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End of the Line? Saudi Arabia to scale back plans for desert megacity

theguardian.com

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Re: End of the Line? Saudi Arabia to scale back plans for desert megacity

#301

Post by pantalaimon »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #143
yreg wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dubai lives from tourism now. Of course, it was bootstrapped by oil.

It also makes money from construction projects. It’s one of the big reasons they offer residence visas to people who buy real estate there. I live in Dubai but grew up in the United States. Despite what people may believe, there is freedom of religion here, women aren’t oppressed, and the government genuinely cares about having a good city to live in.

> Despite what people may believe, there is freedom of religion here, women aren’t oppressed

Does this only apply to rich westerners though?

Re: End of the Line? Saudi Arabia to scale back plans for desert megacity

#302

Post by alwa »

Symbiote wrote: post #225
tomp wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland isn't the most progressive of countries (it only gave women the right to vote in 1971) but AFAIK you don't go to jail if you fuck a man in the ass, in contrast to UAE. Not something that directly concerns me, but I'm personally more worried about restrictions on freedom of speech, but regardless not somewhere I'd be willing to live (I currently do live in Switzerland).

You should be worried about gay rights: some years ago, a French teenage boy was raped by some local men, and the authorities initially tried to get the boy to confess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_rape has some more examples.

That would be 15-year-old Alexandre Robert, in 2007

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_Alexandre_Robert

A number of particularly nasty elements to the response—including that the authorities knew that one of the rapists carried HIV, and had previously segregated him in custody to prevent him spreading the virus to other prisoners, but they fabricated medical tests to the contrary and lied to the boy’s family.

Re: End of the Line? Saudi Arabia to scale back plans for desert megacity

#303

Post by zaphirplane »

DrBazza wrote: post #90
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #43

The only thing the Gulf states have going for them is oil money and a good hub location on the Europe–Southeast Asia airline routes. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Bahrain, Qatar, they all remind me of that quote from King of the Hill—they are monuments to man's arrogance. Desert cities hitting 50+ °C air temperature at midday which means air conditioning everywhere; vapid luxury in the form of expensive garish cars, shop…

You can build all the vanity projects you like when you're rich with petro-dollars, and pay Asian workers less than $10 per day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa#Labour

What’s the value of that statement, do you dream that people working in retail are sharing the wealth with Hermes

Re: End of the Line? Saudi Arabia to scale back plans for desert megacity

#304

Post by vladms »

pembrook wrote: post #153
tromp wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 4x more efficient than an electric heater, but not 4x more than a heat pump [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance

It still takes less energy than heating given climate differentials, so any argument that air conditioning is “garish” and “wrong” needs to be applied to heating also (and anyone living in cold climates ie. Europeans, Americans, etc). I see the argument that air conditioning is somehow “wrong” or “unsophisticated” on HN all the time (usually from Europeans) and it’s one of the weirdest things. I see no explanation fo…

The perception might be that air conditioning is used excessively and the same arguments are used for excessive heating. I know 2 countries in Europe in one winter heating targets 23 Celsius inside for outside temperatures of 5 Celsius in average and in another winter heating targets 19 Celsius inside for outside temperatures of 10 Celsius in average.

Governments try to explain everybody they should use less heating, and I personally find comfortable (and reasonable) smaller differences between outside and inside.

Now, when I was in a country with what I think is excessive air conditioning (not middle east, but no use to name it) it annoyed me the huge difference, 38 Celsius outside and 21 Celsius inside.

I will complain about large differential no matter the country. Of course it might limit the activities I can make in some parts of the world (skiing in the desert anybody?), but that's what I find reasonable.

Re: End of the Line? Saudi Arabia to scale back plans for desert megacity

#305

Post by zaphirplane »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #67
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Abu Dhabi does not belong in the list with the other ones. It has been extremely well run since Zayed bin Sultan It's also governed differently from the others in being an oligarchy. That requirement for consensus-building and internal variation creates robustness; it gave Dubai the room to experiment, for example, with religious moderation. It's not a view I hold too seriously. But I remember visiting the Emirates…

> the British were, in their time, far better at nation building than we've been in the post-War era who does "we" refer to? The Dutch? France?

As in invading, killing, raping, pillaging, dividing areas into artificial countries

Re: End of the Line? Saudi Arabia to scale back plans for desert megacity

#306

Post by elmolino89 »

jannw wrote: post #85
gherkinnn wrote: post #19

The whole idea of a linear city is daft. A circle is way more efficient at getting around. The dimensions of the Line are, of course, silly as well.

Not so daft if you consider that it is easier to segment, stratify, and control people in a linear city, as the structure itself acts as a continuous and infinitely adaptable choke point. This seems consistent with Saudi elite's ideas on managing their society.

Daft in the case of a military conflict or some terrorist attack.

Re: End of the Line? Saudi Arabia to scale back plans for desert megacity

#307

Post by zaphirplane »

fancyfredbot wrote: post #261
zaphirplane wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of earth’s 8 billion people are unaware of (1) and shouldnt paint a whole region, I see only 2-3 gulf countries in the top 10 of (2) which painting the whole region for is convoluted reasoning. Not vested enough to decode 3 to see how it relates to hating a region. In summary, there maybe reasons for an informed person to have an issue with a specific government, there is no reasonable reason to hate on countrie…

I'd say that there are specific reasons to have an issue with each and every government in the region. I'll call the gulf states Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. Which of these would you say has a good record on human rights, personal liberty, and equality?

Btw none of the points you are raising are the ones the OP has issue with. I responded to the issues they raised which boiled down to. They don’t like their taste in building or how much air con they use in 50 degree heat and a bunch of other hate spray against the ethnic group‘s wealth

An issue can be found in any government, how does that move the conversation forward ?

Re: End of the Line? Saudi Arabia to scale back plans for desert megacity

#308

Post by brazzy »

oefrha wrote: post #159
keiferski wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re generalizing nearly 20 million people in Saudi Arabia alone. How this is even an acceptable thing to say on HN is beyond me. The Gulf countries have more than enough expertise to manage and run their wealth for the foreseeable future. To say they’ll be poor again without oil is simply ignorant of the facts and probably related to the point I made above.

I won’t comment on culture but it is a fact that the majority of working Saudis work in bullshit government jobs where they basically collect paychecks for free, and actual labor is overwhelmingly performed by cheap migrant workers, no? Or is my information out of date? That’s an arrangement you can’t find anywhere outside the Gulf, to my knowledge.

You have a bunch of weasel words there that are doing some heavy lifting: "majority", "actual" and "overwhelmingly".

It's not possible to run a functioning country (which SA undeniably is) without a large number of people who are at least somewhat competent, at least somewhat hardworking, and at least somewhat loyal to the country. You may be able to rely on cheap migrant workers for the hard physical labor, but not for the planning and administration that makes the whole thing work.

Re: End of the Line? Saudi Arabia to scale back plans for desert megacity

#309

Post by vladms »

zaphirplane wrote: post #244
Biganon wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be that they execute honosexuals and treat women like second class citizens? Nah, it must be racism.

Like abortion rights, let’s see let’s encourage people to hate on Canadians and Americans because the us government has a policy on abortion. To reiterate, having an issue with a government for a specific reason is informed. Hating an ethic group is racism. Ps I’m not from there or live there

The above replies did not mention an ethnic group, rather a geographical area. The main ethnic group in that area is also very present in north Africa, and there is much less general "mistrust" (or negative feelings) towards that area than to the other.

Not sure if "geographic discrimination" is in any way better than "racism" but using terms correctly is required for good communication.

Re: End of the Line? Saudi Arabia to scale back plans for desert megacity

#310

Post by ted_bunny »

leoedin wrote: post #56
gherkinnn wrote: post #19

The whole idea of a linear city is daft. A circle is way more efficient at getting around. The dimensions of the Line are, of course, silly as well.

Yeah, I'm really struggling to understand why a linear city is appealing. I suppose if you set a hard limit of one train line in your city, then building it along that train line might make sense. You'd spend a lot of time on that one train line though - and I imagine in the central bits it would get really really busy as people are trying to get to the other end. And what happens if that train line breaks? Making a…

That's basically the concept in Lean Linear Arcology. The city is built along infrastructure routes to reduce footprint.
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