ArnoVW

Out of interest, what is your experience in terms of government spending? How big a budget did you manage or oversee?

Retirning early costs money. A lot. Every year you retire earlier is one year of income to pay extra, and one year of capitalisation less.

To give an idea of the orders of magnitude. France is 70M inhabitants. If 20 million people receive a pension of 24K€ one year longer, that's 480B€. The French yearly budget is 843B€. In total, France has spent between 8B€ - 27B$ on supporting Ukraine since 2022 (one of the other talking points)

France has just managed to increase retirement age to 64 years, and there are voices to re-instate it to 62. For reference:

• Germany: 65 to 67 years (depending on birth year; 67 for those born from 1964)

• United Kingdom: 66 years (rising to 67)

• Spain: 65 to 66.5 years (depending on career length)

• Netherlands: 67 years

The retirement age was moved from 65 to 60 in 1982, by the socialist Mitterand government. Life expectency has increased 9 years since then, and they have been trying (desperately) to move it back up since then.

Not retiring early means that money can be spent on other things. Such as the better schooling that the French kids were asking for.

It will also help in getting the French budget balanced. Something which it has not been since 1974. The EU rules require a national debt of max 60% of GNP. France is currently at 120%. For reference, Germany is at 63%, the Netherlands are at 44%. Spain is at 100%, and slowly falling.

Sure. And you could show it in light grey on white, since the law does not say that is illegal. Why not put it in a locked filing cabinet, in a disused lavatory, with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'?

Actually. No. Even in 2017 it was clear that we had to legislate against fuckery.

That is why art. 12 imposes an affirmative duty to facilitate the exercise of rights ("the controller shall facilitate the exercise of data subject rights").

So "forgetting to tell your chatbot to inform people" could have been an oversight. But actively telling the chatbot not to tell people their rights is, unsurprisingly, illegal.

Honestly. If you are a global company in 2026 and you have not yet managed the edge cases of customer deletion, you need to get your head inspected.

No need for a lawyer.

Just contact their DPO (they are obligated to give a contact) and explain that you want to excercise your right to be forgotten (i.e. delete data)

They then gave 30 days to respond and a few months to do it. Failure to do so is an automatic infraction.

Reporting that failure to your privacy watchdog will suffice.

Provided you live in Europe of course. Otherwise the GDPR does not apply.

Telling people their rights is another legal obligation. Failure to do so is illegal.

Except that in some cases (example: GDPR) there is a legal obligation to explain rights.

One such rights is the right to be forgotten (i.e. you can remove your account)

They are?

The war in Iran has meant that the military resources of many actors are getting used for that conflict and are no longer available. Think patriot missiles to protect against balistic missiles.

It also means that the eyes of the world are distracted.

Unsurprisingly, the Trump administration is now getting anxious about the economical damage that Iran is inflicting, and has been forced to cut a deal with Russia.

But as said, that is just Ukraine.

The US has also been forced to reposition assets in Asia, to make up for the ones lost or expended in the Iran theater. They have shown to their allies in the middle east that having a US base is not a protection, but rather an invitation to be attacked.

Despite extensive military investment, Iran's neighbours are now realizing that the US presence and weapons they bought don't work.

The fact that a "muslim NATO" was recently created is not a coincidence. The world has taken notice.

Iran have been utterly destroyed, but they can still hurt the US. When your're a superpower, not winning when fighting a regional power IS losing.

The europeans reserve strategic resources so that they can manage supply chain risk, since they consider the US one.

The US (dependably) proves them right, by threatening their supply lines.

Nobody said Iran was winning.

The problem is, if you tell everyone that you are a superpower, but then go on to not only not achieve your strategic goals (during a conflict of your choosing), but get to an unconfortable stalemate (that you cannot forcibly break) where you get to the point that you have to throw allies under the bus (not just Ukraine).. that's losing.

for the duration of his mandate

And for some transactions that makes sense. But for something that is supposed to serve everyone, and where there is a (natural) monopoly, that cannot be and acceptable answer.

Also, having your entire economy depend on companies that are not under your control, and that are even actively being weaponised, that seems like a stupid thing to do.

Also, nothing in all of that precluded a web app.

It'll take a couple of years but people will figure it out eventually.

Yep. Even for maths, knowing why is king. Once you understand maths there is a whole bunch that makes sense and you can just derive.

This technology is very powerful, and it is (and by extension, so are we) very valuable

Also good story telling for the narrative of “this technology is so powerful that it must be strictly regulated”

Good luck suing the manufacturer if they have explicitly rejected responsibility.

This is what I have been saying for 10 years. You will know when that the era of AV has arrived when manufacturers start accepting liability.

Maybe once there are enough statistics so that insurance companies will cover the manifacturer. The day will come, at some point.