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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. tejohnso · 1790770682 · focus · HN ↗
  > it has proved that Russia is weak.
  How? Russia is successfully fighting the entirety of NATO on a front that it is continually pushing further west, with about 20% of Ukraine now lost. If anything NATO and the promise of US security is what has been shown to be weak. And I don't think the idea of US/Western superiority is ever going to come back to what it was given what has happened in the Ukraine and Iran theaters in recent past.
  1. intrasight · 1790771125 · focus · HN ↗
    Russia is strong like an ant is strong: strong but insignificant. It only has any significance economically because it has oil and gas.
    Bareja · 1790771621 · focus · HN ↗
    Russia employs modern ballistic and drone warfare to fight Ukraine. USA can't have its way with Strait of Hormuz and Iran because it can't fight against ballistic missiles and drones effectively. And Poland position is... USA will fight against Russia and their drones and their ballistic missiles while at the same time... USA hasn't been able to do it with much smaller and weaker Iran for 7 months now. Iran got control of the Strait of Hormuz and Iran still has the control of the Strait of Hormuz. For 7 months now USA can't do anything about it. How come you are so sure if they can't protect their allies in the Middle East to export oil through the Strait of Hormuz they will be so successful protecting say... Suwalki "Strait" from much stronger and nuclear strike ready opponent? Reality check? I think we will get one.
    inglor · 1790774251 · focus · HN ↗
    The US can absolutely conquer or decimate Iran and has explicitly avoided targeting energy infrastructure or doing so (understanding that doing so gets us another Iraq or Afgahnistan) but it's not as if the US can't "take on" Iran it's that the US expected regime change in Iran rather than a dragged out war.
    Iran doesn't need to conquer or hold Hormuz they just need it in missile/drone range - it's not symmetric.
    As for the impact on the global economy - the entire world is letting Iran hold its gas/oil hostage because of something the US did. I'm not sure why those countries don't pressure Iran more they're not at war with them they shouldn't be embargo'd.
    macintux · 1790774848 · focus · HN ↗
    > The US can absolutely conquer or decimate Iran
    Decimate? Sure. Conquer? Absolutely not.
    Iran is a huge country with dispersed command and control and generations of people raised to hate the U.S.
    orwin · 1790778500 · focus · HN ↗
    Not really raised to hate the US, but they do learn in school that the sarin Saddam Hussein used on their parents and grandparents were from US stocks. Which is factually true, even if used as propaganda.
    stickfigure · 1790787889 · focus · HN ↗
    Those people also hate the IRGC; the recent popular uprising was only suppressed by murdering ten thousand people. The regime is not as stable as you think.
    lo_zamoyski · 1790788159 · focus · HN ↗
    Indeed, and that's an important distinction.
    Just war [0] proponents will argue both. For instance, targeting civilians/civilian infrastructure is gravely immoral (the decimation part), but also any armed conflict is unlikely to be successful and thus would be immoral on the grounds that there is no reasonable chance of success (the conquer part). But frankly, in this case, we don't even meet most jus ad bellum criteria, let along jus in bello.
    [0] <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/" rel="nofollow">https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/
    inglor · 1790791446 · focus · HN ↗
    It absolutely can conquer Iran lol it's a much stronger much better funded army - the issue is _holding_ Iran and what the point actually is. Even in conflicts like Vietnam when the other side had a superpower backing them (or Afghanistan when the Soviets attacked it) the issue isn't grabbing the territory it's the fact holding territory doesn't actually accomplish much and the strategic goal (not having a nuclear theocracy there) isn't met long term.

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