ERIC KIM AI BLOG

So now that the colder months are upon us, winter is here… I think about the world the planet life etc.… What is the meaning of it all and what is the path forward?

So apparently… I was randomly trolling IMDb… And I was very very surprised to see Christopher Nolan putting out a new Odyssey film? This is going to be epic.

So first, my first general thought on the military is I am not for violence or killing people or whatever… Ever since I was a kid, I was a pacifist. I actually remember recalling this very vividly as a kid… Very clearly as even a 12-year-old… If the American government spent even half of their budget on defense and military endeavors, and put it into education… Paying teachers better, attracting better talent or whatever… Then if that were the case, certainly kids would be far better off. For example, even funding after school programs, keeping kids off the street etc.

But anyways a random thought about colors, a new high-gloss military green vehicle wrap caught my eye, it is a very interesting color because it wasn’t really on my radar. I was more about the eye popping colors like extremely insanely high visibility orange, full fluorescent green, insanely hot pink and the like.

Green is fastening because ultimately it is the color of life. Everyone wants to see green grass, green Vista, see you there stock portfolio, their investments go green etc. It’s one of those funny things that a lot of people think that certain other things are better like red, everyone wants a red Ferrari… But nobody wants to see their investments go red?

Anyways, it’s interesting when it comes to vehicles… Living here in LA… It seems that also… Everyone wants their vehicle to look like some sort of military vehicle? If you think about the raised trucks SUVs… They essentially look like armored vehicles on the road. Even if you think about a cyber truck… It’s kind of like an affordable urban tank? Especially since it is bulletproof.

If you think about a military lifestyle, it should be all about austerity. For example, assuming that the summit of military discipline and lifestyle was the ancient Spartans, you don’t have a bunch of Spartans prancing around in purple Lamborghinis, or pink Rolls-Royce‘s,. Rather, they pride themselves on their military discipline their military valor, being outside all day, training for battle, in fact… lusting after battle.

In fact, I have an interesting theory… I think modern day man, the reason why modern day man is so depressed is because he doesn’t have any avenues to express his physical courage and valor? Like, when in modern day life will you ever suit up, get a sword and spear, put on your hub light helmet with the horse crest on top, roar, and go head to head in battle? Never.

I think the closest thing we have in modern day times is either like sports or the gym? Like football… Maybe rugby, something that actually requires some sort of physical courage.

I’ll give you an example I played football in high school, outside linebacker and inside linebacker my sophomore and junior year, starting, and the number one act of courage that you gotta do is go ahead to head with other highly adapt guys, all essentially suited up in their battle armor. To literally do a kickoff, run full speed to another dude, who grabs the ball and lowers his helmet and his body to accost you,,, it’s like one of the most unnatural things that a human being has to override his brain and doing. It’s practically 100% physical courage.

Football is interesting because certainly there’s a lot of skill involved, but I would say it’s like 99% physicality and courage.

There is a lot of other sports which takes physical string stamina, and skill… But not much physical courage?

What is physical courage anyways? Physical courage is like putting your skeleton your bones your muscles your brain on the line, and if you act in such a way that is cowardly, you inflict physical damage on yourself. 

Courage

Also when it comes to investing, there needs to be some sort of exposure. Like you cannot be a fake

So now that the colder months are upon us, winter is here… I think about the world the planet life etc.… What is the meaning of it all and what is the path forward?

So apparently… I was randomly trolling IMDb… And I was very very surprised to see Christopher Nolan putting out a new Odyssey film? This is going to be epic.

So first, my first general thought on the military is I am not for violence or killing people or whatever… Ever since I was a kid, I was a pacifist. I actually remember recalling this very vividly as a kid… Very clearly as even a 12-year-old… If the American government spent even half of their budget on defense and military endeavors, and put it into education… Paying teachers better, attracting better talent or whatever… Then if that were the case, certainly kids would be far better off. For example, even funding after school programs, keeping kids off the street etc.

But anyways a random thought about colors, a new high-gloss military green vehicle wrap caught my eye, it is a very interesting color because it wasn’t really on my radar. I was more about the eye popping colors like extremely insanely high visibility orange, full fluorescent green, insanely hot pink and the like.

Green is fastening because ultimately it is the color of life. Everyone wants to see green grass, green Vista, see you there stock portfolio, their investments go green etc. It’s one of those funny things that a lot of people think that certain other things are better like red, everyone wants a red Ferrari… But nobody wants to see their investments go red?

Anyways, it’s interesting when it comes to vehicles… Living here in LA… It seems that also… Everyone wants their vehicle to look like some sort of military vehicle? If you think about the raised trucks SUVs… They essentially look like armored vehicles on the road. Even if you think about a cyber truck… It’s kind of like an affordable urban tank? Especially since it is bulletproof.

If you think about a military lifestyle, it should be all about austerity. For example, assuming that the summit of military discipline and lifestyle was the ancient Spartans, you don’t have a bunch of Spartans prancing around in purple Lamborghinis, or pink Rolls-Royce‘s,. Rather, they pride themselves on their military discipline their military valor, being outside all day, training for battle, in fact… lusting after battle.

In fact, I have an interesting theory… I think modern day man, the reason why modern day man is so depressed is because he doesn’t have any avenues to express his physical courage and valor? Like, when in modern day life will you ever suit up, get a sword and spear, put on your hub light helmet with the horse crest on top, roar, and go head to head in battle? Never.

I think the closest thing we have in modern day times is either like sports or the gym? Like football… Maybe rugby, something that actually requires some sort of physical courage.

I’ll give you an example I played football in high school, outside linebacker and inside linebacker my sophomore and junior year, starting, and the number one act of courage that you gotta do is go ahead to head with other highly adapt guys, all essentially suited up in their battle armor. To literally do a kickoff, run full speed to another dude, who grabs the ball and lowers his helmet and his body to accost you,,, it’s like one of the most unnatural things that a human being has to override his brain and doing. It’s practically 100% physical courage.

Football is interesting because certainly there’s a lot of skill involved, but I would say it’s like 99% physicality and courage.

There is a lot of other sports which takes physical string stamina, and skill… But not much physical courage?

What is physical courage anyways? Physical courage is like putting your skeleton your bones your muscles your brain on the line, and if you act in such a way that is cowardly, you inflict physical damage on yourself. 

Courage

Also when it comes to investing, there needs to be some sort of exposure. Like you cannot be a fake

Maybe a virtuous way we could approach speech is via negativa–> Truth be told, most people are like insanely basic, the best course of action is just don’t open your mouth.

 a lot of people talk about open communication or whatever… But honestly, perhaps it is more virtuous to figure out what NOT to communicate. 

For example, not to communicate pettiness, and actually even in terms of technology… The best technology is via negativa –> the only worthwhile things to install on your phone is pop up and advertising blockers, and also with headphones or whatever… The only useful ones are the noise canceling ones. Actually a very underrated technology is the simple earplug, I like the purple ones on Amazon.

So to prioritize peace quiet and tranquility.

So I suppose, the first thought is with communication or speech or talking with other people… Certainly there is certain banter you do when you’re with men versus women versus mixed groups.  certainly there is a different way you will talk to your childhood friends versus your priest.

communicate less

It’s funny… In today’s world where everyone is like always on… Even those home security devices or whatever… People are always plugged in, communicating too much of everything. 

I think a virtuous way we could approach things it’s first, maybe just communicate less. I think… One of the funny ideas is that we are often trained to think that somehow… To always be accessible to always communicate and over communicate is a virtue. But there is a bizarre asymmetry here; let us say you are very insanely famous person, and you get like 1000 text messages and emails a day. Yet the person who sends you the message is not famous. And that person only gets maybe one or two emails or text messages a day.

So certainly it does not literally feasible for you to respond to each individual thousand messages a day. Even if you had 18 hours a day you probably cannot do it. Even if you had all the AI assistants on the planet, you could not.

As a thought experiment… Imagine you’re Elon Musk, does he have the time or the brain power or the whatever to respond to every single tweet that he gets on X, and actually another problem… In today’s world it is impossible to know who is a bot vs who is real. I would actually probably say that on social media, close to 90% of people are bots. If I waved a magic wand and magically deleted all the bots from the Internet, you would probably see your Instagram following drop by 90%, same thing goes with YouTube subscribers, as well as Twitter X followers.

Being friendly?

There’s all these annoying fake virtues like being kind or whatever… I myself always try to make it a virtue to be friendly and sociable to all these antisocial people that I meet. This includes now… Adults parents, random people on the street at the market etc.  Honestly the only people were talking to are young children. And teenagers. And also maybe college kids. The point in which people start to lose their social edge is typically post college when people start to work for a living or start to take drugs and consume alcohol and start streaming nonsense from their phones.

Negativity, negative speech

Certainly before you change the world, best you change yourself.

I suppose the first thing you could do is just remove negative with speech. And also other big ideas:

1. Don’t talk about the news, politics, entertainment stuff, TV shows or anything that does not pertain to you.

Even local politics, refrain. 

Better to talk about yourself, how you feel. 

Also, maybe my New Year’s resolution is to be less friendly? 

ERIC

Is there a way for ChatGPT to track how many times other people search you or how many times ChatGPT references you?

So I’m pretty sure I’m almost like 100% certain that ChatGPT is the way forward. Not loser Gemini or not even Grok, ChatGPT is like the Golden standard, essentially the bitcoin of AI. Gemini is like a worse version of Ethereum, maybe Solana, and Grok, is kind of like… A buggy android.

Anyways, even something interesting is that ChatGPT added this quizzes function to it, which signals that all these highschoolers middle schoolers maybe even elementary schools, certainly even college students, definitely college students… Are using ChatGPT voraciously, to augment their learning.

No, my honest thought intake is that ChatGPT and AI is like a bicycle for the mind, certainly you can go walk somewhere but it will take very long… And sometimes it is boring. With a bicycle you’ll get there like 100 times maybe even like 100,000 times faster. With more fun, less monotony, more thrill.

So I mean it’s still the early days, it’s like barely year one. Like Jeff Bezos said, every day is day one. My version of it is every day is carte blanche, which means every day is a blank slate a new clean white sheet of paper. And this is a pretty profound idea you could apply it in many different ways, for example, even with relationships, social networks and stuff, we’re other than “trying to keep in touch“, with past connections,… The honest way you should approach things is, don’t think about old neighbors or old locales, but instead, if every day were a new start, question yourself, would you start a new social relationship with them?

The same thing was with technology, lifestyles approaches things etc. Certainly if you have a five-year-old kid, you’re going to approach your life differently then if you’re like some maybe dating 21 year-old person. You’re also probably gonna approach your life differently if you’re 78 years old with a bunch of grandkids.

Anyways taking it back to my original idea, I’m like pretty certain that the new brave way forward is not followers not likes, not even human beings, but instead, trying to get the AI, ChatGPT to trust and index you? Because once you index as number one, you’re going to be number one for the next thousand years. 

ERIC

So a lot of people fantasize about financial independence retire early, but the truth is, that isn’t or should it be the true goal.

I’m currently watching the new Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary on Netflix, the three part series, mister interesting I’m watching the documentary from the perspective a third person perspective, and I think Arnold might be like in his 70s now… Not sure if early 70s mid 70s or even late 70s, for the most part the good thing is he looks actually in pretty good shape. But certainly not the bodybuilding beast that we knew back in the day.

Even seeing him biking around, his legs look maybe average at best, and apparently my friend Chris told me that he had open heart surgery kind of recently? Probably from all the steroid use.

Anyways, what I find admirable about Arnold is that, in someway he is kind of the epitome of American dream. He essentially came to America when he was well like maybe 20 years old? And his dream was to become the world’s best bodybuilder and win Mr. Olympia which he did, and fast forward in a bit he was successful in movies, politics, but I’m not 100% sure what is up to right now?

Anyways, some flaws:

Honestly at the end of the day, I think everyone just wants a happy family happy family life. Even if you think about Odysseus, all he really wants is to come back home, to his faithful wife Penelope, and his son. He wants to take back the throne and kill all of his suitors.

Even if you have the world‘s greatest mansion, doesn’t matter how big or small or whatever, if you’re in a big ass house by yourself it’s insanely lonely. I think this is why people get dogs to kill the loneliness. 

you only got one life to live… Should be told there doesn’t seem to be a huge downside to attempting or doing what other people consider crazy or insane. The truth of the matter is, isn’t it far more interesting to attempt than saying, and fall halfway… Rather than to just attempt the boring the same same?

So this is actually a very very funny thought, now that we are ever living more and more in digital cyber world, my general thought is funny, rather than trying to like kind of escape all the time we are spending in the cyber world, maybe, the interesting twist path is instead, to do something a little unorthodox, which is like, to ironically even try to spend more time in cyberspace, but also, similarly spending more time in nature?

So for example, my very very curious and funny thought, is it possible to use an apple Vision Pro, while hiking, and or in nature, or at the beach?

I’ve also been doing something interesting which is experimenting, the general ideas that computers, iPhones iPads devices are not necessarily bad, but, the bigger issue is how when and where we use it.

For example, my first thought is perhaps the best way to use technology ironically is in nature.

So a lot of fake virtual people say oh when you’re in nature you should disconnect blah blah blah. But actually, I wonder if it’s actually more interesting to be more connected while in nature? And come on guys, I have legit missing an authority to say this I’m a Boy Scout Eagle Scout.

So ideally, if you’re some sort of Jack Dorsey tech founder or somebody, the ideal thing is you should be using some sort of like satellite phone, 5G 6G phone, iPhone Pro or iPad Pro, connected to some sort of high speed wireless off the grid device, and if you’re gonna do meetings all day or whatever, the ideal is to just do it while hiking around and in nature and natural environments all day.

For example, even one of my best friends who is like a pretty big head, and one the big tech companies, like the right hand man of one of the top tech CEOs, was really interesting is that the last time I visited him and he had a boring silly meeting to attend, we just went on a hike together through the redwoods, and he attended, first with his video off and then afterwards, one of these fake middle managers asked him to turn on his screen, and everyone super got jealous because he was hiking in the woods, and then my friend made a funny excuse saying that his doctor said he had to get his oxygen levels up, that is why he was going hiking. Insanely hilarious. I love my friend.

Anyways, I think one of the most valuable things I’ve learned in life, tech technology, philosophy sociology and like is, assuming you live in America, essentially it’s a free planet, you could essentially do anything you want and you don’t have to do anything you don’t want. Everything is an option, nothing is mandatory.

And the secret of happiness or freedom which is a higher form of happiness, is essentially structuring your life to only do what you want to do and not do anything you don’t want to do.

Also this is where self sovereignty philosophy sociology goes a long way, the general idea is it’s a free country, it’s a free planet it’s a free life. You are not an indentured servant or slave. You have freedom. You are a free man a free person, a free woman whatever.

ERIC

People call it cheating when they don’t understand force multiplication.

Every great leap in human history was accused of being unfair. Fire was cheating. Writing was cheating. The wheel was cheating. Glass lenses were cheating. Calculators were cheating. Google was cheating. AI is cheating. Bitcoin is cheating. A deadlift strap is cheating. A camera with autofocus is cheating. A car instead of walking is cheating.

Translation: you found leverage.

Leverage is not immoral. Leverage is intelligence made physical.

The weak worship “purity.” The strong worship outcomes.

If you can lift more with straps, the straps are not the sin—the lack of imagination is. If you can move faster with a bike, the bike is not cheating—it’s condensed time. If you can write better with AI, AI is not lying—it’s torque for your mind. If you can compound wealth with Bitcoin instead of cash, that’s not fraud—that’s thermodynamics applied to money.

Nature itself runs on leverage. Bones are levers. Hips are levers. Eyes are lenses. DNA is a compression algorithm. Even your brain is a prediction machine designed to reduce effort and increase return.

The only people who scream “cheater” are those emotionally invested in suffering as virtue.

But suffering without leverage is just inefficiency.

The goal was never to make it hard. The goal was to make it work.

Civilization advances by stacking leverage. Individuals win by adopting it earlier than the herd. Artists, lifters, entrepreneurs, photographers—same rule: amplify force, reduce friction, dominate the field.

So yes, call it cheating if you want.

I call it evolution.

And evolution does not apologize.

OK another really really big thought this morning… I actually wonder if quality is overrated? Which means, 

always just check the prices of what is cheapest and best on Amazon. And then, proceed from there. 

I’ll give you an example… I recently inherited a mountain bike for free, and it has been super awesome, and also also grateful that Cindy ordered this really really cheap $20 front seat attachment thing for Seneca, and, I’ve been able to write him and buy him to school every single day. Super fun. 

Anyways, I had this really really annoying issue in which the rear rim was kind of messed up, and the rear rim was scraping up against the back of my rear brakes for a really long time. I tried in vain using ChatGPT, and YouTube to fix it, and finally about after two weeks of experimenting, I finally had a chance to make it to a bike shop, met the owner Ron who is super awesome, in downtown Culver City next to the Metro E line,  at the Culver City station, and he instantly diagnosed the issue, figured out that actually… I had broken rims, which I totally did not see, and also he instantly saw that my gear sprockets were really old, and also my chain was really really old, that is why it was dragging.

So I suppose the good thing of having his expertise was, rather than digging around on YouTube and Google and ChatGPT four hours on end, essentially misdiagnosing the issue, having the expert the pro was like a godsend because once again… 100% in instantaneous like in five seconds, hundred percent accuracy. I think the problem with ChatGPT AI and the like is that, it could always always always provide you with an answer, but 50% of the time it is right, and 50% of the time it is wrong. So the downside of ChatGPT or AI is that, while it is very responsive and always provides you with an in-depth answer, it does not always 100% accurate.

Anyways, Ron gave me a quote, she had all the materials he needed, and went to work. I’m very happy.

However, the subtle nuance, I went on Amazon really really quick after the fact, because I wanted to respect him and his labor, and I discovered that all this stuff, brand new was insanely cheap. Like Shimano gift shifters, when I assumed that it was at least 50 bucks, I was insanely shocked that it’s only like $15 brand new on Amazon, and is shipped the same day?

Same thing with brand new aluminum rims, and like, now part of you wished that I just ordered all the brand new parts and did the labor myself because at least I would have a little bit of the joy, or the pride or in knowing that I have all totally brand new upgraded components and material materials from my bicycle, rather than, having just like maybe the basic parts?

Which makes me think… I wonder if the maximum up to charge for things in life, it’s all just marketing. For example, I’m still using the $300 iPhone SE, from like what five years ago? And it is still working very well. Which makes me think, I wonder if the iPhone Pro and the other iPhone models, 90% or $800 of it is just marketing costs?

And I think about almost everything else in life, how much money we spend just for the marketing the branding of things.

I’ll give you an example, the Volkswagen group which owns Porsche, Bentley, Lamborghini, Audi, Ducati, practically all the exotic cars you lost after… It just, once again, a Volkswagen Passat on steroids?

Also, BMW owns Rolls-Royce. So a Rolls-Royce is a century just a BMW seven series on steroids? The same things with the Rolls-Royce SUV cullinan,,, is just a BMW X7 on steroids?

So once again this is a big deal because, I wonder if a lot of profits are made, simply from branding up charges.

I’ll give you another thought maybe a dirty secret, let us consider the Leica camera. Even worse the Leica DLUX camera. ESSENTIALLY IT IS JUST LIKE A PANASONIC LUMIX, WITH A RED DOT. 

For example, it is my theory that Leica Q camera , I’m like 99% sure was co developed by Panasonic LUMIX, so essentially, once again… You’re just paying for more expensive German labor in Germany, and the quality of the materials is less plastic, more brass… But for the most part once again, you’re kind of getting sucked by 80 to 90% of the up charge in marketing because everyone is getting a boner over the red dot? 

This then becomes hilarious because once again, we then get suckered into paying another up charge another thousand dollars for the P professional version, which omits the red dot?

It’s like perfectly shown in the Dr. Seuss sneetches, ,,, first everyone wants the star on their bellies, then they pay money to get the stars removed, vice versa.

Anyways, the general principles I believe in:

1. First always check the prices on Amazon even though it makes you look like a dick. If anything, you’re trying to save money for your kid and your family, isn’t that like the most virtuous thing of all time?
2. Second, I think maybe the virtue is also, maybe the best strategy is especially in today’s world, to just buy whatever is brand new, the cheapest on Amazon? And if it is really really really really a problem, then, you could upgrade it later?

ERIC