Covid-19 in Hungary: Viktor Orbán pursues dictatorial powers
hungarianspectrum.org
hungarianspectrum.org
Many people want the gov to make quarantine real but it's not happening yet.
The old people (they are mostly Orbán voters) are on the streets. When I look out to the window I rarely see a mask. 10-15% of the people. Elderly people and many others still claim C19 is fake. Orbán already has the whole control of the country, now with that we're going to stay here for a dozens of years. Good bye EU, good bye civilization. I'll leave to a better place as soon C19 will go away in the world - if there will be a chance for that, not sure.
Hungarian health is shit. Lombardy has something like 9.3/10 in terms of peoples health, Hungary has 2.2 (higher is better). My estimation is 500k deaths (10 million population) in my country in 3-6 months - based on data from Italy and South Korea plus health data.
The worse thing is our sociaty. We don't have. There are mostly poor, stupid people with no ability to even read, understand, etc. I am not kidding. I know it sounds harsh. That's fckin hungarian culture based on our sad history.
It's done.
Stuff that is happening here is worst since we got rid of communism in '89 everyone is panic buying everyone is in for themselves. Honestly a dictatorship wouldn't be so bad because we need good leaders in these darkest times, crowds are so irrational nowadays. [/rant]
> Honestly a dictatorship wouldn't be so bad because we need good leaders in these darkest times
Yeah, no thanks. You're either born after '89 or way before '89 to have this type of thinking.
Italy has a 9.25% death rate [1] as of today.
[0] https://miro.medium.com/max/9350/1*r-ddYhoUtP_se6x-NOEinA.pn...
[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/
That being said, even countries like the US and Canada are saying they expect 60-70% of the population to get it.. so you could say the death rate will be 9% of 60%...
The assumption is that the testing population is currently biased towards more serious cases (e.g. if you are in the hospital you get tested. but if you are in the hospital, you have severe symptoms => higher % will die). On the other hand you could have an entire family of 6 people under the same roof not being tested but all positive. Italy thought something similar and tested an entire village. Loads showed no symptoms and tested positive.
Hence you will have X% of 60%. Question now is what the X is. But 9% seems to be the super pessimistic upper bound.
The only good estimates are from the Diamond Princess, as all persons there have been tested. Most countries only test people with symptoms, with about a factor 5 missing. Chinese data is completely unreliable, South Korean best, behind the Diamond Princess.
Now they even started talking of 0.30% and lower.
* https://old.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/fnd2vc/covid19_fat... * https://old.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/fljcwy/early_epide...
Studies: https://voxeu.org/article/intergenerational-ties-and-case-fa...
CFR's: Korea 0.97%, rest of China 0.4%, Germany 0.22%, Singapore 0.0%, Diamond Princess <1%
Guarantee the amount of people with the virus is 10x or more the amount who've tested positive, which would push the death rate way down, but is also concerning in it's own way.
It's about 3 times the predicted infection mortality rate of around 1.4%.
I think people aren't really listening. Tubes are still being used in London and people are treating self quarantine as an opportunity to have a day off, and go to a park. That's a bit scary.
Tubes have been cut to sunday services so of course they are crowded.
The PM's elderly father went on TV to send out mixed messages, by declaring that he will go to the pub and nobody can stop him, just last week. You have to wonder, and question the 'good' intentions of the government, after running point with flattening the sombrero and building herd immunity strategy, prior to the current situation? The Coronavirus Bill is being debated right now, across both houses, which will give the government sweeping powers; if there was ever a case for Hanlon and the behaviour of plebs ─ this is it.
Actually it's much worse - if you read the scientific advice, some of it is about how politicians can't and shouldn't actually follow the scientific advice, because if the government isn't seen to be panicking and doing pointless unnecessary things that other countries are then people might riot. The British government isn't the problem here.
Thankfully Trump changed his message after Wall Street and Fox News personality Tucker Carlson called out his political spin.
In the end, I fear the virus will community spread everywhere unless the _entire world_ takes it seriously _at the same time_, but I don’t foresee that happening.
You cannot discredit someone who robbed a bank and literally denies it the next day, along with millions of followers who also deny it even having seen the robbery first hand.
Your assumption of 'credit' implies some kind of rationality, there isn't. It's just a big personality fight.
Whatever Trump does or says is right, by virtue of the fact he said it.
FYI - the same could apply to popular characters of other kinds, this not just Trump, he's just a good example.
Edit: I should add, I feel this way specifically because I enjoy reading comments from various news sources as a measure of certain kinds of populism, and about 2/3 of the commenters currently on FoxNews are very pro Trump, often hailing is 'early action' etc. on the issue, completely disregarding the fact that only days ago, he was dismissing the issue as a hoax, literally indicating 'we only have a few cases, it will be zero soon' - all the while Wuhan and other places blow out of control. This should be enough to destroy any leaders' credibility. And of course, this is not a left/right/up/down thing, there are leaders of all political stripes who either do such ridiculous things or, who are credible - but still have followers who'll believe their statements over any kind of reality. I think this is more common than not: we believe personalities more than we believe facts.
Are we watching the same thing? I've watched almost every single press conference and Trump has not "changed his tune" rather he is than continuing to lie, write history, and downplay the virus.
Just watch, when his eyes are down he is reading off prepared notes, then he looks up and starts riffing (lying and downplaying). He may be taking it semi-seriously but he is dog-whistling to his base constantly about how it's not his fault and it's not a big deal.
And he changed it again yesterday, when some other Fox commentators said that more people would die to a bad economy than would to the virus if people stay at home more than a couple of weeks if we keep up the measures being put in place to limit its spread. So now the message is that in 15 days they will consider greatly easing those measures.
Note also the assumption in "unemployment = death": there will be no social safety net to prevent it.
Goodbye civilization? Most people can't read? It's done?
No my friend, isolation seems to be getting to your head. "When I look out the window, only 10-15% are wearing masks". That's far more than many other places.
I was raised in the same environment in Poland, was a subject of the same UE-love brainwashing most of my youth, and have/had plenty of friends with the same view.
There are nice, good and working things back home. But they are hugely overshadowed by amount of things that don't work as they should - social system, healthcare, high criminality, utter pervasive corruption on all levels. We also have huge issues with big roma population that all politicians gave up on long time ago. Nobody cares about them anymore, I'd say they are a ticking bomb.
On top of all that, many folks are xenophobic, if not outright racist. You can have wonderful deep kind relationship or encounters with strangers, but people can be proper selfish assholes on a level I haven't seen in the west. Politicians, always the worst scum of the given population, are a bad, corrupt joke through whole spectrum.
I could go on for hours. Why... I moved, just like millions others and didn't look back (not EU). Its nice to visit, but that's about it. I can see on most folks back home how not-really-happy they are, kinda OK is the norm.
Anybody "could". So?
Because that's how we've agreed to organize. Economies of scale. The difference between Spaniards and Germans is smaller than you might expect.
Isn't that the point? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_difference...
You may be a bit too pessimistic.
They already said they're Hungarian. :D
Death rates are around 0.6%. Depends on the population pyramid, etc. Forget the detected cases. Focus only on deaths, multiply by the 0.6% rate and you've got the number of infected up to ~17 days ago. From then, exponential growth: doubles every 2 to 4 days, except if contained.
The health care system doesn't matter: the growth is exponential; it takes not long for it to crumble, however good it might be. That's happening in Italy (incl. Lombardia) and Spain. What matters how much profilactic material there is (masks, etc) and ventilators; and to prevent the exponential spreading with containment.
In Germany (where I leave) I'm yet to see a single mask. At least people are taking containment more seriously than the government. We'll see what happens when we hit 1000 deaths next Sunday.
Author makes a good point at the end - it can go another way as well. Let's imagine, what if the country starts to crumble? As pezo1919 pointed out, health/healthcare is in deep trouble. What if tens of thousands die and everyone turns against Orbán? These changes will come very handy as well, won't they?
I'm trying to finish this comment real fast before they pass this law and a black car takes me away for spreading f
I even was in Budapest during the celebrations of the 1000 year anniversary of the founding of the Kingdom of Hungary (which was really just the anniversary of the Christianization of the country and the Pope tossing a crown to King Istvan). The fireworks were great and the I stood in the square in front of the Parliament building and watched a then much younger Viktor Orban giving a speech.
At the time, I was under the impression that Orban was viewed as a vibrant leader committed to democracy and modernization. Oh, how times have changed.
He's now a wannabee dictator, stomping on democracy and free speech, and taking the country on a reverse course back to the darker years of Hungary's past.
What the hell happened to you, Viktor? Did you grow to like power too much? You were so promising, but turned out to be so disappointing. Another Mugabe.
Now I feel sad when I think of Hungary and the nice people I met there. I also marvel at the inability of the people to learn from their past. Hungarians always seemed very well-informed and knowledgeable of their history.
-- begin quote --
Demagogues usually advocate immediate, forceful action to address a crisis while accusing moderate and thoughtful opponents of weakness or disloyalty. Once elected to high executive office, demagogues typically unravel constitutional limits on executive power and attempt to convert their democracy to dictatorship.
...
Methods [used by demagogues]:
* Scapegoating
* Fearmongering
* Lying
* Emotional oratory and personal charisma
* Accusing opponents of weakness and disloyalty
* Promising the impossible
* Violence and physical intimidation
* Personal insults and ridicule
* Vulgarity and outrageous behavior
* Folksy posturing
* Gross oversimplification
* Attacking the news media
-- end quote --
* fearmongering
* Accusing of disloyalty
* Personal insult
* Gross oversimplification
If the media law has a clause about being active only in national emergency, it might be OK (not that I'd vote for it).
There's really nothing on here that demonstrates that you can identify or rule out a demagogue by the presence or absence of these methods in use by them. I'm sure many will try though, and many more will nod their heads in approval.
The parallels between US right now, and Hungary right now, are alarming. It's overtly called out in the press... so it's part of the conversation, but we're full circle on what my parents (and grandparents) went through and how a redemptive arc is, or is not, available.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22663106
"If there’s anything the current debacles in Europe and the U.S. has taught us, it’s that selfish and/or irrational jerks abound, and asking nicely doesn’t work at all."
Who, whom?
The problem with dictatorships is either your dictator isn't benevolent, or you have a great dictator but then he dies and his son takes over and he's terrible. There's lots of examples in history of excellent dictators/authoritarians: Marcus Aurelius of Rome, and Elizabeth I of England, for example. Of course, with Marcus Aurelius, there was a movie made about what happened there (Gladiator, 2000) when he crappy son took over.
Politics, power, and hubris are inseparable.
Powers exist to benefit and protect themselves, even agencies with the 'best intent' fall into traps of self-delusion and aggrandizement.
We saw 100 revolutions in the last century, most of them 'in the name of the people' - and almost all of them failed and did mostly the opposite of that even if there were a 'few wins' here and there. Literacy and some kinds of healthcare increased dramatically in Cuba ... and yet ... we still have Castro Inc.'s totalitarian fist 50 years later.
The very authoritarianism of any regime which gives it the power to do something possibly good in the short term is exactly the thing that prevents it from adapting in the long term.
Also, authoritarianism tends to limit the scope of influence and authority to a smaller groups, which is not good for many things that require a lot of voices. Creative fields, research, even market economies have lots of actors.
If Hungary were willing to give 'temporary powers' to some person who was not Orban, for say 6 months, well then maybe they'd have something, but otherwise, this looks like a power grab Putin style.
Of course, we don't live in an ideal world.
Funny example: Heaven (the Christian version) will be an ideal dictatorship (for Christians) :)
That said, I think every western country could use a temporary (say, 6 months) switch to dictatorship, because I worry we won't deal with this effectively otherwise. I have no idea how to ensure such a dictatorship would be temporary, though.
The notion of handing Donald Trump the ability to rule by fiat, let alone other national leaders, is beyond rhetoric, it's not even contemplatable.
We need coordinated, responsible leadership. Most governments have all of the constitutional powers they need at this time.
The people elected Trump, so why not give him a dictatorship for 6 months? After all, it's within the President's power to declare martial law for times of emergency. It's the job of the voters to make sure they don't elect someone who can't be trusted with the awesome power available to that position. The same goes for any democratic country.
The powers of the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary exist to balance one another out especially in times of crises when some dictator could come along and declare himself ruler.
The people didn't vote for a Dictator, they voted for a President with very limited constitutional powers.
Also, anyone can fork, so really he's not a dictator of everything, just a specific flavor.
One thing democracy gets better than dictatorship is that it guarantees that it has to keep at least a consistent slice of the population happy, not just one dictator and their apparatus. What dictatorship gets better is that a single person's will and vision is easier to plan and achieve, instead of the many voices and wills of the "majority".
I would quibble quite strongly with the characterization that dictatorships are "absolute best form of government is actually a dictatorship, because it's efficient and looks out for the interests of the people." They theoretically can be, but their fatal weakness is they have no effective mechanism to ensure the leader actually looks out for the people or that there's a smooth succession. Having effective mechanisms to do that are very, very important to have a "good form of government."
A democratic leader must please the public which could mean lying to them or being a moron __but__ will also mean working to help them (the more educated the public, the less the lies work) So your chances are always better with democracy.
Do you have any proof for your claim? I can point to multiple dictators in history under whose reign their people had (by the standards of the time) very good lives and government. Elizabeth I's rule was considered a golden age for England.
Finally, how is this different from democratic governments? Congresspeople here in the US spend all their effort getting "campaign donations" so they can be re-elected, and the distribute resources to stay in power (called "pork barrel politics"). The latter ends up benefiting small groups of people at the expense of the nation.
Comparing these dictatorships to each other is not meaningful, we would need to compare dictatorship to democracy. Tudor England was better off than medieval England: not a very high bar. For one thing religious executions still happened and there are certainly no written troves of commoners praising the new age.
Elizabethan England was certainly inferior to the Italian renaissance republics of the period. And its people worse of than the latter democratic UK. It is less of a leap forward than 5th century Athens or even 19th century UK. The nearest semi-democracy in time and space would be recently independent Holland which had more freedom and growth: it is even where the American Pilgrims initially fled to. Even among dictatorships, Elizabeth I is not that great: equally despotic Spain had more power, technology and culture, Arab and Asian nations had longer life spans, more sanitation and higher literacy.
To compare democracy vs dictatorship you'd need to countries similar in culture and era. Like North and South Korea.
South Korea was a dictatorship during it's massive economic boost into the developed world. Park Chung-hee developed South Korea.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22665112.