The latest dispatch from the department of 'Everything is Fine' informs us that the general public is becoming 'savvier' about credit scores. This is roughly equivalent to a laboratory rat becoming 'savvy' about which color lever delivers the mildest electric shock before the cheese is inevitably withheld. Experts—those high-priced janitors of the neoliberal psyche—are suggesting that understanding how these arbitrary three-digit numbers work could make a 'meaningful difference' in our lives. One must wonder if these experts also advise terminal patients on the aesthetic benefits of choosing a more stylish hospital gown. To be 'savvy' about a credit score is to master the art of begging the financial elite for the privilege of existing within their ecosystem. It is the ultimate Stockholm Syndrome, rebranded as financial literacy for the digital age.

The credit score, for the uninitiated or the blissfully lobotomized, is a secular god. It is an invisible, algorithmic deity that determines whether you are worthy of a car you cannot afford, a phone you do not need, or a roof over your head that you will never truly own. The notion that we are getting 'smarter' about this system is a hilarious misinterpretation of survival instincts. We aren't getting smarter; we are getting more desperate. We are obsessively refreshing apps that gamify our debt, chasing a ten-point increase like a teenager chasing 'likes' on a selfie. It is a pathetic spectacle of the modern condition: the quantification of the human soul into a metric that can be easily digested by a server bank in a tax haven.

The political Left will, of course, perform its usual dance of choreographed outrage. They will decry the 'systemic inequality' of the credit system while simultaneously ensuring their own scores remain high enough to secure a mortgage in a gentrified zip code. Their solution is always more 'education,' which is just code for teaching the poor how to better camouflage their poverty through better administrative habits. Meanwhile, the Right will applaud this 'savviness' as a triumph of personal responsibility. They view the credit score as a moral thermometer, ignoring the fact that the mercury is rigged by the very institutions that profit from every late fee and interest hike. To the Right, if you can’t get a car loan for a vehicle that gets you to the job that pays for the loan, it isn’t a systemic failure—it’s a character flaw. Both sides are equally intoxicated by the delusion that this system is anything other than a high-tech leash.

Let us consider the 'meaningful difference' these experts speak of. In the real world, this translates to saving a fraction of a percentage point on a car finance deal. You are still paying for a depreciating hunk of metal over sixty months, and you are still one missed paycheck away from the repo man showing up at your door. The 'savvy' consumer is simply a better-behaved debt-slave. By learning the 'rules' of the credit score—keep your utilization low, don’t close old accounts, pray to the gods of FICO—you aren't winning; you are just proving that you have been successfully broken to the saddle. The system doesn't want you to be debt-free; it wants you to be 'manageably' indebted, a perpetual motion machine of interest payments that never quite reaches zero.

The expansion of this algorithmic tyranny into phone contracts and basic utilities is particularly galling. We have reached a point where your ability to communicate with other humans or keep your lights on is dependent on a history of subservience to lenders. It is a social credit system that we have built voluntarily, decorated with colorful charts and 'helpful' tips from the very companies that would sell your organs if it improved their quarterly dividends. There is no escape from the gaze of the credit bureaus. They are the new clergy, and the credit report is your confession. If you have sinned against the balance sheet, there is no absolution, only a higher APR and a life spent in the financial shadows.

Ultimately, the celebration of our collective 'savviness' is a grim reminder of how far we have fallen. We have traded the messy, unpredictable complexity of human trust for a cold, rigid number that favors the machine over the man. We analyze our scores with the fervor of ancient priests reading entrails, hoping to find a sign of prosperity in a landscape of increasing precarity. The truth is that no amount of 'understanding' the system will change the fact that the system is designed to extract every possible cent from your labor before you expire. So, by all means, keep checking your score. Keep obsessing over that 720. Just don't mistake your ability to navigate the labyrinth for the freedom to leave it.