Thread

September 2026: The world today, as seen by one Polish guy

522 points · 391 comments · marjancek

jakozaur · 1790761035 · focus · HN ↗
I'm Polish, but this is such a pessimistic, overdramatic take. The visualisations are impressive, but you're living in Poland's golden age. See this Hacker News story with 1,000+ upvotes: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48062117">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48062117
The war in Ukraine is a tragedy, but it has proved that Russia is weak. The price shock will speed up the transition to renewables, and Iran is losing its grip on Hormuz. So many of the other issues are solvable.
It's easy to be a pessimist, but there's a bright future ahead of us.
1. jeziorsa · 1790762065 · focus · HN ↗
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  1. bartekrutkowski · 1790762292 · focus · HN ↗
    "Golden age" doesn't mean that everything is perfect and we've reached mythical utopia. It merely means there wasn't a better period in history, to date. Please, name one period, where you had more freedom, more rights, more money earning opportunities, bigger food abundance and variety, longer life expectancy, more safety, less wars (speaking locally about Poland) so on and so forth.
    lifestyleguru · 1790762560 · focus · HN ↗
    Sir are you aware of the state of Polish public healthcare and the nearby war?
    bartekrutkowski · 1790762776 · focus · HN ↗
    I am very well aware. Again, the question still stands: when was that the public healthcare provided more services, for more diseases, better medications, better care? When was that there was no wars in Poland for longer than it is currently?
    I'm aware of all the issues we're dealing with, with the horrible war in Ukraine, but that's still unspeakably better situation than it was in 1945 or in 1965 or any other time before that. I hate any war, I'm not happy with the one in Ukraine, but I will take any war happening in the country next to the one I am in, over a war happening in the country I am in.
    jeziorsa · 1790764772 · focus · HN ↗
    You ask about healthcare? I get the impression that you're a bit clueless on this topic.
    Of course, there's more money in healthcare than ever before. Yet somehow hospitals are being closed, and waiting times are longer than they were three years ago. These are facts that may not be obvious to you if you have private healthcare through Medicover or Lux Med.
    Access to private healthcare can make it easy to overlook the problems in the public system, but for many people those problems are very real and affect their daily lives.
    bartekrutkowski · 1790769584 · focus · HN ↗
    I never said anything about private health care.
    You can take a tiny fraction of any good image and find it lacking. The OP wasn't talking about "golden age of public health care" but about "golden age" in general. I'm still waiting for anyone to answer the questions I've asked above, when was it better to live in Poland if not now?
    Not "when it was absolutely perfect to live in Poland" not even "when was the public health care 100% ideal". It feels that the day to day life issues (of which there are plenty, sure) are stopping you from realising how good you have it compared to generations before you.
    I don't know for sure, but I think it's a safe bet that should you be from your own parents generation, you could've been prosecuted for complaining publicly about "the state of the state", not to mention obtaining a computer for your personal use would be next to impossible.
    [deleted] · 1790769724 · focus · HN ↗
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    [deleted] · 1790769798 · focus · HN ↗
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    subscribed · 1790770036 · focus · HN ↗
    Mate, I'm saying that as someone living in the UK (with friends and relative in Poland so I have close ties) - Poland has much better healthcare than many, for example the UK.
    If I need a doctor who actually listens, or the consultation in less than 2 years, this is the way, and it's a world-class care as well.
    Sure there are subpar parts of the healthcare in Poland, but until all you can get is 15 minutes phone chat with the GP (two days away if it's urgent) instead of in-person visit, or 47 minutes wait for the ambulance in case of stroke or heart attack (in Poland it's ~10 min in cities, ~20 in the villages) you really don't have anything to be ashamed of.
    Complain, if you can improve it, yeah. But it's a good service. Just overworked and underpaid.
    lifestyleguru · 1790770565 · focus · HN ↗
    Medical professionals in Poland overworked and underpaid? Doctors work simultaneously in multiple places with no obligation to be physically present at any, their salaries have been for few years now at Swiss and US levels. Yes salaries of high hundreds thousands EUR annually from the public healthcare system with tax rebates and total taxation somewhere around 15% (!!!).
    World class care? No you are not getting urgent in-person visit in Poland either. There are cases of people dying in ER with dislocated shoulder (because no anesthesiologist present), after quite standard C-section (no doctor present), or intubated into esophagus (and dying afterwards).
    The availability and attention you are writing about are alien to me. Private visit costs 400PLN for five minutes of attention. Most important thing you'll learn is that they don't have the time (for you).
    pzo · 1790766382 · focus · HN ↗
    you can pretty much say the same about many countries like italy, greece or even developing one. But we should be comparing to last 1-2 decades rather than 1-2 centuries. And in my opinion precovid era in poland was better than current one.
    aswegs8 · 1790766987 · focus · HN ↗
    Hard to tell people, who feel the world goes to shit, that it doesn't. When you look at statistics we are living in the Golden Age truly. Worldwide even. But people feel it's worse than ever. One of the big paradoxes of our time.
  2. altern8 · 1790762548 · focus · HN ↗
    Feels like you don't know how bad Poland had it in the past...
  3. jwr · 1790762877 · focus · HN ↗
    That is actually an interesting point to consider. I have been living without reading or watching any local media. I also do not follow any politicians on "social media". I do not use Facebook. I get my tech news from Mastodon and HN, some of the world news trickles through to the tech world, and I get my world news update from The Economist, mostly Leaders section (and Science&Technology).
    I don't care what scandalous thing a politician said on any given day. I do not want to be advertising or voting material, to be riled up and pitted against others.
    That means that I can judge the state of things by simply living in the country and watching what happens around me, comparing it to other places I visit. And that paints a very positive picture of the reality that surrounds us. Even on a practical level, living in a city that is safe and clean with good public transportation is something I've learned to appreciate. There are very few places in the world where I would consider living at this point, and in summertime at least, when the weather is nice, I simply wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
    As to the OP and the blog post (impressive, btw!) — I largely agree. I don't think this is fear-mongering, these things are genuinely happening and are real risks. The OP didn't panic, and neither do I — but I do take these risks into account.
    jeziorsa · 1790764489 · focus · HN ↗
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