March 2024 - ERIC KIM ₿

The promise of bitcoin

March 17, 2024

Buy Bitcoin

Something I find really fascinating when studying these crypto apps, for example the crypto.com app which always shows up as a personalized advertisement for me in the Apple App Store:

The first thing itâ€™s always shows in the subtitle is buy Bitcoin

This is a good way to study the market

March 17, 2024

In Praise of Limits

The great thing about limits is that you have something to aspire towards

March 17, 2024

Train and Attempt Until Inability

Another virtuous thing about the one rep max attempt approach in life; you give it youâ€™re all your maximum supreme focus, and you try the maximum, until you are unable to do so!

March 17, 2024

Upon much thinking and consideration, the true feeling in my heart and my soul is gratitude, being grateful to everybody. Doesnâ€™t matter how much they annoyed me in the past or irked me; ultimately even if it is for the .0000000001% of the times they were insanely helpful and or useful ,,, the only feeling in my heart and soul is gratitude!

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March 17, 2024

How were boys trained in ancient Sparta?

The Agoge

Starting age 7..until age 20

Boys in ancient Sparta were trained under a rigorous and austere system known as the Agoge, designed to produce highly disciplined and skilled warriors, emphasizing obedience, endurance, and courage. From a young age, typically starting at seven, Spartan boys were taken from their families and entered into this state-sponsored education and training program that lasted until they were about 20 years old.

Physical Training: This was a core component of the Agoge, designed to strengthen their bodies and prepare them for the hardships of war. Activities included wrestling, gymnastics, and endurance exercises. Boys were often encouraged to compete against one another to foster a spirit of competition and excellence.

Military Training: Boys were taught the arts of warfare, including the use of weapons like the spear and sword, tactics, and formation fighting, essential for the phalanx formation that the Spartan army was famous for. They participated in mock battles and were educated in survival skills, learning to endure hunger, pain, and fatigue.

Social Conditioning: The Agoge also emphasized social integration within the Spartan society, instilling values such as loyalty to the Spartan state, obedience to authority, and the importance of the collective over the individual. Boys were organized into groups (agelai), fostering bonds that would be crucial in battle.

Mental Toughness: Spartan education aimed to toughen the boys mentally as well as physically. They were subjected to strict discipline, given minimal clothing and food to accustom them to scarcity, and encouraged to devise strategies to steal what they needed without getting caught, to develop cunning and resourcefulness.

The Krypteia: As part of their training, some boys were selected for the Krypteia, a secret police force tasked with policing the helot population (Spartan serfs) and eliminating any perceived threats. This duty involved stealth, espionage, and even assassination, further honing their skills in warfare and subterfuge.

Upon completion of the Agoge, these young men became full citizens and soldiers of Sparta, expected to continue serving in the military and contributing to Spartan society. The Agoge was central to Spartan identity, producing warriors renowned for their discipline, resilience, and martial prowess.

March 17, 2024

How to Stay in a Zen Zone

No external distractions or interruptions from the outside world.

It is critical for the philosopher thinker, real and Tran to resist distractions?

March 17, 2024

Avoid or Not Avoid?

It seems that from a passive perspective, to avoid that which annoys you, or invokes or anger or fury, or things which are not good to your eyes; to simply avoid, is the best strategy.

But at the same time, to avoid is also an act of cowardiceâ€” sometimes.

I suppose the nuance here is this bifurcation;

I just donâ€™t want to be interrupted, or to lose my focus!

So for me, the reason why I often prefer to be alone and solo, is because I want to stay focused in my thoughts.

When I want to be focused, when I want to be focused in myself?

For me then, maybe avoiding people simply my way of focusing.

March 17, 2024

Passive vs Active Strength

March 17, 2024

Leverage Your Platforms, Move the World ï¿¼

Follow the yellow brick Road!

How to move the world

â€œGive me a spot to stand, and I shall move the world!â€ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼ – Archimedes

The notion of a lever, leverage is one of the most critical notions of all time. Why? It is all about strength leverage, levers.

For example, I find it personally more interesting to move 1000 pounds half an inch, rather than move 1 pound for 100 miles.

The bad thing is in modern day times, we have been suckered into thinking that more itâ€™s better. More repetitions is seen as more virtuous and more better for us.

However, think about this:

What is more important, to do 10,000 bodyweight squats consecutively, or to lift 2000 pounds, once?

Of course the second!

Donâ€™t trust the nerds

The big problem is in todayâ€™s world, the nerds run the show. The nerds are now the computer scientist, the CEOs of the big tech companies, etc., or once nerdy bullied kids in high school. In fact, my personal thought is your personality gets fully formed by the time you graduate high school. The person you are in high school, Remains with you for the rest of your life.

This is why when I meet people nowadays in LA, I just asked them: â€œWhere did you go to high school?â€

NASSIM TALEB also has a thought and a theory that in fact, where you go to high school is actually more important then where you go to college or university.

Therefore, let us think about how critical high school is.

The psychology of money

OK now that I am a cryptocurrency millionaire, betting big on bitcoin, now what?

First, I like the idea that we could all become rich together. To me what is not zero sum; everyone could gain $1 million in their wallet, me gaining $1 million doesnâ€™t mean the subtraction of money from your pocket.

For example, let us say that we all buy bitcoin. And let us say that the price of bitcoin continues to balloon. If this is the case, then we all suddenly become millionaires all at once!

I think the loser mentality is that my financial gain is your financial loss. What is this true? No. Anyone who thinks this has zero understanding of how finance works.

Money is a made up thing

Perhaps the most insightful thing that I learned from Fernando Gallianiâ€˜s treatise on money ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼is how money is just a social invention. ï¿¼

Money is faith, money is people. ï¿¼

In fact, when it comes down to it, the ultimate valuable thing is just humans, human beings, human labor, human power.

For example, eventually when it comes down to it, let us say you want to buy a house build a house renovated etc., sooner or later you need a real life human being in the flesh to actually build and put things together. Or if you want to create your own minimalistic dream House, you need a lot of laborers to actually build it. Often Mexican or Latino Spanish-speaking construction workers.

Who is going to dig your hole?

Most of us donâ€™t like digging holes for ourselves, and I think most people would prefer not to build their own house, or renovate their own house all by themselves. It just takes far too long, takes too much time, most people would prefer doing something else.

In Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Holmby Hills I have observed this funny new caste system or bifurcation of people: ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼

Insanely rich people who are never at home, and their army of immigrant construction workers who are building their mansions.

This micro economy which is built is super fast in me because there are bunches of these taco trucks which hang out in these $10 million mansion neighborhoods, $50 million mansion neighborhoods, just chilling and hanging out, and you could tell who the immigrant workers are because they all drive old Nissan Pick up trucks.

A very very dark thing about going to Asia is how cheap labor is. For example I think there are some people in Asia who work these menial labor jobs who might only get paid $10 USD for a whole day of labor in a restaurant kitchen or a bar or cafÃ©? In America, it is insane; for menial labor work, we pay people almost $20 an hour?

How and why media is the future ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼

I have this habit on my iPad and which I always go to the App Store, and Iâ€™m always curious about what the top performing applications are. One of the things that I have learned is that it looks like all the top five apps on the iPad store are all Media streaming apps. Disney, Disney+, Netflix Hulu etc. Also a fun thing I learned other day is that Hulu is owned by Disney.

Anyways, it looks like innovation for technology has been tapped out, and now there is a mad scramble for media. Even Apple is dead, in terms of innovation. In one last attempt, what they are trying to do is get into the media entertainment, TV music business; it seems that they are doing very poorly even though they have trillions of dollars to throw at it.

Free exercise

A new experiment Iâ€™ve been doing is I bought a 60 pound weight vest from Titan dot fitness, and Iâ€™ve just been wearing it during the day, when I go on hikes with Seneca, or even while working out. I call it like Goku in the gravity chamber, Dragon Ball Z.

What super interesting is I guess 60 pounds is actually pretty heavy. Just having it on me and not doing anything, I already feel my heart rate going up. Also what I love about it is it is well balanced; the weights are in the front and the back.

Also, I found that it may be one of the most effective ways to exercise in so far much as you could just keep it on while doing calisthenics, chub dips push-ups whatever, I even had a funny thoughts; if you want to one of those funny fitness classes and just wore a 60 pound weight vest on you the whole time, certainly it would augment your work out.

How tech nerds could get stronger? ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼

A simple idea is that everyone should buy the 60 pound weight vest, and just wear it all day while youâ€™re at work. And just stand all day and walk around.

Even all of the silly runners, maybe they should just buy one. It is better to just walk around with a white vest on, at slow pace rather than jogging at a â€œmoderate paceâ€, for no good reason.

Also a very interesting innovation that Iâ€™ve made is that while wearing the 60 pound weight vest, concurrently doing my weightlifting exercises with it on. This involves farmers carry, rack pull, ï¿¼atlas lifts squats etc. ï¿¼

The general idea is anything that increases the force of gravity on your body will make you stronger.

What I learned after lifting 1000 pounds

Just Google or YouTube it; ERIC KIM thousand pound lift. I think I am the first non-steroid person on the planet to have done it.

Super super easy; gradual progressions, the Kaisen process. Just adding 2.5 pound â€œpotato chipâ€œ mini weights to each side of the barbell, week over week. That is if you just add 5 pounds to your maximum lift, week over week, within a year or two years or three years, any able bodied person or man should be able to lift 1000 pounds.

Can a woman lift 1000 pounds?

Probably. There are some of these Viking women from Sweden or some thing who are like 7 feet tall and 200 pounds, Iâ€™m sure they could do it.

Certainly for maximum strength, there will never be a woman who has as much strength as a man. You will probably never have a woman on planet earth as strong as Eddie Hall, or Hafthor Bjjorsen. ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼ï¿¼ Even if you gave the strongest woman in the world all the steroids in the world, I am very dubious that they would be able to deadlift 501 kg. ï¿¼

Or if you go on YouTube, search the 1 ton lift. One of the strong fat steroid using strong men was able to successfully lift 2000 pounds half an inch, which is 2x of how much I was able to do.

What I have found is ultimately, anything that you really really really really want to do, and you have a ridiculous passion for, or interest or goal, you can achieve. I think the subtle nuance is that it must be autotelic, which is you want to accomplish it for the sake in itself. ï¿¼ï¿¼ ï¿¼

For example, trying to lift 1000 pounds, was this funny silly cute cold that I said for myself, without the aid of anybody else. No ridiculous notion of a â€œpersonal trainerâ€œ, â€œcoachâ€. To me only unknowledgeable people, people who seem to lack self direction end up investing in these external coaches, because they like the motivation to do it themselves, because for their whole lives, they have never been encouraged to just follow themselves.

Am I the only rare bird?

Truth be told, Iâ€™ve never met anyone in real life quite as interesting or fascinating as myself. Only other people that have met why find fascinating, not in real life include Jeff Bezos, Elon musk, Kanye West, maybe Jay Z.

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March 17, 2024