The only reason a solution is needed is because a problem was created by promising old people a ton of benefits. To deliver those benefits or expected quality of life, the country has to allocate a greater and greater proportion of the country’s productivity to old people.

Obviously, this means less purchasing power for younger people, and they might not like that so much.

>will it crater property values for all of the hard-working townies who sunk their money into their own homes?

It already has. Rural land prices going down in real terms is a decades old thing.

>What if you would like to stop spending 1/3 of your budget on the military?

Then you would be happy, because the US spends 1/7th [13%] of the budget on the military.

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...

Since I find it difficult to judge quality, I just buy the cheapest thing at Costco now and replace it when it wears out. They have some hideous sneakers for $20 right now, but I run in them just fine for at least a few months. I'd have to buy 6 of these to offset the price of an actual running shoe.

I don't see it getting more efficient than taking a picture of your stuff, and putting up a post on Facebook telling everyone it's free at x date and y address.

No human contact is a plus for security, as the human is the weakest link that can give up your authentication to someone that isn’t you.

The human factor is walking into your local branch with your face and an ID - something that can’t be done on a large scale by bots.

This has often been abused with mobile phone carriers to get SIM cards issued for targets by just knowing enough customer details. This then allowed them to intercept SMS 2FA challenges and access even more sensitive accounts.

Have you heard about Meta AI doing support?

Only if you can log in. I am Meta Verified, but I cannot log in to get support.

"I am permanently locked out of my account with no recourse" is also a security issue.

Not if Apple can identify the dog as belonging to someone else.

Apple doesn't validate the content of the image, you will have to trust that it's my dog.

You wanna buy it now or not? /s

All the money is (or will be) spent on land near other rich people so your kids can have a school peer group with parents who have higher education/wealth/social network achievements, and after that, healthcare, and after that, liability coverage.

If there is money left over, then you decorate. But you’ve probably bought into a new housing development with an HOA that doesn’t allow exterior modifications without approval.

>My other question that I've never found a good answer to, is with mechanization, how is it that "cheap" modern buildings are so expensive. Or were old, traditional buildings super expensive? What is the cost of a unit of beauty per year, then and now...?

The land is far more expensive now. Plus legal liability insurance costs. And costs of permitting/zoning/bureaucracy is much higher.

No, the teller is not sufficiently qualified to be liable enough to match the picture on the ID to the person in front.

The 2nd factor is the phone number on file, which offloads liability for errors in that mechanism to the phone company.

The goal is to reduce the amount of decisions the teller makes, so as to reduce the amount of errors they can make, which also reduces the amount of training they need, all of which reduces costs.

It’s really interesting how the lack of US federal government stepping in to provide an official electronic identity verification API has resulted in the mobile phone networks becoming the de facto arbiters of identity. Even for government services.

I don’t even think I could trust having my phone number on someone else’s mobile phone plan, as I would want to ensure I have as much control over it as possible.