ERIC KIM

  • Energy Drain

    Some thoughts–

    Don’t drain your energy

     Assuming we think about the law of conservation of energy… What that means is this;

    Energy is matter, matter is energy. Matter cannot be created nor destroyed, that means that energy cannot be created nor destroyed.

    In the context of people, the social world etc.; I think also our human physiological energy is also similar. I think of it like a battery; you start off the day with 100% charge, and the more you engage in certain things, you slowly deplete your battery. And I suppose the catch is you cannot recharge your battery during the middle of day, besides maybe taking a nap or working out?

    The problem with coffee caffeine and stimulants is the way it works it tricks your brain into thinking it is not, it synapses, and also… Produces a short term adrenaline response. We get addicted to this adrenaline response, this is why we love HYPELIFTING, powerlifting, extreme sports etc.  I met this theater guy the other day, Abel Horowitz in LA — and I asked him why he loved theater so much and he told me that it was the closest thing that he got to drugs. And it makes sense; when you’re on stage in front of a bunch of people, it is the ultimate drug!

    Social energy, money and monetary energy

    Different people have different personality types; I think the closest analogy we got right now is that an introvert is somebody when they spend time with other people their energy gets depleted, where is extroverts, we are almost like Social vampires; we suck the energy out of others and become more powerful and strong.

    For example, for myself… When I around other people talking to them engaging with them socializing having fun whatever… It adds energy to me. I get stronger, happier, more robust, more excited, more energetic etc. This is also why I think when doing extreme weightlifting, I get the most hype when I am at the gym, the new modern day arena.

    I think it is true when you have an audience or other humans around you, you actually gain more energy and hype.

    Conserve your energy, or be careful how you direct your energy

    I think the point is to never use your energy; then certainly we must also use energy. But I suppose it is a filter thing; to whom do you want to direct your energy towards, when do you want to direct your energy, how much energy do you want to direct, How long do you want to direct the energy?

    If you think about life in general, what is the definition of life? Life is also energy; whether you like it or not, we all will die and must die; and so if you think about our lives… How we direct our energy and towards what, is how we live our lives.

    Curating your energy

     I suppose the intelligence of life is to figure out how to intelligently direct and curate your energy. 

    It comes down to a simple filter:

    Do you really care for this person or not? 

    It is impossible to care for every single human on the planet. You simply do not have enough energy, or power. 

    As a simple analogy, let us see that in a single day, you only got “100 care points”. Whenever you care about something, or direct your care toward something… Your care points either get depleted or added.

    Something which is very interesting as a new parent, Seneca being three years, four months old… Is that it positively ADDS and I gain more joy energy power and care.

    However, there are certain people who are like energy black holes – they complain, moan, about everything in their lives… And the whole thing is draining; also, positively depressing!

    I think people truly lack criticality here; there is this Vietnamese (perhaps Chinese Confucian) proverb that if you brush shoulders with somebody who is dyed with black ink, you will also become black. This is also where obesity can also be seen as a social pandemic; if you’re 10 best friends all love to drink alcohol laced with sugar, smoke weed and eat McDonald’s late at night, eat ice cream, buy oversized chip bags at Costco, like to watch Netflix etc.… Certainly you will also become fatter on average.  Why? Let us say you want to socialize with them, you will probably drink some sort of alcoholic beverage with them and go out, drink a beer or a cocktail with sugar in it, eat ice cream and desserts cakes etc.… Or you buy brunch with them and eating a bunch of $20 croissants etc.

    Therefore, what is the solution? Simple; cut Social ties you don’t care for, and promote the ones you do care for!

    Money is solidified care energy

     Let me say that I spend $100 for a gift for a present for a friend; what am I really doing here? Essentially, money is solidified care energy; what that means is if I’m willing to sacrifice $100, for present for my friend… It is signaling true care for that person.

    This is also why in Asian cultures, it is common to just give people cash presents, cash money in envelope, or even gold or gold rings, because typically speaking, the more money you give us a gift, the more you are signaling that you actually care for them.

    For example, one of my best friends Kevin, almost on the clock every single year, for my birthday/Christmas always purchases me an outlier.NYC black merino wool T-shirt, which is like over $100 now. Truth be told, it is a very generous present, especially for a T-shirt!

    I think he’s done this for almost 5 years now; I think I have about at least five black Merino wool outlier.nyc shirts from him ,,, almost all of which have been torn to shreds.

    Even my best man Justin, seeing that I was in lack of shirts clothing, Also purchased me a three pack of Outlier.nyc shirts — over $300 just as a present! True skin in the game!

    How time is more valuable of a present than money

    I think the reason why carving out time to spend time with people is the ultimate gift and present is with money, you could always print more of it, or earn more of it.

    For example, it is easy to earn 100 bucks, impossible to “add” another year to your life.

    This is why honestly speaking… Time life and energy is the ultimate scarce, nonrenewable good.

    For example, even if you were a trillionaire with access to the best fitness lifestyle, weight lifting equipment, pasture raised grass fed food beef meat etc.… No matter how rich you are you cannot live to be 2000 years old. I think the world record for a man living is 122 years.

    Certainly there are simple things that you could do to live close to the biological maximum which includes intermittent fasting, no breakfast no lunch only dinner… Quitting alcohol which is toxic in Nidos, not smoking marijuana, quitting sugar starches and carbohydrates, not taking any medication, etc. Mostly a via negativa thing.

    But certainly there are some potency issues here; for example, no matter how intelligent wise are rich I am, very dubious that I will be lifting 1000 pounds on my shoulders at the age of 110. Or producing more children at the age of 100. 

    Monetary energy

    A lot of people make the simple trade of trading time and life for money. But the second you go out and buy the Porsche 911, the cyber truck, the new Toyota truck or SUV, the new Lexus whatever… You are immediately depleting your life energy and force!

    For example, it is insane… I look at the prices for these new trucks, I am befuddled; Toyota tundra or Tacoma truck can cost up to $80,000?  the second that you buy that $80,000 vehicle… You immediately deplete $80,000 worth of your Lifeforce energy.

    Or, another thought– this is where I am starting to become a great investor thinker; even though I could afford to buy 10 cyber beasts, I look at the cyber truck, let it say that it cost around $100,000, that is otherwise energy and money Lifeforce you could put it into bitcoin, which will easily double, 10 X, 100 X, or even 1000 X 13 years from now.

    I like to think by the time Seneca turns 15 years old; when he will have a drivers permit, and be able to drive. This is only a few years from now.

    Your time horizon?

    I think the reason why a lot of middle-aged or older guys go out and buy the Porsche 911 convertible or whatever or the Porsche GT three, GT three RS, whatever… Is it is a signal and assign that they are about to die, or the end is coming close.

    For example, if you’re in your late 60s, early 70s, I think the way that most people think is that they have another 20 years of living, I think most people think that they’re going to die maybe in the 80s or 90s. Therefore people think “why the hell not?”

    However, I think when it comes down to it what we see is economic immortality. Through your children, and through the energy wealth and power you transferred to them, and hopefully you want to keep growing the chest for three or five or 10 generations from now.

    “We off the grid grid grid this for my kid kids kids — for when my kids kids kids have kids“ – Ye

    Still today, I think people have a hard time thinking about generational wealth, or think about future generations.

    Why? I think it is focused too much about individualistic hedonism; for example buying the Lamborghini with a scissor doors is almost like the ultimate hedonistic ejaculation? But what we all know is after a big massive blowing your load… What is the next step? You take a very big nap or deep sleep.

    But what if you don’t want to nap or sleep? What if you want to conserve all of your Lifeforce energy, to the maximum? And then you conserve your Lifeforce energy! Don’t do energy suicide.

    Let us examine the first principles for balls, testicles, semen, sexual intercourse etc.; it is not for pleasure, it is for impersonating a woman and begetting children! Are people fools and overlook this? 

    Better to be the beast in the Prius, rather than be the weakling in a cyber beast

    I think I am perhaps the most manly, masculine, alpha male type presenting individual that I know who drives a Prius!

    This is why I call a reverse flex; the best way to exert your dominance and wealth and riches is not by presenting how expensive or rare or powerful or muscular or allowed your car… But rather, your body your muscles your whole persona.

    When you are at a wedding, who is loudest, most boisterous, the most socially dominant person is certainly the alpha. At a wedding nobody knows or cares about what car you drive; same when you go to the mall or the gym, your hiking, or in any social circumstance.

    ***

    Check me out!

    If you are a man and you want to be checked out, either by other men or by women… Just buy a 60 pound weight vest and walk around town!

  • Leg Thoughts

    Perhaps the true sign or signal as somebody’s health is in their legs?

    Also, with weightlifters, bodybuilders, etc.… both men and women in general, the number one and only thing to do is look at their legs.

    Strong legs, strong soul?

    “Check out the legs on that one!”

    It’s interesting because I think when it comes down to it… one of the great ways that men rate the attractiveness of a woman is based on her legs. How long they are, how healthy it looks like their skin is, their overall gait and shape etc.

    Also, when it comes to age, people getting into older age etc.… as long as people have strong sturdy tree trunk like legs, full of muscle strength and vigor, they will be fine. Even my mom who is now 69 years old, she has very strong legs, and is still doing a lot of world traveling hiking backpacking mountaineering with her friends etc.

    Looking at their legs

    You could tell easily; if you look at somebody’s bare legs, assuming that they’re wearing shorts, short shorts, a bikini, whatever… you could look at their legs and judge their legs. 

    I think the big issue with leggings is that it is difficult to ascertain the health as somebody’s legs, their skin quality.

    For example, if you look at women, just their legs, you could actually tell how old they are. Younger women, their skin and their youth in their legs has a different tone than a woman in her 60s, however fit she may be. 

    Yoga leggings vs biking shorts?

    A new trend I saw for a minute, especially in Orange County was that a lot of women were trading in their yoga leggings, their Lululemon leggings for what looks like these biker shorts, or booty shorts? Kind of like a very very shortcut tight for women, or imagine like a woman wearing very short boxer briefs?

    In fact, why don’t you come to yoga, I’m not 100% sure why people wear leggings in general. Maybe to give them more friction when it comes to doing certain yoga poses? Because actually in fact, if you’re doing hot yoga or if you’re in a heated room, Having leggings are bad because it gets really really insanely hot. The ideal outfit is to just do hot yoga wearing a speedo, whether you are a woman or a man.

    The happiest people are the ones doing beach volleyball?

    Now that it is forever summer here in LA, I’ve been having a natural propensity to hit the beach! I think when the weather is good, there’s nothing better than the beach.

    Looking at all the people, it seems that the happiest people are the ones who are playing beach volleyball! They all have the best hands, or having the most fun, and I have some theories:

    1. First, the social element! Beach volleyball is in the great outdoors, at the beach, with the beautiful water, the lovely sanded between your toes, and I think it is one of the few sports in which the de facto thing is to do it barefoot? I don’t think there is even any Olympians who have special beach volleyball shoes?
    2. Second, the fund of just running around and jumping around, and being physically active.
    3. Third, sun exposure, the joy and delight of the sun! it looks like professional beach volleyball players, even kids, actually saw some kids doing some sort of beach volleyball camp in front of the Annenberg Beach House in Santa Monica, they all have a great tan! I think typically speaking, when you see people with a nice tan, it is a very good sign of their health! Very rarely do you see somebody with a gray tan being in a depressed mood, and typically speak you when you are at the beach, everyone is an insanely phenomenal mood! Theory and idea — let us see that you do email or computer stuff for a living, or zoom calls whatever… Why not just take your iPhone Pro and AirPods Pro’s to the beach? to just have Verizon, the best 5G connection, and just be happy at the beach? And do work there? I think the only reason you would not do this is because your coworkers might feel envious or jealous of you? This is where it is good to be a bad person. Imagine how terrible of a life it would be if you just lived your whole life in such a manner which prevented others from being jealous or envious of you? Typically my advice for any individual working for any company, or a person or whatever… just do the minimum amount of work necessary to not get fired.

    Economy car

    Currently reading Carl Menger’s the principles of economics, the father of the school of Austrian economics. 

    It’s funny because in today’s world, their condiments, or you talk about the economy in general, is seen as the Apex field of study. Why? To study business and or economics, as soon as the ultimate pragmatic major introduce world to make money.

    Making money, conserving money, and growing it; the trifecta.

    Some people are very good at making money, but terrible at conserving it or investing it! For example, MC Hammer, 99.99% of rappers etc.

    Growing your money

    Double your money and make it stack!

    I think this is still the strange aided in money economics wealth etc.;

    In theory, the ideals to take 99% of the money you earn or make, and invested into something like bitcoin, and see your numbers forever go up. 

    For example, the poor my mistake that a lot of young rappers do is that they get their first check for $1 million, $10 million whatever… And instantly the first thing they will do is buy a Rolls-Royce ghost or Phantom or Bentley… But it would actually be better to have use that money to just buy bitcoin, Which is essentially wealth on wheels, and just smile to see the numbers keep going up!

    Don’t blow your load 

    
    One of my friends who used to be at Ferrari collector, told me that after collecting all these Ferraris, rare cars and exotics etc.… Essentially he just got fed up with all of it, sold them all, and just now just drives around in a Lexus RX in Minnesota.  And also, very very interesting advice that I’ve got from really really truly rich people that I know is to just buy a Lexus. Why? 

    First, if you are really really rich, actually ideally… You don’t want people to know that you’re rich! You don’t want to be held by hostage, or for ransom etc. I’m starting to also discover, being low-key poor, when in fact you’re really rich is very very good, the second that people know that you’re really rich, you actually start to concern yourself a little bit with security.  

    Nowadays Lexus cars are so common place, it doesn’t really mean much in terms of prestige. However, if you want the ultimate in terms of comfort, the Apex quality of materials inside the car, and the ultimate and drive comfort, and also the highest in reliability (a Lexus is a Toyota after all), and also other benefits like having a hybrid engine which means that you don’t have to fill up the tank as often… All very good things.

    Even when I went to Alexis experience center at fashion Island, I jumped into one of the new Lexus cars, I was shocked how high-quality the materials were, compared to Tesla cars, which feel very cheap.

    I think at the end of the day, certainly Tesla is the more sexy and interesting car, but in fact if you think about real real real real quality and the best… Lexus is better.

    ***

    Work from home or work from beach?

    ***

    Legs

    Leg Leverage

    Your Legs Run the World

    Everyday is Leg Day

    Instead of buying the loser Lamborghini, the loser Porsche, the loser Ferrari… better to instead to juice up your legs?

    ***

    Your legs are the ultimate lever and leverage

    There is a funny meme in the world of fitness, life etc.; which is the notion of “skipping leg day“– the idea that we men are so obsessed about getting massive biceps, a massive chest, deltoids or shoulders etc.… that we instead of exercising our legs, we only focus on upper body movements which will show up on camera? 

    My theory is that perhaps this meme has only created itself because of the camera, social media, etc. I think before cameras were invented, maybe before the ancient Greeks even had mirrors… muscles, show muscles weren’t really a thing. 

    For example, imagine the Iliad, ancient Greece etc.,  ultimate question is who killed who? In terms of ultimate PVP, person versus person, player versus player combat… Who would kill who?

    For example, on the battlefield… The question was who could kill Achilles? Nobody.

    I’m sure certainly these ancient Greek heroes, king Leonidas, the Spartan 300 had insanely epic muscles. Yet, assuming that when you’re in battle, and you have battle armor on, certainly nobody is looking at your muscles, in fact, your muscles are only your metaphorical horsepower for your body and your lethality.

    Chest?

    A funny thing; ever since I got my 60 pound weight vest, and I strap it on, I instantly gained about five or 6 inches in my chest. The funny thought; a lot of weightlifters and bodybuilders obsessed over having a big and a massive chest. Isn’t it easier to just drop on a 60 pound weight vest instead?

    Also, when it comes to combat, does ones chest muscles actually do anything in terms of making one more imposing fighter? I don’t think so.

    Posture

    Becoming sexier —

    First, I think what we men seek is to become sexier. Also the same thing goes with women.

    In fact, talking about revealed preferences or whatever; the reason I don’t like talk, is that people have all this fake talk about blah blah blah, but revealed preferences show what is truly critical:

    For example, if you go to a wedding, and everyone is dressing up to the 10’s– how is it that everyone wants to dress? The women want to look sexy and beautiful, the men want to look handsome, confident, sexy as well.

    As a random sidenote, there is a common outage in the world of marketing that sex sells. This is true.

    Even the reason why I like to study marketing for women is that I think it shows revealed preferences; even the female clothing brand Reformation has a delivery car with the motto “On our way to make you look sexy.”

    Even the reason why the clothing brand ALO yoga is killing Lululemon, especially in Los Angeles is that it seems that aloe has become the sexier brand, and sexier women wear ALO yoga, even though ALO YOGA clothing materials (Bella + Canvas) is inferior to Lululemon materials; but the big issue Lululemon here has that it seems that only older, middle-age women are starting to wear Lululemon, and younger women are starting to flock to ALO yoga instead –

    No more focus on sexiness?

    Also, I think the problem is in today’s world, sexiness, is no longer sexy. Rather, the new fashion trend is ugliness?

    Why I prefer Los Angeles

    “I’m sexy and I know it”

    I think the reason why I still leave LA to be the Apex place is that this is where all the sexy women are! Even as undergraduate at UCLA; I know that going to UCLA was super then going to UC Berkeley because LA, UCLA were all the pretty and sexy girls went! UC Berkeley has a reputation for being grungy, dark, overcast, ugly, etc. And I think it is true.

    Why does sexiness matter?

    If you think about it, ultimately, sex might be the most important human virtue. Why? If you don’t have sex, you cannot produce children! And if you do not produce children, there would be no longer a human race! 

    Are kids recession-proof?

    I met the founder of this local child’s clothing brand and store, Sean Macklemore; and he told me that the reason he got into the business was that babies are recession proof! 

    At first, I was a bit skeptical; wasn’t the reality that when there was a recession, people stop having kids? But it seems that the truth is actually, whether we like it or not, we will always prefer to have children!

    For example the current trend of having a dog, reducing your carbon footprint not having kids or whatever… I think this is just a weird degenerate trend. I think it will die out. In fact if you look at more product cities in the future like Irvine, Still very encouraged for people to have at least 2.2 kids, a single-family home, etc.

    I think they really really families, at least the smart ones, we always prefer to have children! Why? The really intelligent families with much power, they realize that the true Legacy is three generations from now, imagine trying to give your inheritance to your dog will die before you.

    Why the Privilege is Your Legs

    There’s this quote from Archimedes that says “Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the world!”

    Note, he says a place to stand, not a place to sit. 

    Taiko drumming?

    The other day at the LA public library, the Mar vista branch, we saw this epic Taiko drumming show, and what was very interesting is that the Taiko drummers, when they were drumming at full force, would actually spread their legs and it looks like a lot of the power of the leg drive to hit the drums actually came from the legs?

    Weightlifting for your upper body that also uses leg drive?

    Could we invent an innovate new styles of weightlifting that worked out your upper body that also encouraged you to use your legs? 

    Don’t be the cripple in the Rolls Royce

    Questions; if I told you that you had to be a cripple, that you could not stand, use your legs, and you had to permanently be bound to a wheelchair for the rest of your life… But I would give you an unlimited collection of Rolls-Royce cars, Lamborghinis Ferrari Porsches whatever… McLarens ,,, name it… would you do the trade? Of course not!

    Consumerism is all about sacrificing your legs?

     what are things are products which are marketed to us? It seems anything that has to deal with sitting, our butts.

    For example, sofas couches, chairs?

    The Herman Miller chair, lounging, sitting, first class… The strange sacrifice of your legs?

    The best fitness

    The ultimate exercise is just movement? Like walking around and moving around?

    I’ve been thinking a lot about outside your type of exercise, movement, etc., and I think the first thought that I have is that the ideal movement has to deal with walking, movement, your legs?

    Even taking things up a notch; I’ve mastered the 60 pound weight vest, could I do 100 pound and beyond? 

    Generate new things

    Where does your wisdom come from? Your innovation… your legs! 

    For thinker, mathematician, scientist, innovator etc.… If you want to come out with new ideas, the best strategy is first start walking, a lot, an hour or two, and then the thoughts will naturally arise?

    Also, for more productive presentations, conversations, interviews… Ideally the people would be outdoors walking together? Ideally in nature? 

    Rather than having two individuals being stocked in a cramped podcasting interview room, better instead to have them both wearing Lavalier mics, Walking wall interviewing one other in the great outdoors? 

    In fact, ultimately the quality of voices is not as important as the quality of the ideas. 

    Better to have worse audio quality, but more unique creative ideas?

    Why your legs?

    When it comes to life, health, existence etc.; what is the ultimate privilege? Your legs, being able to walk, etc.

    For example, as a photographer and a street photographer, what is our ultimate passion? To travel, travel the world, to hit the streets, and to shoot street photography, ideally all day every day, with great gusto, and no fatigue.

    Let us consider, mobility, which means walking with your legs, is the most critical elements when it comes to travel.

    For example, a lot of Americans work really really hard, hoping to retire at the age of 65 with a fat pension fund, and then travel the world, whatever… but what if by the time you are 65 years old, you are so fat, fat and obese, type two diabetes, that even though you have a huge pension fund, you can no longer stand nor walk? 

    Legs

    With health, you don’t really appreciate it until you lose it.

    The other day I went to a friends wedding, tons of fun, tore up the dance floor etc.… And I’m just chatting with the ballet guys, about the richest guy, the richest car etc.… And the guy wisely asked me–

    “Are you healthy?”

    And I responded– “I am extremely healthy!” Then he gave me a grin and said “Then you are the wealthiest one!”

    “Who has the most expensive car in the valet at the wedding?” 

    Don’t be the cripple in the Rolls Royce:

    I almost wonder if we could use this cripple, crippled metaphor for just modern day reality, philosophy, ethics etc.

    Example, there are some people who are emotionally crippled, maybe has some sort of personal PTSD as a kid? Or people who lack empathy emotional social skills– social cripples? 

    For example, I had the realization that in fact anyone who wears dark tinted sunglasses, all the time, even when they don’t need to… It is because they are extremely shy?

    And it doesn’t really make sense for us to disdain people because they are shy?

    Bitcoin & emotions

    Like most humans, I am very emotional, especially when it comes to numbers, money, finances, gains and losses. This is why I never look at prices, too much noise and emotions.

    I think my strategy of via negativa never checking prices is wise — why? Essentially when I got to bitcoin at around $6000, $7000 a Bitcoin … around 2017, 2018… I essentially “Set it and forget it!” After making my initial investment, I just switched my attention and focused to other random stuff like working out, weightlifting, one rep Max powerlifting, philosophy, etc. So hilariously enough when the whole FTX thing happened, Sam Bankman Fried… I was actually oblivious to it all. The only reason I even found out about it because there was a random guy at the gym who told me about it?

    The signal and the noise

    I am definitely on the Michael Saylor camp, — trying to think about the next 100, 200, 300 years… and also thinking about what NASSIM TALEB talks about signal and noise… 99.9999% of things is just noise. 

    For example, if you think about bitcoin, which might be the ultimate volatile asset, maybe second after micro strategy stock…  checking prices even on a daily basis is bad. And let us consider that most people are checking prices literally mid to minute, not good.

    Instead let us imagine checking the prices only every four years. When bitcoin first hit my radar, when I was in Vietnam in Saigon in 2017, I recall bitcoin being only about $300 a bitcoin, and people would comment that it would never hit 1000. Then fast forward a bit, bitcoin hitting $20,000 a bitcoin… Big deal. Then it hitting $60,000 of bitcoin, $66,000 of bitcoin… Big deal. Then crashing down to sub 10,000, then back up to over $70,000.. I think the all-time high thus far has been made around $77,000 a bitcoin?

    Anyways, assuming that the bitcoin having cycle is every four years, the truly empirical way to assess prices is to look at prices only every 4 years. 

    I think my general ethos of quitting the news, never looking at any news, has been wise… I’ve been able to dodge all this fake news about bitcoin being bad for the environment etc.… Which I think was essentially an insider lobbing scammed by Sam Bankman Fried and paying billions of dollars of promotion sponsorships and marketing to a bunch of random celebrities crypto influencers, green piece etc.… To try to spew this propaganda that bitcoin was bad for environment, and that somehow, their “green“ token was much better … like Luna token, FTT token whatever… Which all essentially went to zero.

    I think one of the most clarifying things of having a child is that once you got a kid, your horizon expand. You no longer just think about your own personal short-lived existence… You start to intelligently think long-term.

    For example, the next 30 years. I am currently 36 years old, Seneca is three years, three months old… So in 30 years Seneca will be 33, almost in his prime. I suppose for men, I think we hit our prime in our 40s 50s 60s, maybe even 70s? I think physiologically things start to go downhill maybe when we hit our late 80s, but I suppose my great gratitude of being born a man is that as time goes on, my potency increases overtime.

    Day to day?

    Some of their random thoughts: the wisdom of not thinking too far into the future:

    First, every single day you wake up, you’re going to feel a little bit different, and also the things you’re going to care about is going to be different day to day. 

    I suppose what I am grateful about leaving the loser Bay area is that I am starting to slowly “de-techify” myself. Saying goodbye to loser Patagonia down jackets, insecure nerds with AirPods on, complaining about rent and property prices etc.

    In fact, I am 1 trillion times happier here in LA than I ever was anywhere anywhere else. Why? Certainly there is always a learning curve to moving to a new neighborhood or a new city or a new local, but LA, Culver City is perfect. Literally the only place I’ve ever lived where I can walk… super well?

    In fact, the currently sweet apartment that I got, I’m gonna hold onto that, forever. The ultimate squatter who actually pays his rent.

    Who skips leg day? Not Batman!

    I think a general shift, a general shift I want to see is for us to become more gay, more jolly, grander, bigger, happier, louder, more joyful! Just go to a wedding, soak up all the good endorphins, and hit the dance floor!

    Also don’t forget, it doesn’t cost anything to smile!

    ERIC

    How to judge a weightlifter or a bodybuilder or a power lifter 

    Very simple… first look at the legs, then look at everything else! 

    And also, if you really want to judge yourself according to any other man, ask them how much they could squat, deadlift, etc. 

    We real men glorify our legs!

    Clothes

    Just a simple thought, let us assume that you could load up the squat rack at your local gym with 11 (45 pound) plates on each side. And as a simple challenge, all you had to do was lift it off the rack with your shoulders and your legs in your back for a centimeter. If this were the case… physics don’t lie. Could you do it or not?

    Why rent control is good for us

    A wise economic thought –rent control, rent control for us is a very good thing. 

    Why? I can hypothesize that we are going through a low-key hyper inflationary environment.  for example, right before my very eyes, I saw the price of a single burger patty go from $1.49 all the way up to $2.50! Literally … I saw the price of a single burger patty almost double, nearly an 80% increase in price overnight!

    $20 an hour to work at McDonald’s?

    Anyways, this upcoming election cycle would be good for bitcoin. Why?

    First, there seems to be about an 80% certainty that Donald Trump is going to win. And I think Donald Trump said he was actually pro bitcoin.

    The issues here is that first, nobody likes Joe Biden, not even the liberals or the Democrats, not even myself, and I voted for him because he was the non-Trump candidate. 

    I don’t even know who’s running against Donald Trump.

    Anyways, in a world of uncertainty and chaos, bitcoin gains.

    For example it looks like the big trend here is that irregardless of whoever the presidential candidate is… Over along enough time span, I think the value of the US dollar will keep inflating. Already now I see a single-family homes in Culver City, super basic going for $2.1 million?

    Also, the new iPad Pro. I think it’s wise that apple increase the price of the iPad Pro to $999, instead of the customary $799.

    And also, certainly whether we like it or not, the price is the iPhones also must keep going up. I’m sure in the next five iPhone Pro cycles, we will see the iPhone pro being above $1000.

    So who will win?

    Ultimately I think the big winners here will be the people who maximally frugal, Spartan frugal, and direct almost all of their economic energy towards purchasing and gaining bitcoin?

    Paying your taxes in Bitcoin?

    I wonder, if in the next 20 or 30 years, there will be an option that you could pay your US taxes with bitcoin? And this might be a good idea for the American government because she could start to store some of her wealth backed by bitcoin, not the typical gold standard.

    What next?

    1. Download the Coinbase app for your phone, link it with your traditional bank account, and start buying bitcoin! I think if you link it with the plaid integration to your JP Morgan Chase or Wells Fargo or whatever… You could buy up to $50,000 a day Without any wire transfers.
    2. Once you bought the bitcoin, delete the Coinbase app from your phone. Refuse to look at any crypto news bitcoin news or whatever… And instead use that time to just watch Michael sailor interviews, and for literature, start to tap into the school of Austrian economics, Karl Manger. “The Bitcoin standard” book was also a good read.
    3. Start to think more about peer to peer; for example, I’m starting to think that now even with photos and sharing photos, instead just publicly posting it to Instagram or Facebook, better instead to directly message it to your friends or family members, for them to enjoy! This is peer to peer photo sharing.
    4. If you exercise go to the gym or workout, make every day like day! There is 10x testosterone production in your legs than your upper body; so if you think about it, if you hit legs every single day, your upper body will also benefit. I recommend heavy one rep max “rack pulls” (partial deadlifts off the squat power rack) or just the atlas lift (Google and YouTube ERIC KIM 1,000 pound atlas lift).
    5. In terms of photography, still the best camera to have is a Ricoh GR III or a Ricoh GR IIIX, the new Ricoh GR 3 and 3XHDF is coming out soon, I’ll probably get one. My simple suggestion is if you have a growing kid, who likes to go rock climbing and play at the park etc., get the Ricoh GR III HDF (28mm equivalent), otherwise get the other one.

    The future of media?

    I just recently discovered that Apple podcasts automatically transcribes podcasts, and it is actually very very good! I’m doing this when I am taking a nap with kind of car, and I could just read the transcripts of the podcast interviews with Michael Saylor, because I don’t want to listen to the audio and wake up Seneca!

    I still think that the future of media is still probably textbased. For example, the famous Lex Fridman Michael sailor interview which I think was three or four hours long, I just read the transcript of it, and therefore was able to download the information to my brain at least 1000 times faster.

    What next?

    Travel! Some good places I recommend:

    1. Mexico City, stay in the Roma Norton neighborhood
    2. Bangkok, Thailand
    3. Phnom Penh Cambodia, Angkor wat / siem reap
    4. Hanoi and Saigon in Vietnam
    5. Seoul South Korea, Gangnam and all the cute hipster neighborhoods — Hongdae, Itaewon, Garosgil
    6. Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto in Japan
    7. New Orleans
    8. Downtown LA, the fashion District
    9. San Francisco Mission district, 24th street …
    10. Dubai, London, Paris, Prague, all the big cities in Europe. Amsterdam etc.

    Still… Traveling is the best thing for the buck for your photography! 

    EK WORKSHOPS

    Work your legs, your mind.,, your soul:

    1. SF BAY AREA, MISSION DISTRICT
    2. DOWNTOWN LA
    3. ANGKOR WAT, CAMBODIA

    EK WORKSHOPS

    Leg exercise ideas?

    1. Buy a 60 pound weight vest — Titan.fitness, and just walk around town with it every single morning? Or go on a hike and just hike with it on?
    2. If you have a gym membership, never do any exercises in which you are sitting, or lying on your back.
    3. Think leverages; stop doing squats, rather do standing exercises. Atlas lift, atlas stand,,, rack pulls, partial deadlifts, “block pulls” etc.
    4. When optimizing your life, minimal sitting lifestyle — better to go on a walk, use your legs. This goes with yourself and your kids

    Anti bikes?

    I think bicycles are seen as virtuous, but even bicycles have a downside that you have to sit? And often the issue with bicycles is that they are expensive, require a lot of maintenance, and dangerous if you live in a city. 

    Even Seneca has been intelligence, he has a standing walking bike, the one without petals… But he has never once sat on it and wrote it like a bicycle; instead he uses it like a walker? He walks along side it?

    What else?

    At the gym, everyone is trying to show off how strong they are. But it seems that the ultimate idea is maybe when it comes down to it… The ultimate display of strength is the yoke walk.

    For example, let it say that you have the cold gym in Venice Beach or whatever… And my simple thought is just have a standing yoke, have a permanently bolted down with a 1000 pounds…  and there would be two goals:

    1. Could you lift it off the floor?
    2. If so,,, how far could you walk it out in one go?

    Then for competition ,,, have two guys, with the same yoke, and the goal is to see who could do 100 yard dash with the yokes quicker? 

    Competition fitness muscles without the steroids?

    I think out of all of the exercise fitness trends, maybe the most productive one is the strongman ones. But even though, it is essentially a bunch of fat guys on steroids.

    We got to make the yoke walk cool again.

    In fact, there is this new scene in the Baywatch movie —  the one with the rock and Zac Efron, in which they are at the beach in Venice Beach I think, doing a yoke walk competition?

    The best shoes for photographers, travelers and street photographers

    Zero drop, barefoot… Vibram 5 finger shoes.

    Currently the vibram five finger ”EL-X” knit model.

    We photographers spend so much money on our cameras lenses etc.… but how come so little money on our shoes, which is actually the most important element?

    How to improve your photography

    I also believe that the best thing to optimize in terms of your clothing is your shorts. Currently I believe the best shorts for photographers and street photographers to be the 5’’ license to train black shorts — zippers in the front pockets. 

    Also, the simple ethos is that when you are out shooting, do you want to lighten your load to the minimum. RICOH GR III/X camera still seems to be peak.

    Now what?

    Sun is out! Hit the beach, go to a wedding, soak up the endorphins!

    As much as possible, don’t be in the loser indoors.

    Don’t let your kids watch movies, media, films, DVDs etc.; also you yourself unsubscribe and cancel your membership for Netflix HBO, Disney+ whatever.

    Go on a walk, go on a hike!

    Lately I’ve been getting Seneca into climbing, baby rock climbing the center city one, sender city for kids; but even ultimately… Even Seneca says he prefers to walk!

    WALK ON!

    ERIC

  • Photos

  • Everyday is Leg Day

    The Ultimate Privilege is Your Legs

    The ultimate exercise is just movement? Like walking around and moving around?

    Generate new things

    **

    When it comes to life, health, existence etc.; what is the ultimate privilege? Your legs, being able to walk, etc.

    For example, Cindy‘s dad who is otherwise a very healthy man, maybe in his early 60s, he looks like his in his 50s… Call handsome guy, currently has type two diabetes, and I’m not sure if this is related… But has develop some sort of scoliosis in his legs and his back? Which makes it extremely painful for him to stand walk etc.

    Anyways, I think with health, you don’t really appreciate it until you lose it.

    The other day I went to a friends wedding, tons of fun, tore up the dance floor etc.… And I’m just chatting with the ballet guys, about the richest guy, the richest car etc.… And the guy wisely asked me–

    “Are you healthy?”

    And I responded– “I am extremely healthy!” Then he gave me a grin and said “Then you are the wealthiest one!”

    A cripple in a Rolls-Royce?

    Almost wonder if we could use this cripple, crippled metaphor for just modern day reality, philosophy, ethics etc.

    Example, there are some people who are emotionally crippled, maybe has some sort of personal PTSD as a kid? Or people who lack empathy emotional social skills– social cripples? 

    For example, I had the realization that in fact anyone who wears dark tennis sunglasses, all the time, even when they don’t need to… It is because they are extremely shy?

    And it doesn’t really make sense for us to disdain people because they are shy?

    Bitcoin & emotions

    Like most humans, I am very emotional, especially when it comes to numbers, money, finances, gains and losses. This is why I never look at prices, too much noise and emotions.

    I think my strategy of via negativa never checking prices is wise — why? Essentially when I got to bitcoin at around $6000, $7000 a Bitcoin … around 2017, 2018… I essentially “Set it and forget it!” After making my initial investment, I just switched my attention and focused to other random stuff like working out, weightlifting, one rep Max powerlifting, philosophy, etc. So hilariously enough when the whole FTX thing happened, Sam Bankman Fried… I was actually oblivious to it all. The only reason I even found out about it because there was a random guy at the gym who told me about it?

    The signal and the noise

    I am definitely on the Michael Saylor camp, — trying to think about the next 100, 200, 300 years… and also thinking about what NASSIM TALEB talks about signal and noise… 99.9999% of things is just noise. 

    For example, if you think about bitcoin, which might be the ultimate volatile asset, maybe second after micro strategy stock…  checking prices even on a daily basis is bad. And let us consider that most people are checking prices literally mid to minute, not good.

    Instead let us imagine checking the prices only every four years. When bitcoin first hit my radar, when I was in Vietnam in Saigon in 2017, I recall bitcoin being only about $300 a bitcoin, and people would comment that it would never hit 1000. Then fast forward a bit, bitcoin hitting $20,000 a bitcoin… Big deal. Then it hitting $60,000 of bitcoin, $66,000 of bitcoin… Big deal. Then crashing down to sub 10,000, then back up to over $70,000.. I think the all-time high thus far has been made around $77,000 a bitcoin?

    Anyways, assuming that the bitcoin having cycle is every four years, the truly empirical way to assess prices is to look at prices only every 4 years. 

    I think my general ethos of quitting the news, never looking at any news, has been wise… I’ve been able to dodge all this fake news about bitcoin being bad for the environment etc.… Which I think was essentially an insider lobbing scammed by Sam Bankman Fried and paying billions of dollars of promotion sponsorships and marketing to a bunch of random celebrities crypto influencers, green piece etc.… To try to spew this propaganda that bitcoin was bad for environment, and that somehow, their “green“ token was much better … like Luna token, FTT token whatever… Which all essentially went to zero.

    I think one of the most clarifying things of having a child is that once you got a kid, your horizon expand. You no longer just think about your own personal short-lived existence… You start to intelligently think long-term.

    For example, the next 30 years. I am currently 36 years old, Seneca is three years, three months old… So in 30 years Seneca will be 33, almost in his prime. I suppose for men, I think we hit our prime in our 40s 50s 60s, maybe even 70s? I think physiologically things start to go downhill maybe when we hit our late 80s, but I suppose my great gratitude of being born a man is that as time goes on, my potency increases overtime.

    Day to day?

    Some of their random thoughts: the wisdom of not thinking too far into the future:

    First, every single day you wake up, you’re going to feel a little bit different, and also the things you’re going to care about is going to be different day to day. 

    I suppose what I am grateful about leaving the loser Bay area is that I am starting to slowly “de-techify” myself. Saying goodbye to loser Patagonia down jackets, insecure nerds with AirPods on, complaining about rent and property prices etc.

    In fact, I am 1 trillion times happier here in LA than I ever was anywhere anywhere else. Why? Certainly there is always a learning curve to moving to a new neighborhood or a new city or a new local, but LA, Culver City is perfect. Literally the only place I’ve ever lived where I can walk… super well?

    In fact, the currently sweet apartment that I got, I’m gonna hold onto that, forever. The ultimate squatter who actually pays his rent.

    Who skips leg day? Not Batman!

    I think a general shift, a general shift I want to see is for us to become more gay, more jolly, grander, bigger, happier, louder, more joyful! Just go to a wedding, soak up all the good endorphins, and hit the dance floor!

    Also don’t forget, it doesn’t cost anything to smile!

    ERIC

    How to judge a weightlifter or a bodybuilder or a power lifter 

    Very simple… first look at the legs, then look at everything else! 

    And also, if you really want to judge yourself according to any other man, ask them how much they could squat, deadlift, etc. 

    We real men glorify our legs!

    Clothes

    Just a simple thought, let us assume that you could load up the squat rack at your local gym with 11 (45 pound) plates on each side. And as a simple challenge, all you had to do was lift it off the rack with your shoulders and your legs in your back for a centimeter. If this were the case… physics don’t lie. Could you do it or not?

    Why rent control is good for us

    A wise economic thought –rent control, rent control for us is a very good thing. 

    Why? I can hypothesize that we are going through a low-key hyper inflationary environment.  for example, right before my very eyes, I saw the price of a single burger patty go from $1.49 all the way up to $2.50! Literally … I saw the price of a single burger patty almost double, nearly an 80% increase in price overnight!

    $20 an hour to work at McDonald’s?

    Anyways, this upcoming election cycle would be good for bitcoin. Why?

    First, there seems to be about an 80% certainty that Donald Trump is going to win. And I think Donald Trump said he was actually pro bitcoin.

    The issues here is that first, nobody likes Joe Biden, not even the liberals or the Democrats, not even myself, and I voted for him because he was the non-Trump candidate. 

    I don’t even know who’s running against Donald Trump.

    Anyways, in a world of uncertainty and chaos, bitcoin gains.

    For example it looks like the big trend here is that irregardless of whoever the presidential candidate is… Over along enough time span, I think the value of the US dollar will keep inflating. Already now I see a single-family homes in Culver City, super basic going for $2.1 million?

    Also, the new iPad Pro. I think it’s wise that apple increase the price of the iPad Pro to $999, instead of the customary $799.

    And also, certainly whether we like it or not, the price is the iPhones also must keep going up. I’m sure in the next five iPhone Pro cycles, we will see the iPhone pro being above $1000.

    So who will win?

    Ultimately I think the big winners here will be the people who maximally frugal, Spartan frugal, and direct almost all of their economic energy towards purchasing and gaining bitcoin?

    Paying your taxes in Bitcoin?

    I wonder, if in the next 20 or 30 years, there will be an option that you could pay your US taxes with bitcoin? And this might be a good idea for the American government because she could start to store some of her wealth backed by bitcoin, not the typical gold standard.

    What next?

    1. Download the Coinbase app for your phone, link it with your traditional bank account, and start buying bitcoin! I think if you link it with the plaid integration to your JP Morgan Chase or Wells Fargo or whatever… You could buy up to $50,000 a day Without any wire transfers.
    2. Once you bought the bitcoin, delete the Coinbase app from your phone. Refuse to look at any crypto news bitcoin news or whatever… And instead use that time to just watch Michael sailor interviews, and for literature, start to tap into the school of Austrian economics, Karl Manger. “The Bitcoin standard” book was also a good read.
    3. Start to think more about peer to peer; for example, I’m starting to think that now even with photos and sharing photos, instead just publicly posting it to Instagram or Facebook, better instead to directly message it to your friends or family members, for them to enjoy! This is peer to peer photo sharing.
    4. If you exercise go to the gym or workout, make every day like day! There is 10x testosterone production in your legs than your upper body; so if you think about it, if you hit legs every single day, your upper body will also benefit. I recommend heavy one rep max “rack pulls” (partial deadlifts off the squat power rack) or just the atlas lift (Google and YouTube ERIC KIM 1,000 pound atlas lift).
    5. In terms of photography, still the best camera to have is a Ricoh GR III or a Ricoh GR IIIX, the new Ricoh GR 3 and 3XHDF is coming out soon, I’ll probably get one. My simple suggestion is if you have a growing kid, who likes to go rock climbing and play at the park etc., get the Ricoh GR III HDF (28mm equivalent), otherwise get the other one.

    The future of media?

    I just recently discovered that Apple podcasts automatically transcribes podcasts, and it is actually very very good! I’m doing this when I am taking a nap with kind of car, and I could just read the transcripts of the podcast interviews with Michael Saylor, because I don’t want to listen to the audio and wake up Seneca!

    I still think that the future of media is still probably textbased. For example, the famous Lex Fridman Michael sailor interview which I think was three or four hours long, I just read the transcript of it, and therefore was able to download the information to my brain at least 1000 times faster.

    What next?

    Travel! Some good places I recommend:

    1. Mexico City, stay in the Roma Norton neighborhood
    2. Bangkok, Thailand
    3. Phnom Penh Cambodia, Angkor wat / siem reap
    4. Hanoi and Saigon in Vietnam
    5. Seoul South Korea, Gangnam and all the cute hipster neighborhoods — Hongdae, Itaewon, Garosgil
    6. Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto in Japan
    7. New Orleans
    8. Downtown LA, the fashion District
    9. San Francisco Mission district, 24th street …
    10. Dubai, London, Paris, Prague, all the big cities in Europe. Amsterdam etc.

    Still… Traveling is the best thing for the buck for your photography! 

  • AMAP (As Minimal as Possible)

    It seems the trend in today’s world is to and towards maximization. You want to maximize our utility of things, we want things to do more, for it to be more multivariagated,  perhaps to hedge or to predict or to feel secure in a world of insecurity chaos and randomness?

    Hoarding? 

    So it seems that the ethos of hoarding has its origin in fear. Fear of the future, unpredictability, and always wanting to be prepared for the worst. I think this is a lot of the refugee mentality, especially when I observe Cindy‘s families journey, being part of the refugee boat people, in which saving money and being frugal was literally a life or death matter. It probably takes at least two or three generations to unlearn this behavior.

    Also, local family ethics. For example Cindy‘s family, 4 children. There needs to be some sort of calculus in which everybody has the maximum optimum amount of something… no winner take all here. For example, if I have six pieces of meat, everyone gets just one piece. 

    For myself, essentially I was raised as the king. All the choice meats were always given to me, I was spoiled silly by my grandmother. I’m grateful for this, because she is the one who helped me gain my self-confidence and also my ego. So for myself, I was probably given all of the meats, maybe my sister just got one.

    New unlimited ethics

    In today’s radical world of abundance, we need to relearn new ethics. 

    For example in the context of food… the only reason people consume rice, starch pasta grains, cassava root vegetables etc. is that 99.9% of the past was risen and raised on poverty. For example, if you were an Aztec God of the Maya people, you would not eat corn flour tortillas; you would just have unlimited oxen to feast on.

    “Respect” for the past?

    But now, we try to follow our cultural heritage, and to consume white rice and whatever… because it is “true” to our culture. But even Asian people now and Korean people know that white rice causes type 2 diabetes obesity and causes us to get fat, get heart disease, heart attacks, etc.

    A lot of Latinos and Mexicans are also starting to learn that Tortillas, flour or corn similarly also causes obesity, and also Coca Cola — the evil corporation, in which there is a strange bias that when you consume Mexican meal, you must have a Coke, a Mexican Coke, which has “real” sugar, which apparently “not as unhealthy for you” as the typical high fructose corn syrup, and also you must have it in a glass bottle?

    If anything, the evil Coca-Cola corporation is probably costing taxpayers billions if not trillions of dollars of medical issues because they have marketed Coca-Cola so hard, which causes people to get heart attacks and get into the hospital… and the healthcare system has to support this? 

    Climate change 

    For example, it does seem that climate change does feel real… It does appear to be hotter now than it was in the past. Also, empirically does look like pollution is a big problem to be tackled; for example living in Vietnam in 2017 and visiting a year ago… It definitely feels much more polluted in Saigon. I could taste it in the air. 

    Also, in LA… The good thing is that looks like pollution could be reversed to a certain extent; apparently decades ago, the pollution and smog was so bad you couldn’t even see the sky. Now it is better… But when you drive through Inglewood or La Cienega, it is terrible. You always have to roll the windows up and run the air conditioning because the air outside is toxic.

    Ultimately, I am the optimist here; I think with more stringent controls on things, climate change or heat change or pollution could be reversed; for example I think the whole California clean air thing of the future which requires that by a certain year all the cars have to be either fully electric or whatever… a very good idea. 

    Economic Principles

    Anyways, what is and should be the role of economics here?

    I’ll give you example; your car, your vehicle. It seems that the trend in today’s world is to maximize utility anywhere and wherever.

    For example, a new category of automobile which did not exist when I was a kid, the sports utility vehicle. It is kind of weird chimera between a truck and a car; the original SUVs were bulky ugly and gas guzzlers. Also, in terms of handling, the driving experience was terrible, they always felt too top-heavy, and being so far off the floor, felt very insecure.

    As a kid growing up, the only cars which really existed were two-door coupe sports cars, which had a small profile, and was close to the floor. Ideally the best sports car was wide, load to the floor, and did not weigh much.

    For cars, family cars… either you had a four-door sedan, so the kids could easily get in the back, or maybe a minivan if you had tons of kids? But beyond this, there were not that many category of cars. Maybe a station wagon?

    But in today’s world, things are starting to get a little bit ridiculous. There are so many sub categories of sub cars; we have many SUVs, mega SUVs, compact SUVs, micro SUVs whatever. It seems that the trend is everyone wants some sort of hatchback, which I think is a positive good… But in terms of sizes, they come in infinite flavors.

    But my simple thought:

    Any sort of “crossover” is bad. 

    For example these horrible bridge cameras; that offers a zoom lens that goes from 18 mm all the way to 300 mm… we all know these cameras suck. 

    Length

    Here is where the laws of physics are critical, especially when living in Los Angeles; when you really want to take your kid to the park, and there is literally only one parallel parking spot very tight… no amount of wealth in the world can magically shrink your car to make it fit the spot. in this case, this is the worlds smallest most compact car possible.

    I suppose this is also where if you live in LA… even if you were a trillionaire, assuming that you had a kid, and you wanted to maximize your kids ability to enjoy the park, go on adventures, visit Ocean Park in Santa Monica, the best here is to have the maximally small and compact car possible. In this case, the Tesla model S and the model X is out, and also my beloved cybertruck is out. 

    Nobody cares how cool your car is, until the moment you need to park it.

    Maximum utility?

    Typically speaking, tools which serve too many purposes are poor; for example, if you have ever used one of those Swiss Army knives, you’ll find that it has about 30 blades for every single purpose, but they all kind of suck.

    Also with cameras, the reason why the iPhone Pro has become such a monstrosity is when you use it, the Apple photos operating system camera tries to trick you that it has like 10 lenses and one? And all the lenses kind of suck. Better to have one prime lens, a compact fixed lens, which is best, rather than a bunch of mediocre lenses shoved into one.

    In fact, my vision for the next iPhone Pro Titan is for the Apple design team to have the balls to just get rid of all these other loser lenses, and just consolidated all into one mega lens. Maybe they could call it the iPhone “One”.  

    Pick up truck or nothing 

    This is where I think the SUV car is bad — it doesn’t really do anything that well.

    For example, if you really need to haul something, better to have a pick up truck. If you want to take the family on adventures and you have a lot of kids, more than three kids… Better to have a minivan.

    911 or nothing 

    If you just want the best sports car of all time, better to just have a two-door coupe or a Porsche 911, instead of one of these strange AMG G wagon cars? 

    Better yet, I have a simple rule; if you want a sports car, it must have a manual transmission. If you want the pure joy of driving, manual or nothing. Even when you think about cinema, cinematics… There is always much romanticism behind shifting gears when racing or speeding up. Nobody cares for paddle shifters, or automatic transmission cars, even though they are better.

    The aesthetics and the ethos is supreme.

    No loser 718

    Anyone who buys a 718 or whatever Porsche car… everyone wants the 911 but is too poor to afford it? 

    I say if you’re going to buy a Porsche, either 911 or nothing.

    Stick or nothing

    In fact if it is your aspiration to purchase a Porsche 911 or Porsche 718 car… it must have a manual transmission. More respect for the guy who drives the civic type R with a stick shift, rather than the pale and sickly impotent man driving the auto tragic Porsche 911.

    Even something which is worth to note; is there any manual transmission Lamborghini? I think they are all automatic?

    Some skill?

    I think the romanticism of manual transmission is that at least it takes some skill to drive it. Knowing how to drive a stick shift car is a new modern day privilege.

    Even Seneca, he loves stick shift cars! Whenever we go to the Honda dealership he likes to look at the civic type R stick shift, even the civic SI stick shift! And whenever I ask him whether he wants to learn how to drive stick shift or not, he says yes! Maybe the time he turns 15 years old, I’ll buy some sort of beater Japanese car for him, and I’ll teach him how to drive stick shift, his first car! Other random stuff I want to teach him is how to work on a car, how to fix it up how to maintain it etc.

    And also I wonder if the irony in the future will be that the new modern day privilege will be teaching a kid how to drive a stick shift car.

    Why do we want it to do all the things? 

    This is where money, bitcoin, and currency is so useful; it is the ultimate transportable, shape shiftable thing possible.

    For example, difficult to sell 1000th of your property in Manhattan to buy a cup of coffee,  we’re also, trying to weigh and judge how much something is worth or of value. 

    Also, the problem with expensive things, like expensive trophy assets like your portion 911 car, your property is that you cannot just instantly sell it and consolidate it instantly, for other purposes.

    If you have some sort of trophy asset like your Porsche 911, it is a dead asset. You might only drive it once a week or whatever… better to just rent it for fun instead. 

    And this is where money is amazing; it is the ultimate enabler of optionlaity. 

    A peer to peer future

    I recently reread the bitcoin white paper, and I was so pleased to see how short, succinct, and well crafted it was. Especially the note on peer to peer.

    The biggest issue in today’s world is that Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all has an intermediary of some sort of newsfeed algorithm, which tries to promote stuff that it thinks that you will like, and also… to discourage controversial things which might be considered too dangerous for advertisers.

    This is bad. It is almost like if you want to give your kid fresh drinking water and there is a hose, and then suddenly you had a guy in the middle, with a valve controlling the flow of freshwater to your child.

    Even worse, imagine if they had a hinge in the center, which allows them to change the water composition at will, and whether or not to add corn syrup to the water, toxic things, etc. I just want to give my kid fresh drinking water, yet you are adding nicotine, cocaine, Coca-Cola, high fructose corn syrup, and sugar to it? This is essentially YouTube, YouTube for kids.

    We all know that the best path to health is through fasting, what to cut out. Nothing in moderation.

    For example I think we all agree that heroin in moderation is bad.

    Craigslist is now bitcoin and crypto friendly

    Also a simple thought; let us see that I have 10 bitcoin, and somebody is willing to trade their Lamborghini Aventador with the scissor doors to you for your one bitcoin. This is good because you don’t have to go through a third-party or a bank we’re having to withdraw $250,000 worth of cash from your bank, which often does not even allow you to access your money.

    So here, peer to peer is great. 

    Buying homes with bitcoin

    Also, homes. Let us say that I want to buy that $1 million home, which is worth 10 bitcoin. If I could just send bitcoin from my wallet to your wallet, you would get rid of all of these unnecessary from real estate agents broker sellers some sort of closing cost etc. This be a much better way to trade?

    And this was my personal vision about bitcoin; you say when you hoard your bitcoin for a very very very large purchases or, you could just sit on your bitcoin, and let the value just keep going up.

    For example, if you have 16 square blocks in the middle of Manhattan, or fifth Avenue, you never saw that property. And you also inform your children to sell the property, and also the rule of the family a simple semi; never sell the property, even to your kids kids kids. Maybe even the wise ideas to take on debt and hedge it against the property value. 

    And then also… maybe same thing with bitcoin. 

    Or let us say that you really really want to buy that single-family home; my personal vision is when when one bitcoin is worth $1 million … the calculus will be simple; one bitcoin, one house. 

    ***

    Just in time economics

    Do you need it right now or not? 

    It seems that planning too far ahead for the future is bad. For example, I currently got one kid… maybe it is not yet worth or useful to plan having 2, 3 or 4 kids… in which I would need a minivan?

    And technically, the whole notion of “need” is superficial. For example if you have only two kids… you don’t “need” a minivan. Certainly it makes things a little bit more convenient, but then again it makes a lot of things inconvenient if you live in the city – once again, trying to parallel park it in a small neighborhood. I think for the most part minivans are only useful if you live in the suburbs?

    Prius until I die

    Anyways, one thing I am so grateful for my 2010 Prius is that there are three seats in the back, and if I really need to… we could easily fit two kids there and possibly even three! For example my friend Kevin has a Tesla model 3, and he has three kids, and he bought this compact car seat thing which allows three kids to all sit in the back? I am very impressed by how economical he is. 

    And the more I think about it… even that I have over an M in Bitcoin, I want to drive my Prius for another 100 years? 

    “Nice to have” vs critical

    The only big optimization gotta make in life is whether you have four kids, or less than four kids. 

    If you have four kids or more, you buy the minivan, not the loser cramped SUV because you don’t want to seem less manly.

    Once again, I think a lot of foolish decisions in our lives arise from this need of optimization, or “just in case“. No.

    Extreme Economy

    It is positively better to simply articulate things you already got, rather than trying to find some sort of thing to buy. 

    For example, I have currently maxed out my weights, for my one rep Max lifting at home. Part of me just wants to buy some new weights, to increase my one rep max numbers. 

    But before that, what I’m trying to do is first innovate and what I already got to the maximum, and to re-articulate what I already got in clever ways. For example, by changing the height of my rack, changing my leverage, and making things progressively more difficult, with worse leverage– is certainly another type of training.

    Or another ones; doing my infamous Atlas lift, with my eight plates, But doing it at different heights. It feels different at different heights, my body positioning and my leverages are different, and so changing things up certainly adds a new spice and variety to things.

    Or even another thing… doing all my lifts, but having a 60 pound weight vest strapped on.

    Don’t be tied to past numbers

    For example, the current number I currently have in my head for my atlas lift is 1000 pounds, which I believe to be about 10 plates, a 25, and a five on each side. Yet I did this in the maximum optimize environment at my beloved crunch gym in Orange County, with maximum space, safety, ability to grunt and slap myself in the face etc. But now that I’m just working out in my Off the grid parking lot, I cannot. And also I do not want to?

    Arbitrary goals?

    I think in life it is good to have arbitrary goals to look forward to, setting yourself up arbitrary challenges.

    For example, I have some other random weightlifting is at home, including a rickshaw Farmer’s walk dead lift thing, which changes things up a bit. I have less leverage with it, but currently my record on it is only six plates, some new goals are seven plates and eight plates on the open hex bar.

    The other day I also met an older powerlifter who was 67 years old,  and he was just curious about how much I could squat and dead lift in the standard sense. I’m not really sure, I’m not too interested… But maybe I could work towards that? This is where my innovation in “partials“ is so interesting; 

    for example, everyone talks about how you have to squat parallel, hit parallel below parallel a little bit above parallel etc. But to me this seems bizarre and pseudoscientific; it makes no sense. A better approach is instead, just see the maximum amount of weight on the barbell you can un wreck, walk out, and re-wreck. Currently my record is around seven plates, I could easily lift eight plates, but I don’t think I have enough strength or training yet to actually walk it out of the rack.

    I’m also suppose this is where the yolk walk is kind of interesting to me because it does seem like to be the ultimate functional fitness; picking up something very very heavy on your shoulders, and seeing how far you could walk it out or seeing how quickly you could do it.

    Future economics?

    I saw today that the number one free app in the iPad App Store is HBO Max. Super fascinating because it looks like at the end of the day, entertainment is king.

    Apparently a lot of people are afraid of whatever of artificial intelligence AI taking their jobs or whatever. However — not true.

    For example, no artificial intelligence would have the genius of a Jay Z, or Kendrick Lamar, ultimately, human beings prefer human beings, for example I would pay money to show up to Kanye West Jesus concert, to see him real life in the flesh live… Never some sort of pre-recording or AI bot.

    Same thing goes for Kendrick Lamar, who is essentially the superhero of all of Los Angeles. And the problem with generative artificial intelligence is that it could only use past language models and patterns to create use… It cannot create brand new information, carte blanche.

    Also… ChatGPT could probably write articles that sound like ERIC KIM… But, there’s no way that ChatGPT could have predicted five years ago that ERIC KIM would get into bitcoin? Or even powerlifting? 

    Charge money for human things

     very very simple thought is if you want to monetize your passion, charge money for real life human things. In life workshops, flesh to flash experiences, concerts etc.

    Information has practically already always been free, now with ChatGPT and artificial intelligence… It will become even more free. Or even worse; people who are desperate to watch their show, will actually pay you to watch it, and review it.

    For example, I see all of these billboards that’s a quote for your consideration”… Which means–

    “Please watch my show or film!”

     For example, killers of the flower moon produced by Apple… I’m sure it was a great movie, had Leonardo DiCaprio and was produced by Martin Scorsese… But it still seems that nobody really watched it or cared for, even though it won a bunch of awards. 

    I think the next step, also a good business idea is having verification that the review for thing is a real human review, not some sort of bot, or having a review or just use ChatGPT to produce a review.

    For example, if you go on Amazon, almost all of the reviews … seem fake. I know Amazon has a vine program in which certain individuals are sent free products in order to exchange a review. But… How do you not know that the person who is writing that review is just using ChatGPT to leave a random five star review?

    Currently it looks like the mass public is still not catching up to this yet… But I think within five or seven years, there will be need for a new more verification thing that the reviews were in fact written by real human beings, and based front real human experiences. Maybe reviews of the future will be some sort of short Snapchat like video selfie reviews of the human and the product, not the text.

    And hopefully live captioning becomes so good that people could just watch the videos on mute, and see the captions for the text.

    Now what?

    I think the primary issue with economics is that we think too much about the future. Why not the now?

    ERIC

     

  • Seeking Dominance?

    I think ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to be dominant. The best, the biggest, the strongest, the smartest, etc.

    I think as a kid, it is interesting because for the most part everyone is kind of on an equal footing. Because nobody has jobs yet or salaries or money, money is not yet a metric to gauge balance or to judge one another as kids. Certainly there are superficial things like certain kids who have cooler clothes whatever… But we all knew still that was a function of how rich your parents were; the rich kids would have cooler cars and clothes, and those of us who were More scrappy… We pried ourselves on our annuity, or our cleverness, or our culture.

    Or example, the Bay Area hyphy movement, which was at its peak when I was a teenager, middle school in high school. Essentially E-40’s “Tell me when to go” song was our anthem, and in order for a kid to be cool, all you needed was a white tee (t shirt) and some dark blue denim jeans, and you could be cool. And also at the time, the cool and popular shoes to have or the case whiz classic white tennis shoes, which for the most part all the kids could afford. And then even more disruptive notions like vans; in which it’s only became cool to wear vans sneakers, the skateboarding shoe which I think at the time was only $35 a pair? 

    Anyways, now that we are all adults… The world becomes a little bit stranger. For example, I’m currently 36 years old, the other day a very friendly gentleman thought I was 26 years old… But anyways nowadays I have no idea how old people are. I often ask people how old they are or what year they were born or what year they graduated college to get a better sense of things.

    Age is interesting because I think it is important because on one hand, if you discover that somebody’s about your age, then it is useful because you know that you grew up in a similar cultural mill you, and obviously the other basic things like if somebody is a decade or too older than you, certainly their income will probably be higher than yours, and also, there’s also likelihood that they have more money in the bank than you, Whatever. 

    Nuances

    A superficial way that men seek dominance or signal their dominance is through their vehicles. But here this is where things get interesting; it is all different.

    For example, maybe on one hand, people want to signal their dominance by whoever has the most expensive or rare car. For example, truth be told I have almost 0 interest in Ferrari cars, I don’t really think the design is all that interesting. Typically the Ferrari cars are the most expensive. I prefer the design of Lamborghini cars.

    But then I also supposed to issue here is that you don’t know if somebody owns the car, they’re leasing the car, or whether they’re just renting it for the weekend or the day.

    Also let us assume that they did in fact purchase the vehicle, all cash or whatever… Then again doesn’t really matter either because you start to feel bad for the guy; all that expensive insurance you have to pay on it is bleeding them to death, or the high maintenance cost which is also slowly bleeding them to death, or the ultimate thought: 

    Wow — that $250,000 they put into that car, maybe $350,000 after taxes etc.… is money they could have put into bitcoin. 

    Assuming that bitcoin has an average growth rate historically of about 50% year over years; just do the math, and plug it into a table. I think in the context of money, we are only ever happy if we see the number go up and grow; when we see the number getting depleted and going down, we feel like we are losing power?

    Double your money and make it stack!

    I suppose here is where money in economics and capital, capitalism is a bit bizarre; I think the ultimate name of the game is infinite. Let us say that your money is a metaphorical skyscraper, essentially what is all about is who could keep building ever higher skyscraper. For example, let us say that you have a 100 story skyscraper, I want a 1000 foot Skyscraper! 

    Also for the most part, money is not really based in physics anymore, more or less ones and zeros inside the machine, or Fiat currency is essentially like cotton candy being printed by the US government.  Therefore, the upper wealth in terms of US dollars and Fiat currency in a monetary value is infinite. For example, my net worth could be 1 million, 10 million, 100 million, 1 billion, 1 trillion, 100 trillion etc.

    And this is also something weird and bizarre that I’ve discovered; I am so reticent to spend even $500 on something, even $150 on something, even $79 on something; yet watching my bitcoin balance, I could easily have a $50,000 gain in a single day, or a $250,000 gain in a matter of a week or two. Yet I am still reticent on spending money? Why?

    “You can take the kid out the hood, but you can’t take the hood out the kid” – Kendrick

    I think this is where I think your family history, how you were raised as a kid, and also historically numbers are so critical about money.

    For example, I still remember when I was in high school… In the bay area, and I learned how critical buying brand new brakes and tires were for the safety of your car… My mom‘s old Nissan Maxima had old bear tires, and I was afraid that my mom would die in a car accident, yet we still didn’t even have $300 USD to pay for new tires?

    Even a shameful thing, having to buy used tires because you can’t afford to buy new ones? And this is literally a life or death situation. Same thing with brakes.

    Why do we seek dominance?

    This is where I think sex is important; my critical thought is men, biological men, if you were born with testicles and a penis,… We all see some sort of dominance. We either seek social dominance, knowledge or intellectual based dominance, economic dominance, social dominance, artistic dominance etc. 

    For example, this is where all the strange hips are dumb notions come from; whenever you meet antisocial guy in LA, sporting a Hitler mustache, some sort of obscure dark tinted sunglasses, a baseball cap or a trucker hat, secretly thinking they are superior to you… They use their obscure taste in vinyl records, music arts and culture to seek dominance over you?

    I think this is also where the whole notion of revenge of the nerds comes from; all these kids were once bullied as nerd kids, now have the hand because they are so much richer and more successful than the jocks of yester year … now as adults, he or she who has the most money is the most supreme dominant and powerful. Yet here are some nuances:

    First, debt. Debt is hidden. And also, I think the problem here is that a lot of people hide their debt in sneaky ways, in order to somehow assert that they are richer than the actual are. But if we have a purely mathematical physics based approach behind it… All debt is negative. There’s no such thing as a good dad. That is almost like a parasite or a disease in your body, which is slowly draining what your life force, or slowly letting your blood. As long as you have a mortgage or you have to pay off… You’re getting slowly getting bled to death. 

    The opposite of death

    This is also where things get a little bit bizarre to me; apparently a lot of really rich wealthy families what they do is their own property in highly desirable places,  and their property value keeps going up, and somehow they are able to borrow US dollars fiat currency at low percentage points, which essentially means that they are just printing free money for themselves? And they never pay taxes, because technically in terms of their taxes is that they always file as a loss. Even the founder and the head of related companies I don’t think has ever filed a profit Oregon; even though he probably owns about $100 billion worth of property in New York City the Hudson yards etc.

    Even Michael Saylor said something interesting; ideally what you would do is use your bitcoin as your property digital property, and then you borrow cheap US dollars against that; which seems to be a wise leverage because assuming that bitcoin is gaining 50% year over here, and if you could borrow US dollars at about 5%… You still have a 45% hedge. I think that difficult thing about this is that it is just too complicated to do; I have no idea how to do it. Kind of similar how people we finance or re-mortgage their homes, and suddenly have a bunch of cash on hand? I think we will be able to do this soon with bitcoin cryptocurrency, crypto assets soon. 

    How I lost faith in fiat currency 

    Fiat means Faith; Faith and your government, faith in institutions etc. 

    For example, a really downside mistake I made a few years ago is selling some of my bitcoin for some US dollars. A poor bet. Essentially over the course of four months, I withdrew about $5000 USD a month, and at the time, a single bitcoin is worth around $20,000. Now it is conservatively in the $60,000 range, which means  I essentially lost $40,000 in a shortsighted mistake. And $40,000 to a lot of parts of the United States could be a yearly salary. 

    Numbers vs health?

    Certainly more important than money is health. Also peace of mind. For example, you could still have $100 million in the bank, and have poor health, and still live in fear; the fear that your hundred million dollars will dwindle down to only $10 million or $1 million etc. He who climbs higher can suffer a more precipitous fall. 

    so what should we do about this?

    I think this is where philosophy becomes interesting —

    The first very simple thing is think Spartan. Spartan economics.

    What would King Leonidas or a Spartan hoplite say if they encountered modern day man? I think a highlight or Spartan would just be befuddled and confused and scratch their head.

    Also, let us consider that for Spartans, it was about manliness, courage, dominance on the battlefield. I suppose the issue is in today’s world, we don’t really have the opportunity to exhibit Spartan virtues, unless you’re at the gym, drink some sort of powerlifting, HYPELIFTING, or if you’re an MMA, UFC fighter? 

    I think the reason why bodybuilding is a poor approach is 99.99% of it is steroids. And grinding “hard work“. But don’t we know that hard work is just for slaves? Ancient Greeks, work as a vice. Only slaves worked and toiled the lands, the Spartans had the helots to do their dirty work, while they worked on more virtuous things like hanging out topless, training, engaging in fun banter etc.

    The modern day Arena

    Currently, social media, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, has hijacked the world.  The metrics of dominance are centered around how many likes followers etc. do you have? But the biggest issue here is that ultimately, even if you had 1 trillion followers, as long as you are a slave to the platform, you are still a slave.

    For example, if you were a slave, with a gold crown on your head, decked out in the finest jewelry, driving all of the exotic sports cars, but you were still a slave… With no freedom… Would you take this exchange? Certainly not. Better to be a free spartan a Persian slave.

    New ways of thinking of the world

    First, I think we have to stop getting so obsessed about cars. Especially in today’s world where everyone has full limit all around the car… It is impossible to see who the driver is. Whether he is a 4 foot 10 man, or a dog… You have no idea. 

    Or, in the near future we already see it now… Whether it is a self driving way more car? With no driver?

    Imagine if you saw the coolest loudest Lamborghini slowly cruising through the streets, revving attention, you might feel some sort of petty envy towards the driver. But what if the windows roll down and it was a fully autonomous self driving car? 

    Your “net worth”?

    I think the new secret is not your net worth, but you’re not freedom. What is freedom? Whether you could go two years without checking your email inbox, or whether you could just go out, and leave your phone at home or in the car.

    So the first thought is this; Via negativa signals of freedom — 

    he who walks around town without a phone on him is in fact the most successful person.

    “Success”?

    Then another line of thinking; rethinking the notion of success. Once again it is not a success notion here, it is a freedom one.

    Even when you think about the declaration of independence, and the founding fathers talk about life liberty and the pursuit of happiness… First the notion of life is too ambiguous. Pursuit of happiness is also too fuzzy. Liberty, liberty is a good one… but I think freedom is a better one. 

    I think the real issue here is that freedom and capitalism are at odds. For example, typically speaking, individuals with more US dollars in their bank account, or individuals we have higher salaries typically have less freedom. For example, if you’re earning $1 million a year salary at Apple Amazon Facebook or Google… Most likely it is a signal that you have no freedom. Why? You can’t suddenly just stop checking your email, and just randomly in the middle of the day go on a hike in the middle of Malibu without any sort of Internet connection. With higher salaries implies higher responsibilities, less freedom.

    And for the most part, what is having a job? What is careers? The simple thought is the higher you climb in the corporate ladder, the higher your income and salary… Conversely less your freedom?

    For example, I remember when I was working my first tech job out of college, at demand media, ehow.com as an online community manager, now the company is rebranded as the leaf group, … I met a lot of programmers who refused to become managers, even if it would come with a pay bump. Why? They had the intelligence that with a nominal bump and salary, let us say a 20% raise in salary… Came with a 2000% increase in rate of responsibilities, other people to manage, etc.

    Also one thing I’m starting to learn about academia and the universities fear; typically when academics take higher positions and salaries, get tenure, become full professors etc.… Even though they have a higher salary, they are also bombarded with more community-based responsibilities and labor. I suppose this is where it was nice that Cindy was a postdoctoral fellow, when you are a post doc, you have almost no responsibilities. 

    The best schedule?

    The best schedule is no schedule. Which allows for maximum option reality, you could do whatever you please, whenever you please. 

    I also suppose if your passion is travel, whatever… Ultimate is having the ultimate freedom schedule which means you could travel and fly anywhere whenever you want to, and you could often save thousands of dollars on airfare if you decide to travel somewhere during an off. Period And this is where I suppose it is nice to not have any obligations back home, maintaining your property, pay your mortgage, pay double rent etc.

    And certainly not having to worry about your car, where to park your car, how to maintain your car etc. Even the downside of a lot of gasoline cars is that if you have gasoline car part or too long of a period of time, with turning it on occasionally, the battery dies. Also I suppose with electric cars, the battery will slowly drain overtime, I’m not sure what the half-life is, but I think even the best Tesla, assuming that you don’t always charge it, and you leave for a year or two… It will probably run out of charge.

    Laser eyes!

    My new motto is laser eyes, from Michael Saylor.

    I think he also follows the Steve Jobs thoughts; focus and laser your eyes on 11 single thing… And the maximum out of that one thing, instead of getting distracted by too many things.

    For example, in the crypto sphere… Bitcoin is the only one worth following. All the stuff on Ethereum is a distraction, even chain-link which I like, is still a distraction.

    The reason here is that time attention and focus is limited; one hour you spend on studying the second best loser is the time you could spend spending an hour studying the best.

    Time with your kids 

    This is also where I find things a bit bizarre; people who make this bizarre trade-off:

    Pay money to have their kid in daycare, instead of spending the time with their kid?

    Certainly if you have nonnegotiable 9 to 5 job, you don’t really have an option. But if you do have an option… Why would you want to have a bunch of strangers look after your kid when you can spend that time with your kid?

    Time spent with your kids and loved ones is the ultimate investment. For example, I am very certain that my mom will be dead in 40 years, maybe she’ll make it to 100, but not 110. And isn’t the best way to Peter out the end of your life just to be around your loved ones?

    ***

    Attention

    There’s something I call fake time spent with your kids; it is when you take your kids to the park and you’re just on your iPhone the whole time, checking and answering email, looking at news, on Facebook Instagram or YouTube… Looking at financial things etc.

    I think a lot of parents have the rational that they’re working hard to make money to provide for their kids. However they realize that the ultimate investment is just to directly cut out the middleman, lock your phone in the glove compartment, in the car, and just spend your precious limited time with your kid 100%?

    Now what?

    Nihil admirari (admire no man)

    All man, irregardless of how great, is flawed. For example, Elon Musk who is the greatest entrepreneur of all time, a man I greatly admire… Still has lots of problems of his own. For example, his poor health, the demons he has with his father and his kids, etc. I would not want to be him. 

    Or even Jeff Bezos, richest man on the planet, I think he’s only 5 foot seven? And now that he is older? Youth is the ultimate desired thing — would you trade your glorious 36-year-old body for the body of a 85-year-old billionaire with dementia? Probably not.

    Time and money

    It is not just time and money but health.

    For example, why is it that IT guys make so much money? It is because they cannot sleep at night; they will often have to randomly wake up at 2 AM or 3 AM or 4 AM, dealing with some sort of data outage. Or, if you are working at an investment bank or whatever… Having to routinely work beyond midnight, always on call for your clients.

    If you are a CEO of $1 billion company; as long as you have a publicly treated corporation, you are still a slave to the board of directors, shareholders, etc. If you like to sit on your butt and be in the middle of boring meetings for a profession… or send and answer emails for a living .. might be more fun to be a cop or a firefighter, or even work for California Highway Patrol.

    Be humble?

    Being humble, humility, being close to the floor… Is the general notion of being humble. But maybe instead of being humble, being spartan is a better strategy?

    ERIC

     

  • Real World Training

    Think physics:

    Some real world thoughts:

    First, I still believe infinitely… the best possible place to live is a place where you love to walk! When you pound your morning espresso, hungry and voracious for the adventure of embodied reality.

    The problem

    I think the sad tragedy here is that truth be told… 99.9% of reality sucks. Especially if you live in America… you’re just stuck in a car 99.9% of your day. Or inside an office building, or inside a crappy school room, University class etc.

    In fact, we knew modern day humans, with the new zoo animals. In fact, maybe zoo animals have it better than us; at least they have a little bit more physical space, and also room to spare.

    First

    I believe the first optimization, at least living in America is deciding which Geo location or space to live. Currently speaking I believe Culver City, downtown Culver City, the Culver City arts district to be the best. The best place to immediately pop out of your apartment, and immediately start walking! 

    Or, if you have the option, living in some sort of city in Southeast Asia, Bangkok, Phnom Penh, Hanoi, Saigon etc.

    The reason why I believe it to be so intelligent to live in Southeast Asia is economic leverage. For example even trolling homes here on Zillow, it is insane; $2.2 million for these half-assed remodeled homes? Things which comes standard in Vietnam or Southeast Asia?

    Hardcore economics

    I recently re-watched the movie 300 again, some thoughts:

    First, I think the best way to live is through extreme economy. What that means is no matter how high or low your income… to hardcore leverage your money seems like a good idea.

    For example, it seems human nature that we will typically meet match or perhaps supersede our income. What that means is when it comes to “lifestyle creep”, or “hedonic adaptation”– most people do the foolish thing— when anybody touches any money, the very foolish thing they first do is buy a car, some expensive clothes, jewelry, etc.

    What they should do instead is buy bitcoin. And live like a low-key poor person.

    Spartan economics

    Ever since I was a teenager, and a kid, I’ve always really been into fashion, clothes etc. However, the enlightening thing about watching the movie 300, first, the Spartans are essentially bare chested, no shirt on, and just wearing cod pieces–speedos. The only thing to note is their crimson cape which goes to the floor, and during battle, their bronze Spartan helmets, with the frightening horse hair on top, their spears, swords, battle greaves, forearm armor, shield, … that seems to be about it.

    Certainly there are some clothes and accessories which do improve your life. But assuming you’re a man… unless you’re going indoors, a shirt is optional. I say go shirtless as much as humanly possible.

    Khalil Gibran on Clothing

    At the LA public library, Cindy just picked up paperback of Khalil Gibran the prophet, the classic. I think Cindy and I read it back in college.

    What was very interesting was his thoughts on modesty and clothing; essentially back in the day, modesty was just another word to describe hiding the ugliness of your body.

    I see today; all these guys who wear trucker hats, fully tinted sunglasses, have beards and lots of facial hair and maybe mustaches … , flannel and trucker jackets, bunch of tattoos, body hair, fat, and drinking beer? Essentially it is to hide the ugliness of their bodies. I still find it very very bizarre that somehow having a strong opinion about craft beer is what makes one manly? 

    I find tattoos to be the most ridiculous proposition; it is expensive, takes a long time, and it actually positively makes your body uglier. Even Nietzsche wrote that the trend for people to get bodily tattoos was a march towards barbarism.

    I say instead of getting body tattoos, just build bodily muscle. Just buy your own weightlifting equipment – Titan.fitness and workout at home.

    Real men have muscle!

    Property

    I’m currently reading the father of Austrian economics, Karl Menger — and his principles on economics. It is a bit of a dry read, but I enjoy it and so far much as it is simple, clean, and direct, and just like Aristotle, lays the foundation of first principles in economics, talking about goods, needs, human economizing, stock etc.

    One of it is property, property accumulation, and connections with human desire to accumulate obtain and hold property.

    Karl Menger talks about property almost a bit of a metaphorical sense, it doesn’t have to be physical property, the property in the minds of men?

    I think when you go back to first principles thinking for philosophy humans economics etc., things become very interesting.

    The first thought I had is maybe the intelligence of buying your own weightlifting or gym equipment is that in technicality, you are accumulating property, weightlifting property, weight property, plates etc.

    Also the good thing is that weightlifting will never go out this style, because it is the most OG, original gangster way of getting stronger. A simple barbell and weight plates is all you need. If you want cheap ones, just get some cast-iron plates, in the 45 pound range. Also for a cheap weightlifting squat rack, the Titan.fitness T3 independent squat stand, apparently it could withstand up to 1000 pounds… I’ve already loaded it up with 775 pounds and it seems fine.

    I think the problem with going to the gym, is that you’re pissing away your money, especially in Los Angeles where a gym membership could be in the $150 a month to $200 a month range. If you’re on a budget, you could buy a cheap barbell for me about 100 bucks, and two weight plates will only set you back around 150 bucks. If you do the math, within the year, you can invest at least $1000 into weightlifting equipment, which will stay with you forever.

    For very very cheap options, just buy sandbags; you could purchase 50 pounds of playground sand for only about three dollars! 

    Stainless steel

    What is the apex metal? Stainless steel. Stainless steel is what allows us to create 100 story skyscrapers, and also, which creates your beloved Cybertruck. The more I think about cybertruck, the greater it is. At least in terms of material and form, it might last you at least 100 years. Maybe 300 years if you take good care of it.

    Also, I think the cybertruck is actually positively bulletproof; just watch the videos with it. If John Wick was alive today, he might drive a cybertruck?  Or some sort of baby sports car muscle car stainless steel cyber truck, imagine if you took a Camaro or a Dodge charger and just outfitted it with stainless steel? 

    Make your body like stainless steel

    I had the epiphany and the realization that this is why they call Superman the Man of steel; at the time, when Superman was invented, steel, stainless steel was a big deal.

    Also, public restrooms and bathrooms etc.… It seems that stainless steel is the way. The easiest to keep clean, maintain etc. Stainless steel toilets, hand washing stations etc.

    Also, at Cindy‘s family’s house, Cindy‘s mom has a stainless steel kitchen sink, which I think she’s been using for over 20 years with no problems!

    The future

    First principal is thinking; what is the purpose of saving? For the future.

    I think the very clarifying and positive thing is once you have a kid, future becomes a more concrete notion. Your building property and betterment for your child, and their child, and their kids kids kids.

    But why? I think a lot of modern day thinking is too focused on the individual; what makes more sense is focusing on beyond the individual– the clan, the tribe, the collective. 

    Leaders and followers?

    “See there’s leaders and there’s followers but I’d rather be a dick than a swallower”– Ye

    Even NASSIM Taleb talks about how there are individuals or academic, intellectual “swallowers“. 

    What should be the purpose of education? Critical thinking. To challenge convention, to think first principles etc.

    In fact, I think the best thing that Aristotle does when fleshing out some ideas is he first starts off by first principles, by defining things – to challenge things, why they are important, why they are critical etc.

    The reason why I find this to be so important is that we spend our whole lives working, and living… but yet we never challenge why we do it, why is important, why is significant etc.

    For example, let us say that you are a modern day tech worker, or a banker, and what you’re trying to do is accumulate as much US dollars, currency, the highest salary possible. But towards what ends? Buying a certain car you want, a single-family home, etc.? Having the freedom in the power to travel the world? Before you sacrifice 30 years of your life, maybe a deep critical introspection is needed; thus the Why App?

    The upside of sociology 

    The more I think about the benefit of studying sociology was simply to challenge all social norms. In fact, the other day we were inside a public library, and Seneca was upset that we had to return the books, in which I cleverly stated and said, no, we are not “returning” the books, we are recirculating them.

    Anyways, certainly Seneca was upset, because if you think about it… the notion of checking out a book, and then having to return it is not natural and it doesn’t really make much sense. As a consequence he was crying loud, and this pretentious librarian tell me that “he has to go”, or “he has to go (outside)”.

    Like a true mensch, of course I did not forcibly make him exit the library. I calmly stood there, while he was still crying, explaining to him the notion of recirculating over returning the books.

    Anyways, the librarian was confused, because I think in the past, whenever the library tells a parent that their kid is being too loud, a parent somehow feels bad, or embarrassed or something and forcibly removes the kid from the library. No. I stood there, taking my sweet time, and explaining to Seneca, and the library being confused came up to me to approach me a second time.

    Anyways, thinking back first principles… Why is it that a library should be quiet? Why not loud?

    The first line of thinking is that the purpose of a library is for a quiet contemplation. Why not loud contemplation?

    Anyways, that loser library and library will no longer get my patronage. Onto the next one.

    Society?

    Also, even modern day society in today’s world, the law is “thou shall not make eye contact with strangers, engage in small talk, be friendly etc.”

    Also, modern day society says that we shall be, antisocial, introspective, cowardly, quietly consume our fake ass plant-based food, and try to minimize our “carbon imprint”, on the planet. 

    Says who?

    Fuck that!

    Seeing humans in the flesh?

    Now I have a new rule; before I’m about to read any book, listen to a new podcast or whatever… I want to kind of get a full body glimpse of said individual.

    For example, this seems cruel, but I don’t really care for the opinion of anybody who is overfat, skinny fat, physically weak, doesn’t have muscle, doesn’t have strong legs.

    The problem in today’s world is that there is a hijacking of knowledge, legitimacy and information towards the nerds, the Shorty guys, the Shorty fat skinny old bald guys, etc.

    Only trust thinkers who are also weightlifters. 

    So far, modern day times … maybe only NASSIM TALEB? But now he is even too old, and still kind of a fatty guy (his history).

    Who else?

    They not like us!

    Creating your own tribe? All you need is 300?

    Let us even think about King Leonidas… Certainly would have been impossible for him to fight back millions of Persians himself. However, him being able to leverage the train, the hot gates and the choke point… Assuming he was not betrayed… He would have probably been able to hold the hot gates, With his Spartan 300. 

    Create for yourself

    My simple line of thinking is create things, design things as if you were the only end user.

    Also, follow your own personal curiosity irregardless of how irrational or impractical or uneconomical it may seem. 

    True innovation happens out of pure self curiosity, things which at the time seem very very impractical… But, can create insane value for society and others.

    The camera as a self defense weapon?

    Looking at cops, one of the interesting things is that they always have some sort of chest mounted video camera that is always recording. I wonder if this is also a good accessory for ourselves. A simple thing is having a GoPro chest mount, and a GoPro mini. 

    Also, if you became swat, swat team… How would you look and how would you train?

    First, armor. I think my joy of having my 60 pound weight vest on all the time is that is like real world training. If you had a bulletproof, 60 pounds is good.

    Also, a bulletproof body.

    SWAT TRAINING?

    If you are swat team… How do you train?

    Once again, 60 pound vest, and also some sort of notion of hunger. And fearlessness.

    Also a cool visual I have is from John Wick 4, the all black samurai kabuki guys at the Osaka hotel, trying to kill John Wick.

    The ideal form of training would be caring heavy stuff, for relatively short distances. Also if fearlessness. And pure power. Imagine if you were a swat door kicker. 

    Unkillable

    I think what is so awesome about John Wick is that he is practically invincible, unkillable. All four movies, everyone tries to kill him, and even at the very very end… he allows himself to get killed, in order to get the final sweet sweet revenge on his arch nemesis.

    In fact, John Wick is fascinating because he is almost like the modern Achilles; it is his lust for revenge which drives him.

    Thought– somebody should reboot the movie Troy, or a film centered around Achilles? 

    New ethics and morality

    
    Also, this is where things become interesting to me; for us to think carte blanche, to create new morals and ethics for ourselves. All is permitted, said the famous assassins. This is the real assassin’s Creed.

    All is legitimate, all is permitted — as long as it does not disobey the laws of physics.

    ERIC

    Think physics

    Ultimately if you want to think about growth, life, things in general… Think physics!

    Weight lifting also a fun physics game and experiment?

    Travel and physics

    If you think about reality from a physics or space approach, the logic and the rationale is that when you’re moving your human body across time and space, geo location and climate… having a novel environment changes you.

    For example, even a simple weekend getaway to San Diego, the beachfront, the ocean, looking into the infinite sea, and having a different change of climate from LA, it changed my thinking, or allowed the genesis of new and unique thoughts.

    I think this upside of traveling to Southeast Asia, ironically enough I think best when it is hot and humid? For myself, I find it very difficult to think well when it is cold and humid and wet. I hate the winter. Even the Los Angeles the winter is not super nice. I wish I could live in Southeast Asia forever.

    You know yourself the best

    Everybody has different preferences. I find it insanely annoying when people try to “educate” you that somehow your preferences are illegitimate? And they try to tyranny their own preferences upon you?

    Fuck that! Become more stoic and staunch in your approach.

    so where do you want to travel to?

    1. SF BAY AREA, THE MISSION SF —
    2. Downtown LA
    3. CAMBODIA, ANGKOR WAT Experience the planet with EK > ERIC KIM EXPERIENCES

    Photo assignments

    If you want infinite inspiration and motivation to make photos, just have a kid!

    If you already have a kid, cross pollinate your passion for street photography photographing your kid!

    Also, undefine photography; all photography is legitimate!

    Also, delete Instagram, irregardless of how many followers you have. It is like I’m telling you that you had terminal cancer, but, you would be able to magically cure yourself if you justdeleted Instagram. Wouldn’t you do it?

    Instagram is cancer for the mind and the soul. 

    In fact, the only people I trust in the ERIC KIM clan is those without an Instagram. Also if I had to create an initiation ceremony, the first step for STREET CLUB would be deleting your Instagram. 

    Keep stacking those Bitcoin not those followers. 

    “You got 1 billion streams, I got $1 billion!” – JAY Z

    You got 1 million followers? I got 1 million bitcoin!

  • Ocean Thoughts

    The ocean is infinite– infinite energy, power, waves… forever into the distance:

    Only Slaves Use Phones

    Creating the most sublime human body?

    A turbo thought about phones —

    Only slaves use phones?

    Vietnam experiences

    Probably the big takeaway point I got from Vietnam, living in Vietnam without a phone, only iPad is this: 

    You don’t need a phone.

    In fact, let us consider… If you’re walking around in the real world, looking at how big it is, it is such a great tragedy that so much of our human existence is centered around a tiny 4.5 inch screen.

    Also, the problem with phones, you can’t be that productive with phones. Most people text with their thumbs, which is maybe 40 words per minute at best. Very slow. On the laptop I can type close to 140 words per minute, and now using iPad Pro with voice dictation, maybe 200 words per minute. 

    I think perhaps what is exciting about the new Apple intelligence and AI in the future, is actually ironically not the AI generating text, or giving me information, but the simple thing, which is actually centered more around accurately representing the words I actually want to voice dictate.

    For example, often when I’m doing voice dictation with the iPad Pro, the built-in keyboard, the little microphone button… the big issue I have here is that a lot of the typos certain words in the English language which sound like something else, but are not.

    Consequence, perhaps the greatest upside of artificial intelligence would be quickly scanning the nuance of the whole sentence, while I am actively voice dictating, and through this process, discover what I am really trying to say. 

    AI & photo curation

    Another interesting use case for artificial intelligence is simply being able to help me curate my images, help me go through them quicker.

    For example, I have lots of visions for image curation; the big issue we are having in todays world is we shoot too many images, too quickly, and we haven’t the time the techniques or the skills to view them quickly enough. 

    For example, currently I average 1000 to 2000 photos a day. I think this is generally a good thing, because it signals that I am living a grand life. However the downside is that I seem to have a difficult time finding the opportunity or the time or the chance to review these many photos a day.

    The basic person might say, “Shoot less“; but I find this to be too flaccid of a solution. What we need instead is more effective image creation tools, devices, or things.

    More convenient film developing, processing etc?

    Also as a random nuance, now that Pentax just put out that new film camera, wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was either a free or practically free solution to image processing, etc.?

    Or, the upside of film without the downside; perhaps this is the main upside or the intrigue with the new Ricoh HDF camera ? The idea that your digital photos could look like film photos without the hassle of developing film photos? 

    Why film?

    For example, there is no doubt that film photos, especially color film photos, are far more aesthetically beautiful than the often too perfect digital photos. Yet, at the end of day, the inconvenience of shooting film is what makes it the loser. Sooner or later, no matter how dedicated of a film photographer you are, it still seems that the tide eventually makes its way back into digital. 

    Some nuances:

    First, if you perhaps live in Vietnam or some sort of developing country, where labor costs are cheap in which you could just give somebody else your film photos, and have them cheaply develop process and scan it for you. However it seems that now in America with the $20 an hour minimum wage at McDonald’s, labor costs in America are too prohibitive.

    As an example I remember when living in Hanoi, there were some scrappy kids who would develop a rule of film, and also scan it for you for only five dollars a roll! In America this is almost $20-$30 a roll. 

    Convenience is key

    Even if you’re stupid rich, millionaire or billionaire level, then once again, the inconvenience is what makes it bad. For example, I still have about 50 rolls of Kodak PORTRA 400, and Kodak Trix which I shot maybe three or four years ago, which I still haven’t yet had the impetus to send it off to go process it, even though I could easily afford it. I just got too many other things on my plate at the moment.

    Therefore a consequence, the realization is once you’re very wealthy, costs no longer become a problem, it is more of a time energy mental space, time space thing. 

    Elon?

    For example, if you’re Elon Musk, do you have the time convenience or the leisure to simply stroll into a Costco, browse the products, and spend about three or four hours checking out? No.

    I think this is where Amazon and Amazon prime is so great for people both rich and poor alike; rich people still use Amazon prime because it is so convenient. Once you’re rich, a lot of people don’t have time to go places or to physically purchase the products. They would prefer to order it in just a few seconds from their phone. And then poor people like Amazon prime because they get prices; and end up “saving” money.

    Visions for the future

    Some simple visions:

    First, a phone free future. I think one thing that really annoys me about a lot of these new modern cars is that you somehow need a phone in order to unlock it, to open the door of your car, access it, etc. I think with Tesla cars, as long as you have your Tesla phone in your pocket, you could access your car, but also you could access it if you have the Tesla valet key thing.

    Funny enough, one of the upsides of my glorious 2010 Prius is that it still has the key fob; which means when I go to the park with Seneca, I could just lock up my phone inside my glove compartment, just take my keys and Prius car with me, and lock up my car. 

    New productivity?

    I have some radical new ideas for productivity:

    First, it seems like a very very very simple one is ironically “via negativa” approaches and technology. 

    For example, ironically one of the best ways you could be more productive is by not having a Wi-Fi enabled device. For example, maybe if you’d like the smaller form factor of an iPhone, just have two phones; one with Internet cellular data, the other as a Wi-Fi only device. Maybe this would be a good idea for who just prefer shooting photos using an iPhone, but don’t like getting interrupted by text messages.

    I think the reason why this is such a good idea in Asia, and a lot of the world… many people have multiple devices with them at once. For example my friend Chu Viet Ha, because he is often testing out so many new phones and phone cameras, often has five or six phones with him.

    The hybrid approach

    In fact, if you really wanted to be the ultimately productive person, having the best world of both android and iPhone iOS is a good idea. 

    For example, my friend Darren Wong — impressed me when he had both a Google pixel and an iPhone in each of his front two pockets. Truth be told, almost every single iPhone user I know has a Gmail account. And Gmail works for better on android in Google pixel then on iOS. As a consequence, using a Google pixel, which is the ultimate expression of android, should be optimal for doing Google related things; Google calendar, Gmail etc. Even Google maps.

    What is iPhone, iOS good for? FaceTime, iMessage, Apple photos, iA Writer, etc.

    Road trip down to San Diego

    This weekend had a quick trip to San Diego, and something that was so impressive to me was the upside of having a Prius and a hybrid car:

    First, driving from LA to San Diego, only consumed about 3 ticks of gasoline. And the other day we spent all day driving around, going to Torrey Pines and the beach, seeing the ocean and the waves etc.… and in total we have only consumed about 40 to 50% of gas. We’re going to head out later today, and technically I still have half tank of gas and I could make it all the way back to LA if I wanted to.

    However if I had a Tesla or a long range Tesla or electric vehicle, maybe even a cyber truck, I would probably have to stop by a supercharger somewhere along the line, or find a supercharger back home in LA… given that my apartment doesn’t have an electric charging port station, so the moral the story is simple:

    If you truly do want to live a more adventurous life, Prius and Hybrid is the way. 

    Autopilot is the killer app

    The only thing I really wished on the drive down is having some sort of auto pilot or at least lane keeping assist distance being; some sort of super basic self driving thing. The future which allows you or allows your car to cruise control itself, but also maintaining the distance with a car in front of it, and also staying within the lane. And the optimal strategy is just having your car drive itself down from LA to San Diego, while staying in the second to left lane. 

    I don’t know yet… but certainly there must be gasoline or hybrid cars that already allow this? 

    The upside of movement

    So I’m about eight months in living in Los Angeles, kind of figuring out how to live there. But still not 100% settled yet.

    Hitting the road again, just going on a road trip down to San Diego has been great; walking along the downtown San Diego waterfront, going to Torrey Pines State Beach and dipping my legs in the water with Seneca, and staring into the deep ocean, having the waves crashed directly towards me, has been extremely inspiring.

    Also even checking out some parts of old San Diego has been super inspirational because it taught me and show me that there is still so much of the world left to explore.

    I think this is where I am inspired by my friend Tim Flanagan — he is still traveling the world, nomadically, South America, Asia and beyond; did the wise and brave thing of taking an early retirement. People often tell him that “I wish I could do that, but I cannot because XYZ”. Tim is a good example, because he already has two grown sons, a handful of grandchildren, and some obligations back here in the states, but still… is doing the courageous and wise thing of traveling the globe.

    I also think a lot of people often say is that I need more money in order to do that. But Tim, choosing an early retirement certainly does not have a fat pension like a lot of other teachers or administrators; but still… perhaps the best way to travel the world in the globe is through this intelligent frugality time and money leveraging; the wise, hard spartan approach.

    Capital thoughts 

    I think one of the hardest things that people have to do is to think about cyberspace because it is so intangible.

    For example, I’m currently 36 years old, and I think most of my technological beliefs have been embedded into me ever since I was 18 years old, maybe 21 years old. So assuming that I graduated from college around 15 years ago, I’m almost 2 decades in the game.

    First, maybe this is where I am such a wise bitcoin investor. I know how to think in terms of bitcoin and digital and cyber things, because technically I started all of my capital in my website, which is a cyber digital commodity. Or cyber real estate.

    Also, conservation of time energy space and power.

    Life leverage

    I didn’t the reason why I quit email is because it doesn’t scale well.

    For example, now that I am such a notable and famous entity… I simply do not have enough time units in a day or a lifetime to respond or continue any sort of conversations of anything that comes in my inbox.

    I also suppose this issue is with generative AI… It is kind of impossible to know whether the email you are receiving is from a real human being or not.

    Maybe this could be a great filter in brave new digital world; some sort of “orange check” from a given email address, to prove humanity. A simple thing or more radical thing… Have an email address verified by a certain bitcoin wallet or balance, some sort of cyber digital ation, which could prove that is a human being, and how much worth they have. 

    Public bitcoin balances?

    Imagine this cyber future world in which you could meet people glance at people, or maybe even ask… making it socially acceptable to ask people how many bitcoins they own. And from this information you could tell how wealthy they really are.

    For example, the shortcut we have about this is maybe the car people drive, where they live, their clothes accessories etc. But technically this is not a very good indicator, because every dime you spend on material things is actually capital and money you have invested in something else, or more bitcoins.

    For example if I had any financial advice to young rappers, is for them not to buy any car just Uber around everywhere… And all that money they would blow at the strip club or on cars, just buy bitcoin.

    Also, instead of them blowing all that money on jewelry, buying bitcoin instead. I wonder if in the near future, instead of wearing diamond chains and necklaces… Young rappers will simply have bitcoin icons tattooed into their body?

    Bitcoin on wheels?

    For example, whenever you some see somebody pull up in a cybertruck, a Lamborghini Ferrari or Porsche or whatever… Let us say the car is worth $200,000 — irregardless of how rich you are,  assuming you could have 10x’d, 100x’d or even 1,000x’d that money …. anybody who invests money into things which will not accrue and value over time is a fool.

    For example, that $200,000 car could be a $2 million investment vehicle, a $20 million investment vehicle, or $200 million investment vehicle. Something that appreciates in time forever!
    

    The true investor and capitalist is actually very frugal and economical?

    Once again, if I told you with 100 precision today that any money you put into bitcoin would multiply itself by a factor of 1000… wouldn’t this change your purchasing behaviors today?

    Of course! Even if you time-discount things, if you knew your money would 10 X, 100 X, 500 X  within a year, two years, five years, 10 years or 20 years… the most rational or wise people would just put all of that money US dollars or fiat currency into bitcoin. 

    For example, if you knew that your $1000 invested in that thing you purchased today might be worth $100,000 10 years from now… then make that decision–

    “Is it really that worth it to you?”

    Now what?

    I still believe Zack Snyder‘s magnum opus thus far has been the movie 300. This is when he was still a young scrappy director, still with a limited budget, and made one of the best films of all time. I think in terms of courage, manliness, and overall valor, this film has not yet been reached by any other film. Not even the steroid infused Rock comes close. 

    Re-watching the film, now as a 36 year-old adult with a 3 1/2 year-old son,  similar to the fictitious age of King Leonidas, and the movie… some interesting observations: 

    1. One of the greatest blessings of man is to beget a son. If you have birth your first born child as a son, consider yourself infinitely blessed. The greatest blessing that reality could bestow you with. For the most part, I think the more kids, the jollier the better. In fact, nowadays whenever I see families with 3 kids, 4 kids, 5 kids… I think “Wow… that family is grand”. Then what that signals is not that the family is “rich“ in the traditional sense, but has their priority in their future generations, and cares more about begetting children than their “career”.
    2. The best clothing is no or minimal clothing. The whole film, all of the actors and the Spartan hoplites and King Leonidas are simply wearing loincloths, or reinforced speedo’s. Therefore, the best pants are short shorts. And the best shirt or top is bare chested, no shirt. I suppose the nuance is back then, they wore a cape– a crimson cape. Is there such thing as a modern day cape?
    3. Ultimately, it comes down to physical valor and courage. Note, in movie 300… all the Spartan hoplites what they had — their muscles, their courage, their helmets, their sword spear and shield. No vehicles.

    The Spartan way

    I then suppose if you want to become a true Spartan, have at least one son, to carry on your name. In the movie 300, king Leonidas confirms with all of his 300 Spartan hoplites whether they had at least one son to carry on their name, because they all essentially knew that it would die in combat.

    So it seems to me that the logical strategy in life is to beget at least one son, and then direct all your money resources time and power to raise that son with the greatest of benefits. 

    Before I had a son, before I had Seneca… I would look at all these guys who looked super rich and drove all these expensive cars as being some sort of “competition” with me. But now, they are all invisible to me. Why? a lot of them are single bachelors not even married, no kids. When they die, their whole lineage is dead. So to me I look at them like the walking (to be) dead.

    Then I look at more older richer “successful“ looking parents in LA; and then I look at their kids, and I weigh Seneca against them; Seneca is much stronger, bigger, taller, more handsome, more muscular, more physically adept then them. The Spartan warrior boy who eats picanha at Fogo de Chão, with a carnivorous diet, versus all of these emaciated feeble looking children who are fed on grain and Cheerios.

    So now, the only comparisons I do is looking at young boys around Seneca’s age, and looking at Seneca. Everything and everyone else is invisible to me.

    The role of a father?

    I think the simple role of a father is to simply raise, train, and battle ready your child. 

    Simply put, I think the best strategy of raising your son is maximum time outdoors, in the direct elements, maximum time with physical activity exercise and the great outdoors, climbing, being in the water, throwing rocks in the water, eating meat etc. All this nonsense about “education” is overrated.

    Just ask yourself:

    What would king Leonidas do?

    Howard King Leonidas raise his son?

    “Education”?

    If your kid is born in America, and has two educated parents… certainly whether you like it or not, they will learn how to be fluent in English, learn the English language, without even trying.

    In fact, the ultimate education and learning happens in the real world.

    I have the ultimate pride in Seneca, from a via negativa perspective:

    1. Since he was born, he has never watched any YouTube, Disney+, YouTube kids, Netflix etc.
    2. Since he was born he has never been put into preschool, daycare, “Montessori” school etc.
    3. He has never eaten candy, ice cream, desserts or cake, etc.
    4. He has never been exposed to movies films TV shows Marvel etc.

    Then the irony is to privilege your kid, it isn’t about “adding“ activities or extracurricular activities for them; but rather what not to give them or what not to allow them to do.

    Life?

    I think the ideal life is not being employed, being self-employed and being a sole proprietor. If you see people who have to make zoom calls for a living, go to any office, or send emails for a living… they are not free. Freedom is the goal, not wealth. 

    During the day, the ideal is to just be outside all day. If you are worried about the sun, just wear a lot of sunblock, wear a hat, baseball cap, or one of those funny wide brimmed hiking hats. I used to think that they were really lame, those hats which are really really big and long in the front, and really really long in the back to protect your neck. But now, I understand the rationale. And if you want to protect your body just wear long pants and long sleeves. 

    An epiphany I also had about weather; even the most glorious of weather, not that the sun is in full blast in Los Angeles, the big issue is now the sun is almost too strong — even wearing SPF 60 sunblock, the UV rays of the sun feels like pins and needles on my shoulders and on top of my forehead. And also watching the Dune movie, all of the fighters of Arrakis essentially look like Middle Eastern people, all covered up, besides the eyes – Paul Atriedes at the very end, full battle gear, head and face covered besides the blue spice-infused eyes.

    Then what that also means is when it is cold or the winter… Dress intelligently. Lots of layers. If you get too hot just take off layers. Just like when it is too hot, just keep taking clothes off until there are no more clothes to takeoff. 

    What else?

    If you have the privilege, hit the beach! Just go barefoot in the sand and the water, just dip your feet and your legs and your body into the ocean. And then just stare into the deep ocean, with the waves crashing directly into and at you.

    The big epiphany I had about the ocean is this:

    Infinite power and horizons, never ending … forever.

    I even thought, maybe the best bitcoin mining rig would just be a mega computer in the middle of the ocean, harnessing the forever power of the ocean, gravity and the solar system.

    Now what?

    If you want a simple trip that is not too difficult, just go on a hike in nature, or just hit the beach! I think there is a grand connection between man his environment and nature; he spent too much time in a cramped city, I think your horizon narrows. Even the simple action of staring into the sea… You know that your future is infinite. 

    ERIC

    INCOMING!

    Conquer the planet and beyond at upcoming ERIC KIM WORKSHOP:

    1. SF: Conquer your fears, October 26, 2024
    2. DOWNTOWN LA– the OG: Conquer your fears in street photography and beyond November 16, 2024

    For the insanely bold–

    CAMBODIA 2025 ANGKOR WORKSHOP EXPERIENCE

    Now what?

    Never stop shooting!

    ERIC

    Start here, Books, News

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    Upload Your Photos Here >

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    ERIC KIM BLOG

  • You Can’t Tame Me!

    Untameable

    What is the role and task of modern day society? To tame the individual, to tame the beast-man. 

    For example, if you think about almost all K-12 education, even at the college University level… What does it aim towards? Obedience, ability to sedate children to sit down, be quiet, listen to the teacher etc.

    For example, even when I think about traditional elementary school, it seems mostly disturbing that kids only get about 30 minutes or an hour of free play, outside today? There’s too much focus on “education”– this amorphus concept of “education.”

    Most books are bad?

    Recently, I’ve been taking Seneca a lot to these public libraries. We typically think the following:

    More books, more reading … “more” better.

    For example, we think about it in simple vector arithmetic forms. The more books you add to your brain, the more words and pages and books you consume, the “more” smart, virtuous, noble, and superior you will become. 

    But the issue here, going to the library, honestly 99.99% of these books are bad.

    For example, a lot of these books which are made for children are either dumb, or, they encourage strange morality. A lot of these books return for kids now are snarky And mostly written for the shits and giggles for parents.

    Weird kids at the park?

    Another hesitance and reticence of puddings Seneca in school; most kids at the park or actually really strange? With strange parents?

    For example, a lot of these kids who are obviously older than Seneca, because they talk really well and in full sentences etc.… They have strange morality, and also, strange ethics. Strange playground and workflows.

    Then you look at the parents… Look a little bit disturbed, all out on their phones, checking dumb Instagram and watching YouTube videos, while their kids are playing at the park, vying for their attention?

    iPhones are the new dumbing down tool. 

    I have a very simple idea for  parents, children, and adults alike:

    Lock up your iPhones in the glove compartment of your car, or just leave it at home when you go out.

    It is almost like a metaphorical analogy of tying yourself to the mast a la Odysseus.

    For example, if you really really want to be 100%, 1000% present with your child when you’re at the park with them, very very simple, turn off your phone, put inside the glove compartment, close it, then play with your kid at the park!

    Another funny workflow or hacks; if your kid wants to play on the iPad, make it a rule that you are not allowed to watch or do anything on the iPad at home, only at the park, or the downtown area.

    I even have an idea for adults; perhaps the rule should be you are not allowed to use your phone, laptop, iPad at home endorse; only outside, in the direct sun!

    The sun

    We checked out this new super space book from the library the other day, and Cindy was reading it to Seneca before sleeping, and an interesting fact:

    One second, of the power of the sun could power the entire earth for 27,000 years.

    This is insane.

    It looks like now, summer is upon us, literally about four days ago, the sun came out in full force! Personally for me, this is my utopia in Paradise being in Los Angeles, but even yesterday… The sun almost became too strong for me. Even with SPF 60 sunblock on, The sunrays on my skin started to feel like pins and needles on my forehead, my forearms, the back of my neck, etc.  it is so strong that I am contemplating on starting to wear a baseball cap more frequently, and also, wearing long sleeved button up, popping the color to protect my neck.

    Anyways essentially, I think the new man is the man who best embraces in channels and harnesses and utilizes the environment to his benefit.

    Air conditioning weakens you

    I think the only legitimate time to use air-conditioning is if you live in a very very hot and humid place, turning it on for sleep. But besides this, air-conditioning I think is positively bad for you. Especially when you pair it with being indoors, and also with the air conditioning on.

    For example even being at the public library, which is indoors, dark and air condition… Being outside and being indoors is literally night and day.

    When I am outside, either in the shade or the sun, I immediately feel more energy, power, more zest for life. The second that I go indoors, it is dark and cramped, with air conditioning on… It immediately lulls me to sleep,  and also, shuts down my physiology? 

    And then I think, essentially the big issue here is adults, maybe even children now have been conditioned to prefer being indoors, like domesticated cattle, or tamed bulls?

    The raging bull

    Essentially, what is cattle? A male cow? Or whatever? A castrated cow.

    For men and for us men… it is obvious that our power comes from our balls. Our testicles. 

    A very very simple observation: the genetic difference between men and woman is situated in the issue of testicles or no testicles.

    It doesn’t even matter what your sexual orientation is, or your self-professed gender. The better question:

    Do you got balls or no balls?

    Honestly, all of this debate and politicking  about sex, gender, sexual orientation etc.… It seems here the issue is that people somehow want to deny the scientific laws of physiology?

    For example, testes. Or ovaries. If you are a woman with ovaries, or if you experience a sort of menstrual cycle, certainly when you are experiencing hormonal shifts during your menstrual cycle, you will feel act and behaved differently than if you don’t have one. And this is independent whatever your sexual preferences are.

    But… I think that women will never understand about men, is that men we have testosterone. How does testosterone manifest itself? Simple: it gives us power and force when we need it, for example, if you want to lift 1000 pounds … you will certainly want to harness and channel your testosterone to your benefit. It seems very foolish too rub one out really quick before lifting 1000 pounds.

    Or, I am very dubious that Hafthor rubbed one out really quickly before dead lifting his infamous 502 kg dead lift.

    These body parts aren’t free

    “This dick ain’t free”– Drake

    Another funny gendered truism:

    More often than not, it seems that the goal is for men to seduce women in order to bed them, and will often spend largest sums of money directly or indirectly to do this… But never never the other way around? 

    For example, assuming that man is the world to power, and man desires more power, in theory the optimal strategy is to never release your seminal fluid. Apparently this is called “semen retention”. And also the funny new pseudo masculine walk strategy is to see how long you could retain your semen, before in naturally emissions itself in your sleep.

    I think the superstition that boxers should not have sex the night before the big fight is a good one.

    Also, ancient Chinese notions of Yang and Yang; apparently one man ejects his semen, it is considered that he is losing his Yang, a bad thing. Therefore as a consequence, the theory for life for a Chinese Emperor was for him to bed as many women virgins as possible, but he was not allowed to ejaculate? Blue balling yourself for immortality.

    Science?

    Certainly much of science, the scientific method of inquiry is a good one. Cause and effect, experimentation. 

    However, often we fall victim to something called “scientism“– the basic ideas that it sounds like signs, but in fact, it is hocus-pocus, uncritical.

    For example, this nonsensical notion of “calories“,” burning“ calories. 

    The insane idea is that somehow, the average human being “burns” 2000 calories a day, and in order to not get fat, you must “burn” 2000 calories a day. 

    My personal theory is that this pseudoscience is promoted by the Coca-Cola corporation, who wants you to “balance“ what you eat consume and how you move. 

    For example, the reason why this is so pernicious is that somehow, let us see I drink that mini Coca-Cola can, which has “only” 1000 calories — then the ideas that if I worked out and I’m fit or whatever, or I don’t “consume“ that many calories in a day, I somehow will not get fat and get diabetes.

    Then as a consequence, one ends up drinking juice, quinoa salads, and still continues to consume Coca-Cola, and that person ends up getting fat, poor blood sugar levels, and the individuals confused on why this is the case.

    Any level of sugar, high fructose corn syrup, Splenda, real or fake sweeteners is toxic.

    Or another words, trust no human being who drinks “0 cal“ sweetened beverages, soda or Coca-Cola, even in “moderation”. Also, trust no thinker who smokes marijuana, consumes marijuana, CBD, or alcohol.

    Have you ever met a 100% sober academic?

    Or–

    Have you ever met a vegetarian or vegan who did not drink beer, wine, alcohol or spirits, or partook in marijuana?

    I think if alcohol was not vegetarian or vegan, you would see a lot fewer vegetarians and vegans. 

    Untaming yourself 

    If you are a bull, and let us say that you are a fighting bull, is it a good idea to castrate yourself if your objective is to fight? No.

    I think a modern day society, man is metaphorically castrating himself. And also, denying his beast like attributes, as well as lowering his testosterone?

    For example, marijuana, alcohol lowers your testosterone. Also, sugar and starches lower your testosterone.

    I cannot speak from the female perspective because I am not a woman, but, thinking critically about male things is a good idea. 

    So what should I do?

    In the realm of photography and street photography, I think one of the critical concerns that people got is photographing children now that I am a parent, and I have a young child, the calculus is simple:

    I have zero problems if a photographer or street photographer wants to photograph Seneca. I would just prefer they don’t do it with a telephoto lens hiding behind a bush.

    Creepiness is proportional to focal length. 

    What that means is this; if you don’t want to look creepy, don’t use a telephoto lens. Only use wide-angle prime lenses. 

    And also, no need to be hidden stealth and candid all the time; even Henri Cartier-Breason used to shoot street photography with a handkerchief tied around his Leica camera, and would pretend to sneeze when shooting pictures. I find this a bit creepy. 

    “How would you feel if somebody photographed you without your permission“?

    I wouldn’t mind. In fact, I would feel flattered.

    This is where ethics becomes so interesting;

    My ethics don’t need to be proportional to your ethics in order for me to be legitimate.

    Now what?

    My simple line of ethics is to do things, 100% naked and transparent, which means, never do anything in secret public or private that you wouldn’t be comfortable having your wife or kid know.

    For example —  I would not encourage a man or a father to look at certain images or videos that he would not be comfortable having his son know that his father is doing in secret or in Google incognito, with bay browser, with a VPN, or with any sort of “privacy”, preserving tools. Also the issue with privacy is I wonder… how much of this fake privacy stuff has to deal with people watching strange pornography on the Internet?

    Don’t watch porn that you would not feel comfortable having your kid know that you’re watching.

    How to live a virtuous life?

    Virtue is what we seek. I think even with our children, the goal is to raise virtuous kids? Even my best man Justin told me in regards to child rearing; he just doesn’t want to raise a degenerate kid.

    I wonder if the first thing:

    Perhaps good parenting is “via negativa”– what don’t you want your kids to become to grow up.

    For example, I don’t want Seneca to become a degenerate, drug consumer, smoke weed etc.

    In fact, I recently discovered that a lot of these really rich families, and issue with the children; they get addicted to methamphetamine, partying with women on yachts, blowing through the family wealth.

    What I want to teach Seneca to become a Spartan voice; simple, stoic and hard.

    What that means is imputing my ethics and morality into him, which is centered around virtue, simplicity, courage and strength. Also, physical valor.

    First, seek to become your own ideal

    I was talking to a dad the other day about who the greatest basketball player was of all time, and it is either Michael Jordan, LeBron James, or Kobe Bryant. Why? Their will to win.

    On one hand, the notion of winning were losing as a bad one because in real life, this notion does not exist, only in games, or sports.

    I suppose in ancient Greek times, if you think about the Iliad, the simple calculus was who kills who? 

    For example, as long as nobody could kill Achilles in combat, he is the victor. And also, Lee it doesn’t matter your philosophy or worldview, if somebody else kills you in battle, you are the loser.

    Don’t get killed

    Then perhaps the first notion of success is not getting killed.

    Then, if you are babysitting your nieces or nephews for the weekend, the best way to return them to their parents is “alive and intact”.

    Don’t let your kid die 

    Living here in Los Angeles, it seems that the biggest issue here is that  it seems there is actually a very high likelihood of dying in a car accident, getting hit by cars, have your kid die in a car accident, we’re having your kid get killed by a car that runs a red, either by accident or intentionally.

    Some thoughts:

    1. First, if your child is still young, and you’re living in the city, the rule is they are not allowed to cross the street. It doesn’t matter if your kid is the most intelligent kid in the world. Even a car driving at 15 mph hour or 25 mph could be lethal, especially to a small and young 3 1/2-year-old child.
    2. Non-distracted driving? Certainly the change begins with yourself. I made it a rule along time ago to never listen to any music or podcasts when I am driving in my car. I only use my phone for GPS and Google maps, everything else is off. In fact, the critical issue here was that I was listening to a podcast, while in Berkeley, and there was some sort of annoying pre-roll advertisement I think on Tim Farris’s audio podcast, and I was trying to skip it, and while trying to skip it on my smart phone, I almost got into a car accident.

    Laser eyes?

    Laser eyes are the future. You don’t want to enslave your eyeballs to a foreign screen or device.

    For example, when I think about the real world, when I think about embodied reality, the world is like one mega jumbo screen, four dimensions, infinite.

    Then I think that people enslaved their eyeballs to a tiny 5 inch screen, this is bad.

    Simple thoughts:

    1. Get rid of those iPhone Pro’s. Honestly, Apple coming up with the iPhone Pro, a shameless cash grab. If Steve Jobs were still alive I don’t think he would ever let it fly. Also — Jony Ive. I have a theory that even Joni I was reluctant to design and produce the iPhone pro, because he knew that it violated the design ethics of Steve Jobs and Apple.
    2. Get outside! Am I the only person on the planet who walks around town, with his iPad Pro, and voice dictates everything?

    Building the future 

    Stop buying those iPhones buy those bitcoins!

    Recently my neighbor just bought a brand new Porsche 718 S, and I thought to myself:

    Wow, that $80,000 would be a lot better invested into bitcoin.

    Assuming that bitcoin 10 X’s, 100 x’s, or even 1000x’s from here…  that means $80,000 will turn into $800,000, turns into $8 million, turns into $80 million.

    If your automobile, that money you sink into it would be worth $80 million even 10 years from now… Would you do that trade? No.

    Even cybertruck; which I consider the best vehicle created of all time; I would love to have one, but I think the more intelligent strategy is to transform your body into a cybertruck, and just put your moneys into bitcoin instead. 

    Why? The simple math is even from a conservative perspective, bitcoin has been going up at least 50 to 55% year over year. What that then means is if you just do a simple calculation or graph using ChatGPT pro , your $1 million in bitcoin today will be worth $57,000,000 10 years from now, $57 million, or $3 billion dollars years from now. 
    And in 30 years, your bitcoin will be worth $191 Billion dollars.

    Or other maths:

    1. 6 years until you hit $10M
    2. 12 years until you hit $100M
    3. 18 years until you hit $1B– which is not that long that is when Seneca turns 21.

    Do you remember when Google first IPOd, when Facebook first IPOd, when Amazon first IPOd and everyone thought that it was stupid? 

    Or, do you remember when the first iPhone two came out, and everyone thought it was insane that it had no physical keyboard like a blackberry?

    Or, do you remember when Steve Jobs first announce the iPad, and people were angry that it didn’t have any USB ports?

    Everyone will always ridicule something until they get one. 

    For example, the joke with the iPad is they called it an “I tampon”.

    How many people who were die hard blackberry users, now use an iPhone?  And thinking about the future, how many foolish people with a Ford F150, or even worse, an F150 raptor will eventually trade in all their cars just buy a Cybertruck truck? 

    Or, all of these early adopters of the Rivian truck, how much of them are secretly jealous or envious or desired that they had a cyber truck instead?

    Even myself, I was a diehard user of android phones for a very very long time, even having the original android HTC Evo — but even myself eventually I figured out that iPhone and iOS was 1 trillion times better, and eventually I even switched.

    Same thing goes with computers, I was always anti-apple, but once I got my first 11 inch MacBook Air, realized I was a fool for using windows all along.

    I wonder if the line of thinking will be for bitcoin; when people finally do get bitcoin, they will think:

    Why didn’t I buy bitcoin earlier?

    Financial thinking

    I think the simplest way to become more frugal is assume that the $1,000 you spend today will multiplied by a factor of 10, 100, or 1000 just a few years from now. If this is the case, how would your spending behaviors change? 

    The $1000 iPhone Pro you purchase will become 10,000, 100,000, $1 million in 10 years. Then the optimal strategy maximally frugal; the true capitalist just uses an iPhone SE.

    Technology x Capitalism

    We are the new capitalists. Bitcoin is the way.

    ERIC

    ***

  • Your Ultimate Goal in Life?

    Your Ultimate Goal in Life?

    What is my ultimate goal? To help improve the lives or the meaning of life of others or for others?

    Your-Ultimate-Goal-in-Life-4Download

    Life post privilege

    I think one of the greatest privileges of having everything, becoming everything, is the privilege of buffer. Once you have everything you want, everything you need and desire, and also you have great clarity on life and things, then the simple question is — What do you want out of your life, for your life, from your life?

    The first very basic thing is that I think, after all of this, the ultimate goal is to help empower the lives of others.

    Think philosophy

    Ultimately, everything comes down to a philosophical question.

    For example, I look at all of these, unmarried, men, working hard at their tech jobs, working hard from home, etc.… all for the sake of what?

    I think it’s all society. It seems that the real carrot and the cure is capitalism and consumerism in general.

    For example, it seems the obvious answer here is children, begetting children, having children etc. Yet it seems like the critical flaw here is that people no longer want to have kids, it is a not a desired thing.

    People would prefer to have dogs, they would prefer to go out and drink alcohol and go to festivals and do strange drugs, smoke or consume marijuana, or buy some sort of expensive car, to feel superior and dominant?

    Or, to purchase clothes, all for the sake of what? 

    Problems?

    I think the first obvious corporate here is Instagram, now I suppose TikTok, maybe also YouTube.

    YouTube is a little bit less at fault because most real life individuals don’t actually have their own YouTube channels; I think people approach YouTube as entertainment, whereas everyone has their own individual Instagram account, maybe even a few having a TikTok account? 

    Instagram issues

    I saw on the other day at the public library, a Wall Street Journal headline showing that effectively, the algorithm of Instagram or whatever promotes sexual behaviors activities and exhibitions.

    I think this is true and also very concerning. For example, I think Mark Zuckerberg has to make a critical decision here; now that he is a father. Effectively, what is Instagram? I think it is promoting young girl child pedophilia; let us think, if you are young girl, what things will get the most likes? Things tend to be pseudo sexual and nature, showing off your body parts etc.

    Even a lot of these 20 year olds, 20-year-old female women, the reason they become influencers is that there are lots of photos of them looking sexy and beautiful in bathing suits at the pool, living a glamorous life etc.

    Also problematic for men and boys etc., strange images of men with beards, sunglasses, facial hair, with guns, and a bunch of babes around them?

    Regardless, I think my simple parenting idea will be this:

    I will never purchase or give Seneca his own phone iPhone smart phone etc.

    No social media.

    Would you give your kids cigarettes to smoke, or worse, heroin? 

    Allowing your kids to use social media, or getting on it, or giving them their own phone is almost like a smoking parent, who is already addicted to nicotine, offering their kids to smoke.

    If anything, social media, phones, Instagram, etc. might actually be 1000 times worse for kids than smoking, as social media now leads to depression, or strange dopamine hits to be programmed in a strange way.

    My first suggestion is for parents, all parents, to just delete their Instagram, and also delete YouTube from their phones. And also unsubscribe from all of these silly subscription services, Spotify, Disney, Disney plus, Netflix whatever.

    The new Matrix?

    What a lot of fools don’t understand is that technology improvements only happen when you get rid of stuff.

    For example, one step in the right direction is when Apple promoted the fact that you could use the Apple Watch to make phone calls, or send messages while just leaving your phone at home. Any technology which could allow you to leave your iPhone in your car or at home is a good thing.

    And yes, let us stop calling it a smart phone, just call it an iPhone. In America, Essentially 99.9% of people use iPhones. The only people who don’t use iPhones are either poor people, working class people, or a few stragglers who still use Google Pixel.

    Even internationally, any rich person will either desire or use an iPhone Pro; any influencer who is using a Samsung phone or maybe even a Google pixel phone is either being sponsored or paid. I don’t know any human being who would actually spend over $500 to purchase either an android phone or Google pixel or a Samsung. Or spend any money on a phone which isn’t an iPhone. My working theory is that almost everybody who has a smartphone made by Samsung either got it for free by signing up for some sort of cell phone plan.

    New worlds

    What is happiness and human flourishing? Simple, moving around, being dynamic, being outside.

    For example, any sort of activity which encourages dynamic movement in the elements is good. This includes hiking at a nature preserve, walking around the neighborhood, going to the beach, riding the subway, essentially anything which is not indoors or inside a car. 

    The privilege of fitness

    Fitness and exercise is the new modern day privilege. If you have the privilege to work out, exercise, ideally outside… You are the new top .01%.

    For example, my new intervention realizing that actually, working out outside, in the direct sun topless, is 1 trillion times more enjoyable than working out inside an enclosed stuffy gym.

    In fact, I’ve been seeing a lot more people working out outside either in parking lots, at the beach etc.

    Unsubscribe

    Cancel your memberships and your subscription plans. 

    I think my great pride is that I don’t have any subscription services. I am not subscribed to Netflix, Spotify, Disney Disney+ whatever.

    Also, I think for the most part if you have a closeby gym that you like, and you go to the gym every day this is good. But, if you’re in a position in which it is too cumbersome to go to the gym, and you don’t go, just cancel your gym membership and work out from home.

    Titan.fitness is a godsend — you can get the independent squat rack trees for only 300 bucks! And it can handle about 1000 pounds. Just purchase some cast-iron weight plates to save money.

    A non-brainer

    The more I think about it, simply put, the best thing you could use money on is to buy weightlifting equipment, whether it be a barbell, a squat rack, weight plates etc.

    Why? A big issue here in Los Angeles is that gyms will cost you an arm and a leg. On average even the ghetto LA fitness will cost you maybe around $70 bucks a month. Multiply that by a year; you’re almost paying $1000 a year for your gym membership. Invest instead to just buy $1000 worth of weightlifting equipment, and in theory assuming use every single day for the next 10 years, you will actually save a lot of money. 

    Food

    For beverages all you need is tap water or filtered water from home. Actually do you think about it and do the math, if you are one of those fools who consume “alkaline water“; it costs more money per gallon than gasoline. 

    Anyone who drinks alkaline water or promotes it, is patently a fool. If anything, real men drink tap water. 

    Probably one of the most useful nuggets I’ve learned from the Walter Isaacson biography on Elon Musk is that Elon Musk drinks tapwater. If the world’s most genius richest man drinks tap water, so should you. 

    For coffee, fine robusta is the way. Either get some ERIC KIM Omakase coffee, or, my friends sisters coffee and tea Company CREO— fine robusta is the way. 

    For example, my preferred way to consume coffee is espresso. I find that for myself, two shots of fine robusta coffee from Vietnam gives me an insanely good buzz, three shots for god-level buzz … whereas it might take me nine or 10 shots of light roast arabica Ethiopia yirgafheffe to get me in the same mood. 

    Build things which you wish to see manifested in the world

    Currently, my primary moneymaking profession is through crypto cryptocurrency and bitcoin. And also, when I think about all my great innovations that I came up with while living in Vietnam, for only $300 a month, all the things that I came up with, and created or things that I genuinely believe that the human race would benefit from.

    For example arsbeta.com — essentially my first stab at replacing Instagram. A double blind experiment photo sharing platform, without the need of intermediaries.

    My next vision for ARS; if you want to “like” a photo, essentially what you have to do is you zap them with a Satoshi – the smallest fraction of a bitcoin. And the great thing is that a single Satoshi is infinitely small, but ultimately does have some real monetary value. I think a single Satoshi is only worth 100th of a penny– but in fact, if I really created this new economy, this would be world changing.

    The problem right now with likes on social media is that it doesn’t cost anything. You can mindlessly scroll in like 1 trillion things. But, if it actually cost you a single Satoshi to like a photo, then there is true skin in the game.

    Another way to fix email; make it a required thing for people to pay a single Satoshi before sending an email.

    The first photo sharing platform powered by bitcoin and Satoshi

    Anyways, if you want to build the future email me at eric@erickim.com — ideally I am looking for bitcoin developers, who could essentially build this thing. Very very simple thing, it would look like Instagram, be connected with a bitcoin lightning wallet, either the cash app or the Coinbase app, and users can make their own account whatever– and the core functionality is that the idea to like a photo will be instead a lightning bolt (⚡️) or a 🔥, in which you have to pay a single Satoshi either “like” a photo of somebody.

    And, building up on the concept of ARS; if you want a famous photographer to give you feedback on your photos, there will be a messaging app, and a request critique function in which you asked there is a bid functionality of how many Satoshi‘s you will charge and accept for a critique on a certain photo.

    ***

    Spread wealth and prosperity

    The general promise of capitalism is to spread prosperity, happiness, joy, freedom, liberty and justice for the greatest number of people across the planet.

    People like to critique and criticize America and capitalism, but, even the Chinese, the Chinese yuan, the CNY is effectively pegged to the US dollar. In fact, all of the global currencies are pegged to the US dollar. 

    The troubling thing is even the worlds strongest currency of the US dollar is losing 7 to 10% of its value, year over year. And the money supply is expanding at an alarming rate.

    As a consequence, the whole world economy is not doing too hot, but, it’s still seems that the refuge is America. You’ve been in Korean, the word for America is “mi-gook” which means beautiful country. (Mi — beauty, good – country).

    So now what?

    Simply put, devote dedicate an investor time energy and resources in doing and building things you actually care for. Assuming that you’re a bitcoin billionaire, and you no longer have any money needs — just build it!

    ERIC

    Ideas

    1. Make your own website or blog. Ionos.com and install WordPress.org
    2. Start an email newsletter; sendy.com
    3. Delete your Instagram, we all congratulate people for quitting heroin or cocaine or smoking cigarettes; shouldn’t the same attitude be done or addressed in the context of Instagram? And let us not call it social media; call a spade a spade. Instagram is the real bad guy here, not social media.

    Photo ideas

    Pentax just put out the new film camera which is really cool. And it has a flash! It is essentially the new Ricoh GR for the next generation. And it is genius! Because it has a half frame concept, which means that you could shoot twice the number of photos on a single roll of film, 72 pictures instead of the typical 36.

    Pentax 17

    And it does seem that even in today’s world with iPhones, kids young kids highschoolers etc. still prefer to shoot film! My working theory is that people still prefer to have standalone cameras, they actually want to spend less time on their phones.

    Also what is very interesting about generation Z is that they are actually the most self-aware generation; they know that phones and social media and Instagram is bad they also know that alcohol is bad and causes cancer, and also marijuana is also bad for you, Z is a good generation because they prefer sobriety and being sober.

    A fun question I like to ask people:

    Has anybody ever enjoyed burning man, going to a festival, going to an EDM rave that was 100% sober? No drugs, no alcohol?

    And even though Elon Musk is definitely the greatest entrepreneur of all time; the issue here is that he still drinks Coca-Cola, Red Bull, and alcohol. 

    Other ideas

    Another new camera which got released recently is the new Ricoh GR highlight diffusion filter — I think the idea is genius; essentially emulating the film aesthetic and look but the convenience of shooting digital.

    28mm

    Now that Seneca is getting older, the age of three years, three months… Having a 28 mm lens in focal length is very good here, because he is getting really into climbing, climbing at the park rock climbing etc.… a 28 mm lens is great at exaggerating angles, perspectives, epic action.

    Think 28mm.

    Travel!

    Some incoming workshops include my next year insanely epic Angkor Wat Cambodia travel photography workshop experience,  and some upcoming workshops both in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

    Now that Covid is over, I think it is a great thing that we are all hungry to travel again. Yet we are still stuck in a bog and malaise; because there was so much friction that got us stuck during Covid, now is your chance to travel!

    Also some good places to travel include Japan, where you could essentially get a transit pasmo card, directly on your Apple iPhone wallet! Insanely easy, and also because the Japanese yen is collapsing because of the population decline, that means that our US dollars have stronger purchasing power there.

    Also, Istanbul and Turkey might be good because the Turkish lira is also collapsing, which is good for you if you are paid in US dollars.

    Also good times to go to Korea, Vietnam, anywhere in the world. For example just booked my mom ticket round-trip from South Korea to LAX, round-trip, only $500 USD!

    To find cheap flights just use kayak or Google flights.  

    Now what?

    The two fields which are developing extremely quickly in an exciting rate is both cryptocurrency-bitcoin, and artificial intelligence.

    If you want to be the future, ensure that you have the paid ChatGPT app subscription, and also, ensure that you have some bitcoin. Even my friend Natalie told me a few years ago, “every intelligent person I know in the Bay Area has at least some bitcoin!”

    I think the simplest thing to do is just buy some bitcoin with the Coinbase app; my simple thought is there’s no reason why bitcoin will not 10 X, 100 X, or even 1000 X in our lifetime. That means the thousand dollars you spend on an iPhone Pro might become $10,000, $100,000, or maybe even $1 million!

    As a consequence, I have been becoming even more frugal with my money, and continuing to buy bitcoin with any dime I could lay my hands on! 

    People still think bitcoin is too expensive, but 20 years from now, when one bitcoin is worth $10 million a coin… wouldn’t you have wished that you bought it right now at a discount?

    I think the best way to learn about bitcoin is just binge watch and listen to all the Michael Saylor interviews and podcasts– Michael.com and hope.com

    Currently, I am self studying some Austrian economics from Carl Menger — Principles of Economics PDF on my iPad Pro.

    Also, if you do not currently own an iPad, or just have a really really old one that doesn’t work that well, definitely get the new M4 iPad Pro the small one; The only Apple device currently worth purchasing! Good job Apple team here.

    What else?

    For shoes, Vibram 5 finger shoes (Vibram.com) and if you have access, go to the beach! Beach people tend to be happier.

    Currently Ocean Park in Santa Monica is my new favorite joint!

    What else? 

    Think fun, not fitness. Even go to the local park, breathing some air from the fresh trees, and have fun!

    ERIC

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  • Your Ultimate Goal in Life?

    What is my ultimate goal? To help improve the lives or the meaning of life of others or for others?

    I think one of the greatest privileges of having everything, becoming everything, and also the privilege of buffer. Is that once you have everything you want, everything you need and desire, and also you have great clarity on life and things, then the simple question is What do you want out of your life, for your life, from your life?

    The first very basic thing is that I think, after all of this, the ultimate goal is to help empower the lives of others.

    I think this is where is so fascinating and critical to me because ultimately, everything comes down to a philosophical question.

    For example, I look at all of these, unmarried, men, working hard at their tech jobs, working hard from home, etc.… All for the sake of what?

    I think it’s all society. It seems that the real carrot and the cure is capitalism and consumerism in general.

    For example, it seems the obvious answer here is children, be getting children, having children etc. Yet it seems like the critical flaw here is that people no longer want to have kids, it is a not a desired thing.

    People would prefer to have dogs, they would prefer to go out and drink alcohol and go to festivals and do strange drugs, smoke or consume marijuana, or buy some sort of expensive car, to feel superior and dominant?

    Or, to purchase clothes, all for the sake of what? 

    Problems?

    I think the first obvious corporate here is Instagram, now I suppose TikTok, maybe also YouTube.

    YouTube is a little bit less at fault because most real life individuals don’t actually have their own YouTube channels; I think people approach YouTube as entertainment, whereas everyone has their own individual Instagram account, maybe even a few having a TikTok account? 

    Instagram issues

    I saw on the other day at the public library, a Wall Street Journal headline showing that effectively, the algorithm of Instagram or whatever promotes sexual behaviors activities and exhibitions.

    I think this is true and also very concerning. For example, I think Mark Zuckerberg has to make a critical decision here; now that he is a father. Effectively, what is Instagram? I think it is promoting young girl child pedophilia; let us think, if you are young girl, what things will get the most likes? Things tend to be pseudo sexual and nature, showing off your body parts etc.

    Even a lot of these 20 year olds, 20-year-old female women, the reason they become influencers is that there are lots of photos of them looking sexy and beautiful and bathing suits at the pool, living a glamorous life etc.

    Also problematic for men and boys etc., strange images of men with beards, sunglasses, facial hair, with guns, and a bunch of babes around them?

    Regardless, I think my simple parenting idea will be this:

    I will never purchase or give Seneca his own phone iPhone smart phone etc.

    In fact, no social media.

    Allowing your kitties social media, or getting on it, or giving them their own phone is almost like a smoking parent, who is already addicted to nicotine, offering their kids to smoke.

    If anything, social media, phones, Instagram, etc. might actually be 1000 times worse for kids than smoking, as social media now leads to depression, or strange dopamine hits to be programmed in a strange way.

    My first suggestion is for parents, all parents, to just delete their Instagram, and also delete YouTube from their phones. And also unsubscribe from all of these silly subscription services, Spotify, Disney, Disney plus, Netflix whatever.

    The new matrix?

    What a lot of fools don’t understand is that technology improvements only happen when you get rid of stuff.

    For example, I’ll step in the right direction is one Apple promoted the fact that you could use the Apple Watch to make phone calls, or send messages while just leaving your phone at home. Any technology which could allow you to leave your iPhone in your car or at home is a good thing.

    And yes, let us stop calling it a smart phone, just call it an iPhone. In America, Essentially 99.9% of people use iPhones. The only people who don’t use iPhones are either poor people, working class people, or a few stragglers who still use Google Pixel.

    Even internationally, any rich person will either desire or use an iPhone Pro; any influencer who is using a Samsung phone or maybe even a Google pixel phone is either being sponsored or paid. I don’t know any human being who would actually spend over $500 to purchase either an android phone or Google pixel or a Samsung. Spent any money. My working theory is that almost everybody who has a smart phone made by Samsung either got it for free by signing up for some sort of cell phone plan.

    New worlds

    What is happiness in human flourishing? Simple, moving around, being dynamic, being outside.

    For example, any sort of activity which encourages dynamic movement in the elements is good. This includes hiking at a nature preserve,  walking around the neighborhood, going to the beach, riding the subway, essentially anything which is not indoors or inside a car. 

    The privilege of fitness

    Fitness and exercise is the new modern day privilege. If you have the privilege to work out, exercise, ideally outside… You are the new top 01%.

    For example, my new intervention realizing that actually, working out outside, in the direct on topless, is 1 trillion times more enjoyable than working out inside an enclosed stuffy gym.

    In fact, I’ve been seeing a lot more people working out outside either in parking lots, at the beach etc.

    Unsubscribe

    Cancel your memberships and your subscription plans. 

    I think migrate pride is that I don’t have any subscription services. I am not subscribed to Netflix, Spotify, Disney Disney+ whatever.

    Also, I think for the most part if you have a close by gym that you like, and you go every day this is good. But, if you’re in a position in which it is too cumbersome to go to the gym, and you don’t go, just cancel your gym membership and work out from home.

    Titan.fitness is a godsend — you can get the independent squat rack trees for only 300 bucks! And it can handle about 1000 pounds. Just purchase some cast-iron weight plates to save money.

    The more I think about it, simply put, the best thing you could use money on is to buy weightlifting equipment, whether it be a barbell, a squat rack, weight plates etc.

    Why? A big issue here in Los Angeles is that gyms will cost you an arm and a leg. On average even the ghetto LA fitness will cost you maybe around $70 bucks a month.  multiply that by a year; you’re almost paying $1000 a year for your gym membership. Invest instead to just buy $1000 worth of weightlifting equipment, and in theory assuming use every single day for the next 10 years, you will actually save a lot of money. 

    Food

    For beverages all you need is top water or filtered water from home. Actually do you think about it and do the math, if you are one of those fools who consume “alkaline water“; it costs more money per gallon than gasoline. 

    Anyone who drinks alkaline water or promotes it, is patently a fool. If anything, real men drink tap water. 

    Probably one of the most useful nuggets I’ve learned from the Walter Isaacson biography on Elon Musk is that Elon Musk drink tapwater. If the world’s most genius richest man drinks tap water, so should you. 

    For coffee, fine robusta is the way. Either get some ERIC KIM Omakase coffee, or, my friends sisters coffee and tea Company CLEO– fine robusta is the way. 

    For example, my preferred way to consume coffee is espresso. I find that for myself, two shots of fine robusta coffee from Vietnam gives me an insanely good buzz, three shots for god-level buzz … whereas it might take me nine or 10 shots of light roast arabica Ethiopia yirgafheffe to get me in the same mood. 

    Build things which you wish to see manifested in the world

    Currently, my primary moneymaking profession is through crypto cryptocurrency and bitcoin. And also, when I think about all my great innovations that I came up with while living in Vietnam, for only $300 a month, all the things that I came up with, and created or things that I genuinely believe that the human race would benefit from.

    For example arsbeta.com — essentially my first stab at replacing Instagram. A double blind experiment photo sharing platform, without the need of intermediaries.

    My next vision for RSV; if you want to “like a photo, essentially what you have to do is you zap them with a Satoshi – the smallest fraction of a bitcoin. And the great thing is that a single Satoshi is infinitely small, but ultimately does have some real monetary value. I think a single Satoshi is only worth 100th of a penny– but in fact, if I really created this new economy, this would be world changing.

    The problem right now with likes on social media is that it doesn’t cost anything. You can mindlessly scroll in like 1 trillion things. But, if it actually cost you a single Satoshi to like a photo, then there is true skin in the game.

    Another way to fix email; make it a required thing for people to pay a single Satoshi before sending an email.

    Anyways, if you want to build the future email me at eric@erickim.com — ideally I am looking for bitcoin developers, who could essentially build this thing. Very very simple thing, it would look like Instagram, be connected with a bitcoin lightning wallet, either the cash app or the Coinbase app, and users can make their own account whatever– and the core functionality is that the idea to like a photo will be instead a lightning bolt (⚡️) or a 🔥, in which you have to pay a single Satoshi either “like” a photo of somebody.

    And, building up on the concept of ours; if you want a famous photographer to give you feedback on your photos, there will be a messaging app, and a request critique function in which you asked there is a bid functionality of how many Satoshi‘s you will charge and accept for a critique on a certain photo.

    ***

    Spread wealth and prosperity

    The general promise of capitalism is to spread prosperity, happiness, joy, freedom, liberty and justice for the greatest number of people across the planet.

    People like to critique and criticize America and capitalism, but, even the Chinese, the Chinese yuan, the CNY is effectively pegged to the US dollar. In fact, all of the global currencies are pegged to the US dollar. 

    The troubling thing is even the worlds strongest currency of the US dollar is losing 7 to 10% of its value, year over year. And the money supply is expanding at an alarming rate.

    As a consequence, the whole world economy is not doing too hot, but, it’s still seems that the refuge is America. You’ve been in Korean, the word for America is “mi-gook” which means beautiful country. (Mi — beauty, good – country).

    So now what?

    Simply put, devote dedicate an investor time energy and resources in doing and building things you actually care for. Assuming that you’re a bitcoin billionaire, and you no longer have any money needs — just build it!

    ERIC

    Ideas

    1. Make your own website or blog. Ionos.com and install WordPress.org
    2. Start an email newsletter; sendy.com
    3. Delete your Instagram, we all congratulate people for quitting heroin or cocaine or smoking cigarettes; shouldn’t the same attitude be done or addressed in the context of Instagram? And let us not call it social media; call a spade a spade. Instagram is the real bad guy here, not social media.

    Photo ideas

    Pentax just put out the new film camera which is really cool. And has a flash! It is essentially the new Ricoh GR for the next generation.  and it is genius! Because it has a half frame concept, which means that you could shoot twice the number of photos on a single roll of film, 72 pictures instead of the typical 36.

    And it does seem that even in today’s world with iPhones, kids young kids highschoolers etc. still prefer to shoot film! My working theory is that people still prefer to have standalone cameras, they actually want to spend less time on their phones.

    Also what is very interesting about generation Z is that they are actually the most self-aware generation; they know that phones and social media and Instagram is bad they also know that alcohol is bad and causes cancer, and also marijuana is also bad for you, Z is a good generation because they prefer sobriety and being sober.

    A fun question I like to ask people:

    Has anybody ever enjoyed burning man, going to a festival, going to an EDM rave that was 100% sober? No drugs, no alcohol?

    And even though Elon Musk is definitely the greatest entrepreneur of all time; the issue here is that he still drinks Coca-Cola, Red Bull, and alcohol. 

    Other ideas

    Another new camera which got released recently is the new Ricoh GR highlight diffusion filter — I think the ideas genius; essentially emulating the film aesthetic and look but the convenience of shooting digital.

    28mm

    Now that Seneca is getting older, the age of three years, three months… Having a 28 mm lens in focal length is very good here, because he is getting really into climbing, climbing at the parked rock climbing etc.… A 28 mm lens is great at exaggerating Ingles, perspectives, epic action.

    Think 28mm.

    Travel!

    Some incoming workshops include my next year insanely epic Angkor Wat Cambodia travel photography workshop experience,  in some upcoming workshops both in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

    You know that Covid is over, I think it is a great thing that we are all hungry to travel again. Yet we are still stuck in a bog in Malays; because there was so much friction that got us stuck during Covid, now is your chance to travel!

    Also some good places to travel include Japan, where you could essentially get a transit pasmo card, directly on your Apple iPhone wallet! Insanely easy, and also because the Japanese yen is collapsing because of the population decline, that means that our US dollars have stronger purchasing power there.

    Also, Istanbul and Turkey might be good because the Turkish lira is also collapsing, which is good for you if you are paid in US dollars.

    Also good times to go to Korea, Vietnam, anywhere in the world. For example just booked my mom ticket round-trip from South Korea to LAX, round-trip, only $500 USD!

    To find cheap flights just use kayak or Google flights.  

    Now what?

    The two fields which are developing extremely quickly in an exciting rate is both cryptocurrency, bitcoin, and artificial intelligence.

    If you want to be the future, ensure that you have the paid ChatGPT app subscription, and also, ensure that you have some bitcoin. Even my friend Natalie told me a few years ago, “every intelligent person I know in the Bay Area has at least some bitcoin!”

    I think the simplest thing to do is just buy some bitcoin with the Coinbase app; my simple thought is there’s no reason why bitcoin will not 10 X, hundred X, or even thousand X in our lifetime. That means the thousand dollars you spend on an iPhone Pro might become $10,000, $100,000, or maybe even $1 million!

    As a consequence, I have been becoming even more frugal with my money, and continuing to buy bitcoin with any dime I could lay my hands on! 

    People still think bitcoin is too expensive, but 20 years from now, one bitcoin is $10 million a coin… Won’t you wish that you bought it right now at a discount?

    I think the best way to learn about bitcoin is just binge watch and listen to all the Michael Saylor interviews and podcasts– Michael.com and hope.com

    Currently, I am self studying some Austrian economics from Carl Menger — Principles of Economics PDF on my iPad Pro.

    Also , if you do not currently own an iPad, or just have a really really old one that doesn’t work that well, definitely get the new M4 iPad Pro the small one; The only Apple device currently worth purchasing! Good job Apple team here.

    What else?

    For shoes, Vibram 5 finger shoes (Vibram.com) and if you have access, go to the beach! Beach people tend to be happier.

    Currently Ocean Park in Santa Monica is my new favorite joint!

    What else? 

    Think fun, not fitness. Even go to the local park, breathing some air from the fresh trees, and have fun!

    ERIC

  • The Cost of Living

    Why Economics is So Fascinating to Me 

    Economics, money, the sociological and the philosophical aspects of it are endlessly fascinating to me. 

    The cost of living

    Certainly there are certain things which undoubtably make life better. For example, having money and purchasing power to buy good coffee, good meets, having some sort of basic car that could take you from point A to point B.  Also, having enough money and economic power and may be freedom of time to have children, and also raise them yourselves.

    Also there are certain things which indubitably make life better, for example having economic power dictating where, when, and how long to live somewhere.

    For example, certainly far superior to live in Los Angeles during the summertime, rather than to live in Siberia during the winter time.

    The use of money?

    Also certain things which are useful, like having a fast Internet connection, being able to pay for fiber Internet or whatever, and also having certain devices which make photography possible.

    For example, money to purchase your digital camera, having some sort of iPad or laptop to download and upload your photos from, and also being able to pay for your website and server bill.

    But beyond this, what is the use of money?

    Health and fitness

    Another thing that money is good for is paying for your gym membership, your yoga membership, or having money to just purchase your own weightlifting equipment. 

  • The Best That Reality Has To Offer You

  • The Future of Street Photography

    Ever since I was an 11, 12-year-old kid in Bayside Queens New York, getting my first Acer aspire computer, AOL 3.0… With my 38.8 K modem, I’ve always been passionate about technology.

    Why? When you’re a kid, with no money resources or power, you could essentially play god.

    For example, the great democratizing power of the Internet especially in the early days was being able to pirate video games in programs online for free, something which is very useful to an 11-year-old without any money.

    For example, in the early days you would visit these AOL “cerver” or “server” rooms, you would message about, and it would send you an email about 30.roar files, each taking about a day to download, and finally at the end of 30 days you could download all the packages of the original grand theft auto, and you play it on your computer!

    Also, the early days of pirating for Adobe Photoshop. No way in hell could 13 year-old kid afford a $500 piece of software. Getting cracks for these apps was a godsend.

    Platforms

    Currently speaking, the only good place to share photos on the Internet is arsbeta.com — Facebook, Instagram is a wash. We already see Instagram trying to morph and to be coming the next TikTok; and also the flood of advertisements, which I consider metaphorical pollution.

    The threat of AI

    The way I think about artificial intelligence is that it is just like a really really good bot, robot, chat bot etc. 

    Where are things become a little bit concerning is when ChatGPT 4o– the voice ability becomes so good, it literally becomes indistinguishable from a real human voice.

    Honestly I think the best way to think about the Internet is that 99.9% of the user accounts, comments, activity might just be bots. For example, when I used to use Reddit back in college, I don’t even think I had a username. And I used it religiously for almost about four years, I quit using Reddit in about 2011.

    As a thought experiment, imagine if all of these credits, sub credits, etc. we’re just all ChatGPT powered bots. The same goes with Twitter accounts, Instagram accounts etc.

    For example, open AI sora, the new video generation tool is insanely good. Certainly within 30 years it will be so good that it will probably be more creative than a real life videographer. Even now the beta versions, blow my mind.

    The future for creativity

    On one way, we could think about AI, ChatGPT as just a simple implementary tool, a kin to using Microsoft Excel, Google search, etc. However, I think the big issue here is that especially at the university level, apparently a lot of kids even UCLA undergraduate students, who are supposed to be creme de la crop of the public system, our lazily using ChatGPT to read documents and come up with lame responses. 

    I think what nobody is really thinking about right now is that ChatGPT might be the university killer. Why go to university, and try to “hack “the university experience by having ChatGPT write your essays?

    And this is the thing, professors can tell when you are using ChatGPT or not, but certainly within a decade or two, by the time Seneca is about to go to college, and Chachi tea is on version 15 or 16, ChatGPT will probably write a better essay then even the most accomplished Academic researcher.

    Reality

    Cindy had an interesting idea that perhaps the future will just be embodied reality. For example, after all of this digital malaise, we will just want to do things in person more.

    For example, Cindy Seneca and I just got a library card for Los Angeles, and we have been visiting libraries for fun. The good thing is a lot of libraries have a playground right next-door, which means you could kill two birds with one stone.

    If you think about productivity and efficiency, there is really no good reason to go to a public library. Yet I think it is almost like the noveau privilege;  if you have enough free time to take your kids to the public library in the middle of the day, it is assigned that you’re either really rich and successful or self owned and free.

    Also librarian; I recently talked to Jennifer one of the local children’s librarians, and she has selected a bunch of great children’s books for Seneca, age appropriate. 1 billion times faster and more efficient than having to rummage through probably fake Amazon reviews.

    And also this is the biggest issue with Internet; how do you know whether Amazon is real or fake?

    Photo as art

    My personal vision for the future of Street photography is it will be less about iPhone, more about just experiencing embodied reality. 

    For example, if I were Tim Cook or the CEO of Apple, I would immediately chop down apple Vision Pro. It is big heavy, hurts your head, hurts your eyeballs, and I personally wouldn’t even use it if you gave it to me for free.

    The simple strategy is that Apple should just focus on the iPhone insanely great again.

    If anything, better corporate strategy would just be introduced a $2000 iPhone, at $1999, and just get rid of the Apple Vision Pro.

    Question– can you throw an M series chip into an iPhone Titan?

    Problems

    Currently even the newest model of DALL-E or ChatGPT,  image generation for photos are too goofy. Not realistic or creative enough.

    However, within 10 or 20 years, I’m sure that ChatGPT will be able to perfect the ability to make street photos, with greeny black-and-white film, better than Henri Cartier-Bresson. Which then leaves us the question;

    What’s the point of you shooting photos?

    First, it is fun. I don’t think we should overthink this. If you’re out shooting street photography and you’re not having fun, you’re doing something wrong. Just observe a child at the playground, a new playground; see how much joy they have in discovery, They’re not waiting for random people to like their performance at the park, they simply do it for fun.

    Second, physiological and mental benefits. Post Covid, when it looks like 90% of the workforce in the tech world has migrated indoors and from home, it looks like most people don’t really leave their apartments much. What is the new privilege? Just leaving your apartment or house!

    I think this is why the explosion of dog adoptions was so beneficial during Covid, it forced people to go outside and go on a walk with their dogs!

    I suppose the benefit of having children; to me the most cruel technique of raising children is forcing them to be indoors at home all day, never letting them go outside. In fact, the new sign of privilege for a child is how tan they are, how muscular and tall and buff they are. Because it is a sign that they actually go out and play on the playground!

    Travel

    Travel, traveling could be as abstract or practical as you would like to think. For example, you could just go on a road trip, drive 30 minutes somewhere or an hour somewhere, you could jump on the metro and go somewhere, essentially just go somewhere that is not your workplace or your house.

    I also think it is wise to be economical about; display economy, find cheap tickets on kayak.com or Google flights.

    For example, I just took my mom some airline tickets, and she is able to fly round-trip from Seoul international ICN Incheon airport to LAX for only $500! And this is round-trip! About the same price as a trip to Costco.

    Money for movement

    Another thing I see — people blowing money on cars SUVs trucks, overland vehicles, Teslas new electric cars etc., better to just stick with your 2010 Prius or the beater you got, fix it up a bit, get a car wash, and just go on adventures instead!

    Any sort of movement is good. When money could be your helper in getting you to move around, it is good. 

    Technique?

    So I think one of the practical ways to get joy from street photography is the active shooting the photos, the joy of witnessing your photos, the joy of capturing a great moment etc. For example capturing the smile of your child, or capturing a good decisive moment in street photography of strangers, or even a good interaction you had with a stranger.

    First, all forms are legitimate. In the world of ChatGPT and artificial intelligence, let us not worry whether photos are good or not, let us worry ourselves with whether the photos are meaningful to us or not.

    For example, composition is all subjective; what makes a good composition is often philosophical, and if the photo puts a smile on your face, it is a good photo. 

  • The Human Vehicle

    What is the ultimate mobile human device or vehicle? The human body.

    First, once again… I think we spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about our cars our vehicles etc. Also kids are endlessly fascinated by vehicles, especially construction vehicles, if you have ever seen a huge excavator up close in personal, it will amaze you.

    We are wow’s by  vehicles, of all shapes sizes and forms. For example, any luxury or foreign or exotic car, we are impressed by it. Why? It is a token of how rich or successful you are.

    But this is the grand irony; any time you spend on a vehicle, is money you could otherwise put into bitcoin, which has historically been going up 50% every year. That means the $100,000 Tesla you buy today, could be worth $1 million in the near future.

    Or even worse, let us say the $250,000 Lamborghini nearby today, that could be worth $2.5 million just a few years from now.

    Why?

    One of my turbo thoughts of this morning is towards the telos of living a good life: 

    1. First, having at least one kid.

    I think especially as a man, we all desire at least one male heir. Therefore, if your first born child was a son, consider yourself infinitely blessed. After that, life is all upside no downside.

    I think the reason why this is so critical is having a kid is almost like having an expansion pack; imagine if we had to be stuck in the original StarCraft for our entire lives without Brood war. Or if we had to spend our entire lives playing Diablo, the first one, without Diablo two, or without any expansion packs. Or if your entire life you had to be stuck with the original iPhone 3GS.  or if your entire life you had to be stuck on Windows Vista.

    I think the grand joy of having a child is that you have the ultimate extension of yourself. Often when you look at kids, they are essentially a mini embodiment of their parents. There features, their physiological features, their behaviors, addictions etc. For example, whenever we lament the fact that all their kids are on YouTube and iPhones all day, just look at the parents; they are on their phones and watching YouTube all day as well. 

    Anyways, people want to change the world blah blah blah, reduce their carbon footprint blah blah blah, built a coin dollar company whatever. Better to build $1 trillion kid.

    2. Your body doesn’t lie

    I think the big thing is in regards to theories, theories don’t really matter, the physics of your body your human human body is what matters the most.

    For example, all these people say that running or whatever is healthy for you, but look at all these people who run, they essentially look like dying gazelle.

    Even guys who into CrossFit, truth be told none of them actually look that fit; they have some level of fitness, but most of them look like a bunch of skinny kinda fit involuntary celibate guys who spend way too much time on Reddit, being formed Nazis, trying to explain to the worldwide they power clean form is superior to yours, and why you’re dead lift and squat form sucks, yet they have skinny hairy legs, and have never even seen 10 plates before. 

    Assuming the person is not taking steroids or other weird hormonal shifting stuff, if somebody is doing something, which may seem unorthodox or contrary to your worldview, but it looks like it is working in real life, they are probably onto something.

    3. Movement is medicine

    One of these funny Lululemon shirts that I got has this motto printed on the inseam that says movement is medicine. Sounds kind of cheesy, but I think it is true.

    The purpose of the human brain is to move. To coordinate movement. Therefore a human body which does not move, has no need for a brain. My personal theory on why people get all these mental brain diseases and the depression etc. because they don’t move. They do two Critically detrimental things: first, they are sitting on their butt all day, doesn’t matter if you’re sitting on your butt in a Lamborghini or a Ferrari, you are essentially amended child, a man baby in a stroller with lots of horsepower. They are also on their chairs when in the office or at work. or even if you are using a standing desk, the problem with standing desks is that you are also static. Certainly standing is better than sitting, but walking is 1 trillion times superior to being static.

    If you think about it, what is K-12 education? Forcing kids not to move around and to be dynamic, as kids naturally are.

    In fact, I’m starting to notice that a lot of activities which include even arts and crafts are bad and so far much as when kids are doing it, they are typically indoors, which is bad for their health, and also, they are static.

    Even my critique about Legos; people say that Legos are good for your creativity but not quite; much of the ethos of Legos nowadays it’s just being really really good at following directions, and building the prepackaged model.

    Better to just give a kid a bunch of random bricks and have them build whatever they want; but even this, isn’t it better for your kids to get really good at climbing, being physical, and physical strength instead of just being really creative?

    4. Opportunity cost

    There are lots of practical optimization we must make in modern day life. One of them is driving.

    For example, probably one of the greatest blessings to marry is Amazon, Amazon prime, same-day delivery etc. Even apparently Costco does it now too! 

    I think the big issue here is that 30 minutes of driving, one hour driving, is otherwise time you could be spent walking, thinking, moving in a multi directional plane.

    For example, one thing that nobody ever talks about is the benefit of walking that you could just go wherever you please. Go up the curb down the curb, into a random street and alley etc.  The downside of driving is that you must just drive one direction, and stay on the path. No freedom.

    5. Just snap your fingers and zap it

    It is 1 billion times more difficult to sell some thing or get rid of something then to buy or purchase it.

    For example, very very easy to buy a car, very very difficult to sell car. Especially a used one. 

    I think this is where bitcoin is so appealing to me, because of how portable instantaneous and easy it is; one of the big issues with objects homes real estate in general is that first, it takes a very very long time to sell some thing, there is a lot of arbitrage back-and-forth, a lot of hidden costs, And also, headaches and annoyances.

    Also, like my friend Don Dylan told me about his Porsche 911 GT3 –

    I think we like the idea of owning something more than we actually do having and owning it. 

    Let me give you examples; I love cyber truck, to me, it is the best vehicle ever created up until now. To me it is the most revolutionary vehicle ever created. It is by far the most dominant vehicle on the road, even more than any loser Ferrari or Lamborghini; it is all American, And it destroys almost any other vehicle in stature, height, design, the stainless steel XO skeleton body, and also the 2.6 second zero to 60 time.

    At the Culver city Toyota dealership in which I live, there is a brand new cyber truck that somebody traded in, apparently the guy traded it in for a Toyota Sequoia instead. Anyways, part of my daily morning walk and routine, I always walk by it, and it always puts a smile on my face. But, the great joy is that I don’t need to actually purchase it or own it to glean the delight from it. 

    In fact, sometimes I wish that I could just snap my fingers, and automatically just have a different vehicle based on my mood my schedule etc.

    For example lately I’ve been doing a lot of family trips with my niece and nephew, and Cindy‘s mom, and sometimes I wish I had seven seats. But I don’t need seven seats all the time.

    Therefore in this situation, I wish I could just snap my fingers in that my Prius would magically transform into a minivan, or if I could also snap my fingers and it would be a really good sports car or whatever.

    Anyways, with cars and vehicles, unless you have over two kids, unless you have 3, 4, or 5 kids, maybe still for now… It is best to stick with a 2010 Prius. 

    Monetary vehicle?

    I’ve been contemplating on purchasing real estate, but the big issue is that real estate is not a vehicle, it is not mobile.

    For example, I cannot take my $2 million Culver City Los Angeles property, single-family home, snap my fingers and then suddenly take it with me to Cambodia.

    Similarly speaking, once again, the downside of purchasing any electric vehicle whether it be a Tesla or whatever is that it is a sinking ship. Batteries do not hold their charge very much, I think the half-life is about 2% or so. Therefore, if you also consider the overall battery health, the big issue here is that it loses overall battery charge capacity overtime. Kind of like your MacBook Pro laptop from 2017, which only lasts for about 30 minutes.

     I think this is where it is still intelligent to have a hybrid vehicle like a Prius; given the fact that the overall battery health will die overtime slowly, at least you could still rely on the gasoline engine. And whether we like it or not, at least for the next 20 or 30 years, I am still certain there will be gas stations on the road.

    Why?

    One of the thoughts that I have about work, their economy capitalism etc. is that essentially your sacrificing your body, your bodily health and freedom and exchange for money.

    For example, really matter whether you working at McDonald’s, whether you work at Amazon or Apple, typically you are confined and send some sort of chicken cage, with fancy LED uploading and what not, enforced to use your brain in your muscles in your body in order to perform some sort of work which has economic value. as a consequence, any minutes spent indoors and stuck within a cage is positively bad for you; Silicon Valley I think this is the new “digital handcuffs”– yeah yeah, you want to stop working, but that $500,000 salary a year from Amazon is too good for you to let go. And therefore you will be enslaved for the rest of your life.

    I had this thought about two years ago, I’ve just converting all your currency into bitcoin. If you are blessed enough to receive some sort of high salary, I still think this is the best strategy.

    What’s the purpose of a human body?

    I think the critical question no one ever thinks or considers is what is the ultimate purpose of a human body, your human body. 

    Everywhere I look, everyone is in denial about the human body. Either we fall into some sort of religious fallacies about the afterlife, the idea of an immortal soul (I believe in a mortal soul — when you die, your soul also dies). Or even worse, these Silicon Valley fools who want to just upload their consciousness to the cloud or whatever. 

    I watched a really bad movie with Keanu Reeves on the plane ones, in which Keanu Reeves is some sort of genius scientist was trying to figure out human cloning, and his whole family tragically dies in a car accident, and he tries to bring them back to life. But essentially the big issue he confronts is that without a human body, you cannot clone a consciousness. And also, an individual consciousness is inextricably connected with a certain human body. As a consequence, no body, no mind. 

    What is AI anyways?

    erickim.ai

    I think people lack the critical understanding of what AI, artificial intelligence actually is. My simple suggestion is download ChatGPT to your iPhone or iPad, get the paid premium subscription, use the newest model, currently GPT 4o– and just go on a roll. 

    To me, I consider ChatGPT and artificial intelligence just like a really intelligent Google search. And the more you use it, the less it impresses you.

    In fact, I think what people do not understand is that now that openAI and ChatGPT is partnering with Apple, this is very bad news for Google. I think over a long enough time horizon, Google will die, and will be usurped by Apple and ChatGPT/OpenAI. 

    In fact, for myself personally, I never touch Google anymore. Far superior for me to just ChatGPT it; first, no advertisements. Now that we have bitcoin, and the incoming of the bitcoin lightning wallet and Satoshi’s, and once Apple or iOS built a native bitcoin or crypto wallet to her devices, The future of payments and money will just be trapped in the Apple ecosystem. Even now, I find using Apple Pay 1 trillion times more convenient than having to take out my physical card. Even an innovation which works insanely well is at Whole Foods with the Amazon one hand scanning thing; it works really well, I think the big Has a chance of people using it is that they don’t know how well it works.

    I think on a long enough time horizon, convenience is inevitable and will always win.

    ***

    So what do you want to do with your human body? 

    As a man, what is the most precious life force? Your semen.

    Your semen is the seed of life, seminal. No seed no tree. No seed, no human beings.

    I find a very very bizarre thing of all these weird modern day people and millennials who no longer want to have children because they say it is bad for the planet and bad for the carbon footprint. But let us assume that overnight, everybody decided not to have children because it was bad for the carbon footprint… what would happen to the human race? 

    I think a very simple life impetus for the human body is to procreate, have children and be got children. And for this, both man and woman is critical.

    In fact, it seems that the optimal strategy here is to conserve all of your money and economic energy possible, and have as many children as humanly possible in this lifetime. 

  • Cyber Living

  • Movement

  • Capital Thinking

    Thinking about capital, capitalism, capital recruitment, stacking capital capital etc.

    Bitcoin is digital capital

    The first thought: bitcoin is true digital capital.

    Wealth is a mental thing?

    The second thought:  assuming that bitcoin is the first true digital money and capital, then what that means is money and wealth becomes a mental construct.

    For example, let us say that I have 1 million, 1.2 million, 10 million, 100 million worth of bitcoin in my personal crypto wallet. Intelligent thing is to buy and hold it forever, as the value of it will go up indefinitely for the next 1,000 years.  in fact, the wise goal is to use bitcoin like digital real estate; imagine owning a block in the middle of Manhattan or Tokyo, you will never want to give it up. You will fight to the nail to hold it, because you’re thinking very very long-term; thinking your kids kids kids.

    According to Michael, optimal strategy is to actually use your bitcoin as collateral, to borrow against your bitcoin, at a low interest rate, and use that to finance your lifestyle which means just paying rent your food etc.

    Money

    This is a big thing I’ve been thinking about a lot; more and more, I’m becoming even more financially conservative, conserving my money and wealth, not spending it.

    The makes is in regards to muscle. Let us see that I am 160 pounds of pure muscle, with a 5% body fat percentage, six pack and all. The worst thing for a weightlifter or a bodybuilder is to lose muscle mass.

    Let us say that you buy that thing. Or the thing or whatever; imagine like losing 5 pounds of muscle mass, 10 pounds of muscle mass, or even worse, 20 pounds of muscle mass.

    The goal of the weightlifter and bodybuilder is accretive; to continue to accumulate muscle mass, indefinitely.

    For example if I am 160 pounds of muscle, ideally I would want to become 165 pounds, 170 pounds, 175 pounds, 180 pounds, eventually 200 pounds, 220 pounds with a 6 pack. 

    Certainly there are limits to growth; for example, me at 5‘11“ tall, I think the laws of physics prohibits me from becoming 400 pounds with the 5% body fat, assuming I don’t inject my eyeballs with steroids. Even with steroids it might be impossible. 

    Even some of the greatest bodybuilders of all time like Ronnie Coleman; even if he took all the steroids in the world, he cannot become 1000 pounds of muscle mass with a 6 pack.

    Limits of growth?

    I think this is a primary fallacy in Silicon Valley and beyond; people assumed that all growth is good, and that growth is a good progression.

    However the problem here is that often when things become too big, they become fragile, and a positive detriment to your life and lifestyle.

    For example, let us say that you buy an eight bedroom eight bath mentioned somewhere in Malibu. Can you imagine trying to clean all those toilets yourself?

    Even if you had an army of housekeepers, the constant fear that they’re stealing your stuff, not working hard enough, or being sloppy.

    Even the thought yesterday when vacuuming my house with my new Dyson, even in our relatively small two bed one bath apartment, keeping things clean and vacuuming daily is a full-time job. Let alone imagining having to mow the lawn deal with landscaping etc.

    Lifestyle “upgrade”?

    Don’t think lifestyle think bodystyle.

    What is my vision of body style?

    First, what your body looks like. There are certain things you cannot change like your height; but beyond that everything is fungible.

    For example, your body fat percentage and your muscle mass percentage. These are things you could control.

    The easiest way to lose body fat is to start fasting intermittent fasting; breakfast no lunch, only dinner. One insanely massive dinner a day, aim for 3 to 4 pounds of meat.

    The greatest thing about this approaches that is free; intermittent fasting is free! It doesn’t cost anything, and also, you save money!

    Also, beyond that you save time. For example, the time having to prepare breakfast and lunch, cleaning up, even going out and having to pay seems like a bad idea.

    If you are a true Silicon Valley entrepreneurial nut like myself, intermittent fasting makes sense because you remain in peak physical and physiological energy throughout the whole day, without the drowsy food, downside of eating lunch.

    In fact, whenever I tell people that I do interment fasting that I don’t eat breakfast or lunch, only dinner, it is actually a very impressive thing to most people. And then people say that it is not “sustainable”, and then I tell them that I’ve been doing it the last six years. And that is very easy. Then people say that it is not possible for them, which essentially means “I don’t want to do it.” But it is a physical, physics based fact that any human being, who is beyond the age of 18 and full adult maturity, would benefit from intermittent fasting. Even the elderly. I think the only people who should not do intermittent fasting is children under the age of 18.

    Intermittent fasting could get rid of most people with Alzheimer’s, chronic elements, obesity and weakness etc. And also getting into intermittent fasting could actually get rid of type two diabetes.

    And the hilarious thing is there is no risk to intermittent fasting. Like you won’t die. The average human being could probably go 90 days without food, as long as they drink water, you won’t die.

    Fat is an organic battery supply for the human body. As long as you have belly fat, fed on your stomach or thighs or whatever, your body will be able to drop on that energy. The human body is not like an automobile gasoline car– no, you do not need to eat something to “fuel” your work out or your physical activity. You could just actively draw it from your fat supply. 

    Why stack capital?

    Rich people stack capital don’t spend it?

    “White people make money don’t spend it, but I’d rather buy 80 gold chains and go ignant (ignorant)”– Kanye West

    The ethos of the capitalist and capitalism is to keep accumulating capital for the sake of capital, and the whole ethos of the thing is to keep stacking capital indefinitely.

    Stay humble and stack sats (Satoshis, the micro division of a Bitcoin) – Michael Saylor

    This seems bizarre to most people. Why? I think for the average worker bee or plebeian in capitalist American society or the western world is to work hard, save money in order to invest it, or in order to spend it.

    For example, even to the average “responsible” person, the ethos is to “save up” money to buy a house, etc.

    But I wonder how much of this line of thinking is just propaganda that people have not given a critical think about?

    Power accumulation?

    My personal thought is perhaps the goal here is actually power accumulation.

    If we take a “Will to Power” Friederich Nietzsche approach, the sake of power is to use your power to keep accumulating it.

    For example, the ethos of the powerlifter is to keep accumulating more and more power, which is typically personified through his or her one repetition maximum, the maximum total weight he or she could lift for a certain lift. 

    We also see this in the realm of cars. For example, for men it seems like a big dick measuring contest; whose car has more horsepower? Whose car goes from 0 to 60 faster? Whose car is bigger? Whose car is more lifted off the ground? Whose car is louder?

    Obviously the cybertruck is the big swinging silver dick in the room. 2.6 second 0-60 speed for cyber beast. For example, even the Porsche 911 Turbo hybrid has only a measly 2.9 second 0 to 60; the cyber beast can crush it.  not only that, but the cyber truck is bigger, better, more dominant, more impressive.

    What is more impressive than a cyber truck? Nothing.

    Even kids, they love the cybertruck above everything else. Lamborghini is done. 

    For what

    The first general thing is freedom. Freedom of time, schedule, mind space etc. What is a simple heuristic of whether you are free or or not? Whether you could go 2 years without checking your email or using email. Or whether you can live without owning a phone.

    Also, when you’re in a position in which you no longer need to accept money. 

    What loser Marxists don’t get 

    For the most part, I think Karl Marx was a loser, and anybody who followed him is also a loser. 

    It seems that it is the imperative of the week in powerless to spite and hate those with power. For example, the sheep in the land will forever resent the eagle, whereas the eagle doesn’t really care; the eagle simply enjoys feasting on those delicious little lambs. 

    Constructive and positive change

    The world is big enough and tolerant enough, for almost everything. Rather than trying to tear things down, far better to be constructive of things.

    For example, just leave other people alone, and focus on building what you got.

    For example, I find this whole notion of repatriation a bizarre one. Certainly land has been stolen from anyone and everyone; but for the victor to give land back to the defeated, is a law that doesn’t work in physics. 

    Personal goals

    For example, nobody’s putting a gun to your head and forcing you to work that job you hate, or forcing you to subscribe to Netflix, Spotify, Disney, Disney+, Hulu, etc.

    Also, nobody is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to spend money on shoes, clothes accessories etc.

    Nonnegotiables in life like paying rent, buying food. But nobody is forcing you to purchase and smoke marijuana, or having to consume alcohol.

    People know that it is option that you don’t have to drink alcohol? That even if you meet up friends for a bar, you could just order a sparkling water or a Perrier, or maybe even a cup of coffee instead? 

    Also, nobody is forcing you to live in America. People always love to complain that the cost-of-living is too high that rent is too expensive. But don’t you know that you could live in a very nice apartment in Vietnam or Cambodia or Thailand for only $300 USD a month? And most people who don’t have children, and also maybe not married, you have a choice to leave.

    Choices

    So some simple thoughts:

    1. The most critical capital is your body capital.

    Let us also not forget that the word comes from the notion “caput”– cap, head. That back in the ancient days of the Iliad and king Agamemnon, a head of cattle was the sign of wealth.  even when describing Athena, and she is described as having hundreds of golden tassels, each tassel being worth 100 head of cattle, you can get a sense of what real wealth was. 

    My very simple thought is the most critical thing to build or invest in is your body. Using money for health fitness dietary stuff, food, gym membership or yoga membership etc. Even purchasing your own weightlifting equipment. This is by far the best use of money.

    2. Location

    Also, the biggest privilege in Los Angeles is which neighborhood you live in. For example living in Culver City, my extreme privilege and joy of having the ability to just walk everywhere without having to jump into a car. This is why we pay $3200 USD a month for rent.

  • Seeking Dominance in Every Single Shape Form And Way

    2.6 seconds — the 0 to 60 speed on cyberbeast.

    I think what is so fascinating about cyber truck is that it is dominant in every single shape form and way.

    For example, the 0 to 60 speed for that massive is 2.6 seconds! This is much faster than almost every single Porsche 911 car.

    Yeah yeah yeah, people might make the argument that a Porsche car is better on the track or whatever. But honestly speaking… Who goes to the track? Nobody.

    Also, being really good at racing on the road I think is not really that impressive of a skill anyways. I think sounds fun, as it gets your adrenaline going, it etc.… But for the most part, it doesn’t really matter. Why? Any 5 foot 2 we could drive a car very well, but ultimately in real life, in embodied reality, a small or short man is not impressive.

    Where do things matter?

    Ultimately standing upright, in the flesh, in embodied reality is what matters the most. 

    For example, I’ve been spending a lot of time in Holmby Hills, Beverly Hills, apparently the apex of society success and richness.  and a lot of these guys are actually really really short. Like 5 foot five, 5’4” tall.

    I still think one of my most grateful things is that I’m quite tall, around 5‘11“ tall. I think the average man in America is only 5 foot 8 1/2 inches tall.

    How and why does this matter?

    First, whether we like it or not, we are so driven by our material things. For example, cars, I think for the modern day man, and also perhaps woman,  so much of our time is fixated on buying a new car. Why? Because for most Americans, you actually spend a lot of time in your car; most people unfortunately have to work or go to work, and most people drive to go to work. As a consequence, it is the transportational zone that you best prefer.

    Weekend warriors

    Also where vehicles are important or desired; most people do not have time off until the weekend, whether Saturday or Sunday. As a consequence, most people want to get away for the weekend, maybe go to the beach, go hiking, go to the nearby city etc. As a consequence , a lot of people also have to drive to get there.  

    Your external avatar

    Vehicles are interesting, because they are a true externalization who you are, your beliefs, your value systems etc.

    Tell me what car you drive, and I will tell you what you value.

    For example, I put zero faith in anybody who talks about value, economics, whatever, who doesn’t drive a Toyota Prius. Even a Tesla, if you are truly value oriented, Tesla is not the way. Why? It is certainly the coolest option, but actually not the most practical nor the most economical.

    If you really really want to build capital, save money and wealth, and stack, the optimal path is maximum frugality, a maximum Spartan lifestyle, which means essentially just driving a used old 2010 Prius. People often ask me, and I joke… How much I spend a month on gas. I told them that I only spend $38 USD a month on gas!

    Living in public takes guts

    It looks like there’s this weird race towards virtual reality, augmented reality or whatever. Ultimately, nobody really cares for these things. What we really want is to flex in the flesh, in real life.

    For example, this is where people would still prefer to have a real life car instead of a meta-verse car; ultimately we still love physics. This is why we love the roar of the engine, the feeling of torque and responsiveness, moving through time and space etc. For example, visual experience nerve forget is being with Dylan in his yellow Porsche 911 GT three, with a naturally aspirated V6 engine right behind us, accelerating onto the freeway, hitting around 7000 RPM. The roar of the engine is distinct loud and fun, very visceral. 

    Kids

    Modern day capitalistic consumer, individualistic society is anti-kids. Why? People who have a disposable income, can spend more money on superfluous things, rather than kids. Unfortunately, kids and children is a shrinking market. Let us consider the baby boomer generation in America, which people had 3 to 4 kids. Now it looks like people are having on average 1.2 kids, because people would prefer to have dogs or whatever.

    And also, how and why did dogs get so popular all of a sudden? My theory is that modern day man some sort of intimacy or love or compassion or companionship or whatever, without any downside. Humans are messy complex and require courage to interact with. This is why whenever you see any sort of single guy in LA with some sort of wimpy looking stray rescue dog, it is a signal of cowardice. 

    This is also how the modern day man lacks social skills; once again, to interact with real life human beings in the flesh is messy, unpredictable. This is where people are confused by me; and I break all the rules, essentially I break the simulation.

    Courage is the future

    I recently visited the Pacific Palisades Public library, highly recommended a great library. There we got a library card, and in the new book section and I picked up a hardcover book of a new translation of the Iliad by Emily Wilson, I really enjoy it. 

    Anyways, when it comes to men, the heroes, it all comes down to courage or cowardice. The only bad or negative attribute of a man is cowardice.

    This becomes interesting, because ability strength and dominance is actually not that important. Everybody already knows that Achilles is the supreme and Apex warrior, and nobody is a match for him. Even Hector knows this.

    But I suppose when it comes down to it, when it comes down to battle, the question is this;

    Will you cower, or confront your fate with courage? 

    I suppose this is where Nietzsche gets the motto “Amor fati”– love your fate. Even when we think about when Paris went to battle in the beginning of the Iliad, The true fate should have been he should have been killed.

    What is “fate” anyways?

    From a truly physics based approach, there is no such thing as speech. There’s no such thing as predestination or whatever.

    I don’t think there’s anything fated for you or us or whatever. However a simple observation is that if you never leave your apartment or your house and go outside, if you never adventure, if you never publish anything online, if you never take any sort of economic risks, nothing is going to happen.

    Risk & adrenaline

    I suppose when it comes down to it, the reason why I am built for investing because for the most part, I have strong stoic armor. I grew up poor, on the verge of being homeless, and also I’ve gone through periods in my high school college years in which I lost all my money. Therefore as a consequence, even though I still am very highly emotional to investments, losses, risk, I think I’m probably at least 30 to 80% less sensitive than average person. This is what gave me the courage and the conviction and the tenacity to invest in bitcoin, and in other crypto currencies.

    Becoming?

    I like this idea that we are always in a process of becoming. The reason why this is such a radical view is that with the typical American consumer self improvement thing; the generalized idea is that you’re either improving or “dis-improving”.

    For example, it runs on some sort of continuum, spectrum, barometer or meter.

    For example, I think people think the general idea of 0 to 10, in terms of productivity or whatever. Everyone always wants to be a 10.

    However, the reason why this line of thinking is foolish is because the true reality of things is that embody reality is not a binary. Would you call a T-Rex a 10 out of 10? Or a rhino 10 out of 10? How about a chimpanzee monkey or human being?

    Technically if you think about human beings, might be the wimpiest creatures on planet earth, yet humans are the Apex predator because of our higher level intelligence, of skills and cunning. For example, even if you took the worlds most dominant fighter, strongman or whatever, he will never be a match for the bull, the gorilla, etc. 

    What do human beings strive for or towards?

    I think we all strive towards more dominance, power, and supremacy.

    For example, going to the Huntington botanical gardens, essentially the tallest trees get the most sunlight, and as a consequence, flower. Unfortunately the short, the shorty guys at the bottom, do not get any sunlight, therefore do not reproduce and do not produce flowers. 

    Also at the California science center, when analyzing the biological life exhibit, one of the head scientists said something like “If you look at nature long enough, her primary goal is to procreate”.

    So if the purpose or the point of life for us as human beings is to procreate, the funny thought:

    How many kids (should) we have?

    Back in the day, the more children you had, the wealthier you were. However nowadays, there’s a strange paradox; in the states, it seems that only poor immigrant families are having kids anymore; it is very common to see Mexican or Latino families with three or four kids, whereas the average affluent American tech person is either single, unmarried, no kids, maybe drive some sort of base level Porsche, And maybe have no intention of having any kids. Would prefer to have dogs.

    I said this is fine; better for me ! When Seneca grows up, and all of these childless millennials die off, Seneca will reign supreme, and will inherit greatness, and his future progeny shall flourish. 

    Courage is the future?

    I think the main problem of modern day life is that there are no longer any areas for our courage. The closest thing might be intellectual or political courage, but this is also superficial at best.

    I think the first practical way we could exude or exhibit or output courage is through extreme weightlifting. This is where the whole Max philosophy is interesting; until you have attempted a one repetition maximum of a given lift, you don’t know what true courage is.

    I suppose other one is hand-to-hand combat; most men, myself included, either have not been in a street fight or a fistfight. I’ve done a lot of boxing when I was in high school, which was good. For the most part, modern day men doesn’t know how to fight. Thus the appeal of fight club.

    Also, monitor day man is not allowed to exhibit his feelings, or get angry. To exhibit anger is considered evil in modern day society, and as a consequence you have a bunch of these resentful emasculated men, all antisocial, not sure what to do with themselves.

    So what should we do?

    First, it seems natural to be social. We make the wrong mistake that we think that humans desire money or whatever. Not true. We desire other human beings.

    For example, no human being in his right mind would want to have all the trillions of dollars in the world, if he was forced in solitary confinement by himself.

    Therefore a simple takeaway point, human beings make us happy. But I suppose the nuance is we want to interact with other human beings on our own terms? 

    How to live life?

    I think the path to living the greatest possible light is twofold; doing physically active things, and also, being around other human beings.

    For example, the reason why I think so many people love traveling is that typically speaking, most people when they are on holiday or traveling, do not just stay in their hotel room all day and just watch Netflix. No. They prefer to go see the sites, to take the subway, and to go on adventures! And meet cool people on the way. 

    Also, humans are happiest when we are upright, not sitting in our cars. My simple suggestion is consolidate all that money from your car and put it into bitcoin, which will actually appreciate value overtime, and instead, invest your time energy and money for hiking, walking, taking the subway and going to the local museum, shooting street photography etc.

    The last standing photographer

    Am I the longest lasting photographer?

    First, I still shoot on average 1000 photos a day. Actually the primary issue have right now is that I can’t keep up with reviewing my photos. I need to figure out a solution. But don’t worry, I’m working on it.

    Second, it seems that I have been able to stay motivated, despite all of this ridiculous social media stuff. The first and only famous guitar for to have the balls and intelligence to delete his Instagram, at the peak. Now that I have deleted my Instagram, I can truly live forever. 

    Third, intelligence with information; it seems that my open source approach has really really been the most smart approach. Why? I own it all, nobody owns it. Or in other words, I own the privilege and the right to keep it open and free; no annoying publisher has control over me. 

    Still… Probably one of my proudest and most glorious and courageous decisions that I’ve made in my life, looking back I smile at it; is when I was approached by a publisher to publish my “learn from the Masters“ series, they told me to publish it. And I said only new ones that I wanted to PDF book to be 100% open and free, but they said that was not possible. I said no. Best decision of my life. 

    I suppose where people get shortsighted is that they compromise their morals ethics and beliefs in order for some sort of grey notion of success, but in truth, the ultimate success is being ironclad in your own personal ethical beliefs. 

    I’ve seen it all, even the death and demise of Google; now with ChatGPT, there is really no more reason to use Google. YouTube is the killer app for Google at the moment, but once PT makes the video production thing open, this will be the death of Google.

    Short Google, long ChatGPT.

    Now what?

    Don’t buy a new car, buy a new license plate. Just order the black and yellow California drivers plates, they look super cool, like Batman.

    Also, a simple modification you could do to your car is by some sort of satin paint, and just paint your rims all black. Rust oleum makes a great primer plus paint spray paint, it also looks great in gloss black.

    Also, shave off your emblems– the best modification you could do to your car just get rid of emblems.  a funny recent thing that I just did is I put a NASA sticker where my old Toyota emblem used to be. 

    Travel

    Apparently right now is the best time to travel.  the currency is very weak in Japan, and also turkey Istanbul. If you are paid in US dollars, good for you. Also the Korean WON is weak — go to Korea!

    Also, come travel with me to Cambodia and Angkor Wat. Lara Croft and tomb raider style. 

    Photo futures?

    The future of photography is not iPhone or iPhone Pro. A telling sign; all of the people that I know on the photos team either shoot with the film camera, Rico GR camera, Sony seven camera, a digital Leica, a digital medium format Hasselblad camera, even Olympus cameras! 

    If the Apple photos team and engineers aren’t even using iPhones to take pictures, this is a telling sign. 

    It’s kind of like the best question to ask whenever you go to any sort of car dealership, or talk to any sort of car salesman. Ask them what car they personally drive.

    Same goes with business people and investors; ask them what they are currently investing in.

    Same when it comes to meeting your doctor, or your pediatrician; ask them what they would do if they were in your shoes, or ask them what they did for their kids.

    For example, a simple workflow for vaccinations and whatever; ask your pediatrician which vaccinations they did for their own personal blood children, and do all of them.

    Or another one; ask your dentist what toothbrush, toothpaste they use; and just use that.

    Never trust a salesman who sells a car which is contrary to the car they actually drive.

    For example, don’t trust any Tesla employees who don’t actually drive Teslas. Also don’t trust any Toyota sales people who don’t drive Toyotas. 

    Now what?

    Just get your ass outside, make photos, travel, and live your best life!

    ERIC

  • How To Transform Your Body Into a Cybertruck? 

    Cybertruck Body?

    A funny thought; ultimately, our bodies are supreme. But for us in our modern day capitalistic consumer society, we purchased vehicles which we believe to be an externalization of our own bodies and selves.

    For example, why is it that you see so many middle-aged, or older men purchase muscle cars, Corvettes etc.? It is because they have lost their potency, their own real physiological muscle, and they convert their economic energy (money) into these cars.

    Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful

    I suppose one of my great joys of living in Los Angeles is this idea of social theater and social performance.

    What that means is this; if you live in Los Angeles, and walk around, essentially the way you walk, engage on the streets is assigned of who you are.

    For example, when we think about fashion, in someways it is some sort of social armor; most people take the cowardly stance and just cover themselves up, limo tinted sunglasses, so nobody could see their eyeballs. Also, they plug up their ears with noise canceling headphones, another point of cowardice, the cover up their heads in their faces with baseball caps, another point of cowardice, and maybe where from close to hide the silhouette of their skinny fat bodies.

    Stainless steel exoskeleton

    An interesting thought I cleaned from Michael Saylor is that in superhero theory, the best super power is indestructibility. What that means is if your enemy could shoot to an atomic nuke at you, and it cannot kill you, in theory you could just walk around with a machine gun until everyone else dies.

    I also suppose this was the appeal of Superman, not necessarily that he could fly, but that theory, he is indestructible. This is why they call him demand of steel; from a metallurgical sciences perspective, apparently steel is the apex metal.

    Maybe now it is titanium, but for the most part titanium is too expensive.

    Cybertruck goals

    I love what cyber truck represents, I love Elon Musk and Tesla, the cyber truck is the baddest, best, most superior and supreme car on the road, may I say, car or automobile which has ever been created in all time.

    First, it is practically indestructible. A car made out of stainless steel? You could probably take an AK-47 to it in the hood, people attack it with baseball bats or sledgehammers, and you and your family inside will be safe. I’m not sure what the crash safety ratings are yet, but in theory, I would feel very safe driving my most precious assets in the car inside, which is Cindy Seneca and theoretical other children.  

    Second, the height. I think one of the greatest things about cyber truck is the height. First what is actually very interesting is that it is quite high up, but not that high. Not ridiculously high like some of these lifted trucks. In fact it in real life, it is quite impressive in size, but not too big. You could probably park it anywhere.

    Third, the geometric shapes, the impossible angles. I think the reason why whenever you see a cybertruck on the road, the reason why it turns so many heads is that it seems to defy physics and reality. Typically in the past we have always thought that the cars were the most aerodynamic had curves, but in actuality, the most superior and the most supreme shapes are perfectly angular, pointed. 

    Also a random point about cars, I think for the most part, we could think about feminine versus masculine aesthetics in cars.

    For example, for guys who are into cars, they always like to talk about the “curves” of a car, likening it to a female body.  This is where the Porsche car becomes so bizarre and fascinating to me; on one hand, it seems to be a desirable body shape because it has curves that simulate a woman’s body, note that the Porsche Carrera in the car movie, was the girl/woman of the movie. Put on the other hand, it seems to be the prototypical signal or status simple of success for men in LA, to drive a Porsche 911. Not the Porsche 718, I say if you want a Porsche, either get the 911 or nothing. And none of the Porsche SUV cars, or the fake electric cars, they are all essentially fakes; rebranded Volkswagen Toureg cars, or rebranded Volkswagen ID Cars (apparently these cars suck). Volkswagen which produces Audi, Porsche, even Lamborghini… They really do not understand electric nor Hybrid. Let us also consider the whole diesel gate incident with Volkswagen; it seems that the Germans are good at doing is just taking the same old thing, and making a little better, kind of like the Japanese and the whole kaizen process. But the problem with the Germans is that they like radical innovation like their Americans; no way in hell a cyber truck been approved by the Volkswagen automotive group.

    Truth be told whenever I go to Germany and Berlin; people feel a little bit stifled there, entrepreneurs hit an upper limit and upper ceiling. They would prefer to be in America instead. 

    Even in Sweden, I’ve met a lot of entrepreneurs, but one thing I learned is apparently the tax structure there is too repressive, it makes it too difficult for sole proprietors and entrepreneurs to start off. 

    Stainless steel

    What is really fascinating about cyber truck is when you see it driving on the road, in full bright sun in Los Angeles. The way it refracts light  is really fascinating; it is really really shiny, but muted at the same time. Not like chrome which is too cheesy, stainless steel is a bit more matte, and subtle.

    By the Culver City steps downtown, I actually met a dude who had a brand new cyber truck with the mat black rep street from the factory. It was cool, but I think I prefer the stainless steel;  from a Japanese craftsman aesthetic ideal; the materials must be honest. To wrap some things simply with a vinyl wrap is dishonest because the underlying nature of the material underneath is obscured. And also, the durability of even the best three vinyl car wrap is very poor; maybe three years tops. In theory with stainless steel, and the cyber truck, it will outlast you. 

    The ultimate utility?

    I like to troll Zillow for fun, looking at home prices, simply for fun and kicks. I don’t actually have any serious plans of purchasing any home for real.

    I think a very funny thought is that in theory, cheaper and more efficient and effective to just live in your cyber truck, then purchase a home. It seems that the trunk is big enough.

     the only thing I can predict that might go bad is the battery overtime. But everything else should last practically forever.

    Early adopter versus late adopter?

    When is it useful to be an early adopter or a late adopter?

    Well with bitcoin, or a lot of cryptocurrencies or crypto securities, having been an early adopter was a very good idea. For example, I still remember when I was in Vietnam in 2017, at one of my favorite coffee shops in Saigon; in the Japanese district, on zerohedge looking that bitcoin was $300 and $600 a bitcoin. Then I remember some funny headlines of a guy saying that he would eat his balls live on TV if bitcoin did not hit at least $1000 a bitcoin. 

    I got into the game still pretty early, I think 2018, when bitcoin was still only about $6900 a bitcoin.

    It’s never too late

    People always be on the fact that it is too late to get into stuff; fitness, a new hobby, investing etc. But actually, today is always the best day.

    For example, people now think that bitcoin is too expensive, they wish they bought it when it was cheaper. But then again, the people who bought it cheaper wish they bought it cheaper.

    Health and fitness; not true. Even my 69-year-old mom started doing hard-core daily yoga with Cindy for a month, and she did it consistently every single day for 30 days straight, and it looks like my mom is not in the best shape of her life.

    Also, I’m 36 years old, to my infamous thousand pound atlas lift at the age of 35; I feel like I was 100 times stronger at the age of 35, then even when I was in my mid 20s.

    Apparently, when King Leonidas did his last stand against king xerxes and the Persians, he was in his 40s? 

    There are also Spartan sayings, real Spartans sayings of Spartans with gray hair in their 60s, still putting on their helmet to go to war.

    ***

  • Think Your Own Mind

    I believe the great tragedy that we have in the 21st-century is that people lack the chutzpah to think for themselves, by themselves, etc.

    For example, if I think about traditional K-12 education, the primary focus should be teaching critical thinking, independent thinking, etc. Yet, traditional schools rather seem to be more about teaching obedience, grammar Nazi rules, etc.

    For example, grammar. I think grammar is probably the biggest skins out there; some basic magic grammar is critical to just communicate basic things and ideas. Yet, when we enforce grammar for the sick grammar, we are missing the point.

    For example, Seneca, at age 3 years, three months old; he knows Korean Vietnamese is in English, also Spanish. Yet, there is basic things I am teaching him like present future desires etc. These basic grammar rules are critical for higher order communication, but after that, grammar is not very necessary.

    Also, street smarts, world Smarts.

    What is the number one most critical thing in the child? Make sure your kid doesn’t die in a car accident, getting hit by a car, and also extreme caution while crossing the street etc.

    Or when you’re babysitting or watching your nieces and nephews for the weekend; what is the number one most critical thing? Deliver them back in one piece, intact, alive. 

    School?

    The thing I am the most grateful for of studying college is the ability to unlearn, to challenge societal ideas. 

    For example, I credit studying sociology at UCLA as an undergraduate for truly expanding my mind, and leading to almost all of my successes in my life. Why? Ironically enough, sociology is all via negativa;  sociology is all about unlearning, getting rid of nonsense from your mind, challenging traditional beliefs.

    Even when I think about almost all aspects of my life, I have always pried myself in going against the green, challenging certain beliefs.

    For example, all of my grand innovations in weightlifting, fitness, health, photography and open source, login, social media, and now bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

    Why?

    If you think about it, do you think about society as this ultra mega macro economic thing; day society isn’t about cultivating a few genuine thinkers, revolutionaries. Rather, it is all about creating mediocre, just kind of OK individuals.

    For example, at Trader Joe’s the other day I saw a really funny T-shirt with an older guy wearing a T-shirt saying “the world’s okayest musician”.

    Don’t be good, be great. – JAY Z

    OK is bad?

    What does it mean to be mediocre? Technically it just means the mean; the average, the middle. 

    For example, I saw a very disturbing thing; I guess the evil Walt Disney corporation, which purchased marvel is now cobranding with the evil Coca-Cola corporation; selling your kids obesity, metabolic disease, type three diabetes (Alzheimer’s disease) and type two diabetes (purely a lifestyle thing). Essentially the new filter I have is this: 

    Were your kids raised on Disney, Disney+, Netflix, Marvel superhero movies, YouTube, Bluey or not?

    My greatest parent is that Seneca, ever since birth and up until now has never watched any YouTube, Netflix, senseless media or entertainment.

    I often hear parents bemoan the fact that, it is so hard, everyone else is doing it. But just because everyone else is taking heroin and smoking crack cocaine, does that mean you should as well? Of course not. The best way to distinguish yourself is through what you decide not to do. 

    Distinguishing yourself

    The best way to proclaim who you are, or how to distinguish yourself how you are different, or how you are exceptional is through what you decide not to do, also in someways, rather than bragging about how much money you spent, it is better to brag about how little money you spend. 

    For example, I’d like to brag how I have never spent more than $3000 USD on an automobile car in my entire life. My great joy, the recent 2010 Prius inherited from the family I got for free!

    Also, my pride that I don’t have any sort of streaming TV services. Also the fact that I don’t use social media, and I don’t have an Instagram. My ultimate dad troll joke: 

    When somebody asked me, “what’s your Instagram“? My response, in the serious voice and tone is this —

    “What’s Instagram?”

    I stare at people, blink, and they are not quite sure about how to respond.

    Similarly speaking, your great signal of successes of photography or as a photographer is for you to NOT have an Instagram. If you could be a successful photographer without Instagram, you truly are successful. 

    Bitcoin

    When I purchase bitcoin for only $6900 in bitcoin, back in 2017 2018, only reason I could’ve ever invested speculated in bitcoin and cryptocurrency was that impact, I thought different. I think different,, for myself. It looks like my regulations have paid off. My bitcoin and crypto speculations have exploded; currently my net investments are easily over 1M. And looking forward, I won’t be too surprised when it is over 10M, or 100 M.

    I think my big thought is thinking this:

    > That thing I purchased today for $1000, could be worth 10,000 or $100,000 a few years from now.

    For example, I saw that one of my neighbors just bought a new Porsche car, and I thought to myself, that 70,000 or $80,000 that you put towards our car today, could easily be worth 1 million or $10 million a few years from now.

    Therefore, think an exponential; this is the true way to become rich.

    Independent success 

    I think and wonder to myself, true success is simply thinking different, being different, dressing different, acting different, lifting different, etc.

    For example, all of my great successes in life were polar opposites to what traditional knowledge said. For example, when I told everybody that I was making all my materials available for free open source, people thought I was insane. The same goes with allowing full resolution images of all my images to be downloadable open for free.

    And now, Mike grand idea of building the worlds first bitcoin based photography publishing platform; perhaps this will be my second great innovation. Email me: eric@erickim.com if you want to build the future together.

    Why?

    Ultimately, all thinkers, innovators, philosophers, or all centered around the same general idea of the betterment in the thriving of humanity. Everyone is doing this at a different way.

    For example, Elon Musk, even though people are critical of him, ultimately what he wants to do is inject more optimism and hope into humanity. And this is a noble goal.

    Steve Jobs, his ultimate vision was creating computers which became “bicycles for the mind”– essentially increasing the leverage of any human being by 100,000x.

    Even more recently, my new favorite thinker Michael Saylor, I think his grand mission is economic empowerment. I am currently reading his decade old book, the mobile wave, and it looks like his primary benefit was studying the history of science as a 18-year-old at MIT; Reading the history of technology is in live and, because even for myself now at the age of 36, being born in 1988… I can very vividly see how my life was profoundly shaped by the Internet, the advent of blogging Facebook and social media, and now, my new Second Wave with cryptocurrency and bitcoin; having the privilege of Being alive and wise during the next grand uprising.

    For example, Internet, blogging changed everything. It helped me build up the air Kim Empire. And now with bitcoin, cryptocurrency, Ethereum in the likes; maybe this could help me build the next true competitor to Facebook, Instagram etc —

    The demise of Facebook is trying to build its own crypto lira, if Mark was really smart he would’ve just integrated bitcoin instead.

    Maybe if I think even more ambitiously, I should just create the next social media platform, with bitcoin baked in.

    Thinking big

    I suppose the upside of living in America, or the modern day world, with the Internet and the like is the fact that there is no glass ceiling, no upper limits.

  • Economics?

    The passion of man

    The sea is deeper, the deeper you go into it 

    Economics; work.

    The first question:

    Work for the sake of what?

    1. Rent

    Ultimately, you need somewhere to sleep. Having some sort of home, habitation, apartment.

    I think the big thought, perhaps something that a lot of Americans don’t know is that if you live abroad, in a developing country, let’s say somewhere in Southeast Asia, Thailand, Vietnam Cambodia etc., what that means is you could rent a brand new apartment, very very nice, furniture and everything and all utilities included, in the range of $320 a month, $300 a month in Phnom Penh Cambodia. 

    I think Americans like to complain; do you like to complain about the price of rent, the cost of living etc. However, don’t people realize that you have the power and the ability and the freedom to dictate wherever you live, how to live, went to live, went to live, when not to live?

    2. Food

    The second one is food. Food is a funny new one; it could be insanely expensive, or it could be insanely cheap.

    For example, just go to any local Mexican meat market, and you could buy a pound of beef liver for only $1.99! Because beef liver might have 10 the amount of nutrition as typical meat or flesh meat etc., what that means is you can’t eat as much of it, even if you wanted to. For example, I could eat maybe 4 1/2 to 5 pounds of ground beef, 8020. However with beef liver, I might only be able to eat about 2 1/2 pounds of it.

    Let us say that you’re the average person, you could maybe eat what, a half a pound of it? A quarter pound of it?

    If you did the math, theory you could feed yourself on $.50 to a dollar a day! And this is in America!  that is $15 a month, or $30 a month. And for beverages, if you just drink tapwater or filtered water, which is essentially free, and let us assume the only luxury drink is coffee, but even coffee could be insanely cheap, if you get coffee on sale etc.

    So let us assume that in the states only $30 a month.

    3. How do people blow money?

    It seems to be 100,000x to conserve money than spend it.

    However, the trillion dollar question is still; one should one conserve money, for the sake of what, towards what ends, and one should one spend money, also for the sake of what?

    4. The true scarce desirable thing

    Time and energy, physiological power and energy.

    Essentially the true idea of wealth is maximum time, maximum freedom of time as well as maximum physiological energy. 

    For example, even if you had all of the wealth in the world, all the time in the world, but let us say that I do sleep deprivation torture on you, and you might only sleep 30 minutes a night. Certainly nothing will be worth it.

    5. Leverage is the key

    I think ultimately, if you consider leverage, economic leverage; this is the key.

    For example, let us say that you’re being paid in US dollars, with the typical American salary, and let us say that you’re living abroad in southeast Asia, Vietnam Cambodia Thailand, Bangkok, Hanoi, Saigon, Phnom Penh etc — only $300 a month in rent. If this were the case, even becoming self-employed, it is very easy to earn $300 a month. To just cover your living expenses.

    So the more I think about it, the more I’m curious, is it primary issue here a knowledge gap one? People don’t know that this is an option?

    6. We are getting suckered?

    Certainly there are certain things being marketed to us, some sort of superficial desires. For example, is the iPhone 77 going to be any good? Your Tesla not going to get some sort of design upgrade in the next 100 years?

    I think thinking long-term is more clarifying. For example, let us consider the digital Leica M9, which retail for $7000 USD, when it came out. It could barely shoot at ISO 800 without noise! Now any thousand dollar digital camera can blow it out of the water. 

    So I suppose the secret then is to give a deep critical thought about superficial things, and to not get suckered by superficial things.

  • JUST GET YOUR ASS OUTSIDE!

    A simple line of thinking, towards living the best and most virtuous life:

    Just get your ass outside!

    Thinking heroes

    The first thought is in regards to heroes; what would a hero do, what would a hero not do? 

    First, no hero in their right mind would just stay at home.

    Perhaps the primary issue we have at hand is that simply, we are wearing the wrong clothes. Clothing is akin to armor; I think myself I have made this mistake many many times.  I think the optimal is to consider this:

    Better to over-pack, better to over-prepared, better to wear lots of layers, and simply take it off, when you get too hot.

    Better to be over hot than under cold?

    In regards to heat temperature and humidity; the funny thing is in the Iliad, weather climate is almost never mentioned. The only thing really mentioned is when the rosy morning wakes up, and then when the sun goes down, and then everyone retreats back to the camp, to feast.

    Maybe this is what made the Mediterranean so ideal in terms of military combat and to conquest– it never really gets that hot, and also, it never gets that cold.

    Living in Los Angeles, is often very confusing because it is very difficult to predict how to dress. Sometimes it is insanely cold, and then suddenly sometimes out of nowhere, the sun comes up.

    Perhaps then, the ideal wardrobe is to just wear a lot of clothes and lots of layers, and when it gets too hot, just throw it back into your backpack. 

    Visions

    Lots of recent turbo thoughts: 

    1. Bitcoin is a really big deal:

    Honestly at this point, now that bitcoin has stabilized at around $70,000 a bitcoin, and it has been already around for over a decade, I’m pretty sure it’s here to stay. I was recently looking back at my accounting and finances, and I’m very happy that I first got into bitcoin at $7000 a coin, back in 2022. Honestly at this point, I consider it a very low risk investment, and it is only going to go uphill from here.

    Also, bitcoin is the first native digital currency for the internet. I think the greatest innovation is thinking about the satoshi; the very very small fraction of a bitcoin, which can be used for micro, and also nano transactions. I’m actually currently formulating some ideas of creating the first bitcoin backed photography sharing platform; if you’re interested in collaborating shoot me an email at eric@erickim.com

    2. Tech thoughts

    Some technology thoughts I’ve been working through include the following:

    First, the human joy and delight in the environment. I think all weightlifters, bodybuilders, photographers, human beings will benefit from nature, hiking, the mountains. I think one of the greatest blessings of living in Los Angeles is that there are lots of mountain hikes, so close by. Plus you got Malibu, the Pacific Palisades, and the Huntington library and botanical Gardens are just a stone throw away! 

    First, I think there is a deep connection between men and the environment. For example, no one would want to be a trillionaire, if you were forced to live inside the hood, or worse, live in a parking lot garage for the rest of your life.

    Still… it looks like we like greenery, blue skies, blue oceans, the sun!

    ALO (air, land, ocean)

    I think the reason why Los Angeles is so appealing to many is that in theory we have everything. The water, the ocean, the sky, the ideal climate.

    Truth be told, it gets very dark and gloomy here and cold… but still, compared to the rest of the world, Los Angeles is paradise.

    People complain about the traffic, but people often have the wrong analogy; the reason why it is so trafficky is that everyone wants to be here, because it is the best. Kind of like living in London, London traffic etc. 

    I think the very very simple way to live virtuously in Los Angeles is to plan your life around traffic. The upside of being self-employed, just drive during off peak hours; and also, upside of being a weekend warrior, mixture you use the weekend to drive out further, to go exploring, go to hikes, etc.

    3. Movie analogies for real life?

    I finally watched Dune part II, and I loved it! Definitely top five new favorite movies of all time. The worm riding scene was phenomenal; Denis V is a genius!

    Follow the director, not the actors nor the series.

    I think what is so fascinating about Dune is the pseudo religiosity embedded within it. Notions of the Lisan-al-gaib, prophecies, etc.… the metaphors of Christianity, the prophet, the Messiah, Middle Eastern cultures etc. is really fascinating. 

    First, let us consider Paul Atriedes. I’m quite certain that Paul was named after Saint Paul the apostle. Similar themes in the Matrix movie, NEO, the one, Trinity, the holy Trinity etc.… Lots of Christian, christianic themes here. 

    Perhaps the reason why so many millennials and yuppies are so into these weird moon and horoscope stuff is that they’re lacking religion in their life. 

    And perhaps, a sociological insight; maybe having some sort of religion in your life is critical, otherwise you fall victim to weird other consumerist religions, like the cult of Apple, the cult of Tesla Elon Musk and going to Mars, the cult of money, the cult of capital etc.

    Let us consider even the ancient Greeks, religion or their notion of religion and the gods was a critical part of their being.

    I suppose the nuance is that the way the ancient Greeks thought of religion and the gods was very very different than the modern Judeo Christian notion we have of religion. Perhaps I’m going to study a little bit more about ancient Greek notions of the gods etc.

    4. Lowered cybertruck?

    The other day, I saw a funny sight; somebody traded in a cybertruck at the Culver City Toyota dealership, and I was able to inspect it up close in real life.

    The first thought I had was if you think about the roof line, the fastback design in the back, and overall proportions, it is almost like a modern day Lamborghini Countach, the ultimate wedge design. And then a funny thought; if you took a cybertruck, and you lowered it, and you slammed it, in theory it is the ultimate sportscar design. 

    Anyways, still… the cybertruck is the best thing to have happened in car design perhaps the last hundred years. Even when I went to the Peterson automotive museum with Seneca, seeing an original Bugatti from the 1920s, in all black blew my mind. They were able to engineer phenomenal things over 100 years ago, why is it that all the modern car design is so lame? 

    Anyways, if I were to get any modern day car, it would definitely be a cybertruck, maybe I would do a matte orange wrap on it. 

    Also the good thing about the cyber truck, seeing it compared to all these other pick up trucks, it is actually not that big; I was a bit dubious, but I think it would be manageable to park in Los Angeles!

    5. Other tech thoughts

    So it looks like Apple Vision Pro, the initial enthusiasm and the novelty factor has died off. A bad sign; meeting some head directors of video game companies, they haven’t even bothered to try it out!

    I think video games are a fascinating analogy for real life, because I think essentially… video games are a true metaphor for what we would really like to do in real life, our ideals.

    For example, the new assassins Creed is out on iPad and iPhone Pro; I think in someways, people like the idea of becoming the assassin. To just explore the real city, to parkour around, to do real life world exploration.

    Let us consider, if you were the assassin of assassin’s creed… Would you just be at home all day, watching Netflix, and staying inside your apartment? Probably not.

    6. So What’s the point of life?

    I think what a lot of people think is what is the point of life.

    When you say point, the point of life… do you mean to say purpose, telos?

    First, the reality is that you were born, you had a mother and father, you are alive. And ultimately it is up to you how you decide to direct your biological energy and power, to do what you desire to do.

    The very very simple thought is the purpose of sex, sexual intercourse, men and women is to procreate and have children.

    It seems that out of all this nonsense about gender and sex politics, nobody is talking about the kids! 

    I think overall, modern day consumerism, nobody really wants to have kids anymore. They would just prefer to have dogs, travel to Japan, eat sushi or whatever. But I think this type of hedonistic living actually making people sad and miserable. People do not have purpose to living in life, and I think this is actually what gives people existential dread. Once you have a kid, life becomes very very straightforward and simple, and improved. There is no longer any sort of existential dread, raising your kid is the ultimate joy.

    7. The ultimate tragedy?

    I think the ultimate tragedy is when you have the elderly, older men, older women, without any kids, or with kids but no grandchildren… to me this is very sad.

    For example, I think generally speaking, the notion of generational wealth, generational power, or to extend your power, across centuries, across generations… this is what people desire.

    I think the reason why people invest in real estate property… Is that they want to build generational wealth.

    “Generational wealth, that’s the key. I started off with shit so that shift started with me“– JAY Z

    Why generational wealth?

    Thinking centuries ahead is difficult; and also, a little bit novel in the sense that you think the question:

    What’s the point of the purpose of building up wealth, for future generations, when you yourself cannot enjoy yourself?

    For example, a lot of individuals live their lives, make money in order to spend it. They want to spend money, like buying a Lamborghini and giving themselves driving pleasure or whatever. Once again, much modern capitalism and consumerism is focused on hedonism:

    The more money you make, the more money you spend on things, the more pleasure it will give you.

    I think the reason why this line of thinking is a bit wrong is that if you think about your bodily synapses, there is a certain upper limit of hedonistic pleasure one can have. I think this is where people get into really weird drugs, in order to heighten their hedonistic pleasures.

    In fact, pleasure is not the purpose of life. I think the purpose of life is to augment power, your power. How does one do this?

    1. Having kids:

    In the will to power, Nietzsche has this vision that in the future, families with multiple male children will be given benefits. I think the reason why so many men desire to have at least one son is that they want a new patriarch, a new king of the family to continue their lineage. I think a lot of people make the foolish optimization of earning a bunch of money, during their lifetime… but ultimately the best custodian of your economic power and wealth is your children, not some strangers or committee.

    2. Physical, physiological power:

    If you looked at all the marketing material for cars, objects and stuff… typically they tend towards the more muscular, the more aggressive, etc. For example, I think the reason why it is so fascinating to study the psychology of men who desire certain cars is that it shows the ideals they have for themselves. Example, people want to be louder, more aggressive, the appeal of loud exhaust or tailpipes. Or they want to feel more big and dominant, if you think about the lifted trucks, overlanding vehicles etc.

    However, my personal thought and belief is that instead of wasting all that money in an external avatar which is your car, or vehicle… Don’t you recognize that your own human body is the ultimate vehicle? The ultimate thing to upgrade? 

    The simple thought is if you want to expand your wingspan, your stance, your fenders, fender flares or whatever… just eat more meat, eat more steak, more beef, more dietary cholesterol, more organ meats, more beef liver etc.

    In terms of height, unfortunately you cannot make yourself taller, but what you could do is stand more upright. For example, a 5 foot 5 man who stands upright, chest up actually looks more confident and dominating than a 6 foot 2 men, who is hunched over. therefore I suggest, the first thing you could do is fix your posture.

    How do you fix your posture? I think it comes down to practice, and also maybe your shoes. Just buy some Vibram five finger shoes, and practice standing really upright, walk a lot, quite a lot of hiking, don’t use your phone.

    Also, practice doing exercises which are about standing upright, and walking. For example, Farmer’s walks, deadlift walk, squat walk, yoke walk etc. Any sort of exercise which involves walking and standing upright is good.

    3. Economic power & wealth

    If I think about money, what exactly is money? It is your human labor, your physiological power embedded and imputed into a thing.

    For example, the genius and brilliance of bitcoin is that there is so much energy and power imputed into a bitcoin.

    People for a while was saying all this nonsensical stuff about bitcoin is bad for the planet blah blah blah, but what is really bad for the planet? Air conditioning, washing machines. The electricity output of air conditioning alone is at least 100,000 times worse than bitcoin production.

    Also, most of the bad news about bitcoin mining was from mainland China, in which bitcoin miners, would use cheap coal to fuel bitcoin production, but the nuance is this–

    Why do Americans care that mainland China was using coal to pollute her own environment?

    For Americans who have never been to developing countries… We have never actually smelled or tasted pollution… You start to think and realize:

    The upside of being an American is that all of your lovely iPhones are produced elsewhere, which pollutes a foreign country and a foreign place, while you yourself enjoy your beautiful devices and your clean air.

    Even consider, really rich mainland Chinese families, none of them want to live in Beijing or Shanghai, even if they had all of the Rolls-Royce’s in the world. They all eventually buy a house in Vancouver somewhere with clean green air, and the aspire their children to start a life in America.  

    I think the difficult thing is getting your wealth out of the country. For example, China, mainland China knows that the smart and rich mainland Chinese people want to take their wealth out of the country, and eventually go to America or somewhere else. Let us consider; that all the rich mainland Chinese people send their kids to study at American universities? The opposite does not happen; rich Americans do not send their kids to study Beijing or Shanghai, no. Rich mainland Chinese people want their kids to study at Harvard or Yale, maybe even UCLA.

    Travel

    I still haven’t come up with a good definition of traveling, maybe world exploration is a better analogy.

    For example, if you thought about real life like a video game, Angkor Wat is such a fastening place. Angkor Wat is essentially the environment and landscape of tomb raider; even the locals in siem reap call the second temple “tomb raider”; I think they film the movie there. 

    Anyways, something I’m very excited about is that next year, Cindy Seneca and I will be living in Cambodia for about six months; and I’m also doing an Angkor wat workshop there. 

    Essentially I’m starting to become more and more interested in man-made environments, and having this question in my mind:

    If your real life was a video game, a real world MMORPG, how would you live life? 

    1. No car: no true epic video game warrior has a car. Maybe at best of horse, but even that is not necessary. If you are thinking about your life like Diablo, your main character, you just run around.
    2. Character building? What then is the purpose or ethos of video games, RPGS, MMORPGS? The general idea is towards character building, leveling up, building up your statistics, your strength and your abilities, unlocking new armor weapons, engaging in even greater boss battles. Certainly much of real life is not like that, so then I suppose a bit question at hand is how can you transform your real life to mimic that of a video game?

    ERIC KIM CAMBODIA ANGKOR WAT TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY EXPERIENCE 2025

    Adventure beckons you:

    ERIC KIM TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY ANGKOR WAT WORKSHOP EXPERIENCE (April 24-27th, 2025)

    If you desire new frontiers, new adventures, a new you — this experience is for you.

    ERIC KIM WORKSHOPS >

    Assignments

    1. Upload your best photos to arsbeta.com
    2. Make your own photo blog (bluehost.com) and install WordPress.org
    3. Buy 60 pound weight vest on Titan.fitness, and go on a long hike with it
    4. LUMIX S9 looks cool — get it with the new pancake f8 lens?

    Films

    1. DUNE II– watch the extras, buy it in iTunes Tv store.
    2. Cinema BY KIM

    Now what?

    Start your own blog, email newsletter ,,, and start publishing the future!

    What to study?

    Michael Saylor— his website url is brilliant (Michael.com)

    Also Bitcoin — hope.com

    I’m literally watching all Michael Saylor interviews and podcasts, the man is a genius!

    Forward the money

    Feeling fire? Forward the turbo!

    EK NEWSLETTER

    Beginners mind is best

    START HERE, BOOKS

    He who owns the spice (Bitcoin) shall own the universe

    ERIC KIM BLOG

  • JUST GET YOUR ASS OUTSIDE! 

    A simple line of thinking, towards living the best and most virtuous life:

    Just get your ass outside!

    Thinking heroes

    The first thought is in regards to heroes; what would a hero do, what would a hero not do? 

    First, no hero in their right mind would just stay at home.

    Perhaps the primary issue we have at hand is that simply, we are wearing the wrong clothes. Clothing is akin to armor; I think myself I have made this mistake many many times.  I think the optimal is to consider this:

    Gutter to overpack, better to overprepared, better to wear lots of layers, and simply take it off, when you get too hot. 

    Better to be over hot than under cold?

    In regards to heat temperature and humidity; the funny thing is in the Eliott, weather climate is almost never mentioned. The only thing really mentioned is when the Rosie warning wakes up, and then when the sun goes down, and then everyone retreats back to the camp, to feast.

    Maybe this is what made the Mediterranean so ideal in terms of military combat and conquest conquest– it never really gets that hot, and also, it never gets that cold. 

    Living in Los Angeles, is often very confusing because it is very difficult to predict how to dress. Sometimes it is insanely cold, and then suddenly sometimes out of nowhere, the sun comes up.

    Perhaps then, the ideal wardrobe is to just wear a lot of clothes and lots of layers, and when it gets too hot, just throw it back into your backpack. 

    Visions

    Lots of recent turbo thoughts: 

    1. Bitcoin is a really big deal:

    Honestly at this point, now that bitcoin has stabilized that around $70,000 of bitcoin, and it has been already around for over a decade, I’m pretty sure it’s here to stay. I was recently looking back at my accounting and finances, and I’m very happy that I first got into bitcoin at $7000 a coin, back in 2022. Honestly at this point, I consider it a very low risk investment, and it is only going to go uphill from here.

    Also, bitcoin is the first native digital currency for the Internet. I think the greatest innovation is thinking about the Satoshi; the very very small fraction of a bitcoin, which can be used for micro, and also nano transactions. I’m actually currently formulating some ideas of creating the first bitcoin backed photography sharing platform; if you’re interested in collaborating shoot me an email at eric@erickim.com

    2. Tech thoughts

    Some technology thoughts I’ve been working through include the following:

    First, the human joy and delight in the environment. I think all weightlifter, bodybuilders, photographers, human beings will benefit from nature, hiking, the mountains. I think one of the greatest blessings of living in Los Angeles is that there are lots of mountain hikes, so close by. Plus you got Malibu, the Pacific Palisades, and the Huntington library and botanical Gardens are just a stone throw away! 

    First, I think there is a deep connection between men and the environment. For example, no one would want to be a trillionaire, if you were forced to live inside the hood, or worse, live in a parking lot garage for the rest of your life.

    Still… It looks like we like greenery, blue skies, blue oceans, the sun!

    I think the reason why Los Angeles is so appealing to many is that in theory we have everything. The water, the ocean, the sky, the ideal climate.

    Truth be told, it gets very dark and gloomy here and cold… But still, compared to the rest of the world, Los Angeles is Paradise.

    People complain about the traffic, but people often have the wrong analogy; the reason why it is so trafficky is that everyone wants to be here, because it is the best. Kind of like living in London, London traffic etc. 

    I think the very very simple way to live virtuously in Los Angeles is to plan your life around traffic. The upside of being self-employed, just drive during off peak hours; and also, upside of being a weekend warrior, mixture you use the weekend to drive out further, to go exploring, go to hikes, etc. 

    3. Movie analogies for real life?

    I finally watched Dune part two, and I loved it! Definitely top five new favorite movies of all time. The worm riding scene was phenomenal; Denis V is a genius!

    Follow the director, not the actors nor the series.

    I think what is so fascinating about Dune is the pseudo religiosity embedded within it. Notions of the Lisan-al-gaib, prophecies, etc.… The metaphors of Christianity, theprophet, the Messiah, Middle Eastern cultures etc. is really fascinating. 

    First, let us consider Paul at treaties. I’m quite certain that Paul was named after Saint Paul the apostle.  similar themes in the matrix movie, Neil, the one, Trinity, the holy Trinity etc.… Lots of Christian, christianic themes here. 

    Perhaps the reason why so many millennials and yuppies are so into these weird moon and horoscope stuff is that they’re lacking religion in their life. 

    And perhaps, a social logical inside; maybe having some sort of religion in your life is critical, otherwise you fall victim to weird other consumers religions, like the cult of Apple, the cult of Tesla Elon Musk and going to Mars, the cult of money, the cult of Capital etc.

    Let us consider even the ancient Greeks, religion or their notion of religion and the gods was a critical part of their being.

    I suppose the new ones here is eon, at least the way the ancient Greeks thought of it was very very different than the modern Judeo Christian notion we have of religion. Perhaps I’m going to study a little bit more about ancient Greek notions of the gods etc.

    4. Lowered cybertruck?

    The other day, I saw a funny sight; somebody traded in a cyber truck at the Culver City Toyota dealership, and I was able to inspect it up close in real life.

    The first thought I had was if you think about the roof line, the fastback design in the back, and overall proportions, it is almost like a modern day Lamborghini Countach, the ultimate wedge design. And then a funny thought; if you took a cyber truck, and you lowered it, and you slammed it, in theory it is the ultimate sportscar design. 

    Anyways, still… The cyber truck is the best thing to have happened in car design perhaps the last hundred years. Even when I went to the Peterson automotive museum with Seneca, seeing an original Bugatti from the 1920s, in all black blew my mind. They were able to engineer Phenomenal things over 100 years ago, why is it that all the modern car design is so lame? 

    Anyways, if I were to get any modern day car, it would definitely be a cybertruck, maybe I would do a matte orange wrap on it. 

    Also the good thing about the cyber truck, seeing it compared to all these other pick up trucks, it is actually not that big; I was a bit dubious, but I think it would be manageable to park in Los Angeles!

    5. Other tech thoughts

    So it looks like Apple Vision Pro, the initial enthusiasm in the novel T factor has died off. a towing sign; meeting some head directors of video game companies, they haven’t even bothered to try it out!

    I think video games are a fascinating analogy for real life, because I think essentially… Video games are a true metaphor for what we would really like to do in real life, our ideals.

    For example, the new assassins Creed is out on iPad and iPhone Pro; I think in someways, people like the idea of becoming the assassin. To just explore the real city, to parkour around, to do real life world exploration.

    Let us consider, if you were the assassin of assassin’s creed… Would you just be at home all day, watching Netflix, and staying inside your apartment? Probably not.

    6. So What’s the point of life?

    I think what a lot of people think is what is the point of life.

    When you say point, the point of life… do you mean to say purpose, telos?

    First, the reality is that you were born, you had a mother and father, you are alive. And ultimately it is up to you how you decide to direct your biological energy and power, to do what you desire to do.

    The very very simple thought is the purpose of sex, sexual intercourse, men and women is to procreate and have children.

    It seems that out of all this nonsense about gender and sex politics, nobody is talking about the kids! 

    I think overall, modern day consumerism, nobody really wants to have kids anymore. They would just prefer to have dogs, travel to Japan, eat sushi or whatever. But I think this type of hedonistic living actually making people sad and miserable. People do not have Purpose to living in life, and I think this is actually what gives people existential dread. Once you have a kid, life becomes very very straightforward and simple, and improved. There is no longer any sort of existential dread, raising your kid is the ultimate joy.

    7. The ultimate tragedy?

    I think the ultimate tragedy is when you have the elderly, older men, older women, without any kids, or with kids but no grandchildren… To me this is very sad.

     for example, I think generally speaking, the notion of generational wealth, generational power, or to extend your project, across centuries, across generations… This is what people desire.

    I think the reason why people invest in real estate property… Is that they want to build generational wealth.

    “Generational wealth, that’s the key. I started off with shit so that shift started with me“– JAY Z

    Why generational wealth?

    Thinking centuries ahead is difficult; and also, a little bit novel in the sense that you think the question:

    what’s the point of the purpose of building up wealth, for future generations, when you yourself cannot enjoy yourself?

    For example, a lot of individuals live their lives, make money in order to spend it. They want to spend money, like buying a Lamborghini and giving themselves driving pleasure or whatever. Once again, much modern capitalism and consumerism is focused on hedonism:

    The more money you make, the more money you spend on things, the more pleasure it will give you.

    I think the reason why this line of thinking is a bit wrong is that if you think about your bodily synopsis, there is a certain upper limit of hedonistic pleasure one can have. I think this is where people get into really weird drugs, in order to heighten their hedonistic pleasures.

    In fact, pleasure is not the purpose of life. I think the purpose of life is to augment power, your power. How does one do this?

    1. Having kids:

    In the will to power, Nietzsche has this vision that in the future, families with multiple male children will be given benefits. I think the reason why so many men desire to have at least one son is that they want a new patriarch, a new king of the family to continue their lineage. I think a lot of people make the foolish optimization of earning a bunch of money, during their lifetime… But ultimately the best custodian of your economic power and wealth is your children, not some strangers or committee.

    2. Physical, physiological power:

    If you looked at all the marketing material for cars, objects and stuff… Typically they tend towards the more muscular, the more aggressive, etc. For example, I think the reason why it is so fascinating to study the psychology of men who desire certain cars is that it shows the ideals they have for themselves. Example, people want to be louder, more aggressive, the appeal of loud exhaust or tailpipes. Or they want to feel more big and dominant, if you think about the lifted trucks, over landing vehicles etc.

    However, my personal thought and belief is that instead of wasting all that money in an external avatar which is your car, or vehicle… Don’t you recognize that your own human body is the ultimate vehicle? The ultimate thing to Upgrade? 
    Simple thoughts is if you want to expand your wingspan, your stance, your fenders, fender flares or whatever… Just eat more meat, eat more steak, more beef, more dietary cholesterol, more organ meats, more beef liver etc.

    In terms of height, unfortunately you cannot make yourself taller, but what you could do is stand more upright. For example, a 5 foot five man who stands upright, chest up actually looks more confident and dominating than a 6 foot two men, who is hunched over. therefore I suggest, the first thing you could do is fix your posture.

    How do you fix your posture? I think it comes down to practice, and also maybe your shoes. Just buy some Vroom five finger shoes, and practice standing really upright, walk a lot, quite a lot of bikes, don’t use your phone.

    Also, practice doing exercises which are about standing upright, and walking. For example, Farmer’s walks, dead lift walk, squat walk, yoke walk etc. Any sort of exercise which involves walking and standing upright is good.

    3. Economic power & wealth

    If I think about money, what exactly is money? It is your human labor, your physiological power embedded and imputed into a thing.

    For example, the genius and brilliance of bitcoin is that there is so much energy and power imputed into a bitcoin.

    People for a while was saying all this nonsensical stuff about bitcoin is bad for the planet blah blah blah, but what is really bad for the planet? Air conditioning, washing machines. The electricity output of air conditioning alone is at least 100,000 times worse than bitcoin production.

    Also, most of the bad news about bitcoin mining was from mainland China, in which bitcoin miners, would use cheap coal to fuel bitcoin production, but the nuance is this–

    Why do Americans care that mainland China was using coal to pollute her and environment?

    For Americans who have never been to developing countries… We have never actually smelled or tasted pollution… You start to think and realize:

    The upside of being an American is that all of your lovely iPhones are produced elsewhere, which pollutes a foreign country and a foreign place, while you yourself enjoy your beautiful devices and your clean air.

    Even consider, really rich mainland Chinese families, none of them want to live in Beijing or Shanghai, even if they had all of the Rolls-Royce’s in the world. They all eventually buy a house in Vancouver somewhere with clean green air, and the aspire their children to start a life in America.  

    I think the difficult thing is getting your wealth out of the country. For example, China, mainland China knows that the smart and rich mainland Chinese people want to take their wealth out of the country, and eventually go to America or somewhere else. Let us consider; that all the rich men land Chinese people send their kids to study at American universities? The opposite does not happen; rich Americans do not send their kids to study Beijing or Shanghai, no. Rich mainland Chinese people want their kids to study at Harvard or Yale, maybe even UCLA.

    Travel

    I still haven’t come up with a good definition of traveling, maybe world exploration is a better analogy.

    For example, if you thought about real life like a video game, encore what is such a fastening place. Angkor Wat is essentially the environment and landscape of tomb raider; even the locals in siem reap call the second temple “tomb raider”; I think they film the movie there. 

    Anyways, something I’m very excited about is that next year, Cindy Seneca and I will be living in Cambodia for about six months; and I’m also doing an Angkor wat workshop there. 

    Essentially I’m starting to become more and more interested in man-made environments, and having this question in my mind:

    If your real life was a video game, a real world MMORPG, how would you live life? 

    1. No car: no true epic video game warrior has a car. Maybe at best of horse, but even that is not necessary. If you are thinking about your life like Diablo, your main character, you just run around.
    2. Character building? What then is the purpose or ethos of the game, the video game etc.? The general idea is towards character building, leveling up, building up your statistics, your strength and your abilities, unlocking new armor weapons, engaging in even greater boss battles. Certainly much of real life is not like that, so then I suppose a bit question at hand is how can you transform your real life to mimic that of a video game?

  • Things Which Are Upgrading, Things Which Aren’t? 

    Never stop upgrading.

    Maybe a simple and straightforward way we could think about life isn’t in regards to upgrading. For example, considering things which are being upgraded, things which can keep continually being upgraded, things which cannot.

    The double sided twist; sometimes, it is better if something cannot be upgraded, other times it is better when you know things can be upgraded.

    For example, in the context of photography and digital photography, the really really big issue here is that with any sort of digital camera, you cannot upgrade the body or sensor. You have to trade in or sell your old one, to buy the new one.

    ChatGPT 

    ChatGPT 4o is now out,  and I think what is really incredible about ChatGPT as a technology or a software or a thing is that as time goes on, it will keep getting upgraded, keep getting better.

    In the context of vehicles, Tesla is the killer vehicle, because the software and the auto pilot technology is always improving over time. 

    Even the WordPress theme I’m using, or a lot of them; get regular updates overtime, and if you just have the auto updates enabled, you can sleep with the joy knowing that as you sleep, it will just keep getting upgraded!

    Upgrading materials

    After experimenting with a lot of polyester, synthetic materials, much of the stuff from Lululemon etc., attended the day, the materials suck.  Half of the performance clothing items I purchased from them have frayed, broken, fallen into disarray. And ultimately, what sucks about Lululemon, or any sort of man-made synthetic materials is that ultimately none of it is breathable, and not very good at thermal regulation. It is either too hot or too cold, never in between.

    I suppose this is where animal fibers like merino wool is so good; even this random minus 33 brand merino wool T-shirt that I bought from Amazon mini years ago, is still insanely durable, and works great! Even with my 60 pound weight vest on. 

    A nuance; I have about half a dozen outlier.NYC ultrafine merino wool T-shirts, but overtime, they have all shredded, they have poor durability.

    Does durability matter?

    In terms of the ultimate sustainability model, the best computers, tablets, technology, laptops, phones or whatever, in theory you could just swap out the processor, and slap in a new one, or upgrade the ram whenever you want to.

    For example, I’m blessed to have been born in 1988, and was part of the original hacker ethos, building my own computers, overclocking them, etc. This was great, because there was a strong sense of possibility; as a sophomore in high school, certainly I could not afford the most expensive Intel processors, so I had to stick with AMD. Also, I cannot afford the best GeForce graphics cards, so I had to opt for lower and ones, which meant that I had far less frames per second than my friends.

    Also with monitors, the monitor technology at the time was not great, but there was a promise that overtime, you could upgrade and swap out your monitor.

    I think the tragedy of Apple is that a lot of our lovely laptops and devices are made obsolete. For example, my 2017 MacBook Pro, which I purchased for about $2000 maxed out, from the refurbished Apple Store online, and now, it is practically unusable. The battery lasted about two minutes, and it is slower than even my $300 iPhone SE.

    Strategies?

    When I was the UCLA undergraduate, my boss, the IT Director of UCLA undergraduate admissions, John Talbert, had this very interesting ethos he taught me:

    When you have to buy new computers for the department, always buy the most expensive top-of-the-line ones, even though upfront is more expensive, it will last a lot longer before you have to upgrade and replace them all.

    What some departments do is that they just buy the cheapest computers, and soon it gets outdated, and there is an insane amount of work that has to be done to swap it all out.

    Thinking more long term?

    Not always, but often buying the top-of-the-line stuff, when it is logical, makes sense.

    For example, my beloved Texas power squat bar; I think it has a strength of about 10,000 pounds, which means I am sure that it could probably hold about 5000 pounds, and not break.

    Also, I got these really great weightlifting plates on extreme sale from habitats for humanity, these “iron grip” brand weightlifting plates, which will never go out of fashion, because iron, heavy stuff, or last practically forever for weightlifting. I have about 14 of them, which means seven plates on each side.

    Steel?

    Probably one of the most interesting material science thoughts I’ve learned is from Michael Saylor, thinking about steel. I never had any idea that steel was such an amazing innovation. Same goes with stainless steel, aluminum, even to some extent iron.

    Cameras

    Even within a short time, I have seen so many digital like a cameras come and go, and if you observe it, the shelflife of all of them is quite poor. As of now we are already on the M11, so quickly. The M8, M8.2, M9, M, M10, M-10R now M11. Not to mention all these other random like a rangefinder cameras in between.

    Also, other digital cameras like the Leica Q, Leica Q2, now Leica Q3.

    Fujifilm is kind of insane, starting from the original X100, X 100 S, 100 T, X 100 F, X 100 V, and now X100 VI.  Also same thing goes with all their XT-series cameras. Same goes with Sony Panasonic etc.

    So what should we do?

    If you are committed to using non-interchangeable lens system, know that pest, he might only get two or three years out of it. This is the trade-off; you sacrifice long-term durability for short term benefits.

    For example, my beloved Rico GR digital cameras; because I am such an insane hard-core user, most of my cameras have lasted me about a year and a half, two years tops. I just have to keep buying them, they keep on breaking.

    So theory is the lens is something that doesn’t need upgrading, never changes. For example, I have a Leica 35mm f2 Summicron ASPH lens, which in theory will never need any upgrading. It will work just fine even once Seneca is 36 years old.

    Also I suppose the upside of film cameras is that they don’t really need any upgrading either. For example, my film Leica MP camera will last indefinitely, I’m sure even Seneca’s grandson could use it.

    But the problem about film cameras is the insane inconvenience of it; maybe somebody will make the process easier one day, but until then, digital photography is at least 100,000 times better.

    Dated or outdated?

    I think one thing which really fascinates me about the cyber truck, is that in theory, the stainless steel body should last practically forever. Because it does not require any sort of paint, you never have to worry about paint peeling or chipping off in the future.

    This happened a lot in the 80s and 90s; these old Nissan cars, Honda cars, Toyota cars with peeling clear coat paint, peeling black paint etc. No car from the 80s or 90s has lasted until now in terms of the original paint.

    Today, all of these people who going over all black everything cars; I doubt any sort of car with any sort of black paint will last in the relentless Southern California sun.

    Clothes

    I think the particle and the pragmatic benefit or the upside or the theory or philosophy behind all black everything clothing is that black clothing will never go out of style. Even the funny upside is faded black clothes also looks stylish.

    So then I suppose the optimization is this:

    When you have to buy clothes, buy the highest quality fabric all black everything clothing, in the hopes of using it or wearing it forever.

    Certainly nothing is meant to last forever, but there are certain things last longer than others.

    Leather, I still think leather is very underappreciated. Your black leather jacket will never go out of style. This seems to be a good idea.

    Cotton denim is fine, but even that has a certain shelf life. I think currently for pants, the best solution I’ve discovered is the Lululemon license to train shorts, apparently they also make pants too. 

    I wore merino wool leggings for a long time, but no matter what, it seems that it doesn’t last forever. Sooner or later holes and emerge around the knees, and then eventually it just falls to shreds. 

    I suppose the upside of living in Southern California or LA is that you could just wear shorts all year round!

    So maybe just a practical thought is just buy some really really good high-quality shorts. Currently the best shorts are the Lululemon license to train ones, I like the 5 inch one.

    “Investing?”

    When people tell you that something is a good investment, it probably isn’t.

    For example, often when people tell you that something is a good investment, they either are misinformed, lack critical thinking, etc.

    In theory, nothing is really that good of an investment,  consider almost all of the modern day things which exist:

    1. All Internet connected things, well sooner or later get outdated.
    2. Your car, no matter how good, is robust at best. If you have a gas or hybrid car, you will always need oil changes, sooner or later something will break. Even if you have an electric car, the battery will slowly lose its capacity overtime.
    3. Fiat currency, US dollars in your checking or savings account, is slowly bleeding value 7 to 12% a year because of inflation. And because of the expanding money supply.
    4. Homes are slowly decaying overtime, even if you own a nice single-family home, sooner or later you’re going to have to tear it down and build a new one. Or upgrade the appliances, sooner or later all the appliances will break.

    What goes up in value over time?

    1. Real estate in a good location is good, if you just think about the asphalt or the concrete or the granite on the bottom of it, purely for location. However the subtle nuance of property, is property taxes, insurance, maintenance fees. I think any property requires at least a general 1% maintenance fee. And you still have to charge your property, maintain it, property taxes might go up etc. And even if your property value goes up overtime, you have to beat inflation, so the only real intelligent way to get into real estate is purchase real estate in an insanely great area or neighborhood, in which the value of the home or the property or the land Will outpace of inflation.
    2. Bitcoin: each and every day, the total market cap is expanding. Even just a few years ago, the total market cap was only 500 billion, now it is over 1.2, 1.3 trillion. Soon it will be 10 trillion, 100,000,000,000,000, 1000 trillion and beyond. And the more people who adopted, the stronger the network gets, kind of like social media; Facebook only became valuable as more people got onto Facebook. Or iPhone iOS; having FaceTime becomes more useful as all your friends and family members get iPhones with FaceTime.
    3. Your popularity, you’re a claim: the more you publish, the more you share your thoughts, the better. Fame is like a fire that cannot die; the more you fainted, the bigger it becomes. Even bad news, all news is good news, For fame. Consider Donald Trump; the more media attention he gets, the more people criticize him, the more popular famous and powerful he becomes. If you are really anti-Donald Trump, just don’t talk about him at all. Even when you randomly criticize or critique something he said amongst friends or over dinner, you’re augmenting his fame. The best way to kill people is to not talk about them.

    Matte black yourself?

    Assuming that muscle is the ultimate accessory, instead of Matt blacking your car, or met blocking your home, Matt black yourself, your body.

    Also, people always seem to be impressed with my full body tan. Having a full body tan is certainly a signal of wealth in today’s world. Especially when most people are just like the people, working indoors all day.

    So maybe when you get a full body tan, just put on lots of sunblock if you’re worried about getting sunburnt, by getting a tan, in theory you’re matte blacking your body. 

    Also, I think the reason why having a tan, a full body tan is so fascinating is because it is like stored energy or power, manifested through your skin. Your skin, your body is the ultimate fashion accessory; invest your body over everything else. Your body is something that is the most critical thing, in which you should invest all your attention energy and resources towards. 

    **

  • ANGKOR WAT

  • Muscle is The Ultimate Fashion Accessory

    A very simple idea; for a lot of people who are wasting money on clothes, cars, homes etc.… The best fashion to have, to fashion yourself is your muscles, your body.

    Conspiracy theories screaming illuminati, they cannot imagine this much power and muscle inside a human body – he 6 2 how he fit inside a new Bugatti? Ha ha you got me (JAY Z)

    Economic problems

    So in theory, any skinny fat loser could purchase a Bugatti, a Lamborghini, McLaren, whatever. And in theory, any man can simply push his foot against the pedal, and it will make loud sounds, and go fast.

    However, what most men cannot do is at the gym, or even in public, scream really loud, a primal roar, and, lift at least seven, eight, nine, 10 plates and beyond.

    Risk of injury?

    I think people missed the point; people always say, “Be careful“– when they see me stack up the bar with over 10 plates.

    This is precisely the idea; it is actually the risk of injury which makes one create courageous and brave. If you knew with 100% certainty before you would lift an astronomical amount of weight; it wouldn’t really mean anything.

    Skin, muscle in the game, your body in the game. I think also why war, hand to hand combat is so noble is that you’re putting your own life, your own body, your own soul on the line. If you do something, without any potential risk to damaging or hurting or harming your human body, it is not real courage.

    For example, thinking about the Iliad; I think the proper way to consider things is that you can only trust somebody who actually looks like a Achilles to translate the thing. You cannot have old flabby skinny fat guys translating heroism; they will never understand. 

    This is also why I find it extremely bizarre when women write or opine on manliness or masculinity; if as a woman you have never experienced testosterone, or if you do not have testicles… Or testes, you will never understand the physiological effects of being a man. Similarly speaking a man who never has to go through a menstrual cycle; he will also never understand the plight of women. Same goes with childbirth.

    How to feel insanely good?

    Waking up today, after sleeping like a person, feeling like $1 trillion; what is the idea?

    First, the night prior; eating insanely well. 2 pounds of brisket, maybe 3 pounds of ground beef? 8020.

    Sleeping very deeply, very long. Maybe sleeping 10 hours?

    1. Currently, it seems that the optimal strategy to coffee and caffeine is just drink a lot first thing waking up, very very strong. Like a one rep Max coffee attempt. But then at the end of the day, after the morning, 100% abstinence. I think if we consider that sleeping well for the gods, then actually sleeping well might be the number one most critical thing to optimize. If this is the case, one should not have any caffeine after 8 AM?
    2. Eating enough, eating well: I’m starting to think that 99.9% of the issues of modern day life, modern day humans and physiology has to deal with nutrition. Even Nietzsche said that the great men of the future would become more carnivorous. The more carnivorous become, the more powerful you become. Certainly you could survive on other things; but what would you prefer to be; Hercules, or serf? Or would you rather be a drone or an Archon?

    Money thinking

    One of the ironies in the western world, America is that people want to make a bunch of money in order to spend it, and in order to purchase and things. But what if, the goal was actually to stack and conserve your money —

    I bought every V 12 engine, wish I could take it back to the beginning – JAY Z

    I thought about this line from Jay Z a lot; it could be interpreted in two ways:

    1. First, ideas that when you’re starting off, the beginning, when you’re hungry and poor and striving, this is the best position to be in. Because once you’re already successful, super rich, and purchase everything, there is nothing left to aspire towards.
    2. The second interpretation: Jay Z regrets wasting all this money on buying all these expensive cars, instead, he wishes that he put that money towards property.

    “I could’ve bought a place in Dumbo when it was Dumbo, it was worth $1 million, now it’s worth 20 million. Guess how I’m feeling, Dumbo.”

    “Life is a game of monopoly, go ahead, go outside and cop yourself some property” – Migos

    Property?

    I’ve been listening to and studying a lot for Michael Saylor, and I think right now, the best way to think about bitcoin is crypto property, rather than a cryptocurrency.

    Currency is useful, in order to buy coffee, espresso, groceries at Costco etc. Or getting some great all you can eat Korean barbecue (Randomly, my sister-in-law Jennifer found this really really good all you can eat Japanese barbecue place called chubby cattle; with A5 Wagyu, and M9 Australian beef, which is insanely good). And according to Michael, real well, really wealthy people have, own, or have purchased property in the past.

    For example, all of those stories you hear in the area of people who once purchased some apartment building or Square block in the mission district in San Francisco for only $20,000, and now it worth $20 million or whatever.

    Or can you imagine if the SARS pandemic, purchasing some real estate in the middle of hong kong, when everyone was trying to run away?

    Generations?

    99 generations from now?

    I think also I think that is very difficult to consider in daytimes is thinking about generations, generational wealth, the future.

    For example, we recently went to the Huntington library, which has this very impressive house called the Shoyo house, which was an adult. House, which was around for 300 years, and had 50 or so generations of families live inside of it.

    And then I thought; thinking about the future; not just your kids, but your kids kids kids. Kids kids kids kids kids.

    It is still hard to imagine; the great great great great grandchildren of Seneca; and beyond.

    Even thinking about my own family, how futuristic I seem today. My grandfather on my mother side, who was essentially a poor tea farmer, who grew up in a hut in the countryside of Korea, becoming a doctor, building a lot of wealth, handing it down to his children etc.

    And that one of his grand children (me)– being born in America, in the states, becoming an Internet entrepreneur, and now investing in Bitcoin, it is insanely crazy to think about how much has changed even within one or two generations. 

    Out there?

    Thinking about Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Angkor Wat, Siem Reap and the future; very exciting news; Cindy and I are going to be in Cambodia for about six months next year, starting around March.

    I was thinking about Angkor Wat, how insanely huge is, how phenomenal all of the stonework is, the brick, etc. 

    First of all, thinking about this insanely huge stone fortress, if you get a Birdseye view of in cad, it is simply astounding to consider it. The scale is beyond your imagination; you could only really feel it or experience it, when you experience it in embodied reality.

    And then I think about modern day times, creating your own citadel, your own fortress.

    Even the Huntington Gardens, the library, and the ground; if you live in LA or Southern California California or California in general, you must visit it. The brand new Chinese garden, the Japanese garden and beyond; the pure acreage of it will blow your mind.

    Economic photo power?

    Some economic, philosophical thoughts on photography:

     if we go back to first principles, and think about the digital photograph, the image of a photograph; what is it? It is you capturing some living force, and imputing it into an image, which will theory last forever.

    If you think about a digital image, a JPEG image, whatever… In theory, it is infinitely applicable, it cannot die.

    I think the reason why I love JPEG so much, is with indexing, the Internet, images or whatever; it will never die. Especially when you make it open source, packages, have multiple downings for it, it will always be accessible somewhere, on the Internet and beyond, or hard drive.

    Certainly nothing is going to last forever. I am quite certain that my website will not be around 300 years from now, and I’m sure 1000 years from now, it will probably be very difficult to access any of my photos or whatever. I don’t really mind that much. Nothing is meant to last forever, nor should anything last forever. Whenever I’m out in public, going to random places, and I see people caring around Rico GR cameras, I know that my work has already been done and completed.

    All street photographers, whether they know it or not, are acolytes of ERIC KIM.

    Last?

    The other day, I met a random UCLA undergrad kid, was from Hong Kong, and I wanted to show him this really really funny digital rev, Kai Min Wong video that I did, I tried to find it on YouTube and I couldn’t, and then I googled it, And then I saw that I think the official digital rev page took it down?

    It’s crazy, I’m only 36 years old, but I guess I’ve been in the game for a while now. Ever since I was 21; I guess I’ve been around for at least 15 years?

    Since then, I’ve already seen so many photographers come and go– am I the only one left? 

    Some more recent ideas is the idea that perhaps durability is indeed the most critical and important things; durability as metaphorical, to last.

    For example, steel over carbon fiber; carbon fiber is brittle, breaks easily, and doesn’t last. Even if you’re starting to look at some of the older Tesla performance edition; the little carbon fiber spoiler wing is already starting to peel clear coat. Or when you see people who wrap their car, it never last. When you see vinyl car wrap starting to disintegrate into the sun, it is really ugly. This is why having real pain is better. It seems in terms of maximum durability at least if you live in Southern California, The optimal is to either a white or silver car, which reflects the maxima amount of light, and just wax it every once in a while, to keep the paint durable. This is where I am still more for paint than wrap; I think if you wrap a vehicle, at best with good maintenance it might last about three years. But good paint, at least 30 years.

    Cybertruck?

    The only real stock I own besides bitcoin is Tesla. Why? Not to make money; I’m already rich enough. But for me, it is a testament of faith, what I believe in, what I love.

    I’ve been seeing a lot more cyber trucks on the road, especially in Los Angeles. It might be the most beautiful thing the most beautiful architectural marvel I see in embodied reality or real life.

    I just had the realization that if you think about the proportions of a cyber truck, especially how angular it is, stainless steel… Essentially has a proportions of a Lamborghini; for example if you took a cyber truck and you lowered it, very low to the ground… That when you close the trunk, and you think about the overall proportions, it is very awesome and menacing looking.

    Also, when it is really really bright and sunny outside, when the sun in Los Angeles is strong, to see the light refract off of the stainless steel is a true marvel. Also watching the Dune part two movie recently; cannot fake the sun.

    So what should you do?

    Some simple life goals: 

    1. If possible, try to have at least one kid. If you’re a man, strive to have at least one son. If your first child is a son, consider yourself infinitely blessed. After that, life is all upside, no downside.
    2. Realize that being rich and wealth is probably more of a mental thing than anything else; why? If the whole point of money and wealth in general is to conservative, to stack it, to not spend it; the irony is the true path towards maximum riches is in fact maximum Economic conservativism and building. That is the overall point of Is to keep stacking it, to not spend it.

    What this means then is being rich, being wealthy is just driving a maximum economy car, like a Toyota Prius, and not wasting any of your money on gas, and saving the maximum amount of money humanly possible.

    Also, I’m starting to think more and more there’s really no good reason to purchase or owner home or property. Why? There is too many defects of property, owning property, owning real estate.

    First, taxes, property taxes will bleed you dry. Second, the physical laws of entropy; no home, no matter how well you build it will let you 300 years. Rust, mold, termites whatever; only the granite or the asphalt beneath your house will last, every hundred years or so you’ll probably have to tear down the house, and build a new one. I suppose you could build one out of steel, but even steel, you keep painting, or else it will rust away.

    So now what?

    Think, if you could live like a king in Vietnam, Hanoi or Saigon, Phnom Penh Cambodia paying rent for only $300 USD a month, doesn’t this change everything? 

    I think what we Americans or what people don’t understand is this:

    You choose.

    For example, there is nothing really holding you to live in America, the states, California whatever. People often make these excuse that your family is here or whatever; you decided to stay… That is your decision. You can easily leave.

    Or, if you have the blessing of being a tech worker, and you could work remote. Isn’t the optimal strategy to collect your American salary, in a developing country? 

    I think once you realize that you will never run out of money, even if you wanted to, this changes everything. This was my primary awakening, or my enlightenment moment in Vietnam; when I realize that I would never run out of money, because the cost-of-living was so cheap, it changed everything.

    Are there any really good reasons to live in America anymore?

    Freedom of speech. If you are a super active political journalist or person, the number one benefit of living in America is freedom of speech. But if you’re not really political, or you don’t care for politics much; I don’t see any compelling reason to live in America.

    Freedom of property?

    I suppose the second thing is property rights, freedom of property, not having the government just seize your stuff.  I suppose this is the upside of bitcoin, if you think about bitcoin as digital property. You could just take it with you everywhere you go, and not be held down by anything.

    Bitcoin is perfect for digital nomads.

    Buying a home or property is a scam?

    I’m starting to think more and more, to own a single-family home, physical property, where does the brainwashing come from?

    First, I would much rather own $1 million worth of bitcoin, rather than on a single-family home being worth $1 million. Why?

    First, your property value of your bitcoin will appreciate at a much faster pace than your single-family home. I think your single-family home, the value of it will only probably meet that of inflation; when people are happy to see there; don’t you know that this is simply the same rate in which The US dollar money supply is expanding as long as government have the ability to print out currency at will like a Xerox machine; home values seem a bit like a scam.

    Your roof?

    The great joy of renting the other day our hot water went out. We just texted the landlord and literally the same day, he said some maintenance people to fix it. I cannot be fucked having to do home maintenance.

    Hidden expenses and headaches?

    Another downside of owning the property your home; let us see you buy a really really nice house for property, and then your roof goes out. Boom, that $70,000 down the drain.

    I think the main problem about home, homeownership is that there are just too many unknown expenses that will hit you at the most inconvenient times. I think it doesn’t matter how rich you are, doesn’t even matter what you could hire other people or not, other people are unreliable, Contractors are a huge pain in the ass, they always take too long, too much money, and make your life worse.

    Let us see that your life was like DUNE; is the purpose of Paul Atreides to stay at home, and fix his plumbing? Or to rule over the universe? 

    Incoming!

    The current world of photography is a mess. All the new cameras suck, and I guess now everyone is on TikTok. It looks like nobody even uses Snapchat or Instagram anymore. 

    arsbeta.com — the only good place to do any sort of photography related things is currently ARS. The only place on the internet i think we could post photos and share photos, without advertisements. if you want to join the our development team, send me a pdf of your résumé to eric@erickim.com —

    My next vision for ARS is to build in some sort of bitcoin, or satoshi or sat functionality. I envision this insanely grand new future in which ARS will be the first bitcoin enabled photo sharing platform. If you want to invest, join the board, share the vision, email me eric@erickim.com

    Why Bitcoin?

    Stay humble and stack sats – Michael Saylor

    I think for most people, a single bitcoin is just too expensive now. But what is very underrated is the satoshi, the sat, the sub division of a bitcoin.

    Satoshi’s actually make Michael transactions possible. For example, imagine like you want to sell an e-book or something, and somebody could pay you with just a single Satoshi. A single Satoshi is only worth a fraction of a penny, but still; it is some sort of real skin in the game.

    I think for most artist, we don’t really want to get rich for our photography; having people pay us money for our photos or our services simply assign of respect for us in our photography; if somebody is willing to send you real money for one of your Products or services, it is a signal of your economic value and worth.

    Honestly, now that McDonalds is paying a $20 minimum wage, assuming you work an eight hour shift,  that means you could earn $160 USD a day for just flipping burger patties! Apparently also you could get a job as a CHP officer earning $120,000 a year!  I think if I know what I know now, instead of just going to college and getting a boring tech job, I might have opted instead to become a cop, join the military, become a firefighter or something more physical and active; just imagine becoming a CHP officer, you get paid a ton of money to essentially become the law, And drive a really high-powered horsepower car for a living. 

    Imagine being given 1000 hp car, a cop car, and earning $120,000 a year! Sounds pretty cool.

  • In Praise Of Society

    What do we really want and desire? 

    Most people are lonely?

    Interesting thing about video games, media, the have to deal with other human beings, other fictional beings. For example, people who watch TV shows movies etc.… It is impossible for this all to happen and exist without some sort of human drama, human actors, human agency etc. As a consequence, things in life which we are exposed in around other human beings, this is what we feel the greatest joy?

    For example, spending time working out at my own personal home gym, versus being in a physical real life gym. I think honestly half the fund of working out at a gym is being around other people! Other people motivate us, give us more energy and power, stronger motivation.

    Also, I think one of the greatest upsides of having a child is you have a strong motivation to live for. I think life for at least one child is meaningless, base, a void.  This is why I think people throw themselves into drugs, sex, travel, consumers in shopping, cheap thrills etc. It is that they have nothing greater to live for.

    Perhaps this is why people are the most miserable on Sundays, typically when it is the most quiet, people are at home by themselves. Especially for people who don’t go to church anymore or go to church at all.

    Ideas

    Some basic ideas:

    First, I remember my great joy of living in Saigon Vietnam, in which Cindy and I just lived a very simple life in a hotel. I personally loved it because I would be able to interact with the staff, Vietnam is bustling with tons of life and street life! I think also the reason why street photography is so great for us is that it deals with other human beings. I think people Often spend too much time trying to define street, in context of what it is, and what it is not. But however, to me this is all a bit off points; the more critical thing is that sooner or later, all of us street photographers have a shared passion for other humans and humanity; so anything that could bring us closer to other human beings is a good thing.

    Also in terms of people who do yoga and the like, I really do think it is that people like being around other human beings! I think what we have learned through Covid is the greatest human joy is being around other human beings. Even though we don’t have to directly interact with them, we love being around other people! For example for us technology workers,  that is why a lot of us like to do work at coffee shops; we feel more safe secure and happy when we are adjacent to other human beings. Even though we don’t have to directly interact with them, I think we like having other “non-playable characters” around us!

    Why we love travel so much

    My theory on why we love traveling so much is that it leads us to interact more with other human beings, whether directly or indirectly. For example, even the simple act of transit; jumping in an Uber, going to the airport, flying, going to new places etc. I think the average American spends too much time alone, when you go elsewhere you’re constantly surrounded by other human beings. This is why I think typically speaking I am happier in Southeast Asia; More time around other human beings. And also very happy Culver City friendly lifestyle I enjoy, because in Los Angeles, it is one of the very few places that I could actually see other human beings walking around, etc.

    Solutions

    I think we often underestimate the amount of agency and control we have over our lives. Everything you do in your life is your own choice.

    For example, I wonder if 90% of your life, your own personal life enjoy is actually centered around your local, where you decide to live, how do you decide to live etc.

    For example very basic things; if you don’t want to work anymore, it is very easy for you to retire right now, move to Cambodia or Vietnam, live a simple life for only $300 USD a month for rent. For example, I credit living in Vietnam for a year And going off the grid to have some deep philosophical introspection; I think this is a very beneficial idea for almost anybody, who is seeking to “find themselves “, or to seek greater clarity in their lives.

    Phnom Penh Cambodia, Hanoi, Saigon, Mexico City etc.

    What do you want from and out of your life?

    How to live, what to live for, critical things to consider.

    If you’re on the fence about having a kid or not, just do it. Having a child is the single best innovation you could do for your life. It is literally going from zero to one.

    I cannot speak for having multiple children yet, as currently I only have one kid. But certainly having Seneca has brought me the ultimate joy in life, the ultimate direction, ultimate purpose. It is very simple;, my personal life. I don’t even have to blink twice.

    For people who are just living for themselves, I think is actually very empty. 

    Even as a kid, it seem to make a lot of logical sense; the purpose of a parent was to sacrifice for their children. For example, seeing how much my mom sacrificed for me, was ultimate example, a blueprint which I embedded for Seneca.

    Now what?

    I cannot speak for everybody, but for me, I think getting married but not to have kids, is like dating 2.0; after getting married with Cindy, certain things become a little more serious like combining finances, our commitment to another etc.… But the true test in the true meaning is having a child together, raising the child together.

    Certainly not everyone has to have a kid if you don’t want to. People have metaphorical children through their artwork; even Nietzsche said:

    Either kids or books (lubricant aut liberi)

    Nietzsche was essentially doing a funny Latin pun, saying that women either give birth to books, or children, never both. I am impressed that Cindy has done both.

    Futures

    Now that Covid is essentially over, I think a very simple way to live life is to treat your life like dune. I think watching Dune part two has had the strongest most recent effect on me; imagine that you were Paul Atrides– and that your life was as grand epic. Live your life like it.

    I actually had a funny thought, that if you are a father, and you have birth at least one male air, assuming that your firstborn kid was actually a son… You as a father should consider yourself infinitely blessed. For example, I imagine myself like the Duke of Baracus, and that my son was Seneca.

    I also suppose that I’m in a very privilege and unique position in which that I am self-employed, might have been the only child ever been raised, by his father, from birth until now. Never having to be put into daycare, preschool, etc. As a consequence, The most capable kid of all time, at the age of three years, two months.

    If you have the option, you should be the one to raise your child, not strangers. 

    Writing

    The hilarious irony; I’ve made my living from writing, yet I have never considered myself a writer, nor do I think it is a big deal. In fact, when I was in school, I never did that well in English; it was simply pragmatic.

    For me, writing is simply probably the most direct, simple and effective means for communication.  for example, writing and reading to me is at least 10,000 times faster, more effective than listening to things. For example, with interviews I would always prefer to read the transcript instead of listening to the whole thing, the information intake of reading is 1 trillion times more effective for me.

    And also writing for the same thing; I could output at a much higher and faster rate than 

  • Capital Thoughts

    Capital runs everything around me

    “The point of life isn’t money, said all poor people.”

    4am– and I’m zoning.

    Lately, I’ve been on a bit of a Bitcoin kick. Actually, ever since 2017, 2018, ever since I’ve gone into bitcoin at around $6,000… $7000 a Bitcoin.  now with bitcoin hovering at around $70,000 a bitcoin… it looks like my initial thought and prediction was right. I’ve more than 10x’d my money, and now that I’m in milli territory, lots of interesting new thoughts.

    The primary thought revolves around capital. I think the funny irony is that even though we all live in a capitalist society, nobody ever gives a deep and critical thought about capital, capitalism.

    For example, the first question; what exactly is capital, and why does it matter?

    Capital & money 

    I think superficially, we think about money, money as in cash money, fiat currency, the ones and zeros in your bank account, or cash paper money Fiod currency. Hundred dollar bills, etc.

    However at the end of it, I’ve come to realize that in actuality, capital is the goal, not “money“ in the traditional sense.

    So in short what is capital? Capital actually comes from Ancient Greek, caput, kaput, head, cap. And this original idea was from the past idea that wealth was not in coinage as the ancient Greeks did not have coin money. They had gold, and heads of cattle. 

    Or if you look back far enough, what the greedy king Agamemnon seemed to desire is more land, resources, women, slaves, gold, etc. 

    Even the war weary Achilles wanted to just retire, retire from war, to stop putting his life at risk for more gain, and to simply retire back to his own lands, with Breisis, his prize.

    Modern day times

    I’m starting to unravel more and more about the inadequacies of capital, capitalism in general.

    First of all, in a general sense, and capitalism is good. If it weren’t for capitalism, you would not enjoy your Wi-Fi, your iPhone, digital photography, etc. I think objectively speaking, capitalism is a single ruling force which has uplifted the lives of billions of people on this planet.

    I think the difficult thing for a lot of people to understand is that with greater upsides also comes greater downsides.

    For example, greed, love of money, comes with the growth of capitalism. But then again, the greed of others is sometimes beneficial because it helps the poor and impoverished.

    For example, poor, my definition of being poor is knowing that as a high school student, when your mom was driving her old Nissan Maxima with old tires, in the ring, with the risk of dying in a car accident, we could not afford $300 to change the tires. Or, your dad gambling away the rent money again, or maybe the fourth or fifth time, and your mom telling you in the middle of the night to be prepared that you and your sister might be homeless. And might need to get into a shelter.

    Growing up in this world of parity, and now that I’m rich, it certainly changes many of my perceptions about money in general.

    Saving money

    I think the irony of capital and capitalism is in regards to saving versus spending money.

    Technically, the path to becoming rich is just driving an old Toyota Prius, and saving up all your money, and converting that money into capital, property, bitcoin etc.

    In the road to poverty is drinking alcohol, going out, eating at restaurants, using the yelp app, using Instagram and social media, traveling to Japan etc.

    There seems to be two forces that place; intelligent people who preserve, and accumulate and stack their capital, and the foolish people who squander their money in capital, and are essentially living paycheck to paycheck.

    What or who is the top 1%?

    First, debt. Debt is the exact opposite of wealth.  

    All debt is bad, even the “good“ debt. This includes your mortgage, student loans, credit card bills, car payments, any sort of debt.

    The simple first wealth strategy is via negativa;

    1. Unlearn the insane notion of getting a 30 year home mortgage loan, being enslaved to a piece of property, kind of like a modern day sharecropper, for that long seems insane
    2. The best car is no car, the Tyler Durden, the fight club way. My simple wealth strategy has been very simple; in my whole adult life, I have never spent more than $3000 USD on a car.
    3. Groceries and food; Amazon fresh, Amazon prime Whole Foods discounts, meat markets, El super, super king, Costco. Ironically enough if you do it right, a 100% carnivore diet is 1000 times cheaper than eating vegetables fruits etc.

    What to splurge on?

    I think the only thing which is worth splurging on is paying high amounts of money to live in an insanely great neighborhood and area, as time and space constraints are real.

    For example, living in our very nice two bedroom, one bath apartment in Culver City, darts district, for $3200 a month. Might be the best use of money, as it allows for maximum mobility, walking, wandering, a five minute walk to the metro, a better life for Seneca.

    However truth be told, if Cindy‘s job wasn’t based here in LA, I would see zero reason for living in the states. Instead I would prefer to live in Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangkok or Thailand somewhere else; for example, you live in a very very nice brand new studio apartment in Hanoi Vietnam for only $320 USD a month. Speaking, you could rent a two bedroom apartment in Cambodia for only $300 USD a month!

    With my bitcoin and capital Mensching at a fantastic rate, I could probably live 10 lifetimes in Cambodia or in southeast Asia somewhere; and some of the upsides of living abroad the purchasing power parody; you got at least 1000 X economic leverage in developing countries, in America, common … even a McDonald’s or in and out worker earns $20 an hour! 

    Capital accumulation

    I suppose the tricky thing — the trend is capital, capital accumulation… but for the sake of what?  

  • ATTACH

  • Forever?

    “Why should I pour my precious salves into the sea?” – Nietzsche

    I think a certain ideal which is fascinating is this whole idea and notion of forever. It seems that we are seeking forever as a generalized concept, but why, for the sake of what? 

    You must die

    As I thought experiment, if an angel or demon came down to you, and told you that you would live forever, it might be considered the worst curse of all time. Why? Sooner or later, you’re probably going to get bored of life, and you will want to die.

    To live forever might be the worst curse of all time.

    The first general philosophical Stoic thought that I have is that the truth is, having things which are limited is a positively good thing. Why?

    First, when things are limited, you actually appreciate it more. For example, my mom is currently visiting from Korea, and because we know her time here is limited, I feel that we are living and spending time with her much more intentionally, savoring every single moment with her. This means never taking any moment for granted; each and every moment is infinitely precious, and is to be made grateful.

    I’m sure if I always have my mom with me, forever, most likely I would not be as grateful.

    Also having a kid, having a son, having Seneca; I appreciate each and every moment with him. Literally by the day, every and each single day he wakes up, he is a transform boy, a transformed man. Each and every day he’s becoming more cognizant, he is talking better, he’s becoming more intelligent, more aware, More funny and silly and hilarious, stronger taller more muscular, more capable.

    I think the big problem is that they don’t have enough pride in their kids. Traditional jail Christian moral ethics say that pride is a bad thing, to brag about your kid and to show off your kid is a bad thing… But what is the opposite? Being humble and not having pride in your kid, which leads to parents just being on their iPhones all day, while their kid is playing at the park. People often lament the fact all these parents are on their phones all the time, watching YouTube or on Facebook, or on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, while their kids are playing at the park… my personal read on this is that most parents just don’t find their children fascinating; they are not impressed by their kids. And that is fine, let mediocre parents raise mediocre kids, it is none of our concern.

    Our concern is to elevate our own children, to glorify them, to them with praise, and to lock away your loser iPhone, and devote 1000% focus on your kid. 

    In fact, a single tip I have for parents and new parents is this:

    No iPhone Pro

    Instead, just get an iPhone SE or an iPhone mini.

    Is your body forever?

    Certainly sooner or later, we will and we must die. It is possible to die from a traumatic death, which means getting hit by a car, while you are texting while crossing the crosswalk, or, dying in a car accident when you were texting while driving. I saw an advertisement other day that apparently 50% of people don’t survive if they are hit by a car going at just 30 mph. Living in Los Angeles, I often see cars blasting by 50 mph!

    I’m in the best shape of my life

    People often lament the fact that they are no longer in their prime. People always think of their prime as behind them, never in front of them.

    This typically has to deal with age, biologically aging or whatever.

    However the really interesting new ones is apparently the ancient Greeks thought that the future was behind them, and the past was in front of them. Why? I think the general idea was that we could see the past with 100% clarity, but we are blind to the future.

     for example, at the age of 36, I feel like I’m in the best shape of my life. The most confident, tall, handsome, the best full body tan, my biceps shoulders and arms, my legs and thighs, my overall confidence etc.

    At the age of 36, I’m in peak shape. Much better than when I was 28, 22, 16 or whatever.

    The best is yet to come?

    I think the critical issue we have here is when we think about aging, what we tend to think about is bodily decay and degeneration. The scientific term for this is “senescence”.

     However, I’ll never forget… One of the guys I met at my old crunch gym, insanely great shape, look like a super healthy fit dude in his 40s, told me that he was actually 72 years old, I was amazed! Also when hiking near Stoneview nature center, I met this one really really fit African-American lady, also who look like a really fit 45 or 47-year-old, wearing Lululemon leggings, all with silver hair, also told me she was in her 70s!

    The problem in Korea, America and beyond, the general thought is as we get older, it is inevitable that we degenerate and decay. 

    Certainly sooner or later we will die. Whether that be 122 years old, 110 years old, 100 years old, 90 years old, 80 years old or whatever. But it seems that in two days world, being in your 80s is like the new 50s, and being 50s is the new 30s.

    And actually ironically enough, now at the age of 36, I’m starting to feel like the new Brad Pitt. I think I’m about his height, I’m 5 foot 11, and my body fat levels are similar to Brad Pitt and fight club, except I have much more muscle mass and I am much stronger. And I have the coolest haircut of all time, courtesy of Cindy.

    What to do?

    Some techniques, tactics, ways of thinking: 

    1. The past you was the worst you: Why do we always think that somehow, the past version of ourselves was a superior version of ourselves?
    2. Thank God for America: if you’re reading this and you’re living in the states, have access to Amazon prime, Titan.fitness, you can purchase bitcoin on Coinbase or whatever, consider yourself blessed. I still remember simple things like trying to buy an SD card in Japan or Korea, it was like 50 bucks for just a simple 64 GB card! On Amazon I think you get it for like 10 or 15 bucks. Also, according to my mom, apparently clothing and shoes is insanely expensive in Korea. For example, a T-shirt is like 50 bucks! Something you could easily buy on under Armour website in the states for only 20 bucks! Everything is cheaper in the states.
    3. Censorship resistance: if you’re an American, and you have never traveled outside the states, consider yourself myopic. The typical conceited, self indulgent, fake patriot American is all about talking about how the government is trying to censor them or whatever, but until you have gone to Vietnam, mainly in China, Cambodia, etc. in which you literally try to type in gmail.com and you cannot open it, or you cannot download the ChatGPT app in the App Store, or you cannot use Google, Access your Coinbase account, whatever… You don’t know what true censorship is. And can you also imagine, tweeting or posting negative things about Donald Trump or the president or political candidates, and randomly having the secret police knock at your door, incarcerate you without trial, four years? This will never happen in America, consider yourself blessed. as an example, there were often times that I could not even access wordpress.com in Vietnam! And also during one of the student protest, the Vietnamese government shut down all of Facebook, Facebook messenger, Instagram for a whole day; really bad news because 99% of Vietnamese commerce happens over Facebook messenger, consider All of the millions or billions of dollars of economic activity which could not happen that day.

    Fitness & food?

    Time to dispel some myths:

    1. Fiber is fake: no no no, you do not need fiber. I follow 100% carnivore diet, and I go to the bathroom regularly every morning. My personal theory about this whole fire thing is probably propaganda or political lobbying from the wheat and bread group in America.
    2. Fruit is candy with a good conscience: Traditionally, if you look at fruit in the Levant, oranges were very very small, bitter, 99% pulp. If you look at a modern day orange, nectarine, cutie, tangerine, apple or whatever… They are genetic monstrosities. Essentially like a solidified Coca-Cola can.
    3. You don’t need vegetables: certainly dark bitter green like colored greens, kale or whatever has a pleasant bitter taste, but you don’t need it.
    4. Alcohol causes cancer: according to the national Canadian health organization, any amount of alcohol is toxic, and will give you cancer. Even two drinks a week is bad for you. And let us consider there is no downside of not drinking alcohol.
    5. Marijuana makes you stupid
    6. Running is for losers: either walk around town with a 60 pound weight best, at a leisurely pace, or engage in Usain Bolt like sprinting. Running at moderate or even moderate high or even high intensity is bad.
    7. Meat is not bad for you

    So what should one do instead?

    1. Buy a 60 pound weight vest: I think the critical issue that everyone has in regards to fitnesses nobody has time for nothing. I say just go to Titan.fitness, and buy the 60 pound weight vest. When you wake up and after you have your morning coffee, just drop it on and just walk around the block! Or if you’re a tech worker, just wear it at the office, your standing desk! Or if you’d like to do the treadmill or whatever, just drop it on and walk on your treadmill with it! The upside is I’m quite certain it could act as a bulletproof fest. Or like some sort of modern day body armor; if somebody tried to punch you or kick you with your 60 pound weight vest on, they would most likely fracture their fists or bodies.
    2. Build your own home gym? Titan.fitness, just build your own home gym. Now living in Los Angeles, no more gems. Literally even driving local, you’re gonna be stuck in traffic going 15 minutes one way, not worth it. However if you do have access to a good gym, just go to the gym! at least once every day, maybe even twice a day!
    3. Insanely hot bats: the hot sauna at the gym, or if you have a bathtub at home, take insanely hot baths!
    4. Consume organ meats, beef liver, beef heart, beef kidneys, intestines, just go to the local grocery store or meat market. If you have access to Costco, get the beef ribs, or the Wagyu ground beef, or get the frozen 100% breast-fed ground beef. Beef is better.

    Why is this whole weird plant-based diet trend?

    My theory is it has to deal with virtue signaling; misinformation, lack of religion. To be a plant based person is seen as a new religion of sorts; maybe you have a dog, dogs, a cat or multiple cats, perhaps you don’t have kids or whatever. I also think it is a virtuous annoying thing; it is seen as morally evil and bad to consume, because apparently it is bad for environment, the planet, cruel to animals or whatever.

    Inside, the hilarious intervention is if you really want to be an ethical person? Only consume or meet, the leftovers in the scraps. For example in Orange County, you go to the local super king, you could buy beef liver for only $1.99 a pound! Typically people throw away the liver and the organ it is not desirable by the American public.

    > Stop eating plants, eat organ meats.

    The best food in Japan

    Motsu-nabe

    A very interesting thing that Cindy and I learned while living in Japan, is Motsu Nabe the history of it. 

    Motsu just means soup, Motsu is innards, intestines, the like. 

    The history of Motsu nabe is super fascinating; essentially the really poor Koreans who immigrated to Japan as labor workers, would just take the throwaway scraps from their wealthy Japanesecounterparts, and just boil and make a soup out of it. The Japanese would throw away the innards. And now the hilarity is now Motsu-nabe is the new elite food; foe the rich and privileged. Kind of similar like how former slaves in the south would make gumbo, jambalaya, with pig intestines, which was scraps from the slave masters. Now everybody loves it!

    Also what is super fascinating is the Korean and Vietnamese word for liver, “gan” means gold, or something of great worth. Apparently back in the days, the liver was only reserved for the super rich and privilege, the emperor. Even my mom knows that when a wolf kills the prey, the first thing it eats is the liver, then intestines, etc. and it leaves the flesh meets for the scavengers.

    Also another interesting thing, pate, duck liver mousse or pate is seen as the Apex of sophistication for the French. It is essentially liver.

    Why liver? It has the highest nutritional density. 

    And the funny thing; is liver even “meat“?

    More thoughts

    I guess my thoughts on bitcoin was right. Now that bitcoin is currently hovering at around $70,000 at bitcoin, it looks like I was right all along.

    Some things that I learned from Michael Sailer which seemed really really useful and practical:

    1. The real rich and wealthy people only keep one percent of their net worth in Fiat currency, the US dollar. No rich person will brag to you that they have $1 billion of US dollar currency in their JP Morgan chase checking account. The real rich people will typically have their wealth tied up in Capital like land or real estate. For example, owning a square block in Manhattan or Hong Kong or in the middle of Tokyo. The problem with Fiat currency, the US dollar, is that the value of it is slowly bleeding at 7 to 10% a year. That means if you hold $1 million of cash in your checking account, your purchasing power will diminish by 7 to 10% every single year.
    2. The easiest thing to do is store one percent of your money in paper currency, the US dollar, and use 99% of your excess money to just buy bitcoin. Even a year or two ago, I had the thought that the optimal strategy is to just convert all your fiat currency into bitcoin!

    What about ethereum and other stuff?

    “There is no second best”- Michael Saylor

    My new favorite thinker is Michael Saylor, his knowledge of history, science is astounding, just listen to the three hour podcast interview with Lex Fridman — better than any college course or degree I have ever gotten!

    Anyways, I think this sentiment that there is no second best is a good one. Nobody ever remembers those who won second place or the silver.

    Even more nuance, we often forget those who are number one, or the gold. Let alone second place.

    Nobody cares about second place

    Apple is number one, iPhone number one, android is number two. Nobody cares about android

    Globally, America’s number one, China’s number two. Nobody cares about China. Maybe in terms of field currency, the US dollar is strongest, and then maybe after that it might be the pound, the euro, or maybe the CNY, but the truth is there is no second best fiat currency after the us dollar.

     nobody wants the euro, because my personal prediction is in the next 30 years, Germany will probably break off from the European nation, and reinstate her own Deutschmark. Why? Seems that Germany is the last and only productive nation and all of Europe; the rest of all the other nations are just dragging her down. 

    The British are dying a slow debt. I think it is a good idea that they broke off from the EU, but still… The value of the British pound is slowly dying.

    Japan is in a severe crisis, and also Korea.

    China seems to be doing OK, but even China, nobody wants the CNY. No matter how much China tries to coerce Cambodia, Cambodia, Cambodians would still prefer the US dollar.

    Even Vietnam, the Vietnamese would prefer $100 US dollars, brand new Benjamins over the local Vietnamese dong.

    However critical downside is even though that the US dollar is the most supreme currency on the planet, it is still flawed. The purchasing power of the US dollar is falling rapidly, at an alarming rate. Even in Los Angeles, average gas prices are over five dollars a gallon, 6 dollars a gallon in some places.

    And also, the new minimum wage for McDonald’s has jumped from $16 an hour, to $20 an hour overnight! This means the inflation has gone up 30 to 40% overnight, and I think that within the next two or three years, you will slowly see the price of everything creep up by 20 to 30%, rent prices, The price of buying a single-family home etc.

    What to do?

    I feel like we have several options:

    First, leave the states. Honestly if Cindy didn’t have a job in the states, I would personally see zero reason to live in here. I would prefer to live in Panin Cambodia, live in Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam, maybe Bangkok in Thailand, etc. I prefer Southeast Asia the states. Why? America’s too expensive, your purchasing power here is very weak.
    
    Second: become insanely frugal, and just intelligently funnel your access US dollars into bitcoin. And keep your living expenses low, as you see the value of your bitcoin go up!

    Now what?

    At the end end of all this, once you become a millionaire, a bitcoin millionaire or billionaire or whatever… Then what?

    Michael tells us to keep stacking those satoshis, I see that there is probably a certain point in which it is good to just be content, and be focused on other things like your photography, artistic production, your philosophical production, etc.

    I still believe with all my heart and soul blogging, websites, email newsletters are the future.

    Why? It is permissionless, open, censorship resistant. Anybody who is still using Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, even YouTube is a loser. 

    Build the future

    In America, and a lot of the world, you have the right to build. Building things physically in the physical world is often too expensive, too cost prohibitive. This is where I think building websites, blogging, vlogging or whatever is good. 

    First, certainly it cost your time labor, but the raw materials of digital things is free!  if you do not have a personal website, you’re missing out. Honestly I practically think it is free, just making a simple wordpress.org website with blue host.com is maybe what five dollars USD a month? Cancel all of your Spotify subscriptions, your Netflix and whatever… And funnel that money into your own website instead.

    Let us say that your own property or house, and your mortgage is like four to $5000 a month. Digital real estate is superior; it is 1000 times cheaper, or 100,000 X cheaper . The most obvious economic leverage!

    Ideally your website and your domain name should just be your first and last name. I think the genius of Michael Saylor is he owns michael.com, as well as hope.com. Very impressive.

    Even Elon Musk, the genius of him purchasing.com; genius.

    It looks like all of the bitcoin domains have been gobbled up, I still think there is great opportunities to be had in the online domain world. 

  • GOD LIFE

  • Bitcoin Prophet

    OK, now that the bitcoin ETF, the spot ETF has been approved… truth be told, I don’t think there is really any more risk in regards to bitcoin, owning bitcoin, or the like. 

    1. Before, it was really really hard to acquire and buy bitcoin

    For me, acquiring bitcoin in around 2017 2018, I suppose around four or five years ago, the only practical option was using something like Coinbase, beautiful user interface and experience, to buy my bitcoins. At first I think I bought bitcoin around 6000 or $7000 a bitcoin… around $25,000 worth of it.

    Even today, the thing that is really insanely annoying is that making wire transactions to purchase more bitcoin has been horrific. Simple wire transfers of around $120,000, I had to go into the bank at least three times, sign a bunch of things, Talk to real life being tellers, and then having to be stuck on the phone for an hour or two talking to some outsourced customer support labor and the Philippines or Manila, and then having to call back another week later, figuring out why my damn wire transfer had not gone through yet.

    The more street for workaround has been using the built-in plaid integration with Coinbase, purchasing daily maximum of $50,000 USD worth of bitcoin at a time.  every time I do this it is insanely anger-fying, because when I have the right opportunity to buy, because I have this lame restriction put on me, I lose opportunities and I also lose the ability to purchase more bitcoins.

    For example, when I wanted to buy bitcoin when it was low, when it dipped down a bunch, because the wire transfer took me about a week or two, I think finally when the money was available, or finally when the purchase went through, bitcoin up at least $10,000 a bitcoin, which means that I was able to purchase few bitcoins than I wanted to. 

    Anyways, I’m so grateful that the technology even exist in the first place for me to purchase bitcoins at all. Sometimes I limit at the fact that me and my friend Kevin do not buy $100 worth of bitcoin, back in 2009, when my roommate Kevin told me about the bitcoin pizza incident. I will never forget how I shrugged my shoulders, and I said we should not, because I thought it was a scam. I think if we had bought hundred dollars worth of bitcoin the time, both of us would have owned thousands if not 10 and thousands of bitcoins, making both of us hundred millionaires, or potentially maybe even billionaires.

    2. It is never too late 

    So I think the main issue that we have is we always lament the fact that we are “too late”. This applies to almost everything in life, finding a life partner, getting married, having kids, getting into shape and doing fitness, investing whatever.

    But, as I speak these words, it is still early! Apple has not yet integrated bitcoin support into their iOS or iPhone, once Apple does this, the price of bitcoin will explode.

    3. Do you remember blockbuster? 

    One thing that I’ve learned in life, it is easier to predict what will fail, rather than what will succeed.

    For example, I think I’m really lucky that I was born in 1988, because I recall life before the Internet, in life after the Internet. And also the Internet came out around a formative time for me, when I was living in New York, and I got my first computer with AOL 3.0, a 38.8k dial up modem,  I think when I was around 11 years old. Maybe the fourth or fifth grade?

    Anyways, back in the day, I recall how we used to go to Blockbuster to rent VHS tapes to watch movies. I remember in college, when I got really into investing in stocks and stuff,  blockbuster was still a publicly traded company. I remember my roommate Kevin, our freshman year, having a Netflix subscription when they still use to send DVDs in the mail. I knew with great certainty that blockbuster would go bankrupt and go under, and I wanted to short blockbuster stock, but I had no idea how to do it. my prediction was right. Blockbuster went bankrupt, I could’ve made a good profit had I done this.

    Or on the other hand, if I had invested in that in college, in 2007 or 2008, this would have also been good.

    Anyways the big pot was dematerialization. The fact that in my short life, I have already seen the transition from the materialized world of going in person to choose a blockbuster VHS tape, to rent or borrow or to watch, I actually used to do this with video games too… It actually made a lot of sense, Instead of paying $50 for the Nintendo 64 video game, which I would eventually beat, I rented for only like five or $10, and then try to beat it really fast, so economically as a kid, it made a lot of sense.

    4. YouTube premium

    I really random thing that my mom has been getting into lately has been tai chi, Cindy’s mom got my mom into it. It has been great every morning my mom has been practicing it, but no matter how many blockers I tried to install, google is smart enough to figure out how to disable the ad blockers. 

    I suppose the genius of getting a YouTube premium family plan, whether it is $20 a month or whatever, then intelligence is you think about it… It might be the new most important utility that we got.

    Even random things, like me preparing to change the oil in my 2010 Prius, watching YouTube videos on how to do it, is 1 trillion times better than written tutorials.

    Even whenever I talk about house construction or maintenance or whatever, all the handyman I know tell me to just watch it on YouTube.

    So if you think about the economics of it, assuming that having a studio membership for Pilates or yoga $200 a month, and technically you could just stream it on YouTube for $20 a month, economically it is extremely intelligent.

    Anyways what is very interesting about the whole YouTube premium thing that is how it has dematerialized so many different things. 

    And this is what I think is the genius of bitcoin, it has the materialized money. Yes bitcoin is money, even as time goes on I put less than less faith on field paper currency. To me it is like cotton candy.

    5. Money philosophy

    So I just finished watching the whole Michael Saylor series on money, and I feel like I just got a new PS in economics, economic theory, as well as corporate finance and accounting.

    The main takeaways are the following: 

    a) Inflation

    The basic idea is because the money creation rate in America and beyond is expanding 7 to 10% a year, because the price of minimum wage keeps going up, out of thin air, this is what drives inflation, or another words, the price of everything going up. 

    For example, I’ll never forget this moment; when me and Seneca bought  our typical single burger patty, just the patty nothing else, just a month ago for $1.50 at Patty, it going up over 90 to $2.50 just for a single patty! This was because minimum wage was raised from $16 an hour to $20 USD an hour.

    The reason why this decision was bad is because honestly, it just seems like a political ploy, for politicians to get elected or reelected. The reason why this is a scam is this:

    I want to get elected, and I promise you that I will raise your minimum wage. Vote for me!

    And then, the real after effects of inflation is going to happen when I am out of office.

    b) History of money

    Some of this is a rehashing of Michael Saylor quoting the book, the bitcoin standard, which I find really fascinating not because of the whole bitcoin thing, but about the history of money.

    Long story short, bitcoin might be the best money and asset because it is infinitely durable and will last forever, because it is so intensive to create it has value, it has a hard cap of 21 million bitcoins, which will be certain even 1000 years from now, And also… it is money perfected. 

    6. My thoughts

    I am very very happy and grateful that I did not study economics formally. I’m sure that I would have fallen into the same pitfalls as a lot of these loser economic peoples who has never done business in the real world.

    I’ll give you examples; when I went to UCLA as an undergraduate,  we didn’t have a formal business major, only a Hybrid business – economics major. Out of all the people that knew who studied business economics, none of them became entrepreneurs, self-employed, none of them started their own companies, none of them worked for themselves, and none of them became successful. They all ended up just becoming low or mid-level managers at some company, probably clocking in the typical $80,000 thousand dollars a year to $120,000 a year salary. 

    In fact, what made me so successful in my realm of Farsi, entrepreneurship, etc.… It totally up ended any traditional economic theories. For example my open source vision; it would probably had been deemed as heresy by any traditional school of economic thought.

    Also as a side thing; I am very very happy that I did not study photography formally, and I am also grateful that I did not go to art school. Why? Once again, you get stuck in these loser ways of thinking, these incestuous ways of thinking about photography and the art world is quite filthy.

    Anyways, as a general thought, true innovation and entrepreneurship comes from expertise domain expertise outside of that certain domain. For example, let us note that flight was invented by the weight brothers, who I believe were actually bicycle mechanics. 

    I feel that I am well positioned to talk about money, economics, economic theory because I grew up poor, single mom working minimum wage jobs, also, becoming a successful self-employed sole proprietor, having zero debt, and applying my economic theories to real life.

    Also, I am also moderately booksmart, and my wife has a PhD. And then helping Cindy get her PhD, I feel like I got a PhD.

    And also other things which I have done which I consider very intelligent: I have never spent more than $2500 USD on a car, in my whole life, from age 15 to at age 36.

    1. 1991 Nissan Sentra XE (5 speed, manual transmission, $1000)
    2. 1991 Nissan Sentra SE-R (5 speed, manual transmission $1500 USD)
    3. 1990 Mazda Miata, five speed manual transmission, no air conditioning no power steering, $2500 USD
    4. 2002 Subaru outback, five speed manual transmission, $800 USD
    5. Current, 2010 Prius, free. ($0.00)– free 99

    I put zero faith in any individual who has ever purchased any brand new car. It is a true signal that they are economically a fool.

    Doesn’t matter if you bought the new Tesla or whatever, all fools.

    7. Why does this all matter?

    Whether you like it or not, our whole life revolves around money.

    There are certain things which are negotiable, certain things which are not negotiable.

    Nonnegotiable include paying rent, gas and electricity, Wi-Fi, food, coffee etc.

    Negotiable things include purchasing any sort of clothing, eating out, drink alcohol or smoking marijuana or doing drugs, cars, purchasing a home or property etc.

    Also, unfortunately I think 99.9% of the photography industry is predicated around purchasing your cameras, lenses, accessories etc. Was the first to start the anti-gear movement, by books not gear, and being the first to really make the Ricoh GR camera mainstream?