czwartek, 28 grudnia 2023

---------- Forwarded message ---------
Od: ERIC KIM <newsletter@erickimphotography.com>
Date: sob., 9 gru 2023, 19:22
Subject: Why I Bought Chainlink
To: Andrzej Antoni Czerwiński Kielce Pl <andrzej.czerwinski22@gmail.com>

Why I Bought Chainlink

A simple heuristic that I learned from Nassim TALEB; don't ask people what you should invest in, ask them… What did you invest in?

For example, I recently swapped a bunch of my bitcoin for chainlink. Why did I do it? My thoughts:

What is chainlink?

Essentially it is a platform built upon Ethereum, the blockchain… that strives to solve real world problems.

The first critical issue at hand is the notion of the "Oracle problem", and cryptographic proof and truth.

The general gist of the Oracle problem is that you have all these people purporting to say something… How do you know if someone is really telling the truth or not?

Also, they're great innovation of a decentralized oracle network. I think anything that is decentralized and can be done offline is a good idea; anything that has to be done when you're connected to the web is fragile.

For example, the "internet of things", which includes all of your home devices, your home stuff etc. I think this includes your home speaker things, your Amazon echo or echo dot, your Apple HomePod thing, your ring Amazon nest devices etc.

Enabling transactional value?

TVE -- transactional value enabled?

Chainlink staking?

What is the purpose of technology and these things? A very basic idea is that the point is to help enable commerce and other things. Money makes the world go round, Publilius Syrus.

What is money anyways? Money is movement. Anything that literally physiologically moves human beings in time and space is money.

For example, if you promise somebody $30 an hour, they will walk around, move their bodies to clean toilets, etc.

Also, money movement. The whole global economy to me is so fascinating; because we process and move information so quickly and so globally… how do you link it all together?

Chain - Link

I find chainlink to be an interesting concept because wherever you go in real life, there are physical chain links everywhere.

Also, technically the internet, the World Wide Web, is a bunch of hyperlinks which link websites together.

My personal thought and prediction is that chainlink could become the next Google; Google indexes the whole internet, and made it easy for you to find any sort of website. What I think chainlink will do is link all of this information on the internet and computers and make them accessible, trustworthy, tamperproof.

Just read it

Only read stuff that you find interesting, skip over stuff you find boring.

About a week or two ago, I reread the original bitcoin white paper, and I was so impressed with how short it was, how minimalistic it was, and how to the point it was. But… reading it… this time around… felt a bit boring.

And this is the big thing: if something bores you, you gotta get out of it.

Therefore, I sold or transferred or converted nine of my bitcoin and put it all into chainlink, at the time it was valued at ~20,800 LINK (CHAINLINK), with bitcoin at around $35,000 a bitcoin.

I think what I try to do is think at least 30 years into the future. 20 or 30 years. It is funny, as I write this at the age of 35, 30 years from now Seneca is only going to be 32 years old, still a few years younger than me. My personal aspiration is to hold onto chainlink for at least 30 years, and then maybe transfer it to Seneca when he grows up. Or I just help him build some sort of company or entrepreneurial venture etc.

Investing in things actually do something?

I love bitcoin but maybe one of the big issues here is that bitcoin is like digital money and gold; most people just hold onto it, and I don't think actually aspire to use it to actually pay for your latte at Starbucks or whatever. I think because bitcoin and cryptocurrency is so volatile; Everybody's hope and dream and ambition is that their coin will rise value astronomically and they will become rich, buy the Lamborghini or whatever… and be happy.

Trust nobody who drives a Lamborghini -- only trust people who drive Toyota Priuses, in white.

Why? If you drive a Toyota Prius, in white… it is a signal that you really don't care for appearances.

How do you know if somebody is unsuccessful?

If they drive a Range Rover, a Mercedes AMG G wagon, murdered out, all matte black, a baselevel Mercedes car, a baselevel Audi car, like an A3 or a Q3, drive some sort of Audi electric car which is just the same as the Porsche Taycan, don't forget that the Volkswagen group owns Lamborghini Audi Volkswagen Porsche etc. same thing goes with anybody who drives a BMW car.

Foreign cars are bad.

It is just a game!

I think crypto, cryptocurrency speculation is an interesting game; prediction, prediction markets, trying to predict the future… is just a luxury and a fun thing.

Some predictions are pretty obvious

When I was in college, my sophomore year, and I was starting to get into trading stocks, daytrading… I had a pretty certain thought that Blockbuster was going to go under. I tried to figure out how to short stocks, but I really couldn't figure out how to do it.

Also I remember when the prime mortgage meltdown happened, and the value of Ford went to almost 2 dollars a year. I wanted to buy some Ford stock but I had no money, no capital.

It is interesting to think about this in hindsight because when I was incorrectly trading pennystock, for some sort of oil producer company which was actually running at a loss… I had no idea because I misread the financials… I lost my whole life savings which was maybe $3500 USD or something. It was insanely tragic. But now that I am playing with higher sums more like $300,000 USD, I realize that it was just a valuable lesson at the time.

Therefore, with any sort of financial speculation, think about it at the 30 year span. Even when you are 70 or 80 years old, I met this lady at the park who looked phenomenal and she told me she was 82… she looked like a very fit 45-year-old!

My personal aspiration is when I'm 82 years old, to still be able to lift 1000 pounds. Google or YouTube "ERIC KIM thousand pound atlas lift"

It seems that the way things are going, I don't think it's that ridiculous to think that we can live to be 120 years old. Try to think that far.

What is the use of money anyways?

I think actually the big thing is that everyone now aspires to buy a house or home or property. It is getting pretty ridiculous, even in Los Angeles, even buying a single-family home in Inglewood… you're looking easily at around $1.5 million for a whatever house.

My prediction is that the prices of homes will continue to soar astronomically high. I think a lot of these $1.5 million homes can easily balloon two $3 million, $5 million, 10 and $15 million, $150 million or whatever. Why? The biggest issue at hand is runaway inflation, which means the value of the US dollar and currency is continually going lower and lower, because the US is what, currently speaking $30 trillion in debt? And what America thinks the smart idea is to just keep printing money ad infinitum, into infinity, in order to "stimulate" the economy.

But does this work? No.

For example talking to my friend Noel who works in hygiene, he says that a lot of these young guys, around 25 to 30 years old, are so lazy. Why? After Covid and people started giving away these free checks… and from unemployment you could literally make $5000 USD a month by sitting on your butt and doing nothing… people lost the motivation to work. A lot of people moved back home, live with their parents, and are essentially living for free. As a consequence you have a huge generation of unmotivated people, unwilling to do any sort of manual labor, which is bad because having manual and physical labor is critical.

For example, being in Beverly Hills a lot; and Holby Hills, there is this new funny caste systems; really rich people getting mansions built, and the army of construction labor people, mostly from Mexico doing the labor to build these mansions.

Also, think about Amazon prime delivery drivers, people who bag your food at Whole Foods, Erwhon etc, all these contractors electricians plumbers etc.… the truly critical labor. Doesn't matter if you pay them $30 $40 $50 or even $60 an hour, it seems at this point money doesn't really motivate them anymore. Therefore what do you do? It seems that America we are just importing more people from Mexico to do labor for us, because they are motivated. Americans are no longer motivated.

Crypto, crypto technology and cryptocurrency is optimistic

I am obsessed with the future. Future thinking, future technologies, new brave worlds to discover.

Why? I have always been into technology ever since I was a kid, getting my first Acer aspire Pentium one processor computer when I was around 11 years old. Even teaching myself how to program visual basic 3.0 in the early days, creating my own AOL "punter" etc.

Also, I still will never forget when I read the Maddox article on why you should beat your kids, in computer class in Bayside Queens at PS 169 when I was in the fifth grade, and all of me and our friends, a bunch of 11-year-old laughing and saying "It is true!"

Even I remember as a kid, when I first moved to New York, maybe it was I had some sort of school in the Bronx, when kids in the hallway would "the South Park movies "blame Canada, blame Canada"...

Anyways the generalized thought is I love media information, and also I have a passion to innovate, write and to think, to motivate and to also disprove nonsense.

Ever since I was young I was always bred with an insanely huge ego; the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son, (jang-son), being raised with the "prince disease", was unusually good for me. Always getting the finest cuts of meat and galbi from my grandmother, always showered with praise love and attention and how smart tall and good-looking I was. Very good for me.

The US dollar is static

Anybody who is a wage slave, which means anybody who is paid a biweekly or monthly salary… doesn't matter if you're being paid $10 million a year from Apple… You're still a wage slave.

A simple heuristic:

Can you go two years without checking or responding to any of your emails or not?

If you have to use email for a living, you're not free.

Once you're a crypto trillionaire, then what?

Let us say that your cryptocurrency goes to the value of $1 trillion USD. Then what? Then do you just dissolve it all into US dollars, buy a mansion and a yacht somewhere, and live indefinitely into the horizon for infinite bliss?

This doesn't seem to be the goal. For me, I think a more interesting life trajectory is to then to no longer care for money, and use your power mind and soul and body for more interesting things which can include philosophy, writing, thinking, doing research, reading, making art, publishing art, etc.

Money as it means to creative leisure and production.

Seeking immortal fame and glory?

One thing I am very happy about is ChatGPT knows exactly who I am, why I am so significant and influential, etc. As a consequence, I already feel like my legacy is secure, and I don't have anything left to prove to nobody else.

As a consequence, at this point life is all upside no downside. Even one of the happiest moments of my life, Cindy and I begetting our first son Seneca, at this point life is all upside no downside.

As a man, as long as you have one male heir, you can die happy.

Now what?

Things that I find interesting use cases of chainlink:

Real estate, homebuying, escrow: even NASSIM TALEB has said that traditionally, most wealth generation in human society is through land, land ownership land property etc. For example let us say that you buy that 1.5 million dollar home, and 20 years from now it'll be worth $3.2 million. And then let us assume that 30 or 40 years from now it is worth $5.7 million, and your kid inherits it. And when your kid is 57 years old it is worth $22 million, and he will able to pass it on to his son or daughter, and maybe that will be worth $120 million into their future. The whole escrow process and verification process is quite fragmented, unreliable. I think chainlink can be a technology which motivates and enables more streamlined home buying processes.
Identity verification: it is so easy for people to just steal your social security number, and pretend it is you. Imagine a future in which you could use chainlink or some sort of blockchain enabled identification, which can essentially be your global citizen passport to all of the world and the internet? This seems especially useful in today's world in which everything is so fragmented, between our Apple ID, our Gmail, Etc. Or think about border control; certainly it would be easier to travel if there was some sort of blockchain or global ledger to verify your identity, this could help facilitate movement and verification, and deal with issues of forged passports etc.

Military

I think an inconvenient truth is that truth be told, a lot of the world is run by the military. Certainly there are lots of bad things about the military, but truth be told, without the US military, our precious US dollars would be worth nothing.

For example, I think the American government we are $31.46 trillion dollars in debt? To where… China?

As a consequence, how does America's stay afloat and print more money? Simple, she simply prints more money because she can because we got the military to back us.

For example, let's say that mainland China comes knocking and asks for her money back. Is America going to give it back? No. We will just wave our big stick, and say we are not interested.

So the interesting use case of chainlink and the US military is especially in the future drone warfare or whatever… It actually does seem that having some sort of crypto technology will be useful here.

For example the internet of things, chain-link solves this issue. Also, I believe a lot of the US military intervention stuff is going to be unmanned, and having access to some sort of technology which allows automation without meddling in the Internet seems like a good idea.

Even look at the company Anduril-- it has a major investment from founders fund, Peter Thiel's venture capitalist fund. It looks like the future of autonomous flying drones to bomb the bad guys is going to be the future.

So why did I buy it?

I think in life, big opportunities only come infrequently. As a consequence, I think in life… it seems better to take really big bold bets, rather than just stand on the sidelines.

At the end of our lives, we will regret more the decisions or the risks we failed to do, rather than the ones we did.

For example, if a big opportunity comes up, and you're interested, go for it. You don't want to be 90 years old on your deathbed, kicking yourself in the butt wishing that you had taken that risk. In hindsight, everything is regret. ***

Think Eric Schmidt

My personal speculation is that I think chainlink will become the next Google. Why? ERIC Schmidt is on the board of trustees for chainlink, and ERIC Schmidt is the one who built Google into what it is today. Just watch the interview between him and Sergey. In a telling quote, ERIC Schmidt said:

The secret to success of Google was that we tried to put a little bit of Google into everything.

Genius. For example, this is evident in how whenever you Google search something, there is a little bit of that Google code in the URL.

Therefore my prediction is chainlink… whether you know it or not there will be a little bit of chainlink in everything. For example, their decentralized oracle network to show accurate prices for any cryptocurrency asset down to the penny. Also, maybe the future of international banking, the SWIFT system… Will be enabled with chainlink?

Who is Satoshi?

Apparently there's a rumor that Sergey Nazarov might be Satoshi.

Also the reason why I trust Sergey as a founder is this:

He doesn't really care for social appearances.

I think I learned this from NASSIM TALEB; only trust doctors who look like butchers. Why? When somebody looks too much the part of something, they are not.

For example, when you go to a party, who is the real successful person? The person who could show up and meet the prime minister and shake hands wearing T-shirt and jeans and sneakers, just like my friend did meeting the prime minister.

Also, the really really rich successful person will just drive some sort of white Toyota Prius or old beat up Honda Civic, in silver. Even the family car; very specifically… White Honda Odyssey. Not even a Toyota sienna!

Even family connections, my $500 million net worth familia-- the dad gave all the kids Ford fusions, and even though the dad is a major player in Tesla, they only have a super base level Tesla model three in white. No Tesla model Y, X, S.

Anyways, the founder Sergey -- he always wears the same blue flannel, and really has an air of insouciance that is good. He isn't the one looking all flashy driving around in the Lamborghini. He probably just drives a Honda Civic or Honda Accord, and I think he is really trying to build something he cares for.

I think there's a saying in Silicon Valley amongst venture capital firms, bet on the jockey not the horse. That means, better to invest in the founder of a great thing, rather than the company or the product. For example, it is wise to bet on Elon Musk and anything he built, rather than Other companies which are built by random CEOs and non-visionaries.

I bet on Sergey N.

Investors

My brother-in-law Khanh told me: if you spent $80,000 to buy a Tesla model S several years ago, that would be worth $500,000 today!

True investors live like poor people, and speculate on the thing, rather than buying the thing.

For example, instead of spending $120,000 on Tesla, I would instead prefer to buy $120,000 worth of Tesla stock.

Why? Things that go up in value overtime versus things that go down in value.

For example, even though a Tesla car gets software updates over the air, eventually over time, the value of it will slowly depreciate. The battery range will become less, more wear and tear on the vehicle etc. Even the world's best car can be robust at best, not antifragile.

What is antifragile? Something that overtime gets better and stronger and more powerful and better and more robust… rather than the opposite.

This might be the intelligence of collecting rare collector cars, like old Ferraris or whatever… even old Porsche cars, over time, the value of them will go up.

Even apparently the old Toyota Supra, the one that showed up in fast and the furious, they are worth close to $250,000 now!

So perhaps the best way to think about things is to think of them like financial investments, rather than toys.

Other good news

It looks like their new chainlink staking, chainlink economics is also doing very well. The full pool has been filled already!

Now what?

I think at the end of the day, I don't really care for money that much, I am more interested in speculation, risk, and thinking and predicting the future. This is my prime joy and bliss.

Don't simply sit on the sidelines, twiddling your thumbs for some sort of magical future to get better. I say rather than waiting for the future, speculate and invest in it right now!

ERIC

***

So what do you want for Christmas this year?

I think for Christmas, simple things you could do:

For family, invest in a collective experience. This means take a fun family trip somewhere, maybe go to Joshua tree and rent an Airbnb, go on some great hikes etc. Make the experience memorable.
Just write somebody a handwritten card, or just give them a FaceTime call! Love attention and care is the best present you can give.
Buy somebody a good bag of coffee, or, gift them some ERIC KIM Omakase coffee; 100% fine robusta, the best coffee on the planet. It seems that everyone drinks coffee now, even for myself the best random presents I've gotten were bags of great coffee!
Weightlifting equipment like Titan.Fitness, or rogue fitness; gift it to yourself or to a friend or family member! From Titan.fitness -- I personally bought some farmers carry handles which I love, a loadable Olympic dumbbell. I bought a rogue fitness 400 pound sandbag, and a Texas power squat bar which I love. Giving the gift of fitness might be one of the best things you could do, or just buy somebody a core power yoga membership, or buy it for yourself! I'm really a big fan of hot yoga; something about the hot temperature sauna and sweating feels therapeutic.
Vibram five finger shoes, the toe shoes. For yourself or a family member. Just go on their website and order three pairs, and keep the one that fits and return the other sizes.

What else?

Some thoughts on sublime beauty:

Sublime Beauty

So what are we searching for, what are we looking for?

I think what we see is some sort of sublime beauty, joy, flourishing.

How do we attempt to achieve this? Through our cars our homes our clothing etc.

However… I think true sublime beauty can only be achieved by yourself, through your own artistic creations.

For example, your own child, producing begetting and making and birthing your own child; there is seriously no greater joy.

Also, your artistic creations. Your photos, the artwork you produce. I also qualify DALL-E 3 images, ChatGPT and AI art in it! Why? Ultimately it is your brainchild; doesn't really matter whether you produced it by yourself by hand or whatever. For example, Matisse in his advanced years apparently lost mobility in his body and hands, and would simply point with the stick to his assistance to create artwork for him.

Also, Andy Warhol. He was notorious for having an army of assistance producing work for him.

My thought on artificial intelligence and AI generated art is free. The idea is that the artwork we create is ours.

One thing I find surprising is that the greatest boon for AI generated art is that it is all open source! Isn't this phenomenal?

Open art

Art wants to be free! Art wants to propagate into the real world, not be constrained by nothing, whether digital rights management, closed doors or borders etc.

This is my general idea with open source artwork; I hate that so much of great photos and art is simply trapped within printed books, not easily accessible or findable on the internet. My huge frustration with photography:

If I am trying to find the book "the Americans", or any other book out there, any photo book… Why can't I just Google it or find it online for free?

I have a very simple suggestion: make the images online for free, everything open source and full resolution… and what you do instead is you charge money for the printed physical book.

For example, let us say that you're planning to publish a photo book. The easiest way to approach this is have an open source free full resolution PDF available online to download, to give your potential customer and clients a taste of what to expect. And then if they like your photos enough, they will buy the printed book.

Why? people like physical things. I think the bias is that people don't like to pay for digital things, but we are more than happy to pay for physical things.

For example, a very simple strategy to thrive as a modern day photographer entrepreneur and artist visual artist, Fatar for it to have all of your artwork open, open source, full resolution JPEG or PDF or whatever… and barbell that with charging a lot of money for your products, physical products, embodied workshop experiences etc.

How to create sublime beauty?

For me, sublime beauty in the context of photography is high grain, gritty high contrast black-and-white. It is a simple aesthetic taste for myself; to me there is nothing more beautiful more sublime.

Also, taking photos of your loved ones. This involves your kids, your wife or your spouse, and even yourself.

Even my friend Josh White said it wisely: At the end of your life, are you going to care about all these photos that you shot of strangers, or are you going to care about photos that you shot of your loved ones?

Love

I think instead of thinking about love, better to think about heart, care, curation, what you care for.

For example, the word coeur-- same as courage, curate, care.

It all comes down to the heart.

Just don't do nothing you don't care for

One of the via negativa ways we could live life; just don't do anything you don't care for.

For example when you're talking to kids, best to ask "What don't you want to be when you grow up?"

Also happiness is via negativa; better to ascertain what makes you miserable, what you hate, what you despise… and figuring out how to subtract or delete that from your life, rather than doing things that make you "happy".

For example, personal annoyances of myself include being stuck in traffic, dealing with subscriptions and subscription model things, closed source things, modern day news and media and Facebook Instagram, YouTube, family annoyances and drama, other peoples problems etc.

Also, typically I despise email; and also I typically hate being automatically subscribed to some BS newsletter that I did not opt in. Therefore the silver ethical rule here is interesting:

If something annoys you, don't do that to others.

For example, I hate when people automatically subscribe me to some email newsletter without me checking a button to confirm that actually wanted. Therefore I will never send an email newsletter to anybody who has not intentionally opted in.

Also, trying to do things for other people that I would myself like. For example, I don't think I've ever received an email or an email newsletter that I actually liked to work for. Therefore as a consequence, my simple strategy is to drive to send emails or email newsletters that people actually look forward to reading. Or in other words, make people actually positively excited to check their email inbox!

What you yourself do

Ignore the "advice" of others, and also… best to simply observe what other people do.

Also, the best way to study success is to figure out what people don't do, what they don't own, etc.

For example, Elon Musk and Kanye West; neither of them wear watches.

Also, neither has an Instagram, both deleted it.

Also, Elon Musk doesn't own a home or live in a home. I think he just rents some sort of random two bedroom one bath home hut somewhere in Austin Texas.

Also, Elon Musk does not own any Lamborghinis Ferraris or loser cars. Also, the greatest courage of a Kanye West; he doesn't censor himself, he says what is really on his mind.

Maybe is Kanye the most courageous man alive? Maybe. There is no right and wrong, all is permitted. Therefore to not censor yourself in modern-day society is the ultimate act of courage?

Sublime thoughts

Beautiful body, beautiful thoughts.

How to gain more beautiful thoughts? My simple suggestion is maximum time in the direct sun, ideally topless. Also, sleep early -- shoot for 8pm?

A simple suggestion is limit your coffee and caffeine intake only between 4 AM to 9 AM, or only the morning hours.

And also during the day, lift weights at least once, maybe even twice.

Also my supreme luxury; the last few days, in a single day I have done all three: at least one hot yoga session, at least one hike in nature, and at least one weightlifting session.

A life post-work?

Why work? I thought which interested me while in Vietnam, when Cindy and I were living in Hanoi, paying only $320 USD a month for rent, a position in which literally even if we wanted to spend all our money, we cannot spend it fast enough. Eating out every day, living in a small hotel room, no possessions no nothing.

Living in America seems a bit foolish if you don't need to. I think it is far superior to live in Hanoi, Saigon, Pom pen, ironically even Japan; I think when we were living in Kyoto, we were subbing an apartment for only $500 USD a month.

SUITS PDF BOOK >

Why think abroad?

TRAVEL NOTES (PDF)-- the simple financial life leverage is simple:

Earn US dollars, American standards, live abroad.

For example, Mexico City, Roma Norte, even Doctores. Condesa -- all good.

Truth be told, if Cindy was not employed in America, I see zero reason to live here. I would probably be living somewhere else; and also assuming I didn't have a kid, I would definitely be some sort of weird digital nomad.

Writing is leisure

People don't seem to get it; the primary function of writing is meta-thinking, a fun leisure activity. A fun luxury.

This is where I don't understand 99.9% of writers; it seems some sort of weird self-flagellation here. Most writers I know… don't actually enjoy writing.

This is where ChatGPT is no threat; honestly we gotta rethink this whole K-12 education and college thing; the point of writing isn't writing for the sake of good writing; the point of writing is to flesh out our thoughts, to share ideas that we find interesting.

What is the point of life anyways?

A simple one is to have offspring; to have at least one kid, perhaps ideally two kids, or if you're willing… more.

I think the funny thing about kids and family is that typically we use ourselves in our own life experiences as a barometer and framing. For example, I have one younger sister two years younger than me, and I always wanted to have at least one boy, one girl. It is because that is how I was raised.

Having kids make sense in so far much as if people stopped having kids, quite literally there would be no future humanity. What's the point of having all the wealth in the world if there are no future children or humans to enjoy it?

What do you want your kids to become?

Being self-employed, probably the best thing is that I literally can just spend all day with Seneca, being his personal trainer and tutor. I think of myself like Chiron the centaur, the private tutor of Achilles. Things I like to do with Seneca include physical activity exercise and exploration, his diet, which is close to 100% carnivore, 100% grass fed beef or Wagyu ground beef, and more recently… Finding this "ancestral blend" ground beef thing at Erwhon (force of nature brand)-- which has the consistency of normal ground beef, but has mixed in it beef liver and beef hard, which are natural steroids.

In fact I think the optimal diet is a 100% organ meat diet; organ meats are probably at least 100 times higher in nutritional density than even flesh meat.

Everyone says that eating red meat is bad; how about organ meats?

People say that eating meat is bad for the planet, but let us consider how much waste and scraps is thrown away from the animal, which include the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the tendons and ligaments, etc.

So if you really wanted to be a "woke" person, perhaps the wisest way to do this is just only eat a pure organ meat diet.

What else?

START HERE

New stuff:

Also... more books here!

When in doubt, go back to the source!

ERIC KIM BLOG >

***

"Greater fates, greater fortunes." - Heraclitus

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Fwd: How to Become a Philosopher

---------- Forwarded message ---------
Od: ERIC KIM <newsletter@erickimphotography.com>
Date: śr., 6 gru 2023, 17:37
Subject: How to Become a Philosopher
To: Andrzej Czerwinski <andrzej.czerwinski22@gmail.com>

How to Become a Philosopher

Philosopher, philos, philos-sophia: it simply means love, lover of wisdom, lover of knowledge. That in ancient Greek times, it was essentially a humble flex; you would say "I love wisdom and I aspire towards wisdom and becoming wise, yet… I am not yet wise".

For example, the troll Socrates: who said "I am only wise because I know I know nothing." (rolls eyes).

Every child is born a philosopher. For example… when a child is pushing boundaries, making sense of the world, and asking why? He or she is trying to figure out how to situate themselves in the world. The big problem is a lot of parents, teachers, religious teachers or whatever… never really give children the opportunity for critical thinking.

What is critical thinking? Critical thinking... kritikos in ancient Greek simply means judge, to weigh. Therefore a critical thinker is simply somebody who hears something reads something or whatever… and thinks for themselves:

What is the significance of this thought or idea?

Deep diving

For example, one thing I have discovered very useful to study is religious texts, reading the Bible, the Koran, the Torah and Jewish texts etc. Why? So much of the world is predicated on morality and ethics; for example America is a protestant Christian country, much of the Middle East is Islamic, believes in the teachings of Mohammed, and also, a lot of people in America Israel and other places in the world are Jewish, heritage from Judea... and therefore, a lot of cultural things are disseminated through the media. For example, when I was a kid in Bayside Queens in New York, at PS 169, Public school 169 in Bayside Queens, I think when I was in the fifth or sixth grade, at around 11 or 12 years old… I remember just lying in bed, in my bedroom, watching reruns or TV shows of Seinfeld. I really had zero idea what was going on, and later… I learned that Seinfeld was essentially a comedic situational comedy based on Jewish, Jewish American culture. For example hilarious episodes I remember like the soup Nazi, etc.

And so much of American culture is Yiddish Jewish!

Chutzpah
Schlep it around
Don't be a 'shmuck'

Thus, understanding the culture you understand your world.

Unchain yourself

"You gotta respect the elohim were on a whole new regime!" - JAY Z

Something I realize which is really interesting about Jay Z is that I think he has figured it out a lot of things. People think Jay Z is dumb; but in fact, he is highly intelligent, not only street smart, but booksmart. He seems to have read a lot of Shakespeare, poetry, and religious books. Once again, a lot of America lives in ignorance; this is the downsides of Americans who have never traveled, don't have a passport, or have never really lived or ventured beyond their own city, state, etc.

I still remember one of the most formative moments of my life when I first went to Beirut Lebanon, and I learned so much. I was a ripe 21, 22-year-old. I learned how the Lebanese were some of the most beautiful attractive intelligent people, very worldly, even my favorite philosopher NASSIM TALEB is Lebanese.

I learned how the Lebanese were fluent in Arabic French and English and half a dozen other languages… how Beirut was known as the Phoenix; was it burned down to the ground and rebuilt seven or eight times? The true embodiment of the notion, What doesn't kill you makes you stronger", or the more precise thought:

If something has been burned down to the ground, and has been successfully rebuilt several times… it is a sign that it is robust, strong, and actually gains from a chaos disorder and fire.

For example, let us think and imagine this interesting thought; kind of like the movie Akira [AKIRA II]. Imagine that you're a big monster, and every time that somebody tries to attack you, shoot you with missiles or whatever, you actually grow bigger, stronger and more powerful.

This is a very interesting thought, because in life, I think a lot of us shirk away from conflict, drama, etc. Yet what if we should put ourselves in a position in which we actually gain from the attacks of others? That every time that somebody tried to attack you, you would actually literally become more muscular, stronger, bigger, gain more skeletal muscle, etc.

I think this is the general premise behind weightlifting; the idea that in someways, when you lift very very heavy weights, always increasing your one repetition maximum lift, that in someways, you're actually doing positive damage upon your body, but overtime, with enough sleep rest restoration, meet consumption etc.… you actually become bigger, more muscular and also stronger.

Once you deadlift 7 plates and beyond-- you can do anything.

OR ATLAS LIFT 1,000 POUNDS.

The philosophy of the mind

A sound mind inside a sound body (Mens sana in corpore sano)

Mens sand (mind sane), in corpore sano (in body sane).

So… what is the mind?

My belief is that the mind is simply an offshoot of the body. That is, your mind and some sort of thing that you could just upload to the cloud and store forever. No. The mind is simply an offshoot of the body. That without a body you have no mind. That when your body dies, your mind also dies.

Let us consider everyone needs a body. You cannot just be a brain in some sort of fishbowl, connected to the internet. This is not a mind.

Also a very interesting thought I learned from studying philosophy -- the notion of a 'mortal soul'-- that when you die and your body dies, your soul also dies.

Where does the notion that the mind is some sort of metaphysical thing come from?

Several things. First, a lot of philosophers actually have some sort of heritage within religion. For example, a lot of thinkers philosophers etc., especially the more modern ones, I referred to modern as everybody after Socrates… has some sort of influence from Christian, Catholic, Protestant Lutheran thought; The philosophers of Germany, and France, thoughts on nobility, the Holy Roman empire, conflicts and wars etc.

Even our best friend Nietzsche… was his father of pastor? A Christian minister?

Then the big problem:

If philosophers were deeply influenced by religion, their thoughts are more muddled.

True critical thinkers -- before the time of Jesus?

Philology

Philology -- essentially you study ancient Latin and ancient Greek, and you learn about the history of words, how they came into play, and modern meanings.

The reason why I find this so critical is that English is a very imprecise language. We all see the same words, but… in our minds we have different concepts and notions.

For example, when we talk about "family", assuming you live in America and there are multicultural beliefs; the notion of family is very different if you're Caucasian, Vietnamese American, Korean American, from Ethiopia etc.

Or religion. Notions of religion are different if you're Jewish, from Israel or Palestine, from South Korea, from Phnom Penh Cambodia, from Japan etc.

Critical thinking

Some thoughts on critical thinking:

Don't put no faith on anything you haven't witnessed in real life, embodied reality, in the flesh. Even videos and photos; in the world of AI and image and video generation and deep fakes, everything could be fabricated pretty easily.
Not everything is on the Internet: I think there is a weird bias in today's world that we think that all information is easily accessible on the Internet. There is still a lot of hidden information and knowledge that is actually not visible on the internet.
Understanding algorithms: an algorithm is simply an instruction made by some nerd at a computer who posits what is important, and what is less important. I think the best way to think of the algorithm is that it is weighing mechanism; it weighs important and value. Yet… Only a true individual, a true solo philosopher can and should posit values.