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

522 points · 391 comments · marjancek

  1. jakozaur · · focus · HN ↗
    I&#x27;m Polish, but this is such a pessimistic, overdramatic take. The visualisations are impressive, but you&#x27;re living in Poland&#x27;s golden age. See this Hacker News story with 1,000+ upvotes: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=48062117">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;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&#x27;s easy to be a pessimist, but there&#x27;s a bright future ahead of us.

    1. traceroute66 · · focus · HN ↗
      &gt; and Iran is losing its grip on Hormuz

      Remember this is a war that Iran has spent 40 years planning for.

      Netanyahu has been doing the same &quot;two weeks away&quot; stand-up comedy since 1992.

      Netanyahu asked every single US president. They all took advice and then went back with a polite &quot;thanks, but no thanks&quot;.

      You don&#x27;t need to have access to super-secret intel to know going into this frivolous war was a very stupid idea. You just need to look at a standard map and use your brain.

      Finally Mr Netanyahu found a stupid enough US president.

      And the problem with the current US president is he won&#x27;t accept a loss.

      He is not the sort of person willing to accept he has bitten off more than he can chew.

      Nor is he the sort of person who is willing to sit down and have a proper negotiated discussion. Infact he&#x27;s the very person who just tore up the JPCOA seemingly just because he doesn&#x27;t like Obama.

      Nor is he the sort of person willing to learn from Iraq or Afghanistan.

      So we have a stalemate. And a US president who doesn&#x27;t believe in diplomacy, old-school politics or anything else.

      And this stalemate is not one that is going to be resolved with more military firepower. Again, just look at the map....

      1. TheOtherHobbes · · focus · HN ↗
        Not a stupid idea at all. The US oil corps are making massive profits.

        It&#x27;s at everyone else&#x27;s expense, but so is everything else they do.

        1. traceroute66 · · focus · HN ↗
          &gt; The US oil corps are making massive profits

          Its not my area of expertise by any means, but I would perhaps point out the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve chart[1] which is at its lowest level since 1982.

          Also do not forget the oil and LNG needs to be transported and that is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive.

          It may well be that the artificial party cannot go on forever.

          [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.macromicro.me&#x2F;charts&#x2F;41674&#x2F;us-strategic-petroleum-reserve" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.macromicro.me&#x2F;charts&#x2F;41674&#x2F;us-strategic-petroleum...

          1. tancop · · focus · HN ↗
            They don&#x27;t need to go on forever. Just long enough to maximize the share price so oil execs can sell at the top before it all comes down.
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