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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. timnetworks · · focus · HN ↗

        [dead]

        1. secretsatan · · focus · HN ↗
          How do you propose to end the war without negotiations?
          1. drybjed · · focus · HN ↗
            Make the oil less relevant to the point that 1&#x2F;5th of it not being present doesn&#x27;t affect the rest of the world. We are not there yet, but when we get there, there will be no reason to hold the Strait of Hormuz. Of course the impact on the Gulf states will be enormous, economic or otherwise, so it&#x27;s hard to say if they will let this be.
            1. tw04 · · focus · HN ↗
              So are we getting there by exhausting the strategic reserve, by killing renewable projects, or by eliminating fuel efficiency standards?
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