Yes, how is this different than Digimon or Yu-Gi-Oh or any of the numerous other Pokemon rip-offs? (other than the obvious "AI is taking our jorbs")

>> That's because the self-checkout systems have to do a lot of extra work to make sure they're not over-billing and to guide the user through the process.

There's also a lot of unnecessary steps like "Do you want to apply for our store credit card/loyalty card?" and "Do you want us to email you the receipt?" (and put you on our mailing list) and "Do you want to donate to our selected charity?" (and not receive a tax receipt). Sure, the human checkout clerks are probably supposed to ask those annoying questions too, but if the store is busy or the customer seems in a hurry, they usually don't.

>>The putative Recipient Must Always Agree to Accept the Connection.

But the pop-up they get to accept the connection includes a preview of the message, so essentially they receive a summary of the message (including a thumbnail of the image) whether they accept or not, which is more than enough to be harassing/threatening.

Considering that AirDrop has been abused to send sexually harassing photos and videos to strangers and to send bomb threats on planes, the fact that it is not anonymous is actually a good thing. The whole concept of sending unsolicited messages to other people's phones is highly problematic.

>>"three-quarters of a percentage point below the average rate of the 2010s"
>>This doesn't seem particularly calamitous to me.

Yes, especially since the 2010s were a decade when we were trying to kick-start the economy after the 2008 financial crisis with things like quantitative easing and ridiculously low interest rates. It's time to go back to a more stable growth rate.

>> Adopt policies which make capital more expensive and reduce opportunities to eliminate the potential for class mobility.

Right, because banks are always so eager to give loans to poor people at low rates.

>>This is how you increase wealth disparity and create a growing class of welfare dependents loyal to the state and/or powerless to oppose the state.

Did you make up the term "wealth disparity" because your fellow MAGAs will accuse you of being woke if you call it wealth inequality? Thanks for the laugh, this was the funniest thing I read all day.

Copilot, Cortana, Clippy; why do Microsoft assistants always start with C?

>>If you have a billion in debt, you probably have enough income from whatever you purchased with that money to cover the payments on it.

In the era of low interest rates and high investment returns, that was pretty easy. Now that we're into high interests rates and lower returns, it's much harder and you could lose big if you're over leveraged.

>> Photoshopping obviously invalidates the signature.

As does cropping, rotating, scaling, adjusting contrast, color balance and all the other things that photographers would do to a legit photo before publishing it. So tell me again how this is useful?

>> Google blocks advertisements for 3rd party repair of their products on search.

[citation needed]

>>Adam Smith made it very clear; only raw materials were to be imported and manufactured goods exported.

And if every country followed that advice then no one would sell you raw materials and no one would buy your manufactured goods. Even for a giant country with lots of resources, it's difficult to have a completely self-sufficient economy (just ask the Soviet Union). Also, that is definitely NOT what Adam Smith wrote. Time to re-read Wealth of Nations.

Sorry, I should have said "hidden trade barriers" rather than "tariffs" if you're going to be pedantic. The clear goal here is to block or disadvantage foreign competitors, not save the children.

Even if you believe regulating porn and social media sites is "for the children", why is an e-commerce site like AliExpress on this list? What all the targeted sites have in common is that they are not European. This is just more bullshit EU hidden trade tariffs.

>>Patents have nothing to do with copyright.

Patents are not identical to copyrights, but as both are intellectual property, they have a similar need of being assigned to a human author. See: Monkey Selfie Copyright Dispute

"Moving fast and breaking things" is not the motto you want for a rocket company, especially one that hopes to carry passengers.