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Cake day: February 8th, 2025

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  • It is not trivial, the existence of you job makes that self-evident. If it was trivial companies wouldn’t need a DPO, would they? I would love to see you walk up to your employer and tell them that your job is trivial and anyone can do it…

    You might not see this yourself, but the fact that even a small company needs a DPO in order to interpret data protection regulation IS the problem! But I am sure you are not complaining… It needs to be simplified so a small company can be GDPR compliant without requiring a DPO.

    This problem is recognized in the report from the EU commission linked in the article, which is why they are acting.

    The fact that small startups cannot even take off because they cannot afford to hiring the bureaucrats required to interpret and be compliant with regulation is a massive problem and one of the reasons Europe’s economy is stagnating. It is not about exploiting personal data, it is about the cost of bureaucracy killing European startups in their infancy.


  • They intend to simplify compliance, not axe the law. And this is needed if Europe wants to make itself independent of USA and China on the tech front.

    You who are against this, have you ever had to deal with GDPR? It is a nightmare and I am certain American big tech is secretly celebrating it, because it kills any European startup alternatives, because they cannot afford to employ enough people to be compliant with the law and if they try to do it with existing personnel they don’t have enough time left over to actually run their business.

    If you have ever complained that there aren’t enough European alternatives, GDPR and other legislation is the reason why. USA shoots itself in the foot with tariffs and we Europeans shoot ourselves in the foot with regulations. I am just really glad the EU commission has realized this and are fixing it.





  • Where did you get these numbers? I cannot find any sources to support them. Active personnel of mentioned countries is half to 2/3 of mentioned numbers. And this tells us nothing about these countries ability to produce new personnel.

    Also, that’s all on paper. When UK and France discuss a ‘coalition of the willing’ to act as peace keepers in Ukraine they are able to scrape together no more than a few tens of thousands, even though it is believed that 100-200K is required to be a deterring force.

    We are talking about a force of several hundreds of thousands to be trained, armed and moved to a front to fight within a few months or at least within a year, in addition to already existing forces, a large part of which are unavailable to train new recruits because they are deployed.


  • I don’t know that it is quite that bad, I think people will surprise you. Europeans stuck with Ukraine even though it costs and while some are turning their back they are a minority and they consider Ukraine none of the their business.

    I think when another NATO or EU country is affected Europeans will see it very differently. It is an existential threat then. Russia wants to paint Europe as decadent and lazy, but Europeans stand firm when it really matters. We’ve proven that with Ukraine.

    The bigger problem for Europe is to produce armed forces in the hundreds of thousands within the next few years. Making the hardware and training the soldiers in that small off a time will be difficult.

    As for Americans… I don’t really know where we have them. I do think there is a non-negligible chance they will be in a civil war by the end of the decade or the start of the next.







  • I hate the fact that you have butter yourself all up and rub yourself against Trump and proclaim that he is the greatest thing that ever happened to you in order to get him to not destroy everything for himself and others.

    I love the fact that there are other people out there who are capable of doing that and don’t feel shame or discomfort while doing it. People like president Stubb, Nato secretary Rutte and others might just keep things from really turning bad. They are really good at pandering to Trump’s ego. I just hope they don’t end up completely selling themselves out, but I have confidence in that they know the limit.


  • I didn’t know the three had a free trade agreement, that is quite significant. I wonder how Taiwan feels about that :/

    Deeping economic ties seems very vague, but free trade is good for maintaining peace in the region. Too bad US now want to make things worse with the tariffs…

    I really do wonder where all this will end. US will likely face an economic recession like we haven’t seen since 2007-2008, maybe even since 1933. Their recession will drag the rest of the world with them. Inflation will probably get back to high levels by summer and styme any economic recovery.

    They will also become more isolated diplomatically, since it is impossible to deal with Trump, unless you give more than you get. Everyone will do what they can to be come more independent of US, including military tech, cloud services etc, which will hurt their economy even more.


  • You won’t find what Trump is thinking by analyzing the works of Alexandr Dugin, nor the intentions of Europe/EU. Please don’t read that extremist propaganda, it will not do you any good. He is probably clinically insane.

    While Putin does like some of what he is writing, I am absolutely certain he is cherrypicking what he likes from it and ignores the rest. But Putin is probably also clinically insane, so that doesn’t really help…

    Also, Putin and by tradition Russia considers EVERYONE an existential threat, unless they completely submit to Russia and Putin. The Russians have a saying: “Russia only has two allies, the army and the navy.” That probably tells you everything you need to know.

    What is more interesting to me is what China thinks of Russia and EU. If you can find a credible work on that, I’d be interested.


  • Trumps adoration and wish to mimic anti-democratic dictators has long preceded the closing ties of China and Russia.

    Geopolitical analysts are trying to rationalize the actions of a megalomanic narcissist who has no interests beyond making himself look good. It is a case of “If Your Only Tool Is a Hammer Then Every Problem Looks Like a Nail”.

    This is a case for a psycoanalyst, not geopolitical analysts. Trump is not trying to do some grand strategic reverse-Nixon, he just has a bro-crush on Putin and wants to be like him and be his friend.

    EU and China are just acting as two rational geopolitical actors: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. It should be noted that EU doesn’t have any territorial beefs with China, it is all economics and trade issues. Which both are interested in solving or hitting pause on while they deal with Trump who contests territorial claims of both EU and China.

    If anything, Trump is doing an inverted-Nixon, pushing US allies closer to China, and pulling Russia closer to US. Not in the interests of USA, but in all in an attempt to make himself look good and to live up to his dream of being a land-conquering dictator like Putin.

    That my analysis anyway.