Friend of mine we by to the store to buy c64 games on tape. Took them home, copied them using a thing that would connect to datasette units at once. Went back to the store to return our exchange.

After a few rounds of this, the store said no more exchanges

Then he recorded a few seconds of silence somewhere on the tape and said ‘but it’s defective’.

Man. We were high rollers.

In 1241 the danish king signed the first major law of the land. The law itself is pretty much outdated, but its preamble is still a very useful explanation of ‘why laws?’

Allow me to quote it fully and then mark a few bits that I consider important in 2025.

With law shall the country be built but if all men were content with what is theirs and let others enjoy the same right, there would be no need for a law. But no law is as good as the truth, but if one wonders what the truth is, then shall the law show the truth. If the land had no law, then he would have the most who could grab the most by force… The law must be honest, just, reasonable and according to the ways of the people. It must meet their needs and speak plainly, so that all men may know and understand, what the law is. It is not to be made in any man’s favor, but for the needs of all them who live in the land. No man shall judge contrary to the law, which the king has given and the country chosen. […] neither shall he [the king] take it back without the will of the people.

Now, this, of course is just a tiny local law based on ideas from the countries further to the south of denmark. But it holds some concepts that all who dabble in lawmaking ought to consider.

There’s a conflict of interest between EU and USA that is becoming a real problem.

Preamble: European States and companies widely use cloud services run by US companies. In the EU data protection is considered a human right, whereas in the US it’s a citizen’s right.

That means, if an intelligence service in the eu want to look at my data, they need a warrant. If an intelligence service in the US want to look at a US citizen’s data, they need a warrant. Ø

But if a US intelligence service want to look at my data, a US company will just have to hand it over. I have no protection, not being a US citizen.

A few legal exercises has been made to deal with this. After all, the amounts earned by Azure, Google Cloud and AWS are noteworthy. Twice the EU court of Law has deemed these exercises wanting, and the problem has been huge enough that Biden and EU Commission head van der Layen made a joint pressemøde conference to annonce that it had been solved - latest in october 2022 by executive order 14086.

End of preamble.

So. The US has this peaceful group of nations across the atlantic that very much just want to pump billions into the US digital economy. As long as the US at least pretends that they respect EU data privacy laws more or less on the level that US citizens are protected. Because building our own similar services is one hell of a pain.

It’s a pipeline of free money. And even though we complain at every price hike, we can’t seem to move towards the exit.

Project 2025 language on this? It’s all an evil plot by scheming europeans in Brussels to nerf US intelligence, and EO14086 is another weak decision by weak biden. It should be cancelled and Brussels should told to piss off.

Billions. Literally billions of dollars every year flowing from companies and taxpayers all over EU towards US Big Tech bank accounts. And the p2025 nutcases want to fuck it up, because setting a tiny privacy footnote on billions of tech dollars make america look weak.

Sorry. We can’t trust you Guys.

No. That’s not fair.

If anyone from the media questions it, Elon will take personal responsibility by either offering an interview (IF they promise to air it unedited. And should they agree, as they probably will, he will renege because said media outlet can not be trusted.)

Or he will challenge them to a cage fight (and then later silently renege because frankly, he is in no shape to fight even a 72 year old russian dictator.)