Month: March 2025

Wow, life in Cambodia Phnom Penh is so good… Too good! 

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Serviced apartments

So we just signed a three month lease, for a nice service department. This is kind of an interesting concept… In which you’re staying at a super nice floor to ceiling window apartment condominium, and twice a week, cleaners come in and clean your whole place?

Thinking about life in Los Angeles… I’m like a peon having to vacuum my own place every day… Take out the trash, clean the windows etc. Here, life leverage is like a trillion times better.

First, I’ve just recovered so much free time in the day! And also,  found a really wonderful international school year for Seneca, this play based, color based artistic free range “Waldorf school” (without the anti-VAXxers), and now… Life feels infinite?

Labor

The big thing about being in Cambodia… Labor is so plentiful and cheap. Typically in the states, we find most of our labor from like Central America, Mexico El Salvador Guatemala etc. Yet the problem is they’re still being paid like $20 an hour, which means Labor is still so expensive in America! Triste to Cambodia, in which a laborer just makes like $150 a month, your US dollars goes a lot further here.

Thinking global

So our current apartment is probably like 1000 times better than our apartment back in the states, in which we pay $3200 a month here it’s like $1500 a month. But like at least 100 times nicer.

Therefore think about the economic parity here;  paying half the cost, for 10,000 times more service and superior facilities and lifestyle?

is there anything I miss about the states?

Certainly living in America, you have the ultimate access to commercial goods and products. However beside this… Nothing I really miss about this dates. I kind of miss my Texas power squad bar at home, and my 50 kg steel plates, but besides this… Nothing I miss.

Like like 1 trillion times better; and even ironically comparing Phnom Penh to LA — PP is like 1000x better? In terms of walking around, the friendliness of people, and everyone here is just happy!

My theory is that Buddhist countries, Cambodia Thailand etc.… People are just much happier! Much kinder, more friendly, more positive and optimistic!

Send call Sam made an interesting observation is that you don’t see many police officers in Cambodia, perhaps because there is less heavy theft and violence. Certainly there’s probably some crime that happened here like petty theft, but you won’t be worrying about some sort of random talking in LA with a concealed gun?

Safety

Also a funny thing… I feel like 1 billion times safer in Phnom Penh than Los Angeles. Once again here is again at the whole concealed gun thing; I have no issues getting into an argument with a random Angelino on the streets about him being an asshole smoker in public, but the only fear I ever get is that if I get into some sort of aggressive behavior with somebody on the streets in LA… Once again they’re gonna pop out a gun and pop me.

Living in a country without guns is better. 

Pace

Even during peak rush-hour here in Phnom Penh, it is shockingly peaceful quiet, very very little honking. You get a lot more honking in Vietnam in LA that you do here in Cambodia.

The country

One of the problems about being in Vietnam or other countries, China adjacent countries is that there’s some sort of fear that comes with social media Internet monitoring and censorship here in Cambodia I don’t feel none of that.

Also, the friendliness and kindliness of people. One of the weird things about being in LA and the state is that everyone is trying to size you up, people are very very suspicious in a bad way, and very antisocial? Here everybody smiles at you, greets you, does the hand together peace gesture and the subtle bow. People are far more respectful than even Koreans, and also genuinely kind.

is there any good reason to not live in Cambodia?

I don’t think so. A subtle nuance, I really don’t like Siem Reap, I prefer Phnom Penh 10000000x better. Why? Too many degenerate expats in Siem Reap, and also, my theory is that because PP is a real city, much more built in joy and optimism here!

Developing growth

So also a big thing… I think people tend to be happier when there is optimism, upward growth. For example here in Phnom Penh there are so many new skyscrapers and condominiums currently being built, which is a very optimistic site! The reason why it is so wonderful is that we are still in the earliest stages of capital and capitalism here, the downside of being in America that already feels tapped out.

Therefore as a principal: the idea is that, upwards growth is an idea? 

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Towards what ends?

This is where I started to get interesting… Once you no longer really really need the wealth, but if it becomes more of like kind of a philosophical thing or a principle, then what?

For example, a happy thought… I could live like 1000 years in Cambodia and never run out of money without even digging into my principal. 

I think the poverty mindset that we get an America’s because once again… Everything is so expensive, everything then feels untenable?

The irony is even for the rich, life in America kind of sucks. For example, even for the super rich, most people do not have full-time nannies, or full-time living in with them?

I think if you’re wealthy, at best you might have like a cleaner who comes in pretty frequently and cleans up. But ideas of like having a private driver or stuff like that, a non-concept in America.

Thinking Asian 

Also what I like about here is that when it comes to labor, cheap labor, the standard worker, there is not a strange sense of indignation that you get from people in the states. For example that American mentality is that “this work is beneath me“, But here in Cambodia… None of that. Everyone is happy grateful, and far more joyful!

Even the sense of optimism and striving here, much more positive. Everyone certainly wants a better living condition, but it’s not in this angsty way that you feel like in America. 

So now what?

So now, assuming that you live in a happy optimistic place, then what?

For myself… Then it comes down to pioneering and experimenting with new modes of innovation. Autotelic innovation — creating new things and innovating for the sake of it? Rather than having to innovate in order to earn more money or whatever? 

ERIC

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Things on my plate

1. Revamping arsbeta.com: perhaps with the assistance of ChatGPT, and Grok for the coding stuff?
2. Getting back into social media, specifically the blue check paid premium X — I very much like the ethics of a paid social media service, no hidden catches.
3. Building an X bot, in the voice of ERIC KIM

ChatGPT composition checker

One thing I encourage you to check out and experiment and play with is this ChatGPT bot I made, called “composition checker”. I’m pretty sure… It has like over 1000+ conversations so I think it’s assigned that having some sort of AI Chatbot that can help you get instant feedback on your photos how to improve, this is a good idea.

Also something that I’m kind of working right now towards is heat map searching and mapping for images. This will be a new arbeta.com function I’m going to try to add. 

Now what?

You got Grok, and ChatGPT pay… Infinite opportunities here?

ERIC

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BLOG, START HERE

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Choose audacity

The closing thought:

When in doubt, become more hard-core, audacious, reckless?

ERIC

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Get (human) feedback on your photos

Upload your best photos to Arsbeta.com >

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BOOKS

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Not everything needs to last forever?

So a big thing; life is a femoral, you don’t live forever. Bitcoin will last forever but your own personal life will not.

As a consequence, realizing that your own personal life is fine night is typically a good idea. But also to invest your energies towards the future, future generations that will outlive you is a very noble idea.

your kids kids kids

So big thought I’ve been having at least in terms of building the family bitcoin treasury for future generations, I almost have like zero interest in presently using our family treasury towards myself, besides simple stuff like purchasing weightlifting equipment, weights etc. And also I guess the upside is  that the barbell and weights that I buy today, Seneca could use it as he becomes a teenager, and one day he might be able to even pass down these weights to his kids and their kids.

The opposite of selfish?

You only live for yourself and the only thing about yourself your own well-being, using your own money for yourself… Your own lifestyle, it’s very selfish. The tricky thing here is that selfish doesn’t mean evil, it often just means shortsighted. 

Also the big realization is that concern for your kids and your family is different than concern for this ambiguous “world”, the way you treat your own family should be very very different than the way you conceive of random other families or kids.

So for example, thinking about money inheritance and capital, a very very simple precept that I might be able to give to Seneca:

Never sell the family bitcoin 

If we think of bitcoin as the new perfect digital capital, it is like saying that you own a hotel or prime real estate on fifth Avenue in Manhattan, on the main island in New York City, to sell a portion of that to purchase some silly thing.

The wisdom of every single wealthy family on the planet is simple: you never sell the property, but rather, you use it to leverage and lever up, and what you actually do is your leverage your capital – like taking a mortgage or loan or using your property bitcoin or real estate as collateral, in order to continue to grow the family fortune. 

The fear of every bodybuilder 

So let me use a fun analogy, weightlifting and bodybuilders, or even powerlifters. The fear of every single person is losing muscle mass, losing weight, for also… Losing their one rep maximum lift.

Another one which also ties in finances — the fear of plateaus. 

For example, let us say that you accumulated and acquired a certain amount of bitcoin. This is great and wonderful, but once you hit a plateau in which you are no longer able to accumulate or acquire morbid, this becomes extremely annoying. And therefore, we will use our ingenuity in our creativity to devise of new ways in order to accumulate and acquire more bitcoin.

The same thing goes with money managers finances, investors… The goal should be towards infinity, rather than having a certain hard set amount. This is the genesis and the origin of human desire and capital. 

For example, the way that a lot of weightlifters are very shortsighted is that they have a certain number in mind, and then they strive with all of their might power and soul toward this lofty ball… But once they hit it, they then become complacent, and stop being creative.

I’ll get the example, my very very strong desire was to atlas lift 1000 pounds, but once I achieve that goal, I kind of lost a desire. And this is not a good thing. After fumbling around, tinkering, identifies of a new way I could lift even greater weight, with less strain, and with greater leverage, this genius idea of being able to use a weightlifting dip belt, to wrap it around the center of a barbell, to essentially transform the rack pull into a glorified hip lift,  and the thing which is quite amazing is that it is actually very very easy to lift weights when you have it around your hips. The only reason I don’t think more people do this is that a weightlifting hip belt machine is not available at most gyms, and is not mainstream. I know there is a Titan fitness machine for weightlifting with your hip belt, but I also think the problem is that because there are no weightlifting competitions in which you use a hip lifting belt, it is not standardize like a bench press a dead lift or a squat.

Don’t have a number in mind

The proper answer to what your number is, should be “more“.

One thing I like about considering the whole bitcoin economy, the whole world economy is that wealth in capital is infinite. Currently, you consider all of the world’s capital being around $900 trillion, and thinking half of it is for a long-term store of value, 450, trillion, Those are big numbers.

Even if you think about the whole world economy… Being $900 trillion, and even having the ambition of owning one percent of it, this is a good goal.

How and why do we think so small?

I think the first big thing is that we must think global. The biggest problem that I think we face is that we think too insular.

For example, if you live in the states, Los Angeles America California or whatever… Realize that you actually live in a tiny bubble. Even though LA California is huge, still… If you think about it globally, you are just another insignificant dot on the world map.

Let me give you an example… I’m currently voice dictating these lines on my iPad Pro as I walk through the beautiful streets of Phnom Penh Cambodia.  once you make it to Asia Southeast Asia and beyond you will realize how much life sucks in America. Even for the rich.

For example we’re currently doing a short term stay at a lovely serviced luxury apartment here, only about $1400 a month, for light peak luxury. The largest floor to ceiling windows of all time, the best in front of staff, everything insanely brand new and wonderful.

And then I think about being back in America and LA… It is insane you’re buying these like $2 million homes which are built in the 1920s or the 1950s? Why would you spend so much money on decaying capital? 

Certainly there are many upsides of living in America, I think the biggest one is access to capital markets, access to the US stock exchange. For example one difficulty that I am having being here in Asia time is having to either stay up late or wake up at like 1 AM or 2 AM to execute certain orders on the stock exchange, in regards to MSTR stock, or more recently taking a leveraged margin option of purchasing MSTU, which is essentially an ETF which is designed to be 2X levered long MSTR, microstrategy (Strategy) stock.  And after having to wake up super super early in the middle of the night, having to stare at a shiny iPad Pro screen in the middle of the night, disturbing my sleep, feeling like crap the next day, even a funny thought:

All the money in the world is not worth losing a good nights sleep? 

Therefore I think a general idea is that it is better to be more greedy with your energy sleep and time and energy rather than being greedy for money? Because energy sleep and great physical health is worth 1 billion times more than all the money in the world. 

For example, you cannot like inject $1 million into your left butt cheek, hoping that it will give you a good night sleep. No, often the worries about finances will keep you up later tonight, ruin your sleep, and ruin your health.

Even look at Elon Musk, the economic goat, if you just give him a good look and a good stare, in his zoom calls and interviews or whatever… He looks like the worst health of his life. And Elon is notorious for having poor health because he thinks too much like a nerd, I don’t think he really understands the criticality of health. 

And also, I think everyone has his own mission critical mission for their lives. Elon’s goal is to take us to Mars and beyond, this is not my goal is it your goal therefore the way we conduct our lives should be different.

For me my primary concern is the thriving of Seneca, and also, thinking about his kids kids kids. Also for the health of my mom and Cindy, my whole immediate family.

What should I not be concerned about? 

I called this ERIC KIM‘s razor, — to ruthlessly prune away all distractions.

Let me give you an example, I have made like 100,000 times more money by just investing in bitcoin, MSTR stock, and just staying focused, rather than wasting time on text messages, email, or social media.

And I think this is a big thought: in the last like 15 years, there has practically been no financially lucrative opportunities that have ever magically come to me through my email inbox. Therefore ironically enough… I think the secret of becoming richer and wealth you’re making more money is via negativa; not using your email inbox?  

Only news now I consume is Twitter X, anything related to bitcoin. This includes following at @saylor, BTC archive, documenting bitcoin ,,, is where I get like 99.9% of my signal. The rest comes from my morning walks, Zen out, letting my mind go follow, thinking by myself for myself on myself.

a non-material existence

The thing which is always so shocking to me is the second that I settle into life when I am in Asia, I become like 1 trillion times more zen. For example, no more silly cravings for silly vehicles, possessions and stuff, no more desires for Amazon prime or online shopping or purchasing stuff. Rather, a greater focus towards thinking, pursuing creative capital, empowering ideas and thoughts? 

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The philosophy of becoming a bull:

First, ideally you would want the physiology of a bull. Big balls, ready to charge.

Funny thought: to become more like a bull, consume more bulls, aka steaks cows beef? Auction. Feast like the ancient Greeks and the ancient heroes of the Iliad; Hectacombs on hectacombs on hectacombs!

nobody has lost money on the bitcoin standard if you simply help for four years

I think being and becoming a role is ignoring short-term noise, thinking about durability longevity, thinking insanely far into the future .

For example, think about all these pessimists when they thought about Amazon in the early days, or even Tesla in the early days, when the price to earnings ratio was way off. Now it seems like the obvious bet.

I think the biggest thing that people forget about Jeff Bezos and why he was such a great leader is that he thought really really far ahead, at least 30 years into the future.

What that then means is that if you want to become a true bull … You want to have iron balls, for at least the next 30 years?

The most quickly to adapt to change

The most quickly adaptable to change:

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Change is an interesting idea. Technically, all is changed. Even if you don’t want to change, you almost cannot help but change.

For example, consider that like literally every five seconds, something in your body is changing. I don’t know too much about the biology, but I’m quite certain that like probably 1 million 1 trillion times a day, the chemicals electrical circuits, blood, hormones, molecules in our body is constantly changing.

The funny thing is as long as you’re alive and breathing, even if you don’t force it, this is what naturally happens. For example, you don’t need to force change, or resist change, it just happens. 

The Bitcoin thought

So it seems pretty self evident at this point, the bitcoin standard, all bitcoin everything is the wisest idea. For example, the most logical strategy right now is that for your family savings, your family award test, it should be like 100% bitcoin. Bitcoin is the new high-yield savings account, 60% a year.

Then, if you want to hyper charge your investing and your investments, or even thinking really big for your Roth IRA or your 401K, then what it seems then is Strategy, MSTR (the stock) is the way. I think what I like about having like 100% of our Roth IRA in strategy MSTR is that I’m like a quadrillion times certain that by the time I retire at 65, or become 65, I’m like 37 now… In 30 years I’m like 1000% certain it will be up. By a lot.

Game theory

So I recently watched a presentation that the “Fiatello” guy did for Strategy, and he mentions game theory. And also… Watching the Dylan LeClair interview for bitcoin treasuries, Dylan also talks about game theory.

The general idea is that on a long enough time span, if then what Cynthia Lummis says,  the US dollar is actually designed and engineered to inflate  buy 2 to 3% a year, although in reality it’s probably more like 15% a year. I think rather than looking at government statistics, just look at the price of eggs and beef.

Kind of a unrelated note, but there is currently an egg crisis happening in LA, because of some sort of chickenpox or something. Anyways, like literally overnight 99.9% of the egg supply was wiped out due to potential salmonella poisoning, I don’t even think you can even get eggs at Costco right now. There is also currently an egg ration at Trader Joe’s, only one pack per family per visit.

Anyways, this becomes interesting to me because if you think about a world of imperfect money, or things which are engineered to fail, or you think about things which are engineered to win,  if you think about this in a long enough time span, 10 2030 years 50 years 100 years etc.… 300 years from now, I think 300 years from now is a good time span because you can at least think about your kids kids kids, what is going to win?

21 million coins, hard cap forever… This is so fascinating.

Flywheel

So an interesting idea that Michael Saylor gives is this idea of strategy being like a huge flywheel. For example if you just take like a 1 pound weight and you spin it quickly, it is an interesting child’s toy. But if you turn that into 100,000 ton Stainless steel wrecking ball, and then you start to rotated at 10,000 RPM, it becomes a lethal war machine.

Turbo lag

So one thing that I have always been fascinated with is turbochargers. In fact, my dream as a 16-year-old was to turbocharge my 1991 Sentra SE-R, which by stock is powered by the formidable SR20DE engine.,, so when you turbocharge it it would become a SR20DE-T engine —

But what is really fascinating about a turbo charger is this issue of physics, the turbo lag. What a turbo lag is is when you stomp on the pedal, there is a short delay before it goes into full speed. What that then means is that in order to achieve higher high speed of velocity, You sacrifice a short term throttle response for a longer term gain.

For example think about quarter mile times. If you have a turbo charged car, your 0 to 60 speed is much slower, however your quarter mile speed is much quicker.

What do you want?

I think the quarter miles is probably a better indicator of performance than the 0 to 60 speed.  but also, none of these are probably a good marker because races are not linear —  typically a real race car goes through turns and winds, ups and downs, etc.  Certainly there are drag races, but still, at the end of the day the synthetic measures of performance are really not that necessary.

So if you think that you are a nation or a nation state, once again thinking about short term performance is not a good one. Why? A nation nation state should at least be thinking 300 or 1000 years from now.

Why so long into the future? Well simply because I think a nation or a nation state, what we truly desire is to last forever. Ideally, the United States of America would be around forever into perpetuity, well at least another thousand or 2000 years. Sooner or later at least in terms of like 100 billion years into the future, certainly we are going to go extinct sooner or later, but ideally we could strive to last longer.

Longevity durability is the goal 

Switching up my philosophy on fitness, I’m really into this idea of outdoor fitness. The general idea is that life is made for outside, not the indoor gymnasium.  as a consequence, our life decisions and our training should simply be done in such a manner that we train for outdoors, we live outdoors, we think outdoors. 24 seven 365 outdoor military training.

I think the reason why a lot of these aspiring bodybuilder or weightlifters or powerlifters, they fail because by taking steroids they essentially not only shrink their balls, but they increase their short term performance, for the sake of becoming impotent and not being able to bear children or fruit even beyond their 40s and 50s. My personal ideal is to have a six pack at the age of 80, or 85, and my goal is to also keep lifting weights until I die. I probably will not be able to lift 1000 pounds when I am 120 years old, but still… Aiming for longevity is great. Because even if you miss the mark, at least you can still get close.

Nothing is meant to last forever

Certainly nothing is meant to last forever, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot strive.

I think infinite durability is and should be the goal.  Therefore some new ways in which I am trying to approach fitness is toward this holy Grail;

Simple thoughts:

1. Stretching warming up, flexibility and ligament bone tendon strength and mobility is the bedrock and foundation of all fitness. And actually in fact, if you want to lift 20% more weight, optimizing for these factors is supreme.
2. Think about even distribution, and also, exercises which encourage movement walking, on your own two legs. Yoke walk,yoke lift, atlas lift, Farmer’s carry, neutral grip dead lift trap bar hex bar, neutral grip rack pull. For a long time I’ve focused on mixed grip for my dead lift in right pool, but now that I am starting to get in 1000 pound territory, maybe the wise thing is to get some straps for me to focus on pulling neutral grip, in order to prevent myself from putting too much strain and pressure on one knee, which for me happens to my right side, when I’m going very very heavy.
3. Ultimately walking is the number one goal. More recently, I am so inspired by Seneca, who loves to take the bus and the metro everywhere. and ultimately when push comes to shove, simply having the strength to carry Seneca, he’s 41 pounds now, with the heavy backpack full of books, to and from the Metro stop is a new goal.

Clothes

Also in terms of clothing, certainly nothing is meant to last forever. But because… Somethings are just too fragile, like for example I’ve gone through like at least 10 pairs of long 100% merino wool leggings, and honestly I’m just tired of continually purchasing new ones. Even though I could afford it.

And also, a random other… I think this thought also applies to cars vehicles and also your beloved iPhone. Think about it… The iPhone is engineered to only be really really good for a year or two. If you just think about this from a macro perspective, Not only is it impossible for an iPhone to last you 50 years, or even more… There is no smart phone which can actually improve overtime.  certainly there are certain things like software upgrades, which do improve your phone, but from a hardware physics perspective, impossible.

Also, in terms of a car or a vehicle, durability is your best bet. For example… Pride in my 2010 Prius, this thing will last me like 1,000,000 miles. It does not get better overtime, but it certainly doesn’t get outdated that quickly. Even what I love about the model is that there is no stupid touchscreen, Which means there is fewer distractions for me on the road.

Even if you think a lot about these modern cars, that have all touchscreen, the big issue here is that the touchscreen technology even if you get the newest model of the car is already outdated! If your screen is not up to part with the latest iPad Pro it sucks.

Even I am so shocked with Tesla cars come out how quickly they get outdated. Like for example the new new Tesla model Y that looks like a baby cyber truck, it already looks like at least 20 times better than the current Tesla model Y. As a consequence, There is like zero to little incentive at least for me to buy a Tesla because I know that it will get outdated so quickly.

I think the only logical strategy is to then only ever lease a Tesla because you know within three years it will get outdated and you won’t want the newest new version.

Or even better yet, take all that money that you would waste in the lease or financing and just put into bitcoin, or micro strategy stock, which will be accretive, not dilutive. 

I think then from a simple strategy, it seems that at least for iPhones, just find the simplest cheapest model is best. For example the new iPhone E that came out ,,, E for ERIC ha ha, certainly this is the new goat. And actually when I think about the progression of three lenses to two lenses to one lens, sublime simplification. The simplest is actually the most desirable. 

Simpler is superior

What I love about bitcoin is that you cannot simplify it any further. End of the road.

If you kept simplifying something and stripping away all the superfluous elements, at least in the digital realm, bitcoin is the only bet. Why? Pure digital energy, which has footprints in the physical realm, because you have to mine it with analog energy, but once it is mined, it exists in cyberspace forever.

Nothing is forever besides bitcoin. 

Expanding your time preference

Even a super annoying thing… Getting the newest iPad Pro M4 chip, it bends? Before going to Mexico, I shoved it in my backpack, over full with a lot of stuff, and it actually structurally bent the iPad Pro, and now, it has this insanely annoying permanent curve and Bend? I guess the upside of this happening is that once again, the realization that nothing is meant to last forever.  Not only that but nothing is engineered to last forever , besides bitcoin.