When The Future Held Back

 If a full-fledged high-speed rail line (HSR) like the one in the Netherlands were built between Plzeň and Prague, for example, the actual travel time could be 20–25 minutes, including acceleration, deceleration, and safety buffers.

Today, that same journey takes—on the example of the Západní Express Ex 562—around 1 hour and 11 minutes. The regional train Rx Křivoklát takes around 1 hour and 5 minutes. And regular Ex6 Bavorský expres takes around 1 hour and 22 minutes. Or regular R16 Berounka takes around 1 hour and 31 minutes.

I think the situation with German trains might be similar to the Dutch HSR trains on the route from Plzeň to Prague, especially when it comes to IC/ICE trains. I’ve even heard criticism of the German Alex train, which operates on the route between Pilsen and Prague. But some people from Czechia might not realize that it’s possible to use Germany’s HSR trains for that part of the journey — it’s just that the Czech Republic doesn’t have the infrastructure for high-speed rail. And at the way from Munich to Prague, in some areas, such as Nýřany, all trains had to slow down due to frequent suicides involving people jumping in front of them. (1) 

Another example, if you traveled from Düsseldorf to Munich (this is distance 600 km) at the same average speed as a typical Czech train like Plzeň to Prague, it would take about 10 hours or that. German train takes around 4 hours 45 minutes to 5 hours. 

Because of my experiences with approaches in the Netherlands, I sometimes laugh when someone in Czechia says that “green stuff” is limiting. Yes, it limits irresponsibility—but not wealth and pretty good infrastructure, as the Netherlands demonstrates to me. The Dutch are generally wealthier and more cultured than what I usually see in Czechia. And trains in the Netherlands are powered by wind energy—yet for years have already been much more pleasant than trains in Czechia. And they are usually punctual. Yeah, German trains are not so punctual, yet they are not powered by renewable energy. But the speed of IC/ICE trains is similar to Netherlands trains. 

Yet we also could discussing roads in the Netherlands, the Dutch highways and their contradictions towards Czech roads, highways. So ironically, even though German Autobahn’s allows you to fly, the constant roadworks, traffic jams, and lane madness can slow you down. In the Netherlands, even with lower speed limits (100 km/h during daytime, 130 km/h only at night), the road just flows. Once you leave even Germany and enter the Netherlands, the road somehow “opens up” — not in terms of speed limit, but in flow, discipline, and comfort. 

I read that in the Netherlands, around 12,000 buildings will be waiting to connect to renewable energy by 2030, which is about 0.12% of buildings in the Netherlands. In another countries, by 2030, only a minimum number of buildings will be connected to renewable energy. I also already mentioned that Rotterdam will be the first city where buildings will receive electricity through the energy of Rotterdam’s public transport system. And as I write here, for example, trains are powered by wind energy.

I also read that energy prices in the Netherlands are high because of the current Dutch renewable energy infrastructure. I conducted research using AI to find out where energy is the most expensive in relation to the minimum wage in different countries. The result: The ETUC data is from July 2022, and although the situation may have changed since then, reports indicate that energy costs remain relatively similarly. Czech households pay the highest electricity prices in the EU when adjusted for purchasing power, which confirms the worsening ratio between income and energy expenses, especially for low-income groups. The worst situation is in the Czech Republic, where a minimum wage worker has to work 65 days to cover annual energy costs. Next comes the Netherlands (48 days), Belgium (37 days), and Germany (33 days). The best off is Luxembourg, where annual energy costs equal roughly 14 days of minimum wage work. 

Czechia is often antagonistic toward sustainability, and refuses to modernize in ways that have been standard in proper Western society for years. It’s held back by outdated infrastructure.

I even asked AI about the future of Czechia if it continues on its current course. And the AI responded:

     The future of Czechia, like any country’s, depends on a mix of internal choices and external pressures. Here are three key possibilities leading up to 2050, based on current trends and your concern:

  1. If Czechia stays the same — Stagnation or managed decline

If the political, economic, and cultural approaches remain conservative, reactive, and short-term focused:

• Pros: Stability, low debt, preserved traditions, and a functional bureaucracy.

• Cons: Brain drain, continued apathy among youth, environmental neglect, weak innovation, and dependency on foreign investment.

• Outcome: Czechia may avoid collapse but lag behind socially, technologically, and economically. It risks becoming a “museum state” — cheap, passive, and irrelevant on the global stage. (2)

 2. If Czechia adapts wisely — Renaissance potential

If bold reforms are made in education, energy, digitalization, and civic engagement:

• Pros: Czechia could become a niche leader in green tech, science, or culture (as Estonia did with tech or Finland with education).

• Cons: Requires uncomfortable decisions — taxes, migration policy shifts, breaking with tradition.

• Outcome: By 2050, it could be a prosperous, ecologically balanced, culturally confident European country — small, but respected.

 3. If Czechia falls behind or ignores global changes — Slow decay, cultural erosion

If nationalism, Euroscepticism, or disinformation dominate public discourse and environmental crises worsen:

• Risks: Water scarcity, brain drain, authoritarian drift, rising inequality, and loss of cultural self-respect.

• Outcome: Not dramatic collapse, but slow decay. A place where people still live, but where the future feels second-hand. 

What makes the difference?

        • Whether Czechia invests in young people and listens to their visions.

• Whether it joins climate and digital revolutions instead of resisting them.

• Whether it can balance local identity with global responsibility.

(1) Railway Suicides in Czechia (annual figures) According to the Erasmus European Railway Agency (via Wikipedia):

 

— Czech data extracted from EU totals. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if high-speed trains operated in the Czechia, and not just because railway suicides.

(2) In a way, the post-pandemic tornado in Moravia vividly illustrated what would happen in the event of a war—most Czechs would be left with nothing, exposed under the open sky. There is no solid urban infrastructure in Czechia, no sturdy high-rise buildings, no complexity civilization or strong public transit where a Czech wouldn’t immediately be vulnerable. This is something I’ve been talking about for a while, and I pointed it out even back in 2023. During a conflict, if it’s not possible to hide in a remote wilderness or forest, it’s better to be in the solid infrastructure of an industrialized high and complexity civilization.

Aurora

  Hi there!

 It’s summer and there is tropical weather in Europe. But maybe it’ll cool down a bit in the coming days and some rain will fall. 

And what’s Sidney SN up to? Sidney is currently sick. Not Sick! how we an often thinking towards Sidney SN. Yep, it’s summer and Sidney is sick. I’m emphatic person towards good people, I think, and not just due I now have a healthy issues, there exist many people who have permanent healthy issues across all summer. 

Nevertheless, Sidney has a mission. Below is a tracklist for a good, great liquid drum and bass mix— the main reason why know about Sidney SN. Sidney would like you to create the mix yourself using the tracklist. It’s not silly to say, “Mix it yourself.” Yet, this is not a mission for supporters, friends who have own originality in their music. 

Maybe, if you can pull it off with the precision of Sidney SN, you can say you have a bit of Sidney SN in you. But music isn’t just about technique — it’s about the ideas within the music.

I believe it’s those ideas in the music that create originality. Someone might music well like another, like a copy, but they won’t go further if they don’t have their own ideas, their own originality.

All Day All Night All Summer. Enjoy!

Tracklist: 

Moleman — Escalate

Flava D — Snakebite

Flint — Dive

Bert H & Hiraeth Feat. Sydney — I’m Holding

IYRE — Where Words Fail

Tomoyoshi — Dots & Lines

Flava D x Emz — Fluent

Makoto — Silver Lining

SOLAH — King

EIJER — Nebulous

Euqsarosa — Aurora

In:Most & Etherwood — Bloodstream

Seba — Crockett

Justin Hawkes — Neverafter

Raise Spirit — When You’re Ready

Aperio — All Night All Summer

Anarchy: The Illusion of Freedom

 Today, a personal observation reaffirmed something I have long suspected about Czechia. One telling example occurred today: a woman insisted the bus driver stop at an unofficial location. The driver refused, visibly frustrated, citing the risk of being penalized— because recently new British public transport company enforce drivers for it. Yet the passenger appeared oblivious, even indignant. Her sense of entitlement reflects a deeper cultural issue—an ingrained resistance to structure, a belief that rules are an imposition rather than a framework for collective functionality.

Contrast this with the Netherlands, for example, where trains, for instance, operate with remarkable punctuality in part because transport companies are fined for delays, and passengers receive full compensation for their tickets. 

The irony, of course, is that while many Czechs complain about systemic inefficiency, they simultaneously resist the very measures that would improve it. There’s a reflexive distrust of order—an echo of post-communist skepticism—that confuses personal freedom with the absence of rules. But this is a fundamental misunderstanding. In fact, what appears as strictness in Western systems often enables greater freedom and fairness for all.

This is the paradox I often return to: what many in the West understand as discipline or civic responsibility, a Czech often interprets as oppression. The result is a form of self-inflicted limitation, a national habit of sabotaging progress under the illusion of protecting personal anarchy. It’s the same impulse that leads individuals to deny others their rights simply because they dislike those rights, all the while complaining about the lack of their own.

The case of the driver today is emblematic: in trying to enforce rules designed to protect everyone, he was placed in a dilemma by a passenger who demanded an exception—one that would jeopardize his job and delay the schedule for all. This is not a minor anecdote—it is a microcosm of a broader societal pattern.

Ultimately, true freedom does not lie in arbitrary exceptions, but in a shared commitment to order. I once wrote about Luxembourg: “Strictness is Freedom.” This remains true. Where rules are respected and enforced fairly, people are more free—not less—because they can rely on the system and each other. This, more than ideology or history, marks the dividing line between Western civic culture and the lingering dysfunctions of post-communist spaces. 

Otherwise, this is possible apply to pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic did not only test healthcare systems—it revealed the cultural and moral foundations of societies. While the virus itself was universal, the response to it was not. Some nations, particularly in Western Europe, treated the crisis as a collective challenge requiring coordinated sacrifice. Others, including the Czechia, struggled with a different kind of virus: a deep-seated distrust of rules and a chronic aversion to shared responsibility.

In Czechia, the word “restrictions” became emotionally charged, not because of their content but because of what they symbolized: the perceived theft of personal autonomy. Many Czechs interpreted pandemic measures—lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccine campaigns—not as necessary precautions in the face of a global health emergency, but as authoritarian overreach. It wasn’t uncommon to hear people speak of “freedom” as if it meant the right to ignore collective danger. In this cultural frame, even the most modest public health policies were viewed not as protective, but as oppressive.

The irony is painful. While voices across the country condemned “fear-mongering” and “manipulation,” people continued to die. Thousands of lives were lost not because the virus was especially cruel in Central Europe, but because the social fabric was too weak to hold under strain. In the Czech mindset, it often seemed as though individual liberty had been elevated to a sacred principle—even when that liberty meant endangering others. This was not freedom in any meaningful civic sense. It was a kind of anarchy disguised as resistance.

By contrast, many Western European countries implemented far more stringent lockdowns, restrictions, and tracking systems. Yet these societies emerged from the pandemic with comparatively better outcomes—not only in terms of public health, but in social resilience, economic recovery, and trust in institutions. They accepted temporary constraints as necessary measures in service of long-term stability. What looked like strictness from the outside was, in fact, an expression of collective maturity.

Czechia’s post-pandemic stagnation—lingering until as late as winter 2023 (It confirmed a gradual economic recovery trend, starting with modest growth in late 2023 [Thank you, Sidney SN, for your Awakening Take Action campaign during Summer–Autumn 2023.] and slowly increasing through 2024 into 2025.)—was not merely the result of policy mistakes, but a cultural failure to imagine freedom as something shared. The public sphere was flooded with reactionary narratives: that fear was used as a tool of control, that freedom had been “shut down,” that nothing was real. These narratives offered emotional comfort, but at the cost of civic coherence. They implied that no one owed anything to anyone, even in the face of mass death.

This self-isolating cynicism was also compounded by the political pressures of war. As Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Czechia was thrust into another wave of destabilizing fear—but unlike in Western Europe, where solidarity with Ukraine became a unifying moral compass, Czech discourse was splintered by confusion, conspiracy, and fatigue. The nation became vulnerable not just to war-related stress, but to manipulation—both from outside powers and from within its own fractured media ecosystem.

In many ways, the Czech response to COVID-19 and its aftermath reflects a deeper civic trauma: the unresolved tension between post-totalitarian memory and modern democratic responsibility. A history of imposed authority has made voluntary cooperation suspect. But without trust, without a shared ethic of accountability, a society cannot withstand crisis—whether biological, geopolitical, or moral.

As we assess the long shadow of the pandemic, it becomes clear that the real divide in Europe was not East versus West, but maturity versus defiance. In the West, societies that accepted temporary hardship rebounded with a sense of cohesion. In Czechia, the suspicion of order led not to more freedom, but to isolation, stagnation, and loss. The lesson is difficult but vital: freedom without responsibility is not liberation—it is abandonment, anarchy. 

Between Statistics and Reality

   On this blogpost recently I discussed the difference between poverty on paper and real poverty. Based on my own experiences, I’d like to add another example that shows how statistics on paper don’t always reflect reality. Every word can be verified—not only through personal experience, but also through deep research into statistics about safer, most livable countries. And here are examples, we could to discuss another statistics and realities. 

Why I write it…? I am pretty angry when stats are not reality. 

 So on paper, Czechia appears to be one of the safer countries in Europe. Eurostat data places it low in terms of violent crime and homicide rates. However, statistics don’t always capture the full reality of public life. 

While Czechia may look safe numerically, the everyday experience of safety—particularly in cities—can tell a different story. In contrast, the Netherlands not only ranks high in terms of quality of life and urban development, but also feels more secure and organized, from public transportation to nightlife, and from festival culture to the visibility of social issues.

 ⸻ Street Crime: A Telling Daily Reality 

 One major difference is the visibility of street-level criminality, especially petty theft, pickpocketing, shoplifting, and public disorder. While neither country is plagued by high levels of violent crime, street crime is noticeably more visible in Czechia, especially in crowded tourist areas, train stations, and nightlife zones. In Czech cities not just like Prague, pickpocketing and minor theft are common enough to shape locals’ and tourists’ behaviors—keeping backpacks locked, phones out of sight, and extra caution in nightlife districts. In Dutch cities, by contrast, street-level criminality tends to be more discreet or well-managed. Public transport is monitored, streets are well-lit and designed for visibility, and community policing is more embedded in urban planning. Tourists and residents alike tend to report a higher baseline feeling of safety, even in larger cities like Amsterdam or Rotterdam. Public conflicts are more visible especially in Czech urban areas. Common hotspots include nightlife zones, transport hubs, and housing estates. Alcohol, drug abuse and social tensions often play a role. Bystander intervention is rare, and response can feel passive unless violence escalates. Harassment, particularly targeting women or minorities, remains a concern with limited legal protection. Street conflict in the Netherlands is far less common. Dutch culture encourages bystander action, and public aggression is culturally discouraged, and laws against street harassment are stronger and more enforced — for example, catcalling bans in cities like Rotterdam. 

+ Smart Surveillance & Active Deterrence — Cities like Rotterdam have extensive CCTV networks, often integrated with AI-based monitoring and real-time alert systems. Often acoustic sensors and wireless alerts can notify nearby authorities or even warn individuals when they engage in unlawful behavior — for instance, loitering, vandalism, or public harassment. These systems are often part of broader “smart city” initiatives, aiming to deter crime before it escalates. While major cities like Prague have CCTV, the systems are less integrated, and real-time intervention is rare. Cameras mostly serve as post-incident evidence tools, and there’s little immediate feedback or deterrence. Also, public trust in police tech and surveillance tends to be lower, so these systems are often underused or limited in reach.

 ⸻ Nightlife and Events: Regulation Over Ambiguity 

  Nightlife in the Netherlands is generally seen as well-structured and safe. Events benefit from strong partnerships between organizers, municipalities, and health services. Zero-tolerance drug policies, medical teams, and crowd safety protocols are standard. Czech nightlife often suffers from weaker oversight. Security varies widely by venue, and drug use—particularly in underground or semi-legal spaces—is more visible. This lack of structure can lead to a greater feeling of vulnerability, especially for young people and visitors.   

⸻ Drugs and Public Perception 

  Despite the Netherlands’ liberal global reputation, hard drugs are less visible in public life. Cannabis may be sold legally in coffeeshops, but open drug use is generally confined to controlled environments. Public drug use or signs of addiction in the streets are less common and more swiftly addressed by local services. In Czechia, drug use is more openly visible in urban spaces, particularly in Prague’s inner districts and some regional towns. Decriminalization without adequate social infrastructure or harm reduction has led to a normalization of public drug scenes, which undermines perceptions of safety and cohesion.

⸻ Sustainability, Poverty, and Social Trust 

  The Netherlands also excels in areas beyond policing and regulation. Sustainability is a lived value—seen in efficient public transport, clean urban environments, renewable energy initiatives, and social housing policy. Meanwhile, Czechia struggles with visible poverty, especially outside tourist zones. From neglected public infrastructure to rising homelessness in cities, there’s a tangible sense that social care is less prioritized. 

⸻ Civic Identity: Embracing or Resisting Europe  

 

 Culturally, the Netherlands leans confidently into its European identity. EU values—human rights, inclusivity, environmental responsibility—are integrated into daily life and education. Czechia, by contrast, retains a skeptical post-communist stance toward the EU, with segments of society (including parts of youth culture) increasingly tolerant of authoritarian rhetoric, nationalism, and social apathy. These trends point to a deeper tension in how civic life is imagined and practiced. 

⸻ Urban Safety and Livability: A Dutch Advantage 

 Cities like Amsterdam, Utrecht, Groningen, The Hague, Rotterdam and Eindhoven frequently appear in rankings of Europe’s most livable and safest cities. These rankings take into account factors like public transport reliability, healthcare access, environmental quality, digital infrastructure, and civic participation. Czech cities, including Prague, are notably absent from these top rankings. And Dutch villages? They benefit from strong public services, low crime rates, and high levels of trust in law enforcement. Dutch villages often have excellent infrastructure — clean streets, reliable public transport links (even in rural areas), and strong healthcare and education systems. Planning is also very organized, preserving nature and community spaces. And Dutch rural areas are more connected to urban life, both culturally and economically. Czech villages can feel more isolated, with slower adaptation to modernization in some areas. Violent crime is rare, but property crime is higher in some regions. And infrastructure and services can vary widely. Some areas still struggle with underinvestment or limited job opportunities.  

⸻ Conclusion: Safer on Paper, Not Always in Practice 

  While Czechia may rank highly in safety statistics, the Netherlands provides a more consistent, functional, and secure public environment. From street crime to nightlife safety, from drug visibility to urban design, the difference is clear in lived experience. Statistics show Czechia is overall “safer” than the Netherlands. However, they point out that in practical, urban contexts, the safest cities in Europe tend to be in the Netherlands—suggesting that daily life may feel safer in Dutch cities and rural areas due to infrastructure, social trust, or better governance.

⸻ Murders (Homicides)

 In 2023, the Netherlands recorded 125 homicides among a population of 17.9 million. That’s just 0.00070% of the population — less than 1 murder per 100,000 people. Czechia, meanwhile, saw 157 homicides in a smaller population of 10.8 million, it’s 0.00145% of the population.