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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. traceroute66 · 1790767705 · focus · HN ↗
  > 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 "two weeks away" stand-up comedy since 1992.
  Netanyahu asked every single US president. They all took advice and then went back with a polite "thanks, but no thanks".
  You don'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'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's the very person who just tore up the JPCOA seemingly just because he doesn'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'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 · 1790770865 · focus · HN ↗
    Not a stupid idea at all. The US oil corps are making massive profits.
    It's at everyone else's expense, but so is everything else they do.
    WarmWash · 1790777144 · focus · HN ↗
    This is probably the worst thing oil corps could ask for, and I can guarantee you with every ounce of my being that they are furious over this.
    It might check the phantom "short term profits" box, but anyone with any modicum of business sense (and the oil boys are no amateurs) see this event as probably the largest nail ever driven into the oil coffin.
    Trump could not have given a bigger gift to the anti-oil crowd, making every human on Earth think "Damn, this shit is getting expensive and unreliable, what alternatives are available?"
    fransje26 · 1790785076 · focus · HN ↗
    > see this event as probably the largest nail ever driven into the oil coffin.
    It will probably go like this:
    war -> fuel costs explode -> economic crisis -> AI bubble burst -> bigger economic crisis -> eventually rebuild on the ruins of what is left and go electric

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