't want to fly,
it's waiting on the Tarmac for him.
Okay, you can see how luxurious it is.
This cost 50 to $60 million per plane.
Every four-star general has this plane.
At the same time, guys, what's happened
to soldiers?
The soldiers
don't have enough to eat. There's 1.2
million veterans on food stamps. Okay,
that's 8% of all veterans in America.
The people who actually fight, the
people actually make sacrifices for
their country don't have enough to eat
while the generals fly around in like
these really nice planes. That's a state
All right. So it's not just the
military. It's every single
US government department. Okay. All the administrator
administrator
you see massive increase in administration.
administration.
All right. So people who do real work,
okay, is in the red. People who do
actually no work is in the blue. Okay.
So people who do science, math,
engineering, 621. People who do
administration 1782. So in every federal
bureaucracy you have bloat. You have
managers who do nothing and you don't
have very few people people who do the
actual real work. It's it's it's true
for every single federal organization in
So this just shows you how the ratio of
managers and supervisors to other employees.
employees.
What's really funny about bureaucracy is
evaluation is very important. Who does
the evaluation? Managers do the
evaluation. So at the end of the year
they do do they do performance review
and what happens is they tell they
evaluate themselves and their friends
like you did a great job. They then look
at other people who do the real work and
says you guys could do better. Okay. So
outstanding is the highest
uh performance review for the
government. Right. 62 64% got
outstanding. Okay. Managers who do
got outstanding for every other job. All
Same same thing with hospitals. The the
brown is the growth in doctors. You can
see it's pretty steady. But look at the administrators.
administrators.
Okay. The yellow are the administrators.
It It's blowing up. Okay. And so it c it
forces health care costs to go up. The
reason why healthcare is so unaffordable
in United States is not because it has
the best healthcare in the world. It
doesn't. It's so it's expensive because
it's got so many administrators who do
nothing every day.
All right. So
what do what do these managers do? Well,
the managers always think of new ways to
screw everyone else. Okay. So these are
health insurance companies and this is
their denial rates. Okay? So you work
hard for 40 years, you pay your health
insurance, okay? And then maybe you get
cancer and then you go to the doctor.
The doctor charges you like a million
dollars and you're like you don't have a
million dollars but you have insurance.
So you go to insurance company. It's
like hey I paid 40 years of insurance
fees. Can you help me out? I mean, and
look, the insurance company, Unite Healthcare,
Healthcare,
about a third, 32% of all claims are denied.
denied.
And they do this as practice because if
you fight them, they'll say, "Okay, you
know what? We'll we'll we'll we'll agree
to pay you back." Okay? But if you don't
fight them, then they're like, "Great."
>> Okay? So, it's extremely unethical. And
so that's what what managers do every
day. Think of new ways to screw over
All right. So why is this happening? All
right. Why is America like this? Why is
the west like this? Why why is the
entire world like this? So this is
France Kafka and he was writing before
World War I. This is his most famous
book called The Trial. Okay. I'm not
sure if you guys have read this book or
heard of heard of this book. Okay, it's
very good. And the novel, it's a very
interesting novel because the main
character, Joseph K, he works at a bank.
He's a blank bank clerk and he has never
gotten any into trouble his entire life.
Okay? He's very obedient. He's very
nice. He just sticks to himself. And
then one day, the police come and arrest
him. The police don't tell him why.
And Joseph K tries to figure out why,
but he he does not know what he did
wrong. He does not know why he's being
arrested. And then he's put on trial.
And the judge doesn't tell him what he
did wrong.
>> Okay? And just in case trying to figure
out why this happened to me, okay? And
this and and and this is his answer.
Its purpose is to arrest innocent people
and wage pointless pro pointless
prosecutions against them, which as in
my case, lead to no result. How are we
to avoid those in office becoming deeply
corrupt when everything is devoid of
meaning? Okay, because society has
become a bureaucracy and bureaucrats
need things to do.
So they go, the police go and arrest
innocent people
and then
send them to
trial. Okay? Now, what he doesn't say is
the police could arrest criminals,
right? But the police don't want to do
that because the criminals might fight
back or the criminals might uh be mean.
Okay? They rather arrest an innocent
person because they know the person will
Okay? That's the logic of bureaucrats.
How do I
justify my existence by doing as little
work as possible?
Okay, so this sounds strange, but let me
tell you a story. This is a true story.
I'm in Toronto with my two boys and I
let them run around the park. Okay? And
we've been doing this for two months, so
I trust them. One of my boys, he's four
years old. He runs too far and I lose
track of him. Okay? A stranger finds him
and starts talking to him, but my boy
doesn't speak any English. So
people now surround my boy like where
where's where where your parents and he
is scared
>> because he doesn't speak any English. So
he faints. Okay, that that's what he
does. He faints to protect himself. So
they call the police. They call the par
the paramedics. They come and they make
sure he's all right. Okay, now I find
him. Okay, and now the police interview
me. They interrogate me and I explain to
him what happened. And at this point,
they just let us go home, right? But
they insist on taking us to the
hospital. I'm like, if we go to a
hospital, we could be stuck there for
like 12 hours. We could be we could be
in line. And like the paramedics, the
MAT has already told us there's
something wrong with him. Okay? It's not
heat stroke. He just fainted, but he's
fine. His vital signs are fine, but the
police kept on insisting. Meanwhile,
there's a fight going on at the park.
Okay? And I'm thinking to myself, why
are you guys bothering me and not going
to arrest those guys who are fighting
somewhere else? And the answer is
because it's easier to deal with me than
to go arrest those guys. Okay? That's
how bureaucrats think. They're always
thinking of ways to justify the existence
existence
but not do real work. Okay? And that's the
the
message of the trial. Eventually,
society becomes so bureaucratic
that the bureaucrats only think about
how to make problems for ordinary
citizens because life becomes easier for them.
them.
Okay, does that make sense? All right,
let's move on to the origins of
totitarianism by Hannah Rant. Henry Rant
is a 20th century's one of the 20th
century's most uh powerful intellectuals
and she's writing about how Nazism came
to dominate Germany. Now communism came
to dominate Soviet Russia and how these
two regimes led to the deaths of tens of
millions of people. How they started
World War II, how they create the
Holocaust, how they create the famine.
Okay. And in her book she she says that
these two regimes are religious cults.
They're evil cults and they have three
defining characteristics.
Okay. The first is that they're removed
from reality. They don't care about
reality. They have a religion. They have
a faith. They have a mindset and they
want to impose their faith on reality.
Okay? They don't care about reality.
They're removed from reality. That's the
first thing. Okay? Second thing is that
when you're removed from reality, your
only logic is movement expansion.
Okay? You only know if you're right if
you're growing. Okay? So if the Nazis,
their faith, their religion would lead
to the destruction of Germany, but their
membership was increasing. So they were
right. They were winning these wars
against European countries. Therefore,
they're right. Okay? They cannot use logic
logic
to explain their actions. So they use
movement to expl to justify their
actions. Okay, that's number two. One
and two means number three, which is the
Nazis and the Soviets hated reality.
They defied reality. They fought against
reality. So even though the Nazis were
losing the war, even though it's clear
they cannot defeat the Soviet Russia,
they doubled down because in their religion
religion
movement is what matters. Defining
reality is what matters. And that's what
led to the destruction of Germany.
Okay. All right. So, and she explains
that tot regimes have these three
characteristics. They're removed from
reality. All they care about is
expansionism. and they want to defy
reality as their true test of faith.
What she does not say in the book
is that these three can can apply to all bureaucracies.
bureaucracies.
All governments meaning that over time
all governments all bureaucracies will
tend towards totalitarianism
because they have that's the only way
they can justify their existence.
Okay, does that make sense? All right,
so let's talk let's talk about this
concretely. Okay, what do I mean by
this? So this is a book by James Scott.
It's an excellent book by the way uh
called Seeing like a state. And he's
trying to explain to us how brock
bureaucracies work, how governments
function. And for him,
governments actually create more
problems than they solve. Why?
Well, he lists four reasons. The first
is that he
all they care about is the
administrative ordering of nature and
society. So, so another way of saying
this is a bureaucracy is a machine. It's
a hierarchy. It's static. It's
mechanical. But society is like a
forest. It's diverse. It's an ecosystem.
It's organic.
For a state to exist, it must turn the
forest into a machine like itself. So it
destroys diversity. It destroys spontane
spontaneity. It destroys imagination.
Okay. All right. So let let's
use an example of this. All right. So my
question to you is like who are you? Can
can you can you tell us who who are you?
Like like who are you as a person? Tell
us who you are as a person.
>> Like my
>> Yeah. Yeah. just just use one or two
minutes to to to introduce yourself. Who
are you as a person?
>> Hi, my name is Banker and I I grew up in
Beijing. Uh, and I came to Moonshot this
this school in 2024
last year. And uh,
>> okay, wrong wrong. Okay, that's that's
not the correct answer. The correct
answer is you're a teenage boy. >> Oh,
>> Oh,
>> okay. That's the correct answer. All
right. You believe that you are an
individual with individual aspirations,
ambitions, with a past, with a history.
The state doesn't care. The state needs
to classify you in a way that can that I
can use you. Okay? You're a teenage boy,
which means like two years time, you can
be employed in a factory or I can send
you to war. Okay? That's all I care
about. Okay? I don't care about your
name. I don't care about who you are. I
don't care who your parents are. I don't
care about your past. I don't care what
you like. All I care about is the fact
that you are a teenage boy. and
therefore I can I can exploit you for
labor. Okay, that's how states think.
Okay, so the batization of society.
Second is the idea of high marers
ideology. So because the state is a
monopoly, democracy is a monopoly. It
becomes arrogant. It has hubris. It's
overconfident and it it wants to impose
its ideology on everyone else. It
believes that through its own planning
it can achieve paradise. Okay. Um so it
becomes authoritarian meaning it refuses
to listen to criticism to feedback to
questions. It does it is not open to
debate. It in it imposes its will on
people. Okay. Which creates a weak civil
society. And if if as an organization
you're not getting feedback, you're not
allowing for openness, then you will
wither and die.
Okay? And that's why states, governments
will always fail in the end. Okay. So he
uses two examples. The first example is
what happened in the late uh 19th
century Germany. So in Germany there's
there's lots of forests
and the state is thinking of ways how
can we how can we best monetize the
resource of the forest? Well, there are
certain trees that you can cut down for
lumber, right? The problem is that in a
forest, most space is occupied by useless
useless
shrubs or greenery or trees. Okay? So,
their idea is, you know what, here's a
simple solution. We'll burn on the
forest and just plant trees that we can
harvest for lumber,
right? Brilliant. That's a brilliant use
of space. It's more efficient. The
problem though is that when you do that,
the trees are now are susceptible to disease,
disease,
to weather changes. A forest is
resilient because it's diverse.
Okay, so that's what this what Scott
says. Monocultures are as a rule more
fragile and hence more vulnerable to the
stress of disease and weather than poly
cultures are. Any unmanaged forest may
experience stress from storms, disease,
drought, fragile soil or severe cold. A
diverse complex forest however with its
many species of trees. Its full
complement of birds, insects and mammals
is far more resilient, far more able to
withstand recover from such injuries
than pure stance. So nature has
diversity because it allows for resilience.
resilience.
Okay? Some part of the forest can die,
but the rest of the forest will recover
from anything, whether it's disease or
drought or weather. Okay? And we humans
are the same way. If you let humans do
whatever they want, we are resilient. So
some communities might die off, but
other communities will adapt. The
problem with a state with a government
is that
it refuses
it sees diversity as an enemy. Okay? So
if there's a natural disaster, it's very
likely that a lot more people die off
than otherwise. Okay.
Another example is force communism in Tanzania.
Tanzania.
Okay. Okay, so it's a top- down system
and their idea is okay, these farmers
have their little small farms and they
grow their crops, but that's not
efficient. What if we just got all the
farmers together and had coffee
and they all, you know, had coffee uh or
wheat or whatever and then we can sell
this to other countries. Okay? And of
course you can imagine that this will
lead to starvation because it's the same
principle as the forest. If there's a
weather crisis or if there's a disease
then all your crops die off and then
your people die off. Okay.
What these planners carried in their
mind's eye was certain aesthetic what
one might call a visual codification of
modern rural production and communicate
community life. Okay. So the problem
with bureaucrats is they have no
imagination. Everything to them has to
be mapped out. They like things that can
be mapped out that can that can be a
blueprint. Okay? They like to brag about
these things because because that's how
they see the world.
But real world nature requires
diversity. It requires organic. Okay.
Okay.
All right. So he gives examples of how
the state transforms society. So before
what would happen is that people would
just come together and they will
organize their communities according to
their needs. Okay, it's a bottomup
process. But the state wants to create
permanent cities where people are just
in one place all the time, right? That's
why you have cities. Um before what's
natural is just for people to live on
small farms and share stuff with other
people to trade with with each other.
The problem with this is the state
cannot tax you. So what the state does
is it brings you to cities, makes you
work in a factory so it can tax you.
Okay? The point of giving you a wage is
um property
um before it was very common for people
to share
property together. Okay, now there's
it's all owned and controlled by the
state. Uh resources are the same thing.
Before people just use resource
according to needs but now the state
wants to centralize these resources.
Okay, so it can tax and exploit people
properly. Okay, so that's what a state
proxy does. So what are the consequences
of the over bureaucratization of
society? Well, what's happening in
America is that while consumer goods
like cars, clothing, and cell phones are
going down, what's going up are hospital
services, schooling, okay, housing. Why?
Because these are monopolies controlled
by bureaucrats,
right? So what's happening is with the
over bureaucratization of society, it's
almost impossible for middle class
people, or people to have a good life.
Now, okay,
here's another really interesting chart.
The black shows you the growth in the
stock market. Okay, and you think you
think, wow, this is a good thing. Okay.
The problem is first of all only 10% of
people in United States control most of
the stocks over 90% of the stocks. The
other issue is this. The other issue is
if you look at prices, yeah, it's gone
up. But if you just turn, but if you
look at stocks
as a units of gold, if you use gold to
buy stocks, guess what? The price of
stocks have gone down. That's a blue.
Okay? If you use money to buy stocks, it
goes up. But if you use gold to buy
stocks, it goes down. What this is
telling us, okay, very simple, is we are
living in a lie. All this wealth
generation, it's all a lie. It's not
real. We just think it's real. We We're
living in a fairy land created by
bureaucrats to fool us to believe that
we are prosperous. Okay? Does that make
sense? The amount of gold that you can
buy with stocks has gone down. Okay.
Okay.
And so the blue is the gold, the black
is money. The money isn't is worthless. Okay.
Okay.
All right. Another problem that
bureaucratizing has created is people
don't want to work anymore. So in
America, this is called quite quitting.
In China, it's called tonging or banan.
Okay? Lying flat, let it rot. People
don't want to work anymore. Why? Because
it's pointless to work in a bureaucracy,
right? Leaders don't care. The organiz
doesn't need you.
You are alienated.
You are told what to do and you cannot negotiate.
negotiate.
You cannot rise from the bureaucracy.
You're you're being asked to work too
too much.
You feel as though you're just a
machine. Okay? And so you're and so the
way you rebel is
lying flat or quite quitting. Okay. So
your overure of society means that
people now have become more lazy, more
And what this also means is that
democracy is declining because people's
voice people people's power is
declining. Okay. So you can see that
people feel as though democracy is in
the decline. In fact, experts
um estimate that democracy, the capacity
for people to participate in politics,
the capacity for people to influence
politics has declined rapidly these past
10 years. Okay? So we are living in a
world that is becoming more and more
bureaucratic and it's killing us. Okay.
>> So, as you say, we now live in a very
corrupt world. So,
>> we live in a bureaucratic world.
>> Yeah. Bureaucratic world. So what so I I
I can't really see the future of
no matter it's the mankind or like are
there any good side of the current world?
world?
>> Okay, what what are what are the good
things about the current world? Well,
the good
um side is that because things have
become so corrupt,
people now are forced to think for
themselves, right? Before you could just
trust your teacher, you just trust your
parent. You just trust author authority
figures. But now you see them for the
bureaucrats that they are. And so now
you're forced to think forced to think
for yourself. And so you're now forced
to educate yourself. You're now forced
to explore different opinions. So
people's minds are opening. And that I
think is a very good thing in today's
world. Okay,
>> So, will it help if we cancel uh most of
the managers and just like keep one one
or two of them like
>> Yeah. Okay. So, that's a really good
question. Okay. If this is a problem,
why not just get rid of the managers?
And the answer is they have all the power.
power.
>> Okay. they would much rather send you to war
war
and kill you off than to tend to lose
their jobs. Okay, so going back going
back example of Straford University
that's that their mentality is how do I
maintain my privilege? They don't care
about society. All they care about is
maintaining their privilege, right? So
they are bankrupt society and then when
society becomes bankrupt they expect
society to still continue to pay them
off. Okay. So these are parasites and
there's nothing we can do about it. Yeah.
Yeah.
Um as we just said are there less
teacher and less professor or like le
like like most of people would choose to
quite quitting then who are they going
to control if there's less people to
work for them
>> you know okay that's a really good question
they don't think like that they don't
think about how efficient is my
organization They don't think about like
am I going to have a job in the next 5
years. All they care about is
maintaining the position right here and
now. Okay. The way they do that is they
hire their friends or people like them
into other manage management positions.
So they become like a cabal or or a
network onto themselves. And for them
they they become parasites. And what
parasites want to do is they want to
feed off the host. The host dies, what's
going to happen? They will switch to
another host,
>> right? Why? Because they're all part of
larger networks as well. So that's how
they think. They're thinking, well, you
know, as long as society survives, I
will continue have a job. Okay? So maybe
this university goes bankrupt, but
there's another university I can go to
and exploit. And and you know what? It works.
works.
>> Okay. Because people at the top protect
each other, >> right?
>> right?
>> Okay. Does that make sense? They don't
care about this hole, this hole. They
don't care about this organization. They
don't care. They don't care if it goes
bankrupt because they can always move on
to another organization to bankrupt.
Okay? What matters is to maintain their
patronage, the political networks,
>> so they all help each other. Okay?
>> Does that make sense? Okay. Great. Any
more questions?
Um is there any possible to uh stop or
even reverse this u cooperating system?
>> Yeah. Um I keep on explaining this this
this. Okay. They are the ones in power
and so what has to happen is society has to collapse before society can
to collapse before society can regenerate before society can
regenerate before society can rejuvenate. Okay. But before society can
rejuvenate. Okay. But before society can collapse they have a lot of tricks up
collapse they have a lot of tricks up their sleeves. Okay. So, for example,
their sleeves. Okay. So, for example, they can create civil wars where the
they can create civil wars where the left and the right fight each other and
left and the right fight each other and they're left alone. Or they can use AI
they're left alone. Or they can use AI to control you, right? AI is God, guys.
to control you, right? AI is God, guys. Listen to God. Okay? Or they can fake an
Listen to God. Okay? Or they can fake an alien invasion.
alien invasion. Okay? Or they can send you to war. They
Okay? Or they can send you to war. They can start these pointless wars. Okay?
can start these pointless wars. Okay? But whatever it takes in order to
But whatever it takes in order to maintain their privilege and their
maintain their privilege and their power, that's a mentality. And that's
power, that's a mentality. And that's how they got to where they are. Okay?
how they got to where they are. Okay? Okay. And that's how the elite think.
Okay. And that's how the elite think. Any more questions guys?
Any more questions guys? >> Okay Mr. J. My question is um so I'm a
>> Okay Mr. J. My question is um so I'm a 12th grader. So if you are in my shoe
12th grader. So if you are in my shoe like if you are in a 12th grader in
like if you are in a 12th grader in nowadays what would you do like are you
nowadays what would you do like are you still going to pursue for a further
still going to pursue for a further education a higher education or will you
education a higher education or will you going to like just drop out?
going to like just drop out? >> Yeah. Okay. That is a great question.
>> Yeah. Okay. That is a great question. So, you are you guys are about to go to
So, you are you guys are about to go to university. And as I told you in this
university. And as I told you in this class, university is a complete ripoff.
class, university is a complete ripoff. Okay? All you're doing is you're paying
Okay? All you're doing is you're paying for the nice salaries and perks of these
for the nice salaries and perks of these administrators at university. You're not
administrators at university. You're not really paying for the professors. All
really paying for the professors. All right? You're paying for the
right? You're paying for the administrators to have their nice lives.
administrators to have their nice lives. And so, what I would do is maybe not go
And so, what I would do is maybe not go to university. What I would do is focus
to university. What I would do is focus on education, on learning, by reading a
on education, on learning, by reading a lot of books, by um asking a lot of
lot of books, by um asking a lot of questions and doing my own research, by
questions and doing my own research, by learning real skills. Okay? So, in a
learning real skills. Okay? So, in a site like this where the game is rigged,
site like this where the game is rigged, going to university means that you'll
going to university means that you'll just lose. Okay? Maybe before like 20 30
just lose. Okay? Maybe before like 20 30 years ago it was good to go it was good
years ago it was good to go it was good to go to university because you might
to go to university because you might become a manager
become a manager >> but now all those slots
>> but now all those slots have been taking taken up by the elite
have been taking taken up by the elite and the children. Okay, there's no space
and the children. Okay, there's no space for you. So the only thing you can do in
for you. So the only thing you can do in this context is to really start
this context is to really start educating yourself in real knowledge.
educating yourself in real knowledge. All right, reading books,
All right, reading books, um meeting lots of different people,
um meeting lots of different people, exploring the world. Okay. Like really
exploring the world. Okay. Like really develop real knowledge.
develop real knowledge. Okay. That's that's the best solution,
Okay. That's that's the best solution, right? Any more questions?
right? Any more questions? >> Does it matter to the major?
>> Does it matter to the major? >> No, it does not matter the major. It's
>> No, it does not matter the major. It's all a scam.
all a scam. >> Okay.
>> Okay. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. >> Okay.
>> Okay. >> It's all a scam.
>> It's all a scam. >> Even for liberal arts,
>> Even for liberal arts, >> uh, it's all a scam. Okay. Doesn't
>> uh, it's all a scam. Okay. Doesn't matter what university you go to,
matter what university you go to, liberal arts, Ivy League, state, it's
liberal arts, Ivy League, state, it's all a scam. Doesn't matter what your
all a scam. Doesn't matter what your major is, economics, psychology,
major is, economics, psychology, humanities,
humanities, computer science, it's all a scam. Okay?
computer science, it's all a scam. Okay? The system exists so that the managers,
The system exists so that the managers, administrators can continue to feed off
administrators can continue to feed off the system.
the system. All right?
All right? Okay, guys. So, uh we'll continue this
Okay, guys. So, uh we'll continue this next week. Okay? All right. But thank
next week. Okay? All right. But thank you for the questions.
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