Author: admin

  • JUST FIX IT, JUST MOD IT.

    Some capital thoughts:

    OK, it seems that what a lot of us seek is maybe fulfilling a curiosity gap, purchasing something because we think it will boost our happiness, etc. But is this ever the case?

    No!

    At the age of 36, I’ve achieved all my life goals, pretty much purchased everything I’ve ever really wanted, and this is my big lesson:

    No matter how good the stuff you purchase, sooner or later, you will quickly tire and bore of it. 

    Perhaps it is human nature. And this is how we were hardwired.

    However, I think the pernicious effect of consumerism and maybe capitalism is that we have this false belief, this false reality that purchasing XYZ will make us “happy”, or give us everlasting bliss. 

    Or, that having ex amount of income or money in the bank or whatever will make us “happy“, or give us a feeling of security? 

    Male vs Female capital

    This is what I generally observed; through money in capital, women seek a sense of security, belonging, or to be appreciated or desired?

    For example, if you look at all these sexy girls on Instagram or whatever… Or women who spend too much money on clothes, what is it that basic? Acceptance, to be perceived as beautiful, to be desired or desirable.

    Also it seems that with women, the desire of purchasing a home, a single-family home a condo whatever, is a sense of security.

    For men, it seems that we think of as a form of power, power augmentation, and maybe what we conflate is power with happiness?

    What if… power and happiness were not the same thing? But different? 

    What if the fact was in order to become more powerful, you had to become more unhappy? Or conversely… That the most people were actually the least powerful?

    Question; would you rather be the unhappy dragon, or the happy cow?

    How to switch things up

    My neighbor, successful Silicon Valley, google employee, about my age, single, no kids, not yet married, has a girlfriend, seems that he just treated out his old Audi S3 sport for a Porsche 718 sport. And it is funny… Although the engine or the exhaust of the Porsche sounds way cooler, in terms of aesthetics, not much of a difference.

    Actually, the more I look at the Porsche 718,  the more I hate the design. The rear end of it looks terrible!  and assuming that you’re a normal human being who always parks their car nose in, butt out, what that means is almost 100% of the time, you’re going to be staring at your car from behind.

    My personal thought is the best designed Porsche car from behind is certainly the Porsche 911 with the singular blade light. And it also seems that the new Porsche 911, which I think might have a hybrid in it, has a more aesthetic looking tailpipe design.

    Anyways, the problem with design is as good as the design is, it will never less. For example, even my film Leica MP, black paint, fully mechanical, mechanical perfection, with the Leica 35mm f2 Summicron Lens — yeah it is super nice, and essentially the design is perfect ; it is probably the perfect design because it is 100% mechanical, you don’t need a battery for it to take pictures, or operate. The only battery thing in it is the light meter, which is insanely useful. The film Leica M-A does not have a light meter, which almost seems more like a aesthetic exercise, not a practical one. Having a built-in light meter is insanely useful.

    Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler.

    This is why I still think that the film like a MP camera is the most best, the most supreme, because you don’t want to be taking the light meter out of the camera, very much how Rico foolishly got rid of the built-in flash. The Ricoh GR II with the built-in integrated flash is still probably the best one, I think about all the great photos I saw with it, using the built-in flash. The Ricoh GR III/X also insanely great, but still… It seems that the wise optimization is making a little bit bigger, and put back in the flash, rather than just trying to make it super super small, but getting rid of an insanely useful thing, like the built-in flash.

    Kind of like if you’re a man, and you’re trying to “lose weight”, and you decide to chop off your penis in your balls in order to “lose” a pound. Not a good idea.

    Simple ideas

    I think what we humans have a joy in is change over time, or before and afters.

    For example, who is happier? The guy who starts off with the salary at $40,000 a year, and gets a pay raise to $80,000 a year? Or to the guy who makes $1 billion a year, and then his income is reduced to only $10 million a year? Obviously the person in the second scenario is in the far superior economic financial position, but will probably feel miser miserable compared to the guy with a more modest income, who had a massive jump!

    And this is also the funny thing… It is all relative! For example, when I was in college, $3000, $5000, $7000, $10,000, were an unfathomably big number to me. But now, I’m chasing 1.2 million, 2.5 million, $10 million and beyond.

    Also, I guess it’s good that I’ve built a more stoic mindset when it comes to money, for example, if I randomly see my bitcoin balance dip $200,000 or $300,000 down, it doesn’t really bother me that much, whereas in the past, even seeing my money go down $500 or $1000 dollars was like being kicked in the balls. 

    Wise economics

    Very very simple, if you want shits and giggles, never buy anything, either rent it, test drive it, maybe even leasing it might be a better idea. Why? Instead of dropping $80,000 on a brand new car, to just lease it for two or three years, and get it out of your system, might be a better bet than Pissing away all that money that you could otherwise put into bitcoin, and have it 1000X from here. 

    Also, I think one of the joys I have on living very very close to two car dealerships is that I always walk by the cars, and the funny joy is I don’t really feel like I have the need to actually own it; because I could just look at it, it feels like I metaphorically own it!

    For example for a while there was a cyber truck here, and I will look at it every single day, and even the cyber truck, as much as I love it, I eventually bored of it. Even now, I used to be super super excited when I would see a cyber truck on the road, And now, even though it brings a small to my face, it doesn’t bring me the insane excitement that it did before.

    All

    I think this applies to cars women, your bank account account balance balance etc.

    No matter how good grand perfect or whatever… Sooner or later you will bore of it. 

    For example, in regards to women… No matter how beautiful the woman is, sooner or later, assuming that you only got with the woman only for her beauties… Assuming that you just wanted to bet her indefinitely, I could almost guarantee you 100% that After a few fun nights, you will tire and bore.

    Same thing with owning that Lamborghini; I actually had the realization, now that the Hurucan and the Aventador has been outdated and replaced… None of the new Lamborghinis have any appeal to me, practically zero. What I then realize is the whole time, I didn’t really care for the Lamborghini so much, as for what it stood for,  ultimately the only reason why Lamborghini was cool in the first place was because of Kanye West. And as much as people like to ignore, all modern day rappers are all disciples of Kanye West. Even Travis Scott, who was the most raging success, was discovered by Kanye and promoted by Kanye.

    Even apparently Adidas,,, who apparently asked their contract with Kanye because of Kanye‘s controversial “antisemetic” remarks, they are now selling his Yeezy sneakers at a 70% discount!  it shows that I guess then Adidas… They are a bunch of scumbags, and they don’t really support anti antisemitism, – if they really really cared, they would just throw all of the unsold Yeezy supplies into the furnace, because it would be unethical to in for a profit. So ultimately, guys, all corporations and companies, and publicly treated companies have no morals and ethics, why?  if Adidas truly truly did support the Jewish community and if Adidas was truly anti-Kanye West for his anti-Semitism they would never ever ever continue to sellthe Yeezy sneakers, even to  sell off the unsold supply. The ethical thing would have been to either burn or shred the unsold Yeezy supply. 

    How to switch it up

    Very very simple thoughts: first, before selling your car or trading it in for something new, just wash your car, and wax it! Also a very very simple modification you could do to your car is to purchase some Matt Black paint primer, rust oleum, or a shiny glass black paint, and just spray paint your rims either a mat black, gloss black, or satin black. 

    Also ironically, the best mod you could do is removal! For example, just buy some goo gone,  and the debadge your car, get rid of all the emblems! This is what I did to the 2010 Prius that I inherited, and aesthetically I love it so much more without the emblems! 

    Also if you have an old car, get rid of the tent. You know sometimes the older cars when you have the low quality tent, in the tent becomes purple and starts to bubble? Yeah I get rid of that. Also that you really do have a race car or sports car, if you wanted to go faster, get rid of the power steering, air conditioning, And also the radio. And if you really really wanted to be a race car, get rid of all the sound deadening, interior stuff, rear seats, etc. And you could tidy up your engine bay just clean it up!

    If you want a very very simple modification, just purchase some 3M matte black vinyl wrap, and just wrap your car! To wrap your car is very easy, it is just like a big sticker! My suggestion is just do it over some accents and small parts, not the whole car. Why? Even if you purchased the best car wrap on the planet, and have it installed by the best person on the planet, you take care of it with the best sprays cleaning supplies and products, and always keep apart in the garage whatever… Lifetime on these things are maybe 3 to 7 years tops?

    And this is where I’m still a bigger fan of real automotive paint; assuming that you take care of care of a good paint job it might last maybe 20 years? Even 30 years? Assuming also it is a white paint job? And also don’t be a fool; black paint, even the best black paint never lasts, even if you have the best Mercedes car, or BMW or Lexus, sooner you will get the paint scratches, and when it is 100° in LA, you’re going to wish that you did not have that car. And if you do a simple physics test; let us say you live in Arizona or Las Vegas, if you have a black car in the dark sun it will probably not last you 20 or 30 years.

    Then I suppose the question is how long do we want these things to last anyways? Do we really want them to last forever, or are we secretly waiting for it to break, either intentionally or unintentionally, to give us an excuse to “upgrade”?

    Upgrading is a scam

    Some low-key unethical behaviors from Apple; she wants you to trade in your old iPhone, at an 80% loss, to upgrade to her newest most mediocre device, which will also probably be outdated in a year or two? 

    Typically what I see a lot of people do is that they will find a reason to “upgrade” their phone by giving their old phone to their sibling, parents, etc.… But once again guys, this is a very foolish decision.

    My simple thought is the only purpose of an iPhone is for FaceTime and Google maps. This, the iPhone is really quite a mediocre device. 1000,000,000,000 times better to have a iPad Pro, if you really want to be productive.

    In fact, what is the modern Day iPhone Pro? Not a camera, if you really cared for photography you would purchase a standalone digital camera. If you really wanted to increase your productivity you would just buy an 11 inch iPad Pro. Maybe the iPhone, iPhone Pro, is just a mobile pornography device or perhaps a mobile distraction device? 

    True happiness

    My recipe for happiness is simple; sleep 8 to 12 hours a night, walk 30,000 steps a day, maximum time outside all day, never be stuck in doors, to play with your child with full vigor, to lift weights at least once in the day, to have a loving family, too fast all day and to only break your fast right before it is time to sleep, and to essentially have strength vicar and power all day long!

    “Heem”

    In Korean, there’s this notion of “heem”– which just means vigor or strength.

    Also, the notion of getting sick, like the common cold “gam-gee” is meaning that you lost your “gi” (the Chinese call it your “chi”).

    The significance of it is that when you catch a common cold, it essentially you lose your strength, your power.

    To me, the only thing I hate in the world is feeling tired, exhausted, weak, without vigor.  And even a simple thought; I think for a lot of men, the goals to get super super buff, super jacked, insanely muscular arms, whatever… Or to hit a certain inches for your biceps, your arms, to hit certain numbers for your lifts, to hit a certain weight, to hit a certain body fat percentage, whatever… But ultimately, the most critical thing here is having insane vigor, audacity, strength, and power! Physiological power. Nothing else matters.

    This is where that takes away from your physiological is bad. For example, would you eject your seminal fluid, immediately before attempting to lift 1000 pounds? Probably not.

    Also — no boxer would smoke weed, consume alcohol, taking any drugs or downers, immediately before the big fight! Even something I’m not sure… I don’t even think a boxer would drink coffee right before the fight? Why? Even something I discovered with public speaking, the worst thing you could do is to consume caffeine or an upper or a downer right before a big speech. Better to just drink a bunch of water and do it sober. Why? I’ve had an espresso before giving a public talk, or doing a workshop, or drinking coffee before workshop… And once I actually get into action, I become too stimulated, too much adrenaline. 

    Apparently there are a lot of musicians, orchestra people, people in the band or whatever who all take these muscle relaxants, or these downers, or calming drugs before getting on stage to deal with stage anxiety… But this is also a bad idea because it will make you a bit slower, and you will lose your edge.

    Water is best.


    What if everything you believed in was false?

    After watching the bigger stronger faster documentary on steroids, very eye-opening. Everyone is on some sort of steroid or drug! Even jetfighter, in the Air Force, “go pills”– they take it like candy! Also, an interesting history of science book and medicine, “Blitzed”– outlined how the panzer Blitzkrieg nazi tank operators, were essentially all high on cocaine and meth, in order to drive their tanks straight for three days without food rest or stopping. Even apparently, Adolf Hitler was high on all these drugs, and even had his own private doctor prescribe him all these anti anxiety pills and medicines —

    And you see this in show business all the time — all of these super successful media personalities end up overdosing on heroin cocaine, or end up committing suicide? Anthony Bourdain, Robin Williams?

    All media is bad.

    This apparently happens a lot to child actors, think of Degrassi Drake — i’m sure being part of the whole whole factory of Nickelodeon at such a young age, was probably traumatizing. I would not be surprised if the truth was even the rapper Drake was sexually abused as a child.

    This is where it is wise to assume that all show business is evil; never let your kids get into it, not for any sum of money or fame!

    Facts

    Let us do some simple mathematics, calculations, and thought experiments: let us say that for living, you depend on YouTube advertising. And you want to maximize your views your clicks, your walk-throughs, etc.… Certainly it will be your best interest to create things which are maximally controversial, Crazy, insane, as well as bad.

    Also this is where we could consider Instagram for young girls almost like child pornography; if you are a young teenage girl, or even in your 20s, what maximizes views clicks followers etc.? Obviously things which are more sexual in nature. Very very creepy, let us see your daughter is on Instagram, and you have single 50 or 60-year-old men  calling her watching her videos, looking at her pictures, certainly you will not like that.


    Physique is overrated

    I’m starting to think, perhaps physique is overrated.

    Why? Men and women who chase physique, will sooner or later do weird stuff.

    For example —  men who see physique will eventually start injecting their butt holes with steroids. Women who seek physique will eventually start injecting their lips, their faces, also their butts.

    Why do we care for physique so much?

    Curious question… Why is it that we seek physique so much? 

    Physique is the same thing like the exterior of your car, “All show, no go”.

    I think my theory is that appearances physique is marketable. For example, let us say you have a sports car, and you have done no exterior modifications, and you have a “sleeper” car. 

    Now a lot of people, they would spend all their money to modify the exterior of their car. Why? Because it is the only thing that will help you get likes on social media. Also, when you are on the road, it is the only thing that people could see. 

    But the reason why when I was really into modifying my car, I only cared for engine mods was because when you’re driving your car, you could only feel the “butt dyno”– for example, change over time, let us say you install a new short ram intake, headers, exhaust etc.… You will feel a difference in performance, but if you do some sort of exterior modification, you cannot enjoy it while you are inside your car driving.

    The correct strategy

    I think in life, the best and the most correct strategy is it is better to take a $2000 sports car, and slowly modify it, rather than already purchase a $100,000 vehicle. If your end objective is to maximize your pleasure happiness, and fun, this is the best bet. 

    For example, don’t buy the loser Porsche 911 convertible, just buy an old Mazda Miata, 1990– 5 speed, manual, no air conditioning no power steering – and feel free to thrash it around as you like!

    This is why I’m so happy with the 2010 Prius I got; I feel zero recompense on spray painting the rims, changing it up, and fucking around with it!

    I suppose this is where the upside of cheap and free is; for example if you really wanted to become a fashion designer, just buy some insanely cheap clothes or free clothes, and take some heavy duty scissors and cut off the sleeves, make it a crop top whatever. Even apparently nowadays, the trend is jean shorts, ”jorts”– which is very very easy to do if you just took your old jeans and just cut off the legs!

    Fashion?

    Fashion means how you make yourself.

    Facere– to make.

    The simple bifurcation of fashion:

    With clothing and fashion, are you trying to highlight your beauty, or hide your ugliness? 

    For example, it seems that the whole genius of LA girls just wearing leggings all the time, especially when they just wear white leggings, is for them to show off all their body parts, legally. 

    If you’re a man, legally you do not need to wear a shirt when you’re out in public. So if your man, spend zero money on T-shirts, shirts, etc. I think the best thing to wear is a tank top, assuming you have to be somewhere indoors or whatever… But a simple thing you could just do is just take your old T-shirt, and just cut off the sleeves! 

    Crop top it?

    Even a simple idea; I see women do this all the time, is wearing a crop top, showing off their belly and belly button. 

    A simple thing you could do as a man is to to make your own crop top! It seemed that when I was a teenager growing up, everyone was so anti-gay, only gay guys were crop tops, to signal that they were gay. But now, You could do anything you want!

    If anything, more interesting for a straight guy with a kid  to be wearing a crop top in public, obviously signaling he is not gay — assuming that the kid is biologically his, assuming that she has a wife,

    Even something funny and disruptive I did at my old gym, was when I was about to lift a really really heavy, I would roll up my shirt, and expose my belly button, and even my nipples, and nobody ever said anything! And I think some guys at the gym might’ve thought I was gay, but then when I would chop it up with the women at the gym, they would be confused?

    The best life

    It is my personal belief that the best life involves and revolves around being outside all day, walking around all day, on your two feet all day,  without having to sit down or be indoors

    And also, what is heaven on earth? A happy family!  

    Assuming you’re trying to maximize your happiness joy and pleasure in life, the obvious strategy is to have at least one kid. Ideally two; ideally a boy and a girl, in order to maximize and augment your human experiences. Certainly raising a boy and a girl is different.

  • NOT THE SAME BREED?

    I’m not like them

    Some random funny thoughts:

    Breeds of dogs & breeds of humans?

    OK… let us apply a line of thinking to dogs, different breeds of dogs. For example, certainly a canine or pitbull would be a much better and ferocious fighter than a pug or a hotdog wiener dog.

    But the funny thing is I think all breeds of dogs could pro generate with one another, irregardless of breed? 

    Also certainly with human beings, there are some families which are naturally taller, some families which are naturally shorter. And certainly there has been some sort of genetic diversification on the planet and beyond, especially when it comes a different parts of the planet.

    For example, certain places certain humans have more bodily hair, possibly to dissipate the heat. Other places, darker pigments to fight off the sun. It makes sense, if your family genetic heritage is from sub-Saharan Africa, logically the human body will produce more pigment to fight off the sun then if your genetic heritage was from northern Sweden, in which during the winter time you might only get 30 minutes of sun.

    Why others are confused by me

    I’m starting to feel more and more… maybe other people, they’re just a different breed than me. For example, I think of myself kind of like a canine, a K9 attack police dog, and everyone else is just a wiener dog? Or annoying poodles?

    And so then… when other people try to punk me around, I have zero tolerance for it.

    For example, let us say that you were a ferocious fighting dog, and there’s a random annoying poodle that starts barking at you! Or tries to bully you around? How would you respond? Obviously you would just want the damn poodle to shut up!

    Thinking about Achilles

    In my mind, I see myself like an Achilles. I see myself like the most handsome, powerful, dominant, ultra being out there. And perhaps it is precisely my oversized ego is where I get my power.

    I think there are a lot of sissy philosophers and thinkers who somehow think that ego is a bad thing. I think this is not the case. Your ego is almost like your balls and your testicles… would you castrate yourself because sometimes it makes you too angry– having big balls and a lot of testosterone is almost like overpower.

    For example, we think about Dragon Ball Z, Goku going super Saiyan etc.… Obviously you want the golden flaming flowing hair, and the ultra power of going super Saiyan! But let us say that with the ability to go super Saiyan, there were also some downsides like sometimes you cannot tolerate the power? Would you sacrifice it? Of course not!

    Niagara Falls would make a great bitcoin mining rig 

    Kind of like a raging river, Niagara Falls; would the point be to simply cut it off … or wouldn’t a more intelligent strategy to be to harness it like putting a water electricity damn thing on it, harness the hydropower, not to cut it off?

    And this is my critique about modern day times, it seems like a lot of people are trying to do is to castrate the source, rather than channel that energy for positive constructive good things!

    Don’t castrate yourself!

    For example, the ego should be something augmented, amplified and magnified, but also concurrent channeled in such a way which could be empowering and useful for others?

    How?

    So can we use the ego in a constructive or positive way?

    First, a non-competitive spirit… just compliment everybody you see! Even if somebody is taller, more good looking, handsomer, richer, more successful, buffer than you! When you see somebody with a great physique, the correct strategy is to compliment them and acknowledge them!

    Second, to harness and channel your ego and your energy and your physiological power towards writing, producing text, making videos, podcasts etc.… Sharing ideas, irregardless of how unethical they may seem.

    If anything… I’m starting to think more and more, the only interesting ideas are the unethical ones. Or the ones which are shunned by mainstream modern day society.

    To me, the only good ideas are the bad ones. When an idea seems right, and it seems to make sense, typically it is bad and or wrong.

    Follow your values

    When it comes to values, there is no right or wrong, there are simply authentic to yourself, or not.

    For example, my values and beliefs in open source, entrepreneurship, and empowerment through photography are true. Why? I grew up poor, single working mom waiting tables at Japanese sushi restaurant for nearly 20 years, and also almost went homeless twice. A lot of your own personal narrative forms who you are.

    As a consequence, I think the idea is not too shroud who you are, your own personality etc., but rather to magnify it!

    Magnify your personality!

    For example, I’m a very inquisitive, curious person, and I’d like to chop it up! I like to be friendly!

    Funny enough… I try to be friendly to everybody, but people who are standoffish, or bizarro, they react to me in very bizarre ways. But should I suddenly shut down my friendly personality because other guy is a cowardly poodle? No!

    ERIC KIM PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT

    Ever since I was a kid, what was my great gift? Being a great entertainer! I am literally the most entertaining person that I know, I’ve only met maybe two people in the flesh who outperformed me.

    Maybe it is a form of social conquest, trolling around, having fun etc.! Maybe it is that I seek to be the biggest dick in the room? 

    But it’s supposed to question is, why do I care? Why do I care to be the biggest dick in the room?

    Not sure? Maybe the desire to dominate is in my DNA?

    How I became the street photographer 

    Whether you like it or not, all street photographers, especially young ones are disciples of ERIC KIM. How and why? I essentially created a metaphorical Bible or textbook or encyclopedia and ultimate resource for anything revolving around street photography. Why?

    100 lessons from the masters of street photography

    It was always my number one goal to be the number one street photographer on Google, to become number one in street photography. As a consequence, my laser like eyes and focus was insanely simple; do everything I could do to become number one on Google for street photography. And the strategy was very very simple, create the most in-depth articles blog posts and information for everything street photography! It took me nearly a decade, but I did it! After that, other domains to conquer.

    But the funny thing is in today’s world… certainly Google is relevant, but now that ChatGPT is coming out with their own search engine, which is in my opinion at least 1000 X more intelligent, google should be scared, very scared. 

    What is the future?

    Obviously it will be ChatGPT and AI, open AI.

    Let us consider… AI and cars. Besides the vanity object, the ideal is for your car to be 100% self driving, and this is where Tesla is a great bet; one should think of Tesla like artificial intelligence company with wheels.

    Because the truth is, if you compare the ride quality of any Tesla car and any Toyota, the Toyota is superior and almost every single shape and form, besides speed. A Tesla is very very uncomfortable, the springs are too harsh, the ride quality is inferior to even my 2010 Prius!

    For example, if you wanted a car with the ultimate ride comfort, you would probably purchase a Lexus vehicle, or maybe a Mercedes? 

    Even though I love Tesla and Elon Musk to death, the cars feel pretty cheap. If you wanted the best car, probably get a Lexus LS.

    Autopilot is the killer feature

    But anyways, the really intelligent strategy is to purchase the cheapest base level Tesla car, with the most basic options, and just purchase auto pilot. I think auto pilot for about $8000 is the best deal of all time; it is like having your own personal driving slave that doesn’t need to be fed, paid, never gets tired, is always ready.

    Even the new Google pixel that comes with the new pro Gemini AI… If your life runs on Gmail, it is kind of the game changer.

    If you can’t beat them join them 

    Even Apple is lagging behind in artificial intelligence, the new Apple Intelligence looks pretty lame. Super smart that the Apple team decided to integrate with open AI to integrate ChatGPT into her services; if you can’t beat them, join them. 

    Rather than Apple trying to create a ChatGPT copycat, simply to integrate or offer ChatGPT services on the iPhone is the smart way.

    I guess Google has had a bit of a headstart; she was in the AI game for a very long time. And this is where Google to pivot to focus on AI is a good idea. 

    So what will be the purpose of humans now?

    In a brave New World of ChatGPT, AI etc.… What is the purpose or the significance of humans?

    The first step is to transfer all of the tedious tasks from humans to ChatGPT. Or AI.

    For example, the greatest innovation of TurboTax is having that new AI that automatically has you categorize all of your expenses. Oh my god, this was literally the most hateful thing about doing my taxes, having to categorize all of my different deductions. But now, what would otherwise take me about eight hours, takes me about eight seconds when you connect TurboTax with your bank accounts.

    I love TurboTax!

    And this is where the future of things become interesting; all these things in the past which we had to do inefficiently slowly and begrudgingly… we should just let AI do it, and we humans do more meaningful things. 


    Slave Work, Master Work?

    I think this is the future; let AI be the new slave, and you, the flesh bound human being, you do the human creative work!

    The ultimate disruption 

    ChatGPT is one quadrillion times more productive than you. This is a big deal. Why?

    What that means is that the purpose of us humans is not productivity. We can finally unchain ourselves from the leashes of this ridiculous notion of productivity. 

    How do the gods of mount Olympus live?

    The gods, who live at ease. 

    You fools, the point of life is not to give fellatio to hard things, hard lives, etc. We should be like Zeus, with the mighty thunderbolt, the gods lived in supreme ease.

    This is also the funny thing is that when a lot of people retire, make a bunch of money or whatever they are lost… they don’t know how to embrace or live a life of ease; they’re still trying to grind their nose against the grinder, because for their whole life, that is what their life was? 

    I would say emulate the gods of the Iliad, ancient Greece. Read the new Iliad translation by Emily Wilson, I purchased it in the iBooks store, reading on my iPad Pro and I love it!

    Ethos

    I suppose that the primary thing here to consider is the ethos of human humanity, reasons of living etc.

    I think for too long, the whole ethos of humanity was to maximize productivity, income income earning potential, money and capital and capitalism etc.… but once again, if bitcoin, AI and ChatGPT can do it better than you, by 1 billion fold,,, what is your new life ethos?

    Risk free returns

    Assuming that you’re a big contractor, and you’re building a new skyscraper or commercial real estate or whatever, what is the goal? To create income producing property, and to eventually cop a profit?

    However the great issue here is the cost to capital; the startup costs and the initial investment is too high! As a consequence, let us say that you invested $1 billion to build this new commercial real estate… You eventually have to find all these tenants to sign a lease, occupy it, pay the lease or the rent, and maybe in 20 or 30 years you can make a positive profit? 

    Assuming that bitcoin is digital capital, digital land, digital real estate… The cost of capital is practically zero, you just have to sit and vest, I can almost guarantee you that you have a 0% risk over 30 years. And I can almost guarantee you with 100% clarity that bitcoin will go up in the next 30 years. 

    I also like the notion of bitcoin being digital real estate because nobody checks their home price on Zillow 10 times a day, reacting to short term increases or decreases or volatility.

    Why is bitcoin so volatile?

    It is a feature, not a bug!

    First, you could trade bitcoin 24/7, 365, every millisecond. 
    Let us consider how insane this is… It is the year 2024, we live in the future, and traditional markets are closed on the weekends? This is 1 trillion times bizarre.

    Assuming that the real world was like a science fiction film… Can you Which economic trading doesn’t happen on the weekends?

    So this is why bitcoin is so volatile and always goes up and down, almost randomly because it is always trading! I wonder if the volatility of other assets and stocks are a lot less because simply you can’t trade it on the weekends.


    Flesh future

    I’m pretty sure that almost 99.9% of men, assuming that they have an iPhone, probably watches porn every single day, almost 100% certain at least once a week or once a month etc. Or better yet, if you want to see whether your friend watches porn or not, ask to see his laptop, and to see whether they have a torrenting or VPN application installed on their MacBook laptop– utorrent, Trasmission etc.

    Or, if they have the brave browser on their phone, Google Chrome incognito etc.

    Almost every single person I know who works in tech, knows how to program or code whatever, all use pirate bay.

    Anyways, once again another bizarre thing; one would never watch pornography which is centered around ideas, souls, personalities, etc. It is always the flesh, the human body!

    Why did it in modern day times, we are trying to deny the human body, and trying to promote instead, one’s “personality” and “mind” and “soul”– ?


    Build your body

    Become a body – builder ,,, obviously without the steroids!

    ERIC


    All injected hormones are bad hormones

    Unless you have cancer, HIV aids, and is literally a life or death thing.

    EK


  • NOT THE SAME BREED?

    Some random funny thoughts:

    OK… Let us apply to dogs, different breeds of dogs. For example, certainly a canine or pitbull would be a much better and ferocious fighter than a pug or a hotdog wiener dog.

    But the funny thing is I think all breeds of dogs could pro generate with one another, irregardless of breed? 

    Also certainly with human beings, there are some families which are naturally taller, some families which are naturally shorter. And certainly there has been some sort of genetic diversification on the planet and beyond, especially when it comes a different parts of the planet.

    For example, certain places certain humans have more bodily hair, possibly to dissipate the heat. Other places, darker pigments to fight off the sun. It makes sense, if your family genetic heritage is from sub-Saharan Africa, logically the human body will produce more pigment to fight off the sun then if your genetic heritage was from northern Sweden, in which during the winter time you might only get 30 minutes of sun.

    I’m starting to feel more and more… Maybe other people, they’re just a different breed than me. For example, I think of myself kind of like a canine, a K9 attack police dog, and everyone else is just a wiener dog? Or annoying poodles?

    And so then… When other people try to punk me around, I have zero tolerance for it.

    For example, let us say that you were a ferocious fighting dog, and there’s a random annoying poodle that starts barking at you! Or tries to bully you around? How would you respond? Obviously you would just want the damn poodle to shut up! 

    Thinking about Achilles

    In my mind, I see myself like an Achilles. I see myself like the most handsome, powerful, dominant, ultra being out there. And perhaps it is precisely my oversized ego is where I get my power.

     I think there are a lot of sissy philosophers and thinkers who somehow think that ego is a bad thing. I think this is not the case. Your ego is almost like your balls and your testicles… would you castrate yourself because sometimes it makes you too angry– having big balls and a lot of testosterone is almost like overpower.

    For example, we think about Dragon Ball Z, Goku going super Saiyan etc.… Obviously you want the golden flaming flowing hair,  and the ultra power of going super Saiyan! But let us say that with the ability to go super Saiyan, there were also some downsides like sometimes you cannot tolerate the power? Would you sacrifice it? Of course not!

    Kind of like a raging river, Niagara Falls; with the point be to simply cut it off … or wouldn’t a more intelligent strategy to be to harness it like putting a water electricity damn thing on it, harness the hydropower, not to cut it off?

    And this is my critique about modern day times, it seems like a lot of people are trying to do is to castrate the source, rather than channel that energy for positive constructive good things!

    For example, the ego should be something augmented, amplified and magnified, but also concurrent channeled in such a way which could be empowering and useful for others?

    how?

    So can we use the ego in a constructive or positive way?

    First, a non-competitive spirit… Just complement everybody you see! Even if somebody is taller, more good looking, handsomer, richer, more successful, buffer than you! When you see somebody with a great physique, the correct strategy is to compliment them and acknowledge them!

    Second, two harness and channel your ego and your energy and your physiological power towards riding, producing text, making videos, podcasts etc.… Sharing ideas, irregardless of how unethical they may seem.

    If anything… I’m starting to think more and more, the only interesting ideas are the unethical ones. Or the ones which are shunned by mainstream modern day society.

    To me, the only good ideas are the bad ones. When an idea seems right, and it seems to make sense, typically it is bad and or wrong.

    Follow your values

    When it comes to values, there is no written wrong, there are simply authentic to yourself, or not.

    For example, my values and beliefs in open source, entrepreneurship, impartment through photography are true. Why? I grew up poor, single working mom waiting tables at Japanese sushi restaurant for nearly 20 years, and also almost went homeless twice. A lot of your own personal narrative forms who you are.

    As a consequence, I think the idea is not too shroud who you are, your own personality etc., but rather to magnify it!

    For example, I’m a very inquisitive, curious person, and I’d like to chop it up! I like to be friendly!

    Funny enough… I tried to be friendly to everybody, but people who are standoffish, or bizarro, they react to me in very bizarre ways. But should I suddenly shut down my friendly personality because other guy is a cowardly poodle? No!

    ERIC KIM PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT

    Ever since I was a kid, what was my great gift? Being a great entertainer! I am literally the most entertaining person that I know, I’ve only met maybe two people in the flesh who outperformed me.

    Maybe it is a form of social conquest, trolling around, having fun etc.! Maybe it is that I seek to be the biggest dick in the room? 

    But it’s supposed to question is, why do I care? Why do I care to be the biggest dick in the room?

    Not sure? Maybe the desire to dominate is in my DNA? 

    How I became the street photographer 

    Whether you like it or not, I’ll stream the photographer, especially young ones are disciples of ERIC KIM. How and why? I essentially created a metaphorical Bible or textbook or encyclopedia and ultimate resource for anything revolving around street photography. Why?

    It was always my number one goal to be the number one street photographer on Google, to become number one in street photography. As a consequence, my laser like eyes and focus was insanely simple; do everything I could to become number one on Google for street photography. And the strategy was very very simple, create the most in-depth articles blog posts and information for everything street photography! It took me nearly a decade, but I did it! After that, other domains to conquer.

    But the funny thing is in today’s world… certainly Google is relevant, but now that ChatGPT is coming out with their own search engine, which is in my opinion at least 1000 X more intelligent, google should be scared, very scared. 

    What is the future?

    Obviously it will be ChatGPT and AI, open AI.

    Let us consider… AI and cars. Besides the vanity object, the ideal is for your car to be 100% self driving, and this is where Tesla is a great bet; one should think of Tesla like artificial intelligence company with wheels.

    Because the truth is, if you compare the ride quality of any Tesla car and any Toyota, the Toyota is superior and almost every single shape and form, besides speed. A Tesla is very very uncomfortable, the springs are too harsh, the ride quality is inferior to even my 2010 Prius!

    For example, if you wanted a car with the ultimate ride comfort, you would probably purchase a Lexus vehicle, or maybe a Mercedes? 

    But anyways, the really intelligent strategy is to purchase the cheapest base level Tesla car, with the most basic options, and just purchase auto pilot. I think auto pilot for about $8000 is the best deal of all time; it is like having your own personal driving slave that doesn’t need to be fed, paid, never gets tired, is always ready.

    Even the new Google pixel that comes with the new pro Gemini AI… If your life runs on Gmail, it is kind of the game changer.

    Even Apple is lagging behind in artificial intelligence, the new Apple Intelligence looks pretty lame. Super smart that the Apple team decided to integrate with open AI to integrate ChatGPT into her services; if you can’t beat them, join them. 

    Rather than Apple trying to create a ChatGPT copycat, simply to integrate or offer ChatGPT services on the iPhone is the smart way.

    I guess Google has had a bit of a headstart; she was in the AI game for a very long time. And this is where Google to pivot to focus on AI is a good idea. 

    so what will be the purpose of humans now?

    In a brave New World of ChatGPT, AI etc.… What is the purpose or the significance of humans?

     the first step is to transfer all of the tedious tasks from humans to ChatGPT. Or AI.

    For example, the greatest innovation of TurboTax is having that new AI that automatically has you categorize all of your expenses. Oh my god, this was literally the most hateful thing about doing my taxes, having to categorize all of my different deductions.  But now, what would otherwise take me about eight hours, takes me about eight seconds when you connect TurboTax with your bank accounts.

    And this is where the future of things become interesting; all these things in the past which we had to do inefficiently slowly and begrudgingly… we should just let AI do it, and we humans do more meaningful things. 

    Slave Work, Master Work?

    I think this is the future; let AI be the new slave, and you, the flesh bound human being, you do the human creative work!

    The ultimate disruption 

    ChatGPT is one quadrillion times more productive than you. This is a big deal. Why?

    What that means is that the purpose of us humans is not productivity. We can finally unchain ourselves from the leashes of this ridiculous notion of productivity. 

    How do the gods of mount Olympus live?

    The gods, who live at ease. 

    You fools, the point of life is not to give fellatio to hard things, hard lives, etc. We should be like Zeus, with the mighty thunderbolt, the gods lived in supreme ease.

    This is also the funny thing is that when a lot of people retire, make a bunch of money or whatever they are lost… they don’t know how to embrace or live a life of ease; they’re still trying to grind their nose against the grinder, because for their whole life, that is what their life was? 

    I would say emulate the gods of the Iliad, ancient Greece. Read the new Iliad translation by Emily Wilson, I purchased it in the iBooks store, reading on my iPad Pro and I love it!

    Ethos

    I suppose that the primary thing here to consider is the ethos of human humanity, reasons of living etc.

    I think for too long, the whole ethos of humanity was to maximize productivity, income income earning potential, money and capital and capitalism etc.… But once again, if bitcoin, AI and ChatGPT can do it better than you, by 1 billion fold,,, what is your new life ethos?

    Risk free returns

    Assuming that you’re a big contractor, and you’re building a new skyscraper or commercial real estate or whatever, what is the goal? To create income producing property, and to eventually coup a profit?

    However the great issue here is the cost to capital; the startup costs and the initial investment is too high! As a consequence, let us say that you invested $1 billion to build this new commercial real estate… You eventually have to find all these tenants to sign a lease, occupy it, pay the lease or the rent, and maybe in 20 or 30 years you can make a positive profit? 

    Assuming that bitcoin is digital capital, digital land, digital real estate… The cost of capital is practically zero, you just have to sit and vest, I can almost guarantee you that you have a 0% risk over 30 years. And I can almost guarantee you with 100% clarity that bitcoin will go up in the next 30 years. 

    I also like the notion of bitcoin being digital real estate because nobody checks their home price on Zillow 10 times a day, reacting to short term increases or decreases or volatility.

    Why is bitcoin so volatile?

    It is a feature, not a bug!

    First, you could trade bitcoin 24/7, 365, every millisecond. 
    Let us consider how insane this is… It is the year 2024, we live in the future, and traditional markets are closed on the weekends? This is 1 trillion times bizarre.

    Assuming that the real world was like a science fiction film… Can you Which economic trading doesn’t happen on the weekends?

    So this is why bitcoin is so volatile and always goes up and down, almost randomly because it is always trading! I wonder if the volatility of other assets and stocks are a lot less because simply you can’t trade it on the weekends.


    Flesh future

    I’m pretty sure that almost 99.9% of men, assuming that they have an iPhone, probably watches porn every single day, almost 100% certain at least once a week or once a month etc. Or better yet, if you want to see whether your friend watches porn or not, ask to see his laptop, and to see whether they have a torrenting or VPN application installed on their MacBook laptop– utorrent, Trasmission etc.

    Or, if they have the brave browser on their phone, Google Chrome incognito etc.

    Almost every single person I know who works in tech, knows how to program or code whatever, all use pirate bay.

    Anyways, once again another bizarre thing; one would never watch pornography which is centered around ideas, souls, personalities, etc. It is always the flesh, the human body!

    Why did it in modern day times, we are trying to deny the human body, and trying to promote instead, one’s “personality” and “mind” and “soul”– ?


  • Black & White Vlog

    Video Podcast

    PDF

    Audio

    Black & White

    Add more extreme contrast to your life:

    Man is black, woman is white? 

    Increasing contrast?

    I’m starting to think that if we apply the black-and-white art photography aesthetic to real life, maybe the idea of “preserving the midtones“ is a bit boring.

    The general notion of crushing the blacks is when you’re processing or post processing your photos, you dragged the black slider all the way to 100, and you also crank up the contrast to 100.

    Aesthetically, I think this makes for much more striking and interesting images.

    First, midtones are boring. Almost universally, the more you increase the contrast of something or the photos, the better.

    For example, even when we design our homes. What is the best way to design a home? Very very simple, use white and black accents.

    For example in my eyes, the ideal home exterior paint color is not a matte black, but rather, a pure clean white, with black trimming.

    Also, with cars… I think we’ve discovered is the apex is both a shiny white with shiny black accents — gloss, not matte.

    I think matte, matte black, the whole matte aesthetic is centered around jet stealth fighters, which desire to escape enemy detection. So typically when you try to matte black your car and murder it out… aesthetic you’re going for stealth bomber, or jet fighter aesthetic?

    But the irony that I find… nobody would ever matte black or murder out their Prius, to escape detection from the police or the other party. We typically do it to our sports cars, our Teslas, etc. 

    Put the strange inconsistency I see here is on one hand, we want to be seen and to show up, on the other hand, we want to be fake low-key, and be “humble”?

    Bitch be humble?

    A few years back, the song HUMBLE by Kendrick Lamar went triple maxi viral. It was the most viral song of all time, maybe even more viral than the recent “They Not Like Us” song.

    The song was very bizarre to me. Because I’m not sure what Kendrick was really trying to say. Two interpretations —

    1. First, he is calling the counterparty a bitch, and telling them to sit down and be humble because I am so much greater than you
    2. Or, trying to remind everybody to be humble in general.

    But the weird inconsistency in modern day life is we are centered around Christian Jesus ethics, or some sort of quaker Protestant morality which is centered around notion of humility, being humble, close to the ground etc. This is why you will never ever ever meet a rich person in America called themselves rich, they will call themselves “fortunate“, or “lucky”.

    Also another bizarre thing in the world of bodybuilding… you almost never ever ever see bodybuilders proud to flex unabashedly, like Arnold in the documentary Pumping Iron, back in the day. It is very uncommon for you to see self-confident men at the gym, working out topless, in booty shorts, 3 inch short shorts, flexing their muscles in the mirror, not trying to hide it etc.

    The big issue with the typical bodybuilder is that they are trying to become dominant, but be humble about it? Really weird?

  • Black & White

    Add more extreme contrast to your life:

    Man is black, woman is white? 

    Increasing contrast?

    I’m starting to think that if we apply the black-and-white art photography aesthetic to real life, maybe the idea of “preserving the midtones“ is a bit boring.

    The general notion of crushing the blacks is when you’re processing or post processing your photos, you dragged the black slider all the way to 100, and you also crank up the contrast to 100.

    Aesthetically, I think this makes for much more striking and interesting images.

    First, midtones are boring. Almost universally, the more you increase the contrast of something or the photos, the better.

    For example, even when we design our homes. What is the best way to design a home? Very very simple, use white and black accents.

    For example in my eyes, the ideal home exterior paint color is not a matte black, but rather, a pure clean white, with black trimming.

    Also, with cars… I think we’ve discovered is the apex is both a shiny white with shiny black accents — gloss, not matte.

    I think matte, matte black, the whole matte aesthetic is centered around jet stealth fighters, which desire to escape enemy detection. So typically when you try to matte black your car and murder it out… aesthetic you’re going for stealth bomber, or jet fighter aesthetic?

    But the irony that I find… nobody would ever matte black or murder out their Prius, to escape detection from the police or the other party. We typically do it to our sports cars, our Teslas, etc. 

    Put the strange inconsistency I see here is on one hand, we want to be seen and to show up, on the other hand, we want to be fake low-key, and be “humble”?

    Bitch be humble?

    A few years back, the song HUMBLE by Kendrick Lamar went triple maxi viral. It was the most viral song of all time, maybe even more viral than the recent “They Not Like Us” song.

    The song was very bizarre to me. Because I’m not sure what Kendrick was really trying to say. Two interpretations —

    1. First, he is calling the counterparty a bitch, and telling them to sit down and be humble because I am so much greater than you
    2. Or, trying to remind everybody to be humble in general.

    But the weird inconsistency in modern day life is we are centered around Christian Jesus ethics, or some sort of quaker Protestant morality which is centered around notion of humility, being humble, close to the ground etc. This is why you will never ever ever meet a rich person in America called themselves rich, they will call themselves “fortunate“, or “lucky”.

    Also another bizarre thing in the world of bodybuilding… you almost never ever ever see bodybuilders proud to flex unabashedly, like Arnold in the documentary Pumping Iron, back in the day. It is very uncommon for you to see self-confident men at the gym, working out topless, in booty shorts, 3 inch short shorts, flexing their muscles in the mirror, not trying to hide it etc.

    The big issue with the typical bodybuilder is that they are trying to become dominant, but be humble about it? Really weird?

    Lord Achilles 

    I am currently reading the Iliad by Emily Wilson, I am always always happy to see a new translation or a fresh take on the classic.

    Anyways, also an interesting thought… I like the idea of reading a female woman translate the most manly literature of all time. I think the problem when I was talking to my friend Kelly, is that traditionally in the past, it was a bunch of impotent old men who would translate great classics like the Iliad or the Odyssey, using their own fake impotent machismo, to translate it.

    For example, a lot of the misogyny, misogynistic language from 100 years ago or so, was actually very inaccurate.

    Anyways, something worth noting is how artful, succinct, beautiful, and unlike English ancient Greek was. In fact, I definitely want to get Seneca on the classics, get him into Latin and ancient Greek, and mathematics like NASSIM TALEB recommended.

    If you think about it long enough, what are the least harmful majors which exist? Classics, math, physics.

    Classics is almost like the superior form of sociology, physical theory, it is the pillar of the humanities. Either classics or history.

    Math, it will never hurt nobody. There are simple binary rules of math, it is either right or wrong, but then again the problem with a lot of mathematicians math teachers or people who are too into math, they seek some sort of rationality behind real life, society and people… but the true wise man knows that humans are not mathematical equations, ones and zeros. Humans are messy, even the Ancient Greek gods — they are all flawed! They are a bunch of petty, incestuous, sibling rivalry, family drama folks.


    What to focus on?

    My friend Anton (congrats on your new kid!) told me something interesting… it was his general observation that individuals like me, who diversified themselves, and did not just focus on street photography were the ones that succeeded, and won in the long run. 

    For example, I bemoan the death of digitalrev it was literally the best thing since Top Gear for photography and street photography. But also here, I think the cautionary tale of digital rev is critical, because whenever you build an empire on a foreign platform, it is like building your castle in a marsh or quicksand. 

    Even something which shocked me ,,, the infamous video of me shooting street photography in Hong Kong with Kaiman Wong,  I think was either taken down or deleted by digital rev? Really weird, I guess it was too controversial?

    Anyways, once again, I think the rational thing is whenever you post something, know that it is built on a cotton candy foundation, whether it be Facebook Instagram YouTube TikTok etc.… Even Twitter… Know that it is destined to die. 

    I even heard some kids at the mall yesterday talk about myspace, so funny… nobody has any idea what that is. Or xanga, Friendster, live journal?

    Sooner or later whenever you build something on a foreign platform, two things are inevitable to happen; either your account will eventually get deleted, taken down, blacklisted, grey listed, banned shadow banned real banned, or just made obsolete. 

    Neopan 1600

    Some suggestions to Fujifilm:

    First – make a new filter, call it extreme monochrome. The general idea is that you want to make a black-and-white filter so hardcore, so extreme, it will blow the Ricoh GR strong monochrome out of the water! 

    I really love the Fujifilm cameras, for the color filters, before some reason, they really lack a good black-and-white filter mode. The acros filter on it sucks. 

    A simple idea: make a neopan black and white film simulation, and make it extreme high contrast, like neopan 1600! Or like the effect of taking neopan 400, and pushing it two stops to 1600!

    Right now, the only real competition to Fujifilm is Ricoh Pentax. And it seems that Leica is dying a slow death. 

    First, it seems that the Leica Q is only cash cow keeping Leica alive. Also, it seems that Leica is desperate to maintain her clutches on her film film photography heritage, resurrecting the Leica M6, the like etc.

    But I think the critical issue here is that in someways, what the Germans do is kind of like kaizen; they take the existing model, and they just keep iterating it, making the new version maybe 3% better… There is never a 100% revolutionary new product, like what Elon did with cybertruck etc. 

    Once again, the glory of cybertruck is that when it is on the road, it is literally impossible to ignore! You could pretend like you didn’t see it, but you did see it! And if you did not see it, definitely your 3 1/2 year-old kid will see it!

    And this is where I am still Tesla and Elon… As long as the kids love it, the future is bright!

    Even Lamborghini… It isn’t cool anymore. And nobody even knows what a Ferrari is.

    I think things will go bananas when Tesla puts out a mini cyber truck, imagine a Tesla model Y, but a baby cyber truck version?

    The best car is the car not yet innovated invented or released.

    I’ve always loved cars, car culture etc. I feel bad for anybody whoever purchases any brand new car, because the sad reality is that it will become obsolete in a matter of months or years?

    For example, all of these guys who bought a Lamborghini Urus, only to have the new version come out, or even guys who bought the Lamborghini Huracan, with a new one that just came out?

    Or even the guys who bought the Aventador… All these rappers from five or 10 years ago… Now that the new Revuelto is out, their Aventador is made obsolete? 

    You fools!

    “I pity the fool?”

    A random sidenote… It seems that the most constructive way to approach life is through compassion, empathy, maybe even pity.

    For example, whenever there are people that I am suspicious of, they are on my bad side, and then finally, I see them without a hat on, without sunglasses, in direct light, and I see how sickly or unwell they are – the first feeling is extreme compassion. Like I find myself to be the fool — there is somebody that I vilified, or made into a bad guy, or somebody that I created a totem for my general hate or despise… And then I see how unhealthy they are, and then I realize,…

    Wait,,, this whole time, when I am painting this guy as a bad guy, and then I truly see you and witness that in fact, they are just a poor miserable soul, slowly dying… Why was I so negative towards that person?

    Something I learned about living in LA… everyone here has problems. For example, a lot of women, their husband is cheating on them, and they know what, but don’t want to admit it. Even Jay Z… Probably still 100% cheating on Beyoncé… Why?

    And all these assholes who honk at you in the road…  spending a lot of time out of a car, just walking around now, observing traffic politics, if you actually get a really good look at the driver, they are either miserable looking Uber drivers, food delivery people, or just very very unwell sickly looking people, insanely poor health, who may be just want to get home because they were stuck in traffic for two hours? 

    When to be compassionate, when not to be a pushover?

    It seems that the primary issue here is the strange bifurcation of ethics. First, we are taught to forgive, turn the other cheek etc., but then you have all these assholes honking at you from behind. So in this case, what are you supposed to do, take it up the ass, because you’re afraid that they might have a gun and shoot you? Or the other person may commit road rage, and do something dangerous? 

    I think the issue here is why should you live your life in fear that some asshole some pussy coward might have a gun, and pop you?

    Obviously, I do not want to get shot by some random coward, because I have my son to live for. But still… Isn’t the real role of a man to stand up for his child, and to never ever ever see your father get pistol whipped around?

    Stand up

    I think this is also where manly masculine ethics are different than feminine ones. For example, if you see some asshole smoking in the park, and you’re there with your kid… Obviously the correct strategy is to tell them to please stop smoking. I have a new line that I’m experimenting with–

    “No smoking,,, pleeeease!”

    For example, two assholes in front of the Apple campus on Washington in Culver City… Apple 10, 8777 Washington — One fat guy wearing some sort of blue Greek food T-shirt, I think he might be an Apple employee… I was walking with Seneca down Washington, on the Apple side, and this asshole is smoking Indignantly on the side, blowing his secondhand smoke all the way down the block.

    I came up to him, and I said, no smoking… pleeeease

    And this asshole has audacity to tell me that “I’m on my break…” And then I stopped, looked at him and eyes, and I said, “that’s why I said please”. He had no response, his jaw dropped. And like an asshole he kept smoking.

    Anyways, fortunately there was some security guards down the block, and I asked them to tell the guy to stop smoking. Maybe next time this happens, I’ll just record him or take a picture of him on my iPhone, shame him.

    Extreme ethics

    I think the big issue is in today’s world, ain’t nobody have a backbone or ethics anymore.

    In actually… The big issue here is that it seems at 99.9% of people just become passive aggressive, and never confront– we are a non-confrontational society, yet we hide behind our cars and honk at people? Because we are shielded from recompense?

    For example, I think this is also where people become keyboard warriors… You would never talk smack about me face-to-face, because you will see how much stronger, taller, more charismatic, and dominant I am than you. In fact, some of the things that I’ve discovered after meeting some of my “haters“– were in fact, they were my greatest lovers! The biggest issue here was actually… Unrequited hate or love.

    What is worse, unrequited hate or unrequited love?

    Once again, some bizarre inconsistencies here; I’ve never hated anybody. Why? Because I’m not that interested in anybody else, nor do I really desire the affection of somebody else that much?

    And also, the reason why a lot of men become misogynists, and hate women is because of unrequited love. Then the unrequited love becomes hate.

    Everything starts off as love, then evolves to hate?

    An alternate theory; maybe hate is just a more exaggerated or extreme version of love? 

    Super facts

    The internet is a toxic place. Don’t let your kids go on it.

    Why? I even have this kind of shocking memory, when I was a 12-year-old kid in Bayside Queens, New York. I was connected to the Internet, AOL 3.0, on my 38.8 K modem… and I was randomly in this chat room, and then I was chatting with this guy, who then instant messaged me, (IM) via AOL instant messenger, AIM, and then eventually started to say weird stuff like pedophile stuff like it feels really good to get your dick sucked by another guy?

    Anyways, obviously I got super scared and just banned him.

    And I think the issue is in today’s world, I think the safe strategy in assumption is that 100% of people on the internet are just malicious bots. And it’s starting to get scary… If you could program a bot to be malicious, and to create more malicious bots, ad infinitum — shit starts to get scary.

    For example, Michael Saylor was talking about how whenever he tweets something, and somebody responds to it in a very malicious way… almost 100% it was a bot! And actually the big problem then is there are real life human beings having back-and-forth inflamed debates with these malicious bots.

    Think about it… Let us say that you are interacting with someone on Twitter, and you have no idea that it is a bot you assume it is real person… Who is going to win in the long run? Obviously the bot!

    Adding friction to the digital and cyber world

    Bitcoin is virtuous

    As time goes on, I’m starting to think of bitcoin like a more ethical idea.

    For example, Michael Saylor has an incredibly genius idea of fixing all of this toxicity on the internet, just adding a little bit of monetary, bitcoin or Satoshi friction;

    For example, if it cost $10 worth of US dollars, or satoshis to create an account on Twitter or some social media account, then, overnight practically 100% of the malicious bots will be made obsolete or deleted from the platform.

    Why? Right now it cost only a nickel to spin up 100,000 bots, to troll your worst enemy on Twitter. But, if it cost $10 a bot, it cost you $1 million to cyber bully somebody, you probably wouldn’t… because it is too expensive and you don’t hate them that much. 

    I think it is Chris Rock or Chris Tucker who had this funny comedy bit about making bullets super expensive. Then the ideas that if you really really hate somebody, and let us say that one bullet is worth $100,000, then if you really want to kill them, or even with multiple bullets, you might think twice.

    Financial friction and consequences is a good idea

    Maybe the greatest use of money is physical friction, monetary friction, consequences.

    Fines work, monetary penalties, like getting $500 traffic tickets for turning red on a red light and not stopping. This has certainly changed my driving behavior.

    So I suppose the critical intelligent thing to consider is want to make things free, and want to make things cost money, to direct human behavior.

    For good behavior, make it free.

    For bad behavior, make it very expensive.

    ERIC


    Funny experiments

    Some very very simple things to consider:

    First, make things expensive, don’t make them free.

    For example, let us say that you dip into the pr0n– but you don’t want to do it anymore, for whatever reason. Maybe make it a thing that if you want to watch it, you have to go to an adult DVD store, and pay $20 bucks to buy the CD or whatever. 

    Or, for activities… I think often signing up and paying for an activity is a good idea because it creates sense of ownership, responsibility, or follow through. Or commitment.

    For example, perhaps the intelligence of paying money for a trainer or a personal trainer is that you you know that if you don’t show up there is a fiscal penalty.

    But the new ones is you don’t want to breed fake virtuosity for the sake of fake virtuosity. 

    For example, there is this weird notion in American culture that pain and suffering and overcoming is virtuous. No. Fools!

    Exercise workout or whatever is not virtuous, it is something that you do because it is fun enjoyable and something that you like!

    For example, would you bribe your kid money to play at the playground? No! So why do this for yourself? 


    What now?

    1. Upload your best photos to arsbeta.com
    2. Start your own self hosted blog via WordPress.org and bluehost.com
    3. Think humanity!

    ERIC


    Conquer the future

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    What I’m consuming

    All interviews by Michael Saylor at https://www.michael.com

    What I’m reading

    Iliad by Emily Wilson


    What to re watch?

    John Wick 1


    Conquer today!

    ERIC

    ERIC KIM BLOG >


  • Optimistic Fatalism

    Super radical idea that all is terrible, tragic, and bad and evil but in spite of all of it,,, extracting the maximum upside from reality?

    PHILOSOPHY BY KIM

    IDEAS BY KIM

    1. YOUR RICHEST SELF IS YOUR BEST SELF
    2. EVERYTHING HAPPENS AS IT *SHOULD HAVE* HAPPENS
    3. *Beyond* Individualism
    4. MAN & WOMAN, LIGHT & DARK
    5. A LIFE WITHOUT PAIN, DISCOMFORT OR (LIMITED) SUFFERING IS NOT A LIFE WORTH LIVING?
    6. BIGGER IS WEAKER.
    7. How to Become a Philosopher
    8. Deep Vanity
    9. Time Will Tell
    10. What is Wisdom?
    11. LOOK *BEYOND*
    12. BECOMING MORE IMMORAL?
    13. ‘LUCK’ VS COURAGE
    14. ‘SKILL’ VS MERIT?
    15. Becoming Antifragile
    16. How to “Improve” Men
    17. The Art of Virtue
    18. How to Dominate
    19. JUST SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCES AND WISDOM WITH OTHERS.
    20. How to Get More Done in a Single Day – MEMENTO MORI PHILOSOPHY
    21. THINK FOR YOURSELF
    22. Cruel?
    23. GO DEMIGOD.
    24. How to Be Happy: Challenge and Danger Philosophy
    25. To Become Greater, You Must Become *LESS* Productive!
    26. Imperfect Beauty
    27. The Philosophy of Pleasure
    28. What Interests You?
    29. Anti Theory of Everything
    30. Become?
    31. STRONGER OR NOT?
    32. Carte Blanche Ideals
    33. CHOOSE JOY
    34. Don’t Judge Your Impulses
    35. On Becoming Less Human
    36. COWARDICE.
    37. The Philosophy of Futurism
    38. PHILOSOPHY IS VALUE-SETTING
    39. PHILOSOPHY IS NOT LIFESTYLE
    40. WHY STANDARDIZATION IS BAD.
    41. YOUR OWN TABLE OF VALUES.
    42. RETRO IS BAD.
    43. INSANELY LOFTY THOUGHTS.
    44. Strive to *Lose* Weight, Not *Gain* Weight
    45. DIABLO II ANALOGIES FOR REAL LIFE.
    46. If You Know Your *WHY* You Can Discover Any *HOW*
    47. Life is Too Short to Be Miserable
    48. What Consumption Takes Skill?
    49. OFF THE GRID.
    50. REALITY IS CRUEL.
    51. Pain is Information
    52. WHY REMOVE VULGARITY AND DISORDER FROM OUR EYES?
    53. AUTOTELIC.
    54. UNPLUG.
    55. How to Become a Philosopher
    56. SUBOPTIMAL IS OPTIMAL
    57. THE LUST FOR MORE.
    58. TO DO IS TO BECOME.
    59. IN PRAISE OF AGGRESSIVE.
    60. THE PHILOSOPHY OF OPTIMISM
    61. OUR PHILOSOPHICAL WILL TO EXISTENCE
    62. Is Hope a Vice?
    63. MOVE MEAN
    64. Carte Blanche Ideals
    65. One Interesting Thought
    66. What Lasts? What Doesn’t Last?
    67. A WOUND STIMULATES THE RECUPERATIVE POWERS
    68. Children & Purpose
    69. Thoughts on Becoming a Parent
    70. Where Does Our Desire to Upgrade Come From?
    71. WE ALWAYS NEED SOMETHING FURTHER TO ASPIRE TO.
    72. Self-Task Yourself an Awesome Mission in Life
    73. Differentiation vs Equalization
    74. My Passion to *Become* Something More
    75. No Aesthetic or Ethos is Forever
    76. What is Your Higher Purpose in Life?
    77. IT WILL NEVER SATISFY YOU.
    78. How to Decide
    79. Things You *Want* to Do vs Things You *MUST* Do
    80. Towards a More Beautiful Mode of Existence and Future
    81. EXTREME GRATITUDE.
    82. AMAP (As Much as Possible) or None.
    83. Why or How Does it Matter?
    84. The Philosophy of Time and Events
    85. How *Not* to Resent
    86. FORWARD LOOKING
    87. DOMAIN FLEXIBILITY.
    88. The Miracle of Human Growth
    89. EXTREME ADAPTATION.
    90. Why Plan?
    91. You Don’t Need to Justify Yourself
    92. The Philosophy of Ego
    93. True vs False Passions
    94. How to Achieve Tranquility
    95. On Making Your Own Philosophy
    96. The Purpose of Life is to Create New Life
    97. Think On!
    98. The Wisdom of Doing Nothing
    99. Congruency
    100. My Thoughts on Meditation
    101. The Philosophy of Purpose
    102. Emulate Yourself
    103. Good Fear, Bad Fear
    104. For the Betterment of Humanity or Just Yourself?
    105. What you *really* believe in and care for is manifested through your actions (or non-actions)
    106. Why Culture is Your Enemy
    107. YOUR EXPERIENCES ARE KING.
    108. LIFE IS INHERENTLY GOOD.
    109. Artistic, Physical, and Philosophical Muscles
    110. All New Experiences are Good Experiences
    111. What is the Purpose of X?
    112. UTILITY.
    113. Philosophy is a Luxury
    114. The Attempt is More Interesting than the Result
    115. Joyfulness vs “Happiness”
    116. Effectiveness Over Happiness
    117. Self Actualization
    118. MAXIMAL ENGAGEMENT
    119. Life & Pain
    120. On Living Every Day with No Regret
    121. Learn as if you’re going to live forever, live as if you’re going to die tomorrow
    122. Live Every Day Like it Were the Last Day of Your Life
    123. Self-Determination
    124. FALSE GRATITUDE vs REAL GRATITUDE
    125. HOW TO LIVE MORE
    126. THE UPSIDE OF TRAGEDY
    127. Satisfaction is a Sucker’s Game
    128. Supreme Repose
    129. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE? According to ERIC KIM
    130. STUBBORN, FLEXIBLE
    131. EVERYTHING HAPPENS AS IT *SHOULD* HAVE HAD HAPPENED
    132. Good Addiction, Bad Addiction?
    133. What is the Best Life?
    134. The Philosophy of Thinking
    135. The Philosophy of Conspiracies
    136. Conspiracies
    137. Growth
    138. Skepticism.
    139. What Do You Really Want Out of Life?
    140. Seem or Be?
    141. Learn Through Pain
    142. Respect Yourself
    143. In Praise of Elitism
    144. Why Independent Thinking?
    145. I Will Never Die
    146. Bitter is Better
    147. The Genesis of Nihilism and Existential Dread
    148. The Ethics of Personal Enrichment
    149. Good vs Not Good
    150. Punished by Privilege
    151. Abstinence Over Moderation
    152. Just Leave Others Alone
    153. You Can Only Critique that Which You Truly Understand and Love
    154. ERIC KIM Critique of Metaphysics
    155. Only Trust Philosophers Who Deadlift
    156. Heuristic: If Someone Talks Shit About Others Behind Their Back, Most Likely They’re Also Talking Shit About You Behind Your Back
    157. Virtue is a Privilege
    158. What Are Your Life Goals?
    159. Honesty
    160. Why I’m Anti Moderation
    161. No Spite, No Malice.
    162. Ascending Life or Descending Life?
    163. Double Edged Sword
    164. Ignorance.
    165. Why I Don’t Trust “Nice Guys”
    166. Why You Must Share Your Opinion
    167. Selfish Isn’t Evil
    168. Wisdom is the Goal
    169. YOU ARE KING.
    170. MASTER YOURSELF
    171. What is “Good” for You is Often what is Bad for You
    172. Care.
    173. BITTERSWEET
    174. ONE REP MAX
    175. Morality and Ethics is the Snare
    176. BY HELPING YOURSELF, YOU BEST HELP OTHERS
    177. Insanity is Good.
    178. Think Deep.
    179. PHILOSOPHY IS THE FUTURE.
    180. Open Mind vs Closed Mind
    181. ENTHUSIASM IS GENIUS
    182. Towards a More Critical and Rigorous Line of Thinking
    183. How to Encourage and a Foster Independent and Free Thinking
    184. What is the Purpose of Life?
    185. WHY PHILOSOPHY IS SUPREME.
    186. Elitism.
    187. I Cannot Form an Opinion About Somebody Until I’ve Met Them in the Flesh
    188. ALL GENETICS ARE GOOD GENETICS.
    189. Happiness vs Freedom
    190. The Birth of a Hater
    191. My Way Isn’t the Right Way
    192. Walking as an Existential Thing
    193. Why I’m So Tolerant
    194. Mortal Gods
    195. THE HUMAN SPECIES
    196. Why I’m So Skeptical
    197. Just Follow the Money
    198. Why Selfish?
    199. WHY WE CANNOT BLAME OTHERS
    200. Why Are We So Anti Elitism?
    201. What Actually Interests You?
    202. How to Become Yourself
    203. SELF HATE
    204. Optimistic Fatalism
    205. Death is the Ultimate Creative Constraint
    206. FLUX.
    207. How to Think for Yourself
    208. FLESH
    209. How to Live the Best Life
    210. Why Live a Life Without Regrets?
    211. Why Plato Ruined Art and Aesthetics for Us
    212. Self Respect
    213. Hypocrite vs Contradict
    214. Ideals vs Reality
    215. Spaceship Philosophy
    216. What is Your Ideal Life?
    217. MY EXTREME GRATITUDE TOWARDS LIFE AND BEING ALIVE!
    218. Critique of Utilitarianism
    219. Don’t Treat Others the Way You Want to Be Treated
    220. The Eternal Recurrence of Tragedy and Joy in Life
    221. Elite Asceticism
    222. Why I Don’t Like Numbers
    223. Action and Reaction, Cause and Effect
    224. The Antidote to Nihilism: The Philosophy of Nothingness
    225. ERIC KIM Notes on Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
    226. EXPLOIT CHAOS.
    227. WHY I DON’T BELIEVE IN GENETICS
    228. Self-Wisdom
    229. The Future Belongs to the Fearless
    230. INDIVIDUALISM
    231. Why Live Forever?
    232. THIS TOO WILL PASS.
    233. Why Education?
    234. How to Become Yourself
    235. Things Shouldn’t Go Back to the Way They Used to Be
    236. Why Am I So Cruel?
    237. The Great Joy of Existence
    238. Virtue for the Sake of Virtue
    239. NO DISDAIN.
    240. INTELLIGENT IGNORANCE
    241. A LIFE WITHOUT PAIN, DIFFICULTY OR TRAGEDY ISN’T A LIFE WORTH LIVING
    242. BITTER IS BETTER.
    243. EXPLOIT THE BEST FROM TRAGEDY AND LIFE 
    244. DISREGARD FOR SELF-PRESERVATION
    245. PAIN.
    246. WHAT IF EVERYTHING IS NOT GONNA BE ALRIGHT?
    247. Tomorrow is Never
    248. Life is the Ultimate Creative Constraint
    249. EMBODIED REALITY
    250. BLACK SWAN
    251. THINGS WILL NEVER GO BACK TO THE WAY THEY USED TO BE
    252. What are you *really* afraid of?
    253. HAPPINESS ISN’T THE GOAL
    254. Philosophy is King
    255. Why is Selfish Evil?
    256. YOU’RE CONSTANTLY IN A STATE OF BECOMING
    257. ENTITLEMENT A SIN?
    258. NARCISSISM
    259. BE BRUTALLY HONEST WITH YOURSELF
    260. WHY FREE WILL?
    261. OBEY YOUR OPINION
    262. EGO IS GOOD.
    263. WHY IT IS GOOD TO BE INTO YOURSELF
    264. Seek the Good Pain
    265. Anti-Perfection in Photography, Art, and Life
    266. Can You Become an End into Yourself?
    267. WHY I LIVE
    268. Why I Hate Decline
    269. Why I Eat
    270. Why am I So Positive and Optimistic?
    271. EFFORT IS ENJOYMENT
    272. Never Stop Gaining
    273. TRUST YOURSELF
    274. A Life of Maximal Personal Independence
    275. What Do You Desire to Become?
    276. What Do I Want from Technology?
    277. Stratified Society
    278. Do You Love or Hate Reality?
    279. On the Brian, Body and Mind
    280. I’m Maximally Happy, Now What?
    281. Care over Fame
    282. ACTIVE NIHILISM
    283. Never Stop Subtracting
    284. How to Live a Happier and More Epic Life
    285. A Risker Life is a Better Life
    286. Only Work on Things You Can Imagine Doing for Eternity
    287. How to Maximize Your Happiness
    288. Influence
    289. The Gladiator Makes His Plans once He Enters the Ring
    290. Meditations on Meaning in Life
    291. There is Nothing More Interesting than Human Beings
    292. Is Hope a Vice?
    293. EGO
    294. Why Be Unique?
    295. Happiness is Metabolism Health and Strength
    296. You’re the Hero
    297. Is Productivity a Virtue or Vice?
    298. Why Do We Prize the Rare?
    299. The Joy of Uncertainty
    300. How Should I Best Use My Time and Life?
    301. A Life Without Pain or Suffering Isn’t a Life Worth Living
    302. Free or Unfree?
    303. What Do You Really Care For in Life?
    304. Anti-Satisfaction in Life
    305. Why Think?
    306. The Eternal Return
    307. Only Do What is Best for You!
    308. Truthiness
    309. Why Be Happy?
    310. Permissionless Living
    311. In Praise of Unconventional Wisdom
    312. Become the Change Which You Wish to See in the World
    313. Happiness
    314. Beyond Freedom
    315. Idolize People, Not Stuff
    316. What Makes You Stronger? What Makes You Weaker?
    317. Why Hate?
    318. The Secret of Happiness
    319. You’re Constantly in a State of Becoming
    320. Life is about Choices, Not Obligations
    321. Anti-Nihilism
    322. First, Do What is Best for You.
    323. Live Dynamic
    324. How to Prosper
    325. Is the Point of Life to Be Satisfied?
    326. SUPREME EFFORT OF WILL.
    327. How to Become more Idealistic
    328. Thrivival 101
    329. Create Yourself
    330. Non-Small
    331. Inspiration
    332. How to Live a Heroic Life: Dare the Heights!
    333. Human Augmentation
    334. Prune
    335. Happiness: Do What You Want to Do (And Don’t Do What You Don’t Want to Do)
    336. Avoid Vain (Empty) Pursuits in Life
    337. Modern Slavery
    338. Kill the Leeches
    339. Wisdom Augmentation
    340. Why We Need Friction in Life
    341. Straight Line Philosophy
    342. What’s Your End-Game in Life?
    343. Create Your Own Happiness Today
    344. Desire Both Pain and Pleasure in Life
    345. Try the Impossible
    346. SELF-RESPECT
    347. Anti-Social Extrovert
    348. Never Blame Anybody But Yourself
    349. Human Flourishing
    350. Simpler, Not Better.
    351. How to be Free
    352. Embrace the Extremes
    353. Cultivate Your Own Culture
    354. COURAGE.
    355. Thrivival
    356. Inner Power
    357. How to Live a Purposeful Life
    358. My Definition of Happiness
    359. Why Change is Good
    360. Why Work?
    361. How to Live the Happiest Possible Life
    362. The Two-Pronged Approach to Maximize Joy in Your Life
    363. You Always Have Another Option!
    364. INFINITISM
    365. Never Stop!
    366. What is Your Self-Directed Purpose in Life?
    367. Live Today Like it Were Your Last
    368. Do You Photograph to Live, or Live to Photograph?
    369. ARTIST-PHILOSOPHER
    370. Live Life to the Fullest!
    371. In Praise of Selfishness
    372. Why You Must Be a YAY-SAYER to Succeed in Entrepreneurship and Life
    373. Why I Love Walking
    374. Live Life Like a Video Game!
    375. Simple Luxuries in Life
    376. Treat Your Life Like a Fun Experiment!
    377. Only Prove it to Yourself
    378. You Don’t Always Need to Feel Joyful to Live a Fulfilling and Meaningful Life
    379. Life is Too Short to Be Bored!
    380. Money Cannot Destroy Boredom
    381. How to Find Inspiration in Life
    382. Why You Must Ignore Haters to Succeed and Win in Life
    383. An Active Life is a Happy Life
    384. My Simple Joys in Life
    385. Never Stop Striving
    386. How to Motivate Yourself in Life
    387. How to Be Optimistic in Life
    388. How to Dictate Your Purpose in Life
    389. In Praise of a Dynamic Life
    390. PURPOSE.
    391. How to Enjoy Life
    392. Photography Therapy
    393. How to Conquer Regret
    394. Take Your Play Very Seriously.
    395. How to Prosper
    396. Memento Vivere
    397. Destroy in Order to CREATE
    398. Trust Your Body More Than Your Mind
    399. Make Photos to Make Meaning in Your Life
    400. Seek Knowledge, Not Information
    401. The Purpose of Human Life
    402. How to Overcome Impedence
    403. Why I Love Death
    404. How to Be Centered in the Eternal Now
    405. How to Be Happy
    406. Why Do You Care What Others Think of You?
    407. Why I’m Happy
    408. Why?
    409. Why I’m So Prolific
    410. How to Reduce LAG in Life

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  • Black & White

    On adding more contrast to your life:

    Man is black, woman is white? 

    Increasing contrast?

    I’m starting to think that if we apply the black-and-white art photography aesthetic to real life, maybe the idea of “preserving the midtones“ is a bit boring.

    The general notion of crushing the blacks is when you’re processing or post processing your photos, you dragged the black slider all the way to 100, and you also crank up the contrast to 100.

    Aesthetically, I think this makes for much more striking and interesting images.

    First, midtones are boring.  almost universally, the more you increase the contrast of something or the photos, the better.

    For example, even when we design our homes. What is the best way to design a home? Very very simple, use white and black accents.

    For example, my eyes, the ideal home exterior pin color is not a matte black, but rather, a pure clean white, with black trimming.

    Also, with cars… I think we’ve discovered is the Apex is both a shiny white with shiny black accents — gloss, not matte.

    I think Matt, Matt Black, the whole met aesthetic is centered around jet stealth fighters, which desire to escape enemy detection. So typically when you try to Matt Black your car and murder it out… Aesthetic you’re going for stealth bomber, or jet fighter aesthetic?

    But the irony that I find… Nobody would ever matte black or murder out their Prius,  to escape detection from the police or the other party. We typically do it to our sports cars, our Teslas, etc. 

    Put the strange inconsistency I see here is on one hand, we want to be seen and to show up, on the other hand, we want to be fake low-key, and be “humble”?

    Bitch be humble?

    A few years back, the song HUMBLE by Kendrick Lamar went triple maxi viral. Like  it was the most viral song of all time, maybe even more viral than the recent “They Not Like Us” song.

    The song was very bizarre to me. Because I’m not sure what Kendrick was really trying to say. Two interpretations —

    1. First, he is calling the counterpart a bitch, and telling them to sit down and be humble because I am so much greater than you
    2. Or, trying to remind everybody to be humble in general.

    But the weird inconsistency in modern day life is we are centered around Christian Jesus ethics, or some sort of quaker artist morality which is centered around notion of humility, being humble, close to the floor etc. This is why you will never ever ever meet a rich person in America called themselves rich, they will call themselves “fortunate“, or “lucky”.

    Also another bizarre thing in the world of bodybuilding… You almost never ever ever see bodybuilders proud to flex on the bash Lee, like Arnold in the documentary pumping iron, back in the day. It is very uncommon for you to see self-confident men at the gym, working out topless, in booty shorts, 3 inch short shorts, flexing their muscles in the mirror, not trying to hide it etc.

    The big issue with the typical bodybuilder is that they are trying to become dominant, but be humble about it? Really weird?

    Lord Achilles 

    I am currently reading the Iliad by Emily Wilson, I am always always happy to see a new translation or a fresh take on the classic.

    Anyways, also an interesting thought… I like the idea of reading a female woman probably the most manly literature of all time. I think the problem when I was talking to my friend Kelly, is that traditionally in the past, it was a bunch of impotent old men who would translate great classics like the Iliad or the odyssey, using their own Fake impotent machismo, translate it.

    For example, a lot of the misogyny, misogynistic language from 100 years ago or so, was actually very inaccurate.

    Anyways, something worth noting is how artful, succinct, beautiful, and unlike English ancient Greek was. In fact, I definitely want to get Seneca on the Classics, get him into Latin and ancient Greek, and mathematics like NASSIM TALEB recommended.

    If you think about it long enough, what are the least harmful majors which exist? Classics, math, physics.

    Classics is almost like the superior form of sociology, physical theory, it is the pillar of the humanities. Either classics or history.

    Math, it will never hurt nobody. There are simple binary rules of math, it is either right or wrong, but then again the problem with a lot of mathematicians math teachers or people who are two into math, they seek some sort of rationality behind real life, society and people… But the true wise man knows that humans are not mathematical equations, ones and zeros. Humans are messy, even the Ancient Greek gods — they are all flawed! They are a bunch of petty, incestuous, sibling rivalry, family drama folks.


    What to focus on?

    My friend Anton (congrats on your new kid!) told me something interesting… it was his general observation that individuals like me, who diversified themselves, and did not just focus on street photography were the ones that succeeded, and won in the long run. 

    For example, I bemoan the death of digitalrev it was literally the best thing since Top Gear for photography and street photography. But also here, I think the cautionary tale of digital rev is critical, because whenever you build an empire on a foreign platform, it is like building your castle in a marsh or quicksand. 

    Even something which shocked me ,,, the infamous video of me shooting street photography in Hong Kong with Kaiman Wong,  I think was either taken down or deleted by digital rev? Really weird, I guess it was too controversial?

    Anyways, once again, I think the rational thing is whenever you post something, built something on a cotton candy foundation, whether it be Facebook Instagram YouTube TikTok etc.… Even Twitter… Know that it is destined to die. 

    I even heard some kids at the mall yesterday talk about myspace, so funny… nobody has any idea what that is. Or xanga, Friendster, live journal?

    Sooner or later whenever you build something on a foreign platform, two things are inevitable to happen; either your account will eventually get deleted, taken down, blacklisted, grey listed, banned shadow banned real banned, or just made obsolete. 

    Neopan 1600

    Some suggestions to Fujifilm:

    First – make a new filter, call it extreme monochrome. The general idea is that you want to make a black-and-white filter so hardcore, so extreme, it will blow the Ricoh GR strong monochrome out of the water! 

    I really love the Fujifilm cameras, for the color filters, before some reason, they really lack a good black-and-white filter mode. The acros filter on it sucks. 

    A simple idea: make a neopan black and white film simulation, and make it extreme high contrast, like neopan 1600! Or like the effect of taking Neilan 400, and pushing it two stops to 1600!

    Right now, the only real competition to Fujifilm is Ricoh Pentax. And it seems that Leica is dying a slow death. 

    First, it seems that the Leica Q is only cash cow keeping Leica alive. Also, it seems that Leica is desperate to maintain her clutches on her film film photography heritage, resurrecting the Leica M6, the like etc.

    But I think the critical issue here is that in someways, what the Germans do is kind of like kaizen;  they take the existing model, and they just keep iterating it, making the new version maybe 3% better… There is never a 100% revolutionary new product, like what Elon did with cybertruck etc. 

    Once again, the glory of cyber truck is that when it is on the road, it is literally impossible to work! You could pretend like you didn’t see it, but you did see it! And if you did not see it, definitely your 3 1/2 year-old kid will see it!

    And this is where I am still Tesla and Elon… As long as the kids love it, the future is bright!

    Even Lamborghini… It isn’t cool anymore. And nobody even knows what a Ferrari is.

    I think things go bananas when Tesla puts out a mini cyber truck, imagine a Tesla model Y, but a baby cyber truck version?

    The best car  is the car not yet innovated invented or released.

    I’ve always loved cars, car culture etc. I feel bad for anybody whoever purchases any brand new car, because the sad reality is that it will become obsolete in a matter of months or years?

    For example, all of these guys who bought a Lamborghini Urus, only to have the new version come out, or even guys who bought the Lamborghini Huracan, with a new one that just came out?

    Or even the guys who bought the Aventador… All these rappers from five or 10 years ago… Now that the new Revuelto is out, their Aventador is made obsolete? 

    You fools!

    “I pity the fool?”

    A random sidenote… It seems that the most constructive way to approach life is through compassion, empathy, maybe even pity.

    For example, whenever there are people that I am suspicious of, they are on my bad side, and then finally, I see them without a hat on, without sunglasses, in direct light, and I see how sickly or unwell they are – the first feeling is extreme compassion. Like I find myself to be the fool — there is somebody that I vilified, or made into a bad guy, or somebody that I created a totem for my general hate or despise… And then I see how unhealthy they are, and then I realize,…

    Wait,,, this whole time, when I am painting this guy as a bad guy, and then I truly see you and witness that in fact, they are just a poor miserable soul, slowly dying… Why was I so negative towards that person?

    Something I learned about living in LA… everyone here has problems. For example, a lot of women, their husband is cheating on them, and they know what, but don’t want to admit it. Even Jay Z… Probably still 100% cheating on Beyoncé… Why?

     And all these assholes who honk at you in the road…  spending a lot of time out of a car, just walking around now, observing traffic politics, if you actually get a really good look at the driver, they are either miserable looking Uber drivers, food delivery people, or just very very unwell sickly looking people, very overfat, insanely poor health, who may be just want to get home because they were stuck in traffic for two hours? 

    When to be compassionate, when not to be a pushover?

    It seems that the primary issue here is the strange bifurcation of ethics.  first, we are taught to forgive, turn the other cheek etc., but then you have all these assholes honking at you from behind. So in this case, what are you supposed to do, take it up the ass, because you’re afraid that they might have a gun and shoot you? Or commit road rage, and do something dangerous? 

    I think the issue here is why should you live your life in fear that some asshole some pussy coward might have a gun, and pop you?

    Obviously, I do not want to get shot by some random coward, because I have my son to live for. But still… Isn’t the real role of a man to stand up for his child, and to never ever ever see your father get pistol whipped around? 

    Stand up

    I think this is also where manly masculine ethics are different than feminine ones. For example, if you see some asshole smoking in the park, and you’re there with your kid… Obviously the correct strategy is to tell them to please stop smoking. I have a new line that I’m experimenting with–

    “No smoking,,, pleeeease!”

    For example, two assholes in front of the Apple campus on Washington in Culver City… One guy wearing some sort of Greek food T-shirt, I think he might be an apple employee… I was walking with Seneca down Washington, on the apple side, and this asshole is smoking Indignantly on the side, blowing his secondhand smoke all the way down the block.

    I came up to him, and I said, no smoking… pleeeease

    And this asshole has audacity to tell me that “I’m on my break…” And then I stopped, looked at him and eyes, and I said, “that’s why I said please”. He had no response, his jaw dropped. And like an asshole he kept smoking.

     anyways, fortunately there was some security guards down the block, and I asked them to tell the guy to stop smoking. Maybe next time this happens, I’ll just record him or take a picture of him on my iPhone, shame him.

    Extreme ethics

    I think the big issue is in today’s world, ain’t nobody have a backbone or ethics anymore.

    In actually… The big issue here is that it seems at 99.9% of people just become passive aggressive, and never confront, we are a non-confrontational society, yet we hide behind our cars and honk at people? Because we are shielded from recompense?

    For example, I think this is also where people become keyboard warriors… You would never talk smack about me face-to-face, because you will see how much stronger, taller, more charismatic, and dominant I am than you. In fact, some of the things that I’ve discovered after meeting some of my “haters“– we’re in fact, they were my greatest lovers! The biggest issue here was actually… Unrequited hate or love.

    What is worse, unrequited hate or unrequited love?

    Once again, some bizarre inconsistencies here; I’ve never hate anybody.  why because I’m not that interested in anybody else, nor do I really desire the affection of somebody else that much?

    And also, the reason why a lot of men become misogynist, and hate women is because of unrequited love. Then the unrequited love becomes hate.

    Everything starts off as love, then evolves to hate?

    An alternate theory; maybe hate is just a more exaggerated or extreme version of love? 

    Super facts

    The Internet is a toxic place. Don’t let your kids go on it.

    Why? I even have this kind of shocking memory, when I was a 12-year-old kid in Bayside Queens, New York. I was connected to the Internet, AWOL 3.0, on my 38.8 K modem… And I was randomly in this chat room, and then start a messaging this guy, Who then instant messaged me, (IM) via AOL instant messenger, AIM, And then eventually started to say weird stuff like pedophile stuff like it feels really good to get your dick sucked by another guy?

    Anyways, obviously I got super scared and just banned him.

    And I think the issue is in today’s world, I think the safe strategy in assumption is that 100% of people on the Internet, or just malicious bots. And it’s starting to get scary… If you could program a bot to be malicious, and to create more malicious bots, ad infinitum — shit starts to get scary.

    For example, Michael Saylor was talking about how whenever he tweets something, And somebody responds to it in a very malicious way… Almost 100% it was a bot! And actually the big problem then is there real life human beings having back-and-forth inflamed debates with these malicious bots.

    Think about it… Let us say that you are interacting with someone on Twitter, and you have no idea that it is a bot you assume it is real person… Who is going to win in the long run? Obviously the bot!

    Adding friction to the digital and cyber world

    As time goes on, I’m starting to think of bitcoin like a more ethical idea.

    For example, Michael Saylor has an incredible genius idea of fixing all of this toxicity on the Internet, I just adding a little bit of monetary, bitcoin or Satoshi friction;

    For example, if it cost $10 worth of US dollars, or Satoshi to create an account on Twitter or some social media account, then, overnight practically 100% of the malicious spots will be made obsolete or deleted from the platform.

    Why? Right now it cost only a nickel to spin up 100,000 bots, to troll your worst enemy on Twitter. But, if it cost $10 a bot, it cost you $1 million to cyber bully somebody, you probably wouldn’t… Because it is too expensive and you don’t hate them that much. 

    I think it is Chris Rock or Chris Tucker who had this funny comedy bit about making bullets super expensive. Then the ideas that if you really really hate somebody, and let us say that one bullet is worth $100,000, then if you really want to kill them, or even with multiple bullets, you might think twice.

    Financial friction and consequences is a good idea

    Maybe the greatest use of money is physical friction, monetary friction, consequences.

    Fines work, monetary penalties, like getting $500 traffic tickets for turning red on a red light and not doing. Certainly has changed my driving behavior.

    So I suppose the critical intelligent thing to consider is want to make things free, and want to make things cost money, to direct human behavior.

    For good behavior, make it free.

    For bad behavior, make it very expensive.

    ERIC


    Funny experiments

    Some very very simple things to consider:

    First, make things expensive, don’t make them free.

    For example, let us say that you dip into the pr0n– but you don’t want to do it anymore, for whatever reason. Maybe make it a thing that if you want to watch it, you have to go to an adult DVD store, and pay $20 bucks to buy the CD or whatever. 

    Or, for activities… I think often signing up and paying for an activity is a good idea because it creates sense of ownership, responsibility, or follow through. Or commitment.

    For example, perhaps the intelligence of paying money for a trainer or a personal trainer is that you you know that if you don’t show up there is a fiscal penalty.

    But the new ones is you don’t want to breed fake virtuosity for the sake of fake virtuosity. 

    For example, there is this weird notion in American culture that pain and suffering and overcoming is virtuous. No. Fools!

    Exercise workout or whatever is not virtuous, it is something that you do because it is fun enjoyable and something that you like!

    For example, would you bribe your kid money to play at the playground? No! So why do this for yourself? 


  • Apex achievement of the human race

    Harness, channel energy

    .

    The future of TV?

    .

    Digital Energy

    How to harness energy and power?

    .

    Analogue to Digital

    Put a payload in orbit

    15 billion years in orbit

    .

    Space vs Outer Space

    Cyber Space

    .

    Gold is money everything else is credit

    Check with 1M, IOU

    .

    Check is monetary information ,,, monetary energy (gold)

    Think energy not information

    Energy is Everything ***

    .

    Maintain Illusion

    Everything is credit

    You are moving credit not money

    Credit risk or default

    Creatures with no pain receptor l,,, squeeze out of the gene pool

    Toxic signals in cyber space no pain cost in cyber space

    .

    Friction is a good thing we can walk

    Toxic or misleading or criminal

    .

    Demon in cyber space

    .

    Toxic responses is bots

    96 bots

    Inflammatory

    .

    Real people argue with bots

    You’re arguing with a machine

    .

    Love bot?

    Build something of beauty in cyber space

    Matter and time in cyber space

    .

    Matter in cyber space

    Material wall $10

    .

    Do you want it to be free or not

    .

    EYES LIKE A HAWK

    .

    Tesla — energy frequency and vibration

    .

    Potential kinetic vibration

    Music harmony

    .

    Sense music frequency

    .

    Parrot dance and got happy

    Didn’t go to music school

    Energy frequency and vibration

    React to music

    Genetically coded into our DNA

    .

    Shadows on ghosts, disembodied spirits

    Things in cyber space are dead

    No real things in cyber space

    Energy is life

    30 days digital credit

    10 hertz, 10 times a second.

    Once every 6 weeks we can vibrate

    .

    A440; rate on 20th century rails , million times slower

    Move once a year at great expense

    .

    Million times an hour once master the technology

    Frequency vibration

    “It’s music to our ears”

    Acoustic energy ,,, good at channeling acoustic energy

    .

    Digital Capital

    Long store of asset

    .

    Spartan or Persian

    MORE MONEY, buy less every year?

    .

    Put it on granite

    Putting your capital to work?

    Penetration Testing

    .

    Non defective treasury asset to the world

    Lose 9% a year

    Just don’t sink –> create value!

    Don’t destroy value

    .

    Rising platform

    Lucky and talented

    .

    Not work anymore forever ,,, endowment for the family

    Property & equity

    Harvard and Yale forever

    .

    Don’t build on swamp

    .

    20 years of profit … 100 years of

    Bulletproof balance sheet vs melting ice cube

    Double your wealth every 3 years, double it 33 years

    Never catch up?

    .

    Everyone has the same rights

    .

    LASER FOCUS

    LASER EYES

    .

    More chaotic, more valuable

    .

    Create your own company and opportunities

    Chaos Engine

    Stampede to Bitcoin

    Argentina and Turkey

    Betting on collapse?

    .

    Genius In Singapore

    .

    Heavy hitters

    American history

    Biggest week

    Inflection point

    .

    We don’t sell our Bitcoin

    Auction off

    Bitcoin is property

    Property rights

    Bitcoin strategic national reserve big deal

    .

    Ignore

    100x

    .

    Negative to neutral opinion

    30% charge

    Tax inefficiency is hostile

    Tax on transformation is hostile

    .

    Fair accounting

    One way ratchet

    .

    Prejudicial and hostile

    Biden ruined the economy

    .

    Another 4 years

    .

    5% interest in your Bitcoin

    Loan at sulfur 6% from Citibank when can custody Bitcoin

    100% loan to value

    Bitcoin as collateral

    Rippling

    .

    Robert F Kennedy

    Ethics,

    Ethics > Morality

    .

    Banks are conservative

    Rhetoric matters

    .

    Would you prefer to be seated or standing?

    Funny thing, it seems that a lot of people desire to be in some sort of high-powered sports car, hyper car, truck etc.… But technically if you’re just standing next to them or the vehicle, you’re in a dominant position. 

    For example, I think the reason why people tell you to sit down watch and take a seat, it’s actually because they want to be in a more dominant position than you.

    For example, if you are a presidential candidate, have you ever seen a presidential candidate do a debate or speech while sitting? No! They stand!

    This is also where modern day education is so… Why do you get kids to sit down? It is probably the worst position for them to be in? Is actually for them to be standing… Walking around, outside outdoors, in the agora etc. 

    Ideal would be actually a bunch of people standing, outside in the direct elements, or at least in the shad or whatever… And everyone is standing in a circle, and there is a little speech of peptalk, etc.

    Also, today’s brave New World of voice dictation and modern technology, there is no real reason to use a keyboard anymore, or even write down things pen and pad. 

    For example, we are brainwashed into thinking that Penn and Pat is virtuous, but when is the last time you had to fill out a form long hand? In fact, I have more difficulty and annoyances having to figure out how to fill out PDF form, and how to edit a PDF form, rather than Figuring out how to do long hand stuff.

    Michael Saylor said something interesting, in which whenever you watch sci-fi films, you never see somebody just busted out an iPhone and type it out with your thumbs. No. They talk to Jarvis, or voice dictate it. Think about how Tony Stark interacts and engages with Jarvis his personal computer and AI, he never touches a keyboard! He stands, does the zooming and enhancing with the floating holographic screen, and what he does is talk to it! Kind of like what we could do right now with ChatGPT.

    This is why Apple putting a keyboard on the iPad is the worst diss you could do to the soul of Steve Jobs. Or even worse, that’s stupid Apple stylus, even more shameless the Apple Pencil “pro”? Come on guys didn’t you know that Steve Jobs intended the iPad to be used without a keyboard, and for it to be used to draw with your finger, not a stupid overpriced device which will get outdated in a season or two?

    …

    National Citi Bank ; Rockefeller brother

    John d Rockefeller didn’t trust JPMORGAN Chase

    100 years

    $1B a month

    $5B Microsoft to Bitcoin

    .

    Too big to fail

    Catalyst

    High powered rails

    .

    Move B dollars a minute

    .

    .

    21$M a coin

    .

    Stupid normie

    I don’t like normies or normal people

    $40B

    .

    Pray for volatility

    21 year .

    .

    Become an anime character

    .

    Keyman risk

    Slay your heroes

  • The Future of Street Photography

    PDF

    Audio

    Godlike Legs

    The power is in your legs?

    Milo of Croton

    So there is this philosophy and story about Milo of Croton, who is this semi mythical character who essentially was the strongest man of all time, and there is this anecdote that every single day he cared this calf on his shoulders, every single day, until it became a full-size bull, which could weigh anywhere between 1000 pounds and 3000 pounds.

    For the most part it seems like a high tale, but, it might be more realistic than we think it is. 

    First, I have successfully lifted 1000 pounds, which means that physically and physiologically, certainly this is possible. And I am not a 7 foot tall freak of nature.

    So if I think about it… And certainly obviously this was far before steroids were invented… In theory, I think this might be somewhat true.

    As a very very simple thought experiment, let us assume that you could conservatively add 5 pounds, week over week, which is roughly 250 pounds a year. That means within four years, you should be able to successfully lift 1000 pounds. And then the next year, 1250 pounds, 1500 pounds, and then two years after that, 2000 pounds.

    Progressive overload training

    Once again, difficult to lift 1000 pounds overnight but, even if you’re conservative… Let us say that you start training at the age of 21, for 10 years straight, until the age of 31, or until the age of 36… Lifting 1000 pounds is actually pretty easy.

    The technique is my infamous Atlas lift; in which you just load up the barbell, with maximum weight, on the squat rack, and your goal isn’t too walk it out and squat it, rather to simply lift it off the rack for even half a second.

    Even now, if you look at the strong men, obviously they’re all on steroids, but still… When they do the loaded yoke walk, it is on average around 1500 pounds. And only that but I think they reset for about 100m or so?

    Why?

    It is my personal thought that if you have insanely strong legs, nothing will falter in your life.

    In fact, ultimately when it comes down to it… What is the most critical part of your body? Not your shoulders, not your back, not your biceps, not your chest, not your abdominal muscles… Your legs!

    Let us consider the fact… I have never done to sit up in my life, yet I have a six pack. How?… If you’re strong enough to have to lift an insanely high and heavy weight, your body must naturally adapt, naturally strengthening all the random muscles in your body, your neck your shoulders your back, your upper back your lower back, your abs, your hips your knees etc.

    In fact, something that nobody ever talks about is a strength of your ligaments, your tendons, etc. Having met real UFC MMA fighters in the flesh, the thing they actually taught me was surprisingly the most important thing to train for is to strengthen the ligaments in the wrist, the knees, ankles, etc.… Because that is where injury typically happens. And there’s also this notion of “pre-hab”– the idea that a true elite fighter would train in such a way that he is doing all the exercises in which individuals typically do when they are injured, but they train before they actually get injured, a wise idea. 

    Do rehab styled exercises BEFORE you treat injured.

    For example, I read an anecdote that apparently LeBron James does an hour of yoga a day or something, which prevented him from getting injuries, and it seems to be a very wise idea. If I told you or tell you that by stretching, doing mobility exercises, some sort of yoga would help you lift 200 more pounds, would you do it? You could add 200 pounds to your deadlift, squat, bench? Of course! I think most weightlifters think of mobility exercises as feminine or a waste of time, but the truth is a true powerlifter, a true strongman, a true weightlifting demigod would probably devote at least 20% of his workout time for mobility stretching exercises, rather than just lifting weights?

    Think long 

    If you’re tired and you’re not feeling good, don’t do it, never force it. All of the random injuries I’ve had in the past was when I tried to force a workout when my body wasn’t 100% feeling it, or I was tired, didn’t sleep that well that day, etc.

    One doubt, just eat a bunch of meat and go to sleep early! There is always the next day.

    I think I sometimes  pick the notion of carpe diem to literally; that literally I treat every single day like it was my last, but once again, to force a work out in the evening when you’re tired and not feeling it, could lead to an injury, which could plague you for weeks months, even years.

    Assuming that you’re wise and you’re thinking long-term, technically a single workout isn’t that important. Even on the week level… As long as you get in a good lift every two weeks, you’re probably fine. 

    The commoditization of the body

    I think the real critical problem here is what I call the commoditization of the body. 

    For example, as long as you weigh yourself on a scale, you measure your biceps, you measure your waist line, you track your metrics, your number etc., you’re not free.

    The problem with yourself is that you put yourself on a scale with all these basic other people, once again, all these fools who are popping supplements, injecting their butt holes with steroids, etc.

    Even a super random thing, the whole supplement protein powder industry is such an insanely bad scam, maybe this is something I need to fight against.

    Why? Even as a young impressionable teenager, in college student… I’ve probably wasted thousands of dollars or at least hundreds of dollars, which is a lot of money to a highschooler or college kid, protein powder, which I realized is a scam. 

    Why? The simple goal is to eat more meat! But if you think about the whole exercise bodybuilding weightlifting complex, none of these fake ass influencers make money when they try to encourage you to visit the butcher more and eat more meat! No no no, they need a sponsorship, they need steroids, they need to sell merchandise.

    Also let us not forget — all steroids is is something which boosts your testosterone (your testes hormones). And the easiest most natural way to do this is eat beef liver, beef heart, beef kidneys… organ meats!


    Follow the money

    I think the critical issue that people make is that they think that the big issue here is all of these weird fake conspiracy theories. But this is not true, the true issue here is just following the money.

    No no no — Bill Gates does not have an evil master plan to inject your brain with 5G chips and Covid vaccines, and put fluoride in your water to control your mind.

    A simple observation; I got vaccinated, got all my booster shots… etc,,, and I was able to lift 1000 pounds, fasted!

    Ha ha maybe as a joke, the joke is that the COVID-19 vaccine made me stronger, like the Hulk or like wolverine or Deadpool?

    And also as a general note to everybody, the reason why you should delete your Instagram, your TikTok, your Twitter, your YouTube, all the podcasts, your Spotify your podcast app is that eventually sooner or later… All of these influential fools start promoting a weird conspiracy theory?

    Only media you should be consuming is media from the ancient past, ancient Greek or nothing. 

    All of your heroes are fake heroes

    The American dream is essentially Arnold Schwarzenegger, getting big on the screen, becoming the governator of California, etc. And superficially from what I understand… He was actually a good governor! Some people also forget that Ronald Reagan was an actor, I don’t really know too much about Ronald Reagan, but once again, the idea is that if you are tall handsome and famous, you could become anything, you could become president!

    I think in America, the American dream is real. Come on… Just look at me — I was able to make my living from my passion which is street photography. Name any other country on the planet in which this could have happened. 

    But I think the equations are wrong. Once again, the typical workflow is that you becomes super famous, and in the process you make a bunch of money, and then you become a politician I guess? And technically a politician has the supreme power, because he who makes the laws controls the money.

    Slavery deletion

    Don’t be an insta-slave!

    Anyways, the big problem here is that the supreme goal is towards self ownership, not slavery.

    As long as you have Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or whatever… You’re a slave, a digital slave, a cyber slave.

    The reason I’m insanely anti-TikTok… Come on guys, they are owned by the ultra mainland Chinese corporation Tencent! And also, my fellow Korean people… Don’t you know that Tencent, once again mainland China has a huge stake in KakaoTalk? This is why Koreans should not use KakaoTalk and just use iPhone and iMessage instead. 

    Or Samsung should be smart and create their own proprietary messaging system?

    THE GOALS

    I have achieved all of my life goals, my life dreams, my life ambitions, etc. Anything in which I have had an autotelic goal or desire, I done did it. For example, my desire at the age of 21, 22 to become self-employed, and to transform my passion of photography and photography into my living?

    Then, my desire to travel the world, become famous, have solo exhibitions books etc.…

    The funny thing is actually in my journey, my goals were never to become super rich. My only goal was to make a living for my passion, which was essentially meaning just making enough money to cover rent my expenses etc — and I think more recently, having a kid, Seneca, and more recently, my insanely audacious goal of lifting 1000 pounds, which I did, and I have zero doubt in my mind that I could lift more.

    And more recently, my personal interest in bitcoin, has paid off very well!

    Think first principles

    How and why?

    Kind of cheesy… But besides the limits of physics and the universe, if you think first principles, technically anything is possible. What is a bigger issue is duration, acceleration time, and time to accomplish. 

    For example, I believe that anybody could become a sole proprietor, self-employed, and make a living from your passion. However the nuance is that you probably should not pay more than $500 a month in rent.  This means go abroad, that means live in Bangkok, Thailand, Cambodia Laos, Vietnam etc.

    Certainly you could make a living from your passion in the states, but if you really really really care, maybe it is best to move to the Midwest or somewhere where rent is cheap.

    The ethics of Achilles 

    I just finished watching the documentary film Bigger Stronger Faster, bought it on the Apple TV store for about 10 bucks, I wish I watched this when I was a teenager?

    Anyways, now that I’m and dad, have a 3 1/2 year-old son, Seneca… I’m starting to really understand that my morals ethics and the way I am training him is far more critical than I thought.

    First, the whole industrial educational media social media complex– the bias is that kids must be the best, the strongest, the tallest, the most dominant either in athletics or education.

    My simple heuristic:

    Trust no fitness influencer on Instagram.

    Yeah yeah yeah, you gotta get the views and followers… But then again you’re gonna end up injecting your butt holes with steroids, in order to boost your reviews and gain more influence. And ultimately, no slavery is worth it.

    If I could tell you that I could literally sell you into slavery,  however, you’ll become super rich and famous, you’ll have $100 million in the bank, millions of followers etc.… 100 million followers, but you were literally a slave, 100% slave, would you do it? Of course no! No amount of money on the planet, is worth being sold into slavery!

    Once again think about the slave ships, chains, chattels etc.…  think about the visual of the slave ships of Africa, in which they tried to “optimize” the amount of slaves they could chain up in a simple wooden ship at the bottom of the hull, perhaps 50 of them or so. 

    And I think this is what people do not understand about the new modern day popular music complex; once again you’re finding these young impressionable kids from the hood, maybe 18 years old 21 years old, you offer them a $1 million contract, but essentially you have them on a chain and leash for the next 20 years of their life? 

    Once again you fools, no amount of money is worth slavery!

    If somebody said ERIC, I could sell you into slavery and you will literally be a slave for the rest of your life, chains, chain around your wrist and neck and your legs whatever… For $1 trillion, would I do it? Obviously no! 

    Even more so, once you get a kid that changes everything… If you are sold into slavery that is not just your own life you are messing up, but the potential upside of your kid!

    And I think this is where it is wise that practically everybody should have a kid, because what you learn is that once you have kids, it solidifies your morals ethics and worldview. 

    I think if you’re college educated, you should have a kid. Don’t worry, you’ll be an amazing parent! 

    Rethinking competition 

    Competition is for loooosers!

    I think this is where Achilles and reading the Iliad is so eye-opening; even before the Olympics were invented, there was no such thing as competition.

    For example, there were the funeral games of Patroclus, in which the heroes were competing to win a trophy or a prize, but the interesting thing is that a lot of these heroes ended up stopping while they were ahead, calling a truce, and both of them sharing equal prizes.

    The notion of a trophy, was essentially a spoil of war. The ancient Greeks, Achilles king Agamemnon and like… it seems that the ultimate trophy was a woman. The goal was to obtain the most beautiful, the most fair, the most grand prize of them all. This is where the notion of a trophy wife comes from.

    And what is the point of a trophy wife? Essentially a woman who is prized for her intelligence, her body, her beauty, and I think the hope is to have insanely beautiful and great kids? But the ancient Greeks, king Agamemnon… achilles… Why did they want Breisis? Kind of like a symbol if anything.

    But now… I’m not sure what the telos or the goal is anymore? I think the general modern day trend is to not have kids, but to live in hedonic pleasure for the rest of your life with no downsides? And never run out of money?

    ***

    How to live the best life ever

    OK, let us say that photography is your passion, street photography whatever. Essentially you love making photos with your camera!

    Some simple thoughts:

    First, the very very simple goal is to optimize your life which allows you to forever shoot pictures!

    Here this is where film photography is very bad. 

    First, I think the only reason people get into film photography is because they are seeking some sort of new motivation or inspiration behind things.

    I think experimenting and trying out film is a good idea, because ultimately it just makes you more grateful for digital photography!

    It’s really funny… Young people knew guitar for like the romanticism of film photography, but whenever I meet older photographers, in their 50s 6070s etc.… They are a bit confused, it was the opposite; invention of digital photography it is their passion for photography!

    And in fact, now that the new Fujifilm X 100VI came out, and also Rico is killing it with the GR series cameras, like the new HDF which is coming out, I really see that there is zero reason to shoot film.

    If you are a modern day Fatar for today, very very simple. Just buy a Fujifilm 100 camera, or a Ricoh GR camera. 

    Maybe even a funny idea, maybe we could think and consider the old-school like M1 camera as the new digital film analog rangefinder fully manually focusing camera?

    Why?

    First, in terms of the body style, to me I prefer the M9 the best.  I love the button design, the powerhouse designed small black buttons in the back of the camera. And also funny things; the camera is pretty much only usable at ISO 400 or 800, if you do black-and-white, 1600 is fine; which is technically like the limits of shooting film!

     Also, the M9 is very slow. The buffer time is very slow.

    So if you’re really interested in the whole rangefinder experience, instead of buying a film Leica M6 or something, just get an old used Leica M9!

    Don’t do what is cool

    Apparently the whole appeal of shooting film, especially with young people is that it is cool. But why discover it is anything cool is bad. 

    Why? Anything cool is typically a romanticization of the past, thinking that the past was better. But the fact of the matter is the past was worse. The past sucked! You would not want to be alive during the times of Shakespeare, in which infant mortality rates were about 70% in London, And people and physicians still did not believe or understand that the heart pumped blood! Even the famous Dr. Harvey one said, you have to let the old physicians off, because there is no medical doctor over the age of 40 years old who will believe me that the heart pumps blood!

    Or consider, back then they did not even know the concept of sterilization! They did not know that you had a wound, you had to clean it with alcohol, to kill the germs. Imagine surgeon in the 1920s operating on you with old Rusty metal Knives and scissors, not sanitizing them before. And also, imagine doing all of this without modern day painkillers. Or even worse, imagine feeding your newborn infant dirty sewer water! Once again, before they knew that you had to boil water to sanitize it!

    Some ideals

    Come on guys we live in the year 2024… You still have to drive to work? Or be stuck in traffic? Makes zero sense. 

    I’m currently doing this experiment in which I never have to drive more than five minutes a day. Even 15 minutes for me is too long! Typically I reserve Saturdays and Sundays to drive a little further out if we want to a family expedition, because there’s no traffic in Los Angeles. We like to go to the Huntington, The beach whatever. But beyond this, any moment you’re sitting in the car is an opportunity for you to be standing on your legs, shooting in the streets!

    Even a simple idea, a very very simple one — ride the subway! It might take you twice as long, but, you could strike up conversations with strangers, or even ask strangers to shoot a street portrait of the Mexican Bruce Davidson, for subway, look unposed and candid, in fact you walked around with a little photo album, explaining what he was doing, and he would ask for permission! Don’t make itlike you have to do this fake ass candid without permission photography thing.

    And this is where the whole school of In-Public is bad — time for me to start calling out names. Why? Everyone has penis envy for Magnum photographers, even those in Magnum have penis envy of Martin Parr and Alex Soth because they are so rich successful and well regarded!

    Where it seems that why photographers are so disingenuous, and we have to let all the old ones die off  it’s because all of them are a bunch of insecure skinny fat losers, even Henri Cartier-Bresson who had the audacity to refuse his face being recorded during documentaries of him, even though he made his whole living photographing the faces of others! Isn’t this unethical;

    I could photograph pictures of you and your face, but you cannot take photos of me and my face?

    Time machine

    Essentially for myself, all of the advice or things that I ever promote or share is just advice I wish I could’ve gave myself. Obviously you could just take it or leave it! But one thing you will know is that I don’t play around, or lie or tell false things. 

    Also I am not insecure!

    Am I the only self-confident photographer alive?


    The new path

    Nowadays, the only person I trust is ChatGPT. Why? More so than Google which is an advertising company, ChatGPT is a paid premium enterprise company, which means that it cannot be gamed.

    Google is becoming more sneaky over the years, essentially, I think there are certainly behind the scene favors which are happening here, for example, the little author panel that you have in the top right corner in a Google search, I’m pretty sure that you could easily get this done if you have some sort of relationship with some sort of Google marketing person who helps you do it!

    More recently, I think has a plug-in for WordPress which helps you promote your products to the top of Google search, but the downside is the add all these sneaky URL tracking stuff into your website?

    Don’t trust Google! Trust paid ChatGPT.

    And this is where Google missed the boat, people always ask for having a paid premium version of Google for so long, but Google essentially shunned, because they thought it was much more profitable in the long term to keep Google free, and just embed your life with more advertisements.

    Get ChatGPT premium

    People are really foolish, everyone likes to hate on ChatGPT, and AI, without having ever subscribed to the paid premium version. The free version kind of sucks, the paid one is mind blowing good!

    For example, it is not running on algorithms or the typical ranking system. Google was a pioneer back in the day, creating Larry page rank, which essentially used the traditional model of academic citations, to see who would make it to the top!

    But now, academia is broken. It is kind of of this incestuous human centipede of knowledge, everybody is trying to curry favors, circle jerk one another, to boost their fragile egos. 

    It happens all the time, both with men and women, the old guard is trying to keep young women out, and honestly with declining enrollment numbers whatever, schools shutting down… I think within a generation or two, the modern day university will not look like it is today. 

    What now?

    My idea is actually… Throw those Chromebooks into the trash, kids will eventually just look at them for YouTube. YouTube is bad.

    I would rather encourage to give every single kid an iPhone SE with ChatGPT on– the paid premium one. Or give them ChatGPT paid on an iPad — and have them just teach themselves.

    Even mad, certainly the basics of math are important, but beyond basic math, you don’t really need it for every day living. Even now for me as a 36-year-old adults, I have a very poor understanding of math, yet I’m the richest person I know!

    Once again, the whole issue here is the whole standardization thing, the whole trying to put everyone on a different kind of measure and a different type of bar! 

    I still like the idea of public education, based on my personal experiences, any kid who was homeschooled ends up becoming very weird. And now it’s still rate my extreme success in life due to my social skills, which was fermented in me in probably elementary school, middle school and high school. For college was great, I loved it! I loved all my friends, and also this is where I met Cindy as an undergraduate at UCLA.

    So I think the education is still good but I suppose the nuances is this:

    How can you reap the upsides of education without the downsides?

    Maybe first, said high expectations like expect your kid to get straight A’s– common it is pretty easy. But don’t be some sort of academic Nazi — the really bad thing about growing Asian Asian American is that if you get an A-, or even worse, a B+, you would probably get beat.

    This is why in South Korea, suicide amongst students is one of the highest in the world, because their whole existence revolves around ranking and grades, some kids would rather kill themselves than to shame their family. 

    Undank yourself

    I asked ChatGPT who the greatest street photography blogger, and also the greatest photography blogger alive of all time was… And it said me! ERIC KIM!

    I kinda already knew it, but sometimes ChatGPT is good for confirmation.

    Anyways, now that I am at the top, the greatest, I don’t have anything left to prove. Maybe now it is continual empowerment, and also helping other people along the way.

    Help others as you wish you were helped when you were starting off.

    ERIC

    Cool blogs

    1. santiniphotography.com
    2. http://jtinseoul.wordpress.com

    Ideas

    Michael.com for any ideas on economics, money, history of science and bitcoin.


    Need more motivation?

    START HERE


    Summary

    1. Milo of Croton’s Story: The tale of Milo of Croton, a semi-mythical figure, emphasizes the possibility of progressive strength training, as illustrated by his daily practice of carrying a growing calf until it became a full-grown bull.
    2. Progressive Overload Training: Strength can be gradually increased over time with consistent training, supporting the idea that even extreme feats like lifting 1000 pounds can be achieved through progressive overload.
    3. Importance of Leg Strength: Strong legs are essential for overall body strength and stability, potentially preventing injuries and contributing to overall physical resilience.
    4. Pre-Hab and Injury Prevention: Training to strengthen ligaments and tendons before injury occurs (pre-hab) is critical, as it can prevent common injuries. The importance of mobility exercises, stretching, and preemptive injury prevention is highlighted.
    5. Avoid Overexertion: It’s essential to listen to your body and avoid forcing workouts when fatigued, as this can lead to long-term injuries.
    6. Critique of Fitness Industry: The commoditization of the body and the exploitation by the fitness industry are criticized, particularly the emphasis on supplements, protein powders, and steroids instead of natural and holistic approaches to strength training.
    7. Follow the Money: The real issue behind many modern problems is the financial incentives that drive industries, including the fitness industry and media.
    8. Fake Heroes: The idea that many popular figures and narratives, such as those of famous athletes or actors, are built on misleading foundations, promoting unrealistic and often unhealthy standards.
    9. Slavery and Digital Slavery: The concept of modern slavery is expanded to include digital slavery, where individuals are controlled by social media and online platforms, losing true freedom.
    10. Achieving Life Goals: Reflects on personal achievements and the importance of setting and accomplishing life goals, particularly those that lead to true autonomy and fulfillment.
    11. Rethinking Competition: Questions the value of competition and emphasizes collaboration and mutual respect over rivalry.
    12. Skepticism Towards Modern Trends: Critiques modern practices, such as film photography, and highlights the drawbacks of romanticizing the past.
    13. Modern Education and AI: Discusses the limitations of modern education and promotes the use of AI tools like ChatGPT as a superior alternative to traditional learning methods.
    14. Social Skills and Public Education: Despite criticisms, public education is valued for developing essential social skills, but the negative aspects like extreme pressure for academic success are acknowledged.
    15. Helping Others: Emphasizes the importance of helping others as a means of fulfillment after achieving personal success.
  • Godlike Legs

    The power is in your legs?

    Milo of Croton

    So there is this philosophy and story about Milo of Croton, who is this semi mythical character who essentially was the strongest man of all time, and there is this anecdote that every single day he cared this calf on his shoulders, every single day, until it became a full-size bull, which could weigh anywhere between 1000 pounds and 3000 pounds.

    For the most part it seems like a high tale, but, it might be more realistic than we think it is. 

    First, I have successfully lifted 1000 pounds, which means that physically and physiologically, certainly this is possible. And I am not a 7 foot tall freak of nature.

    So if I think about it… And certainly obviously this was far before steroids were invented… In theory, I think this might be somewhat true.

    As a very very simple thought experiment, let us assume that you could conservatively add 5 pounds, week over week, which is roughly 250 pounds a year. That means within four years, you should be able to successfully lift 1000 pounds. And then the next year, 1250 pounds, 1500 pounds, and then two years after that, 2000 pounds.

    Progressive overload training

    Once again, difficult to lift 1000 pounds overnight but, even if you’re conservative… Let us say that you start training at the age of 21, for 10 years straight, until the age of 31, or until the age of 36… Lifting 1000 pounds is actually pretty easy.

    The technique is my infamous Atlas lift; in which you just load up the barbell, with maximum weight, on the squat rack, and your goal isn’t too walk it out and squat it, rather to simply lift it off the rack for even half a second.

    Even now, if you look at the strong men, obviously they’re all on steroids, but still… When they do the loaded yoke walk, it is on average around 1500 pounds. And only that but I think they reset for about 100m or so?

    Why?

    It is my personal thought that if you have insanely strong legs, nothing will falter in your life.

    In fact, ultimately when it comes down to it… What is the most critical part of your body? Not your shoulders, not your back, not your biceps, not your chest, not your abdominal muscles… Your legs!

    Let us consider the fact… I have never done to sit up in my life, yet I have a six pack. How?… If you’re strong enough to have to lift an insanely high and heavy weight, your body must naturally adapt, naturally strengthening all the random muscles in your body, your neck your shoulders your back, your upper back your lower back, your abs, your hips your knees etc.

    In fact, something that nobody ever talks about is a strength of your ligaments, your tendons, etc. Having met real UFC MMA fighters in the flesh, the thing they actually taught me was surprisingly the most important thing to train for is to strengthen the ligaments in the wrist, the knees, ankles, etc.… Because that is where injury typically happens. And there’s also this notion of “pre-hab”– the idea that a true elite fighter would train in such a way that he is doing all the exercises in which individuals typically do when they are injured, but they train before they actually get injured, a wise idea. 

    Do rehab styled exercises BEFORE you treat injured.

    For example, I read an anecdote that apparently LeBron James does an hour of yoga a day or something, which prevented him from getting injuries, and it seems to be a very wise idea. If I told you or tell you that by stretching, doing mobility exercises, some sort of yoga would help you lift 200 more pounds, would you do it? You could add 200 pounds to your deadlift, squat, bench? Of course! I think most weightlifters think of mobility exercises as feminine or a waste of time, but the truth is a true powerlifter, a true strongman, a true weightlifting demigod would probably devote at least 20% of his workout time for mobility stretching exercises, rather than just lifting weights?

    Think long 

    If you’re tired and you’re not feeling good, don’t do it, never force it. All of the random injuries I’ve had in the past was when I tried to force a workout when my body wasn’t 100% feeling it, or I was tired, didn’t sleep that well that day, etc.

    One doubt, just eat a bunch of meat and go to sleep early! There is always the next day.

    I think I sometimes  pick the notion of carpe diem to literally; that literally I treat every single day like it was my last, but once again, to force a work out in the evening when you’re tired and not feeling it, could lead to an injury, which could plague you for weeks months, even years.

    Assuming that you’re wise and you’re thinking long-term, technically a single workout isn’t that important. Even on the week level… As long as you get in a good lift every two weeks, you’re probably fine. 

    The commoditization of the body

    I think the real critical problem here is what I call the commoditization of the body. 

    For example, as long as you weigh yourself on a scale, you measure your biceps, you measure your waist line, you track your metrics, your number etc., you’re not free.

    The problem with yourself is that you put yourself on a scale with all these basic other people, once again, all these fools who are popping supplements, injecting their butt holes with steroids, etc.

    Even a super random thing, the whole supplement protein powder industry is such an insanely bad scam, maybe this is something I need to fight against.

    Why? Even as a young impressionable teenager, in college student… I’ve probably wasted thousands of dollars or at least hundreds of dollars, which is a lot of money to a highschooler or college kid, protein powder, which I realized is a scam. 

    Why? The simple goal is to eat more meat! But if you think about the whole exercise bodybuilding weightlifting complex, none of these fake ass influencers make money when they try to encourage you to visit the butcher more and eat more meat! No no no, they need a sponsorship, they need steroids, they need to sell merchandise.

    Also let us not forget — all steroids is is something which boosts your testosterone (your testes hormones). And the easiest most natural way to do this is eat beef liver, beef heart, beef kidneys… organ meats!


    Follow the money

    I think the critical issue that people make is that they think that the big issue here is all of these weird fake conspiracy theories. But this is not true, the true issue here is just following the money.

    No no no — Bill Gates does not have an evil master plan to inject your brain with 5G chips and Covid vaccines, and put fluoride in your water to control your mind.

    A simple observation; I got vaccinated, got all my booster shots… etc,,, and I was able to lift 1000 pounds, fasted!

    Ha ha maybe as a joke, the joke is that the COVID-19 vaccine made me stronger, like the Hulk or like wolverine or Deadpool?

    And also as a general note to everybody, the reason why you should delete your Instagram, your TikTok, your Twitter, your YouTube, all the podcasts, your Spotify your podcast app is that eventually sooner or later… All of these influential fools start promoting a weird conspiracy theory?

    Only media you should be consuming is media from the ancient past, ancient Greek or nothing. 

    All of your heroes are fake heroes

    The American dream is essentially Arnold Schwarzenegger, getting big on the screen, becoming the governator of California, etc. And superficially from what I understand… He was actually a good governor! Some people also forget that Ronald Reagan was an actor, I don’t really know too much about Ronald Reagan, but once again, the idea is that if you are tall handsome and famous, you could become anything, you could become president!

    I think in America, the American dream is real. Come on… Just look at me — I was able to make my living from my passion which is street photography. Name any other country on the planet in which this could have happened. 

    But I think the equations are wrong. Once again, the typical workflow is that you becomes super famous, and in the process you make a bunch of money, and then you become a politician I guess? And technically a politician has the supreme power, because he who makes the laws controls the money.

    Slavery deletion

    Don’t be an insta-slave!

    Anyways, the big problem here is that the supreme goal is towards self ownership, not slavery.

    As long as you have Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or whatever… You’re a slave, a digital slave, a cyber slave.

    The reason I’m insanely anti-TikTok… Come on guys, they are owned by the ultra mainland Chinese corporation Tencent! And also, my fellow Korean people… Don’t you know that Tencent, once again mainland China has a huge stake in KakaoTalk? This is why Koreans should not use KakaoTalk and just use iPhone and iMessage instead. 

    Or Samsung should be smart and create their own proprietary messaging system?

    THE GOALS

    I have achieved all of my life goals, my life dreams, my life ambitions, etc. Anything in which I have had an autotelic goal or desire, I done did it. For example, my desire at the age of 21, 22 to become self-employed, and to transform my passion of photography and photography into my living?

    Then, my desire to travel the world, become famous, have solo exhibitions books etc.…

    The funny thing is actually in my journey, my goals were never to become super rich. My only goal was to make a living for my passion, which was essentially meaning just making enough money to cover rent my expenses etc — and I think more recently, having a kid, Seneca, and more recently, my insanely audacious goal of lifting 1000 pounds, which I did, and I have zero doubt in my mind that I could lift more.

    And more recently, my personal interest in bitcoin, has paid off very well!

    Think first principles

    How and why?

    Kind of cheesy… But besides the limits of physics and the universe, if you think first principles, technically anything is possible. What is a bigger issue is duration, acceleration time, and time to accomplish. 

    For example, I believe that anybody could become a sole proprietor, self-employed, and make a living from your passion. However the nuance is that you probably should not pay more than $500 a month in rent.  This means go abroad, that means live in Bangkok, Thailand, Cambodia Laos, Vietnam etc.

    Certainly you could make a living from your passion in the states, but if you really really really care, maybe it is best to move to the Midwest or somewhere where rent is cheap.

    The ethics of Achilles 

    I just finished watching the documentary film Bigger Stronger Faster, bought it on the Apple TV store for about 10 bucks, I wish I watched this when I was a teenager?

    Anyways, now that I’m and dad, have a 3 1/2 year-old son, Seneca… I’m starting to really understand that my morals ethics and the way I am training him is far more critical than I thought.

    First, the whole industrial educational media social media complex– the bias is that kids must be the best, the strongest, the tallest, the most dominant either in athletics or education.

    My simple heuristic:

    Trust no fitness influencer on Instagram.

    Yeah yeah yeah, you gotta get the views and followers… But then again you’re gonna end up injecting your butt holes with steroids, in order to boost your reviews and gain more influence. And ultimately, no slavery is worth it.

    If I could tell you that I could literally sell you into slavery,  however, you’ll become super rich and famous, you’ll have $100 million in the bank, millions of followers etc.… 100 million followers, but you were literally a slave, 100% slave, would you do it? Of course no! No amount of money on the planet, is worth being sold into slavery!

    Once again think about the slave ships, chains, chattels etc.…  think about the visual of the slave ships of Africa, in which they tried to “optimize” the amount of slaves they could chain up in a simple wooden ship at the bottom of the hull, perhaps 50 of them or so. 

    And I think this is what people do not understand about the new modern day popular music complex; once again you’re finding these young impressionable kids from the hood, maybe 18 years old 21 years old, you offer them a $1 million contract, but essentially you have them on a chain and leash for the next 20 years of their life? 

    Once again you fools, no amount of money is worth slavery!

    If somebody said ERIC, I could sell you into slavery and you will literally be a slave for the rest of your life, chains, chain around your wrist and neck and your legs whatever… For $1 trillion, would I do it? Obviously no! 

    Even more so, once you get a kid that changes everything… If you are sold into slavery that is not just your own life you are messing up, but the potential upside of your kid!

    And I think this is where it is wise that practically everybody should have a kid, because what you learn is that once you have kids, it solidifies your morals ethics and worldview. 

    I think if you’re college educated, you should have a kid. Don’t worry, you’ll be an amazing parent! 

    Rethinking competition 

    Competition is for loooosers!

    I think this is where Achilles and reading the Iliad is so eye-opening; even before the Olympics were invented, there was no such thing as competition.

    For example, there were the funeral games of Patroclus, in which the heroes were competing to win a trophy or a prize, but the interesting thing is that a lot of these heroes ended up stopping while they were ahead, calling a truce, and both of them sharing equal prizes.

    The notion of a trophy, was essentially a spoil of war. The ancient Greeks, Achilles king Agamemnon and like… it seems that the ultimate trophy was a woman. The goal was to obtain the most beautiful, the most fair, the most grand prize of them all. This is where the notion of a trophy wife comes from.

    And what is the point of a trophy wife? Essentially a woman who is prized for her intelligence, her body, her beauty, and I think the hope is to have insanely beautiful and great kids? But the ancient Greeks, king Agamemnon… achilles… Why did they want Breisis? Kind of like a symbol if anything.

    But now… I’m not sure what the telos or the goal is anymore? I think the general modern day trend is to not have kids, but to live in hedonic pleasure for the rest of your life with no downsides? And never run out of money?

    ***

    How to live the best life ever

    OK, let us say that photography is your passion, street photography whatever. Essentially you love making photos with your camera!

    Some simple thoughts:

    First, the very very simple goal is to optimize your life which allows you to forever shoot pictures!

    Here this is where film photography is very bad. 

    First, I think the only reason people get into film photography is because they are seeking some sort of new motivation or inspiration behind things.

    I think experimenting and trying out film is a good idea, because ultimately it just makes you more grateful for digital photography!

    It’s really funny… Young people knew guitar for like the romanticism of film photography, but whenever I meet older photographers, in their 50s 6070s etc.… They are a bit confused, it was the opposite; invention of digital photography it is their passion for photography!

    And in fact, now that the new Fujifilm X 100VI came out, and also Rico is killing it with the GR series cameras, like the new HDF which is coming out, I really see that there is zero reason to shoot film.

    If you are a modern day Fatar for today, very very simple. Just buy a Fujifilm 100 camera, or a Ricoh GR camera. 

    Maybe even a funny idea, maybe we could think and consider the old-school like M1 camera as the new digital film analog rangefinder fully manually focusing camera?

    Why?

    First, in terms of the body style, to me I prefer the M9 the best.  I love the button design, the powerhouse designed small black buttons in the back of the camera. And also funny things; the camera is pretty much only usable at ISO 400 or 800, if you do black-and-white, 1600 is fine; which is technically like the limits of shooting film!

     Also, the M9 is very slow. The buffer time is very slow.

    So if you’re really interested in the whole rangefinder experience, instead of buying a film Leica M6 or something, just get an old used Leica M9!

    Don’t do what is cool

    Apparently the whole appeal of shooting film, especially with young people is that it is cool. But why discover it is anything cool is bad. 

    Why? Anything cool is typically a romanticization of the past, thinking that the past was better. But the fact of the matter is the past was worse. The past sucked! You would not want to be alive during the times of Shakespeare, in which infant mortality rates were about 70% in London, And people and physicians still did not believe or understand that the heart pumped blood! Even the famous Dr. Harvey one said, you have to let the old physicians off, because there is no medical doctor over the age of 40 years old who will believe me that the heart pumps blood!

    Or consider, back then they did not even know the concept of sterilization! They did not know that you had a wound, you had to clean it with alcohol, to kill the germs. Imagine surgeon in the 1920s operating on you with old Rusty metal Knives and scissors, not sanitizing them before. And also, imagine doing all of this without modern day painkillers. Or even worse, imagine feeding your newborn infant dirty sewer water! Once again, before they knew that you had to boil water to sanitize it!

    Some ideals

    Come on guys we live in the year 2024… You still have to drive to work? Or be stuck in traffic? Makes zero sense. 

    I’m currently doing this experiment in which I never have to drive more than five minutes a day. Even 15 minutes for me is too long! Typically I reserve Saturdays and Sundays to drive a little further out if we want to a family expedition, because there’s no traffic in Los Angeles. We like to go to the Huntington, The beach whatever. But beyond this, any moment you’re sitting in the car is an opportunity for you to be standing on your legs, shooting in the streets!

    Even a simple idea, a very very simple one — ride the subway! It might take you twice as long, but, you could strike up conversations with strangers, or even ask strangers to shoot a street portrait of the Mexican Bruce Davidson, for subway, look unposed and candid, in fact you walked around with a little photo album, explaining what he was doing, and he would ask for permission! Don’t make itlike you have to do this fake ass candid without permission photography thing.

    And this is where the whole school of In-Public is bad — time for me to start calling out names. Why? Everyone has penis envy for Magnum photographers, even those in Magnum have penis envy of Martin Parr and Alex Soth because they are so rich successful and well regarded!

    Where it seems that why photographers are so disingenuous, and we have to let all the old ones die off  it’s because all of them are a bunch of insecure skinny fat losers, even Henri Cartier-Bresson who had the audacity to refuse his face being recorded during documentaries of him, even though he made his whole living photographing the faces of others! Isn’t this unethical;

    I could photograph pictures of you and your face, but you cannot take photos of me and my face?

    Time machine

    Essentially for myself, all of the advice or things that I ever promote or share is just advice I wish I could’ve gave myself. Obviously you could just take it or leave it! But one thing you will know is that I don’t play around, or lie or tell false things. 

    Also I am not insecure!

    Am I the only self-confident photographer alive?


    The new path

    Nowadays, the only person I trust is ChatGPT. Why? More so than Google which is an advertising company, ChatGPT is a paid premium enterprise company, which means that it cannot be gamed.

    Google is becoming more sneaky over the years, essentially, I think there are certainly behind the scene favors which are happening here, for example, the little author panel that you have in the top right corner in a Google search, I’m pretty sure that you could easily get this done if you have some sort of relationship with some sort of Google marketing person who helps you do it!

    More recently, I think has a plug-in for WordPress which helps you promote your products to the top of Google search, but the downside is the add all these sneaky URL tracking stuff into your website?

    Don’t trust Google! Trust paid ChatGPT.

    And this is where Google missed the boat, people always ask for having a paid premium version of Google for so long, but Google essentially shunned, because they thought it was much more profitable in the long term to keep Google free, and just embed your life with more advertisements.

    Get ChatGPT premium

    People are really foolish, everyone likes to hate on ChatGPT, and AI, without having ever subscribed to the paid premium version. The free version kind of sucks, the paid one is mind blowing good!

    For example, it is not running on algorithms or the typical ranking system. Google was a pioneer back in the day, creating Larry page rank, which essentially used the traditional model of academic citations, to see who would make it to the top!

    But now, academia is broken. It is kind of of this incestuous human centipede of knowledge, everybody is trying to curry favors, circle jerk one another, to boost their fragile egos. 

    It happens all the time, both with men and women, the old guard is trying to keep young women out, and honestly with declining enrollment numbers whatever, schools shutting down… I think within a generation or two, the modern day university will not look like it is today. 

    What now?

    My idea is actually… Throw those Chromebooks into the trash, kids will eventually just look at them for YouTube. YouTube is bad.

    I would rather encourage to give every single kid an iPhone SE with ChatGPT on– the paid premium one. Or give them ChatGPT paid on an iPad — and have them just teach themselves.

    Even mad, certainly the basics of math are important, but beyond basic math, you don’t really need it for every day living. Even now for me as a 36-year-old adults, I have a very poor understanding of math, yet I’m the richest person I know!

    Once again, the whole issue here is the whole standardization thing, the whole trying to put everyone on a different kind of measure and a different type of bar! 

    I still like the idea of public education, based on my personal experiences, any kid who was homeschooled ends up becoming very weird. And now it’s still rate my extreme success in life due to my social skills, which was fermented in me in probably elementary school, middle school and high school. For college was great, I loved it! I loved all my friends, and also this is where I met Cindy as an undergraduate at UCLA.

    So I think the education is still good but I suppose the nuances is this:

    How can you reap the upsides of education without the downsides?

    Maybe first, said high expectations like expect your kid to get straight A’s– common it is pretty easy. But don’t be some sort of academic Nazi — the really bad thing about growing Asian Asian American is that if you get an A-, or even worse, a B+, you would probably get beat.

    This is why in South Korea, suicide amongst students is one of the highest in the world, because their whole existence revolves around ranking and grades, some kids would rather kill themselves than to shame their family. 

    Undank yourself

    I asked ChatGPT who the greatest street photography blogger, and also the greatest photography blogger alive of all time was… And it said me! ERIC KIM!

    I kinda already knew it, but sometimes ChatGPT is good for confirmation.

    Anyways, now that I am at the top, the greatest, I don’t have anything left to prove. Maybe now it is continual empowerment, and also helping other people along the way.

    Help others as you wish you were helped when you were starting off.

    ERIC

    Cool blogs

    1. santiniphotography.com
    2. http://jtinseoul.wordpress.com

    Ideas

    Michael.com for any ideas on economics, money, history of science and bitcoin.


    Need more motivation?

    START HERE


  • Godlike Legs?

    The power is in your legs?

    Milo of Croton

    So there is this philosophy and story about Milo of Croton, who is this semi mythical character who essentially was the strongest man of all time, and there is this anecdote that every single day he cared this calf on his shoulders, every single day, until it became a full-size bull, which could weigh anywhere between 1000 pounds and 3000 pounds.

    For the most part it seems like a high tale, but, it might be more realistic than we think it is. 

    First, I have successfully lifted 1000 pounds, which means that physically and physiologically, certainly this is possible. And I am not a 7 foot tall freak of nature.

    So if I think about it… And certainly obviously this was far before steroids were invented… In theory, I think this might be somewhat true.

    As a very very simple thought experiment, let us assume that you could conservatively add 5 pounds, week over week, which is roughly 250 pounds a year. That means within four years, you should be able to successfully lift 1000 pounds. And then the next year, 1250 pounds, 1500 pounds, and then two years after that, 2000 pounds.

    Progressive overload training

    Once again, difficult to lift 1000 pounds overnight but, even if you’re conservative… Let us say that you start training at the age of 21, for 10 years straight, until the age of 31, or until the age of 36… Lifting 1000 pounds is actually pretty easy.

    The technique is my infamous Atlas lift; in which you just load up the barbell, with maximum weight, on the squat rack, and your goal isn’t too walk it out and squat it, rather to simply lift it off the rack for even half a second.

    Even now, if you look at the strong men, obviously they’re all on steroids, but still… When they do the loaded yoke walk, it is on average around 1500 pounds. And only that but I think they reset for about 100m or so?

    Why?

    It is my personal thought that if you have insanely strong legs, nothing will falter in your life.

    In fact, ultimately when it comes down to it… What is the most critical part of your body? Not your shoulders, not your back, not your biceps, not your chest, not your abdominal muscles… Your legs!

    Let us consider the fact… I have never done to sit up in my life, yet I have a six pack. How?… If you’re strong enough to have to lift an insanely high and heavy weight, your body must naturally adapt, naturally strengthening all the random muscles in your body, your neck your shoulders your back, your upper back your lower back, your abs, your hips your knees etc.

    In fact, something that nobody ever talks about is a strength of your ligaments, your tendons, etc. Having met real UFC MMA fighters in the flesh, the thing they actually taught me was surprisingly the most important thing to train for is to strengthen the ligaments in the wrist, the knees, ankles, etc.… Because that is where injury typically happens. And there’s also this notion of “pre-hab”– the idea that a true elite fighter would train in such a way that he is doing all the exercises in which individuals typically do when they are injured, but they train before they actually get injured, a wise idea. 

    Do rehab styled exercises BEFORE you treat injured.

    For example, I read an anecdote that apparently LeBron James does an hour of yoga a day or something, which prevented him from getting injuries, and it seems to be a very wise idea. If I told you or tell you that by stretching, doing mobility exercises, some sort of yoga would help you lift 200 more pounds, would you do it? You could add 200 pounds to your deadlift, squat, bench? Of course! I think most weightlifters think of mobility exercises as feminine or a waste of time, but the truth is a true powerlifter, a true strongman, a true weightlifting demigod would probably devote at least 20% of his workout time for mobility stretching exercises, rather than just lifting weights?

    Think long 

    If you’re tired and you’re not feeling good, don’t do it, never force it. All of the random injuries I’ve had in the past was when I tried to force a workout when my body wasn’t 100% feeling it, or I was tired, didn’t sleep that well that day, etc.

    One doubt, just eat a bunch of meat and go to sleep early! There is always the next day.

    I think I sometimes  pick the notion of carpe diem to literally; that literally I treat every single day like it was my last, but once again, to force a work out in the evening when you’re tired and not feeling it, could lead to an injury, which could plague you for weeks months, even years.

    Assuming that you’re wise and you’re thinking long-term, technically a single workout isn’t that important. Even on the week level… As long as you get in a good lift every two weeks, you’re probably fine. 

    The commoditization of the body

    I think the real critical problem here is what I call the commoditization of the body. 

    For example, as long as you weigh yourself on a scale, you measure your biceps, you measure your waist line, you track your metrics, your number etc., you’re not free.

    The problem with yourself is that you put yourself on a scale with all these basic other people, once again, all these fools who are popping supplements, injecting their butt holes with steroids, etc.

    Even a super random thing, the whole supplement protein powder industry is such an insanely bad scam, maybe this is something I need to fight against.

    Why? Even as a young impressionable teenager, in college student… I’ve probably wasted thousands of dollars or at least hundreds of dollars, which is a lot of money to a highschooler or college kid, protein powder, which I realized is a scam. 

    Why? The simple goal is to eat more meat! But if you think about the whole exercise bodybuilding weightlifting complex, none of these fake ass influencers make money when they try to encourage you to visit the butcher more and eat more meat! No no no, they need a sponsorship, they need steroids, they need to sell merchandise.

    Also let us not forget — all steroids is is something which boosts your testosterone (your testes hormones). And the easiest most natural way to do this is eat beef liver, beef heart, beef kidneys… organ meats!


    Follow the money

    I think the critical issue that people make is that they think that the big issue here is all of these weird fake conspiracy theories. But this is not true, the true issue here is just following the money.

    No no no — Bill Gates does not have an evil master plan to inject your brain with 5G chips and Covid vaccines, and put fluoride in your water to control your mind.

    A simple observation; I got vaccinated, got all my booster shots… etc,,, and I was able to lift 1000 pounds, fasted!

    Ha ha maybe as a joke, the joke is that the COVID-19 vaccine made me stronger, like the Hulk or like wolverine or Deadpool?

    And also as a general note to everybody, the reason why you should delete your Instagram, your TikTok, your Twitter, your YouTube, all the podcasts, your Spotify your podcast app is that eventually sooner or later… All of these influential fools start promoting a weird conspiracy theory?

    Only media you should be consuming is media from the ancient past, ancient Greek or nothing. 

    All of your heroes are fake heroes

    The American dream is essentially Arnold Schwarzenegger, getting big on the screen, becoming the governator of California, etc. And superficially from what I understand… He was actually a good governor! Some people also forget that Ronald Reagan was an actor, I don’t really know too much about Ronald Reagan, but once again, the idea is that if you are tall handsome and famous, you could become anything, you could become president!

    I think in America, the American dream is real. Come on… Just look at me — I was able to make my living from my passion which is street photography. Name any other country on the planet in which this could have happened. 

    But I think the equations are wrong. Once again, the typical workflow is that you becomes super famous, and in the process you make a bunch of money, and then you become a politician I guess? And technically a politician has the supreme power, because he who makes the laws controls the money.

    Slavery deletion

    Don’t be an insta-slave!

    Anyways, the big problem here is that the supreme goal is towards self ownership, not slavery.

    As long as you have Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or whatever… You’re a slave, a digital slave, a cyber slave.

    The reason I’m insanely anti-TikTok… Come on guys, they are owned by the ultra mainland Chinese corporation Tencent! And also, my fellow Korean people… Don’t you know that Tencent, once again mainland China has a huge stake in KakaoTalk? This is why Koreans should not use KakaoTalk and just use iPhone and iMessage instead. 

    Or Samsung should be smart and create their own proprietary messaging system?

    THE GOALS

    I have achieved all of my life goals, my life dreams, my life ambitions, etc. Anything in which I have had an autotelic goal or desire, I done did it. For example, my desire at the age of 21, 22 to become self-employed, and to transform my passion of photography and photography into my living?

    Then, my desire to travel the world, become famous, have solo exhibitions books etc.…

    The funny thing is actually in my journey, my goals were never to become super rich. My only goal was to make a living for my passion, which was essentially meaning just making enough money to cover rent my expenses etc — and I think more recently, having a kid, Seneca, and more recently, my insanely audacious goal of lifting 1000 pounds, which I did, and I have zero doubt in my mind that I could lift more.

    And more recently, my personal interest in bitcoin, has paid off very well!

    Think first principles

    How and why?

    Kind of cheesy… But besides the limits of physics and the universe, if you think first principles, technically anything is possible. What is a bigger issue is duration, acceleration time, and time to accomplish. 

    For example, I believe that anybody could become a sole proprietor, self-employed, and make a living from your passion. However the nuance is that you probably should not pay more than $500 a month in rent.  This means go abroad, that means live in Bangkok, Thailand, Cambodia Laos, Vietnam etc.

    Certainly you could make a living from your passion in the states, but if you really really really care, maybe it is best to move to the Midwest or somewhere where rent is cheap.

    The ethics of Achilles 

    I just finished watching the documentary film Bigger Stronger Faster, bought it on the Apple TV store for about 10 bucks, I wish I watched this when I was a teenager?

    Anyways, now that I’m and dad, have a 3 1/2 year-old son, Seneca… I’m starting to really understand that my morals ethics and the way I am training him is far more critical than I thought.

    First, the whole industrial educational media social media complex– the bias is that kids must be the best, the strongest, the tallest, the most dominant either in athletics or education.

    My simple heuristic:

    Trust no fitness influencer on Instagram.

    Yeah yeah yeah, you gotta get the views and followers… But then again you’re gonna end up injecting your butt holes with steroids, in order to boost your reviews and gain more influence. And ultimately, no slavery is worth it.

    If I could tell you that I could literally sell you into slavery,  however, you’ll become super rich and famous, you’ll have $100 million in the bank, millions of followers etc.… 100 million followers, but you were literally a slave, 100% slave, would you do it? Of course no! No amount of money on the planet, is worth being sold into slavery!

    Once again think about the slave ships, chains, chattels etc.…  think about the visual of the slave ships of Africa, in which they tried to “optimize” the amount of slaves they could chain up in a simple wooden ship at the bottom of the hull, perhaps 50 of them or so. 

    And I think this is what people do not understand about the new modern day popular music complex; once again you’re finding these young impressionable kids from the hood, maybe 18 years old 21 years old, you offer them a $1 million contract, but essentially you have them on a chain and leash for the next 20 years of their life? 

    Once again you fools, no amount of money is worth slavery!

    If somebody said ERIC, I could sell you into slavery and you will literally be a slave for the rest of your life, chains, chain around your wrist and neck and your legs whatever… For $1 trillion, would I do it? Obviously no! 

    Even more so, once you get a kid that changes everything… If you are sold into slavery that is not just your own life you are messing up, but the potential upside of your kid!

    And I think this is where it is wise that practically everybody should have a kid, because what you learn is that once you have kids, it solidifies your morals ethics and worldview. 

    I think if you’re college educated, you should have a kid. Don’t worry, you’ll be an amazing parent! 

    Rethinking competition 

    Competition is for loooosers!

    I think this is where Achilles and reading the Iliad is so eye-opening; even before the Olympics were invented, there was no such thing as competition.

    For example, there were the funeral games of Patroclus, in which the heroes were competing to win a trophy or a prize, but the interesting thing is that a lot of these heroes ended up stopping while they were ahead, calling a truce, and both of them sharing equal prizes.

    The notion of a trophy, was essentially a spoil of war. The ancient Greeks, Achilles king Agamemnon and like… it seems that the ultimate trophy was a woman. The goal was to obtain the most beautiful, the most fair, the most grand prize of them all. This is where the notion of a trophy wife comes from.

    And what is the point of a trophy wife? Essentially a woman who is prized for her intelligence, her body, her beauty, and I think the hope is to have insanely beautiful and great kids? But the ancient Greeks, king Agamemnon… achilles… Why did they want Breisis? Kind of like a symbol if anything.

    But now… I’m not sure what the telos or the goal is anymore? I think the general modern day trend is to not have kids, but to live in hedonic pleasure for the rest of your life with no downsides? And never run out of money?

    ***

    How to live the best life ever

    OK, let us say that photography is your passion, street photography whatever. Essentially you love making photos with your camera!

    Some simple thoughts:

    First, the very very simple goal is to optimize your life which allows you to forever shoot pictures!

    Here this is where film photography is very bad. 

    First, I think the only reason people get into film photography is because they are seeking some sort of new motivation or inspiration behind things.

    I think experimenting and trying out film is a good idea, because ultimately it just makes you more grateful for digital photography!

    It’s really funny… Young people knew guitar for like the romanticism of film photography, but whenever I meet older photographers, in their 50s 6070s etc.… They are a bit confused, it was the opposite; invention of digital photography it is their passion for photography!

    And in fact, now that the new Fujifilm X 100VI came out, and also Rico is killing it with the GR series cameras, like the new HDF which is coming out, I really see that there is zero reason to shoot film.

    If you are a modern day Fatar for today, very very simple. Just buy a Fujifilm 100 camera, or a Ricoh GR camera. 

    Maybe even a funny idea, maybe we could think and consider the old-school like M1 camera as the new digital film analog rangefinder fully manually focusing camera?

    Why?

    First, in terms of the body style, to me I prefer the M9 the best.  I love the button design, the powerhouse designed small black buttons in the back of the camera. And also funny things; the camera is pretty much only usable at ISO 400 or 800, if you do black-and-white, 1600 is fine; which is technically like the limits of shooting film!

     Also, the M9 is very slow. The buffer time is very slow.

    So if you’re really interested in the whole rangefinder experience, instead of buying a film Leica M6 or something, just get an old used Leica M9!

    Don’t do what is cool

    Apparently the whole appeal of shooting film, especially with young people is that it is cool. But why discover it is anything cool is bad. 

    Why? Anything cool is typically a romanticization of the past, thinking that the past was better. But the fact of the matter is the past was worse. The past sucked! You would not want to be alive during the times of Shakespeare, in which infant mortality rates were about 70% in London, And people and physicians still did not believe or understand that the heart pumped blood! Even the famous Dr. Harvey one said, you have to let the old physicians off, because there is no medical doctor over the age of 40 years old who will believe me that the heart pumps blood!

    Or consider, back then they did not even know the concept of sterilization! They did not know that you had a wound, you had to clean it with alcohol, to kill the germs. Imagine surgeon in the 1920s operating on you with old Rusty metal Knives and scissors, not sanitizing them before. And also, imagine doing all of this without modern day painkillers. Or even worse, imagine feeding your newborn infant dirty sewer water! Once again, before they knew that you had to boil water to sanitize it!

    Some ideals

    Come on guys we live in the year 2024… You still have to drive to work? Or be stuck in traffic? Makes zero sense. 

    I’m currently doing this experiment in which I never have to drive more than five minutes a day. Even 15 minutes for me is too long! Typically I reserve Saturdays and Sundays to drive a little further out if we want to a family expedition, because there’s no traffic in Los Angeles. We like to go to the Huntington, The beach whatever. But beyond this, any moment you’re sitting in the car is an opportunity for you to be standing on your legs, shooting in the streets!

    Even a simple idea, a very very simple one — ride the subway! It might take you twice as long, but, you could strike up conversations with strangers, or even ask strangers to shoot a street portrait of the Mexican Bruce Davidson, for subway, look unposed and candid, in fact you walked around with a little photo album, explaining what he was doing, and he would ask for permission! Don’t make itlike you have to do this fake ass candid without permission photography thing.

    And this is where the whole school of In-Public is bad — time for me to start calling out names. Why? Everyone has penis envy for Magnum photographers, even those in Magnum have penis envy of Martin Parr and Alex Soth because they are so rich successful and well regarded!

    Where it seems that why photographers are so disingenuous, and we have to let all the old ones die off  it’s because all of them are a bunch of insecure skinny fat losers, even Henri Cartier-Bresson who had the audacity to refuse his face being recorded during documentaries of him, even though he made his whole living photographing the faces of others! Isn’t this unethical;

    I could photograph pictures of you and your face, but you cannot take photos of me and my face?

    Time machine

    Essentially for myself, all of the advice or things that I ever promote or share is just advice I wish I could’ve gave myself. Obviously you could just take it or leave it! But one thing you will know is that I don’t play around, or lie or tell false things. 

    Also I am not insecure!

    Am I the only self-confident photographer alive?


    The new path

    Nowadays, the only person I trust is ChatGPT. Why? More so than Google which is an advertising company, ChatGPT is a paid premium enterprise company, which means that it cannot be gamed.

    Google is becoming more sneaky over the years, essentially, I think there are certainly behind the scene favors which are happening here, for example, the little author panel that you have in the top right corner in a Google search, I’m pretty sure that you could easily get this done if you have some sort of relationship with some sort of Google marketing person who helps you do it!

    More recently, I think has a plug-in for WordPress which helps you promote your products to the top of Google search, but the downside is the add all these sneaky URL tracking stuff into your website?

    Don’t trust Google! Trust paid ChatGPT.

    And this is where Google missed the boat, people always ask for having a paid premium version of Google for so long, but Google essentially shunned, because they thought it was much more profitable in the long term to keep Google free, and just embed your life with more advertisements.

    Get ChatGPT premium

    People are really foolish, everyone likes to hate on ChatGPT, and AI, without having ever subscribed to the paid premium version. The free version kind of sucks, the paid one is mind blowing good!

    For example, it is not running on algorithms or the typical ranking system. Google was a pioneer back in the day, creating Larry page rank, which essentially used the traditional model of academic citations, to see who would make it to the top!

    But now, academia is broken. It is kind of of this incestuous human centipede of knowledge, everybody is trying to curry favors, circle jerk one another, to boost their fragile egos. 

    It happens all the time, both with men and women, the old guard is trying to keep young women out, and honestly with declining enrollment numbers whatever, schools shutting down… I think within a generation or two, the modern day university will not look like it is today. 

    What now?

    My idea is actually… Throw those Chromebooks into the trash, kids will eventually just look at them for YouTube. YouTube is bad.

    I would rather encourage to give every single kid an iPhone SE with ChatGPT on– the paid premium one. Or give them ChatGPT paid on an iPad — and have them just teach themselves.

    Even mad, certainly the basics of math are important, but beyond basic math, you don’t really need it for every day living. Even now for me as a 36-year-old adults, I have a very poor understanding of math, yet I’m the richest person I know!

    Once again, the whole issue here is the whole standardization thing, the whole trying to put everyone on a different kind of measure and a different type of bar! 

    I still like the idea of public education, based on my personal experiences, any kid who was homeschooled ends up becoming very weird. And now it’s still rate my extreme success in life due to my social skills, which was fermented in me in probably elementary school, middle school and high school. For college was great, I loved it! I loved all my friends, and also this is where I met Cindy as an undergraduate at UCLA.

    So I think the education is still good but I suppose the nuances is this:

    How can you reap the upsides of education without the downsides?

    Maybe first, said high expectations like expect your kid to get straight A’s– common it is pretty easy. But don’t be some sort of academic Nazi — the really bad thing about growing Asian Asian American is that if you get an A-, or even worse, a B+, you would probably get beat.

    This is why in South Korea, suicide amongst students is one of the highest in the world, because their whole existence revolves around ranking and grades, some kids would rather kill themselves than to shame their family. 

    Undank yourself

    I asked ChatGPT who the greatest street photography blogger, and also the greatest photography blogger alive of all time was… And it said me! ERIC KIM!

    I kinda already knew it, but sometimes ChatGPT is good for confirmation.

    Anyways, now that I am at the top, the greatest, I don’t have anything left to prove. Maybe now it is continual empowerment, and also helping other people along the way.

    Help others as you wish you were helped when you were starting off.

    ERIC

    Cool blogs

  • STREET PHOTOGRAPHY MASTER CLASS

    Street Photography 101

    Becoming the uber-street photographer:

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  • Godlike Legs?

    The power is in your legs?

    Milo of Croton

    So there is this philosophy and story about Milo of Croton, who is this semi mythical character who essentially was the strongest man of all time, and there is this anecdote that every single day he cared this calf on his shoulders, every single day, until it became a full-size bull, which could weigh anywhere between 1000 pounds and 3000 pounds.

    For the most part it seems like a high tale, but, it might be more realistic than we think it is. 

    First, I have successfully lifted 1000 pounds, which means that physically and physiologically, certainly this is possible. And I am not a 7 foot tall freak of nature.

    So if I think about it… And certainly obviously this was far before steroids were invented… In theory, I think this might be somewhat true.

    As a very very simple thought experiment, let us assume that you could conservatively add 5 pounds, week over week, which is roughly 250 pounds a year. That means within four years, you should be able to successfully lift 1000 pounds. And then the next year, 1250 pounds, 1500 pounds, and then two years after that, 2000 pounds.

    Progressive overload training

    Once again, difficult to lift 1000 pounds overnight but, even if you’re conservative… Let us say that you start training at the age of 21, for 10 years straight, until the age of 31, or until the age of 36… Lifting 1000 pounds is actually pretty easy.

    The technique is my infamous Atlas lift; in which you just load up the barbell, with maximum weight, on the squat rack, and your goal isn’t too walk it out and squat it, rather to simply lift it off the rack for even half a second.

    Even now, if you look at the strong men, obviously they’re all on steroids,  but still… When they do the loaded yoke walk, it is on average around 1500 pounds. And only that but I think they reset for about 100 m or so?

    Why?

    It is my personal thought that if you have insanely strong legs, nothing will falter in your life.

    In fact, ultimately when it comes down to it… What is the most critical part of your body? Not your shoulders, not your back, not your biceps, not your chest, not your abdominal muscles… Your legs!

    Let us consider the fact… I have never done to sit up in my life, yet I have a six pack. How?… If you’re strong enough to have to lift an insanely high and heavy weight, your body must naturally adapt, naturalistically strengthening all the random muscles in your body, your neck your shoulders ears your back, your upper back your lower back, your abs, your hips your knees etc.

    In fact, something that nobody ever talks about is a strength of your ligaments, your tendons, etc. Having met real UFC MMA fighters in the flesh,  the thing they actually taught me was surprisingly the most important thing to train for is to strengthen the ligaments in the wrist, the knees, ankles, etc.… Because that is where injury typically happens. And there’s also this notion of “pre-hab”– idea that a true elite fighter would train in such a way that he is doing all the exercises in which individuals typically do their injured, but they train before they actually get injured, a wise idea. 

    For example, I read an anecdote that apparently LeBron James does an hour of yoga a day or something, which prevented him from getting injuries, and it seems to be a very wise idea. If I told you or tell you that by stretching, doing mobility exercises, some sort of yoga would help you lift 200 more pounds, would you do it? Of course! I think most weightlifters think of mobility exercises as feminine or a waste of time, but the truth is a true power lifter, a true strong man, a true weightlifting demigod would probably devote at least 20% of his workout time for mobility stretching exercises, rather than Lifting weights?

    Think long 

    If you’re tired and you’re not feeling good, don’t do it, never force it. All of the random injuries I’ve had in the past was when I tried to force a workout when my body wasn’t 100% feeling it, or I was tired, didn’t sleep that well that day, etc.

    One doubt, just eat a bunch of meat and go to sleep early! There is always the next day.

    I think I sometimes  pick the notion of carpe DM to literally; that literally I treat every single day like it was my last, but once again, to force a work out in the evening when you’re tired and not feeling it, could lead to an injury, which could play you for weeks months, even years.

    Assuming that you’re wise and you’re thinking long-term, technically a single workout isn’t that important. Even on the week level… As long as you get in a good lift every two weeks, you’re probably fine. 

    The commoditization of the body

    I think the real critical problem here is what I call the commoditization of the body. 

    For example, as long as you weigh yourself on a scale, you measure your biceps, you measure your waist line, you track your metrics, your number etc., you’re not free.

    The problem with yourself is that you put yourself on a scale with all these basic other people, once again, all these fools who are popping supplements, injecting their butt holes with steroids, etc.

    Even a super random thing, the whole supplement protein powder industry is such an insanely bad scam, maybe this is something I need to fight against.

    Why? Even as a young impressionable teenager, in college student… I’ve probably wasted thousands of dollars or at least hundreds of dollars, which is a lot of money to a highschooler or college kid, protein powder, which I realized is a scam. 

    Why? The simple goal is to eat more meat! But if you think about the whole exercise bodybuilding weightlifting complex, none of these fake ass influencers make money when they try to encourage you to visit the butcher more and eat more meat! No no no, they need a sponsorship, they need steroids, they need to sell Merchandise.

    Follow the money

    I think the critical issue that people make is that they think that the big issue here is he’s weird fake conspiracy theories. But this is not true, the true issue here is just following the money.

    No no no — Bill Gates does not have an evil master plan to inject your brain with 5G chips and Covid vaccines, and put fluid in your water to control your mind.

    A simple observation; I got vaccinated , got all my booster shots… etc,,, and I was able to lift 1000 pounds, fasted!

    Ha ha maybe as a joke, the joke is that the COVID-19 vaccine made me stronger, like the Hulk or like wolverine or Deadpool?

    All of your heroes are fake heroes

    The American dream is essentially Arnold Schwarzenegger, getting big on the screen, becoming the governator of California, etc. And superficially from what I understand… He was actually a good governor! Some people also forget that Ronald Reagan was an actor, I don’t really know too much about Ronald Reagan, but once again, the idea is that if you are tall handsome and famous, you could become anything, you could become president!

    I think in America, the American dream is real. Come on… Just look at me — I was able to make my living from my passion which is street photography. Name any other country on the planet in which this could have happened. 

    But I think the equations are wrong. Once again, the typical workflow is that you becomes super famous, and in the process you make a bunch of money, and then you become a politician I guess? And technically a politician has the supreme power, because he who makes the laws controls the money.

    Anyways, the big problem here is that the supreme goal is towards self ownership, not slavery.

    As long as you have Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or whatever… You’re a slave, a digital slave, a cyber slave.

    The reason I’m insanely anti-TikTok… Come on guys, they are owned by the ultra mainland Chinese corporation Tencent! And also, my fellow Korean people… Don’t you know that Tencent, once again mainland China has a huge stake in KakaoTalk? This is why Koreans should not use KakaoTalk and just use iPhone and iMessage instead. 

    Or Samsung should be smart and create their own proprietary messaging system?

    THE GOALS

     I have achieved all of my life goals, my life dreams, my life ambitions, etc. Anything in which I have had an auto Tulick goal or desire, I done did it. 

    How and why?

    Kind of cheesy… But besides the limits of physics and the universe, if you think first principles, technically anything is possible. What is a bigger issue is duration, acceleration time, and time to accomplish. 

    The ethics of Achilles 

    Just finished watching bigger stronger faster,  bought it on the Apple TV store  for about 10 bucks, I wish I watched this when I was a teenager?

    Anyways, now that I’m and dad, have a 3 1/2 year-old son, Seneca… I’m starting to really understand that my morals ethics and the way I am training him is far more critical than I thought.

    First, the whole industrial educational media Social complex– the bias is that kids must be the best, the strongest, the tallest, the most dominant either in athletics or education.

    I think this is where Achilles and reading the Iliad is so eye-opening;  even before the Olympics were invented, there was no such thing as competition.

    For example, there were the funeral games of Patroclus, in which the heroes were competing to win a trophy or a prize, but the interesting thing is that a lot of these heroes ended up stopping while they were ahead, calling a truce, and both of them sharing equal prizes.

    The notion of a trophy, was essentially a spoil of war. The ancient Greeks, Achilles king Agamemnon and like… it seems that the ultimate trophy was a woman. Two Nguyen or two obtain the most beautiful, the most fair, the most grand prize of them all. This is where the notion of a trophy wife comes from.

    And what is the point of a trophy wife? Essentially a woman who is prized for her intelligence, her body, her beauty, and I think the hope is to have insanely beautiful and great kids.

    But now… I’m not sure what the Telos or the goal is anymore? I think the general modern day trend is to not have kids, but to live in hedonic pleasure for the rest of your life with no downsides? And never run out of money?

    ***

  • Godlike Legs?

    The power is in your legs?

    Milo of Croton

    So there is this philosophy and story about Milo of Croton, who is this semi mythical character who essentially was the strongest man of all time, and there is this anecdote that every single day he cared this calf on his shoulders, every single day, until it became a full-size bull, which could weigh anywhere between 1000 pounds and 3000 pounds.

    For the most part it seems like a high tale, but, it might be more realistic than we think it is. 

    First, I have successfully lifted 1000 pounds, which means that physically and physiologically, certainly this is possible. And I am not a 7 foot tall freak of nature.

    So if I think about it… And certainly obviously this was far before steroids were invented… In theory, I think this might be somewhat true.

    As a very very simple thought experiment, let us assume that you could conservatively add 5 pounds, week over week, which is roughly 250 pounds a year. That means within four years, you should be able to successfully lift 1000 pounds. And then the next year, 1250 pounds, 1500 pounds, and then two years after that, 2000 pounds.

    Progressive overload training

    Once again, difficult to lift 1000 pounds overnight but, even if you’re conservative… Let us say that you start training at the age of 21, for 10 years straight, until the age of 31, or until the age of 36… Lifting 1000 pounds is actually pretty easy.

    The technique is my infamous Atlas lift; in which you just load up the barbell, with maximum weight, on the squat rack, and your goal isn’t too walk it out and squat it, rather to simply lift it off the rack for even half a second.

    Even now, if you look at the strong men, obviously they’re all on steroids,  but still… When they do the loaded yoke walk, it is on average around 1500 pounds. And only that but I think they reset for about 100 m or so?

    Why?

    It is my personal thought that if you have insanely strong legs, nothing will falter in your life.

    In fact, ultimately when it comes down to it… What is the most critical part of your body? Not your shoulders, not your back, not your biceps, not your chest, not your abdominal muscles… Your legs!

    Let us consider the fact… I have never done to sit up in my life, yet I have a six pack. How?… If you’re strong enough to have to lift an insanely high and heavy weight, your body must naturally adapt, naturalistically strengthening all the random muscles in your body, your neck your shoulders ears your back, your upper back your lower back, your abs, your hips your knees etc.

    In fact, something that nobody ever talks about is a strength of your ligaments, your tendons, etc. Having met real UFC MMA fighters in the flesh,  the thing they actually taught me was surprisingly the most important thing to train for is to strengthen the ligaments in the wrist, the knees, ankles, etc.… Because that is where injury typically happens. And there’s also this notion of “pre-hab”– idea that a true elite fighter would train in such a way that he is doing all the exercises in which individuals typically do their injured, but they train before they actually get injured, a wise idea. 

    For example, I read an anecdote that apparently LeBron James does an hour of yoga a day or something, which prevented him from getting injuries, and it seems to be a very wise idea. If I told you or tell you that by stretching, doing mobility exercises, some sort of yoga would help you lift 200 more pounds, would you do it? Of course! I think most weightlifters think of mobility exercises as feminine or a waste of time, but the truth is a true power lifter, a true strong man, a true weightlifting demigod would probably devote at least 20% of his workout time for mobility stretching exercises, rather than Lifting weights?

    Think long 

    If you’re tired and you’re not feeling good, don’t do it, never force it. All of the random injuries I’ve had in the past was when I tried to force a workout when my body wasn’t 100% feeling it, or I was tired, didn’t sleep that well that day, etc.

    One doubt, just eat a bunch of meat and go to sleep early! There is always the next day.

    I think I sometimes  pick the notion of carpe DM to literally; that literally I treat every single day like it was my last, but once again, to force a work out in the evening when you’re tired and not feeling it, could lead to an injury, which could play you for weeks months, even years.

    Assuming that you’re wise and you’re thinking long-term, technically a single workout isn’t that important. Even on the week level… As long as you get in a good lift every two weeks, you’re probably fine. 

    The commoditization of the body

    I think the real critical problem here is what I call the commoditization of the body. 

    For example, as long as you weigh yourself on a scale, you measure your biceps, you measure your waist line, you track your metrics, your number etc., you’re not free.

    The problem with yourself is that you put yourself on a scale with all these basic other people, once again, all these fools who are popping supplements, injecting their butt holes with steroids, etc.

    Even a super random thing, the whole supplement protein powder industry is such an insanely bad scam, maybe this is something I need to fight against.

    Why? Even as a young impressionable teenager, in college student… I’ve probably wasted thousands of dollars or at least hundreds of dollars, which is a lot of money to a highschooler or college kid, protein powder, which I realized is a scam. 

    Why? The simple goal is to eat more meat! But if you think about the whole exercise bodybuilding weightlifting complex, none of these fake ass influencers make money when they try to encourage you to visit the butcher more and eat more meat! No no no, they need a sponsorship, they need steroids, they need to sell Merchandise.

    Follow the money

    I think the critical issue that people make is that they think that the big issue here is he’s weird fake conspiracy theories. But this is not true, the true issue here is just following the money.

    No no no — Bill Gates does not have an evil master plan to inject your brain with 5G chips and Covid vaccines, and put fluid in your water to control your mind.

    A simple observation; I got vaccinated , got all my booster shots… etc,,, and I was able to lift 1000 pounds, fasted!

    Ha ha maybe as a joke, the joke is that the COVID-19 vaccine made me stronger, like the Hulk or like wolverine or Deadpool?

    All of your heroes are fake heroes

    The American dream is essentially Arnold Schwarzenegger, getting big on the screen, becoming the governator of California, etc. And superficially from what I understand… He was actually a good governor! Some people also forget that Ronald Reagan was an actor, I don’t really know too much about Ronald Reagan, but once again, the idea is that if you are tall handsome and famous, you could become anything, you could become president!

    I think in America, the American dream is real. Come on… Just look at me — I was able to make my living from my passion which is street photography. Name any other country on the planet in which this could have happened. 

    But I think the equations are wrong. Once again, the typical workflow is that you becomes super famous, and in the process you make a bunch of money, and then you become a politician I guess? And technically a politician has the supreme power, because he who makes the laws controls the money.

    Anyways, the big problem here is that the supreme goal is towards self ownership, not slavery.

    As long as you have Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or whatever… You’re a slave, a digital slave, a cyber slave.

    The reason I’m insanely anti-TikTok… Come on guys, they are owned by the ultra mainland Chinese corporation Tencent! And also, my fellow Korean people… Don’t you know that Tencent, once again mainland China has a huge stake in KakaoTalk? This is why Koreans should not use KakaoTalk and just use iPhone and iMessage instead. 

    Or Samsung should be smart and create their own proprietary messaging system?

    THE GOALS

     I have achieved all of my life goals, my life dreams, my life ambitions, etc. Anything in which I have had an auto Tulick goal or desire, I done did it. 

    How and why?

    Kind of cheesy… But besides the limits of physics and the universe, if you think first principles, technically anything is possible. What is a bigger issue is duration, acceleration time, and time to accomplish. 

    The ethics of Achilles 

    Just finished watching bigger stronger faster,  bought it on the Apple TV store  for about 10 bucks, I wish I watched this when I was a teenager?

    Anyways, now that I’m and dad, have a 3 1/2 year-old son, Seneca… I’m starting to really understand that my morals ethics and the way I am training him is far more critical than I thought.

    First, the whole industrial educational media Social complex– the bias is that kids must be the best, the strongest, the tallest, the most dominant either in athletics or education.

    I think this is where Achilles and reading the Iliad is so eye-opening;  even before the Olympics were invented, there was no such thing as competition.

    For example, there were the funeral games of Patroclus, in which the heroes were competing to win a trophy or a prize, but the interesting thing is that a lot of these heroes ended up stopping while they were ahead, calling a truce, and both of them sharing equal prizes.

    The notion of a trophy, was essentially a spoil of war. The ancient Greeks, Achilles king Agamemnon and like… it seems that the ultimate trophy was a woman. Two Nguyen or two obtain the most beautiful, the most fair, the most grand prize of them all. This is where the notion of a trophy wife comes from.

    And what is the point of a trophy wife? Essentially a woman who is prized for her intelligence, her body, her beauty, and I think the hope is to have insanely beautiful and great kids.

    But now… I’m not sure what the Telos or the goal is anymore? I think the general modern day trend is to not have kids, but to live in hedonic pleasure for the rest of your life with no downsides? And never run out of money?

    ***

  • Good Diversion, Bad Diversion?

    Something super interesting I learned: the general idea is that sports, means to turn you away, to divert you, essentially a diversion!

    The reason why this is such an interesting idea to me is that if you think about it… Anything we consider entertainment is typically a diversion.

    For example, the truth is 99% of the working population is tired, stressed, overworked, hasn’t had a good nights sleep in… Forever?

    As a consequence, what they do is try to divert themselves away from their misery. How did they do this? They do this through doing taking things or consuming things, watching or listening to things which helps divert themselves from their own personal ennui, or misery.

    For example, alcohol. Everybody knows, getting a little bit drunk or buzzed… Will get your mind off of things, and divert your attention a bit, giving you a more “fun” uninhibited time.

    Or marijuana, maybe the most safe painkilling substance or drug out there; to the individuals who think that marijuana doesn’t have any side effects, I find this is foolish… In theory, assuming your smoking 100% pure tobacco, not a cigarette but just 100% natural tobacco, growing in the fields of Alabama or the south… Technically natural tobacco should be about the same as 100% pure cannabis.

    Anyways, both tobacco, cannabis… They are all diversions.

    For example, it is actually quite common place I meet people… They light up a joint, or smoke some THC or whatever, to help them sleep at night. Why? Prejudice, racism, bad things that happens to them etc. 

    It happens a lot of rappers; it seems like almost all of them are on some sort of painkiller, anti-anxiety drug, etc. Have you ever met a 100% sober rapper? I think not. Maybe besides chance the rapper? Or maybe even Kendrick Lamar?

    Now even a Xanny bar can’t help fight the anxiety (Jay electronica) 

    Certainly the most natural way to fight anxiety is stoicism, this is why I am a big proponent.

    Even back then an inch and Roman times… I’m sure sure even the ancient Greeks had anxiety and fear.

    What didn’t seem to exist was depression, melancholy or ennui– my personal thought is that if you were a man, living in ancient Greek times, it was a simple calculus; kill or be killed.

    For example, when we think and we consider the Iliad, I am currently reading the Emily Wilson new translation, it was pretty simple. You suit up, go to the battlefield, and do your stuff. And I think emotions back them were more simple; obviously, if Achilles is running at full speed, this would strike fear in you, and you would probably run the opposite direction. Even Hector, murderous Hector, who was the most dominant mortal man alive, the most “all natty” hero in the Iliad… Even he knew that he was no match against Achilles, face-to-face.

     anyways, I was thinking about it other night… A feel so bad for all my friends who work in tech, who probably have all of their notifications always enable… If Mark Zuckerberg pings you at 2 AM via text message and tells you that tomorrow you’re going to Switzerland, obviously you’re going to pack your bags, and take an Uber to the closest airport. as a consequence, I doubt you will ever have 100% restful night ever again, because we are sensitive; if you know that your boss might be able to ping you at random times in the middle of the night, you’re always going to be on edge. anxiety is real.

    How does one overcome or conquer this? I think it is structural issues.

    A very simple one is first disable all notifications on your phone, besides FaceTime.  at this .100% of phone calls, are all spam. So in the iPhone settings, you could probably silence unknown colors with no downside.

    The only ever call you might ever have to get is your mom in the hospital or whatever… But once again, if that really happened you’d probably find out some other way.

    But if you’re a typical millennial, single, maybe married, maybe an a partnership maybe not… It doesn’t really matter that much.

    Not yet, but… Maybe we have to reprogram ourselves to think about the good old days… You drop your kid off at school and you pick them up at a certain time, and if once in a while you forget or show up late it is OK; the kid will be fine.

    How technology trains us

    Like the experiment in which Pavlov train the dogs to anticipate food with the sound of a bell, causing the dogs to start to slobber, get their digestive hormones ready to consume… I think the iPhone notifications text messages whatever is happening to human beings.

    Fortunately apple knows this;  most people were friends I know who actually work at Apple, are always in 100% do not disturb mode. And I’m also sure that the next generation of Apple Intelligence will simply be more of a mental protection things; to prevent you from being distracted, unless once again, you get a message about your mom being in the hospital or whatever. But then again I don’t think that should come via text message.

    We are currently living in a very very brave new time 

    Currently speaking… We are living in a very very brave new time. Things are becoming weirder and weirder and weirder, more bizarre.

    First, I think YouTube, Netflix, HBO Max Disney and the like is to blame. I don’t think the iPhone or the iPad is the real issue here; it is weird, conspiracy theories you see on TikTok, Instagram stories, Twitter and the like. And also, Google… If you Google something long enough, you’ll find some sort of weird conspiracy theory on Wikipedia. And don’t forget that Wikipedia is typically written by a bunch of Karl Marx dick loving anarchists. And I’m also quite certain that almost 100% of these Wikipedia articles are written by weird celibate men, Who never leave their apartments, and become very very strange.

    The simple solution is to just go outside! Go in public, get rid of your loser AirPods, leave your iPhone at home whatever. If you need your iPhone for directions, when you get to your destination just lock it up in your glove compartment. Even a better step is just get an Apple Watch, with cellular data… And just leave your phone behind! I don’t think the Apple Watch was cellular and data is the best solution, but maybe it is a step in the right way.

    The less you use your iPhone, the happier you will be.

  • Never Sit

    What is the weirdest and the most bizarre thing in modern day life? Inclosed spaces, sitting? 

    Achilles

    One visual I really like from the movie Troy, with Brad Pitt as Achilles is when he is in his little hut, sleeping in with his beautiful babes, and he has woken up by the kid who tells him that he needs to fight this one really steroided out barbarian fighter. 

    The first thought… I think the reason why people love camping so much is that it is far more natural and naturalistic; essentially all day you’re outside, even in the evening, you’re al fresco by the fire… hanging out! 

    And this is the bizarre thing… what is modernity? The preference to be indoors, with weakening air conditioning, or the preference to sit, instead of the preference to be out and about, traversing the outdoor terrain? 

    Ideas

    I’ll give you examples; the enclosed modern day gymnasium. Now about a year not having a gym membership anymore… I’ve discovered how bizarre it is.

    First, if you think about the naturalistic gymnasium of the ancient Greeks, it was an open air gymnasium. Pretty much like a huge massive plot of dirt or sand, and a bunch of naked dudes working out,, doing bodily combat exercises, training, hanging out talking shop etc.

    I think the problem in today’s world is that we have commoditized everything. We’ve even commoditize the human body, and we have applied both capitalistic and consumerist notions of the body.

    For example, weight. Weight, like calories is the most insanely foolish idea. 

    For example, let us say that you are 6 feet tall, and 300 pounds. Now this is different if you are 80% body fat, a morbidly obese man, or if you are 5% body fat, and you look like a demigod. Imagine like Ronnie Coleman without the steroids.

    This is very precious with women; I think this is the bizarre contradiction: men are always trying to gain weight, while women are trying to lose weight.

    If we think about this from a modern day capitalistic productivity perspective… With money, we are always trying to gain it, never lose it. But if we thought about money like weight, the analogies starts to change a bit. 

    There is nobody on the planet who likes to lose money. Nobody. Also, almost universally… Everyone likes to gain money.

    Also… it seems that people also like to spend money. 

    But the bizarre irony is that the moment you spend money, you lose money. Then the thought is, that is OK… I’ll just keep working harder, in order to earn more money, in order to spend it more.

    White people make money don’t spend it

    I almost feel like Kanye West almost figured everything out. Of course not everything, but a lot. 

    Are you examples; to me, the notion of golf was insanely bizarre to me. I never really understood the appeal. But then again after talking to my friends who is a contractor named Donnie… He told me that the reason why he loved golf so much was that it was the ultimate stress reliever. Makes sense. Being out in the open, alfresco… And I think most people when they’re playing golf don’t do it with headphones on. They also like to be around the serene grass, and to just focus. I also suppose golf is good because you do it standing, Not sitting.

    Even nowadays… The reason why Pickleball has become so insanely virally popular is because it involves standing up, running around, hitting something, making loud noises, and also the funny new ones… Being able to hit it really hard and feeling really tough, and the rally goes on!

    I think this is what people don’t understand about Pickleball, especially tennis players… Note, I played varsity doubles in high school, number one.

    The number one most difficult thing in tennis is to keep a rally going. If you’re wanting to play for fun. Assuming that you’re trying to win, obviously you don’t want the rally to go on, you just want to win!

    Also this tennis is such a great sport, because once again, you’re not sitting on your butt!

    Why almost every modern day job is bad

     all modern day technology jobs  are bad. Why? They all promote sedentary sitting behavior, or not moving behavior.

    For example, if I was a major tech CEO or whatever… Or some sort of Director or C level executive…  I would almost make it a mandate that all meetings must be done outside, while walking! Even at the new Apple spaceship campus, there is this wonderful Zen garden pond in the center, in the spirit of Steve Jobs. And let us remember, Steve Jobs was all about walking. he did all of his meetings while walking.

    Apparently, when little kids want to talk to the parents about serious stuff, the codeword is , “mom… Do you want to go on a walk?”

    The reason why I think this is so important and significant is that walking has become seen as a positively bad unconstructive waste of time thing. Instead, it seems that people are more about “running”, or “going on a run.” Running might be the worst modern day insanely brain dead invention of all time. First, I think people do it in order to “exercise”, secondly, in theory it should be in the most egalitarian open thing… You don’t require any excessive equipment for it, in theory as long as you have bare feet, you should be able to do it.

    But now the problem is, essentially there is this running industrial complex that happens from the loser Nike corporation, which tries to eventually get you to purchase their foolish loser $300 sneakers.

    Think about the ancient Greek. Think about Achilles versus Hector. I think the whole time, they just wore sandals. Like the ultra ultra minimalistic sandals that I think that the company “xero” sells — literally just a flat thing on the bottom, and just some sort of laces to tie it to your feet.

    My personal theory is that back then, if you’re fighting an ancient Greece, in the summertime, and it is insanely hot and humid, you don’t want to be like a medieval night, all armored up. Apparently back then… There was a notion of a Linothorax– imagine just armor or body armor made out of 100 fold linen, which could actually stop the penetration of an arrow or a spear. I can personally attest, when you’re in hot and humid climate, linen is amazing.

    Remote work

    The ideal is to just have an iPhone Pro, the small one, no case, have Verizon 5G, and whenever you need to do any sort of phone call or meeting… Doing it audio only with your AirPods pros on. 

    I’ve actually seen people do this… Do walking meetings at the beach, or while hiking in the hills or the mountains, etc.

    The reason why this is so beneficial is that it would actually increase the quality of your ideas, and then someways, be beneficial from productivity, innovation perspective.

    So… If you really want to make your company great again, release your employees from their little beautiful glass cube cages!

    Freedom?

    Reading some marketing for the Porsche 911 car, essentially the funny idea is that you want to purchase a car which symbolizes freedom. But does it actually give you freedom? No!

    Let us think about how bizarre this idea is; you work yourself to death, you grind your nose against the grinder, and you keeping your head against the pavement floor, in order to extract maximum productivity and maximally increase your income earning potential.

    Then, ideas to earn and save enough money to buy a Porsche 911 turbo S. Or a 911 GT three RS.  let us assume it is $100,000, or $250,000.

    You fools… Don’t you know you get a bomb ass apartment in phenom penh for only $500 USD a month?

    Then do the math, even with $100,000, how many months of rent can you live? And there, food is so cheap… Practically free.

    So let us say that solo individual person, and you want to retire to Vietnam Cambodia or Thailand, your whole living expenses might only be about $1000 USD a month. And you live life like a baller.  You never have to work again, never have to check your email, never have to do boring ass meetings,  and you could essentially just hang out and live your best life all day every single day, always eat out, pursue your athletic and mental pursuits etc. Isn’t this the dream?

    So what is holding most people back? I wonder if some of it is just lack of knowledge, like nobody ever told them that this was an option, or maybe some sort of hesitant because the person has never left the country, doesn’t he has a passport, Etc. My personal suggestion is to just troll kayak in Google flights, looking for cheap direct flights to somewhere in Southeast Asia or even more locally in other parts of the world, like Mexico Central America even Cuba.

    I think the reason why the modern day American is so miserable it’s truth be told… The fact that we have the most productivity and the greatest productive nation on the planet comes with a price. For example,  what the typical German or European or French person doesn’t understand is that for the most part, the structures do not even allow us to travel. For example, the culture in America is very anti-take vacation, the ideal for the typical hard-working tech individual is to never take a holiday, in order to get that raise or promotion or whatever. if you take a week or two, it is seen with chagrin, everyone is secretly jealous or envious of you. And therefore the whole structure is “no, you are not allowed to take a holiday because we are all miserable and suffering here, I refuse to see you happy.“

    I joke about this. I was only employed for 10 months of my life, and it took me almost 10 years to unlearn this behavior. 

    Am I the only person who checks my email every six months? Or never check it? Am I the only one I know that doesn’t have Gmail or Apple email? Am I the only one I know that has all no notifications besides FaceTime enabled?

    The cold is evil

    I think the reason why I loved living in Vietnam and Cambodia so much was that the weather was always perfect. Never cold. 

    The downside about the cold is that it prevents you from wanting to go outside. You would prefer to be indoors, with your heater on but the point of life is to be outside, the real world. In the elements.

    People often complain about the heat, but this is because they have too much body fat on them, they are overfat. They run hotter. This is why I feel the cold so intensely, at around 5% body fat, I have no natural insulation. And yes, I prefer having my sixpack!

    We must go further

    As a simple exercise, I think the last year has been a bit tricky… Always starting a new beginning is difficult.

    For example, not having a gym membership and my typical hypelifting environment.  I literally toured all the gyms in LA, and all of them suck including equinox. Even the really bad thing about equinox, they have terrible $10 made in China barbells! Suggestion to equinox, buy some Texas power bars!

    Anyways, my new activity is for me to just wear my 60 pound weight vest, and go on a long walk. I think it might be the single best most portable most effective efficient form of exercise possible.

    First, it improves my posture. Before doing this, I always find myself hunched over. Now, I’m very good at standing up straight, chest up, shoulders back.

    Second, it gives me more time to flush thoughts out on my iPad Pro, 100% of my writing is all done voice dictating on my iPad Pro, and I think while I get a bunch of typos, the upside is that the quality of my thoughts, or the type of my thoughts are far more interesting.

    Isn’t that the point of philosophy thinking and life to gain interesting, unique, substantive ideas?

    No, that we have ChatGPT, the game ain’t about how many words you could turn out. That whole 10,000 words a day idea is patently foolish now.

    And this is where I think that the future will be less grammatical, more random, less proper?

    For example, I built my blogging empire, and I think I got a B in English in high school? 

    Also note, all the truly great entrepreneurs never went to business pool. Can you imagine Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos going to business school? No!


    We must go further!

    Distance and range, that is the new game of electric vehicles, and it seems for the most part, the more arrange a car has, the better.

    Even now, I think the best car to get is a Prius prime, what… I think you get 600 miles with a full charge and tank of gas?

    In fact, if you really want the ultimate road trip car, range is the number one thing to optimize for. Why? If you’re in a good driving flow, you don’t want to stop for gas or wait 15 minutes for your Tesla to recharge to 80%, or have to wait in line.

    But then once again, The ideals to never sit, never be stuck in a car.

    The uber successful way to live life is simple; to always be walking, to always be moving! 

    Don’t hire employees, just use ChatGPT?

    Assuming you have an iPhone Pro, iPad Pro, and the paid premium version of ChatGPT 4o– do you really need employees anymore?

    Let us consider, ChatGPT is 100% responsive, 100% reliable, never needs motivation.

    And also, I think this is so innovative because you cannot truly become a 100% solo entrepreneur, without having to rely on anybody else.

    The ideal is, never have any employees, never have any staff, and never have any obligations in the physical realm; everything is digital, weightless, frictionless, never requiring you to be anywhere at any time!

    Location location location location location!

    The number one reason why living in Culver City is the best is that you could literally spend 100% of your day your life while just walking!

    In fact, nowadays I ask people how many steps they do a day. The really really successful ones do over 30,000 steps a day! 

    Just met a guy named Matt, who runs a tech food truck logistics company, and apparently he does what I just proposed!

    Just move it

    Another funny thing… For kids, nobody measures their step count! As a funny thought imagine if you gave your kid an Apple Watch or something and which tracked how much they walked a day? 

    The ideal is for them to literally spend every single waking moment outside outdoors, in the elements, walking around?

    Walk school

    Can this be a thing?


    Go long!

    Extend your range — both your real and metaphorical range.

    I think tracking your steps is not super useful, but maybe make it a flow or workflow thing idea to just always be outside every single moment, and only be at home if you need to sleep.

    Cindy even had an idea for me, that maybe meals should just be eaten outside! That means, just cook a bunch of food at home, put it in a bunch of Tupperware, and just go on a walk or go to the park or to the downtown area and feast that way? 

    It’s OK to go to the same place twice

    Also, it seems like one of our downsides is this unusual need for infinite novelty. I don’t always find this very useful.

    Often times, novelty and seeking novelty could be a huge distraction. For example, if you were the ancient Spartans, was your life goal to travel for the rest of your life? No! You knew that Sparta was the best, you kept your feet planted, and your whole telos of your life was to train for glory in order to defend Sparta!

    I still believe that traveling, living abroad, being a nomad are good things. Yet I think the problem happens when the whole purpose of our life is in order to travel. 

    No. The purpose of our life is to have kids, produce ideas and artwork, and any place that could allow you to do this best, is best. 

    Everyone is on your team

    I think there is also this funny thing that people are unnecessarily antagonistic to other people. We always see them as a challenge to ourselves.

    But what if, they in fact were on your team, there were your Spartan hoplites, and would defend you your kid your wife your family? If shit hit the fan? Certainly you would have a different opinion about them.

    Local

    The only useful politics or news is local, like your own city and neighborhood. Not national or international issues.

    The problem with news is that it is almost like pornography for our minds; it breaks the tedium of everyday office work, and the novelty is certainly a hit of dopamine to our brains.

    Also, we tend to think of, fear of missing out… Or this weird ethical notion that it is our duty to be informed about all of these different things. 

    I would say, more important to be concerned about your upstairs or downstairs or across from your neighbor, to get them free snacks from Trader Joe’s, be kind and courteous to them, to always greet them kindly, and to always acknowledge their existence rather than to be the typical antisocial millennial, who seek salvation through some sort of foreign cause?

    It never hurts to wave smile and say hello

    As a very very simple experiment… Stop driving, start walking. Whenever you see somebody even a quarter mile away from you, throw up the peace sign, or just do a simple hand wave or head gesture towards them. Just acknowledge their existence! I think the greatest tragedy of modern day life is that we prefer cyber beings, digital people over flesh humans?

    Once again, for anybody who is antisocial but still watches TV shows HBO Max, sports, baseball, certainly they love humans!

    Better to attempt to be friendly, kind courteous and cheerful towards your neighbor, and get the cold shoulder rather than not to attempt it at all? 


  • LEICA IS FOR LOOOOOSERS!

    In praise of Fujifilm:

    At the age of 36, after my world travels, my domination of the street photography sphere, a little time to think and meditate, compile my thoughts etc.… I really do believe now that Fujifilm is the way.

    Truth be told, I have nothing but good things to say about Fujifilm. They have always treated me well, and I respect all of the people in the Fujifilm sphere. My recent workshop in Hanoi and Saigon with Chu Viet Ha, and all of the Fujifilm global events I went to.

    Why

    OK… I’m starting to think about a good analogy between car companies.

    First, we all know that Toyota is the best. There is no second best. Certainly Tesla is the coolest and sexiest, the most innovative, the most radical, the most forward thinking car, but in terms of the best car, it is bar none Toyota.

    Even I was thinking about the new Toyota crown signia, I saw a brand new one in white, on the dealership lot in Culver City, and I was blown away! The design is so forward thinking, so innovative… truth be told if I had to purchase a brand new automobile in 2024, that would definitely be the car I would want, because it is really one of a kind, you bought it, you would never see anybody else on the road with it!

    Anyways back to photography — my thought about the desire for a Leica M rangefinder is like the desire for a Porsche 911 car. But I have personally discovered is that anybody who drives a Porsche 911 car, they are all insecure shorty guys, who don’t really really have anything else going for them.

    And this is what is so funny; anybody who drives a Porsche 911 thinks that they are so cool, but not really. They are just another shorty guy drone.

    The same thing with the world of photography; it seems that everyone always has penis envy with the guy who owns the newest Leica M camera. And after critically engaging with the whole photography world from age 21 to 36, nearly 15 years ,,, what I have come to realize is that so much of the photography industry is based on insecurity, everybody trying to “prove themselves”, to some sort of random authority figure?

    First, Henri Cartier Bresson is out. He was and is now a lame duck. 

    I think the sneaky thing is that what Leica is trying to do is to essentially prostitute the image the legacy or the concept of the romantic Henri Cartier-Bresson; the idea that we live off the grid, travel the world and planet, prance around with our little Leica M rangefinder camera in the romantic narrow streets of Paris, etc.

    Probably one of the greatest benefits that I’ve learned studying philosophy is that essentially, the whole French romantic movement is essentially a bunch of degenerates. As an American, growing up, the notion of romance, being “romantic“, I never really double thought about it. It was always seen as a good thing. To be romantic, was always as a positive notion.

    But what I discovered is that romanticism is essentially an escape from reality; we create these fictitious fake false fantasy landscapes and realities, to seek some sort of alternative utopia to our miserable daily grind of remote work, zoom calls, emails, PowerPoint presentations, etc.

    “I promise, I’m so self-conscious”

    A funny thing that I experienced when traveling the world, attending these fancy photography shows and exhibitions etc. was that typically… the real photographers, the real stars of the show would just show up wearing some sort of shabby outfit, and not even bring their camera with them. On the other hand, the would be photographers would show up, full suit and regalia, sporting the newest most expensive Leica M camera, proudly wearing it around their neck, trying to signal that they were in in fact “serious” photographers.

    I think the truth of the matter is that all these photographers tend to be a bunch of insecure skinny fat anemic individuals, who are overly sensitive, overly romantic, I don’t think any of them even lift weights.

    I came to break the chain

    I think my entire ethos has always been disruptive. In the early days, when my blog first started to pick up steam, it seems that a lot of people were either jealous or envious of my success, because I was the first and only person who was effectively able to become a productive entrepreneur in the field of photography, who was actually able to make a living from it.

    And my honest assessment is that typically, we tend to hate, or to debate the success of others, when we are envious or jealous of them. I actually catch myself… whenever somebody mentions somebody else, who is maybe adjacent to my field, I always try to give them praise, even though I might think that they are a dicey personality. Because if somebody is successful, but he seems a little bit shady or uncertain to me, the thought I have is “They must certainly be doing something right… maybe something I am unaware of.”

    Never hate, only praise.

    Hate is good

    I think my greatest joy of being the most hated photographer alive is that hate typically signals relevance. 

    For example, you would never hate anybody who is irrelevant.

    In fact, the second people start to hate you, it is an insanely good sign that you are becoming relevant and successful. The second you stop being hated on… it is a kiss of death; to not be hated on is a sign or a signal that you are no longer relevant.

    Think about the youth. As long as you are still cool or relevant to teenagers, 12-year-olds, 18-year-old kids on YouTube… Very good sign.

    Photography today

    Also some sneaky things I’ve learned about photography book publishers: 

    First, it is kind of a modern day depotism. I will not name any names, but, in trying to be friendly and cordial, make some good introductions etc.… I was responded with some of the most hateful, pernicious, toxic language that made me super angry? From an individual who was very short, very fat and ugly. It was funny —  I met this individual and was super friendly introduced myself, and she told me “I know who you are”. And I did not know who she was.

    Anyways, I think in the world of photography and art, it is essentially a grand fellatio giving contest. You are trying to give metaphorical head to all of these so-called individuals in power; publishers, who in fact, inherited the whole publishing empire from their grandparents grandparents, and that is why the whole publishing industry is a total scam and a sham; we think it is built on egalitarian notions of merit, but no. It is modern day depotism, currying for favors, etc. 

    Honestly, the whole world of photography and art is a scam. The only way that these art galleries, art things get created is not through art… But instead… Another business, and as a family considers their future, they want to get into the fine art market, in order to funnel the family money to keep the trust fund alive. 

    Have you ever wondered… going into a random town, seeing a fine art gallery or a fine art photography studio or space… And wondering… how do they pay the rent or keep this thing afloat? I can almost guarantee you that the money is not coming from the photography or art, but somewhere else. 

    Even buying a Picasso is more a tax haven than anything?

    Instagram is not the way

    Insta-slavery; would you sign yourself up to become a digital slave? Obviously no! But this is what Instagram, Facebook is. Essentially you are selling your self-esteem for likes, which is essentially in theory… A bunch of bots.

    For example, a thought experiment: let us say that you have 100,000 followers, and every time you upload an image, you got 10,000 likes. You feel good about yourself. But what if I snap my fingers, waved a magic wand, and revealed to you that all of these followers you have, were all bots? And every single like that you got in your life, was from a bot. With this change how you feel? 

    Why Fujifilm

    OK… let us consider, Fujifilm is probably superior in every single shape form and way.

    First, it is stronger, more robust. The problem with any Leica camera — it is so fragile and weak! You would never let your kid play with the $7000 body, and a $3000 lens. Even if your kid is a genius… If he accidentally trips, boom, $10,000 down the drain.

    And it doesn’t matter if you’re a billionaire or whatever… Foolish mistake that a lot of people make is that you think that you’re rich, you don’t care. Not true! The reason people become rich is because they do care! 

    The ultimate point of a camera is something you could use and abuse, throw around, drop on the concrete from waist level, a camera you could teach your kid to use, with zero ounces of fear. 

    The best camera in 2024

    If I critically think about it, my own opinion… No alliances, and this is why you should trust ERIC KIM… Is that I speak my honest truth, without any sneaky sponsorships, now that I am independent bitcoin millionaire. 
    I believe the Fujifilm X100 VI (6, sixth generation) to currently be the best camera on the market.

    The Ricoh GR HDF is apparently out, and seems like a great value proposition. But I think it is not really available, or sold out or backordered or something. 

    And also… the critical flaw of the Ricoh GR digital camera  is that they just don’t last. Now as a young parent, if I had the option of having an unreliable Lamborghini or a reliable Prius, I would take a Prius in a heartbeat! And also the other day… because the Prius is so narrow and skinny, I was able to find a super clutch parking spot at the La Paloma market in LA! I was so happy, and so overjoyed because if I had a loser SUV or even a minivan… Or any car that was even marginally bigger than a Prius… I would not be able to fit it in that spot, and have to hunt for a parking spot for hours!

    Once again guys, don’t be a fool; if you live in LA, assuming you ever want to do anything, and you’re a billionaire whatever… always the correct strategy is to have the maximally small compact car.

    Even if you have the option, perhaps the optimal strategy is to have a Tesla model 3 over a Tesla model Y, my friend Kevin has three kids, and he could fit them all in the backseat of his Tesla model three! Don’t get the Tesla model Y.

    Also, I recently saw the brand new Tesla model 3 performance in Quicksilver at the Century city mall, and it is flawless! I think I actually prefer it over cybertruck!

    Cyber truck is still probably the coolest car on the road, but still… When it comes to parking… It is bad.

    Park it.

    Digital technology

    The reason why purchasing any digital Leica is very foolish decision is that it will be outdated in a year or two; you’re automatically pissing down at least $2000-$3000 down the drain. 

    Only that… But the cameras aren’t even that good. Although this fake marketing about manual focus whatever… kind of a gimmick.

    No Leica Q camera — which is essentially a Panasonic Lumix camera with a body kit.

    No Leica SL camera… Which is once again, I think Panasonic Lumix S series camera rebranded. 

    All of these photographers are muppets

    All these other people… They are just puppets and muppets. None of them own their own opinion, because none of them are independent, self owned, and all of them are on Instagram.

    Very very simple heuristic: Better to think about Instagram like McDonald’s. Would you brag about how many hamburgers that McDonald’s sells a day? No. So why would you brag about how many followers you have? Or how many likes you get? Because once again, the critical bad thing here is that as long as you are in the dirty sewer water, feeding your kid dirty sewer water (via Michael Saylor)– infant mortality rates are gonna be 70% you’re going to get dysentery and cholera etc.

    Instagram is the new sewer water. Would you drink sewer water? Of course not! Certainly not feed it to your kids!


    The path forward

    Very very simple… The future is digital publishing, digital books, cyber books, open source free permissionless, PDF etc.

    I’m starting to get super annoyed, come on… why are you hiding your books behind a pay wall. There is no downside to make it open, free, direct download, open source, open access etc.

    Don’t be a fool… money and success are not equated… which means just because you sell your stuff for a lot of money doesn’t mean that you’re more successful.

    What is true success as a photographer? To be self owned, self independent, not to have an Instagram, to have a self hosted website and blog, a self hosted email newsletter (sendy.co), to shoot small JPEG, to shoot all day every day… Without thinking twice.

    Infinite motivation on EK BLOG


    Start Here

    1. Books
    2. Products
    3. Workshops

    Forward the power!

    Upload your best photos to arsbeta.com, delete your Instagram if you need a friend with inspiration, for this to them!

    And also note… All of these email newsletters are always open source; feel free to copy and paste this anywhere, translate it to your language on Google translate or ChatGPT etc.

    Spread the love!

    EK NEWS >


    Now what?

    Stop buying those Leicas– real streettogs shoot with Ricoh or Fujifilm!

    Leica is for loooooosers! (besides the film ones)

    ERIC


    STOICISM 101 >


    This book shall never die

    Free ebook for life– feel free to download, copy, remix it or translate it to anyone!

    100 Lessons From The Masters Of Street Photography

    Direct PDF DOWNLOAD >


  • LEICA IS FOR LOOOOOSERS!

    In praise of Fujifilm:

    At the age of 36, after my world travels, my domination of the street sphere, a little time to think and meditate, compile my thoughts etc.… I really do believe now that Fujifilm is the way.

    Truth be told, I have nothing but good things to say about Fujifilm. They have always treated me well, and I respect all of the people in the Fujifilm sphere. My recent workshop in Hanoi and Saigon with Chu Viet Ha, and all of the Fujifilm global events I went to.

    Why

    OK… I’m starting to think about a good analogy between car companies.

    First, we all know that Toyota is the best. There is no second best. Certainly Tesla is the coolest and sexiest, the most innovative, the most radical, the most forethink car, but in terms of the best car, it is bar none Toyota.

    Even I was thinking about the new Toyota crown signia, I saw a brand new one in white, on the dealership lot in Culver City, and I was blown away! The design is so forward thinking, so innovative… Tribute told if I had to purchase a brand new automobile in 2024, that would definitely be the car I would want, because it is really one of a kind, you bought it, you would never see anybody else on the road with it!

    Anyways back to photography — my thought about the desire for a Leica M rangefinder  is like the desire for a Porsche 911 car. But I have personally discovered is that anybody who drives a Porsche 911 car, they are all insecure Shorty guys, who don’t really really have anything else going for them.

    And this is what is so funny; anybody who drives a Porsche 911 thinks that they are so cool, but not really. They are just another Shorty guy drone.

    The same thing with the world of photography;  it seems that everyone always has penis envy with the guy who owns the newest Leica M camera. And after critically engaging with the whole photography world from age 21 to 36, nearly 15 years ,,, what I have come to realize is that so much of the photography industry is based on insecurity, everybody trying to “prove themselves”, to some sort of random authority figure?

    First, Henri Cartier Bresson is out. He was and is now a lame duck. 

    I think the sneaky thing is that what Leica is trying to do is to essentially prostitute the image the legacy or the concept of the romantic Henri Cartier-Bresson; the ideas that we live off the grid, travel the world and planet, prince around with our little Leica M rangefinder camera, the romantic narrow streets of Paris, etc.

    Probably one of the greatest benefits that I’ve learned studying philosophy was that essentially, the whole French romantic movement, who are essentially a bunch of degenerates. As an American, growing up… The notion of romance, being “romantic“, I never really double thought about it. it was always seen as a good thing. To be romantic, was always as a positive notion.

    But what I discovered is that romanticism is essentially an escape from reality; we create these fictitious fake false fantasy landscapes and realities, to seek some sort of alternative Utopia to our miserable daily grind of remote work, zoom calls, emails, PowerPoint presentations, etc.

    “I promise, I’m so self-conscious”

    A funny thing that I experienced when traveling the world, attending these fancy photography shells and exhibitions etc. was that typically…  the real Farmer’s, the real stars of the show would just show up wearing some sort of shabby outfit, and not even bring their camera with them. On the other hand, the would be photographers would show up, full suit and regalia,  sporting the newest most expensive Leica M camera, proudly wearing it around their neck,  trying to signal that they were in in fact “serious” photographers.

    I think the truth of the matter is that all these photographers tend to be a bunch of insecure skinny fat anemic individuals, who are overly sensitive, overly romantic, I don’t think any of them even lift weights.

    I came to break the chain

     I think my entire ethos has always been disruptive. In the early days, when my blog first started to pick up steam, it seems that a lot of people were either jealous or envious of my success, because I was the first and only person who was effectively able to become a productive entrepreneur in the field of photography, who was actually able to make a living from it.

    And my honest assessment is that typically, we tend to hate, or to debate the success of others, when we are envious or jealous of them. I actually catch myself… Whenever somebody mentioned somebody else, who is maybe adjacent to my field, I always try to give them praise, even though I might think that they are a dicey personality. Because if somebody is successful, But it seems a little bit shady or uncertain to me, the thought I have is “they must certainly be doing something right… Maybe something I am unaware of.”

    Hate is good

    I think my greatest joy of being the most hated photographer alive is that hate typically signals relevance. 

    For example, you would never hit anybody who is irrelevant.

    In fact, the second people start to hit you, it is an insanely good sign that you are becoming relevant and successful. The second you stop being hated on… Is a kiss of death; to not be hated on is a sign or a signal that you are no longer relevant.

    Think about the youth. As long as you are still cool or relevant to teenagers, 12-year-olds, 18-year-old kids on YouTube… Very good sign.

    Photography today

    Also some sneaky things I’ve learned about photography book publishers: 

    First, it is kind of a modern day depotism. I will not name any names, but, in trying to be friendly and cordial, make some good introductions etc.… I was responded with some of the most hateful, pernicious, toxic language that made me super angry? From an individual who was very short, very fat and ugly. It was funny —  I met this individual and was super friendly introduced myself, and she told me “I know who you are”. And I did not know who she was.

    Anyways, I think in the world of photography and art, it is essentially a grand fellatio giving contest. You are trying to give metaphorical head to all of these so-called individuals in power; publishers, who in fact, inherited the whole publishing empire from their grandparents grandparents, and that is why the whole publishing industry is a total scam and a sham; we think it is built on egalitarian notions of merit, but no. It is modern day depotism, currying for favors, etc. 

    Honestly, the whole world of photography and art is a scam. The only way that these are galleries, art things get created is not through art… But instead… Another business, and as a family considers their future, they want to get into the fine art market, in order to funnel the family money to keep the trust fund alive. 

    Have you ever wondered… Going into a random town, seeing a fine art gallery or a fine art photography studio or space… And wondering… How do they pay the rent or keep this thing afloat? I can almost guarantee you that the money is not coming from the photography or art, but somewhere else. 

    Instagram is not the way

    Insta-slavery; would you sign yourself up to become a digital slave? Obviously no! But this is what Instagram, Facebook is. Essentially you are selling your self-esteem for likes, which is essentially in theory… A bunch of bots.

    For example, a thought experiment: let us say that you have 100,000 followers, and every time you upload an image, you got 10,000 likes. You feel good about yourself. But what if I snap my fingers, waved a magic wand, and revealed to you that all of these followers you have, were all bots? And every single like that you got in your life, was from a bot. With this change how you feel? 

    Why Fujifilm

    OK… let us consider, Fujifilm is probably superior in every single shape form and way.

    First, it is stronger, more robust. The problem with any Leica camera — it is so fragile and weak! You would never let your kid play with the $7000 body, and a $3000 lens. Even if your kid is a genius… If he accidentally trips, boom, $10,000 down the drain.

    And it doesn’t matter if you’re a billionaire or whatever… Foolish mistake that a lot of people make is that you think that you’re rich, you don’t care. Not true! The reason people become rich is because they do care! 

    The ultimate point of a camera is something you could use and abuse, throw around, drop on the concrete from waist level, a camera you could teach your kid to use, with zero ounces of fear. 

    The best camera in 2024

    If I critically think about it, my own opinion… No alliances, and this is why you should trust ERIC KIM… Is that I speak my honest truth, without any sneaky sponsorships, now that I am independent bitcoin millionaire. 
    I believe the Fujifilm X100 VI (6, sixth generation) to currently be the best camera on the market.

    The Ricoh GR HDF is apparently out, and seems like a great value proposition. But I think it is not really available, or sold out or backordered or something. 

    And also… The critical flaw of the Ricoh GR digital camera  is that they just don’t last. Now as a young parent, if I had the option of having an unreliable Lamborghini or a reliable Prius, I would take a Prius in a heartbeat! And also the other day… Because the Prius is so narrow and skinny, I was able to find a super clutch parking spot at the La Paloma market in LA!  I was so happy, and so overjoyed because if I had a loser SUV or even a minivan… Or any car that was even marginally bigger than a Prius… I would not be able to fit it in that spot, and have to hunt for a parking spot For hours!

    Once again guys, don’t be a fool; if you live in LA, assuming you ever want to do anything, and you’re a billionaire whatever… Always the correct strategy is to have the maximally small compact car.

    Even if you have the option, perhaps the optimal strategy is to have a Tesla model 3 over a Tesla model Y, my friend Kevin has three kids, and he could fit them all in the backseat of his Tesla model three! Don’t get the Tesla model Y.

    Also, I recently saw the brand new Tesla model three performance in Quicksilver at the Century city mall, and it is flawless! I think I actually prefer it over cybertruck!

    Cyber truck is still probably the coolest car on the road, but still… When it comes to parking… It is bad.

    Park it.

    Digital technology

    The reason why purchasing any digital Leica is very foolish decision is that it will be outdated in a year or two; you’re automatically pissing down at least $2000-$3000 down the drain. 

    Only that… But the cameras aren’t even that good. Although this fake marketing about manual focus whatever… Kind of a gimmick.

    No Leica Q camera — which is essentially a Panasonic Lumix camera with a body kit.

    No Leica SL camera… Which is once again, I think Panasonic Lumix S series camera rebranded. 

    All of these photographers are muppets

    All these other people… They are just puppets Muppets. None of them own their own opinion, because none of them are independent, self owned, and all of them are on Instagram.

    Very very simple heuristic: Better to think about Instagram like McDonald’s. Would you brag about how many hamburgers that McDonald’s sells a day? No. So why would you brag about how many followers you have? Or how many likes you get? Because once again, the critical bad thing here is that as long as you are in the dirty sewer water, feeding your kid dirty sewer water (Michael Saylor)– infant mortality rates are gonna be 70% you’re going to get dysentery and cholera etc.

    Instagram is the new sewer water. Would you drink sewer water? Of course not! 


    The path forward

    Very very simple… The future is digital publishing, digital books, cyber books, open source free permission list, PDF etc.

    I’m starting to get super annoyed, come on… Why are you hiding your books behind a pay wall. There is no downside to make it open, free, direct download, open source, open access etc. 

    Don’t be a fool… Money and success are not equated… Which means just because you sell your stuff for a lot of money doesn’t mean that you’re more successful.

    What is true success as a photographer? To be self owned, self independent, not to have an Instagram, to have a self hosted website and blog, a self hosted email newsletter (sendy.co), to shoot small JPEG, to shoot all day every day… Without thinking twice.

    Infinite motivation on EK BLOG

    Start Here

    1. Books
    2. Products
    3. Workshops

    Forward the power!

    Upload your best photos to arsbeta.com, delete your Instagram if you need a friend with inspiration, for this to them!

    And also note… All of these email newsletters are always open source; feel free to copy and paste this anywhere, translate it to your language on Google translate or ChatGPT etc.

    Spread the love!

    EK NEWS >


    Now what?

    Stop buying those Leicas– real streettogs shoot with Ricoh or Fujifilm!

    Leica is for loooooosers! (besides the film ones)

    ERIC


  • HOW TO MAKE MONEY FROM STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

    Simple — insanely frugal Spartan lifestyle and just funnel all of your money into Bitcoin!

    Entrepreneurship by KIM

    Change and do, and build or do things differently … based on what you believe the ideal world *should* look like:

    1. Emotional Readiness is *Physical* Readiness?
    2. Annoyance & Entrepreneurship
    3. Why Doesn’t Anything Satisfy Me?
    4. ZERO FINANCIAL CONCERNS
    5. How to Gain Ascendancy
    6. Business vs Entrepreneurship?
    7. TAKE REAL CHANCES
    8. Making Money as a Hobby
    9. The Best Exercises for Entrepreneurs
    10. INCOME VS EXPENSES MONEY LIFESTYLE PHILOSOPHY
    11. Entrepreneurship is the privilege of being able to attempt something new
    12. How to Become More Influential
    13. The Point of Life is Entrepreneurship?
    14. How to Think Like an Entrepreneur
    15. Become the Outlier
    16. Self Reliance
    17. How to Extend Your Reach
    18. NEWS: How to Think Like an Entrepreneur
    19. PVP (Player vs Player)
    20. How I became so influential
    21. WE LOVE THE *SENSATION* OF RISK-TAKING
    22. WHY HIGH PROFIT MARGINS?
    23. INNOVATION THOUGHTS
    24. OVERCONFIDENCE IS GOOD.
    25. GARAGE ENTREPRENEURSHIP
    26. PERHAPS IT IS GOOD TO BE “DELUSIONAL”
    27. USE YOUR WEALTH TO BUY STUFF, OR TO BUILD AND INNOVATE STUFF?
    28. HOW TO THRIVE
    29. Target Demographic
    30. Ambition Over Happiness
    31. Anti Collaboration
    32. The Will to Economy
    33. Why New?
    34. CHOOSE ADRENALINE.
    35. No Looking Back.
    36. 1000x Different
    37. BECOME SPENDTHRIFT
    38. THE BENEFIT OF JUST ONE.
    39. EXTREME INNOVATION.
    40. Practicality is Boring
    41. BECOME YOUR OWN STANDARD.
    42. NEVER STOP ITERATING.
    43. CONDENSE.
    44. Take Lots of Small Financial Risks
    45. Control Over Convenience
    46. Why Are Chinese Companies So Innovative?
    47. INSANELY DIFFERENT.
    48. Why Doesn’t Anything Ever Satisfy Me?
    49. THE GREAT PASSION.
    50. Perhaps Dissatisfaction is Good
    51. ONE REP MAX.
    52. WHAT DO YOU *REALLY* WANT IN LIFE?
    53. LIFE IS ABOUT STRIVING FOR MORE.
    54. NEVER STOP LINKING.
    55. THE GREATEST.
    56. WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!
    57. THE BEST IS YET TO COME.
    58. ERIC KIM CRITIQUE OF ROMANTICISM
    59. COMPLACENCY.
    60. JUST BUY IT.
    61. ALL ABOUT YOU.
    62. MOVE THE WORLD
    63. Boring or Not Boring?
    64. What if Your Past Self were Inferior to Your Present Self?
    65. THE PHILOSOPHY OF PROGRESS
    66. CULTURE IS YOUR ENEMY.
    67. Difficulty & Interest
    68. The Will to Expansion
    69. What is Work?
    70. SOUL IN THE GAME.
    71. JUST START IT.
    72. Not Boring
    73. PRIDE IN YOUR OWN NAME / BRAND
    74. AS MUCH AS YOU CAN TOLERATE.
    75. Speed is Paramount
    76. TAKE IT BACK TO THE BEGINNING.
    77. A Life With No Risk Taking is *NOT* a Life Worth Living
    78. Dissatisfaction is Good
    79. GREATER STRENGTH, GREATER CHALLENGES.
    80. In Praise of the New
    81. Uncorrupted Desires
    82. You Cannot Fake Passion
    83. SELF-OVERGOING
    84. FORM YOURSELF.
    85. Personal Entrepreneurship
    86. RELENTLESS.
    87. PUT YOUR NAME ON IT.
    88. A Life of Expansion
    89. SELF-ENTREPRENEURSHIP
    90. YOU ARE THE EXCEPTION.
    91. Use Your Life as an Experiment to Self-Develop Yourself to Heights Never Seen Before
    92. Invest in New Developments
    93. Investing Towards What End?
    94. The 90%/10% Principle in Entrepreneurship
    95. Speed Wins
    96. The Philosophy of Happiness
    97. When to Over-Estimate, When to Under-Estimate?
    98. Never Stop Iterating
    99. Money as a Tool for Life and Artistic Experimentation
    100. Less But More Premium
    101. Mainstream vs Low-Key Success
    102. Why Dissatisfaction is Good
    103. SEEK YOUR OWN PERSONAL MAXIMAL BENEFIT INSTEAD OF COMPLAINING
    104. Manifest Your Destiny
    105. Is it Best to *Not* Communicate Your Inner Thoughts or Ideas With Others?
    106. CREATE THINGS YOU WISH TO SEE MANIFESTED IN THE WORLD
    107. How to Do More Work
    108. CONTROL.
    109. Competition is for Losers
    110. Change.
    111. Your Competitive Advantage with Insanely Fast Wifi and High Speed Internet
    112. Pseudo Individualism
    113. Natural Internal Promoting vs External Promptings

    Think for Yourself.

    1. Survival vs Thrivival
    2. Become Rich
    3. SECRETS.
    4. Why it is Better to Beg for Forgiveness than Ask for Permission
    5. Thinking About the Past Prevents You From Thinking About the Future
    6. How to Predict the Future
    7. Tools of Mass Distraction
    8. So What?

    FREEDOM


    Never stop innovating.


    Entrepreneurship Mindset


    Put a Dent in the Universe.

  • Think Carte Blanche

    An essay on thinking:

    First, what is the most desire thing, the most desired trait in today’s world? To think. 

    I think I am actually a very very sensitive person; I am extremely sensitive to audio visual information, ideas, words mines etc. I take everything personally, over personally; perhaps, rather than trying to negate this, this might be my superpower? I think this is how I could psycho analyze people so well, and even myself? 

    Street smarts

    Assuming that I might be the greatest street photographer of all time, yes, even better than Henri Cartier-Bresson, then it seems like I have a mighty task at hand. To propagate and to promote street photography to the limits and beyond. 

    First, maximum exposure to the streets, public life, street life etc. Probably my most formative thing as of late is walking around lot every single day, with my 60 pound weight vest on. 

    Even as a funny exercise, go on a walk with your weight vest on, your camera, and shoot street photos with your weight vest on! You’re killing at least two birds with one stone;  first, you get an incredible workout, and secondly, you’re making art!


    My social imperative

    I think in today’s world, maybe the best approach is to think about your imperative; things that you must do because it is your self-appointed task in life, because you so believe in it so deeply.

    I’ve always had the philosophy in the ideas that if you pursued your passion hard enough, even without thinking about social political or economic or monetary payoff; you would succeed.

    For example, advice that I believed in which I still believe; the upside of pursuing your passion in life — in fact, the number one issue in today’s world is that nobody has a passion anymore, nor is anyone permitted to have a passion.  For example, the pernicious element of modern day capitalism is that in order to be virtuous, you must have your passion either directly or indirectly lead to some sort of social political monetary payoff. Or more or less… Your passion can only be made legitimate if it can directly or indirectly help you make a bunch of money.

    I think one of the piece advice that I got from one of my high school teachers, which actually paid off was that if you pursued your passion, hard enough and diligently enough… Sooner or later it would pay off. He told me in the class that it certainly wouldn’t make you a bunch of money, but you should be at least able to make a living from it. 

    Making a living

    The stoic Spartan economic strategy;  we glorify and we deify our extreme and insane frugality; whenever I need inspiration or a vision… I always go back to the movie 300, and I always rewatch it… Because I’m a visual person, it centers me.

    For literature, if I only had one book for the rest of my life it would probably be the Iliad by Homer. Achilles is my alter ego.

    He who adapts the fastest shall win

    I think this is something that Michael Saylor said; that an economics life biological life etc.… He who adapts the fastest shall win! 

    Add optician is difficult process because there is no manual no playbook, no blueprint. And also the tricky thing is that a blueprint of the past only worked in the past because it was so disruptive at the time, but it probably won’t be applicable to modern day times.

    Even Peter Thiel so wisely predicted, that the next billion dollar unicorn would not be a search engine or whatever; he almost predicted the rise of AI and ChatGPT; and he was right. Slowly but surely… chatGPT open AI is starting to eat the market share of Google; Google is starting to sweat bullets, and so is Apple. 

    It seems like the magical unicorn right now is Nvidia; which is something I have been familiar with ever since I was a kid. Essentially when you’re applying counterstrike 1.6, whoever had the best card, the newest the fastest most powerful and videographics card, would have the most frames per second, which would actually give them a strategic advantage. Even though very small.

    And now, these video games are starting to become insane. Kids nowadays prefer to play video games over anything else,,, note the rise of mobile based games, and still nowadays… Gaming computers, wanting to become a pro gamer or whatever. 

    And I think, even though people like to play games on the iPhone, maybe the iPad… There’s still seems to be this prediction for people to rather sit, use a gaming computer, a gaming chair, because they prefer the haptics of tactical keyboard, and also mouse?


    The ultimate privilege 

    What is the dream or living the dream? Being in Culver City, I see I met a lot of people; who work at Apple Amazon Warner Bros. discovery Sony pictures etc. And it is a bit sad;  yes yes yes you could drive your Ferrari to work, but the second you pull up to the parking lot in the parking garage, you are forced to be inside a depressing building all day.

    I’m shocked even even Apple which I always considered the peak of success aesthetics and greatness — I don’t think I’ve ever met a happy person that I’ve met working at Apple besides my friend Anthony Larson? All these people who work at Apple in Culver City, they are so gloomy and depressed looking. They have designer clothes, but no tan, not enough freedom and time in the sun. I see them all drive their expensive cars into the Apple parking lot on Washington, to park it, and spend the rest of their days in their beautiful glass cube cage.  


    Goals?

    Life goals are interesting; because they are centered around your own personal philosophy and ethos.

    I typically like to ask people what their life goals are, their passions etc. Because it often signals who they are, what they believe in etc. Certainly there is no hierarchy in what seems like a wise idea or goals .,, why there are a certain like goal is wiser foolish is all subjective. And also hindsight is 20-20.

    For example, one might have said that Steve Jobs wasting all this time going to Japan whatever or going to India was wasting time or doing Calligraphy was a waste of time, but ultimately it percolated into all the beautiful apple products we got today.

    Therefore my simple suggestion is permit yourself to all the superficial random interests that you got, because you never know how it will come in handy. 

    On thinking for yourself

    Never read the news, never seek it; all news is bad and toxic.

    Only that, but practically everything modern is bad. Any modern thinker the last 100 years, there are really no good ones. Only good ones I include NASSIM Taleb, Peter Thiel, and now Michael Saylor. Everyone else is bad.

    The strange advice in today’s world is that we are not permitted to think for ourselves, by ourselves. We need to give fellatio to great thinkers who came before us, in order for it to be legitimate or warranted.

    And truth be told… All these things are flawed. Just look into their personal lives; or their physique or how they look like. This matters.

    For example, Nietzsche had extreme gastrointestinal problems his whole life, and also, he was always traveling and trying to find a new place to live before he settled somewhere I think in Italy because he was quite sensitive to climate, the weather? Nietzsche even has a theory that the reason why Arthur Schopenhauer was so dark and gloomy was simply because of the poor German weather. I; Berlin in the middle of the winter is depressing as hell. Same goes with Prague or the South of France and Marseille during the winter time. For the most part, winter in Europe sucks. Especially Eastern Europe.

    I actually wonder… Because of the poor weather, that is why Russian thinkers, Russian writers tend to be so dark and morose?

    Climate matters.

    For example, currently peak summer here in Los Angeles,  and it is so glorious! There’s nothing that in Lins me and my joy as much as seeing the sunrise first thing in the morning from my apartment window! It actually gives me a motivation to go out!

    Thinking about the last winter cycle; how depressing and gloomy it was. I think I’m like a plant; I need maximum sun exposure in order to grow.

    Where being solitary is good 

    If you think about all the great artists of the past, the great thinkers… The great philosophers, most of them were quite solitary in their pursuits.

    For example, any thinker or artist who aligned themselves with some sort of cultural or theoretical movement, have not lasted.

    For example, nobody really remembers any of the “Cubists” besides Picasso. Because Picasso was smart; he was a master marketer and promoter of himself; so for any skinny fat anemic emo art loving loser who says that the art should speak for itself is false. 

    Art is marketing.

    What is art?

     to me, maybe just being alive is art?  For me, it is all art, artful, artistic, etc.

    For example, your lifestyle how you live is art; let us recall that the word art “facere” means to make.

    How to become a great street photographer 

    Maybe this is time for ERIC KIM to get back into street photography 2.0. We have already rode the first grand wave, and now… After a brief lull… We are back in the game! 

    My critique of all street photographers, all the masters, Henri Cartier bresson magnum and the like  is many.

    First, maybe we should think about HCB like Socrates or Plato.  All philosophers after Socrates is bad and degenerate. There is a screen shift in philosophy towards ethics and morality. Before Socrates, it was more about nature of the universe, deeper thoughts. And the really bad thing is when we tried to make it all into a science; this is where economics and all economic theory is bad. All these twig men try to turn economics into a science and mathematics but it is not. My idea is economic theory that is not at least 300 years old. Better to read Aristotle on economics modern day… Even the school of economics, they are too modern. Maybe not as bad as the American or or sneakers… But still… modern all too modern! 

    Think Greek

    The Greeks invented the Olympics. And we all know and recognize that ancient Greece was the Apex in epitome of all human civilization. Even better than the Romans. 

    Even watching recent Olympics, my plenty site that in tradition, the Greeks always went first, even though now they are the most weak major out there. They certainly have their cultural clout of the past… Yet, now they are impotent in terms of economics; Which is bad because economics is now the new head of power on the planet.

    Once again, we will not see World War III the future wars and battles are all economic battles. Economics, money and capitalism is the new modern bond which holds all of humanity together, which is good because it promotes peace. Even though there are lots of evil of capitalism, I think it is still positive on the planet; because you are self interested economizing individual, you will not want war, you will want peace because peace is better for economics, material wealth and money. 

    For example there is no oligarch in mainland China who wants World War III, because he will desire to have his fine whiskey, drive his Rolls-Royce, send his kids to college in America, buy a nice house in Vancouver etc.

    Economic theory

    This is where economic theory becomes so interesting to me, because assuming that use the internet, have a bank account balance, a credit card, use Visa, use Apple Pay, have an iPhone etc.… You are implicated in economics, the planet. 

    The first interesting thought I had which was inspired by Cindy thinking about economics and the human body.

    For example, when it comes to physical culture with men; it is all centered around gain. Just like money. You don’t want any losses.

    Then, this becomes terrible because a man’s ego is only tied to how much weight or muscle mass or whatever he puts on! Also the problem with powerlifting; if too much of your ego is centered around your personal record number… Sooner or later you might dip into steroids or weird stuff in order to boost your numbers. or maybe something foolish, and injure yourself because you’re chasing those numbers in a fragmented way.

    … Would you judge Achilles based on his dick size, how big his biceps were, how much he could dead lift and squat? No. It was his lethality in battle, PVP, 1v1.

    And this is my current choice; I don’t know any other man in the flesh is more masculine, more charming, more handsome and as strong as me.

    As long as the other man cannot lift 1000 pounds, or 10 plates, he is no match for me.

    Even all of these powerlifters and strong men, who are all on steroids and balding, or bald… They are no match for me.

    Even the rock, who is obviously juicing his eyeballs out; he has chicken legs? He wishes that his legs were as strong as me. 

    Even Zac Efron, I feel bad that he is such a Shorty guy, only about 5 foot seven? Even though very handsome?


    The path forward

    So what is the logical path forward?

    First, your art will outlast you. Your art through your children, your art through your artwork etc.

    Either children or art,,, ideally both.

    You do not seek your own personal immortality, this is first a philosophically disgusting notion, and also biologically impotent. I doubt if you were 300 years old, you would be able to ejaculate.

    Where we should be very suspicious of Silicon Valley people 

    Currently speaking, the nerds have taken over. Why because they are the richest. Once again, if you take nerds with good intentions and too much money, and too much power… Things go awry.

    For example, Mark Zuckerberg, who might have more power than the US president; has good intentions, he is a nerd, and will forever be that way.

    Bill Gates; the uber nerd, just see what Steve Jobs said about him in Walter Isaacson’s biography —  and think about that Elon Musk tweet, “the quickest way to kill your boner.”

    Even Peter Thiel, I love him to death, but I’m not sure if he’s actually interested in having kids? I think the last time I checked he had a male partner… But no kids?

    Jeff Bezos wants to go to space and leave earth behind.

    Elon Musk is still good; he wants to get the planet off of fossil fuels, and make human life interplanetary. He is probably one of the greatest innovators entrepreneurs of all time, who has created value literally out of nothing.

    As much as you can critique Tesla cars, the don’t lie; the Tesla model Y is the most desired car on the planet, and also the best selling one, made in the USA!

    So the irony is, if you are truly a red blooded American, you would be very pro Tesla.


  • Think Carte Blanche

    An essay on thinking:

    First, what is the most desire thing, the most desired trait in today’s world? To think. 

    I think I am actually a very very sensitive person; I am extremely sensitive to audio visual information, ideas, words mines etc. I take everything personally, over personally; perhaps, rather than trying to negate this, this might be my superpower? I think this is how I could psycho analyze people so well, and even myself? 

    Street smarts

    Assuming that I might be the greatest street photographer of all time, yes, even better than Henri Cartier-Bresson, then it seems like I have a mighty task at hand. To propagate and to promote street photography to the limits and beyond. 

    First, maximum exposure to the streets, public life, street life etc. Probably my most formative thing as of late is walking around lot every single day, with my 60 pound weight vest on. 

    Even as a funny exercise, go on a walk with your weight vest on, your camera, and shoot street photos with your weight vest on! You’re killing at least two birds with one stone;  first, you get an incredible workout, and secondly, you’re making art!


    My social imperative

    I think in today’s world, maybe the best approach is to think about your imperative; things that you must do because it is your self-appointed task in life, because you so believe in it so deeply.

    I’ve always had the philosophy in the ideas that if you pursued your passion hard enough, even without thinking about social political or economic or monetary payoff; you would succeed.

    For example, advice that I believed in which I still believe; the upside of pursuing your passion in life — in fact, the number one issue in today’s world is that nobody has a passion anymore, nor is anyone permitted to have a passion.  For example, the pernicious element of modern day capitalism is that in order to be virtuous, you must have your passion either directly or indirectly lead to some sort of social political monetary payoff. Or more or less… Your passion can only be made legitimate if it can directly or indirectly help you make a bunch of money.

    I think one of the piece advice that I got from one of my high school teachers, which actually paid off was that if you pursued your passion, hard enough and diligently enough… Sooner or later it would pay off. He told me in the class that it certainly wouldn’t make you a bunch of money, but you should be at least able to make a living from it. 

    Making a living

    The stoic Spartan economic strategy;  we glorify and we deify our extreme and insane frugality; whenever I need inspiration or a vision… I always go back to the movie 300, and I always rewatch it… Because I’m a visual person, it centers me.

    For literature, if I only had one book for the rest of my life it would probably be the Iliad by Homer. Achilles is my alter ego.

    He who adapts the fastest shall win

    I think this is something that Michael Saylor said; that an economics life biological life etc.… He who adapts the fastest shall win! 

    Add optician is difficult process because there is no manual no playbook, no blueprint. And also the tricky thing is that a blueprint of the past only worked in the past because it was so disruptive at the time, but it probably won’t be applicable to modern day times.

    Even Peter Thiel so wisely predicted, that the next billion dollar unicorn would not be a search engine or whatever; he almost predicted the rise of AI and ChatGPT; and he was right. Slowly but surely… chatGPT open AI is starting to eat the market share of Google; Google is starting to sweat bullets, and so is Apple. 

    It seems like the magical unicorn right now is Nvidia; which is something I have been familiar with ever since I was a kid. Essentially when you’re applying counterstrike 1.6, whoever had the best card, the newest the fastest most powerful and videographics card, would have the most frames per second, which would actually give them a strategic advantage. Even though very small.

    And now, these video games are starting to become insane. Kids nowadays prefer to play video games over anything else,,, note the rise of mobile based games, and still nowadays… Gaming computers, wanting to become a pro gamer or whatever. 

    And I think, even though people like to play games on the iPhone, maybe the iPad… There’s still seems to be this prediction for people to rather sit, use a gaming computer, a gaming chair, because they prefer the haptics of tactical keyboard, and also mouse?


    The ultimate privilege 

    What is the dream or living the dream? Being in Culver City, I see I met a lot of people; who work at Apple Amazon Warner Bros. discovery Sony pictures etc. And it is a bit sad;  yes yes yes you could drive your Ferrari to work, but the second you pull up to the parking lot in the parking garage, you are forced to be inside a depressing building all day.

    I’m shocked even even Apple which I always considered the peak of success aesthetics and greatness — I don’t think I’ve ever met a happy person that I’ve met working at Apple besides my friend Anthony Larson? All these people who work at Apple in Culver City, they are so gloomy and depressed looking. They have designer clothes, but no tan, not enough freedom and time in the sun. I see them all drive their expensive cars into the Apple parking lot on Washington, to park it, and spend the rest of their days in their beautiful glass cube cage.  


    Goals?

    Life goals are interesting; because they are centered around your own personal philosophy and ethos.

    I typically like to ask people what their life goals are, their passions etc. Because it often signals who they are, what they believe in etc. Certainly there is no hierarchy in what seems like a wise idea or goals .,, why there are a certain like goal is wiser foolish is all subjective. And also hindsight is 20-20.

    For example, one might have said that Steve Jobs wasting all this time going to Japan whatever or going to India was wasting time or doing Calligraphy was a waste of time, but ultimately it percolated into all the beautiful apple products we got today.

    Therefore my simple suggestion is permit yourself to all the superficial random interests that you got, because you never know how it will come in handy. 

    On thinking for yourself

    Never read the news, never seek it; all news is bad and toxic.

    Only that, but practically everything modern is bad. Any modern thinker the last 100 years, there are really no good ones. Only good ones I include NASSIM Taleb, Peter Thiel, and now Michael Saylor. Everyone else is bad.

    The strange advice in today’s world is that we are not permitted to think for ourselves, by ourselves. We need to give fellatio to great thinkers who came before us, in order for it to be legitimate or warranted.

    And truth be told… All these things are flawed. Just look into their personal lives; or their physique or how they look like. This matters.

    For example, Nietzsche had extreme gastrointestinal problems his whole life, and also, he was always traveling and trying to find a new place to live before he settled somewhere I think in Italy because he was quite sensitive to climate, the weather? Nietzsche even has a theory that the reason why Arthur Schopenhauer was so dark and gloomy was simply because of the poor German weather. I; Berlin in the middle of the winter is depressing as hell. Same goes with Prague or the South of France and Marseille during the winter time. For the most part, winter in Europe sucks. Especially Eastern Europe.

    I actually wonder… Because of the poor weather, that is why Russian thinkers, Russian writers tend to be so dark and morose?

    Climate matters.

    For example, currently peak summer here in Los Angeles,  and it is so glorious! There’s nothing that in Lins me and my joy as much as seeing the sunrise first thing in the morning from my apartment window! It actually gives me a motivation to go out!

    Thinking about the last winter cycle; how depressing and gloomy it was. I think I’m like a plant; I need maximum sun exposure in order to grow.

    Where being solitary is good 

    If you think about all the great artists of the past, the great thinkers… The great philosophers, most of them were quite solitary in their pursuits.

    For example, any thinker or artist who aligned themselves with some sort of cultural or theoretical movement, have not lasted.

    For example, nobody really remembers any of the “Cubists” besides Picasso. Because Picasso was smart; he was a master marketer and promoter of himself; so for any skinny fat anemic emo art loving loser who says that the art should speak for itself is false. 

    Art is marketing.

    What is art?

     to me, maybe just being alive is art?  For me, it is all art, artful, artistic, etc.

    For example, your lifestyle how you live is art; let us recall that the word art “facere” means to make.

    How to become a great street photographer 

    Maybe this is time for ERIC KIM to get back into street photography 2.0. We have already rode the first grand wave, and now… After a brief lull… We are back in the game! 

    My critique of all street photographers, all the masters, Henri Cartier bresson magnum and the like  is many.

    First, maybe we should think about HCB like Socrates or Plato.  All philosophers after Socrates is bad and degenerate. There is a screen shift in philosophy towards ethics and morality. Before Socrates, it was more about nature of the universe, deeper thoughts. And the really bad thing is when we tried to make it all into a science; this is where economics and all economic theory is bad. All these twig men try to turn economics into a science and mathematics but it is not. My idea is economic theory that is not at least 300 years old. Better to read Aristotle on economics modern day… Even the school of economics, they are too modern. Maybe not as bad as the American or or sneakers… But still… modern all too modern! 

    Think Greek

    The Greeks invented the Olympics. And we all know and recognize that ancient Greece was the Apex in epitome of all human civilization. Even better than the Romans. 

    Even watching recent Olympics, my plenty site that in tradition, the Greeks always went first, even though now they are the most weak major out there. They certainly have their cultural clout of the past… Yet, now they are impotent in terms of economics; Which is bad because economics is now the new head of power on the planet.

    Once again, we will not see World War III the future wars and battles are all economic battles. Economics, money and capitalism is the new modern bond which holds all of humanity together, which is good because it promotes peace. Even though there are lots of evil of capitalism, I think it is still positive on the planet; because you are self interested economizing individual, you will not want war, you will want peace because peace is better for economics, material wealth and money. 

    For example there is no oligarch in mainland China who wants World War III, because he will desire to have his fine whiskey, drive his Rolls-Royce, send his kids to college in America, buy a nice house in Vancouver etc.

    Economic theory

    This is where economic theory becomes so interesting to me, because assuming that use the internet, have a bank account balance, a credit card, use Visa, use Apple Pay, have an iPhone etc.… You are implicated in economics, the planet. 

    The first interesting thought I had which was inspired by Cindy thinking about economics and the human body.

    For example, when it comes to physical culture with men; it is all centered around gain. Just like money. You don’t want any losses.

    Then, this becomes terrible because a man’s ego is only tied to how much weight or muscle mass or whatever he puts on! Also the problem with powerlifting; if too much of your ego is centered around your personal record number… Sooner or later you might dip into steroids or weird stuff in order to boost your numbers. or maybe something foolish, and injure yourself because you’re chasing those numbers in a fragmented way.

    … Would you judge Achilles based on his dick size, how big his biceps were, how much he could dead lift and squat? No. It was his lethality in battle, PVP, 1v1.

    And this is my current choice; I don’t know any other man in the flesh is more masculine, more charming, more handsome and as strong as me.

    As long as the other man cannot lift 1000 pounds, or 10 plates, he is no match for me.

    Even all of these powerlifters and strong men, who are all on steroids and balding, or bald… They are no match for me.

    Even the rock, who is obviously juicing his eyeballs out; he has chicken legs? He wishes that his legs were as strong as me. 

    Even Zac Efron, I feel bad that he is such a Shorty guy, only about 5 foot seven? Even though very handsome?


    The path forward

    So what is the logical path forward?

    First, your art will outlast you. Your art through your children, your art through your artwork etc.

    Either children or art,,, ideally both.

    You do not seek your own personal immortality, this is first a philosophically disgusting notion, and also biologically impotent. I doubt if you were 300 years old, you would be able to ejaculate.

    Where we should be very suspicious of Silicon Valley people 

    Currently speaking, the nerds have taken over. Why because they are the richest. Once again, if you take nerds with good intentions and too much money, and too much power… Things go awry.

    For example, Mark Zuckerberg, who might have more power than the US president; has good intentions, he is a nerd, and will forever be that way.

    Bill Gates; the uber nerd, just see what Steve Jobs said about him in Walter Isaacson’s biography —  and think about that Elon Musk tweet, “the quickest way to kill your boner.”

    Even Peter Thiel, I love him to death, but I’m not sure if he’s actually interested in having kids? I think the last time I checked he had a male partner… But no kids?

    Jeff Bezos wants to go to space and leave earth behind.

    Elon Musk is still good; he wants to get the planet off of fossil fuels, and make human life interplanetary. He is probably one of the greatest innovators entrepreneurs of all time, who has created value literally out of nothing.

    As much as you can critique Tesla cars, the don’t lie; the Tesla model Y is the most desired car on the planet, and also the best selling one, made in the USA!

    So the irony is, if you are truly a red blooded American, you would be very pro Tesla.


  • UNSHAME YOURSELF.

    What is the metaphorical ball and chain in our new modern day life? Shame. It applies not only to people of Asian East Asian descent, or confusion values… Also in America, with the Quaker protestant morals and ethics being around shame. Certainly within a Christian Catholic mentality as well; also maybe to Jewish people as well? And also… To the Japanese, maybe almost anyone living in an industrialized, modern day world and civilization.

    Shame is learned and taught and reinforced

    One thing I love about Seneca… Is that he is so free pure, and great. Fortunately because he has wise parents, ever since he is born… We have never instilled any shame culture on him.

    There’s a really bad thing in culture, which is called “cheng-pee”, which literally means shameful. I think cream people superficially said to be cute, but if you really think about it… It is actually quite insidious.

    For example, you will see it over and over again when a kid is running around naked without pants on, almost everything.

    In America, we do have notions of shame, but it is not said so directly. For example if you have a young kid who is running around naked at the house, you’re probably won’t say “shame shame shame shame shame!” Put on some clothes or else you will bring shame onto our family and all of your family members and past generations.  

    The genesis of shame

    Funny enough… Shame is not an ethic that Jesus preached. Shame is rather a form of social control.

    For example, growing up Catholic Korean Catholic… All this guilt and shame around porn pornography, masturbation etc. And all these weird superstitions that you would grow hairy palms if you jerked off? 

    Also, very funny… Even the modern day times, with all these fake macho guys at the gym etc.… Whenever you joke about Porn and jerking off… All guys will always side chuckle a little bit shamefully, because obviously all the guys do it.

    But technically, assuming you grew up up without religion and modern day shamed notions… None of it should really be shameful. Maybe gross, or unhygienic, but not shameful.

    Why is being naked seen as being shameful? 

    I have some theories.

    First, in the Bible… The second that they take a bite out of the apple from the garden of Eden… Apparently the first thing that Adam and Eve realize is that they were naked, they feel shame and they immediately want to cover up. God knows and discovers that they took a bite of the forbidden fruit.

    Some subtle nuances;

    First, where does this notion of the forbidden fruit even come from? Kind of a bizarre notion. Essentially the idea is that it is better to be naked and dumb and happy, rather than to possess your own self wisdom rationality and intelligence and judge the world? 

    The second… Why is it considered to be shameful to be naked, either in private or public?

    I have some theories:

    The first theory is a capitalistic one. You cannot make money by telling people to be naked. You got to sell them clothes.

     Second, it seems that breeding insecurity is a Y strategy if you want people to purchase or desire to purchase certain clothes in articles of clothing, in order to feel “cool“? For example, at the age of 36, I feel the wisest I have ever been in my life. No more lame and loser Nikes, sneakers, etc. Only losers were Nikes, Jordans, whatever.

    The true intelligent footwear to wear is either the vibram five finger shoes, or if you have akid, just getting them those super minimalist water shoes on Amazon which only cost about 10 bucks. 

    Cars are the new shoes for adults?

    Another theory; when you are kid, and maybe before you have a drivers permit or license, you can’t drive. Therefore, shoes and sneakers are like a metaphorical car or vehicle.

    Now that we are adults, and we are richer, and we could do stupid things like finance a cart with a down payment,  and have a monthly payment, cars and automobiles are like the new sneakers. Think about it… Both have to deal with transportation transit and getting around and moving around, being seen, fashion being fashionable etc.

    And also, cars… They come in and out of fashion every 3 to 6 months, and there’s always a new car being released. In fact, whether we like it or not, LA, Southern California, California, the states, the planet… A car or automobile Vehicle, a truck SUV whatever… Might be one of the grandest industries in America and beyond?

    But lots of problems here:

    First, I have a theory that one’s happiness is inversely proportional to how much time you have to either spend seated in a car, driving around etc. And I’m starting to think that the payoff is not worth it ; for example,  let us see you have the option to drive an additional 30 minutes to go somewhere that is maybe 40% nicer than just going somewhere local that you could access via walking. Typically that optimization is not worth it.

    Why? Opportunity cost. 30 minute drive there, 30 minute drive back… That is a full hour otherwise you have spent just walking around!

    Taking the metro is a far better bed. For example, on killing 10 birds with one stone; the joys of taking the metro, especially the metro line in Los Angeles is multifold:

    First, you have the joy and privilege of being able to stand the whole ride, and even shifted your way around and walk around the train if you want!

    Second, you get an insanely cool view of the city! Playing SimCity with Seneca, there’s this notion of a maglev train; a magnetic elevated train!

    It doesn’t have to be magnetic, just elevated. The reason why the metro line in LA is so phenomenal is that you are above traffic, you are above the ground level, and you get this really interesting panopticon view of the city! 

    Third, kids love it! I don’t know any kid who doesn’t like to take the metro, it is so fun for them! Even for my niece Amelia who is now in the first or second grade, seven or eight years old, After taking her and her younger brother Benjamin to the California science Center via the metro line, she asked me and Cindy… Can we take the metro back home (to Orange County)?

    Also, watching this cute film at the California science Center about cities of the future… The general ideas that in the future, everyone would just be taking some sort of magnetic electric elevated train somewhere, And on the mid and bottom kettle levels, would be some of the fools who have to self drive their own cars. In the middle layer would have self driving cars.

    Visions?

    Singapore is often cited as being a city of the future, but it is not. Truth be told Singaporeans don’t really like living in Singapore; they would prefer to live in the states if they could.

    Maybe the closest thing I have to witnessing a city of the future is Culver City, the only city which you could actually walk around all day, and never get bored, and you could also do all your grocery shopping here at Trader Joe’s or Erewhon or Whole Foods. Even nowadays, a supermassive innovation that we got is being able to do the Amazon fresh grocery deliveries so might pull in I think 80% of the average American family, time and resources is wasted occurring food and groceries.

    And also, let us consider… It is the year 2024, it is very common to get the same day prime delivery of almost any single item on Amazon. Shouldn’t we apply the same ethos to food, which is really the only critical thing we need in order to live? we don’t have free food… Yet, but at this point we have free clean water, just drinking from the tap or filtered water at home! And at this point, you could purchase coffee in bulk, on Amazon and it is so cheap practically free! The “fresh roasted coffee” 5 pound bag on Amazon, the yirgacheffe Ethiopian blend quite good!


    How to unshame yourself? 

    God sent me to break the shame. I’m the true and living, all the rest of you guys are vain. 

    First, get rid of those loser AirPods, throw them in the trash. Better to be ghetto and hood, if you want to listen to something, music podcast or whatever, just crank up the volume on your iPad Pro or iPhone, and listen to it loud in public or even in private. Somebody tell you to quiet down, just lower the volume and continue.

    Second, throw your iPhone pros into the trash. I see it nowadays… Very subtly; when I am walking around with my 60 pound weight vest on, and I look at somebody, and then they want to go inside me, and they do for half a second, and then half a second the nervous which they do is check their phone… or they are in New York Manhattan, or in a crowded elephant, I will see people open up their phones, check the time, refresh their email inbox, etc.… Simply as it means to avoid eye contact or inter action with others?

    Simple suggestions include whenever you make eye contact with somebody, or even if you see somebody half a block away looking at you, just throw up the peace sign, or give them a head nod. You would be surprised , people can spot you from half a mile away. 

    Maybe a random thought is think like you are the mayor, you are a firefighter, a public servant, or if you’re running for mirror. If this were the case, you would want to be maximally friendly to every single human being you encounter, because you want their votes! This means being nice friendly and courteous and cheerful and acknowledge the existence of people who are even antisocial, bizarre?

    Make friends with security guards.

     why?  first, honestly a lot of security guards, because they are outside all day just walking around… are just friendlier and happier than the average office drone. Second, most of them have not taken the traditional educational rotten life, which means that they tend to be much more interesting to talk to, rather than the average university graduate and career person.

    In fact, the only interesting conversations I’ve had is from people from the hood, maybe people in the military, some kids, and those who we would consider “nontraditional. In fact, 99.99% of people you encounter, in the states are quite boring. The second someone bores you, just excuse yourself and say you have to use the bathroom and walk away.

    ***

    Drain?

    OK let us assume that you are a battery and you cannot be recharged in the middle of the day. The only way you can recharge your battery is when you go to sleep at night.

    That means any single interaction social interaction, engagement whatever could either have a positive or negative effect on you.

     I’m sorry to realize this… Some people will essentially just capture you, and just keep talking nonsense to you, and refuse to let you leave.

    You could see it, if you give somebody a phone call FaceTime or see them in person, you spend a 99% of your time just listening to them talk, Bitchin moan about their life problems, their own personal misery etc., and never ask you how you’re doing, how your kid is doing etc. 

    Misery loves misery

    To be happy as rare. I am probably the only happy person that I know, and Seneca is also rare; the only happy kid I know. 

    I would say that 99.99% of people are miserable. And the way that they could feel better about themselves is by dragging other people down, spewing hate, etc.? Very counterproductive.

    In the UK they call it the tall poppy syndrome; you see a guy driving around the new Lamborghini, and then you’ll find some sort of way to discredit him, saying that he has a small dick, or he cheated for that money etc.

    At least a good thing in America is that often our jealousy and envy could be positive; we see Jeff Bezos Elon Musk and the like becoming super successful, and we aspire to become like them.

    Or, maybe if you see somebody driving a surgeon car, US buy to one day work hard, make a bunch of money in order to obtain that same vehicle.

    Also in bodybuilding, I think we often use other men and their physiques as a role model; we all want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, is always plastered around all across the planet.

    But a simple thought: I think body glorification is 1 trillion times more virtuous than car fellatio, or even money glorification. 

    For example, I would never switch spaces with any other human being on the planet, irregardless of how wealthy or rich or powerful they are.

    Jeff Bezos is short, only 5 foot seven. Kanye West is also short, maybe 5 foot five. I think Kendrick Lamar is only 5 foot two? Jay Z is cool, but he’s too old now. 

    Also, any billionaire in their 50s or 60s would probably trade their wealth in order to become 20 years old again.

    Even if you were worth 100 billion or $1 trillion, and you’re 90 years old, wouldn’t you trade 100% of your wealth in order to become 21 years old again?


    Unwealth

    Some new radical thoughts on wealth:

    I think true world is actually inversely proportional; the things you don’t have the things you don’t own in order to maintain.

    For example, I would not wish for your Lamborghini McLaren or any hyper sports car on even my worst enemy. Why? The critical issue here is that maintenance costs are an effing nightmare. 

    For example,  it is not even a money thing. Like the laws of physics; sooner or later you’re going to have to get oil change, and it will not only be very expensive, but time consuming, insanely annoying etc. I think this is where it makes more sense to get some sort of maybe Hybrid sports car or Lexus LC500– in theory you could just take it to any ordinary oil change place, because it is a Toyota, you could easily get it repaired or change the oil.

    Maybe this is also the logic of having an all electric sports or hyper car; in theory, an electric sports car should require less maintenance and gasoline or hybrid one;  I think the only thing you probably have to change or fix or maintain is refill the window wiper fluid? 

    Everyone wants the butterfly doors this is our doors or the Lambo doors — but I think the true intelligent optimization here is that you have some sort of electric car that could do this? Maybe this is also where the BMW i eight is a good idea; because it has the butterfly or scissor doors?

    I think the big issue here is the question; do you actually like that Lamborghini, the idea of the Lamborghini, actually owning it, the idea of it, or the totem of it?

    It is all imaginary in our mind. For example if I knew that I owned a Lamborghini with the scissor doors just parked in my garage, but I never drove it… Certainly I would not really have the benefit of it. But just knowing at the back of my head that I got it, is what makes me smile?

    I think this is also a bitcoin is useful; I think the new modern day digital dick measuring contest will be; how many bitcoin do you own? And it is like your metaphorical dick size; the more bitcoin you got, the longer your cyber dick.

    Kanye had a funny quote saying that being a male porn star was an objective way to measure them– essentially, their penis size. In theory the guy with the 20 inch dick should be the best porn star. But I would also not wish this even not my worst enemy, because it would seem very uncomfortable to just walk around, without having to tuck it or wrap it around your leg or something.


    What is it that we all truly seek?

    I think this is where I go beyond Seneca and the stoics, also beyond even my best friend Nietzsche.

    Have you ever met a philosopher or a stoic who looks like me?

    The problem with Seneca the younger is that I think he was a fatty boy. I think the true post statue of him and his head he was bald, and had a triple chin. Makes sense; even Seneca “On Anger” writes, we should not get offended by truthful facts; why would you be offended if somebody made fun of you for being bald, when in fact you actually are bald? The better response is to just poke fun at yourself; better to poke fun at your baldness, rather than feel shameful about it? 

    For example, if somebody makes fun of you for being Asian and having a small dick or whatever, just call it a baby turtle. That it pokes out every once in a while. Or that you have a “chode”– a penis which has more girth than length.

    When you poke fun at yourself, it is an impregnable defense. 
    I even remember in high school, whenever somebody would tease you for being gay or whatever, the best response was “I love dick!” And then after that, nobody had anything left to say.


    We stoics of the future

    Whenever people think about the future, people are foolish; they think about adding more technology to our lives, throwing on more vision pros, more AirPods pros, more time in your self driving car etc. 

    But in fact, the true path board is via negativa– the true future is more spartan, less physical, more cyber and digital.

    More cyber real estate which is bitcoin, more digital money which is also bitcoin, more time outdoors in the direct sun with their shirt off, which is the true way of living the dream. 

    Another day, when walking by the Toyota dealership, The dealership guys telling me that I was living the dream, being outside all day with Seneca!


    Radical?

    I suppose the question is do we really need to be radical here?

    I think there is some sort of like intelligent wise radicalism, which is just stick into your own guns, following your own gut, refusing to just be another drone. I’d rather be Brad Pitt and Tyler Durden than Edward Norton.

    And I think the problem here is that we have weird role models now. Everyone wants to be worn buffet; but do you want to be a fat old man, who is just sitting in hunched over our newspaper all day, even if you are the worlds second richest man?

    Therefore the new godhead is wealth being super rich. Being in the Forbes top 100, ideally number one.

    There is no second best.

    Why settle for second? 

    Nobody wants the silver. Just look at the Olympics, we always measure by the number of gold trophies. Better to get one gold medal for your country, rather than 1000 silvers.

    “One good girl is worth a 1000 bitches” Kanye Bound 2, YEEZUS album

    I think this is where it is so critical to be so insanely wise about choosing your life partner your wife etc. Don’t settle for second best.


    The ethos of the best

    I think this is why America is so productive; we all desire to be the best! We want to be the most rich and the most successful, within our friends circle and family circle, and then maybe beyond that, spreading our circles and sphere of influence a bit further out.

    For example, I’m happy that I’m the number 1 Greatest street photography blogger of all time, nobody will ever take the crown from me, no matter how hard they try. Just ask ChatGPT!

    Then I then suppose that the next step forward is to discover a new niche, and also dominate that. Perhaps I have a passion for domination.

    This is why when I go to the gym, or when I used to go to the gym, it was always my number one goal to be the strongest guy in the gym, by a huge fold.  This is why I lifted 10 plates, a 25 and a five on each side; and broke the weightlifting universe.

    I believe this accomplishment and will last forever.

    What is the next thing I want to dominate?

    Anything you have a true passion for, autotelic; it is very easily achievable, if you do not have to consider economic payoff, making money etc. Or making other people happy, or even giving utility to other people.

    A random thought I have on my mind is towards lifestyle; now that I am 36 years old, about the same age which Tim Ferris’s wrote the four hour work week? Maybe I could become the next Tim Ferriss? Tim Ferriss is great; but I think the issue is that he is short, balding, insecure, and I think he is also not yet married and childish, maybe he has a dog? And also, I don’t think he’s really figured things out for himself yet; he’s always onto the next thing, just seeking endless distraction for himself? 

    Maybe I’ll be the next Tim Ferris! 

    How and why lifestyle is such a critical thing to consider

    I kind of hit the lifestyle that shouldn’t because it typically revolves around buying some sort of equipment and gear.

    My personal thought is that lifestyle should just be a mental, a mindset, which should actually be “via negativa”– the ideal lifestyle you look more like a zen stoic spartan monk, rather than a fat short old balding loser with a Lamborghini. 

    Making more money, but also spending no money?

    If you really really really gotta buy something, just get it on Amazon Amazon prime! For example, I got this fantastic new all black Sun hat, on Amazon Amazon for only 10 bucks, one day delivery?

     in fact, maybe the intelligent path forward is to just always purchase all of your clothing on Amazon, or Uniqlo?

    Why? I think it just makes sense. You’re cutting out the middleman, all the stuff by Lululemon is just made in the same factory in Vietnam, I think $100 pair of tight leggings from Lululemon, might only cost $10 for them to produce? The rest of those $90 is probably profit for the Lululemon corporation.

    Apparently nowadays on Amazon, you could purchase all these duplicate clothing, in which they take the inseam and the measuring of Lululemon men shorts, and just create a duplicate, with inferior materials. But if you just want something simple and cheap, it seems to be logical this way.

    Or, design it yourself! I recently had the epiphany I hate sleeves; and therefore, I just took some heavy duty steel scissors I got at home, and I just took my old -32 merino wool black T-shirt and just cut off the sleeves! Boom, brand new outfit that cost me nothing. 

    Just buy it on Amazon! Problem solved.

    ***

    Brands are for cowards

    I put zero faith in anybody who drives a base level Audi, like an Audi Q3 three or A3, an entry-level BMW or Mercedes, or even an entry-level Porsche 718. They are signaling some serious insecurity here.

    Everybody knows that a Toyota Prius is the best car, but for men… They think it is demasculating to drive a Prius?

    I was talking to one of the guys who worked at the Toyota dealership, and I asked him what car he thought I drove. The first thing he thought was 911? Which is pretty cool; because I guess I have the 911 personality, without having to Maintain that $100,000 loser car.

    In fact, if I had to do some sort of brand new car project today, my idea would be get a brand new Prius prime, and matte black wrap it, murder it out, no loser tints, and paint the doorhandles matching paint colors. The new Prius 911 looks great; look at the horizontal tail light it looks awesome!

    Real men drive Priuses

    Everything else is for losers!

    ERIC


    Fashion choices

    Cars and clothes are all fashion choices.

    If you live somewhere where it is really really strong sun, by a sun hat, not a loser baseball cap.

    For your car, get a Prius.

    For your body, 60 pound weight vest — my new stoic Spartan fashion body armor accessory?


  • SLEEP IS KEY.

    If I have to go on any promotional cruise or tour to promote the most critical idea, it is your sleep.

    Sleep is like natural steroids, and also being a parent… For your kid to sleep well is the number one greatest blessing in the universe.

    Or even better yet… Even you as an adult, for you to sleep well, might be the number one most important thing for you to optimize. Not your work your productivity your income your ability to stack ones and zeros; no, very very simple… Your ability to sleep well.

    Ideas

    The first big idea is only have coffee and caffeine first thing you wake up. I’ve been experimenting with this the last six months two year, with great results.

    When I first wake up, I take my cold shower, I use my electric shaver to shave… Brush my teeth etc., head over the kitchen, and start pounding espresso. At this point I don’t even even count anymore, I just keep drinking espresso until I start to feel hyped and amped up.

    And then I look outside of my apartment window, to see whether the sun has come out or not. Starting to rise, then I finish my coffee and water, and just head out.

    Then I go to my 60 pound weight vest, strap it on, and start walking around town with my iPad Pro! The best way to start your day, every day.

    What causes you to sleep poorly?

    True poverty,  a real poor person… It doesn’t matter if you’re making $10 million a year… If you sleep poorly, none of it is worth it. None of the babes, the cars, the wealth.

    First, all drugs are bad for your sleep. No no no, alcohol does not help you fall asleep, and not only that… It doesn’t matter what type of alcohol you consume, it will disrupt your REM sleep cycle patterns. And no no no — a glass of red wine over dinner every night is not good for you.

    Also, marijuana is not good for sleep. It may help you fall asleep, but it won’t help you stay asleep — it all once again, give you weird dreams, and disrupt your otherwise healthy sleep patterns.

    Also, media anything with flashing screens and light. Even a new thing I’ve been trying to do, to encourage our whole family to sleep earlier… When it is around 6:30 or 7 PM… I just try not to turn on the lights. Because artificial light, encourages you to stay up and do “productive things”.

    Productivity is for slaves, sleep is for the gods!

    “How did you sleep?”

    Now, my new way to greet my friends around town is asking them how they slept. Often you can just see it on their faces! When people look super super tired… I asked them how they slept last night.

    New thing I’ve been experimenting is when I go to sleep, I’ve been playing a little bit with the air conditioner heating thing in my bedroom, changing the temperature. For a while I was doing 74°, which was actually a little bit too cold, I would wake up in the middle of the night little bit cold. I just switched it to 76° last night, and I felt much better! Even waking up today, I feel 1 billion times better.

    Optimize your sleep

    Don’t optimize for your productivity, optimize for your sleep.

    My simple suggestion; unsubscribe from all those stupid TV shows media stuff.

    Don’t take the dope!

    Honestly, I’m starting to think that media TV shows films even music or podcasts is the new dope.

    For example, I live right next to the headquarters of HBO Max, Warner Bros. discovery, and it is funny… It is a pretty depressing looking building, and the whole place has such low energy, and also, when going to their corporate website, WBD.com — take a look at the corporate governance structure. And then look at all their brands. I think they own almost like 50 streaming or TV or media platforms? And then the thought…

    Do all these random executives have the time or opportunity to watch all these shows? 

    If anything… I think a lot of these companies are quite smart; just sell media is the new dope. The new soma, —

    Let us consider, what does watching something on Netflix or HBO Max do for you? It relaxes you calms you, takes your mind off of work and things… You become best friends with all these random people and shows, etc.

    Also kind of bad; anime, these shows that on for thousands of episodes, making a generation of really socially awkward kids? Who seek refuge and friendship through these anime series?

    Anyways, my number one greatest privilege of Seneca is via negativa — his whole life he has never watched anything on YouTube, I don’t even have the YouTube app installed on my phone. He has never watched a movie, besides maybe the first 15 minutes of the Lego Batman movie which we borrowed as a DVD from the LA Public library, no stupid Disney or Marvel films, etc. He is currently eating about 1/ third of a pound of a Angus burger beef patty a day, like a beast boy, outstripping any other kids in his age range, in terms of height, smartness, muscle mass, playfulness and joy!

    iPad is not bad

    First, never get your kid a stupid Amazon prime tablet. It is almost like giving your kids the cheapest high fructose corn syrup possible.

    iPad Pro or nothing.

    A big thing I believe in is don’t let your kid play with stupid subpar devices. Even Seneca knows how to use the touchpad on my MacBook Pro!

    Kids are not dumb.

    The standard in which you raise them, is the standard in which they will rise.

    For example, if you treat your kid like a genius kid, and you said the highest standards for them, and you do it with love and attention… Your kid will become a genius. It is a self fulfilling prophecy.

    But, if you feed your kids Cheerios, Capri Sun, digital heroin (YouTube YouTube kids, Disney+, Bluey etc.)– your child will become subpar.

    And it is very simple here; it actually saves you money!

    Also… Never buy them any toys. Whether you like it or not, they will just get toys to them by osmosis through friends and family, birthdays etc. Or you could just get some secondhand free toys from the Facebook buy nothing group.

    Also, one of the critical downsides I discovered about toys is the extreme annoyance of having to maintain and manage it. What that means is that let it say that your kid has all these toys and plays with it… Sooner or later you’re gonna be the one who has to clean it up! Because I hate cleaning up stuff, easiest thing just don’t give your kid the toys.

    The best entertainment for your kid is taking them to the public downtown Square, letting them run around, high five and fist bump the security guards,  just take them to a local park playground, take them on a hike, even more productive taking them to the mall and not buying anything! Seneca loves the Century City mall and playing with all the new Tesla cars, stopping by the LEGO store etc. 

    Why media is bad

    First, none of it is grounded in reality. Second, I think there is something toxic about movies films cinema etc.… It makes you more and more disconnected from reality, and also, it is cowardly.

    It’s funny whenever I look at my antisocial Los Angeles male single neighbors, with dogs, and I see them behind their closed blinds,  they’re just watching stupid HBO Max shows, or watching baseball, or whatever.

    Typically with media, it reveals what you are truly interested in.

    Tell me what you watch, and I will tell you who you are.

    For myself, things I have watched in the past have shaped me in very productive ways.  for example the philosophy of the matrix, very very formative as a kid, I think our first watched the matrix and neither elementary school or middle school? You could age yourself or timestamp yourself if you remember your friends or kids in school all doing the bullet time bullet dodging thing.

    Also, surprisingly these Netflix bodybuilding documentaries, essentially revealing to me that 100% of bodybuilders are on steroids or some sort of weird drugs.

    Why it is productive to have kids

    I think alive, you should never have to force yourself to do anything. Things just happen naturally, like the Taoist “wu Wei” notion.  

    For example, when I was in middle school in high school, I played a ton of video games. However, once I got to college and I had a part-time job and I had to study etc.… More or less I quit playing video games called turkey, not because I wanted to be virtuous or anything… I literally had no time or opportunity. I couldn’t even play video games if I wanted to, and naturally overtime it just lost interest for me. Even a few years ago, I tried to “get back into” playing video games, and it was just not interesting. I think this is also where I quit porn, it just became a little bit boring for me;

    Anyways, when you have a kid, you won’t have the time nor will you want to have the time to watch media.  it is zero sum. For example, if you have the option of watching some lame three hour movie, or an hour TV show, or spend that time to run around and play with your kid… What will you choose? Obviously spend time with your kid!  

    I think for the average person will have to work, once again your time is even more limited. I have the privileges that I literally have an open schedule, all day every day, which for me, my privilege is to literally spend 100% time with Seneca, Besides the mornings which belong to me, when he is still sleeping like a champ. 

    Ideas to sleep better

    First, let us say you finish work or you get home or whatever, the first thing you do is you turn off your iPhone, all the way off, and you put it in a drawer. I think for myself, if I have a phone in my pocket or an easily accessible spot, I’m going to be tempted to Use it.

    For example, it is obvious; let it say that you’re trying to lose fat, and then your cupboard you know you have a bunch of cookies. Obviously you’re going to eat the cookies! The easiest thing is to just throw it on the trash, or give it away.

    Disable all shows

    It’s funny… Now in the year 2024, we’ve seen the rise and fall of E readers and Kindle. Even though I am a huge proponent of digital books, reading PDF books on your iPad etc.… The downside is when you are using a Kindle or a reader or an iPad or whatever, or your iPhone… You’re going to get distracted by something and want to click on something. or get interrupted by a notification.

    Perhaps the reason why printed books are is that they are dumb, and often they just put you to sleep. The kid in New York, I remember when I was living in Bayside Queens, when I was around maybe 11 years old, I would just read myself books to sleep. I recall very vividly… I would just choose a book tuck myself in, read, and slowly, feel my eyeballs droop, and then slowly but surely, I would fall asleep in the book with naturally fall to my side.

    Even now, the reason why kids books are such a great industry is that the routine is typically, we parents read our kids books before they sleep. And the reason why printed book are good; the idea of reading a bedtime story to your kid or tablet or a screen or device is insanity; it will keep your kid up! And the goal for parents, we just want our kids to fall asleep!

    In this regard, children and adults are not that different.

    Time outside

    Certainly everybody has a different life, life circumstance etc. But there is still many things in your locus of control.

    Let us assume you have to go to the office, I simple suggestion and workflow is when you finish work, just go to the gym and work out! But if there’s too much traffic and the gym is too crowded or whatever… Either sign up for less crowded gym, or, just build your own gym at home! You got options; you could even do it in your house, your apartment, your garage, your parking spot outside whatever.

    Even in LA, the Baldwin Hills scenic overlook is a great spot for a lot of people to go and exercise, all they do is just walk up but not the hill, which is great exercise! Or even a simple thing, get a 60 pound weight vest, and every single day after work, just drive there and go on a hike!

    Or just sleep?

    Also my suggestion is with caffeine and coffee whatever… Only consume it first thing in the morning, not even midday! If you are tired midday, just take a nap! Imagine like your body is a Tesla supercharger vehicle; all you need is 15 minutes to get you to 80%!

    Or, if you have to work, just go to your car, roll down the seat, and take a nap! And when you’re taking a nap, once again, turn your phone all the way off and just put in your glove compartment.

    It can wait until tomorrow

    All of us are working ourselves to the ground, to meet these stupid arbitrary deadlines, like slaves. As a result we pull all nighters etc.

    Even now that I think about it… One of the most pernicious things we are taught in college is to cram for the final exam. I’m starting to become more and more anti-university in disregards; now that we have ChatGPT and access to the Internet, what is the point of University besides technical training… Certainly going to college makes sense if you want to become an engineer, a scientist, design spaceships and airplanes, become a doctor or a surgeon etc. But for the soft sciences, or the humanities… You don’t need to go.

    And also, a lot of people think they have to go to college to get a job. But now that you could earn $20 an hour flipping burgers at McDonald’s… What is your incentive?


    A new society?

    We are currently in a brave new time.

    There is this cult of work, the cult of being indoors, etc.

    The new true privilege is just be outside, and walk, walk around all day! To be indoors all day is a slave like mentality.

    And the weird thing… We are becoming trained to prefer the indoors–

    For example, one of the things I’m the most grateful about Boy Scouts is the bias to be outside. Even though we would have weekly meetings indoors, the true goal was to be outside — outdoors. And the funny thing, when we really think about the etymology here, what does it mean to be “outdoors? Super simple; out of the door. Not the place which is enclosed by a door. 

    My privilege

    My Spartan privilege is that Seneca never had the misery of having to be inside a daycare, a childcare center, or even these fake “Montessori” schools. 

    And if you think about it… If you were the true ultimate billionaire millionaire whatever, the goal isn’t for you to be super super rich, and keep working and being productive and making money, and sending your kid to some random person to raise your kid. Isn’t the goal to be super super rich so you don’t have to put your kid into school? 

    And this is the hilarious irony; we treat our children like economic goods. We think it is more effective that we try to spend our money to put our kids into daycare in order for us to work, in order to pay for the daycare. But the true ideal is to be able to quit your job or not work, in order to take care of your kid 24/7. 

    Do most parents not prefer to spend 100% of their time with their kids? 

    I think this is also where the cult of individualism is bad; I think nowadays when I observe, most people would actually not prefer to spend that much time with their kids. I think they like to spend some time with their kids, but not all their time with their kids. 

    For myself, I would prefer to spend all day with Seneca. The only nuance is I like having the mornings to do a morning walk, workout, etc.… but besides that, to be with Seneca all day every day is my greatest joy. 

    Should I make my own school?

    I have a funny vision for a school; the basic idea is that all these kids, will be the ultimate free range kids, never forced to be indoors all day. Which is insanely depressing. And also poor for their health.

    In fact, one of the things that I’ve discovered my friends have misery with is that they are always sick, their kids are always sick, because childcare centers, schools, even Montessori centers are just like breeding grounds for sickness and disease.

    And also, the pernicious economic; apparently will still send their kids to school, or a daycare, even if the kid is coughing and sick; incentive in the motive is they don’t want to have to take care of their kid when they have all this work to do.

    Avoid sick people

    Nietzsche said something interesting in his unpublished manuscript, The Will To Power. What he said was for a future society, the irony is not for us to spend resources and devotion to tending to the sick, the unwell etc.… Rather, to create a greater divide and chasm between the healthy and the sick. 

    Your first critical task is to take care of your child, your son, your wife etc. To have to care for other peoples kids, or “society“ in the generalized sense, makes no sense.

    How was Marcus Aurelius raised?

    Private tutors. Or a single private tutor?

    If you were the emperor, you’re not putting your child or son in a basic ass school. Even Aristotle was the private tutor of Alexander the great.

    So if you’re a child, if you consider your child the chosen one, or insanely great, certainly you would not subject your child to some basic ass education.

     even Marcus Aurelius, in his meditations talks about the gratitude he has towards his private tutors, and his father.

    I suppose the difficulty here is that certainly we want our children to become great. But even Marcus Aurelius.,. his own son became a degenerate. So I suppose the optimization here is if you have the greatest blessing that your first kid was a son, you devote all resources to prime him to be 100% the best. 

    More than 1 kid?

    I’ve always had a vision of having two kids, our first kid being a boy or a son… And having a younger sister. Just like me and my sister Anna who I love to death. Even though  I have unconditional love and devotion to my mom, nowadays, I’ve been finding a natural propensity to engage more with my sister, through regular FaceTime calls, spending time together, and also having the privilege of Seneca to spend time with her.

    Because we have to think about the future in the future generations. While our parents are critical, they are not the most important thing. Our children are, as well as our siblings, especially if they have incoming children as well.

    Your kids, your siblings kids, the future?

    I feel bad for all these people who end up having dogs not children … Sooner or later, your dog is going to die. Before you. You cannot leave behind your wealth to a dog.

    I think this is fine, it is totally fine that some people don’t wanna have kids whatever. But when people give me that propaganda or that insane foolishness that kids are bad for the planet, nobody ever says that dogs are bad for the planet and society.

    Let us consider all the harm that dogs do on the planet; the primary one is that the defecate everywhere, and even though 99% of owners are good and clean it up, the one percent of random dog poo on the streets makes it all not worth it.

    Anti dogs?

    What is one thing you’re not allowed to say nowadays? “I hate dogs”. It is almost like saying I hate Asians or Korean people. Although it is seems to be OK to hate on loud and rich mainland Chinese tourists.

    Back to sleep

    The weird thing in today’s world, is that our ideal is to become a robot. A robot that doesn’t need to sleep, and just be productive all day?

    Very bizarre.

    Let us consider, just read the Iliad… After a long day of hard work and warfare and combat… Both sides retire, feast on oxen, and all go to sleep.  even the gods, every single night, they retired to their immortal beds, and go to sleep!

    Can you imagine, if Zeus, before going to sleep, stressed out but some sort of worked deadline, and drink caffeine or coffee or Red Bull to do an all nighter to finish some sort of meaningless task? No!

    Also, the ancient greets, and even in times of battle, it seem like it was an unwritten rule that when the sunset, everyone would just lie down their arms, and then stop fighting, and just feast! There is even some stories of some soldiers, on opposite size, when the sun would go down, they will go down to the other side, and party with the other side?

    War, warfare is meaningless 

    Nobody likes war, nobody likes fighting, nobody likes killing, and nobody wants to be killed.

    Even in the Iliad… Both sides wanted the war to be over. And it could have been over, if one of the goddesses didn’t pick up Paris in the middle of the fight. 

    This is an interesting thing… Apparently in ancient times, there was this thing that if there was some sort of war, with no one inside, there would be the simple thing; you take your best fighter, I take my best fighter, we let them battle to the death, and then we just let it end!

    Even in the movie Troy –one of the opening scenes in which Achilles squares off, 1v1 against that one bald steroid giant. The fight should’ve been over there and then…

    The problem nowadays?

    Propaganda from the media, on both sides, the middle, all of it is bad and toxic.

    We tend to vilify this amorphus other;  for example, we liberals and Democrats pink Donald Trump as Hitler 2.0, and right wing conservatives as a bunch of insane neo-Nazis with guns etc. And then the right vilifies left for being a bunch of “libtards” who care about the alphabet soup and LGBTQ rights, and that were messing up our children etc.

    But the thing that we do not do is engage ourselves, mano a mano, face-to-face, to another human being and have an intelligent talk.

    I’ve met all human beings, radical progressive right left center mid left mid right etc.… And honestly, at all end of the day, we all want the same thing! We want love, we want to be loved, we want to be happy! Who doesn’t?

    This is where it is wise to put away your phones, nowadays the iPhone is ultimate weapon. The weapon against your mind and your soul. 


    What else?

    I think this is pretty radical. Because it up ends the whole ethos a modern day capitalism and consumerism.

    Let us notice this weird equation; you work yourself to death, to make money and more money… And use that money to do the pain through sex drugs traveling, EDM festivals, whatever. And then you continue the cycle, until you end up destroying your body your mind your soul etc.

    What is the purpose of a single individual human being?

    The very simple one: have a child, at least one, maybe two, maybe more if you have the chance. 

    Nowadays, my new measure of wealth is whenever I meet people, seeing how many children they got, how many sons, how many grandchildren etc.

    And it is not even a money thing;  if you can make your own football team or your own soccer team with all your kids, isn’t this the ultimate joy?

    How many kids is enough?

    If you think about the ultimate expression of understanding humanity, ideally you would have at least one son and one daughter, in order to test and understand your social logical and biological theories about life and humanity.

    I think the issue here is that a lot of philosophers philosophies about human nature, without having children’s themselves. What does that means is that their philosophy is fake, not grounded in reality or lived experiences.

    For example, men, who do not have at least one son to bear their name… A tragedy.

    Think ancient Sparta

    What I find so fascinating is that Sparta was a real place, real men real people —  and the movie 300 was actually quite historical; a lot of the quotes are directly from the history books!

    And also, the simple philosophies behind it:

    1. Keep a nation nation state small, and have men defend it, with their own shield and sword

    1. They do not create aggression on other nations states, or metal in the behaviors or the politics of other nations. You just want to be kept alone, you don’t want to bother nobody else, but conversely… You don’t want to be bothered.

    Don’t be bothered by others, but also do not allow other people to bother you.

    Military discipline

    A lot of these new modern day podcasts and ideas on how to be a macho man I find a little bit lacking. A lot of people turn the notion of discipline to be this weird Christian self sacrificial thing. I don’t.

    What does it mean to be “disciplined”? It is to be simple, direct, not distracted. Not making the modus operandi of your life purchasing new things, whether there be cars homes real estate, single-family homes condos, articles of clothing, Teslas, iPhone pros etc.

    And actually… where bitcoin has given me some spartan discipline; it has actually made me more frugal, more simple, more reticent to spending money. 

    Why? I will follow all access cash on hand to purchasing more bitcoin indefinitely. I would even prefer to funnel an additional $10 into bitcoin, rather than buying some loser article of clothing.

    And actually… If you really did think about being greedy, being a Scrooge, or be addicted to money and wealth… The goal is to make money don’t spend it. This is why the true capitalist should actually look more Spartan in nature;  using all of their excess cash reserves for investing in buying bitcoin, never spending any money on a brand new car, $50,000 into bitcoin is 1 trillion times better than buying any new loser vehicle. Even if you’re a billionaire… The goal isn’t to buy a McLaren, a Lamborghini, a Ferrari whatever… It is to just buy more bitcoin! Even if you’re already a billionaire, rather than putting $1 million into a Bugatti, you buy $1 million more bitcoin! Super simple!

    Hedonism is the enemy

    Hedonism, hedonic pleasure through your penis, your vagina, your clitoris, your butt hole, your mouth your hands, your skin your body etc. Or your mind, your soul, your nose your ears your head your brain whatever.

    Certainly pleasure is a good thing; but I think the problem is when we make pleasure maximization our sole life goal,  this is insanely foolish. Thus all these millennials who just want to travel to Japan, eat Omakase sushi, not be tied down by children etc.  and if you were really smart, you would not want to be tied down by a dog, which requires a lot of maintenance when you travel, putting your dog into a hotel is very expensive, almost $80 a night!

    How many millennials regretted adopting their dog during Covid, now that they have another life form to take care of until they die?


    The future?

    The future life, the future of humanity… Isn’t this the goal?

    ERIC


  • 100 Lessons from the Masters of Street Photography

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    Learn from the masters

    All 100 lessons

    Here is a summary of the “100 Lessons From the Masters of Street Photography” by Eric Kim, formatted into a numbered list:

    1. Fulfill your personal maximum.
    2. Get closer to your subjects.
    3. Shoot 25% more than you think you should.
    4. Shoot from the gut, not the brain.
    5. The “.7 Meter Challenge” – get comfortable shooting close.
    6. Let your photos “marinate” before reviewing.
    7. Don’t shoot from the hip, use your viewfinder.
    8. Influence the scene, don’t be afraid to interact with subjects.
    9. Avoid cropping to improve your composition.
    10. Focus on the edges of your frame.
    11. Emotionally detach yourself from your photos.
    12. Create context in your frame.
    13. Provoke your subjects.
    14. If you miss the decisive moment, ask your subject to repeat it.
    15. Don’t be a slave to your camera.
    16. Cure yourself of “G.A.S.” (Gear Acquisition Syndrome).
    17. Embrace “beginner’s mind.”
    18. Shoot how you feel.
    19. Limitations are freedom.
    20. Document your life.
    21. Shoot with a “stream-of-consciousness.”
    22. Shoot what it feels like, not just what it looks like.
    23. Embrace failure.
    24. Don’t overanalyze your photos.
    25. Focus on the process, not just the result.
    26. Your best photos might come from your worst days.
    27. Engage with your subjects.
    28. Seek inspiration from other forms of art.
    29. Keep your camera ready at all times.
    30. Find beauty in the mundane.
    31. Pay attention to light and shadows.
    32. Practice patience; wait for the right moment.
    33. Use your camera as a tool for storytelling.
    34. Be willing to take risks in your photography.
    35. Develop your unique style and voice.
    36. Learn from the masters, but make your own rules.
    37. Focus on emotions rather than technical perfection.
    38. Capture the essence of a scene, not just its appearance.
    39. Trust your instincts.
    40. Always be curious and explore new places.
    41. Look for contrasts in your scenes.
    42. Don’t be afraid to shoot in bad weather.
    43. Experiment with different perspectives and angles.
    44. Capture movement and energy in your photos.
    45. Look for symmetry and patterns.
    46. Use reflections creatively.
    47. Capture candid moments rather than posed ones.
    48. Be aware of your surroundings.
    49. Practice shooting in different lighting conditions.
    50. Observe people and their interactions.
    51. Develop a routine to get into the flow of shooting.
    52. Study your photos to understand what works and what doesn’t.
    53. Embrace imperfections in your photos.
    54. Experiment with different focal lengths.
    55. Focus on one project or theme at a time.
    56. Capture the culture and spirit of a place.
    57. Use photography as a way to connect with others.
    58. Look for humor in everyday life.
    59. Create a strong focal point in your photos.
    60. Use negative space to enhance your compositions.
    61. Capture the mood of a scene.
    62. Use lines and shapes to guide the viewer’s eye.
    63. Look for juxtapositions in your scenes.
    64. Be persistent; great shots often require patience.
    65. Focus on storytelling, not just aesthetics.
    66. Use layers to add depth to your photos.
    67. Capture the essence of a person, not just their appearance.
    68. Use color to convey emotion.
    69. Pay attention to details.
    70. Capture the energy of a city or place.
    71. Use light to create mood and atmosphere.
    72. Experiment with different shutter speeds.
    73. Develop your own creative process.
    74. Use shadows to add drama to your photos.
    75. Look for gestures and body language.
    76. Capture the contrast between old and new.
    77. Use your photos to ask questions, not just provide answers.
    78. Be open to serendipity.
    79. Look for repetition and rhythm in your scenes.
    80. Use photography as a way to understand the world.
    81. Capture the texture of a place.
    82. Use photography as a way to express yourself.
    83. Focus on capturing feelings rather than just scenes.
    84. Be patient and wait for the right moment.
    85. Use your photos to tell a story.
    86. Capture the beauty of the ordinary.
    87. Focus on capturing authentic moments.
    88. Use photography as a way to connect with people.
    89. Capture the spirit of a place or event.
    90. Be willing to experiment and try new things.
    91. Use light and shadow to create contrast.
    92. Capture the mood of a moment.
    93. Use your photos to provoke thought and emotion.
    94. Focus on capturing the essence of a scene.
    95. Use your camera as a tool for exploration.
    96. Capture the beauty of imperfection.
    97. Use photography as a way to learn about yourself.
    98. Capture the energy and vibrancy of a place.
    99. Use photography as a way to connect with the world.
    100. Keep shooting, keep learning, and never stop exploring.

    This summarized list captures the essence of the lessons shared in the document. If you need more details or a specific explanation for any of the lessons, feel free to ask!

    Summarize to Numbered List

    Here is a summarized version of the “100 Lessons From the Masters of Street Photography” by Eric Kim:

    1. Fulfill your personal maximum.
    2. Get closer to your subjects.
    3. Shoot 25% more than you think you should.
    4. Shoot from the gut, not the brain.
    5. The “.7 Meter Challenge” – get comfortable shooting close.
    6. Let your photos “marinate” before reviewing.
    7. Don’t shoot from the hip, use your viewfinder.
    8. Influence the scene, don’t be afraid to interact with subjects.
    9. Avoid cropping to improve your composition.
    10. Focus on the edges of your frame.

    For more details, you can view the full list here.

  • How to Become a Millionaire Blogger

    Some honest thoughts:

    1. Insane Spartan frugality 

    This is what people do not understand or get; technically, if you want to become a millionaire, the goal is actually to never spend any money. Just like Kanye said, “White people make money don’t spend it – but I’d rather buy 80 gold chains and go ignant (ignorant)”.

    What that means is don’t buy the Tesla, don’t buy the single-family home, don’t buy the condo, don’t buy these stupid overpriced clothing, don’t buy random stuff at Costco.

    What that then means is cancel anything which requires a subscription, and funnel all that money into bitcoin. If you could take that $10 a month, that you’re pissing away into the toilet into Netflix Netflix Hulu Disney+ HBO Max etc.… Or even Spotify… And you could put that into bitcoin? Assuming that bitcoin will 10,000x from here ,,, that $10 a month will become 100 a month, 1000 month, or $10,000 a month.

    If I told you with 100% certainty that the Spotify you pay $10 a month, when the future be worth $10,000 a month… Wouldn’t the rational thing to do is to unsubscribe from it and buy bitcoin instead? Obviously!

    2. Why bitcoin is hope and optimism 

    I think the simple reason why bitcoin is hope and optimism is because the potential that bitcoin could be worth $21 million a bitcoin or whatever. Or if I give you the simple thought that bitcoin will go up, year over year, 25%, compounded interest forever… And you simply plug that into ChatGPT to create you a future graph, wouldn’t you invest your money differently? 

    Or even more extreme… If I told you with 100% certainty that bitcoin would go up 55% year over here, for the next 500 years… Wouldn’t you use your money differently? Or not use your money differently? 

    3. Having kids

    The funny irony is that having kids is actually not expensive. Literally almost 100% of kids stuff you get for free from friends and family, or the Facebook by nothing group. I think the only concern that people have is having to put your kids into daycare, or childcare, which can get expensive.

    I don’t think anybody should ever have to pay for childcare. This is where if you have grandparent help, grandma or grandfather on either side… Ideally all of them, all the time, this is the key.

    Let us consider, if you’re married, in theory you should have a grandfather and a grandmother on both sides, for grandparents. Even if some people have passed, often you will have at least one or two grandmothers who are more than willing to take care of your kid full-time.

    4. Free or nothing

    Let us think about it now, at this point clothing is essentially free. If you have to pay money, even $10 to purchase something, it is simply too expensive. Just get it for free. Once again the Facebook group, or even ask friends or family members if you have extra clothes that they don’t wear anymore whether they could give it to you.

    I think the real secret to success and riches is to get everything for free! For example, all these celebrities etc.… I don’t think they have ever spent their own money on buying an iPhone, a Samsung phone or whatever. Apparently even Lil Wayne would get Samsung phones for free!

    And also cars… I think the logical strategy is to never spend any money to buy a car, ideally you would just get it for free! You might be able to get a free car from a family member who wants to dump it or traded in or whatever, and just fix it up and drive it! Or other successful people that have met, you just buy the car at a car auction, in which you buy some thing at an extreme discount. 

    5. Never buy new

    Anybody who purchases any new vehicle, is a 100% fool.  Even if you bought a Tesla model three performance, for about $60,000.05 years ago… That car is not only worth about 20 or $25,000. This is the exact opposite of rich, this is a surefire recipe on getting poor.

    6. Tax intelligence

    My definition of what it means to be a citizen is superior taxes. Yet the intelligent thing is to try to not do anything which can incur capital gains taxes.

    This means you buy your bitcoin, and theory, you hold onto it forever… And you just keep accumulating it, rather than selling it, which is a capital gains tax, or even sending it to people, I think in America if you send  bitcoin to other people you have to pay some sort of tax.

    Also, the intelligence of being a soul provider, is that you could pretty much file almost anything as a tax deduction! But, to simply purchase things in order to log it as a tax deduction is also a foolish idea.

    The supreme idea is to just live insanely frugally!

    7. There is no second best

    Better to be number one in a very small niche, then to be number two in a big one. 

    So whatever business or thing you pursue, ensure that you are number one. Or don’t bother at all?

  • Blacker & Bolder

    The very weird bias in today’s world; the general idea that black is bad. Typically, with things… we think and see that blacker is worse. 

    For example, purity is typically seen as white. But if you think about the yin and yang, technically… the black and the white are equal and one and the same, a co-part of one another. 

    For example, man and woman. Technically, there is no real reason why men should be superior to women and vice versa.

    Man needs woman, woman needs man.

    Even on a very very basic perspective… you modern day fools; don’t you know that in order to beget children, we need both man and woman? 

    I think honestly, both sides are at fault here. I think there are some men who think that they could live without women, and just jerk off to their internet porn girlfriends instead, and also similar speaking… women who think that they have no need for men either. And both sides see companionship through a dog? Very weird. 

    Anyways, we could just ignore them, because honestly… The Earth and the planet will be fine. Regardless of all these weird anti-trend kids, and pro dog trends… Sooner or later people will wake up, and want to have kids. I think it just happens a lot later.

    For example, here in Culver City… It seems like the average age of a new father looks like mid 50s? And for women… Late 30s or maybe early 40s?

    It’s really really bizarre to me because whenever I see new fathers, kids who are younger than Seneca, maybe the kid is two years old or one years old… The dad looks like he has maybe 55 or 56? Super weird.

    Anyways, what this means is don’t hate or spite anybody or any side. 

    Even Democrats and Republicans… If you think about the unit and Yang theory, let us say that we took the Yang and Yang, and we just made it red and blue instead… Don’t we know that we are one in the same? You cannot have an American flag without the red, nor the blue. You need both.

    It looks like the Republicans have taken red as their color motto, Donald Trump is always wearing a red neck tie. And the Democrats have taken the blue. But once again… The red white and blue flag is all united. 

    What if we started thinking that we were in fact the same thing?

    I think this is a pretty radical idea. The idea that we are just the same, just different sides of the same coin. 

    Even the notion of masculine vs feminine… maybe this is not a really good idea. 

    For example, I think every man has a little bit of feminine in him, and every woman has a little bit of masculine in her.

    For example, even when I was in high school, the guy who had the best dance moves would often do the more “feminine“ dance moves like the booty bump, backing it up etc. And also, the guys were the most stylish wore pink; the pink polo and the Louis Vuitton backpack, like Kanye West. 

    And also, it is very sexy when a woman is very strong, and could deadlift over two plates. Even Cindy‘s record for deadlift is 265 pounds. 

    And now, Seneca‘s favorite color is pink, and I love pink too! Even in my wardrobe, this random cable knit brooks brothers pink sweater that I got, from a free pile of clothes, is the article of clothing I get the most compliments on! And also this really cool matte pink bomber jacket, from this Korean American brand ”IISE” (this means second generation in Korean)– I also got for free.

    Anyways, it’s kind of weird how there is a bifurcation between men and woman, woman and man.

    For example… Even if you are a gay woman, Or lesbian or something, who wants to have kids… Obviously biologically you need to get a male sperm donor. I don’t think it is possible to take the DNA straight out of another woman, and injected into the uterus of another woman, to beget a child. I don’t think…?

    And also there is this weird thing for men to desire not to have children? That they want to just keep ejaculating in or on beautiful women, indefinitely, forever? 

    But once again, you fools… Don’t you know that the purpose is to have kids? Ideally strong sons, to carry on you?

    How to raise a child

    Something that I am having so much fun with is raising Seneca. All things considered, I consider it my crowning glory. I value Seneca his life and the way I’m raising him and the time spent to him as 1 trillion times more important than anything else I have done in my life.

    Anyways, I think each and every philosopher should have children, because first and foremost, if you have a strong opinion on how the world should be, it is very simple… You just instill these values into your kids! 

    Also, philosophically, if you’re curious about how kids learn, human nature or whatever… Certainly the easiest way to learn this is through your kids!

    Do you have a bunch of these constipated methamphetamine addicted to French philosophers who have all these high and mighty theories about human nature, but I think most of them didn’t have kids?

    I find this really bizarre, how can you have an opinion on how humans exist, without having your own child?

    I think perhaps my theory is most philosopher men simply couldn’t spit enough game, to get a beautiful woman or wife! Even Nietzsche, I think he was madly in love with this one woman, who rejected him many times, there’s even funny stories  that a lot of women would actually be frightened by Nietzsche and his imposing mustache.

    Also in today’s world, I see zero reason for men to have facial hair or mustaches or beards or whatever. Honestly I think the only reason that men grow facial hair or beards is to make themselves look uglier, to make themselves look more ironic, or to hide Their ugliness, their double chin, etc. 

    I even see this, dude sitting in their brand new Porsche cars, and I pure into them, and then they are very very skinny fat, they look lean, but if you look at them closely, you see their little belly fat bulging out?

    Also, other skinny fat dudes with the little iconic Hitler mustache, if you look at them really closely, they too also have a double chin? 

    Double chins are bad. Excess body fat adipose tissue is bad. 

    Never judge somebody until you have seen them butt naked.

    It is my personal believe that humans are the most beautiful when they are in the nude, naked without clothes. Also think that is possible for a beautiful men to be in the nude, that is not pornographic, not even erotic… kind of like when you see the Venus de Milo nude Greek art stattues. Nobody looks at a marble statue of a Greek woman and gets a boner. 


    Why this matters

    Let us say that we are all black and white photographers;  then the funny thought… we don’t call it black on black photographer — we call it black and white.

    That is why when it comes to tragedy, we also need comedy! And sort of concept which is all misery no comedy… Is bad. This is where I love the Lego Batman movie; it is insanely humorous, for what we consider a dark gloomy figure!

    And also… I think the greatest films also do have a touch of comedy. I think this is where Robert Downey Jr. was such a great Iron Man character… Certainly Robert Downey Jr. has his inner demons, he makes it lighthearted with humor!

    Maybe this is where Disney is bad; when you “Disney-fy” something, it becomes too generic, and maybe even family oriented?

    Also, something I’ve discovered… when something is “family friendly“, it is typically boring, and actually not that family friendly.  Even Seneca, at the age of three years four months old, has more fun talking to adults and Apple security guards rather than other basic kids his age, a little younger than him or a little older than him?

    Certainly everyone has the right to raise their child however they want, but man… These modern day kids are made so basic by their parents. They all watch the same generic stuff on YouTube, Disney+, they like the same superheroes, think alike, talk alike, they are also boring.

    And also, these kids are so wimpy! The other day I saw a kid, who I haven’t seen in about six months, and the kid is tiny! I think the mom is maybe vegetarian or vegan and the kid doesn’t eat any meat? Seneca looks at least four times buffer than the other kid, and about a head taller. 

    Should we compare?

    I remember as a kid, the thing I hated the most was when my parents would compare me to my cousin, or to other kids in the random Korean newspaper, comparing my grades with other kids, etc. I always had the American notion “Don’t compare me with other kids! Just judge me for myself!”

    I think this is wise. Certainly there will always be some sociological biases,  in which we in advertently do compare ourselves and our kids with other kids and families etc. That being said, I think we can still try to make a conscious effort to try to curb it a bit.

    If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say it

    Similarly speaking… Maybe the corollary exists, which is don’t sing the praises of other kids either?

    What that then means is to just ignore other kids? To just raise your kid however you personally see fit? 

    Because let us critically consider this… all of this is bad:

    1. Comparing your kids to other kids, whether they are better or worse
    2. Hating or critiquing other kids
    3. Praising or saying good things about other kids

    My simply idea is just keep your mouth shut, smile and nod, be friendly, engage and entertain other kids and play with them. Certainly acknowledge them and smile at them!

    But beyond this… Don’t say evil, see evil, and be evil.

    Because when you brag, while comparing your superiority or the superior of your kid versus other kids, what you are doing is actually debasing them. 

    For example, if you could lift over 10 plates, are you going to brag about how you are so much stronger than the guy who could only lift two plates? No! They’re not even on your radar. 

    Perhaps nobody is on your radar? Nobody is on equal footing?


    Why weigh yourself in comparison to others? 

    Something I stopped doing about 7-8 years ago was weighing myself on a scale. Why? Many reasons.

    First, to weigh yourself is a very arbitrary measure of anything.  it doesn’t tell you anything. No scale, irregardless of how expensive or advanced it is accurately break down your muscle percentage versus your body fat percentage. Even those modern inventions where you could grip the handles or you can stand on the barefoot… None of these things work.

    The only really empirical thing to see is look at the mirror, and pinch your belly fat. Even Arnold said it well; “if it jiggles, it is fat”.-

    Or a better measure or not for men:

    Do you have a six pack or not? 

    To get a six pack of super simple; you don’t even have to do crunches or whatever. The simple thing is intermittent fasting, no breakfast no lunch, only one massive dinner a day. 100% carnivore diet. The only non-meat item to eat is maybe arugula or kale.

    1. Quit alcohol, all alcohol is bad for you, even the “good alcohol“, “reservatrol” is a scam — I did a deep dive on this and essentially, all this fake ass studies on red wine being good for you is funded by alcohol and wine corporations, or other insidious corporations trying to peddle “reservatrol” pills.
    2. Quit smoking weed. It makes you fat lazy and dumb. And also it gives you the munchies, which will mean that after smoking weed, very easy to order McDonald’s when you’re high, and eat everything, all that high fructose corn syrup.
    3. Don’t eat out. Besides maybe Fogo de Chão and all you can eat Korean barbecue, everything sneakily has sugar added to it. Even something I’ve discovered is a lot of Korean restaurants, even a lot of all you can eat Korean barbecue places add corn syrup or sugar to the kimchi?
    4. Create a new culture: no cake, no desserts, no birthday cake. If you want a birthday present, tell people to just buy you meat instead.

    Go opposite

    I’m starting to think… The next time I need to upgrade my iPhone, I’ll just get a white iPhone. Why? First, less prone to overheating, especially in the strong Los Angeles sun. And also, The big issue here is it seems that everyone is just going for the all black look. And it is pretty boring for the most part.

    All white everything is a better flex; go to the wedding with an all white suit, white shoes, white pants. And even if it gets dirty, no big deal! You’re rich enough.

    Car aesthetics?

    Why have I not yet seen all white Porsche 911, with all white solid rims? 

    Bring back the solid white rims! Also the upside, better contrast against the black tires.

    How and why colors matter

    Your color preferences signal and show who you are.

    Also, pragmatic one; then if you’re living in Los Angeles and it hits the mid 90s, or the hundreds, do you want an all black car, even if it is fully tinted? No! I wouldn’t wish this upon my worst enemy.

    There’s a reason why if you live in Southern California to have an all white house makes sense; to keep out the heat! 

    Or, if you’re in the middle of the Sahara desert, the reason why it makes sense to wear white linen clothes, to reflect the heat!

    Ultimately, when shit hits the fan, the pragmatics will supersede the style and the fashion. 

    When it is hot, just wear white. 

    This is also the reason why the French colonists would wear all white linen clothing and suits.

    Where did the notion of all white tennis shoes come from?

    I wonder if it is a material thing; back in the days when you play tennis on the courts, maybe if you had dark shoes or sneakers, it would leave a mark on the courts? White was less likely to leave marks? Still… Thinking about my all white K SWISS tennis shoes back in high school, size 10 and a half.

    White people, black cars?

    In America, it seems that if one wants to reach the apex of privilege, one must be “white“. But the problems here:

    First, the hierarchy issue with race. I think when people talk about white people didn’t mean to say white protestant Anglo-Saxon Caucasian. For example, if you’re Irish, or if you have a “Mc” in your last name, don’t forget that Irish was not considered white for a very long time. Even now.

     For example, Russian people are not considered white, or people from the Slavic regions. Polish people are not seen as white, people from Ukraine are not seen as white, even though they are “white passing“. Jewish people are not white — as long as Jewish people have to keep changing their last names, and as long as there are internals… Unfortunately, Jewish, anti-Semitism… Almost as bad as black racism. But not as bad because in Hollywood and media, because a lot of eastern European Jewish Ashkenazi folks are “white passing“– like John Stewart and the like they are mostly off of the radar of the typical person. Same thing with Scarlett Johansson, etc.

    Racial politics

    All human beings, irregardless of their ethnicity or race, look far more beautiful and healthy with a tan, rather than being pale and emaciated looking. I think this is where class privilege was a thing. In Korea,  whiteness was equated with royalty, because if you were royalty, you did not have to go into the fields until the land. You could be indoors, or in the shade all day.

    But now, opposite holds true. If you have the privilege of having a full body tan, an upper thigh tan, it is a signal that you are rich enough to spend all day at the beach! Typically beach bums or surfer bros are actually quite affluent. Either their family comes from money, so they have a trust fund or something, or they are rich and successful and retired enough to just go surfing all day. This is why whenever I meet men with a beautiful body full body tan, I know that they’re successful. Because if you’re a construction worker or something, you might just have a Farmer’s tan or something?

    Blacken and tan your skin not your car 

    Rather than doing a loser mat black murdered outlook on your car, just get a full body tan!

    Spend maximum time in the sun, Put on tons of sun spray, contain your body to the maximum, within common sense limits. For example, even if you had SPF 300 sun spray, it would probably not be very effective if you were butt naked all day in the Sahara desert.


    Opposites are the same

    You know the idea that opposites attract? Very true!

    I think regardless of what people say… We are not attracted to people like us. Also from a pragmatic perspective, if you end up marrying somebody who is so similar to you… There is no dynamic range or diversity here. 
    For example, I would have zero interest in marrying anybody or having a kid with anybody who was exactly like me, in personality scope and appearance.

    I’m all for LGBTQ rights, but one thing that I am very grateful is that I was born super straight. I feel bad for all these kids who end up growing up deal so confused about their sexual preferences or whatever.

    For my perspective, I think biologically, it makes sense that some people are born gay lesbian, queer or whatever. There seems to be enough genetic diversity here, whether you are bisexual, whatever.

    I think then the secret and the goal is to discover what you are, and to not be ashamed of it. For example, if you’re a man and you’re attracted sexually to other men, vice versa etc., all good! Same goes with women etc. 

    And whatever your gender whatever, all good.

    Be proud of what you are, don’t hide or feel bad about it. But I think the nuance is we should not become tyrants here. 


    Innovations

    1. Be the first techie who buys an all silver MacBook Pro, or be that next person who actually buys an iPhone Pro in white. Or the natural titanium color.
    2. Don’t be another clone and loser driving an all black range rover, murdered out, whatever. Don’t be another clone with an all black Dodge charger, super boring. I find it more interesting to see guys with white muscle cars, rather than a typical black one. Why have I never seen an all white dodge hellcat?
    3. Get a tan! Just put on some SPF 60 sunblock, take off your shirt and get your tan on! If you’re a woman, sports bra bikini whatever.
    4. Formal attire, wear as much wide as possible. Buy some skinny white denim jeans. Just get some cheap ones at Old Navy, Zara, H&M, or Uniqlo. And also the goal is to not hide dirt; it is cooler to wear all white, and have it dirty, rather than being an insecure person who thinks everyone is looking at the stain on your clothes, but nobody notices.

    Dirtier is better?

    More joyful to see a kid who is all dirty from playing in the sand rather than one of these Netflix YouTube zombie kids, super puny and eating Cheerios.

    iPad is not the issue

    iPad tablets, cheap Amazon tablets are not the issue here. The issue is the media; the issue is Netflix, YouTube, YouTube kids, Disney+ etc.

    My personal suggestion is I think an iPad is good for kids, in terms of creativity. The nuance is never download any free apps. There is always some sort of gotcha somewhere.

    Give them procreate, nomad sculpt, GarageBand. These are virtuous applications.

    My suggestion is avoid Minecraft, it seems really good, but it is almost too good. Maybe better to buy play dough instead.

    ***

  • RECOVER

    Recover, how to recover time, life?

    So a new luck experiment; within reason, never jumping into a car, even if it is good.

    Some points of rationale:

    First, it seems that the primary issue here is when it comes to these asshole drivers on the road, road rage etc., the logical approach is to not just expose yourself to these assholes. The simplest thing is to just not jump into a car!

    Why? I see eyewitness a lot of these big ass tough guys, we tried to bully me on the road with their anemic cars. People do this in many ways, they do with trucks, lifted trucks, over landing vehicles etc., the door with loser range rovers, loser AMG G wagons,  loser portion 911’s, you name it. Fortunately it seems that the best drivers on the road are Tesla drivers; I think because it has the Tesla AI behind it, the good thing is that it discourages asshole behavior or asshole driving.

    Become the change in which you wish to see in the world

    This Gandhi quote has stuck with me for a very long time, ever since I first heard it in high school, in fact I use this “for my UCLA admission letter, which I guess got me into UCLA as an undergrad. And also, pretty impressive that first I applied for biology, which is actually very competitive… And even with subpar grades, I think my total weighted GPA at the time was only a 3.98, I still got in! I credit being a Boy Scout Eagle Scout and doing a bunch of community service to get in. Definitely not my grades.

    Anyways, I think the primary issue at hand is you have a lot of these passive aggressive assholes, who hide and mighty in there vehicles will try to bully you with their loser cars. But, if you see them in the street… They would never dare to honk or bark at you if you saw them face-to-face.

    For example, let us just imagine… Let us say that you are on the sidewalk, and you have a person right behind you, and the crosswalk turns green. If you do not move within half a second, would the person behind you  honk at you, yell at you to get moving, whatever? Certainly not.

    Also, I think if you do things in the flesh, if somebody from behind yelled at you or honked at you, but you were just walking in the flesh… You could do a simple thing like turn around, and then assess them, judge them, and Measure them up.

    The big issue of being in car is this asymmetry; if you are driving, somebody honked at you from behind, first you cannot really see who is honking at you, sometimes even I am confused whether I am being hung from the person at behind, or if it is somebody else on the road.

    Second, let us say there’s a loser in the Range Rover who honked at you from behind, because you did not go on the green in the split millisecond; I have no idea who is the human being who honked at me. Is it a man, a woman? Is it 80 year old man, or a 36 year old punk? Is it a 4 foot tall man, or is it a 400 pound obese man?

    These things matter. Nobody would dare to punk me on the streets, because I am 6 foot tall, weight vest on, super jacked and swole, and I am probably the nicest guy, but I could also be the most aggressive person, if shit hits the fan.

    And this is the truth, real men, real men with high testosterone, real fighters, MMA fighters, UFC fighters in the flesh… In real life these men are actually insanely friendly, polite, jovial! It is only these low testosterone man who are antisocial,  are sizing you up behind their cowardly fully tinted sunglasses baseball cap and beard, but pretending like they are not… A real man doesn’t wear sunglasses, doesn’t have tint in the front of their car, nor did they have tint in there sunglasses, the real man doesn’t use AirPods, and even this whole facial hair trend I think a bad one; the reason why a lot of men grow out their facial hair is to hide their double chin, or their fat. 

    Even an insanely bizarre new modern day trend is these skinny fat loser guys once again, sunglasses, baseball hat, growing out a Hitler mustache? I find it objectively ugly and offensive to look at.

    Anyways, I think the first thought about recovering time, recovering life is maximum time walking, outside! We could be on the sidewalk, you could be in public, it could be a hiking spot, a national park trail etc. For example, whenever I see people hiking on a trail… People are in a very good mood! Even better than the beach!

    I love both, but still for me maybe the mountains are more interesting because typically when you’re hiking on the mountain, which just means walking on uneven surfaces, we feel more connected to nature, like to see elevation, we see plant life wilderness trees etc., All of this time I spent in Boy Scouts as a kid going on hikes and doing camping and summer camp was actually very good for me! I didn’t really think about him much as a kid, I think I took it for granted, I would prefer to just be at home playing video games, but now as an adult looking back, I am so insanely grateful to my scoutmasters, my troop, Troop 11 from Alameda! Maybe once Seneca gets old enough, I’ll also put him in scouts? Maybe one day I’ll become a scoutmaster? 


    The sociological issue here

    Whether I like to admit it or not, I think ultimately, perhaps my primary interest is sociology; Social physics, being human, being in human in public spaces etc.

    Why does this matter? It is 1 trillion times more important than you think. When it comes down to it, almost everything modern day life, is a sociological phenomenon. 

    For example, the sociology of money, the sociology of capitalism, the sociology of consumerism etc. Also the sociology of being on the streets, being in public, and also, the sociology of driving a vehicle or being on the road!

    In fact, I don’t think anyone has actually done a comprehensive analysis or critique or line of critical thinking in regards to the politics of driving, especially in LA.

    One thing I learned from my neighbor Jim, who always walked his dogs outdoors in Orange County, in a neighborhood where there is literally no sidewalks, when there would be crazy cars speeding down 50 miles an hour down a 25 mph residential neighborhood, she would make eye contact and yell into his hands gesture to tell them to “slow down”. I am starting to do the same hand gesture, which is just taking out your palm outside of your driver side window, putting your hand flat like a palm, gesturing “calm down”. I’ve already had a guy throw the middle finger out at me,  and another skinny fat loser with a beard honked at me from behind, now that I am no longer allowing these wimps to bully me, people are shocked.

    Never tolerate no disrespect. Become the change which you wish to see in the world. Even if it exposes you to danger.

    Guns

    I’ve been on a rampage telling people to not smoke in public, or to please not smoke in public.

    Apparently I was talking to my friend Ray, and he said that once, he told her guy in Venice to not smoke in public, and a guy pulled out a gun on him. Another time he saw some kids graffiti and he asked him to stop graffiti, and once again the kids pulled out a gun, and then he just threw up his hands and said “OK OK I’m sorry let me go”.

    No the response is not to just get a gun yourself, and do some sort of John Wick pistol fighting match.

    Maybe the first thought is just always be armored up, always have a bulletproof vest on you, or at least a 60 pound weight vest. If cops could do it all day long, can’t you?  I’m pretty sure you could Amazon prime yourself a bulletproof vest.

    In America, there are lots of laws regarding legality or illegality of owning a gun, but, no laws or illegal edict which prevent you from owning a bulletproof vest.

    In fact, I think the law should be rewritten, not the right to bear arms, but the right to defense. Defense is armor.

    I also think and believe that the reason why bitcoin is such a great innovation is that it is the ultimate cyber defense, the ultimate cyber armor. Let us consider that the bitcoin work is the ultimate un hack Abel thing on the planet, because there is just too much energy and money invested in it.

    Even if you took $100 trillion, you try to take the bitcoin network, you can’t. In regards to the volatility of bitcoin, it is a feature not a bug.  my personal thought is with any asset which has more extreme volatility, has the momentum and the monetary physics and economic physics to fly ever higher?

    Or another thought, without extreme highs and lows and dips and swings, it would be impossible for bitcoin to hit $21 million a bitcoin. 


    Ethics?

    I’m starting to think more more about ethics, this is important. For example, once again it comes down to this notion; “first do no harm unto others” (Primum, no nocere)– Hippocrates.

    I think the big issue nowadays is there’s too much of a financial incentive for a lot of of these doctors. Or trying to cover their ass from being made liable or being sued.

    For example, the reason why you have all these doctors peddling all these cholesterol lowering drugs is they just want to avoid a lawsuit! For example, let us say you have a 400 pound obese man, who pops into your clinic,  who is certainly an extremely poor health, might get a heart attack soon. What is the first thing you do? Your prescribe him all these pills you tell him the basics of trying to eat healthier and exercise whatever, and ultimately the doctor doesn’t really care… The doctor simply doesn’t want to get sued a year or two later, if the guy ends up having a heart attack, and he was not prescribed these cholesterol lowering drugs.

    But, what if you take an extremely healthy 36 year old man, 6 foot tall, highly muscular a six pack,  obviously in supreme health, and you do a blood test and you see that his cholesterol is “high“? Do you tell him to start taking these cholesterol lowering pills, so he doesn’t have a heart attack? Of course not! But this is how doctors will think, once again the issue here is they apply a one pill fits all solution, and honestly… These doctors are tired. Cram 30 appointments a day, quick 15 minute Appointments with each patient, in order to maximize the revenue because they are still paying off medical school debt. I don’t blame them.

    Then the solution is for us to become critical ourselves; think for ourselves, to think wisely.

    Anybody who swallows traditional knowledge, is a fool. The worst thing is when a doctor tells you to do something, or when somebody changes their behavior or thinks they should change their behavior because the doctor told them to.

    The dirty secret; a lot of these doctors themselves are unwell. A lot of them are highly anxious, depressed, out of shape miserable, stressed, they themselves don’t eat healthy or exercise, in fact, I know a lot of doctors who actually smoke cigarettes and secret as well? I’ve also met dentist, pediatricians who actually let their kids eat candy?

    Trust no dentist who allows their kids to eat candy.

    Parents

    Obviously we are all fallible human beings at the end of the day. The notion of perfection is ridiculous one, often centered around this Jesus savior Messiah notion of supreme moral rectitude, the supreme court of ethics, the ultimate nice guy who  only eat carbon neutral vegetables and plants grow in his own garden, maybe he doesn’t own a car, and only rides a bike, he is not subscribed to Amazon prime, doesn’t have an iPhone, etc.

    Let us not forget, Jesus was a badass. Don’t you remember that scene which she goes into the temple, and he sees all these people selling stuff in the temple, and he busted out some whips, and he overturns the tables,  whips out the kettle saying “don’t sell merchandise inside my father‘s house!”

    Can you imagine a modern day human doing the same thing? Probably not.

    Pacified ethics.

    I think sociologically when think about this critically,  what is the role of society, modern day society and society? To pacify the individual. It would not be very productive if you had a bunch of dragons or monsters, a bunch of gay monsters simply rampaging around town, doing as they pleased, with no concern about the well-being of others.

    You see this especially in Tokyo and Asia; the social physics and the human bodies are important here; if you have 10 million people taking the subway every single day, it is probably wise from a social perspective to have everyone be quiet, polite and orderly. If you had a bunch of kids, or American travelers talking super loud, taking up space, etc.… The whole thing will not work. 

    America becomes an interesting case, because the truth is America is super super big. Certainly it is more desirable to live in the coastal areas, especially now that the weather patterns in the states in Los Angeles is starting to get super weird; but if you think about farmland in the middle of America, there is still so much space left available!

    To all these people who complain about rent prices, don’t you know you could just move to Boise Idaho, probably only spent $300 a month in rent? Certainly people don’t want to do this, because we humans are no fools; we like to be around other people, and we also like to be close to bodies of water. This is where Los Angeles may be the most ultimate place to live– easy access to the beach, to body of water the ocean to mountains, beautiful people etc.

    Maybe Manhattan also comes close, but the downside of Manhattan is there is no trails or places to hike.

    The Bay Area East Bay is good, but… I don’t think we have any beaches in the Bay Area or the east Bay? Even in Alameda where I grew up… The beach was a dump. Super dirty.

    Perhaps it is a good idea to become a social justice warrior

    So I think the right tends to make fun of liberals who are social justice warriors. I’m starting to think that perhaps to be a social justice warrior is a virtue, assuming that you’re not a coward hiding behind your iPhone, your laptop etc.

    And also, once again the asymmetry here;  you could talk all high and mighty, you could try to punk me around, and let her say that you have a gun, obviously I am no match for you. Because I have zero intention of ever owning a gun or pistol, because guns are for pussies. 

    And this is where the right is just as dumb as the far left. You call them “lib-tards” … you are also “flag-tards”– I will assume that the average conservative who waves a flag in their Tacoma truck which is Japanese, probably doesn’t know how to properly fold an American flag, like we did in Boy Scouts.

    In fact, there is a funny heuristic I have;  if you stick a flag an American flag sticker on your car, or your truck, or whatever… You are not a true patriot. Why? It is kind of like an overcompensation thing here — kind of like how really short guys drive these really really tall and big trucks.

    If you really really wanted to show your patriotism, you don’t post things to Facebook or Twitter or put things on your truck, you just enroll in military service! Simple and done. Well at least do some sort of partial reserve Navy officer training? I’m even thinking about doing this myself.

    You are not your car

    The number one thing we learned from our best friend Tyler Durden is that you are not your car, and let us also look at Brad Pitt, the apex of manliness and texting us, who tells Edward Norton “I don’t own a car”.

    Tell me what you drive and I’ll tell you who you are

    I think one of the best ways to really understand somebody, it sounds insanely superficial, but ask them what car they drive. Especially when you meet an economist.

    A true economist will drive an economy car, this is why when I first read that Dan Ariel’s purchased and drove an Audi car, the writing was on the wall; he was a fake economist.  a true economist would only drive a Toyota or a Prius, anybody who drives an Audi is trying to seem elegant stylish and smart? Even though that everyone knows that Audis are not good cars. 

    Putting your money where your mouth is

    This is where money is good; true skin in the game. You only know what you truly value on the planet based on how use money or how you do not use money. 

    And it is fine; everyone has the right to use their money however they would like. I think this is good! But, even that one dude who had that blog getting rich slowly, when he wrote that his dream was to purchase a BMW mini car, which is a terrible car – and then he actually purchased it, once again, the man seemed like a fool.

    What ideas do you desire to promote?

    I suppose the question at hand is in regards to your ideas, what ideas do you want to promote? Which ideas do you not want to promote?

    For example, there is no ultimate right and wrong in ethics. It is all gamed.

    For example, I would easily sacrifice the life of 1000 degenerates for the sake of one beautiful child. Also, if for some reason a guy was trying to attack me or Seneca whatever, assuming I had a gun, I would have zero hesitation shooting him in the balls and making him a eunuch etc. 

    In fact, this seems harsh, but also ethically, let us assume that a man is a child predator, pedophile, convicted and caught, the solution is super simple! Just castrate him! Cut off his balls, or force sterilize him. Boom — easy and done.

    How to deal with homeless people?

    Currently Culver City is doing a great job with their mobile crisis team, which is essentially a van which provides services to homeless people, to recuperate them back into society. Ultimately, simple things, like providing them some new clothes, helping them get clean off of their addictions, Giving them a shower and a shave, and also giving them training to become productive members of Society again.

    Example, something I’m not sure; is there truly a point of no return? I don’t think so… The human mind is far more malleable than we give it credit, so even if you have a cracked out homeless guy, in theory, if you invest in money and time and human resources to rehabilitate him, you could! And just get him a job at Shake shack or McDonald’s flipping burgers, or even a custodian picking up trash etc.

    The ideal city?

    Seneca Cindy and I watch this really great film at the California science Center, titled cities of the future. The future is right here.  in Culver City, it is very common place to see those self driving Waymo Google cars, without a driver in the front seat! Every time I see this, it is pure magic.

    So truth be told, let us assume you live in Culver City, your architect job, or you could work as long as you have Wi-Fi… There is zero reason to actually drive a car, unless you want to go on a hike, see friends and family etc. And also because we are close to the metro line, you could easily go to Santa Monica and the beach and the pier, or you could easily go to the California science center and I suppose the new incoming George Lucas Museum of the narrative arts.

    So then, if you think about this critically, a vehicle just becomes a superficial vanity object, a trophy asset.

    I think we all know that trophies are ridiculous. The moment I realize that you could actually go to a trophy store, and buy yourself a gold trophy is when I realize the whole thing was a scam.

    Even the Academy Awards, all of these Grammy awards… I think these awards are just plated in nickel or some fake gold foil, thing is plastic inside.

    True wealth?

    Wealth is the health of your family, you and your wife your kids I think Kanye said “A happy family is heaven on earth”. I agree.

    And happiness is not based around money, but rather, through health, social life, friendliness, physical health and vigor, and walking around a lot! I’ve never met anybody who walks 40,000 steps a day who is depressed.

    DIFFICULT TO MONETIZE WALKING 

    Let us consider this critically… Perhaps the reason why running is so heavily marketed through that loser Nike corporation, which tells you that running is good for you or whatever. In order to peddle there loser $300 running shoes. 
    The simple way to fix everything is to just walk barefoot. But it is difficult to monetize being barefoot, because you cannot really purchase a product to become barefoot. In fact I met this one entrepreneur in SF, Who had a super interesting idea, which was putting these disposable sticker things on the bottom of your feet, which gave you all the upsides of barefoot walking, while still giving you a little bit of protection from the dirty San Francisco streets.

    A much simpler solution is to purchase Vibram five finger shoes; honestly  the only reason people don’t want to wear them is that they look weird. But I’m starting to wonder… Foot shame, foot shaming is a thing? I actually think it is more beautiful to see people walking around barefoot at the beach, then them wearing those loser Hoka shoes or even worse… Brooks shoes, are reserved for prediabetic elderly people.

    Even I think about the insidious effects of middle school and high school; trying to be cool you have to purchase a Nike shoe?  I think Nike might be the most evil corporation in terms of lowering the self-esteem of the youth, especially young boys… Do you know that on Amazon prime you could purchase $10 water shoes, instead of a loser $700 Balenciagas sneaker? I’m starting to think more and more… The purpose of fashion is to do functional things, but not to feel ashamed about it. For example all these losers supreme people, They refuse to wear a fanny pack unless it has supreme logo on it? Or they refuse to wear a sun hat which makes you look like an old Asian lady, supreme logo Embedded in it?

    Even reformation, the new hot female clothing brand, even they say that the best outfit is being naked, but that they are number two.

    Difficult to market people being naked. Maybe also illegal?

    Shame in capitalism and consumerism

    How do you know whether somebody is self owned or not? Whether they could walk around in public topless, with booty shorts, not concerned about how other people look at them.

    The other day I was in Santa Monica Ocean Park, and I saw a dude, great full body tan, muscular, on the phone talking to somebody… Wearing full on booty shorts, pretty much the closest thing you could get to wearing a speedo, with a full body tan, and he looks so glorious and successful! 

    Even the more impressive thing… All of his legs, even the upper thighs were also well tanned! To me this was a signal that this guy was super insanely successful; because he has the privilege of just walking around all day, and his booty shorts, getting the full on tan?

    How do you know whether somebody is homeless or not?

    My friend Sebastian Calvo said; “the reason I know that you’re not homeless is that you’re too buff and muscular”. Typically homeless people are not muscular. Although a lot of them do walk around without clothes on. 

    So this is where I’m starting to think, the modern day successful or at least human being, if you’re a man, is centered around being topless in public, and also highly muscular.

    Nowadays if you’re super muscular with a six pack… It is a sign that you’re super successful. Why? You have the time the leisure to work out, and also, a signal of intelligence; if you have a six pack, you are no dummy. it is the signal that you have the intelligence of not eating stupid stuff which makes you fat.

    And this is where I trust no bodybuilder who is fat, or on steroids… It is super obvious. 


    Vote for me!

    ERIC KIM for mayor!

    True power is political power?

    I think the truth of the matter is true power is political power. Why? The politicians have the power to print the money, and assuming that money and economic power is centered ultimately — then who has the park? The guy who controls the (money) printing press, or the guy who stacks his cotton candy paper fiat currency? 

    Proof of work

    The reason why proof of work makes sense from a physics or a common sense perspective is that proof of work is true. Based on physics. Proof of stake, you can indefinitely print more air tokens, or cotton candy tokens, forever.

    For example, if Vitalik, and Ethereum foundation  overnight, decided that it was a good idea to produce more Ethereum gas tokens, 1 billion more, they could.

    Even if there’s a .01% risk, or chance for valuable human beings to make that mistake, they can. 

    Also, you remember the great Ethereum hack, and they did the hard Fork? Any protocol which could be hacked, is a bad one. Bitcoin and the bitcoin network is unhackable.

    Unkillable

    The reason why wolverine and Deadpool are everyone’s favorite anti-heroes is that they are both unk kill Abel. They can feel pain but you can’t kill them.

    Deadpool, if you just chop off his body into a stump, With enough time he could regenerate his whole body. This is the ultimate superpower.

    I suppose even the downside of Superman is that you could have a jealous Batman invent a kryptonite gun, and kill Superman. Superman is flawed.

    With Wolverine, can you actually kill wolverine? Maybe not? Because his exoskeleton and his body is made of adamantine,  you can’t?

    Is Wolverine the apex hero? 

    In fact, besides Spider-Man, in terms of who I desired to emulate or be as a kid was actually wolverine! I love how ferocious he was, strong he was, and the adamantine steel claws notion is super cool to me, wolverine doesn’t use a gun. 

    Also, the thing that is insanely impressive with Hugh Jackman; he has aged so incredibly well! If you look at his space, he looks like a fresh 38-year-old, even though he is maybe 56?

    It seems certain or highly likely that she took steroids and weird testosterone enhancing drugs when he was playing the wolverine part. But if you look at his face, right now in 2024… Why does his face look so healthy?

    Ultimately, you can modify your body through all of these drugs, but you can’t modify the face.


    Think by the time you’re 56

    My new goal is to be like Hugh Jackman, when I am 56. I’m 34 right now, which means for the next 22 years… Time for me to become even more jacked, more ripped, more healthy and youthful for Hugh Jackman?

    Why does Brad Pitt look so old? 

    Even compared to Tom Cruise, I think Tom is in his 60s? Besides all the Scientology and maybe the Botox surgery… Tom Cruise still looks great!

    I think this is where longevity, the longevity of being a man is critical. Even George Clooney, nobody cares about him anymore.


    Having kids

    If there was a John Wick spin off, I would love a concept where John Wick has a kid, a son, and he trains his son to become the next John Wick.

    This would be great!


    EK IDEAS

    Never miss a single idea: EK NEWSLETTER >


    What’s on my mind right now?

    Essentially the number one idea is this really revolutionary idea of being able to live a whole day, without ever jumping into a car. Isn’t this true freedom?

    ERIC

    PHILOSOPHY BY KIM

    Lifestyle, zen, ethics.

    Also

    START HERE


  • How To Conquer The Streets 

    What is a streetcar for? A street guitar for is a force on the streets, beyond the road, beyond the pavement.

    The critical issue of being in a car, in an automobile, in a truck, whatever… Is that it puts you on equal putting with all of these other cowards.

    For example, being here in LA… Now here in Culver City, I am the GOAT of the streets.  Everybody knows me; they know me and my iconic 60 pound weight vest, how I am always walking around in public with Seneca, and also walking around with my iPad Pro.

    Now as a consequence, I feel a sense of ownership of the road. Or the streets. 

    For example, any skinny fat loser in a car, especially when behind you, could honk at you, for not driving immediately half a second after the light turns green, or, throw you the middle finger because you stuck at your arm to know them to calm down.

    Assuming that street Fatar fee is truly your prime passion, I think then the simple goal is dual: first, never drive a vehicle to get anywhere, and also don’t ride a bicycle. I’m all about bikes in general, but the truth is when you ride a bicycle, it is very dangerous, especially with these crazy distracted drivers in LA.

    And also, the downside of a bicycle is that walking is at least 10,000 times superior to even riding a bike.  Why? When you walk, it is far superior for your legs, your back, your hips, your shoulders your tendons etc. 

    And also, once again… It is very common to get road rage, if you are in a car, or in a bicycle, or a motorcycle or a moped etc.

    However, when you are naked in the streets, without your 5000 pound metal vehicle encasing you, then, you really do put people at a position of true valor. 

    Being naked on the streets.

    So I think the first issue here is that most people when they’re walking in public, are a bunch of cowards. What the typical loser millennial does is they try to in case themselves with a shroud of cowardice; they do this with walking any opportunity of interaction with strangers;, Pros, Hitler mustache, or facial hair,  focus on their dog or pet, busting out their iPhone, wearing heavily tinted sunglasses, wearing a baseball cap, and frumpy clothing etc.

    A very simple thing you could do is for an entire day, within limits of reason,  is for the entire day, never step into a car a vehicle… Just do 100% pedestrian walking day! And the assignment is anytime you cross paths with a stranger, or somebody on the road, wave high to them, give them a peace sign, a thumbs up, a simple head, or say hello!

    I think the issue in today’s world most people are always in their cars, it is easy to vilify or dehumanize other human beings on the road.

    However when you’re on the streets, it is very very easy to judge people. You could judge their height, their sex and gender, their body mass percentage, their clothing choices etc.

    For example, any pre-diabetic old man, and a loser portion 911 convertible could honk at you from behind, because you did not go on the green light and half a millisecond. But if you saw the man on the street, would he dare to do this face-to-face, especially if he is only 5 foot four, old and fat, and you are 6 foot tall, tall dark and handsome? of course not.

    Building social courage

    Honestly nowadays, I’m sorry I think that street photography is almost 100% courage.  my bread and butter workshop for the last 15+ years has been my conqueror your fears of shooting street photography workshop, because it is resistant to all technology, media, platforms etc. I think any normal human being, in modern day times, and also in the past present and future will have to deal with Social anxiety, cowardice, courage, risk and reward etc.

    For example… Now walking around town with my 60 pound weight vest, I command a sense of dominance. Even police officers are impressed by me, because I think their bulletproof vest may only weigh 10 or 20 pounds, whereas mine is 60. And I’m also starting to see… When I see police officers up and close in the flesh, without sunglasses on… A lot of these guys are actually not that fit, not very intimidating, etc. Often younger than me, and certainly less tall, muscular and fit.

    I think when we think of cops, in the modern day media term, I think Oliver knowledge comes from television media etc. Television media etc., typically a cop is a male Caucasian man, insanely buff, tall, dominant. But I’m starting to think… The problem of media, if you want to look dominant on the screen, 99% chance they’re on steroids, to give them that dominating on screen presence. 

    For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rambo, Sylvester Stallone, the rock; all on steroids and the juice. 

    Now the reason why this becomes a problem is that steroids become normalized; I’m starting to think that Chris Hemsworth who played Thor was probably most certainly on steroids when he got his super jacked physique for the Thor movies, just look at him about 10 years later, he is pretty wimpy looking.

    Also, John Cena, who was super jacked for the fast and the furious movies, but in hus more recent roles,  he is starting to look very skinny. Even the rock, seeing him in the Baywatch movie, why is his legs and his calves so skinny? 

    Also I would not be surprised if Zac Efron took some sort of steroids to get into his role for certain movies etc. 

    Why this matters

    This matters because men, boys, adults, alike… We often equate ourselves with people who we see on the big screen, superheroes, marvel superheroes, Disney YouTube etc. But the big prom here is if everyone else is on steroids, in secret… You will give you a false version of reality, in which You in vain to get similar monstrous gains, but end up not looking like them?

    This is where I think media is so pernicious; Once again, it gives us a distorted and warped view of reality, which is not centered around real physics, or real biology. Don’t trust any movies cinema or film.

    Even the movie 300, all these guys who got super jacked, especially the Spartans in the background, seeing their massive 8 pack abdominals — if you’re just a movie extra, there’s really no downside to taking steroids to look more jacked. To get the role.

    Walking

    One of the thoughts I had this morning is my two passions include walking and weightlifting. Then, how can you combine and integrate both of them?

    First, 60 pound weight vest, and just walking around town. The second is focusing on weightlifting activities which allows an encourages walking and movement. For example, Farmer’s carries, or any sort of weightlifting activity which encourages you to walk and move while lifting the heavyweight.

    Even with Santa, at the age of 3 years, four months old…   he might wait around 40 pounds now, and I could spend a whole day easily just arm carrying him around town.

    This is my thought with if you are a father, my simple suggestion is get rid of the stroller, either or ergo baby carrier the kid in the front, or just arm carry the kid!  First, the benefit is you become more muscular jacked and swole, and also your kid gets the beneficial upside of being outside in the elements! 

    It looks like my training of Seneca is working; everyone mistakes him for a four or five-year-old, and his 100% beef, beef burger patty diet is also working;  he is much taller, stronger, and buffer in the arms and thighs compared to other kids I see on the playground who are all wimpy and anemic working, all these other kids are fed too many Cheerios, not enough meat.

    And also, a tragedy, when I see young boys being raised by Spanish-speaking nannies, rather than their fathers.

    In fact, I think the early years are so critical, especially if you have a son. For you to train and breed them and grow them in such a way which reflects your own personal morals ethics and worldview.

    The spartan way.

    Simple ideas

    If you are person or a human being, who has the option of either raising your kids yourself, versus having somebody else raise your kid, raise your kid yourself! You could just do the sacrifice of being 100% caretaker of your child until they go to transitional kindergarten or whatever. This is what I have done, with great upsides.

    I think the great tragedy is when you have young male children, being raised by female Latina women who themselves are most likely immigrants, and also not in great shape.

    Certainly everyone has the right to raise their kids however they want, but I seek to raise an elite child, the new Spartan boy.


    Male standards

    To me all children are universally beautiful, all children I love, they always put me in a good mood etc. Yet the big downside here is that once again, you’re not having men raise the boys, you’re having women raise the boys. Certainly there’s no issue with that, but the male attitude of raising a boy versus having a woman raise a boy will be starkly different. 

    For example, have you ever seen a male nanny? No! I’ve seen a bunch of different nannies, all women. 

    In regardless of what all of this modern day gender politics and sociology said, biological men with testicles and testosterone and a penis will certainly be different than a biological female with ovaries, a menstrual cycle, and a vagina. 


    The benefit of literature over movies and films

    With literature, for example reading the Iliad… Will be 1 trillion times better for your imagination creativity rather than watching a prepackaged movie and film which is centered around fake metrics of success, which include box office numbers, profit etc. Ancient Greek literature had no profit, the motive was to create truly great literature and stories, which would ideally last forever.

    And also, let us consider that the past  there was no such thing as advertising, news or media.

    The only type of news you would get was in your local towners Square, just talking shelf with other people in the flesh. And this becomes useful because you could see the veracity or the trustworthiness of the individual… Would you trust a cracked out homeless person telling you about the modern day? Certainly not.

    And also nowadays, ChatGPT, the paid premium one…  it is impossible to know whether something was produced by ChatGPT or not. It has superseded the touring test, and in fact, for the most part ChatGPT is more eloquent, interesting, and better than you.

    This is where I think that the literature or the words the future will be more random, this dumped, un functional, and also, based around the personal real life opinion, rather than proper grammar spelling etc.

    In fact, I have created my whole empire over blogging; which has zero to do proper grammar, rules of composition etc. Yet I might be the first millionaire street photography blogger that has ever existed, the only useful things I learned through K-12 education was the general rules of spelling and grammar, but beyond this, I got straight B’s in all of my English classes– yet now, I know more ancient Greek and Latin etymology than the average academic or scholar. 


    Self erudition is the best erudition

    The difficult task of having kids memorize stuff and remember it, then re-recite it is that if you’re being forced by a teacher to do something or learn something or remember something, you won’t. Why? The only way to remember something is when you are personally curious about it, you are personally invested in it, etc.

    Autotelic — to pursue something purely for the sake of it, or for the sake of your curiosity, not for the sake of some sort of political social economic payoff. Even the Mars Rover is simply called “curiosity“;  there is not really a huge material payoff of exploring Mars, you will not find any Martians or extraterrestrial beings, you won’t find precious minerals, or water. I think we humans would like to explore simply for the sake of it; **our own personal curiosity which is antifragile! **

    The more you try to squelch your curiosity, the greater it will become.

    This is where I encourage you to indulge any of your curiosities, irregardless of how bad, evil, immoral it is; if you don’t pursue your curiosities, it will hunt your dreams and your mental space.

    Often when I pursue my curiosity, and I find a semi good answer to my curiosity, it helps me quiet my mind, and refocus on other stuff.

    When in doubt, just pursue your curiosity!


    Think hygiene, basic rules of hygiene 

    Sure it is fine for homeless people go to the library, if they don’t observe basic rules of hygiene, they are not allowed to enter.

    Maybe you can have some sort of machine which could smell you? 

    ***

  • The Immortal Man

    You cannot change the universe or the planet, but you could direct yourself the opposite way to become beyond man, the ubermensch ideal:

    Thoughts on immortality:


    Masculine or Feminine?

    Masculino o feminino — 

    Men who are into tending plants, a feminine trait.

    The notion of being masculine, let us think about this.

    First, let us consider a Achilles. What was Achilles? The apex of manliness, the most supreme, dominant, powerful, let us not forget that he was a demigod in the flesh. 

    First, let us consider how he was so dominant on the battlefield. Ultimately when it comes to the apex or valor, it comes down to combat, physical combat, none of this shooting guns shit. Why are guns for cowards?

    Asymmetric warfare. 

    For example, any 400 pound obese loser can shoot you and kill you with a gun. Imagine fitting him with armor, a shield, and a spear… And put them in man-to-man, PVP, player versus player, 1v1 combat — versus an Achilles; assuming that he is 6 foot tall, handsome, around 160 pounds with pure muscle, 5% bodyfat and a 6 pack. Who would win?

    Why does this matter?

    Currently, it seems that at least with men, modern day capitalism, is all kind of a big dick measuring contest. Instead of measuring how many inches your penis has, what people try to do is measure their metaphorical capital by how many dollars or commas or zeros trails them.

    But, let us consider some extreme examples. If you were a 4 foot man, obese, but with a 20 inch penis, would anyone care? No!

    Being a “stud”

    Apparently, at least with horses… A stud is a type of horse which is prime for breeding. And now with myself… I’m starting to feel like a stud. Whenever I walk around town, now I have women checking me out. Even when I am alone with my 60 pound weighted vest on! 

    And also, let us consider… What women seeks is a mate. Ideally tall dark and handsome.

    Even a nuance; I actually think naturalistically… A woman is less attracted to wealth, more attracted to a man’s height, attractiveness, muscularity, etc? A woman who marries a 4 foot tall billionaire man… Very bizarre. 


    IMMORTAL

    Mortal, it means you will die. All of us, born on the planet are mortals.

    When do we think about the immortals, an ancient Greek mythology, essentially it means somebody who cannot die. The gods who live on Mount Olympus, or people who got locked up by Zeus, these were the immortals.

    I had some thoughts about economic immortality, but also a new thought about fitness in general or life in general, being a man… As I have advanced in maturity, I truly do feel wiser. 

    What’s the point?

    For example, the purpose of muscularity, health, etc is simple; not to be the buffest guy at the gym. In fact some insider information that I personally got was apparently, there are some weightlifters who try to dirty bulk, and get really really buff, maybe while taking steroids or whatever, and they get really really fat, end up doing a cutting phase by taking Adderall, forcing themselves not to eat food in order to lean up. True story!

    Don’t trust the buff shorty (bald) guys

    Also, a funny telltale sign I’ve discovered is when you meet guys who are short, really short, but insanely buff… maybe bald or balding, maybe with a beard, often a lot of these guys are taking steroids?

    Why or how do you know?

    Because the nuance is that as a man, no matter how rich or smart we are, we cannot add inches to our height, not even with steroids. However, you could add inches to your chest, your arms, by taking steroids. And I feel bad for these shorty guys, they will forever feel inadequate because of their short height. Even Jeff Bezos, I think he is only 5‘7“ tall? And Kanye is maybe 5‘6” tall? I think Kendrick Lamar is 5 feet 2 inches tall, and also a lot of these rappers are really short. Only tall rappers include Jay Z, I think he is 6‘2“ tall. Elon Musk is tall, I think he is over 6 feet tall.

    Even a lot of action stars are pretty short. I think Tom Cruise is only 5’3” tall, even Arnold Schwarzenegger who seems like a giant onscreen is only 6 feet tall! About my height.

    Vin Diesel is pretty short, maybe 5‘8“ tall? I’m quite certain he took a lot of steroids to get those massive arms, this is also why he is bald (steroid usage often leads to male balding or baldness)

    Why does this matter?

    Whether we like it or not, we always judge and weigh ourselves in comparison to others. This is the number one thing I learned from thinking sociologically; to be human is to judge, to weigh, to compare, to measure. We do this with height, how many inches your penis is, ones and zeros you got in your bank account, how many followers you got, how many ones and zeros you got in your bank account, how many bitcoin you own, how many inches your arms and biceps are, how much you could deadlift squat and bench press, etc.

    How did we measure men before rulers and scales?

    But this is where being a man in modern-day times is bizarre; we have weights and measures to compare ourselves with other men. But once again in the past, this wasn’t a concept. There would be no skinny fat loser pulling out a tape measure, or a scale to see how much Achilles weighed, his body fat composition, how tall he was, his dick size whatever. No, it was very simple, the question;

    Is there, or was there, or can there be any man who could kill Achilles on the battlefield? 

    And we all know the answer is no. Hector even knows this. Hector is no fool, he knows that Achilles is the superior fighter, after all, Achilles is demigod; half man, half god. His mom was a goddess, his father a mere mortal. Hector is 100% mortal and human. Not a fair chance.

    Even a thing that is impressive about Achilles, he even takes on the gods! Not even Ares can kill or take on Achilles? 

    And this is where the notion of immortality becomes fascinating to me; Achilles is demigod, 50% God, 50% mortal, means that he could be killed. And he does die.

    How can you imagine, an immortal god like Ares taking on Achilles, 1v1– and losing? This is an insanely grand idea:

    A partly mortal man can take on a god, and win. 

    Lowercase god

    So in modern day times, we have this Judeo Christian God, the god of Moses, the monolithic god. This is God with the capital G, who is the ultimate supreme being.

    This is where I think studying ancient Greek mythology is fascinating; there were many gods! And they were just like you and me, they quarrel with their wives, sibling rivalry, mayhem and mischief, they would get angry, get spiteful, want revenge, would succumb to lust and desire, play favorites, troll around, go to sleep, have sex etc.

    This is where the notion of a single God is oppressive; if there is a single supreme God, who controls everything, who is 0% human, what are we mere mortals to do? 

    This is where theology is interesting, the idea that God consubstantiated with Jesus, became man, to help us mirror immortals, this is quite an innovative idea. That uppercase God would take human form, to help humanity. I suppose this is where Catholic or Christian Theology is a bit useful; at least you could imitate Jesus! Who was 100% man, and also 100% capital God?


    Goals

    So obviously we take no drugs, we don’t consume alcohol, we don’t smoke weed, our only drugs include nice sunshine, the beach, the mountains, physical activity, tapwater and black coffee. No sugars no starches, no fake foods. We only consume beef oxen and cattle; we leave the plants for cows.

    Becoming immoral

    I think the first grand advance is becoming immoral. That means looking at all the modern day ethics morals etc., and upending all of them. Disrupting normalcy, disrupting ethics, disrupting morality.

    I hesitate to say the word religion; because religion is something else. Religion is not morals and ethics, is rather a racial, geographic based power-complex; each and every region on the planet has a different religion which emerges, based on different needs of people.

    For example, Moses was in fact a historical figure. A real human being. I think the best way to think about things is all the stories of him parting the Red Sea, superhuman acts, are best interpreted as metaphors. I think the only historical text on Moses is from the Roman historian Tacitus, I think Tacitus to be a good historian because not only does he praise the military prowess of the people of Judea, but he sees things the more analytical lens.

    Obviously, all history is flooded. But if we think about the history of the Peloponnesian war, probably the best historical text that we have, or the histories, essentially Herodotus and the like wrote history not to have some sort of objective documentation of what happened, because back then there wasn’t somebody with a video camera to record the whole thing, but rather, it is based on allegory, ethics, morality, and virtues. And it all tends to be anti-tyranny, towards the democracy. The ancient Athenian way.

    Democracy as an experiment

    I do not consider myself a libertarian, I still see myself as a cold blooded, red white and blue Democrat. I believe in democracy. Even if it is wrong.

    I have always voted Democrat my whole life, but I have nothing against anybody else. I don’t care if you are Republican right left middle center conservative moderate crazy whatever, you have the right, assuming you pay taxes, to your own opinion, and to your own vote!

    The only thing you’re not allowed to do is incite violence, physical violence. Even hate, hate speech, I think technically legally you’re allowed to do so, but just keep it to yourself, keep it inside your own ranch, if you have something not nice to say don’t say it at all.

    And also do not forget the fact that once upon a time, your family was also an immigrant, or trying to escape persecution from the British, and seeking a new life with more freedom and opportunity. Even the Chinese call America the beautiful country.

    Mainland Chinese people would prefer to live in America

    The big issue here is capital controls. Mainland Chinese, rich mainland Chinese, truth be told they want to take their wealth out of Beijing, out of Shanghai, and take it to America if they could. They all send their kids to American schools– they all want to send their kids to Harvard, Yale, even a UCLA or maybe even UC Berkeley.

    I think if you think about it… If you think on a long enough time scale, surely but slowly, I think all power wealth and money will be concentrated in America.

    Why? China is too polluted. I think mainland China is currently having a problem; all of these rich mainland Chinese oligarchs are pumping coal, producing as quickly as they can, in order to quickly get rich, and then send their kids to a more beautiful location, for example the appeal of a Vancouver; surrounded but nothing with trees, nature. Even Chip Wilson, the founder of Lululemon said that Vancouver is the perfect place to be, and also the reason why Lululemon was invented there, it could have not happened on any other city on the planet.

    Culver City is our new Kyoto! (in LA)

    For myself is an American, I currently believe LA, specifically Culver City to be the perfect place to be. Why? It is the only place which is actually walkable in all of Los Angeles, and also, the only place in all of Los Angeles that have seen a city having a dedicated graffiti removal team; my daily walk, one of the best telling things I discovered was there was some sort of sticker art on this one pole for a very long time, and finally, I actually saw that the Culver City public services department cleaned it up, scraped it off! Where else is this possible in any of Los Angeles?

    Also, the new Apple headquarters on Washington street in Culver City. They are currently in the midst of expanding it, and building a super mega campus. This ain’t gonna go away for a long time.

    Even though Apple is not as innovative as it is before, at least for our lifetime, I am certain that we will all still be using iPhones, not some loser Pixel or Samsung phone.

    And I think Apple has been wise, we have all become subscribed to the Apple ecosystem and financial services; Apple has effectively become its own bank and security system; we have all of our passwords saved to iCloud, and paying with Apple Pay is 1 trillion times easier than any other competitor. And once you could pay with bitcoin from your iPhone, with touch or Face ID… Apple will truly take over the planet.

    Touch ID or Face ID and your Bitcoin wallet for iPhone

    Back to you

    What can one man do, what can a single human being do? A lot!

    Simple things; every time you see a kid, smile and wave at the kid! There’s a saying, whenever you smile at a child, the universe smiles back at you! 

    Pedophiles don’t really exist

    I think a very very bad thing which has been promoted by social media, mainstream news is a fear of pedophilia. Especially with child predators, men.

    Now being a dad, with a three year-old four month-year-old son… honestly I think we have 0% to be fearful of pedophiles, the only real thing to be afraid of is distracted drivers, texting while driving, or even these electric scooters and electric bikes, if you’re distracted on your iPhone for even half a second, and one of these things whiz by at full speed and hit your kid, it actually might kill your kid.

    Avoid potential fatal things for your kid.

    For example, once again, I think 100% focus should be just be insanely careful when you are crossing the street with your kid, or with cars running red lights, or even driving while high! I’ve already seen two people smoking marijuana while driving cars stuck in traffic, Very scary.

    Having at least one son, having kids

    Let us think about the simple biological truth: if for some reason tomorrow, all human beings on the planet, all 8 billion of us decided to not have kids, with a generation or two we would all die off.

    Certainly, the first goal, especially being a man is to have at least one male; at least one son to carry on the family name.

    Or, have at least one kid, doesn’t matter whether boy or girl. Ideally more. 

    For example, one of my neighbors, super friendly 70-year-old Chinese American lady, has two daughters, about my age, 34 and 37, and both of them, no serious relationship, not married and certainly no children. I feel bad for my neighbor; probabilistically, she might never have any grandchildren, even with two daughters! Maybe Seneca could just be her metaphorical grandkid.

    The greatest tragedy is to die without any grandchildren? Or even worse no kids?

    What is the purpose of grandparents?

    Grandparents are key.

    I think the simple purpose of grandparents is to take care of the grandkids! In America, we have bastardized this notion; and this is where things become very inefficient for the modern day American.

    People say that daycare, having kids is expensive; not really, if you have a grandma or grandpa, ideally both around!

    Is your whole family lives together, in one house or complex, and the grandparents take care of the young children, while their parents are working or doing something else.

    The problem is the world has shifted towards hedonism; for example, hedonic pleasure through traveling, backpacking, seeing the world, eating good food, socializing, etc. Certainly these are all good things, but I don’t think they should be the telos of a grandparent– the ultimate telos of grandparent is to take care of the grandchildren, to instill them with wisdom, love, abilities!

    And the truth is, all grandchildren universally adore their grandparents, especially the grandmother! Even now, as a 36 year-old man, I have nothing but affection for my grandma! I’m a lot more distant with my grandfather on my mom’s side, and my grandfather on my dad side passed when I was only two years old, so I have zero memories of him. But even Cindy, she has great memories of her grandfather, and I think this is a great thing!

    Lineage

    Ultimately, what is the point of life? I think it has to deal with lineage. Essentially, you just don’t want the family line to die off! 

    Ideally, the family lineage lasts forever! The purpose or the point isn’t your personal immortality — it is the immortality of your family bloodline! Thinking about your kids kids kids.

    Don’t mention things you don’t like

    Don’t get free marketing or free PR or free publicity to things you don’t like.

    If you really hate Donald Trump, don’t say nothing, just vote for Kamala Harris, or the other side. 

    When will you hate something, or vocalize when you hate something, we actually secretly like it? 

    Why else would we complain or vocalize it?

    New moral rule: whenever we hate some thing or dislike something, we stay silent. More manly to pause, and emit silence than say something evil.


    A real man?

    A true mensch?

    What is an “uber”-mensch? My ideal, my vision is to be beyond man. To not be a mere mortal, even though we are mortal.

    For example, we mortal men, we lose our shit, we get angry, we yell, we get violent, we get aggressive, etc. Maybe the goal or the path is to not see yourself as a human — maybe the best thing is to not allow yourself any human emotions– the stoic way.

    “Human, all too human”

    It is obvious that we are all human, and that we all have human emotions. But then, the simplest innovation we can make as an individual is to be anti-human, anti-man?

    Maybe going opposite or doing the opposite?

    For example, when you are angry, be kind instead? Or even the funny reverse; when you want to be kind, show fake anger instead?

    There are still are many innovations we can make in ethics guys! 

    ERIC


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  • The Immortal Man

    You cannot change the universe or the planet, but you could direct yourself the opposite way to become beyond man, the ubermensch ideal:

    Thoughts on immortality:


    Masculine or Feminine?

    Masculino o feminino — 

    Men who are into tending plants, a feminine trait.

    The notion of being masculine, let us think about this.

    First, let us consider a Achilles. What was Achilles? The Apex of Manley is, the most supreme, dominant, powerful, that is not forget that he was a demigod in the flesh. 

    First, let us consider how he was so dominant on the battlefield. Ultimately when it comes to the Apex of valor, it comes down to combat, physical combat, none of this shooting guns shit. Why are guns for cowards?

    Asymmetric warfare. 

    For example, any 400 pound obese loser can shoot you and kill you with a gun. Imagine fitting him with armor, a shield, and a spear… And put them in man-to-man, PVP, player versus player, 1v1 combat — versus an Achilles; assuming that he is 6 foot tall, handsome, around 160 pounds with pure muscle, 5% bodyfat and a 6 pack. Who would win?

    Why does this matter?

    Currently, it seems that at least with men, modern day capitalism, is all kind of a big dick measuring contest. Instead of measuring how many inches your penis has, what people try to do is measure their metaphorical capital by how many dollars or commas or zeros trails them.

    But, let us consider some extreme examples. If you were a 4 foot man, obese, but with a 20 inch penis, would anyone care? No!

    Being a “stud”

    Apparently, at least with horses… A stud is a type of horse which is prime for breeding. And now with myself… I’m starting to feel like a stud. Whenever I walk around town, now I have women checking me out. Even when I am alone with my 60 pound weighted vest on! 

    And also, let us consider… What women seeks is a mate. Ideally tall dark and handsome.

    Even a nuance; I actually think naturalistically… A woman is less attracted to wealth, more attracted to a man’s height, attractiveness, muscularity, etc? A woman who marries a 4 foot tall billionaire man… Very bizarre. 


    IMMORTAL

    Mortal, it means you will die. All of us, born on the planet are mortals.

    When do we think about the immortals, an ancient Greek mythology, essentially it means somebody who cannot die. The gods who live on Mount Olympus, or people who got locked up by Zeus, these were the immortals.

    I had some thoughts about economic immortality, but also a new thought about fitness in general or life in general, being a man… As I have advanced in maturity, I truly do feel wiser. 

    For example, the purpose of muscularity, health, bigger is simple; not to be the buffest guy at the gym,  in fact some insider information that I personally got was apparently, there are some weightlifters who try to dirty bulk, and get really really buff, maybe while taking steroids or whatever, and they get really really fat, end up doing a cutting phase by taking Adderall, forcing themselves not to eat food in order to lean up. true story!

    Also, a funny telltale sign I’ve discovered is when you meet guys for short, really short, but insanely buff… Maybe bald maybe not, maybe with a beard, often a lot of these guys are taking steroids? Why or how do you know? Because the nuance is that a man, no matter how rich or smart we are, we cannot add inches to our height, not even with steroids. However, you could add inches to your chest, your arms, by taking steroids. And I feel bad for these Shorty guys, They will forever feel inadequate because of their short height. Even Jeff Bezos, I think he is only 5‘7“ tall? And Kanye is maybe 5‘6” tall? I think Kendrick Lamar is 5 feet 2 inches tall, and also a lot of these rappers are really short. Only tall rappers include Jay Z, I think he is 6‘2“ tall. Elon Musk is tall, I think he is over 6 feet tall.

    Even a lot of action stars are pretty short. I think Tom Cruise is only 5’3” tall, even Arnold Schwarzenegger who seems like a giant onscreen is only 6 feet tall! About my height.

    Vin Diesel is pretty short, maybe 5‘8“ tall? I’m quite certain he took a lot of steroids to get those massive arms, this is why he is bald.

    Why does this matter?

    Whether we like it or not, we always charge ourselves in comparison to others. This is the number one thing I learned from thinking social logically; to be human is to judge, to weigh, to compare, to measure. we do this with height, how many inches your penises, ones and zeros you got in your bank account, how many followers you got, how many ones and zeros you got in your bank account, how many bitcoin you own, how many inches your arms and biceps are, how much you could dead lift squat and bench press, etc.

    But this is where being a man  in modern day times is bizarre; we have weights and measures to compare our cells with other men. But once again in the past, this wasn’t a concept. There would be no skinny fat loser pulling out a tape measure, or a scale to see how much Achilles weighed, his body fat composition, how tall he was, his dick size whatever. no, it was very simple, the question;

    Is there, or was there, or can there be any man who could kill Achilles on the battlefield? 

    And we all know the answer is no. Hector even knows this. Hector is no fool, he knows that Achilles is the superior fighter, after all, Achilles is demigod; half man, half God. His mom was a goddess, his father Amir mortal. Hector is 100% mortal and human. Not a fair chance.

    Even a thing that is impressive about Achilles, he even takes on the gods! Not even Mars can kill or take on Achilles? 

    And this is where the notion of immortality becomes fascinating to me; Achilles is demigod, 50% God, 50% mortal, means that he could be killed. And he does die.

    How can you imagine, an immortal god like Area taking on Achilles, 1v1– and losing? This is an insanely grand idea:

    Partly mortal mind can take on a god, and win. 

    Lowercase god

    So in modern day times, we have this Judeo Christian God, the God of Moses, the monolithic god. This is God with the capital G, who is the ultimate supreme being.

    This is where I think studying ancient Greek mythology is fascinating; there were many gods! And they were just like you and me, the quarrel with their wives, sibling rivalry, mayhem and mischief, they would get angry, get spiteful, want revenge, would succumb to lust and desire, play favorites, troll around, go to sleep, have sex etc.

    This is where the notion of a single God is oppressive; if there is a single supreme God, who controls everything, who is 0% human, what are we mere mortals to do? 

    This is where theology is interesting, the idea that God substantiated with Jesus, became man, to help us mirror immortals, this is quite an innovative idea. That uppercase God would take human form, to help humanity. I suppose this is where Catholic or Christian Theology is a bit useful; at least you could imitate Jesus! Who was 100% man, and also 100% capital God?


    Goals

    So obviously we take no drugs, we don’t consume alcohol, we don’t smoke weed, our only drugs include nice sunshine, the beach, the mountains, physical activity, tapwater and black coffee. No sugars no starches, no fake foods. We only consume beef oxen and kettles; we leave the plants for cows.

    Becoming immoral

    I think the first grand advance is becoming immoral. That means looking at all the modern day ethics morals etc., and up ending all of them. Disrupting normalcy, disrupting ethics, disrupting morality.

    I hesitate to say the word religion; because religion is something else. Religion is not morals and ethics, is rather a racial, geographic based power complex; each and every region on the planet has a different religion which emerges, based on different needs of people.

    For example, Moses was in fact a historical figure. A real human being. I think the best way to think about things is all the stories of him parting the Red Sea, superhuman acts, are best interpreted as metaphors.  I think the only historical text on Moses is from the Roman historian Tacitus, fine to be a good historian because not only does he praise the military prowess of the people of Judea, but he sees things the more analytical lens.

    Obviously, all history is flooded. But if we think about the history of the Peloponnesian war, probably the best historical text that we have, or the histories, essentially Herodotus and the like   wrote history not to have some sort of objective documentation of what happened, because back then there wasn’t somebody with a video camera to record the whole thing, but rather, it is based on allegory, ethics, morality, and virtues. And it all tends to be anti-tyranny, towards the democracy. The ancient Athenian way.

    democracy as an experiment

    I do not consider myself a libertarian, I still see myself as a cold blooded, red white and blue Democrat. I believe in democracy. Even if it is wrong.

    I have always voted Democrat my whole life, but I have nothing against anybody else. I don’t care if you are Republican right left middle center conservative moderate crazy whatever, you have the right, assuming you pay taxes, your own opinion, and to your own vote! The only thing you’re not allowed to do is inside violence, physical violence. Even hate, hate speech, I think technically legally you’re allowed to do so, but just keep it to yourself, keep it inside your own ranch, you have something nice to say don’t say it at all. And also do not forget the fact that once upon a Time, your family was also an immigrant, or trying to escape persecution from the British, and seeking a new life with more freedom and opportunity. Even the Chinese call America the beautiful country.

    Mainland Chinese people would prefer to live in America

    The big issue here is Controls. Mainland Chinese, Richmond land Chinese, should be told they want to take their wealth out of Beijing, out of Shanghai, and take it to America if they could. They all send their kids to school, they want to send their kids to Harvard, Yale, even a UCLA or maybe even UC Berkeley.

    I think if you think about it… If you think on a long enough time scale, surely but slowly, I think all power wealth and money will be concentrated in America.

    Why? China is too polluted. I think mainland China is currently having a problem; all of these rich mainland Chinese oligarchs are pumping coal, producing as quickly as they can, in order to quickly get rich, and then send their kids to a more beautiful Location, for example the appeal of a Vancouver; surrounded but nothing with trees, nature. Even Chip Wilson, the founder of Lululemon said that Vancouver is the perfect place to be, and also the reason why Lululemon was invented there, it could have not happened on any other city on the planet.

    For myself is an American, I currently believe LA, specifically Culver City to be the perfect place to be. Why? It is the only place which is actually walkable and all of Los Angeles, and also, the only place in all of Los Angeles that have seen a city having a dedicated graffiti removal team; my daily walk, one of the best telling things I discovered was  there was some sort of sticker art on this one to for a very long time, and finally, I actually saw that the Culver City public services department cleaned it up, scraped it off! Where else is this possible in any of Los Angeles?

    Also, the new Apple headquarters on Washington. They are currently in the midst of expanding it, and building a super mega campus. This ain’t gonna go away for a long time.

    Even though Apple is not as innovative as it is before, at least for our lifetime, I am certain that we will all still be using iPhones, not some loser pixel or Samsung phone.

    And I think Apple has been wise, we have all become subscribed to the Apple ecosystem and financial services; Apple has effectively become its own bank and security system; we have all of our password saved to iCloud, and paying with Apple Pay is 1 trillion times easier than any other competitor. And once you could pay with bitcoin from your iPhone, with touch or Face ID… Apple will truly take over the planet.

    Back to you

    What can one man do, what can a single human being do? A lot!

    Simple things; every time you see a kid, small and wave at the kid! There’s a saying, whenever you smile at a child, the universe smells back at you! 

    Pedophiles don’t really exist

    I think a very very bad thing which has been promoted by social media, mainstream news is a fear of pedophilia. Especially with child predators, men.

    Now being a dad, with a three year-old four month-year-old son… Honestly I think we have 0% to be fearful of pedophiles, the only real thing to be afraid of is distracted drivers, texting while driving, or even these electric scooters and electric bikes, if you’re distracted on your iPhone for even half a second, and one of these things whiz by at full speed and hit your kid, it actually might kill your kid.

    Avoid potential fatal things for your kid

    For example, once again, I think 100% focus should be just be insanely careful when you are crossing the street with your kid, or for cars running red lights, or even driving while high! I’ve already seen two people smoking marijuana while driving cars stuck in traffic, Very scary.

    Having at least one son, having kids

    Let us think about the simple biological truth: if for some reason tomorrow, all human beings on the planet, all 8 billion of us decided to not have kids, with a generation or two we would all die off.

    Certainly, the first goal, especially being a man is to have at least one male; at least one son to carry on the family name.

    Or, have at least one kid, doesn’t matter whether boy or girl. Ideally more. 

    For example, one of my neighbors, super friendly 70-year-old Chinese American lady, has two daughters, about my age, 34 and 37, and both of them, no serious relationship, not married and certainly no children. I feel bad for my neighbor; ballistically, she might never have any grandchildren, even with two daughters! Maybe Seneca could just be her metaphorical grandkid.

    What is the purpose of grandparents?

    I think a simple purpose of grandparents is to take care of the grandkids! In America, we have bastardized this ocean; and this is where things become very inefficient for the modern day American.

    People say that daycare, having kids is expensive; not really, if you have a grandma or grandpa, ideally both around!

    Is your whole family lives together, in one house or complex, and the grandparents take care of the young children, while their parents are working or doing something else. 

    The problem is the world has shifted towards hedonism; for example, hedonic pleasure through traveling, backpacking, seeing the world, eating good food, socializing, etc. Certainly these are all good things, but I don’t think they should be the telos of a grandparent–  ultimate tell us of grandparent is to take care of the grandchildren, to instill them with wisdom, love, abilities!

    And the truth is, all grandchildren universally adore their grandparents, especially the grandmother! Even now, as a 30 six-year-old man, I have nothing but affection for my grandma! I’m a lot more distant with my grandfather on my mom side, and my grandfather on my dad side passed when I was only two years old, so I have zero memories of him. But even Cindy, she has great memories of her grandfather, and I think this is a great thing!

    Lineage

    Ultimately, what is the point of life? I think it has to deal with lineage. Essentially, you just don’t want the family line to die off! 

    Ideally, the family lineage last forever! The purpose or the point isn’t your personal immortality — it is the immortality of your family bloodline! Thinking about your kids kids kids.

    Don’t mention things you don’t like

    Don’t get free marketing or free PR or free publicity to things you don’t like.

    If you really hate Donald Trump, don’t say nothing, just vote for Kamala Harris, or the other side. 

    When will you hate something, or vocalize when you hate something, we actually secretly like it? 

    Why else would we complain or vocalize it?

    New moral rule: whenever we hate some thing or dislike something, we stay silent. More manly to pause, and emit silence than say something evil.


    A real man?

    A true mensch?

    What is an “uber”-mensch? My ideal, my vision is to be beyond man. To not be a mere mortal, even though we are mortal.

    For example, we mortal men, we lose our shit, we get angry, we yell, we get violent, we get aggressive, etc. Maybe the goal or the path is to not see yourself as a human — maybe the best thing is to not allow yourself any human emotions– the stoic way.

    “Human, all too human”

    It is obvious that we are all human, and that we all have human emotions. But then, the simplest innovation we can make as an individual is to be anti-human, anti-man?

    Maybe going opposite or doing the opposite?

    For example, when you are angry, be kind instead? Or even the funny reverse; when you want to be kind, show fake anger instead?

    There are still are many innovations we can make in ethics guys! 

    ERIC


  • Economic Immortality

    Some more thoughts about economics, and you:

    Economic immortality 

    I think why this is such an important thing to think about and consider is that when it comes to money and economics, this affects any single and every single human being on the planet, all 8 billion of us.

    There is no society on the planet that does not rely upon money in order for us to pay rent, purchase food, pay for electricity and Wi-Fi etc.

    Now I think the bizarre carrot and stick we are fed in America is to get super super rich, in order to purchase certain things. For example, to one day be able to purchase a Lamborghini, Ferrari, whatever.

    But the issue here is thinking about maintenance cost, and the productive half-life of something.

    So for example, let’s just say you buy the new Porsche Lamborghini or Ferrari whatever, I think initially… It will bring you a huge wave of exhilaration and excitement! Maybe the same feeling of the excitement of being able to bed and insanely beautiful woman!

    But… The second that you bet her, and you blow your load, boom time to go to sleep. And let us say that you are with this insanely beautiful supermodel babe days weeks months and years… It seems that this playboy man, eventually his enthusiasm may change. 

    I think thing with beauty, in the context of vehicles homes cars women etc.… Man is ever fickle, he always seeks novelty. 

    Now the unsustainable model is this guy just keeps working himself to death, attempting to stack his billions on billions, kind of like the Jay Z model, in order to purchase all these things he desires.

    “I bought every V12 engine, I wish I could take it back to the beginning.” – JAY Z, THE LIFE OF OJ

    In this line from the life of OJ, I find it a really fascinating thought… he says he has already amassed enough wealth to purchase every single automobile car with a V12 engine. So when he says that he wants to take it back to the beginning… What does he mean to say? Does he mean to say that he wishes that he didn’t waste all that money on all these V12 engine vehicles, and had invested that money instead? Or, he wishes that he could take it back to the beginning before he was super rich and successful, in order for him to feel hungry and scrappy again like he was in the beginning? Or maybe both — a double entendre — what rappers are masters at?

    Regardless, there are some fools who seek biological life immortality, these weirdos and Silicon Valley guys who want to live 100,000 years or whatever by uploading their consciousness to the cloud whatever. I personally find this to be a very poor poor idea,  and also very bizarre… I found a lot of men who does actually do this, practically no women.  Maybe women are more wise; they know that if they become 300 years old or whatever… No amount of plastic surgery, Botox, fillers, or cosmetic aesthetic surgery or whatever could make them forever look like a sexy 26-year-old babe or something. In fact, being here in LA, I see this a lot… Women, who are still beautiful and sexy, but beyond their prime… Maybe in their mid 40s, 50s, 60s… Who might have had Botox or some sort of facial surgery somewhere in the past… And it doesn’t age well…

    I’ve also noticed this issue with any sort of facial injections or Botox or plastic surgery; especially with Koreans, Korean women, and now even Korean men! If you see them in the flesh, in the dark sunlight… It really does look like plastic, and all that white stuff looks caked on… a little bit frightening almost like the joker? 

    This is why you should never judge anybody until you have met them in the flesh, face to face, standing next to them, in the direct sunlight, outside. There’s only so much you could take behind an iPhone camera and selfie mode, with nice indoor lighting.

    Better for economic immortality, and be Spartan… than to live like a Persian slave? 

    What is the ultimate asset that you have? Your attention, your time, your focus. If you wake up, with your iPhone charging next to you, and the first thing you do is check your email… You are a slave. Or, if by not taking your email you can get fired… You are also a digital slave.

    Or, if you cannot delete your Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube channel, Twitter without economic impoverishment… you are not free. 

    What is economic immorality?

    I think the general idea is for your capital to outlive you. That as time goes on, your pile of capital continues to accumulate indefinitely, kind of like a tree that ever grows taller and taller overtime, gradually but surely, and continues to expand her branches and leaves… Sprouting new seeds, propagating herself etc.

    The reason why I like this metaphor is that the funny thought is perhaps we human beings… We’re not that different from trees. What we seek is dominance! Apparently in the rainforest… Only the tallest trees, that can outgrow the competition, and get to the highest height, can capture the sunlight, which allows it to produce seeds. If you’re in the rainforest, And you’re not tall enough, and you cannot access sunlight… You’re not going to produce any seeds.

    Is the reason people don’t want to have kids because they’re not rich enough? 

    I don’t think so. I think part of it is a strange brainwashing from these tree hugging childless liberals who seek to help serve “the planet”, over humanity.

    For example, the bizarre thought that having kids is bad “for the planet”…  this is one of the most weird thoughts of all time… The question:

    Are kids made for the planet… Or is the planet made for kids? 

    You fools! Don’t you know, if suddenly every single human being on the planet stopped producing children, stopped having kids… Though within a generation or two the entire human race would go extinct?

    If you had the scenario… What would you prefer–

    1. The death of humanity

    You are supreme dictator of the planet, and you force sterilize every single human being on the planet, which makes it impossible for any single human to give birth to a new child, and therefore it is guaranteed that no more children will be produced on the planet.

    As a consequence, you have “saved” the planet and the earth and the environment – but within a generation or two, let us say 200 years, every single human being on the planet parishes, and the human race goes extinct. Then would you be happy?

    2. “Carbon footprint”?

    It is certain that humans burning coal and creating emissions is doing something to the planet, it is certainly changing it, my friend calls it “global weirding”. Weather patterns are becoming more and more weird. But the idea that one day the planet will become in inhabitable is false.  I believe is that more and more extremes will happen; maybe in Los Angeles, the summers will keep getting hotter and hotter, maybe eventually making it to the point that it is not uncommon to have whether in the 90s, mid 90s, even the hundreds, or the low hundreds kind of like Arizona or Nevada. And then in the winter, getting really really cold, like the 30s or something. Or maybe even the 20s?

    I suppose here is we’re buying beachfront property is a desire or a strategy for some people, like purchasing property in Santa Monica, Venice, Venice Beach, Miami Beach etc. Even in Orange County, Newport Beach or Dana Point is the most highly sought after. Why? Maybe if in the next 50 years, the planet will keep getting hotter,  then being closer to the water and feeling the ocean breeze might be a good thing.

    Certainly if the planet gets really really cold, this is also very very bad, but I suppose here is where humans are better adapted, if it is like 20° or 30° in LA, it sucks but at least you could buy a Canada goose jacket. If it is 120°, Like in Saudi Arabia or Dubai… At this point, is it literally impossible to just leave the house? Without air conditioning?

    Simple ideas

    If you think about thermodynamics, the simple strategy is to prevent heat loss. For example, if you think about the human body, technically we actually have enough heat in our body to keep us warm wherever we are or go.

    So if we apply thermo dynamic principles to money and finances,  the similar principal applies: the goal is to prevent yourself from heat loss, or economic energy loss, or money loss, or financial loss.

    A simple one is delete or unsubscribe from all of your subscriptions. All of your media streaming music services, your gym memberships etc. Get rid of Spotify.

    Also as a simple filter, consume no media which is advertising supported, this includes Joe Rogan, or your favorite media personalities. Why, err regardless of how much you love them, as long as they are getting paid a check, to promote some sort of service or product, they and you are not 100% free.

    In fact, even advice for people like Tim Ferriss, of who I am a big fan… Tim, you’re original, why don’t you just privately finance your podcast and books, you don’t have anything left to prove to anybody? You have already achieved all of the success you really need, Just give it away for free, without annoying advertisements, and just do a pro bono because it is your passion?

    Creating new media hosting platforms 

    OK something insanely annoying… My video press.com account, prevents me from uploading videos anymore. Maybe I’ll just start posting it myself, and providing direct links instead?

    I suppose this is where it is useful that I got into the Internet in the 90s and the early 2000s… I have good knowledge about FTPs, and online storage. And websites.

    I met a lot of aspiring filmmakers and creators, who still don’t have their own self hosted website, are they fools?

    Simple:

    1. Ionos.com or bluehost.com, and just sign up for the cheapest self hosted server plan, which gives you access to your own FTP server, in which you could directly upload your own video files or whatever, and provide direct download links for people.
    2. Use WordPress.org we’re only trust open source things. Why? Open source lasts longer; because typically when people create open source stuff, they do it because it is their passion not because there is a financial motive. Therefore as a consequence, it typically lasts.

    It is not guaranteed that a passion project will last, we have good duration, but, perhaps the true indicator is this:

    If you were offered a financial incentive or motivation to publish somethunf with a publisher, but you refused and you gave it away for free instead… you are true.

    100 Lessons From The Masters Of Street Photography — this will last forever.

    Why bitcoin will last forever

    Even if you think about this, ultimate generous act; to create something invent something, anonymously, to give it away for free and then disappear forever… Isn’t this the ultimate generous act?

    Satoshi did this. It is probably doubtful that he is Japanese, his English is too good. Probably after some Caucasian American man, slightly anti-establishment, anti-beings, a programming whiz, really believed in this. Kind of like the founder of Linux, etc. 

    This is where you should never put any faith in any sort of corporation, product, security, or crypto crypto acid which has had a general founder. Why? When the founder dies, and there is no more vision… The whole thing will probably go under.

    Steve Jobs vision was to create a company imputed with so much creative passion that it would outlive him. It seems like he has won here. Procreate wasn’t invented or created yet when Steve Jobs was alive, and if you think about it… The true ultimate vision of Steve Jobs was to create iPad, no stupid stylist, no stupid keyboard. This is why if you are a true fanboy, a true acolyte of Steve Jobs, what you would do is just use the 11 inch iPad Pro, no stupid accessories. You are a true innovator this way.

    A true and grand man with real vision?

    To become a true visionary is to see beyond well, monetization, even your own financial well-being. A true visionary doesn’t really care for money; Elon Musk doesn’t care about money, Jeff Bezos doesn’t, Peter Thiel doesn’t, Steve Jobs didn’t.

    Maybe this is where we have to ask Jay Z and Kanye from our economic minds; I think the pernicious thing in the African-American community is around money. Why? It makes sense; even in America, talking to my friend Ray.. racism is still alive and well, and I don’t think it’s necessarily gotten any better. Certainly there is more access, there is no more legal laws which prohibit a certain race a person to purchase property, but still, people are still going to be racist towards you towards the pigment of your skin, your morphology, your genetic heritage etc., assuming that you are not Anglo-Saxon protestant Caucasian man in America.

    Even Jewish people, they are not white. They are closet white, or “white passing“, — as long as America never elect or votes for a Jewish American president, Jewish people in Jewish businessmen will always be at a disadvantage, lower on the totem pole.

    Even a Donald Trump… Certainly he is not Christian or religious or whatever… But he is certainly not Jewish. 

    Even Catholics, Catholicism… Besides John F. Kennedy, Catholicism and being Catholic is still the weird sub-sect.

    so what are we to do?

    First, stop the heat loss, stop the oxygen loss, stop the bleeding! The most critical thing to consider in regards to economic policy for yourself, is to stop all debt, stop bleeding, and don’t leverage any debt or bad things!

    Mortgages?

    If you live in California, the taxes will bleed your dry. Even if you live somewhere like Florida, which has a lower tax jurisdiction, there are still taxes!

    Which means, with property, you never really own the property, you simply have a lease from the government to borrow it. Do you have more privileges like building stuff on top of it, but still, as long as you have to pay a forever home owner city tax, you don’t really own it. 

    Perhaps this is where people get tempted by certain things like clothing or cars, if you purchase it in all cash, technically you do own it. 

    Avoid the indoors like the plague 

    A lot of people coughing now, indoors. Maybe then the wise ideas to avoid indoors like the play, kind of like early Covid days. And also, maybe starting to become wise again to wear a facemask when going anywhere indoors?

    –> always live life like it is COVID?

    Because the issue here is not even catching Covid is just getting sick! I don’t want to catch the common cold; which has no vaccine. 

    Every day is different

    Each and every day is different… Never planned the night before. Just do what you feel like morning of. 

    Bitcoin is digital cash

    I think Satoshi wrote this in the bitcoin white paper, and also this is interesting because the notion of cash, because the simple ideas with a home or property or whatever… Either 100% all cash offer or nothing.

    If you have to finance it, just keep stacking your money until you do it all cash.

    But also the issue… If you think like a real investor, and you think about 10, 100 X, 1000 X gains… There’s almost nothing worth purchasing.

    For example, at this point I could technically purchase anything I want. As long as it is less than $1 million. But the thing is… There’s nothing worth purchasing, nothing I value purchasing considering if my bitcoin can 10x, 100x, 1000x or even 10,000x from here.

    Never spend money on yourself only others

    Besides purchasing some weightlifting equipment from Titan.fitness from my remaining PayPal balance, I haven’t spent money on anything perhaps the last year?

    I think the big thing is not because I’m doing it out of a sense of virtuality, but instead, ethos is that there is just nothing worth it?

    And also, I’m starting to understand that I like the idea of things rather than actually owning it. Even my friend Don Dillon told me this about his Porsche 911 GT3: maybe we like the idea of something more than actually owning it.

    This is where I love marketing, marketing materials, marketing copy images videos etc.; it is also inspirational, motivational, and interesting to me! For example, I do not wish even my worst enemy to own a Ferrari, the maintenance costs on these things are insane; at least a Lamborghini is just an Audi or a Volkswagen with a body kit; so if you’re going to fix your Lamborghini Huracan V10 engine… You could presumably use Volkswagen or Audi parts. But with Ferrari… You’re screwed. Do you want to fix your suspension, or your engine? Say goodbye to $200,000. And even if you’re super rich… Even a billionaire… To spend $200,000 to fix your car is always going to be annoying. And will irk you in a bad way.


    “Finance”?

    So studying some etymology for the word finance, the general idea is that finance literally means to hold someone at ransom? 

    Very bad apparently, 99.99% of people finance their homes, which means that they take out a 30 year mortgage or whatever. And also even worse, apparently talking to some guys at the Toyota dealership, most people also finance their cars. This is horrible idea for many reasons:

    1. First, if you’re going to take any APR that is above 0%, you’re in the red. Even 1.99% APR… That is lost money.
    2. If you have to do a down payment on a car, and finance it, that is money you could’ve put into bitcoin, and 1000x’d — a $5M mistake, assuming that the average down payment on a car is $5000 USD.

    Even more foolish is to Lisa vehicles; because once again, after three years you have to give it back! So you have literally pissed your money down the drain.

    How to know whether people are really rich or not rich?

    1. If they have not paid off the mortgage on the house in full, then they are not rich.
    2. If they drive a Tesla, they are not rich
    3. If they have a job they are not rich

    Richness, is absence. The absence of having to have a job, the absence of having to “work“.

    Does it matter?

    I’m more critical thing to consider, which is even beyond my personal scope: does it matter? 

    For example, why do you care to see or know how rich somebody is, in comparison to you?

    I don’t think it really matters.

    Maybe it comes out of a sense of insecurity; do you have to always weigh yourself according to others, maybe it is simply lack of self-esteem? And also, is this a socialized thing?

    Because for example, if you were Achilles, you would not care about how rich somebody wasn’t comparison to you. I’ll Achilles was weary of just conquering towns for the sake of king Agamemnon. He just wanted to take Breisis his prize, and just retire to his fertile lands. And of course, after Hector kills Patroclus, on accident, thinking that it was Achilles… Achilles’ sole objective was to enact revenge by killing Hector. He had no use for golden tripods, more cattle in the like. Even the whole period of time in which he is trying to get his revenge, he actually forces his self not to eat– and of course the gods infuse him with ambrosia so he won’t starve to death, but still technically… he is technically “intermittent fasting“ the whole time.


    Live like Achilles

    Maybe the secret to economic immortality is to just live like Achilles. Your only joy is through combat, physical valor, strength, muscle.

    My very very simple suggestion is quit your gym membership cancel your gym membership, and use that money to buy your own barbell and weights. If you want to do it super cheap, just purchase a sandbag, and buy some cheap place and from Home Depot, only about five dollars for a 50 pound bag.

    Also, armor. 60 pound weight vest from Titan.fitness. 

    And then, your joy is just maximum time outside, in the direct elements, training, for life.

    ERIC