The complicated aspect about the Social Security system in the United States is that it was falsely marketed.

It's called an "entitlement" because people pay into it and are supposed to get it back like a pension, regardless of whether they are rich or poor when they retire. And so the Baby Boomer generation views any cuts to their social security as a rugpull, basically. It's not insurance or charity; it's an entitlement.

However, although it was marketed as like an entitlement/pension, that's not how the math worked out in practice. And it's because population growth is slowing. It was based on ponzi math, assuming that every generation will be bigger than the one that came before it. But the Baby Boomer generation was huge.

In addition, when Social Security was created, the retirement age was set near the average life expectancy. Many people would not live long enough to collect it, and most would collect it for a handful of years. Only a small minority of outliers would work for like 40 years and then live off social security for like 20+ years. But then over the decades, life expectancy increased by like 15 years, so the default assumption is indeed that someone can work for 40 years and then have 20+ years of retirement, even though the amount they pay into it doesn't really mathematically cover that. It's not designed for that en masse.

And so Baby Boomers had like a 3.5 worker-to-retiree ratio to support in their peak earnings years, while Millennials will have more like a 2.5 worker-to-retiree ratio or less to deal with. Which means they get a worse deal. Many Millennials don't even think they'll get it at all, despite paying into it.

That breaks up the social contract and sets up inter-generational political conflict. "Fourth Turning" stuff.

It's a big reason why "defined benefit" plans are inherently unstable; they rely on being able to predict the future.

And it's also a big reason why, when speaking about deficits, nothing stops this train.

This seems to be the issue. And, apparently, I can only set up an Alby account via an invitation.

Has anybody hacked a Bitaxe to mine an npub?

I want to give it an xPub of my seed words and let it run millions of derivation paths until it finds my vanity key. Once found, it should return the derivation path to me so that I can then use my seed to securely get the private key of that npub.

The sad truth is that most people have spent their entire lives being conditioned to simply obey, and to resist thinking.

Doesn’t matter what or who it is: stoplights, signs, announcements, strangers, someone ‘official’ looking, or just another human; most people just want someone or something to listen to so they don’t have to take responsibility to think for themselves. Thinking demands responsibility, the capacity to be correct or incorrect, the existential angst of what it means to decide on the nature of things, and what it means if you are right or wrong.

We have been trained most of our lives to eschew this responsibility and allow for others to tell us ‘what is right’ without considering for a moment if these are people we should listen to, or if they even have the cognitive capacity to actually think, rather than just do what they are told.

Welcome back, we have only started to scratch the surface of what all is possible through nostr.

Small, nobody devs like me, spinning up social media clients over the weekend, is the killer nostr feature.

REPLY AND GET ZAPPED. LET’S KEEP IT SIMPLE.

AND YES, A QUOTE POST IS A REPLY. 😎

I am trying to make this happen. Primal need NWC and I was able to zap with Amethyst, but it required to confirm with the WOS app. thoughts?

Wow nobody has zapped me yet. Rofl

I am trying to make this happen. Primal need NWC and I was able to zap with Amethyst, but it required to confirm with the WOS app. thoughts?

Indeed.

(I haven't tried this with other clients other than amethyst)

Yes. You will need to set your VPN outside of the US to open the app itself and send/recieve.

That said, you dont need to have your VPN set outside the US to recieve zaps from others on nostr, or send zaps to others

(at least on amethyst it'll let me zap without a VPN on at all as long as i have the balance already in WoS to do so)

Strike - KYC

Speed wallet - KYC for benefits

Or my personal favorite;

Wallet of Satoshi - No KYC, but gave the united states the middle finger like a true bitcoiner would, so you'll need a VPN to use it, but it's the wallet all the OGs started with when nostr was created and has been here since the beginning.