Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Game Theory 3: Rich Dad Poor Dad

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Game Theory 3: Rich Dad Poor Dad

Today we look at the question of success. Okay, the question is, who succeeds and why? Okay, so we've done a lot of research, and we discovered that people who succeed succeed for certain reasons. So there is a Columbia psychologist named Walter Michel. And he devised a very famous experience called the marshmallow test. And the marshmallow test, it's very, very easy, okay?

So imagine a room and I invite a four-year-old or a five-year-old to come into this room. And I have a conversation with him or her. I asked him, how's your mother? What do you like to do? And it's a very good conversation. Then suddenly I get up and say, I'm really sorry, but I need to go across the hallway for another meeting, but I'll be back, okay?

So just wait for me, and here, I'll make you a deal. Here's a marshmallow, I'm gonna put a marshmallow in front of you, and you can have it right now. If I come back and the marshmallow is still there, I will give you two marshmallows, okay? And then Walter Mitchell, he goes away, and he goes behind the room, and for a sea-through mirror, he's able to see the students

as a struggle to contain themselves. Because obviously they want two marshmallows. And there are some students who can, in fact, resist the temptation to eat the first marshmallow and they get a second marshmallow. But then there are others who cannot. And Water Mitchell will spend 50 years just tracking them, okay? What he discovers is this.

The students who resist the temptation, who get the second marshmallow, they are much more likely to do better in school. They have higher test scores. They have better careers. Their careers are more stable. They get promoted in their careers. They're much more able to find a stable relationship.

They avoid jail. They avoid drugs. They avoid alcohol. They're more lean. They're more fit. They live longer. Better teeth. And those who cannot resist

and eat the first marshmallow right away, they have the opposite effect, okay? And so, So the idea is that for Walter Mitchell, success means delayed gratification. And all this means is that people who succeed are capable of long-term planning. To succeed today, I will make sacrifices necessary. Okay? So if my friends are playing outside and I need to do my homework, well I'm going to stay home,

do my homework. Okay, so long-term planning, what it calls delayed gratification. Or a much more simple way of saying this is the idea of self-control, right? Or the idea of emotional regulation. You're able to keep your emotions in check. If you're angry, you're able to calm yourself down.

And so we've tried, we know about this, and that's why in school, we focus on the idea of emotional regulation, teaching you how to better control your emotions, how to do long-term planning. Okay? So that's one theory of success. Another theory of success comes to us from another psychologist named Carol Dwight, and she's at Stanford. And she wrote a book called Mindset. Okay? And what she tells us is that those who succeeded in life have a growth mindset and those who fell in life have a fixed mindset okay and it's not hard okay the idea is resilience those of a growth mindset if they fall

or they fail they see themselves this opportunity for me to learn so I'm going to think about what I did wrong next time I'll do better and a fixed mindset are who can't accept the idea of failure, who think that it's because they're not capable of improving, and therefore they give up. Okay? So those of a growth mindset, if they fail, they try harder. Those of a fixed mindset, if they fail, they just give up. And so the idea of resilience, okay? Pretty simple, right? And the third idea of success comes to us from K. Anders Erickson, who is a Swedish psychologist, and she wants to know why certain people are able to succeed as musicians or athletes. And he creates the idea of deliberate practice.

So what he found is that people who want to become athletes or musicians, they work really hard. They practice every day. The people who succeed practice strategically. So those who work hard just work a long time. But those who work strategically have a plan. The plan is this. What are my goals?

How can I achieve these goals? And then how do I improve my plan? So they're examining their own practices and they're trying to figure out where the witnesses are, where they can improve, instead of a plan on how to improve and then they follow this plan. And if this plan helps them improve, they stick to a plan, but if the plan doesn't really work, they change the plan as well. So this is the idea of self-reflection or self-assessment. So I'm actually thinking about how you are as a student and figure out how to improve your own learning strategies.

And what K. Anderson discovered is that if you do this, you'll succeed at anything. And this is true, okay? And the reason why we know it's true is there are two American psychologists named Dunning and Kruger. There's something that Dunning Kruger effect. And so what they did was this. They ran an experiment. They have 500 students in their psychology class, first year university. They made every student take an IQ test.

And then after they took the IQ test, they asked each student, how do you think you did on the IQ test? Do you place in the top 5% or the bottom 5%? And it turns out that no one got the ranking correct. Okay, so those who were in the top 5% in terms of IQ thought they were maybe in the top 20%. Because for them it was easy, so they assumed everyone, for everyone else it was easy as well. But what was dramatic is that those who scored the lowest thought they were average, okay? So the worst 5% in the class thought they were in the top 50%, or just average.

And the reason why is those people who were in the top 50% or just average. people who are stupid lack the capacity to know they're stupid. So what Dunning Cougar discovered is that the hardest part of being a student is to assess yourself properly, to know exactly where you stand and how to improve. Those who are stupid are often the most confident in the world. That's what's called the Dunning Cougar effect. And this helps to explain why the world is why it is. because often the people in power are stupid.

They don't know they're stupid, they're confident, and they do stupid things like Donald Trump, okay? All right? All right, so now with these three theories, right? We have self-control, we have resilience, and we have self-assessment. And so as educators, as schools, what we can do is to provide strategies

in curriculum, Trump students all succeed, correct, right? The problem is that when we actually try this, it doesn't work. Okay? If you take a bad student and you teach them self-control, resilience, and self-assessment, the student doesn't actually get better. The reason why is, okay, and this is very important idea for you guys to remember,

is that correlation does not not equal causation. Okay? You guys need to remember this. Just because things are correlated does not mean they cause each other. So I'll give an example. We know that successful people they get up early in the morning. Okay? They get about 4 o'clock in the morning. But just because you get about 4 o'clock in the morning does that mean you succeed? Okay? Just because you work hard, just because you're resilient, just because you have growth mindset does not mean you'll succeed but if you're successful you'll get up early in the morning because you're more motivated if you're

successful in life you will have more self-control you will have more resilient you'll be more humble okay does that make sense so if you're rich guess what happens you become successful and Therefore, you will have growth mindset, self-control, deliberate practice. It doesn't make sense. But just because you have growth mindset, deliver practice, and resilience does not mean you succeed. Okay?

So the question for us is, why does this happen? And ultimately, who succeeds? Okay, so we know for a fact that rich people are much more likely to succeed than poor people. And in fact, what we know from macro-academic studies is that school doesn't really matter. Doesn't matter how well you do in school. If your parents are rich, you'll be successful in life. If your parents are poor, you will not be successful in life. Okay?

So what's the difference? Okay, so now let's look at parenting strategies. between rich and poor. So there are lots of differences, but let's focus on three major differences. The first major difference is that rich parents speak to their kids more than poor parents. Okay? High vocabulary, low vocabulary. When rich parents speak to the kids,

rich parents will use higher vocabulary, longer sentences. Poor parents will just be no, yes, go away. Okay? Another major difference is in attitude. So rich parents use a friendly attitude and poor parents use an authoritarian or command attitude. So for example, if you are a rich parent,

kid and you go and touch a stove, okay, and you burn your hand, the rich parent will say, listen, you made a mistake, don't worry about it, let me explain to you why touching a fire is bad for you because you'll burn yourself and you might have to go to a doctor and we will feel pain if you hurt yourself, okay? So the rich parent will spend a lot of time explaining to the child why the child why the this is wrong and how not to do it again. The poor parent is like, don't you ever do that again, I'll beat the crap out of you.

Don't do that. Pretty simple, okay? But as you can understand, the rich kid will understand that the world is safe and that he is respected in this world. Okay? Whereas the poor child will think that the world is scary and he or she or should,

She must be afraid of adults. And this carries on into school, right? Because as a rich kid, you go to the school and you think that, oh, my teacher is my friend. So you smile at the teacher and you hug the teacher and the teacher smiles back and now your friends, right? But if you're a poor kid and you see the teacher, you're afraid to look at the teacher. You don't smile. You are stressed, okay?

And the teacher thinks that you might be a problem child. So the problem with this is that, yes, being on a third-term parent, it is effective, but it creates stress in the family. It makes the child feel unsafe. And this leads to the third major difference between rich parents and poor parents. Rich parents offer stability. Poor parents can only offer volatility. This is a very simple idea.

Rich parents have money so they can afford to keep promises. So I'm rich parent, I say to my child, okay, next week we'll go to Thailand for vacation. Guess what? Next week you go, you guys go to talent for vacation. But if you're a poor parent, money is always an issue, so it's hard for you to keep promises, right? So it's like, next week we'll go McDonald's for lunch, but your paycheck is not enough, so you're like, sorry, we can't go anymore. Okay? And now because of these different parenting styles, we understand why rich kids behave different from poor kids, right? So let's look at the idea of self-control. What is the marshmallow test?

Marshmallow test is not a test of self-control, it's a test of your trust in others, right? If you believe that the teacher who goes outside, if you believe that he or she comes back and will keep his promise, then you will not eat that marshmallow. But do you think that this teacher is lying to me, then you're not going to eat that marshmallow. Then you will eat that marshmallow, right? So it's not really about self-control. It's about your belief and trust in authority figures. Right?

So if you're rich, stability, you have stability. But if you're poor, you don't have stability. So you're actually better off eating that marshmallow rather than waiting for that second marshmallow. Because guess what? Most of the time, you will not get that second marshmallow. Okay, do you understand? So it's not that poor kids are stupid.

Poor kids are rational and they're responding to the circumstances. that they live in, okay? And resilience, right? Well, the idea of resilience is that you believe that the world will help you. Right? So if you're rich and you believe that everyone helps you, you can be resilient.

Because if you fail, someone will help you get up. If you're poor, if you fail, that probably tells you should be doing this. this. Okay? You probably won't succeed doing this. So you don't have much confidence in others. Okay? And the idea of self-assessment, right? Looking inward. Well, if you're a poor child who lives under a lot of stress, it's hard for you to be self-reflective because if you look back

at yourself, all you think about is your pain and your stress. Okay? So, you're a So from these different parenting strategies, we can now explain why different students behave the way they do. This of course may lead you to think, okay, well then rather than construct our schools around self-control, resilience, and self-reflection, we should construct our schools around better parenting skills, okay? Which means that, hey, let's construct schools where kids. kids are exposed to a lot of vocabulary, where teachers are friendly, and where there's a lot of stability.

Okay? And we've tried this, and it's more effective, but it doesn't really work either. Why? Because the kids come in too late. A lot of their worldview is already established. Then you're like, okay, well then let's change how parents behave. When you do that, what you recognize is that, nope. You can't change how they behave either. Okay? So, no matter what you do, you end up with massive differences between the poor and the rich.

The rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. Okay? So now the question for us is, why is this the case? Okay? And it's the case because society is a high. hierarchy. And the hierarchy is usually divided between the rich and the poor. And these two worlds are night and day.

They're very, very different. As a poor person, if you want to survive, you have to obey authority. But if you're a rich person, the way that you get along with others, the way that you maximize your outcome is by negotiating with others, negotiating. Okay, so negotiation can also mean debate, right? So who should be the boss? Well, let's have a debate and present different evidence as to figure out who should be the boss. Okay?

So negotiation means debate and argument. So this helps us understand why different parents parent their child differently. If you're a poor parent, your responsibility is to make sure that your child knows how to obey authority. That's why you commend your child. But if you are a rich parent, you want your child to be able to negotiate with authority, and that's why you respect your child and you teach your child how to debate, how to argue, how to negotiate with others. okay because they live in different worlds another way of saying this is that from day one rich kids know that they're playing a different game than they're playing a different game from poor kids okay

so let's go back and look at parents okay so Poor parents command their child, don't really speak, don't communicate, and don't keep promises, okay? All right, so poor parents do these three things. And we know that if they do these three things, the outcome won't be so good, okay? And the reason why they do this is that they're not playing a game to improve their kids' outcome. playing a game to get along with other parents. Okay? Okay, colleagues, family,

okay, authority. Okay, so another saying this is this. Police, boss, family, okay? So as a parent, you're trying to figure out how to negotiate with the police, for your boss, and with your family. So if you're a poor person and the police knows you're a poor person, the police is going to bully you.

And if you fight back, the police will probably put you in jail. Okay? So it's very important that you accept authority, you don't challenge authority because if you do, you're probably getting into trouble. Your boss, right? If you're a poor person, your boss will just command you about. And so it's very important that your child knows how to take orders. Rather than ask questions, rather than the debate, your child must learn how to just follow orders, or at least keep his mouth shut, okay? And then family is about maintaining good relations

with those who can most support you. And that often means the same values. So if your family members or your family members or your friends, friends, if they are parenting their child in this manner, you're also going to copy them, okay? imitation. All right? And for a poor person, this is the optimal strategy of how to parent. Okay?

Doesn't make sense, guys. Because if you do another way, okay? If you are, if you choose to be a friend to your child, if you choose to communicate, if you choose to communicate, if you choose to keep your promises, then your friends and your family will think that you do something wrong. You understand? They don't think, oh my God, you are an enlightened parent who's read a lot of parenting books and great for you. They're going to think there's something wrong with you. Okay? So let me give an example of this. Let me give an example this. So my wife and I have three kids, okay? My parenting style. So my wife and I

have three kids. And this is how we parent our kid. Okay. First of all, we have our child, we give our child a lot of freedom. So we don't have our kids do activities, okay? We don't have our kids do lots of, lots of activities. We don't send our kids to math, We don't send our kids to swimming class. We don't send our kids to piano class. We just let our kids run around and play. The other thing that we do is we communicate a lot with our child. Communication.

We believe in democracy in our family. If we're going to make a decision together, we want everyone to communicate together. Okay? So, a normal Chinese family will just have a very tight schedule. we'll just have a very tight schedule, right? And the other thing that we do that's different is we tell stories. The other Chinese families will do math.

Okay? So we raise our children in a way that's very different from normal Chinese families, from the way that you've been raised. And we do this because both my wife and I, we spend a lot of time talking about parenting. I've read a lot of books about parenting. I've spent many decades researching the best education possible. And so that's why we raise our children in this way.

And guess what? Because we do this, we have no friends in China. We have family, but they all think we're crazy. Okay? But we do this because for us, what's most important is to make sure that our children are happy and healthy and that they have a chance to be creative and be successful in life because I think that if you do it this way the child will not be creative will not be successful but if you do it this way your child will

fit in into China better okay so parenting the goal the incentive is not for your child to succeed The incentive is for your child to fit into China or the larger social environment that you are in. Okay? And that's why it's very hard to change the way people behave. And that's why social structures are extremely rigid. Because the game they're playing is often just to fit into their environment. Okay, doesn't make sense, guys. Okay, any questions before I move on? Yep. So for poor families, is there any way for the poor kids to be succeed?

To be the rich parent you describe in the future? Yeah. Okay. That's a really good question, okay? So we know that there are certain poor kids who do succeed. For example, I'm a poor kid who succeeded. My, we immigrated to Toronto, Canada when I was like six years old, and my father was a dishwasher. So we were a very poor family.

Okay? And, but I succeeded because I left Canada for the United States. So Canada is a very rigid place where poor people basically move up a bit, but not too far. But I was able to succeed because I was able to get a scholarship to do. go study in the United States. So there are opportunities. The problem though is that it means leaving your community. Does that make sense?

So one way to succeed is to abandon your community. But that's high risk, right? So you have to be extremely individualistic to take such a risk. So that's why most people don't do it. Because if you think about it, the safest option for you is to stay within your community, that's what's going to guarantee you the best outcome.

But if you choose to abandon your community and just say, you know what, I'm going to go somewhere else and try my luck, that's taking a really high risk, okay? So to succeed, you have to take high risk. So another possibility is war. That traditionally, historically, Berkeley has been the best mechanism of social mobility. When you go fight a war and you do really well,

you get promoted in life. Okay? But again, war is high risk because chances are you get killed. So not just war but also revolution. Right? And of course, the best way of course is to marry up. marrying up, okay? And that's why, remember in our very first class, we talked about the dating game, right? Where women only want five and four, okay? The reason why is that five and four are high status

and three to one are low status. So if you're a woman, you don't want to marry into a low status family because your children will be screwed over. Okay, your best option is to take a risk, gamble into a high status and marry, you want to try to marry into a high status family. So traditionally, war and marrying up are the two major mechanisms of social mobility. In today's world, a badding community can also lead to success. Basically immigrating to a place that offers more social mobility,

which often means the United States. Okay? But another way saying this is, you have to get really lucky guys. Okay, so there's lots of poor people who think that, you know, I succeeded because I worked hard and I'm really talented. Look, I was born poor, I lucked into Yale.

Okay? It's luck. You can work as hard as you want, but the chances are against you. Okay? And it takes a certain personality, which is you're really really, individualistic, you're very ambitious and you have high risk tolerance. Most people don't have that, okay? So yes, there are certain people who despite their

background they're able to succeed but that's often the exception to the rule as opposed to the rule itself. Okay, so thank you. Is this clear? Yeah. Okay, any more questions guys before I move on? Okay. Can be luck counted as a kind of ability or is just coincidence. Okay, that's a really good question. Yeah, okay. Yep. So you're absolutely right, okay? So luck is a form of strategy. Okay? Strategy. And all this is saying is that you are trying to position yourself in a place that allows you to get lucky. Okay? So I left Canada and I went to the United States because I knew that in Canada, it doesn't matter how hard you work.

No one cares. But in the United States, if you work really hard, then you might get lucky and you might meet someone who's like, wow, you're a really hard worker. I want to promote you. Okay? So you're right in that, yes, you can strategize and increase your luck,

but it's still luck. All right? And those who succeed are able to think strategically and far ahead. and position themselves in a way that allows them to get lucky. Okay? And they often have the characteristics that we talked about, you know, like so self-control, resilience, and the ability to look inward and better understand what you're good at. Okay? So it takes a combination of factors. But the point

I'm trying to make is that these people are a minority, okay? One thing percent of the population, really. And they still depend on luck. Any more questions before I move on? Okay, so this leads us to a question, which is, okay, well, the way that I frame everything, okay? The way that I frame everything, you have poor and you have rich. And as discussed, they live in their own world, and they don't really connect with each other.

They have different parenting strategies, they have different outlooks. The rich stay with themselves, the poor state amongst themselves. So this looks like a very stable system, right? Stability. The word we can use is equilibrium. Now the question then is, why do societies collapse?

Why are their revolutions? Why are their social changes? This looks like a system of equilibrium where because of parenting, people know their place, and people know how to best strategize about maintaining their place. So why is the social change? And the reason why is that this system has problems and it's stable, but the main problem is this system.

Okay? It's the rich that's problematic. And the reason why is that the rich are taught from day one to negotiate a better outcome. Okay, so, no, I know, Another way of saying this is that the poor is like minimum outcome. Okay? The rich want the maximum outcome. The poor are like, you know what, if I'm, you know, if I'm alive, if I have a different job, I'm okay.

But the rich are like, no, I need to be the top dog. I need to improve my law in society. Otherwise, what's the point in my life? So they have high expectations, okay? High expectations, low expectations. And this is a problem because power, it's a zero-sum game. Okay?

Hierarchy is a zero-sum game. So only a few people can be at the top. So eventually you get into a situation where there are too rich people, too many rich people and not enough powerful positions. and this is what's called elite overproduction okay and then what happens here is that in order to get power certain factors of the rich will align with certain factors of the poor against the powers that be okay so all revolutions are

always between the half a lot versus half some it's never between between rich and poor. It's always between half a lot and half some. So the people who led the Chinese Revolution, right, people like Mao Zedong, Zhou and Lai, Don, they were not poor people. They didn't come from poor families. But they weren't rich enough, okay? So the Chinese Revolution was really between the urban elite versus the rural elite. Okay, the half a lot versus half some. If you look at every revolution in human history, that's always been the case. Okay? You go back to the Chinese history and you look at all these revolutions that started in China, it was always led by the middle class or the

aspirational class, usually merchants, right? Merchants. Because they were discriminated heavily in society, but they had money and they wanted to transform their money into power. And so when times were bad, when people were looking for change they took the initiative and led people into revolution okay okay doesn't make sense guys all right any questions so you said the revolution was initially being within those rich people so how could they lead the poor people to to fall to fall into start the revolution because revolution needs a huge amount of people that the public face to

to initiate. Okay. Okay, great question. So revolutions are almost the same. So over time, because of the structure, because of the inequality between rich and poor, certain problems arise, okay? And these problems are extremely common.

The first problem, problems, the first problem is indebtedness. indebtedness. Because the rich have a monopoly over wealth, for the poor to survive, they need to borrow money. But over time, because of interest rates, the poor find themselves in slavery. Okay? Because you can't afford to pay back the bank or the rich person, then your body is collateral, okay? So you become a slave, but not only do you become a slave, but your children become slaves as well. So slavery becomes a very common problem.

And then the third issue, of course, is landlessness. Okay? So these are the three most common problems that ultimately become the seeds of revolution. The poor get into debt, and so they lose their land, and their children become slaves. The children, their children's children become slaves as well. Okay, because of interest rates, it's impossible for you to pay back that debt.

Okay, so now you have a majority of people who have absolutely no incentive to live. So what happens now is that a elite, okay, okay, say to these people, follow me into revolution and I will clear your debts. I will give you land and I will end slavery. And that's it. Okay? Every single revolution has been like this. They've been different names.

So, for example, communists are like, we'll create a communist paradise. But what's a communist paradise? A communist paradise is where debt is canceled, where people are given land, and where no one's a slave, okay? And now it's like, okay, we'll create a religious paradise. Islam.

Okay, so Mohammed, the Islamic Revolution was about this initially. Later on, it changed, right? And Muhammad said to everyone, where you create a kingdom of heaven. What's the kingdom of heaven? The kingdom of heaven is where people don't have debt, where people have land to feed themselves,

and when they're no slaves. So if you're a Muslim, you can never be a slave. So look at every single revolution, it's this pattern, whereas over time, because of inequality society, you have people who fall into too much debt, they become slaves, they have no land, and then because of elite overproduction, you have this faction that splinters off

and who, in order to obtain power, get the people on their side, okay? And you look at the Roman Civil War, Julius Caesar was saying the same thing, right? Why would you see so popular? Because he was saying to the Roman people, if I become king, I will get rid of your debt, I will free you of slavery, and I will give you land.

And that's why they had to kill him. Why is Donald Trump so popular in America right now? Same thing, man. Where Americans are in debt to their credit cards, student loans, their houses, and so they believe that Donald Trump were coming to power, if you were to become king, what's the first thing like king does? What the first thing like king always does is cancel all debts. Because if you cancel all debts, who loses power?

It's the rich who lose power. And it's the rich who are almost dangerous to a king. Okay? Does that make sense? So again, this is a very similar pattern in human history. It's all game theory, okay? Any more questions, guys? Okay, ask one more question then we'll break, okay?

Is this clear to you guys? Okay. So another way of understanding this is that according to game theory, individuals don't really matter. You have to look at large groups. you have to look at large, large social trends. You cannot really change the outcome for certain groups of people like poor kids unless you look at the overall structure in which they live.

One more question, guys. Then we'll break for the day. Yeah, Alan. So, like, is that the society or, like, just the elite that really ruled the country who really have the power and have the motivations to maintain a society that a certain degree of social mobility is allowed, but not all of them, but not really a big social mobility, so that firstly they can maintain their power, but second, like they give their lower class people a hope to get into the rich class, but not using

like revolutions or other things that will like turn the society. society into collapse. Okay, yeah. Okay, look, you're absolutely right. So social mobility is really the best form of governance, right? As long as you enable people with talent and ability and ambition to climb up, they'll be happy and your society will be very stable. But not only it will be very stable, it will be very prosperous, very creative.

It doesn't matter what system you have, okay? So the example is, okay, America in 1950s was a democracy, and there's a lot of social mobility. And so people worked really hard, and America became very wealthy. But guess what? In China, in 1950s, China was not a democracy. It was a communist system. But in 1950s, people worked really hard as well. Why?

China was destroyed after decades of war, and there were lots of opportunities for social mobility. If you worked hard, you got promoted very quickly in the system. So even though it was a communist system, not a capitalist system, even though it was a command economy rather democracy, people worked really hard because they thought that by working hard, they can improve their lives. So social mobility is the best form of governance.

You don't need democracy, you don't need any system, okay? as long as you have social mobility, people will be happy. The problem, though, is that over time, less than a generation, all the positions of power are failed. So the people with talent who made the country great, who made the country wealthy, when they get into the power, they don't want people like them to replace them.

They want their children to replace them. Okay? And over time, these children are a lot. So what happens as at the very top, all the positions are filled. And there's a waiting list as well. So if you are a poor person who works hard, really talented, unfortunately, all those positions at the top are filled already. And there's also waiting list.

so too bad. And this is, and again, you just look at Chinese history, right? Look at Chinese history where at the beginning of the dynasty, you have all these talented people take the civil interest examination, the Q'ju, and these are really top people. But then what happens is that they have children, and they teach your children how to do on the Qerju, and then eventually they're like, you know what, we'll just cheat.

So they corrupt the Qadu, and then eventually like, you know what, screw this. Whoever can pay to pass a khaji will pass a khaju. And then all the positions at the very top are filled. There's no more social mobility. So what do people do? They engage in revolution, right? So you look at hong shu trent. Right? He failed the khaju or there was no position at the top for him. So he started, so he believed he became the brother of Jesus, right? And he started this revolution. that claimed tens of millions of lives in China.

Why? Because there was no social mobility for him. Fifty years ago, prior, he would have been a civil servant. Same thing for Mao Zedong, right? By the time that Mao Zedong became a university student, the Khaju had been eliminated. So there's no way for him to climb the ladder anymore. Therefore, he had to start engaging in new ideas. Okay?

Okay? So you're actually right in that social mobility is the best way to maintain social harmony, but people have children, and they want the children to succeed, and they will arrange a system in a way that only their children can succeed, which screws over every other children, everyone else, and so they have no choice but to overflow the system, okay? Or another way of saying this is game reset. Game reset.

This is what a revolution is. So another way, another thing this is that 100 people are playing a game, 10 people are winning, and they keep on winning, and they can only win. So everyone else is like, screw this game, let's start a new game. And the 10 people are like, nope, we're happy playing this game. They can't agree, so the United people can only, only thing they can do is a revolution which allows for game reset which is now again allows for social mobility and that is the course of human history okay

either you climb up the ladder if they don't allow to climb a clap the ladder then you just break the game okay so but unfortunately again once you're in power you want your children to inherit your power, and so you will rig the game in a way that only your children can succeed. And that's why the schools are the way they are. Schools for the rich are very different from schools for the poor, right? Schools for the rich, there's a lot of freedom,

there's a lot of creativity, the teachers are very good. You go to poor schools, and it's the complete opposite. And the reason why is the system is set up to make sure that certain people succeed and everyone else fails okay does that make sense Alan okay great any more questions guys all right good I'll see you guys next class okay