Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus • Hacker News Board

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#491

Post by jfengel » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 6:29 PM UTC

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #474

jfengel wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And having elected Trump, what did they get aside from triggering the libs? I see a fair bit of attempts at understanding. Liberals love to write books like "The Righteous Mind" and "What's The Matter With Kansas?", attempting to understand conservatives from a liberal point of view. I can't think of anything comparable on the right. Progressives seem to me desperate to understand and cater to conservatives, and it f…

>>And having elected Trump, what did they get aside from triggering the libs? Just top of my head: Well, there is an argument to be made from purely economical perspective, avg. earner did see some improvement. Regardless of whether you think tax cuts were a good idea, Trump tax cuts did have intended effects ( even though they also added to an ever increasing deficit ). He did pull out of JCPOA, which some of his el…

You're absolutely correct that some of what I want is to make my own life easier and be lazy, but there's also a political calculus. Almost anything I do to cater to them helps split my own political coalition.

One possible way to look at 2016 is that the left wing of the Democratic party felt taken advantage of. The party put forth a centrist candidate (after 8 years of a President who wasn't nearly as progressive as they'd hoped). There was little enthusiasm, while the people you've asked me to understand voted for a candidate who was obviously awful in many ways.

So the political calculus can say, "It doesn't matter what they want. You can't reach them, as evidenced by their willingness to vote for such a terrible candidate. I need instead to lean in the exact opposite direction, doing things that they hate vocally, because they can't vote against me any harder than they already do."

That's my excuse to not act on that knowledge. I have only so many actions I can take, and I will spend them in the way that does the most good.

Note that I'm not committed to that, merely explaining the view as being something other than "they're assholes so I can be an asshole back". But I do believe that the time has come to consider making them chase me rather than the other way around.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#492

Post by krzyk » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 6:54 PM UTC

trasz wrote: post #409

krzyk wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never worked using that "way", always the normal one. What you describe is used by firms that you can smell a mile away and don't even try to work there. I'm sure western Europe has similar companies that abuse employer rights.

In the field of software development, in Poland, this is the normal one. Also, note that this is not an abuse of employer's rights: that's precisely how "umowa o dzieło" is supposed to work. That's one example of prevalent neoliberalism.

No one in my or my wifes family works in any other formnof emoloyment. And believe me they are not software developers.

Yes, that's not a good proof, but you also did not present any sources.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#493

Post by ceilingcorner » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

jq-r wrote: post #486

ceilingcorner wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because these countries joined an organization with X agenda which now has Y agenda. This change (and demonization of anyone against it) is what gives politicians like Orban ammo. If the EU were more decentralized, none of these political parties would exist.

My whole point is that "EU-talk" is just a convenient scapegoat. It even doesn't matter if EU exists or not. Those crooks like Orban don't need a solid boogeyman, everything is good for them. Be it EU, "Communists", Jews, Roma, gays, trans, immigrants, dwarfs, Serbs, Croats, Albanians, hairy women or aliens, there is always someone else to blame for their own problems. This is what fuels these guys. The tanking econo…

The only reason Orban is the way he is and Fidesz exists is because of the overreach of the EU.

Study the history of Orban himself. He isn’t just some random right wing nut. He was a part of the first wave of liberalization in the 90s and was very pro-West.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#494

Post by dfxm12 » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #490

dfxm12 wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progressives seem to me desperate to understand and cater to conservatives Huh? Do you have any examples of this? I think you might be generalizing too much what it means to be liberal and don't really understand who is or isn't progressive, even in the context of the US. It sounds like by liberals, you are referring to the Democratic party at large. You have to understand, the Democratic party at large is barely lib…

You're correct: I conflated liberals, progressives, and Democrats. There are definitely important distinctions, but I conflated them as all being roughly on the same side when it comes to politics and dealing with the opposition party. As for "examples", take a look at those two books I mentioned. There are many more books, and many op-ed pieces every time Democrats lose elections. It's only relatively recently that…

FYI, progressives did not write the books you mentioned, so they aren't good examples of showing how "Progressives seem to me desperate to understand and cater to conservatives".

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#495

Post by speeder » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 7:05 PM UTC

joelbluminator wrote: post #459

dogorman wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hungary aside, most of Israel's allies in the region are dictatorships Not just in the region. In the 1970s, Israel worked with apartheid South Africa to develop nuclear weapons. South Africa has subsequently been disarmed, but Israel has not been. Incidentally, in 1963 JFK was trying to stop Israel's nuclear weapons program because American intelligence had failed to turn up any evidence that other countries in th…

Well times changed, Iran is very close to nuclear weapons

in response to Israel developing them first...

So I guess strategically for Israel, making nukes was a mistake.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#496

Post by nindalf » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #484

nindalf wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the question of choice, mandates and so on in regards to government imposing choices upon you. The government isn't imposing these requirements arbitrarily, it's your fellow citizens imposing it through the mechanism of government. For example, Big Government will outlaw and penalise littering not for the sake of it, but because that's what citizens want from their democratically elected government. And as a citize…

> I didn't argue against democracy. I argued against putting the population on a pedestal. Please note that democracy literally is the rule of the people. You simply cannot state that you are not arguing against democracy and in next breath say that people should not be on its pedestal, because, theoretically, people are its ruling class. If it is a democracy, people are on its pedestal. That is the main weakness of…

You've misunderstood and mischaracterised my argument. I'm done.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#497

Post by jfengel » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 7:32 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #494

jfengel wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're correct: I conflated liberals, progressives, and Democrats. There are definitely important distinctions, but I conflated them as all being roughly on the same side when it comes to politics and dealing with the opposition party. As for "examples", take a look at those two books I mentioned. There are many more books, and many op-ed pieces every time Democrats lose elections. It's only relatively recently that…

FYI, progressives did not write the books you mentioned, so they aren't good examples of showing how " Progressives seem to me desperate to understand and cater to conservatives ".

You're correct. I should have said "Democrats", who are the party most closely aligned with progressives and the more progressive of the two parties, but not really very progressive. These books are written targeting centrist Democrats.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#498

Post by Amhaengosa » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 8:06 PM UTC

f6v wrote: post #456

krzyk wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, because there are different media available, and one can watch/listen/read those. In Orban like states you loose that free access to all media and you are forced into the state one. For those that are not aware countries that were under former Soviet boots all have a state television, which is the default source of information for older people (they are used to it), whichever party wins the elections sets up th…

> For those that are not aware countries that were under former Soviet boots all have a state television Most countries in the world have state-owned television. > In Orban like states you loose that free access to all media and you are forced into the state one. So many people own smartphones and have internet access. Even older ones, who learn to use them faster than PCs. People can consume whatever media they want…

> Most countries in the world have state-owned television. Yes, but not state-owned television almost exclusively. The Orban government managed to buy out pretty much every independent TV channel leaving basically only RTLklub which is free-to-air and available anywhere in the country.

> So many people own smartphones and have internet access. Even older ones, who learn to use them faster than PCs. People can consume whatever media they want. And people can certainly teach their parents how to consume non-government news.

Still not everyone has access to the internet, especially in rural areas. For some people the only news source is television and the radio, both which are predominantly owned by the government.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#499

Post by bbv-if » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 8:31 PM UTC

cannabis_sam wrote: post #110

jsbdk wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many people, any political change that is not a move towards an even more liberal view of the world is automatically authoritarianism.

Far more people have an apoplectic fit at anything that can even vaguely be described as “liberal”..

Even when the word is being used in its european sense, meaning more or less the same as 'libertarian' in the US.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#500

Post by trasz » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 8:34 PM UTC

krzyk wrote: post #492

trasz wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the field of software development, in Poland, this is the normal one. Also, note that this is not an abuse of employer's rights: that's precisely how "umowa o dzieło" is supposed to work. That's one example of prevalent neoliberalism.

No one in my or my wifes family works in any other formnof emoloyment. And believe me they are not software developers. Yes, that's not a good proof, but you also did not present any sources.

It’s a bit hard to find something on this in English; if you can read Polish there’s plenty, eg https://biznes.interia.pl/praca/news-2030-proc-zatrudnionych...