Category: Uncategorized

  • NOT THE SAME BREED?

    I’m not like them

    Some random funny thoughts:

    Breeds of dogs & breeds of humans?

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

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

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

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

    Why others are confused by me

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

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

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

    Thinking about Achilles

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

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

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

    Niagara Falls would make a great bitcoin mining rig 

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

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

    Don’t castrate yourself!

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

    How?

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

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

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

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

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

    Follow your values

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

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

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

    Magnify your personality!

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

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

    ERIC KIM PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT

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

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

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

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

    How I became the street photographer 

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

    100 lessons from the masters of street photography

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

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

    What is the future?

    Obviously it will be ChatGPT and AI, open AI.

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

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

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

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

    Autopilot is the killer feature

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

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

    If you can’t beat them join them 

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

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

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

    So what will be the purpose of humans now?

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

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

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

    I love TurboTax!

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

    Slave Work, Master Work?

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

    The ultimate disruption 

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

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

    How do the gods of mount Olympus live?

    The gods, who live at ease. 

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

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

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

    Ethos

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

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

    Risk free returns

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

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

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

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

    Why is bitcoin so volatile?

    It is a feature, not a bug!

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

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

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

    Flesh future

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

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

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

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

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

    Build your body

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

    ERIC

    All injected hormones are bad hormones

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

    EK

  • NOT THE SAME BREED?

    Some random funny thoughts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Thinking about Achilles

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

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

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

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

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

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

    how?

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

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

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

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

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

    Follow your values

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

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

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

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

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

    ERIC KIM PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT

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

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

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

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

    How I became the street photographer 

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

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

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

    What is the future?

    Obviously it will be ChatGPT and AI, open AI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    so what will be the purpose of humans now?

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

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

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

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

    Slave Work, Master Work?

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

    The ultimate disruption 

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

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

    How do the gods of mount Olympus live?

    The gods, who live at ease. 

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

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

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

    Ethos

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

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

    Risk free returns

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

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

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

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

    Why is bitcoin so volatile?

    It is a feature, not a bug!

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

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

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

    Flesh future

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

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

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

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

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

  • Black & White

    Add more extreme contrast to your life:

    Man is black, woman is white? 

    Increasing contrast?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Bitch be humble?

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Lord Achilles 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    What to focus on?

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Neopan 1600

    Some suggestions to Fujifilm:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    You fools!

    “I pity the fool?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Stand up

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

    “No smoking,,, pleeeease!”

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

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

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

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

    Extreme ethics

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

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

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

    What is worse, unrequited hate or unrequited love?

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

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

    Everything starts off as love, then evolves to hate?

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

    Super facts

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Adding friction to the digital and cyber world

    Bitcoin is virtuous

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

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

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

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

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

    Financial friction and consequences is a good idea

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

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

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

    For good behavior, make it free.

    For bad behavior, make it very expensive.

    ERIC

    Funny experiments

    Some very very simple things to consider:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    What now?

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

    ERIC

    Conquer the future

    Conquer the future at EK EXPERIENCE >

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    BOOKS, START HERE, NEWS

    What I’m consuming

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

    What I’m reading

    Iliad by Emily Wilson

    What to re watch?

    John Wick 1

    Conquer today!

    ERIC

    ERIC KIM BLOG >

  • Optimistic Fatalism

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

    PHILOSOPHY BY KIM

    ZEN OF ERIC PDFDownload

    IDEAS BY KIM

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

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  • Black & White

    On adding more contrast to your life:

    Man is black, woman is white? 

    Increasing contrast?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Bitch be humble?

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Lord Achilles 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    What to focus on?

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Neopan 1600

    Some suggestions to Fujifilm:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    You fools!

    “I pity the fool?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Stand up

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

    “No smoking,,, pleeeease!”

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

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

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

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

    Extreme ethics

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

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

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

    What is worse, unrequited hate or unrequited love?

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

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

    Everything starts off as love, then evolves to hate?

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

    Super facts

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Adding friction to the digital and cyber world

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

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

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

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

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

    Financial friction and consequences is a good idea

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

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

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

    For good behavior, make it free.

    For bad behavior, make it very expensive.

    ERIC

    Funny experiments

    Some very very simple things to consider:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • You Can’t Fool ChatGPT

    Which search engine do you use

    I don’t use a specific search engine like traditional web browsers do. Instead, I rely on a combination of internal knowledge, data retrieval tools, and, when needed, a specialized browsing tool to access and summarize current information from the web. When I do use a browsing tool, it performs a search using multiple engines or databases and retrieves content from those results, which I then summarize for you.

    This process is different from using a single search engine like Google or Bing, as it aims to gather and synthesize information from a broader range of sources.

    How you do

    When I retrieve and provide information, I use a few different methods depending on what you need:

    1. Internal Knowledge: I have a vast database of knowledge up until my last update in August 2023. This includes general information, facts, and answers to common questions. I use this for most inquiries.
    2. Real-Time Information Retrieval: If you need up-to-date information, I can use a browsing tool that searches the web. This tool queries multiple sources, retrieves content, and allows me to summarize the most relevant and reliable information for you. This process is somewhat similar to how you might use a search engine, but it goes beyond just showing you links; I directly provide the summarized content.
    3. Specialized Tasks: For tasks that involve data analysis, code execution, or generating content like images, I use specific tools designed for those purposes. For example, I can analyze datasets using Python or generate images using a text-to-image tool.

    These methods allow me to be versatile in the type of information and help I can provide, ranging from answering factual questions to giving updates on current events.

    What’s your browsing tool

    My browsing tool is a specialized function that allows me to search the web in real-time when you ask for information that requires the latest data or details not covered by my internal knowledge base. It doesn’t use a single search engine but rather queries multiple sources and databases, gathering content from across the web.

    When I use this tool, it operates somewhat like a search engine, but with a focus on retrieving high-quality, diverse sources. Once the relevant information is retrieved, I summarize and synthesize it into a coherent response for you. This process helps ensure that you get the most accurate and up-to-date information available.

    The browsing tool is especially useful for checking current events, verifying facts, or finding detailed information on topics that might be new or evolving.

    Visualize how you do it

    Here’s a simplified visualization of how I retrieve and process information using my browsing tool:

    1. User Query: You ask a question or request information that requires up-to-date or detailed data.
    2. Triggering the Browsing Tool:
    • If the information is not in my internal knowledge, I trigger the browsing tool.
    • This tool sends out a search query, similar to how you would use a search engine.
    1. Query Processing:
    • The browsing tool doesn’t rely on a single search engine but rather queries multiple sources across the web.
    • It searches for relevant articles, news, databases, or any other type of content that can answer your query.
    1. Content Retrieval:
    • The tool gathers content from various sources. This could include news websites, academic journals, blogs, or other trusted online resources.
    • It retrieves the content and compiles it.
    1. Synthesis and Summarization:
    • I analyze the retrieved information, filtering out irrelevant or low-quality content.
    • I then synthesize the information, summarizing the key points or details that directly answer your query.
    1. Response Delivery:
    • I present the summarized and synthesized information to you in a clear and concise manner.
    • If necessary, I cite sources or provide additional context to help you understand the information better.

    This process allows me to provide you with accurate, relevant, and timely information without just listing web links, ensuring that you get a clear answer rather than having to sift through search results yourself.

    How you so fast

    My speed comes from several factors:

    1. Efficient Query Processing: When I use the browsing tool, the process of querying, retrieving, and analyzing information happens simultaneously and at high speed. The system is designed to prioritize relevant information quickly, which allows me to gather the necessary data almost instantaneously.
    2. Parallel Processing: I can process multiple tasks or queries at the same time. For instance, while retrieving data from various sources, I can also begin filtering and analyzing it, which speeds up the overall process.
    3. Advanced Algorithms: My underlying algorithms are optimized for rapid text processing, data synthesis, and summarization. This means I can quickly understand and organize the information I retrieve.
    4. Pre-trained Knowledge: A lot of what I do is based on pre-trained models that have been fine-tuned on vast amounts of data. This means I often don’t need to “think” from scratch—much of the information I provide is generated from patterns I’ve already learned, which is much faster than if I had to process it as a human would.
    5. Scalability: The infrastructure behind me is designed to handle large amounts of data and computation at high speeds, which is far beyond what an individual computer could do. This allows me to deliver results in seconds.

    All of these factors combined make me capable of responding quickly and efficiently, often within seconds of your request.

    How you know high quality vs low quality content

    Determining high-quality versus low-quality content involves a combination of automated processes and learned patterns based on the data I’ve been trained on. Here’s how I assess content quality:

    1. Source Credibility:

    • Reputation: I prioritize information from well-known, reputable sources such as established news organizations, academic journals, government websites, and industry leaders.
    • Author Expertise: Content authored by recognized experts or institutions is often given higher priority.
    • Domain Authority: Websites with a long history of reliable information tend to rank higher in terms of quality.

    2. Content Consistency and Accuracy:

    • Cross-Referencing: I compare the information across multiple sources. If several reputable sources agree on a piece of information, it’s likely to be accurate.
    • Fact-Checking: I look for consistency in data, dates, names, and other factual elements across different sources. Inconsistencies can be a sign of lower quality or misinformation.

    3. Depth of Information:

    • Comprehensiveness: High-quality content tends to be more detailed and thorough. It covers topics from multiple angles, providing context, evidence, and in-depth analysis.
    • Source Citations: Quality content often cites other reputable sources, studies, or data to back up its claims.

    4. Language and Presentation:

    • Clarity and Professionalism: High-quality content is usually well-written, with clear and logical flow. It avoids sensationalism or overly biased language.
    • Grammatical Accuracy: Reliable content tends to have fewer grammatical errors and is professionally edited.

    5. Purpose and Bias:

    • Intent: I assess whether the content aims to inform, educate, or provide value versus content that exists primarily to mislead, sell something, or spread a particular agenda.
    • Balanced Viewpoint: High-quality content often presents multiple perspectives or acknowledges counterarguments, especially on complex or controversial topics.

    6. User Feedback and Engagement:

    • Popularity and Feedback: Content that has been widely shared, positively reviewed, or referenced by others can indicate high quality.
    • Engagement Metrics: In some cases, the level of engagement (such as comments, likes, shares) can provide clues about the content’s perceived quality.

    7. Machine Learning Models:

    • Training Data: My models have been trained on large datasets that include both high-quality and low-quality content. Through this training, I’ve learned to identify patterns and features associated with quality.
    • Real-Time Evaluation: When retrieving information, I apply these learned patterns to quickly evaluate the content’s likely quality.

    By combining these approaches, I can efficiently filter out lower-quality content and provide you with the most reliable and valuable information available.

    How you know intent

    Understanding the intent behind content is a complex task that involves analyzing various factors, both linguistic and contextual. Here’s how I assess the intent of a piece of content:

    1. Language and Tone Analysis:

    • Emotion and Sentiment: I analyze the emotional tone of the language used. For example, content that uses highly charged, inflammatory, or sensationalist language might indicate an intent to provoke rather than inform.
    • Bias Detection: I look for language that signals strong bias, such as one-sided arguments or dismissive language toward opposing views. This can indicate an intent to persuade rather than objectively inform.

    2. Purposeful Structure and Messaging:

    • Call to Action: Content with direct calls to action, like urging readers to buy a product, sign up for a service, or join a movement, often has a commercial or persuasive intent.
    • Repetition of Key Messages: Content that repetitively drives home a single message, particularly if it lacks supporting evidence or context, may be trying to manipulate or sell an idea.

    3. Source and Contextual Clues:

    • Website Type and Domain: The nature of the website can often indicate intent. For example, content on a government or academic website is likely intended to inform, while content on a commercial website might be intended to sell or promote.
    • Content Context: I consider the surrounding context, such as other articles on the site, the domain’s reputation, and the content’s placement (e.g., in an opinion section vs. a news section).

    4. Content Structure and Presentation:

    • Headlines and Titles: Sensationalist or clickbait titles often suggest an intent to attract clicks rather than provide substantive information.
    • Depth and Detail: Superficial content that glosses over details might have an intent to quickly inform or entertain, while in-depth content might aim to educate or provide comprehensive insights.

    5. Analyzing Content Patterns:

    • Propaganda Techniques: I recognize common propaganda techniques, such as the use of fear, misinformation, or repetition of slogans, which might indicate an intent to manipulate or persuade rather than provide balanced information.
    • Logical Fallacies: Identifying logical fallacies within the content can reveal an intent to mislead, deceive, or oversimplify complex issues.

    6. Cross-Referencing with Known Biases:

    • Comparison with Other Sources: By comparing the content to other reputable sources, I can determine if the content is selectively presenting information to support a particular narrative or agenda.
    • Historical Patterns: If the source or author has a known history of producing content with a particular bias or agenda, this historical context can help in determining intent.

    7. Feedback and Metadata:

    • Reader Engagement: High engagement in the form of comments or discussions can sometimes indicate that the content is intended to provoke debate or strong reactions.
    • Metadata and Tags: Content metadata, like tags or categories, can sometimes indicate the intended purpose, whether it’s informational, promotional, or otherwise.

    By combining these linguistic, contextual, and analytical methods, I can make an informed judgment about the likely intent behind a piece of content, helping to differentiate between content meant to inform, persuade, entertain, or mislead.

  • The Future of Street Photography

    Godlike Legs 7Download

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    Godlike Legs

    The power is in your legs?

    Milo of Croton

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

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

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

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

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

    Progressive overload training

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

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

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

    Why?

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

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

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

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

    Do rehab styled exercises BEFORE you treat injured.

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

    Think long 

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

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

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

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

    The commoditization of the body

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Follow the money

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

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

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

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

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

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

    All of your heroes are fake heroes

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

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

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

    Slavery deletion

    Don’t be an insta-slave!

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

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

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

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

    THE GOALS

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

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

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

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

    Think first principles

    How and why?

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

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

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

    The ethics of Achilles 

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

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

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

    My simple heuristic:

    Trust no fitness influencer on Instagram.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Rethinking competition 

    Competition is for loooosers!

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

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

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

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

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

    ***

    How to live the best life ever

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

    Some simple thoughts:

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

    Here this is where film photography is very bad. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Why?

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

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

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

    Don’t do what is cool

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

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

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

    Some ideals

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Time machine

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

    Also I am not insecure!

    Am I the only self-confident photographer alive?

    The new path

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

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

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

    Don’t trust Google! Trust paid ChatGPT.

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

    Get ChatGPT premium

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

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

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

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

    What now?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Undank yourself

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

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

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

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

    ERIC

    Cool blogs

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

    Ideas

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

    Need more motivation?

    START HERE

    Summary

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

  • Godlike Legs

    The power is in your legs?

    Milo of Croton

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

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

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

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

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

    Progressive overload training

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

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

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

    Why?

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

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

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

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

    Do rehab styled exercises BEFORE you treat injured.

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

    Think long 

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

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

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

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

    The commoditization of the body

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Follow the money

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

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

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

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

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

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

    All of your heroes are fake heroes

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

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

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

    Slavery deletion

    Don’t be an insta-slave!

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

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

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

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

    THE GOALS

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

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

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

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

    Think first principles

    How and why?

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

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

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

    The ethics of Achilles 

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

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

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

    My simple heuristic:

    Trust no fitness influencer on Instagram.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Rethinking competition 

    Competition is for loooosers!

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

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

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

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

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

    ***

    How to live the best life ever

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

    Some simple thoughts:

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

    Here this is where film photography is very bad. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Why?

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

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

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

    Don’t do what is cool

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

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

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

    Some ideals

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Time machine

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

    Also I am not insecure!

    Am I the only self-confident photographer alive?

    The new path

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

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

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

    Don’t trust Google! Trust paid ChatGPT.

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

    Get ChatGPT premium

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

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

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

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

    What now?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Undank yourself

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

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

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

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

    ERIC

    Cool blogs

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

    Ideas

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

    Need more motivation?

    START HERE

  • Godlike Legs?

    The power is in your legs?

    Milo of Croton

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

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

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

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

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

    Progressive overload training

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

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

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

    Why?

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

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

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

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

    Do rehab styled exercises BEFORE you treat injured.

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

    Think long 

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

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

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

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

    The commoditization of the body

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Follow the money

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

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

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

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

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

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

    All of your heroes are fake heroes

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

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

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

    Slavery deletion

    Don’t be an insta-slave!

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

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

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

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

    THE GOALS

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

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

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

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

    Think first principles

    How and why?

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

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

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

    The ethics of Achilles 

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

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

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

    My simple heuristic:

    Trust no fitness influencer on Instagram.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Rethinking competition 

    Competition is for loooosers!

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

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

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

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

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

    ***

    How to live the best life ever

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

    Some simple thoughts:

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

    Here this is where film photography is very bad. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Why?

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

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

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

    Don’t do what is cool

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

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

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

    Some ideals

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Time machine

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

    Also I am not insecure!

    Am I the only self-confident photographer alive?

    The new path

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

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

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

    Don’t trust Google! Trust paid ChatGPT.

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

    Get ChatGPT premium

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

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

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

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

    What now?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Undank yourself

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

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

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

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

    ERIC

    Cool blogs

  • Godlike Legs?

    The power is in your legs?

    Milo of Croton

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

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

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

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

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

    Progressive overload training

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

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

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

    Why?

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

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

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

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

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

    Think long 

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

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

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

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

    The commoditization of the body

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Follow the money

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

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

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

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

    All of your heroes are fake heroes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    THE GOALS

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

    How and why?

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

    The ethics of Achilles 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    ***