“Does your teacher have a Bugatti?” Asked the Hustler. “Your school ( Education ) wants you to stay in the Matrix… I want to liberate you. Give me $50..”
This post is taken from a talk I gave a while back about the true Matrix, Education, Hustlers, The System, Halos, Approximate Thinking, and meaningful work and effort.
The Education ‘System’ and the Matrix
Who doesn’t want to escape the Matrix?
The fact that this theme is so popular speaks about the dissatisfaction that many people have with their lives and work, and their belief that they are being fooled/used.
On the other hand, we always talk about the issues in the Education system.
Some of the problems have become common knowledge, and are being tackled by different initiatives, incremental or radical. Some issues are deeply rooted and require thinking beyond ‘tools’… It will take some time and experimentation.
Changing a heavy social institution, tasked with a giant mission, is no small task.
Still, this article is not about ‘fixing education’… it is about the catastrophe of hustlers (social media ‘influncers’, tik-tokers, and Andrew Tate s, …) offering their 2 (1.5?) cents on the issue.
Hustlers to the Rescue : Forget (proper) Education
The number of videos I’ve seen lately, revolving around the theme of “What color is your teacher’s Bugatti?” is depressing in itself.
The argument goes something like this: “Your teacher is poor… check out his/her car. Is it a Bugatti? What can they teach you?” [list of videos here : https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=andrew+tate+teacher+bugatti ] ..
The point of school – according to like-(no)minded – personalities is to keep you stuck in the Matrix… not being as rich as you should.
This repeated story ends with the cool/rich/smart/wise guy offering a solution to the masses… because he (usually) is ‘street smart’.
In this case (the Andrew Tate one) it is his ‘Hustler University’.
For a meager payment of $50 per month, you too – dear lost soul – can join the Hustler university… and … unlike your teacher – get a Bugatti ??
Well… not really. There is a small clause. But you’ll learn how to ‘hustle’.
Being part of the ‘system’, your educators are keeping you trapped in the Matrix… but ‘hustling’, dear chosen one, is the red pill… It will ‘liberate’ you from the system.
But what is this ‘system’ precisely? I’m not being completely sarcastic or saying there isn’t one… there very much is.
The Mess of Concepts : Conflation and Beyond
“Matrix” , “Education” , “Brainwashing” , “Feminists” , “Indoctrination” …
All these fancy words are part of the arsenal of Tates everywhere… The repeated speeches feature a similar vocabulary, and even though it doesn’t make a coherent argument, it does make some sense.
You can be rich… Money is easy… Men are hunga bunga… The government is trapping you… Indoctrination… Cigar… Smart…
The words don’t have to build a case or prove anything. This has to do with both the Audience and the message.
The words are meant to get someone to listen to a message because of how they identify themselves… The worlds are meant to get someone to nod every once in a while, and with that mild approval, comes another one, and another. This is why a couple of “Everybody knows…” will be particularly helpful.
There is no clear case… only fuzzy / approximate thinking : Fuzzy on the (really) dark side!
The “Hustler” uses a few keywords, and you build your own (laughable) conclusions in your mind, but you tag along… This is also known as the oldest game in politics.
Who doesn’t want to be a rebel (albeit a dubious one) and rebel against the system enslaving people (well… mostly men)?
You might wonder, what does masculinity have to do with this?
Well… maybe it is a cheap/easy way to get a fanatic core audience… The fact that the system (whatever that is) is harsh on young men can be statistically seen from graphs like this :
Tate is old news, by the way… there have always been rich confident successful gurus (frequently male with women as status symbols).
Remember this one from Magnolia (1999) :
So … what is the system? what is the matrix?
You should try to define it clearly before trying to escape it…
Is it poverty? Is it being enslaved by an unhappy professional career? Is it spending all your income on things you don’t need? Is it a social context where certain animal urges like aggression and domination are controlled?
Is it having to buy ‘impressive’ things, like Bugattis and watches and cigars to impress others?
Some Facts : Education , Income , The Matrix
Education is actually associated with higher income. This is a statistical fact and can be seen in the following figure (replicated hundreds of times in different timeframes and countries):
So why are they saying that Education will make you poor then, if – statistically – it does make you richer?
Have you heard the words : “(…) dropped out, and he’s doing great”?
If you evaluate people by their cars, you tend to be somehow weak in Math / Statistics / Logic … because the problem is somewhere else.
It can be seen in this graph :
It is clear that better Education is associated with better Income… but there is a catch.
Take another look at the table and try to figure it out before reading on.
The real story is in variables other than the mean (the average) salary associated with each stage.
Look at the median and the 1% :
- The Median is the mid-point of the population, meaning that half the people earn more, and half the people earn less than this number.
- The Top-1% shows the average salary of the Top-earning percentile (the highest slab) of each population
When looking at these two variables two things become clear:
- Without a college education, you are highly likely to be near the poverty line…
- Without a college education, you might – if you’re a top-1% earner – earn more than people with that education… again… If you’re in the top-earner category. This is very important.
What is the Halo Effect ?
So .. Why are we so adamant on listening to people talk about things they have no clue about? There is a well-documented cognitive bias, called “The Halo Effect”, and basically means that we tend to generalize a certain positive trait to judge the individual…
Too many blows on the head, can – in some cases – limit how much a boxer can meaningfully inform you on education, wisdom, the world, and knowledge… I’m guessing football or basketball players have equally dubious credentials to talk about this. Even more so with “Instagram Models” and “Reality Show Stars” and “Socialites”.
“A guy can move his leg quickly? He must be an expert on food!”
The question is… Why should you listen to a guy with a Bugatti? Think about all the possible reasons you should do so.
Wishful thinking and Scams: The essence of despair
There are a couple of reviews I saw online for the “Hustler University”, and those were quite telling (this is one about coffeezilla’s review).
One claimed that most people who made money made it by recruiting others to join the university… A ponzi scheme, but with a twist… How do they recruit these other unsuspecting punks? Well, by promoting Andrew Tate’s philosophy online of course!
Do Huslters all get Bugattis ??
Well here’s the problem… Turns out there is one true Hustler… the others are punks. Punks in the sense of not understanding the risk dynamics, or the possible impacts of their choices, so basically as in this nice scene:
Some other discussion talked about how people get attached to their identity as belonging to this group that they become really afraid to lose it. Attendees of such groups are afraid to be thrown away, and end up being enslaved by this new, twisted, almost comical, dwarf system.
This is poetic on so many levels. Without proper education, people can be more easily abducted and abused in other people’s projects…
Someone’s hard work can be used by some other person’s quest for Bugattis and Cigars and @#$!…
This is what the Matrix means! I find this to be one of the darkest parts of the ‘System’.
Without proper education, many will be forever trapped in the system, and its “Smiths”, even though they might present themselves as Morpheus.
Why Education though ?
Even though the future ability to earn a living is very important, this is not where a good education should stop.
Education is one of the important drivers of social mobility, as can be concluded (roughly) from the correlations quoted above.
But even beyond income and economics, a true education still has many impacts: for the individual, and his/her search and experimentation with ideas… it can be invaluable.
Meeting different people, and widening the number (and type) of friends is another important advantage.
But most important of all is the ennobling effect it can have, as Will Durant calls it. He has a nice description of the true aims of education
Today’s hustlers have been put on steroids by social media dynamics, and the ‘shallows’ epidemic… They are more dangerous and can radicalize more bewitched simpletons with less effort.. There just aren’t enough ‘good’ role models. This is a serious problem.
The solution : Better Education !
Slides
Here are (some of) the slides from the talk :
More Resources :
I’ve written about Education and its problems a few times before on this blog: Including the many weaknesses here and how a twisted / approximate approach to knowledge can poison its mission here.
Review of the Hustler University : https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/news-what-hustlers-university-taking-deep-dive-andrew-tate-s-controversial-course
In “Fuzzy on the Dark Side” I discuss – at length – how approximate thinking and the conflation of identities, with side effects, chance, and proper reasons, can lead you to the dark side…
Quoted Statistics: