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>I am really glad that eastern European people are so vigilant about censorship and government control. Ironic that they are "worried" about "government contro

>I am really glad that eastern European people are so vigilant about censorship and government control. Ironic that they are "worried" about "government control" given how often their governments control huge chunks of the economy, private sector and the general distrust and vilification of capitalism (you think the OWS is bad, wait till you hear the ex-commies and philosophy professors talking about social justice to the plebs, these guys are in the government here). It's more about them being pissed off about piracy prevention which is common not only for personal use but also in businesses.

Maro 15y ago
I'm not sure why your comment was downvoted, as it's pretty much spot on. I'm Hungarian.
- m_for_monkey 15y ago
  The same was said and downvoted last week when the Poles demonstrated: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3515839 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3515839.
JanezStupar 15y ago
Thats exactly why I personally was so surprised by the uproar about ACTA. Because it appears that privacy and opposition to censorship are at the core of opposition not "right to pirate stuff".
rmc 15y ago
In the USA socialism is a dirty word. Here the European Socialist Party is the 2nd largest in the European Parliament.
- dan85 15y ago
  In Eastern Europe, "socialism" doesn't mean anything. Same about the other ______isms. There is just more or less OLIGARCHY. If I rememebr well, in Romania, most of the right-wing economic measures were taken in early 2000 by the... Socialist Party.
paganel 15y ago
I don't downvote stuff on HN (I think you're just my third or fourth downvote), but I had to do it because you're factually wrong, and spreading misconceptions. I'll just give you my country's example, Romania. Our biggest company, Petrom (it's an oil company) has been privatized just before our entry into the EU. Its new owner? The Austrians from OMV, which has the Austrian Government as its main shareholder. Also, there are only 2 or 3 Romanian banks, which I don't think that control more than 10% of the market taken together, the rest of the banking sector is controlled by foreign-owned banks (some of them also having their Governments as major shareholders). And I could go on and on.
- Maro 15y ago
  The poster wrote "huge chunks", not "all". I can give an example very close to home about gov't influence here in Hungary, and that is the tech/IT sector. A huge chunk of tech/IT SMBs are directly or indirectly living off government contracts, grants, gov't companies or companies that have been privatized but retain close ties to the gov't (and are dumb). A new thing here in Hungary is EU grants, which is the same, dumb money. The first question I routinely get as an entrepreneur is "what grant did you win?". When I say "none" and that I'm trying to bootstrap off the market they think I'm crazy or lying. (Not kidding.) Also, most SMBs that I've come in contact with over over the last 3-5 years fit the above description well. Without going into the details of the problems with money from the gov't or the EU, this effect precludes any kind of real R&D or innovation to take place around here. In fact the word "innovation" has been hijacked here in Hungary to mean "grant money". You have gov't officials saying "there's a lot of innovation in the IT sector" which means "there's a lot of grant money given out in the IT sector". Unfortunately there are no results to show for it, it's a cargo cult culture. The succesfull tech companies we do have (LogMeIn, Prezi, IndexTools, Graphisoft) are all companies that to my knowledge stayed the hell away from gov't money.
  - bad_user 15y ago
    government influence != influencing the government to throw shit-loads of money at you

Maro 15y ago

I'm not sure why your comment was downvoted, as it's pretty much spot on. I'm Hungarian.

m_for_monkey 15y ago
The same was said and downvoted last week when the Poles demonstrated: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3515839 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3515839.

JanezStupar 15y ago

Thats exactly why I personally was so surprised by the uproar about ACTA. Because it appears that privacy and opposition to censorship are at the core of opposition not "right to pirate stuff".

rmc 15y ago

In the USA socialism is a dirty word. Here the European Socialist Party is the 2nd largest in the European Parliament.

dan85 15y ago
In Eastern Europe, "socialism" doesn't mean anything. Same about the other ______isms. There is just more or less OLIGARCHY. If I rememebr well, in Romania, most of the right-wing economic measures were taken in early 2000 by the... Socialist Party.

paganel 15y ago

I don't downvote stuff on HN (I think you're just my third or fourth downvote), but I had to do it because you're factually wrong, and spreading misconceptions. I'll just give you my country's example, Romania. Our biggest company, Petrom (it's an oil company) has been privatized just before our entry into the EU. Its new owner? The Austrians from OMV, which has the Austrian Government as its main shareholder. Also, there are only 2 or 3 Romanian banks, which I don't think that control more than 10% of the market taken together, the rest of the banking sector is controlled by foreign-owned banks (some of them also having their Governments as major shareholders). And I could go on and on.

Maro 15y ago
The poster wrote "huge chunks", not "all". I can give an example very close to home about gov't influence here in Hungary, and that is the tech/IT sector. A huge chunk of tech/IT SMBs are directly or indirectly living off government contracts, grants, gov't companies or companies that have been privatized but retain close ties to the gov't (and are dumb). A new thing here in Hungary is EU grants, which is the same, dumb money. The first question I routinely get as an entrepreneur is "what grant did you win?". When I say "none" and that I'm trying to bootstrap off the market they think I'm crazy or lying. (Not kidding.) Also, most SMBs that I've come in contact with over over the last 3-5 years fit the above description well. Without going into the details of the problems with money from the gov't or the EU, this effect precludes any kind of real R&D or innovation to take place around here. In fact the word "innovation" has been hijacked here in Hungary to mean "grant money". You have gov't officials saying "there's a lot of innovation in the IT sector" which means "there's a lot of grant money given out in the IT sector". Unfortunately there are no results to show for it, it's a cargo cult culture. The succesfull tech companies we do have (LogMeIn, Prezi, IndexTools, Graphisoft) are all companies that to my knowledge stayed the hell away from gov't money.
- bad_user 15y ago
  government influence != influencing the government to throw shit-loads of money at you