Something interesting I thought from Michael Saylor; before we think about space, thinking cyberspace, that is the ultimate friction free, digital Internet-based, waitlist world and concept:

Space

Honestly anyone who criticizes or critiques Elon Musk is simply envious or jealous of him. Don’t hate Elon because you are no match for him!

If you think about crazy innovators, engineer artist, it is probably only Elon Musk, Kanye West who is of note.

What is a ingredient for a truly great person? You need a bit of the Dionysian, the crazy. For example, all of the bad sides of Steve Jobs is actually what made him great, and what made apple great. Now, no crazy people left at Apple, only suits.

In fact, if you think about Nietzsche’s Dionysian vs Apollonian concept — Steve Jobs was the Dionysian, and Steve Wozniak was the Apollonian. Or Steve Jobs was the Dionysian, Jony Ive was the Apollonian.

Even if I think about myself, perhaps Cindy is my Apollonian, the God and goddess of wisdom, clarity, prudence, rationality, logic, levelheadedness, pure white.

The Dionysian; the irrational, not connected to reality, harnessing some sort of frenzy like craziness.

“Name one genius that ain’t crazy!” – Ye

“With every great genius is a hint of madness” – Aristotle

Why is it that in modern daytimes, the dietitian is no longer permitted? We are not allowed to be loud, boisterous, full of anger and irrational, violence aggression etc.

Now, all of these Dionysian things are now imputed into sports, UFCMMA fighting, TV shows media and films and movies and comic book characters, never in real life. There’s a separation between media and every day reality.

I’ll give you an example; I’m probably the funniest most comedic, unpredictable person that I know in real life. People seem uncomfortable by me, and sometimes feel insecure whether they should laugh or not. But, I see them in their apartments watching these trashy or these Lame comedy TV shows on HBOHBO Max or Netflix… In private, without any exposure to real life.

Cowardly vs Courageous?

Now, for men,  no longer characterize people as good or bad, whatever… Rather, what separates the Eagles from the lambs is this:

Are you courageous or cowardly?

For example, I only rate anybody who is courageous who attempts to lift over eight plates, nine plates, or 10 plates on the squat rack. To even touch or attempt or look at it, is something to wonder.

Even more recently in my open air garage gym, some of my neighbors an apartment made saw me racking up the rack with six plates on each side, which was technically only my warm-up, their jaws dropped. Apparently I’ve been starting to be noted as having a “sleeper frame” or “sleeper body”– somebody who is inanely strong but doesn’t necessarily look that strong. 

For example, an ex power lifter told me that he did 20 repetitions of a 4 plate, 405 pound deadlift, and he was amazed by my ability to lift 1000 pounds off the rack, because he said that the typical bodybuilder weight lift or power lift or who that strong typically has 19 inch or 20 inch arms. I’m not even sure what that looks like.

Anyways, my general thought behind things is that with enough insane desire, anything is possible, as long as you obey the laws of physics.

You cannot fake true desire

Or in other words, you cannot fake hate. 

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The internet?

It looks like there is currently another big shake up happening in the world of social media, the Internet etc. Even now apparently people are starting to flee Instagram, which only just a few years ago seemed unstoppable. Now apparently TikTok is destroying or gobbling up the massive market share of Instagram, TikTok is usurping Instagram.

How did TikTok become so dominant? Let us not forget that TikTok is effectively owned by a super mega mainland Chinese company, Tencent — my general theory is that essentially mainland China perfected TikTok back home in mainland China, and then once it was unleashed in the states like a virus, it’s spread like wildfire. Even my friend Todd Hata had the foresight and the wisdom to get on TikTok pretty early, becoming an early TikTok foodie influencer restaurant review in Mexico City and beyond.

But with enough sight, you all know when we all know that TikTok will eventually get banded America, perhaps maybe when Donald Trump gets elected into office. Remember when Trump was an office, he saw TikTok and was threatened by it and saw that he didn’t trust a super mega mainly Chinese corporation, taking over the App Store? Initially I think he tried to shut it down, or have it blend with an American company? 

Let us consider the asymmetry here; mainland China doesn’t allow America to use any American tech companies mainland China which include Google Facebook Amazon YouTube, Gmail you name it. Yet… America we allow mainland Chinese corporation apps to be used in America? Seems to be a bit of an asymmetry here. 

What is the big problem here? I think the number one critical issue here is advertising. Don’t forget when the first election cycle happened, the whole Putin Russia, influencing the US politic election cycle, I think Russia was able to inject only maybe $1 million worth of advertising into the Facebook platform, Creating a huge title shift of a opinion in American politics? I think Mark Zuckerberg testified in Congress, saying that Facebook was not at fault and just saying that “Facebook is an advertising platform.”

I think all of the ills of society maybe could be tracked back to advertising.  When you offer a service a product or utility for free, what is the easiest way in the 2000s to monetize it? Advertising, display advertising, pre-roll advertising etc.

But now, in the year 2020 and beyond.. what will be the path forward in terms of monetizing in Cypress space in the Internet? I native Internet currency, a native money, Satoshis and bitcoin. 

Follow Jack

Jack Dorsey might be one of the most underrated entrepreneurs out there, which must mainstream people don’t really know about it. He is the genius behind Twitter, square and now the cash app.

Jack is very very bullish on the lightning network, Satoshi‘s and bitcoin. If Jack Dorsey and Jay Z supports it, block.xyz — it is easy to see that the lightning wallet, bitcoin and Satoshi‘s are the way forward.

In fact, almost the last decade or so,  I’ve been thinking very very hard about this very question:

How do you monetize on the internet without advertising? 

I think I got the answer: the lightning wallet, the lightning network, Satoshis and bitcoin.

Why?

In the traditional economy, the traditional marketplace, before media was invented, was money. Or barter and exchange, peer to peer.

I’m currently reading Karl Menger’s principles of economics, and I’m currently in the section which he is building up the idea or the concept of how and why money makes sense.

Essentially Menger Is building up a case in the limits of barter and exchange, let us say that I have horses and you need a horse, and you have cattle, and you need a horse. 

The big problem here is there’s a certain part that I cannot cut up my horse and divide my horse up anymore. There is a certain limit  in which trading and exchanging or selling and buying horses and cattle as means of exchange in trade and economy no longer is productive. I think what Menger is then building up to Is that essentially the invention and innovation of money, which is economic value divided subdivided into infinitely smaller parts simply a way to increase productivity of exchange, value, etc.

For example, if I have a horse, let us say that I could take it to market and then I could sell it for $100,000. Then, this becomes very useful because instead of just trading it for 10 heads of cattle, I can now Subdivide my money to procure other useful valuable things to me, taking out the tedious exchange cycle. 

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Increasing Productivity

Very interesting in Singapore, what they do to try to discourage traffic is first, they charge a very very high tax on cars, to discourage people from purchasing automobiles. Second, even if you have a car, if you want to have the privilege to drive it on the freeway, Especially at certain peak times, you gotta pay money for it with the transponder on your car. 

I think South Korea also has a similar model; you could drive your car on certain days of the week, but on other days you cannot. 

If you wanted to fix the whole 405 traffic issue, in Los Angeles, very very simple; essentially you would have to pay a nominal sum of money to use their freeway at certain times, or in general.

It doesn’t even have to be that much, let us say that you would only charge a dollar for you to use the 405 to the 10 intersection, or, at peak rush-hour, you might have to pay two dollars or something.

Essentially it is a very very small fee, very very small, not enough to impoverish somebody, but, to give people a little bit of skin in the game, adding a little bit of friction or financial economic friction in order to simply generally slow down or reduce the number of cars on the road.

Maybe even the first venue we could do this for commercial truckers, who seem to be paid anyways by corporations, so maybe they could pay the fee first.

How to fix email

So now with ChatGPT, we are currently facing a huge problem: anybody, even a robot or a robot can spin up a very very intriguing and intelligent email, which command your attention, or which depletes your energy.

However a big problem that I personally faced my own life is the more famous and popular I got, the more my email inbox started to balloon. The same thing went with text messages I would get, messages on all the social media platforms, etc. And I am only just one human being.

First I would try to create some filters; I stopped putting my private or personal email on my website and blog, and instead direct them to my manager to filter the emails and the opportunities. But also in this issue here is that I still need to figure out how to respond to my manager‘s messages, which also is another thing I must attend to.

Thus, this becomes an interesting thought experiment, seems that everybody wants to just get super super rich, by your mansion, just have a bunch of people maintain your property for you, maybe buy or get a house manager or property manager whatever… But eventually, you still have to manage the manager. Which is more work for you.

I read from NASSIM TALEB that one piece of advice that he got from another successful guy he met was this: don’t have a personal assistant. Why? Even if you had the world‘s best personal assistant, they might be really really good at organizing your schedule, slotting in appointments for you or meetings or whatever, but still the big downside here is I think if you have a personal assistant, eventually you will end up creating more work for you; Let us assume that you work eight hours a day, and you have 850 minute timeslots. An assistant might help you perfectly slot in all eight individuals to meet you on the given day.

However, the true desired path and outcome is to not have any meetings at all; so having a personal assistant might sucker you into doing these boring and waste of time meetings, which could otherwise be better spent just hanging out and playing with your kid instead!

Real men have children

Are you watching the movie 300, there is a scene in which King Leonidas is about to march off with his valiant 300, and before he marches them off to battle, essentially foreshadowing their death, he made sure that each of them had at least one son to carry on the lineage and the families name.

This is interesting because the general thought of bloodline;

It doesn’t matter if I die, as long as I have a son to carry on the family bloodline and lineage, it is OK! 

I suppose this is why it is such a big deal for families to have at least one male heir;  or the strong desire for a man or a father to get at least one son.

I’ve always wanted two kids as a kid, an older son, a younger sister. Very similar to how I have a younger sister who is two years younger than me.

If you’re man,  and you get a child, and your first child is a man, a boy or a son… Consider yourself infinitely blessed. After this, life is all upside no downside.

Then after this, certainly you could choose to have more kids, if you desire. If you desire not have any more kids, it’s still seems that you are solid, assuming that your kid does not tragically get hit by an intoxicated driver — either drunk or high while driving. Or running red lights or speeding like crazy.

In fact, spending more more time living in Los Angeles, and seeing some of these insane drivers, I’m almost tempted to get a job, a part-time job as California highway police, in order to deliver justice to these insane drivers. Why? One crazy driver could mean the potential death of your child.

Maybe time for me to become vigilante justice warrior– Batman style!

Smoking?

A random unrelated note, in the context of smoking.

First, I have zero respect for anyone who smoke cigarettes. I have an insanely strong aversion to cigarettes smoke and smoking, because my father was a chronic and horrific smoker, I hate the smell smell like the devil.

Now special with Seneca, when we are out walking in public, the problem is if somebody is smoking on some sort of street corner, and they happen to be upwind or downwind or whatever… Even if that person is 50 m away, that horrific cigarettes smoke will blow down to you and your kid.

One recent proud thing that I stood up was when I was in Santa Monica, Ocean Park, playing at a beachfront playground with Seneca, and there was a random asshole maybe 100 m away smoking a cigarette. I could instantly smell the smoke, and even though he was far away, the smoke was directly blowing into me and Seneca in the playground, and technically we are trapped.

I then yelled at the guy, for him to smoke somewhere else. He then looked at me disgruntled, slowly walked away, and then started to me mugged me, I stared at him back, waiting until he moved very very far away. True balls.

Another case when I was in Vietnam with Seneca and Cindy, and this is one Seneca was super small, and we were all stuck under a canopy when  a random downpour started hitting us. And then suddenly there was a random middle-age guy who randomly lit up a cigarette and started smoking, giving secondhand smoke to all 40 of us trapped inside the canopy. I then said in Vietnamese for him to please not smoke because my kid was there. He was shocked, put out the cigarette, and looked back curiously at me… I was the hero of the day.

Now, even when I’m walking on the street with Seneca, and there is a random person smoking on the street corner… In a public or a semi-public space, I almost wonder if I’m going to start being the asshole and telling people to not smoke there. Or to not smoke in public.

“No smoking in public!”

Or

“Don’t smoke in public!”

I’m just gonna pretend like I’m an undercover cop, or some sort of law enforcement individual. 

I was randomly studying the laws of smoking in public, and it seems to be grey. Here, maybe studying laws not useful; but rather, some sort of bottom up ethics. 

if you want to smoke cigarettes, smoke yourself in an enclosed home or space or car, give yourself lung cancer, don’t pollute my air.

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Other thoughts

 I think irregardless of what your opinion is about space, look at the space camp, the star ship SpaceX camp they have in Texas, a whole thriving micro economy in space within that tiny plot of land. Very inspirational!

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Now what?

The other day I did a lot of driving, it totally sapped my energy.

Let us not be fools– our energy, our lifeforce energy and physiological energy is limited. Every 20 minutes or 30 minutes you spend driving on the road is draining your metaphorical life force energy battery. Maybe we should start getting “energy anxiety“ about potential things which can drain our life force energy battery.

My simple thought about living the best possible life in LA:

Never drive more than five minutes a day!

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Range anxiety

Let us say that you have a Tesla, or some sort of electric vehicle, and you start off the day with only a limited amount of battery in your car, and let us say that the rule is during the middle of the day you cannot recharge your car at a supercharger or whatever. if that were the case, wouldn’t you more conserve your life force energy?

They taking that analogy to your physiological energy. You start off the day with 100% battery energy charge, but as you proceeded through the days activities, drive or sitting in a car, it depletes your life force energy.

Then, the goal is to only direct your energy towards things you truly care for, and whenever you do decide to do something, realize that you’re sacrificing a zero sum energy source to accomplish your certain tasks or goals in a certain day.

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Now what?

First thought is then I think the way we should think about money is that money is essentially Lifeforce energy.

Let us consider, earning money, earning income, building up money, accumulating money is very very difficult. Essentially it comes down to your own labor life force; in whether you do physically demanding physical labor, or mentally intensive labor. It is all labor, and typically, any sort of labor in which you get paid, a paycheck, a salary or whatever… You are essentially trading your own physiological Lifeforce energy into obtaining income money.

Let it say you sacrifice 10 years of your life working really really hard, traveling the world, dealing with Jetlag, putting a lot of great energy effort to provide some sort of service or something. And then you accumulate $1 million.

I think for anybody who has ever had to really really work really really hard for their own money, you will not squander your money. Why? Because you know how hard it was to earn it! This is typically why when people gain an inheritance, or win the lottery or somehow get free money, the typically below it foolishly Because they don’t know how hard it was to earn that money.

Also this is why trust fund kids become so degenerate because they never had to work hard for the money, the trust fund etc.

So what should you do instead?

 first, you don’t have a trust fund and you don’t promise a trust fund to your kid. Irregardless of how rich you are.

Rather, you are directly involved in the life of your old kid, and if your kid grows up and has some sort of entrepreneurial business idea, then you use intelligence to use your hard earned money to invest in that thing.

For example, something that I learned from taking out a student loan, I think what else I used to say undergraduate, I took out a five or a $10,000 loan, and it was insane how quickly I blew through the money. I was shocked. And I was only maybe 20 years old?

Truth be told, I think I only really became lies about money once I had a kid. So if I were to leave my inheritance to Seneca, the role is he only could unlock that inheritance once he has a kid?

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so what is the purpose of money?

I think a very very simple one it’s too essentially have a war chest, to give yourself buffer, in order not to work. 

For example, the proper use of money is to have enough money that you don’t have to work, and spend maximum time with your kid.

For example, let us say that you are a billionaire, the fullest strategy is to pay somebody else might need to take care of your kid, while you go off and you try to earn more money, which is a foolish trade. What do you do instead it is just chill with your billion dollars, and just direct 100% of your life force energy to your kid!

True success?

True success I think is being able to take your kid to the public library in the middle of a workday! Other day I was so blessed that I was able to take Seneca to the Chinatown Public library at 10 AM, for him to watch a Korean drumming event, I looked around the room, no dads, maybe a handful of moms. Just me.

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no shame

Some thoughts–

Don’t drain your energy

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

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

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

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

Social energy, money and monetary energy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Curating your energy

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

It comes down to a simple filter:

Do you really care for this person or not? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Money is solidified care energy

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

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

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

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

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

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How time is more valuable of a present than money

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monetary energy

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

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

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

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

Your time horizon?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

Check me out!

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

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Leg Thoughts

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

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

Strong legs, strong soul?

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“Check out the legs on that one!”

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

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

Looking at their legs

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

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

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

Yoga leggings vs biking shorts?

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

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

The happiest people are the ones doing beach volleyball?

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

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

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

Economy car

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

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

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

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

Growing your money

Double your money and make it stack!

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

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

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

Don’t blow your load 


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

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

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

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

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

***

Work from home or work from beach?

***

Legs

Leg Leverage

Your Legs Run the World

Everyday is Leg Day

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

***

Your legs are the ultimate lever and leverage

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

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

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

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

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

Chest?

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

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

Posture

Becoming sexier —

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

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

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

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

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

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

No more focus on sexiness?

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

Why I prefer Los Angeles

“I’m sexy and I know it”

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

Why does sexiness matter?

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

Are kids recession-proof?

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

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

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

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

---

Why the Privilege is Your Legs

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

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

Taiko drumming?

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

---

Weightlifting for your upper body that also uses leg drive?

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

Don’t be the cripple in the Rolls Royce

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

Consumerism is all about sacrificing your legs?

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

For example, sofas couches, chairs?

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

---

The best fitness

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

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

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

---

Generate new things

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

Why your legs?

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

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

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

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

---

Legs

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

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

“Are you healthy?”

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

---

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

Don’t be the cripple in the Rolls Royce:

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

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

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

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

---

Bitcoin & emotions

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

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

The signal and the noise

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day to day?

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

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

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

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

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

---

Who skips leg day? Not Batman!

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

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

ERIC

---

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

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

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

We real men glorify our legs!

---

Clothes

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

Why rent control is good for us

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

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

$20 an hour to work at McDonald’s?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So who will win?

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

Paying your taxes in Bitcoin?

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

---

What next?

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

The future of media?

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

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

---

What next?

Travel! Some good places I recommend:

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

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

---

EK WORKSHOPS

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

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

EK WORKSHOPS

---

Leg exercise ideas?

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

Anti bikes?

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

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

---

What else?

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

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

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

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

Competition fitness muscles without the steroids?

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

We got to make the yoke walk cool again.

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

---

The best shoes for photographers, travelers and street photographers

Zero drop, barefoot… Vibram 5 finger shoes.

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

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

---

How to improve your photography

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

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

---

Now what?

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

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

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

Go on a walk, go on a hike!

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

WALK ON!

ERIC

---

The Ultimate Privilege is Your Legs

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

Generate new things

**

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

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

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

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

“Are you healthy?”

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

A cripple in a Rolls-Royce?

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

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

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

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

---

Bitcoin & emotions

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

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

The signal and the noise

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day to day?

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

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

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

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

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

---

Who skips leg day? Not Batman!

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

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

ERIC

---

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

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

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

We real men glorify our legs!

---

Clothes

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

Why rent control is good for us

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

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

$20 an hour to work at McDonald’s?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So who will win?

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

Paying your taxes in Bitcoin?

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

---

What next?

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

The future of media?

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

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

---

What next?

Travel! Some good places I recommend:

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

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

---

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

Hoarding? 

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

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

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

New unlimited ethics

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

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

“Respect” for the past?

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

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

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

Climate change 

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

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

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

Economic Principles

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

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

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

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

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

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

But my simple thought:

Any sort of “crossover” is bad. 

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

Length

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

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

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

---

Maximum utility?

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

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

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

Pick up truck or nothing 

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

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

911 or nothing 

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

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

The aesthetics and the ethos is supreme.

No loser 718

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

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

Stick or nothing

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

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

Some skill?

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

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

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

---

Why do we want it to do all the things? 

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

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

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

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

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

---

A peer to peer future

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

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

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

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

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

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

Craigslist is now bitcoin and crypto friendly

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

So here, peer to peer is great. 

Buying homes with bitcoin

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

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

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

And then also… maybe same thing with bitcoin. 

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

***

Just in time economics

Do you need it right now or not? 

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

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

Prius until I die

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

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

“Nice to have” vs critical

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

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

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

---

Extreme Economy

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

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

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

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

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

Don’t be tied to past numbers

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

---

Arbitrary goals?

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

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

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

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

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

---

Future economics?

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

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

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

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

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

Charge money for human things

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

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

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

“Please watch my show or film!”

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

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

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

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

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

---

Now what?

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

ERIC

---

 

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

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

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

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

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

Nuances

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

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

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

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

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

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

Double your money and make it stack!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why do we seek dominance?

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

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

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

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

The opposite of death

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

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

How I lost faith in fiat currency 

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

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

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Numbers vs health?

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

so what should we do about this?

I think this is where philosophy becomes interesting —

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

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

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

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

The modern day Arena

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

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

New ways of thinking of the world

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

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

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

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Your “net worth”?

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

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

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

“Success”?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The best schedule?

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

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

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

Laser eyes!

My new motto is laser eyes, from Michael Saylor.

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

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

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

Time with your kids 

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

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

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

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

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Attention

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

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

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Now what?

Nihil admirari (admire no man)

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

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

Time and money

It is not just time and money but health.

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

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

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Be humble?

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

ERIC

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