...és még annyit, hogy...

 An unusually large scandal has shaken public life in Estonia. A survey planned in collaboration between a foundation's research institute and Estonia's largest university (University of Tartu) had to be halted after outrage swept through the country due to the questions and background of the questionnaire. In short: The creators of the questionnaire obtained data on childless women from the Estonian population registry and sent questionnaires to tens of thousands of women, inquiring about their sexual orientation, political preferences, and why they do not have children. Before I delve further into the background of the matter, let's pause at this level for a moment. Not least because several critical voices have already found these questions to be problematic. Can a sociologist ask why women do not have children? My short answer: yes, they can. Sociology examines social phenomena, and population reproduction is a social phenomenon. The birth rate in a country has been mea

This is Facebook, or rather now known as Meta, showing us at every turn that there's always a way to go lower. Threads, touted as a competitor to Twitter, is also available in Singapore and out of curiosity, I pressed the button. I downloaded the application and with a single button press, I copied my Instagram account's profile settings to Threads. I don't have a personal Instagram, I use it for selling my paintings, so I have an account on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and now Threads under my artist name Art Sai Suo (to sound grandiose). I'm not complaining, since I've sold quite a lot of paintings, without ever having to invest a penny into paid advertisements, so these platforms have worked for me so far. Interestingly, I particularly like Instagram, for paintings, which is a highly visual genre, that platform fits very well and the story, reels, and other features have been cleverly designed. I work with many small enterprises who have successfully built their b

I was six years old. Shovel-eared. This means that my ears stuck out at a right angle from my head. Today, such a thing wouldn't even be noticeable if I saw it, but back then I experienced it as a catastrophe and had surgery at the age of 18. The feeling of catastrophe at the age of six was also reinforced by the fact that I was a favorite target of the "big boys" at school, which meant 9-10-year-olds. These were tall, fair-skinned, well-dressed boys from the new town. They played soccer, they were cool, and they smelled good. But I hated them. Hate is not the right word because it has some aggressive attack in it. I was actually terrified of them. I wanted to disappear, be absorbed, and I begged my mother to take me out of school. They caught me in the hallway, but even more humiliating was when they simply followed me into the classroom and led me out in front of everyone. Then they circled around me, hooting, shoving, calling me shovel-eared, bunny, or even mouse. A Gy

I don't consider myself a big reality show watcher. I'm roughly familiar with the characteristics of the genre, back when the first such productions appeared on MTV, or when Hungarian commercial television began to introduce licenses like Big Brother, Survivor, and similar ones, I watched them with great interest. My first impression was that the initial moments (days) are interesting, but then the dynamics are taken away by the fact that the organizers structure the days with various programs, parade celebrities, and give idiotic tasks instead of letting the conditions and human behavior be observed in their raw reality. There is something perverse and voyeuristic about this, or some kind of human experiment in a bad sense, but the truth is that this is the part that would have interested me. However, I quickly stopped watching these productions because: The whole thing was over-directed. They increasingly chose extreme characters who were displayed in a circus-like manner. Th

For me, the most important aspect of a sci-fi is world-building. It doesn't have to be action-packed, nor does it necessarily require a complex storyline. It should transport me to a world that is different from our own - one that is surprising, disturbing, shocking, frightening, or simply captivating. The best sci-fi doesn't even need a plot. Instead, it allows me to explore a world alongside its inhabitants. It doesn't rely on grandiose words or one-dimensional characters of good versus evil. It doesn't need a narrator. A good sci-fi should not be explained; it is best when I don't fully understand it. I don't understand the technology, the institutions, the laws, the customs, or the relationships between people in this world. I don't know who is who. It is up to me to discover these things along the way, and that is the true plot of a sci-fi. It is my journey of discovering this new world. A sci-fi can even be made around a trip to the grocery store, if t

 In the basement of our Singaporean house, there is a row of small shops and businesses. This is a common feature of HDB (Housing and Development Board) flats, which are public housing estates built by the government. The basement is designed to accommodate various small businesses and community spaces. The logic behind this was also followed in the Hungarian public housing construction boom of the 1960s. Recognizing the small size of the apartments, the original concept was to provide various functions in communal spaces. Laundry could be done in a shared laundry room, bicycles could be kept in a common bicycle storage, and kindergartens and nurseries were located between the buildings. After a while, even the basement hair salon could function as a cooperative (quasi-private enterprise) in the socialist Hungary. This concept is also present in Singapore, but based on capitalism, so the foundation of the services found in residential areas is small businesses. These small businesses a

 It seems like I'm creating a recurring column about my hospital stories from Singapore, but this time I didn't visit the institution as a patient. Well, technically I did, but not as a patient in need of medical attention, but rather as a feedback-giving patient. Since I had interacted with the local Alexandra hospital as both a patient and a family member within three months, I was included in a statistical sample and invited to participate in a focus group discussion on a Saturday morning. I have organized countless focus group discussions myself, and I know how difficult it can be to gather interviewees. So, I immediately said yes, and besides, I had something to say, since my daughter and I are practically regulars there. An agency handled the organization, and they clearly didn't leave anything to chance. They called me about a week before the event, and then messaged me on WhatsApp every few days (everyone uses WhatsApp here, even the government and officials communi

 Estonia's progressive, liberal (which is not a curse word there) center-right party (Reform) won big in the 2023 Estonian parliamentary elections. In the typically diverse party spectrum, Reform captured 31% of the votes, which is enough to secure 33 seats in the 101-member parliament. It is worth noting that in Estonia, math rules, as with 31% of the vote, one can obtain around 30% of the seats. The following populist far-right party (EKRE) received only half as many votes, at 15.8%, which will likely translate to 17 seats. All other parties (six parties entered the parliament) received fewer votes. In accordance with Estonian political traditions, intense coalition negotiations will now take place. The ruling and apparently re-elected Prime Minister of the Reform Party, Kaja Kallas, will now have to find a partner or partners with whom she can form a minimum of a 50+1 parliamentary majority. In Estonian political culture, there is a strong tradition of coalition negotiations. Th

I'm not sure how to translate this sentence from the title into Hungarian: "Lie until it becomes true?" It's not accurate because it resembles more the communication style of Fidesz ( the ruling political party in today's Hungary ), which suggests that if something is repeated frequently and intensely enough, it becomes ingrained in people's minds and becomes true.  Unfortunately, this works. Jürgen Habermas' communication theory also emphasizes that interest groups should come up with unrealistically high demands because then they will meet in the middle and the middle will be higher the higher the original demand. This is exactly how a market (haggling) negotiation works as well. The lie, regardless of whether it is true or not, enters the communication space, appears on the map, cannot be ignored, one must react to it and just by doing so, it gets closer to the truth than if it had never been spoken. Let's recognize the psychology behind this. The d