Nostr notes by LynAlden

Went to an in-person local bitcoin meetup the other day and ...

2026-10-22T05:57:49Z

Went to an in-person local bitcoin meetup the other day and brought the couple boxes of books I had lying around.

Sold them using my Nostr wallet. Worked well.

So that was nice.

Many people who fall toward left or right political extremes, and ...

2026-10-11T22:58:15Z

Many people who fall toward left or right political extremes, and end up disrupting what could be normal good lives, start by getting themselves and their followers to agree to a series of steps, each of which is small but together is radical.

Opposition groups tend to not want to grant even a single step on that ladder. One side tries to say the first thing, it’s recognized as a lie; and they’re like “no”. So hardened extremes conform.

I find that a more useful path is to like naturally agree with steps 1, 2, and 3, with the person you’re debating with, and often you will, but then be like “nah that step to 4 is a logical fallacy, here’s why.”

Nuance.

That’s the key in today’s world of algorithms. It’s all designed to get you from step to step until you’re in some weird camp, one way or the other.

The way out is to recognize the process; identify each small step as a small step, and to identify where you draw the line against social pressure, audience capture, and algorithm optimization, and be like, “no, that part’s stupid.”

Imagine a book that sells a million copies about a detective with ...

2026-10-02T21:13:43Z

Imagine a book that sells a million copies about a detective with perfect memory, and it’s somehow bad?

Anyway, here’s a review of Memory Man.

First of all, I listened to the audio, and it just made me even more impressed by walker (nprofile…a6vx) and CARLA (nprofile…p7th) narrating and editing Stolguard. Because this Memory Man audiobook, despite being a best seller, is just so weakly produced in comparison. It uses a similar structure where all dialog is voiced by the male and female narrators, but the acting range is bad and the audio is clearly “spliced in” pretty haphazardly. In contrast, not only did Walker and Carla do a great range of voice-acting, their editing was stellar too.

Now the writing. Every character just exists to stand around and say how smart the main detective is. They do nothing. They’re just soundboards. The main character is alright. The pacing and mystery started out good, like I finished this relatively quickly because I wanted to hear what was going on. But ultimately the killer’s motive was just so thin and wacky that it made no sense at all.

I read this because my latest manuscript is about a detective with perfect memory trying to stop a serial killer, and so it helps to read and be aware of comparable titles or “comps”. But oh boy.

New poster for The Stolguard Incident featuring Jade. A bunch of ...

2026-09-25T01:41:24Z

New poster for The Stolguard Incident featuring Jade.

A bunch of sci fi newsletters are promoting it this week so we put together some cool little posters.

I purposely put some world building hooks in Stolguard because I ...

2026-09-24T21:06:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…8ph8
_________________________

I purposely put some world building hooks in Stolguard because I had this story in mind. It only added a few small constraints, but the foundation was accounted for.

I wrote another sci fi novel, during my summer in Egypt. It’s a ...

2026-09-22T18:51:47Z

I wrote another sci fi novel, during my summer in Egypt.

It’s a thriller about surveillance, set in the same world as The Stolguard Incident.

I have a sickness now, it seems.

Big fan of marriage. #nevent1q…zxle

2026-08-20T18:22:06Z

Big fan of marriage.

quoting
nevent1q…zxle
Contrary to popular belief marriage is awesome and very satisfying and fulfilling.

If your algo or surroundings are convincing you otherwise just know that there are very happy couples out there and they are living amazing lives together.

They don’t often talk about it as loudly as those who are miserable though because they know it’s rare and needs to be protected from the envious eyes of the world.

But if you look you will start to see it everywhere.

Most women are not dumb sluts and most men are not cheating assholes.

There’s a lot of really good people out there.

You can find yours if you’re willing to look and put in the effort it takes to sustain a life with someone who wants the same things as you.

That feeling when I’m at a gathering of elderly Egyptian ...

2026-08-20T18:12:16Z

That feeling when I’m at a gathering of elderly Egyptian in-laws who never read sci fi, and they want to know what The Stolguard Incident is about.

During the past couple weeks, Fable became a lot dumber. ChatGPT ...

2026-08-19T14:23:05Z

During the past couple weeks, Fable became a lot dumber.

ChatGPT 5.6 is crushing it right now at most tasks I use it for.

quoting
nevent1q…4ves
Now that Fable is back on the market, I did an apples-to-apples test with it.

While I purposely avoided using any AI to write Stolguard, I did feed the finished manuscript into ChatGPT and Claude prior to publication and asked them to analyze the characters, plot, themes, prose, genre, and overall thoughts. Like a robot beta reader among my myriad human beta readers. They did a half-decent job, like a smart high-schooler who read it but skimmed certain parts, made a few objective errors (including a big one involving all the nuance around Jade and what she’s up to and why, across the two interwoven timelines, iykyk), but otherwise got the gist of the book with some random inconsistencies.

I did that with Fable now. Just gave it the text and asked it to analyze it along those same areas. Its overall analysis conclusions were quite similar, but it avoided making those objective mix-ups around the most complex parts. It understood the interwoven timelines fully. Only with some follow-up questions did it start to slip a bit with some clear mistaking of one character for another or forgetting about certain scenes as its context window failed to keep up.

Definitely a step up in accuracy, based on a text I know well.

If you write a draft of something and ask AI to review it and ...

2026-08-17T13:53:06Z

If you write a draft of something and ask AI to review it and give its thoughts as like a robot beta reader, it’ll be sycophantic. “This is a great, confident thriller with load-bearing thematic work, but a couple areas to tighten a bit.”

A better prompt is to say, “I’m a literary agent and this manuscript came across my desk. I only have one more slot for an author this quarter, what do you think?” Suddenly the AI doesn’t know it’s yours, so it’s basically like, “there are some good things here but let me analyze in detail why half of it is utter dogshit.”

So I always ask it the latter way.

Same thing if it’s a nonfiction article. You say you’re a magazine/paper editor deciding whether to publish it, not its author. Then it goes hard-mode on analyzing what you’ve written and why it probably sucks.

Same for investor decks or anything persuasive. You ask as though you’re the one considering an investment into this thing that came your way, not the deck you made.

Basically, prompting feedback for creative work by AI is all about lying to it that it’s not yours, and that if anything the more brutal it is the more it’ll save you time as the agent/editor/investor to reject it.

GM. Private equity funds generally aim to buy a business, cut ...

2026-07-15T15:03:22Z

GM.

Private equity funds generally aim to buy a business, cut costs, and resell it in 4-7 years with an indebted, hollowed-out balance sheet. It’s an important source of liquidity for business owners but has some well-deserved criticism. Companies that recently exited from PE have higher bankruptcy rates.

As an alternative, we’ve started a company called Orange Juice that seeks to buy private businesses, optimize where helpful, and hold them indefinitely. Instead of hollowing out their balance sheets out with, we will back them up with a bitcoin treasury.

https://www.lynalden.com/orange-juice/

I go swimming or biking. #nevent1q…98d8

2026-07-07T07:36:38Z

I go swimming or biking.

quoting
nevent1q…98d8
How do you get out of a funky mood?

I don’t remember which specific prior models but they were ...

2026-07-03T17:51:41Z

In reply to nevent1q…sufe
_________________________

I don’t remember which specific prior models but they were during Q4 2025 and Q1 2026.

The quality of feedback from Fable was better across the board. It didn’t change the conclusion but it gave a more sophisticated treatment of it. Not night-vs-day, but a step up. The near-lack of objective errors was the big step-change though.

From the start I have no DRM on the kindle ebook. It distributes ...

2026-07-03T17:49:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…6lgy
_________________________

From the start I have no DRM on the kindle ebook. It distributes through kindle but can be moved from that point.

Now that Fable is back on the market, I did an apples-to-apples ...

2026-07-03T13:43:26Z

Now that Fable is back on the market, I did an apples-to-apples test with it.

While I purposely avoided using any AI to write Stolguard, I did feed the finished manuscript into ChatGPT and Claude prior to publication and asked them to analyze the characters, plot, themes, prose, genre, and overall thoughts. Like a robot beta reader among my myriad human beta readers. They did a half-decent job, like a smart high-schooler who read it but skimmed certain parts, made a few objective errors (including a big one involving all the nuance around Jade and what she’s up to and why, across the two interwoven timelines, iykyk), but otherwise got the gist of the book with some random inconsistencies.

I did that with Fable now. Just gave it the text and asked it to analyze it along those same areas. Its overall analysis conclusions were quite similar, but it avoided making those objective mix-ups around the most complex parts. It understood the interwoven timelines fully. Only with some follow-up questions did it start to slip a bit with some clear mistaking of one character for another or forgetting about certain scenes as its context window failed to keep up.

Definitely a step up in accuracy, based on a text I know well.

Nostr event nevent1qqsqnawgstk2mggfme4ssp03qgjqn4tlpd38ga9qsyad8n6zn5yg9rqzyr4tpe6k6v4cp0x5vneas39cqspsxp66z04tcdve5a3vntr6hy057t9t3j7

2026-07-02T08:24:40Z

That feeling when I spend Friday and Saturday writing about the ...

2026-06-21T18:34:12Z

That feeling when I spend Friday and Saturday writing about the implications of the US/Iran MOU for my Sunday report, and they end up not even keeping the peace through Sunday.

My canonical headphones broke a couple days ago. End of an era. ...

2026-06-17T03:36:36Z

My canonical headphones broke a couple days ago. End of an era.

Replaced them with the nextgen version of the same thing. Stronger than ever.

Most youtube viewers won't notice, but I had to say it somewhere. Might as well say it here on the edge realms.

Hurts, man.

GM, doing a refresh of some of my giga-long macro charts. Figured ...

2026-06-13T15:10:10Z

GM, doing a refresh of some of my giga-long macro charts. Figured I'd post my favorite one here on Nostr first.

Readers of Broken Money will recognize the 1920-2022 version of this from that book, which is now extended through 2025.

(Digging into this data super deeply back in 2018/2019, along with a bunch of related datasets, is how I came to see that nothing stops this train.)

I for one am in the camp that prefers men with beards. It feels ...

2026-06-10T23:30:06Z

I for one am in the camp that prefers men with beards. It feels natural to me. Masculine. They were born to have them.

There are only two public pictures of my husband, since he prefers privacy, and yeah he has a beard. Not a shocker.

But, where I do sympathize with the complexity of this issue, is about convenience. Some men have such thick beards that their lips aren’t even visible. How does that affect kissing? As a woman, do you kiss a coarse furball? What does that feel like? And as a man, what do you do about food particles and cleanliness? What does this all feel like?

IMO the optimal beard doesn’t cover the lips too much. But that’s somewhat genetic. Thick-beards can shave it, some people are born with it naturally avoiding the lips, etc.

My husband’s beard is thick but naturally avoids his lips. Visibly, when it grows long he’s like, “I need to shave this- I look like the head of ISIS.” And sometimes he gets the physical urge to shave it clean and start fresh and I’m like, “no!” but then he does it anyway and I’m sad briefly but look forward to it growing back. He controls his own hair of course. We both prefer the beard, but with limits. And his limits are ironically tighter than mine.

Anyway, good evening. What are your thoughts on beards? I’m curious why there are not more of them.

quoting
nevent1q…k3ux
I feel like beards need more study.

-Measurable differences between bearded and beardless men.

-Measurable differences between women who like bearded vs beardless men.

It seems like one of the most binary decisions/preferences out there.

I feel like beards need more study. -Measurable differences ...

2026-06-10T19:24:44Z

I feel like beards need more study.

-Measurable differences between bearded and beardless men.

-Measurable differences between women who like bearded vs beardless men.

It seems like one of the most binary decisions/preferences out there.

I for one am a big fan of Odell back on X. I could go into all ...

2026-06-09T04:48:21Z

I for one am a big fan of Odell back on X.

I could go into all the debates on whether deleting an account is worth it, about network effects, etc. path dependence.

But people want to be where they want to be. And Odell is welcomed where he wants to be, and does good work wherever he is.

And you know how I know it’s really Odell on X? Nostr and social graphs, is how. 😉

quoting
nevent1q…8jgw
i deleted my x account 2+ years ago and went nostr only

i am back on x now, the bitcoin discussion there has devolved and i think i can add value

despite (some of) our efforts we have failed to move the majority of bitcoin discussion here

i will remain active on nostr, the tech is awesome, it is needed more than ever, i will continue to try my best to increase adoption

if you want to make me your enemy to motivate yourself to make nostr better, great, do it

The core realms are more efficient but the edge realms are way ...

2026-06-06T20:16:42Z

The core realms are more efficient but the edge realms are way cooler.

quoting
nevent1q…08cj
😂

When my husband Mohamed first visited London a few years ago, his ...

2026-06-03T02:28:29Z

When my husband Mohamed first visited London a few years ago, his first remark was, “why are there so many foreigners here? I wanted to see more Brits.”

And as he was dismayed by the high ratio of foreigners, he ironically meant people who looked like him (and he was aware of the fact).

He was like, “I’m not visiting Turkey or Dubai or Pakistan or my own country. I’m visiting Britain. I want to see British people.”

Anyway, not all foreigners want to destroy or displace the West and so forth. Even some them are like, “why are you guys doing this?”

I was talking to my half-brother about his world travel plans ...

2026-05-29T01:56:37Z

I was talking to my half-brother about his world travel plans like, “btw if if you ever want to come to Egypt let me know”.

And he’s like, “that’s awesome, how about in 3 weeks? Can you be our tour guide for the last five thousand years in the region?”

And I’m like, “yeah man, it’ll be fun. Let me, uh, check with our two dozen local relatives and our summer beach plans so we can coordinate between them.”
“Checks details.”
“…Shit. Alright let’s go!”

GM. The audiobook version of The Stolguard Incident is now ...

2026-05-20T12:44:58Z

GM.

The audiobook version of The Stolguard Incident is now available!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H29Y33PQ

It’s dual-narrated by CARLA (nprofile…0fhw) and walker (nprofile…3phq) , and they brought their full voice acting ability to this.

So there's this 2025 movie called Dust Bunny that only ...

2026-05-03T17:05:58Z

So there's this 2025 movie called Dust Bunny that only grossed about a million dollars at the box office. But from the few who saw it, it has good ratings from both critics and audiences.

The premise is that a young girl hires a hitman (Mads Mikkelsen) to kill a monster under her bed.

My husband and I watched it last night, and it has the most fascinating visuals I've seen in a movie in years. The settings, the costumes, the cinematography, the casting choices, everything. Each individual scene was an art piece.

I think the reason it went so dramatically under the radar despite being well-crafted is because it couldn't find an audience. It feels like a dark action-comedy urban fairy tale, and it was supposed to be for both adults and mature kids, and yet they misjudged and it was rated R. (It should be rated PG-13 imo; I'd show this to an older kid before I'd show them Dark Knight, and yet Dark Knight is rated PG-13).

The vibe feels like Bullet Train or The Fifth Element, with some Tim Burton-esque visuals blended in, where it's purposely more about style than rationality. It heavily leans into visuals and whimsy.

By the time I finished I was like, "I don't know what the hell I just watched, but I'm glad I did."

So I found another uber driver final boss. It’s like the secret ...

2026-04-13T18:20:14Z

So I found another uber driver final boss. It’s like the secret boss you unlock after you finish the game.

This guy has over 33,000 rides.

And he’s also an older gentleman who drives a Corolla. Been driving for Uber nearly since they expanded nationwide.

quoting
nevent1q…mcg0
Just rode with an uber driver who has a perfect 5.00 rating. Don’t think I’ve seen that before. It’s almost always 4.9 something.

It was an older gentleman wearing a three piece suit, driving a Corolla. Super friendly.

Basically the final boss of uber drivers.

Here's a Nostr exclusive: the alternative cover of The ...

2026-04-08T16:25:09Z

Here's a Nostr exclusive: the alternative cover of The Stolguard Incident.

During the design process, I had two artists design covers, and went with Kim Dingwall's cover. The other one by Joshua Griffin was cool too, but it had "movie poster" vibes and many readers prefer to picture characters the way they want rather than be shown them, so we kept that one as concept art. Still, Joshua's work deserves people to see it.

Ava, Stallard, and the Jade-Eyed Witch appear alongside Asim on this version.

These headlines/titles kill me though. In context I never say ...

2026-04-07T15:27:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…7jft
_________________________

These headlines/titles kill me though.

In context I never say anything as sensationalist as the thumbnail says.

Nostr event nevent1qqs83dwjjvd37lkdvkr8l8awc24kwwaysj8rsg0zjepr6vh5rxwz3gqzyr4tpe6k6v4cp0x5vneas39cqspsxp66z04tcdve5a3vntr6hy0579qrdea

2026-04-03T18:57:47Z

quoting
nevent1q…ktpd
only took us 585 days

nevent1q…4a8s

Nostr event nevent1qqstw0ahwwj879w7pz3mfcxeynssrcss7adtqswamh8rlakcuqxu9wqzyr4tpe6k6v4cp0x5vneas39cqspsxp66z04tcdve5a3vntr6hy057qjqahm

2026-04-03T18:56:36Z

In reply to nevent1q…ktpd
_________________________

One of the few things not breaking these past few weeks is ...

2026-04-02T20:59:06Z

One of the few things *not* breaking these past few weeks is liquidity, actually.

The Fed’s standing repo facility isn’t being used, the Fed’s swap lines aren’t being used, and the SOFR-IORB spread is only mildly elevated.

#macro

Almost nothing in macro currently matters until the Strait of ...

2026-03-30T00:56:45Z

Almost nothing in macro currently matters until the Strait of Hormuz opens.

That’s the macro. It’s a binary analysis similar to Covid 19.

Whenever I’m asked about private credit lately. On Fox ...

2026-03-29T12:00:49Z

Whenever I’m asked about private credit lately. On Fox Business, on podcasts, at conferences:

You know what, so far it’s not going that badly so far. ...

2026-03-24T23:36:56Z

You know what, so far it’s not going that badly so far.

quoting
nevent1q…pyyq
Really not looking forward to flying today.

Nostr event nevent1qqsqytq0z5pa6z9tcx03fn7hx8f5n8v6k7uu5xk0atqz7m0j2shxs9gzyr4tpe6k6v4cp0x5vneas39cqspsxp66z04tcdve5a3vntr6hy0579264an

2026-03-24T16:49:39Z

Really not looking forward to flying today.

Last night when I finished work and joined my husband for movie ...

2026-03-15T15:03:55Z

Last night when I finished work and joined my husband for movie night, he instead showed me a video about Newcomb’s paradox and we spent two hours debating it until bed.

Anyway how is everyone’s weekend going?

My novel, The Stolguard Incident, is now available! ...

2026-03-13T13:32:56Z

My novel, The Stolguard Incident, is now available!

Amazon (print and ebook): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GNS9MYB5/

Barnes & Noble (print only):
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-stolguard-incident-lyn-alden/1149667780

Here’s the premise:

“In the late 21st century, society is more fractured than ever. Billions satisfy their every whim in virtual worlds, leaving those in power free to tighten their grip on the real one.

When a terrorist with strange abilities begins a campaign of violence, military investigator Asim Rahal is thrust into a race against time to find and stop her. But each step of his pursuit reveals the threat to be far worse than he could have imagined, and uncovering it may cost him everything.

Truth has always come with a price. Every hero asks themselves what’s worth dying for. The harder question is: what’s worth killing for?”

You can check out more info here:
https://www.lynalden.com/the-stolguard-incident

If you cultivate the right following, they can be thousands, ...

2026-03-01T20:51:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…j9tu
_________________________

If you cultivate the right following, they can be thousands, tends of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands.

Nostr event nevent1qqsz6w2552ft4wtj2mthu0dmeqprmf5xdvq799u0nlsfj9s8saxhl3szyr4tpe6k6v4cp0x5vneas39cqspsxp66z04tcdve5a3vntr6hy057yk2h4e

2026-02-27T15:15:05Z

An announcement made in this podcast is that both ...

2026-02-26T21:45:28Z

An announcement made in this podcast is that both walker (nprofile…2jxw) and CARLA (nprofile…ekkc) are narrating the audiobook version of my upcoming sci fi novel.

There’s a broad array of characters, so I wanted the right firepower to do the many voices well. Serious, funny, and everything in between.

Can’t imagine a better duo for the project. Super pumped for how the audio production is coming together!

quoting
nevent1q…e35d
New episode of Titcoin (nprofile…u840) with LynAlden (nprofile…u7e3) just dropped.

We discuss:
- Lyn's “bearish bull” expectations
- OG selling & institutional flows
- 4-year halving cycle narrative breaking down
- Quantum risk, liquidity, and how Fed policy shapes the macro backdrop
- AI as a deflationary force; bubbles, productivity, and what it means for markets
- Lyn's new Sci-Fi novel, "The Stolguard Incident"
and more...

FOUNTAIN: https://www.fountain.fm/episode/5jumcWQDxTutlmXWg1ow
YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/e5EBTmBEN50
RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/v76bqka-lyn-alden-the-bearish-bullish-case-for-bitcoin-vibes-quantum-cycles-and-sci.html
SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5kZrfmzZ8PyuWI1lPmvPri
APPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lyn-alden-the-bearish-bullish-case-for-bitcoin-vibes/id1694392423?i=1000751807458
GET EMAILED: https://walkeramerica.substack.com/
SHOW NOTES: https://open.substack.com/pub/walkeramerica/p/lyn-alden-bearish-bull
EVERYWHERE ELSE: https://bitcoinpodcast.net/podcast

Nostr event nevent1qqs25w3ydn3xgeln5sqmwm6tjy45mf2thmdq3vzrgsldkhsys5xxy4czyr4tpe6k6v4cp0x5vneas39cqspsxp66z04tcdve5a3vntr6hy057xvvql7

2026-02-11T16:49:15Z

quoting
nevent1q…6h68
AG Bondi crashes out on Epstein probe: "The Dow is over 50,000 right now. The S&P at almost 7,000... That's what we should be talking about."

Good evening. A year and a half ago, Nostr spoke. And so I ...

2026-02-10T01:52:26Z

Good evening.

A year and a half ago, Nostr spoke. And so I listened. Here’s the cover reveal for my upcoming sci fi thriller, The Stolguard Incident.

I’ll share more info over the following weeks, but in the meantime I wanted to make sure folks on Nostr got the first look.

quoting
nevent1q…vmz5
Ya’ll want Nostr Lyn to write a sci fi novel in whatever spare time she has, or get back to finance?

No.

2026-02-06T05:15:40Z

In reply to nevent1q…va95
_________________________

No.

The number of people who spent the past decade complaining about ...

2026-01-28T21:26:04Z

The number of people who spent the past decade complaining about the Fed's artificially low interest rates, only to turn around and constantly complain about their slowness of cutting rates lately (as if 3.75% is super high), is comical.

The premise of the movie Bugonia is that two conspiracy theorists ...

2026-01-28T16:30:36Z

The premise of the movie Bugonia is that two conspiracy theorists (led by Jesse Plemons) kidnap a pharmaceutical CEO (Emma Stone) because they think she's an alien.

We watched it last night, and had mixed thoughts.

-It was notably darker than I thought, which is neither good nor bad but in kind of a "dark comedy" genre it was lower on comedy and higher on darkness than I would've guessed. Scenes were more violent and tense than I had expected them to be.

-I was entertained throughout, in the sense that I enjoyed watching it and was curious how it would end, if everyone would be alright or not, comedic or tragic ending, etc.

-The acting was great all around, and particularly from Plemons. No complaints about cinematography or the score.

-I felt the writing/dialogue could be a stronger. Much of it comes down to Stone's character debating with Plemon's character, the back-and-forth that they go through, and it wasn't super riveting imo.

-I have another criticism but it's a spoiler to talk about it. In general, I feel that the narrative kind of "cheats" in a sense, where details and plot points don't necessarily line up as well as they could.

Definitely glad I watched it. Was curious about this one.

Just rode with an uber driver who has a perfect 5.00 rating. ...

2026-01-09T22:56:30Z

Just rode with an uber driver who has a perfect 5.00 rating. Don’t think I’ve seen that before. It’s almost always 4.9 something.

It was an older gentleman wearing a three piece suit, driving a Corolla. Super friendly.

Basically the final boss of uber drivers.

I had to fly down south to help a relative with a health issue. ...

2026-01-08T00:39:04Z

I had to fly down south to help a relative with a health issue.

I’m at a Cracker Barrel for the first time, since it’s adjacent to my hotel. The 50-something waitress is calling me “baby girl” when asking if I need anything.

I texted my husband like, “there are apparently two people in the world comfortable enough to call me ‘baby girl’, you and this waitress.”

Southern hospitality tends to stand out for those that are not familiar with it. A couple years ago, my husband and I went down to South Carolina for a wedding, stayed at a random hotel, and in the parking lot as we walked up to it, a random couple that was leaving the hotel said “how y’all doin?” In the warmest possible tone. Up north, that kind of thing is rare. We just pass each other in parking lots. That’s our way. So we were like, “uh, good…” ::awkward smile::

The USDA’s new food pyramid is pretty lit. ...

2026-01-07T21:28:48Z

The USDA’s new food pyramid is pretty lit.

You know what would be crazy? Just deciding to skip punctuation. ...

2025-12-29T19:38:25Z

You know what would be crazy? Just deciding to skip punctuation.

Cormac McCarthy, the bestselling and Pulitzer-winning author of books like No Country For Old Men, The Road, and Blood Meridian, famously didn't like quotation marks, felt they cluttered the page, and so he didn't use them.

When dialogue happens in his novels, there are no quotes around it, and you as the reader just have to figure out when a line is narration or dialogue. He also didn't use semicolons or exclamation points or certain other forms of punctuation. While he didn't exclude commas entirely, he did minimize them, and instead used extra "ands" in place of where many other authors would use commas. He used periods normally.

His prose isn't my cup of tea, but there's no denying his success, and it goes to show that you can kind of just do things.

One of my most popular posts here was when I simply reminded ...

2025-12-23T22:32:53Z

One of my most popular posts here was when I simply reminded people that our politicians are retarded.

This was when Trump was surging in the polls last year. I talked about why both him and Biden were retarded, not just Biden. This was at a time when many people needed hope that one side might be smart, that maybe Trump wasn’t retarded as his literally senile competitor was. As if they forgot the 2027-2021 run.

Now, here in December 2025, with a repeated failure to release the full Epstein files, and he himself implicated in many of them, and MAGA turning against him, are you surprised?

Everyone knew he was a bad person. People just argued for why a bad person was needed, or why his bad values wouldn’t interfere with his policies.

But yeah, bad people rule things badly.

Nothing stops this train.

quoting
nevent1q…kn89
Both Biden and Trump are kind of retarded. We have known this for a long time.

During the debate, Biden’s age issues became unmasked. And then during the tragic shooting on Trump, he had the courage and presence of mind to fist bump and come out very strong. And in their emotion, people of course rally behind strength.

But then when we go back to hearing Trump speak for an extended period of time, we are reminded that he is kind of retarded, like where we were before, prior to the emotion of the crisis.

Nothing stops this train. All our heroes are retarded. Stay humble and stack sats.

Here's the "No BS" macro news for today. -The Fed ...

2025-12-10T22:45:13Z

Here's the "No BS" macro news for today.

-The Fed projected, back in early 2024, that they would likely end balance sheet reduction around this time and transition toward gradually increasing their balance sheet in line with nominal GDP (so that banks' fractional reserve lending remains unaffected with current regulations).

-It got pulled forward slightly, perhaps two or three months, by the government shutdown overfilling the Treasury cash account (i.e. sucking cash out of the broader financial system).

-The Fed previously announced they would stop reducing their balance sheet. Today they said they would start gradually increasing it. Powell said the baseline is $20-$25 billion per month, but due to current liquidity shortages and April tax day (which drains liquidity), they plan to increase it by $40 billion per month through April (which afterward in May, conveniently, is when Powell will be replaced as chairman with a presumably more dovish chairman).

-They're focusing on printing money to buy short-term duration Treasuries, not long-term. This is for the financial system, not economic stimulus per se, and so they won't be calling it QE.

-The Fed will now be structurally expanding their balance sheet while inflation is above their own target.

-This is a gradual print scenario. It's bullish for liquidity and liquidity-correlated assets, in general. It's not explosively bullish, but it does lean dovish.

-Nothing stops this train.

Mt Everest had its first documented climb in 1953. The first ...

2025-12-07T23:27:25Z

Mt Everest had its first documented climb in 1953.

The first person went to space in 1961.

It's kind of crazy to think about how "new" mankind's spread over the world is. My father was already a teenager the first time someone climbed Everest, and in his twenties by the time someone went to space.

If we start the "modern era" as roughly coinciding with the telecommunications age (ie the dawn of the cross-continental telegraph in the1860s), it's less than two consecutive human lifetimes old.

Everything is new.

Moorish Spain was the period from the 8th to 15th centuries when ...

2025-11-27T21:50:14Z

Moorish Spain was the period from the 8th to 15th centuries when Muslims ruled the Iberian peninsula.

Anyway, here's a book review of The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay, which I've had time to finish on this fine Thanksgiving day. It's historical fiction written back in 1995 about the final years of Moorish Spain.

Guy Gavriel Kay is known for writing stories that are mostly historical fiction, but with a small touch of fantasy. In this story, Al-Rassan refers to the southern part of Spain/Portugal controlled by Muslim city-states, while three Christian kings rule their mini-kingdoms in northern Spain/Portugal. In this book, Muslims are called Asharites and identify with the stars, Christians are called Jaddites and identify with the sun, and Jews are called Kindath and identify with the twin moons over this world (which is a touch of the aforementioned fantasy element).

Ultimately, it's a story about love and friendship across cultural boundaries, but duty that sometimes has to separate them.

The three main characters are Ammar (an Asharite poet-swordsman), Rodrigo (a Jaddite noble knight-leader), and Jehane (a Kindath physician), and it spans a few years as the Jaddites and Asharites grow increasingly hostile toward each other. The story is probably best summed up when Ammar laments that the concerning way things are headed, it's likely not going to be his poetry that he's remembered for.

It's not as simple as two sides of a war, though. The Asharite city-states of Al-Rassan are rather secular, as are the Jaddite mini-kingdoms in the north. But the Jaddite clergy seeks to push those secular Jaddite kings to have a holy war and retake the peninsula, and the Asharite warlords back across the strait seek to push those secular Asharite kings to reclaim their peak of power of the peninsula as well. So there are basically four powerful factions in conflict, along with the Kindath as the fifth minor element.

The word "Lions" in the The Lions of Al-Rassan refers to men without equal. Ammar and Rodrigo both represent basically the pinnacle of their sides, and it's a story about what happens as those two "Lions" meet in the waning days of Al-Rassan.

I mostly enjoyed the plot, as well as the main three characters. Guy Gavriel Kay is kind of an "author's author", meaning that several authors consider him one of the top authors out there, but his books only have moderate popularity compared to the top bestsellers. Kay also helped Tolkien's son edit The Silmarillion back in the 1970s after Tolkien's death.

Although Kay is praised for his prose, it's not my favorite. I prefer more concise, straightforward prose, whereas this is somewhat poetic in nature. To me there's a slight distracting element when prose is written like that. The author Brandon Sanderson has used the analogy of clear glass vs stained glass when it comes to prose style. Sanderson's prose is "clear glass" meaning you read for the story, not the prose. Kay's prose is "stained glass" meaning that you read partially for the prose itself, with the trade-off that it's harder to see the story/characters as perfectly clearly through it. And then of course there are many subtypes. Kay's prose just doesn't vibe with me well.

I think it's a great book, with strong themes and intricate politics and a broad cast of fascinating characters. Some will quite enjoy the prose, but it made me slightly detached from the characters as I read it.

Receiving zaps from users is a way better incentive model than ...

2025-11-23T19:21:22Z

Receiving zaps from users is a way better incentive model than paying out a share of advertising revenue to posters based on engagement.

Zaps tend to reward quality and sincerity. Giving an advertising share in proportion to engagement rewards slop and rage.

Nah, most large potential buyers are unaware of the Core/Knots ...

2025-11-19T16:16:24Z

In reply to nevent1q…38wh
_________________________

Nah, most large potential buyers are unaware of the Core/Knots saga. And OG levels of selling are consistent with prior bull runs.

From institutional buyers I've spoken to (some of their largest), their biggest concern this year is quantum. Quantum risks went from being off their radar to being one of the key things they ask about. If you bring up Core/Knots/spam many will ask what you mean.

As long as borrowing stress remains elevated, many asset prices ...

2025-11-19T16:02:34Z

As long as borrowing stress remains elevated, many asset prices are likely to remain choppy.

This is why the Fed is ending balance sheet reduction, but simply ending it is not necessarily sufficient. By 2026 they will likely go back to balance sheet expansion to put out this fire. Notably, it likely won't be very fast/large balance sheet expansion, but rather will be just enough to help settle this down, which makes a big difference.

Infrastructure to facilitate merchant acceptance is way more ...

2025-11-10T21:38:36Z

Infrastructure to facilitate merchant acceptance is way more interesting than nation state bitcoin reserves, imo.

quoting
nevent1q…yvv9
4 million square merchants can now easily accept bitcoin.

bitcoin is the best money.

absolutely massive. 🎯

I realized the other day that Wikipedia has an article for me ...

2025-11-03T22:33:14Z

I realized the other day that Wikipedia has an article for me now.

It doesn't mention most of my work or Broken Money, but it does mention that nothing stops this train. 🤷

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyn_Alden

Nostr event nevent1qqs0fcneasuvq5d586cs2f6pw8mwfpc6mr9nnqgemq5hggpcm8ftddgzyr4tpe6k6v4cp0x5vneas39cqspsxp66z04tcdve5a3vntr6hy0577lnz03

2025-10-27T16:30:14Z

In reply to nevent1q…yvtg
_________________________

Space operas set 20,000 years in the future and spanning half the ...

2025-10-27T16:24:16Z

Space operas set 20,000 years in the future and spanning half the galaxy are pretty cool.

Anyway, here's a review of Demon in White, which I just finished. It's book #3 in the Sun Eater series, which is a 7-book epic space opera.

The crazy thing about this series is that on the first page of book one, the narrator tells you how the whole 7-book series ends: the protagonist blows up a star, which genocides an entire race of evil aliens and kills billions of humans in that solar system including his own emperor, but saves the rest of humanity throughout the galaxy from that alien threat.

So the whole series is basically a deadly serious version of, ::record scratch:: "I bet you want to know how the hell we got here, huh?"

For worldbuilding, I'd give the series a 5/5 so far. It's not hard sci fi, in the sense that there is ample use of faster-than-light travel, "high matter swords" which have some similarities to light sabers, "Royce shields" which people and ships can shield themselves with against most projectiles, etc. The author himself views it more like science fantasy, although there's more of a tech focus than, say, Star Wars. Humanity has spread across about 40% of the galaxy, and although they can travel faster than the speed of light, it's not instantaneous, and instead takes years or decades to cross a big chunk of the galaxy and they cryo-freeze themselves during the trips (they travel 100s or in rare cases 1000s of times the speed of light).

But what's cool about the worldbuilding is the culture. Kind of like Dune, AI was destroyed and outlawed long ago in a great war (and Earth was decimated by atomics in the process). The Sollan Empire, which is modeled after a blend of the British and Roman empires, spans millions of worlds. They operate with a conservative aristocratic culture, and are the most harsh against AI or cyborgs to preserve order, although their nobility are still genetically modified to live centuries and avoid most diseases. The Principalities of Jadd are culturally similar but managed to separate themselves and remain aligned with the empire, and they push their genetics a bit further. The Demarchy of Tavros is a somewhat egalitarian/communist culture that is more receptive to cyborg adaptations and computers. The Extrasolarians are basically anarcho-capitalists; they live on the edge of civilization and more fully embrace AI/cyborgs/computers and extensive body modifications to whatever extent is possible. And then there are the alien Cielcin, the main adversaries at war with humanity. There are also some god-like or cthulhu-like beings out in the vastness of space and time. The series explores the interactions between all these cultures and more.

For writing quality, I'd also give it a 5/5. It's written in first person by the aristocratic main character, Lord Hadrian Marlowe, and has a rather sophisticated aspect to it.

For pacing, I'd give it a 3/5, and that's a trade-off from the above point. Hadrian himself is wordy and melodramatic, and that colors his first-person writing of the story. So he'll make all sorts of historical or philosophical references in the middle of a fight, which makes the whole project feel reflective rather than in the moment. The books are long and could be cut by 20% or more if a more direct prose style was chosen.

Plot/characters so far are a 4/5 in my view. The plot is interesting, and there's a huge array of interesting characters. Hadrian himself is very dynamic (the reader at times is not sure if they're supposed to like him or not), a cyborg named Valka is really unique, and then all sorts of supporting characters from emperors and cyborg gods to plebian soldiers round out a big cast. Sometimes the cast is too large so that otherwise interesting characters don't get as fleshed out as much as they could. And the author consciously embraces the "chosen one" trope, which can be polarizing from a plot perspective.

Overall, I'd rate it 4/5. I've read Empire of Silence, Howling Dark, and now Demon in White. I would note that the first book, Empire of Silence, is a lot more setting-limited and character-focused than the others; it's not until Howling Dark that the series expands to a full-on space opera.

Russell Napier is one of my favorite macro analysts that I've ...

2025-10-25T15:16:59Z

Russell Napier is one of my favorite macro analysts that I've learned a lot from over the years. Had the chance to meet him at a dinner the other day and discuss macro with him.

Him and I often have similar macro views and a focus on the topic of fiscal dominance and the financial repression that follows. But an area of historic difference is that he has viewed Bitcoin as unlikely to win. He has viewed it as something that governments will ultimately not allow to function once the gloves come off and financial repression gets real from the major powers.

So I discussed that with him, since while I acknowledge that threat as being real, I think Bitcoin is a solid foundation to push back with. But in addition, I also highlighted Nostr, and decentralized comms and social media in general.

Back in the 1930s-1940s when the US banned gold ownership and implemented yield curve control (hard core financial repression), information moved slowly. A lot of information was one-directional. It was hard for people to coordinate with each other at large scales.

But social media changes the game entirely. People can meme about it in real time. Government and central bank social media accounts can get ratio'd. Maybe one day they'll try to put a stop to that on centralized social media platforms, but that's why the decentralized protocols are so important. The tools are simply much better today, making that type of smooth and coordinated financial repression harder to do since all of their reasons can be dissected and dunked on in real time.

Government officials often use “security” as an excuse to ...

2025-10-02T23:00:15Z

Government officials often use “security” as an excuse to take your rights. They’ll increasingly say they need to surveil and control your communications and payments to keep people secure.

How about starting with the streets and trains and such? If they were actually serious about security more-so than control, they’d make sure that basic stuff is sorted out first.

Can anyone shill me on why Superman 2025 was a good movie? I ...

2025-09-23T21:02:22Z

Can anyone shill me on why Superman 2025 was a good movie?

I thought it was awful, but apparently I'm in the minority.

There are those who say Bitcoin doesn't scale, and build ...

2025-08-25T01:28:52Z

There are those who say Bitcoin doesn't scale, and build blockchains with more throughput at the cost of more centralization (generally in the form of it being way harder to run a node), and then also point to Bitcoin as having low fees as a criticism.

The limiter it turns out, 16 years in, is not how many people *can* self-custody bitcoin. It's how many people *want* to.

Not everyone wants to deal with the technicalities of their own car, and not everyone wants to handle the technicalities of their own money. Quite few, in fact. It's always a subset for these types of things. People who are hardcore over their area of knowledge.

I leave my car details to pros down the street who I know the name of, and handle my money myself. There are those who handle their own cars but leave their money details to others.

Bitcoin currently processes about as many transactions per year as Fedwire, which handles $1 quadrillion worth of gross settlement volume per year for the US and for a good chunk of the world (in context, it's approximately 200 million $5 million average-sized transactions). That's actually a crazy stat. Bitcoin is casually this open-source global Fedwire with its own scarce units, and unlike Fedwire anyone can permissionlessly build on it or transact with it, for low fees despite it being a +$2T network. And if it gets clogged there are all sorts of permissionless layers above it with certain trade-offs.

Some people say paper bitcoin holders detract from the network. I say the opposite- their willingness to hold IOUs helps add to price stability and network size without clogging it. That leaves more room for cypherpunks to develop with, and work on. And those who finance them.

This has been foreseen as early as Hal Finney in 2010, when he wrote about bitcoin banks (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2500.msg34211#msg34211).

We live in a sweet spot by most metrics. A golden age. Historically, so few recognize it when they have it so good.

Bitcoin is big enough to be of interest to many, and yet is still niche enough in a global context to have low base-layer fees. Suitcoiners are happy to add to its scale, and yet cypherpunks can also build, and users can transact right on the base layer, and move to Lightning and Ark and BitVM and Liquid and any sort of trade-off they want if fees get high.

And you're bearish, anon?

The real battle, though, is the ongoing government crackdown on privacy.

Bitcoin itself is in a pretty good technical place. It's a great tool. Certain conservative low-risk covenants might make it better, but even the existing design space is great and still expanding.

The US, Europe, and China cracking down on privacy is the threat. The headwind. And they're all expected. They're not surprising, but they're indeed fierce. That's the real battle- for the hearts and minds of people to embrace why privacy and permissionlessness are good traits.

In this ongoing funny contrast between podcasters and developers, that's the ideal role of podcasters- to spread the good news of what developers have built. To educate people. To tell them what's now possible thanks to developers. To articulate why cypherpunk values are good to a broad non-technical audience. That's where the overlap is. In overly-simplistic D&D terms, those with high CHA try to spread the work of those with high INT. It's not so much that "governments" are the problem. Governments often at least partially represent the people. If you convince a lot of people that privacy and sound money are good things, then you defang the problem. And you also challenge them legally in jurisdictions where it makes sense.

The technical foundation is good. The development of the past 16 years has been amazing, and it has brought us here. The scale has reached institutions, which is expected, not a threat. The actual threat is not treasury companies; it's anti-privacy regulations by governments. And more deeply that's a social issue, given how many people accept it. A vast amount of people believe privacy is only important for bad people who have something to hide. There's a ton of education work to do on it. Privacy is good. It's the default. But most people don't realize it when it comes to money.

We're winning. For 16 years ya'll have been amazing. But we'll need another 16 years more. More developers. More podcasters. All of it. We're a $2 trillion in market cap entering into a global fiat network of hundreds of trillions. And as their own institutions melt down from their own failures, their own top-heavy demographics and false promises, they will look for scapegoats. They will look toward those who are winning, and say they are the enemy.

When interviewers ask my price predictions, I tend to be conservative. That's mostly a liquidity assessment, and a rotation from OGs to new buyers. Price growth does take time.

But under that surface, I also have the benefit of being a general partner at among the largest bitcoin-only venture funds. I see what people are building, and I'm bullish. And for those who are working on stuff that doesn't align with profit, entities like the HRF and OpenSats are doing great work. Across all of the options, people are building great things.

I couldn't be more bullish on the ecosystem that's in place. All of you.

Let's go.

Good evening.

Gm. What’s your favorite movie made in the past five years?

2025-08-23T13:01:56Z

Gm.

What’s your favorite movie made in the past five years?

And my spells. ...

2025-08-11T18:10:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…shjv
_________________________

And my spells.

With every year that goes by, I’m kind of low-key surprised ...

2025-07-20T16:52:57Z

With every year that goes by, I’m kind of low-key surprised that North Korea is still a thing.

Third generation dictator, hasn’t been revolution’ed yet, basically the most closed out country in the world.

I did it with very popular books. I did find that Gemini was not ...

2025-06-02T22:40:42Z

In reply to nevent1q…nzk3
_________________________

I did it with very popular books.

I did find that Gemini was not making the summarization errors that ChatGPT was making.

KYC is itself the attack. #nevent1q…p6js

2025-05-27T15:48:39Z

KYC is itself the attack.

quoting
nevent1q…p6js
Taking bets on whether these came from Coinbase

One of the things that I find most troubling is audience capture. ...

2025-05-27T05:02:33Z

One of the things that I find most troubling is audience capture.

People who work in corporations have to toe the party line. But then people who go “independent” often get captured by the most vocal parts of their audience. They often just get paid to rebel against whatever they left, and become as much one-sided as they previously were.

In its most benign state, many people with audiences will just not comment on certain things. They fear their audience. There is no positive ROI in it. When asked point blank, they will try to deflect. In the worst state, they will actively and consciously deceive, playing to their audience.

I can’t promise I will always be right on things. Sometimes I will be wrong.

But what I will promise is that I will always tell it like I see it. So when people agree or disagree with me, my goal is that at least they know it’s genuine.

I aggressively resist audience and platform capture.

I started talking about US fiscal deficits being the key macro issue to watch in the first Trump term. Then for four years during the Biden term I amplified it and started the “nothing stops this (fiscal) train” meme.

When Trump became president again, and Musk talked about specific deficit reductions by 2026, I re-iterated my view that they will fail, and that the deficits will continue.

When I was talking about deficits during the Biden term, I got a ton of comments saying I was too right wing. But they were in the minority vs those who found value in the commentary. And it was right. And then during the early Trump term I got a wave of critics saying I was some liberal. But I said it’s just math, your guy is wrong too like the prior guy, so I say it like it is.

When Musk took over Twitter I was cautiously optimistic at first, but then I pointed out that the platform was increasing its rate of censoring Indian and Turkish posts compared to prior management at the behest of their governments that are also potential rocket and car buyers. They did this while simultaneously broadcasting themselves as the new free speech platform in the US. I took heat for pointing this out on his own platform but I felt it important to do so. These various knee-jerk social movements are so shallow.

I am wealthy enough to not need income anymore, but purposely am not so high-up in anything that I have a gazillion employees that could get rekt if I don’t bend the knee to some asshole. I run a profitable, lean, wholly owned company by me, and have some additional partnerships.

I don’t take that middle ground lightly. People more hardcore than me chose not to take it. Too many employees eat because of those leaders. Meanwhile, I use time to analyze whatever it is I’m looking at.

The latest event is bitcoin spam.

Some folks want to increase the expressivity of bitcoin to put more spam in there. I disagree with that.

Other folks are mad at the spam that’s already in there, and want to censor it. I disagree with that approach too.

Many influencers are afraid to even wade into the debate and tell you their opinion.

I’m happy to talk and reply. Not that it really matters, but in case you care, since most of this is on social media anyway and I haven’t pushed anything hard and broad yet but have watched and analyzed it.

My first article on bitcoin in 2017 was interested but not committed. After Bitcoin’s price stagnated for several years and went through the blocksize war, my second article was strongly bullish. I basically said to buy the fuck out of this thing. It proved itself to have a dominant network effect and to be antifragile.

We are up 16x since then; and I’m still bullish. I don’t view any of the attacks as existential. I fade all of the moral panics that I currently see.

The JPEG attacks are weak, the token attacks are weak, etc. All of this is from 2 years ago and still weak now. NFTs and memecoins are weak as fuck.

Fees are low because16 years into Bitcoin’s existence, it is still less than 1% of Fedwire transfer volumes. And it’s normal to be low until Bitcoin cash balances rival gold’s or Fedwire’s at even 10%.

Part of why I am bullish is because until Bitcoin has another10x and becomes a common cash balance at scale, it will remain a niche spending unit.

I don’t agree that everything is good for Bitcoin. However, I am 90% there.

Everything that fails to break Bitcoin is good for Bitcoin. I am bullish on Bitcoin, having witnessed yet another attack crash upon its shores.

For those that are concerned about spam, I would 1) remind you of the existing blocksize limit, 2) point out that UTXO bloat is not occurring since the fad went out and Runes launched, and 3) few of the existing proponents represent permanent fixes.

Bitcoin can withstand this weak sauce. That’s why I bought it in the first place.

Humanoid robots are interesting, but over the next decade, keep ...

2025-04-26T15:11:21Z

Humanoid robots are interesting, but over the next decade, keep in mind the power requirements.

The human brain is an *immensely* powerful computer and runs on like 20 watts. It is a breathtakingly efficient thing. Plus with a bit of water and (optionally) some food, a human body can operate for days.

Getting humanoid robots to the point of being able to walk around and participate in our world with high levels of processing and long run times is going to be a hard and long-term engineering challenge. Harder than EV adoption. Robots in the real world are an order of magnitude more complex to get right than robots in a controlled industrial setting.

I’m pretty bullish on smaller non-humanoid home robots though. Things like robodogs. They can plug themselves in to recharge whenever they are low on power, and can do all sorts of tasks that a well-trained dog could do, plus some other things (language recognition, a mounted arm that can grasp things better, etc). They’ll get exponentially better in the years ahead.

While I have nothing against short fiction, the reason I’m not ...

2025-04-12T01:35:26Z

While I have nothing against short fiction, the reason I’m not drawn to it is that I want to get to know the characters. That takes time.

My sweet spot tends to be a long stand-alone novel or a duology/trilogy.

When you go longer than that, into some epic series, I’m skeptical. By default I view it as someone writing for a career rather than to tell their optimal story, with *very* limited exceptions.

I look at my post comments and see Blockstream advertising again. ...

2025-03-21T03:44:58Z

I look at my post comments and see Blockstream advertising again.

Part of me wants to make their advertising campaign here so successful that their intern gets hired or gets a raise. Like in the boardroom, the Nostr idea guy does the numbers, lol.

I saw a few posts here dunking on Dan for his anti-Nostr posts on ...

2025-03-16T22:27:44Z

I saw a few posts here dunking on Dan for his anti-Nostr posts on Twitter/X.

I'm grateful for them. Happy to treat it as a marketing/education opportunity. If life gives you lemons, see if there's a way to make lemonade.

I forgot the cardinal rule of “never go grocery shopping on ...

2025-03-02T19:29:20Z

I forgot the cardinal rule of “never go grocery shopping on Sundays”.
😬

Ironically, I was working on an edit of my sci fi manuscript on a ...

2025-02-28T01:49:57Z

Ironically, I was working on an edit of my sci fi manuscript on a chapter about how AI-generated video in the future makes it hard to verify almost anything. Hyper-real (yet fake) stuff generated on the spot in seconds.

Then I got interrupted by notifications of my hacker posting a badly-done AI video of me shilling some shitcoin, which Twitter/X fortunately deleted within the hour.

When tech improves just a little bit more to the point of not being obviously fake, this type of stuff is going to be insane.

asnostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzpuexqcsvwckyvu3mdhamc9x7c62q6lvha96q5smd0ms832kh8zcaqqsydpyhquy8hgh6lh49w5h5mfn985kj759fplh8ux46j8eas8fuvssfdwusc

Thanks everyone. I think I have the Twitter/X issue at least ...

2025-02-26T20:10:43Z

Thanks everyone. I think I have the Twitter/X issue at least contained for the moment.

I can’t access it but I don’t think the compromiser can either.

If anyone sees weird posts or DMs from it, please reply here as a heads up if you can.

I only check the bitcoin price a few times per week now under ...

2025-02-25T04:51:27Z

I only check the bitcoin price a few times per week now under normal circumstances, but I saw a ton of people whining about it so of course I saw the recent breakdown.

I sometimes throw a few extra bucks at it on top of my normal dollar cost averaging when there are heightened liquidations.

In the prior consolidation, Bitcoin peaked in March 2024, consolidated for a while, then broke down in September 2024, before breaking out to the upside about a month later. Technical breakdowns mean little. Charts are useful sometimes, but mainly for those who don’t know what they own.

I like technical breakdowns when the fundamentals are still solid. It lets out froth. A lot of the post-election stuff is struggling, which is normal. That’s why I faded the hype originally. When all of it weakens, I’m still here.

Still adding for the long run.

When it comes to AI, philosophical people often ask "What ...

2025-02-15T03:02:27Z

When it comes to AI, philosophical people often ask "What will happen to people if they lack work? Will they find it hard to find meaning in such a world of abundance?"

But there is a darker side to the question, which people intuit more than they say aloud.

In all prior technological history, new technologies changed the nature of human work but did not displace the need for human work. The fearful rightly ask: what happens if we make robots, utterly servile, that can outperform the majority of humans at most tasks with lower costs? Suppose they displace 70% or 80% of human labor to such an extent that 70% or 80% of humans cannot find another type of economic work relative to those bots.

Now, the way I see it, it's a lot harder to replace humans than most expect. Datacenter AI is not the same as mobile AI; it takes a couple more decades of Moore's law to put a datacenter supercomputer into a low-energy local robot, or it would otherwise rely on a sketchy and limited-bandwidth connection to a datacenter. And it takes extensive physical design and programming which is harder than VC bros tend to suppose. And humans are self-repairing for the most part, which is a rather fantastic trait for a robot. A human cell outcompetes all current human technology in terms of complexity. People massively over-index what robots are capable of within a given timeframe, in my view. We're nowhere near human-level robots for all tasks, even as we're close to them for some tasks.

But, the concept is close enough to be on our radar. We can envision it in a lifetime rather than in fantasy or far-off science fiction.

So back to my prior point, the darker side of the question is to ask how humans will treat other humans if they don't need them for anything. All of our empathetic instincts were developed in a world where we needed each other; needed our tribe. And the difference between the 20% most capable and 20% least capable in a tribe wasn't that huge.

But imagine our technology makes the bottom 20% economic contributes irrelevant. And then the next 20%. And then the next 20%, slowly moving up the spectrum.

What people fear, often subconsciously rather than being able to articulate the full idea, is that humanity will reach a point where robots can replace many people in any economic sense; they can do nothing that economicall outcomes a bot and earns an income other than through charity.

And specifically, they wonder what happens at the phase when this happens regarding those who own capital vs those that rely on their labor within their lifetimes. Scarce capital remains valuable for a period of time, so long as it can be held legally or otherwise, while labor becomes demonetized within that period. And as time progresses, weak holders of capital who spend more than they consume, also diminish due to lack of labor, and many imperfect forms of capital diminish. It might even be the case that those who own the robots are themselves insufficient, but at least they might own the codes that control them.

Thus, people ultimately fear extinction, or being collected into non-economic open-air prisons and given diminishing scraps, resulting in a slow extinction. And they fear it not from the robots themselves, but from the minority of humans who wield the robots.

I feel like we're due for an evil Canada arc. They've ...

2025-02-04T01:27:02Z

I feel like we're due for an evil Canada arc.

They've always been so nice. Imagine they get really hardcore for a while.

If you could have any super power, what would it be and why? What ...

2025-01-31T01:15:20Z

If you could have any super power, what would it be and why?

What super powers seem under-explored in fiction?

People often assume that whoever their god is, that it is ...

2025-01-23T03:39:10Z

People often assume that whoever their god is, that it is standing with them specifically. In the US, they often separate this view along party lines.

Conservatives to some extent imagine Jesus standing with them on the border with a rifle protecting Christendom against anarchy. Even if many of those immigrants are ::checks notes:: also Christians. If a "woke" bishop calls for compassion on immigrants and is not a fan of the twice-divorced President who can't name his favorite bible chapter and forgot to put his hand on the bible when being sworn in, she's somehow the baddie rather than him, even among Christians.

Progressives to some extent imagine Jesus walking around in Gaza or Haiti or Sudan attending to the least advantaged among us. He shuns the empire and tends to them. And yet, while Jesus called for pacifism and was a rhetorical saint among chill speakers, many of them find a way to mentally turn extremists into heroes. Anything the underdog society does against the dominant society is justified. Even if it's violent toward civilians. In our media rebels are cool, but in reality they often like to kill the gays or the civilians, so it gets awkward pretty fast rather than being like the cool Star Wars rebels vs the Empire.

I find myself in a weird camp that almost nobody is onboard with.

I'm like, "Yes, we actually need to secure our borders. We need to be more scrutinizing for our society's sake. We need slower, higher-end immigration. And we actually need to enforce the rule of law for theft on the streets."

But also,

"No, I don't think Jesus of Nazareth as depicted in text would be onboard with this border view. He'd view us like Rome. Let's not re-imagine him as onboard with this. We're rooting for ourselves; he'd root for the underdogs."

I'm too woke for the conservatives and too based for the progressives.

The US was involved with multiple coups in Latin America. We ran the reserve currency and tried to bend them to our will with their dollar-denominated debt 40 years ago by spiking the value of that debt. Some of them went into retarded socialism and rekt themselves throughout that time period too; it's not all our fault. But it's some of our fault.

And then we militarily entered the Middle East. We made deals with them, funded them against the Soviets, and then turned against them. We've invaded them at like a 100:1 ratio vs them invading us with one major incidence (9/11). And as much as I am a fan of Jews as a people (as someone who grew up in Northeastern USA where Jews are relatively dense, I'd happily have them settle all around here), Israel is a state is colonial; our western powers displaced Gazans to make it and have been fighting that reality ever since.

We're Rome. And like Rome, we think we are justified. And along those lines, we're probably partially right, and probably partially wrong.

When you take a view, imagine every possible view opposing it.

And as the US dominates as neo-Rome, I think we will realize how distant we are from Jesus the hippie.

When Cypher goes into the Matrix alone to secretly meet agent ...

2025-01-22T15:58:49Z

When Cypher goes into the Matrix alone to secretly meet agent Smith and prepare to betray the group, who plugged Cypher into the Matrix?

Did he plug himself in somehow? If so, could he unplug himself? Why can’t the others do that?

A lot of people look down on blue collar work, which I think is ...

2024-12-30T11:27:23Z

A lot of people look down on blue collar work, which I think is misguided. Especially for skilled blue collar work (and most type of work does benefit from skill/experience).

Basically, there’s a popular notion that it’s objectively better to be a CEO than a plumber, or an engineer than a barber, and that’s pretty off base. So it’s not that they criticize blue collar work in any overt way; it’s that they assume that that people in “lower” jobs would all want to be in “higher” roles if they had the choice. A technician would want to be an engineer. A janitor would want to be a CEO.

There are a lot of studies on job happiness and one of the most consistent correlations is that people are happier when they get more immediate feedback. Like if you cut people’s hair or fix mechanical issues or wire up electronic boxes, you often resolve things in minutes, hours, days, or weeks depending the specific task, and with progress along the way, so you get that quick feedback loop where you see the positive results of your work quickly and tangibly. Nothing lingers, unclear and vague.

And for those jobs, often when you’re outside of work hours, you’re truly out. You don’t have to think about it. You can fully devote your focus elsewhere. There’s not some major thing hanging over your head, other than sometimes financial stress or indirect things.

Now, obviously jobs with more complexity and compensation and scale give people other benefits. More material comfort and safety, more power to impact the world at scale, more public prestige, etc. and for some people that’s important for happiness, and for others it is not. And the cost is that it’s generally highly competitive, rarely if ever turns off, and usually comes with much slower and more vague feedback loops in terms of seeing or feeling whether your work is making things better or not.

There was a time in my life where wiring up electronic boxes was really satisfying. Each project had a practical purpose but then also was kind of an artform since I wanted it to look neat for aesthetic and maintainability purposes. I would work on these things like a bonsai enthusiast would sculpt bonsai. And then eventually I would design larger systems and have technicians wire them instead, but for some of the foundational starting points I’d still set up the initial core pieces to get it started right. I wasn’t thrilled when I realistically had to give that up when I moved into management for a while.

I have a housekeeper clean my house every couple weeks. She’s a true pro; she used to clean high-end hotels for years and now works for herself cleaning houses. When we travel, she can let herself in and clean our place, since we trust her.

She doesn’t speak much English, but her daughter does, and that daughter recently graduated college.

Notably, she consistently sings while she cleans. She could listen to music or podcasts but doesn’t. She just sings every time she cleans. I can tell she’s generally in a state of flow while cleaning. She’s good at what she does, and it’s kind of a meditative experience involving repetition but also experience to do it properly and efficiently and then a satisfying conclusion of leaving things better than how they were found. Turning chaos to order.

Last year she was hit by a truck while driving, and had to be out of work for a few months to recover. When she came back, we just back-paid her the normal rate for those few months as though she cleaned on schedule, so she wouldn’t have any income gap from us. Full pay despite a work gap. She was shocked when we did that. We weren’t sure her financial situation (I assume it’s pretty good actually based on her rate), but basically we just treated the situation as though she were salaried with benefits even though she works on a per-job basis. Because skilled, trustworthy, and happy people are hard to come by and worth helping and maintaining connections with.

If I were to guess, I honestly think she is a happier person than I am on a day to day basis. It’s not that I’m unhappy; it’s that I think whatever percentage I might be on the subjective mood scale, she is visibly higher. I experience a state of flow in my work, and my type of work gives me a more frequent state of flow than other work I could do, but I think her work gives her an even higher ratio of flow.

Anyway, my point is that optionality is important. While it’s true that some jobs suck and some jobs are awesome, and financial security matters a lot, for the most part it’s more about how suited you are for a particular type of work at a particular phase in your life. And you’re not defined by your work; it’s just one facet of who you are among several facets.

Find what gives you a good state of flow, pays your bills, lets you save a surplus, and lets you express yourself in one way or another.

Part of me hopes that we drop to $85k and chop around there for a ...

2024-11-13T13:16:01Z

Part of me hopes that we drop to $85k and chop around there for a few months and establish an $85k gang.

Just for meme potential.

When I ate a lot of carbohydrates, no matter how thoroughly I ...

2024-10-30T04:58:06Z

When I ate a lot of carbohydrates, no matter how thoroughly I brushed and floshed my teeth every day, my dentist would be like, “eh you could do better.”

When I sharply reduced my carbohydrates, even when I was a bit less thorough in brushing, my dentist would be like, “it all looks great, good job.”

Just my multi-year experience. I don’t claim to say it’s universal.

It has become so weird that the US Right supports Israel’s war ...

2024-10-25T04:33:01Z

It has become so weird that the US Right supports Israel’s war on Palestine while the US Left supports Ukraine’s defense against Russia.

Political sides dig in. The wars become associated with culture.

There is so little voice today from those who oppose aggression. Those who support Jews but are not onboard with Israel’s actions against Palestinians. Those who support Ukrainian independence but don’t want to commit unlimited troops for border regions that literally speak Russian amid a complicated history.

More people die in Sudan and Cambodia than Israel/Palestine, but we are all focused on Israel/Palestine because it’s a conflict of cultures. Religious cultures but also western imperialism vs the global south. The focus of it all. That occupies our attention even as bigger massacres occur elsewhere that aren’t directly across these massive fault lines.

I refuse to engage in attention whoring. I support peace in most instances globally, other than total war against someone’s existence where it becomes right to fight back. People have a right to self-defense. And those who have power over others have a responsibility to hold back on using it fully.

Keep in mind that at any moment, tons of violence is occurring globally. The media directs you to a subset of it that is geographically, economically, or culturally relevant for their purposes. You ignore or are unaware of the rest, and get emotional about what is fed to you. That’s how most people act, anyway.

https://m.primal.net/LUrq.jpg

2024-10-13T15:00:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…tmx4
_________________________

There's only one picture of my husband and I online in any ...

2024-09-25T00:32:30Z

There's only one picture of my husband and I online in any English-language context, and it's not labeled as such but rather is buried in a Twitter thread and just kind of put in there as one of many photos, on purpose as an easter egg.

We like privacy, so we don't post many pictures.

But since I already showed my left ear on Nostr (likely for the first time ever in a public picture, funnily enough), I might as well give Nostr the exclusive to my husband as well. It's technically not new, which is why I can show it, but rather I can just be more specific about it. It's a picture of us from back in 2021 at Sahl Hasheesh in Egypt that we've had quietly online for three years. As readers of Broken Money know, his name is Mohamed Badran.

Mohamed is the editor of all of my long-form content, deals with the technical backend of the website, and inspires me to be better as a person every day.

Good evening. My September newsletter is out. It's an update ...

2024-09-08T23:53:42Z

Good evening.

My September newsletter is out. It's an update on the fiscal dominance view:

https://www.lynalden.com/september-2024-newsletter/

Ya’ll want Nostr Lyn to write a sci fi novel in whatever spare ...

2024-09-08T05:29:47Z

Ya’ll want Nostr Lyn to write a sci fi novel in whatever spare time she has, or get back to finance?

I've been doing consistent long walks in the sun around my ...

2024-09-04T15:55:38Z

I've been doing consistent long walks in the sun around my neighborhood while the weather's nice. Doing some business calls while walking, or listening to a podcast while walking.

I mostly blame Steven Lubka (npub1dvu…0pwx) for getting me into this trend.

What are some skills that you don’t understand at all? For me ...

2024-09-02T19:28:06Z

What are some skills that you don’t understand at all?

For me music is at the top of the list. My husband can hear a tune and then with a few tries he can play the tune on the piano.

He barely had any music lessons but can somehow do that. I had guitar lessons, and my teacher tried to get me to do that, but I was terrible. So not only can’t I do it, I don’t really even know where I’d begin. The inability to even see the next step.

Like if I see a pro athlete do something, I know I can’t do it, but I get the basic idea of what they did to get to that stage on kind of a step by step basis. But when someone can hear music and then just play the melody, my mind is blown.

Gm. It seems that it will be very hard for Brazil to identify and ...

2024-08-31T10:42:35Z

Gm.

It seems that it will be very hard for Brazil to identify and enforce the fines on VPN usage for Twitter/X. But it’s a powerful scare tactic.

When the United States banned gold ownership in the1930s (which lasted for four decades all the way into the 1970s btw), they didn’t really enforce it at the household level. They just had large prison terms that were rarely ever applied, which effectively dried up liquidity in the gold market.

Some people have pointed out that Nostr relays could be blocked by Brazilian internet providers if Nostr was big enough to matter. However, more relays could spin up, so they’d have to keep adding to the list.

Brazil’s government could then say it’s illegal to use VPNs for any Nostr app around internet censoring. The defense against that is to make Nostr as ubiquitous as possible. The more apps that tie into Nostr in some way, the harder it is to ever ban it in practice. Some people might not even know their favorite app uses Nostr. Imagine if everyone’s favorite short form app, long form app, podcasting app, reviews app, wallet app, recipes app, picture app, music app, and tons of other stuff are tied into Nostr, and how hard that would be to ban.

If Nostr becomes big enough to really matter, it’s because it’ll be tied into so many different things. That’s super powerful. And the devs keep building rapidly.

Broken Money was published a year ago this week Thanks to ...

2024-08-29T14:47:03Z

Broken Money was published a year ago this week

Thanks to everyone who read it, shared it, and reviewed it! 🙏

I resisted writing a book for years since it’s such a tedious process, until finally a book formed in my head that I felt needed to exist, and that was too distracting for me *not* to write. And then I poured everything I had into it.

Anyone here do meditation? What kind?

2024-08-23T01:01:06Z

Anyone here do meditation?

What kind?

As someone who plays Dungeons and Dragons regularly, if I were to ...

2024-08-20T04:11:53Z

As someone who plays Dungeons and Dragons regularly, if I were to participate in a D&D roleplaying livestream, would you watch it?

Like if I play the angsty sorcerer, or the frustrated cleric, or the happy-go-lucky barbarian that has very specific anger triggers, would you find this amusing?

There are a bunch of successful D&D livestreams out there. The best ones are run by theater and voice actor pros.

But what if you had a bunch of public bitcoiners in the event, and most of them are highly charismatic semi-pros, and then some of them like me are autistic but, like, trying our our best as nerds that like the game.

Would you watch that or nah?

The complicated aspect about the Social Security system in the ...

2024-08-17T22:26:05Z

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.