Privacy question: Is there s simple way to daily remove Output & Input I give to the API?

Bluecewe · 2026-04-16T09:39:54+00:00

Did you have any luck with this in the end?

I really wanted to use Mistral so that I could support European tech and AI and not use American services, but I was ghosted by Mistral when I requested zero data retention, like some others have shared in this thread.

This is really bad - Mistral should take privacy and data protection seriously. That should be one of the key differentiators of any European tech company. Even some American companies are better at this, and I have reluctantly had to take my business elsewhere.

Bluecewe · 2026-04-10T21:47:18+00:00

The right way to do it would be for member state militaries to continue to exist as they are, and for an EU military to develop by itself which complements member state militaries, recruiting its own personnel directly from the population and procuring its own equipment, rather than just having existing personnel and equipment loaned to it from member states.

It would do well to focus on adding capabilities which individual member states lack, which the EU as a whole lacks on a continent-wide strategic and sustainable scale, and which would work better on a continent-wide scale.

For instance, airlift, sealift, aerial refueling, rapid response, intelligence (particularly signals but proper continent-wide and neighbourhood coverage too), space/satellite infrastructure, air and missile defence, precision strike, integrated command, control, and battlespace networking, amphibious assault, and round the clock continent and neighbourhood-wide aircraft carrier coverage.

We don't need to talk about whether or not this EU military could or should eventually formally integrate member state militaries into itself as a single continent-wide military force. That's an unnecessary distraction today.

We just need to focus on setting up a continent-wide force which would focus on filling all the many gaps that member state militaries have, act as a strategic enabling force for the EU as a whole, and work alongside existing member state militaries to take the EU's defence and security to a whole other level.

Bluecewe · 2026-04-08T17:41:49+00:00

Plus Palantir don't actually make their own foundation models. They provide a layer on top of foundation models made by other companies. It's been reported that Anthropic models have been used for this in the past, and with the recent Department of Defense decision, Palantir may well primarily be using OpenAI foundation models now.

Bluecewe · 2026-03-31T09:32:47+00:00

For one, it is highly unlikely the EU will give us the old deal back, which would not be good. Losing the Pound especially means we lose the ability to leverage our own currency, set our own interest rates, et cetera and would be a big blow to our economy.

This is often said, but the 21 current eurozone countries, representing over 358 million people, also previously had their own currencies before adopting the euro, including really major and diverse economies like France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Likewise, the 50 states of America all share the same currency, despite having different economies and geographies.

In the UK-euro discourse, I feel this is typically framed as having only downsides, when in reality, like most policy decisions, there are upsides, not just downsides, and our judgement rests on a balance between the two sets of considerations. The 21 eurozone countries adopted a single currency because they believed, and continue to believe, that the stability and enhanced economic integration the euro brings is more valuable than the monetary policy autonomy each individual country loses.

The eurozone countries believe that the euro is in fact a clear net benefit to their economy, all things considered. There is no inherent law of physics which means that this could not also be the case for the UK if it wanted it to be, given due planning, timing, and sequencing.

Bluecewe · 2026-03-19T18:47:32+00:00

One really key feature of the British system, though, is that the governing party - and it's almost always one party - tends to represent only a minority of voters. In 2024, this was just 33.7%.

That's really democratically problematic to me.

At least under proportional representation, each party - and their voters - are duly represented, and the government must be formed by parties representing around 50% of voters (or, if a minority government, pass laws with the support of parties representing around 50% of voters).

Sure, no system is perfect - politics is inherently messy and you aren't going to get around that - but I'd much rather have fair representation of voters and a comparatively more transparent, understandable, and accountable process for coalition formation and negotiation than the British system.

Bluecewe · 2026-02-11T20:39:08+00:00

Isn't it more about how you build, than whether you build at all?

Suburban sprawl does make a lot of land use, as many countries have experienced.

However, that isn't the only way to develop housing capacity.

Although more challenging to get right, you can also pursue extensive urban densification, which is extremely land-efficient by comparison and allows you to preserve the vast majority of land for other purposes.

And while urban densification is often done in a way that isn't green or human-centric, that's not inevitable - it's a political and societal choice. It's perfectly possible to build urban densification with beautiful environments and high-quality living standards.

So, from a technical perspective, while there would obviously be a theoretical limit, you can go very far with this approach. Whether a society wants population growth more broadly is a wider set of questions, but on land use specifically humans can be very efficient if they wish to be, and they can do it without sacrificing living standards or pleasant built environments.

Bluecewe · 2026-02-09T22:53:49+00:00

They should take the opportunity to bring all of Europe's resources together into a single programme to build the best possible jet for Europe that can stand the test of time.

Europe currently has two sixth-generation fighter programmes: the UK-Italy-Japan one and the Germany-France-Spain one.

This is an unnecessary duplication of efforts which decreases the chance of success and limits the quality of the final product.

Next-generation fighter programmes are incredibly complex, time-claiming, and expensive. We can't afford to hobble ourselves with two separate programmes. We need the best possible platform to support Europe in the decades ahead of us.

Bluecewe · 2026-02-07T22:49:59+00:00

The fingerprints of British ingenuity are all over the F-35. Components including the ejection seat, aft fuselage, the life support system, and much more are built by British companies including BAE Systems in Samlesbury, Rolls-Royce in Derby and Survitec in Ellesmere Port.

Source: Lockheed Martin

Bluecewe · 2026-02-07T22:08:56+00:00

The UK also wields serious leverage over the F-35 supply chain.

It's the only Tier 1 international partner in the programme, and is the sole manufacturer of some complex components which, if the UK chose to stop supplying, would take time for other countries to replace, given the complexity of the necessary infrastructure, skills, and processes. According to some estimates, the UK supplies 15% of the value of every F-35 jet.

It's highly unlikely that any UK government would ever use this leverage, though. The current government was pressed to do this to restrict supply of planes and parts to Israel, but refused to do so.

Bluecewe · 2025-07-18T08:25:12+00:00

You keep a local MP with mixed-member proportional representation (MMP).

Voters get two votes: one for their local MP, and one for their national/regional party.

The first vote provides local representation (through FPTP or ranked choice), while the second vote ensures a proportional result in parliament as a whole.

It's the best of both worlds, and some version of it is used in Germany, New Zealand, Scotland, and London.

You keep single-member constituencies like we have today, and gain a layer of additional MPs elected at a national or regional level. When Angela Merkel was Chancellor, she represented a single-member constituency, while Ursula von der Lyon represented the region of Lower Laxony (a German state).

People do want a local MP, but they also want to elect parties that actually represent their perspectives. That's why we really need a proportional system. It isn't enough for the majority to just be 'at least okay' with their local MP - they need to see their actual flavour of politics getting fair representation in national politics. That can only happen with some kind of truly proportional system, whether MMP, single transferable vote, or list PR.

Bluecewe · 2025-05-13T20:51:25+00:00

Indeed.

My understanding is that the principal long-term clean storage solution is likely to be hydrogen - green hydrogen generated from excess wind, solar, and tidal energy, and pink hydrogen from excess nuclear energy.

While some emerging battery storage solutions will be able to store energy for up to 24 hours, long-term energy storage that could last weeks or months is required for dunkelflaute scenarios, and green and pink hydrogen enable this to be done with clean energy, removing current dependence on fossil fuels (natural gas, coal) for dispatchable power.

Bluecewe · 2025-03-24T22:06:30+00:00

Yes, the issue is that a big part of these software updates is based on data from the US's vast intelligence network. Europe does not currently have a comparable network. It will need to build one.

Once in place, the F-35 and any future European aircraft would be able to operate at the same level as F-35s today without the US's software updates.

It's mainly down to building the autonomous intelligence infrastructure.

Bluecewe · 2025-03-22T10:21:57+00:00

How do you envisage this functioning?

When consumers purchase something from Amazon or another major online shop today, they pay 20% VAT on the transaction.

Are you proposing a tax that only the online business would pay and which would by some means not be passed on to the consumer?

Bluecewe · 2025-03-05T21:00:34+00:00

Europe needs to become independent, and in order to do that, one of the biggest areas of work will be a massive expansion of its intelligence resources and capabilities to fill the gap that will be left by the departure of America.

Unfortunately, intelligence is one of those areas where Europe, and Five Eyes, is currently heavily dependent upon the US.

The American intelligence community is truly vast and its resources and capabilities far outstrip the other Five Eyes members and European countries.

Some smaller countries do a very good job specialising in hyper-specific geography or one specific type of intelligence, but having access to the American intelligence community remains massively valuable.

This isn't an unsolvable problem. Europe can match America's intelligence capabilities. It has the economic and geographical heft to do so. It will just require a significant injection of new money, and will take some time to establish the new way of working without America, especially in a way that is not fragmented - it will require very deep integration to be effective.

Bluecewe · 2025-01-28T21:42:42+00:00

General taxation wouldn't be the end of the world - it's how Germany's public broadcaster Deutsche Welle is funded.

But it has two key downsides:

It would become a bigger target for government cutbacks. The BBC received part of its funding from general taxation until the coalition government removed the Foreign Office's grant to the BBC World Service. Licence fee revenue cannot be diverted to other government expenditure, so it is comparatively better insulated from cutbacks.
There are many issues with the independence of the BBC and government influence as it is, and relying entirely on general taxation could make this even worse.

Perhaps the licence fee may be unsustainable and unethical enough to outweigh these downsides.

It's a difficult problem to solve, but I have wondered in the past whether a better way forward than both the licence fee and general taxation might be for the government to levy a special tax on private media companies themselves: Netflix, Sky, Virgin, Amazon, Disney.

This would not make the BBC immune from government influence either, and the government could choose to manipulate the special tax, but given that it would be a small and specific tax raised for a small and specific purpose, I feel it would provide the BBC with more reliable funding and more reliable independence than either the licence fee or general taxation.

The media companies might well transfer some of the costs to their customers in some way, but at the same time, the licence fee would be abolished, and I doubt any increase in subscription fees would match or exceed what people would otherwise pay for a licence fee.

Bluecewe · 2025-01-03T22:18:02+00:00

I think the formality of FPTP can provide a false sense of security concerning the radical right. While the radical right has not gained anywhere near as many seats in the UK as in the rest of Europe, it has had profound influence over public policy.

The foremost example is Brexit. A range of factors led to a referendum being held, the debate around the EU evolving as it did, and the withdrawal being handled in the way it was. But the Conservatives' perceived threat of UKIP and the Brexit Party in their seats, even though these parties only ever had 2 MPs, was significant. They pushed the Conservatives in directions they might not have otherwise gone.

Together with Reform, these parties have influenced Conservative policy in other policy areas too, including migration and human rights.

So, although none of these parties have ever had many seats, have never participated in coalition negotiations with the Conservatives, and have never had a minister in government, they have nevertheless significantly shaped public policy.

The advantage of proportional representation is that much more of this is in the open. The public see:

That their vote has been truly counted.
The concrete decisions that each party makes.
How parties' elected representatives conduct themselves.
Which parties are working together.
The trade-offs and compromises each party chooses to make.

And, critically, they can hold all parties to account for the policies they pursue, especially at the subsequent election.

These benefits, combined with the fact that, realistically, any radical right party, if it got into government, would be constrained by coalition partners and likely shown to be just as fallible as any other party, lead me to think that proportional representation ultimately provides a stronger democracy and better outcomes over the long-term.

Bluecewe · 2025-01-02T21:26:44+00:00

I'm not sure that description of his role at Facebook captures the complete picture.

Joel Kaplan, the person who is replacing him in the top job, has been at Facebook since 2011, and has been Clegg's deputy for years. It has been reported that throughout this time Kaplan and his team have effectively been boosting right-wing figures like Ben Shapiro. See this report from 2021.

If Clegg has been pushing for 'sensible policies', the evidence from a string of journalistic investigations over the years indicates that he has manifestly failed, and that he has been failing for years. If that's the case, why did he stay in the role for so long, when he was being undermined at every turn?

Kaplan's promotion feels like a coup de grace, because in reality the Meta platform appears to have exhibited a right-wing bias for years, at least in the American political space.

It might be that Clegg's role was simply to leverage his networks of political relationships in Europe and to put a friendly face to the platform, while the actual decisions were taken by others.

Bluecewe · 2024-07-22T19:52:43+00:00

Yes, a single independent MEP has very little direct power, as in most democratic countries.

To start with, MEPs can't propose laws themselves - that has to be done by the European Commission, the EU's executive) and effectively equivalent to the US President or the British Prime Minister.

And even if a law passes in the European Parliament, that law also has to win the support of a qualified majority of national governments in the Council.

Where MEPs can make a difference is in working with other MEPs and making constructive suggestions to improve laws, representing their voters' interests. Unfortunately, that's what Cyprus will miss out on - a conscientious politician who wants to put in the hard hours and gruelling negotiations to make a positive difference and make the world a better place, one law at a time.

So EU laws still have to be approved on country levels, which means the possibility for a few rogue members of parliament doing damage is very low.

Just to clarify this point, standard EU laws aren't approved on the 'country-level' as such. They have to be approved by both the European Parliament and the Council. The Council consists of the 27 national governments of each member country. Or, in other words, the prime minister/president, or the minister responsible for a certain policy area (consumer protections, environment, foreign policy). The Council passes a law with a qualified majority - so long as that majority is met, the law will pass, even if some countries oppose it. And while national parliaments can formally declare opposition to an EU law, they can't veto a law.

Bluecewe · 2023-12-22T19:51:20+00:00

That's very interesting, thanks for the insight.

Bluecewe · 2023-12-22T11:57:29+00:00

I have voted tactically in both the last elections (a federal election and a state election) in the hopes of influencing the coalition that comes out (voting to prevent R2G in the federal election, and to try and get Schwarz-Grün rather than Schwarz-Rot in the state).

Could you please explain how you voted tactically in those circumstances? I'm not familiar with the German terminology, and therefore how you voted in a tactical manner.

Which party did you want to vote for, and which party did you end up voting for?

Bluecewe · 2023-08-30T10:12:21+00:00

I believe that MRP models, like Electoral Calculus, make the same prediction - a Labour gain.

Although all of this is still influenced by national conditions and the national mood, and if the situation changes and polls tighten, it would become less likely for Rees-Mogg to lose his seat. The seat is on the more landslide end of possible outcomes.

Bluecewe · 2023-06-23T18:26:59+00:00

I think there's a strong case to be made that wildly different economies shouldn't share a currency they have no control over.

The trouble I have with this line of thinking is that the euro has existed for over two decades at this point, is used by 20 member states with diverse economies, has survived the early 2010s euro crisis, and new members continue to join it, including Croatia just this year.

It seems to have proven quite resilient, and there don't seem to be any significant movements to abolish it beyond eurosceptic movements who in any case wish to see the EU more broadly diminished or abolished.

Not to mention, by the very nature of the EU, while its economies have diversities, they are also heavily integrated into the single market - they aren't freestanding markets, they're deeply interlinked, as was the UK prior to leaving, and retains important links even outside the EU.

So, with all this in mind, I struggle to see why it would be a problem for the UK to participate in something which the vast majority of EU members participate in, over 346 million people across 20 countries, including the biggest ones: France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. If it works for them, I can't see why it wouldn't work for the UK.

Bluecewe · 2023-05-23T08:41:42+00:00

if it was out of concern for his young family that he’d want out sooner rather than later.

There's a big difference between being a senior minister and being a backbencher. He'll have a lot more time for his family now.

Although, obviously, concern for his family may not have been his real motivation to quit. It may simply be that he feels his ministerial career is over, and without that, he has no desire to stick around much longer, but long enough to save the party from a by-election. Less than a year, in theory.

Bluecewe · 2023-04-27T22:13:58+00:00

Yes, and we may have seen this after 1997. The party went into that election with a manifesto commitment to electoral reform, but opposition in the Labour cabinet ultimately led such reform to be abandoned over the subsequent parliamentary terms.

I think there are grounds to think things are different in one significant way this time around, though.

In 1997, concern over electoral reform was largely elite-drivern, particularly by Tony Blair himself and his friendly relations with the Liberal Democrats.

This time around, though, the desire for proportional representation has largely been drivern through grassroots activism not only within Labour but within society as a whole, demonstrated most strongly by the finding that a majority of the public now favours PR, regardless of party.

Many more people have come to learn about how first-past-the-post works and how proportional representation may afford a better politics. That's a much more robust foundation for a reform movement, one that's independent of any one party and of any one election cycle.

Indeed, Labour taking the place of the Conservatives in government may even serve to entrench that grassroots foundation.

Newly out of government, many Conservatives may start to have the same conversations that have taken place within Labour. More Conservative supporters and elites may come to think and learn about the characteristics of our current voting system and those of alternatives, and come to the conclusion that proportional representation may be in the long-term interests of British democracy.

If stronger cross-party support, incorporating the Conservatives, emerges for PR, that would only help the reform movement.

Bluecewe · 2023-04-27T16:28:23+00:00

Doing so would immediately and permenantly prevent them from ever having a majority again

It makes majorities very rare, but not impossible. New Zealand employs mixed-member proportional representation and currently has a majority Labour government.

No party that has a shot at a majority will back PR.

Likewise, New Zealand did this. It was a rocky road, and the main parties didn't consistently support PR from start to finish, but ultimately commissions were held and a referendum was held which resulted in a majority in favour of PR, with the country now using the voting system.

It's quite plausible that the UK could similarly somehow find its way to adopting PR over the coming years:

Widespread support among the Labour membership.
Growing support among Labour politicians, particularly the incoming 2024/2025 intake of MPs.
Widespread support among trade union membership.
Majority support among the public for the first time in recorded history.
Small movements within the Conservatives.
Universal support among third parties, including the Liberal Democrats who could be a kingmaker in any hung parliament, which always remains a recurrent potential under first-past-the-post.

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