Video podcast

Audio

I don’t think I know any human being on the planet who doesn’t want to be rich, or tries to increase their worth their net worth etc.

Doesn’t matter if you’re an investor, work for a charity, a church etc. Money and capital are critical, it is like our economic life blood.

For example, maybe you should think about blood. Blood is a critical and essential. Nobody could survive or thrive without blood.

Now imagine… That somebody is taking your help four-year-old child, in drawing a pint of blood from them a day. What is going to happen to the health of your kid? It will severely stunt his growth, or positively kill him.

Another thing… Imagine like you’re eating only rancid food your whole life, and the theory, you’re not going to die from it, but… Ain’t nobody want to eat rancid food.

Or, let us assume that you’re consuming certain foods to just keep you alive, like beans, but everyone knows that beans cause flatulence, even an ancient Roman times, and technically raw beans are toxic. Lagoons, naturally do not want to be eaten or consumed. And therefore the toxic shell membrane they create is probably to ward off predators.  And we clever humans, devised of ingenious ways to boil the shit out of them, just simply make them edible and not kill us. And the truth is, if you only ate beans you would not die, but… If you want to be the most demigod of them all, obviously you’re not going to be some sort of poverty person just consuming beans for some sort of strange higher altruistic purpose? Instead, you feast on the finest the bone marrow, the finest lamb ribs, just think about the hut of Achilles, what did he eat, and feed his guests?

Building empire on true capital

You know how they talk about life before Jesus life after Jesus, BC and AD… I am quite certain that a similar concept will happen with Satoshi. Like before Satoshi, life BS (before Satoshi, haha sounds like BS), and life AFTER Satoshi (AS).

 so the issue with being a modern day human or even American is that so much of the economic policies are obfuscated from the general public. For example. When I was in Saigon, in Vietnam off the grid, I had some time to critically think about economic theory and the like, to really try to critically understand on how currency is printed, made dominant around the planet, supported by US military force etc.

In fact, if you think about the whole American the US military complex, it is basically focused on pumping money into the military industry, in order to assert military dominance on the planet, so all the weaker nations will have to force to use our dollars and accept and use our dollars, And also… America being able to pile on infinite debt obligations, knowing that she never intends to pay any of it back.

Trillions of dollars of debt?

So if we think about that, we know about debt in context of just being a normal human being, we don’t really know and understand debt in terms of an American national policy.

For example, as a human being there’s a certain point in which numbers don’t really mean anything anymore. For example, I told you that the American national debt was 900 trillion, 45 trillion, $10 trillion, $18.3 trillion, would you be able to really understand or grasp this? Of course no!

We daily humans, assume that you’re making like I don’t know 40,000 60,000, $80,000 a year… Which means maybe let us say that after taxes you’re pulling in like five to $6000 a month. If this is the case, the law of large numbers; at a certain point certain numbers don’t really mean anything to us, nor are they connected to reality.

For example, the average American has never seen $1 million in their checking account or their bank balance, let alone 10 million, 100 million, 1 billion, 10 billion, 100 billion etc. 

There is a certain point in which numbers, ones and zeros, don’t really register in our brains.

Math and numbers are not natural

I always make the joke that I’m an Asian who is really really bad at math. And even now I am.

And ironically enough, out of all my friends or typical normal human beings I know, besides Elon Musk and Michael Saylor, I am like by far the most successful innovator entrepreneur and investor of all time. I know no other human in the flesh who has stacked as many bitcoins as I have, and pretty much for the most part I never had to ever or I never panic sold any of my bitcoin. Besides selling some bitcoin like three years ago to just max out my Roth IRA contribution for the year, which ultimately I guess was a good idea because that money went into microstrategy MSTR, which is growing at an alarming rate, – fortunately I had the wisdom of Odysseus; covering my ears and eyes with digital beeswax. 

Zen training

About it, in hindsight, maybe one of the most interesting things I did was quit email in the year 2017. I might check my email like every six months or so for like authentication codes to sign into random portals, but besides this, I no longer really use email as a form of communication. If I’m doing like a workshop and I need to communicate some sort of critical information,  then I’ll just copy and paste a bunch of emails, linked to Google sheets or something to send out a Zoom link or something. But besides this, email is really kind of a not good form of communication. Let us consider, i’m almost starting to feel like sending emails like sending a fax in the year 2024. I actually find it 1 trillion times more better to just FaceTime people as needed, — just think about it… All these sci-fi movies in the past, when they communicate with some sort of computer or AI, how do they do it? When you’re chatting with Jarvis it is all just a voice, and then you do the 3-D hologram thing with your hands like Tony Stark. Or if you’re Tony Stark in the Iron Man suit, what do you do? You talk to Jarvis naturally, when Jarvis is inside your helmet. In fact, I believe that the original Iron Man might be one of the best films of all time, I intend on watching it again.

Anyways, once again, there is no exciting movie which is actually about somebody taking out a phone like an iPhone and either sending you a text message quietly, and or, sending a long tedious email? This will not make a fun movie.

Anyways, as a consequence, I think the best concept is thinking about information information flows more critically, harder stronger faster. But knowing how to filter it.

The first idea is Twitter and X. It might be the world‘s newest most valuable and only useful social media platform, now that Elon Musk runs the show, and I’m like 1000% Elon, it is really truly the best and only place to get critical information about financial news etc. My thought is traditional news outlets will die a slow gradual death, just like blockbuster.

It’s funny, because I remember when I was in college, and I already saw my roommate Kevin ordering Netflix DVDs in the mail, which at the time I thought was very bizarre, but I knew that blockbuster was on the way out. I wanted to short blockbuster, but eventually did not because I just didn’t know how to do it, even now I’m not quite sure how to short a stock, it just seems too complicated.

Eric Semler

ERIC Semmler, one of the head honchos at semler scientific, is also on the bitcoin standard, using bitcoin yield, BTC yield as a measure of positive performance.

Funny enough he also shares my name.

Anyways, I listen to an interview between him and Natalie Brunel, and something was interesting was ERIC who has been in the game for a long time, the century said that shorting stocks is actually really really difficult and very rarely profitable. Rather a lot better to instead, to just go along in a positive way for a stock. And also I agree from a philosophical perspective, voting on the success of something, and voting on the success of a stocking company, to me almost morally an ethically feels superior; the reason being is that it just feels more positive and constructive. And also it might be more profitable?

---

Optimism and positivity is more profitable

Investing in bitcoin is kinda good for everybody, even if you’re like kind of anti-establishment, anti-capitalism… Bitcoin is a positively good thing. Why? If you invest in bitcoin and you purchase bitcoin, and you put yourself in your family on a bitcoin standard, the upside and positivity is that You are essentially giving a middle finger to the establishment, the “man”.

For example, anybody who is a non-conformist, punk rock, into rapper hip-hop culture whatever… Steve Jobs follower, etc., should be for bitcoin. Why? Because once again, it is anti-mainstream!

Even now, bitcoin is pretty much mainstream now. Whenever you check any of the news channels, what is the best news all the time, all day every day? Bitcoin! It is the only interesting news which is happening on the planet, and will always be the best news of all time.

In fact, my thought is ultimate new most important media people personalities etc. will be essentially people who work in TV Cinema media rappers podcast musicians bloggers vloggers thought leaders who philosophies and create content about bitcoin.

First, Bitcoin is like the new iPhone.  except the upside is that instead of every six months or a year or a year and a half, bitcoin is getting updated, all day, every day, every minute on the planet.

So for example, with the iPhone and Apple… All these Fan boys just jerking off to Apple rumor news, waiting for the next next next next big thing to come out that will totally change and revolutionized their lives creativity etc. But, come on guys, we’re all technologists here and digital natives– don’t we already know that the solution is staring in our face, bitcoin?

Why would a tech person be anti Bitcoin?

If you’re the type of person like you always want the newest iPhone Pro, Tesla, cyber truck, iPad Pro etc., isn’t also the same ethos be that you should always want the newest monetary technology which is bitcoin?

Once again, very bizarre.

Let us say you work at Apple Amazon Facebook Google Meta etc.… And your program or a software engineer, a developer, or somebody who works “tech”– is there any irrational reason you should be anti-bitcoin? No!

I would say maybe the only negative downside is if you work in tech and you are a lemming. Even now Reddit is dead; if you’re still on Reddit, you’re not it. 

Also, maybe the issue here is that you’re kind of old enough now, and you’re kind of mildly successful, but maybe the issue here is that too much of your net worth is tied into your company dog? Just sell it guys, buy bitcoin instead, And or just buy micro strategy MSTR stock instead.

The goal is to retire early isn’t it?

It doesn’t matter if you’re being paid like $10 million a year at Apple Amazon Google Facebook, nobody actually wants to be there. Maybe besides Tim Cook?

Let us consider, all of the innovators have left Apple. Jony Ive, and some people that I know who was in the head of the Apple Photos team.

The only ones who have stayed at the big companies is that maybe, they’re stuck in a rut, maybe they have a mortgage to pay or something.

Never have a mortgage

If you do the maths a mortgage is actually insanely expensive like 10,000 or $11,000 a month? To even pour more money into a sink sink hole, which has true negative yield? A very very bad idea.

It’s almost like it’s super cold outside, and you want to warm up by taking a nice hot bath. Can you turn on the bathwater, and you put up the plug, but, you kind of either leave the drain plug unplugged like halfway, or, You have it totally unplugged. So even if the water faucet is strong and the water is flowing into your tub at a quick rate, the rate in which the water goes down the drain might either be equal or lower than your input of water.

So maybe the same thing with income, like inflow, or like flowing hot water. Assuming you want a nice hot tub of water, you want to drain the plug, stop the plug, stop it up 100%, and you want the hot water to rise and fill! Maybe we should think about the same thing with investing, and money leverage,

Stop the water loss!

Ways in which we lose our economic water

We lose it when we have a mortgage on the home, and even a more pernicious thought; property taxes. Like let us say you buy that $2 million home in all cash, you’re still gonna be paying like 2500 or $2600 a month and adjust property taxes, which almost like attaching a leech to yourself which no matter what, the leech just sucks the blood out of you with no benefit to you.

Now I am all for taxes, taxes are good. Yet, because I’ve just rented my whole life, property ownership home ownership even owning a single-family home seems like such a scam; you buy the lot for like $1.1 million, you add an ADU additional dwelling unit in the back for like $350,000, and then you try to flip it for like $200,000 More? Isn’t it just way easier to just buy bitcoin instead?

Time cost to capital

The big reason is the cost to capital; all the headache and time to find the contractor to build the house, fix it up, renovate it, dealing with permits and all these headaches; and also your time cost to capital; so much time and headache and communication back-and-forth, is not really worth it. 

At this point because I’m dumb rich, to me the finances and the money aspect doesn’t really bother me, more of my concern and fear and dread is about having to deal with some sort of degenerate contractor, who buy the laws of physics and entropy will always be Late, more expensive, and will probably take one or two years longer than you expect.

don’t trust contractors

If you plan on doing the home thing, maybe the best idea is just approach things as if you will never hire help or a contractor? Then this way it could become more of a creative endeavor, and also, you know that you will never blame anyone else but yourself?

Even like changing your own oil, the virtues of changing your own oil is pretty funny; I hate feeling ripped off, and I always feel super stupid for paying somebody else to change my oil. Even though it’s a huge pain in the butt for me to do it myself, I just have like 1 trillion times more joy and pride that I changed my own oil in my 2010 Prius, With mobile 1 full synthetic, and a K&N performance oil filter. It’s funny when I drive, I always have a huge grin and sense of pride on my face because I knew that I changed my own oil, 1 trillion more times happiness than even maybe driving a cyber truck or a Lamborghini? Nobody cares about your four bitcoin Ferrari; Once again, what I find so disruptive is that now… You will feel more joy pride and happiness to own the bitcoin, because you will always remember the number in your head in your mind, and you’ll always smile when you see the price exploding, rather than being stuck in a Diluted asset, whether does that be your yacht, Ferrari or Lamborghini. Or even your Porsche.

If you really want to be happy, the optimal strategy assuming that you like own more than one car, or you don’t really need some sort of expensive performance vehicle that guzzles 91 octane gas, then I think optimal strategies to sell the extra car, and just buy bitcoin! In fact, if your goal is to actually make more money to upgrade to the next car, a funny strategy then is to just invest in bitcoin, write it up, make a shit load of money, and then just sell some of it later, to buy your next car.

---

Free open source introduction to bitcoin online zoom workshop

I’m super excited, the first time ever, I’m doing a free online open source zoom workshop, and don’t worry I will record it and post it later and share it with you because I feel like this is my new ethical imperative.

I’m going to do it December 14, Saturday 10am to noon, Pacific time LA TIME.

 to register for the workshop to get the Zoom link, just fill out your email informed here, and before the workshop date, maybe like a day prior or so, I’ll email you with a Zoom link.

FREE BITCOIN WORKSHOP REGISTRATION FORM

You could also see some more details here.

Essentially my vision is I just want to do a soft introduction to bitcoin the philosophy of it etc., the first hour hour and a half will just be like introductions and my lecture, and then I will leave some time at the end for questions and answers. It might go a bit over but whatever. 

It will be totally 100% open and free, and also open source, so feel free to send the link to your friends, your mom or your dad who doesn’t really understand bitcoin, also I am fluent in Korean and Vietnamese, and also Spanish if you have some sort of bilingual parents you want to bring along.

> FREE BITCOIN WORKSHOP REGISTRATION FORM

You could also see some more details here.

Also,

ERIC KIM WORKSHOPS >

---

How to get started

1. Michael.com or hope.com
2. Follow @Saylor on Twitter x
3. Read “The Bitcoin Standard”– basically it is a soft introduction to monetary history, which is super fascinating
4. Watch the whole “what is money”, series with Michael Breedlove and Michael Saylor.
5. If you want to learn more about monetary philosophy, read the Emily Wilson translation of the Iliad, and think about how is it that in the world before money they were able to function just with oxen?
6. Google the free PDF of “Della Moneta” by Fernandinho Galliani — probably the most interesting book I’ve read on the philosophy in history on money, published like 300 years ago.

More thoughts to come!

EK BLOG

EK NEWS

And also whenever in doubt,

START HERE >

---

Do you remember Kodak brownies and the like? Obviously digital photograph absolutely crushed Kodak, even though ironically Kodak I think made the first digital camera?

Also, the very foolish and shortsighted thing that conducted; she almost self sabotage herself by kind of trying to kill off her own digital camera, concerned that we would eat into the profits of her film business.

A similar insight; Steve Jobs, upon unleashing the iPhone, obviously he knew that it was going to eat into the iPod iPod touch market, but obviously it was the right step forward.

The innovators dilemma

This is a book that apparently Steve Jobs recommended everyone to read. The general idea is that the paradox and difficulty that innovator’s face is that in order to innovate something new, you kind of need to kill your own business, even have the courage to self cannibalize if necessary.

So for example, I think Ford has done a decent job at this semi trying to get into the electric car market, instead of just hoarding her gas guzzler cars.

But the difficulty of a Ford or any other car company is that because they did not start off 100% carte blanche electric, they’re never going to catch up to Tesla,

Do you remember in the early days of Tesla, in which the evaluation was far greater than that of any major car company and everyone thought that it was insanely overvalued? Who is laughing now?

Other megatrends

So a book that nobody knows about is the mobile wave by Michael Saylor; in which he accurately predicts that mobile phones, mobile technology, all the big magnificent seven companies to take over the world. He predicted the success of Amazon Facebook Twitter Google and Apple before anyone really took notice.

In fact I recommend everyone to read them all way, because it shows the inside that Michael Saylor is not new to the game; he’s been in the game for a long time, over 30 years. Apparently he has seen his stock drop to an ALL TIME LOW of $.20, And now it is currently in the mid 400s.

It doesn’t really matter if you’re right

So I guess I was right all along about bitcoin, ever since I bought like 2.2 bitcoins or 2.4 bitcoins for about 20,000 or $25,000, back in 2018 when bitcoin was only around $6000-$7000 a coin.  sing that we’re about to have the hundred K party, I’ve almost I guess like 12 or 13 X ‘d my initial prediction?

Anyways, if you’re right about bitcoin and was right about bitcoin… And no no no bitcoin is not gonna drop down to like 60,000 or 30,000, that does not how engineering works. For people who think that bitcoin is risky, ask people… Is it risky to cross the bridge or go on a flight? No. Why? Things were engineered that way!

With bitcoin, you’re not gonna have all these people who you’re trying to proselytize turn around and tell you that you were right, and shower you with good news. No no no, they might either feel low-key envious or jealous of you, and won’t probably really say much. This is also why I don’t really tell people about bitcoin too much if they don’t seem like they have a strong need for it; for example my uncle who’s worked in the jewelry business for like over 30 years, he wants to retire, and I’m kind of in the process of helping him Sell his gold and his other reserves and stuff, in order to buy bitcoin. Even he at the age of 64, being a gold jeweler for like over 30 years know that bitcoin is the future. But his issues that he cannot stomach the volatility, he says it is like drugs, “mah-yyak”– when I was with him last I just set him up with Coinbase, and just bought the daily maximum for his account which was $3500, I think we bought windows around $65,000 a coin, and already it’s like $99,000 a coin. But once again, I think the difficult thing with bitcoin is that like is probably the most addictive crack cocaine on the planet, because it is being traded 24 7, it is extremely volatile because volatility is vitality. Anything that is allowed to trade every single waking moment, on weekends as well as the evenings, and also bank holidays, is going to have more volatility because people are just bored at home, they cannot play the traditional market so they’re going to just try to buy and sell bitcoin, do some sort of weird options trading to try to squeeze a few bucks here and there.

Disruption and innovation

I was randomly think about Peter Thiel and his zero to one book; I think if you thought about bitcoin like a year or two ago, you might’ve seen that are artificial intelligence in AI was the right bet. But no, it is most certainly bitcoin.

Why? Assuming that the world runs on money, and bitcoin is perfect money, it is like maybe 80 to 90% the solution to the problems of humanity.

For example, what are the greatest bad things that happened to humans? It mostly has to deal with financial distress. I almost wonder people who get addicted to gambling, drugs, cycles of poverty is because the money right now the fiat currency is toxic. You cannot blame somebody for remaining sick if they only have a sewer water to drink, and they have kids and are also forced to feed their kids sewer water.

It doesn’t matter how smart hard-working or intelligent you are, as long as you’re drinking sore water, you’re going to perpetually be sick, throwing up, permanently infected with cholera.

Clean water

So you know you have all these Crusades on the Internet and charity is talking about providing clean water to like poor kids in Africa? I think the same thing with bitcoin– it is like the chance to give clean water to 8 billion people on the planet. Except instead of water, it is clean money. Nontoxic money.

Why money matters

It matters if you’re at church a nonprofit a charity, mother Teresa Gandhi etc. Matters if you’re at school, a parent organization, if you have kids you’re single own a dog whatever. Ultimately you’re going to have to pay the rent, pay your mortgage, or pay property taxes. I don’t think there is anyone spot on the planet in which you cannot live or survive without money a banking account or Notes.

Even all these weirdos who try to buy a $200,000 AMG sprinter van and live off the grid with star Link or whatever, you still need money, and sooner or later you’re going to have to need some sort of semi permanent address, ideally your mom‘s house or your wife’s family‘s house or something. Because for the most part if you’re American, at this point you cannot really survive without having a single address for doing taxes and stuff. And I also think that now, unfortunately you also need a cell phone number, or else you cannot even apply for basic stuff, because you’re going to have to get the one time password authentication code codes texted to your phone.

Anyways, it’s gonna be a big deal once Apple integrate bitcoin into her iCloud ecosystem. This is actually a very very big opportunity for Apple; the head of security, on the planet and privacy… If Apple were able to provide security to your bitcoin or your keys or whatever, Wooden apple being in some way is the best custodian?

Even better yet… We already have our bank of counseling to Apple Pay. Wouldn’t it just makes sense for you to buy bitcoin directly on an iPhone using Apple Pay, and store it on your iPhone and or iCloud Apple ID account?

it is all on the cloud

For people who don’t trust the cloud I get it, but still… For all practical purposes I think the cloud is like 1 trillion times safer than cold storage options. For example even me, all my photos are backed up to dropbox, Google Drive and Apple photos. Even worst case scenario all my photos get deleted, it’s OK I could start again!

I think especially with Apple Apple ID Face ID touch print thumb ID, it’s almost the most logical way to feel secure with your bitcoin.

Everyone is a denial and a skeptic until they are a bitcoin maximalist

Larry Fink, CEO Blackrock, even Michael Saylor.  even Donald Trump!

So one of the really fast things I learned from Michael Saylor in his last interview with Natalie Brunell at the end what is what was misconception about him; and he said, the greatest misconception was that Michael Saylor was a traitor, but the reality is… He’s an engineer.

What is the difference? Well the general difference is that an engineer, do you think about things first principles, use stare deeply and analyze deeply into the true nature of things, and what that then means is you understand the true nature of things.

Then I guess, I kinda do think like an engineer, carte blanche principles.

For example, so much of this modern day BS about almost everything, seems to be mostly a social problem. Sociology, maybe could also be understand as the sociology of engineering, also social engineering?

what does it mean to think like an engineer?

So once again, if you understand Leonardo da Vinci like the Golden standard of an engineer, somebody who is part curious, partially playful, kind of like imagine a big kid on steroids; infinite curiosity about everything. Maybe also… I’m like the next Leonardo da Vinci, but a lot richer And far more jacked?

Even the problem of a Leonard da Vinci, I still think he got his patronage from the Medici’s? Which means that he was not financially independent; and the truth is ultimately, without personal financial independence, you cannot really really have 100% true freedom and power. 

Bitcoin as solidified happiness

I might be the first to thought this; what is bitcoin? To me it is like solidified happiness. If you took all this economic power energy joy and happiness, and you could solidify it into a thing, to me that would be a bitcoin.

For example, every time I see my bitcoin balance swell, and become greater, it brings a huge smile to my face, a huge voyage grin to my face, whatever scenario.

And then also then the thing is… The bitcoin is like almost kind of imaginary. Like doesn’t really exist anywhere in the physical realm, it only exists in cyberspace, your mind.

So for example, if I want to prove to you my bitcoin balance I can just take out my phone or iPad and prove it to you immediately… So I guess this is the cool thoughts; now that I’m super fucking rich and powerful and godlike glorious, I could just walk into any sort of Lamborghini or Ferrari or Porsche dealership, and just automatically assume and demand a test drive!

And also the extreme joy, I could just handle and touch everything, and fuck with stuff, like I own it. Because I do

.

Engineer a better planet?

Engineering a better solution

So I just listened to the new interview with Natalie Brunell and Michael Saylor and something super super interesting at the interview at the end was about how Michael Saylor is misunderstood; and he said “People think I’m a trader, but I am an engineer”. 

What is the difference? And also what is a speculator?

So I suppose, first, bitcoin is the 1000% perfectly engineered solution to perfect godlike money.  if Zeus came from the heavens, and told us near mortals “no no no, you no longer need to sacrifice hectacombs or heads of oxen to me, just buy bitcoin instead,”– same concept.

Or, if Zeus came down and said “I shall create 21 million cyber oxen, in cyberspace, and there shall ever ever only ever be 21 million cyber cattle in Cypress space, and this bowl will be immortal, indestructible, cyber, and shall live forever “,,, wouldn’t you want to own one of these godlike oxen, or a fraction of it? Like apparently these hipster things in which you could do something like you could all chip in money for part ownership of a cow, and when it gets slaughtered, you get like 10% of it? 

Maybe the same thing as with bitcoin. Like let us say that one bitcoin is like one cyber ox, and by buying 10% of a bitcoin you could just buy like the head, the rear leg, the top sirloin in the bottom sirloin, the brisket, etc.

Cyber Capital

Michael Saylor talks a lot about this notion of digital real estate, digital capital as like a cyber Manhattan. So for example, if you could buy like one square block in Manhattan, a full square block, on fifth Ave., what is that worth? Like $200 million?

If you think about it, bitcoin is like 1 trillion times more valuable than even physical Manhattan, because it is global, decentralized, and, in cyberspace! It shall never degrade, perish, and you never have to pay taxes on it. 

Podcast >

So in a very very interesting shift of things, I guess I’m super pro Trump Donald Trump, because he is super super 1000% pro bitcoin. And also, contrary to what people understand, Donald Trump is anti-war, he wants to immediately stop the war in Ukraine, he actually wants global peace.

This is kind of a little bit shocking to me, because I’m from the liberal Bay area, Alameda Oakland Berkeley I still got my 510 area code number… what that means is that I was always raised in thinking that conservative Republicans were like the devil.

Why? I grew up so poor, why were all these super super rich people super anti-helping out poor people like myself?

And also, I thought that overall, the policies were pro war, … I always thought that Republicans and conservatives were for war,… in that liberals and Democrats or anti-war?

Just do the research for yourself

I think the credit card thing that I learned is ultimately… You must just do the research for yourself by yourself.

For example, one big thing that changed my opinion about Donald Trump was watching his talk at the bitcoin conference and also seeing his interview with Joe Rogan. To me the reason why this was so good was that it humanized him, often times whenever we hear news reports or snippets from whatever… It is kind of like bad and evil click bait cherry picking; you will never get a true sensor reality until you watch the raw interview, the full two or three hours or so, uninterrupted, and also encourage watching the actual video footage.

Make your own choices

I think the number one thing that is very very difficult in politics is that so much of it is predicated on other random political lines. For example, truth be told I still qualify myself as a Democrat and a left leaning liberal, yet… When it comes to individual policies and opinions and thoughts, my personal belief system is actually far more multi variegated.

For example… I’m all about helping poor people, and the like, and I’m not like super anti-taxes either.  if I were a homeowner, I would probably vote yes to increase taxes assuming that the money would go to actually support the public elementary schools.

Yet also what I do believe in support is having individual sovereignty to my bitcoin, without having the government metal in my bitcoin. I am also very anti-centralized digital currency by the US government, I think this is very scary. Essentially if you had a centralized digital bank currency by the American government, this would be worse than big Brother, 1984 in brave New World, having a super baby together.

---

So why does this all matter?

I think it matters because ultimately you gotta have somewhere to live, and I’m pretty sure that you do have a certain belief system.

Bitcoin world peace!

Encumbered, unencumbered?

The right to Bitcoin

---

The rights of persons to maintain full lawful control over the bitcoin and other digital assets of those individuals, recognizing that the ability to maintain self custody of private keys is fundamental to the principles of financial sovereignty, privacy, and personal liberty in the digital age.

So this idea is super fascinating to me; life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Also, the right to personal sovereignty, privacy and personal liberty.

So I guess the big issue is we don’t have privacy anymore. There are CCTV everywhere, cameras everywhere, trackers on the Internet which follow and track your every move.

Also, assuming you have some sort of credit card thing with points, the way that they give you these points is that you essentially sell or forfeit your purchasing data, although it is anonymized, people could track every single financial move activity and behavior.

No I am not one of those weirdos who over since sensationalize this; ultimately, I don’t really care that much. What I am more interested is in, maybe the concept of digital property, digital property rights.

What is also really fascinating is how bitcoin is global digital capital, digital rights for all all across the planet.

For example, assuming that you live in mainland China and there is capital controls, what that then means is that you cannot take out $1 billion of Chinese yuan out of the country, even if you wanted to. Actually technically the smart strategy for rich me and Chinese person who wants to come to America whatever, is to swap all of their Chinese yuan or whatever for bitcoin, as much as humanly possible, and then just peace out.

The reason why this would be such a good strategy is that the truth is, nobody wants their wealth or their capital to be locked anywhere. For example, even my insane and annoying I remember like six months ago I just wanted to take out like $500 from the ATM at JPMORGAN Chase, and I could not, as the limit was around like 300 bucks? 

And this is the thing which is really really weird to me — so I just want access to my money, why can’t I have access to my own money? 

The Bitcoin Artist 

Kind of a random aside; I like the idea of like being able to kind of clean up the world, either with whiteout tape, or blackout tape, we just met black bitcoin icons etc.

So for example in Culver City and LA in general… My number one annoyance and greed is that there are so many annoying graffiti and ads all over the place.

So first, I just wanna clean up the damn place. I want to get rid of annoying advertisements and stuff, because aesthetically I feel like I have a strong imperative to do so.

Second, why is it so difficult or hard to promote some sort of well-being on the planet?

Bitcoin is healthy

So assuming that like 99% of our problems in life can be attributed to the fact of a poor money supply, then what that then means is that maybe like 99% of our world problems could actually be solved by bitcoin.

For example, financial health. If money is toxic, capital is toxic, assuming that you’re playing in the world of fiat currency, what that then means is that you don’t actually want access to capital because it is like immediately causing you to bleed out economic energy and power.

I actually had a super funny random thoughts; think about like the notion of semen retention and economic power retention.

For example, every time you buy something expensive it is like blowing your load. For example, you lost for that matte black scissor door Lamborghini, and then you go out and buy it, for like $500,000 or something, like you just blown the biggest load of your life. But then the downside of that is after that, you’re like kind of done, and as a consequence, what do you have left to live for?

And actually the truth is, no man in his right mind would ever blow his load immediately before trying to lift 505 kg. Or also, assuming that you’re about to have the big fight, nobody in their right mind would ever ever ever ever even consider for half a second, Rubbing one out real quick before the big fight.

I actually have a thought thoughts on the first one is that you should not blow your load, anytime during the day because that is when your power is peak, that is when you have the most power. You should only ever blow your load in the evening right before you’re about to sleep, like how the ancient Greeks did it.

Example, can imagine Achilles blowing his load and inseminating one of his babes, immediately before the big battle? No!

So why does this matter?

So I think this matter for a lot of reasons.

First, it looks like everyone is sick unwell unhealthy. And not really out of their own fault, but rather, it seems like the bigger issue is that once again, we don’t have healthy instruments to work with.

For example, assume that you live in a society in which literally every single food item is laced and injected with high fructose corn syrup or sugar. Even if you want to lose fat and get a six pack and become strong healthy and happy, you cannot. Why? If everything has sugar added to it, even if you are the world‘s most diligent exerciser and individual, you can’t do nothing! And as a consequence once again, you cannot blame an individual agent or individual for becoming fat or sick or unhealthy, if in fact the things that you are consuming and using or in fact, Giving you type two diabetes, maybe the current US dollar and monetary supply is like a metaphorical type two diabetes for Americans.

Why do I care?

So the trillion dollar question is like… Why do I care?

First, once again, my moral and ethical imperative, growing up poor, having a dad who is addicted to gambling away the rent money, seeing my mom go through bankruptcy twice etc., almost homeless like four or five times, certainly gave me some sort of real life and real world education about economics.

And I think this is where people fail— they have never really really really really really seen people go through financial distress, financial duress, they’ve never really witnessed it, nor did they really understand what it means?

For example, a lot of these well to do Democrats liberals whatever, allow them actually come from quite affluent families. For example, a lot of people who lecture us about helping poor people blah blah blah, actually did not grow up poor. For example, unless you’ve ever had the experience, being like an elementary school kid, in the fourth or fifth grade, maybe around 11 or 12 years old, having to pick up the phone, because your parents knew that it was probably creditors asking for money, and if you’ve actually never had the experience of having to pretend online and say that your parents were not home, you don’t know nothing.

And maybe this is where I am the first self-made bitcoin millionaire; now that I’m stacking 2.3 M’s and beyond, things are starting to get really interesting to me, at almost a hilariously alarming pace.

First, honestly it all seems like some sort of fake reality, it’s still shocking to me whenever I see these numbers and balances. Still… The $90,000 mark for bitcoin hasn’t really yet set in yet for me.

And I’m sure in certain when we hit the hundred thousand dollar mark for bitcoin, and we have $100,000 party, the best party of all time in cyberspace, and Michael saylors‘s house, we will all be laughing to the bank.

Or better yet, the digital cyber base, a.k.a. our own home.

Why is this such a big deal?

I don’t know any human being on the planet who does not desire some sort of financial freedom independence or liberty. I don’t know anybody who wants to keep working there are boring 90 to 5 day job, doesn’t matter if you’re working at Amazon Apple Facebook Google; everyone I know, all my friends are working these big companies, Nobody wants to be there if they had the option– yet, they are tied to their mortgages, their other financial debts and obligations etc.

And this is where I think to a large degree, debt is the devil. Why? That is slavery! And the funny thing is that a lot of people they like willingly put themselves into debt slavery.

Willingful debt slavery

For the most part, because I’ve grown up poor and whatever… I don’t actually have that much compassion for people who do poor financial decisions with their life. When people go broke according to their own accord, zero compassion and empathy.

For example, if people complain about finances, the first thing you gotta do is look at their iPhone or look at their Car. A lot of these people who complained that they’re so broke all the time, they’re the ones who are always buying the newest iPhone or iPhone Pro, buy new cars, paying a monthly payment on their car, sending their kids to daycare or private school or whatever, giving fellatio to Mark Zuckerberg, Essentially if you’re on Instagram, you love the taste of Zuckerberg semen in your mouth. Also, the reason you should not trust Mark Zuckerberg, he pretends to be fake poor humble, – she himself still operates under this façade of being a good guy, yet privately owns $10 million cars in his garage.

And I’m also pretty certain that Mark Zuckerberg has probably used the meta-quest at least once to check out virtual reality porn. Not that this is bad, but it is probably true.

the financial freedom of bitcoin

So what I really love about the financial freedom of bitcoin is that I think it sets people free. 

For example, with bitcoin, you could go anywhere on the planet, and always have your wealth with you. You don’t have to be tied down by nothing, not your loser Lamborghini your lose loser Porsche, and now, even your cyber truck.

Ideally, all your wealth would always be portable, with you, in your front pocket in your iPhone, anywhere on the planet!

Matte black bitcoin patches

A funny idea… Thank you you’re making some matte black bitcoin patches, some matte black bitcoin stickers. If you’re interested in copping some, just email me eric@erickim.com

---

the vision

Once again, very very simple guys; senator Cynthia Lummis, she is introducing this really interesting bitcoin bill, in which America will like try to obtain 1 million bitcoins over four years. The legendary and mythical Nakamoto, which is 1 million bitcoins.  

Why America is well positioned to do this

America is money, America is manifest destiny. America is the best, the most powerful, the most dominant, and anyone who likes to think otherwise is either deluded, wrong, or somehow, anti-American? I don’t really get it; technically, if you live in America, and you get paid in US dollars or whatever, it is actually like a super good deal.

Why? First, essentially America could print money ad infinitum, for free, into infinity.

So it seems actually super super obvious; to essentially, just print a bunch of money, buy the bitcoin, and take the upside, none of the downside. In fact, the really intelligent strategy  is the triple Trump Max strategy outlined by Michael Saylor in his presentation the red wave; to purchase 4 million bitcoins.

If we own 6 million bitcoins, 2045,,, which is just 21 years from now, … $81T payoff!

think in bitcoins

Also what is really fashion being is that bitcoins, is actually… Also built upon the bitcoin icon; everyone could easily notice the bitcoin icon from even 100 miles away. Yet, nobody has any clue or idea what Ethereum is. Or anything else.

 financial prospering

Another big idea in things to my colon doesn’t everyone seek and desire some sort of financial prosperity? Like doesn’t everyone want to be super super filthy dumb rich, whether they use that money for good like donations to charities or whatever, quitting your own nonprofit, helping poor kids, whatever?

economic power, capital power is real power

I think this is also another thing that people don’t understand, capital control,  financial control, financial power is real power.

For example, I just went to Catholic mass the other day, and there was a second donation, for St. Vincent de Paul, helping poor families deal with paying the rent and utilities, not getting evicted etc. As long as the Catholic Church still asks for donations — money matters.

In fact I really interesting thought is if the Catholic Church or the Vatican or whatever would build up their own strategic bitcoin reserve, then, the Catholic Church would last into perpetuity. And also never have to pay taxes.

Why do rich people care about taxes so much?

You’re kind of matters because even if you’re being taxed at a paltry rate of 1%, in like 30 or 40 years, assuming that you bought a $1 million home, you’re going to send you be paying like half of that in just simple property taxes. 

Or, if you purchase a one million $ home, and you have one percent tax, then over the course of 100 years, you’re going to have already paid $1 million worth of property tax.

Now why is this important? You cannot text bitcoin, if you just hold it. And don’t sell it. Or transfer it.

Also fortunately, there’s no inheritance tax on bitcoin. Like if you die you could just give your private keys to your kids, and they will give it to their kids kids kids. No government meddling around with your family’s wealth. 

Even Sanator Lummis supports this idea, assuming that the bitcoin act passes, the bitcoin bill, I don’t really see any reasons why it won’t, essentially will give more clear property rights of private keys, to humans and American citizens?

For example, nobody could stick a gun to your head, and force you to hand over your keys.  however, somebody could stick a gun to your head, and force you to give you your credit cards, your wallet, your credit card your stuff, or break into your home and steal the gold bars stuffed under your mattress.

First, I think banks were generally a good thing the invention of it was beneficial in so far much as even me, I don’t want to walk around with like $100,000 of US currency in my pocket. Why? The risk of me misplacing it, losing it, getting it stolen is quite high. For example like when I used to lift weights at the gym and I did not want to get distracted, Sometimes I would just like leave my backpack there, not really worrying whether people would steal my old iPhone SE, or steal the maybe $50 i had in my wallet.

And this is the big idea, the idea that you could essentially store your own wealth, without a loser bank, a fucking asshole bank, I fucking hate the banks! Even these fucking assholes at JP Morgan Chase; literally taking me about three weeks before I could wire my own damn money to my Coinbase account, to just buy bitcoins for myself, even having to go to the branch like three or four times before doing it!

***

How long until you could purchase bitcoins and custody or bitcoins at JP Morgan Chase?

An interesting thing; if you have a certain upgraded bank status with JP Morgan Chase, they actually give you access to this free vault thing, where I guess you could hide your gold bars and antique Rolexes.

You’re not supposed to, but you can. I also would not be surprised that a lot of people probably hide US dollars or cash currency to avoid paying taxes, which I find to be a very very despicable act.

I think with taxes, there is actually kind of like a moralistic obligation to pay taxes, certainly nobody wants to pay more than their fair share but still… I have a personal moral obligation to pay taxes. Why? Because once again, at least for myself, I was raised through the public school system, I went to UCLA, with federal government grants and scholarships, to become the person I am today. I am so insanely grateful to America American government, my mentors, my local Boy Scouts troop,  who knows maybe I’ll start volunteering once Seneca is old enough.

My sense of patriotism, is not this fake ass flag humping conservative Republican alt right, con toting fake ass libertarianism anti-government thing; even what a lot of these loser Republicans and conservatives don’t understand is they are all apparently super anti-government, yet they want America to build a wall to keep out others?

Or, they want the government to stay out of their gun business, but don’t they understand that actually, the right to gun ownership is actually still predicated on the US government?

Or, let us see that somebody breaks into your house, and either robs you or kills your family members, whatever… And even though you have a arsenal of guns, you were not able to stop all the perpetrators. If you want to enact justice, yet you are super anti-government, everyone is antigovernment until they need the government. 

Then what I think people really want is like kind of maybe minimum government possible, MVP, MINIMUM VIABLE GOVERNMENT (MVG).

I think the general idea is that certainly it is good to have the fire department if you don’t want your house to burn down, ain’t nobody gonna own their own fire hose to prevent their house from burning down.

Also, it is certainly good to have a police department, a police force, once again, if somebody beat you up and rob you, and you catch them, you certainly want justice to be dealt to them.

I think that it is like having just enough government, without the bloat?

It’s kind of like having a smart phone, certainly life is better with a smart phone rather than without. However the new ones is, ain’t nobody want to own a loser android or Samsung phone, which has far too much bloatware.

Even now Apple, there are too many damn apps.

I don’t really get it; Apple keeps turning out all these new apps, apps that nobody has any idea what it is, nor do people actually have any desire to use it, I said just let the third-party developers make those journaling apps and stuff. In fact, if Apple were really intelligent what Apple would do is actually with every subsequent version of iOS, they would actually get rid of superfluous apps!

Like there’s all these weird apps like the measuring tool and whatever.  Come on Apple just get rid of it. 

---

Hot take: I think in four years by the end of the Trump presidency, I will not be shocked if bitcoin hits 1 million of bitcoin, which is about 10x from here?

To keep the math simple; I’m just going to assume that bitcoin is like $100,000 of bitcoin right now. So $100,000-$1 million is a 10x gain.

So do the simple math, if you sell your assets right now which are not really rapidly accumulating in value, then, the best way to think about it is that you have to have a strong end up for your timeline. It is currently the year 2024, I think Trump takes presidency 2025, so then the projection should be 2029, Four years from now… Seneca will only be eight years old? Is that like the second grade? And then on top of that it will be another 10 years until he goes to college or just starts his own bitcoin based company or thing.

The future four years from now

Making predictions four years from now is pretty simple. I am very very certain that miracle will accumulate some amount of bitcoins to back strategic bitcoin treasury reserve assets, I think of it like the new bitcoin Fort Knox; my personal thought is that America will decouple herself from the gold standard, and then latch on and hyper charge herself with bitcoin.

The reason why this becomes such a fascinating idea is that then, the US dollar will actually appreciate and value because it is actually backed by something which is real, bitcoin.

Triple Trump Max?

I recently watched a presentation by Michael Saylor, titled the red wave, and it is really really fascinating; now that the red Republicans have taken over the whole government, this is like 1000 X good news for us bitcoin holders as well as micro strategy share owners.

Why is it meant to be such a glorious future for us?

First, the crypto Renaissance. Now that Elon Musk is going to be the new doge chair, which is hilarious, you’ll see a boom in the whole cryptocurrency industry, a new resurgence. And as a consequence, you’re going to see like 1 trillion new crypto based companies having a virtual IPO– even Scottie Pippen is doing interesting with the famous 1991 basketball that he has held for 33 years, and he is like sharing ownership in it or something? $BALL

ANYWAYS, THIS IS ALMOST LIKE THE NEW DIGITAL GOLD WAVE; the new digital gold rush.

Even now, you’re already seen smart rich old families buy best from gold and pour that money into bitcoin instead. You are starting to see the black rock gold ETF becoming consolidated, and having those asset reserves pour into bitcoin the bitcoin spot ETF Ibit by Black rock.

Even watch CNBC news, the squawk box, which is the real financial news. You know it is a big deal when you have all these really really famous investors, admitting that they were actually wrong about bitcoin, although saying it in like a sideways, orthogonal way.

Even this really famous investor in Tesla admitted to the Joe guy, “I told you… You gotta do your own research, and you did your research and I did my research and I know my business and you know your business” which is essentially like a way of ceding defeat and admitting that you were wrong.

How to know that ERIC KIM is a true believer in bitcoin

Very interesting, I’m like one of the biggest NASSIM TALEB Fan boys of all time, and still am. Like four years ago or five years ago, he actually wrote a medium article on how he believed in bitcoin, and actually he even wrote the introduction preface to the bitcoin standard, who was written by another fellow Lebanese American economist and writer.

However, the moment in which I put in the beeswax of Odysseus was when apparently Taleb had a change of heart, and then he became like on a crusade to be super super anti-bitcoin, and making fun of bitcoiners. He also apparently wrote this bitcoin essay on how it was kind of not good, and when I saw it I immediately just shut my eyes, and went off the grid. And instead spending more time at the gym, just lifting weights, not thinking about bitcoin and the whole crypto economy, and just enjoying my lifting.

Also, you know that I am super legit because when the whole FTX meltdown happened, I didn’t even know.  for about 4 to 5 years, I try to shut my ears to bitcoin prices and not think about it, until people would accidentally tell me even against my own will. Or Cindy or my brother-in-law telling me that bitcoin is way down, I never lost hope, I just had to stay focused.

So what does it mean when you’re right?

Kind of weird and amazing, for me the really really big deal was when I first saw bitcoin hitting $88,000 a bitcoin, which was like a lot, because my mind was still pegged at bitcoin at being like an average 65,000 a bitcoin or 62,000 a bitcoin, or even 59,000 of bitcoin.

And then the magic happen, I’m miraculously just looked at the prices by chance, randomly on my iPhone, and I saw that it hit about 91,000, then about 93,000 of bitcoin? Then going on Twitter and seeing that Michael Saylor is already planning the $100k party.

Everyone wants bitcoin to succeed

I think that’s very interesting to me is that actually the whole crypto economy is pegged to the bitcoin. Even loser Ethereum and everything after it.

What is Ethereum? It is like a fake diamond a cubic zirconia, it looks shiny and pretty from the outside but in the inside it is just plastic.

People talk about how you could like create nonfungible tokens, cyber artwork, and you could program on Ethereum… But you fools don’t you know you could do the same exactly on bitcoin? And bitcoin is like at least 1000 X more powerful robust and super superior?

I almost feel like this is against the early days of android versus iPhone. I really really feel like there’s almost 0 reasons to own an android of Google pixel a Samsung phone anymore. Even Google Gemini which came out kind of is lame.

And also the big thing… The sales people at Google they all own iPhone pros.

Don’t ask people what you should do, just see what they personally own.

The joy of waking up

So now that I am like 10% invested in micro strategy, about 90% of my wealth in bitcoin, I actually get super super excited when it is 6:30 AM, the best time of the day. I enjoy looking at the market activity of micro strategy, how it is like essentially like nuclear power and physics insanely volatile, insanely high power, radioactive!

I actually remember as a kid, learning all about nuclear power, and how it was a very good thing, like essentially the magical thing that would change everything, that would essentially make energy and power practically free. I still believe this way.

I think the hard thing about nuclear power is that like anything in life, high volatility and massive upside, you just gotta be careful. Assuming you take all the smart MIT nuclear physicist to build these nuclear pants, somewhere maybe in the desert, and you do it safely, the Asymmetric payoff;

You have 1000 to one benefit ratio.

Once again nuclear waste and the potential for another Fukushima is possible, but also do you suddenly turn everyone to a buggy wagon and horse because people die in car accidents? 

Also, do you ban people from owning iPhones because there are so many debts related to texting while driving?

Or do you ban people from using electricity because there are some people who either use it as a weapon, how you could kill people with the electric chair, etc.?

I think this is also the tricky thing with guns; obviously there are all these crazy mass murderers with guns, and these fucking asshole pussies who bring it to a wedding, leave it in a book bag unattended in the guest room closet, to only have a crazy alcoholic woman stealing people’s wallets and shit, miraculously finding the gun, and then putting it on top of your kids car seat. I am not joking this is a real story which happened to me.

There are people who live in the wilderness, who actually may be hunt a game to feed their families. I respect that. What I personally hate all these skinny fat losers with beards, these small dick midgets who accumulate guns and ammunition to act tough? To me this is worse than insane, it is only a thing that a man without a penis would do. And no balls. A bunch of Ken dolls without genitalia.

---

Think about the time cost to capital

Another big thing to consider, the time cost to capital. The general idea is that to build things actually just takes a lot of time, human effort, meetings, friction, working through things.

Time is the ultimate acid that we got, something which is not really really recoverable.

Like assume that you have a maximum human lifespan of 120 years, at best. However, impossible to know whether you’ll make it. I would say maybe more conservatively, we should think of like 90 years, that is like the new 80.

So if you knew with 100% precision that you would die at 90 or 92 or whatever, hopefully still with your six pack, then, how would you approach life differently?

First, my personal thought is there should really not be a profit motive. Why? With profit motives, profit is fine, but the issue is that the easiest way to make profit and make money is super simple; just buy bitcoin! If you want to make US dollar gains, then you just purchase micro strategy stock!

So then, the next step is just like kind of more like altruism; assume that you’re like worth $100 billion of bitcoin and you could afford anything on the planet, but the better question is do you really want do you really care? Is this going to create some sort of substantive impact on the planet which is something that you desire?

---

Why?

So the reason why I have such a strong predilection towards Bitcoin is that I feel like I have a strong moral an ethical imperative behind it.

So I am all about open source, this has generally been my guiding principle for the last 15 years, maybe even 20 years of my life. The general idea was very very simple;

Information should be free!

Obviously I get it; there are certain people who create stuff we need to get paid and pay rent, I get it! But if you’re like somebody liked Tim Ferriss, or even Joe Rogan, and you’re already super rich… Why do you need advertisements? Why do you need more money?

I have no issues with greed wanting more money etc. It is all good. But maybe the more interesting question on my mind is what are your personal guiding principles in your personal imperative which drive you? Like, why do you care why do you do it?

So for me… The whole route of my open source philosophy was that I grew up super poor without access to nothing, and I want to treat others like how I would like to be treated. I want to be able to empower the other scrappy 19-year-old kid, like my friend Dylan Fan, to become something great, just giving them access to information education etc.

This is also where I’m kind of interested in doing more like these free open source online Zoom Bitcoin workshops on Zoom and other stuff. I don’t want people to have any barriers to access information or knowledge, which could really benefit themselves. 

Because honestly at this point, I’m making dumb money, even I’m flabbergasted. Cindy is too. And so is my mom.

You know it’s a good sign when even you are shocked

“I’m shocked too!” – JAY Z

I think you know you’re onto something good is even if you shock yourself, even if you believe in something and you succeeded, and you are made correct, you are rectified, but still… it still shocks you?

ERIC KIM FILM LEICA MP & LEICA 35mm f2 ASPH AUCTION

So I have a vision, maybe this will be big news: I’m going to sell my old film Leica MP, and my Leica 35 mm F2 ASPH lens to the highest bidder. I will only accept bitcoin.

If you wanna put in a bid, own a piece of photography history, email me at eric@erickim.com with your offer. I will sell this to the highest bidder.

Also I will make a pledge; the second after we confirm details, and we lock in the  details whatever, I will guarantee I’ll give you the best value of your bitcoin for my set up, assuming that even marked prices fluctuate a bit. In short I’ll be more generous to you.

Also, I think the fun thing is that it will be the first time I do a really big transfer just using bitcoin and bitcoin wallets– like a real pure to prayer, P2P transfer.

Technically this was the whole vision of Satoshi; being able to transfer value and money without a trusted intermediary. Not having to do it through loser PayPal, or loser bank, we’re having to deal with loser SWIFT code bank transaction wire stuff. 

Like doesn’t this make super sense,  that you would actually… If you want to sell something with a high value amount, thought you would just do it peer to peer with bitcoin, without having to deal with the messy business of some sort of third-party?

Like for example… Even a simple thing, if I owned like $1 million house I wanted to sell it directly to you, isn’t the most logical thing that I could just meet you in the flesh, shake your hand, and then immediately transfer $1 million from my bitcoin balance directly to you? Wouldn’t this make the most sense?

Or, if I owned like a $250,000 Lamborghini, that I could once again, test drive your car, tell you that I like it, shake your hand and immediately zap you like one or two bitcoins?

Or if you had a cyber truck, that I could give you like half a bitcoin for your cyber truck? Or maybe a quarter? 

---

What is bitcoin and why does it matter? A simple straightforward primer:

First, the best technology of bitcoin is digital property. Or digital real estate. My general concept is that the price of a single bitcoin is and should at least least be the price of a single-family home, if not 10X 100X or 1000X.

 For example just open up Zillow, and look for the price of single-family homes in Los Angeles the Bay area etc. currently, even in poor neighborhood, average house prices are about 1.1, 1.2, $1.3 million. And also currently, many homes in the $1.5M, 2 million, $2.9M, and now $4.4 million zone.  and also, one of the estates on Hobie Hills, $155 million home, and above that a brand new construction, $199 million estate.

If I think about it, the reason why bitcoin is such a big deal is that it is the hardest working capital on the planet or the known human universe. For example, when you are sleeping in Pacific time, there is probably somebody awake in Singapore, when their exchanges are open, buying selling bitcoin.

Second, the velocity the speed the power. Currently bitcoin is like a juggernaut; you literally cannot stop it even if you wanted it to. Do you remember an X-Men, I’m the juggernaut, juggernaut just smashing through walls? Yeah that is like bitcoin.

And even microstrategy, it is like a tank, an armored vehicle, which is slowly plowing through and destroying everything in its way. If you have ever seen a raised military vehicle in the flesh, in desert 10 and iron steel, with a huge massive room that look like tractor rims, having like 20 wheels, driving on the freeway, the sheer size and mass will make your jaw drop.

The reason why I am so passionate about bitcoin is that at this point, it almost feels like an ethical imperative to me. What that means is that I almost feel like it is my God-given duty to spread the good word of bitcoin.

Why? Assuming that 55% of the world‘s problems come rooted in issues about money, if that were the case, if you could fix the money and the money supply, couldn’t you fix and improve and upgrade the human race? (Saylor).

Bet on the jockey and the horse 

So assuming that Michael Saylor is not the new patron in Saint of bitcoin, he is now the ultimate spokesperson for bitcoin, and assuming that he is in fact, unethical, incredibly intelligent, good intentioned and ethical, if that is the case, then, Michael Saylor is like our head man or jockey, like the Steve Jobs of bitcoin, and bitcoin is like the war horse. Once again, bitcoin has the most unstoppable power on the planet.

Internet digital capital

So this issue was physical real estate, let us buy $10 million house or plot of property here in Culver City, main issues:

1. The issues of property taxes, sales taxes, other taxes which is just like the local city or government or whatever siphoning away money from you. It is almost like you are a healthy child, and then you become a blood bag for some sort of mad Max evil villain, And they’re slowly selecting away the blood of your firstborn child, to feed itself. Now I think I understand a little bit more about the idea of lowering taxes and government taxes, because nobody likes to have their blood drained. Especially against their own will.
2. Laws of physical nature, act of God: so my brother-in-law is currently having his house remodeled and rebuilt, and super super crazy story the contractor who’s helping them employed by Cindy‘s mom suddenly I guess randomly got cancer and is now in the hospital? And this is the head contractor for the whole project, so then, the laws of physics; if your head contractor suddenly gets cancer or a heart attack and becomes ill… Your whole housing development project comes to a standstill. Also, the laws of physical entropy; when you are getting a house rebuild, and then it starts to rain, this is disastrous.
3. The physical world is too slow: so currently on 877 Washington in Culver City, Apple is expanding their Apple TV TV plus campus. I’ve been watching them constructed like four days and weeks on end. They’re actually doing good progress on it like they’re always at work, looks like they have good contractors etc.; but still, this is taking months, how long will it take? Five years? The issue with physical and physical development physical real estate once again, the laws of physics make it very very impossible to build things quickly. Even in Vietnam where they obviously do not observe any sort of safety laws, they built things really really fast, but it is impossible to build 100 foot skyscraper in like five days or a week. With bitcoin you can.

Why is it so hard for people to understand bitcoin?

Can you imagine trying to explain to an ant how a microwave works?  or can you try to imagine explaining to a child in nuclear physics?

Or can you try explaining to your 95-year-old mom how the Internet and the cloud works?

Poor, imagine how difficult it is if you took a 85-year-old man who has been driving petroleum cards this whole life, and giving him a brand new cyber truck?

The hard thing with technologies is that it is always very very very very difficult to understand things which are a massive paradigm shift. Even my uncle, who is almost the most reluctant person to technology ever, like he only got an iPhone literally this last year — even up until a year ago he was still using a flip phone, now that she has an iPhone Pro, his life is like 1 trillion times better. He literally fought hand and nail and even he eventually succumbed to the miraculous powers of the iPhone. I think also a similar thing will happen with electric cars, like we charge our phones every night, can you imagine if your iPhone ran on a gasoline generator?

Insight & vision

I think the hard thing is that to have a deep insight about something, is going to be considered insane by the traditional crowd. Which is also very very understandable. For example, one of the most useful inventions of all time the microwave, can you imagine trying to describe to a person in the 1800 how a microwave worked? Or even having silent clean electricity inside your home? Or, trying to explain to somebody in the 1700s that one day you would fly in the Meadow bird across the sea in a matter of hours? Or trying to explain to somebody in the 1500s that one day we will jump on a spaceship and go to the moon?

Once again very very difficult.

The art of being unreasonable

Or, it’s still kind of blows my mind… I think what Elon Musk is currently worth what like $270 billion or something? Can you imagine even telling somebody 10 or 20 years ago that one day this would be possible?

Even Steve Jobs, his insane tenacity is like the best thing of all time. Can you imagine if we were still on blackberries with physical keyboards?

Or, when he first unveiled the iPad everyone was trying to get him to like add 50 USB ports to it. But it was his stubborn genius which prevented this nonsense.

Even in the early days of the Apple to computer, Steve Jobs had the very very good idea of not having nerds hack with it, you could let them just do that with the windows computers. Steve Wozniak I didn’t like it, but ultimately Steve Jobs was right.

Or Elon Musk and Tesla; what people don’t know is that Tesla was originally started by Marc Tarpeting, and I think another group of investors and entrepreneurs, however, it is Elon who turned Tesla into what it is today. He is the one who had the genius and the insight and the engineering and design taste to make the Tesla model S the beautiful car that it is today. And also, his vision with cybertruck and now the cyber taxi and Robo van.

I think we tend to put these individuals on a pedestal. Why can you not be as unreasonable and stubborn and insightful as Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos? What in terms of the laws of physics is holding you back?

Your only limit is you 

Me talking about bitcoin might seem like it is out of left field, but actually, I’ve been investing in bitcoin and crypto since 2018. A year after I left Vietnam.

Initially, I was told about a certain old coin by this Singaporean trader investor entrepreneur named Bing — she first is the one who got me to sign up, I first did my own research a little bit, but maybe like $25,000 worth of bitcoin in 2018, when it was like $6950 a bitcoin, and me then taking half of that money and buying digibyte DGB, on the exchange fund poloniex, but I’m not even sure it’s around anymore, anyways, eventually I came back to my senses, and after doing a lot of research and thinking, consolidated all of my digibyte back into Bitcoin, the smart path.

Other meanderings

I also then much later, met a guy named Abe who was an early investor in chainlink, randomly when I was at LA fitness in Providence Rhode Island, and I was pretty sold, it seemed like chainlink was a great idea.  I think one chain-link was maybe like seven dollars a chain-link or $10 a chainlink, I sold all of my bitcoin which was worth maybe like $180,000 at the time, and bought all chainlink.  I liked the insights of Sergey Nazarov, and I used to check the chain-link blog like every single day.

Eventually… I then had a gut feeling, I kind of missed having my bitcoin. And also I started to get a little bit more and more suspicious and having a bad feeling about chain-link. The issue was too much of the price of a chain-link was dependent on marketing and PR, and also… I think they release a version 2.0 white paper for chain-link, and this was a red flag:

Never trust anything that needs a version 2.0.

What people don’t really really know is that bitcoin, when Satoshi invented it, was like version .001, and since it was published, the original bitcoin paper, it has not been tampered with or changed since.

Since then, we have seen many forks, duplications, new ideas, Ethereum Ethereum 2.0, the big Ethereum hack and fork etc.; and even now somehow I’m not even sure how this happened, Ethereum you can now have an Ethereum spot ETF?

 however, people are starting to wake up to their senses and realizing that Ethereum is like a cubic zirconian fake diamond made out of plastic – it looks really really shiny and great from the outside, but on the inside, it is just plastic.

What’s also super interesting about diamonds I learned this from my uncle who has been a gold and diamond and jewelry dealer for almost over 35 years, is that with the naked eye, a cubic zirconia and fake diamond and a real diamond is literally impossible to tell with a human eye, even if you took the world’s most skilled jeweler to take a look. 

How to FIRE with bitcoin (financial independence, retire early)

OK, before COVID-19 hit, it seems that we were actually on a good path, discovering the life happiness and the pursuit of happiness was not about physical property, physical possessions, even owning physical land or physical home or property… It was more about living this semi nomadic life, and accumulating interesting experiences, and getting your EXP up (experience points).

Even a big idea that I had, around 2015, wow almost a decade ago, is buy experiences not stuff.

So applied to our real life, maybe we should kind of shake off the trauma in the backlash of Covid, and let us take it back to the beginning, take it back to standards.

First, I think a good idea is to try to imagine that Covid never happened, and let us resent ourselves around our minimalist principles.

So let us make this notion of fire, financial independence retire early cool again.

So, how do you do this with bitcoin?

How to fuel your own early retirement with bitcoin

One quote I like from Michael Saylor; everybody is winners on the bitcoin standard, nobody is a loser. There are only varying degrees of success. 

So, how do we apply these principles?

First, the very very simple goal is to accumulate as many bitcoins as humanly possible, to stack as many Satoshi’s as humanly possible. The very very simple via negativa principle: 

You don’t sell your Bitcoin ***

If I told you that you were a wealthy family from New York City, and you own physical property commercial real estate on fifth Avenue, would you ever sell your property? Hell no! You would do everything, hand and nail to avoid and to prevent yourself from ever selling your property.

What do you then do instead is you try to do everything in your powers, your financial leverage powers to never ever ever have you to sell your bitcoin, but instead, to leverage your financial assets and instruments in order to accumulate more bitcoins.

What do you want to do is obviously do simple things like pay your rent and stuff, but, the very very simple goal: you live so insanely frugal and Spartan, and just put on 99% of your moneys into bitcoin. 

The basic idea is live like a demigod Spartan, you have no need for money or possessions or stuff. Even after recently doing this very very spirited road trip down to Temecula and Marietta, staying on a nice ranch with a bunch of chickens, I am still pretty convinced… A white Toyota Prius, is probably the best car of all time. Even if you could afford like 50 cyber trucks, or assuming I could only own one car, currently I still might take the Prius over the cyber truck.

Why? My body looks like a cyber truck, I don’t need my car to be. 

I think the problem is people try to purchase dominance through their assets like their car their truck their SUV they’re home they’re closed their jewelry their devices whatever, or even worse their guns.

Only skinny fat midget weakling losers own guns. 

A real man has no need for external fire arms; your own arms your own guns are your firearms.

So a very simple thought; don’t waste your money on guns or ammunition, use all that money to buy weights, weightlifting equipment and barbells, use that to stack your muscles and also your physical dominance. 

---

How to deal with the emotional roller coaster of bitcoin

So I think the number one critical problem here is that for somebody who is inexperienced, bitcoin is one hell of a ride.

For example, even my uncle who is like 68 years old, he told me in Korean that bitcoin is almost kinda like crack cocaine or bad drugs (ma-yyak), which literally means “evil medicine”.

For example I tell him that all I think about is bitcoin and Eitreim in bitcoin, he tells me that he has the same problem. But I guess the difference is that I do it from a joyful, happy, playful childlike approach; she does it almost kind of like out of opportunity and fear?

So some simple thoughts:

1. Never look at prices 

Never ever ever ever look at prices, delete the Coinbase app from your phone or whatever, or your Fidelity app, assuming you own microstrategy stock,  and never ever ever look at prices unless you actually intend on buying selling or trading or swapping or accumulating or depositing money and re-investing it.  it might be one of the most difficult things to do but I treated like the ears of Odysseus; fill up your ears with digital beeswax, never ever look at prices. 

Now that my net worth is insanely soaring, like bitcoin is going ballistic, and I’m getting ready for the $100K bitcoin party,  the best party of all time in cyberspace and everybody who owns bitcoin or even a fraction of a bitcoin is invited, — essentially the funny thing with bitcoin and numbers and prices and whatever is that there is this strange assymmetry:

When you see the prices or your assets going up, you get like a 50% boost and happiness, but if you see it go down, it is like a -500% in happiness. 

This is why losing money at the casino is 1000 times more annoying than winning money.

So don’t be tempted with gains ; once again, the goal is to increase your money or your capital, but instead and rather, the goal is to accumulate digital power.

There is no force stronger out in the planet than bitcoin. It is like solidified power, – like I visualize it like a Dragon Ball. Assuming that there’s only like seven dragon balls scattered around the planet, wouldn’t you want to have one?

Or imagine a better analogy… There’s like 21 million dragon balls scattered hazard lead around the planet, and there will never ever ever be more than 21 million dragon balls, and this Dragon Ball is your thing to economic immortality and power, wouldn’t you want to have one, or several?

How many bitcoins is enough bitcoins?

That’s like asking somebody if you have a chance to buy out Manhattan, how many square blocks should I buy if I could afford to buy like a lot?

Your goal is how much you ever could physically afford it! And even if you have to overextend or leverage yourself a bit, more property in Manhattan is always the best idea.

Bitcoin is like the ultimate digital cyber Manhattan assuming that there will never be more than 21,000,000 square blocks in cyber Manhattan, forever, then, certainly you will want to get one while you still can.

a bitcoin mortgage program

An idea that I’m kind of toying with this idea of like a bitcoin mortgage. The general idea is that there’s going to be a certain point in which owning a bitcoin is just going to be like physically impossible for most people like a full single bitcoin. Currently the scam that is going on is that people will Essentially sell all of their physiological energy and soul over the course of 30 years, to purchase a single-family home and property.

However if I think about this critically, the reason why buying a single-family home or anything with a mortgage is a terrible idea is that as long as the APR is above 0%,  it is never worth it.

Why? Even if you do get a 0% APR loan, assuming that you have to pay property taxes of at least one to 2% means that you’ll bleed out half of your capital in the course of 30 years?

Not only that it is like somebody offers to give you a free pet puppy, but you forget that you will have to pay it in the long run; paying for a bit fee, and it getting cancer, and eventually the sadness of having to put it down.

In life, you have the option of taking the winning bet, or you have the option of taking the losing bet. Why would you take the losing bet?

The point of life is to win!

 in life, so history and words mean little and nothing.

I still cannot ever forget, my extreme annoyance with talking to one person who told me that he was taking some classes to learn about investing in real estate or whatever, and I just joked tongue and cheek, but also seriously… Like bitcoin? He shrugged me off and told me “no, real investments.” This is from somebody with a business and maybe an economics degree? And maybe a marketing degree?

Anyways, I’ve made 1 trillion times more in bitcoin over the course of the last few years, then over 15 years of traveling the world and teaching photography workshops. And the truth is a lot of it is actually just time and technology; bitcoin didn’t really exist back then in a real tangible form which wasn’t that interesting to me at the time; so obviously if the financial instruments don’t really exist at the time, then, obviously you cannot hate on people for not making good financial decisions if the financial instrument, a.k.a. bitcoin, did not yet really exist!

But isn’t bitcoin risky?

 no! It might be like the least risky thing on the planet. It is almost like in my mind 100% certain to go out forever, albeit with great volatility.

But to quote Michael Saylor, volatility is vitality.  what that then means is in life, assuming like life is like a roller coaster, you need higher highs to get the lower lows in order to reach the higher highs. For example in roller coaster tycoon, in order to make a super super epic awesome roller coaster, you first need to make it go up really really high, then really really low, in order to use the centrifugal or the gravitational force to make it reach a really really new high!

I almost wonder if there was a lot of financial physics here as well: the idea is that once again, you need really really low dips, in order to reach new highs?

Compare this with a boring asset like bonds; the whole life it is just like super flat, maybe a 1° incline upwards, kind of like one of those lame kitty roller coasters. The one that just put you in a truck that just goes in a circle forever, with a tiny incline and a tiny dip. Super boring.

what is the goal?

I think philosophically, the goal ain’t to get rich or whatever, because richness is all relative. Rather, the goal is to gain your freedom, your financial freedom! Then once you have gained this freedom, the rest of your whole life will just be upside, no downside!

ERIC

---

I Shall Never Die

Economic Armor

Suit of armor, and formal suit?

The virtues of working as a team?

.

A hybrid, a hybrid between the upside of nature, without any of the downsides? And also the upside of the city?

So one thing that’s super interesting is spending a little bit time here in the mountains, the quasi countryside is that something about the piece of the mornings is surprisingly wonderful and calming to me.

At first, I thought it was kind of a gimmick to be out in nature or whatever, ironically enough, this is even coming from a Boy Scout’s Eagle Scout.

So on one hand, the issue with all these people trying to seek the wilderness I think is a form of escape. They don’t like to be with themselves, so they try to get lost in nature to forget themselves.

I think one of the things that a lot of these overly sentimental week wings suffer from that they think that somehow, nature is God and nature is supreme. As a consequence, they feel this strange guilt about being alive, resources, etc. But I find this to be ridiculous; The truth is, human beings we are supreme, and nature is our slave. To anybody who has made it a virtue that somehow we have to be subservient to nature, to me is kind of a weakling mentality.  the true man has made nature his slave, his pet thing. His matter and mold and clay for wild, fun and playful experimentation!

I think the critical issue here is that people have no idea what to live for, whom to live for, etc. As a consequence, people spend a lot of their lives just wasting it, just wondering and meandering around, with zero insight about themselves, their personal role, their own personal philosophy, their own personal ethics ethos aesthetics and approach to life etc.

And I think what a lot of these people also feel to understand is that there is no ultimate truth or true North to anything; life is like a wonderfully wild creative monster, a beast, full of chaos fun play enjoy. The Indonesian joy of radicalness, playful candor, and unreasonable art?

I’m the new Nietzsche?

Certainly everyone wants some sort of legacy, some see through their altruism and the virtuality, some try to do it like Mother Teresa, Gandhi etc., other people like Thich Nhat Hanh, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., etc. Other people tried to found religions like Saint Paul, Mohammad, Moses, the pharaohs of Egypt etc. I think Plato also tried to create a religion but failed. Same with Socrates and most of the ancient Greeks.

All of the flossers who have come before me, I think they failed on many accounts. First, none of them were actually materially successful, or entrepreneurial, or financially successful, considering or assuming they started from nothing. I’m starting to learn a little bit more about generational wealth, kids were born knowing that they had to trust fund, etc. I’m not one of them.

Second, the physicality aspect of it. Till you have met a philosopher who could lift over 1000 pounds, that is 10 1/2 plates on each side of the barbell, knock on my door.

Third, the disconnection from social media. I might be the only person that I know who is actually disconnected from social media. Even a lot of these older folks, seems that everyone is jacked into Twitter like crack. Especially a lot of older folks ironically enough.

Also, am I the only 36-year-old who doesn’t have an Instagram who deleted it at the height of his fame with 60,000 followers? The best idea in 1 trillion years; now that my net worth is soaring, just recently breaking the $2.1 million mark, and continue to grow and explode at an alarming rate, what that means is things are starting to get interesting, and also pretty awesome.

Technology

Another thing I was randomly thinking about is how blessed I am to have been born in the time of bitcoin. Even though I do have some superficial regrets, technically I’m grateful of my journey thus far, my only regret in life is not buying more bitcoins or buying any bitcoins when my roommate Kevin first told me about it my junior year of college, one bitcoin was worth like .0000 one percent of a penny. My roommate Kevin told me that we should just buy like $100 worth of Bitcoin for funsies, just to see what would happen. I think this was during bitcoin pizza day or a little bit before it. Regardless I was doing some math, and had I had bought $100 worth of bitcoin in my junior year of college, that would probably be worth like $100 billion today. But if this were the case, I probably would have never done my photography entrepreneurship journey, traveling the planet, promoting my open source philosophy, and forever cementing my legacy in street photography. So I’m not salty about nothing.

So on the contrary,  maybe the timing was all right along. Actually, one of my mottos and guiding principles to life, is the thought:

Everything happens as it should have happened.

The general idea is not that everything happens for a reason, which assumes some sort of strange mystical guiding force the universe which I do not believe in, but instead the general idea is that everything happened as it should have happened which means that one should never have any regrets in life The way in which things have played out. Because the funny thing, now that I am 36 years old, which is still super super young if I think about it, but the same time, I think with enough foresight, you will essentially discover and learn that Whatever happens in life, typically when you look back at it, 20 years or so from now, you’ll look back and smile knowing that without even really really thinking about it or considering it too deeply, the timing was perfect all along!

One story I don’t really talk about which is super super random is what inspired me and Cindy to actually  start trying to have a kid, because the timing never felt right. Long story short, being held up at gunpoint in Mexico City, me yelping, grabbing Cindy‘s hand and running the opposite way in his exact pattern as a natural impulse, and then the gunman, who first shined the chrome from his hip holster, jumping back on his moped or motorcycle and fucking off.

This was like two or three months before Covid hit, and then we started trying then. And then Covid happened, and then we thought that the baby was gonna get Covid so we stopped, and then we attended a webinar that said actually somehow babies were immune to Covid or something, and then we tried again and boom got pregnant in like a week.

Anyways, everything happens as it should have happened.

Other foresights

So some other four sites which are super fasciae to me is like my propensity to think about investing money and finances, in like a Zen stoic way?

Currently, stacking bitcoins is more like a game than anything. It’s been an interesting journey thus far, part of it is like being a little bit crazy, considered insane by the traditional crowd, but then again, now that Donald Trump has been elected president, isn’t the whole world in planet a little bit insane, truth be told?

Once again, the world is 1 trillion times more bizarre than I could have ever imagined it. For example, even Elon Musk putting on the red hat, putting on the Maga hat, make America great again hat, super interesting and weird?

And also, another sign of how America is so racist, when Kanye West put on the MAGA hat, everyone was trying to crucify him, calling him like the new black Hitler 2.0 or something. But then, when Elon Musk does it, it is considered cool hip trendy, counterculture and cool!

I suppose then, my whole theory about what everyone is so and Kanye West is kind of accurate and true; once again, America doesn’t like an outspoken African-American man, who is 1 trillion times more successful than them.

I hate you because you are 1 trillion times more successful than me! (has any man ever said this?)

Zen the fuck out , ZTFO – Big Sean

I woke up in beast mode! My wife and me is like beauty and the beast though! The only thing sold out is the seats though!

Thinking Calabasas, The Hills, etc.

So some thoughts; first, maybe the best strategy ain’t to ask people what you should do or whatever, or ask people for advice. Just see what they do, where they live, where they put their own money. In other words, talk is cheap, words weep. 

 the first interesting thoughts; why is it that all the super super rich successful people live in Calabasas? Kim has a house out there, and I think Kanye literally has a house across the street from his ex-wife?

I think Jay Z and Beyoncé also have a house in Beverly Hills?

Anyways, it looks like sooner or later everyone ends up back in LA Los Angeles Southern California. Nobody wants to be in the East Coast, New York sucks, Brooklyn sucks. The only reason people live out there is once again, people want the place to form them, rather than thinking about it Blank slate, Carte Blanche, instead of them doing the shaping? 

For example, questions; if you’re like somewhere or traveling or whatever, and you meet somebody from Brooklyn or Manhattan or New York City or whatever… The question; how long in your conversation and talking with them before they start talking about how great New York or Brooklyn is?

The same thing about people who once went to Harvard, either as a undergraduate or graduate student or postgraduate soon whatever; only unsuccessful people talk about their academic pedigree as an undergraduate. 

I think one of the things that I learned from mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen, Taoism is that the best way to think about things is not the past; which is a fiction, but rather, the present joyful moment, and also thinking about the future?

Once again, my overall suspicion of monks, Buddhist monks in the life; how much of them decide to opt for some sort of Buddhist simple lifestyle simply because they were unsuccessful in the material realm, the entrepreneurial or economic realm; like how often do you meet a billionaire who then renounces everything and becomes a monk? Typically, most people have tried the whole life thing, fail, and then become a monk. 

Zuckerberg goals

The only successful person in my age group or age range who I respect is Mark Zuckerberg. The truth is though, he’s a super fucking weirdo. Just look at interviews with him, dark rings under his eyes, and the man is quite bizarre. You could totally see that in high school and college, he was like one of these super fucking weirdos, the super weird nerds, who probably wanted to pick up chicks, probably watch some weird porn in private, maybe he was into Maria Ozawa I don’t know. Even recently watching his interview at a certain Keynote with the CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, I was watching Mark on stage, his new outfit was pretty cool he essentially look like Jay Z or Kanye, but the second that Mark starts talking, once again super fucking weird.

The truth is nobody wants to live in the meta-verse. This is where I’m a huge proponent of bitcoin; I would prefer to be in the wild outdoors, super fucking jacked and happy, walking around topless with my demigod physique, my ripped hard bronze body, super jacked arms, with my black sun hat on, my 60 pound weight vest on. Even more impressive, I guess I’m strong enough now that I could actually go on a hike with my 60 pound weight vest and carry Seneca who is now like 50 pounds.

Anyways, even in terms of cars, I’m still pretty convinced, assuming you want to lift some sort of funny outdoor, off the grid, exploration lifestyle, the goal is to own some sort of loser off-roading car, over landing car,  some sort of AMG sprinter van converted mini RV thing, or camper van, no, just having a simple 2010 Prius in cocaine white, is far superior why? Until you could have a vehicle with at least 50 MPG’s, a hybrid car, everything else is not worth it.

Why? even if you had like a cyber truck or a cyber beast, for people who have really really done real road trips, or really driven anywhere outside of the Bay Area or California, 99.9% of the grid is not equipped for Tesla superchargers or electric EV chargers. Like you never see any electric charging stations anywhere!

And note, I’m like one of the biggest Elon Musk and Tesla fan boys of all time. And now that I’m super rich, I could afford like 50 cyber trucks, I still haven’t bought one. Why? Once again… Better to buy one bitcoin than one cyber truck. Because the cyber truck at best might kind of hold its value for another year or two, until it’s steadily loses economic value, until eventually you’ll probably be able to buy one for like $30 or $40 or $50,000. Because once the cyber taxi comes out, everyone’s gonna want to have that instead.

What people don’t understand is a Tesla car is like an iPhone Pro on steroids, that has wheels on it. This is also why you should never buy any sort of expensive non-interchangeable lens digital camera like a Leica Q– it is essentially first of all, a Panasonic Lumix with a body kit, just get the Lumix S9 and 26mm pancake lens instead (my current set up), which is may be superior in performance, smaller and more compact and lighter, and also way cheaper?

And also, there is no physical asset on the planet, no car no vehicle that will ever ever ever ever ever accumulate in value or go up in value. Even if you own some sort of loser super rare Porsche Carrera 911 classic car, or a classic Lamborghini or Ferrari or something, after the maintenance cost and fixing it and whatever… The value of it will essentially plummet Into the negative. Whereas bitcoin is going to the moon and to Mars and beyond. 

---

Podcast

Audio

The ability to quickly pivot whenever you want to;

The passion of outside?

So I think something I have discovered about myself is that I have a passion of outside being outside etc. Pretty much what this means is my passion is to not be in some sort of stifling cramped indoor space but rather, my passion is to be outside, With the open sky the open air etc.

Currently staying at a home exchange in the mountains in Southern California, and the mountain house is super lovely, but just even taking a quick jump outside, and then going back inside… Immediately I feel stifled and “ddab ddab hae” indoors.

The phrase ddab ddab hae in Korean is super interesting — essentially it means feeling kind of like claustrophobic, or constrained, or the feeling of feeling cramped. Once again, if you are an outside mountain spirit, the feeling of being stuck indoors.

Nietzsche one said trust no thought which does not come to assuming you’re not in the open air, outside, preferably in the mountains. Even Nietzsche — I believe he had my asthma or poor health or poor breathing or lungs or something, he traveled all around Europe until he was able to find some sort of nice mountainside retreat in Italy, maybe in the small town of Turin, in which suddenly, all of his sicknesses and ailments ceased?

 so I think the first thing is nature, big and nature, I think it’s just good for the human soul, our mind our brain, our physiology our eyes and eyeballs etc. For example, I think it is a bit foolish when all of these monks and pseudo in lightened Silicon Valley folks and thinkers believe that you could somehow “think“ yourself out of a problem or a mental malady. It is my personal belief that actually, the only way to read yourself a badness is to actually get your ass out of the house, go a walk, go outside!

Not cars

Not cars, not vehicles.

So even if you had the world’s best Lamborghini with the scissor doors or the off-road in Lamborghini sterrato whatever, doesn’t matter what color scheme, rims or whatever, as long as you do not have 100% leg freedom, you ain’t got nothing.

For example, driving down, stuck on some of the really really bad Riverside traffic, and actually, the real tragedy here is that some people have to take this god-awful commute, maybe 2 1/2 or three hours each way, to buy a nice big house in Riverside, in order to commute to Los Angeles? To me even if you gave me the world’s trillion dollar car, this trade would not be worth it.

Why? Once again it is a physics, physiological thing; there is no good on the planet which is worth the pain and suffering of being stuck sitting in a sedentary position. Even if you are in an airplane, a jet, flying first class or whatever, even if you are in the most luxurious of all luxurious seats or sitting situations, none of it is worth it. Why? Because once again when you’re sitting, you’re in a very very fragile position, in the most miserable of all physiological positions.

For example, let us consider how in fact, what is the human being being designed for? We are designed to stand upright, to walk, much of our ability to be by pets balance, look into the distance and walk, is structured around this. If a human being does not need to walk and move around or be outside or be upright, he has no reason for a brain or any body physiology.

So once again, to be human is to walk, to be outside, no ceilings no roofs, no glass ceilings.

Homes?

So, then at the end of the day, what is the meaning of the purpose of having a home?

There are 1 trillion different ways one could configure ones living circumstances, configurations etc.

For example, you could have a big ass ranch, a big ass backyard in front lawn and back lawn and private property, or you could live in an apartment, kind of more connected to society.

You could also live in a trailer home, or even I guess live in the trunk of your cyber truck.

I suppose then, the primary question to ask yourself is what do I see, what do I want from life, what do I want to out of life?

First, the light the sun. For me the sun is the source of all energy, all power, all happiness and joy. So to ideally live somewhere sunny is a virtue. I have a funny ongoing theory that human beings, we’re just like plants except we move a lot quicker.

Second, the joy of weightlifting. Still, after all of this, I still really do have a passion for lifting weights, weightlifting etc. To me it is like my ultimate form of Z meditation exercise and without weightlifting, things become a bit boring, uninteresting etc.  For example, the courage needed to lift very very heavyweights, requires 100% of your focus, a 100% focus of your presence. You cannot fake it; precisely because extremely heavy weightlifting is dangerous, that is what forces you to focus.

And this is the very very funny thing. When I would lift nine plates 10 plates and beyond at the gym, people always tell me “be careful“. Duh! This is the whole point! To be careful means to take care, take care, Which means you don’t fuck around, you don’t even listen to music; even music is a distraction. No stupid AirPods on, no external distractions. No phone.

In fact, one thing I’m very very grateful for the gym I used to go to the last few years, is that I was able to ride down the whole bitcoin downturn, due to the FTX meltdown, the hilarious thing; after buying my bitcoin in around 2018, I just literally never ever ever check the prices for almost 4 years; Rest and vest. And the only time I would ever be exposed to the price of bitcoin was on accident; in which I would accidentally see the price or something.

Anyways, I’m grateful for my journey thus far, not having lost any bitcoins or anything. Apparently I read or heard something, whenever you go to a bitcoin conference or something, you never ask people how many bitcoins you have your own, but how many bitcoins you have lost, that is the true indicator of how long you have been in the game.

But then again, I think the tricky thing with bitcoin crypto currencies, the whole crypto economy is that it is all a bit strange convoluted and polluted. Too many ideas, too many opinions, you gotta just hang out, take it out to the beginning.

The issue with the physical realm

So the biggest issue that I have is that there’s so much waste, so much physical waste in the physical realm. For example you might have your Lamborghini your RV your truck, your over landing vehicle, your AMG sprinter van, all your expensive Apple devices, your big ass house whatever. Yet all of these things seem to be more liabilities than assets to me.

One thing that I really really love about bitcoin is that it seems to be the ultimate portable, durable, weightless thing to just carry around. For example, assuming that you have an iPhone an iPad, some sort of MacBook laptop device, or something on iCloud iCloud chain, Safari Google Chrome whatever, Gmail, Google services, all of your money and assets and store of value is secure. And in theory, you can immediately liquidate your assets.

For example, even if you own some sort of RV or expensive car or something, the huge pain of having to liquidate it and sell it, this is a huge pain in the ass. You still have to find a seller, you need to figure a way to quickly or efficiently or securely Broker the trade or whatever… To me, this ain’t worth it.

What is actually useful in the physical realm

Things I find useful in the physical realm include fresh air, beautiful bright sun and sunlight, peace and quiet, absence of pollution, hot baths, Wi-Fi, 5G, cameras digital cameras, video cameras, a grill is super awesome but not 100% necessary, And having some sort of vehicle that could take you around.

In fact, recently doing a road trip to Norcal and back, I’m still shocked… The Toyota Prius, a hybrid vehicle which runs on both gasoline and has a battery an electric charging battery, seems to be the ideal hybrid? The ideal thing that leverage is both the upside of gasoline which is insane power and energy in liquefied compact form, as well as the battery, which kind of somehow magically charges itself, through the braking mechanism in the Prius and car?

And I think the thing that is difficult for people to understand on just how amazing the Toyota Prius and hybrid system is; it really is so insanely clutch right when you need it.

For example, doing a last-minute drive somewhere, and just having one tick of gas, but still being able to drive all the way from the Pacific Palisades back home to Culver City, like 5% of gas left, could still take you around 40 to 50 miles?

And this is super super useful because the second you’re trying to beat rush-hour traffic, and you cannot be fucked to stop by a gas station or a Tesla supercharger, because you want to quickly hit the road, you don’t have to deal with having to stop by a gas station or an electric charging station if you don’t want to; you have the option, More optionality!

Seek optionality

I don’t need to own it, I could just visit it rent it borrow it try it out for the week or weekend!

I think this is also a big thing, we Americans we are so silly in our notion of “ownership“, we both believe that in order to gain legitimacy, we have to “own” the underlying asset.  but I was thinking about it… Never really kind of own anything, maybe besides bitcoin.

Why? So for example let us say that you own a single-family home property whatever, you don’t really 100% owned, you’re just borrowing it from the federal government, the local city government etc. And you’re paying a huge state tax fee local fee tax fee etc.

Also, vehicles automobiles cars etc., as long as you’re sooner or later taking some sort of public Road Highway, freeway etc., you don’t really 100% on your car either because you’re just kind of leasing the rights to use your vehicle on public roads, as long as you had to pay some sort of DMV fee and sticker, you never really 100% own your vehicle.

And also, you still have to pay car insurance, like forever. And once again, vehicle registration fees. Even the fees even though the fees are not super super high, you still gotta pay something.

I think also one of the soccer fallacies is that some people fall victim to this notion of somehow like you buy some sort of RV or truck or converted Mercedes sprinter van and you could somehow turn it into like a mobile house or a mobile RV, and then you could just finally become free travel through the states whatever, etc.… But still you’re kind of a slave because you still have to find somewhere to park at night, you often had to pay a fee to park somewhere, And also, more private things like you gotta pay for sanitation to plumb out your vehicle, you still need to buy food and stuff, etc. This is where I still think it is wiser to just rent an apartment and somewhere desirable where you could just walk everywhere because once again,Americans we were romanticize the idea other great American road trip and being on the road, but still… The ideal strategy is to spend like close to 0% of your time in a car or a vehicle, and you try to instead, spend about 100% of your time walking around outside in the direct light or the direct sun.

So the ideal goal is to find a place or a local or a city or neighborhood or area that you absolutely love like for me in Culver City, the arts district, and you could just 100% pedestrian walk yourself everywhere, just jump on the metro E line if you want, and just go on a drive if you want. 

And once again, location location location location location. I still cannot stress this enough; because of the laws of physics, Los Angeles, Los Angeles traffic; still the most intelligent strategy in life is to find the best location absolutely, in which you never have to drive more than five minutes a day. Or driving just becomes an optional thing; you could actually live a virtuous 100% pedestrian lifestyle.

it is difficult to monetize walking

So I think the biggest issue here is that walking is not really popular as a past time because it is difficult to monetize. Compare this instead of running or jogging or whatever, easy easy easy because you could sell these stupid overpriced $300 or $400 running sneakers, which are only for skinny fat losers. 

And also, I think maybe this is the reason why automobile cars are so sought after an American society; because our society almost close to 100% of it is still dependent on a car, only society in which nobody really owns a car is probably New York New York City or Brooklyn, or the main island; even the rich people don’t really own a car, they might have a private driver or they might just even take the metro, or just walk or even take an Uber. Which is even easier than coordinating a personal driver.

Even in San Francisco, sooner or later everyone kind of wants a car or a Tesla or something, or maybe a Waymo,  but the sense I have is nobody wants to live in San Francisco anymore, not the huge exodus out of the Bay Area, in fact more people I see in tech are settling in Los Angeles West Los Angeles, even my tech cousin Daniel just moved to the Sawtelle neighborhood. 

Sooner or later everybody ends up in LA.

So my very very simple suggestion is with life and everything in general, just get off of loser Instagram TikTok YouTube Spotify Twitter all of the social media services. Even I was randomly getting back into Twitter because there are lots of important financial news to stay updated there, and before Trump got elected, it was actually kind of necessary for me to do some research about his policies about bitcoin and crypto, because I am 100% all in on bitcoin. But still… Access to the information the news the truth, it is so toxic. Maybe it is better to be a little bit more poor, without the toxicity, rather than being richer with more toxicity. 

Better to be poorer, and less toxic rather than be richer and more toxic.

Goals?

One interesting thing that I’ve learned about bitcoin just things and life in general is that you only really really discover something or take full heart to it when you actually really have a need for it.

For example, the story of Michael Saylor microstrategy and bitcoin; the only reason that Michael Saylor really took it was because he had a real need for it; 500 million in cash, in kind of stagnant company– he needed to add vitality back to life to his company and corporation.

Necessity is the true mother of all innovation

Similarly speaking, myself, moving here to LA, staring at this ridiculous high cost of living, and trying to find innovative ways to approach money, productivity time etc. I found bitcoin as almost a salvation for me, Cindy, my aging mom, Seneca, and my future family!

How and why bitcoin has changed my life

So I think traditionally, most of us are stuck into the work cycle. It is a simple mathematical equation: a simple vector equation;  in goes your effort, time, and labor, outcomes money and income.

So for most people, there is directly proportional effect:

You labor harder, more, and you yield more US dollars, and you work hard, put out new innovative product services etc., a lot of hard work and time, heavily market the thing, through genuine and effort full channels, and then wait diligently for somebody to purchase your products services workshops etc., hope they pay, and then when that dust settles within a month two or three, then you could withdraw that money from your PayPal or digital broker, and then deposited into your checking account, finally logging in and securing your “gain”,

“Income”

So this is where things become funny: the notion of “income”.

Once again, I’m still relatively new to all of this, in the sense that the average time labor, we have a hard time thinking like an investor. For example, to think that you just have $2 million in capital, you have some deep insight and intuition about something,  and then you invest that money into the thing, and then over the course of a few days weeks months, two months, three months, four months five months, a year, 4 to 5 years, the number magically goes up!

To me, this is still like wizardry, like pure magic!

And I still think this is where it is difficult to understand; to those who have access to capital, you essentially have an economic lever to lever up, and leverage that, which is just economic power and energy, to be even more more energy, more power.

The Spartan investor

So we hear stories of Warren Buffett, living the same old house, driving the old same Honda Accord whatever, and then just spending all day reading the newspaper investing in the markets, and then becoming like the third world’s richest man, all at the age of 80 or 90 years old, But your old sick fat and tired, still eating McDonald’s and drinking Coca-Colas.

Warren Buffett is not a good example. Even he was a skeptic and critic of bitcoin.

I think the hard thing is everyone uses Warren Buffet as an example, but for my general sense, given the fact that he has invested heavily into Coca-Cola, he is no better than people who invest in fill up Morris evil cigarette and now vaping corporation, to spin a certain profit.

Tell me that, everyone wants to be as rich as Warren Buffett but nobody actually wants to become Warren Buffett. Do you know anybody in the given universe who wants to be that old fat sick and unshapely? 

Instead, I’m much better idea is to be as jacked as King Leonidas, Gerald Butler in the movie 300, all while being a billionaire. My vision is essentially having the hard spartan body, naked and super fucking jacked, and also… This is the critical one; insanely Spartan and frugal, surprising everyone that you drive a Toyota Prius, even though you could afford like 20 cyber trucks.

I think what I have discovered finally at the age of 36, is that with bitcoin, this changes everything. Why? Before bitcoin has finally hit mass adoption, and now that starting next year January 2025 will be a year one of bitcoin institutional adoption,  what that means is having a bitcoin is like having a cyber truck or Lamborghini on steroids, but on a digital wheel. 

This is my visual: I was at the park yesterday with Seneca, playing with him at night, just having the house key in my front pocket, no phone no nothing not even my camera, and we’re just playing around in the tot lot, kicking around some bark, and I had the funny thoughts; would I trade a bitcoin for a Tesla? Maybe a cyber truck? But actually the other day I jumped into a cyber truck and I was a little bit underwhelmed; the funny thing about the cyber truck is that it looks so flashy and awesome from the outside, put on the inside once you actually step into it, it is a bit underwhelming; it doesn’t really feel that different from sitting inside a Honda Accord or a Toyota Camry. Maybe it would be different if you were homeless and just owned a cyber truck and just slept in the trunk bed, but beyond this, I think cyber truck is one of those funny things that you could just admire it from the outside, without actually having to own it.  and if anything, the real thing to just wait for or save up for is the cyber taxi, which could just shuttle your kid to baseball practice, or take your wife directly to campus or work through the grueling 405 morning commute traffic.

Anyways, now, my calculus is simple; I think of everything in context to bitcoin.

For example, whenever I critically look and asses these things, I think to myself,

How many bitcoins could I buy with this thing? 

For example I was just trolling around with the finance calculator for the Tesla website, and still the cheapest Tesla model three, base edition, after taxes and even after the federal rebate, will still run you around $40-$45,000 at the door. And no this is the cheapest version! This is like half a bitcoin or a third of a bitcoin. I’d rather take the bitcoin which is going to $13 million, rather than the Tesla car which is going to zero.

Accretive or dilutive? 

A new line of thinking I’ve also been thinking about is this general idea of accretive vs dilutive;  that means, is this thing that I’m interested, will it increase value, a.k.a. go up in value, or go down in value?

So I think now that Trump is president, bitcoin at this point is in my mind, practically 100% cemented and certain to go up forever. However as I mentioned in my prior essay, the philosophy of volatility, to reach higher highs you gotta reach lower lows? 

So assuming that you just took snapshots every year, at random high points year over year, you will find that bitcoin is the insanely obvious choice. With enough hindsight, with enough 2020 you can see and determine and ascertain that in fact, bitcoin is by far the winning bet, nearly a trillion-fold obvious decision!  it has insane volatility which means it goes up and down a lot, constantly, but the cool thing is that it will essentially go up forever!

And this is like volatility, it is like having a hyper charger or a supercharger in your engine; more power or more velocity, more extremes to reach higher performance.

For example if you think about the velocity of a roller coaster; what makes it fun is precisely the highs and lows. If you take one of those boring kid ones, which is pretty much steady, it is insanely boring. Why? The thrills of the roller coaster– once again we are the adrenaline junkies!

Practical strategies

OK… if you want the ultimate blend of safety with high-yield, my suggestion is 90% of your capital into bitcoin,  and 10% into microstrategy stock (MSTR). This is what I personally do.

Why? Essentially you could treat Marco strategy stock like your cash; it keeps going up in value, and actually in fact goes up quicker than bitcoin; although it is a Security, a stock that you don’t really own, like bitcoin which is digital property. I love Michael Saylor and microstrategy to death, I have like literally watched and listen to every single Michael Saylor podcast interview available out there, I also read his book the mobile wave, and I’ve tried to consume every single piece of literature or thing that Michael Saylor has put out there. I also watched his recent earnings call, and watching it all in all, almost like watching a rockstar.

However at the end of the day once again, the name of the game is to accumulate and acquire more bitcoins. He or she with the most bitcoins, or the entity with the most bitcoins shall win.

America bitcoin first strategy

So a simple thought to the Trump bitcoin administration and beyond;

First, America must be the bitcoin leader. We must be the nation with the most bitcoin in our treasury reserves.

Sent you the basic ideas like we are creating the next bitcoin Fort Knox; we must dominate every other nation in terms of the number of our bitcoin holdings, kind of like imagine military power, but bitcoin as cyber power.

For example let us assume that the US Navy has strategic military dominance over the planet. And let us assume that our military power is at least 10,000 X to that mainland China.

So in theory in terms of numbers, America must supersede mainland China in our bitcoin holdings. By at least a factor of 10,000X.

I think even Donald Trump joked that maybe we could even use some of our bitcoin to pay back our national debt?

I think actually the more interesting strategy is we hoard our bitcoins forever, until the end of time, and instead, I don’t know… Someone with some good economic wizardry could figure out how we could leverage our debt in intelligent ways so we could actually pay back our debt without having to sell bitcoin.

And once again… I think this is the main idea on my mind right now — we can continue to accumulate bitcoin, stack bitcoin, etc.,  and figure out how we leverage borrowing cheap money or debt from other banks entities, to make money?

---

Being positively polarized to capital 

My has enjoy an interest; give me all your capital, and I will invest it and grow it for you!

Eric@erickim.com

---

Cyber Capital

So the reason why I think this is such a big deal is that finally, with bitcoin, we have finally crossed the chasm. What this means is finally, in the year 2024 and beyond, capital is finally cyber. What this means is next frontier of capital is practically infinite. 

Let me explicate this a bit more on why this is such a big deal:

So it looks like traditionally, the last frontier of making money and wealth was companies. Why? With technology, finally you were able to break free a little bit of physical limitations. For example, with Google Amazon Facebook etc., you were able to finally cross the digital divide which means that you could actually Feel all things in assets digitally, like digital advertisements digital value etc. Yet the different nuance is still… Capital was not yet in the digital realm. For example even though Amazon Facebook Google and the big tech companies could create value digitally through cyber space in cyber networks, there was no Internet native money or capital in which they could store their value.

For example all the big companies, we’re still reliant on JP Morgan Chase to custody their US dollars and field currency the treasury reserve assets etc.

But starting January of next year 2025… This will all change.

ERIC

---

So I have a vision, it is titled paradise bitcoin. What is the general idea?

---

Paradise Computers

First, my first entrepreneurial venture was a one when I was around 15 years old, my friend Eric Moon just taught me how to build computers, using the thermal pace on the processors and everything, and he gave me a simple idea; I could build a computer super super cheap, buy the parts myself and put the parts together, and then I could sell it for a small profit, like 100 bucks or something. When I registered the eBay seller account, I called it “paradise computers”. I still remember I used Adobe Photoshop, and I used the little icon of the beach palm tree, and I made it bright orange, and I would use all these pictures of babes, to plaster advertisements for my awesome computers.

Who doesn’t want paradise?

Why paradise? Simply put, aren’t we all seeking paradise?

For example, in terms of bitcoin, to me it really is kind of a paradise thing; something in which we are seeking some sort of economic paradise. 

For example, everyone loves and cares for money, whether it be deep or superficial. But assuming that you own an iPhone, use Wi-Fi, then the truth is ain’t nobody can exist without money.

I think also a sociological intervention that I understand;  money is just human technology. There is nothing on the planet that intrinsically has any worth; the worth of something is what society agrees on that has value, so you think of the sociology of money is super fascinating.

You cannot eat gold 

For example, why do we value gold? According to Fernandinho Galliani’s ON MONEY, he says that we prize gold because it is rare, stable, and just has a beautiful color which is very very fitting to adorn your children with gold jewelry, also for women. So he thought that it was useful because it was easily transportable, the color in itself was beautiful, and that it was just a beautiful object. But even he knew the rules of monetary inflation, for example when outlining the discovery of the New World, he noted that the price of gold plummeted, with a huge influx of gold from the Americas. Galiani also wisely noted that there were many countries in which silver was actually more valued than gold, and he even talks about how gold, at least 10 times as valuable as bronze, talking about the “bad trade” that one of the heroes did in the Iliad, trading his armor that was worth 100 oxen, of gold, for a tin one which is considered a lot less worth it, about 10 times less. In fact a lot of economists still use this ratio measure to determine the price of gold in respect to other things back in ancient Greek times.

The magic of bitcoin

Anyways, in the world of assets, it is very tricky; you got securities, which aren’t really worth anything in itself, they are predicated on companies, company policies, rules and regulations, the SCC, the rules of the stock market etc.

To me, the extreme magic of bitcoin is that it is an asset without an issuer, which means that it is the world‘s first true digital commodity, which is based in real life physics, as it requires real life analog energy to mine and produce. Not only that, it is now a $1.5 trillion asset class, only worth about $500 billion maybe three or four years ago, so simply put, it is growing at a wonderfully alarming rate.

How Facebook grew like wildfire 

It’s kind of like iPhone penetration, or social media penetration. For example there is an extreme network effect here; if you are Facebook, and you have a place to post your pictures and your status updates, you get all your friends to join, they get their friends to join, and as a consequence, everyone benefits from this monetary and social network.

Assuming that bitcoin is like the new Facebook or social media of money, which is connected to all 8 billion people on the planet, kind of a big deal.

Bitcoin unifies all people on the planet 

Why? You could own bitcoin and be in south Sudan, Nigeria, Lagos, Vietnam Sweden or Dubai, and even if you own a few Satoshis or a fraction of a bitcoin, you are my brother!

And not only that, but I was actually thinking about it… bitcoin truly may be the first real perfect property, also a digital property.

For example, one of the major issues and headaches about real property, like real estate, commercial real estate, even owning a single-family home is that you have to deal with property taxes, local laws, regulations, politics, local politics, national and federal politics etc. Also you have to make friends with the local politicians the mayor, to slide by regulations etc.

Now I think politics is fine; but, technically the problem about it it is “unfair“; if your best friends with one of the local politicians, you have an edge, but if you don’t know nobody, you are at a disadvantage.

---

Economic paradise

So I don’t know any human being who doesn’t want to be rich and have a lot of money, whether they use their wealth for good or bad or whatever… everyone loves money, everyone loves talking about it etc. But I suppose the difficult thing is how do you approach money in a way that is philosophically meaningful and also good, not superficial but deep, striving to approach it in such a way which is good for you society etc.

Why do you have dysentery? 

Now some thoughts; first, you cannot blame people if the money itself is toxic. For example, assuming that they are drinking sewage water– you cannot get angry or upset, assuming that it is their fault for getting dysentery; no, the simple causation; the toxic water supply is causing the dysentery, not somehow the moral degeneracies of said individual.

Traditional fiat currency is like sewage water 

Assuming that bitcoin is the world’s first perfect money, which is tamper proof resistant, ethical, and open, then if this is the case, the best way to think and consider things is that maybe half of the world’s problems which are predicated on money is not a moral individualistic problem, but rather, a technological problem.

This means I wonder if a lot of people’s poor spending habits are simply a cause of inflation, and bad monetary policies? Assuming we had good money sound money, bitcoin, maybe people could better start saving investing and planning for the future? 

So perhaps if we are seeking some sort of economic life paradise we should seek bitcoin?

ERIC

***

So I have a vision, it is titled paradise bitcoin. What is the general idea,?

First, my first entrepreneurial venture was a one when I was around 15 years old, my friend ERIC Moon just taught me how to build computers, using the thermal pace on the processors and everything, and he gave me a simple idea; I could build a computer super super cheap, buy the parts myself and put the parts together, and then I could sell it for a small profit, like 100 bucks or something. When I registered the eBay seller account, I called it “paradise computers”. I still remember I used Adobe Photoshop, and I used the little icon of the beach palm tree, and I made it bright orange, and I would use all these pictures of babes, two plaster advertisements for my awesome computers.

Why paradise? Simply put, aren’t we all seeking paradise?

For example, in terms of bitcoin, to me it really is kind of a paradise thing; something in which we are seeking some sort of economic paradise.

For example, everyone loves and cares for money, whether it be deep or superficial. But assuming that you own an iPhone, use Wi-Fi, then the truth is ain’t nobody can exist without money.

I think also a sociological intervention that I understand;  money is just human technology. There is nothing on the planet that intrinsically has any words, the worth of something is what society agrees on that has value, so you think of the sociology of money is super fascinating.

For example, why do we value gold? According to Fernand Nagai‘s on money, he says that we prize cold because it is rare, stable, and just has a beautiful color which is very very fitting to adore your children with gold jewelry, also for women. So he thought that it was useful because it was easily transportable, the color in itself was beautiful, and that it was just a beautiful object. But even he knew the rules of monetary inflation, for example when outlining the discovery of the New World, he noted that the price of plummeted, with a huge influx of gold from the Americas. Also he wisely noted that there were many countries in which silver was actually more valued than gold, and he even talks about how gold, at least 10 times as valuable as Bronze, talking about the “bad and portray that one of the heroes did in the Elliot, trading his armor that was worth 100 auction, of gold, for a tin one which is considered a lot  less worth it, about 10 times less.

Anyways, in the world of assets, it is very tricky; you got securities, which aren’t really worth anything in itself, they are predicated on companies, company policies, rules and regulations, the SCC, the rules of the stock market etc.

 to me, the extreme magic of bitcoin is that it is an asset without an issue, which means that it is the world‘s first true digital commodity, which is based in real life physics, as it requires real life analog energy to mine and produce. Not only that, it is now a $1.4 trillion acid class, only worth about 500 billion maybe three or four years ago, so simply put, it is growing at a wonderfully alarming rate.

It’s kind of like iPhone penetration, or social media penetration. For example there is an extreme network effect here; if you are Facebook, and you have a place to post your pictures and your status updates, you get all your friends to join, they get their friends to join, and as a consequence, everyone benefits from this monetary and social network.

Assuming that bitcoin is like the new Facebook or social media of money, which is connected to all 8 billion people on the planet, kind of a big deal.

Why? You could own bitcoin and be in south Sudan, Nigeria, Lagos, Vietnam Sweden or Dubai, and even if you own a few Satoshi‘s or a fraction of a bitcoin, you are my brother!

And not only that, but I was actually thinking about it… bitcoin truly may be the first real perfect property, also a digital property.

For example, one of the major issues and headaches about real property, like real estate, commercial real estate, even owning a single-family home is that you have to deal with property taxes, law law, regulations, politics, local politics, national and federal politics etc. Also you have to make friends with the local politicians the mayor, to slide by regulations etc.

Now I think politics is fine; but, technically the problem about it it is “unfair “; if your best friends with one of the local politicians, you have an edge, but if you don’t know nobody, you are at a slight disadvantage.

---

A super super interesting thought on my mind is the quote from Michael Saylor, volatility is vitality. What does that mean, why does it matter etc.?

First, typically when we think of volatility, it is in the financial realm. We think of volatility in the context of something going up and down, almost unpredictably, chaotically, crazily.

For example in the markets, we tend to think of volatility like a bad thing. Because most people cannot stomach the up and downs.

I am an interesting case because obviously I’m affected by it too. Yet now, whenever I see volatility, I’m more annoyed than anything, like the days that bitcoins down, or the days that microstrategy stock is a little bit down, it is almost more like having an annoying mosquito bite, Maybe even a tiny splinter than anything. The good thing with mosquito bites is as time goes on, we know that it will fade, although it is very annoying. Also, with the tiny splinter… Super super annoying to pick it out, but you can!

---

Nuclear power

So besides Chernobyl and Fukushima, I actually think that nuclear power is a super smart idea. Certainly nobody wants nuclear fallout, but come on… It is year 2024. For a while, me and Seneca were playing with SimCity: cities of the future on the Mac, and also, we watched the cities of the future film on IMAX and also 3-D, at the California science center. It is still kind of bizarre to me… Once again, the year 2024, if I think about the film Elysium, produced by Bill Block, and starring Matt Damon, shouldn’t we kind of be living in this futuristic, cyberpunk, or massively green and beautiful bright future? Not kind of this ugly, slumlord vibes we get from watching a film like Snowpiercer?

Even often the truth is a distraction 

Anyways, about two or three days ago I was curious why bitcoin spiked so high, breaking the mythical $70,000 mark, after about 2 to 4 years of languishing. So I searched it on ChatGPT, and randomly saw that because Elon Musk tweeted it? And then I was curious, and then I kind of went down a rabbit hole, checking Elon Musk Twitter, Seeing now how he endorses Donald Trump, and then seeing the tweed video the retweeted video of the Joe Rogan podcast with Donald Trump.

Anyways, I was watching the interview, I watched about half of it, very fun and interesting and entertaining! One of the interesting things is how Joe Rogan was asking Trump about nuclear.

So to me nuclear is interesting because it is insanely high volatility like it has a lot of power. But if done right, if handled quickly, it is essential you produce practically free energy for everybody! Apparently they do it well in France I think, they just create a bunch of these mini nuclear power plants, And the French citizens benefit?

A good reason to be anti stoic 

I think about 99% stoicism is good, come on, I named my firstborn son after Seneca the younger, the great stoic sage!

Yet where stoicism fails, I call this “the life after stoicism”, is that Stoicism is too focused on hardening yourself into like a porcupine, and then eventually, it makes you unemotional or unfeeling etc. Yet what if you want to embrace this interesting strategy; put on the stoic armor, in which you don’t really suffer any downsides from life, but you could harness the volatility of life, and channel harness and reap the benefits of the upside?

Stoicism is not volatile enough. Certainly we want Stoicism to clip and hedge the downsides of life, but, you want at least 200X upside in life!

The wisdom of kids

So kind of an interesting thing I learned from Seneca, kids in general etc.; Seneca is about 3 1/2, and when he is angry or upset about something, he’ll get angry, he’ll throw stuff, stop his feet, put out a lot of high energy, start screaming and yelling, and shouting, but when we just let him get it out of his system, like for 30 seconds or a minute or so, he’ll kind of forget about it, and then start smiling again, and then being happy and proceeding like usual. Because Seneca is like happy and joyful and silly and playful and curious Like 99.999% of the time.

Adults should also mirror children 

Anyways, I almost wonder if this is a better strategy for adults as well.

I think where adults fail is that we try to be good proper and prim, I don’t know if this is like Victorian Quaker Christian ethics, we try to restrain our anger, we don’t raise our voices we don’t yell we don’t scream, we don’t throw stuff, we are told to become modest, go on a walk etc.

But I almost wonder if it was a good idea that adults we also would just let our our anger and fury as well like kids — for example if we’re angry, to just yell shot scream, stump our feet, go outside, throw around the sandbag, go to the park and take some big heavy rocks and throw them into the distance etc. Also as a funny sidenote, go on YouTube or Google and search ERIC KIM rock toss challenge, in which during Covid when all the gyms were shut down I would just go to the nearby park, find the biggest rock or Boulder I could, and just practice throwing it around etc. It might be the best workout of all time!

Don’t hold in your anger 

Anyways, the issue with adults is that when we’re angry or upset about something, we’re holding our emotions, yet we harbor this anger and resentment, this Poison, for weeks days months years decades? Even one of my uncles, considering that my grandfather had an illegitimate wife and about five or six kids all illegitimate kids on the other side, essentially ditching my mom‘s mom, and the 4 to 5 legitimate kids, anyways, apparently one of my uncles is still super super upset about this, even many years after the passing of my grandfather, my uncle saying that after getting drunk “I have no father”, referring to my already deceased grandpa.

I get it, but I almost feel like it doesn’t really matter anymore. Don’t people gotta move on?

Yeah yeah yeah, life is tough, life is sad whatever, but, I once read that resentment and anger is like drinking poison, hoping that the other person dies.

No not only is this kind of not a good strategy, it is ineffective but also foolish.

Think Achilles

For example, imagine like you’re a warrior, like you’re Achilles, or Hector, and you’re about to do the final battle. You got your spear and shield, your battle armor on. Obviously the goal is to throw your spear and kill the other guy, not to take your spear and stab yourself in spite of your enemy, hoping that somehow spearing yourself will damage the other person?

Really sick stuff

Even a more sick thing, a parent, who is frustrated with their child, not sure what to do, starts to literally beat themselves, like hitting themselves or self flagellating themselves, causing themselves some sort of self-made pain, to make the younger child feel bad? To me this is almost the most sick evil thing to do of all time because when your kid and your parent beats you, at least you could feel bad and think that your parent is a bad guy. But if your parent beats themself to spite you… You have no one else to but by yourself? 

Never spite nobody!

---

Where it is wise to not trust Christianity 

The early Christian fathers, a lot of them kind of unwell people, we kind of do a similar thing, self flagellate themselves for their sins whatever, as a form of repentance or something?

But the reason why this is so sick and weird, is that once again, by hurting or damaging or poisoning yourself, you ain’t doing nothing useful.

Like for example, let us say that you did something bad or whatever, and then boom now your parents are dead or somebody you care about is dead or whatever, and then you get super depressed and you start to drink alcohol, smoke a bunch of weed, do a bunch of drugs, simply to alleviate your pain your distress your suffering. Or you start to self yourself, you start to physically beat yourself.

Now once again, this is not productive at all.

Channel volatility

So just watching the recent microstrategy earnings call, go Michael! I also like Andrew Kang and Phong Le (both I presume our Korean and Vietnamese, just like me, Seneca, and Cindy!) 

Anyways, what do you notice what super interesting was that what is so fascinating about microstrategy, it is like literally the best performing company in stock in the known human universe, is that it is also the most volatile. Whereas a typical asset might have a volatility of five, The volatility of micro strategy often exceeds 50.

Volatility is vitality, the motto of Michael Saylor.

So then I guess the tricky thing, the philosophy behind things: “Would you prefer to have higher volatility for greater yield and performance?” Or would you rather have low or no volatility, and just take boring steady gains, but far inferior gains and yields?

For me, I think 100% obvious strategy is to have higher performance, with even greater and higher volatility.

Because at the end of the day, it is probably more interesting to drive a high volatility performance vehicle, like a Lamborghini, which has more power powers and “flexiness” rather than a boring and reliable Toyota Camry?

Yet what a lot of fools do is they just park their money in some sort of blended S&P 500 derivative, because they don’t know what else to do?

Taking control of your financial destiny

Michael Saylor said his personal imperative with bitcoin, is that he believes that at least 50% of the world‘s problems and issues can be solved by fixing the money. He likens traditional money and capital as being toxic; would you give your healthy four year-old child contaminated sewer water to drink, or would you give them clean water? Or, would you take the temperature of your home, which is a cozy 73°, and turn down the thermostat by 1°, every single day, for 10 years? Obviously not, you will literally kill and freeze your family to death.  

Think scientific history & physics

I think the genius of a Michael Saylor is that he studied history of science at MIT, and also aeronautics and aerospace engineering.

So I was curious about the word volatility, and apparently it just is derived from Latin to fly, initially from the Proto into European to throw.

So certainly flying is good. I would not want to go to Seoul South Korea on a boat. Also, thinking about French colonialism, I have no idea how the French would be able to stand the boat ride from Paris all the way over to Saigon; or even worse, Thinking about Australia, the original penal colony, how in the hell did you take a boat from London all the way to Australia?

Flying is literally volatile (volaris, to fly)

Anyways, the volatility of flying, certainly flying can be dangerous, you hear the reports about the new Boeing jets, exploding or whatever. Yet nobody gives up flying.

Or let us say the dangers of driving an automobile car. Certainly there are lots of dangers associated with driving, like fatalities from car related accidents, now texting while driving, it is literally a life or that situation. You are 1 trillion times more likely to die from a car accident rather than any sort of accident resulting from a terrorist attack, or a gun related fatality.

If in fact, everyone is talking about why guns are bad and so evil and how we should ban guns or whatever. Yet nobody is talking about how we should be texting while driving, or even ban the use of a cell phone while you are in an automobile car.

If anything, if Apple really wanted to say millions of lives, I have a simple thought: by default if you buy a new phone or whatever, a new Apple ID or whatever, there should be a workflow which if it detects that you’re driving really really fast in the car, it automatically locks you out of your phone, into the do not disturb driving mode, and that if you want to access the normal mode, assuming you’re a passenger in an Uber or Tesla Robo taxi, then you could voice dictate or type I am not driving. Or “I am a passenger”.

Anyways, volatility is good. I almost wonder if volatility, voltage is the same thing? You step up and you step down there’s transformers for electricity. And this is what allows high-powered electricity to travel from phone wires, silently into your home, powering your washer and dryer your heater and air conditioning whatever. Yet nobody is trying to ban electricity.

---

Channeling volatility

Bitcoin is up 507% percent over 4 years since 2020, MSTR is up 1989% since then — 5x, 19x (20x) gain since 2020

So also, a curious thing… Why is it that I have never met a female day trader? Or a female bitcoin investor?

I’ve met lots of day traders, all male, some guys at the gym at the local park whatever. It is pretty common to meet day traders who drive Uber on the side or whatever. I haven’t really met any bitcoin investors in the flesh yet, besides myself. And certainly I have never met any women who are interested in bitcoin. It is too volatile for them.

It is also too volatile for most men. Yet a simple filter, I think that for the general part, women hate volatility, most men also hate volatility but some men like myself, love volatility.

Question; are there any women who love volatility? I guess the ideas that you have sex with the rockstar, and you have the boring accountant husband at home, paying the mortgage or whatever, but it seems that most women, would not want to be in a serious financial relationship with a Starbucks barista playing music on the side.

Anyways, maybe what life is then, is the love of volatility. 

---

Harnessing the upside of volatility without the downside?

So this is where things get super interesting; how can we reap the benefits of the upside, like gain 150% upside in life, while clipping the downside?

So for example, the microstrategy strategy is super super fascinating;: capturing 150% the performance of bitcoin and the upside, without the downside?

Bitcoin Treasury Company (BTC)

So how do they do this? Simply put they have access to permanent bitcoin capital. Funny enough they are dubbing themselves BTC, bitcoin treasury company, I like to just think of micro strategy as their first bitcoin bank (BB), because it is easier for mere mortals like myself to remember, but anyways, what is super fascinating about microstrategy, is because they have been in business for over 30 years, they are a real company, that first started off selling business intelligence software, and now transitioning into becoming the world‘s first 100% bitcoin company, which is effectively unstoppable at this point; even if Apple somehow bought $1 trillion worth of bitcoin, because the operating structure of Apple computer is still revolving around future projections of selling more future iPhones, Apple can never really really ever become 100% bitcoin, even if I wanted to.

December 2024: Will Microsoft purchase bitcoin? 

Oh and also as a random sidenote, I think in December, there might be discussions that Microsoft might actually start to add bitcoin to her balance sheet. This is worth noting, especially because starting January 2025, the new FASB (fasb.org) financial accounting standards board, GAAP generally accepted accounting principles — essentially companies institutions like Harvard and Yale and Brown can now add bitcoin to their balance sheet, as a treasury reserve asset. The reason why this is a big deal is for so long, bitcoin was considered fake money, and that a company could not add it to her balance sheet, proving proof of funds and reserves in the traditional sense. Now, all of these nerds who become accounting will have to learn all of these new rules, figuring out how to integrate bitcoin and other cryptocurrency assets to accounting principles.

---

If Larry Fink and Blackrock think that bitcoin is real capital, it is.

The reason why this is such a big deal is that once again, people still think that bitcoin is fake money! Yet look at the Janet Yellen talk on Satoshi, and even look at Larry Fink, CEO of blackrock who owns over $10 trillion worth of assets, Larry Fink even now says that bitcoin is legitimate asset class, and I think that black rock has actually recently invested and bought a bunch more micro strategy stock. Watch the CNBC interview with Larry Fink on Bitcoin.

Study it yourself

Oh and also, a pro tip; definitely get the $20 a month ChatGPT pro, it is now the ultimate financial investment research tool; when you want to search any financials or anything, this is an insanely big deal.

Anyways, once Harvard Yale and Ivy League schools start to purchase bitcoin, or maybe even there investors, the ones that handle the endowment start to purchase microstrategy, which is essentially a conduit for purchasing bitcoin, with indirect exposure to the asset class of bitcoin, this will be a big deal.

If UCLA were smart, she would purchase BTC and Bitcoin and or microstrategy, not real estate.

How to harness the upsides of volatility without the downsides?

So this is a very big idea. Obviously the goal in life is to win, even Michael Saylor said at the end of October 30 micro strategy earnings call, that essentially, under a bitcoin strategy, everybody wins, there are no losers in the bitcoin strategy. Only varying degrees of success. 

There are no losers in life!

Philosophically, this is fantastic. Why? To me the idea that we could all win together, 100%, no losers, isn’t this the ultimate thing?

For example, I still think that the number 1 foolish way that most individuals live is that they think of life like zero sum; they think that your success means my failure, that your big dick means my small dick.

But this makes no sense because money is fake, money ain’t real, it is just a man-made construct. So if somehow you have $1 million in the bank, that doesn’t make my balance any smaller or bigger.

21M is a hard cap.

I suppose the thing that is a little bit tricky under the bitcoin standard is that because there is a hard cap of 21 million bitcoins, the ultimate strategy is indeed to own the most bitcoin at the end of the day. And this is still where I think the strategy, is to use microstrategy as a cash yield generation machine, periodically selling microstrategy stock when it is up to purchase more bitcoin, is still the best strategy.

MSTR Microstrategy as the engine in order to accumulate more Bitcoin?

MSTR -> BTC

---

Building and making your own micro strategy?

Introducing BLACK EAGLE CAPITAL: 

Currently, my new direction in my life — obviously I’ll still be doing photography workshops etc., as it is still my number one supreme in life and passion. Yet I’m thinking about offering more workshops in the bitcoin sphere, I think I am well adjusted to this because I have Stoicism, and control on my side.

Also, I am currently doing a soft launch of BLACK EAGLE CAPITAL, essentially my bitcoin hedge fund, the name behind it is inspired by the fact that I believe in the ethos of black, black canvas, all black aesthetics, and eagle, Because I was a Boy Scout eagle, also the symbol of America.

If you’re interested in participating, shoot me an email at eric@erickim.com

To be transparent, the strategy is to create an infinite money machine, you essentially leverage MSTR microstrategy stock, and then ultimately the goal is to accumulate more bitcoin. I encourage you to just open up your own Coinbase account, and start buying bitcoins. Just download Coinbase to your iPhone, from the App Store, connected with your JP Morgan Chase or Bank of America checking account, and start buying bitcoins, you could just buy 10 bucks, 25 bucks, $100, $500, $1000, 10,000, $100,000, if you like. The good thing on Coinbase is that they recently increased the limit i’m a $50,000 a day in instant limit, to now doubling that to $100,000! Thank god.

When is the best time to buy Bitcoin?

Buy it high buy it low buy it in the middle, because 30 years from now when bitcoin is worth $22 million a bitcoin, the price of what you paid right now won’t really matter. It won’t matter if you bought it at $100,000 a bitcoin, 200,000 a bitcoin, $75,000 bitcoin, or $50,000 a bitcoin.

Essentially starting next year will be year one of institutional acceptance. I am almost close to 100% certain that Donald Trump will be elected president, even me, I am a liberal Democrat on the left, and even me… I don’t think I’ll be voting for Kamala Harris. Vote orange, vote bitcoin!. Even worth noting the Donald Trump talk at the bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville Tennessee, also note that Donald Trump his two sons, Eric Trump and Baron Trump, I believe they’re actually really into bitcoin and crypto. Which is good for us, because if you have a president that loves bitcoin crypto and also the US dollar, this will be very very good news for us Americans. And also, good for any holders of bitcoin on the planet.

Bitcoin is the solution for world peace?

I also personally ethically believe that bitcoin can promote peace because it don’t matter what country you’re from, as long as you own bitcoin, we are all part of the same monetary network.

I think bitcoin is a threat to the international monetary fund, Jerome Powell and the FED, which prints money like cotton candy. Even Donald Trump in his interview with Joe Rogan is talking about paying off the $35 trillion debt America has, and also Donald Trump says we will never sell our bitcoin.

And also I would not be surprised if maybe, an interesting national strategy; a nation or a nation to purchase bitcoins, which backs their own fiat monetary supply?

Like imagine if America owned 1 million bitcoins, or 2 million bitcoins whatever, and assuming that the US dollar was pegged to the bitcoin or back, then, the US dollar would actually be worth something. People talk that bitcoin is bad for the environment whatever, this is not true. Because bitcoin miners are incentivized to produce bitcoin, at a low financial rate, it will flow into high yield energy sources like nuclear power plants, or electricity which is stranded on the edges of the grid, for example it is it is cheaper to purchase electricity by building your bitcoin mining rig somewhere in the mountains with access to a hydroelectric dam, where electricity would not be used For example, if you could somehow capture the hydro power of hydroelectric power, which is essentially free because it is powered by gravity, then, assuming that electricity is practically free in America, certainly this will be very good for bitcoin mining and bitcoin network.

And also besides cheap electricity, or free electricity, There is actually a strong entrepreneur incentive to create computers which are more efficient, because contrary to popular belief, bitcoin mining is less about electricity — it is more about computer efficiency.

For example in the early days bitcoin, a lot of bitcoin mining was done on graphics cards, card by Nvidia, then a transition into ASICs, ASIC computers, which is not really even a computer in the traditional sense. It cannot do anything besides solve the mathematically intense cryptography puzzles, which is essentially the proof of work concept.

Also, the reason why proof of work is the path, is that work, like things need to have a real world work in order for it to be worth anything.

For example you do not want to live in your fake virtual reality metaverse, With your fake virtual reality Lamborghini, having sex with your virtual reality girlfriend, with access to your virtual reality money. For anyone who played Diablo II, you know very well that gold is not worth anything in the universe of Diablo; everyone wants the rare weapons.

Before there were hacks, this would mean that you as a kid, you have you would have to spend hours upon hours of doing BAAL runs, Trying to wait and cross your fingers that BAAL would drop some sort of mythical item or weapon, for you to equip yourself. And as a kid, this required real work, which meant a lot of time sitting on your computer, clicking around, and investing countless hours of time which is work, to achieve this outcome.

Bitcoin and crypto is the same thing; if there’s not real human labor or physical labor or analogue energy which goes into producing the digital asset, it is not worth it. This is why you should not purchase or invest in anything that is not bitcoin — nothing else is powered by proof of work and has a hard cap and supply. And derivatives, don’t forget Ethereum was essentially a bitcoin copycat.

Ethereum is not worth anything, don’t buy it, sell your Ethereum and buy bitcoin.

The best analogy is that Ethereum is Pepsi. Nobody likes Pepsi. The only reason anyone would drink Pepsi was because somebody gave it to them for free.

Bitcoin is like Coca-Cola, it has always been the best and will always be the best or bitcoin is like the iPhone Pro, everyone wants the iPhone, nobody wants a Google pixel, nobody wants a Samsung. And certainly nobody wants a Huawei, if you’re a smart rich Chinese billionaire, come on… You have zero interest in buying a Huawei phone besides supporting the Chinese communist party.

If you are any person with any sense, you would prefer to be wearing Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Balenciaga, wearing YEEZY sneakers, with the newest iPhone Pro, driving your Lamborghini Rolls-Royce whatever.

You would not want to drive a Chinese car, a Chinese phone, or even send your kids to a Chinese university.

You would rather want to send your kid to a Harvard Yale or Stanford, and even… No rich Chinese person actually wants to live in Beijing or Shanghai; they would prefer to live in and own property in Palo Alto, Los Angeles, Calabasas, Beverly Hills, Culver City, or maybe Vancouver.

The Chinese yuan is actually pegged to the US dollar 

The only thing that is stopping mainland Chinese is capital controls–  if you have $1 billion worth of Chinese yuan, you cannot take it out of the country even if you wanted to.

Don’t forget that the Chinese yuan is essentially pegged to the US dollar, and I think time has shown that no no no, we are not going to be speaking in Mandarin. English is international protocol and the international business language.

As long as the US, we have at least 1000 X military supremacy over China, we will be fine. And also, when Donald Trump becomes president, he is all about the tariffs, and he’s going to become antagonist towards China, which is good for us Americans because if you put a tariff on Chinese produced goods, money talks, words weep.

What does that means is China will not do anything to promote war with America because the rich Chinese oligarchs are still dependent on manufacturing products in China, and selling it to the American market for a profit.

Don’t be a dummy boy. Anyone who thinks that China is going to take over the planet is either anti-American, a communist, likes to give fellatio to Karl Marx, is a fakeass woke plant based hippie, spends too much time on Reddit, and pirateBay, spent too much time torrenting and streaming Maria Ozawa pornography (on Google incognito, brave browser incognito), maybe they have an apple Vision Pro and they watch virtual reality pornography on their $4000 Apple Vision Pro in private. They might be single, they might not be, maybe own a dog, they have no intention of having kids or girlfriends or a serious relationship.

And also they don’t own bitcoin.

ERIC

---

Upcoming ERIC KIM workshops, bitcoin thoughts, crypto thoughts, and also when in doubt, start here >

---

The Philosophy of Volatility 

A super super interesting thought on my mind is the quote from Michael Saylor, volatility is vitality. What does that mean, why does it matter etc.?

First, typically when we think of volatility, it is in the financial realm. We think of volatility in the context of something going up and down, almost unpredictably, chaotically, crazily.

For example in the markets, we tend to think of volatility like a bad thing. Because most people cannot stomach the up and downs.

I am an interesting case because obviously I’m affected by it too. Yet now, whenever I see volatility, I’m more annoyed than anything, like the days that bitcoins down, or the days that micro strategy stock is a little bit down, it is almost more like having an annoying mosquito bite, Maybe even a tiny splinter than anything. The good thing with mosquito bites is as time goes on, we know that it will fade, although it is very annoying. Also, with the tiny splinter… Super super annoying to pick it out, but you can!

Nuclear power

So besides Chernobyl and Fukushima, I actually think that nuclear power is a super smart idea. Certainly nobody wants nuclear fallout, but come on… It is year 2024. For a while, me and Seneca were playing with SimCity: cities at the future on the Mac, and also, we watched the cities of the future film on IMAX and also 3-D, at the California science center. It is still kind of bizarre to me… Once again, the year 2024, if I think about the film Elysium, produced by Bill Block, and starring Matt Damon, shouldn’t we kind of be living in this futuristic, cyberpunk, or massively green and beautiful bright future? Not kind of this ugly, slumlord vibes we get from watching a film like Snow piercer?

Anyways, about two or three days ago I was curious why bitcoin spite so high, breaking the mythical $70,000 mark, after about 2 to 4 years of languishing. So I searched it on ChatGPT, and randomly saw that because Elon Musk tweeted it? And then I was curious, and then I kind of went down a rabbit hole, checking Elon Musk Twitter, Seeing now how he endorses Donald Trump, and then seeing the tweed video the retweeted video of the Joe Rogan podcast with Donald Trump.

Anyways, I was watching the interview, I watched about half of it, very fun and interesting and entertaining! One of the interesting things is how Joe Rogan was asking Trump about nuclear.

So to me nuclear is interesting because it is insanely high volatility like it has a lot of power. But I’ve done right, if handled quickly, it is essential you producers practically free energy for everybody! Apparently they do it well in France I think, they just create a bunch of these mini nuclear power plants, And the French citizens benefit?

A good reason to be anti-stoic 

I think about 99% stoicism is good, come on, I named my firstborn son after Seneca the younger, the great stoic sage!

Yet we’re stores and fails, I called this the life after stoicism, is that Stoicism is too focused on hardening yourself into like a porcupine, and then eventually, it makes you unemotional on feeling etc. Yet what if you want to embrace this interesting strategy; put on the stoic armor, in which you don’t really suffer any downsides from life, but you could harness the volatility of life, and channel harness and reap the benefits of the upside?

The wisdom of kids

So kind of an interesting thing I learned from Seneca, kids in general etc.; Seneca is about 3 1/2, and when he is angry or upset about something, he’ll get angry, he’ll throw stuff, stop his feet, put out a lot of high energy, start screaming and yelling, and shouting, But when we just let him get it out of his system, like for 30 seconds or a minute or so, he’ll kind of forget about it, and then start smiling again, and then being happy and proceeding like usual. Because Seneca is like happy and joyful and silly and playful and curious Like 99.999% of the time.

Anyways, I almost wonder if this is a better strategy for adults as well. I think we’re adults fail is that we try to be good proper and prim, I don’t know if this is like Victorian Quaker Christian ethics, we tried to restrain our anger, we don’t raise our voices we don’t yell we don’t scream, we don’t throw stuff , we are told to become modest, go on a walk etc. But I almost wonder if it was a good idea that adults we also would just let our our anger and fury as well like kids — for example if we’re angry, to just yell shot scream, stump our feet, go outside, throw around the sandbag, go to the park and take some big heavy rocks and throw them into the distance etc. Also as a funny sidenote, go on YouTube or Google and search ERIC KIM rock toss challenge, in which during Covid when all the gyms were shut down I would just go to the nearby park, find the biggest rock or Boulder I could, and just practice throwing it around etc. It might be the best workout of all time!

Anyways, the issue with adults is that when we’re angry or upset about something, we’re holding our emotions, yet we harbor this anger and resentment, this Poison, four weeks days months years decades? Even one of my uncles, considering that my grandfather had an illegitimate wife in about five or six kids all illegitimate kids on the other side, essentially ditching my mom‘s mom, and the 4 to 5 legitimate kids,  anyways, apparently one of my uncles is still super super upset about this, even many years after the passing of my grandfather, my uncle saying that after getting drunk “I have no father”, referring to my already deceased grandpa.

I get it, but I almost feel like it doesn’t really matter anymore. Don’t people gotta move on?

Yeah yeah yeah, life is tough, life is sad whatever, but, I once read that resentment an anger is like drinking Poison, hoping that the other person dies.

No not only is this kind of not a good strategy, it is ineffective but also foolish.

For example, imagine like you’re a warrior, like your Achilles, or Hector, and you’re about to do the final battle. You got your spear and shield, your battle armor on. Obviously the goal is to throw your spear and killed other guy, not to take your spear and stab yourself in spite of your enemy, hoping that somehow Spearing yourself will damage the other person?

Really sick stuff

Even a more sick thing, a parent, who is frustrated with their child, not sure what to do, starts to literally beat themselves, like hitting themselves or self flagellating themselves, causing themselves some sort of self-made pain, to make the younger child feel bad?

The early Christian fathers, a lot of them kind of unwell people, we kind of do a similar thing, self flagellate themselves for their sins whatever, as a form of repentance or something?

But the reason why this is so sick and weird, is that once again, by hurting or damaging or poisoning yourself, you ain’t doing nothing useful.

Like for example, let us say that you did something bad or whatever, and then boom now your parents are dead or somebody you care about is dead or whatever, and then you get super depressed and you start to drink alcohol, smoke a bunch of weed, do a bunch of drugs, simply to alleviate your pain your distress your suffering. Or you start to self yourself, you start to physically beat yourself.

Now once again, this is not productive at all.

Channel volatility

So just watching the recent micro strategy earnings call, call Michael! I also like Andrew Kang and Phong Le (both I presume our Korean and Vietnamese, just like me, Seneca, and Cindy!) 

Anyways, what do you notice what super interesting was that what is so fascinating about micro strategy, it is like literally the best performing company in stock in the known human universe, is that it is also the most volatile. Whereas a typical asset might have a volatility of five, The volatility of micro strategy often exceeds 50.

Volatility is vitality, the motto of Michael Saylor.

So then I guess the tricky thing, the philosophy behind things: “would you prefer to have higher volatility for greater yield and performance? Or would you rather have low or no volatility, and just take boring steady gains, but far inferior gains and yields?

 for me, I think 100% obvious strategy is to have higher performance, would even greater and higher volatility.

Because at the end of the day, it is probably more interesting to drive a high volatility performance vehicle, like a Lamborghini, which has more power powers and “flexiness” rather than a boring and reliable Toyota Camry?

Yet what a lot of fools do is they just park their money in some sort of blended S&P 500 derivative, because they don’t know what else to do?

Taking control of your financial destiny

Michael Saylor said his personal imperative with bitcoin, is that he believes that at least 50% of the world‘s problems and issues can be solved by fixing the money. He likes traditional money in capital as being toxic; would you give your healthy four year-old child contaminated sewer water to drink, or would you give them clean water? or, would you take the temperature of your home, which is a cozy 73°, and turn down the thermostat by 1°, every single day, for 10 years? Obviously not, you will literally kill and freeze your family to death.  

I think the genius of a Michael Saylor is that he studied history of science at MIT, and also aeronautics and aerospace engineering.

 so I was curious about the word volatility, and apparently it just is derived from Latin to fly, initially from the Proto into European to throw.

So certainly flying is good. I would not want to go to Seoul South Korea on a boat. Also, thinking about French colonialism, I have no idea how the French would be able to stand the boat ride from Paris all the way over to Saigon; or even worse, Thinking about Australia, the original penal colony, how in the hell did you take a boat from London all the way to Australia?

Anyways, the vitality flying, certainly flying can be dangerous, you hear the reports about the new Boeing jets, exploding or whatever. Yet nobody gives up flying.

Or let us say the dangers of driving an automobile car. Certainly there are lots of dangers associated with driving, like fatalities from car related accidents, now texting while driving, it is literally a life for that situation. You are 1 trillion times more likely to die from a car accident rather than any sort of Accident resulting from a terrorist attack, or a gun related fatality. If in fact, everyone is talking about why guns are bad and so evil and how we should be in guns or whatever. Yet nobody is talking about how we should be texting while driving, or even ban The use of a cell phone while you are in an automobile car. If anything, if Apple really wanted to say millions of lives, I have a simple thought: by default if you buy a new phone or whatever, a new Apple ID or whatever, There should be a workflow which if it detects that you’re driving really really fast in the car, it automatically love you out of your phone, into the do not disturb driving mode, and that if you want to access the normal mode, assuming you’re a passenger in an Uber or Tesla Robo taxi, then you could voice dictate or type I am not driving. Or I am a passenger.

Anyways, volatility is good. I almost wonder if volatility, voltage is the same thing? You step up and you step down there’s transformers for electricity. And this is what allows high-powered electricity to travel from phone wires, silently into your home, powering your washer and dryer your heater and air conditioning whatever. Yet nobody is trying to ban electricity.

Channeling volatility

So also, all those curious… Why is it that I have never met a female day trader? Or a female bitcoin investor?

I’ve met lots of day traders, all mail, some guys at the gym at the local park whatever. It is pretty common to meet day traders, Who Dr., Uber on the side or whatever. I haven’t really met any bitcoin investors in the flesh yet, besides myself. And certainly I have never met any women who are interested in bitcoin. It is too volatile for them.

It is also too volatile for most men. Yet a simple filter, I think that for the general part, women hate volatility, most men also hate volatility but some men like myself, love volatility.

Question; are there any women who love volatility? I guess the ideas that you have sex with the rockstar, and you have the boring accountant husband at home, paying the mortgage or whatever, but it seems that most women, would not want to be in a serious financial relationship with a Starbucks barista playing music on the side.

Anyways, maybe what life is then, is the love of volatility. 

Harnessing the upside of volatility without the downside?

So this is where things get super interesting; how can reap the benefits of the upside, like gain 150% upside in life, while clipping the downside?

So for example, the micro strategy strategy is super super fascinating;: capturing 150% the performance of bitcoin and the upside, without the downside?

So how do they do this? Simply put they have access to permanent bitcoin capital. Funny enough they are dubbing themselves BTC, bitcoin treasury company, I like to just think of micro strategy as their first bitcoin bank (BB), because it is easier for mere mortals like myself to remember, but anyways, what is super fascinating about micro strategy, is because they have been in business for over 30 years, they are a real company, that first started off selling business intelligence software, and now transitioning into becoming the world‘s first 100% bitcoin company, which is effectively unstoppable at this point; even if Apple somehow bought $1 trillion worth of bitcoin, because the operating structure of Apple computer is still revolving around future projections of selling more future iPhones, Apple can never really really ever become 100% bitcoin, even if I wanted to.

Oh and also as a random sidenote, I think in December, our discussions that Microsoft might actually start to add bitcoin to her balance sheet. This is worth noting, especially because starting January 2025, the new FASB (fasb.org) financial accounting standards board, GAAP generally accepted accounting principles — essentially companies institutions like Harvard and Yale and Brown Kang now add bitcoin to their balance sheet, as a treasury reserve asset. The reason why this is a big deal is for so long, bitcoin was considered fake money, and that a company could not add it to her balance sheet, proving proof of funds and reserves in the traditional sense. Now, all of these nerds who become accounting will have to learn all of these new rules, figuring out how to integrate bitcoin and other cryptocurrency assets to accounting principles.

The reason why this is such a big deal is that once again, people still think that bitcoin is fake money! Yet look at the Janet yell and talk, and even look at Larry Fink, CEO of black rock who owns over $10 trillion worth of assets, Larry Fink even now says that bitcoin is legitimate asset class, and I think that black rock has actually recently invested and bought a bunch more micro strategy stock. 

Oh and also, a pro tip; definitely get the $20 a month ChatGPT pro, it is now the ultimate financial investment research tool; when you want to search any financials or anything, this is an insanely big deal.

 Anyways, once Harvard Yale and Ivy League schools start to purchase bitcoin, or maybe even there investors, the ones that handle the endowment start to purchase micro strategy, which is essentially a conduit for purchasing bitcoin, with indirect exposure to the asset class of bitcoin,  this will be a big deal.

So something which is super interesting and important to me is ethics. And honestly it is something that is so elusive because there is no codified hard set rules of ethics which applied to everybody, for eternity.

Also, I think is super interesting because I actually tired in ethics with certain moralistic imperative; I sent you when it comes down to it… Your personal ethics your ethos of things dictates almost everything.

I’m almost starting to think instead… Rather than thinking about goals, veteran instead to think about ethics and ethos and your imperatives and philosophies behind things.

The ethics of Bitcoin & money

Is bitcoin actually the most virtuous money?

So what is super interesting to me is that from a philosophical perspective, if you invoke the Austrian economics, like Karl Menger and the like .,, Property, what is property?

Property is something that you own, that belongs to you, which legally that nobody could seize against your own will.

So for example, I can own a watch, a camera, a car whatever… Legally nobody could just come up to me and steal it from me without any sort of negative repercussion.

Taxes?

Cindy’s mom and my brother-in-law Gabe both said it; when your own property, like real estate or whatever… Assuming there is a tax rate which is above 0%, that means that you don’t really “own “the property… You just borrowing it or renting it from the government.

Because this issue is with taxes, in theory, that is money that you’ll never see touch or witness, and it is essentially like you’re bleeding capital.

So for example, I was shocked, doing the math on even a $1.6 million home, I had a very low interest rate, you’re still bleeding around $1800 a month … close to $2000 a month, essentially money that is just going into thin air and vapor?

Even if you’re a savvy investor like myself, my personal thought is I would prefer to take that $2000 a month and just buy bitcoin instead, which is gonna go to $13 million or $22 million a bitcoin. 

Homes

OK so currently… This is my thought:

Single family home or nothing.

I think the fragile position to be in is only a condo because the price of him might slightly go up, but… It might not even be able to keep in pace or up to pace with inflation. What that means is let us say you buy a condo for $1 million, and you sell it a deck for $1.2 million, you might’ve thought that you realized a $200,000 gain but you did not, because of inflation, you might’ve actually lost money?

Another thing… Even owning a single-family home, property whatever, once again if you factor in property taxes and stuff, you’re not really making money.

So I heard that is to own a single-family home is kind of more of like a trophy acid like bragging rights for owning a Ferrari or Lamborghini whatever.

I suppose the nuance in difference is you could actually live in the thing, the single-family home. And you could brag to all your millennial friends that you own a single-family home.

I think where the calculus gets a little bit confusing is assuming that you’re married you have a wife and kids or more kids on the way etc. So then the home becomes a symbolic thing. But for me still… My hard school of thought is that a home is not an investment, it is just somewhere where you live.

And essentially, once again, just do the math, assuming that bitcoin is currently around $65,000 of bitcoin and is going up to 13 million, there is at least a 200X potential gain in front of you.

So let us say that your down payment is $300,000 or whatever, that is $60M. So the question is… Are you willing to sacrifice $60 million for the potential upside of buying a certain house you like? For you and your family?

Decisions

I think your life, the wise thing to think about, is that decisions, nothing is ever forever, nor should anything before ever, and even from a Zen and Taoist principal, nothing ever remains the same even if you want it to.

Also, your ethics change. Your ethical framework as a two-year-old versus 12-year-old versus high schooler versus college student versus 36 year old man with a kid is going to be different. Your ethics and morality as a degenerate single person is going to be different than your ethics and your morality once you have a kid. Or several.

Or your ethics before getting married and after getting married.

Where philosophers fail

It really really big problem is a lot of these philosophers try to create some sort of ultimate at the cold framework which can never be changed or modified. They strive in vain for 30 years, seeking some sort of ultimate truth of everything, which could last 1000 years or whatever. If you think about it then, this is what religion is. The religion of Mohammad, Saint Paul, the religion of Judea – these religions have lasted for thousands of years. So I guess the founders did a good job.

Endowments for private schools like Harvard or Yale; their endowments last forever. So it looks like they’re doing something right.

---

The ethics of smoking

So for this conversation I’m just going to talk about secondhand smoke.

So some critical issues here; the ethics.

First, I think smoking cigarettes in a public space which is not your house, in which your secondhand could fuck up the lungs of other people, especially for people like myself with sensitive lungs, is unethical.

First, legally it might be allowed, but ethically, it is not.

The first rule is first do no harm onto others. If you are on a sidewalk, and you have a certain walking path every single morning, and there’s always somebody smoking on that path, and they don’t know it, but there’s secondhand smoke goes down half a block, And it attacks your lungs, they are doing harm on you, whether you know it or not.

So it is unethical.

Ident suppose, what can and what should you do about it?

For example I met a dude named Scott, who is always smoking this one spot in Culver City, wearing his red vest, he claims he works there but he looks homeless and dirty? Not sure I talked with him, and he seemed kind of normal, but slightly a little weird? Anyways, I asked him nicely to not smoke there on the main street because it gets into my lungs whatever, but then he told me to not walk on the sidewalk. Or to walk on the other side?

Or he told me to keep walking?

First, I think the major issue here is repeated exposure. Maybe if I was in Venice Beach or whatever, in which I’ll never see the person again this is different, but because I see him almost every single day or every other day, this is very annoying and upsetting to me.

So obviously the first idea is to have a conversation with him. He had the audacity to tell me “If you don’t like it keep walking”. 

So some several issues here.

First, once again, no I will not keep walking. Because the issue is the regularity and the continued exposure. Once again if you’re in Santa Monica, and you see a homeless guy smoking a cigarette, or looking like he is cracked out, often in that situation the best strategy is don’t engage with crazy drugged out homeless people.

However, if the person looks like an irrational human being, mentally there, then isn’t having an intelligent conversation with somebody worth it?

Second I guess the big thing is I always saw it and I pointed out to him, that there’s literally a sign there that says no smoking. Like the big cigarette icon with the big red circle and the strike through it. I pointed out to him and he said that “oh, I never saw that.”

I also suppose there’s a difference, if the person is homeless or a squatter versus they actually work there?

Legality?

Then at this point, let’s assume that is private property, but the property owner put a do not smoke sign out. Then according to the rules of the private property, you can and should enforce it. Is that what you do is you talk to Security, or you called the property manager etc. And you report them.

But let us say that it is a more of a grey zone; like they are smoking a cigarette kind of close to a restaurant which is actually illegal in Los Angeles and most of California I believe. In this case, what do you do, call the cops on the person?

Or… Let us say that you approach somebody and you try to talk to them rationally, and then they threaten you with some sort of physical violence, or they do physically assault you? Then I suppose what you could do is bust out your iPhone camera, Start recording them, and then you could get them arrested?

I suppose the only thing you don’t want to get done to you is to get stabbed or shot with a gun, you don’t want to die.

I mean I suppose for myself, I could take a hit or an injury, I just don’t want to die.

So maybe, just be careful if you think they might have a gun?

---

Not being a pushover

So I think the problem with most people nowadays, especially people my age the millennial generation I was born in 1988, we are a very non-confrontational generation. And honestly most people are.

The first thing is don’t let nobody push you around, don’t be a pushover. If there’s something you don’t like you had to speak up, and it is a good idea to make a fuss out of it even bit may seem trivial.

So for me, the only thing I really hit on the planet is cigarette smoke, secondhand smoke. Especially having a father who was a heavy smoker, I hate the smell of secondhand cigarette more than the devil.

And also, a big issue here is that I have a kid now, and me and Seneca often walk down that street and we smelled the secondhand smoke. So once again, you’re not just standing up for yourself but for your kid.

I think the tricky thing with ethics is we should not invoke children because if you’re talking about kids you’re just kind of blaming them. Or you’re putting them in the crossfire. You should never make your kid apologize for nothing, it is your role as the guardian, The father to essentially have a spine and not be a pussy.

What is a hero?

I Also suppose the issue at hand is  things that upset you, versus things that could actually damage your harm others, whether it be your family, your kid, your kids etc.?

I think the first practical thought is not to be a social justice warrior for all of society, this is too fake. First just protect your wife and your kid, the most difficult thing.

Then after that your clan, your best friends, your squad.

Treat others you would like to be treated?

The golden rule, treating other people that way you would like to be treated, not perfect but still kind of a good rule. 

---

So, is a goal a good idea, or is it not?

---

My personal thought right now is goals are not the path. Instead, I prefer the idea of principles, thoughts, patterns, or general values.

So I’ve had random goals in my life and I’ve hit all of them, financial personal fame etc.

And also… And weightlifting, lifting the mythical 1000 pounds.

Now, my personal thought is trying to focus on more important things like for example, deeper thoughts, deeper philosophies etc.

And also, trying to pioneer new ideas that are hugely practical and pragmatic, which could help other people. And obviously thinking through things to help myself. 

So currently, a huge thought on my mind is financial, living, lifestyle etc.

So for example, I think a lot of people, maybe around my age, I’m 36 years old, born in 1988; a lot of people are into trying to buy a house or something? Not sure?

So I think and wonder, I think the big question about buying a house, buying your property, single-family home etc.

---

Financial leverage?

So the first critical thought to consider is financial leverage.

So I think the number one critical thing is the interest rate. And also the philosophy of interest.

So obviously everyone needs somewhere to live, but if you need to live somewhere you could just rent. So the question is what is the purpose of purchasing a home, especially if you need to buy it not all in cash?

100% cash offer?

So then the big question at hand is should you buy a house if you have to mortgage it or borrow money from the bank?

So there are all these really really sophisticated financial instruments, remortgaging your house, refinancing it or whatever… And somehow being able to draw equity from it?

I have no idea how this works, but still, my general gut feeling is that having to deal or mess with anything in the physical realm seems like a losing bet.

Why? First, the critical issue here is that you’re playing with the laws of physics gravity and time. Which is a very very fragile position to be in because boom, your roof goes out, the foundation of your home is in disrepair, you could easily be out $100,000 or $200,000 without blinking.

The idea?

The difference between a man and a woman–

 I think women seek to buy a home and own a home as a conduit for safety security etc. A man might want to buy a house as a gesture of supporting and providing for the family, etc.

And or, maybe if you want to be a man in the high castle, do you want to build yourself a fortress?

But if you think of yourself like Achilles… And you think about the Greece versus Trojans, you don’t want to have a choice you essentially create a prison for yourself.

I think actually what we want is power, domination.

Is it that Achilles wanted? And what he cared for? Briesis his “rightful” prize, so, an unintended side consequence, getting revenge for his best friend Patroclus by avenging his death by killing Hector.

My personal read is actually… Achilles, all he cared for is actually the lust for battle.  Seems this is when Achilles is at his finest; she is a warrior demigod, a mean green killing machine. 

Maybe happiness is not the goal?

Aristotle says all men to be happy, and it is one good that people seek for the sake in itself.

I beg to differ, I think a little different; maybe what we really do desire instead, is the lust for battle, domination, and conquering?

For example what is it that Alexander the great wanted to do? To essentially conquer the known modern world. What does America want? The same. 

“Defense”

Apparently there are all these laws that we have the legal right to self-defense, but nobody has the legal right of offense.

And also where things get tricky is if let us say that you have a gun and somebody else might or might not have a gun, and you’re afraid of your life in danger or your kids life in danger whatever… And you shoot first, in preemptive self-defense, and then boom you found out that the other guy Was just trying to reach for a cigarette or whatever, then what?

I think things are very very tricky if it has to deal with the life of your child, or as a conduit, your life as it means to protect your child?

So for example, I have zero interest in performing fake bravado and getting shot by some skinny fat loser with a beard, and dying to try to act tough, because if this is the case Seneca will not have a father.

So I think you’re very important thing to think about and consider is you’re not just thinking about your own life, but, also, the future life of your son, your daughter, your kids, or even potentially your future kids?

so what is it here we really want?

I think in America, there is a notion of security. Of settling down, stability etc.

But is this a good goal?

Once again, it all depends on who you are, your value ethics and morality etc.

So for example, considering that I love powerlifting, one Max lifting, my notion of safety is different than the over generalized notion of safety for somebody else.

For example, maybe somebody who is more of a boring person, might like to do things more of a bodybuilding style, like doing predictable repetitions, sets, using the loser cable machine etc. And their goal is more towards developing a look and physique, rather than building their courage, strength, power and dominance.

And this is why, at the end of the day… The biggest dick in the room will always be the guy who could lift the most.

So for example, if you’re at the gym, which is the modern day arena, if you could lift 1000 pounds, your dick is 1 trillion times bigger than the guy with the big chest, who could only bench press 325 pounds or something.

I think once again, the truth of the matter is when you’re at the gym, everyone is trying to be the biggest dick in the room. And I think that is fine; everyone tries to seek it a different way. 

For example some people end up being the weird calisthenics or weird mobility people because they think that it makes them feel dominant, others tried to do it with muscular size and steroids, other guys try to do it with increasing their one rep max number also taking steroids.

So here… To compete with other random strangers in the gym or the world is a bad idea because if that is your ultimate goal, you’re probably sooner or later going to take steroids or something.

Also this is where I trust zero professional sports, even the regulated ones in the Olympic; if you want to win and get the goal… You’re going to take steroids or other weird drugs, to give you an edge.

Same goes with actors, actresses etc.… The whole industry is not good because it’s see extreme novelty and weirdness; women will end up doing strange plastic surgery and augmentation surgery, men will also be taking steroids other stuff to get the great on camera physique.

Like let us consider… If there is a scene in the superhero movie in which you’re taking off your shirt, obviously you want to look like a superhero, like a god. That shot might only be like 10 seconds, but it is whatever everyone is going to be talking about in the next 10 years. So obviously from this perspective, the optimal strategy to take steroids, and promise that you won’t ever do it again later. 

What does this happen? Obviously not. 

Leg thoughts

I have this simple idea of a never sitting lifestyle. You’re never sitting in a chair, on the couch, or in a car, doesn’t matter if you have a Rolls-Royce or whatever.

So what is super interesting is that now, I have the 60 pound weight vest, which has totally changed my life. Every single morning without fail, I always put it on, and do my morning walks with it. Within a very very short period of time, it has improved my Physiology 1 trillion fold; my posture is superior, I stand up straighter, I’m just far stronger more handsome, more glorious!

And, the biggest benefit is that what I’m sitting down, with it… I realize, how poor sitting is for you.

People say that sitting is the new smoking, I think maybe instead… Sitting is the new Poison?

Why sitting is toxic for you 

First, there is actually no physiological reason why you need to sit, unless you’re crippled in a wheelchair.

For example, there is no reason why you can’t use a standing desk, if you’re tired, your legs are tired whatever, instead of trying to self yourself to keep working and be productive, the easiest thing is to just lie down on your back and take a nap!

And also… Even taking it a step further, there’s no real reason you need to even stand at a desk anymore, the idea is to just have an iPad Pro, and walk around while you’re doing your work! You could even have an iPhone or iPhone Pro, and ideally just do all of your walking outside while you take meetings or do work related things?

Even if you have to send an email for a living, or take phone calls for a living, the ideal would just to just maybe have AirPods on, to just walk around nature and do your meetings on your phone? And do your emails just doing voice dictation, in nature or on a hike?

ANTI OFFICE MINDSET

It is the year 2024, I don’t understand it… Why are corporations and companies, especially the big tech ones, still forcing their employees to have to come into the office, even once a week or something?

The only reasonable explanation is some sort of Panopticon monitoring Security thing; you’re fearful that your employees are getting lazy and unproductive, slacking off at home, therefore you force him to go into the office, to assert your domination and power over them.

Ethical imperatives?

Capital, capitalism, assuming you own an iPhone, any smartphone, assume you have Wi-Fi at the house or a 4G or 5G connectivity thing, assuming that you have a car an automobile etc.; and also, assuming that you don’t grow your own vegetables and groceries etc., then what that then means is you are a part of society and capitalism.

---

Don’t be a hippie 

I think I figured it out… The notion of being a “hipster”, essentially it’s just a hyphenated form of saying hippies or hippy–

Funny enough, studying a bit of the etymology of the word hippie, comes from the word hip, like same hip as in hip hip-hop. Although now, we think of that weirdos vegan cults flower worshiping and war hippies and the like, not the gangsta hip-hop rappers that we think of today.

And actually what is very interesting, considering I was born in 1988, and grew up in the East Bay Alameda Oakland, Bay Area 510 rap hip-hop KEAK DA SNEAK, E40 hyphy movement ,,, my flavor of hip-hop and rap culture that I grew up was very different than the strange hip-hop culture today, and also a bit different from the mainstream 50 Cent gangsta idea that was popularized in the 2000s.

Anyways, I think what is so fascinating to me about capital, digital capital, digital capitalism and the like is how insanely paradigm shift it is.

Why?

So the first question is… Why or why does this all matter?

First, assuming you’re a photographer, digital photographer etc.; what that then means is you and all of us we are all implicated! And I think this is a good thing; digital is good, digital is better!

For example, besides what all these virtue signaling hipsters say, I really do think that digital photography is 1 trillion times superior and now more virtuous than film. I think film was a good fling, but now in the year 2024… And now that the new Lumix S9 Camera is out with the phenomenal 26 mm F8 pancake lens, there’s almost 0 reasons to shoot film anymore. And zero reasons to shoot any loser Leica camera.

Your opinion will change with technology and the times 

Technology does matter; for example, in the past, it did make a difference. For example the original Leica M9 camera was a big deal at the time because full frame was simply too big, too bulky, not very accessible. At least in a small form factor. But now, in the year 2024 and beyond… Technology has changed and shifted.

2024 — everything has changed!

For example, for a long time, film photography did indeed look superior to digital photos. But now with new digital technologies, I would actually make the bold claim that digital photos with the right image processing filters, can actually look superior and more supreme to film photos. 

For example, on the new Lumix S9 camera, we essentially have this “dynamic Leica monochrome” filter, with high contrast, grain added… the photos look phenomenal! Even deeper and richer contrast than my beloved Ricoh GR cameras?

Even a random thing that I never really expected… there’s this new “LUT” concept — I think it’s from cinema or video or something, which I think is just a fancy word for color preset or film grading for cinema and media.

Anyways, one of the built-in included LUT filters is like this really lovely cross processing color filter which shifts and brings out this really lovely orange cyan hue — the photos look beautiful! And also, when shooting 24 FPS video on it, it looks so beautiful and cinematic! I call the new Lumix S9 baby Godzilla!

Digital is supreme

Anyways, some reasons why I think this matters and why I care; the big one is I think we should lean really really hard into digital, the digital aesthetic the digital concept etc. I think there is too much pain misery and suffering in the world of photography and especially, digital photography. Everyone is having this weird small man complex, in which they and we never feel good enough in anything, until they somehow get some really really expensive mythical camera? And this is ridiculous because not only is it not sustainable, financially it is ridiculous.

Let us consider that honestly at this point a Leica camera is just like a Panasonic LUMIX camera with a body kit. Kind of like how a Porsche 911 is just like a Volkswagen beetle on steroids! Or even, how a Lamborghini is essentially a Volkswagen Passat on steroids!

Think different, become different, become superior?!

---

Why driving is bad for your soul

In America, the weird bias is somehow we have all been suckered into thinking that for some reason or another, it is desirable and good to desire own and drive, and experience forms of cars?

For example, whether that be a Lamborghini with scissor doors or a Porsche 911 GT 3RS or whatever, why is it that we desire these things?

The other day I actually had to drive to downtown late last night, to pick up Cindy, and it was probably one of the stupidest decisions that I made, me, thinking my machismo bravado was doing a good thing, in fact, was a really really dumb idea. Why? I have been driven at night for so long, but it was so tiring, so exhausting, and actually I forgot… Driving at night is actually really really hard on the eyes. You can’t see shit, in about after driving 40 minutes there, and a speedy 15 minutes back, leaving at 7 PM and coming back at 8 PM… I was destroyed and so exhausted.

I think it was a good reminder to me, perhaps a nice wake up call because so much of American consumerist capitalist culture is centered around all of these ridiculous notions of sitting on your butt. Let us consider how much the ultimate desire is to somehow be sitting, sedentary? 

For example, it doesn’t matter if you’re driving $1 million Bugatti car or whatever, as long as you’re in a position, you are in a fragile, undo dominant position. Doesn’t matter if you’re in a Lamborghini or Rolls-Royce Pagani etc.… It’s like you’re sitting on a big dick.

 I wonder if there are more studies on this, just how terrible and bad that your physiology and body becomes when you are forced to sit all day, or even, stand all day in a secondary position, indoors, under fluorescent or LED lights, without exposure to the real worlds, the direct UV suns of outside, etc.?

Even a nice thing in Southeast Asia if they have a lot of these Eco resorts which you could just take a shower or a bath in a bathtub outside in the direct elements?

A random aside; I met the neighborhood kids who got a chameleon as a pet. He discovered it somewhere. He told me that actually, the chameleon changes colors in the direct sun outside in the direct UV radiation of natural light, but it doesn’t work with fake lights.

Even assuming that you had the world‘s best fake UV sunlight set up thing… It might only ever be 2% as good as the real sun.

In fact one of the things I’m trying to fight against is how everyone has sun phobia or UV phobia now. Certainly if your genetic heritage is from northern Sweden, to be in the direct Vegas sun all day without any hats or long sleeve clothing or sunblock seems like a bad idea. Everyone is so afraid of some cancer skin cancer or whatever. But I’m wondering… How much of this is for marketing, to sell you overpriced “eco-friendly“ $30 sunblock or loser “UV protection” sunglasses– Luxor exotica essentially owns all of the sunglasses brands in America and beyond; they have a real monopoly overall the sunglasses, it doesn’t matter how cool you want to look, I’m sure they all get made in the same factory and mean in China for about $.50, and they market up to $300! Everyone wants to seem cool and look cool, all under the guys that they want to protect their eyeballs from the sun.

I think we’re wearing a hat is natural, a wide brim hat, a sun hat, maybe even a sombrero. But not sunglasses, this is very unnatural. It is almost like having condoms for your eyeballs, not natural. Same thing with AirPods or noise canceling headphones, essentially condoms for your ears. And this is bad because I actually think that you have more wisdom and sensory perception in your ears Than your eyeballs, even though I am a photographer and a visual artist, in terms of joy, I think I might get 1000 X more joy from music than visual artwork. And I also think that there is 10,000 times more in intelligence and wisdom in your ears than your eyes.

In terms of evolution, I think actually most organisms first develop years and hearing before eyes or visual senses?

The digital transformation of capital and the economy

I think this is what is so difficult for people to understand and grasp, even scientist who are supposed to think first principles. Rather than think about analogies, like how things were done in the past, and trying to iterate based on the past, much more interesting to Start with the clean slate, from scratch, thinking and trying to consider how things could and should be, rather than how things always have been.

I think this is difficult for most basic people because once again, to think first principles is both gutsy, ballsy, unorthodox, unconventional, and also requires some sort of childlike mindset, in which you are not held back by the past.

For example, the reason why you should trust no traditional thinkers, or why a lot of college dropouts are so successful, like Mark Zuckerberg is that they knew that the traditional path was not as interesting or meaningful; and that instead,  they would be able to change the course of the human race by not being stuck in some sort of academic hamster wheel.

In fact, there is a story about Peter Thiel in which he was on track to become some sort of big shot judge or something somewhere, but eventually he didn’t make it, at first although he was dismayed, 20 years later when his law school buddy met him he said “with a grin, aren’t you happy you didn’t get that clerkship? Because otherwise he wouldn’t have started PayPal and wouldn’t be the billionaire today.

everything happens as it should have happened

I think this is also a difficult thing to consider; certainly there are lots of bad things that happen in our life, but with enough foresight in hindsight, plus or minus 30 years,  you discover that actually, everything precisely happened as it should have happened, precisely for the best reason possible.

I don’t think of this like some sort of weird mystical woo hoo, I just think of it more like a practical thing; things happen, sometimes randomly, and the best way to live life is to take a stomach and optimistic approach;

Is it possible that this “bad” thing that happened to me today, could have actually have been the best possible thing that ever befell me? 

For example, there is this one Taoist story in which a man has a son, who was riding horse, fell off, and broke his legs or back or something. It was seen as very bad and unfortunate. But a week later, the province declares war on a different territory, and because the sun was injured, didn’t get drafted in the war, and as a consequence, doesn’t get killed in the combat. Then later, one of the village chief remarks, “aren’t you so happy that your son ended up injuring himself by falling off that horse, so he didn’t go to war and died?”

No I think this is a hard thing, because nobody could think about the future, nobody knows.

So whenever things happen, whether they’re good or bad, or even weather good; know that things happen, and the best way forward is to take everything in the positive!

Even let us say that you won the lottery and became a billionaire or whatever, let us say as a consequence you get addicted to drugs meth cocaine heroin and prostitutes and strippers, and this destroys your life. Totally possible.

Wealth could be some of the worst things that happens to your family 

Not always but often I see a lot of kids for trust fund kids or aren’t you really wealthy families become degenerates, super lazy and unambitious.

Maybe one of my biggest benefits of being born and raised poor was actually, this was the biggest benefit of all time; — he gave me the fire for entrepreneurship and self-reliance; I am sure if I was born to a well to do middle class or rich family, I would probably be some sort of generic something else. 

---

Think 30 Years Ahead

The 30 Year Body

My interesting funny idea:

Think 30 years ahead

Podcast

---

So, how is this manifested?

First, I think at least 30 years ahead; for example, Seneca is currently 3 1/2 years old, my mom is 70, I am 36; so 130 years, Seneca will be 33, I will be 66, my mom will be 100. Hopefully 30 years Seneca will have his own kid. 

The reason I like 30 years that it cuts through a lot of nonsense, and the truth is… If you want to build anything really great, it takes a long time. You cannot build Rome overnight.

Even Jeff Bezos his insanely genius concept; he’s been building up Amazon since the 90s, he had at least a 30 year plus vision.

Why 30 years?

So in terms of working out weight lifting etc.; Michael is to have a six pack even at the age of 66!

Then what that means is you could take your time. You can miss the work out here and there, enjoy a few off days and bad days because in the midst of a 30 year horizon, you can lift more strategically, more intelligently.

Also, a lot of these folks who take steroids and whatever… They are seeking success right now, or maybe in the 5 to 10 year span. But once you’re Ronnie Coleman, and essentially a cripple, none of it is worth it.

Even a good thing about Arnold, he was able to get out of the game had a good time, so he did not become a cripple. I have a theory about Arnold Schwarzenegger, he probably knew that steroids and bodybuilding was not sustainable, so he got out of the game at his peak, knowing that taking steroids long-term was probably not a good idea.

People talk about the good old golden days of bodybuilding… But everyone was on steroids! Even then.

The reason why this matters is because I even hear stories of young guys, in their 20s, we have taken so many steroids that they are no longer able to beget children? The ultimate tragedy. It is almost like involuntary sterilization; even Nietzsche said that in the future, the most cruel thing one could do is force a certain population not to procreate. 

Thou shalt not procreate! – The ultimate evil edict.

---

Investing

Everyone wants to make the quick gains, buy the loser Lamborghini whatever. Yet the real intelligence strategy is to think about building an empire for your kids kids kids. 

“Generational wealth that’s the key, I started with shit so that shift started with me” — JAY Z

This is where I think it is critical for any serious thinker philosopher entrepreneur innovator to have kids. Having kids, a wife, being married actually makes you a better investor because you no longer think for yourself, do you think for your family unit, the family business.

Even Aristotle when he talks about economics (oecanomia)– essentially economics literally means management of household affairs; how you manage your slaves, your home finances labor accounting etc. Also funny thing back in the day… the slaves were the accountants. 

Ultimately I’m a realist and a pragmatic person. I’m not interested in any sort of abstruse Macro economic theories; I’m interested in the now, the practical the day. Simple questions like how do I make money how do I retain how do I grow my capital, what is money etc.

I also suppose what makes my approach unique is that I did not study economics in school, I studied sociology and later on self teaching myself philosophy, and currently self teaching myself economics through the Austrian economists like Karl Menger, and also practical economic thoughts from NASSIM TALEB (Antifragile), in my own personal crypto and bitcoin ideas, and also economic theories from Michael Saylor, the patron saint of bitcoin.

Creating a legacy

A legacy just means to build to me that will outlast you.

An ancient Greek, kleos (forever glory, forever fame). The general idea is through a road act or deed, your name and your fame would last forever, kind of like King Leonidas and his valiant 300; we will remember them forever.

I think the superficial thing that people try to do is they try to force a legacy by buying it; plus through your name on a urinal in the university of Southern California USC, urinal in the business school (true story) or putting your name on some sort of business school building.

To me this is superficial at best; better to earn your name your legacy your KLEOS and immortal fame and glory through your heroic and valiant acts!

For example, we will forever remember Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and the like, we will forget Bill Gates, who only cares for money, and his physique that kills boners (Elon Musk tweet). I think also… For better or worse Donald Trump will be remembered, as well as Elon Musk, Jay-Z etc.

Also Michael Saylor. 

Can you force a legacy? 

No. Just like trying to force kid to eat vegetables.

I think maybe thinking about the 30 year body is an interesting idea because you essentially ideally want your physique your health in 30 years to be supreme! A thought and a theory; 

Is it possible to have a superior physique at the age of 66, compared to the age of 36?

 Certainly I’m going to have more wrinkles in my face and whatever at the age of 66, but I actually wonder… Is it possible that I could train today and eat enough meat today, and get my testosterone up that in 30 years, I will actually be higher than now?

I mean even at the age of 36, I’m 1 trillion times stronger and more handsome and I have a superior body and testosterone than I did when I was 26, and also compared to when I was 16. 

20 years, I am superior at the age of 36 then I was at the age of 16… In terms of my muscles my body everything.

Certainly at the age of 120, I’m probably not gonna be as good as I am today, but with enough foresight, I could start strategizing today!

---

30 years or nothing!

ERIC

The philosophy of focus:

So, we are all photographers, thinkers entrepreneurs visionaries etc. To focus, I think at the end of the day, does seem to be a virtue.

First, the ethics of focus, the first big idea is that things which distract us, or rob us of our focus, are third-party distractions, which often have some sort of advertising or marketing or product selling motive.

For example, let us consider all of the ills of modern day life, which is modern media. Essentially anything which is supported by advertising is bad evil and should not be trusted.

For example, anything on YouTube which has advertising or product placements or selling services are bad. Any podcast, Joe Rogan, anybody out there with subscribers, likes, comments, memberships, anyone who has some sort of monetary incentive behind things.

Currently I am promoting bitcoin as a promise that it could solve at least 50% of the world’s problems; that is consider poverty injustice, high cost of living and rent… I actually do believe that these problems could be solved with bitcoin.

For example, even poor spending habits, the issue with inflation is that even if I’m making $20 an hour working at McDonald’s, and the price of everything keeps going up… There is zero too little incentive to save. If my rent cost $3000 a month, and because of inflation in a few years it’ll be worth $4000 a month, incentive is to buy all the capitalistic consumer stuff while I could still afford it, Whether Nike or Jordan sneakers, certain cars, clothes etc.

Also this is where Apple has been intelligent with iPhone; let us say that the iPhone Pro is $1000, or $999. This has been really relatively resistant to inflation; even though minimum wage keeps going up, essentially the price of the iPhone is not changing. Therefore if I am a typical working class poor person, and I’m being paid 16 or $20 an hour, incentive is to go out and purchase the iPhone Pro while I still can; because assuming the inflation keeps going up, in the near future I will no longer be able to afford that new iPhone Pro.

Low prices?

I think for the most part, a lot of the evils and ill society are issues with money, gambling, etc. At least this was the case in my family; my dad just sent you not having a job since I was two years old, gambling away the rent money etc. Assuming that my dad didn’t gamble away the rent money, like he was just a parasite but all he did was smoke cigarettes, watch television and movies, chill out the house… Assuming that were the case, at least he would be kind of a neutral party; but him having to threaten my mom with physical or mental or family violence, holding her at hostage or ransom, Forcing her to give him the rent money with physical force, saying that he was going to pay it himself, and then in the middle of the night driving off to Reno and gambling it away, which means my mom is already three months behind on rent… Certainly this is an evil that happened because of gambling and of course his own problems.

the bad guy?

Ultimately, one cannot point the finger at institution which is the casinos or whatever. Even now as a sober adult, haven’t gone to Vegas a few times, I find it to be very fun! I love going to wicked spoon, and having to all you can eat bone marrow, and all the great foods. But, I don’t have a gambling bone in my body; nor do I have a bone for smoking; essentially seeing all the bad stuff that my dad did, turned me off forever. This is where I have kind of a moralistic and ethical imperative against cigarettes, there’s nothing I hit more than cigarette smoke on the planet; The ultimate evil.

What does focus mean?

So focus, focusing… Assume you have a magnifying glass you could take the raise the sun, pinpointed to one point, and you could burn a hole through paper. Assuming you have a big enough magnifying glass, I wonder if you could even take the sun’s power and even make a hole through steel! Just think about all these James Bond’s movies.

Anyways, I think maybe the focus in society in life should be similar; I am kind of OK fine mediocre and a lot of stuff, but assuming that life is finite, a hard cap of at least 122 years, then what that means is if I know with 100% precision that I will die before 122 years, Then the ethical imperative;

How should I and how must I spend my life in a meaningful way?

Assuming that practically almost all 8 billion of us on the planet have a phone, then what that means is everyone is a photographer because they make photos. Even my new friend Alexey show me an interesting street photo he shot in the hood, somebody who overdosed on fentanyl, ar a bus stop. Somewhere in South Central.

And this is kind of a big deal because assuming that most of us live in cities, or assuming we all live in Los Angeles, anybody with an iPhone is a photographer, a street photographer.

In fact, everything in the haptic shop is open source, free to download share remix four to your buddies or store on unlimited devices. For me this became an ethical imperative; because honestly, 99% of the roadblocks we face in photography has to do with some sort of penis envy for some sort of camera equipment; do you think the day that you could afford to buy the Leica, finally you will have a motivation to shoot or make great photos blah blah blah. Same goes with the iPhone Pro, which is actually, not that great.

Also, objectively … Leica, Leica camera, is an inferior product and tool.  it is true that the craftsmanship is superior, but the overall product is inferior when you compare it to a Panasonic Lumix, or even a Fujifilm camera.

I think what Germany has going for it is good marketing and brand. But everyone knows that any German car whether it be a BMW, Mercedes, Rolls-Royce, which is owned by BMW… maybach which is essentially a Mercedes with a body kit, is probably 1000 X inferior to any Japanese luxury car like Lexus or Toyota. In fact, a Lamborghini is just a Volkswagen Passat on steroids. A Lamborghini Urus SUV is just a Volkswagen touring on steroids. And a Porsche 911, 911 GT three RS is just like a Volkswagen beetle on steroids and a body kit.

I’m currently using the full frame lumix S9 camera, been shooting some video on it… But actually a critical issue right now I’ve been discovering is the reason why micro 4/3, even maybe APSC sensors; or a smaller crop sensors might be superior is because you could focus far closer! Full frame cameras are very very difficult to focus especially up close and personal, and also the bigger issue is that the lenses become bigger heavier, more obtrusive, bulkier, harder to use.

In fact, if you are a filmmaker, still… Getting some sort of micro 4/3 camera some sort of Panasonic lumix GH camera might be your best bet, because you can get the best lenses, with the best close focusing capabilities, the maximum aperture for the minimum amount of weight. And ultimately this is what matters the most; ultimately if you are a videographer photographer or cameraman, it comes down to weight and ease. In fact I think even most videographers especially aspiring filmmakers, maybe they should just get some sort of GoPro creator set up; just set it and forget it!

Because 99.9% of the hurdle that creators face especially new ones is the technical hurdles, the technological issues. Even here may be an iPhone pro without any external accessories might be good for making films. Especially short ones. Anything that is not going to be a Hollywood blockbuster film. This is why I think Apple is trying to do all this marketing that you could shoot cinema on your iPhone Pro is kind of ridiculous; any real professional  Would use some sort of red dragon camera.

I also feel bad perhaps the biggest issue here is everyone is trying to posture and look “pro”? But why?

My thought is everyone has some sort of insecurity bias, a small man complex. Certainly everyone wants to feel big mighty and strong and successful whatever, but I also find this to be a little bit pointless because success, wealth and power, are not zero some; which means that assuming that capital is infinite, not a closed system, then that means that in theory, Anyone and everyone could become a billionaire, assuming that the global market multiplies by 1 trillion.

And also,  because a lot of money is economic fictions, computer code, which means that any nerd with a computer could click a button and inject $1 trillion into the economy, what that then means is the upside for money is infinite!

Certainly there are things which are scarce, like human time, labor, and bitcoin, but everything else… Has an infinite upside in theory?

---

Why focus?

I just think that it is an intelligent way to strategize life.

I think the number one issue that a lot of people have, especially young folks that we don’t know what we should devote our lives to. As a consequence we just throw our interest at random in a bunch of Market Basket stuff, hoping that one will stick.

But, to diversify our interest, is perhaps not a good idea. For example, if assuming you had a Mozart in your classroom, would you have your student waste his or her time learning Spanish or stuff that he or she would never really use? No! You would put them in one of those funny musical prodigy classes, have them devote 100% of their energy towards music, to become the next prodigy.

I was also doing some research which is kind of funny that the whole idea of homeschooling was essentially invented because you had a lot of these young athletes students, getting ready for the Olympics, and they did not want to waste their time being stuck in the classroom. So the whole ethos was trying to devote most of the kids time and attention to maximize their sports performance, kind of what mainland China does, she is much more shameless than America. And also maybe be more successful.

I think also that is why you see more record breaking Chinese Olympic weightlifters, because there is no stigma about taking steroids, performance enhancing drugs, and also, they don’t really have a egalitarian schooling system like we do in America.

Anyways, I think to focus means to just value your life, your effort, your soul.

Assuming that we believe in immortal soul, which means that once you die, your soul also dies… Why would you waste your life in anything superficial?

---

About to change the oil on my 2010 Prius, I haven’t done this in a while since I was maybe 18… Or 16, maybe in the past it was because I didn’t have money to afford to pay somebody to do it for me, but now that I have the money, owrhaps the virtue of doing stuff yourself like changing your own oil is that first, a point of pride, second, demystifying the process which is very motivational and empowering, and third, annoyance and time?

I think the annoyance and time thing is the biggest one; whenever you go to a place to get your oil change, you always have to wait in line, and you always feel stupid because you always feel like you overpaid? And the funny thing is it doesn’t really matter whether you’re rich or not, you’ll always feel ripped off?

The feeling of getting a “good deal”?

Sometimes and often times when the labor yourself could be a little bit foolish, but assume that you do it safely, don’t hurt yourself, and it just works out fine… Then maybe just doing stuff yourself is virtuous?

And the feeling of pride; knowing that you use the top shelf oil, mobile one synthetic, in which you have this funny mental cactus that you feel like you’re getting superior performance and miles per gallon, even reality it might not make much of a difference ,,, but perhaps the thought and *perception* is what makes it all worth it!

Pride

Let it say you buy a new Ferrari or Lamborghini or whatever… Certainly if you drive it around you will feel a sense of pride?

However, wouldn’t it be much more economical wise smart and more effective and efficient to instead, drive around your 2010 Prius, which you essentially got for free, and feel that same sense of pride, maybe even a superior sense of pride, without having to spend $500,000?

Feeling *superior* pride?

Once again, let me never forget… Then saying sense of pride and joy I had, buying my own car, my dream car… 1991 Nissan Sentra SE-R, two door coupe stick shift 5 speed manual, and having the pride that I paid for it myself, modified it myself, did all the labor myself, and also the insane pride that it wasn’t manual transmission not a automatic (auto-tragic haha)!

It must have manual

Even Seneca and I joke; whenever you see a race car or a sports car that has buttons or is automatic, which doesn’t have a manual transmission… It is a fake race car or a fake sports car! McLaren, Lamborghini most Porsche 911 GT3 RS’, Ferraris etc.

Better to have a civic type R in stick shift, or even a GR Corolla, stick shift, instead of any of these other loser cars?

Another big idea on my mind; the idea of evolution.

So, the question is… Do you want to remain a Charmander, or level one forever, or do you want to become the Charizard, get the Firestone, and level up to 99, level 255 and beyond?

The missing no hack

So back in the days of Pokémon, the original red and blue, I never owned a game boy in my life but I had an emulator on my computer. I was able to play Pokémon red, 10 X speed, which is very useful in emulator because you could just run around a lot faster, save, and also advance through the levels much more quickly. 

One big thing is in the game… There was some sort of glitch or a bug where you could jump on your whale, and there’s this one hidden island in which if you just kept going up and down it… You would meet a glitch in the game which was called the missing number (missing no), and if you fought it, with a certain Pokémon like a Snorlax… Essentially you could capture and level up a Snorlax, to be beyond the typical hard cap of 99.

So in the world of Pokémon, essentially all Pokémon start off at level 1 or something, and you could advance it through training to level 99. But the hard cap was level 99. No matter how many more battles you did or experience points you gained, you could not go beyond level 99. 

And this is where the missing no hack was so mind blowing at the time; through a simple glitch in the game, unbeknownst to its programmers, you could actually level up a Pokémon beyond level 99, when we all thought the hard cap was level 99, no, you could become a level 120, 200, maybe even 300?

Does real life have hard caps?

Another paradigm shift; do you remember when we were kids we were used to watch the who wants to be a millionaire, and the goal was to become a millionaire. But now if you’re a millionaire, you might be able to buy half of a decent condo somewhere in LA. Even nowadays, it is not uncommon to see single-family homes in Culver City sell for $3.2 million.

And also I was shocked; I think Elon Musk is currently worth $270 billion? Even a decade ago, the idea that somebody could become a billionaire seems impossible, but now… A centi billionaire? I wouldn’t be shocked if in a decade he becomes a trillionaire. 

Paradigm shift

I recall when I was in Vietnam, around 2017… I started to first track bitcoin, windows around $300 a bitcoin. At the time, maybe the reason I didn’t buy it or invest in it because I didn’t really have a good reason to. I had already achieved my financial independence, And retired at the ripe age of 28 years old.

In fact, she found that when I’m talking to people in LA, the greatest sign of success actually is just half jokingly tell people that I’ve been retired since I was 20 years old? And that I’m 36 years old right now and I’m still retired?

I think typically, maybe the general idea of being retired is the point in which you no longer concern yourself with money, and that making money is an optional thing, maybe like a pastime game a hobby… But not an imperative; which means you don’t need to work in order to pay the rent or the bills or the mortgage. 

Anyways, now that bitcoin is trading at around $66,000 a bitcoin, even when I first got into the game in around 2018 at around six to $7000 a bitcoin, I’ve already gone through them multiple roller coaster the emotional roller coaster many times over. And as a consequence, I’m not really concerned about prices anymore. Why? Because I’m playing the long game; 10 20, 30 years from now.

Seeing my mom become a great grandmother?

A new random life trajectory and goal; maybe wanting to have my mom live until my son Seneca gets married, and has a kid of his own?

That would be wild, my mom is currently around 70, and assuming that even on the aggressive case, he might have a kid at the age of 33… My mom has to live at least another 30 years, ideally healthy and full of physical figure and mental consciousness.

Than 30 years from now, I will be 66 years old… Still in my prime period and Seneca will be 33 years old.

30 year cycles?

Maybe this becomes interesting to me because a generation is 30 years. Cindy and I got married on paper when we were 24… And now that this upcoming December I guess we are celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary! Pretty wild.

Anyways, then thinking about your kid and their future becomes quite easy and straightforward. I think maybe a lot of the modern day malaise that people suffer is that they have nothing to live for; because they are not married, they don’t have kids, nor do they intend to have kids.

I get it, some people never find the right partner, some people with good hearts end up going through bad marriages and getting divorced two or three times, some people might physiologically be too old to bear children. But assuming that you are a healthy able bodied person, I almost feel like there’s no reason to not have a kid.

I think the big secret is raising a kid is actually honestly not that hard. Certainly in the early years, the first six months, is very physical psychologically painful, but then again, I would imagine that navy seal training might be 100 times harder.

And for everyone who’s concerned that their kid is going to end up being screwed up or whatever… No. Why? Because you yourself are well adjusted, you yourself have good morals and ethics, which means that your kid will be fine.

Also… Maybe something I need to rally against is this alarmism, like the world is going to melt or whatever. A decade ago they called this global warming, and now they call climate change or now they talk about the carbon footprint or something? The verbiage in the lingo always changes, but the general idea of the world going to overpopulate and exploit has been going on for millennia; The Malthus fallacy.

I think what a lot of these fools and goody two shoers don’t understand is that technology, human ingenuity is not linear or scalar, which means, the planet is not zero sum.

For example, people talk about the carbon footprint blah blah blah but they never actually critically give it any thought. Now that we have ChatGPT at our hands and we can search this information in real time, what I discovered is the concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere is currently .0421%, in 30 years ago in 1993 it was approximately .0357%,,, which means that the percentage point increase of carbon dioxide levels in the last 30 year was was only .0064% percentage points? 

The current concentration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in Earth’s atmosphere is 0.0421%, and 30 years ago, in 1993, it was approximately 0.0357%. This represents a 0.0064 percentage point increase in CO₂ levels over the past 30 years

Honestly, all of this hysteria about the carbon footprint, I think it is just another way for these vegan solar power plant corporations to make a quick buck.  or even worse, politicians to sign certain things to enrich in themselves and their buddies, behind back doors.

In fact, if I could tell you with 100% certainty that 5000 years from now, the planet will be fine, it might be 20% worse than it is right now, 20% better, or about the same as it is in the year 2024… Would that change how you live your life?

what is in our control, what is not in our control?

I think the first thing to consider is things like climate change or plan change or whatever is certainly not really in our locus of control. Certainly things you could do  is like thinking about tailpipe mission; if you have ever smelled a car without a catalytic converter attached, you know how toxic it is. Or the secondhand cigarette smell smoke, also very toxic. Or secondhand marijuana smoke, which I also hate.

Anyways, I think the big idea here is try to just focus on things which you could control, where you could actually make a meaningful impact, rather than trying to save the whole “planet“? Which seems to be kind of a ridiculous goal? 

---

Facebook, Amazon, Twitter Instagram Meta, TikTok YouTube etc.?

Essentially any sort of digital hosting platform which is “free“, they are the new digital slumlords? 

Everyone loves to hate and complaining about these slumlords, who rent us a really terrible apartment, at unreasonable prices, never fix anything, and are essentially bad and evil people. Yet nobody ever points the finger at the big tech companies? Why? Because they offer you “free” marketing platforms… I wonder, what are more freedom ways we could market ourselves which do not require us to use these toxic platforms to simply get our message across?

The first most simple one is just your website, your blog. A website and a blog is essentially the same thing at this point. A digital domain, it’s almost like having a digital house or a digital business or a digital property in cyberspace? Like having your own address.

No YouTube?

A big one to disrupt his YouTube. I suppose TikTok and to some extent Instagram and Instagram stories, and now Twitter is doing the same, but still… YouTube is by far the dominant platform. Why? Having YouTube at this point is almost like having access to free flowing water or electricity; we cannot imagine the world without it.

But, I guess now that I’m stupid rich, I don’t technically need to anymore. And also in terms of getting my message across, I suppose I’ve already done it really well?

I think they’ll lure of YouTube in these platforms is that it will make getting our message across more effective, to maximize our impact?

But I suppose the nuance is; if you have to use toxicity, to maximize our desired outcome, perhaps it is not worth it?

For example, if in fact, using a toxic platform could leverage your impact by 10 X, would it be worth it? Maybe not. Even 1000 X or 10,000 X? Maybe not.

So I wonder… If it is better, more profound to just make an insanely massive impact, on your own small audience, your own sport in 300, rather than try to convert the whole planet, all 8 billion of us to believe what you believe? # The New Digital Slumlords

Facebook, Amazon, Twitter Instagram Meta, TikTok YouTube etc.?

Essentially any sort of digital hosting platform which is “free“, they are the new digital slumlords? 

Everyone loves to hate and complaining about these slumlords, who rent us a really terrible apartment, at unreasonable prices, never fix anything, and are essentially bad and evil people. Yet nobody ever points the finger at the big tech companies? Why? Because they offer you “free” marketing platforms… I wonder, what are more freedom ways we could market ourselves which do not require us to use these toxic platforms to simply get our message across?

The first most simple one is just your website, your blog. A website and a blog is essentially the same thing at this point. A digital domain, it’s almost like having a digital house or a digital business or a digital property in cyberspace? Like having your own address.

No YouTube?

A big one to disrupt his YouTube. I suppose TikTok and to some extent Instagram and Instagram stories, and now Twitter is doing the same, but still… YouTube is by far the dominant platform. Why? Having YouTube at this point is almost like having access to free flowing water or electricity; we cannot imagine the world without it.

But, I guess now that I’m stupid rich, I don’t technically need to anymore. And also in terms of getting my message across, I suppose I’ve already done it really well?

I think they’ll lure of YouTube in these platforms is that it will make getting our message across more effective, to maximize our impact?

But I suppose the nuance is; if you have to use toxicity, to maximize our desired outcome, perhaps it is not worth it?

For example, if in fact, using a toxic platform could leverage your impact by 10 X, would it be worth it? Maybe not. Even 1000 X or 10,000 X? Maybe not.

So I wonder… If it is better, more profound to just make an insanely massive impact, on your own small audience, your own Spartan 300, rather than try to convert the whole planet, all 8 billion of us to believe what you believe? 

So just went to the Mr. brainwash art gallery in Beverly Hills, and I am blown away; it was the most fun, enjoyable, uplifting, playful, inspirational and motivational art exhibit of all time.

why this matters 

This is a big deal. Why this is a big deal.

First,  life without art would be a mistake. Life without art is not a life worth living.

For example, if you think about all of capitalism and consumerism, I think much of it is predicated on art.

For example, what is clothing in fashion? It is essentially art fabric sculptures for your body, your human body!

What is a car? Moving sculpture, a metal steel based thing which is secondly a piece of transportation.

Has nobody figured out how insanely important cyber truck is; essentially it is the ultimate modernist expression of moving sculpture?

I actually have a vision; gloss red cyber truck,  with yellow calipers, or yellow rims… Essentially imagine looking at like a fake Ferrari, but cyber truck.

---

the best art

A lot of people say art for art sake, but following in the footsteps of Nietzsche,  I think actually the purpose of art isn’t art for art say, rather, it is art for the sake of happiness joy, the great stimulus to life!

In fact, I have a theory… When a lot of people become emo, sad dark and rose, is this issue here they are simply not having enough great art in their life?

Even being at the Mr. brainwashing exhibition, they were just playing some great OG classical music on the speakers, and even hearing the great classical music put me in such good mood!

Maybe I’ll start to listen to more classical music?

The best

Classicus,,, the ancient Romans, typically when we think about the word classic we tend to think about old school. But actually… In ancient Rome classicus, the elite class,,, “classicus” or “classic” simply meant “the best”.

So then, what life then becomes about isn’t seeking the old school for the sake of the old school, but rather, seeking the best? 

Why the best?

Why not?

Joy!

I think nowadays, to be joyful unhappy in today’s world is a great act of courage? It is easy to be emailed depressed, sad, to opine about how the world is going to explode whatever. It takes much more courage to be joyful, happy and gleeful, to be the gay monster admits all of the emoness? 

---

Choose Joy

I prefer the word joy over happiness. Why? I think happiness is too much of a consumerist merchandised concept now. Troy is a lot simpler, like joy to the world!

Music, what is music? Joy to our ears and to our soul.

What is art, photography, paintings images and sculpture? Joy to our visual brain senses?

Participatory art

I think what is so amazing and what was so fun at the Mr. brainwash art exhibit was how almost all the exhibitions, you could interact with it! And also you are encouraged to photograph and video everything!

A lot of modern art exhibitions and museums is that they are cold and sterile, and it feels like you’re not allowed to photograph or shoot stuff?

In fact, I’m even thinking about doing a photograph workshop in Beverly Hills, maybe we could all go to the Mr. brainwash art museum together, have fun like a bunch of kids, and be inspired together?

My vision of art: my vision is that art should be open to everybody, accessible to everybody, and also, fun for everybody! It should be no, not pretentious, not fake. Also, it should be free, open to the public, accessible to anybody, doesn’t matter if you’re 70 years old or three years old;

I killed that art might be able to solve 50% of the world’s problems, maybe the other 50% can be bitcoin.

Or even a more radical idea; if you combine bitcoin and art, 50% +50% is 100%. Then… Can bitcoin art be the solution to the maladies of the planet? 

Maybe! Perhaps I’ll try and pioneer this!

Bitcoin art is the way

Great artist steal.

Also, great artist “up cycle”, recycle, sample, remix, and parody the classics!

This is where our source is so appealing to me; I hate restrictions, I hate copyright in laws; I prefer freedom.

In fact in two days brave new digital world, I’ve ChatGPT and AI… The whole copyright model is broken.

For example, certainly creators need to make money and a profit, but the big issue here is that all the craters are essentially slaves to corporations, and looks like a lot of these new digital slumlords, who control the “content“ of its creators… What they are essentially seeking is a mini of control, within a small mileau, trying to assert control and power in their very small domain?

Nvidia is close to a $4T company??

I was shocked, apparently now that the number two most world’s important company is Nvidia, right after Apple?

In fact, I actually wonder if Nvidia is more valuable than Apple. The only reason why Apple is valuable is because they have the iPhone, but if and when Nvidia creates their own phone, that doesn’t require an iPhone, this will be a big deal?

How to art

There are so many ways you could art.

So one funny idea I have is just taking famous artworks of the past, and copy pasting bitcoin icons on top of it. This is essentially the hilarious parody that Mr. brainwashed with a lot of these classical paintings, and also Banksky,  the art of uncovering BS?

the problem about the art world

I think the biggest problem about the art world is everyone is using irony sarcasm and fake big talk to try to inflate their fragile egos, and into control running their mini fiefdoms? 

A writer and thinker that I’m kind of into right now is Saifedean — who wrote the bitcoin standard and the fiat standard. I first read his books because I was curious about bitcoin, but what I found very very fascinating was his critiques about art, the art world, and modernism and modern architecture? He’s kind of like NASSIM TALEB in that way (both Lebanese, Lebanese-American) — very outspoken, calls out BS. 

If you have ever been to a modern art exhibit, and you see a piece of white paper with a hole in it, and it’s worth $1 million, and you’re scratching your head, I’m with you.

Honestly, more or less all of modern day art is a scam, but that’s OK. You don’t have to participate if you don’t want to! Nobody is strong arming you to do so!

The new art

My personal vision is that I want to disrupt the art world. I certainly have done it for the world of street photography; essentially I killed all of these loser skinny fat anemic notions in street photography of what is considered good or bad, essentially the funny thing with photography is that while it should on paper be the most democratic open and egalitarian form of photography, as the streets are public and should be public and accessible to everybody… Once again, all of these ridiculous ivory towers?

---

Now what?

Maybe now I have some sort of moral or ethical imperative to make a difference?

ERIC

---

So just went to the Mr. brainwash art gallery in Beverly Hills, and I am blown away; it was the most fun, enjoyable, uplifting, playful, inspirational and motivational art exhibit of all time.

why this matters 

This is a big deal. Why this is a big deal.

First,  life without art would be a mistake. Life without art is not a life worth living.

For example, if you think about all of capitalism and consumerism, I think much of it is predicated on art.

For example, what is clothing in fashion? It is essentially art fabric sculptures for your body, your human body!

What is a car? Moving sculpture, a metal steel based thing which is secondly a piece of transportation.

Has nobody figured out how insanely important cyber truck is; essentially it is the ultimate modernist expression of moving sculpture?

I actually have a vision; gloss red cyber truck,  with yellow calipers, or yellow rims… Essentially imagine looking at like a fake Ferrari, but cyber truck.

---

the best art

A lot of people say art for art sake, but following in the footsteps of Nietzsche,  I think actually the purpose of art isn’t art for art say, rather, it is art for the sake of happiness joy, the great stimulus to life!

In fact, I have a theory… When a lot of people become emo, sad dark and rose, is this issue here they are simply not having enough great art in their life?

Even being at the Mr. brainwashing exhibition, they were just playing some great OG classical music on the speakers, and even hearing the great classical music put me in such good mood!

Maybe I’ll start to listen to more classical music?

The best

Classicus,,, the ancient Romans, typically when we think about the word classic we tend to think about old school. But actually… In ancient Rome classicus, the elite class,,, “classicus” or “classic” simply meant “the best”.

So then, what life then becomes about isn’t seeking the old school for the sake of the old school, but rather, seeking the best? 

Why the best?

Why not?

Joy!

I think nowadays, to be joyful unhappy in today’s world is a great act of courage? It is easy to be emailed depressed, sad, to opine about how the world is going to explode whatever. It takes much more courage to be joyful, happy and gleeful, to be the gay monster admits all of the emoness? 

---

Choose Joy

I prefer the word joy over happiness. Why? I think happiness is too much of a consumerist merchandised concept now. Troy is a lot simpler, like joy to the world!

Music, what is music? Joy to our ears and to our soul.

What is art, photography, paintings images and sculpture? Joy to our visual brain senses?

Participatory art

I think what is so amazing and what was so fun at the Mr. brainwash art exhibit was how almost all the exhibitions, you could interact with it! And also you are encouraged to photograph and video everything!

A lot of modern art exhibitions and museums is that they are cold and sterile, and it feels like you’re not allowed to photograph or shoot stuff?

In fact, I’m even thinking about doing a photograph workshop in Beverly Hills, maybe we could all go to the Mr. brainwash art museum together, have fun like a bunch of kids, and be inspired together?

My vision of art: my vision is that art should be open to everybody, accessible to everybody, and also, fun for everybody! It should be no, not pretentious, not fake. Also, it should be free, open to the public, accessible to anybody, doesn’t matter if you’re 70 years old or three years old;

I killed that art might be able to solve 50% of the world’s problems, maybe the other 50% can be bitcoin.

Or even a more radical idea; if you combine bitcoin and art, 50% +50% is 100%. Then… Can bitcoin art be the solution to the maladies of the planet? 

Maybe! Perhaps I’ll try and pioneer this!

Bitcoin art is the way

Great artist steal.

Also, great artist “up cycle”, recycle, sample, remix, and parody the classics!

This is where our source is so appealing to me; I hate restrictions, I hate copyright in laws; I prefer freedom.

In fact in two days brave new digital world, I’ve ChatGPT and AI… The whole copyright model is broken.

For example, certainly creators need to make money and a profit, but the big issue here is that all the craters are essentially slaves to corporations, and looks like a lot of these new digital slumlords, who control the “content“ of its creators… What they are essentially seeking is a mini of control, within a small mileau, trying to assert control and power in their very small domain?

Nvidia is close to a $4T company??

I was shocked, apparently now that the number two most world’s important company is Nvidia, right after Apple?

In fact, I actually wonder if Nvidia is more valuable than Apple. The only reason why Apple is valuable is because they have the iPhone, but if and when Nvidia creates their own phone, that doesn’t require an iPhone, this will be a big deal?

How to art

There are so many ways you could art.

So one funny idea I have is just taking famous artworks of the past, and copy pasting bitcoin icons on top of it. This is essentially the hilarious parody that Mr. brainwashed with a lot of these classical paintings, and also Banksky,  the art of uncovering BS?

the problem about the art world

I think the biggest problem about the art world is everyone is using irony sarcasm and fake big talk to try to inflate their fragile egos, and into control running their mini fiefdoms? 

A writer and thinker that I’m kind of into right now is Saifedean — who wrote the bitcoin standard and the fiat standard. I first read his books because I was curious about bitcoin, but what I found very very fascinating was his critiques about art, the art world, and modernism and modern architecture? He’s kind of like NASSIM TALEB in that way (both Lebanese, Lebanese-American) — very outspoken, calls out BS. 

If you have ever been to a modern art exhibit, and you see a piece of white paper with a hole in it, and it’s worth $1 million, and you’re scratching your head, I’m with you.

Honestly, more or less all of modern day art is a scam, but that’s OK. You don’t have to participate if you don’t want to! Nobody is strong arming you to do so!

The new art

My personal vision is that I want to disrupt the art world. I certainly have done it for the world of street photography; essentially I killed all of these loser skinny fat anemic notions in street photography of what is considered good or bad, essentially the funny thing with photography is that while it should on paper be the most democratic open and egalitarian form of photography, at the streets are public and should be public and accessible to everybody… Once again, all of these ridiculous ivory towers?

Ultimately when people study Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger etc ,,, what all these guys are searching for is wisdom.

I think this is good and important because principles wisdom, is resistant to time and technology, but at least for myself, I was born in 1988, searching for practical wisdom has always remained elusive for me.

I think difficult thing is that my circumstances were unique. I was born in the states, yet grew up poor; my definition of poor is not being sure whether you would be homeless next month because your dad just gambled away the rent money again, going off to Reno in the middle of the night.

The upside of poverty 

I think on two fronts this was useful to me:

First, it taught me self independence at a very young age. I knew that if I wanted anything, I had to work for it. This motivated me to pick up lots of part-time jobs when I was like 13, 14 or 15, tutoring English, through my honors program at school, working at the local community center, getting a $200 a month stipend etc. 

In fact, my biggest personal pride and joy; essentially, purchasing my first car with my own money! At the age of 15, getting my drivers permit in California, $1000 or maybe $1200 1991 Sentra XE, 5 door sedan, 5 speed manual transmission car — it didn’t even have a tachometer! I learned how to shift gears simply by hearing and feeling the engine? This began my first love affair with manual transmission cars;

In fact, another point of pride, every car I have purchased my own money has always been a used manual transmission car, never exceeding $2500 USD. In fact, the last car I purchased one in Providence Rhode Island before Seneca was born was a 2002 Subaru outback, five speed manual transmission, listed on craigslist for 1000 bucks, was able to negotiate down to $900, then $800 in cash! Lying out those eight $100 bills was the most obvious decision I’ve made in my life.

Obvious decisions are obvious

In terms of my decision-making philosophy, my unorthodox beliefs; obvious decisions are obvious. 

What that means is before making any sort of decision life decision etc., you don’t need to think about it too much.

Obvious decisions are staring you right at the face, and whenever you have to hesitate before making a certain decision, don’t do it. Why? Your brain is still working out the details, whether or not you should do the thing or not.

Obvious trades, obvious financial decisions, obvious investments 

For example, buying microstrategy stock, MSTR, to me is a 100% obvious decision. For the traditional markets, it’s literally the only asset worth purchasing.

Why? Essentially they have discovered a free money hack or infinite money hack, which they could leverage their 30-year-old business, which is regulated, and mainstream… And leverage their position, borrowing money at less than one percent to buy bitcoin, which is accretive forever, and continuing the virtuous cycle.

Now is your time to purchase a piece of cyber Manhattan

Bitcoin is cyber manhattan: 256^3

I think the idea of a cyber Manhattan, cyber real estate company is fascinating to me. And the difference between bitcoin, cyber real estate and Cyberman Manhattan is that it is actually backed by real electricity and power. For example, the problems with all these fake virtual worlds is that it is just powered by a computer code, one and zeros, Any nerd can click a button and create a skyscraper in Sim city.

But what if, if you wanted to build a skyscraper in Sim city, you actually had to expand $1 billion of real capital in the real world, before transferring it and transporting it to cyberspace? This is the 1000% paradigm shift;

The bridge between the physical, embodied reality,  physical world and realm, to the digital cyber realm… Which is still backed with physical electricity?

It’s a bug, not a feature!

Or it’s a feature, not a bug?

I think what a lot of these goody two shoers don’t get or understand is about real life physics in the game, skin in the game, energy in the game. Everyone wants some sort of hidden upside without any real life downside?

I’ll give you example, everyone wants to rid the world of suffering pain injustice and the like. However, a life without suffering pain injustice and overcoming is not a life worth living.

You cannot have happiness without pain and suffering, nor can you have joy with without sorrow and misery. If we think about this from a Taoist perspective, I think about yin and Yang, you cannot have the good without the bad. You cannot have the virtuous without the evil.

The upsides of downsides

For example, obviously being in poor health sucks, and bad weather also sucks. But, when things get much better, you are 1000 times more joyful grateful and happy when things shift!

This is why funny enough, I think people on the East Coast, New England, Providence Rhode Island are happier than people in LA because the weather shifts are more extreme.

For example, when you’re suffering in the winter time for months on end, no sunshine whatever, and then boom, one day the sun comes out, everyone is overjoyed! It is still 55° and cold, but at least it is sunny; everyone runs out and gets their picnic blankets, And the joy of the sunlight is 1000 times more extreme than in Los Angeles where everyone is trying to hide from the sun, even though they love it?

My simple analogy is everyone in LA is like a solid 7.2 out of 10, in terms of happiness, whereas in the East coast, your happiness goes from a -10 to a +500% when the weather is good! 

So I suppose, the philosophical question them becomes, is it better or more favorable to have a steady mediocre thing forever, or more extreme highs and lows, which will be a benefit to your happiness?

Then a simple thought, the reason why I love bitcoin is because of the extremes; I would prefer an extreme life to a steady and boring one. 

In search of yield

I think for me my number one principle in investing is yield. I think what a lot of people think is what they’re trying to do with their money is they are trying to securitize it, and make it safe, stored in really really safe assets like treasury bills, bonds, or “safe” investments like Apple Amazon Facebook Google and like.

But, my personal thought is life should not be conservative; the point of life isn’t to just conserve your wealth, but rather, to grow it!

Even the story of Jesus, you don’t just take your wealth and hide it and bury your talents, your gold talents in the ground because you’re afraid of losing it. No, the virtuous thing is to go out and multiply it!

And I also think the same thing is with wealth; the virtuous calling is to multiply it to grow it, not to just bury it, with the fear that it might go down.

How to gain more emotional armor for investing

OK, a lot of these fools, they want quick gains in order to go out and buy the Lamborghini or whatever. But once you find out that only small dick losers drive Lamborghinis,  and also, that the useful lifetime value of a Lamborghini might only be three or four years, that is the point in which the maintenance costs and the insurance costs and fixing it up will destroy the price of it in just three or four years, then it becomes obvious; you wish the Lamborghini onto your worst enemy, you don’t desire one for yourself. 

My simple thought is take a stoic spartan approach; essentially live like a super super poor person, the only thing you should ever spend money on is weights barbells and weightlifting equipment, and meet… Everything else should be essentially free.

Tips to NOT go broke

This means,

1. Never eat out: nothing is worth it, not even all you can eat Korean barbecue! My current favorite joint is chubby cattle, but still… The 90 minute time sitting is a bit restrictive.
2. No weed, no alcohol
3. Don’t go out for coffee, just brew it and drink it at home. I actually have a new hack; I only drink a lot of coffee at the house first thing in the morning when I wake up, but after the morning, 100% abstinence for the rest of the day. I get the upside of getting a good caffeine buzz first thing in the morning to get me going, without the downside of having it affect my sleep.
4. Never buy anything, and also… The only “computer“ or device I find worth it is an iPad Pro;
5. Always buy the cheapest iPhone on the market; only poor people buy iPhone Pros
6. For camera or digital camera, I recommend getting the most compact, capable Panasonic camera, and the cheapest, most compact pancake lens. Currently the Lumix S9 ($1500) and 26 mm F8 pancake lens ($200). Never buy a loser Leica which is essentially a Panasonic Lumix with a body kit. Especially the Panasonic Lumix Leica Q Cameras. If you want a digital rangefinder just buy a used Leica M9.
7. Don’t shoot film: I think about a decade ago in 2014 2015, it was affordable, but now it is too expensive. Save your money and buy Bitcoin instead!
8. Never buy a new car under any circumstances. This is immediately like taking a 30% haircut; the second you drive it off the lot, boom, you’ve already lost 30% of its value. And also, don’t buy electric vehicles, no matter how appealing. It is like purchasing a really really expensive iPhone Pro with wheels; it might be only good for 3 to 5 years, maybe seven years tops… Then after that, a slow degrading. Real rich people buy old used Priuses and drive them– 2010 Prius is the best rich person car.
9. Stop buying clothes: you probably have enough clothes to last you two lifetimes already in your closet. My suggestion is if you want novelty, just take some scissors and turn your jeans into shorts, or cut off the sleeves off of your shirts to make them sleeve or if you’re cold, just layer up. Only poor people buy clothes.

Essentially, the easiest way to become rich is not go broke.


---

Einstein’s rule of money

So essentially, I’ve literally I think watch every single Michael Saylor interview that he’s ever done everything that he posted to Twitter or YouTube etc. Maybe about 100 of them.

Anyways, probably the most fascinating thing that I’ve learned about the value of an asset is the value of an asset is essentially the cost of something or the value is something divided by the maintenance cost.

Now I think this is something that people don’t really think about — the maintenance cost.

So for example, now that all of my millennial friends are growing up, I’m 36 now, in four years, I’m gonna be 40 years old, everyone’s trying to think about the future buying a single-family home or a condo or property or whatever. And what beguiles a lot of people or shocks people is when they buy a house, all the maintenance costs! Even talking to my friend Anton (congrats on your new kid!) he told me a story while we were in downtown LA about how he bought a house, but the water heater went out, and him having to fix it, and what a nightmare it was.

Also simple things that we millennials never think about… You need a new roof and boom, that’s $50,000. That’s $50,000 I would rather put into bitcoin.

There are so many things that exist on the planet, in real world, in embody reality which cost a premium in terms of insurance, maintenance, etc. Once again, almost nothing in the physical realm is ever worth it. 

If you want a new car, just download some racing game to your iPad, or even PlayStation or whatever; better to spend 50 bucks on a virtual car then drop $50,000 or more on a new one! 

Or, just buy an oculus quest, play some racing game, at least this way you want to kill yourself, or another family in a car with two kids or more.

–> The worst thing in life isn’t dying or killing yourself, but it is accidentally killing another family, accidentally killing kids in the car seat of another car, and you having to live with the guilt for the rest of your life. 

“But it isn’t real!”

Bitcoin is not real, but, if it costs $800 billion to produce, it’s real!

Let’s again, things must have a stake in the physical realm, if it doesn’t, it is just air coin, or the foundation is just built on cotton candy.

I think we must avoid these fake environmentalists, a bunch of vegan losers. Essentially, if I psychoanalyze a lot of these fake environmentalists; essentially everyone is seeking a new religion, a new godhead which is the “environment“, but ultimately my critical thought is that once again it just comes down to money;

Vegan and plant based stuff is insanely profitable

For example, Al Gore, I wonder… How much money has he collected from doing his talks on an inconvenient truth, ultimately being funded by taxpayer money?

And also, James Cameron, and also Arnold, how much money they have collected from the vegan pea protein powder plant factory, just follow the money.  Much more profitable to sell a $50 container of vegan protein powder, than a meat company to sell beef rib or beef liver. 

Also a random aside; if you really wanted to be a real environmentalist, you would actually have a 100% organ meat diet, only beef heart beef liver beef kidneys and intestines, because these parts are typically thrown away.

Rich vegans

“Being naked is the ultimate sustainable option. We’re number two.” – Reformation marketing copy 

The truth is environmentalism is very profitable. For example a lot of these clothing companies, I think also like the new one “Reformation“, a female clothing company, they talk about sustainability and blah blah blah, but once again, is it just another marketing tactic to sell their mediocre clothes.

For example, people talk that leather in animal products are evil blah blah blah. Yet the truth is, you’re cheap vegan leather jacket which is made out of petroleum is probably 1 trillion times worse for the planet than a fashionable one made out of 100% real leather. A pleather vegan jacket might only last you a few years, a good leather jacket can you last you 50 or beyond.

Because if you critically think about it, things which last, are better for the “environment”. And typically animal products last.

I love leather!

Also nowadays, people talk about Native Americans and stuff like that, don’t you know that historically the way that natives lived off the land was in harmony with animals, like can you imagine a Native American who didn’t use animal power, ride on horses, or eat meat and bison?

Besides maybe virtue signaling America, there is no great civilization that has ever existed without animal products whether food labor etc. 

I love risk

Once again I think the biggest issue is in today’s world, nobody likes risk anymore. Risk is seen as something which is dangerous bad and to be avoided.

For example anybody who buys a Mercedes car an Audi, a Porsche a Lamborghini whatever… It is ultimately a risk free option in the sense that no one’s gonna make fun of you for owning those type of cars. So in some ways it is a cowardly act;

For example everyone thinks a Porsche 911 is cool, a Lamborghini is cool, a Mercedes or an Audi is cool. Yet  maybe I’m the only one with the big dick in the room, I brag that I drive a Toyota Prius? Everyone is always so shocked and impressed.

Real investors and economists must and should drive a Prius!

Real economics

OK, whenever I discover anybody who’s a professor, who teaches in a business school, is an economist, academic or scholar or whatever… Yet just puts all of their money in a boring mutual fund… Or index fund… It is a signal that they are not a real economist, and they are actually not really connected to reality.

Risk = Happiness

We need some sort of risk exposure to the real world. For example, easy to be the typical fat American who is drinking beer or wine watching sports and American football, giving their opinion on sports teams and players yet they are not actually exposed to the risk of playing real tackle football?

And once again… The more I think about it the more bizarre it is. To watch UFC or mixed martial arts, to watch any sport that you have not yourself played… It kind of like mental masturbation? To sports?

Sports is masculine physical sports masturbation pornography?

Just think about it the average person eats nachos french fries drink beer or alcohol smoke marijuana before watching the big game. But what a athlete who is actually participating in the sport down a beer really quick before putting on their armor and hitting the field? Obviously not!

So why is it that alcohol food beverages is marketed to these individuals, for watching a sport?

It is the new risk free premium hedonism; the joy of seeing people get murdered on a field, or in our arena without any real exposure.

Don’t hate me because I’m so much more physically dominant than you!

People are always so surprised that I played real football real American tackle football in high school, they are shocked to hear that I was linebacker, first outside linebacker then inside linebacker. 

I think it is actually racism; you never expect an Asian guy to play linebacker because we are not seen as masculine or aggressive enough. But if I were African-American or black, even though I am on the more lean side — you probably would not be shocked, because in America, athletes are always seen as being African-American, never Asian. Even an Asian professional sports athlete is almost seen as a glitch in the system, not the real deal.

Even when first deadlifted 465 pounds, sumo style off the floor, and everyone was so shocked, I was talking to my friend Jemal and I asked him — “If I was African-American or black, but people will be asshocked or surprised?” He laughed and said no!

---

So what should we do about things

So I think the first thing you have to think philosophically is what are you really searching for, and why?

My very simple thought is think 300 years ahead, your kids kids kids.

The New Hedonism

The current lifestyle is like the Persian slave lifestyle?

I think the issue we are facing today in today’s world is hedonism — the new hedonism. We seek companionship through humans or dogs, yet we don’t want to have children, we want to preserve our freedom travel the world go to Japan eat good sushi whatever.

But, your dog cannot inherit your bitcoin. 

I think maybe in the past life was actually easier and more straightforward people. You got married, you built up a family legacy and empire; this was actually a pretty good strategy in life. And I think people were actually much happier, productive, and joyful!

Think about all the modern day melodies of depression anxiety whatever, they are all modern day sociological ills.

In fact, the ancient Greeks, thinking about the Iliad; certainly things are natural like courage, cowardice, and fear… But depression anxiety was not.

My sociological theory on why so many people are so depressed and anxious is because of YouTube, Spotify, podcast, TikTok Facebook Instagram, Twitter, news, fear porn. 

The joy of growth or death & destruction?

Have a theory; a lot of people are secretly waiting and twiddling their thumbs, they actually want to see the world burn to the floor, to be able to have the indignant feeling; “I told you… I was right all along!”

For example, all these people, are during Covid and pre-Covid and post Covid whatever, thought that there was gonna be food riots and blah blah blah, none of it happened. Humans are 1 trillion times more resilient than we make them out to be.

This is where also, philosophically I don’t really believe in short selling; even if you could cop a massive profit.

For example there are certain things that I am certain which will go down to zero, like Ada Cardano and the like because it is fake. But rather than hoping that something is going to burn the floor, better to just bet on things that you think that will go to Mars! 

For example, everyone hates Elon Musk, and they are secretly waiting and plotting for him to fail. Yet doesn’t it take more courage to wish and hope and desire to see people succeed?

Even I remember the Tesla model 3; everyone thought it would be impossible, but now, it is certainly the new Ford model T; the coolest, most desirable, most futuristic and affordable car on the road. I personally plan on driving my Toyota Prius until it dies at 1,000,000 miles, but if for one reason or another I was forced to purchase a brand new car, it would definitely be a Tesla, maybe the robotaxi?

---

Disruption

The reason why I encourage everyone to watch the Robo taxi, Robo van announcement is that it is the ultimate disruptor.

For example, the Robo van, the two door coupe, insanely awesome design, with the butterfly McLaren doors… I find like there is no more reason to ever even want to buy a loser Lamborghini, or McLaren or whatever. And I really really love that rose gold, MATTE Rose gold Color on the Robo taxi, and also the rims look awesome!

Why doesn’t the future look like the future?

Once again, assuming that you’re a futurist like myself, the trillion dollar questions “why doesn’t the future actually look like the future?“

For example, if you really do believe in the digital transformation of things, like you care about Apple Tesla Amazon Facebook digital media whatever… Why would you ever buy analog property like a single-family home or whatever? Wouldn’t you prefer to buy digital property which is bitcoin?

And also, issues with tax, property tax. Also assuming that you’re a libertarian, or some sort of anti-government person, bitcoin makes sense because it is like digital or cyber real estate that can’t be taxed!

And I think the truth is that real rich people, know how to do tax deferment, or to avoid taxes, this is a real reason they become and stay rich.

“My accountant so good I’m practically living tax-free!” – JAY Z

Never buy property in California (you will get murdered from property taxes)

For example, even if you live in the lowest tax jurisdiction place which is Florida, and nobody wants to live in Florida, still… Under a base case scenario you’re still playing at least 1.1% in taxes. And that means then, the life of your asset is only 70 years; within 70 years Assuming you buy a $1 million property, you’re gonna pay $1 million in taxes in 70 years.

Then, if you own a single-family home or whatever, or property the coal is actually trying to rent out your property at a premium, but two people who have never really had experience with property property management… It is a fucking nightmare and headache. Finding good tenants and keeping them; the holy Grail. Too much counterparty risk with properties; people who fuck up your property, end up not paying rent in squatting your place, people who start to grow marijuana inside your property, people who turn your property into a brothel (true story), or just physical wear and tear and decay. Anything in the physical realm in my opinion has too much risk. 
And this is where still… In my eyes, Tesla is too much of a risk. Why? Having to build all those cyber trucks, Robo taxis, is just in my opinion, too much of a gargantuan physical task. Even if you automate the whole thing with robots, still, extracting lithium from the Earth, making the cars, delivering the cars, my personal estimate is you won’t see Robo taxis on the road for at least another five or seven years? To me that is too long.

Real world investing

I think the best investment is something that you have a 100% certainty will go up in 30 years, and you just ignore the volatility and the noise on a day-to-day level.

Can it keep going on up forever?

Yes especially if it is digital!

---

Think the classics

Also the funny thing is; bitcoin was the classic the first only immaculate conception; technically Ethereum from Vitalik was just a bitcoin copycat.

My very very basic suggestion is just download Coinbase to your phone, buy bitcoin from your traditional bank account, and once you’re done buying it, delete the Coinbase app from your phone, and never check prices. And what you doing instead it’s just go to michael.com, watch all the Michael sailor interviews, and read books on economic theory philosophy etc.

I personally believe that the best wisdom is in the past; read Aristotle on economics, Fernandinho Galiani on money Della moneta, the principles of economic theory from Karl Menger etc. you should be able to find free PDFs of all these online, just read it on your iPad.

***

Now what?

1. Download Coinbase to your phone, start buying those bitcoins
2. If you have a second car or some sort of asset that you’re not really doing anything with that you really don’t need, sell it, and use the proceeds to buy bitcoin
3. If you’re stuck in the traditional markets, Ira or Roth IRA, retirement whatever… Very very simple just buy micro strategy stock, MSTR– I think it’s going to 10 X from here. My price target for Michael strategy is $2000 a share. Currently trading at around low $200s.
4. Do an experiment that the next month, just cook all your food at home, buy meat at Costco whatever… Amazon prime or Amazon fresh food, anything that is cheap; quit alcohol and weed for a month, quit eating out and going out for a month, and just put 100% of that into bitcoin!

so should I buy bitcoin or micro strategy? 

You buy the bitcoin, and you never sell it, just keep buying it until you die, and the idea is just give it to your kids kids kids.

And you’re a supreme happiness and joy is through weightlifting, one red maxing, and seeing the numbers go up! 

My suggestion is never ever ever sell the bitcoin, for anything. If you need spare cash for living or whatever, better to borrow the money at 7% interest or lower, assuming that bitcoin is going to go up 21% year over a year, compounded rate forever.

 I would say only by microstrategy MSTR if you just cannot get access to capital to buy bitcoin directly.

At the end of your life, he or she with the most bitcoin is going to be the winner. Or the corporate entity like micro strategy, who owns the most bitcoin.

The goal is a Nakamoto, which is the mythical 1 million bitcoins. The same amount of bitcoins in Satoshi‘s wallet, which he hasn’t touched. This is currently $60 billion! 

---

What else?

honestly because I live like a poor person, for me, at this point investing is just a new passion, almost like a new hobby. Still for me my critical passion is photography, blogging and like.

So the simple thought; know that investing in money is a means to an end not the in itself.

ERIC

***

GET RICHER

Enrich yourself with an upcoming ERIC KIM experience >

---

Free ideas for life!

EK NEWS, START HERE, BOOKS

And for access to always the freshest ideas:

EK BLOG >

---

Better to die big than to lie dormant – JAY Z

For the best entrepreneurial and money thoughts:

https://www.michael.com

---

Ultimately when people study Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger etc ,,, what all these guys are searching for is wisdom.

I think this is good and important because principles wisdom, is resistant to time and technology, but at least for myself, I was born in 1988, searching for practical wisdom has always remained elusive for me.

I think difficult thing is that my circumstances were unique. I was born in the states, yet group poor; my definition of poor is not being sure whether you would be homeless next month because your dad just gambled away the rent money again, going off to Reno in the middle of the night.

I think on two fronts this was useful to me:

First, it taught me self independence at a very young age. I knew that if I wanted anything, I had to work for it. This motivated me to pick up lots of part-time jobs when I was like 1314 or 15, tutoring English, through my honors program at school, working at the local community center, getting a $200 a month stipend etc. 

In fact, my biggest personal pride and joy; essentially, purchasing my first car with my own money! At the age of 15, getting my drivers permit in California, $1000 or maybe $1200 1991 Sentra XE, 5 door sedan, 5 speed manual transmission car — it didn’t even have a tachometer! I learned how to shift gears simply by hearing and feeling the engine? This began my first love affair with manual transmission cars;

In fact, another point of pride, every car I have purchased my own money has always been a used manual transmission car, never exceeding $2500 USD. In fact, the last car I purchased one in Providence Rhode Island before Seneca was born was a 2002 Subaru outback, five speed manual transmission, listed on craigslist for 1000 bucks, was able to negotiate down to $900, then $800 in cash! Lying out those eight $100 bills was the most obvious decision I’ve made in my life.

Obvious decisions are obvious

 In terms of my decision-making philosophy, my unorthodox beliefs; obvious decisions are obvious. 

What that means is before making any sort of decision life decision etc., you don’t need to think about it too much.

Obvious decisions are staring you right at the face, and whenever you have to hesitate before making a certain decision, don’t do it. Why? Your brain is still working out the details, whether or not you should do the thing or not.

For example, buying microstrategy stock, MSTR, to me is a 100% obvious decision. For the traditional markets, it’s literally the only asset worth purchasing.

Why? Essentially they have discovered a free money hack or infinite money hack, which they could leverage their 30-year-old business, which is regulated, and mainstream… And leverage their physicians, borrowing money at less than one percent to buy bitcoin, which is accretive forever, and continuing the virtuous cycle.

I think the idea of a cyber Manhattan, cyber real estate company is fascinating to me. And the difference between bitcoin, Sible real estate and Cyberman Manhattan is that it is actually packed by real electricity and power. For example, problems with all these fake virtual worlds is that it is just powered by a computer code, one and zeros, Any nerd can click a button and create a skyscraper in Sim city.

But what if, if you wanted to build a skyscraper in Sim city, you actually had to expand $1 billion of real capital in the real world, before transferring it and transporting it to cyberspace? This is the 1000% paradigm shift;

The Bridge between the physical, embodied reality,  physical world and realm, to the digital cyber realm… Which is still backed with physical electricity?

it’s a bug, not a feature!

Or it’s a feature, not a bug?

I think what a lot of these goody two shoers don’t get or understand is about real life physics in the game, skin in the game, energy in the game. Everyone wants some sort of hidden upside without any real life downside?

I’ll give you example, everyone wants to read the world of suffering pain injustice and the like. However, a life without suffering Paine injustice and overcoming is not a life worth living.

You cannot have happiness without pain and suffering, nor can you have joy with without sorrow and misery. If we think about this from a Taoist perspective,  I think about Jin and Yang, you cannot have the good without the bad. You cannot have the virtuous without the evil.

For example, obviously being in poor health sucks, and bad weather also sucks. But, when things get much better, you are 1000 times more joyful grateful and happy when things shift!

This is why funny enough, I think people on the East Coast, New England, Providence Rhode Island are happier than people in LA because the weather shifts are more extreme.

For example, when you’re suffering in the winter time for months on then, no sunshine whatever, and then boom, one day the sun comes out, everyone is overjoyed! It is still 55° and cold, but at least it is sunny; everyone runs out and gets their picnic blankets, And the joy of the sunlight is 1000 times more extreme than in Los Angeles where everyone is trying to hide from the sun, even though they love it?

In search of yield

I think for me my number one principle in investing is yield. I think what a lot of people think is what they’re trying to do with their money is they are trying to securitize it, and make it safe, stored in really really safe assets like treasury bills, bonds, or “safe” investments like Apple Amazon Facebook Google and like.

But, my personal thought is life should not be conservative; the point of life isn’t to just conserve your wealth, but rather, to grow it!

Even the story of Jesus, you don’t just take your wealth and hide it and bury your talents, your gold talents in the ground because you’re afraid of losing it. No, the virtual thing is to go out and multiply it!

And I also think the same thing is with wealth; the virtual calling is to multiply it to grow it, not to just bury it, with the fear that it might go down.

How to gain more emotional armor for investing

OK, a lot of these fools, they want quick gains in order to go out and buy the Lamborghini or whatever. But once you find out that only small Dick Losers drive Lamborghinis,  and also, that the useful lifetime value of a Lamborghini might only be three or four years, that is the point in which the maintenance costs and the insurance costs and fixing it up will destroy the price of it in just three or four years, then it becomes obvious; you wish the Lamborghini onto your worst enemy, you don’t desire one for yourself. 

Einstein’s rule of money

So essentially, I’ve literally I think watch every single Michael sailor interview that he’s ever done everything that he posted to Twitter or YouTube etc. Maybe about 100 of them.

Anyways, probably the most fascinating thing that I’ve learned about the value of an asset is the value of an asset is essentially the cost of something or the value is something divided by the maintenance cost.

Now I think this is something that people don’t really think about —  the maintenance cost.

So for example, now that all of my millennial friends are growing up, I’m 36 now, in four years, I’m gonna be 40 years old, everyone’s trying to think about the future buying a single-family home or a condo or property or whatever. And what beguiles a lot of people or shocks people is when they buy a house, all the maintenance costs! Even talking to my friend Anton (congrats on your new kid!) he told me a story while we were in downtown LA about how he bought a house, but the water heater went out, and him having to fix it, and what a nightmare it was.

Also simple things that we millennials never think about… You need a new roof and boom, that’s $50,000. That’s $50,000 I would rather put into bitcoin.

“But it isn’t real!”

Bitcoin is not real, but, if it costs $800 billion to produce, it’s real!

Let’s again, things must have a stake in the physical realm, if it doesn’t, it is just air coin, or the foundation is just built on cotton candy.

I think we have to avoid from these fake environmentalist, a bunch of vegan losers. Essentially, if I psychoanalyze a lot of these fake environmentalists; essentially everyone is seeking a new religion, a new godhead which is the “environment“, but ultimately my critical thought is that once again it just comes down to money;

For example, Al Gore, I wonder… How much money has he collected from doing his talks on an inconvenient truth, ultimately being funded by taxpayer money?

And also, James Cameron, and also Arnold, how much money they have collected from the vegan pea protein powder plant factory, just follow the money. 

The truth is environmentalism is very profitable. For example a lot of these clothing companies, I think also like the new one “reformation“, a female clothing, they talk about sustainability and blah blah blah, but once again, is it just another marketing tactic to sell more Mediocre clothes.

For example, people talk that leather in animal products are evil blah blah blah. Yet the truth is, you’re cheap vegan leather jacket which is made out of petroleum is probably 1 trillion times worse for the planet than a fashionable one made out of 100% real leather.

Because if you critically think about it, things which last, are better for the “environment”.

Also nowadays, people talk about Native Americans and stuff like that, don’t you know that historically the way that natives lived off the land was in harmony with animals, like can you imagine a Native American who didn’t use animal power, ride on horses, or eat meat and bison?

I love risk

Once again I think the biggest issue is in today’s world, nobody likes risk anymore. Risk is seen as something which is dangerous bad and to be avoided.

For example anybody who buys a Mercedes car an Audi, a Porsche a Lamborghini whatever… It is ultimately a risk free option in the sense that no one’s gonna make fun of you for owning those type of cars. So in some ways it is a cowardly act;

For example everyone thinks a Porsche 911 is cool, a Lamborghini is cool, a Mercedes or an Audi is cool. Yet  maybe I’m the only one with the big dick in the room, I brag that I drive a Toyota Prius? Everyone is always so shocked and impressed.

Real investors and economists must and should drive a Prius

Real economics

OK, whenever I discover anybody who’s a professor, who teaches in a business school, is an economist, academic or scholar or whatever… Yet just puts all of their money in a boring mutual fund… Or index month… It is a signal that they are not a real economist, and they are actually not really connected to reality.

The biggest we hear is that you need some sort of risk exposure to the real world. For example, easy to be the typical fat American who is drinking beer or wine watching sports and American football, giving their opinion on sports teams and players yet they are not actually exposed to the risk of playing real tackle football?

And once again… The more I think about it the more bizarre it is. To watch UFC or mixed martial arts, to watch any sport that you have not yourself played… It kind of like mental masturbation? To sports?

Just think about it the average person eats nachos french fries drink beer or alcohol smoke marijuana before watching the big game. But what a athlete who is actually participating in the sport down a beer really quick before putting on their armor and hitting the field? Obviously not!

So why is it that alcohol food beverages is marketed to these individuals, for watching a sport?

It is the new risk free premium hedonism; the joy of seeing people get murdered on a field, or in our arena without any real exposure.

People are always so surprised that I played real football real American tackle football in high school, they are shocked to hear that I was linebacker, first outside linebacker then inside linebacker. 

I think it is actually racism; you never expect an Asian guy to play linebacker because we are not seen as masculine or aggressive enough. But if I were African-American or black, even though I am on the side you probably would not be shocked, because in America Athletes are always seen as being African-American, never Asian. Even an Asian professional sports athlete is almost seen as a glitch in the system, not the real deal.

so what should we do about things

So I think the first thing you have to think philosophically is what are you really searching for, and why?

My very simple thought is think 300 years ahead, your kids kids kids.

I think the issue we are facing today in today’s world is hedonism the new hedonism. We seek companionship through humans or dogs, yet we don’t want to have children, we want to preserve our freedom travel the world go to Japan eat good sushi whatever.

But, your dog cannot inherit your bitcoin. 

I think maybe in the past life was actually easier and more straightforward people. You got married, you built up a family legacy and empire; this was actually a pretty good strategy in life. And I think people were actually much happier, productive, and joyful!

Think about all the modern day melodies of depression anxiety whatever, they are all modern day sociological ills.

In fact, the ancient Greeks, thinking about the Iliad; certainly things are natural like courage, cowardice, and fear… But depression anxiety was not.

My sociological theory on why so many people are so depressed and anxious is because of YouTube, Spotify, podcast, TikTok Facebook Instagram, Twitter, news, fear porn. 

The joy of growth or death & destruction?

Have a theory; a lot of people are secretly waiting and twiddling their thumbs, they actually want to see the world burn to the floor, to be able to have the indignant feeling; “I told you… I was right all along!”

For example, all these people, are during Covid and pre-Covid and post Covid whatever, thought that there was gonna be food riots and blah blah blah, none of it happened. Humans are 1 trillion times more resilient than we make them out to be.

 this is where also, philosophical I don’t really believe in short selling; even if you could cop a massive profit.

For example there are certain things that I am certain which will go down to zero, like Ada Cardano and the like because it is fake. But rather than hoping that something is going to burn the floor, better to just bet on things that you think that will go to Mars! 

For example, everyone hates Elon Musk, and they are secretly waiting and plotting for him to fail. Yet doesn’t it take more courage to wish and hope and desire to see people succeed?

Even I remember the Tesla model 3; everyone thought it would be impossible, but now, it is certainly the new Ford model T; the coolest, most desirable, most futuristic and affordable car on the road. I personally plan on driving my Toyota Prius until it dies at 1,000,000 miles, but if for one reason or another I was forced to purchase a brand new car, it would definitely be a Tesla, maybe the robotaxi?

---

Disruption

The reason why I encourage everyone to watch the Robo taxi, Robo van announcement is that it is the ultimate disruptor.

For example, the Robo van, the two door coupe, insanely awesome design, with the butterfly McLaren doors… I find like there is no more reason to ever even want to buy a loser Lamborghini, or McLaren or whatever. And I really really love that rose gold, Matt Rose gold Color on the Robo taxi, and also the rims look awesome!

Why doesn’t the future look like the future?

Once again, assuming that you’re a futurist like myself, the trillion dollar questions “why doesn’t the future actually look like the future? “

For example, if you really do believe in the digital transformation of things, like you care about Apple Tesla Amazon Facebook digital media whatever… Why would you ever buy analog property like a single-family home or whatever? Wouldn’t you prefer to buy digital property which is bitcoin?

And also, issues with tax, property tax. Also assuming that you’re a libertarian, or some sort of anti-government person, bitcoin makes sense because it is like digital or cyber real estate that can’t be taxed!

For example, even if you live in the lowest tax jurisdiction place which is Florida, and nobody wants to live in Florida, still… Under a base case scenario you’re still playing at least 1.1% in taxes. And that means then, the life of your asset is only 70 years; within 70 years Assuming you buy a $1 million property, you’re gonna pay $1 million in taxes in 70 years.

Then, if you own a single-family home or whatever, or property the coal is actually trying to rent out your property at a premium, but two people who have never really had experience with property property management… It is a fucking nightmare and headache. Finding good tenants and keeping them; the holy Grail. Too much counterparty risk with properties; people who fuck up your property, end up not paying rent in squatting your place, people who start to grow marijuana inside your property, people who turn your property into a brothel (true story), or just physical wear and tear and decay. Anything in the physical realm in my opinion has too much risk. 

Something I’ve been meaning to write about and think about; capital, photo capital.

So the first question is, what is photo, why does it matter?

My first general thesis is that photography, digital photography, might be one of the most underrated innovations of all time. Let us consider how many domains it crosses, and why it is such a big deal:

First, the digital transformation of photography, from film photography to digital. I think most thinkers and individuals have not yet grafted how and why this is such a big deal;

For millennials like myself, or people who are born a little bit before or after me, I’m 36 and born in 1988, there certainly is an alert and romanticism of the past. Everyone reminisces about the “good old days”, in which “life was simpler” etc.

 however, a simple intervention: what if, the number one complication in our lives is not digital technology, not the Internet etc.… But something a little bit more unsuspecting; AirPods, AirPods pros, noise canceling headphones? I would actually make the arguments that noise canceling headphones might be the true menace to society, not iPhones, iPads, or screens.

People talk a lot about screen time, no. She is not screen time, the issue is maybe audio related?

For example, I don’t own a pair of AirPods, I don’t even own a pair of headphones anymore. Cindy has a pair of AirPods pros that my best man Justin got us, and this morning just listening to Michael sailor interview, with just one earbud, with the noise canceling AirPods pros, simply to listen to the interview without waking up my mom. Yet, the bizarre feeling; when I listen to the interview, it kind of put me in a weird alternate universe, in which I truly felt disconnected from the world and reality. It actually made me feel a little bit weird.

Disconnecting their AirPods, out of my ears, actually… I have another theory; isn’t your ears, earlobes, sound, kind of related to your spatial sense surroundings of the environment?

My simple idea; if you want to become a better photographer, a more attuned person, just throw your AirPods in the trash.

Visual?

So Aristotle I think one said that our vision is actually more important than anything else that our first great delight on the planet is visual. Even though I’m a guitar for and visual artist, I would actually make the other case that actually… Your ears, and your hearing, Might be 1000 times more important.

For example, let us consider how human beings learn, how they learn languages, speech patterns and communication, and how natural it is for children. To teach the child the alphabet how to read text, is actually very unnatural, a huge technological feat and innovation. However, for a child to learn how to speak a foreign language, simply by hearing the words intonations, the sing song rhythm, is 1000% natural.

 for example, music, music tour ears. Even a one year-old child, who could barely stand, can listen to music rhythms and beats, and start dancing. Even send when he was about a year old, he already learned how to make beats on GarageBand both on the iPhone and iPad! He actually knew and learned how to sample and make beats, far before he was even able to speak!

So my first theory ; music, voice, audio; might be more important than the visual?

Then what?

Advancing this argument; if in fact, audio is more important than visual, then what are we to do as visual artist, photographers?

First, let us return to first principles, first principles thinking. My general idea is that photography and visual things are kind of unnatural. And this is where we make our art.

I think there’s this one saying, maybe Aristotle, what nature fails to complete, man and art completes.

Art should best be stood as a novel invention and innovation technique and tool. For example, art and art making is unnatural. But then again a lot of things are unnatural, but certainly make life 1 trillion times better. For example, can you imagine living without electricity? Even one of my most new favorite inventionsand and innovations; the insane joy of having an in unit washer and dryer?  in fact, all the washers and dryers on the planet can probably contribute 100,000 times more to the carbon footprint than all the bitcoin miners on the planet combined and maybe even multiplied by 10. Yet, ain’t nobody rolling to get rid of washers and dryers.

And also something that people don’t understand, I learned this from my architect friend ERIC, is that almost all buildings, made out of concrete and the such, these are all carbon products. It is almost impossible to build a modern day building without carbon derived materials. So unless you like living in a hut, munching on acorns, without running water Wi-Fi or electricity, maybe this faker signaling about reducing carbon emissions might be a wise idea.

The insanely phenomenal innovation of digital photography

OK let us do some simple math. Let us say conservatively, currently a roll of film is about 10 bucks, for Kodak PORTRA 400. Then assuming that you want someone else to process it and scan it for you, let us say that even on the cheap end, it is $10 or $15 for developed plus scan. This is then around $20-$25, for 36 exposures, or assuming you have that new Pentax half frame camera, you can squeeze out 72 exposures for about 20 bucks or 25 bucks.

No you can see how this can easily get expensive. Even if you shoot four rolls of film, that’s around 100 bucks. That is insanely expensive.

And it adds up. Shooting film guitar for you, now that I am becoming wiser, a more keen economist, is the ultimate depreciating asset, and the easiest way to burn through all your money and capital.

It is kind of like purchasing a high performance car or vehicle that runs on premium gasoline; this might be the stupidest decision of all time. Why? Assuming you have a luxury Lexus SUV, you can easily blow $500 a week on gas, which is maybe $2000 a month on gas! Assuming that you put that money into bitcoin, and bitcoin goes from a $1.3 trillion industry to $130 trillion industry, you have at least 10 X gains ahead of you. So your $2000 — $200,000 or $200k a month! That’s $2.4M a year!

---

Becoming a profitable photographer

Everyone is in chase of profits. If you do not chase profits, you are a fool.

What is the easiest way to get profits? Simple; keep your expenses insanely insanely low, this is the key.

The number one rule in money finance and investing; simple, just don’t lose money! 

How does one lose money? There’s 1 trillion ways to lose money;

First, equipment, gear, or never investments. They are the worst thing that causes you to bleed through your money.

If you want a really really great camera that will last you a very very long time, my current suggestion is get the Lumix S9 full frame camera, my personal thought is this body should be able to last you 5 to 10 years, and just get the 26 mm F8 pancake lens which only cost 200 bucks.  The body is around 1500, the lens is about 200 bucks, so the whole set up ($1700) should be able to set you up for a long time.

Or, just buy the cheapest smallest most affordable Fujifilm X camera, also just get a interchangeable lens system. There’s a new XM-5 body, I think it’s only about 800 bucks. And just get the cheapest pancake lens, which should be a little bit less than $1000.

If you’re a hobby photographer, on a budget, just get a used Ricoh GR digital camera, whatever generation suits your budget.  I have already proven in 2017 that you could take insanely great photos on a Rico GR two camera, which was only $600 at the time. And all the new Ricoh GR 3X cameras and beyond, are also insanely good. All around $999 and below.

---

What’s your telos?

Ultimately, with enough time meditation reflection and consideration, it all comes down to philosophy. The philosophy of photography, a concept that I pioneered maybe seven years ago. 

Why does this matter? Ultimately you have to think about the purpose or end goal of things. For example I was looking at this new meta-quest augmented reality glasses that Facebook just put out, and I just watched it, scratching my head, looking at all this impressive technology advancements, and it just made no sense to me. Somewhat along the line, should have come in with a critical thought, and thought;

Is this something that people need and or want?

Kind of a bad thing is that nobody wants it, and also nobody needs it. Apple Vision Pro is an utter disaster, Steve Jobs would have never ever ever allowed to even go into development. Because Steve Jobs was a master mind and understanding the human psyche, human economics and proportions. Never forget the legend of the original iPhone three; pioneer the iPhone three and the iPhone four and 4S to be used only with one hand, with your thumb being able to reach all sides of the screen without stretching. And then, after his tragic passing, all these greedy apple executives, trying to increase shareholder value, kept making the iPhone bigger and bigger, heavier fatter uglier, compromising design for the sake of “power“, inadvertently causing millions of people on the planet to get extreme carpal tunnel pain in their hands, and also, falling victim to this terrible cycle of constantly upgrading their iPhones, until no end.

In fact, I find Apple to be the new loanshark, the new evil presence, the new bank which preys on poor people. 

For example, there’s all these plans now in which you could keep upgrading your iPhone, at a 0% premium, forever. This is terrible; Apple stimulate some sort of fake desire for a fake thing; which doesn’t have any true utility. Everyone knows this, even Apple employees know this. The whole place is a mess.

Even now, just go to any Apple Store, feel the vibes. What was once energetic, happy optimistic and friendly has gone dark, Muros, Molly, unfriendly and cold, terrible to go to.

Back in the day I used to be excited to go to the Apple store like a kid going to a candy shop. Now, I avoid the Apple Store like the plague; even the last time I went to the Apple store, simply to just buy a new iPhone Pro to test it out, I literally had to wait in line for about 30 minutes, Before anyone even attended to me, before I could even purchase my device?

And once again, the biggest benefit to go into a store in real life is you could sense the emotional energy of people. Everyone looked miserable, disgruntled, unhappy.

Choose hope

I think the reason why I am so enthusiastic about bitcoin, Michael sailor, micro strategy and like is that it is full of optimism, hope and happiness. Everyone is happy in the bitcoin community, smiling, optimistic joyful, happy, and everyone is part of the same emotional roller coaster.

And the whole bitcoin network is virtuous because if micro strategy turns into $1 trillion company, the first bitcoin bank or the first bitcoin finances corporation, everyone wins! The price of bitcoin goes to 13 million a bitcoin, everyone wins. The hedge fund managers, the 80-year-old retired person with bitcoin spot ETFs, The individual bitcoin holders, people with the Coinbase account, even the crypto anarchists.

You know the sign of a good investment when both anarchists and traditional corporate capitalist can thrive together. 

I actually had a thought, back when I bought bitcoin for only about six or $7000 of bitcoin… A bitcoin could actually benefit photographers and street photographers, in terms of accepting payments in bitcoin, charging services in bitcoin, we’re also figuring out how to use bitcoin, NFT’s and wrapping it, maybe creating some sort of new economy for photography and art?

I also have this big idea, creating the first Satoshi and bitcoin back photo platform. ARS, arsbeta.com was my first stab at it; but the issue at the time was there was no real financial instrument backing it. Now that lightning has been invented on the bitcoin at work, the ideas of micro transactions with the Toshi’s becomes a real reality; assuming that a single Satoshi is real money, but super super small, like a fraction of a penny; things become very interesting because there is a true financial stake here; real skin in the game.

For example, if every single time I liked your photo, but it cost me a single Satoshi, you would probably think twice about it. And if to follow somebody, cost you a Satoshi or gave us Satoshi to the photographer, or creator… This would be a big idea.

And also, the idea of a photo critique community, shout out to my friend Jun Goodhouse Kim, if commissioning somebody for a real photo critique would accept payments institutions, then, a real new economy could arise.

Currently the number one critical issue with Instagram is that it cost nothing, and the whole platform is being run by bots.

TikTok has become an interesting disruption; back to by mainly in China, and spyware, essentially China has been able to disrupt the social media industry of Instagram, essentially taking everything that America did well with vine, Twitter Instagram and Facebook and YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram stories and making it far better. Making it more entertaining addictive, more toxic?

Actually the number one reason I encourage everybody to delete TikTok, is that it might be the most toxic poisonous substance of them all; because they are a century backed by a low-key evil mainland Chinese corporation, there is zero incentive for the company, Bytedance to moderate or to delete dangerous videos concepts and ideas; the amount of conspiracy theories and weird stuff on TikTok is alarming, even to me. And also, I’m a little bit concerned about all of the unregulated things which are happening on TikTok, at least YouTube Google Facebook Amazon and the like try to do some level of content moderation, with TikTok there is none.

Assuming that Donald Trump gets elected president or whatever, the first thing he should do is probably ban TikTok.  I almost find this to be a moral imperative; there is a terrible asymmetry here;

Why is it that America allows a Chinese corporation like TikTok to operate in America, but mainland China does not allow any tech company to operate on her shores?

Other stuff which are very scary; all of these video games like RIOT games and like, which once again are all run by mainland Chinese corporations, is essentially China’s plan to indoctrinate the heart the souls and the minds of the youth. The best way to spread bad propaganda is through soft propaganda; soft coercion, through entertainment media and the like.  Even a very very weird thing, watch Pacific Rim to the movie; I think they had some financing from a Shanghai backed venture capitalist fund or something; that paints China mainland China in a very favorable light? I recall watching this on an airplane and finding this to be an extremely bizarre thing.

Even apparently, the new Disney Mulan film the live action one, the main actress commended and praised the Hong Kong police for cracking down on the pro democracy student protesters?

And also, let us consider the biggest coward and pussy of them all, John Cena who had to publicly “apologize“, for calling either Taiwan or Tibet a country?

The same goes with any sort of NBA player, because there are so many people in mainland China who love basketball, even this one mainland China governmental official, who I met in Cambodia, super friendly and 100% fluent in English, told me that he named his first son Jordan, after Michael Jordan.

And this is what a lot of people who don’t understand we have never traveled to; the Chinese is the mainland Chinese, the everyday person loves America, American culture, and would honestly prefer to be here than in mainland China. But capital controls, the oppressive government prevents that. And this is once again, why any rich and smart mainland Chinese person will send their kid to an Ivy League school in the states, And or prefer to buy property or homes in Vancouver, because living in China sucks. You don’t want to be a billionaire in Shanghai or Beijing; the pollution itself will kill you.

Back to photography

Life without photography is not a life worth living. Or, a life without photography would be a mistake. 

I think for myself, the biggest draw and appeal of photography is that it is the great antidote to things; the great antidote to joy, driving, happiness and the like.

For example, I still do believe that traveling is good for the soul; better to spend $100,000 on traveling to planet, rather than buying a loser Tesla car. Or even a single-family home, I’m starting to think more and more, buying homes in America’s a scam. Better to just buy bitcoin instead, and see your money 100X from here. 

If I could tell you that buying $1 million a bitcoin today, which is about 16 or 17 bitcoin, would grow to be 100 million in 21 years, and I could tell you this with 100% certain to you, would you do it? Of course! Only an idiot wouldn’t.

But I think the problem is in America, even for us millennials, now that we’re getting older, having kids etc.… Is that having physical property like a single-family home is the Apex of humanly worldly success in America. But this is a 20th century idea, The baby boomers and before then. Or Gen X. A 21st-century idea, in the year 2024 and beyond, is the digital transformation of property, or digital energy which is bitcoin.

Hope

No no no, the world is not going to explode, there will be no World War III, Bill Gates is not trying to inject 5G into your butthole, and control your soul. And no no no, mainland China is not a threat; I think China only has one military base somewhere in Africa, in America has maybe 1000? The power of the US Navy is maybe 10,000 X to that of mainland China, I think the whole red herring of China as a threat is just a distraction, maybe by the US government to encourage increased spending for military budgets. But we all know that nobody can mess with America, even if they wanted to.

Even Russia, the lame duck with loser Putin running the show, obviously Russia is losing. Putin, with his Shorty guy Napoleon complex, thought he could take over Ukraine, and obviously he cannot. And I think sooner or later the people will overthrow him, exile him, or who knows maybe even hang him? Like Marie Antoinette?

Now what?

Once again, photography might be the most democratizing force. For example, like a Camera is very profitable in mainland China, this is why like a Brazil was forced to take down the Tiananmen Square commercial. But the truth is difficult to hide; once you’re rich mainland Chinese kid oligarch from a billionaire family goes to Harvard Yale Stanford UCLA UC Berkeley, and get access to Google or ChatGPT and Gmail; obviously they’re going to discover the truth, and prefer to be in America than China. The only rich mainland Chinese kids who go back to China because they are strong armed by their rich families to come back to inherit the family business, obviously against their own will.

I think I might be the richest millennial I know, or at least anybody who is born in 1988, besides Mark Zuckerberg.

How and why?

First, I think I am the only millennial I know with literally zero debt. Like zero mortgage, which is debt, zero car payments, zero college loans etc. Actually if I think about this in retrospect, growing up poor might have been the most beneficial things: seeing the evils of gambling via my dad, and crushing debt bankruptcy through my mom… Was probably the best indicator or learner that I had in terms of real life experience, in terms of how terrible the evils of debt is.

And also, even going to college… Essentially being able to go for “free”, because my family was poor, I got all these scholarships and grants, and work-study loans, which essentially means that I still have to work, but at least, I had to take on zero debt to pay for my dorm apartment etc.

Voluntary loans

The Only money I borrowed was about $10,000, more for fun; I used that money to backpack through Europe, travel the world in between my junior and senior year etc. But that was optional.

And also, I think the really really big thing; never spending more than $2500 USD on a car? I think that was the sticker price for the last car I purchased which was a 1990 Miata, when I was 21 years old, it might’ve been $3000 USD, getting it used on craigslist, ironically enough because the man selling it had a child on the way, and sold it because it was no longer useful to him having to raise a kid. Funny that I am in similar shoes now, now that Seneca is 3 1/2 years old.

Mindset

I think the number one critical thing is to just change your mindset. One thing which I have learned after the almost 15 years of being self-employed, ever since I was 21 until 36… Is truth be told, nothing in the world is really worth it. No amount of money eating out at a restaurant is ever worth it; purchasing beef ribs at Costco and baking it at home is at least a 100X superior yield than any restaurant, or even all all you can eat Korean barbecue; currently, my favorite spot is Chubby Cattle, but even though they issue there is they have a 90 minute time limit, I think my current record is about 70 plates of beef tongue. I just went to the recent little Tokyo branch which just opened, and the servers, their jaws dropped; asking me whether I was a bodybuilder, given how much I ate, even on the last call I asked for 20 plates of beef tongue, they were skeptical, but I finished it all quite easily.

Spartan is sexy.

True insights ,,, take real risks:

Y’all niggas still taking advances huh? Me and my niggas were taking real chances huh! – Jay Z

The ultimate mindset I suggest is going spartan. Just watch the movie 300, think about King Leonidas. Would King Leonidas blow his money on a Tesla, cybertruck, Lamborghini or Porsche? No! He would know that these things were just for the Persian slaves, those giving fellatio to King Xerxes.

Do you want to be one of the 300 Spartan elite, or do you be one of the million Persian slaves?

There is a motto in the US military, freedom is not free. I would refine this saying; freedom is expensive, very expensive.

The price is sacrifice

True freedom is what you decide to give up, forgo, or sacrifice. This is embodied via the fact that you never eat out, you don’t drink alcohol, you don’t smoke weed or do drugs, you don’t go on trips to Vegas, you don’t watch pornography, you don’t watch any media, you don’t listen to music, podcasts, etc. You don’t watch YouTube, Instagram or TikTok.

People think that being rich means to have millions of dollars, and I want to just spend it all buying stuff. But there is a difference between having $1 million in the bank, and going out and buying a $1 million Bugatti. 

Even Kanye West had a funny quote about being a multi billionaire; you don’t want to be a billionaire because if you are worth $1 billion, you go out and you buy a McDonald’s hamburger for a dollar, and now you’re only a $999,999,999-aire.

Investing

You want real real exposure to risk and reward.

For me, certainly there is a great surge of power joy when you see your investments yield. To see the number go up is good and to see it keep going on is a good thing.

For example, very surprising, people are starting to know that I am an investor, or a trader because I walk around super happy, huge grin on my face, like Arnold in his prime. A boyish grin. And smiles all around!

I think people can smell and sense high testosterone, high power and energy. Even though I dress like a homeless person, half of the time I’m not even wearing a shirt, but people they know.

So essentially the first rule on investing is simple: don’t lose money. Never put your money into anything that you think will cause you to lose money.

So for example, a lot of people think that bitcoin is super risky, but actually it is not. It is just very volatile. And funny enough, it’s a feature not a bug!

Higher volatility = higher returns

The volatility of bitcoin is a feature not a bug!

To quote Michael Saylor, volatility is vitality. The more volatile something is, the more energy they have. To quote the recent Bernstein interview that Michael Saylor had, the reason why LeBron James is the most potent force on the court is because he is the most volatile. Also, volatility is good when it comes to Tsunami because it has massive power. Look at the slides here.

Why are the traditional markets closed in the evening and the weekends?

And also, an insight I gleaned is the reason why bitcoin’s price goes up and down all the time, is that it is being traded 24 7, all the time in real time. Maybe the reason we see less volatility in the traditional markets is because they close! But imagine there was a Cuban missile crisis, Friday night, can you imagine the insanity; you’re not able to withdraw your money or sell your stocks until Monday morning?

“Why doesn’t the future look like the future?” – Elon

Currently we are in the year 2024… We are supposed to be so into the future. It still boggles my mind why in the year 2024, the markets close and open? I did some ChatGPT research on this, why this is, and there are some weird notions of work life balance, or maybe because back in day when stocks were actually traded on the physical floor, like the wolf of Wall Street, it is because they literally traded stocks like pieces of paper, and it was in the physical realm?

But now, because it is all digital… And half of the agents trading online are just bots and robots, there’s literally zero sense for anybody to trade anything that is not online.

Well let me give you a better example, we have all these hipsters telling us that film vinyl and analog things are better. But do they use an iPhone which is powered by gasoline? Or film cartridges?

Can you imagine living without the internet?

---

What’s more important, water or Wi-Fi?

Certainly water is more valuable, but I think the way that people treated nowadays is that Wi-Fi, having internet connectivity 5G is more critical.

I would actually say even with food; you could fast somebody for 40 hours, and even if they have water they will not die. But, if you try doing that with internet, I think the downsides would be much greater.

Easier to fast 40 days without food than to fast 40 days without Wi-Fi. 

---

How I became a trader

My first taste for investing was when I was around 15 years old, it was totally random, learning about stocks, mutual funds, etc. I remember buying about $900 worth of Adobe stock, in writing it up to around $1250, and then later buying some mutual funds. And holding it all in college, maybe it went up to around $1500 or something.

In fact, Dr. Ahmed my science teacher in high school first told me about aggressive mutual funds, and how I should become an emancipated minor and get into trading etc.

Financial freedom at the age of 16?

For me, I think the reason I first got into it was I wanted to feel superior, advanced, ahead of the curve. When most of the kids at school were still begging their parents for a PlayStation, I felt so advanced mature and superior,,, already knowing how to invest in the stock market.

In college, when I was hungry for my own financial freedom, I remember daytrading as a sophomore in college, waking up super fucking early to trade the markets, and note, this is me at around 19 years old. And feeling the hormonal rushes when my money would go up or down. And not being able to concentrate in class because I’m just thinking about the green or reds.

The best lesson of all time

Long story short, I ended up losing all of my money I think my senior year, maybe $3500 worth, because I accidentally misread some of the financials for this one oil company I was invested in (penny stock). I recall, I regretted this so much, and felt so saddened by this at the age of 21, thinking that I would never be able to recover. But now that I am playing with millions of dollars in investing and trading, I learned that it might’ve been the best thing that happened to me, with about 15 years of foresight. Why? I already got rid of the emotional roller coaster as a young child, and as a teenager, and a 21 year-old, which means now, as a 36-year-old man, I am far more calm collected stoic, and unemotional about it.

The stoic investor

My suggestion: don’t get too excited when your gains go up. Otherwise, you will become addicted to the gains. And you might lever up and take foolish financial risks, to see even greater gains.

Good greed, bad greed?

I personally believe there is a difference between good greed and bad greed.

What’s the difference?

Good greed is you’re trying to think 30 years ahead, ahead of the curve, see where the puck is going, not where it currently is. Chasing at least a 10X yield. Or even 100x, or 1000x. But over 30 years.

A foolish greedy person is into professional sports, sports betting, counting cards, playing poker and blackjack, and trying to “time” the market. And make gains in days, weeks, even months.

Michael Saylor and microstrategy has purchased bitcoin 40 times now, every quarter for the last 4 years.

30 years is the reason

If you think 30 years ahead, this cuts through the noise. This is the ultimate razor. ERIC KIM’s razor.

Certainly nobody likes to think 30 years ahead because they want immediate hedonic pleasure right now, through sexual and mental pleasure, physical pleasure, travel and exotic experiences, Omakase sushi, and the pleasure associated with driving a fast high-powered car.

But think about it, even if you have a Porsche 911 GT3 RS, or a Lamborghini with scissor doors, even a Tesla model S plaid, you have no skills. Any skinny fat loser can simply wedge his right foot all the way to the floor, and obviously it will be loud and go fast. This takes no courage besides the foolish fact that you might kill yourself or you might kill somebody else in their car with their kids on board.

Buy weights & bitcoin

My thought is the only true courage is physical courage, weightlifting, powerlifting, one rep Max lifting. The risk of physical injury is high, which motivates you to warm up, be cautious, and set up safeguards. I think one thing that people don’t understand is that weightlifting could actually be the safest activity out there because you could control all of the variables. For example if you’re tired and not in a good mood, the wise thing to do not is not do it. Compare this to professional sports, even when the players are exhausted, they are whipped like cattle to perform, apparently there are stories that back in the day in the NFL, it would be common for lineman to sniff lines of cocaine, before applying to hype themselves up. 

One day of victory is not worth a year of pain

For example, one foolish decision that I made doing an extremely heavy floor bench press, six plates, caused me to injure my wrist which has plagued me for a year and a half, the wise thing to have done was just to take the day off, one day of success is not worth a year and a half of misery. The only reason I did it was because it was my “off day”, and I wanted to stunt on other guys at the gym, very foolish.

Whenever you try to impress yourself, you shall succeed. Whenever you try to impress others you will fail.

I also think this is the wisdom of thinking long-term; nobody wants to be a Ronnie Coleman and be a cripple for the rest of his life, even if you win all the accolades.

What I learned from the book “Pumping Iron”

I think this is also where Arnold Schwarzenegger was very wise; he was on the juice and all of his buddies were, but he had the wisdom of getting out of the bodybuilding game in order to do more interesting ventures, like acting business etc. Because he knew that maybe, all of the bodybuilders taking steroids were doing irreversible harm on themselves.

People sometimes talk about the golden days of bodybuilding… But all these guys were on steroids! Now, it is kind of disgusting, the average female women’s Olympia might have been even buffer than Arnold in his prime.

Who is richer?

Talking to some homeboys from the Toyota dealership, when I ask them what is the difference between me and you? One of the guys said, genuinely, “You are free.” Possibly the best compliment of all time.

Even now, people do this big dick measuring contest, like who is richer. But, this is the wrong measurement.

Let us say you are a straight man, and you sell your soul in your butt hole for gay pornography, and you get paid $1 billion a year. Would you do it? Obviously not!

Certainly there is something sacred and profane here; there are certain things that one does not even for trillion dollars.

For example, if you could give me $900 trillion, but I had to sell my firstborn son into slavery would I do it? Obviously not. Not even if you took that $900 trillion and multiplied it by $1 trillion.

NASSIM TALEB Has this funny quote, to the person who says that they cannot be bribed, you’re just not offering enough money.

And I suppose this is the ultimate test, whether your ethics morality and your personal beliefs matter more than money. Or even the approval of your spouse, etc.

And I think the negative risk, the sacrifice, or the potential for downside is what truly dictates your real beliefs. And what you are willing to forgo.

How to get rich with bitcoin

Very simple, just opened up account with the Coinbase app on your iPhone or whatever, link it with your traditional bank, and just keep buying bitcoin, until the end of time. And the goal is to give it to your kids kids kids.

Become insanely Spartan and frugal, sell your second car, maybe remortgage or refinance your house to get more cash on hand, buy the bitcoin, and ride the 55% ARR until the end of time!

ERIC

---

I think I might be the richest millennial I know, or at least anybody who is born in 1988, besides Mark Zuckerberg.

How and why?

First, I think I am the only millennial I know with literally zero debt. Like zero mortgage, which is debt, zero car payments, zero college loans etc. Actually if I think about this in retrospect, growing up poor might have been the most beneficial things: seeing the evils of gambling via my dad, and crushing debt bankruptcy through my mom… Was probably the best indicator or learner that I had in terms of real life experience, in terms of how terrible the evils of debt is.

And also, even going to college… Essentially being able to go for “free”, because my family was poor, I got all these scholarships in grants, and work-study loans, which essentially means that I still have to work, but at least, I had to take on zero debt to pay for my dorm apartment etc.

Only money I borrowed was about $10,000, more for fun; I use that money to backpack through Europe, travel the world in between my junior and senior year etc. But that was optional.

And also, I think the really really big thing; never spending more than $2500 USD on a car?  I think that was the sticker price for the last car I purchased which was a 1990 Miata, when I was 21 years old, it might’ve been $3000 USD, getting it used on craigslist, ironically enough because the man selling it had a child on the way, and sold it because it was no longer useful to him having to raise a kid. Funny that I am in similar shoes now, now that Seneca is 3 1/2 years old.

Mindset

I think the number one critical thing is to just change your mindset. I sent you what I have learned after the almost 15 years of being self-employed, ever since I was 21 until 36… Is truth be told, nothing in the world is really worth it. No amount of money eating out at a restaurant is ever worth it; purchasing beef ribs at Costco and baking it at home is at least a 100 X superior yield than any restaurant, or even all all you can eat Korean barbecue; currently, my favorite spot is chubby cattle, but even though they issue there is they have a 90 minute time limit, I think my current record is about 70 plates of beef tongue.  I just went to the recent little Tokyo branch which just opened, and the servers, their jaws dropped; asking me whether I was a bodybuilder, given how much I ate, even on the last call I asked for 20 plates of beef tongue, they were skeptical, but I finished it all quite easily.

Spartan is sexy.

True insights ,,, take real risks

Y’all niggas still taking advances huh? Me and my niggas were taking real chances huh! – Jay Z

Ultimate mindset I suggest is ghost spartan. Just watching a movie 300, think about King Leonidas. Would King Leonidas blow his money on a Tesla cyber truck, Lamborghini or Porsche? No! He would know that these things were just for the Persian slaves, those giving fellatio to King Xerxes.

Do you want to be one of the 300 Spartan elite, or do you be one of the million Persian slaves?

There is a motto in the US military, freedom is not free. I would actually say the opposite; freedom is expensive, very expensive.

True freedom is what you decide to give up, forgo, or sacrifice. This is embodied via the fact that you never eat out, you don’t drink alcohol, you don’t smoke weed or do drugs, you don’t go on trips to Vegas, you don’t watch pornography, you don’t watch any media, You don’t listen to music, podcast, etc. You don’t watch YouTube, Instagram or TikTok.

People think that being rich means I have millions of dollars, and I want to just spend it all buying stuff. But there is a difference between having $1 million in the bank, and going out and buying a $1 million Bugatti. 

Even Kanye West had a funny quote about being a multi billionaire; you don’t want to be a billionaire because if you are worth $1 billion, you go out and you buy a McDonald’s hamburger for a dollar, and now you’re only a $999,999,999 Aire.

Investing

You want real real exposure to risk and reward.

For me, certainly there is a great surge of power joy when you see your investments yield. To see the number go up is good and to see it keep going on is a good thing.

For example, very surprising, people are starting to know that I am an investor, or a traitor because I walk around super happy, huge grin on my face, like Arnold in his prime. A boyish grin. And smiles all around!

I think people could smell and sense high testosterone, high power and energy. Even though I dress like a homeless person, half of the time I’m not even wearing a shirt, but people they know.

So essentially the first rule on investing is simple: don’t lose money. Never put your money into anything that you think will cause you to lose money.

So for example, a lot of people think that bitcoin is super risky, but actually it is not. It is just very volatile. And funny enough, it’s a feature not a bug!

The volatility of bitcoin is a feature not a bug!

To quote Michael sailor, volatility is vitality. The more volatile something is, the more energy they have. To quote the recent Bernstein interview that Michael Saylor had, the reason why LeBron James is the most potent force on the court is because he is the most volatile. Also, volatility is good when it comes to Tsunami because it has massive power.

And also, an insight I gleaned is the reason why bitcoin’s price goes up and down all the time, is that it is being traded 24 seven, all the time in real time. Maybe the reason we see less volatility in the traditional markets is because they close! But imagine there was a Cuban missile crisis, Friday night, can you imagine the insanity; you’re not able to withdraw your money or sell your stocks until Monday morning?

And currently we are in the year 2024… We are supposed to be so into the future. It still boggles my mind why in the year 2024, the markets close and open? I also did some ChatGPT research on this, why this is, and there are some weird notions of work life balance, or maybe because back in day when stocks were actually traded on the physical floor, Like the wolf of Wall Street, it is because they literally traded stocks like pieces of paper, and it was in the physical realm?

But now, because it is all digital… And half of the agents trading online are just thoughts and robots, there’s literally zero sense for anybody to trade anything that is not online.

Well let me give you a better example, we have all these hipsters telling us that film vinyl in analog things are better. But do they use an iPhone which is powered by gasoline? Or film cartridges?

Can you imagine living without the Internet?

What’s more important, water or Wi-Fi?

Certainly water is more valuable, but I think the way that people treated nowadays is that Wi-Fi, having Internet connectivity 5G is more critical.

I would actually say even with food; you could fast somebody for 40 hours, and even if they have water they will not die. But, if you try doing that with Internet, I think the downsides would be much greater.

easier to fast 40 days without food than to fast 40 days without Wi-Fi. 

---

How I became a trader

My first taste for investing was when I was around 15 years old, it was totally random, learning about mutual stocks, mutual funds, etc. I remember buying about $900 worth of Adobe stock, in writing it up to around $1250, and then later buying some mutual funds. And holding it all in college, maybe it went up to around $1500 or something.

For me, I think the reason I first got into it was I wanted to feel superior, advanced, ahead of the curve. When most of the kids at school were still begging their parents for a PlayStation, I felt so advanced mature and superior,,, already knowing how to invest in the stock market.

In college, when I was hungry for my own financial freedom, I remember daytrading as a sophomore in college, waking up super fucking early to treat the markets, and note, this is me at around 19 years old. And feeling the hormonal rushes when my money would go up or down. And not being able to con stream in class because I’m just thinking about the green or reds.

Long story short, I ended up losing all of my money I think my senior year, maybe $3500 worth, because I accidentally misread some of the financials for this one oil company. I recall, I regretted this so much, and felt so saddened by this at the age of 21, thinking that I would never be able to recover. But now that I am playing with millions of dollars in investing in trading, I learned that it might’ve been the best thing that happened to me, with about 15 years of foresight. Why? I already got rid of the emotional roller coaster as a young child, and as a teenager, and a 21 year-old, which means now, as a 36-year-old man, I am far more calm collected stoic, and unemotional about it.

The stoic investor

My suggestion: don’t get too excited when your gains go up. Otherwise, you will become addicted to the gains. And you might lever up and take foolish financial risks, to see even greater gains.

Good greed, bad greed?

I personally believe there is a difference between good greed and bad greed.

What’s the difference?

Good greed is you’re trying to think 30 years ahead, ahead of the curve, see where the puck is going, not where it currently is. Chasing at least a 10X yield.

A foolish greedy person is into professional sports, sports betting, counting cards, playing poker and blackjack, and trying to “time” the market.

Michael Saylor and strategy has purchased bitcoin 40 times now, every quarter for the last 4 years.

If you think 30 years ahead, this cuts through the noise. This is the ultimate razor. ERIC KIM’s razor .

Certainly nobody likes to think 30 years ahead because they want immediate hedonic pleasure right now, through sexual and mental pleasure, physical pleasure, travel and exotic experiences, Omakase sushi, and the pleasure associated with driving a fast high-powered car.

But think about it, even if you have a Porsche 911 GT three RS, or a Lamborghini with scissor doors, even a Tesla model S plaid, you have no skills. Any skinny fat loser can simply wedge his right foot all the way to the floor, and obviously it will be loud and go fast. This takes no courage besides the foolish fact that you might kill yourself or you might kill somebody else in their car with their kids on board.

My thought is the only true courage is physical courage, weightlifting, powerlifting, one rep Max lifting. The risk of physical injury is high, which motivates you to warm up, be cautious, and set up safeguards. I think one thing that people don’t understand is that weightlifting could actually be the safest activity out there because you could control all of the variables. Even if you’re retired and not in a good mood, The wise thing to do not is not do it. 

For example, one foolish decision that I made doing an extremely heavy floor bench press, six plates, caused me to injure my wrist which has plugged me for a year and a half, the wise thing to have done was just to take the day off, one day of success is not worth a year and a half of misery.

I also think this is the wisdom of thinking long-term; nobody wants to be a Ronnie Coleman and be a cripple for the rest of his life, even if you want all the accolades.

I think this is also where Arnold Schwarzenegger was very wise; he was on the juice and all of his buddies were, but he had the wisdom of getting out of the bodybuilding game in order to do more interesting ventures, like acting business etc. Because he knew that maybe, all of the bodybuilders taking steroids were doing irreversible harm on themselves.

People sometimes talk about the golden days of bodybuilding… But all these guys were on steroids! Now, it is kind of disgusting, the average female women’s Olympia might have been even buffer than Arnold in his prime.

Who is richer?

Talking to some homeboys from the Toyota dealership, when I ask them what is the difference between me and you? One of the guys said, genuinely, “you are free.” Possibly the best compliment of all time.

Even now, people do this big dick measuring contest, like who is richer. But, this is the wrong measurement.

Let us say you are a straight man, and you sell your soul in your butt hole for gay pornography, and you get paid $1 billion a year. Would you do it? Obviously not!

Certainly There is something sacred and profane here; there are certain things that one does not even for trillion dollars.

For example, if you could give me $900 trillion, but I had to sell my firstborn son into slavery would I do it? Obviously not. Not even if you took that $900 trillion and multiplied it by $1 trillion.

NASSIM TALEB Has this funny quote, to the person who says that they cannot be bribed, you’re just not offering enough money.

And I suppose this is the ultimate test, whether your ethics morality and your personal beliefs matter more than money. Or even the approval of your spouse, etc.

And I think the negative risk, the sacrifice, or the potential for downside is what truly dictates your real beliefs.  And what you are willing to forgo.