Why is it that people prefer to buy a Lamborghini or Ferrari over a Shelby Cobra? 

Simple heuristic:

Don’t trust nobody who owns, or bought a foreign car; this includes BMW, Mercedes, Audi, AMG, Lamborghini Volkswagen, Ferrari, Land Rover, Range Rover, anything produced by the Volkswagen group or Tata group, Porsche, etc.

The funny thing is it seems in today’s world, having a Toyota or a Honda is almost like having an American car?

Simple rule:

If you want to be a true American, if you want a sports utility SUV car, just by a Ford Explorer ST, which is essentially a cop car. 

If you want some sort of sports muscle car, ultimate flex… Buy some sort of Ford Mustang Shelby Cobra car, or even… the Ford GT. I think Brad Pitt owns one.

Anti-American sentiment?

In America, if you only care about money, I don’t think you’re a true American. What does a real American care for? Diversity, access, democracy, egalitarian values, and meritocracy which means the goods you are delivered is based on merit, hierarchy and ranking.

The diversity myth? 

Apparently when Peter Thiel was an undergraduate in college he wrote a book called The Diversity Myth… I think he wrote it when he was at Stanford as an undergraduate, something about how too much focus on diversity is bad. I haven’t read the book, but I think what it means is that trying to do things like affirmative action in his eyes is bad.

My personal thought is it is obvious; obviously if you have a kid from the hood, a kid from Compton, certainly his or her GPA or SAT score is not going to be as good as a kid who went to some sort of elite private school in Beverly Hills. Therefore there needs to be dynamic weighing here.

For example, if you’re the Valevictorian or the top #1 student in a ghetto school… your application to college should be weighed higher than a kid who went to an elite private school, who is only the top 100.

Therefore it isn’t necessarily “affirmative action”, but rather, wisdom in evaluating someone’s social economic status as part of their application.

Diversity should not be forced

Certainly diversity is good, but it is not good when you try to force it.

For example, trying to force more gender equality or racial equality when it isn’t really warranted seems like a bad idea.

This is where the philosophical thing matters; we must ask ourselves and consider… does it really even matter in the first place? If so, why?

Guns?

Being an American or a true American has nothing to do with gun ownership. I’m not anti-guns per se; I did Boy Scouts and shot a rifle and a shotgun, got both my merit badges and also an archery merit badge when I was a high schooler.

I think the strange notion is that somehow… if you own a gun, or have a gun somewhere at home or whatever… it makes you more manly? (It does not).

Jewish people are super wise

I wonder… Is it that people hate Jewish people because they’re so smart wise and good with money?

Also, I don’t really trust any Christians, or God-fearing people especially in the news and mainstream media, even underground media etc.

For example, I really enjoyed the Kanye interview on info wars, but the guy who hosts the show… seems like a strange guy. Anybody who takes the Bible literally is not to be trusted.

How did Jewish people become so successful? Simple: they make money don’t spend it.

Also, I think Jewish people, that is consider how much trials and tribulations and anti-Jewish sentiment and bad things happened to them throughout their whole existence. If they were able to survive it all, probably a good sign.

America is more Jewish than you think 

One of the funniest things that my friend Daniel Schaeffer told me he was… “I’m Jew…ish”.

I might be wrong here, but I think that there is a huge list of really really famous and influential Jewish people in America, which include I think, Gal Gadot, Joseph Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David etc.

Also, Steven Spielberg, Kirk Douglas (changed his last name to blend into Hollywood), a lot of really famous people in Hollywood.

Also I think John Stewart, he changed his last name.

I think a simple strategy what you could do is just Google it, famous Jewish people who changed their last names or famous Jewish people in the media.

I think even Lenny Kravitz is Jewish?

Apparently there is “Jewish” sounding last names, anything related to Gold or Goldsmith, because a lot of Jewish people were once gold merchants back in the day, or anything with “itzh” or “Horowitz” etc… “itz”. Ben Horowitz.

Also a lot of really mainstream American words are actually Yiddish! For example, “chutzpah”, “schlep”, “schmuck”, etc. 

I didn’t know… But my friend Janae told me “I’m such a bad Jewish American, I had no idea that Seinfeld was a TV show about Jewish American culture”. I then responded, in shock, “It is??”

It doesn’t really matter

I have a theory that everyone is looking for some sort of scapegoat. My personal thought on why people believe in conspiracy theories is because nobody likes to think that they themselves are the cause of their own pain suffering etc., and they think of it like some sort of virtuous task and duty to uncover all the “evils” or “injustices” in the world.

For example, I’ve actually met a lot of Palestinian Americans who fall victim to conspiracy theories. Why? To psychoanalyze; they have been seriously fucked over. Even the whole conflict right now in the Gaza Strip, it really does seem that the Palestinians are the victims here. Israel, funded by the American government in military, America is really the bad guy here. 

Even China; China is not a threat. When I was in Phnom Penh Cambodia, I would keep reading these newspapers on how mainland China would complain that they only have one military base somewhere in Africa, whereas America has thousands. As long as Americas military powder is 1000X that of everyone else in the world, America is fine. 

Even Russia, not a threat. I think people just like to paint Putin as the devil, because once again, people like having some sort of devil figure, some sort of Adolf Hitler to see as the enemy.

Ideas?

In South Korea if you’re a man, you’re required to have at least 2-3 years of military duty. I think it’s a good idea if America did the same. Or if they instituted more ROTC programs in high school, optional.

And also, I think having some sort of part-time army reserve officer military training programs for normal civilians like myself is a good idea. Even my friend Andrew, became a part-time naval officer, more for pride. Harvard undergraduate graduate, professor now.

Apparently Westpoint is a really good institution. Maybe if Seneca gets a full ride there I will send him there. 

So what?

I think people are actually low-key praying and wishing for some sort of global armageddon. Why? Once again, a lot of people who are miserable in life want to see the world go into shambles. 

I am highly dubious of a World War III, or some sort of true international military demise. Why? Rich mainland Chinese oligarchs don’t want nobody to take their Rolls-Royce, or their mansions in Vancouver Canada.

Also, Americans like their consumerism, and capitalism.

Whether America likes it or not, it seems that they are in bed with China. As long as Apple still produces iPhones in China, ultimately… economically we will not see any real antagonism between both countries.

Economics is the new world religion

Money, capital, economics is the new world religion. Everybody globally… the only thing that people seem to really care for is to continue to self richen themselves. 

As a consequence, I think we will see a decline in military intervention and deaths, and other bad world issues.

People want to see the ones and zeros and commas increase in their bank account, not more deaths and casualties.

So what should we really be concerned about?

Simple things: 

1. Pollution: nobody wants to be a billionaire in Beijing or Shanghai, the pollution and the air there is so toxic.
2. Health diet and fitness: this trend towards “plant based” diets is a bad one, all this vegan nonsense is bad for the planet. Maybe more sustainable animal, beef or lamb production is a good idea. For example at Erwhon I discovered this new “ancestral blend“ ground beef which is made with 100% grass fed ground beef, and beef liver and heart actually grinded it in; it is the new only thing that I’m feeding Seneca, it is his natural steroids. Let us not forget that organ meets, beef liver is a natural steroid, the more cholesterol you consume, the stronger you will become and the more testosterone will go up. So a novel thought; addressing the issue of food waste, particularly with beef kettle and cows in America; consume more of the scrap meat. Beef tongue, heart, head, liver, intestine etc.
3. Media? My personal belief is that the real bad guys here is the media and advertising corporations; let us not forget that Google is an advertising company. Same thing goes with Facebook. And let us not forget that Google owns YouTube, and Facebook also owns Instagram. The reason why online advertising companies are so bad is that media thrives on the sensational, anger, fear, and all of these base human emotions. My personal thought is a lot of racial antagonism is actually stirred up by the media which is run on advertising. For example, it seems that the new clickbait is anything to do with “anti-Semitic“, or “anti-Semitism“; both on the Jewish, African-American front, and mainstream media, a lot of which is run by Jewish families. The more people who click “anti-Semitic” new stories and see more Google AdSense advertisements, the more money that Google makes. Also Facebook, Instagram, the more sensational things are posted, the higher the advertising revenue for them. 

Why I am uncancellable

I am already independently rich and wealthy from my savings and cryptocurrency, and I also live like a poor person, which means that I’m making more money than I could spend it. Because I don’t even like spending money in the first place.

In fact, besides myself and maybe NASSIM TALEB… I don’t think I really know any other free thinkers? Everyone is either hooked to some sort of algorithm, social media platform, YouTube… or podcast… no freedom. This is where I don’t really put any trust in anything that Tim Ferriss says, or even Joe Rogan, because they are run by advertisers.

Who not to trust? Anybody and everybody on YouTube, or has any sort of podcast which is supported by advertisers.

So how can you make money?

Maybe it is a good idea to make money elsewhere, for example, I think I’ve made more money in cryptocurrency speculation than I have in my whole decade plus of teaching photography workshops.

Also selling products is a good idea  because… especially if it is your own products, have more faith and leather than information. HAPTIC INDUSTRIES — in the world of AI and artificial information, having physical leather products is a good idea because it will outlast you. HENRI x ERIC KIM STRAPS.

ART?

Ultimately after you’ve made your trillions of dollars, what is it that people really care for? Art.

How many Jackson Pollocks, Basqiats, or Picassos do you own? 

Art collection

It is wise to understand a Ferrari as an art object, not as a car. Just go to the Peterson automotive museum and go into the vault; these cars are art objects.

Art is the main disruptor here; this is where I am so into AI art. Maybe I will do some AI art workshops in the near future.

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Now what?

Trust to ChatGPT more than you trust Google or weird Internet conspiracy website forums. Also, delete Reddit and stop using Reddit; I legit think it is the worst thing for humanity, perhaps even worse than pornography.

Quit reddit, not porn.

In fact, maybe it is best to just think about pornography like entertainment. Men who watch sports, drink alcohol or smoke weed, without having actually ever played the sport, sports is like some sort of domestication of the modern day human, a modern day pornography for men. At least sexual pornography is a positive motivator, drinking beer, eating french fries and watching football if you have never played football yourself in real life… seems worse.

Even basketball; my simple heuristic is if you decide to watch basketball, maybe one should play real life basketball at least once a week.

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Assignments

1. Start your own blog. Ionos.com or bluehost.com and install WordPress.org
2. Subscribe to ChatGPT plus, start creating your own AI generated art via DALL-E 3. Post on your own blog or arsbeta.com — I want ARS to also be a home for not just photos, but AI generated art. 
3. Make your own ChatGPT bot, once you have subscribed to the premium model. For example, I re-created the Y app on ChatGPT, it is great. 
4. Fitness: Buy weightlifting equipment on titan.fitness– and start lifting weights in your own parking lot garage. I recently picked up the Titan fitness Farmer’s carry handles, I like them, and also maybe the best 500 bucks I’ve ever spent in my life was the Texas power bar squat bar, my most prized possession.  Lift weights every day at least once, maybe even twice a day; the side of doing it in your own backyard, your own parking lot is that you will just save a lot of time. If you want ghetto squat rack or rack, just go to Home Depot and buy cinderblocks. I was able to stack three cinder blocks on top of one another, and I have been able to successfully rack pull over seven plates with it. 
5. Maybe dabble in crypto? Just get a Coinbase account, link it with your traditional bank, I think everyone should own at least one bitcoin. Personally I just swapped or traded or converted nine of my bitcoin into chainlink (20,800 chainlink)– my personal prediction is within the next three years to five years, it should be above $50 a link, maybe even 100 or 200 bucks a link. Currently speaking I am anti-Ethereum; it is just too complicated and complex. Then also now that they are offering Ethereum for enterprise… A bad sign. Also try bitcoin babe.
6. Organ meats? Everyone says that eating meat, red meat is bad for the planet blah blah blah. But what about Oregon meats? Nobody really says anything bad about organ meats, beef liver, beef heart, beef intestine, beef kidney. As a fun experiment just try out 100% organ meat diet; the true demigod diet. Also bone marrow.  Just pick up Morgan meats at Whole Foods in the frozen freezer, they sell 100% grass fed frozen beef liver and beef heart and beef kidney there, even beef tongue. Or just go to the local Halal market, the local market and get it there.

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Now what?

EXPERIENCE EK– unlock your true potential.

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Experiments

1. Try to troll AI and ChatGPT for; once you get the paid version, see how far you could push it until you invoke some sort of content moderation issue,
2. Have ChatGPT disprove some sort of strange conspiracy theories. In fact, I think the biggest benefit of ChatGPT is that it doesn’t get suckered by conspiracy theories.
3. Actually, ChatGPT is pretty factual. For example, just ask whether George Floyd was in a pornography film (he was). ChatGPT answers truthfully. 

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Now what?

Going on a hike. Leave your phone in the car and just enjoy a nice walking nature, just walk slowly. Do it in vibram five finger shoes or even barefoot. 

Order some weight lifting equipment on titan.fitness and have fun at home.

FaceTime loved one. The best gift to give somebody is just a simple phone call!

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What do you want for Christmas this year?

1. Ask somebody to gift you a gym membership, or even a yoga, CorePower membership. Investing in your health is perhaps the best thing you could do as a gift.
2. In terms of gyms, I really like crunch fitness, LA fitness is OK, or whatever commercial gym is close by. Even golds gym is good.
3. Costco gift cards; to buy more meat.
4. Ask somebody for airline fair; to go fly somewhere and travel somewhere for the holidays. 
5. Vibram 5 finger shoes
6. Texas power bar squat bar
7. 400 pound roguefitness.com sand bag
8. Money to purchase a website hosting domain
9. iPad Pro (small one)

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What else?

Infinite ideas on the ERIC KIM blog: Some new thoughts:


1. It is better to rent in an insanely great neighborhood and location then to even own a $5 million home in a good location
2. Physiology hack: take insanely hot baths at home, at the verge of boiling your skin. Very refreshing.
3. Drink robusta coffee, not arabica. Even Costco sells the Deathwish coffee now, which I assume is robusta coffee. Otherwise get ERIC KIM 100% fine robusta coffee. 
4. The best clothing to wear in winter is down, merino wool, cashmere. Layer up!
5. Milo of croton ate 20 pounds of meat a day, let us use that as our benchmark.
6. A life goal: read the Iliad by Homer front to back. Just download free PDFs online, and keep looking for a good translation until you find one that you like.

Book list

1. Invent and wander by Jeff Bezos
2. Zero to one by Peter Thiel 
3. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, also the new Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson 
4. Going Infinite – Michael Lewis. Also flash boys.

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START HERE

1. Books
2. Products
3. Downloads

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Forward the thoughts

If this part even one interesting thought within you, feel free to forward to a friend!

ERIC KIM NEWS >

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#savemoney collective

The new life goal should be to save money, not to waste it.

Instead of wasting money, better to use that money towards buying meat at Costco, weightlifting equipment, plates and bars and barbell, iron etc. Physical fitness is the ultimate luxury.

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Stay lit!

ERIC KIM BLOG

***

Men… typically 10-50 pg/mL

For women —

Beginning of menstrual cycle, Follicular phase … 30-120 pg/mL… ovulation peak 130-370pg/mL, post-menopause 10-20.

For women estrogen 10x to 30x higher in theory!

Male vs female testosterone

Men: 300-1,000 ng/dL … vs female (15-70 ng/dL)

Numerical differences

The numerical differences in estrogen and testosterone levels between males and females are quite marked, and they reflect the distinct physiological roles these hormones play in each sex. Here are the typical ranges:

Estrogen (Measured in Picograms per Milliliter – pg/mL)

1. Females:

• Estradiol (the primary form of estrogen):
  • Follicular phase (beginning of menstrual cycle): about 30-120 pg/mL
  • Ovulation peak: approximately 130-370 pg/mL
  • Luteal phase (post-ovulation): roughly 70-250 pg/mL
  • Postmenopause: generally <10-20 pg/mL

1. Males:

• Estradiol: typically ranges from 10-50 pg/mL

Testosterone (Measured in Nanograms per Deciliter – ng/dL)

1. Males:

• Total testosterone: generally about 300-1,000 ng/dL
• Free testosterone (the portion not bound to proteins): around 5-21 ng/dL

1. Females:

• Total testosterone: typically ranges from 15-70 ng/dL
• Free testosterone: usually about 0.7-3.6 ng/dL

Interpretation

• These values can vary based on the individual, the time of day (hormone levels can fluctuate), age, and health status.
• In females, estrogen levels are particularly dynamic and change throughout the menstrual cycle.
• In males, testosterone levels generally decline with age, but this decline is usually gradual.
• Hormone levels are influenced by various factors including genetics, lifestyle, body composition, and overall health.
• It’s important to note that hormone levels are just one part of a complex physiological picture. Levels that are outside the typical range don’t automatically indicate a problem but might prompt further medical evaluation.

Estrogen, a key hormone in the human body, plays a vital role in both female and male physiology, although it is more prominent in females. Its functions and effects are diverse:

1. Reproductive Health: In females, estrogen is crucial for the development and functioning of the reproductive system. It regulates the menstrual cycle, prepares the uterus for pregnancy, and supports the development of secondary sexual characteristics such as breast growth.
2. Bone Health: Estrogen helps maintain bone density. It plays a role in the bone remodeling process, helping to prevent bone loss. This is why the risk of osteoporosis increases in women after menopause when estrogen levels decline.
3. Cardiovascular Health: Estrogen has a protective effect on heart health. It helps maintain the flexibility of blood vessels, ensuring proper blood flow, and also influences cholesterol levels, promoting a higher level of HDL (good cholesterol) and a lower level of LDL (bad cholesterol).
4. Mood and Brain Health: Estrogen can impact mood and cognitive function. It’s thought to have a protective effect on brain health and may be linked to mood stabilization. Changes in estrogen levels can affect neurotransmitters in the brain and are associated with mood swings or depression in some cases.
5. Skin and Hair: Estrogen contributes to skin health by increasing skin thickness and improving moisture levels and elasticity. It also impacts hair growth, influencing hair texture and density.
6. Metabolism: Estrogen affects body composition and metabolism. It influences how the body stores fat and can affect appetite and energy expenditure.
7. Sexual Function: In females, estrogen is important for vaginal health, maintaining the lining of the vagina and vaginal lubrication. It also plays a role in sexual desire, although this is complex and influenced by multiple factors.
8. Development During Puberty: In females, estrogen is crucial for the changes that occur during puberty, including breast development, the growth of the uterus, and the onset of menstrual cycles.
9. Menopause Management: In postmenopausal women, estrogen therapy is often used to manage symptoms of menopause such as hot flashes, vaginal dryness, and mood swings, as well as to prevent osteoporosis.

In males, estrogen is present in smaller amounts and is important for sexual function and bone health. It’s a common misconception that estrogen only affects females; in reality, it plays several important roles in male physiology as well.

The balance of estrogen with other hormones, such as progesterone in females and testosterone in males, is crucial for overall health. Imbalances can lead to various health issues.

To infinity and beyond!

Book review of Going Infinite, and also some thoughts on walking:

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Book Review: Going Infinite by Michael Lewis, the Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, the Story of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX and Alameda Research

So I just finished going infinite by Michael Lewis, highly recommended read. Why? Very very fun read, and also… Fascinating insight into the world of crypto, money, currency, Fiat currency etc.

Quick summary:

1. Sam Bankman Fried isn’t the evil villain everyone wants to paint him as. He is just like an extremely uber genius math prodigy whiz kid, who has zero concern for social norms.
2. Perhaps the real culprit here are the effective altruists (“effective altruism”— bad), these new tech money elites, who follow utilitarianism, who want to find a reason to “save the planet”, and I think… they actually want to see humanity destroy itself, in order to go to Mars or whatever.
3. This whole trend of creating your own cryptocurrency or token is a bad idea. FTT, which was the token for FTX, was probably the biggest critical downfall of ftx.com. You should never hedge your finances on imaginary token.
4. Money is fake
5. CZ, the CEO of binance, seems like kind of a strange character. Once again he isn’t evil either… but, it seems that petty rivalries and feuds often escalate into some sort of market downsides.
6. Apparently from what I understand, besides all of the bad behavior, ftx.com was actually a good trading platform. It allowed novice traders to trade, and also more advanced quants to trade as well. Apparently it was very cutting edge at the time, offering advanced treating tools for experts.
7. Alameda research, which actually was in existence before ftx.com is the strange case. Essentially it was the place where money was being funneled into, which may be turned out to use customer funds to fundraise strange effective altruist campaigns. For example, Sam Bankman Fried essentially had an unlimited US dollar bank account, to throw money at any sort of celebrity endorsement, which includes Tom Brady and Stephen Curry, And also, throwing vast sums of money at political candidates running for office, to essentially ensure that Donald Trump did not get elected (he still did). I believe that Joe Biden and his campaign was given over $100 million from Sam Bankman Fried.

So what happened?

Some interesting things:

First, learning about Jane Street, one of the high frequency trading firms, a bunch of quant, quantitative folks, doing some sort of hedging, maybe dynamic hedging as Nassim Taleb calls it — essentially a lot of the trading world is automated by algorithms, and bots. Jane street recent news.

It also seems that a lot of this is run by people who are highly mathematically trained, people who are essentially mathematical thinkers.

Maybe this is where math is interesting; it isn’t math for math, but instead, the purpose of math is to think more critically, and to also think quicker.

So what happened?

I think essentially what happened was all of the customer accounts of ftx.com were funneled into Alameda research, which then either directly or indirectly went to Sam’s discretionary spending fund on political matters, building infrastructure for the headquarters in the Bahamas etc.

Also, the demise and downfall of ftx.com was that it relied too much on hedging; essentially let us say that $10 billion worth of US dollars worth of crypto was in the platform, customer money… and let us assume that at once, 100% of the customers would want to pull their money. This would not be possible because at one point a time, ftx.com might only have a total of 10% of the customer funds.

I think this is actually what happens similarly in traditional banks as well. A bank never has all the customer money, they essentially use your money as leverage to speculate elsewhere.

Also this is where I’m starting to get more skeptical of traditional IRAs, 401(k) plans, Roth IRA etc.; once again, certain companies and corporations in the US government are trying to leverage your money right now to make a profit on something, while you have to sit there and just twiddle your thumbs.

Now what?

It seems that I think, the best trading platform is Coinbase. I see it like it is the PayPal, the new PayPal for crypto.

Also, I am not really like a crypto anarchist; I like the government, I like being able to transfer it into my normal American Bank account, and I like the idea that if I wanted to, I could easily convert it into US dollars. Of course it all comes with the fee; but that fee is nominal for the convenience and the practicality of things.

I recently converted 90% of my bitcoin into chainlink, and one of the driving factors is what if chainlink becomes like the next SWIFT for international banks? This would help a lot of the global finance industry.

For example, my mom currently lives in South Korea, and having to transfer money from my US Bank account to her South Korean bank account and vice versa was a major pain in the ass. Having to literally go to a bank teller in real life and having to sign all these paper forms was insanely cumbersome annoying and time-consuming. It should all be able to be done digitally, in terms of cryptographic truth.

Also, another subtle funny thing; a lot of hourly wage service workers have to punch in punch out, but… it seems difficult to know for 100% certain or not if they actually truly showed up for work or not. Maybe chainlink could solve that.

Useful tools?

I still love bitcoin and I think bitcoin is sexy, and I think that everybody should own at least one bitcoin, just in case it goes to $10 million a bitcoin or who knows even $100 million a bitcoin by the time that we are about to die.

Also, I think everything in crypto should be done in the spirit that literally it could all go to zero. It probably won’t, but it might go down to just one percent of the value what it was worth before. For example I was able to ride digibyte from 20 cents a dgb to maybe 50 cents a digibyte, in which I literally traded to chainlink, and then converted it all back into bitcoin. But now, digibyte in now in shambles, worth less than a penny.

The reason I like chainlink is that it actually does something useful. To create a technology which actually does something is a good idea. Bitcoin is great, but ultimately I think of bitcoin more like digital electronic gold. Most people never spend their gold, they just hoard it.

Data price feeds?

Data.chain.link

A very useful technology and service that chainlink provides is giving you an accurate price of certain cryptocurrency assets. For example, if you really wanted to precisely know the price of one bitcoin pegged to the US dollar, down to the cent… who do you trust? Because some platforms give you slightly different numbers. Ultimately we want ultimate truth, the most accurate number. Chainlink will offer that.

The reason why this is critical is that one thing I learned from going infinite and flash boys… literally even a quarter of a penny, if leveraged and hedged with trillions of dollars can make a fat profit. These really really big firms will want accuracy of crypto prices down to even a fraction of a penny.

Illuminati influences

So one character I find very interesting is Eric Schmidt, the ex CEO of Google. He made Google to become the Google it is today. Apparently one of the things he said, a strategy that he had when see you at Google was genius; “We made sure to put a little bit of Google into everything”. YouTube video.

Quite genius. I think nowadays almost every single product tracking thing is somehow connected to google analytics and Google Adsense somewhere. Even when you Google something and open up the hyperlink and click it, there is this long ugly URL with a bunch of Google tracking code in it.

Also I find Eric Schmidt interesting because he was mentioned in the going infinite book. Even apparently ERIC Schmidt I think… ran for Senate or something, it might hold a board seat somewhere?

Now this is the killer: Eric Schmidt joined chainlink as part of their board of trustees. This is good news for chainlink, because then what it means is that I think… ERIC Schmidt, probably owns a substantial number of chainlink in his own personal account, and now that he has political power, he will most likely use his political power to enrich himself. Therefore as a consequence, if you own chainlink, it is a good promise that ERIC Schmidt is probably behind the scenes, helping you become richer.

Also

I took some screenshots, but essentially all the rich people are banding together to become richer together. Apparently there’s lots of private parties in which Jeff Bezos shows up, a few of the Kardashians, etc.

I find this interesting not from a conspiracy theory perspective, but essentially the elite are essentially giving each other back rubs, maybe wealth is just a huge circle jerk.

Michael Lewis for the win

I love Michael Lewis for his candor, his humor, his offkilter humor. And also would I like by Michael Lewis now because he is so successful, I think he’s just really writing these books out of self interest and fun. You could tell that he is actually legitimately interested in the life of Sam Bankman-Fried, expensively interviewing his parents, his friends etc.

You cannot fake passion and enthusiasm and fun. It is a hugely entertaining read and insightful. Highly recommend.

ERIC

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So now what?

Walk more, think less.

I think one of the really big critical issues here is that in modern day times, we spend too much time thinking, not enough time walking.

My vision is that the future, we are essentially going to be like elite homeless people. That the new tech trillionaires of the future, we will be like some sort of off the grid, Zen Stoic monks. We will be mostly shirtless, walking around 50 miles a day, aimlessly for fun, lifting weights here and there for fun, and not have access to a phone, and not be contactable.

We will bask in the sun, and we will only prefer to lift weights in the direct sun, topless.

We will be maximally friendly, courteous, fun. Like overgrown children. Yet we will also be insanely wise, intelligent critical and deep.

If you haven’t already, don’t be a cheapo and just subscribe to the ChatGPT plus. This is literally the ultimate life hack.

What to become?

Just become a street vlogger like ERIC KIM. Just walk around a lot, vlog any random thoughts on your mind and upload it to YouTube and your own blog. As long as you get more than two views, consider it successful!

Also, double dip; shoot photos and make photo art, and also use DALL-E, DALL-E 3 to make AI art! And simple; keep it all open source.

So what can money buy?

Money can buy you experiences, and also leather products.

The more I use HAPTIC PRODUCTS, the more I love it. For example this ERIC KIM PORTFOLIO CASE Cindy and I made and designed back in Saigon in 2017… I still use it every single day, and the beauty of it is that the more I use it, the more comfortable it becomes, the more it becomes.

This is ultimate wabi-sabi— the general idea with leather which I love is that it will last longer than you. You can hand it down to your kids!

You don’t buy a HAPTIC PRODUCT for yourself, you buy it for your future children (ripoff some watch, Rolex, AP ad I saw somewhere).

SHOP HAPTIC >

EXPERIENCE EK

All access to some of the most interesting thoughts on the planet.

ERIC KIM EXP >

Some more fun thoughts on walking:

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THINK LESS, WALK MORE.

A thought in modern day society: we think too much.

For example, some modern day ills include the fact that we wake up, we stay at home, work from home, never leave the apartment or the house all day, or even worse… we go to the office, stay in the office, don’t leave all day, eat lunch at our desk in front of our laptop or computer… even worse, if you’re hardcore you don’t leave the office for days weeks or even months… You just sleep in a beanbag next to your desk or in a sleeping bag under your desk.

Problems?

This is the big issue I’ve discovered:

I think what the modern day man or person strives to be is to become the ultimate productivity machine robot who doesn’t need anything. That somehow you could optimize yourself out of going outside, getting natural light by just popping some vitamin D tablets, don’t need to exercise, and if you exercise, the minimum amount of exercise necessary not to atrophy your body, Find no need of the sun, or no need to walk because it is “inefficient”.

In fact, I wonder if this whole bizarre trend of “running“, or “jogging“, is because people don’t think that walking is “effective”, or “efficient “. People are somehow trying to maximize their movement activity; they don’t think of walking as “exercise“, and somehow that it doesn’t “burn calories” (the calorie in, calorie out myth).

As a consequence, modern day man becomes strange. A strange plant. Lacking natural light and melanin in their skin, lacking ability to make iContact with people in embodied reality, and prefer to not interact with any humans. Thus the trend towards mobile orders etc.

Think ancient Greece

A lot of people like to think about ancient hunter gather lifestyles whatever… I prefer to think about ancient Greece, ancient Sparta. Before money was invented, and you could only measure your wealth by how many cattle you owned. Or how many men you governed.

For example, in the Iliad, I think it was Nestor who told Achilles that king Agamemnon was the superior man, because he commanded more men.

What are we striving for and looking for?

I think a lot of us are dealing with some sort of modern day pain suffering and discontent and we’re not really sure what to do about it. I think this is why we seek out “therapists”, see psychiatrists, get prescribed some sort of generic medication, etc. In fact, besides the extreme edge cases, I think medication should be avoided at all costs. I think when people are depressed, it is a physiological and physical depression. Not enough time outside walking, in the direct elements, in the direct sun, not enough exercise and lifting weights, over consumption of alcohol, caffeine, coffee, drugs, marijuana etc. I don’t think anything is wrong moralistically with marijuana… but I distrust anybody who consumes or takes or does marijuana on a daily basis. Marijuana does strange things to your mind.

I trust nobody who is woke, who tokes!

Also, if you’re reliant on marijuana to fall asleep at night, once again… not a good sign.

Back to ancient Sparta!

I think what we are having an issue with in modern day society is more of a moralistic and ethical one. The thought is we are born to be productive, and our self-worth and value is simply predicated on how productive we are, how much money we make, how much we increase our money number in our savings account, buying houses etc.

Therefore, anytime we are not actively doing that… we feel some sort of inner guilt, shame, and we lose respect for ourselves. We end up self-flagellation ourselves.

Don’t trust nobody on social media

Several things; first and foremost, any human being who uses Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc.… they’re hopped on a strange matrix simulation like dopamine machine. I think using social media and having notifications on your phone might actually be worse than gambling. At least gambling has to do more with money… social media has to do more with your self-respect, your self-esteem esteem.

“I’ve been awakened by an enlightened man’s dream… checking Instagram comments to crowd-source my self-esteem”— KANYE

Burn the boats!

Very simple. Just stop using social media, uninstall all of the apps from your phone, or just delete them.

For example, I think one of the most glorious moments of my life, one of the greatest things I have done in my life as a photographer and “influencer“, was deleting my Instagram in 2017. Why? Since then, I feel like I unhooked my brain from the matrix. I took the red pill. Anyone who still uses Instagram, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, YouTube, listens to podcasts, has Spotify, Netflix, etc. is still on the blue pill.

Why? The best way to have more interesting thoughts is via negativa— actively canceling out, or deleting, or getting rid of external stimuli in the spirit of books, blog posts, media, Reddit, the news, etc. In fact the big problem in today’s world is that we are almost like in a human centipede consumption of information use and media; one media outlet regurgitates and quotes the other one, which quotes the other one, which might’ve ultimately just been written by ChatGPT or some sort of AI bot. In fact I’ve been experimenting a lot with chatGPT4, the paid premium one, and what I’ve discovered is funny; even ChatGPT doesn’t know that it was written by ChatGPT.

For example, for fuzzies, I ChatGPT’d myself. I would open up ChatGPT 4, the premium paid one, and asked simple things like “who is ERIC KIM“? ChatGPT with then do an effective summary and overview of me my life story in my life loss etc., and then I just copied and pasted the information, and literally published a blog post on what ChatGPT said. I then later a few days later, ask ChatGPT “ERIC KIM philosophy“, and then once again, it re-summarized things and actually linked back to my blog giving me a citations and footnotes, but the funny thing was… the citations and footnotes gave me were actually the blog post written by ChatGPT itself!

Or another words, ChatGPT doesn’t know that I am ERIC KIM.

The thinker

To think is to sit on your butt and ruminate and think. No no no… to think is to walk. In fact maybe we should stop call it “thinking”, but just walking.

My personal thought is the noveau luxury is walking. If you have the privilege of having a 100% pedestrian lifestyle, 100% biped lifestyle, in which you’re just literally walking everywhere, without having to use the agency of a car, it is a sign that you are truly truly rich and wealthy. Secondly if you don’t always have to check your phone. Thirdly, if you could have all the notifications on your phone disabled.

How and why is walking so critical?

First without thinking about it too much… just think about this: if you walked 50 miles a day, I think 99.9% of your life cares concerns and worries would disappear. Especially if you do it in nature. With uneven surfaces, different grades and elevations, no two steps are alike.

One of the greatest things about being in nature, just going on a simple hike, is that sometimes it is steep, sometimes it is level, sometimes it is dirt, sometimes it is pavement, sometimes it is gravel, sometimes it is grass, etc. Having variation in the texture of the environment and the terrain is critical.

In modern day times, everything is flat. And everything is the same thing; typically just concrete.

I actually wonder and think, I wonder if a lot of the issues with modern day health and physiology has to do with the fact that everything is flat. I think the reason why we are bipeds is that as a biped, we are very very very good at traversing uneven terrain. In fact, one could even argue that human who is upright and biped could better navigate rocky and mountainous terrain compared to a four-legged animal.

Also the best thing you could buy with money is vibram five finger shoes. Just buy it for yourself for Christmas or ask somebody to buy for you.

We got to stop calling it “hiking”

One of the biggest issues I’ve discovered about the whole “hiking” notion is that people think too much that it has to be done a certain way. We think that somehow we have to buy those silly hiking poles, buy a hat, buy some hiking boots at REI or whatever, and wear all this expensive outdoor clothing.

Technically you could just do a barefoot, or… get some vibram five finger shoes, and just go on a fun walk!

Another weird thing I’ve discovered is we think we got to purchase the thing in order to somehow justify getting into a certain lifestyle. For example, we think we got to buy some sort of off-road four-wheel-drive car some sort of Subaru or jeep or sports utility SUV car in order to do “outdoorsy” stuff. This is silly. For a while Cindy and I work on hardcore hiking and camping stuff, and literally 99.99% maybe even 100% of the places we went to, we were able to simply do it in a simple four-door sedan, the Ford fusion which is just a normal sedan with a front wheel drive car.

I think this is the insidious nature of capitalism and consumerism; it makes you feel insecure and uncertain and unqualified, and we think that in order to do the thing that we want to do, we must buy the things in order to do it.

So now what?

I can’t speak for you or others. I think everyone has different talents, different skills, different desires.

First, I think having some sort of life dreams and goals is a good one. And striving with all your might to meet them and accomplish them and achieve them.

Then the next question is… then what? Should you just keep doing this into infinity? Ad infinitum?

Maybe not. Or maybe.

For example with weightlifting, a simple path is just to keep increasing your one rep max until the end of time. I don’t think this is a bad idea.

But also at the same time, you don’t need to be tied down to this either. Technically real life, reality is not metricated.

For example, if you think about the Iliad, Achilles, Hector, nobody could care less about “how much you can bench“. It was a simple binary; if you were in hand to hand battle with another fighter or warrior, would you kill him, or would he kill you? Who was the more courageous and superior and dominating force?

Also well interesting is that it seems that in the Iliad, nothing was really accidental or by chance. For example when warriors would go to battle, one warrior would not “accidentally“, get killed by the other warrior. It really did come down to courage, skill, power, who was the better fighter.

Even the final bout between Achilles and Hector; Hector was essentially hoodwinked and tricked… He was deceived into thinking that he had his charioteer, his trusted fighting buddy by his side to take on Achilles, because Hector was no dummy; he actually knew that Achilles was the superior fighter, and if you went head on with Achilles, he would lose. He was hoodwinked by one of the gods, who made an illusion and made themselves appear to be the friend of Hector.

Real life

So then the question is in real life, what do you seek to do, achieve, etc?

Heraclitus one said, “The greatest glory is to seek immortal glory amongst men, yet the majority of men stuff themselves like cattle.”

Who will not be remembered?

I don’t think that any modern day tech CEO will be remembered, nor cared for. Exceptions include CEOs who were also founders.

Also, I think people who will be forgotten include people who sell their companies. I don’t know… If you ultimately decide to sell your company, even for $10 billion… I think it is a signal that you care more about money than the thing you built. Why? As long as your business is making an income and you can somehow pay yourself a base salary, pay your rent, your utilities, your meat, etc.… what else need do you have for money?

This is where I give Mark Zuckerberg great credit. In the early days of Facebook he had so many offers to be bought out, but he stuck to his guns and refused. Highly intelligent.

Some people I think who compromised include Jack Dorsey of Twitter, I’m even starting to get a little bit suspicious of the cofounders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin; why did they end up leaving running Google and building the board of Alphabet instead?

Perhaps one graceful exit is Jeff Bezos at Amazon; I think he’s put in his fair share and his duties; I think space travel was his ultimate dream, and if you read invent and wonder, I think he really did stay true to his principles and never compromised. Also, him publicly exposing his controversial affair in the public, was insanely bold ballsy and respectful. He refused to be blackmailed. What a true mensch.

People who will be remembered

I think Elon Musk might be remembered forever. Why? Through pure force of will, might, and craziness… He was able to achieve the impossible. His thinking was only limited by physics, the laws of physics, first principles. Aristotle would have been proud of him.

Second, Kanye West. I really don’t think there is any thinker innovator or artist quite as bold, innovative, and amazing as him. Even now, randomly in the middle of the night, this morning I thought about his “Runaway“ song, and his perfect album my beautiful dark twisted fantasy. Actually if you think about all the albums and songs he has ever produced, he was so ahead of the game, so innovative and unique, he really did care for creating true magic in his music.

Also Steve Jobs. It seems that nowadays kids don’t really know who he is, but, for innovators and thinkers like myself and countless others, they will always sight Steve Jobs as an inspiration. Also, it seems that Steve Jobs died at the right time; he fulfilled all of his creative visions, never compromised his beliefs, and I think he set the path for other creatives down the line.

I think the last vision of Steve Jobs was to create a creative company so infused with creativity that it would stand the test the time. I think he was quite successful.

What is the value of thinking?

The big question at hand is what is the value of thinking? Why think?

I think some people think, engage in thinking because they hope that it will lead to some sort of money making opportunity.

For me, I love thinking and sharing my thoughts because it is fun! To me, a life devoid of thoughts or interesting thoughts is not a life worth living.

The best way to live life

Very simple: only pursue and do that which you are genuinely interested in, ignore everything else.

Also, in terms of happiness and food… maybe the single most critical thing to improve your happiness is to increase the quality of your meat. Beef, beef liver beef heart beef intestines, lamb, grass fed ground beef etc. Wagyu ground beef at Costco is great.

In fact, I have a theory that a lot of the modern day issues that we got is that we’re under nourished. We aren’t eating enough red meat, enough beef or lamb. Pork is not meat, chicken and turkey is not meat.

Don’t let the feelings of others govern your behavior, in terms of how you eat or live

Another bizarre thing I’ve learned is the way that some people live their lives and they decide what to eat, what not to eat, how to live, how not to live, how to talk, what to say what not to say based simply on other people; they center themselves or don’t really see what’s on their mind because they’re afraid of:

“How do you think that makes me feel?”

But we don’t do the opposite; we don’t then tell that person the same. That “How does that make me feel?”

For example this nonsense behind gender pronouns. That you demand that I call you a certain pronoun, but what if I don’t feel comfortable calling you that pronoun?

It has to be faster, more seamless

One of the good reasons I think of building your own gym at home is that it reduces a lot of the friction. For example I generally love the gym and I think gym life is good, but here in LA I haven’t been able to find any good gyms; they all suck. Therefore this motivated me to build my own gym, just in my back yard, parking lot garage, in the back of my apartment.

I love this off the grid approach because literally… there is no friction. I don’t have to jump in the car and I don’t have to check in or scan my QR code or whatever whatever, I never have to wait for equipment etc.

If you have tight quarters, a simple solution is to just buy really really heavy kettle bell, 105 pounds and up. Or just buy a heavy sandbag, go to the playground and fill it up with sand, and just exercise with that picking it up and throwing it around. Even with us experienced weightlifters, I encourage buying the 400 pound sandbag on roguefitness.com or just get it on Amazon for cheap, fill it out with playground sand and experiment lifting that at home. Titan.fitness is also good.

I actually think that the most critical factor is to exercise outside, in the direct sun. If it is cold, just layer up.

Why exercise outside? It is more fun, more lively, more uplifting. Also one of the good benefits of working out at home is when you need to stop by the bathroom to pee, you could just pull yourself another espresso! Good luck doing that at any gym.

In fact I have an idea; I think all gyms should have some sort of coffee bar or espresso bar. Not these bad energy drinks, which is just fake sugar added.

Lift with EK

If you’re interested in lifting with me, shoot me an email at eric@erickim.com, if you live in LA or anywhere in the southern California area.

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Now what?

Ultimately never forget that you’re an artist, a visual artist. Photography is just another tool in your creative tool kit.

Use dall-e, ChatGPT plus and premium, make your own AI generated art. Have fun with it, don’t take it too seriously.

Post it to your own self hosted blog, and keep updating! The ultimate sim of a blogger is this:

If somebody opens up a new tab and loads your blog, and they don’t see anything new.

ERIC

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Some good freebies

Always updating the ERIC KIM start here page with more fire.

Also, free and open source books here.

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Forward the fire!

If this sparked even one fun creative idea within you, feel free to forward this to a friend!

EK NEWS >

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“Happiness is walking (a lot).”

ERIC

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A thought in modern day society: we think too much.

For example, some modern day ills include the fact that we wake up, we stay at home, work from home, never leave the apartment or the house all day, or even worse… We go to the office, stay in the office, don’t leave all day, eat lunch at our desk in front of our laptop or computer… even worse, if you’re hard-core you don’t leave the office for days weeks or even months… You just sleep in a beanbag next to your desk or in a sleeping bag under your desk.

Problems?

This is the big issue I’ve discovered:

I think what the modern day man or person strives to be is to become the ultimate productivity machine robot who doesn’t need anything. That somehow you could optimize yourself out of going outside, getting natural light by just popping some vitamin D tablets, don’t need to exercise, and if you exercise, the minimum amount of exercise necessary not to atrophy your body, Find no need of the sun, or no need to walk because it is “inefficient”.

in fact, I wonder if this whole bizarre trend of “running“, or “jogging“, is because people don’t think that walking is “effective”, or “efficient “. People are somehow trying to maximize their movement activity; they don’t think of walking as “exercise“, and somehow that it doesn’t “burn calories” (the calorie in, calorie out myth).

As a consequence, modern day man becomes strange. A shroud planned. Lacking natural light and melanin in their skin, lacking ability to make iContact with people in embodied reality, and prefer to not interact with any humans. Thus the trend towards mobile orders etc.

Think ancient Greece

A lot of people like to think about ancient hunter gather lifestyles whatever… I prefer to think about ancient Greece, ancient Sparta. Before money was invented, and you could only measure your wealth by how many cattle you owned. Or how many men you governed.

For example, in the Iliad, I think it was Nestor who told Achilles that king Agamemnon was the superior man, because he commanded more men.

What are we striving for and looking for?

I think a lot of us are dealing with some sort of modern day pain suffering and discontent and we’re not really sure what to do about it. I think this is why we seek out “therapist”, see psychiatrist, get prescribed some sort of generic medication, etc. In fact, Besides the extreme edge cases, I think medication should be avoided at all costs. I think when people are depressed, it is a physiological and physical depression. Not enough time outside walking, in the direct elements, in the direct sun, not enough exercise and lifting weights, over consumption of alcohol, caffeine, coffee, Drugs, marijuana etc. I don’t think anything is wrong more logically with marijuana… But I distrust anybody who consumes or takes or does marijuana on a daily basis. Marijuana does strange things to your mind.

Also, if you’re reliant on marijuana to fall asleep at night, once again… Not a good sign.

Back to ancient Sparta!

I think what we are having an issue with in modern day society is more of a moralistic and ethical one. The thought is we are born to be productive, and our self-worth and value is simply predicated on how productive we are, how much money we make, How much we increase our money number in our savings account, buying houses etc.

Therefore, anytime we are not actively doing that… we feel some sort of inner guilt, shame, and we lose respect for ourselves. We end up self-flagellation ourselves.

Don’t trust nobody on social media

Several things; first and foremost, any human being who uses Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc.… they’re hopped on a strange matrix simulation like dopamine machine. I think using social media and having notifications on your phone might actually be worse than gambling. At least gambling has to do more with money… social media has to do more with your self-respect, your self-esteem esteem.

“I’ve been awakened by an enlightened man’s dream… checking Instagram comments to crowd-source my self-esteem”— KANYE

Burn the boats!

Very simple. Just stop using social media, uninstall all of the apps from your phone, or just delete them.

For example, I think one of the most glorious moments of my life, one of the greatest things I have done in my life as a photographer and “influencer“, was deleting my Instagram in 2017. Why? Since then, I feel like I unhooked my brain from the matrix. I took the red pill. Anyone who still uses Instagram, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, YouTube, listens to podcast, has Spotify, Netflix, etc. is still on the blue pill.

Why? The best way to have more interesting thoughts is via negativa— actively canceling out, or deleting, or getting rid of external stimuli in the spirit of books, blog post, media, Reddit, the news, etc. In fact the big problem in today’s world is that we are almost like in a human centipede living life of information use and media; one media outlet regurgitate and quotes the other one, which quotes the other one, which might’ve ultimately just been written by ChatGPT or some sort of AI bought. in fact I’ve been experimenting a lot with chatGPT4, the paid premium one, and what I’ve discovered is funny; even ChatGPT doesn’t know that it was written by ChatGPT.

For example, for fuzzies, I ChatGPT’d myself. I would open up ChatGPT for, the premium paid one, and asked simple things like “who is ERIC KIM“? ChatGPT with then do an effective summary and overview of me my life story in my life loss etc., and then I just copied and pasted the information, and literally published a blog post on what ChatGPT said. I then later a few days later, ask ChatGPT “ERIC KIM philosophy“, and then once again, it re-summarize things and actually linked back to my blog giving me a citations and footnotes, but the funny thing was… The citations and footnotes gave me were actually the blog post written by ChatGPT itself!

The thinker

To think is to sit on your butt and ruminate and think. No no no… Do you think is to walk. In fact maybe we should stop call it “thinking”, but just walking.

My personal thought is the noveau luxury is walking. If you have the privilege of having a 100% pedestrian lifestyle, 100% biped lifestyle, in which you’re just literally walking everywhere, without having to use the agency of a car, it is a sign that you are truly truly rich and wealthy. Secondly if you don’t always have to check your phone. Thirdly, if you could have all the notifications on your phone disabled.

How and why is walking so critical?

First without thinking about too much… Just think about this: if you walked 50 miles a day, I think 99.9% of your life cares concerns and worries would disappear. Especially if you do it in nature. With uneven surfaces, different grades and elevations, no two steps are alike.

When did the greatest things about being a nature, just going on a simple hike, is that sometimes it is deep, sometimes it is level, sometimes it is dirt, sometimes it is pavement, sometimes it is gravel, sometimes it is grass, etc. Having variation in the texture of the environment and The terrain is critical.

In modern day times, everything is flat. And everything is the same thing; typically just concrete.

I actually wonder and think, I wonder if a lot of the issues with modern day health and physiology has to do with the fact that everything is flat. I think the reason why we are bipeds is that as a iPad, we are very very very good at traversing uneven terrain. In fact, one could even argue that human who is upright and biped could better navigate rocky and mountainous terrain compared to a four-legged animal.

We got to stop calling it “hiking”

One of the biggest issues I’ve discovered about the whole “hiking” notion is that people think too much that it has to be done a certain way. We think that somehow we have to buy those silly hiking poles, buy a hat, buy some hiking boots at REI or whatever, and where all this expensive outdoor clothing.

Technically you could just do a barefoot, or… get some vibram five finger shoes, and just go on a fun walk!

Another weird thing I’ve discovered is we think we got to purchase the thing in order to somehow justify getting into a certain lifestyle. For example, we think we got to buy some sort of off-road four-wheel-drive car some sort of Subaru or jeep or sports utility SUV car in order to do “outdoorsy” stuff. This is silly. For a while Cindy and I work on hard-core hiking and camping stuff, and literally 99.99% maybe even 100% of the place we went to, we were able to simply do it in a simple four-door sedan, the Ford fusion which is just a normal sedan with a front wheel drive car.

I think this is the insidious nature of capitalism and consumerism; it makes you feel insecure and uncertain and unqualified, and we think that in order to do the thing that we want to do, we must buy the things in order to do it.

So now what?

I can’t speak for you or others. I think everyone has different talents, different skills, different desires.

First, I think having some sort of life dreams and goals is a good one. And striving with all your might to meet them and accomplish them and achieve them.

Then the next question is… then what? Should you just keep doing this into infinity? Ad infinitum?

Maybe not. Or maybe.

For example with weightlifting, a simple path is just to keep increasing your one rep max until the end of time. I don’t think this is a bad idea.

But also at the same time, you don’t need to be tied down to this either. Technically real life, reality is not metricated.

For example, if you think about the Elliott, Achilles, Hector, nobody could care less about “how much you can bench“. It was a simple binary; if you were in hand to hand battle with another fighter or warrior, would you kill him, or would he kill you? Who was the more courageous and superior and dominating force?

Also well interesting is that it seems that in the Elliott, nothing was really accidental or by chance. For example went to warriors would go to battle, one warrior would not “accidentally“, get killed by the other warrior. It really did come down to courage, skill, power, who was the better fighter.

Even the final bout between Achilles and Hector; Hector was essentially hoodwinked and tricked… He was deceived into thinking that he had his chariot tear, his trusted fighting buddy by his side to take on Achilles, because Hector was no dummy; he actually knew that Achilles was the superior fighter, and if you went head on with Achilles, he would lose. He was hoodwinked by one of the gods, who made an illusion and made themselves appear to be the friend of Hector.

Real life

So then the question is in real life, what do you seek to do, achieve, etc?

Heraclitus one said, “the greatest glory is to seek immortal glory amongst men, yet the majority of men stuff themselves like cattle.”

Who will not be remembered?

I don’t think that any modern day tech CEO will be remembered, nor cared for. Exceptions include CEOs who were also founders.

Also, I think people who will be forgotten include people who sell their companies. I don’t know… If you ultimately decide to sell your company, even for $10 billion… I think it is a signal that you care more about money than the thing you built. Why? As long as your business is making an income and you can somehow pay yourself a base salary, pay your rent, your utilities, your meat, etc.… What else you have for money?

This is where I give Mark Zuckerberg great credit. In the early days of Facebook he had so many offers to be bought out, but he stuck to his guns and refused. Highly intelligent.

Some people I think who compromised include Jack Dorsey of Twitter, I’m even starting to get a little bit suspicious of the cofounders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin; why did they end up leaving running Google and building the board of alphabet instead?

Perhaps one graceful exit is Jeff Bezos at Amazon; I think he’s put in his fair share and his duties; I think space travel was his ultimate dream, and if you read invent and wonder, I think he really did stay true to his principles and never compromise. Also, him publicly exposing his controversial affair in the public, was insanely bold Ballsy and respectful. He refused to be blackmailed. What a true mensch.

People who will be remembered

I think Elon Musk go be remembered forever. Why? Through pure force of will, might, and craziness… He was able to achieve the impossible. His thinking was only limited by physics, the laws of physics, first principles. Aristotle would have been proud of him.

Second, Kanye West. I really don’t think there is thinker innovator or artist quite as bold, innovative, and amazing as him. Even now, randomly in the middle of the night, this morning I thought about his “runaway“ song, and his perfect album my beautiful dark twisted fantasy. Actually if you think about all the albums and songs is ever produced, he was so ahead of the game, so innovative and unique, he really did care for creating true magic in his music.

Also Steve Dobbs. It seems that nowadays kids don’t really know who he is, but, for innovators and thinkers like myself and countless others, they will always sight Steve Jobs as an inspiration. Also, it seems that Steve Jobs died at the right time; he fulfilled all of his creative visions, Never compromised his beliefs, and I think he set the path for other creatives down the line.

What is the value of thinking?

The big question at hand is what is the value of thinking? Why think?

I think some people think, engage in thinking because they hope that it will lead to some sort of money making opportunity.

For me, I love thinking and sharing my thoughts because it is fun! To me, a life devoid of thoughts or interesting thoughts is not a life worth living.

The best way to live life

Very simple: only pursue and do that which you are genuinely interested in, ignore everything else.

Also, in terms of happiness and food… Maybe the single most critical thing to improve your happiness is increased the quality of your meat. Beef, beef liver beef heart beef intestines, lamb, grass fed ground beef etc. Wagyu ground beef.

In fact, I have a theory that a lot of the modern day issues that we got is that we’re under nourished. We aren’t eating enough red meat, enough beef or lamb. Pork is not meat, chicken and turkey is not meat.

Don’t let the feelings of others covering your behavior, in terms of how you eat or live

Another bizarre thing I’ve learned is the way that some people live their lives is they decide what to eat, what not to eat, how to live, how not to live, how to talk, what to say what not to say based simply on other people; they center themselves or don’t really see what’s on their mind because they’re afraid of:

“How do you think that makes me feel?”

But we don’t do the opposite; we don’t then tell that person the same. That “how does that make me feel?”

For example this nonsense behind gender pronouns. That you demand that I call you a certain pronoun, but what if I don’t feel comfortable calling you that pronoun?

It has to be faster, more seamless

One of the good reasons I think of building your own gym at home is that it reduces a lot of the friction. For example I generally love the gym and I think gym life is good, but here in LA I’ve been found any good gyms; they all suck. Therefore this motivated me to build my own gym, just in my Back yard, parking lot garage, in the back of my apartment.

I love this off the grid approach because literally… There is no friction. I don’t have to jump in the car and I don’t have to check in or scan my QR code or whatever whatever, I never have to wait for equipment etc.

If you have tight quarters, a simple solution is to just buy really really heavy kettle bells, 105 pounds and up. Or just buy a heavy sandbag, go to the playground and fill it up with sand, and just exercise with that picking it up and throwing it around. even with us experience weightlifters, I encourage buying the 400 pound sandbag on roguefitness.com or just get it on Amazon for cheap, fill it out with playground sand and experiment lifting that at home.

I actually think that the most critical factor is to exercise outside, in the direct sun. If it is cold, just layer up.

Why exercise outside? It is more fun, more lively, more uplifting. Also one of the good benefits of working out at home is when you need to stop by the bathroom to pee, you could just pull yourself another espresso! Good luck doing that at any gym.

In fact I have an idea; I think all gyms should have some sort of coffee bar or espresso bar. Not these bad energy drinks, which is just fake sugar added.

Either have a full manual transmission car, five speed or six speed manual shifting transmission, or, or have a fully automated self driving car, or some sort of minimalistic automatic car.

Also with design aesthetics, I really really really hate automatic shifting knobs and cars. Aesthetically it is so ugly and unnecessary. Good to look at the design of Hyundai, Genesis, Acura and Honda which has gotten rid of the silly automatic shifting stock, and instead, turned it all into buttons.

“Get rid of the stalks!” – Elon Musk

I really think that Elon Musk is like Steve Jobs 4.0. By comparison he makes Steve Jobs look unambitious.

Why Elon Musk? I think what people don’t understand or appreciate is how obsessed Elon Musk is with design, design thinking, design principles. For example, his obsession with designing a Tesla without any steering wheel, shifting mechanisms, stocks, etc. In fact, Elon Musk is almost like an extreme minimalist.

What I personally love about Tesla and Tesla cars is the Spartan luxury, extreme minimalism. For example, I still marvel at the Tesla model 3; first, I’m just so happy and excited and proud and amazed that Elon Musk pulled it off. I remember before it was put into production and before I saw any on the streets… it was just a rabbit hole fantasy. Now it is live!

What I find so insanely innovative about the Tesla model 3 is the extreme simplicity, the extreme minimalism. To make the dashboard so sublimely simple is a design masterpiece.

Personally, I really dislike the Tesla model Y; my general thought is that any sort of crossover vehicle, or even sports utility vehicle is some sort of a design compromise. Even the Tesla model X is almost like a Tesla model S on steroids.

Why is it so difficult to minimize?

I think the reason why it is so difficult to minimize is that there seems to be some sort of trend or market desire for their to be new features, new products, new additions to motivate people to buy something. But, from a zen capitalism perspective, perhaps this is not a good idea.

Why? I’m more effective way to think about things is figuring out what to get rid of, what to reduce, what to delete. For example, let us never forget the pure genius of Steve Jobs getting rid of the keyboard on the smartphone, and also getting rid of all these silly ugly ports. If it wasn’t for Steve Jobs and his insane design vision, we wouldn’t have the beautiful minimalistic smart phone that we have today.

Would it have eventually happened or not?

I think a lot of people think about technology and think that it is all inevitable… given enough time resources and people… these things will magically get invented anyways. I don’t think this is actually the case. You actually need a few insane individuals to bring these things into fruition.

Once again, read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and also Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson. You find that both these individuals have an insanely epic and grand life mission… is what drives them.

Idea:

Walter Isaacson should write a book or a biography on Kanye West?

---

Other things you can barbell in life

1. 90% of your savings and money in boring bonds, high yield interest CD’s or high yield savings account (5%!) and 10% in insanely speculative crypto (imagine losing it all). Best advice I got from NASSIM TALEB in ANTIFRAGILE.
2. Often, 90% of your annoyances in life come from 10% of the people in your life. Get rid of these 10%.
3. 90% of your joy and happiness and life come from 10% of the things. Try to determine and ascertain what this 10% is.

How to think better:

1. ZEN OF ERIC BOT
2. ERIC KIM BOT: For photo
3. Bitcoin Babe: speculate in crypto

---

Have fun with EK!

Super fun workshops in the pipeline:

1. INTRODUCTION TO STOICISM WORKSHOP: Downtown LA, DECEMBER 2nd, 2023
2. DOWNTOWN CULVER CITY FAMILY STREET PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP, DECEMBER 16, 2023

2024

1. CONQUER CONFIDENCE ONLINE WORKSHOP: Jan 27, 2024
2. March 2nd: ERIC KIM CREATIVE AI & PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP (New!)— Culver City, LA
3. April 20th, 2024: SF ZEN PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP – Now Live!

EK WORK

---

HAPTIC

HAPTIC PRODUCTS >

---

What is EK up to?

So I just finished the book going infinite by Michael Lewis on the rise and fall of Sam Bankman Fried and FTX. Super fun and fascinating read. My personal suggestion is even if you have a tiny interest in crypto, bitcoin or whatever… It is definitely worth a read.

A quick summary is that Sam isn’t the evil villain that everyone wants him to be. He is almost like an uber genius autistic mathematical servant, who seems to just lack common sense.

Also on a positive note, I think the great upside to consider here is that if bitcoin was able to bounce back after the fall of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried… a very bright future ahead of us in crypto. My personal price projection is I am quite certain that bitcoin will bounce back to at least $65,000 a bitcoin by next year. Therefore if you want a quick 2X profit, seems like a fun speculation. and no no no, don’t bet your house on it. Once again our financial thinking is simple:

Never put more than 10% of your life savings into anything. Irregardless of how good.

Also for funsies, a fun little essay I’ve written on the philosophy of crypto:

---

The Philosophy of Crypto

“Greed is good” – Gordon Gecko

So it seems and appears that a lot of people seek getting really really rich, really really fast, in order to buy a bunch of stuff. For example, I think the general idea is that you want to make a ton of money, feel good, buy a Lamborghini or whatever… And then what?

Crypto, cryptocurrency, crypto technology to me is fascinating because it is new, sexy, unorthodox, and interesting.

It seems that a lot of people are interested in crypto, bitcoin etc because they want to get really rich. But the tricky thing with crypto is that essentially you are really rich on paper, but typically most crypto speculators never actually dilute or convert their crypto to US dollars, which means that crypto money is not liquid, it is locked.

Crypto is intrinsically optimistic?

Crypto to me is interesting because it is edgy, optimistic, radical, and bold. Also a bit reckless.

The general idea is that with crypto, people are seeking a new revolution, something to up and the old system. Definitely a lot of anarchy vibes here, and a lot of people who are typically distrustful of big organizations, big government, etc.

Honestly I have nothing against the government, I am very happy paying my taxes, I still consider myself a bay area, liberal, open minded, at heart. I love democracy, democratic thinking. Why? It was mostly about how I was raised, how I was supported. If I did not get all of these government aided resources, like going to UCLA as an undergraduate, I would have never been able to become who I am today.

Also, simple organizations that I am grateful for include the Boy Scouts, Boy Scouts of America. I am forever grateful to my troop, my troop leaders, who helped me become an Eagle Scout, and helped me become the citizen that I am today.

Growing up, I grew up thinking that conservatives, Republicans were the devil. Why were they so greedy, if they had so much money, why don’t they help more poor people or people in need?

Irregardless, I think the promise of crypto is a more brilliant future. A lot of people seem to disdain the volatility of crypto, but I love it. With traditional stocks, you will never see a 10X gain, a 100X gain, or even a 1000x gain. Also with crypto, you could win it all, or you could lose it all. My general strategy towards crypto and cryptocurrency speculation is this:

Only put money into crypto, assuming that it will go to zero.

Perhaps the best piece of advice that I got from Nassim Taleb in his antifragile book is the idea that to maximize your gains, better to put 90% of your money in maximally boring funds, like bonds, yield savings account etc.… it is pretty crazy even now Cindy and I have a bunch of money just locked in a simple 5% APR savings account, and we get close to $2000 a month in “passive income” interest. Then, what I did was I put 10% of our savings into crypto, maximally speculative bets, initially investing in digibyte and bitcoin, later swapping it all to chainlink, along the way getting some Dogecoin, later transferring it all 100% back into Bitcoin.

All of the gains were mental. And along the way more recently, I’ve been drawing out some money from bitcoin, $5000 USD here US$5000 there… Simply to cover up moving expenses to LA.

The zen of crypto?

Ultimately what I find interesting is that crypto, people who speculate in crypto all tend to live kind of a more monastic Zen monk lifestyle. Even this one guy that I met who first got me into chainlink, revealed to me that he was a crypto whale in chainlink; apparently he first put his life savings in it, maybe $10,000 USD or so when it was worth about $.70, and then he saw it rise all the way up to $50 USD.

It was funny, because I would just see him at the local LA fitness working out, thinking and meditating, we would engage in some lively conversation, and he just drove his mom‘s old Honda Accord, I think he later told me that he was moving to Puerto Rico or something in order to avoid taxes on his crypto or some other regulatory aspects. Apparently even Sam Bankman Fried moved his corporation to the Bahamas, in order to avoid US regulation.

So what do you want to do with your wealth?

So once you are worth $20 billion, or $150 billion or whatever … then what?

Ironically the best use of money is simply peace of mind. That means money is not really a tool or a mechanism to buy a bunch of stuff that you like, but rather, being able to live a more zen, tranquil, more focused life.

For example, I think the reason why people are so addicted to email is that people are always desiring new “opportunities”, it is predicated on the fact that somehow other people will give you an afford you new opportunities and also, does predicated on the fact that somehow new opportunities will rise in which other people give you money.

But… assuming that no human being who messages you in your email inbox will give you money… would you still be interested in working with them?

For myself personally, I have close to zero interest in money. I am more interested in new opportunities, fun, new novel experiences. The things that I am proud of, or interested in, or grateful for is all of the cool interesting and sexy opportunities that I’ve had and done. Some of the people that I met, etc.

But ultimately, is there a human being more interesting than you?

Future trends

I’m currently reading the book “Going Infinite” by Michael Lewis, which chronicles is the life of Sam Bankman Fried and FTX and I find it insanely fascinating read. It seems that the same guy isn’t really the super evil guy that a lot of people in the media make him to be; the kid seems to be like a prodigy genius, mathematical minded, who really didn’t care for money or wealth. My personal theory is that he got suckered too much into this utilitarian “effective altruism“, concept… that he misused customer funds in order to “maximize“ his abilities for effective altruism.

I think effective altruism is a bad idea. Why? First of all, I think the general idea of altruism is bad; I think it puts other people in an inferior position, which I personally find is disrespectful. I think a better thing to do instead is on a day-to-day basis, instead of donating money to charities or whatever, to help empower other human beings on a one-to-one basis.

A simple thing; whenever I go to the park with Sen, and I see all these kids running around, who don’t really seem like they get much attention or love from their parents, I try to give them a little bit of that love and attention by talking to them, entertaining them etc. Perhaps this is a more effective way to “change the world“, than anything else.

---

The future of crypto?

Try to think about things on a 30 year basis. That means, the simple question; in 30 years, are people going to be using crypto more or less? Or, in 30 years, is the price of bitcoin going to go up or down? It seems pretty obvious that it will go up.

Also, the notion of a “digital wallet”. The general idea is that for the future, we ain’t gonna use cash money anymore. Why? I see more and more restaurants in institutions not except paper cash money. Why not? Because it is difficult to track, and I think there are also issues with employees at restaurants stealing money it etc. Even at my mom‘s old sushi restaurant where she worked at for a long time, she later found out that one of the head managers, a guy that we thought was a super good guy… Was secretly stealing money the whole time.

I think into the future, we will see less and less of “under the table“ payments; why? Because it is not trackable.

---

What else?

Some personal thoughts:

First, I don’t really like Ethereum. Why? It is kind of like android; maybe it is the better technology, but it isn’t sexy, only nerds know about it and use it, it ain’t mainstream and sexy like bitcoin. Bitcoin is like Apple, having the newest iPhone, iPhone Pro etc.… Ethereum is more like android, having an ugly Google pixel or some sort of generic Samsung smartphone.

Another analogy, bitcoin is like having the Lamborghini Countach, with the scissor doors, whereas Ethereum is like having the Toyota Corolla?

Altcoins?

Don’t trust old coins, or alternative coins. Why? Everyone just wants to become the next bitcoin, but ultimately… There is too much meme culture behind alt coins, like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu.

I am very dubious that the price of these Altcoins will ever go up; it seems that a lot of people in the crypto world simply over hype certain crypto technologies and coins, in order to pump it up, sell it, and make money.

Chainlink

Besides bitcoin, only other crypto I find interesting is chainlink. I’ve read all the white papers, and been following the chainlink blog for a long time. Currently the only reason that I’m still committed to bitcoin is that my gut feeling is that even though chain-link is really great, the issue is that it is going to be difficult for it to become mainstream.

First and foremost, it is difficult to explain what it is. The technology is good and great, but I don’t think the general market will understand it.

Also, the fact that there was a chainlink version two is not a good sign. Anything with a version two is probably a bad sign; same thing with Ethereum.

Also, the logo in blue is not very attractive. And the name isn’t that catchy.

---

Now what?

I recommend reading going infinite by Michael Lewis, it is an insanely fascinating read, if you’re interested at all about financial markets, how it is all gamed by bots etc. My first revelation reading Michael Lewis was flash boys… Learning the truth behind these hidden high frequency trading firms.

And also, I think the sign of good writer, like Michael Lewis is at the Rita’s fun entertaining and also insightful. It seems that the best way to kill two birds with one stone is simple; make it both entertaining to read, and also interesting knowledge.

Think more, walk more

My simple suggestions on living a better life:

1. Walk 50 miles a day
2. Maximize your direct sunlight UV exposure radiation
3. Just build a simple home gym: Titan.fitness equipment seems fine. Ideally work out outside in the direct sun, like an ancient spartan would do.
4. Start blogging! bluehost.com and install WordPress.org. If you’re more nerdy you could also set up WordPress with lightsail— I did this for erickimphilosophy.com and also erickimfitness.com

---

Now what?

The world is yours! No drugs, no alcohol, no weed… just joy, bright light, weight lifting and exercise, walks in nature .. we the new zen stoics!

EK

---

Start Here

Some good freebies:

1. Ultimate beginners guide to street photography PDF
2. Street portrait manual
3. 100 lessons from the masters of street photography

BOOKS BY KIM >

Forward the thoughts

If you feel like you even got one fun thought here… feel free to forward this to a friend!

EK NEWS

---

Either have a full manual transmission car, five speed or six speed manual shifting transmission, or, or have a fully automated self driving car, or some sort of minimalistic automatic car.

Also with design aesthetics, I really really really hate automatic shifting knobs and cars. Aesthetically it is so ugly and unnecessary. Good to look at the design of Hyundai, Genesis, Acura and Honda which has gotten rid of the silly automatic shifting stock, and instead, turned it all into buttons.

“Get rid of the stalks!” – Elon Musk

I really think that Elon Musk is like Steve Jobs 4.0. By comparison he makes Steve Jobs look unambitious.

Why Elon Musk? I think what people don’t understand or appreciate is how obsessed Elon Musk is with design, design thinking, design principles. For example, his obsession with designing a Tesla without any steering wheel, shifting mechanisms, stocks, etc. In fact, Elon Musk is almost like an extreme minimalist.

What I personally love about Tesla and Tesla cars is the Spartan luxury, extreme minimalism. For example, I still marvel at the Tesla model 3; first, I’m just so happy and excited and proud and amazed that Elon Musk pulled it off. I remember before it was put into production and before I saw any on the streets… it was just a rabbit hole fantasy. Now it is live!

What I find so insanely innovative about the Tesla model 3 is the extreme simplicity, the extreme minimalism. To make the dashboard so sublimely simple is a design masterpiece.

Personally, I really dislike the Tesla model Y; my general thought is that any sort of crossover vehicle, or even sports utility vehicle is some sort of a design compromise. Even the Tesla model X is almost like a Tesla model S on steroids.

Why is it so difficult to minimize?

I think the reason why it is so difficult to minimize is that there seems to be some sort of trend or market desire for their to be new features, new products, new additions to motivate people to buy something. But, from a zen capitalism perspective, perhaps this is not a good idea.

Why? I’m more effective way to think about things is figuring out what to get rid of, what to reduce, what to delete. For example, let us never forget the pure genius of Steve Jobs getting rid of the keyboard on the smartphone, and also getting rid of all these silly ugly ports. If it wasn’t for Steve Jobs and his insane design vision, we wouldn’t have the beautiful minimalistic smart phone that we have today.

Would it have eventually happened or not?

I think a lot of people think about technology and think that it is all inevitable… given enough time resources and people… these things will magically get invented anyways. I don’t think this is actually the case. You actually need a few insane individuals to bring these things into fruition.

Once again, read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and also Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson. You find that both these individuals have an insanely epic and grand life mission… is what drives them.

Idea:

Walter Isaacson should write a book or a biography on Kanye West?

---

Other things you can barbell in life

1. 90% of your savings and money in boring bonds, high yield interest CD’s or high yield savings account (5%!) and 10% in insanely speculative crypto (imagine losing it all). Best advice I got from NASSIM TALEB in ANTIFRAGILE.
2. Often, 90% of your annoyances in life come from 10% of the people in your life. Get rid of these 10%.
3. 90% of your joy and happiness and life come from 10% of the things. Try to determine and ascertain what this 10% is.

How to think better:

1. ZEN OF ERIC BOT
2. ERIC KIM BOT: For photo
3. Bitcoin Babe: speculate in crypto

---

Have fun with EK!

Super fun workshops in the pipeline:

1. INTRODUCTION TO STOICISM WORKSHOP: Downtown LA, DECEMBER 2nd, 2023
2. DOWNTOWN CULVER CITY FAMILY STREET PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP, DECEMBER 16, 2023

2024

1. CONQUER CONFIDENCE ONLINE WORKSHOP: Jan 27, 2024
2. March 2nd: ERIC KIM CREATIVE AI & PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP (New!)— Culver City, LA
3. April 20th, 2024: SF ZEN PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP – Now Live!

EK WORK

---

HAPTIC

HAPTIC PRODUCTS >

---

What is EK up to?

So I just finished the book going infinite by Michael Lewis on the rise and fall of Sam Bankman Fried and FTX. Super fun and fascinating read. My personal suggestion is even if you have a tiny interest in crypto, bitcoin or whatever… It is definitely worth a read.

A quick summary is that Sam isn’t the evil villain that everyone wants him to be. He is almost like an uber genius autistic mathematical servant, who seems to just lack common sense.

Also on a positive note, I think the great upside to consider here is that if bitcoin was able to bounce back after the fall of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried… a very bright future ahead of us in crypto. My personal price projection is I am quite certain that bitcoin will bounce back to at least $65,000 a bitcoin by next year. Therefore if you want a quick 2X profit, seems like a fun speculation. and no no no, don’t bet your house on it. Once again our financial thinking is simple:

Never put more than 10% of your life savings into anything. Irregardless of how good.

Also for funsies, a fun little essay I’ve written on the philosophy of crypto:

---

“Greed is good” – Gordon Gecko

So it seems and appears that a lot of people seek getting really really rich, really really fast, in order to buy a bunch of stuff. For example, I think the general idea is that you want to make a ton of money, feel good, buy a Lamborghini or whatever… And then what?

Crypto, cryptocurrency, crypto technology to me is fascinating because it is new, sexy, unorthodox, and interesting.

It seems that a lot of people are interested in crypto, bitcoin etc because they want to get really rich. But the tricky thing with crypto is that essentially you are really rich on paper, but typically most crypto speculators never actually dilute or convert their crypto to US dollars, which means that crypto money is not liquid, it is locked.

Crypto is intrinsically optimistic?

Crypto to me is interesting because it is edgy, optimistic, radical, and bold. Also a bit reckless.

The general idea is that with crypto, people are seeking a new revolution, something to up and the old system. Definitely a lot of anarchy vibes here, and a lot of people who are typically distrustful of big organizations, big government, etc.

Honestly I have nothing against the government, I am very happy paying my taxes, I still consider myself a bay area, liberal, open minded, at heart. I love democracy, democratic thinking. Why? It was mostly about how I was raised, how I was supported. If I did not get all of these government aided resources, like going to UCLA as an undergraduate, I would have never been able to become who I am today.

Also, simple organizations that I am grateful for include the Boy Scouts, Boy Scouts of America. I am forever grateful to my troop, my troop leaders, who helped me become an Eagle Scout, and helped me become the citizen that I am today.

Growing up, I grew up thinking that conservatives, Republicans were the devil. Why were they so greedy, if they had so much money, why don’t they help more poor people or people in need?

Irregardless, I think the promise of crypto is a more brilliant future. A lot of people seem to disdain the volatility of crypto, but I love it. With traditional stocks, you will never see a 10X gain, a 100X gain, or even a 1000x gain. Also with crypto, you could win it all, or you could lose it all. My general strategy towards crypto and cryptocurrency speculation is this:

Only put money into crypto, assuming that it will go to zero.

Perhaps the best piece of advice that I got from Nassim Taleb in his antifragile book is the idea that to maximize your gains, better to put 90% of your money in maximally boring funds, like bonds, yield savings account etc.… it is pretty crazy even now Cindy and I have a bunch of money just locked in a simple 5% APR savings account, and we get close to $2000 a month in “passive income” interest. Then, what I did was I put 10% of our savings into crypto, maximally speculative bets, initially investing in digibyte and bitcoin, later swapping it all to chainlink, along the way getting some Dogecoin, later transferring it all 100% back into Bitcoin.

All of the gains were mental. And along the way more recently, I’ve been drawing out some money from bitcoin, $5000 USD here US$5000 there… Simply to cover up moving expenses to LA.

The zen of crypto?

Ultimately what I find interesting is that crypto, people who speculate in crypto all tend to live kind of a more monastic Zen monk lifestyle. Even this one guy that I met who first got me into chainlink, revealed to me that he was a crypto whale in chainlink; apparently he first put his life savings in it, maybe $10,000 USD or so when it was worth about $.70, and then he saw it rise all the way up to $50 USD. It was funny, because I would just see him at the local LA fitness working out, thinking and meditating, we engage in some lively conversation, and he just drove his mom‘s old Honda Accord, I think he later told me that he was moving to Puerto Rico or something in order to avoid taxes on his crypto or some other regulatory aspects. Apparently even Sam Bankman Fried moved his corporation to the Bahamas, in order to avoid US regulation.

So what do you want to do with your wealth?

So once you are worth $20 billion, or $150 billion or whatever … then what?

Ironically the best use of money is simply peace of mind. That means money is not really a tool or a mechanism to buy a bunch of stuff that you like, but rather, being able to live a more zen, tranquil, more focused life.

For example, I think the reason why people are so addicted to email is that people are always desiring new “opportunities”, it is predicated on the fact that somehow other people will give you an afford you new opportunities and also, does predicated on the fact that somehow new opportunities will rise in which other people give you money.

But… assuming that no human being who messages you in your email inbox will give you money… would you still be interested in working with them?

For myself personally, I have close to zero interest in money. I am more interested in new opportunities, fun, new novel experiences. The things that I am proud of, or interested in, or grateful for is all of the cool interesting and sexy opportunities that I’ve had and done. Some of the people that I met, etc.

But ultimately, is there a human being more interesting than you?

Future trends

I’m currently reading the book “Going Infinite” by Michael Lewis, which chronicles is the life of Sam Bankman Fried and FTX and I find it insanely fascinating read. It seems that the same guy isn’t really the super evil guy that a lot of people in the media make him to be; the kid seems to be like a prodigy genius, mathematical minded, who really didn’t care for money or wealth. My personal theory is that he got suckered too much into this utilitarian “effective altruism“, concept… that he misused customer funds in order to “maximize“ his abilities for effective altruism.

I think effective altruism is a bad idea. Why? First of all, I think the general idea of altruism is bad; I think it puts other people in an inferior position, which I personally find is disrespectful. I think a better thing to do instead is on a day-to-day basis, instead of donating money to charities or whatever, to help empower other human beings on a one-to-one basis.

A simple thing; whenever I go to the park with Sen, and I see all these kids running around, who don’t really seem like they get much attention or love from their parents, I try to give them a little bit of that love and attention by talking to them, entertaining them etc. Perhaps this is a more effective way to “change the world“, than anything else.

---

The future of crypto?

Try to think about things on a 30 year basis. That means, the simple question; in 30 years, are people going to be using crypto more or less? Or, in 30 years, is the price of bitcoin going to go up or down? It seems pretty obvious that it will go up.

Also, the notion of a “digital wallet”. The general idea is that for the future, we ain’t gonna use cash money anymore. Why? I see more and more restaurants in institutions not except paper cash money. Why not? Because it is difficult to track, and I think there are also issues with employees at restaurants stealing money it etc. Even at my mom‘s old sushi restaurant where she worked at for a long time, she later found out that one of the head managers, a guy that we thought was a super good guy… Was secretly stealing money the whole time.

I think into the future, we will see less and less of “under the table“ payments; why? Because it is not trackable.

---

What else?

Some personal thoughts:

First, I don’t really like Ethereum. Why? It is kind of like android; maybe it is the better technology, but it isn’t sexy, only nerds know about it and use it, it ain’t mainstream and sexy like bitcoin. Bitcoin is like Apple, having the newest iPhone, iPhone Pro etc.… Ethereum is more like android, having an ugly Google pixel or some sort of generic Samsung smartphone.

Another analogy, bitcoin is like having the Lamborghini Countach, with the scissor doors, whereas Ethereum is like having the Toyota Corolla?

Altcoins?

Don’t trust old coins, or alternative coins. Why? Everyone just wants to become the next bitcoin, but ultimately… There is too much meme culture behind alt coins, like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu.

I am very dubious that the price of these Altcoins will ever go up; it seems that a lot of people in the crypto world simply over hype certain crypto technologies and coins, in order to pump it up, sell it, and make money.

Chainlink

Besides bitcoin, only other crypto I find interesting is chain-link. I’ve read all the white papers, and been following the chain-link blog for a long time. Currently the only reason that I’m still committed to bitcoin is that my gut feeling is that even though chain-link is really great, the issue is that it is going to be difficult for it to become mainstream.

First and foremost, it is difficult to explain what it is. The technology is good and great, but I don’t think the general market will understand it.

Also, the fact that there was a chain-link version two is not a good sign. Anything with a version two is probably a bad sign; same thing with Ethereum.

Also, the logo in blue is not very attractive. And the name isn’t that catchy.

The general idea … anti fiat currency; the idea that true currency needs a hard cap. Hard cap of 21 million coins.

Why does this matter? The US government and FED can essentially print unlimited money; my belief a lot of inflation is triggered by when during COVID, too much “free money” was circulated into the system.

Digital gold

Is bitcoin “digital gold”? I think so.

Consider real gold … you don’t ever really touch it or use it. And there seems to be a hard cap.

Why does bitcoin matter?

I think it’s just a really fascinating concept … insanely innovative, sexy and interesting.

The icon?

Simply put I think Bitcoin is the best because the icon is orange. A very simple idea — the Bitcoin icon pops super hard compared to all of the other random coins and crypto assets.

The future?

BRC-20, ERC-20; wrapping Bitcoin with other assets and the blockchain… transforming Bitcoin into a viable NFT option.

Why does it all matter?

Philosophically speaking … it makes me ponder and meditate the notion of wealth, money etc. That all this money stuff is simply smoke and mirrors.

My interest in Bitcoin?

Via ChatGPT:

Eric Kim, known for his work in photography, has also shown a notable interest in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. His involvement and thoughts on this topic are reflected in various ways:

1. Personal Investment and Trading: Kim shared his experiences with Bitcoin investment and trading. He mentioned re-entering the Bitcoin market when its price dropped from $50,000 to $35,000 and then riding it back up to $50,000 oai_citation:1,How I Made Money with Crypto – ERIC KIM – EK.
2. Philosophical Perspective: He has discussed the broader implications of cryptocurrency and its potential future impact. For example, he has speculated about the future of global currencies and the role of military power in their dominance, suggesting a deep interest in the geopolitical and economic aspects of cryptocurrency oai_citation:2,Why I Bought More Bitcoin (Again) – EK – ERIC KIM PHOTOGRAPHY.
3. Cryptocurrency Advocacy: Kim has expressed a strong belief in the longevity and importance of Bitcoin, predicting that it will be the “last crypto standing.” This shows his advocacy for Bitcoin and his confidence in its future oai_citation:3,Crypto – ERIC KIM – EK.
4. Reflection on Wealth and Cryptocurrency: He has also pondered the broader implications of wealth accumulation through cryptocurrency, questioning what comes after achieving financial success in this arena oai_citation:4,Once You Become a Crypto Billionaire, Then What? – ERIC KIM.
5. Professional Intersection with Photography: Kim has explored the intersection of cryptocurrency and photography, discussing why he believes digital currencies like Bitcoin and Digibyte are the future for photographers in the digital economy oai_citation:5,BITCOIN AND CRYPTOCURRENCY FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS – ERIC KIM – Podtail.

Through these various avenues, it’s evident that Eric Kim’s interest in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency goes beyond mere financial investment. He integrates this interest with his professional field, reflects on its broader societal implications, and engages with the philosophical aspects of this innovative technology.

Bitcoin hard cap

Bitcoin’s hard cap is set at 21 million coins. This limit is an integral part of its design and philosophy, reflecting a commitment to scarcity and anti-inflationary principles. Unlike fiat currencies, which can be printed in unlimited quantities by governments, Bitcoin’s finite supply resembles gold and other precious metals. This limit is expected to be reached around the year 2140. The hard cap is also seen as a way to mimic the diminishing returns of mining precious resources, with the rewards for mining new blocks halving approximately every four years, in events known as “halvings.” This scarcity principle has been a key factor in Bitcoin’s narrative and value proposition as “digital gold.”

What is the future of photography and AI? The question at hand.

First, my personal creative vision is that the future of AI and photography should be a hybrid of using AI to actually motivate you to be more creative. No no no, AI is not going to “take your job“, or “take over the world“. is going to take your job? Is Google search going to take your job? No.

What is AI good for?

AI, ChatGPT, DALL-E, DALL-E 3 is like a personal echo chamber; you could use it to flesh out your ideas, to think more critically, and just ask yourself the question… why?

My first take and attempt at creating my own artificial intelligence chat bot was the WHY APP? Essentially the idea was motivated by the notion; if you just ask yourself the question “why?” five times… you gain a deeper truth or insight about something.

The difference between human feedback and machine feedback

Arsbeta.com is all about human feedback. You upload a photo, and you randomly get a real human being giving you feedback on your photos, in a constructive and critical way.

My next vision is to integrate AI into it; which means you upload a photo to the AI, and then it could give you some sort of interesting critical feedback on your photos.

What you could do right now is subscribe to ChatGPT plus, only 20 bucks a month, and upload a photo to it, and ask it for feedback on your photos, how you can improve etc. Some of the feedback is interesting… it makes you think more.

AI as a mirror

AI is a mirror. A white mirror.

AI can only think as deeply as you do; there’s no real right or wrong here. Typically the questions you ask it is simply a reflection of what you’re personally interested in.

Also with DALL-E, DALL-E 3… the name of the game is how funny and aberrant are your ideas?

Creative ideas

Once you got the paid ChatGPT subscription, you can upload up to three or four images, and then just ask ChatGPT to help you choose your best photo.

AI can help you give photography tips. For example, ask ERIC KIM BOT, or ERIC KIM AI for photography tips, photography assignment ideas, street photography tips etc. It is very smart because what it essentially does is just scrape my blog, and gives you interesting ideas in a conversational way.

The integration between camera and AI

Rather than upgrading your iPhone, just use the iPhone you already got, and pay for the ChatGPT subscription, and finally… your smartphone actually becomes smart.

For example what you could do is open up the ChatGPT app, click the camera icon, take a photo of something, and help you analyze the scene. Also, you could even take a photo of a collage that you’ve made in real life and ask it to analyze the image. Recently Cindy and I printed out a bunch of photos, and framed them nicely, and I’ve been having fun asking it to analyze the collages and making sense of it.

AI ART?

Is AI art “real“ art? Of course! The better question is whether you like the photo and the image or not.

What is art? Art is anything that you create. Art can be manifested however you interpret it.

My thought is now with AI, and it being so easy to generate images… What is more critical is actually your ability to filter. The art of choosing your favorite photos is a really important thing here.

Why photographers should use DALL-E

DALL-E is the specific component of ChatGPT which creates images from scratch, purely based on your own imagination.

It is phenomenal. For example, once you subscribe to the Chi PT plus, open up DALL-E on the sidebar, and things you could ask it to design you:

1. Bitcoin babe driving a Lamborghini Countach in ancient Sparta
2. Peter Pan with samurai sword in zombie apocalypse
3. Spartan stoic philosopher lifting bitcoin weights
4. Beautiful Korean woman at Met Gala in bitcoin dress

DALL-E truly becomes magical the more ridiculous and ostentatious you make it. Make it as ridiculous silly and random as possible; the more ridiculous, the better.

Where should I post all of my images?

Your own blog.

Ionos.com and WordPress.org or bluehost.com

Why? The reason is you’re going to create lots of AI generated images and artwork, and also your photos.

I like the idea of artistic and creative double dipping; the idea is that now that you’re a visual artist, you’re not constrained to just one medium. It is not mutually exclusive; you could do both! You could shoot photos and make AI art!

Make yourself laugh

Cindy has been enjoying watching me how much fun I have been having with ChatGPT and DALL-E. For example a recent thing that I did which made me laugh out loud was asking DALLE to make me a hardcore Spartan image, and then I keep asking it “more muscular”. There is a certain point in which it becomes hilarious and I laugh out loud where the limits of muscularity just become preposterous. It makes the incredible Hulk look like a twig.

Content moderation

One good thing that ChatGPT has integrated is the notion of content policies to prevent bad behavior. The fun thing to do is actually see how you could work around it; rather than asking DALL-E to make you a picture of a “sexy Korean girl“, which it will refuse… use the word “babe” instead, and instead of calling it “sexy”, you can say “beautiful” or “gorgeous”.

The word babe is funny… I got the word from Calvin and Hobbes, because Hobbes was always so fascinated by the babes.

So I think the real fun thing about ChatGPT is actually finding creative ways to subvert the content moderation policies. See how far you could push it and nudge it.

Brave New World of AI

I made a ChatGPT bot called “Bitcoin Babe”. My personal creative vision was in the spirit of fun; how you could use an AI chat but to help you be more zen, stoic, and calm about crypto… given how volatile it is.

For example, I never checked the price of bitcoin or any of my crypto acids. I only ever know the price if I stumble upon it on accident, if it is in the headlines of a newspaper, on the television at airports, in magazines at the airport etc. I never seek it out.

Why, why not and why am I glad that I didn’t do this? Because I know myself and how sensitive I am… I used to actually daytrade when I was in college as a sophomore, and I realize that I was too emotional. Essentially what I did was I thought a long time about my decision, went 100% into bitcoin, and I just never looked at it or touched it, did other stuff instead. The hilarious thing is that I actually avoided and I actually didn’t even know about the whole FTX meltdown and the Sam Bankman-Fried guy. And I’m glad that I intentionally made myself ignorant of all the modern day news… Bitcoin is bouncing back, and since the last time I bought more bitcoin for the third time, everything is totally in the green.

But anyways, I think 99% of crypto, cryptocurrency speculation is all about having a zen and stoic mindset. Essentially not to let emotions perturb you.

I specifically programmed Bitcoin Babe in such a way that it tries to help you think more critically about things, and not get suckered by hype.

Also, ZEN OF ERIC and also ERIC KIM BOT— zen of ERIC is all about stoicism and philosophy, and ERIC KIM bot is all about photography.

No more Google

I am starting to think that Google is the bad guy; this whole system we got which is predicated on advertising is a positively bad one. Why? The more sensational and crazy the news, the more advertisements get viewed or clicked on. As a consequence, the nature of the news and media is becoming too outlandish.

Also my critical analysis is that a lot of this stuff on racism, race riots, anti-Jewish sentiment etc.… the real bad guy here is Google and Facebook. Why? Google which owns YouTube, makes money off of these hot button topics. Not only that but Facebook owns Instagram, and once again… the more sexual, overt, and loud something is… the more attention and advertising money is made.

Actually one thing that made me very anti-Instagram… I don’t even have a daughter but I’m starting to realize… When I watched the Kanye West interview on info wars, Kanye West commenting that Instagram is essentially like pornography; a lot of these “fitness influencers”, or women… are essentially selling their bodies for attention and money.

But now that ChatGPT and DALLE can make you your own beautiful women, photo realistic, all which are virtual… There is really no more need for these models or “influencers“.

Short Google and Facebook/Meta/Instagram.

Now what?

The other days when I was at Philz coffee, I saw a guy order a croissant and a coffee and spend $17 on it. Do yourself a favor and just buy the ChatGPT premium subscription, and spend the best $20 of your life.

Play with it, have fun, create your own ChatGPT bots, and also, see how far you can push it.

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Think with EK

ERIC KIM WORKSHOPS FOR LIFE!

STACK IT WITH HAPTIC

HAPTIC TOOLS — create your own visual jewels!

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So fucking lit!!!

Hector among the ships:

Meanwhile Hector seized a rock that lay fore the gate, thick at the base but pointed at the top, two of the strongest men these days could barely have levered it from the ground onto a cart, yet he handled it alone, Zeus the son of devious Cronos making it seem light. Hector lifted the rock like a shepherd lifting a ram’s fleece in one hand, scarcely burdened by the weight, and raised it against the solid panels of the tall tightly-fitted double gates, held by two cross bars and a single bolt. Bracing himself, feet well apart, to hurl it with greatest force, he stood in front and struck them square in the middle. The hinges broke on either side, and the stone’s weight carried it on, as the doors flung open groaning, crossbars broken. Glorious Hector leapt inside, face dark as night; his body gleaming with baleful bronze, grasping his twin spears in his hands. None but a god could have checked him once he had passed the gates.

Eyes blazing fire, he turned to the ranks behind and called to them to climb the battlements. At his order some men scaled the wall, while others poured in through the broken gates, as the Greeks, routed, were driven back to the hollow ships, in the midst of a relentless clamour.

I finally found it!!! ChatGPT as the ultimate research tool.

ChatGPT just as an insanely good filter? 100000x better than Google.

You know how Google’s tagline is “make all of the information on the web accessible?” ChatGPT makes it a trillion times better. Now Google is:

Let us try to put as many sneaky advertisements into your life!

 ERIC KIM CHATGPT BOTS

1. ZEN OF ERIC
2. ERIC KIM BOT

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STREET PHOTOGRAPHY STARTER KIT

Open source:

0. What is Street Photography? (2.4gb) / Download
1. Black and White (2.3gb) / Download
2. How to Shoot Street Photography (2.2gb) / Download
3. Street Portraits 101 (1.9gb) / Download
4. Conquer Your Fears (430mb) / Download
5. Composition (460mb) / Download
6. Masters (107mb) / Download
7. Editing and Post-Processing (1.3gb) / Download
8. Photography Projects (1.4gb) / Download
9. Motivation (3.7gb) / Download

View all >

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BECOME A PHOTOGRAPHY ENTREPRENEUR

Advice I would have given myself in photography, if I started all over again:

Until You Own Yourself You Can’t Be Free

De-lamify the future.

Photography Entrepreneurship 101 Presentation by ERIC KIM

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ENTREPRENEURSHIP by KIM

Enroll in my Udemy Course:

‘Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Photography Entrepreneurship’: Create Your Own Future >

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Entrepreneurship Ideas

1. InstaSlaves
2. How to Become a Vlogger
3. How to Build Your Own Self Brand
4. SOLO MEDIA EMPIRE
5. TIME LEVERAGE.
6. How to Market Yourself in Photography
7. How to Become More Ambitious
8. Crypto Photography
9. In Praise of Email Newsletters
10. Propagate.
11. Make Your Own Street Photography Blog
12. Create the Information You Seek.
13. Content over Technology
14. How to Advertise Yourself as a Photographer
15. CREATIVE WAYS TO USE YOUTUBE
16. Photography Branding 101
17. BUILD YOURSELF.
18. Bet on Your Own Coin.
19. The Photographer Should Also Make His/Her Own Music?
20. Mix Your Photos and Videos
21. JUST PUBLISH IT.
22. EMPOWER OTHER PHOTOGRAPHERS.
23. BECOME OUTSIDE THE BOX
24. MOVE PEOPLE, MOVE PRODUCTS.
25. SOCIAL MEDIA IS FRAGILE.
26. Why Start a Photography Blog?
27. Once You FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early), Then What?
28. THE FUTURE IS PDF
29. In Praise of Solo Photography Business Entrepreneurship
30. LONGEVITY, DURABILITY AND SUCCESS
31. Street Photography Philosophy Entrepreneurship
32. YOU ARE THE PLATFORM
33. JUST RISK IT.
34. DON’T OPTIMIZE FOR THE ALGORITHM
35. Scaleable Photography
36. What Does it Mean to Become a Successful Photographer?
37. 20 Photography Marketing, Branding, and Entrepreneurship Tips
38. Create Your Own Social Media
39. Individual Entrepreneurship
40. YOU ARE THE ICON.
41. BUILD!
42. What is Success in Photography?
43. EXTREME VISION
44. Publish Fearlessly
45. MAKE DOPE THINGS AND SHARE THEM WITH THE WORLD!
46. THE AMBITIOUS PHOTOGRAPHER.
47. PhotoLink
48. Real World Applications
49. You Are Your Own Ideal User
50. What is Your Creative Vision?
51. A More Dope, Prosperous Future for All Photographers
52. CREATION & DISTRIBUTION.
53. THE VALUE OF PHOTOS.
54. How to Maximize Your Impact as a Photographer
55. Why the World Needs More Bloggers
56. DOMAIN EXPERTISE.
57. The Joy of Speculation
58. MAKE A NAME FOR YOURSELF.
59. Propogate
60. Meaningful Advantage or Not?
61. PHOTO CREATOR.
62. NOW IS YOUR DECISIVE MOMENT.
63. I CANNOT BE IGNORED
64. Photography Blogs are Highly *UNDERRATED*
65. What is Your Competitive Advantage?
66. Why 4K?
67. Indirect Monetization
68. The Future of Innovation in Photography
69. Photography Innovation and Image Selection Idea: Let Google (YouTube) Suggested Thumbnail Pick Your Best Photo? 
70. How to Identify Your Competitive Advantage
71. In Praise of Insanely Fast Wifi
72. DIGITAL PUBLISHING IS KING.
73. The Stoic-Entrepreneurship Mindset
74. Marketing Tips for Photographers
75. STARK DIFFERENTIATION
76. MAXIMALIST
77. Visual Entrepreneurship
78. On Becoming a Full-Stack Visual Entrepreneur
79. Real Photographers Don’t Use Instagram
80. Brave New World of Blogging
81. Don’t Go to Photography School
82. Mass Success is a Failure?
83. How to Maximize Your Archimedes Lever in Life
84. Maximize Your Archimedes Lever
85. How to Create Value Out of Nothing
86. The Best Brand is No Brand
87. What Do We Entrepreneurs *Really* Want?
88. You Were Destined to Do Great Things
89. Just Share Your Photos on Your Own Blog
90. Your Blog is the Ultimate Form of Social Media
91. The Future of Websites and Blogs
92. Create a Company
93. Money Photography Project
94. WHY IT IS GOOD TO CHARGE MONEY FOR YOUR SERVICES AND PRODUCTS
95. Google and YouTube SEO (Search Engine Optimization) 101: How Would You Type It?
96. WHY RIGHT NOW IS THE BEST TIME FOR YOU TO START YOUR SIDE HUSTLE
97. Digital Photography is the Future
98. NEVER STOP EXPERIMENTING!
99. WHAT IS INNOVATION?
100. A Non-Ownership Future
101. CONTROL OVER MONEY
102. Economic Constraints Are Creative Constraints
103. Become a Sole-Proprietor
104. Entrepreneurship is a Mindset
105. How to Master Mac
106. The Future of Lifestyle
107. Necessity is the Mother of Innovation
108. Once We Have an Easy Life, Then What?
109. Why I Don’t Read Comments
110. YouTube SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for Photographers
111. How to Become a Self-Employed Photographer
112. How to Live Big With Little Money
113. Why Blogging, Vlogging and Internet Media is More Important than Ever
114. No Marketing, No Future
115. Photography Marketing 101
116. Google and YouTube are King
117. Why I’m So Suspicious of Everyone Online and on the Internet
118. How to Become More Notorious
119. Kaizen Approach to Blogging
120. How to Master Marketing
121. CREATE WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE SEE MANIFESTED IN THE WORLD!
122. Anti Silicon-Valley Thinking
123. Your Name
124. In Praise of WordPress
125. NEVER STOP POSTING
126. Your Future Portfolio is a Website
127. Infinite Runway
128. ERIC KIM ATTITUDE
129. Financial Independence as a Road to Freedom of Speech?
130. WHY OPEN SOURCE IS THE FUTURE
131. Just Post It.
132. Posts Are Products
133. Photography Entrepreneurship Ideas
134. YOU ARE KING.
135. You’re Always in BETA MODE
136. Build Your Own Media Empire
137. WHY I DON’T MONETIZE MY YOUTUBE VIDEOS
138. Why I Became an Entrepreneur
139. The Uber-Photographer
140. Create What You Would Like to See Manifested in the World
141. Create the Future
142. Entrepreneurship is Best During Uncertain Times
143. Photography Entrepreneurship 101 Presentation by ERIC KIM
144. Your Body is the Brand
145. Your Name is Your Brand
146. Create Your Own Social Media Platform
147. BUILD IT OR BUY IT?
148. Sell Yourself
149. Create New
150. Insta-Slaves
151. YOU CANNOT FAKE ENTHUSIASM
152. Why Hybrid is the Future
153. Don’t Censor Yourself
154. HOW I MASTERED MARKETING
155. ERIC KIM BLOGS
156. If Someone Offers You Help, You’re Stupid to *NOT* Take It.
157. SEEK GREAT, NOT PERFECT.
158. How I Became So Famous
159. Let Reality Mould Itself to You
160. ANTI ENTITLEMENT MENTALITY
161. Live Your Life as If You Were a Billionaire
162. HOW I THINK DIFFERENT
163. Impact, Influence, Reach: The Three Pillars of Marketing
164. ERIC KIM SCHOOL
165. Classicism.
166. MY PHILOSOPHY OF MONEY
167. Money is Movement
168. Elitism 2.0
169. Mass Market or Luxury Market?
170. Why You Must Market Yourself
171. Why You Must Start an Email Newsletter
172. How Laptops Can Change the World
173. What Do You Want to Become?
174. What is Really Holding You Back in Life?
175. Why I Write: Writing as Meta-Thinking
176. ADVERTISE YOURSELF
177. Use Your First and Last Name
178. How Blogging Can Change the World
179. In Praise of Liberty
180. How I Write in Markdown
181. How I Became So Influential on YouTube
182. REVERSE FLEX
183. What a Time to Be Alive in Today’s Brave New World of Photography
184. HOW TO DIFFERENTIATE YOURSELF FROM OTHERS
185. YOU CHOOSE YOU
186. My Life Photography Entrepreneurship Story
187. WHY I DON’T BELIEVE IN COLLABORATION
188. My Entrepreneurship Mindset
189. YOU’RE THE HERO IN THIS GAME OF LIFE
190. My Money Philosophy
191. Why Brand and Market Yourself?
192. PROFESSIONALISM IS FOR SUCKERS
193. Just Share What Works for You
194. How to Create Your Own Platform
195. Living in a Post Monetary Society
196. In Praise of Blogging
197. The Entrepreneurial Lifestyle is the Best Lifestyle
198. Algorithm Slavery
199. ANTI VIEWS
200. Entrepreneurship is The Goal
201. The Art of Blogging
202. IN PRAISE OF PURSUING YOUR PASSION
203. How to Make Great Titles
204. Sole Proprietorship
205. Just Build It.
206. VIA NEGATIVA
207. PROMOTE YOURSELF
208. Become a Full-Stack Entrepreneur
209. How to Entertain Others
210. My Experience Teaching My First Online Photography Creativity Workshop on Zoom
211. Humans Aren’t Lazy
212. One Shot.
213. THE BRAVE SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH
214. The Brave New COVID Lifestyle
215. Start Your Own Business
216. Minimum Viable Income ( MVI)
217. TRAINING.
218. WHY VIDEO?
219. How to Become Bolder
220. You’ve Always Already Been a Photography Entrepreneur!
221. The Future is All Digital Everything
222. Digital Sharecropping
223. DO IT FOR YOUR PAST AND FUTURE SELF
224. In Praise of Buffer and Redundancy
225. ASKING FOR PERMISSION IS FOR SUCKERS.
226. POST-MONETARY SOCIETY.
227. Advertise Your Own Stuff
228. THE FUTURE IS DIGITAL.
229. Simulated Universal Basic Income
230. Is Losing Followers a Good Thing?
231. How to Add to Economic Activity
232. DIGITAL CAPITALISM
233. MONEY IS MOVEMENT
234. Anything is Possible
235. BRAVE NEW WORLD OF DIGITAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
236. GENERATE
237. How to Profit from Calamity
238. Capitalism 2.0
239. WHY I’M SO PASSIONATE ABOUT INFORMATION
240. SOCIETY 2.0
241. PHOENIX ENTREPENEURSHIP
242. How to Make Art from Home
243. BUY YOURSELF
244. JUST BLOG IT.
245. MARKET YOURSELF
246. EXPENSIVE TALK
247. SOCIAL MEDIA SLAVERY
248. Who Are Your Ideal Followers?
249. Why I Blog, Vlog, and Log
250. Your Perspective is Irrefutable
251. What are Your Hidden Powers?
252. IMPACT MAXIMIZATION, not Profit Maximization
253. Our Desire to Maximize Impact and Change
254. 10 Rich Tips How to Make Money from Photography
255. Create What You Would Love to Consume
256. Publish is Pleasure
257. Retire Now
258. Do You Desire to Become the Best?
259. Solo Entrepreneurship
260. My Vision of Photography Entrepreneurship
261. PUT YOUR NAME ON IT
262. The Desire to Transcend Ourselves
263. MONEY THOUGHTS
264. How to Retire
265. Via Negativa Productivity
266. Why You Must Make Your Own Website
267. Individuals over Companies
268. Build Yourself
269. Success is Survival
270. Why You Shouldn’t Go to Photography or Art School
271. How to Differentiate Yourself as a Photographer
272. Surpass Yourself
     
273. Can You Handle Extreme Freedom?
274. Boutique or Mass Market?
275. Proof of Concept
276. Unified Field Theory for Photography
277. Build a Company You’d Never Sell
278. Play the Long Game
279. Entrepreneurship and Art
280. What is the Source of our Strength?
281. What’s the Future for Photography?
282. Full-Stack Visual Artist
283. Why Scale?
284. What is Your Unfair Advantage?
285. Substance Marketing
286. Share Your Dopeness with Others
287. Frugality is Freedom
288. Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for Entrepreneurship
289. Don’t Follow or Predict Trends, Start Your Own Trend!
290. If You’re Not Busy Growing, You’re Busy Dying
291. Entrepreneurship born from Superabundance, not Need/Necessity
292. Photography Entrepreneurship Philosophy
293. How to Master Marketing in Photography
294. Photography Entrepreneurship Tips and Ideas
295. Is Hustle Sufficient Unto Success?
296. Don’t do it for the money
297. DIGITAL MARXISM
298. Zen Entrepreneurship
299. BOLDER IS BETTER.
300. Streamers Shall Inherit the Earth

Photography Blogging

• Blogging is Public Meditations
• The Art of Blogging
• Give Me a Laptop and I Shall Move the World!
• The Future is Photography Blogging
• How to Become a GREAT Blogger
• If you can’t code, blog instead!
• Daily Blog of Activities
• How to Monetize a Blog Without Advertising
• How to Publish Yourself
• How to Blog
• The future of photography publishing is photography blogging.
• Why Become a Photography Blogger?
• Why You Must Become a Photography Blogger
• Why You Should Delete Your Instagram and Start Your Own Blog

Money

• How to Use Wealth
• To Become Rich, Don’t Go Broke
• Why Save Money?
• Less Money, Less Problems

Self-Empowerment

• Life is Too Short to Be Negative
• Why You Must Follow Your Passion in Life
• How to Conquer Shyness
• Don’t Ask for Permission
• Onto the Next One
• Why You Must Self-Promote Yourself
• Why You Must Conquer Your Fears in Life

Marketing and Branding

• Why You Must Become a Photography Blogger
• Why Blog?
• Why You Must Self-Promote Yourself
• Create Substance, Not Content
• Photography Marketing and Branding 101
• How to Master Marketing in Photography
• 10 Tips How to Become a More Famous Photographer

Entrepreneurship Lifestyle

• Why Hustle?
• Why Save Money?
• Ascetic is Sexy
• Why You Must Become Self-Employed
• How to Push Yourself Beyond the Limit
• Is Location Independence Overrated?

Entrepreneurship Mindset

• How to Get Discovered
• Financial Independence
• Disregard Success or Failure; Always Attempt More!
• In Praise of Stubbornness
• Success is Personal Bravery
• Why You Must Become an Entrepreneur
• How to Brand and Market Yourself as a Photographer
• How to Conquer Haters
• How to Accumulate Capital
• Why Be Different?
• How to Master Marketing in Photography
• Don’t Play it Safe
• Why Blog?
• How to Be a More Productive Photographer
• How to Hustle
• True Productivity
• What Can Only You Do?
• Love Risk
• What is Success?
• Fill a Vacuum
• Think Big
• What is Your Dream in Life?
• 8 Blogging Productivity Tips
• Why Be Normal?
• How Much Suffering Are You Willing to Endure to Achieve Your Dreams?

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Photography Entrepreneurship 101

• Don’t Sit Still!
• Bitcoin for Photographers
• Don’t Be Timid
• Why Start Your Own Photography Blog?
• Fill a Void
• 1,000 True Followers: How to Build Your Own Niche in Photography
• Photography Entrepreneurship 101: Why You Must Start Your Own Email Newsletter
• TURBO CREATION: Why a Maxed-Out MacBook Laptop is the Best Investment You Can Make for Photography Entrepreneurship

Life and Productivity Hacks

• My Ultimate Productivity and Life Hacks
• Life/Productivity Hack: Write (Type on a phone) While Walking on a Dynamic Treadmill
• ERIC KIM Life, Creativity, and Productivity Hacks

How to Make a Living from Your Passion

• Digital Nomad Photographer
• Build Your Own Instagram!
• How to Be More Ambitious
• Do It Your Way
• How to Measure Your Progress as a Photography Entrepreneur + Come Up With New Ideas
• How to Make a Living From Your Passion in Photography

Put a Dent in the Universe.

• Fear Disguised as Reason
• Distraction is the Enemy
• Innovate for the Sake of Innovating!
• Reality is Malleable!
• Stoic Entrepreneurship
• Against Self-Preservation
• The Purpose of Life is to Make New Stuff!

How to Succeed as an Entrepreneur

• You Have No Limits.
• Calculated Risk-Taking
• Invest in Yourself
• The Secret of Happiness: Shoot for the Moon!
• Moonshot Thinking
• Why We Should all Be Photography Entrepreneurs
• Memento Mori Entrepreneurship
• Why it is Better to Beg For Forgiveness than Ask For Permission
• How to Become a Digital Nomad
• Why You Must Own Your Own Platform
• First Principle Thinking for Photography Entrepreneurs
• How I Became a Digital Nomad
• Better to Beg For Forgiveness than Ask For Permission!
• Spurn Pleasing Others!
• Create Your Own Niche
• How to Gain More Exposure For Your Photography
• Intense Focus
• How to Conquer Your Fears as an Entrepreneur
• Define Yourself
• Let Dissatisfaction Drive You Forward!
• It Doesn’t Matter if Someone Else Has Done it Before!
• How to Succeed as a Photography Entrepreneur: Be Extremely Resourceful
• Open Source Business Model in Photography Entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurship 101: Growth and Innovation Over Self-Preservation
• How to Create Value as a Photography Entrepreneur
• Why Become a Photography Entrepreneur?
• Why You Must Ignore Nay-Sayers to Succeed in Entrepreneurship, Business, and Life

---

The Modern Photographer: Tips, Strategies, and Tactics to Thrive as a Visual Artist in the Digital Age

Marketing, Branding, Entrepreneurship Principles For Success

MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER is your new philosophical and practical primer to succeed as a modern photographer in today’s digital world.

• MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER KINDLE EDITION ON AMAZON
• SEE ALL PRODUCTS ON AMAZON

---

Business Mental Models

• How to Succeed as a Photography Entrepreneur: Be Extremely Resourceful
• Open Source Business Model in Photography Entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurship 101: Growth and Innovation Over Self-Preservation

---

How to Monetize Your Photography

• Photography Entrepreneurship 101: INFLUENCE
• Should I Monetize My Passion for Photography?
• 10 Practical Photography Monetization Strategies: Pricing, Google SEO, & Entrepreneurship
• How to Make Money From Street Photography

---

Why Become a Photography Entrepreneur?

Take control of your own photographic destiny:

1. Photography Startup Manual
2. PHOTOGRAPHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP MANUAL
3. On Risk Taking and Entrepreneurship

---

THE MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER

• CREATIVE CAPITALISM
• How to Monetize Your Photography
• 5 Practical Photography Career Tips and Advice
• 10x Thinking
• How to Hustle as a Photographer
• How to Become Your Own Master Marketer
• The ‘T’ Technique of Success
• Go Ahead and Sell Out
• What is Your Unique Voice?
• Why You Must Self-Promote Yourself
• What is Your Unique Angle as a Photographer?
• Photography Content Marketing 101
• Why You Must Become Your Own Publisher
• The Art of Cross-Pollination in Photography

---

Photography Entrepreneurship Articles

• Why You Shouldn’t Trust Your Pictures to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Flickr
• How to Make Money From Your Photography
• Photography SEO and Blogging: How to Become Number One on Google
• Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation
•  Now is the Best Time to Be a Photographer
• PRODUCERISM
• What Is The Value of a Picture?
• Your Photographic Labor is Not Free

PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOPS 101

• Chapter 1. How to Make a Photography Blog
• Chapter 2. How to Price Yourself
• Chapter 3. How to Find Your Market
• Chapter 4. Why Teach Workshops?
• Chapter 5. How to Build Trust
• Chapter 6. How to Market Yourself
• Chapter 7: Why Should Someone Attend Your Workshop?

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KEYS TO SUCCESS

• Why You Must Be a “Personality” in Order to Succeed
• THRIVE OR DIE.
• Impatience is a Virtue
• Create Your Own Category
• HOW TO DREAM BIG.
• Will Not or Cannot?
• Why Not?
• How to Think BIG
• How to Stay Ahead of the Curve
• How to Invest in Yourself
• The Two Camera Rule
• MEANINGFUL DIFFERENTIATION
• Advice For College Students
• How to Thrive in Uncertain Times
• CANNIBALIZE YOURSELF.
• DO AND GROW RICH
• Does Fear of Punishment Hold You Back?
• HOW TO GET MORE FOLLOWERS
• How to Innovate
• How to Build Your Own Empire
• YOU ARE ENTITLED TO HARD WORK.
• PICK YOURSELF.
• OWN YOUR PLATFORM
• 10 KEYS TO SUCCESS

Table of Contents

Learn how to make a living from your passion:

• Preface. BRAVE NEW WORLD OF PHOTOGRAPHY
• Chapter 1. How to Create Value
• Chapter 2. ZEN CAPITALISM
• Chapter 3. Scarcity
• Chapter 4. How to Brand Yourself
• Chapter 5. How to Build a True Following
• Chapter 6. The Blueprint to Success in Photography
• Chapter 7. HOW TO BE BOLD
• Chapter 8. How to Sell Out
• Chapter 9. GO AGAINST THE GRAIN
• Chapter 10. EXTREME ABUNDANCE
• Chapter 11. Photography Experience Economy
• Chapter 12. Why You Should Make Money for Your Photography
• Chapter 13. How to Become a Famous Photographer

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Photography Business 101

• Practical Photography Business Advice

How to Make Money with Photography

• How to Charge More Money in Your Photography
• Why You Should Not Pursue Photography as Career
• Can Photography Make You Rich?
• How I Earn $200,000+ a Year From Photography
• How to earn $10,000 a month as a photographer
• Why you must be an expensive photographer

Photography Marketing 101

• Why Have More Followers?
• Why You Should Do Photography Work For Free
• How I Became an Internet Famous Photographer
• Photography Blogging Ideas
• Why You Should Promote Your Own Name
• How to Build a Following
• How to Stand Out as a Photographer.
• HOW TO GO VIRAL AS A PHOTOGRAPHER.
• How to Master Marketing
• How to Sell Yourself

---

How to Hustle.

• Entrepreneurial Advice to My 18 Year Old Self
• How to Become Insanely Productive.
• 5 Lessons From Hesiod on Hustling

Entrepreneurial Principles

• It is Better to Beg For Forgiveness Than Ask For Permission
• The Free Way to Become Rich
• JUST DO IT.
• 7 Steps: How to Make a Living From Your Passion
• How to Do What You Love for a Living
• How to Create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
• How to Fail Big
• How to Invest in Yourself
• How to Be Bold in Photography and Life
• Mission: Cover Your Rent and Food
• 1,000 True Fans
• The “10x Principle”: The Only Difference Between “Success” and “Failure”
• Make More Value Not Money
• We Live in a Photo Utopia

How to be a Full-time Photographer

• How to Make a Living From Photography
• The 3 Principles of Making Money With Photography
• Advice for Aspiring Full-Time Photographers
• Don’t Go Into Debt For Your Photography
• How to Brand Yourself as a Photographer
• Trust: The Most Important Thing You Need to Succeed as a Photographer

Photography Blogging

• How to become rich from photography blogging
• How to Make a Living with Blogging
• 50 Blogging Tips For Beginners
• How to Start Your Own Photography Blog
• A Photographer’s Guide to SEO, Blogging, and Social Media

How to Teach Photography

• How to Become a Photography Teacher
• How to Teach a Street Photography Class
• Why I Teach Street Photography Workshops

Social Media

• Why I Deleted My Instagram
• The Social Media Blackbook for Photographers
• Why Do You Need More Likes or Followers?
• Instagram is Going to Be the Next Facebook
• Don’t Trust “Free” Photography Social Networks

How to Save Money

• How Cindy Saved Us $150,000+
• The Free Way to Become Rich

START HERE >

MONEY 101

 ERIC KIM CHATGPT BOTS

1. ZEN OF ERIC
2. ERIC KIM BOT

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STREET PHOTOGRAPHY STARTER KIT

Open source:

0. What is Street Photography? (2.4gb) / Download
1. Black and White (2.3gb) / Download
2. How to Shoot Street Photography (2.2gb) / Download
3. Street Portraits 101 (1.9gb) / Download
4. Conquer Your Fears (430mb) / Download
5. Composition (460mb) / Download
6. Masters (107mb) / Download
7. Editing and Post-Processing (1.3gb) / Download
8. Photography Projects (1.4gb) / Download
9. Motivation (3.7gb) / Download

View all >

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BECOME A PHOTOGRAPHY ENTREPRENEUR

Advice I would have given myself in photography, if I started all over again:

Until You Own Yourself You Can’t Be Free

De-lamify the future.

Photography Entrepreneurship 101 Presentation by ERIC KIM

---

ENTREPRENEURSHIP by KIM

Enroll in my Udemy Course:

‘Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Photography Entrepreneurship’: Create Your Own Future >

---

Entrepreneurship Ideas

1. InstaSlaves
2. How to Become a Vlogger
3. How to Build Your Own Self Brand
4. SOLO MEDIA EMPIRE
5. TIME LEVERAGE.
6. How to Market Yourself in Photography
7. How to Become More Ambitious
8. Crypto Photography
9. In Praise of Email Newsletters
10. Propagate.
11. Make Your Own Street Photography Blog
12. Create the Information You Seek.
13. Content over Technology
14. How to Advertise Yourself as a Photographer
15. CREATIVE WAYS TO USE YOUTUBE
16. Photography Branding 101
17. BUILD YOURSELF.
18. Bet on Your Own Coin.
19. The Photographer Should Also Make His/Her Own Music?
20. Mix Your Photos and Videos
21. JUST PUBLISH IT.
22. EMPOWER OTHER PHOTOGRAPHERS.
23. BECOME OUTSIDE THE BOX
24. MOVE PEOPLE, MOVE PRODUCTS.
25. SOCIAL MEDIA IS FRAGILE.
26. Why Start a Photography Blog?
27. Once You FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early), Then What?
28. THE FUTURE IS PDF
29. In Praise of Solo Photography Business Entrepreneurship
30. LONGEVITY, DURABILITY AND SUCCESS
31. Street Photography Philosophy Entrepreneurship
32. YOU ARE THE PLATFORM
33. JUST RISK IT.
34. DON’T OPTIMIZE FOR THE ALGORITHM
35. Scaleable Photography
36. What Does it Mean to Become a Successful Photographer?
37. 20 Photography Marketing, Branding, and Entrepreneurship Tips
38. Create Your Own Social Media
39. Individual Entrepreneurship
40. YOU ARE THE ICON.
41. BUILD!
42. What is Success in Photography?
43. EXTREME VISION
44. Publish Fearlessly
45. MAKE DOPE THINGS AND SHARE THEM WITH THE WORLD!
46. THE AMBITIOUS PHOTOGRAPHER.
47. PhotoLink
48. Real World Applications
49. You Are Your Own Ideal User
50. What is Your Creative Vision?
51. A More Dope, Prosperous Future for All Photographers
52. CREATION & DISTRIBUTION.
53. THE VALUE OF PHOTOS.
54. How to Maximize Your Impact as a Photographer
55. Why the World Needs More Bloggers
56. DOMAIN EXPERTISE.
57. The Joy of Speculation
58. MAKE A NAME FOR YOURSELF.
59. Propogate
60. Meaningful Advantage or Not?
61. PHOTO CREATOR.
62. NOW IS YOUR DECISIVE MOMENT.
63. I CANNOT BE IGNORED
64. Photography Blogs are Highly *UNDERRATED*
65. What is Your Competitive Advantage?
66. Why 4K?
67. Indirect Monetization
68. The Future of Innovation in Photography
69. Photography Innovation and Image Selection Idea: Let Google (YouTube) Suggested Thumbnail Pick Your Best Photo? 
70. How to Identify Your Competitive Advantage
71. In Praise of Insanely Fast Wifi
72. DIGITAL PUBLISHING IS KING.
73. The Stoic-Entrepreneurship Mindset
74. Marketing Tips for Photographers
75. STARK DIFFERENTIATION
76. MAXIMALIST
77. Visual Entrepreneurship
78. On Becoming a Full-Stack Visual Entrepreneur
79. Real Photographers Don’t Use Instagram
80. Brave New World of Blogging
81. Don’t Go to Photography School
82. Mass Success is a Failure?
83. How to Maximize Your Archimedes Lever in Life
84. Maximize Your Archimedes Lever
85. How to Create Value Out of Nothing
86. The Best Brand is No Brand
87. What Do We Entrepreneurs *Really* Want?
88. You Were Destined to Do Great Things
89. Just Share Your Photos on Your Own Blog
90. Your Blog is the Ultimate Form of Social Media
91. The Future of Websites and Blogs
92. Create a Company
93. Money Photography Project
94. WHY IT IS GOOD TO CHARGE MONEY FOR YOUR SERVICES AND PRODUCTS
95. Google and YouTube SEO (Search Engine Optimization) 101: How Would You Type It?
96. WHY RIGHT NOW IS THE BEST TIME FOR YOU TO START YOUR SIDE HUSTLE
97. Digital Photography is the Future
98. NEVER STOP EXPERIMENTING!
99. WHAT IS INNOVATION?
100. A Non-Ownership Future
101. CONTROL OVER MONEY
102. Economic Constraints Are Creative Constraints
103. Become a Sole-Proprietor
104. Entrepreneurship is a Mindset
105. How to Master Mac
106. The Future of Lifestyle
107. Necessity is the Mother of Innovation
108. Once We Have an Easy Life, Then What?
109. Why I Don’t Read Comments
110. YouTube SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for Photographers
111. How to Become a Self-Employed Photographer
112. How to Live Big With Little Money
113. Why Blogging, Vlogging and Internet Media is More Important than Ever
114. No Marketing, No Future
115. Photography Marketing 101
116. Google and YouTube are King
117. Why I’m So Suspicious of Everyone Online and on the Internet
118. How to Become More Notorious
119. Kaizen Approach to Blogging
120. How to Master Marketing
121. CREATE WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE SEE MANIFESTED IN THE WORLD!
122. Anti Silicon-Valley Thinking
123. Your Name
124. In Praise of WordPress
125. NEVER STOP POSTING
126. Your Future Portfolio is a Website
127. Infinite Runway
128. ERIC KIM ATTITUDE
129. Financial Independence as a Road to Freedom of Speech?
130. WHY OPEN SOURCE IS THE FUTURE
131. Just Post It.
132. Posts Are Products
133. Photography Entrepreneurship Ideas
134. YOU ARE KING.
135. You’re Always in BETA MODE
136. Build Your Own Media Empire
137. WHY I DON’T MONETIZE MY YOUTUBE VIDEOS
138. Why I Became an Entrepreneur
139. The Uber-Photographer
140. Create What You Would Like to See Manifested in the World
141. Create the Future
142. Entrepreneurship is Best During Uncertain Times
143. Photography Entrepreneurship 101 Presentation by ERIC KIM
144. Your Body is the Brand
145. Your Name is Your Brand
146. Create Your Own Social Media Platform
147. BUILD IT OR BUY IT?
148. Sell Yourself
149. Create New
150. Insta-Slaves
151. YOU CANNOT FAKE ENTHUSIASM
152. Why Hybrid is the Future
153. Don’t Censor Yourself
154. HOW I MASTERED MARKETING
155. ERIC KIM BLOGS
156. If Someone Offers You Help, You’re Stupid to *NOT* Take It.
157. SEEK GREAT, NOT PERFECT.
158. How I Became So Famous
159. Let Reality Mould Itself to You
160. ANTI ENTITLEMENT MENTALITY
161. Live Your Life as If You Were a Billionaire
162. HOW I THINK DIFFERENT
163. Impact, Influence, Reach: The Three Pillars of Marketing
164. ERIC KIM SCHOOL
165. Classicism.
166. MY PHILOSOPHY OF MONEY
167. Money is Movement
168. Elitism 2.0
169. Mass Market or Luxury Market?
170. Why You Must Market Yourself
171. Why You Must Start an Email Newsletter
172. How Laptops Can Change the World
173. What Do You Want to Become?
174. What is Really Holding You Back in Life?
175. Why I Write: Writing as Meta-Thinking
176. ADVERTISE YOURSELF
177. Use Your First and Last Name
178. How Blogging Can Change the World
179. In Praise of Liberty
180. How I Write in Markdown
181. How I Became So Influential on YouTube
182. REVERSE FLEX
183. What a Time to Be Alive in Today’s Brave New World of Photography
184. HOW TO DIFFERENTIATE YOURSELF FROM OTHERS
185. YOU CHOOSE YOU
186. My Life Photography Entrepreneurship Story
187. WHY I DON’T BELIEVE IN COLLABORATION
188. My Entrepreneurship Mindset
189. YOU’RE THE HERO IN THIS GAME OF LIFE
190. My Money Philosophy
191. Why Brand and Market Yourself?
192. PROFESSIONALISM IS FOR SUCKERS
193. Just Share What Works for You
194. How to Create Your Own Platform
195. Living in a Post Monetary Society
196. In Praise of Blogging
197. The Entrepreneurial Lifestyle is the Best Lifestyle
198. Algorithm Slavery
199. ANTI VIEWS
200. Entrepreneurship is The Goal
201. The Art of Blogging
202. IN PRAISE OF PURSUING YOUR PASSION
203. How to Make Great Titles
204. Sole Proprietorship
205. Just Build It.
206. VIA NEGATIVA
207. PROMOTE YOURSELF
208. Become a Full-Stack Entrepreneur
209. How to Entertain Others
210. My Experience Teaching My First Online Photography Creativity Workshop on Zoom
211. Humans Aren’t Lazy
212. One Shot.
213. THE BRAVE SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH
214. The Brave New COVID Lifestyle
215. Start Your Own Business
216. Minimum Viable Income ( MVI)
217. TRAINING.
218. WHY VIDEO?
219. How to Become Bolder
220. You’ve Always Already Been a Photography Entrepreneur!
221. The Future is All Digital Everything
222. Digital Sharecropping
223. DO IT FOR YOUR PAST AND FUTURE SELF
224. In Praise of Buffer and Redundancy
225. ASKING FOR PERMISSION IS FOR SUCKERS.
226. POST-MONETARY SOCIETY.
227. Advertise Your Own Stuff
228. THE FUTURE IS DIGITAL.
229. Simulated Universal Basic Income
230. Is Losing Followers a Good Thing?
231. How to Add to Economic Activity
232. DIGITAL CAPITALISM
233. MONEY IS MOVEMENT
234. Anything is Possible
235. BRAVE NEW WORLD OF DIGITAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
236. GENERATE
237. How to Profit from Calamity
238. Capitalism 2.0
239. WHY I’M SO PASSIONATE ABOUT INFORMATION
240. SOCIETY 2.0
241. PHOENIX ENTREPENEURSHIP
242. How to Make Art from Home
243. BUY YOURSELF
244. JUST BLOG IT.
245. MARKET YOURSELF
246. EXPENSIVE TALK
247. SOCIAL MEDIA SLAVERY
248. Who Are Your Ideal Followers?
249. Why I Blog, Vlog, and Log
250. Your Perspective is Irrefutable
251. What are Your Hidden Powers?
252. IMPACT MAXIMIZATION, not Profit Maximization
253. Our Desire to Maximize Impact and Change
254. 10 Rich Tips How to Make Money from Photography
255. Create What You Would Love to Consume
256. Publish is Pleasure
257. Retire Now
258. Do You Desire to Become the Best?
259. Solo Entrepreneurship
260. My Vision of Photography Entrepreneurship
261. PUT YOUR NAME ON IT
262. The Desire to Transcend Ourselves
263. MONEY THOUGHTS
264. How to Retire
265. Via Negativa Productivity
266. Why You Must Make Your Own Website
267. Individuals over Companies
268. Build Yourself
269. Success is Survival
270. Why You Shouldn’t Go to Photography or Art School
271. How to Differentiate Yourself as a Photographer
272. Surpass Yourself
     
273. Can You Handle Extreme Freedom?
274. Boutique or Mass Market?
275. Proof of Concept
276. Unified Field Theory for Photography
277. Build a Company You’d Never Sell
278. Play the Long Game
279. Entrepreneurship and Art
280. What is the Source of our Strength?
281. What’s the Future for Photography?
282. Full-Stack Visual Artist
283. Why Scale?
284. What is Your Unfair Advantage?
285. Substance Marketing
286. Share Your Dopeness with Others
287. Frugality is Freedom
288. Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for Entrepreneurship
289. Don’t Follow or Predict Trends, Start Your Own Trend!
290. If You’re Not Busy Growing, You’re Busy Dying
291. Entrepreneurship born from Superabundance, not Need/Necessity
292. Photography Entrepreneurship Philosophy
293. How to Master Marketing in Photography
294. Photography Entrepreneurship Tips and Ideas
295. Is Hustle Sufficient Unto Success?
296. Don’t do it for the money
297. DIGITAL MARXISM
298. Zen Entrepreneurship
299. BOLDER IS BETTER.
300. Streamers Shall Inherit the Earth

Photography Blogging

• Blogging is Public Meditations
• The Art of Blogging
• Give Me a Laptop and I Shall Move the World!
• The Future is Photography Blogging
• How to Become a GREAT Blogger
• If you can’t code, blog instead!
• Daily Blog of Activities
• How to Monetize a Blog Without Advertising
• How to Publish Yourself
• How to Blog
• The future of photography publishing is photography blogging.
• Why Become a Photography Blogger?
• Why You Must Become a Photography Blogger
• Why You Should Delete Your Instagram and Start Your Own Blog

Money

• How to Use Wealth
• To Become Rich, Don’t Go Broke
• Why Save Money?
• Less Money, Less Problems

Self-Empowerment

• Life is Too Short to Be Negative
• Why You Must Follow Your Passion in Life
• How to Conquer Shyness
• Don’t Ask for Permission
• Onto the Next One
• Why You Must Self-Promote Yourself
• Why You Must Conquer Your Fears in Life

Marketing and Branding

• Why You Must Become a Photography Blogger
• Why Blog?
• Why You Must Self-Promote Yourself
• Create Substance, Not Content
• Photography Marketing and Branding 101
• How to Master Marketing in Photography
• 10 Tips How to Become a More Famous Photographer

Entrepreneurship Lifestyle

• Why Hustle?
• Why Save Money?
• Ascetic is Sexy
• Why You Must Become Self-Employed
• How to Push Yourself Beyond the Limit
• Is Location Independence Overrated?

Entrepreneurship Mindset

• How to Get Discovered
• Financial Independence
• Disregard Success or Failure; Always Attempt More!
• In Praise of Stubbornness
• Success is Personal Bravery
• Why You Must Become an Entrepreneur
• How to Brand and Market Yourself as a Photographer
• How to Conquer Haters
• How to Accumulate Capital
• Why Be Different?
• How to Master Marketing in Photography
• Don’t Play it Safe
• Why Blog?
• How to Be a More Productive Photographer
• How to Hustle
• True Productivity
• What Can Only You Do?
• Love Risk
• What is Success?
• Fill a Vacuum
• Think Big
• What is Your Dream in Life?
• 8 Blogging Productivity Tips
• Why Be Normal?
• How Much Suffering Are You Willing to Endure to Achieve Your Dreams?

---

Photography Entrepreneurship 101

• Don’t Sit Still!
• Bitcoin for Photographers
• Don’t Be Timid
• Why Start Your Own Photography Blog?
• Fill a Void
• 1,000 True Followers: How to Build Your Own Niche in Photography
• Photography Entrepreneurship 101: Why You Must Start Your Own Email Newsletter
• TURBO CREATION: Why a Maxed-Out MacBook Laptop is the Best Investment You Can Make for Photography Entrepreneurship

Life and Productivity Hacks

• My Ultimate Productivity and Life Hacks
• Life/Productivity Hack: Write (Type on a phone) While Walking on a Dynamic Treadmill
• ERIC KIM Life, Creativity, and Productivity Hacks

How to Make a Living from Your Passion

• Digital Nomad Photographer
• Build Your Own Instagram!
• How to Be More Ambitious
• Do It Your Way
• How to Measure Your Progress as a Photography Entrepreneur + Come Up With New Ideas
• How to Make a Living From Your Passion in Photography

Put a Dent in the Universe.

• Fear Disguised as Reason
• Distraction is the Enemy
• Innovate for the Sake of Innovating!
• Reality is Malleable!
• Stoic Entrepreneurship
• Against Self-Preservation
• The Purpose of Life is to Make New Stuff!

How to Succeed as an Entrepreneur

• You Have No Limits.
• Calculated Risk-Taking
• Invest in Yourself
• The Secret of Happiness: Shoot for the Moon!
• Moonshot Thinking
• Why We Should all Be Photography Entrepreneurs
• Memento Mori Entrepreneurship
• Why it is Better to Beg For Forgiveness than Ask For Permission
• How to Become a Digital Nomad
• Why You Must Own Your Own Platform
• First Principle Thinking for Photography Entrepreneurs
• How I Became a Digital Nomad
• Better to Beg For Forgiveness than Ask For Permission!
• Spurn Pleasing Others!
• Create Your Own Niche
• How to Gain More Exposure For Your Photography
• Intense Focus
• How to Conquer Your Fears as an Entrepreneur
• Define Yourself
• Let Dissatisfaction Drive You Forward!
• It Doesn’t Matter if Someone Else Has Done it Before!
• How to Succeed as a Photography Entrepreneur: Be Extremely Resourceful
• Open Source Business Model in Photography Entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurship 101: Growth and Innovation Over Self-Preservation
• How to Create Value as a Photography Entrepreneur
• Why Become a Photography Entrepreneur?
• Why You Must Ignore Nay-Sayers to Succeed in Entrepreneurship, Business, and Life

---

The Modern Photographer: Tips, Strategies, and Tactics to Thrive as a Visual Artist in the Digital Age

Marketing, Branding, Entrepreneurship Principles For Success

MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER is your new philosophical and practical primer to succeed as a modern photographer in today’s digital world.

• MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER KINDLE EDITION ON AMAZON
• SEE ALL PRODUCTS ON AMAZON

---

Business Mental Models

• How to Succeed as a Photography Entrepreneur: Be Extremely Resourceful
• Open Source Business Model in Photography Entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurship 101: Growth and Innovation Over Self-Preservation

---

How to Monetize Your Photography

• Photography Entrepreneurship 101: INFLUENCE
• Should I Monetize My Passion for Photography?
• 10 Practical Photography Monetization Strategies: Pricing, Google SEO, & Entrepreneurship
• How to Make Money From Street Photography

---

Why Become a Photography Entrepreneur?

Take control of your own photographic destiny:

1. Photography Startup Manual
2. PHOTOGRAPHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP MANUAL
3. On Risk Taking and Entrepreneurship

---

THE MODERN PHOTOGRAPHER

• CREATIVE CAPITALISM
• How to Monetize Your Photography
• 5 Practical Photography Career Tips and Advice
• 10x Thinking
• How to Hustle as a Photographer
• How to Become Your Own Master Marketer
• The ‘T’ Technique of Success
• Go Ahead and Sell Out
• What is Your Unique Voice?
• Why You Must Self-Promote Yourself
• What is Your Unique Angle as a Photographer?
• Photography Content Marketing 101
• Why You Must Become Your Own Publisher
• The Art of Cross-Pollination in Photography

---

Photography Entrepreneurship Articles

• Why You Shouldn’t Trust Your Pictures to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Flickr
• How to Make Money From Your Photography
• Photography SEO and Blogging: How to Become Number One on Google
• Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation
•  Now is the Best Time to Be a Photographer
• PRODUCERISM
• What Is The Value of a Picture?
• Your Photographic Labor is Not Free

PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOPS 101

• Chapter 1. How to Make a Photography Blog
• Chapter 2. How to Price Yourself
• Chapter 3. How to Find Your Market
• Chapter 4. Why Teach Workshops?
• Chapter 5. How to Build Trust
• Chapter 6. How to Market Yourself
• Chapter 7: Why Should Someone Attend Your Workshop?

---

KEYS TO SUCCESS

• Why You Must Be a “Personality” in Order to Succeed
• THRIVE OR DIE.
• Impatience is a Virtue
• Create Your Own Category
• HOW TO DREAM BIG.
• Will Not or Cannot?
• Why Not?
• How to Think BIG
• How to Stay Ahead of the Curve
• How to Invest in Yourself
• The Two Camera Rule
• MEANINGFUL DIFFERENTIATION
• Advice For College Students
• How to Thrive in Uncertain Times
• CANNIBALIZE YOURSELF.
• DO AND GROW RICH
• Does Fear of Punishment Hold You Back?
• HOW TO GET MORE FOLLOWERS
• How to Innovate
• How to Build Your Own Empire
• YOU ARE ENTITLED TO HARD WORK.
• PICK YOURSELF.
• OWN YOUR PLATFORM
• 10 KEYS TO SUCCESS

Table of Contents

Learn how to make a living from your passion:

• Preface. BRAVE NEW WORLD OF PHOTOGRAPHY
• Chapter 1. How to Create Value
• Chapter 2. ZEN CAPITALISM
• Chapter 3. Scarcity
• Chapter 4. How to Brand Yourself
• Chapter 5. How to Build a True Following
• Chapter 6. The Blueprint to Success in Photography
• Chapter 7. HOW TO BE BOLD
• Chapter 8. How to Sell Out
• Chapter 9. GO AGAINST THE GRAIN
• Chapter 10. EXTREME ABUNDANCE
• Chapter 11. Photography Experience Economy
• Chapter 12. Why You Should Make Money for Your Photography
• Chapter 13. How to Become a Famous Photographer

---

Photography Business 101

• Practical Photography Business Advice

How to Make Money with Photography

• How to Charge More Money in Your Photography
• Why You Should Not Pursue Photography as Career
• Can Photography Make You Rich?
• How I Earn $200,000+ a Year From Photography
• How to earn $10,000 a month as a photographer
• Why you must be an expensive photographer

Photography Marketing 101

• Why Have More Followers?
• Why You Should Do Photography Work For Free
• How I Became an Internet Famous Photographer
• Photography Blogging Ideas
• Why You Should Promote Your Own Name
• How to Build a Following
• How to Stand Out as a Photographer.
• HOW TO GO VIRAL AS A PHOTOGRAPHER.
• How to Master Marketing
• How to Sell Yourself

---

How to Hustle.

• Entrepreneurial Advice to My 18 Year Old Self
• How to Become Insanely Productive.
• 5 Lessons From Hesiod on Hustling

Entrepreneurial Principles

• It is Better to Beg For Forgiveness Than Ask For Permission
• The Free Way to Become Rich
• JUST DO IT.
• 7 Steps: How to Make a Living From Your Passion
• How to Do What You Love for a Living
• How to Create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
• How to Fail Big
• How to Invest in Yourself
• How to Be Bold in Photography and Life
• Mission: Cover Your Rent and Food
• 1,000 True Fans
• The “10x Principle”: The Only Difference Between “Success” and “Failure”
• Make More Value Not Money
• We Live in a Photo Utopia

How to be a Full-time Photographer

• How to Make a Living From Photography
• The 3 Principles of Making Money With Photography
• Advice for Aspiring Full-Time Photographers
• Don’t Go Into Debt For Your Photography
• How to Brand Yourself as a Photographer
• Trust: The Most Important Thing You Need to Succeed as a Photographer

Photography Blogging

• How to become rich from photography blogging
• How to Make a Living with Blogging
• 50 Blogging Tips For Beginners
• How to Start Your Own Photography Blog
• A Photographer’s Guide to SEO, Blogging, and Social Media

How to Teach Photography

• How to Become a Photography Teacher
• How to Teach a Street Photography Class
• Why I Teach Street Photography Workshops

Social Media

• Why I Deleted My Instagram
• The Social Media Blackbook for Photographers
• Why Do You Need More Likes or Followers?
• Instagram is Going to Be the Next Facebook
• Don’t Trust “Free” Photography Social Networks

How to Save Money

• How Cindy Saved Us $150,000+
• The Free Way to Become Rich

START HERE >

MONEY 101

1. Just Follow the Money
2. My Money Philosophy
3. Eternal fame and glory over money
4. The Trillion Dollar Question: How to Make Money on the Internet Without Advertising?
5. Entrepreneurship that Doesn’t Involve Money-Making?
6. Money Ain’t Real
7. Making Money for Fun, Not to Get Rich
8. Why Money?

Obviously we are not living in a simulation, but if you think about the MATRIX, one of the most interesting things to consider is the interesting metaphor towards life.

First, I think everyone is running on the same social scripts. As a consequence, people just tend to be very boring. I’ve actually found that the reason why most people are so boring is that they either lack exposure, or courage.

Second, we are conditioned by fear. Lot of what holds us back is fear; and also ethics.

Even one thing I was considering, why is it that sex, erotic matters, nudity etc.… is seen as so bad, taboo and evil? Technically if we can go from purely biologic perspective, it doesn’t really matter. Do we shame animals for being naked all the time or doing it in public, not really.

Or horses; let us consider stallions in heat, and their behavior.

I think when I consider my behavior, my thinking and worldview, being raised Catholic, Roman Catholic, and also being born and raised in America, notions of Catholic guilt, and also Confucian guilt… and also Korean Korean American culture… not the most open-minded worldview.

I am very happy fortunate and blessed that my mom was very contrarian, very unorthodox, even for being a Korean mom. I would definitely say her ethos was very unique; very independent, solo, self-reliant etc.

In fact, how did I become who I am? I think 90% of it was the socialization of my mom. She is the one who taught me social skills and not to fear people. Funny enough, sometimes she is too naïve to a fault; but ultimately I would prefer my mom— better to be happy joyful and naïve than to be like a scarecrow, overly suspicious and cold towards the world.

“Better to be a gay monster than a sentimental bore.” – Galiani

Suggestions

First, become more loud ostentatious, more “ratchet“. Be the big swinging dick (Michael Lewis, Flash Boys).

Second, throw politically correct vocabulary into the trash, and be maximally suspicious of any “woke” talk. My heuristic:

“Don’t trust any woke people who toke!”

Haha. Toke means smoke weed.

---

Also, the critical of anybody who has too strong of a political affiliation to any side, spends too much time on Facebook and social media etc. Anybody who consumes media, or gossip, has un-unique thinking. Ultimately my thoughts about people and thoughts is simple; there are interesting people and boring people. No good or bad people. In fact, most good people are insanely boring. A lot of bad people also tend to be boring.

Just be the real life troll

Trolling on the internet is bad. However I think trolling in real life is good.

After becoming a ChatGPT master, I’m starting to understand that we should literally put 0% faith of anything we see or read on the Internet. Why? It is truly impossible to tell whether something was written by ChatGPT or not, or if the original text was written by ChatGPT, and then a human just edited it afterwards.

For example for fun, I made two ChatGPT bots, in the spirit of ERIC KIM. It is actually both hilarious and scary how good they are —

1. Stoic philosophy: ZEN OF ERIC
2. Photography: ERIC KIM BOT](https://chat.openai.com/g/g-6UuzfnRjq-eric-kim-bot)

How do you troll people in real life? Joke around, laugh, have fun, talk like a seven-year-old or five-year-old child, never give people a straight answer. Lie about funny things in a playful gist.

For example, a lot of people try to be friendly by asking me how old Seneca is. Sometimes I will joke and say “He is six months old!” (He is 2 years, 9 months old). Some people become shocked and their eyes go really wide, and then I just joke that he is on steroids.

Also, everybody loves a good compliment. Doesn’t matter if man or women etc. I love people, and so whenever I see people having a certain outfit or look that I like, I always try to make it a point to compliment them.

Just try this out as an experiment: for a whole day: whenever you see somebody that you like, compliment them. Compliment their hair their outfit their look etc. Or inquire about their outfit, where they got it, etc.

Second, throw your AirPods and airbuds pros into the trash. I think one of the most terrible things for modern day society, which atrophies our social skills is everyone always having AirPods on. Real men don’t use headphones or AirPods or whatever. If you’re going to listen to music, use a Bluetooth speaker or play it off your phone speaker and blast it like a person from the hood.

In fact, I’m starting to hypothesize that in fact, it might be music, Spotify, and noise canceling headphones which is the driving cause to have people become more antisocial. Not phones and social media, the headphones.

Also as an experiment, the next time you go to the gym and lift weights, do it without any music or headphones on. You will actually benefit by naturally trying to block out all the annoying elevator music, and annoying chitchat of other people. Ultimately it makes you more interesting to NOT wear headphones than to wear them.

Also, how do you know if somebody is actually really interesting or not? When you go to the gym, filter people into two categories:

People who work out without headphones, and people who do.

I only trust people who work out without headphones on.

---

Other assignments

1. Street portrait assignment: start a street portrait project in which you’re just trying to capture interesting faces of people in your own city or locale. You can complement people by telling them that they have a beautiful face, or great skin, or if they’re older… You could tell them that they have an elegant face and look. PDF
2. If people ask you what you’re doing, say that you’re starting a personal photography project of the people of the city, and you consider them as integral to your project.
3. Download some ERIC KIM books, or attend an ERIC KIM workshop.

---

Now what?

The sun is out, the sun is bright! Your future awaits you.

And also, when in doubt, smile.

ERIC

---

Some more turbo thoughts:

---

HOW SHOULD WE LIVE OUR LIVES?

First, unshackle yourself from superficial ethics, morality, uncritical religious edicts, etc.

The more I think about it… honestly all these modern day “ethics”, “rules”, are bad.

Especially in America, which is a strange chimera of thinking.

Why do people try to superimpose how we should or how we should not live our lives?

For example, when we think and consider the difference between shared, co-living spaces and places, versus communal things, versus the common.

For example, let us say that I am living with you, and you prefer things a certain way, and I prefer things a certain way. Who should have the ultimate say?

A simple heuristic: If I am by myself, you should not intrude on my space and do things differently, tell me what to do or what not to do.

Second, if we are sharing the space and you prefer things a certain way, and your request seems reasonable enough, I will acquiesce to you, and I will simply leave the space.

I think the big issue is when we try to superimpose our will upon others.

For example, let us say that I love to eat meat. That I am 100%, unabashed carnivore. That it is against my beliefs to eat vegetables or plants or fruit or grains or anything which reeks of a “plant-based diet“. Funny enough, nowadays it is 100% fine to show up to a party and tell people that “I don’t eat meat“, and low-key expect to be served vegetarian or vegan food… but it isn’t mainstream to show up to a party saying “I don’t eat vegetables“, and low-key expect to be fed meat.

Also, I kind of get the low-key feeling that a lot of vegetarians or zealous vegans are trying to get everyone to stop eating meat, to become like them, become vegan etc. That they try to guilt or shame meat eaters like myself that what we do is bad evil and is “bad for the planet“.

However, I haven’t really seen the opposite; when I shame a vegan for being cruel to immigrant farm workers who have to pick almonds all day, and how almonds, their almond butter, their cashews, cashew nut butters etc. is “bad for the planet“, because of how water hungry these plants are.

Why don’t we just leave other people alone?

For example, I think one thing I have discovered about myself is that I am a little bit of a tyrant. I attribute this to my upbringing; I was the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest son, and as a consequence, being raised, I was treated like the king. Whenever I would go to my grandma, she would always acquiesce to my needs and desires and shower me with endless praise, brag about how handsome and successful I was in front of all of her friends, etc.

King’s Disease

So the big issue that I have is that myself, I see myself as king, emperor, and I expect other people to treat me a certain way. I expect and demand and find a critical that other people greet me, when I enter, when I leave, and to treat me with High respect and royalty. When they do not do this, it infumes my anger.

But the biggest issue is that you cannot force other people to treat you a certain way, or to greet you a certain way. For example, if I show up, I cannot demand other people to address me a certain way, or to greet me, etc. Similarly speaking, When I leave, I cannot demand other people say goodbye to me or greet me goodbye. That is tyranny.

This is where I think modern day stuff is little bit bad; you cannot force me to talk to you a certain way, to greet you a certain way, to address you a certain way, etc. If you don’t like the way I talk to you or about you… You just walk away or don’t interact with me. Doesn’t this make more sense?

---

Who tells us what to do what not to do?

First and foremost, who was Confucius? Essentially he was a petty governmental official, and I believe it was later the scholar bureaucrat Mencius who codified his belief system, just kind of like how Paul did for Jesus… and they create this new pseudo, strange, hydra of a world view and order.

For example, Confucianism, the state mandarin examinations, and all of these pseudo religious rules that Confucius put forth, like philial piety, respect for elders, etc.… The main purpose was a form of social control and order and harmony. It was a useful tool for the king emperor or the aristocracy to keep the commoners in check.

Similarly speaking, St. Paul, was a very strange case. Just read about him from Nietzsche and his book “The Antichrist”. The general gist is that Saint Paul was a tormented soul, and he was seeking salvation somewhere else. He discovered Jesus, the teachings of Jesus, and bastardized them in a strange, miss mashed way. He almost escaped coated Jesus for his own downings and faults, and could not come to ends why things happened a certain way they did.

The chosen people

A concept I came upon recently, which is very interesting and fascinating to me, is this notion of “the chosen people“. I’m curious… is this zero sum? That some people are chosen, and some are not? Are they chosen based on their blood, their lineage, their parents, their family heritage and background, or something else?

And also, if I am chosen, does it mean that you’re not chosen? That, somehow I take up your spot? The notion that in the afterlife, there is only a limited number of spots, let us say 5000 or something, and that only a select number of people are allowed entrance?

---

You control you

So there are certain things I have learned and observed about life, the world, etc.

First, certainly there are certain people and individuals who are born with a leg up in life. For example, if I was born, and my dad was worth $20 billion, and from a young age I knew that I had a trust fund, which would not be able to be unlocked until I am 65 years old, maybe a part of $100 million… certainly this would change how I live my life.

Also, let us say that I am born and my family is very well-connected. Let us say that my father or mother is a famous Hollywood actor or producer or director… certainly if my passion is cinema film and media, I will also be given better connections and privileges.

But… Does this matter? I don’t think so.

My favorite example is thinking about Jay Z. Would Jay Z have become a Jay Z if he were born to a nice, middle-class family in the suburbs? Highly dubious.

Also, something that I learned is that not always, but often… people entrepreneurs etc. who are born to very difficult childhood situations are the ones who become interesting.

For example, Jeff Bezos, just read his book “invent and wander,” hearing his family story, I think his dad was essentially a Cuban refugee, is insanely fascinating. I think the best thing that Jeff Bezos said, which actually emotionally moved me so much is that when he talks about his father, his “my real father, not my biological one”— it was so beautiful I almost teared up!

Also, read the new Walter Isaacson biography on Elon Musk; I think Elon Musk probably had one of the most traumatic childhood of all time… Somehow those experiences forged him into what he is today.

Same thing with Kanye West; more or less having a single mom, an absentee father, and also, the tragic early passing of his mother Donda… Certainly this shapes your psyche in a certain way.

I don’t wish trauma on nobody

Just because you have suffered more trauma in your life doesn’t make you more virtuous than me, and vice versa. However, I don’t think we should either use it as a crutch nor a motivator… We should just pause it our desired life path, and proceed boldly.

Obstacles are your boost?

Whenever you witness or experience a certain setback, obstacle, “downside“… Think about Mario kart; these “setbacks“ are like your temporary speed boost!

In fact, even though not having things a certain way is insanely annoying, I think this is the root of all innovation. For example, my insane frustration with trying to find a good gym… Essentially resulted in me innovating and doing my funny “off the grid” workouts.

Similar speaking, starting off in photography, 18-19 years old, not being able to find any good information on the Internet on how to do photography and Street photography and composition is actually what motivated my pursuits to create the information I wish to see manifested in the world.

---

First, unshackle yourself from superficial ethics, morality, uncritical religious edicts, etc.

The more I think about it… Honestly all these modern day “ethics”, “rules”, are bad.

Especially in America, which is a strange chimera of thinking.

Why do people try to superimpose how we should or how we should not live our lives?

For example, when we think and consider the difference between shared, co-living spaces and places, versus communal things, versus the common.

For example, let us say that I am living with you, and you prefer things a certain way, and I prefer things a certain way. Who should have the ultimate say?

A simple heuristic: if I am by myself, you should not intrude on my space and do things differently, tell me what to do or what not to do.

Second, if we are sharing the space and you prefer things a certain way, and your request seems reasonable enough, I will acquiesce to you, and I will simply leave the space.

I think the big issue is when we try to superimpose our will upon others.

For example, let us say that I love to eat meat. That I am 100%, unabashed carnivore. That it is against my beliefs to eat vegetables or plants or fruit or grains or anything which reeks of a “plant-based diet“. Funny enough, nowadays it is 100% fine to show up to a party and tell people that “I don’t eat meat“, and low-key expect to be served vegetarian or vegan food… But it isn’t mainstream to show up to a party saying “I don’t eat vegetables“, and low-key expect to be fed meat.

Also, I kind of get the low-key feeling that a lot of vegetarians or zealous vegans are trying to get everyone to stop eating meat, to become like them, become vegan etc. That they try to guilt or shame meat eaters like myself that what we do is bad evil and is “bad for the planet“.

However, I haven’t really seen the opposite; when I shame a vegan for being cruel to immigrant farm workers who have to pick almonds all day, and how almonds, their almond butter, their cashews, cashew nut butters etc. is “bad for the planet“, because of how water hungry these plants are.

Why don’t we just leave other people alone?

For example, I think one thing I have discovered about myself is that I am a little bit of a tyrant. I attribute this to my upbringing; I was the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest son, and as a consequence, being raised, I was treated like the king. Whenever I would go to my grandma, she would always acquiesce to my needs and desires and shower me with endless praise, brag about how handsome and successful I was in front of all of her friends, etc.

King’s Disease

So the big issue that I have is that myself, I see myself as king, emperor, and I expect other people to treat me a certain way. I expect and demand and find a critical that other people greet me, when I enter, when I leave, and to treat me with High respect and royalty. When they do not do this, it infumes my anger.

But the biggest issue is that you cannot force other people to treat you a certain way, or to greet you a certain way. For example, if I show up, I cannot demand other people to address me a certain way, or to greet me, etc. Similarly speaking, When I leave, I cannot demand other people say goodbye to me or greet me goodbye. That is tyranny.

This is where I think modern day stuff is little bit bad; you cannot force me to talk to you a certain way, to greet you a certain way, to address you a certain way, etc. If you don’t like the way I talk to you or about you… You just walk away or don’t interact with me. Doesn’t this make more sense?

---

Who tells us what to do what not to do?

First and foremost, who was Confucius? Essentially he was a petty governmental official, and I believe it was later the scholar bureaucrat Mencius who codified his belief system, just kind of like how Paul did for Jesus… And they create this new pseudo, strange, hydra of a world view and order.

For example, Confucianism, the state mandarin examinations, and all of these pseudo religious rules that Confucius put forth, like Philly pie, respect for elders, etc.… The main purpose was a form of social control and order and harmony. It was a useful tool for the king emperor or the aristocracy to keep the commoners in check.

Similarly speaking, St. Paul, was a very strange case. Just read about him from Nietzsche and his book “The Antichrist”. The general gist is that Saint Paul was a tormented soul, and he was seeking salvation somewhere else. He discovered Jesus, the teachings of Jesus, and bastardized them in a strange, miss mashed way. He almost escaped coated Jesus for his own downings and faults, and could not come to ends why things happened a certain way they did.

The chosen people

A concept I came upon recently, which is very interesting and fascinating to me, is this notion of “the chosen people“. I’m curious… Is this zero sum? That some people are chosen, and some are not? Are they chosen based on their blood, their lineage, their parents, their family heritage and background, or something else?

And also, if I am chosen, does it mean that you’re not chosen? That, somehow I take up your spot? The notion that in the afterlife, there is only a limited number of spots, let us say 5000 or something, and that only a select number of people are allowed entrance?

---

You control you

So there are certain things I have learned and observed about life, the world, etc.

First, certainly there are certain people and individuals who are born with a leg up in life. For example, if I was born, and my dad was worth $20 billion, and from a young age I knew that I had a trust fund, which would not be able to be unlocked until I am 65 years old, maybe a part of $100 million… Certainly this would change how I live my life.

Also, let us say that I am born and then my family is very well-connected. Let us say that my father or mother is a famous Hollywood actor or producer or Director… Certainly if my passion is cinema film and media, I will also be given better connections and privileges.

But… Does this matter? I don’t think so.

My favorite example is thinking about Jay Z. Would Jay Z have become a Jay Z if he were born to a nice, middle-class family in the suburbs? Highly dubious.

Also, something that I learned is that not always, but often… People entrepreneurs etc. who are born to very difficult childhood situations are the ones who become interesting.

For example, Jeff Bezos, just read his book “invent and wander, hearing his family story, I think his dad was essentially a Cuban refugee, is insanely fascinating. I think the best thing that Jeff Bezos said, which actually emotionally moved me so much is that when he talks about his father, his “my real father, not my biological one”— it was so beautiful I almost teared up!

Also, read the new Walter Isaacson biography on Elon Musk; I think Elon Musk probably had one of the most traumatic childhood of all time… Somehow those experiences forged him into what he is today.

Same thing with Kanye West; more or less having a single mom, an absentee father, and also, the tragic early passing of his mother Donda… Certainly this shapes your psyche in a certain way.

I don’t wish trauma on nobody

Just because you have suffered more trauma in your life doesn’t make you more virtuous than me, and vice versa. However, I don’t think we should either use it as a crutch nor a motivator… We should just pause it our desired life path, and proceed boldly.

Obstacles are your boost?

Whenever you witness or experience a certain setback, obstacle, “downside“… Think about Mario kart; these “setbacks“ are like your temporary speed boost!

In fact, even though not having things a certain way is insanely annoying, I think this is the root of all innovation. For example, my insane frustration with trying to find a good gym… Essentially resulted in me innovating and doing my funny “off the grid” workouts.

Similar speaking, starting off in photography, 1819 years old, not being able to find any good information on the Internet on how to do photography and Street photography and composition is actually what motivated my pursuits to create the information I wish to see manifested in the world.

All the wealth, riches, Lamborghinis and Ferraris in the world … does it even begin to compare to the apex beauty of woman?

Theory:

Beautiful women, the beautiful woman shape form and physique of a beautiful woman is the ultimate stimulus to man?

Woman as the ultimate and apex art object?

Rather … something else?

So the funny thought of the morning; it seems that a lot of us seek to “upgrade” our things; why not the opposite… to seek to “downgrade” our things?

The most manly phone?

So I had a very funny thought a few days ago… The question…

What is the most manly phone?

The reason why I think this is such an interesting thought is that because I think what a lot of us men are seeking through our devices, cars, watches accessories etc.… is seeking some sort of manliness, masculinity, a feeling of dominance. For example, why would you get a Richard Millie?

“Richard mill on the leather band” — PUSHA T

Totems of power

Looking back at it, I actually learned a lot of very useful things studying sociology as an undergraduate at UCLA. To me, sociology may be one of the greatest majors of all time, because it deals with society, human beings, people. It seems that a lot of things in modern day life or just sociological phenomenon.

For example, this nonsensical trend towards veganism, “plant-based diets”, etc. Where does this stem from? My personal thought is that it has to do with loss of religion. A lot of modern-day people, especially young people, no longer go to church, have a religion, etc. Therefore, what is our new religion? “Saving the planet“, “animal rights“, etc.

Therefore, I think this strange trend for young people preferring to have dogs over children is that it is a new pseudo religion. And also, people who think that eating meat is “bad for you”,… I think it also has to do with the fact that people are seeking some sort of salvation or virtuality Through their dietary and food consumptive behaviors.

For me, I tried to think about things more critically. Without all of this nonsensical, anemic ideals and fake ethics.

Why the iPhone SE may be the most mainly phone

My current thought and understanding is that the iPhone SE may currently be the most manly phone. Why? You could beat the shit out of it, literally and metaphorically, and you can live a more adventurous, greater life!

For example, I trust nobody who uses a case on their phone. Why? First of all aesthetically it looks so ugly. Secondly, it signals some sort of cowardice. Third, I think it’s signals that we just spend way too much money on phones. I think it is not good.

For example, if you’re like me, a typical “tech bro“, we probably spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about our phones, our devices, waiting for the newest Apple product, etc. Yet my personal thought is that rather than seeking to upgrade our phones, perhaps instead what we gotta do is upgrade how we eat (100% organ meat diet — beef liver, beef heart, beef kidney, beef intestines, bone marrow), how we lift weights, how we walk and live etc.

For example, I’m starting to think more and more… To spend $1500 on a phone is not a good use of our time nor money. Why? If we think about it from creative or productivity perspective, if you really really really really really really really really want to become more productive, you would probably just get like a Mac mini, a Mac studio, some sort of desktop computer, with an Uber ergonomic set up, standing desk, treadmill desk, Ernle monitor, track ball mouse, kinesis keyboard, etc. Even now with the brand new MacBook Pro which came out; I think it is a cowardly design. Apple is a bunch of cowards; after Joni I’ve left, why did they bring back the MagSafe thing? The green light is insanely annoying and distracting, especially when it is charging in your bedroom, and also… HDMI port? It is like the Nauvoo PCI port, it will get outdated so quickly. The same thing goes with SD cards; Apple has done compromised bad.

Even now, when I look at the new MacBook Pro, or any of the new MacBook Air laptops… It is starting to look more and more like an old Windows device. All of these ports which are not going to be future proof, and also, still my grade joy of the MacBook Pro touch bars; Seneca even figure it out how to open up GarageBand and he figure it out how to Use the drum machine on the touch bar! The MacBook Pro touch bar was so insanely innovative… And effectively Apple has discontinued it. Why? Once again… No vision for the future.

So where is the future going to be?

Personally speaking, definitely AI. ChatGPT, DALL-E, creating your own chat bots etc. For example, I just made two of my own chat bots, it literally only took me 30 seconds. This shit is bananas!

For example try out the new ZEN OF ERIC and also ERIC KIM BOT

Why does this matter?

My personal fight and anti-mentality is that I hate the boring, I hate the same same, I hate the generic, etc. My passion lies in innovation, thinking about the future, technology, etc. Ever since I was a kid, I was so fascinated and passionate about computers, and even now Seneca… It looks like he is teaching himself also how to type, use tach GPT and AI, at age 2 years, nine months old… She is a true prodigy. And what is a prodigy anyway? My personal thought is a prodigy is simply a kid with a attentive parents, and when you’re with your kid, you either turn off your phone, locked it into the glove compartment of your car, or put it away.

In fact, the best tip I have for parents, in order to become a “better” parent is this;

When you go to the park with your kid, just lock your phone in the glove compartment of your car, and just spend your time being 100% focused with your kid.

It is almost like Odysseus tying himself to the mast, or also… Filling his ears with beeswax. Or getting his men to tie him down. Why? Honestly, I think phones, smart phones, iPhones etc. is like crack cocaine for the mind. I might think that your phone might be worse than cocaine, heroin, etc.

In fact, the best way to truly thrive as a thinker is when you go on a walk, leave your phone at home, or if your phone is on you, just turn it off, totally off.

And what is the best “upgrade“, to go offline, think offline.

Offline Thinking

What is the ultimate privilege in today’s world? To be offline, metaphorical airplane mode all the time.

In fact, some of my best life epiphanies have happened and occurred when I was offline, in an airplane, in a cruise ship, etc. Essentially, anytime that I was not connected to the internet.

Interestingly enough, the old chief technology officer of the old company I used to work for, demand media, Byron Reese told me… he would often just jump on really really long international flights to get good writing done, because it forced him to not be connected to the internet.

In fact, being off-line in today’s world is ultimate privilege and luxury.

How do you know if somebody is very successful or not? If they don’t have a phone, or a phone number. The more difficult it is to contact somebody the more high profile they are.

For example, a simple thought I have is don’t publicly put your email address on your contact here page on your website. I think true high profile individuals cannot be contacted through simple measures. And actually ironically enough, I’ve discovered… the more difficult you make yourself to contact, the more desirable you become.

In fact, when I was living in Vietnam in 2017, got rid of my phone, and lived off the grid and didn’t check your email or use email for about two years… interestingly enough I would have people just attend my workshops just in order to connect with me.

How to think offline

A very simple way to do this is when you’re out and about, leave your phone at home, and just take along your iPad Pro to think. Don’t get a data plan. What is the downside of a data plan? First of all, it seems that all data plans, all 5G or 4G cellular data Internet connections on your phone suck. For example, my extreme frustration with T-Mobile, spectrum… The internet connection sucks. If I had to sign up for my own phone service I would just get Verizon.

Thinking internationally?

Also another good way to think different is to go international. Example, even recently, the time that I had in Cambodia, Phnom Penh very formative to my thinking. It forced me to think outside of the box, and true avoid typical ways of thinking, the often myopic American way.

For example, even a very simple simple approach was to think in kilograms instead of pounds. This helped me get outside of my head, when attempting to lift new personal records in my deadlift and squat.

Also, one thing I loved about the gym I went in Phnom Penh, monkifit, was that for the most part, it was always practically empty. Therefore as a consequence, I really only did weightlifting or did things which I personally care for, instead of trying to low-key impress other people.

In fact, even more recently at my old gym, I actually really fucked up my wrist bad when trying to stunt on other people by doing a very heavy floor bench press. Trying to stunt, impress, or flex on other people actually led to my own personal demise.

Lesson:

Whenever you do anything to try to impress others, please others, or stunt on others, the personal outcome for you will be very very bad.

Why think different?

My personal thought is that perhaps the greatest joy is how unorthodox your thinking may be. Where does unorthodox thinking come from?

My first thought is that it comes from the human body. We cannot have interesting unique thoughts if we do not have a great body, great muscles, etc.

Also, I think you owe it to mankind. I think you were meant to change the world, and the way you could change the world is through challenging the status quo and the traditional way things are done.

Like Gandhi said, become the change you wish you see manifested in the world.

Why change the world?

I personally find it interesting idea to change the world because perhaps this is where our willpower comes from. Our desire to change the world, to “fuck shit up”.

For example, the funny notion of breaking the internet. I broke the Internet when I lifted the 330 pound golden dumbbells at the golden Venice Beach easily, and also more recently… When I atlas lifted 1000 pounds, which is ten plates and maybe a 25 on each side.

The grandeur of the human body

“Conspiracy theorists screaming illuminati, they cannot imagine this much skill inside a human body. He 6 2, how he fit inside a new Bugatti? Ha ha fuck it you got me.” – JAY Z

Whether we like it or not, all of our power, steel, etc. is derived from our human body. For example, whenever you look at an artist, a writer, I thinker, the philosopher, or academic… You must meet them in the flesh. Look at what they look like in real life. Observe their body fat percentage, the complexion of their skin, whether they actually get any natural sunlight or not, if they have a tan or not, if they lift weights, how tall or short they are, how fat or muscular they are etc.

For example, I would put zero faith in the writing or thoughts of a skinny fat, or an obese man who talks about masculinity, or weightlifting or fitness matters.

Similarly speaking, I put zero faith in all of these loser Reddit people, who try to validate their own self-worth through how good their “form“ is. Ultimately nobody cares about your form. And actually I discovered… When people see how much I could lift, and how much more to lift in them, they try to critique my form, and they actually want to see me get hurt. Why? It is bad or hurts their ego when they see that I am much stronger, taller, more handsome, and more dominant than them.

Even the other day, I was walking by this upscale hotel parking lot, and some random guy, wearing a flashy outfit, kind of a slick handsome look, try to make fun of me by saying “what is this? No shirt Thursdays”? Essentially he was trying to tease or bully me because he felt insecure that I was so much more muscular and confident than him. Now that my testosterone is so high, I was able to troll him back, and put him back in his spot.

No more internet

OK guys, I’m moving forward, that just put zero faith on the Internet. Why? All these people on Reddit… Do you really know whether they are ChatGPT bought or not? Or, they could just be real life human beings using ChatGPT to generate some sort of ideas.

Like the famous cartoon said “on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

Even in ready player one, the main character’s best friend, who he thought was a guy all along… was actually a girl.

Also the two Japanese brothers, were just 11-year-old kids.

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So now what?

My very very very very practical and pragmatic thought is let us assume that you have a normal day job, once you go home, just turn your phone off. All the way off. Do the iPhone secret handshake, which is volume up, volume down, side power button hold. In fact I think the most insidious thing that Apple did from a design perspective, is that they turned the power button , the button on the top right corner, to be a Siri button. I think the mentality behind the decision was this:

Nobody ever turns off their phone anyways, and in the evenings, we just charge it overnight… And the issue is that Siri is great but nobody is using it… Why don’t we try to just “nudge” people using Siri more by turning the power button into a Siri button?

Bad idea. Apple, if you got true huevos, and you really want to “help humanity“, turn the power button back into a power button. Or at least give people an option. That if you click and hold the power button in the top right corner for a few seconds, Maybe you could put a prompt which asks whether you want to make it an on off switch, or whether you want it to be a Siri button.

Essentially make it simple enough that your mom knows how to do it. For example, can you try explaining to your mom how to turn off their iPhone?

Downgrade?

How do you know if you are truly self owned or not? If you could face your iPhone face down, scratch it up, let your kid play with it and throw it around, with zero care or concern. The biggest upside of having a cheap iPhone SE is that I literally have zero concerns or qualms about my phone.

Only issue that I’m personally having is that when I use my iPhone SE for Google maps to navigate somewhere when I’m driving… Often times the screen goes dim, in order to prevent it from overheating or whatever.

Thinking about your devices and stuff

So moving into my new apartment, setting up the new home Wi-Fi, it seriously sucks. Spectrum sucks, even the most expensive plan, the fake gigabit plan.

A simple workaround is I have just been exporting the videos to 720 P, and frankly speaking it seems fine enough. Why? Honestly speaking, 99% of people are just gonna be watching your videos from their phone. Technically even 540P should be good enough then. And also, a lot of people when they’re watching YouTube, never make it full screen and rotate their phone. As a consequence, maybe even 480p is good enough.

Why do we think we need more resolution?

Truth be told, we don’t. I think it is a typical marketing thing; why would I upgrade my phone, my devices, my things if it is not a “upgrade”?

Even one of my past students, he used to drive a Porsche Panamera, and I guess that it either got into a car accident, broke or whatever… Went to go get a new car, and he definitely wanted a “upgrade“. He upgraded it to some sort of high-powered BMW M car instead.

And with things in life, we are always seeking a greater upgrade. But maybe this is some sort of fallacious goal.

Think about this. What if… You no longer cared for your phone, your laptop, your iPad, your laptop, your car, your home, your clothes, your camera, etc.? That in fact, you simply made best of what you already got, Milk it to the extreme, and actually, focused on reducing, and subtracting stuff from your life?

This is the new Spartan elite way.

---

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Why? LA, UCLA, Los Angeles, the LA sign you could do with your hands, is sexy.

In fact, I personally discovered that all of the beautiful people, all of the beautiful women, even all of the handsome men are all in LA, or move to LA, or aspire to be in LA. Why? It is the center of glamour, Hollywood, film cinema and movies and media and music and entertainment, even here… In Culver City, the arts district and beyond is the new center.

Go to the new Culver City steps in downtown Culver City, next to the Philz Coffee… It is so insanely great.

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---

Now what?

The other night, when I was asking Chachi a bunch of stuff, doing research, creating images etc.… I had this interesting epiphany:

AI is our new slave.

Why? We don’t got to pay it “fair wages”, we don’t got to feed it, let it sleep, or do anything.

Also, it cannot really refuse you, talk back, etc.

It never gets tired, complains, disobeys etc.

The only thing which can be a little annoying is the content moderation stuff but truth be told, this may be a very good thing because I see it as a great “creative constraint”,… Figuring out creative ways to work through and past and beyond the content moderation stuff is hilarious and interesting to me.

For example, you cannot straight up say quote make me a picture of a sexy Korean woman at the beach“. It will immediately flag the ChatGPT, DALL-E 3 content policy violation thing. Or you cannot say something like “beautiful Asian woman with big boobs”. Also a no go obviously.

But things you could do is like say “beautiful Asian woman at Met Gala”. Or, beautiful joyful Asian woman in Cabo. Or “beautiful Korean women in pure joy“.

Then you could do hilarious things like ask DALL-E 3 to further refined your image, making the image where a swimming suit, a bathing suit, doing a backflip into a pool or the ocean, etc.

I love embodied reality!

At the end of the day, my true and ultimate passion is embodied reality, real life human beings etc. In fact, the more time I spend on ChatGPT, DALL-E, the more preference I have to be outside!

And also, thoughts on beauty. Yeah I could generate you some very very beautiful looking human beings, but ultimately, it will never be able to displace a real life human being.

Why? You cannot get children with a bot, you cannot feel the skin of a bot, I think skin is the future.

Creative ways to play with AI

Ultimately, I think you know you’re doing ChatGPT and DALL-E correctly, if you create an image and you literally laugh out loud. The most amazing creation I made recently was “designed me a bitcoin purple Lamborghini Prius with scissor doors, with a Spartan driving it”. I literally laughed out loud!

Or even more complex things, inspired by Seneca, me and Seneca did together; taking a firetruck and giving at Lamborghini scissor doors and also making it into a convertible.

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AI can help you critique and give feedback on your photos

The really big and game changing thing that AI can do is this; upload your photos to it, pay for the paid model, only 20 bucks a month, which is literally less than $.80 a day… for your own personal slavebot, and when you press the little plus icon in the bottom left corner, or, you see the little picture or gallery icon in the bottom left corner, what you could do is upload photos directly to it, I think you could upload up to three images at a time, you could ask a simple things like “what do you think of my photo“? Or “give me feedback on my photo“, “how can I improve this photograph?” Essentially ask it questions that you would ask a human being, it is actually insanely smart.
Or, you could just give it an image and ask it “what is going on here?” Or “analyze this”.

You could keep pushing it forward, you don’t need to use full sentences. If it gets confused it will just ask you to clarify.

I also think that if you set up custom instructions, which you could do by going to your profile in the bottom left corner, it learns from how you talk type and think… And it is phenomenal because overtime, the more use it, the better it becomes!

And I think this is where AI is so phenomenal; as time goes on, it gets infinitely better! Compare this with having a new iPhone or iPhone Pro… As time goes on, it literally gets worse. or, any modern day or even classic cars; all cars, made out of metal materials… As time goes on, things break, things atrophy, things require maintenance etc. Therefore as a consequence, the best car, the most masculine and manly car is simple; a white Toyota Prius, 2010 model or more recent. And never never never never ever ever buy a brand new car.

Now what?

Now is your artistic time to thrive. You and we are beyond basic. We have zero tolerance for boring stuff; we only love and care for the new, the innovative, the exciting.

Also a practical thought is spend more time outdoors, maximum time in the sun. Strive to walk at least 50 miles a day, lift weights in the direct sun, just build your own home gym. Titan.fitness has really good weightlifting equipment for supercheap. Or if you want to be a real man, buy a Texas power bar, a Texas power squat bar the 55 pounder that I got.

Also heavy sandbag training. You could just buy a cheap one on Amazon or buy the rogue fitness one which I bought, the 400 pounder. Go to the local playground, fill it up with playground sand, And exercise is super simple; see whether you could just pick it up! And once you could pick it up, pick it up, grab it and hold it, and walk it out! Then as you get stronger, try to “shoulder”. That means, lifting it up, throwing it onto your shoulder.

Also other things you could do as you get stronger it’s just have fun with it! Pick it up, and just throw it! Recount the exploits of Achilles, in which he would just pick up a very very very heavy rock, a massive boulder, which “barely too strong men could lift”, and how Achilles would throw it to his enemies and kill them that way.

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No more media?

Create your own media, create the media you wish to see manifested in the world.

Just got GoPro mini, get the chest wrap or the head strap, and do more point of view videos. I’ve been doing this lately with my workout videos, and I find it so insanely fascinating; these are the type of videos that I wish I could personally witness, if I were starting out today.

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Tolerance, Intolerance?

Thoughts on society: first, what should we be tolerant to, what should we be intolerant towards?

Another thought: in regards to tolerance, should other people tolerate the way you act, perform behave, especially if you’re in public or public places? As long as you’re not breaking any laws?

Why is this important?

This is the tricky thing; in America, we’re supposed to have freedom, freedom of speech, free religion, etc. Yet… given all of these different cultures, how can we all get along?

The first thought is first and foremost, if you live in America, don’t matter if you’re an immigrant or not whatever… we are all American. For example, in the times of the holy Roman Empire, everyone was considered a Roman, it didn’t matter if you were from Spain or Rome, etc.… All Romans were Romans, as long as you were as citizen. Therefore, if you’re American, American citizen, or even if you’re here on the student visa, maybe you should just be considered American.

Maybe then it is a citizen thing.

“I am a citizen of the world!” – Socrates?

Why does citizenship matter?

Citizen, civic, civic duties, etc. Essentially comes back from the notion of a city. If you live in a certain city, there are certain civic duties one is behelden to.

Certainly ethnicity, racial makeup, country of origin is important. For example, I’ve been playing a lot with ChatGPT and DALL-E, visualizing beautiful women in pure joy, or “trophy wives“, or “fitness influencers“, as Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese. Facially, they all look pretty distinct.

Korean women have a certain look, Vietnamese women have a certain look, Japanese women have a certain look, Cambodian women have a certain look, etc.

Certainly when it comes to mixed race, which I think is good, for example I am Korean and Cindy’s Vietnamese, therefore Seneca is 50% Korean and 50% Vietnamese… racial intermixing makes us stronger. Even in the context of dogs, mixed breed dogs tend to be healthier, more stout, than “purebred dogs“. Too much racial hegemony is probably not good. You would be funny and interesting is if every single American, or you applying for a citizenship, or as a kid or adult, like going to the DMV or whatever everyone had to do one of those free genetic makeup test, and seeing what your genetic makeup is. I think this would make people less racist, more tolerant of one another.

Tolerance versus intolerance?

First, I think in America as long as you’re not breaking any sort of laws? Your behavior should be tolerated. However, the moment you cross that line, it should not be tolerated.

What is “hate” speech?

The word “hate”, simply means strong emotions. I think in modern day times with tend to think of “hate” as being more about spewing vitriol and bad feelings to other people. But I don’t think this is a good idea because in theory, You could show strong emotions about things you love. For example I have a theory that actually in fact, when people hate something really really hard, they actually low-key love it. For example people who really really hate Donald Trump, I wonder if they are actually secretly in love with him, or fascinated with him?

For example, I don’t hate Donald Trump, but I am anti-Donald Trump. Overall, I don’t really have any strong feelings about him or towards him.

What do I have strong feelings about? I hate how people are anti-Jewish, anti-African-Afro-American people, etc. I also feel really bad for Palestinian people, because they have seriously been shafted.

Essentially, as long as somebody is respectful, I also have love and respect for them.

What is a Nazi, what makes a Nazi?

A Nazi is somebody who is intolerant. For example, assuming you live in America, nobody can or should be able to govern the way you think, talk, etc. There should be no thought or speech police, or writing police.

Also, considering I was born in 1988 and currently 35 years old, the term we used to use was PC, or “politically correct“. The notion of being “woke“, is a very recent phenomenon… only within the last year or two.

For example, if you talk a certain way, nobody should have the right to “correct” the way that you talk. Similar speaking, I’m not going to try to “correct” the way that you talk.

The internet

The reason why a lot of people are foolish is that they talk about “free speech” on the Internet. Whoever talks like this is perhaps not critical.

First, if you’re using Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, etc.… You’re essentially publishing your thoughts ideas photos and videos on a foreign company corporate platform, which is not about freedom of speech.

The only real way to have freedom of speech is to have your own self hosted website and blog, using an open source thing like WordPress.org. Nowadays, the only things I trust is open source things, because even if there is a hidden catch, technically you could delve deep into the source code and figure it out.

Censorship is just filtering

Also, a lot of people talk about “censorship” on the Internet. What is “censorship“? You ain’t really blocking you, rather, filtering you out.

For example, let us say that I do a YouTube blog about Jewish people, anti-Jewish people, anti-Jewish sentiment, Judaism, or anything which might be flagged as “culturally insensitive“. Google and YouTube algorithms are intelligent enough to know that this may not be friendly towards advertisers and sensitive people on the Internet, and therefore, They will “sensor “me by simply not having it show up in the newsfeed or the YouTube feed of others. But technically the video will still be there… it is just not as easily visible.

Why free speech?

A fun thing I have been doing is trolling ChatGPT and DALL-E — trying to see how far I could push the boundaries.

For example, you’re not allowed to say “make me a picture of a sexy woman”, but you are allowed to say “make me a picture of a beautiful fitness influencer who is Korean”.

I think this is fine and good; because honestly there are too many weirdos out there. However, ultimately… I think the best thoughts are unfiltered thoughts. Even Friedrich Nietzsche, in his unpublished book “the will to power“, states in the preface that these are simply notes to self.

Whenever I blog, write, publish anything or say anything… ultimately it is kind of like an echo chamber for myself… I’m doing things because I simply want to create notes for myself, and to flesh out some personal thoughts on my mind.

Email newsletters

We all hit email, email is not sexy, but still… Email is the future and so far much as it cannot be censored. I am starting to become more and more suspicious of Gmail though… Because I think sooner or later, “spam“ filters might start filtering out emails which seem “culturally insensitive”, or “racy”.

The reason why this is a bad thing is that it just makes our society much more mediocre, boring, and uninteresting. For me I only care about interesting things, interesting people, interesting thoughts. I’ve actually found that most rich and successful people are very boring; The people from Beverly Hills are the worst, insanely boring.

The really interesting people that I’ve met, are not traditionally employed, therefore they are self owned and could say whatever do whatever wear whatever or think however they want. And also another simple heuristic; I never trust anybody who is on Instagram, or YouTube. Why? if you’re still on Instagram, it shows some sort of servile mindset, and if you’re on YouTube, it also shows that you’re being programmed by the all rhythm to produce videos which get lots of views, rather than saying what’s really on your mind.

Even for me the only reason I still published videos to YouTube is that it could still be easily indexable on the Internet.

The future thinkers?

Another good use case I found for ChatGPT is that it is just a very very effective research tool. For example, I’ve been studying etymology and the history of words, and the way that ChatGPT explains it to me is much more interesting and useful than going to dictionary.org or even googling it. Google is bad because it is the ultimate distraction tool; because ultimately what Google wants you to do is be infinitely distracted in order to serve you more advertisements.

Fin

---

1. All content is good content.
2. Create things you would like to see manifested in the world.

Thoughts on society: first, what should we be tolerant to, what should we be intolerant towards?

Another thought: in regards to tolerance, should other people tolerate the way you act, perform behave, especially if you’re in public or public places? As long as you’re not breaking any laws?

Why is this important?

This is the tricky thing; in America, we’re supposed to have freedom, freedom of speech, free religion, etc. Yet… given all of these different cultures, how can we all get along?

The first thought is first and foremost, if you live in America, don’t matter if you’re an immigrant or not whatever… we are all American. For example, in the times of the holy Roman Empire, everyone was considered a Roman, it didn’t matter if you were from Spain or Rome, etc.… All Romans were Romans, as long as you were as citizen. Therefore, if you’re American, American citizen, or even if you’re here on the student visa, maybe you should just be considered American.

Maybe then it is a citizen thing.

“I am a citizen of the world!” – Socrates?

Why does citizenship matter?

Citizen, civic, civic duties, etc. Essentially comes back from the notion of a city. If you live in a certain city, there are certain civic duties one is behelden to.

Certainly ethnicity, racial makeup, country of origin is important. For example, I’ve been playing a lot with ChatGPT and DALL-E, visualizing beautiful women in pure joy, or “trophy wives“, or “fitness influencers“, as Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese. Facially, they all look pretty distinct.

Korean women have a certain look, Vietnamese women have a certain look, Japanese women have a certain look, Cambodian women have a certain look, etc.

Certainly when it comes to mixed race, which I think is good, for example I am Korean and Cindy’s Vietnamese, therefore Seneca is 50% Korean and 50% Vietnamese… racial intermixing makes us stronger. Even in the context of dogs, mixed breed dogs tend to be healthier, more stout, than “purebred dogs“. Too much racial hegemony is probably not good. You would be funny and interesting is if every single American, or you applying for a citizenship, or as a kid or adult, like going to the DMV or whatever everyone had to do one of those free genetic makeup test, and seeing what your genetic makeup is. I think this would make people less racist, more tolerant of one another.

Tolerance versus intolerance?

First, I think in America as long as you’re not breaking any sort of laws? Your behavior should be tolerated. However, the moment you cross that line, it should not be tolerated.

What is “hate” speech?

The word “hate”, simply means strong emotions. I think in modern day times with tend to think of “hate” as being more about spewing vitriol and bad feelings to other people. But I don’t think this is a good idea because in theory, You could show strong emotions about things you love. For example I have a theory that actually in fact, when people hate something really really hard, they actually low-key love it. For example people who really really hate Donald Trump, I wonder if they are actually secretly in love with him, or fascinated with him?

For example, I don’t hate Donald Trump, but I am anti-Donald Trump. Overall, I don’t really have any strong feelings about him or towards him.

What do I have strong feelings about? I hate how people are anti-Jewish, anti-African-Afro-American people, etc. I also feel really bad for Palestinian people, because they have seriously been shafted.

Essentially, as long as somebody is respectful, I also have love and respect for them.

What is a Nazi, what makes a Nazi?

A Nazi is somebody who is intolerant. For example, assuming you live in America, nobody can or should be able to govern the way you think, talk, etc. There should be no thought or speech police, or writing police.

Also, considering I was born in 1988 and currently 35 years old, the term we used to use was PC, or “politically correct“. The notion of being “woke“, is a very recent phenomenon… only within the last year or two.

For example, if you talk a certain way, nobody should have the right to “correct” the way that you talk. Similar speaking, I’m not going to try to “correct” the way that you talk.

The internet

The reason why a lot of people are foolish is that they talk about “free speech” on the Internet. Whoever talks like this is perhaps not critical.

First, if you’re using Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, etc.… You’re essentially publishing your thoughts ideas photos and videos on a foreign company corporate platform, which is not about freedom of speech.

The only real way to have freedom of speech is to have your own self hosted website and blog, using an open source thing like WordPress.org. Nowadays, the only things I trust is open source things, because even if there is a hidden catch, technically you could delve deep into the source code and figure it out.

Censorship is just filtering

Also, a lot of people talk about “censorship” on the Internet. What is “censorship“? You ain’t really blocking you, rather, filtering you out.

For example, let us say that I do a YouTube blog about Jewish people, anti-Jewish people, anti-Jewish sentiment, Judaism, or anything which might be flagged as “culturally insensitive“. Google and YouTube algorithms are intelligent enough to know that this may not be friendly towards advertisers and sensitive people on the Internet, and therefore, They will “sensor “me by simply not having it show up in the newsfeed or the YouTube feed of others. But technically the video will still be there… it is just not as easily visible.

Why free speech?

A fun thing I have been doing is trolling ChatGPT and DALL-E — trying to see how far I could push the boundaries.

For example, you’re not allowed to say “make me a picture of a sexy woman”, but you are allowed to say “make me a picture of a beautiful fitness influencer who is Korean”.

I think this is fine and good; because honestly there are too many weirdos out there. However, ultimately… I think the best thoughts are unfiltered thoughts. Even Friedrich Nietzsche, in his unpublished book “the will to power“, states in the preface that these are simply notes to self.

Whenever I blog, write, publish anything or say anything… ultimately it is kind of like an echo chamber for myself… I’m doing things because I simply want to create notes for myself, and to flesh out some personal thoughts on my mind.

Email newsletters

We all hit email, email is not sexy, but still… Email is the future and so far much as it cannot be censored. I am starting to become more and more suspicious of Gmail though… Because I think sooner or later, “spam“ filters might start filtering out emails which seem “culturally insensitive”, or “racy”.

The reason why this is a bad thing is that it just makes our society much more mediocre, boring, and uninteresting. For me I only care about interesting things, interesting people, interesting thoughts. I’ve actually found that most rich and successful people are very boring; The people from Beverly Hills are the worst, insanely boring.

The really interesting people that I’ve met, are not traditionally employed, therefore they are self owned and could say whatever do whatever wear whatever or think however they want. And also another simple heuristic; I never trust anybody who is on Instagram, or YouTube. Why? if you’re still on Instagram, it shows some sort of servile mindset, and if you’re on YouTube, it also shows that you’re being programmed by the all rhythm to produce videos which get lots of views, rather than saying what’s really on your mind.

Even for me the only reason I still published videos to YouTube is that it could still be easily indexable on the Internet.

The future thinkers?

Another good use case I found for ChatGPT is that it is just a very very effective research tool. For example, I’ve been studying etymology and the history of words, and the way that ChatGPT explains it to me is much more interesting and useful than going to dictionary.org or even googling it. Google is bad because it is the ultimate distraction tool; because ultimately what Google wants you to do is be infinitely distracted in order to serve you more advertisements.

My general thought: first and foremost, this and you were supposed and meant to change the world.

“Those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, do.” – OG (original gangster, old school) Apple Steve Jobs TV advertisement.

I was born in 1988, currently 35 years old. When I was a kid growing up, it was all about Gandhi, changing the world etc. Even in fact, for my college application essay, that what got me into UCLA as an undergrad, centered around this quote from Gandhi “Be the change which you wish to see manifested in the world.”

As a kid growing up poor, fortunately having a lot of good mentors, my general gist was always to give back, to contribute to society. A lot was given to me when I was young, and I felt like it was my duty to give back.

Deep passion

Changing the world vlog

Growing up poor, having my dad gamble away the rent money, always being one paycheck away from being potentially homeless… money actually never really concerned me as a kid. It was a strange irony; because we were always so financially unstable growing up, and even when we hit rock bottom and my mom had to file for bankruptcy and she could no longer even open up her own personal checking account… my sister and my mom were OK. This taught me an important lesson that I could take infinite chances and not worry myself or concerned myself too much about finances. In fact, then even now… I literally have zero concerns about finances.

Why, why not? Money never really interested me that much. As a kid, I had deep pride in being scrappy, being frugal, being economical, and having deep pride in being self reliant, making do and making best of what I had, or what I bought or earned or did with my own money, earning it through working, my entrepreneur endeavors, starting my own business etc.

In fact, I remember when I was in high school, maybe around my sophomore year, my friend Eric Moon (yeah, his name was also Eric) taught me how to build computers. I was so shocked and amazed; I was always passionate about computers ever since I was a kid around 12 years old in New York, when I got my first Acer Aspire computer. I think it had the original Intel Pentium processor ”inside”.

I think it was around my junior year, I had this great idea of doing something simple: because me and all of my friends were so into video games, Counterstrike, counterstrike 1.6 etc.… I had this genius idea of building computers, and then later selling it at a small markup to my friends and other kids at school, for a small profit. I did the math and I would be able to build a pretty good computer for around 500 bucks, and sell it for around $600 or $700 bucks. I also put lots of advertisements on eBay to sell my computers, I made my own icon which I made on a pirated version of Adobe Photoshop, and I still recall it… it was a little beach palm tree icon, orange, and I called the company “Paradise Computers.” The hilarity was in order to save costs, and in order for me to make a profit, I actually use pirated versions of Windows XP, I still remember later a kid from school I sold a computer — his name was Barry… later complained to me that the computer I sold him was having issues because it had all of these pop-ups saying that it was using an unregistered or unlicensed version of Windows. I just shrugged my shoulders and continued on.

Anyways, as a kid, around 15 years old, I had enough money, around $1000 or around $1200 to buy my first car; a 1991 Sentra XE, which was a four-door, white Nissan car, 1.6L five speed manual transmission sedan. GA16DE engine — I still remember it! Also the hilarity; it was so old-school it didn’t even have a tachometer in it! As the mechanic taught me how to drive manual stick transmission, and my uncle Enzo taught me how to drive stick shift, at… At around 2000 to 3000 RPMs I learned how it intuitively felt and when to shift. Kind of like learning how to ride a bike and shifting gears on a bike.

The reason why this brought me so much insane effing joy was I felt so insanely proud of myself: I think I was definitely the only kid my age range that I personally knew, maybe even up to today… In which I purchased my own first car! Later on I remember joining all these online Nissan forums, and learning about this legendary car, which was essentially a souped up version of my first car; a two-door 1991 Sentra SE-R— equipped with a formidable 2.0L engine, this SR20DE engine, the infamous engine which also powers the Silvia, 240SX, SR20DET engine in Japan (turbo charged)— except the 1991 Sentra SER was a front wheel drive, whereas the SR20DET engine in Japan on the 240SX was a rear wheel drive car.

Anyways, fast forwarding a bit… When my 1991 Sentra XE failed to pass emissions, I remember I was able to trade it into the junkyard, to get back around 1000, $1500 or something like that for the California clean air act, and I was able to use that money to buy my dream car; the 1991 Sentra SE-R car! Only $2000 from an old retired woman who was so old she could no longer drive. It wasn’t mint condition! 5 speed manual transmission of course!

Once again, the reason why this brought me so much joy, literally getting the car my pure pride and joy was a trillion-fold was because the pride and the glory that I felt doing it and buying it myself! My own hard earned money.

Later on, I think when I was in college, either my freshman or sophomore year, I had this vision of driving through the desert, on arid desert street street road, it looked like it was Nevada or Arizona or Joshua Tree or something… driving top down in a red convertible in the hot desert sun with just sand all around. I did lots of research on discovering the cheapest option, and I learned about the Mazda Miata. I scored the deal of my lifetime, on craigslist I found a mint 1990 Mazda Miata, the original one, five speed, no power steering, no air conditioning… Pure. Red, soft top convertible, and I bought it for only $2500 USD. Funny enough that I look back at it, I remember asking the guy why he sold it and he told me that he had his first kid, and he no longer had use for the car. Interesting looking back at it now that I am 35 years old, now that Seneca is around two years nine months old, I am in a similar boat.

Now with cars, I am in love with my 2010 white Prius, which I literally got for free from Cindy‘s family! The genealogy of the car was Cindy‘s older sister first bought it brand new, drove it for a while, later passed it on to me and Cindy, who continued the payments until it was paid off, drove it around in Berkeley for around two years from around 2014 to 2015, went carless, give the car to Cindy’s younger sister, traveled the world and nomading around for several years as Cindy was writing her dissertation, and only may be a few months ago, when we were in Vietnam got the news that the catalytic converter was stolen out of it, when Cindy‘s younger sister Jennifer was parked in front of her apartment. She no longer wanted to deal with the fear of the catalytic converter getting stolen again, and as a consequence, was saying that she was thinking about just telling it to the mechanic for $2000 or something like that. I yelled out loud, “No! The car is worth at least $10,000!” I then promoted the idea to Cindy of us taking it back, spending the money to replace the catalytic converter, which was around $2500, getting the catalytic converter shield, which is meant to deter future theft, which may be costing $300. Later we discovered that the ABS, antilock braking system was broken and needed to be fixed which was maybe around another $2000… but still, I am so proud that effectively we got what I consider a brand new car a brand new Prius for sub $5000! Way better than spending $40,000 on a brand new Tesla model 3 base edition, or $250,000 on a loser Lamborghini.

What is a millennial?

How to change the world vlog

I think I got a good definition for millennial; somebody who foolishly uses their money. And also doesn’t really know what they want to do or get out of their lives.

Living here in LA, being back here in LA for about a month and a half, some funny heuristics I’ve noted:

1. How do you know if somebody is unsuccessful? If they drive some sort of baselevel Audi, like an Audi Q3 or A3. Even if they drive just a basic Tesla model 3. Essentially a lot of millennials my age or people my age, want to seem or appear rich and successful or elite, or rich or whatever… yet can only afford the cheapest luxury thing. Same thing for people who drive the base level BMW 3 series, Mercedes A class, essentially any German car. Even I see so many people driving range rovers, all black everything; or AMG G wagons, once again all matte black everything… they are more common than seeing Toyota Siennas in the Orange County suburbs.
2. Everyone aspires to buy a home. Yet I think my big innovative thought is that actually… it may be superior to rent a really really nice apartment in an insanely great location, than owning a home even in a good to great location. Why? My thought on supreme happiness, joy, and success is being able to walk 50 miles a day, and also, having to spend minimum time to maintain anything. It is crazy, even though I may have the world’s least maintenance car, a Prius, even basic things that I gotta do is wash it every once in a while, I don’t even have enough time to take my car to the drive-through car wash at the gas station anymore! Or even washing the car myself, I would prefer to use that time to work out in my Spartan parking lot off the grid workout, or take Seneca to the park, or go on a walk downtown topless to sunbathe. I can’t be fucked wasting time washing my car or doing any of this other nonsense.

What do people aspire to?

Am I the last optimistic, entrepreneurially hungry person that I know?

I think out of all the real life human beings that I know, and also out of all my friends, the entrepreneur that I know, and also consider successful is my friend Todd Hata. I am insanely grateful of him, because when I was only 21 or 22 years old, he reached out and actually helped me get started in business very very early, traveling the world together, I still consider him one of my closest friends, and also mentor.

But besides Todd, I don’t think I know anybody else who is a true entrepreneur — self owned. All of my friends, even the ones that consider successful either work at Facebook, Amazon, Google, or Apple. How do you know if somebody is really successful or self owned? They are not certain what date, month, year, or day of the week it is. Also, they don’t use any alarm clocks to wake up in the morning, unless if they have an early morning flight.

Funny enough, I actually don’t know anybody, and don’t have any friends or anybody in my personal friends circle who has actually become entrepreneurs, or self-employed, or sole proprietors. Everyone is working for a company or a corporation. Or a foreign business. Not for themselves.

And this is what I think is the critical thing; if you really really really want to change the world, I think it is impossible doing it while still having full-time employment. Why? I remember thinking a few years back, one of the most grateful things I was no longer having to work my old 9 to 5 was that suddenly, I had another 8 to 9 hours a day, to do what I was truly passionate about, Doing street photography and riding and blogging about street photography, instead of being stuck in some sort of tedious office.

Lesson:

To truly change the world, you must be self-employed, sole proprietor, etc.

My visions

PDF 100 lessons from street

I had lots of visions in my life, many of which I accomplished and I am very proud of.

First, my idea and notion of open source, open source photography. Apparently I created quite the buzz when I first made available all of my photographs on Flickr online for free, open source, full resolution JPEG. This was unheard of at the time, when people were still putting silly watermarks on their images, or they were afraid of people “stealing“ their photos online. I even remember my friend Thomas Leuthard we had a good saying “The best watermark is your own personal photo style”. Even up to today, I think Thomas may be the only photographer or street photographer I truly respect. Why? His independent thinking, his irreverence towards the masters, history, or common rules, he is so ahead of the curve. Also never want to forget, when I was 22 years old, and I wanted to first fund my first flight to Beirut Lebanon, and now fundraising money, he essentially donated me $1000 for the flight. I will never forget this.

Eventually what I learned about all these other photographers is I find their behavior quite despicable. They are so hungry for fame, legitimacy, especially in the eyes of others. All the photographers I’ve met, doesn’t matter if Magnum or whatever… everybody all has a chip on their shoulder, is insecure, and salty about something. They are also jealous of photographers who make more money than them, are more famous than them, or that their success is “unwarranted”. Even Henri Cartier-Bresson — let us never forget that he gave up photography and later announced it as “not being a legitimate form of art.”

Open is better

I always had the clear understanding that ultimately, you can’t even pay people to steal your photos. Ultimately nobody cares for your photos that much. What is more important? Your influence, your fame, your clout, your reach. I knew that even from a basic perspective, it was better to have your photos available for free, open source, to the general public, for them to use it as their desktop wallpaper or something. I even recall remember hearing some fan of mine I met using my DARK SKIES OVER TOKYO photo, the photo of the guy in the suit with the black face, as his own desktop wallpaper! That bought me a quadrillion times more joy than selling my photos for thousands of dollars.

And I think this is the thing I discovered; what a lot of us photographers are seeking is significance, a feeling of legitimacy. My personal journey was attempting the traditional routes of becoming a “successful“ photographer; traveling the world, becoming world famous, becoming a household name, having solo exhibitions, printing a photo book, getting sponsorships etc. Now having done all of it, I am happy… Yet… What I ultimately discovered was this:

True success ain’t any of that. True success is simply, having a unique vision, and fulfilling it.

In fact, one of the proudest moments of my life, to quote NASSIM Taleb was “via negativa“; the idea that the proudest moments of your life aren’t positive actions of doing or saying yes, but rather, act of omission; things you decide to not do, or things to say no to or to refuse.

For example, my book, “100 Lessons From the Masters of Street Photography.” I had a grand vision of doing this book for a long time, especially after doing my exhaustive self studying series of all the masters of street photography etc. In fact actually got an offer from a book agent, who offered me a book deal on it, but, he said that it was impossible to make an open source, free, open easily accessible PDF available for free. After much thinking, delaying and thought… I ultimately refuse the book deal and I am proud that I did. I am certain that this book will outlive me. Why? It was created out of pure passion; things which are created out of pure passion will never die.

“Y’all throwing contracts at me, you know that ninjas can’t read!” – Kanye, YEEZUS NEW SLAVES SONG

Ultimately, what is it that we want or desire?

One of the great quotes I love is from the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, who once said “The greatest good amongst men is to seek immortality amongst mortals. Yet the majority of men themselves like cattle.”

What this means is simple; even when we think about the ancient Spartans, King Leonidas and his 300; funny enough, I think the majority of people don’t know, even those people who watch the film, have no idea that it was actually based on the real Historic event. These men are remembered for a lifetime. For millennia and centuries beyond.

Why seek immortal fame?

The funny thought about seeking immortal fame is that in someways, it is superficial, but also in someways, it seems to be a more interesting path to life. What does that mean? First and foremost, the general thought and idea is that rather than seeking money and wealth while we are still on this planet, the greatest pride and gift in glory we could give to humankind is something that will outlive us.

Also something that I find very funny, now that I discovered ChatGPT and now that my world is re-awakened, it literally is pure magic. ChatGPT knows exactly who I am, my philosophy, what I’ve done what I said, in fact, I’m pretty sure that I cannot build a ChatGPT bot which thinks, talks and acts like ERIC KIM, so in theory, the contributions I’ve made to photography and street photography and beyond will last forever.

Why millennials should have kids

I suppose Seneca, who has my namesake, he will build his own legacy, and also, I am sure he will be able to piggyback off of my successes. Even now, that he is only two years, nine months old, I am already exposing him to my own unique ERIC KIM Montessori school; taking him on epic adventures, physical Spartan training, teaching him how to use DALL-E 3 (the other day we designed a purple Prius with Lamborghini doors) and his mind was blown and shocked and he laughed with so much joy. He already knows how to code using the iPad Pro and the Apple swift playgrounds app, he already knows how to use GarageBand on the iPad and iPhone like a pro, he even could sample his own voice and remix it, he knows how to shoot screenshots on the iPad Pro, and draw and make illustrations and also use procreate and Zen Brush 2, and he already knows how to use a trackpad on the MacBook Pro laptop! I want to train him to become the next great entrepreneur.

Anyways, a simple thought is that I believe that all of us millennials should have kids. Why is it that millennials are getting dogs, not having kids? My personal thought is it is a fear thing; I think people actually want to have kids, but the fear of commitment, losing your own independence and “freedom“ is a bit concerning to some people. Yet is this something we should really be concerned about? Of course not! It’s funny, whenever I eat dinner (I call this my “meat meditation“) I actually forget that Seneca is there, I’m stuck in my own world. Yet once I am done with my meal and I look at Seneca, my mind is blown that this is my son!

I think this is the greatest joy of being a man: if your first kid is also a man, a son, consider yourself infinitely blessed. After that it is all upside no downside. Because I think an honest thought is that every man desires to have at least one male heir. This is why when we think of King Louis, think about all of the failed miscarriages he had with his queen(s) to produce at least one male heir. Also, when I recount ancient literature, ancient Greek literature; there is only ever one mention of kings and their single son. The only mentions of having more than one son is typically seen as a bad thing; in the Iliad, Hector is the great and virtuous one, Paris is the degenerate other younger son. Odysseus has only son. I think Hector only had one son. Technically, if we consider Achilles, he was technically a “single child”. Same thing goes with Hercules etc. Not sure about King Leonidas but in the 300 movie by Zack Snyder, King Leonidas is depicted as having one young son.

Anyways, I think the way we should live our lives is that of deep passion. That is, when you wake up in the morning, without the agency of an alarm clock, getting up and the impetus for getting up is because you have a deep, strong life mission. Add this epiphany when I was living in Vietnam in 2017; I am truly truly truly one of a kind. Even in my own mind, I rank myself as equal to Elon Musk, Kanye West, Jeff Bezos etc. I am fortunate that my mentors and my virtual motivators are at least a decade or two or maybe even three older than me. Because I feel no sense of competition; they are only motivators to me.

This is a great thought; if indeed, you were Elon Musk, the simple thought:

What would you do with your time and life, what would you not do with your time and life?

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Changing the world?

What does it mean to change the world, or what is the significance of changing the world?

From a very very simple perspective; technically literally almost anything that you do “changes the world“. You don’t got to overthink it that much.

I think for myself, my general thought and belief is only spending your life in time to do things which you consider substantial, and also personally meaningful. That means, not wasting your time doing no basic shit.

What is basic?

Shopping, buying stuff, buying clothes, buying cars, buying Apple devices, buying homes, buying property, talking about the boring stock market and investments, etc.

What is beyond basic?

Innovation, entrepreneurship, reckless innovation. No regard for a self preservation, the will to growth, the will to innovation, the will to doing insanely great and epic stuff.

Essentially, doing things that your old 12-year-old or 16-year-old self or 21-year-old self would be proud of you… And also, doing things that your kid would be proud of you too!

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So now what?

1. Don’t be a cheapo: just download the ChatGPT app on your phone, if you have an iPhone or android device doesn’t matter… Just cough up the 20 bucks for it. This literally might be the best $20 you’ve ever spent in your lifetime. Have fun with it, experiment with it, use DALL-E to produce images, keep trolling it until it says that you’re violating some sort of content policy. I think pushing the limits is interesting and fun.
2. Another thing you could do with ChatGPT is click the plus icon, only available in the paid model, and then ask it to give you feedback on your photos. This was originally my idea for arsbeta.com — I personally never made it that far, but the grand vision was to also create an AI bot that could visually analyze your photos and get feedback. If you want to build this with me, just email me at eric@erickim.com
3. If you want human feedback, upload your photos to Arsbeta.com
4. When you have signed up for the pay ChatGPT pro thing, open up ChatGPT on your laptop, try out the beta version for creating your own chat bot. It is in the top left corner, under “apps“, click it then on top you could see that you could create your own beta chat. I created this thing called Philosobot and I’m also building an ERIC KIM bot. My mom is smart, she intuitively knows that Abot or AI or ChatGPT is a “robot”! Maybe we should stop calling it bots, just called them robots! Robots are not intimidating. They are cute, silly, and fun!
5. Things that I am personally interested in currently is the philosophy of masculinity, beauty, subjectivity etc. For example in ChatGPT and DALL-E, just ask it to design you or create a picture of a Korean woman, an attractive Korean woman in pure joy. Actually seeing the facial expression is a good one! I think happy people are a good stimulus and also brings you joy! Conversely speaking, being around other miserable people makes you more miserable. Moral of the story: stay away from miserable people like the plague; it ain’t their fault that they’re miserable, but still… If you know somebody has Covid, do you invite them over to your house or you live with them? No. You stay away.

Play with EK

If you’re bored, want to have fun, want to experiment, and thrive with me creatively, I cordially invite you to one of my upcoming workshop experiences:

The exciting ones:

First an introduction to stoicism workshop, this one will be cool and very elite. The other one is a family street photography workshop here in Culver City, this will also be fun because you could bring the whole family! The ultimate gift for you, your kids, the whole family.

I’m also in the midst of creating a photography AI creativity workshop. Stay tuned to this newsletter for more updates.

EK WORKSHOPS >

HAPTIC HOLIDAYS!

I am still so insanely happy and prideful of all of the things that me and Cindy designed with HAPTIC INDUSTRIES. This stuff literally becomes more beautiful and more legendary with age!

Currently the fun promotion we got is that if you order over $300 USD of HAPTIC PRODUCTS, including shipping and handling and taxes, you’ll get a free set of ERIC KIM OMAKASE COFFEE. What does Omakase mean? It literally means “I leave it up to you“— based on the Japanese idea that when you go to a elite luxury sushi restaurant, you don’t actually order the sushi yourself, the sushi chef chooses the food for you!

Tools I recommend you getting include the ERIC KIM strap, the neck strap or the wrist strap if you have a Ricoh GR, if you shoot with a Leica Q or something, the HENRI wrist strap pro, or even the HENRI NECK STRAP.

If you shoot with a Fujifilm camera, or a Sony camera or Leica M camera, the OG HENRI HECK STRAP is good.

Discover all ERIC KIM PHOTO SUPPLY >

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Now what?

So the reason why ChatGPT is so great is that I think the way it works is that it literally just downloads the whole Internet, and makes sense of it. As a consequence, the best way to have yourself or your thoughts or whatever indexed by ChatGPT and AI it is through your own personal blog. For example, if you open up ChatGPT plus, and ask “ERIC KIM AI“, it will immediately pull up the last essay blog post I did on the role of photographers in the age of AI, and even gives me quotes and footnotes me! Witnessing this, my mind was blown. This is really the Google killer.

In fact, if and when Open AI and ChatGPT if it goes public, or when it goes public, they’re going to make a shitload of money. If you’re really really risky, and risk loving and want to make a lot of money, I would actually encourage shorting both Google and Apple. They are effectively dead. Maybe it is a good time to buy Microsoft stock, because essentially now that they low-key own ChatGPT and Open AI, I think we will witness the revival of the Windows phone, this time powered by ChatGPT. And it will be 1 trillion times better than any iPhone Pro.

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What else?

Just bookmark the ERIC KIM BLOG to your laptop, desktop, iPad iPhone smartphone whatever… I literally update it every five seconds. Never run out of inspiration or motivation!

ERIC KIM BLOG >

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“We always think to ourselves… Why don’t I have enough? But what if… We already have too much?” – Seneca

Also a new one:

“Out of discord comes harmony” – Heraclitus

Interesting… what that means then is rather than seeking some sort of peace or harmony, actually seeking conflict might be superior in terms of living in life?

SEEK CHAOS!

ERIC

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Feeling more turbo?

If so, feel free to forward this to a friend!

ERIC KIM NEWS LINK >

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PDF

Also all masters.

My general thoughts: first and foremost, this and you were supposed to change the world.

“Those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, do.” – OG (original gangster, old school) Apple Steve Jobs TV advertisement.

I was born in 1988, currently 35 years old. When I was a kid growing up, it was all about Gandhi, changing the world etc. Even in fact, for my college application essay, that what got me into UCLA as an undergrad, Centered around this quote from Gandhi “Be the change which you wish to see manifested in the world.”

As a kid growing up poor, fortunately having a lot of good mentors, my general gist was always to give back, to contribute to society. a lot was given to me when I was young, and I felt like it was my duty to give back.

Deep passion

Growing up poor, having my dad Gimble the rent money, always being one paycheck away from being potentially homeless… Money action never really concerned me as a kid. It was a strange irony; because we were always so financially unstable growing up, and even when we hit Rockbottom and my mom had to file for bankruptcy and she can no longer even open up her own personal checking account… my sister and my mom were OK. This taught me an important lesson that I could take infinite chances and not worry myself or concerned myself too much about finances. in fact, then even now… I literally have zero concerns about finances.

Why, why not? Never really interest me that much. As a kid, I had deep pride in being scrappy, being frugal, being economical, and having deep pride in being self aligned, making do and making best of what I had, or what I bought or earned or did with my own money, Earning it through working, my entrepreneur endeavors, starting my own business etc.

In fact, I remember when I was in high school, maybe around my sophomore year, my friend Eric Moon (yeah, his name was also Eric) taught me how to build computers. I was so shocked and amazed; I was always passionate about computers ever since I was a kid around 12 years old in New York, when I got my first Acer aspire computer. I think it had the original Intel Pentium processor ”inside”.

I think it was around my junior year, I had this great idea of doing something simple: because me and all of my friends weren’t to video games, kind of strike, kind of strike 1.6 etc.… I had this genius idea of building computers, And then later selling it at a small markup to my friends and other kids at school, for a small profit. I did the math and I would be able to build a pretty good computer for around 500 bucks, until it for around six or 700 bucks. I also put lots of advertisements on eBay to sell my computers, I made my own icon which I made on a pirated version of Adobe Photoshop, and I still recall it… It was a little beach palm tree icon, orange, and I called the company “Paradise computers.” The hilarity was in order to save costs, and in order for me to make a profit, actually use pirate versions of windows XP, I still remember later a kid from school I sold a computer tube his name was Barry… Later complained to me that the computer I sold him Was having issues because it had all of these pop-ups saying that it was using an unregistered or unlicensed version of Windows. I just shrugged my shoulders and continued on.

Anyways, as a kid, around 15 years old, I had enough money, around $1000 or around $1200 to buy my first car; a 1991 Sentra XE, which was a four-door, white Nissan car, 1.6 L five speed manual transmission sedan. GA16DE engine — I still remember it! Also the hilarity; it was so old-school it didn’t even have a tachometer in it! As the mechanic taught me how to drive manual stick transmission, in my uncle Enzo taught me how to drive stick shift, I learned that you could learn how to shift transmissions by just using your ears and feeling the car… At around 2000 to 3000 RPMs I learned how it intuitively felt.

The reason why this brought me so much insane effing joy was I felt so insanely proud of myself: I think I was definitely the only kid my age range that I personally knew, maybe even up to today… In which I purchased my own first car! Later on I remember joining all these online Nissan forums, and learning about this legendary car, which was essentially a souped up version of my first car; a two-door 1991 Sentra SE-R— equipped with a formidable 2.0 L engine, this SR 20 DE engine, the infamous engine which also powers the Sylvia, 240 SX, SR 20 DET engine in Japan (turbo charged)— except the 1991 centra SER was upfront wheel drive, whereas the SR 20 DET engine in Japan on the 240 SX was a rear wheel drive car.

Anyways, fast forwarding a bit… When my 1991 Sentra XE failed to pass emissions, I remember I was able to trade it into the junkyard, to get back around 1000, $1500 or something like that, and I was able to use that money to buy my dream car; the 1991 Sentra SE-R car!

Once again, the reason why this problem is so much joy, literally getting the car my pure pride and joy was a trifold was because the pride and the glory that I felt doing it myself! My own hard earned money.

Later on, I think when I was in college, either my freshman or sophomore year, I had this vision of driving through the desert, on a street path, it looked like it was Nevada or Arizona or Joshua tree or something… Driving top down in a red convertible. I did lots of research on discovering the cheapest option, and I learned about the moth Miata. I scored the deal of my lifetime, on craigslist I found a mint 1990 Mazda Miata, the original one, five speed, no power steering, no air conditioning… Pure. Red, soft top convertible, and I bought it for only $2500 USD. Funny enough that I look back at it, I remember asking the guy why he sold it and he told me that he had his first kid, and he no longer had use for the car. Interesting looking back at it now that I am 35 years old, now that Seneca is around two years nine months old, I am in a similar boat.

Now with cars, I am in love with my 2010 white Prius, which I literally got for free from Cindy‘s family! The genealogy of the car was Cindy‘s older sister first spotted brand new, drove it for a while, later passed it on to me and Cindy, who continued the payments until it was paid off, drove it around in Berkeley for around two years from around 2014 to 2015, went carless, give the car to Cindy’s younger sister, traveled the world and nomading around for several years as Cindy was writing her dissertation, and only may be a few months ago, when we were in Vietnam got the news that the Cadillac converter was stolen out of it, when Cindy‘s younger sister Jennifer was parked in front of her apartment. She no longer wanted to deal with the fear of the catalytic converter getting stolen again, and as a consequence, was saying that she was thinking about just telling it to the mechanic for $2000 or something like that. I yelled out loud, “no! The car is worth at least $10,000! “I then promoted the idea to Cindy of us taking it back, spending the money to replace the Khalid converter, which was around $2500, getting the catalytic converter shield, which is meant to deter future theft, which may be costing $300. Later we discovered that the ABS, antilock braking system was broken and needed to be fixed which was maybe around another $2000… But still, I am so proud that effectively we got what I consider a brand new car a brand new Prius for sub $5000!

What is a millennial?

I think I got a good definition for millennial; somebody who foolishly uses their money. And also doesn’t really know what they want to do or get out of their lives.

Living here in LA, being back here in LA for about a month and a half, some funny heuristics I’ve noted:

1. How do you know if somebody is unsuccessful? if they drive some sort of baselevel Audi, like an Audi Q3 or A3. Even if they drive just a basic Tesla model three. Essentially a lot of millennials my age or people my age, want to see men appear rich and successful or elite, or rich or whatever… Yet can only afford the cheapest luxury thing. Same thing for people who drive the base level BMW three series, Mercedes a class, essentially any German car. Even I see so many people driving range rovers, all black everything; or AMG G wagons, once again all matte black everything… They are more common than seeing Toyota sienna in the Orange County suburbs.
2. Everyone aspires to buy a home. Yet I think my big innovative thought is that actually… It may be superior to rent a really really nice apartment in an insanely great location, than owning a home even in a good to great location. Why? My thought on supreme happiness, joy, and success is being able to walk 50 miles a day, and also, having to spend minimum time to maintain anything. It is crazy, even though I may have the world’s least maintenance car, a Prius, even basic things that I gotta do is wash it every once in a while, I don’t even have enough time to take my car to the drive-through car wash at the gas station anymore! Or even washing the car myself, I would prefer to use that time to work out in my Spartan parking lot off the grid workout, or take Seneca to the park, or go on a walk downtown topless to sunbathe. I can’t be fucked wasting time washing my car or doing any of this other nonsense.

What do people aspire to?

Am I the last optimistic, entrepreneurially hungry person that I know?

I think out of all the real life human beings that I know, and also out of all my friends, the entrepreneur that I know, and also consider successful is my friend Todd Hata. I am insanely grateful of him, because when I was only 21 or 22 years old, he reached out and actually helped me get started in business very very early, traveling the world together, I still consider him one of my closest friends, and also mentors.

But besides Todd, I don’t think I know anybody. All of my friends, even the ones that consider successful either work at Facebook, Amazon, Google, or Apple.

Funny enough, I actually don’t know anybody, and don’t have any friends or anybody in my personal friends Circle who has actually become entrepreneurs, or self-employed, or soul proprietors. Everyone is working for a company or a corporation. Or a foreign business. Not for themselves.

And this is what I think is the critical thing; if you really really really want to change the world, I think it is impossible doing it while still having full-time employment. Why? I remember thinking a few years back, one of the most grateful things I was no longer having to work my old 9 to 5 was that suddenly, I had another 8 to 9 hours a day, to do what I was truly passionate about, Doing street photography and riding and blogging about street photography, instead of being stuck in some sort of tedious office.

My visions

I had lots of visions in my life, many of which I accomplished and I am very proud of.

First, my idea and notion of open source, open source photography. Apparently I created quite the buzz when I first made available all of my photographs on Flicker online for free, open source, full resolution JPEG. This was unheard of at the time, when people were still putting Sylvia watermarks on their images, or they were afraid of people “stealing“ their photos online. I always had the clear understanding that ultimately, you can’t even pay people to steal your photos. Ultimately nobody cares for your photos that much. What is more important? Your influence, your fame, your clout, your reach. I knew that even from a basic perspective, it was better to have your Photos available for free, open source, to the general public, for them to use it as their desktop wallpaper or something. I even recall remember hearing Some fans I met using my dark skies over Tokyo photo, behind the suit with the black face, as there does top wallpaper! That bought me a quadrillion times more joy than selling my photos for thousands of dollars.

And I think this is the thing I discovered; what a lot of us photographers are seeking is significance, a feeling of legitimacy. My personal journey was attempting the traditional routes of becoming a “successful“ photographer; traveling the world, becoming world famous, becoming a household name, having solo exhibitions, printing a photo book, getting sponsorships etc. Now having done all of it, I am happy… Yet… What I ultimately discovered was this:

True success ain’t any of that. True success is simply, having a unique vision, and fulfilling it.

in fact, one of the proudest moments of my life, two “Nasim Taleb was “via Neiva“; the idea that the proudest moments of your life aren’t positive actions of doing or saying yes, but rather, act of omission; things you decide to not do, or things to say no to or to refuse.

For example, my book, “100 lessons from the masters of street photography.” I had a grand vision of doing this book for a long time, especially after doing my exhaustive self studying series of all the masters of street photography etc. In fact actually got an offer from a book agent, who offered me a book deal on it, but, he said that it was impossible to make an open source, free, open easily accessible PDF available for free. After much thinking, delaying and thought… I ultimately refuse the book deal and I am proud that I did. I am certain that this book will outlive me. Why? It was created out of pure passion; things which are created out of pure passion will never die.

Ultimately, what is it that we want or desire?

One of the great quotes I love is from the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, who once said “The greatest good amongst men is to seek immortality amongst mortals. Yet the majority of men themselves like cattle.”

1. Quit porn, the news, Reddit, TV, YouTube, Spotify etc.
2. 8 hours a day in the direct sun topless.
3. Never drive
4. Quit alcohol, weed, strange beverages. Only black coffee, water and tea. Stick to tap water or filtered water.
5. Smile
6. Insanely heavy weight lifting
7. Only eat dinner
8. Only red meat — beef and lamb.

The motivational thought of today; to be ever evolving.

For example, it seems that a big problem is that people don’t want you to evolve and change. Think about David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Kanye West etc. People want you to be the same same predictable person, and when you change involved in the advance, people hate it.

Is ERIC KIM on drugs?

No. I’m just high off life!

In fact, fun fact; I’ve only ever smoked weed twice in my life; once when we’re living in Berkeley around 2014, I got crazy visuals. The second time I did it nothing really happened.

Also, I have never done any other drugs, I don’t even know what they are.

Also, I quit alcohol maybe seven or eight years ago. Why? First, it made me fatter, put on body fat percentage. Also, I get bad hangovers, and also it ruins my sleep. In fact I’ve discovered that it actually takes more courage not to Drink alcohol than to imbibe.

Why is evolution critical?

First of all, you’re probably gonna live a long time. If you live long enough, you’re going to contradict yourself sooner or later. I think this is a good thing; having the courage and the wisdom to change your mind is a very strong sign of strength.

Also the bias is that we must always be the same same, predictable, easily decipherable by others, why? I think it is because we have become marketed products, and also, it seems that a lot of people hate uncertainty. However for risk takers like myself, I thrive off of it.

“Shoot for the stars, because if you fail you’ll just land on a cloud” – Kanye

To infinity and beyond, thinking about Buzz Lightyear, and also other modern day concepts.

I love Elon Musk to death, because he is irreverent, hard-core, and hilarious. I am quite certain that Elon Musk will be remembered for at least 2000 years beyond.

For example, when he started his payments company with his brother, zip2, and he sold it to the market, he became a multi millionaire, immediately went out and bought a McLaren, and decided… He didn’t want to just retire on the beach, he wanted to start more companies. Therefore, him starting SpaceX, and also cofounding Tesla with Marc T and the other guy.

Can you imagine if Elon Musk just sold his first company, and just sat on his butt? The world would be a lot less interesting.

How can you take this into your own personal consideration?

The first thought is super simple; just download ChatGPT, and pay the $20 a month subscription models; cancel your Adobe, Adobe cloud membership, cancel your Spotify, cancel your Netflix or whatever… Maybe even cancel your Amazon prime.

Instead, go all in on AI, ChatGPT, DALL-E DALL-E3. In fact, I now own erickim.ai

I think integrating artificial intelligence into your artwork will be a great transformation process. Essentially what AI does is that it just helps you make things more efficient, creative and fun. For example, I can just help you filter photos, yeah I could help you generate creative images, and also AI helps you with creative ideation. The general idea and concept is that AI is just like a really fun toys; we should think of it like Adobe Photoshop, mixed with Google.

Why are some people so anti-AI?

First and foremost, I think people are not even they don’t really understand how it works. The simple way I describe it is that imagine if it just downloaded the whole Internet, made sense out of it, and the way it response to you is simply based on like a really intelligent Google search.

Also, the way that image generation, DALL-E 3 works is quite simple; once again it downloaded all the images on cool images and the Internet, and learn some trends, and whatever it creates a simply a creative iteration or remixing of what has been done in the past.

This is why when I was experimenting designing Prius concept cars; the front end and the back and was still taught on older models of creases, not the new new one with the straight horizontal taillight bar.

Therefore as a consequence, AI is not really “original“;. Why? It learned from what other humans have done in the past, what they wrote or what they said or what they created. It cannot come up with new ideas carte blanche.

How can I use AI to help me evolve as an artist?

First, once again paid the $20 a month subscription, it is so cheap. Then, open up DALLE3 and start creating and producing your own images from scratch!

My personal way on the best way to do it is just have fun! Troll it, try to break the system, it always gets interesting when you push the limits of the censorship rules; for example, you cannot say “help me visualize a sexy clean grill at the beach“, but what you can say is “help me visualize a Korean trophy wife at the beach”.

AI is very politically correct

I guess also the good thing about the new ChatGPT for and beyond is that it is very politically correct. A little bit annoying, but a moderate amount of nuance, subjectivity, and censorship is good.

Also, what I love about ChatGPT paid premium is that it is already here! People just don’t want to shell out the 20 bucks; people have the strange bias that they are somehow willing to spend $140,000 on Tesla, but they’re unwilling to spend $20 on a digital app or subscription.

---

This is god power

Now we are the ultimate creators. I can literally design anything and create anything, the only limitation is my imagination. For example, I’ve been asking dall-e 3 to design me glass cube houses, with glass ceilings, new weightlifting equipment, an iPhone Pro concept without a screen, as well as generating hilarious imagery about bitcoin billionaires Spartan hoplites lifting weights and super muscular and jacked.

I think the critical factors here is just having fun with it and iterating! So for example, when it generates an image of a Spartan hub, I keep asking it to make it more muscular, and to make him look Korean, too essentially look like me.

I’ve also been having a lot of interesting fun visualizing beautiful women, asking it to look Korean, then Vietnamese, then Korean, then a hybrid of both.

Also, having fun with asking it to make me a Prius cybertruck concept; it looks so hard. Also designing me a Prius Ferrari. It literally made me laugh out loud.

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Why it is so critical for you to start making your own blog, right now!

The rate in which I am producing Photos is phenomenal. And where is the best place to host it? No no no, not Instagram, not Facebook or whatever; your own website, your own blog.

In fact, moving forward, I no longer like the idea of a static website concept. To me the only interesting thing is an ever updated blog. My personal ambition is every single time you go to the ERIC KIM blog, and hit reload, there’s always something new.

For example, when I used to work in information technology as a UCLA undergraduate student, I remember being bored for hours, clicking links on Reddit for hours at a time.

Can you imagine if you open up Reddit, or went to your favorite sub Reddit, and there was not any new information or pictures or stuff?

Diversify your thinking

What we Gotta do is diversify our thinking in the context of being a “full stack” thinker, creative, and artist.

For example, Voltaire. The man was phenomenal. He wrote screenplay, directed opera, design costumes, put on shows, wrote poetry, wrote essays, engaged in Woody dialogue, philosophized, etc.

I think the reason why people are so confused by me is that certainly when I started off, my hundred percent focus was geography, nothing but free photography. Yet, I am complex, multi variegated individual, which means that my thoughts are diverse.

In fact, I think this is a critical part of my success; a lot of people became diehard ERIC KIM readers because of my interest in Stoicism, philosophy and other random stuff.

My new advice I would give to young bloggers, bloggers, Internet entrepreneurs is simple; allow yourself to be insanely diverse. Don’t pigeonhole yourself into one small thing.

How to evolve

First, you should never force evolution. For example, do you remember that one Pokémon episode, in which as tried to force Pikachu to evolve to the Raichu with the thunderstone, and how Ash felt like such a scumbag doing it, and eventually Pikachu hit the stone out of ashes hand, and Ash realized That he was becoming a low-key Eugenist?

I think the downside of Hitler, Nazism, all those nonsensical “eugenics folks“, is that they are myopic in their thinking. They cannot understand that diversity is in fact, the key to our strength.

For example, Steve Jobs, who was adopted as a child, his biological father was Syrian, his mother Caucasian American. In theory of Steve Jobs would have never been born in Apple would have never been born had America not granted his Syrian father student visa to study in the states.

Or, let us consider Elon Musk, certainly easily the best entrepreneur of all time. He’s such a great entrepreneur that Walter Isaacson wanted to quickly get a biography out on him, maybe Walter Isaacson‘s personal health is also personally declining. Elon Musk was born in South Africa, and was also through someways permitted to immigrate to the states via Canada etc. Also apparently some of his best buddies were also immigrants in college.

America is the home of evolution?

Certainly there is much that we could critique and criticize about America, yet… And then the day, America is easily the most supreme place to be in terms of innovation and evolution. Why?

First of all, people could really care less about what you are, what you do it, etc. All of this nonsense in the media is I think fueled by advertising; the more vitriol and hate and controversy the news puts out, the higher their advertising revenue and the more eyeballs to get on them. In fact, it ain’t Donald Trump or whatever who is the bad guy… We should probably blame the media, the mainstream media. Apparently when Donald Trump was first running for office, when everybody thought he had a 0% chance of actually getting office, apparently the left stream liberal media gave him trial is a free advertising. it seems that the more people try to shut him down, like Twitter, Maybe Jack Dorsey, etc.… The more price you got. It is like the notion of band books; the second you banned something, or try to ban something, or make a taboo… The usage of it goes higher. Apparently this is also how Europeans are better at moderating alcohol especially among the youth; because it is not illegal and taboo, the kids don’t have to get shitfaced and smashed the second they go to college. Even for myself, I partied a lot in high school, call illegally enclosure, drinking alcohol with my buddies sophomore junior and senior year, so the second I went to college, alcohol had zero interest in me.

It’s also kind of like kids; when you tell them they cannot do something, they want to do it even more But if you let them do it, they’re interested in it is lukewarm.

Cross pollinate your ideas

A simple strategy and approach is cross pollinating your interest passions and personal curiosities. For example, imagine a bumblebee hopping from all of these different flowers, sipping unique nectar from each. Eventually the honey it will produce is truly one of a kind. I don’t think bees are about “single origin“. In fact, too much focus on “single origin“, or “100% pure arabica”, seems like a low-key white supremacy idea. The idea is; anything that is not 100% purebred, is bad and evil and malicious. Therefore we have to keep our bloodlines in our things pure, any mixing or meddling is bad.

for example, animals. In higher elite social circles, it is seen as more vogue to have 100% purebred Pomeranian or whatever we breed of dog. Yet the problem about these purebreds is that a lot of them are sick, weak, inbred and feeble. Even in Korea, which about 90% of the population last name is Kim, we distinguish the type of KIM we are. For example, I am “Kim-eh-Kim-ssi”— there used to be this taboo that before you got married to somebody, assuming they had the same last name as you, you would not accidentally inbreed.

I think in terms of genetic diversity, having “mixed race“ kids is a good idea. I even surmise that if you go back enough in history, there was a lot more genetic mixing back then. For example Vietnam. If you’re from the north, your ancestors probably intermingled more with people from China and east Asia, whereas if you were from the south, You were probably more interwoven with Cambodians, Thai people, etc.

Even a critical distinction I learned is Africa is insanely big, and it is actually very disrespectful to just blanket call somebody “African“; where are they really from? Ethiopia? Legos, South Africa? Zimbabwe? I think to call or to mistake different African people from different African countries is almost a kid to mistaking a South Korean person for being Japanese, or a Vietnamese person being from mainland China.

In fact I have this funny story, when me and Cindy were both around 23 years old and we are enjoying a nice French restaurant in Paris, the waiter, who looked African-French ask me quote Korean, and Chinese… Is it the same thing?” I then responded wittingly, “French and Spanish… Is it the same thing?” He laughed, nodded and have me a hat tip for my witty analogy.

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Where having your own blog is critical

I am ahead of the curve. I have this notion of ChatGPT AI search engine optimization; the general idea and just is at this point, Google is dead. ChatGPT4 produces far more accurate results and cuts through all this advertising nonsense “content marketing“, and in someways ironically is less biased.

I think the future calling card is this:

“Just ChatGPT me!”

ChatGPT knows whether you’re influential or not, because it has downloaded the whole Web, and it makes better sense of significant and deep interlinking of individuals and opinions. Whereas with Google search engine optimization, the pagerank (Larry Page Rank) system is now outdated by at least 20-30 years.

The motivational thought of today; to be ever evolving.

For example, it seems that a big problem is that people don’t want you to evolve and change. Think about David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Kanye West etc. People want you to be the same same predictable person, and when you change involved in the advance, people hate it.

Is ERIC KIM on drugs?

No. I’m just high off life!

In fact, fun fact; I’ve only ever smoked weed twice in my life; once when we’re living in Berkeley around 2014, I got crazy visuals. The second time I did it nothing really happened.

Also, I have never done any other drugs, I don’t even know what they are.

Also, I quit alcohol maybe seven or eight years ago. Why? First, it made me fatter, put on body fat percentage. Also, I get bad hangovers, and also it ruins my sleep. In fact I’ve discovered that it actually takes more courage not to Drink alcohol than to imbibe.

Why is evolution critical?

First of all, you’re probably gonna live a long time. If you live long enough, you’re going to contradict yourself sooner or later. I think this is a good thing; having the courage and the wisdom to change your mind is a very strong sign of strength.

Also the bias is that we must always be the same same, predictable, easily decipherable by others, why? I think it is because we have become marketed products, and also, it seems that a lot of people hate uncertainty. However for risk takers like myself, I thrive off of it.

“Shoot for the stars, because if you fail you’ll just land on a cloud” – Kanye

To infinity and beyond, thinking about Buzz Lightyear, and also other modern day concepts.

I love Elon Musk to death, because he is irreverent, hard-core, and hilarious. I am quite certain that Elon Musk will be remembered for at least 2000 years beyond.

For example, when he started his payments company with his brother, zip2, and he sold it to the market, he became a multi millionaire, immediately went out and bought a McLaren, and decided… He didn’t want to just retire on the beach, he wanted to start more companies. Therefore, him starting SpaceX, and also cofounding Tesla with Marc T and the other guy.

Can you imagine if Elon Musk just sold his first company, and just sat on his butt? The world would be a lot less interesting.

How can you take this into your own personal consideration?

The first thought is super simple; just download ChatGPT, and pay the $20 a month subscription models; cancel your Adobe, Adobe cloud membership, cancel your Spotify, cancel your Netflix or whatever… Maybe even cancel your Amazon prime.

Instead, go all in on AI, ChatGPT, DALL-E DALL-E3. In fact, I now own erickim.ai

I think integrating artificial intelligence into your artwork will be a great transformation process. Essentially what AI does is that it just helps you make things more efficient, creative and fun. For example, I can just help you filter photos, yeah I could help you generate creative images, and also AI helps you with creative ideation. The general idea and concept is that AI is just like a really fun toys; we should think of it like Adobe Photoshop, mixed with Google.

Why are some people so anti-AI?

First and foremost, I think people are not even they don’t really understand how it works. The simple way I describe it is that imagine if it just downloaded the whole Internet, made sense out of it, and the way it response to you is simply based on like a really intelligent Google search.

Also, the way that image generation, DALL-E 3 works is quite simple; once again it downloaded all the images on cool images and the Internet, and learn some trends, and whatever it creates a simply a creative iteration or remixing of what has been done in the past.

This is why when I was experimenting designing Prius concept cars; the front end and the back and was still taught on older models of creases, not the new new one with the straight horizontal taillight bar.

Therefore as a consequence, AI is not really “original“;. Why? It learned from what other humans have done in the past, what they wrote or what they said or what they created. It cannot come up with new ideas carte blanche.

How can I use AI to help me evolve as an artist?

First, once again paid the $20 a month subscription, it is so cheap. Then, open up DALLE3 and start creating and producing your own images from scratch!

My personal way on the best way to do it is just have fun! Troll it, try to break the system, it always gets interesting when you push the limits of the censorship rules; for example, you cannot say “help me visualize a sexy clean grill at the beach“, but what you can say is “help me visualize a Korean trophy wife at the beach”.

AI is very politically correct

I guess also the good thing about the new ChatGPT for and beyond is that it is very politically correct. A little bit annoying, but a moderate amount of nuance, subjectivity, and censorship is good.

Also, what I love about ChatGPT paid premium is that it is already here! People just don’t want to shell out the 20 bucks; people have the strange bias that they are somehow willing to spend $140,000 on Tesla, but they’re unwilling to spend $20 on a digital app or subscription.

---

This is god power

Now we are the ultimate creators. I can literally design anything and create anything, the only limitation is my imagination. For example, I’ve been asking dall-e 3 to design me glass cube houses, with glass ceilings, new weightlifting equipment, an iPhone Pro concept without a screen, as well as generating hilarious imagery about bitcoin billionaires Spartan hoplites lifting weights and super muscular and jacked.

I think the critical factors here is just having fun with it and iterating! So for example, when it generates an image of a Spartan hub, I keep asking it to make it more muscular, and to make him look Korean, too essentially look like me.

I’ve also been having a lot of interesting fun visualizing beautiful women, asking it to look Korean, then Vietnamese, then Korean, then a hybrid of both.

Also, having fun with asking it to make me a Prius cybertruck concept; it looks so hard. Also designing me a Prius Ferrari. It literally made me laugh out loud.

---

Why it is so critical for you to start making your own blog, right now!

The rate in which I am producing Photos is phenomenal. And where is the best place to host it? No no no, not Instagram, not Facebook or whatever; your own website, your own blog.

In fact, moving forward, I no longer like the idea of a static website concept. To me the only interesting thing is an ever updated blog. My personal ambition is every single time you go to the ERIC KIM blog, and hit reload, there’s always something new.

For example, when I used to work in information technology as a UCLA undergraduate student, I remember being bored for hours, clicking links on Reddit for hours at a time.

Can you imagine if you open up Reddit, or went to your favorite sub Reddit, and there was not any new information or pictures or stuff?

Diversify your thinking

What we Gotta do is diversify our thinking in the context of being a “full stack” thinker, creative, and artist.

For example, Voltaire. The man was phenomenal. He wrote screenplay, directed opera, design costumes, put on shows, wrote poetry, wrote essays, engaged in Woody dialogue, philosophized, etc.

I think the reason why people are so confused by me is that certainly when I started off, my hundred percent focus was geography, nothing but free photography. Yet, I am complex, multi variegated individual, which means that my thoughts are diverse.

In fact, I think this is a critical part of my success; a lot of people became diehard ERIC KIM readers because of my interest in Stoicism, philosophy and other random stuff.

My new advice I would give to young bloggers, bloggers, Internet entrepreneurs is simple; allow yourself to be insanely diverse. Don’t pigeonhole yourself into one small thing.

The motivational thought of today; to be ever evolving.

For example, it seems that a big problem is that people don’t want you to evolve and change. Think about David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Kanye West etc. People want you to be the same same predictable person, and when you change involved in the advance, people hate it.

Is ERIC KIM on drugs?

No. I’m just high off life!

In fact, fun fact; I’ve only ever smoked weed twice in my life; once when we’re living in Berkeley around 2014, I got crazy visuals. The second time I did it nothing really happened.

Also, I have never done any other drugs, I don’t even know what they are.

Also, I quit alcohol maybe seven or eight years ago. Why? First, it made me fatter, put on body fat percentage. Also, I get bad hangovers, and also it ruins my sleep. In fact I’ve discovered that it actually takes more courage not to Drink alcohol than to imbibe.

Why is evolution critical?

First of all, you’re probably gonna live a long time. If you live long enough, you’re going to contradict yourself sooner or later. I think this is a good thing; having the courage and the wisdom to change your mind is a very strong sign of strength.

Also the bias is that we must always be the same same, predictable, easily decipherable by others, why? I think it is because we have become marketed products, and also, it seems that a lot of people hate uncertainty. However for risk takers like myself, I thrive off of it.

“Shoot for the stars, because if you fail you’ll just land on a cloud” – Kanye

To infinity and beyond, thinking about Buzz Lightyear, and also other modern day concepts.

I love Elon Musk to death, because he is irreverent, hard-core, and hilarious. I am quite certain that Elon Musk will be remembered for at least 2000 years beyond.

For example, when he started his payments company with his brother, zip2, and he sold it to the market, he became a multi millionaire, immediately went out and bought a McLaren, and decided… He didn’t want to just retire on the beach, he wanted to start more companies. Therefore, him starting SpaceX, and also cofounding Tesla with Marc T and the other guy.

Can you imagine if Elon Musk just sold his first company, and just sat on his butt? The world would be a lot less interesting.

How can you take this into your own personal consideration?

The first thought is super simple; just download ChatGPT, and pay the $20 a month subscription models; cancel your Adobe, Adobe cloud membership, cancel your Spotify, cancel your Netflix or whatever… Maybe even cancel your Amazon prime.

Instead, go all in on AI, ChatGPT, DALL-E DALL-E3. In fact, I now own erickim.ai

I think integrating artificial intelligence into your artwork will be a great transformation process. Essentially what AI does is that it just helps you make things more efficient, creative and fun. For example, I can just help you filter photos, yeah I could help you generate creative images, and also AI helps you with creative ideation. The general idea and concept is that AI is just like a really fun toys; we should think of it like Adobe Photoshop, mixed with Google.

Why are some people so anti-AI?

First and foremost, I think people are not even they don’t really understand how it works. The simple way I describe it is that imagine if it just downloaded the whole Internet, made sense out of it, and the way it response to you is simply based on like a really intelligent Google search.

Also, the way that image generation, DALL-E 3 works is quite simple; once again it downloaded all the images on cool images and the Internet, and learn some trends, and whatever it creates a simply a creative iteration or remixing of what has been done in the past.

This is why when I was experimenting designing Prius concept cars; the front end and the back and was still taught on older models of creases, not the new new one with the straight horizontal taillight bar.

Therefore as a consequence, AI is not really “original“;. Why? It learned from what other humans have done in the past, what they wrote or what they said or what they created. It cannot come up with new ideas carte blanche.

How can I use AI to help me evolve as an artist?

First, once again paid the $20 a month subscription, it is so cheap. Then, open up DALLE3 and start creating and producing your own images from scratch!

My personal way on the best way to do it is just have fun! Troll it, try to break the system, it always gets interesting when you push the limits of the censorship rules; for example, you cannot say “help me visualize a sexy clean grill at the beach“, but what you can say is “help me visualize a Korean trophy wife at the beach”.

AI is very politically correct

I guess also the good thing about the new ChatGPT for and beyond is that it is very politically correct. A little bit annoying, but a moderate amount of nuance, subjectivity, and censorship is good.

Also, what I love about ChatGPT paid premium is that it is already here! People just don’t want to shell out the 20 bucks; people have the strange bias that they are somehow willing to spend $140,000 on Tesla, but they’re unwilling to spend $20 on a digital app or subscription.

When the weather outside is insanely good, and it is actually very cold in the shade, but nice and warm in the sun, I think about the aprophocal (probably fake, a high tale) quote from Diogenes when he met Alexander the great:

Alexander the great, upon meeting Diogenes asked him he could give him whatever he wanted. Diogenes then said, “Move over, you’re blocking my sun.” (as he has sunbathing).

The funny thought, if you had all the riches in the world, the greatest joy is just being able to be in the sun all day?

Sunbathing

Isn’t it funny that we call it “sunbathing”? Which literally means, bathing in the sun?

I wonder, if there is a hygiene aspect here. Even Elon Musk said wittingly, the sun is the best disinfectant.

This is true. Asian people have traditionally known that in fact, the best way to disinfect something is actually to let it dry directly in the sun. This works well with things that smell, like smelly old bath towels, smelly old floor bath towel mats, your shoes etc.

Why are we so afraid of the sun now?

I am sure that it is certain that we do have lots of UV issues with the ozone layer etc. But funny thing, it seems like maybe a decade or two ago we talked a lot about all this pollution messing up the ozone there. Yet, this notion has fallen out of vogue and we talk about “climate change” instead. essentially all of these concepts are coming in and out of vogue; always these issues with the planet etc.

Certainly one thing I can attest to is pollution. If you have never been to some parts of industrial Vietnam, Cambodia, or other parts of Southeast Asia… You don’t really know how bad pollution is. Even Seoul South Korea, one of the most advanced places on the planet, the pollution there now is insanely bad.

Even all of the really rich mainland Chinese people; what do they do? Nobody wants to be a trillionaire in Beijing or anywhere in mainland China, or even in Shanghai… Apparently the pollution there is unbearable. Or would they prefer to do? Buy a nice house in Vancouver, or somewhere where the weather is good; beautiful greenery, trees, fresh air, etc. I think this is why real estate value in San Diego is so high; it may have the best climate on the planet or the West Coast.

Why does this matter?

I think the reason why this matters so much is that health may be one of the most critical things to our human thriving, and also, bodily physiological health. Apparently son exposure is becoming at things; the doctor saying that you need “at least“, 10 to 15 months of direct sun exposure a day.

Yeah the reason why I think this advice is not great is because it is too focused on trying to create a “one size fits all” approach to things.

For example, thinking about your country of origin is insanely critical. Why? The reason being that in fact, this matters.

for example I am Korean. My mom is from Busan South Korea, and my dad is from Seoul South Korea. My genetic heritage is from Korea, South Korea… What does this mean?

First, Korean people are almost like the Greeks, or the Mediterranean folks of Asia, east Asia. Why? Our skin is described as being olive green colored, which means we tan good.

For example the last month two months in LA, I’ve been trying to walk around topless and in short shorts as much as humanly possible, when the sunlight is out. As a consequence, I’ve developed a very beautiful tan, it even shocks me how wonderful my tan has become, and how beautiful my skin looks. I’ll just washing my legs other day, observing the tone of my legs and skin, massaging my skin, and delighting in how it glistened and the skin tone of it. I’ve actually never witnessed skin flesh that close-up which looks so beautiful.

I think this is where notions of the beach, beach weather is seen as so interesting and critical to people; I think people seek the beach and the beach weather because they want to get a good tan.

Also, note that “beach bombs” tend to be very very happy. Maybe it is because they get so much great sun exposure?

But how can I get a tan or how can I better improve the quality of my skin, without damaging my skin or getting sunburnt?

Once again, considering your cultural heritage is important here. For example if you’re from northern Sweden, let’s say Umea, genetically, your skin is going to be insanely pale because during the worst of winter, you literally might only get an hour or two of sunlight a day. Apparently this is why a lot of people in northern Sweden are alcoholics or have one of the highest rates of coffee consumption in the world; during these miserable winter months, when you literally cannot see the sun for that long, people get depressed.

But if we consider the genetic factor; let us assume that in northern Sweden there is only an hour of Sunday. And let us also assume that back in the day, people were just bundled up and outdoors and outside all day. As a consequence of your light skin pigment, your body would be able to absorb sufficient amounts of UV radiation from the sun, For optimal health.

However, let it say that your heritage is from northern Sweden, and then suddenly you moved to Arizona or LA or Southern California. Now there is a mismatch between your genetic heritage and your environment. That is, your skin is too light to be in the sun for that long. Therefore if your genetic heritage is from northern Europe, or higher places, not being in the sun for too long, or just bundling up and wearing lots of protective clothing is a good idea. Just imagine the people from Dune; head scarf, sunglasses, facemask, long sleeve everything, long pants etc.

Why are African British people, or people from African descent so depressed and miserable in London?

I met a really cool guy yesterday, African-American descent, but something he told me that was interesting about being “black“. The nuance is that not everybody who is proceeded as being “black“ is actually from Africa. For example, let us say that you’re from Egypt, or let us say that you from the Mediterranean, or, you’re from the Caribbean. Technically to say that your “African“, or from Africa is in accurate. Even told me that whenever you go meet people, they do not associate themselves with the continent; instead, they associate themselves with their country. for example, people are not “African“, or “from Africa; rather, they’re from Nigeria, Legos, Ethiopia,, etc.

A funny nuance is that in America, the notion of being “Asian“, or “Asian-American”, is a concept. Yet at the end of the day… If you go to Asia, people take insane offense if your Korean and you are mistaken as either Chinese or Japanese. Korean people hate Japanese people with a passion, because of how brutally they were colonized. Also the Vietnamese distain the Chinese, a long history of oppression. also people from Hong Kong really really hate the mainland Chinese, especially the successful rich mainland Chinese. People from Hong Kong don’t call themselves Chinese, they see they’re from “Hong Kong”. Also, they align themselves more with their British colonial heritage.

Jewish?

When I was back in Providence Rhode Island, I thought, “why are people so anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish?”

Especially when Kanye West said all this bad things about Jewish people. I decided to do a deep dive.

According to history, the best worst descriptor or history of Jewish people, the Jews, comes from the Roman historian Tacitus (tact, tactful, tactless?)— Tacitus Histories, Book V 5:

I will quote it in full:

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1 1 At the beginning of this same year​1 Titus Caesar, who had been selected by his father to complete the subjugation of Judea,​2 and who had already won distinction as a soldier while both were still private citizens, began to enjoy greater power and reputation, for provinces and armies and vied with one another in enthusiasm for him. Moreover, in his own conduct, wishing to be thought greater than his fortune, he always showed himself dignified and energetic in the field; by his affable address he called forth devotion, and he often mingled with the common soldiers both at work or on the march without impairing his position as general. He found awaiting him in Judea three legions, Vespasian’s old troops, the Fifth, the Tenth, and the Fifteenth. He reinforced these with the Twelfth from Syria and with some soldiers from the Twenty-second and the Third which he brought from Alexandria; these troops were accompanied by twenty cohorts of allied infantry, eight squadrons of cavalry, as well as by the princes Agrippa and Sohaemus, the auxiliaries sent by King Antiochus,​3 and by a strong contingent of Arabs, who hated the Jews with all that hatred that is common among neighbours; there were besides many Romans who had been prompted to leave the capital and Italy by the hope that each entertained of securing the prince’s favour while he was yet free from engagements. With these forces Titus entered p177 the enemy’s land: his troops advanced in strict order, he reconnoitred at every step and was always ready for battle; not far from Jerusalem he pitched camp.

2 1 However, as I am about to describe the last days of a famous city, it seems proper for me to give some account of its origin.4

It is said that the Jews were originally exiles from the island of Crete who settled in the farthest parts of Libya at the time when Saturn had been deposed and expelled by Jove. An argument in favour of this is derived from the name: there is a famous mountain in Crete called Ida, and hence the inhabitants were called the Idaei, which was later lengthened into the barbarous form Iudaei. Some hold that in the reign of Isis the superfluous population of Egypt, under the leader­ship of Hierosolymus and Iuda, discharged itself on the neighbouring lands; many others think that they were an Egyptian stock, which in the reign of Cepheus was forced to migrate by fear and hatred. Still others report that they were Assyrian refugees, a landless people, who first got control of a part of Egypt, then later they had their own cities and lived in the Hebrew territory and the nearer parts of Syria. Still others say that the Jews are of illustrious origin, being the Solymi, a people celebrated in Homer’s poems,​5 who founded a city and gave it the name Hierosolyma, formed from their own.

3 1 Most authors agree that once during a plague in Egypt which caused bodily disfigurement, King Bocchoris​6 approached the oracle of Ammon​7 and p179 asked for a remedy, whereupon he was told to purge his kingdom and to transport this race into other lands, since it was hateful to the gods. So the Hebrews were searched out and gathered together; then, being abandoned in the desert, while all others lay idle and weeping, one only of the exiles, Moses by name, warned them not to hope for help from gods or men, for they were deserted by both, but to trust to themselves, regarding as a guide sent from heaven the one whose assistance should first give them escape from their present distress. They agreed, and then set out on their journey in utter ignorance, but trusting to chance. Nothing caused them so much distress as scarcity of water, and in fact they had already fallen exhausted over the plain nigh unto death, when a herd of wild asses moved from their pasturage to a rock that was shaded by a grove of trees. Moses followed them, and, conjecturing the truth from the grassy ground, discovered abundant streams of water. This relieved them, and they then marched six days continuously, and on the seventh seized a country, expelling the former inhabitants; there they founded a city and dedicated a temple.8

4 1 To establish his influence over this people for all time, Moses introduced new religious practices, quite opposed to those of all other religions. The Jews regard as profane all that we hold sacred; on the other hand, they permit all that we abhor. They dedicated, in a shrine, a statue of that creature whose guidance enabled them to put an end to their wandering and thirst,​9 sacrificing a ram, apparently in derision of Ammon.​10 They likewise offer the ox, because the Egyptians worship Apis. They abstain p181 from pork, in recollection of a plague, for the scab to which this animal is subject once afflicted them. By frequent fasts even now they bear witness to the long hunger with which they were once distressed, and the unleavened Jewish bread is still employed in memory of the haste with which they seized the grain.​11 They say that they first chose to rest on the seventh day because that day ended their toils; but after a time they were led by the charms of indolence to give over the seventh year as well to inactivity.​12 Others say that this is done in honour of Saturn,​13 whether it be that the primitive elements of their religion were given by the Idaeans, who, according to tradition, were expelled with Saturn and became the founders of the Jewish race, or is due to the fact that, of the seven planets that rule the fortunes of mankind, Saturn moves in the highest orbit and has the greatest potency; and that many of the heavenly bodies traverse their paths and courses in multiples of seven.14

5 1 Whatever their origin, these rites are maintained by their antiquity: the other customs of the Jews are base and abominable, and owe their persistence to their depravity. For the worst rascals among other peoples,​15 renouncing their ancestral religions, always kept sending tribute and contributions to Jerusalem, thereby increasing the wealth of the Jews; again, the Jews are extremely loyal toward one another, and always ready to show compassion, but toward every other people they p183 feel only hate and enmity. They sit apart at meals, and they sleep apart, and although as a race, they are prone to lust, they abstain from intercourse with foreign women; yet among themselves nothing is unlawful. They adopted circumcision to distinguish themselves from other peoples by this difference. Those who are converted to their ways follow the same practice, and the earliest lesson they receive is to despise the gods, to disown their country, and to regard their parents, children, and brothers as of little account. However, they take thought to increase their numbers; for they regard it as a crime to kill any late-born child,​16 and they believe that the souls of those who are killed in battle or by the executioner are immortal: hence comes their passion for begetting children, and their scorn of death. They bury the body rather than burn it, thus following the Egyptians’ custom; they likewise bestow the same care on the dead, and hold the same belief about the world below; but their ideas of heavenly things are quite the opposite. The Egyptians worship many animals and monstrous images; the Jews conceive of one god only, and that with the mind alone: they regard as impious those who make from perishable materials representations of gods in man’s image; that supreme and eternal being is to them incapable of representation and without end. Therefore they set up no statues in their cities, still less in their temples; this flattery is not paid their kings, nor this honour given to the Caesars. But since their priests used to chant to the accompaniment of pipes and cymbals and to wear garlands of ivy, and because a golden vine was found in their temple, some have thought that they were devotees p185 of Father Liber, the conqueror of the East, in spite of the incongruity of their customs. For Liber established festive rites of a joyous nature, while the ways of the Jews are preposterous and mean.

6 1 Their land is bounded by Arabia on the east, Egypt lies on the south, on the west are Phoenicia and the sea, and toward the north the people enjoy a wide prospect over Syria.​17 The inhabitants are healthy and hardy. Rains are rare; the soil is fertile; its products are like ours, save that the balsam and the palm also grow there. The palm is a tall and handsome tree; the balsam​18 a mere shrub: if a branch, when swollen with sap, is pierced with steel, the veins shrivel up; so a piece of stone or a potsherd is used to open them; the juice is employed by physicians. Of the mountains, Lebanon rises to the greatest height, and is in fact a marvel, for in the midst of the excessive heat its summit is shaded by trees and covered with snow; it likewise is the source and supply of the river Jordan.​19 This river does not empty into the sea, but after flowing with volume undiminished through two lakes is lost in the third.​20 The last is a lake of great size: it is like the sea, but its water has a nauseous taste, and its offensive odour is injurious to those who live near it. Its waters are not moved by the wind, and neither fish nor water-fowl can live there. Its lifeless waves bear up whatever is thrown upon them as on a solid surface; all swimmers, whether skilled or not, are buoyed up by them. At a certain season of the year the sea throws up bitumen, and experience has taught the natives how to collect this, as she teaches p187 all arts. Bitumen is by nature a dark fluid which coagulates when sprinkled with vinegar, and swims on the surface. Those whose business it is, catch hold of it with their hands and haul it on shipboard: then with no artificial aid the bitumen flows in and loads the ship until the stream is cut off. Yet you cannot use bronze or iron to cut the bituminous stream; it shrinks from blood or from a cloth stained with a woman’s menses. Such is the story told by ancient writers, but those who are acquainted with the country aver that the floating masses of bitumen are driven by the winds or drawn by hand to shore, where later, after they have been dried by vapours from the earth or by the heat of the sun, they are split like timber or stone with axes and wedges.

7 1 Not far from this lake is a plain which, according to report, was once fertile and the site of great cities, but which was later devastated by lightning; and it is said that traces of this disaster still exist there, and that the very ground looks burnt and has lost its fertility. In fact, all the plants there, whether wild or cultivated, turn black, become sterile, and seem to wither into dust, either in leaf or in flower or after they have reached their usual mature form. Now for my part, although I should grant that famous cities were once destroyed by fire from heaven, I still think that it is the exhalations from the lake that infect the ground and poison the atmosphere about this district, and that this is the reason that crops and fruits decay, since both soil and climate are deleterious.​21 The river Belus also p189 empties into the Jewish Sea; around its mouth a kind of sand is gathered, which when mixed with soda is fused into glass. The beach is of moderate size, but it furnishes an inexhaustible supply.22

8 1 A great part of Judea is covered with scattered villages, but there are some towns also; Jerusalem is the capital of the Jews. In it was a temple possessing enormous riches.​23 The first line of fortifications protected the city, the next the palace, and the innermost wall the temple.​24 Only a Jew might approach its doors, and all save the priests were forbidden to cross the threshold. While the East was under the dominion of the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians, the Jews were regarded as the meanest of their subjects: but after the Macedonians gained supremacy,​25 King Antiochus endeavoured to abolish Jewish superstition and to introduce Greek civilization; the war with the Parthians, however, prevented his improving this basest of peoples; for it was exactly at that time that Arsaces had revolted.​26 Later on, since the power of Macedon had waned, the Parthians were not yet come to their strength, and the Romans were far away, the Jews selected their own kings.​27 These in turn were expelled by the fickle mob; but recovering their throne by force of arms,​28 they banished citizens, destroyed towns, killed brothers, wives, and parents, and dared essay every other kind of royal crime without hesitation; but they fostered the national superstition, p191 for they had assumed the priesthood to support their civil authority.

9 1 The first Roman to subdue the Jews and set foot in their temple by right of conquest was Gnaeus Pompey;​29 thereafter it was a matter of common knowledge that there were no representations of the gods within, but that the place was empty and the secret shrine contained nothing. The walls of Jerusalem were razed, but the temple remained standing. Later, in the time of our civil wars, when these eastern provinces had fallen into the hands of Mark Antony, the Parthian prince, Pacorus, seized Judea, but he was slain by Publius Ventidius, and the Parthians were thrown back across the Euphrates:​30 the Jews were subdued by Gaius Sosius.​31 Antony gave the throne to Herod, and Augustus, after his victory, increased his power. After Herod’s death, a certain Simon​32 assumed the name of king without waiting for Caesar’s decision. He, however, was put to death by Quintilius Varus, governor of Syria; the Jews were repressed; and the kingdom was divided into three parts and given to Herod’s sons.​33 Under Tiberius all was quiet. Then, when Caligula ordered the Jews to set up his statue in their temple, they chose rather to resort to arms, but the emperor’s death put an end to their uprising. The princes now being dead or reduced to insignificance, Claudius made Judea a province and entrusted it to Roman knights or to freedmen; one of the latter, Antonius Felix, practised every kind of cruelty and p193 lust, wielding the power of king with all the instincts of a slave;​34 he had married Drusilla, the grand-daughter of Cleopatra and Antony, and so was Antony’s grandson-in‑law, while Claudius was Antony’s grandson.

10 1 Still the Jews’ patience lasted until Gessius Florus became procurator:​35 in his time war began. When Cestius Gallus, governor of Syria, tried to stop it, he suffered varied fortunes and met defeat more often than he gained victory. On his death, whether in the course of nature or from vexation, Nero sent out Vespasian, who, aided by his good fortune and reputation as well as by his excellent subordinates, within two summers occupied with his victorious army the whole of the level country and all the cities except Jerusalem. The next year was taken up with civil war, and thus was passed in inactivity so far as the Jews were concerned. When peace had been secured throughout Italy, foreign troubles began again; and the fact that the Jews alone had failed to surrender increased our resentment; at the same time, having regard to all the possibilities and hazards of a new reign, it seemed expedient for Titus to remain with the army.

11 1 Therefore, as I have said above,​36 Titus pitched his camp before the walls of Jerusalem and displayed his legions in battle array: the Jews formed their line close beneath their walls, being thus ready to advance if successful, and having a refuge at hand in case they were driven back. Some horse and light-armed foot were sent against them, but fought indecisively; later the enemy retired, and during the following days they engaged in many skirmishes p195 before their gates until at last their continual defeats drove them within their walls. The Romans now turned to preparations for an assault; for the soldiers thought it beneath their dignity to wait for the enemy to be starved out, and so they began to clamour for danger, part being prompted by bravery, but many were moved by their savage natures and their desire for booty. Titus himself had before his eyes a vision of Rome, its wealth and its pleasures, and he felt that if Jerusalem did not fall at once, his enjoyment of them was delayed. But the city stands on an eminence, and the Jews had defended it with works and fortifications sufficient to protect even level ground; for the two hills that rise to a great height had been included within walls that had been skillfully built, projecting out or bending in so as to put the flanks of an assailing body under fire.​37 The rocks terminated in sheer cliffs, and towers rose to a height of sixty feet where the hill assisted the fortifications, and in the valleys they reached one hundred and twenty; they presented a wonderful sight, and appeared of equal height when viewed from a distance.​38 An inner line of walls had been built around the palace, and on a conspicuous height stands Antony’s Tower, so named by Herod in honour of Mark Antony.39

12 1 The temple was built like a citadel, with walls of its own, which were constructed with more care and effort than any of the rest; the very colonnades about the temple made a splendid defence. Within the enclosure is an ever-flowing spring;​40 in the hills are subterraneous excavations, with pools and cisterns for holding rain-water. The founders of the city had foreseen that there would be many wars because the ways of their people differed so from those p197 of the neighbours: therefore they had built at every point as if they expected a long siege; and after the city had been stormed by Pompey, their fears and experience taught them much. Moreover, profiting by the greed displayed during the reign of Claudius, they had bought the privilege of fortifying the city, and in time of peace had built walls as if for war. The population at this time had been increased by streams of rabble that flowed in from the other captured cities,​41 for the most desperate rebels had taken refuge here, and consequently sedition was the more rife. There were three generals, three armies: the outermost and largest circuit of the walls was held by Simon, the middle of the city by John, and the temple was guarded by Eleazar.​42 John and Simon were strong in numbers and equipment, Eleazar had the advantage of position: between these three there was constant fighting, treachery, and arson, and a great store of grain was consumed. Then John got possession of the temple by sending a party, under pretence of offering sacrifice, to slay Eleazar and his troops. So the citizens were divided into two factions until, at the approach of the Romans, foreign war produced concord.

13 1 Prodigies had indeed occurred, but to avert them either by victims or by vows is held unlawful by a people which, though prone to superstition, is opposed to all propitiatory rites.​43 Contending hosts were seen meeting in the skies, arms flashed, and suddenly the temple was illumined with fire from the clouds. Of a sudden the doors of the shrine opened and a superhuman voice cried: “The gods are departing”: at the same moment the p199 mighty stir of their going was heard.​44 Few interpreted these omens as fearful; the majority firmly believed that their ancient priestly writings contained the prophecy that this was the very time when the East should grow strong and that men starting from Judea should possess the world.​45 This mysterious prophecy had in reality pointed to Vespasian and Titus, but the common people, as is the way of human ambition, interpreted these great destinies in their own favour, and could not be turned to the truth even by adversity. We have heard that the total number of the besieged of every age and both sexes was six hundred thousand; there were arms for all who could use them, and the number ready to fight was larger than could have been anticipated from the total population. Both men and women showed the same determination; and if they were to be forced to change their home, they feared life more than death.

Such was the city and people against which Titus Caesar now proceeded; since the nature of the ground did not allow him to assault or employ any sudden operations, he decided to use earthworks and mantlets; the legions were assigned to their several tasks, and there was a respite of fighting until they made ready every device for storming a town that the ancients had ever employed or modern ingenuity invented.

The Loeb Editor’s Notes:

1 70 A.D.

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2 Cf. II.4; IV.51.

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3 Agrippa was prince of Trachonitis and Galilee; Sohaemus, king of Sophene and prince of Emesa in Syria; while Antiochus was king of Commagene and of a part of Cilicia. Cf. II.81.

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4 Tacitus in this brief and somewhat confused account of the Jews apparently followed the Alexandrian historians, Chaeremon and Lysimachus.

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5 Il. VI.184; Od. V.282.

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6 King Bocchoris reigned in the eighth century B.C., whereas the exodus seems to have taken place about five centuries earlier. But the account of the exodus as given in the Old Testament requires much revision in the light of modern historical scholar­ship. Vid. Cambridge Ancient History, II, 352 ff.

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7 The famous Egyptian oracle in the oasis Siwah, in the Libyan desert.

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8 Cf. the story in Genesis with this fantastic account, which Tacitus took chiefly from Lysimachus.

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9 That is, an ass. The same charge of worshipping an ass was frequently made against the Christians later.

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10 The Egyptian god was represented in art with a ram’s horns.

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11 Cf. Exod. xii.15‑20, 34‑39.

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12 Cf. Deut. v.15; Levit. xxv.4.

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13 The seventh day being Saturn’s day.

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14 Cf. Dio Cass. XXXVII.18 f.

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15 The proselytes, whose contributions were important. The tribute amounted to two drachmae a head each year, according to Josephus, Bell. Iud. VII.218 (Niese).

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16 The word here used, “agnatus,” means a child born after the father had made his will, or one that was not desired. Cf. Germ. 19.

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17 Looking from Lebanon, over Coele-Syria.

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18 Famed for its medicinal qualities and fragrance. Strabo XVI 763; Pliny XII.111.

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19 The source of the Jordan is on Mt. Hermon, which Tacitus apparently identifies with Lebanon.

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20 The marshy Lake Merom, then Gennesareth, and finally the Dead Sea.

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21 With this description compare that of Josephus, Bell. Jud. IV.8.4; Strabo XVI 763 f.; and Pliny, N. H. V.71 f., VII.65.

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22 Cf. Pliny, NH XXXVI.190 ff. The river Belus (Naaman), which rises in the highlands of Galilee and empties in the Mediterranean near St. Jean d’Acre, really belongs to Phoenicia.

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23 It will be observed that Tacitus is writing after the destruction of the temple.

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24 Tacitus is somewhat inexact here, for the walls were not concentric.

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25 The Seleucid dynasty is meant.

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26 It was under Antiochus II (260‑245 B.C.) that Arsaces revolted; but Tacitus may be confusing the revolt of Arsaces with the Maccabaean war of 167‑164 B.C.

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27 The Hasmonean line.

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28 This may refer to the war between King Alexander and the Pharisees that began in 92 B.C. and lasted for six years; or to the struggle for the throne that followed on the death of Alexander’s widow, Salome, in 70 B.C.

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29 In 63 B.C.

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30 Pacorus advanced on Judea in 40 B.C., but two years later he was killed.

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31 Both Ventidius and Sosius were lieutenants of Antony. Aided by Sosius, Herod defeated the last of the Maccabees in 37 B.C., and thenceforth the throne of Judea was held by princes friendly to Rome.

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32 One of Herod’s former slaves.

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33 Archilaus, as Ethnarch, ruled Judea, southern Idumea and northern Samaria; Herod Antipas, as Tetrarch, had Galilee and Perea; while Philip, as Tetrarch, received the district east of the Jordan.

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34 Antonius Felix, the brother of Claudius’s notorious favourite Pallas, was procurator of Judea 52‑60 according to Josephus, Ant. XX.7.1, but seems to have governed the southern half before 52. Cf. Tacitus, Ann. XII.54.

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35 Procurator 64‑66 A.D.

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36 In chap. i.

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37 The two hills meant are apparently Acra and Bezetha, which were included within Herod’s wall.

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38 The outer circuit of fortifications had 90 towers; there were in all 164, according to Josephus, Bell. Iud. V.4.3.

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39 The palace stood on Zion, the temple on Moriah. At the north-west corner of the temple enclosure Herod built Antony’s Tower.

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40 It is possible, but not probable, that Tacitus means the Pool of Siloam; for the context seems to show that he is thinking of the temple.

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41 i.e. taken by Vespasian and Titus in 67 and 68 A.D.

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42 Simon had carried on guerilla warfare east of the Jordan, but had been called in by the Idumean party in 68 A.D., when he was greeted as a saviour by the people; John of Gischala headed the Galilean zealots; and Eleazar led the patriotic war party.

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43 Cf. Jerem. x.2: Thus saith the Lord, learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the heathen are dismayed at them.
The word religiones probably refers to the formal ceremonies by which the Romans warded off (procurare) the evil effect of prodigies; but it may have a wider connotation here.
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44 Cf. Verg. Aen. II.351 f.; excessere omnes adytis arisque relictis / di quibus imperium hoc steterat; and the remarks by Macrob., Sat. III.9 on these verses. Josephus, Bell. Iud. VI.299 (Niese) relates that at Pentecost the priests heard repeatedly a cry from the innermost part of the temple: μεταβαίνομεν ἐντεῦθεν.

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45 Cf. Dan. ii.44; Suet. Vesp. 4.