Absolutely not, and I hate this term “made up” whenever people are trying to describe the economy.

In an economy populated by free economic agents, prosperity is determined less so by the amount of goods available but by how much those agents trade among each other. For each type of economic resource, whether that be goods, services, labour, money, or social status, there is a certain distribution of those resources which maximises everyone’s utility. It is impossible to nail down what that distribution is, but when people are more willing to trade with each other, those resources have a tendency to flow towards the people who most want them. Even though the amount of resources available does not grow, a “good economy” where people are willing to exchange resources will feel more prosperous than a “bad economy” where everyone is scared of losing their resources and thus hoard what they have.

You are happy when you are able to trade the resources you have (possibly just your labour) and get in return things that you value more than keeping your labour. Food, shelter, cars, and Pokémon cards. You could keep your 40 hours, but surely you wouldn’t be very happy with just that, would you? Trade creates value.

So no, it is not “made up”. In economics, public confidence is what creates prosperity.

Because deflation isn’t the only thing that causes them. It’s just that a deflationary economy makes them far more likely to happen to a far greater number of people.

Deflation is devastatingly bad for banks. It discourages investment and new businesses because it shifts the maths in favour of just holding cash rather than investing in new businesses. No new businesses means fewer people need loans. And deflation makes loans more expensive for ordinary people, who stop borrowing. Banks profit only by lending out the money that they have. No loans, no profit.

What people think living in a deflationary economy looks like: Groceries are 5% cheaper than last year.

What living in a deflationary economy is actually like: Nobody is spending money. Your hours are cut and you won’t get a raise this year. Your income is down 25% compared to last year. You can’t afford to buy anything. Businesses everywhere have to cut prices to compete for the dwindling number of customers.

Investment dries up. Job creation comes to a complete stop. 500 people competing for every job opening that comes up. Wages keep going down as a result. The uncertainty means that even people who still have a job are choosing to save as much as possible rather than spend.

Foreclosures rise, people lose their homes as the wealthy snap up the newly-freed housing stock at distressed prices. Car repossession rates skyrocket, causing a surge of used cars to enter the market, dragging down new car prices along with them. Automobile manufacturers start biting their nails as analysts project lower sales numbers and tighter margins, pushing most heavy industry into the red. Workforce cuts soon follow.

Credit default rates soar, leading to the first bank failures. National deposit insurance schemes soften the blow and prevent a full banking crisis, but deposit insurance rates start climbing, causing banks to raise fees and cut benefits.

The lower economic activity causes budget shortfalls in every city in the country. Poor tax growth forecasts force local councils to start cutting services. The first to go will be cultural events. Then the public transport cuts come. And then homeless services. Then eventually all departments except police, fire, water, and electricity get cut down to the bone, and then some. Maintenance on public buildings get slapped with 5- or even 10-year deferrals.

People are skipping meals to make ends meet. Produce rots on the shelves until grocers learn to order less. Lower crop prices push many small to medium farms into insolvency; larger corporate farms are better able to weather the storm. Groceries are 5% cheaper than last year.

Unless you live in the US, because the reason that your money would deflate is that you would have a lot less of it.

Please understand that ChatGPT was released in November 2022.

And also understand that the distinction between chess and ChatGPT is the point of the comment. These two things both use AI but one is harmless and useful while the other is not.

Exactly right. That is the distinction I’m trying to draw.

Chess engines have been using AI, specifically, neural networks, for years before ChatGPT or other LLMs. Nobody complained.

Because UTC-7 and UTC-8 are also wrong. The label “Pacific Time” means, in the United States and Mexico, the civil time standard that observes standard time at UTC-8 and daylight saving time at UTC-7. You cannot call this standard merely “UTC-8” because then it’s wrong half of the year.

It is important to note that by calling year-round UTC-7 “Pacific Time”, British Columbia and Yukon are the ones stepping out of the programme to do something idiosyncratic. The rest of the Pacific Time Zone (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, California, and Baja California) has a greater population than the entirety of Canada. There are approximately 56 million residents of the non-Canadian portion of the Pacific Time Zone, where standard time is UTC-8, compared to 5 million in the Canadian portion, which is UTC-7.

“Pacific Time” means “whatever the civil time is in the Pacific Time Zone, accounting for daylight saving time”. So that would be 23:04 (UTC-7) as of writing.

If today’s date were instead 30 December, “Pacific Time” would be 22:04 (UTC-8) in Washington, Oregon, and California, while it would be 23:04 (UTC-7) in British Columbia and Yukon. Both would be called “Pacific Time” despite not being the same time, and both being on standard time.

The name causes confusion. Let me give you this example. What time UTC would “17:00 PT” be?

That question depends now not only on what time of year it is, but also where. “Pacific Time” now no longer uniquely identifies a single timekeeping scheme.

British Columbia basically did a similar thing by declaring permanent daylight savings time because, according to the premier, they’re no longer going to wait for the US to move as well before moving themselves.

Except now the situation is objectively worse than it was before, because BC is geographically in the UTC-8 zone, but permanent Pacific Daylight Time is the same as permanent Mountain Standard Time (UTC-7). Except they don’t call it Mountain Standard Time in BC, they stubbornly continue to insist they’re in the UTC-8 zone. Except they don’t call it “Pacific Daylight Time” either, they call it just “Pacific Time”. No “Daylight”. Despite the fact that their standard time is what the rest of North America calls Mountain Time.

They had four good choices, and chose none of them:

• UTC-8 year round, call it “Pacific Standard Time”
• UTC-7 year round, call it “Mountain Standard Time”
• UTC-8 or UTC-7 year round, call it “Western Canada Time”.

Decent idea, rubbish execution.

There are plenty of people filing individual cases as well alleging liability under product liability law.

The sheer volume of those cases could possibly cause major financial issues for the company even if each one costs only a relatively small amount.

The short, general summary of these cases is that under US consumer protection law, the maker of a product is strictly liable for injuries and damages caused by the defective design of that product. An example in ordinary circumstances is that a farmer who uses an herbicide that contains a toxic chemical, and then later develops cancer as a result of exposure to that chemical, can claim compensation from the manufacturer under product liability law. This is what drove the chemical company Monsanto (maker of Roundup) into bankruptcy facing billions in product liability claims.

So a teenager who uses Facebook and then develops mental disorders as a result of that use, has a personal injury claim against Meta.

Even if each individual case is only worth around $20,000 to $50,000, Facebook has hundreds of millions of users in the US, of which possibly hundreds of thousands of people could have a valid claim under this legal theory. And many people could claim a great deal more in compensation. If a person uses Facebook, becomes addicted, gets depression as a result, and then commits suicide, that is potentially a wrongful death claim worth hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.

Ambulance chasers to the rescue!

It’s about 2% of their annual net revenue per year for ten years. Hardly much of a punishment.

I’m not a big fan of Steve Bannon, but I think what he said about political power is among the truest things ever said about modern politics. These big corporations, they’re not so tough. The big law firms? They’re not so tough. But the state can be tough. They’re all gutless cowards at the end of the day that would crumble if even a fraction of the power available was displayed. If one truly takes power and exercises it, that would become apparent. Trying to play nice gets you nothing but lip service and pocket change.

Well, at least we can agree on that lol. I hate Luckin Coffee

Never been to Luckin Coffee I see

Also there is no such thing as karma on Lemmy

The places I’ve been to either allow you to pay cash at the counter or they have a machine that accepts cash.

I never understood why console players always get so worked up about exclusives. People say the stupidest most absolutely nonsensical things like “the PS5 has no games”. What the hell do you mean?? The PS5 has lots of games, you’re just salty that other people can play those games too. Why can’t people just be happy that more people can enjoy the games? They have to have that feeling of superiority I suppose

I doubt the person who drew this comic has had the misfortune of trying to order food in China. It’s basically a literal form of what the comic is poking fun of, and it’s ubiquitous.

In China, you can go up to the counter, but you cannot place an order. Sometimes, you cannot even read a physical menu. Not even so much as a menu on the screen. You have to scan the QR code using the Panopticon app (also known as WeChat) and then get bombarded with advertisements. Like us and get a free drink! Click here for a random coupon! Join our WeChat group! No, no, no, no. Then click through their garbage UI to find the one thing you actually want. Make sure you don’t accidentally replace your order with one of their “recommendations” that pop up! Then, try to check out. Do you want to join our WeChat group for exclusive deals? Do you want to create an account? Dismiss, dismiss, dismiss.

Click here to pay. Only WeChat Pay is accepted. No cash, you backwards peon. Enter your mobile number here. Required to order. Ha ha, nice try, 123456789 is not your mobile number. No worries, we got it from WeChat. You’ll get 3 order confirmation texts and 2 advertisements a week for the next six months.

I’ve never seen a restaurant in the US or Europe that requires you to download an app to order. They bribe you with coupons and discounts to download the app, which is fair enough, I suppose, but you’re not obligated to. You can still walk up to the counter, tell your order to a human, and then pay with cash. No algorithm will ever know who you were or what you ordered.