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: 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.

> 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....

> 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.

I agree. My grandmother was not allowed to make decisions over her body, own a bank account, or work after marriage until the late 60s. For many of us, it's definitely a golden age of rights and possibilities.

Yeah I struggle to think of a time in the last three hundred years that Poland was in a better position than it is today. Maybe like 2019 or so? And that is basically still the same era.

This is living in denial. Lots of Ukrainians didn't believe there's going to be war either. There are already Russian drones flying into Eastern European countries, while the US is lifting sanctions on Russia - you don't have to be a fortune teller to predict where this is going.

>Iran is losing its grip on Hormuz

citation needed

It wouldn’t be Polish if it wasn’t pessimistic ;)

golden age was precovid we are passed the peak even thought we got into G20 I suspect GDP increased a lot of because inflation.

Been living a lot in SE Asia in the last 12 years but ever yeah in poland for few months. There has been really big inflation in the last 2-3 years and everybody notice it.

Been twice this year in Italy, one time in alps and last week in puglia and there is a reason so many Poles go there for holiday - its cheaper or similar price but better than taking a holiday in poland.

Dzień Dobry :-) Poland is very modern on the surface. Very clean. Very safe. And an economic success story. As long as private sector goes and its citizens ambitions it is doing fantastic. However the society is a bit anachronistic. The same goes with the public sector. Yes, you get mObywatel app, and so many public services can be done online nowadays including court proceedings. The problem is quite subtle, not easily seen on the surface. I.e. once you hit issues like, say, divorce, or taxes, or the army mentality, politicians, local government, out of sudden you are transported back to 1960s. Not even 1989 when the communism in Poland collapsed. Like two decades earlier than that. You need to persuade the court you can have divorce. Not like in any other Western country. It isn't sufficient you want one. You need to persuade the court you can have one. When they wrote the law in 1960s it made sense. In communism the Party decided if an individual can have a divorce (in a sense). Not the individual. In the West if an individual says, I want a divorce, they file the paperwork and they will get the divorce. In Poland, nope. You need to persuade the court the marriage can't be repaired. Doesn't matter what you want, the state (the party) knows better when your marriage is over. So they will drag you for months, years every time the judge asking: "are you sure you don't want to go back to her?". Because the state knows better and many people will go back just because in 1960s divorce was the end of the world. Today, in 2026, it is an administrative task. As long as the society lives in 2026 that is. The same logic still persists in polish courts for other cases. Not really anything got reformed in polish court system since 1960s. Other weird things, like lawyers inheriting positions in courts by birthright. Your dad is a judge? Well, you will be too. Your dad works in Ikea as a clerk? Well, good luck! That's not 1960s anymore. That's Middle Ages. The same with Medical Doctors, other public professions. They are inherited. Honestly, the whole public sector stinks. Never reformed. While the private sector -- built from zero and world class. Just saying, it is different deep down than on the surface level. And there is a much deeper problem to it. Historically, Army, in any nation, has been a product of public sector. Not private sector. Anachronistic, corrupted public sector won't produce modern army. It will produce corrupt public servants buying tanks as if it is... 1960s. And that's the real problem that Poland has now with Russian jet drones hitting targets in Ukraine mere meters from the border check points.

> and Iran is losing its grip on Hormuz.

That is just hope-believe, i.e. it ain't happening.

> It's easy to be a pessimist, but there's a bright future ahead of us.

I lived through the 1990s here in Romania, the future does not look bright in the slightest. Yes, materially speaking we do have more stuff compared to the 1990s, a lot more stuff, but the opportunities in front of us are as slim as ever (which wasn't the case back in the 1990s). But maybe things look different for the Polish.

What about the rise of Fascism?

Agree, with UA stopping Russia western capital will finally flow into Poland because previous strategy was to defend on Vistula river which blocked a lot of heavy industry investments that are starting now.

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