Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 448 posts

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

#391

Post by oliviabenson »

llamaimperative wrote: post #378
oliviabenson wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you berate your parents and grandparents each day for their participation in a society that had segregation? Do you walk over hot coals every morning to repent for the benefits you reap by virtue of being born into a society built on the backs of the segregated? Do you deride and express disgust at your peers as they relish in the taste of the pain and suffering of the billions of conscious, feeling animals we gen…

Where is anyone proposing berating anyone? You can say that a segregated society was less good than a non-segregated one without saying that everyone who lives or lived in a segregated society is worthy of berating/disgust/derision etc. I don't blame individual Iranians for living in a culture that is worse on many important dimensions than western liberal cultures, but that doesn't prevent me from making a fair judg…

Good outcomes by what measure? Happiness? Freedom? Community? GDP?

I will argue that by many standards, what we view as barbaric has better outcomes. Have you met a Singaporean? I disagree with their criminal justice system (as I do the U.S. but I rank Singapore’s as “worse”) and yet it has better outcomes for the majority of its citizens by most measures. Are they the measures you and I care about? Probably not, because to you and I, hanging someone for using heroin is not a fair price to be paid for a lower crime rate and higher GDP, but that’s a moral judgement, not some objective “modern” absolute. If you don’t value human life above all else (which many cultures don’t) then killing a few drug addicts a year to make life for millions of others better, that’s inconsequential — and excellent “modern” thinking about doing the most good!

If you can’t imagine why the bad of anti-lgbt sentiment is far outweighed by the good of community-spirit from an anti-lgbt religion then you’re not considering “outcomes”.

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

#393

Post by avar »

yourusername wrote: post #322
avar wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the caveat that all published "plans" for the thing were probably meant as a PR stunt the plan called for passively cooling it[1]. That part actually doesn't seem implausible, it's right on the Red Sea, which is quite hot on the surface, but cools down as you you go deeper into it[2]. So (and this is just my speculation) they could have a large undersea pipeline to a depth of say 1km, and use the heat the buildi…

Some of it is right on the Red Sea but the "building" is proposed to be 170 km long. One end of the building will be over 100km from the sea, that's quite a distance to pump cold water without it heating up. Also wouldn't this be like the elevator problem in tall buildings? The first few kilometers of the line will need to have pipes sized for the cooling water of the 165km behind it eating up interior volume. Will p…

    > One end of the building will
    > be over 100km from the sea,
Well, that part's easy. You put the non-citizen service workers on that end, you didn't think MBS was planning to provide them with AC, did you? :-)

Talk about a disincentive to show up to work before sunrise and leave after dark.

   > Also wouldn't this be like
   > the elevator problem in tall 
   > buildings?
No, the vertical pipes in the building will branch off from the horizontal pipes running along it, the vertical height is trivial by comparison.

    > The first few kilometers of the
    > line will need to have pipes
    > sized for the cooling water of
    > the 165km behind it eating up
    > interior volume.
Firstly you'd bury the pipe, if it's at a depth of just 10 meters the average soil temperature at depth really helps, even before insulating it.

Secondly, by having it run in a loop you'd drastically reduce the energy to pump it. It'll take no more energy to pump water up 10m or 1km, as long as your outlet pipe is also at the same depth.

    > passing it through a heat 
    > exchanger [...] be more energy
    > efficient than a AC?
The whole thing is obviously ridiculous, but cost-benefit analysis doesn't really enter into what's ultimately an ego project enacted by royal degree.

I was just pointing out that once you're willing to invest the sort of money Saudi Arabia has in upfront costs, there's no reason the end result (no matter how ridiculously expensive) can't be sustainable and passively cooled.

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

#394

Post by somenameforme »

antonvs wrote: post #344
avar wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the caveat that all published "plans" for the thing were probably meant as a PR stunt the plan called for passively cooling it[1]. That part actually doesn't seem implausible, it's right on the Red Sea, which is quite hot on the surface, but cools down as you you go deeper into it[2]. So (and this is just my speculation) they could have a large undersea pipeline to a depth of say 1km, and use the heat the buildi…

I love the way people describe what's basically a fantasy as though it could be implemented tomorrow. Do a Mars colony next.

Try to take yourself back to the past and imagine the idea of putting a seemingly endless number of electrical poles everywhere to carry telephony and electrical signals anywhere in the country, instantly. Poles that would become completely inoperable if the cable was damaged, lethal to anybody who touched them, fire hazards waiting to happen in case of natural disaster or just deterioration, and so on endlessly.

And now imagine doing this in a world where there was no federal tax, the GDP was pennies (relative to today), and state of the art technology was us being on the verge of discovering that handwashing before surgery was a good idea. Really! [1] And the big goal here was to be able to put up 'electric lanterns.' It sounds so pie in the sky as to be unbelievable. And indeed it probably would never, in a million years, happen today. But it did happen in the past, and for that we owe our predecessors quite the debt!

The point I make with this is that we have just an unimaginably vast level of economic power today, but it's mostly being squandered. We should be trying out grand ideas, endlessly. If we can make them work - awesome, we've radically improved the world and humanity - our descendants will thank us. If they fail, we can call it a jobs program -- certainly a much better one than trying to make stuff to go kill people half way around the globe.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

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

#395

Post by graemep »

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…

> 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 for it other than racism.

I do not see that. In this thread it is making the point that the cities are extremely expensive to run and not sustainable. I see the same point made about desert cities in the US.

European cities may need heating, but they also tend to have far better supplies of water, better government, and a far more diversified economy. White elephant projects are at least challenged and discussed and are rarely (if ever) on this scale. Even something like Britain's much maligned HS2 is far smaller in absolute cost (maybe by an order of magnitude depending on whose estimates of each you believe), and even more so relative to the population size of the economy.

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

#396

Post by gherkinnn »

keiferski wrote: post #99
leoedin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don’t know if this applies so much to Neom, but I can think of many scenarios in which a linear city is more appealing than a circular one. For example - if there is a natural element like a river, lake, canyon, etc. that you want to maximize city exposure to. A linear city roughly following the Grand Canyon would be infinitely more interesting than a circular one situated at one end of it.

Countless major cities and towns are built on either side a river. Anything beyond a village quickly evolves in to something roughly circular.

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

#397

Post by graemep »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #377
inslee1 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication of using "632 CE" appears to be a reference to the proliferation of Islam after the death of Muhammad (I didn't know this until I Googled) So if that individuals distrust towards the Arabian peninsula begins in the exact year Islam began to spread, it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that OP is an Islamaphobe (and it would include a number of North African countries as well) TLDR: OP is using geography…

I have a problem when governments decide it is perfectly alright to interfere in how citizens should conduct their religion or even what religion they should follow, which I believe is a deeply personal affair. I have a problem when there is no separation of state and religion, and when said governments regularly criminalise (up to capital punishment) things like apostasy and blasphemy, which are decidedly mediaeval…

> criminalise (up to capital punishment) things like apostasy and blasphemy, which are decidedly mediaeval attitudes.

Another HN post today motivated me to look up the history of British blasphemy law and it turns out it was not medieval. Criminal blasphemy laws appeared right at the end of the Middle Ages (at least in England and Wales) so are mostly modern. Before that the punishment for blasphemy was excommunication.

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

#398

Post by ethanbond »

oliviabenson wrote: post #391
llamaimperative wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is anyone proposing berating anyone? You can say that a segregated society was less good than a non-segregated one without saying that everyone who lives or lived in a segregated society is worthy of berating/disgust/derision etc. I don't blame individual Iranians for living in a culture that is worse on many important dimensions than western liberal cultures, but that doesn't prevent me from making a fair judg…

Good outcomes by what measure? Happiness? Freedom? Community? GDP? I will argue that by many standards, what we view as barbaric has better outcomes. Have you met a Singaporean? I disagree with their criminal justice system (as I do the U.S. but I rank Singapore’s as “worse”) and yet it has better outcomes for the majority of its citizens by most measures. Are they the measures you and I care about? Probably not, bec…

You are aware that the existence of grey areas does not negate the existence of different ends of the spectrum, right? I’m not arguing the world is simple and entire countries/civilizations can be placed on one end or the other.

I am saying that there are countless dimensions that matter, and there are better and worse locations along those dimensions.

On the dimension of drug addiction rates, Singapore is doing better than the US. On the dimension of personal liberties, Singapore is doing worse than the US.

This observation is not a counter argument to my position, it’s a disproof of yours.

Saying we cannot make value judgments about these things implies we cannot justifiably take action that would nudge us into a different location along any of these different dimensions. How could you possibly decide to change things if there’s no such thing as a better, more preferable possible future state?

Here’s a gut check: are you comfortable with your moral system landing you solidly in the “let’s allow slavery” camp in the 1800s? After all, the disagreement between slave holders and abolitionists was one of culture and opinions, and as we know now there’s no such thing as a better or worse position to hold on such matters. Does that moral system seem like a good one to you?

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

#399

Post by gherkinnn »

The_Colonel wrote: post #390
woodruffw wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand how this can possibly be true. You have one only degree of freedom in a straight line. Most cities develop a natural disc pattern because it allows for expansion at every degree.

The line is the initial city design. But then in 20, 100, 500 years you have two empty sides (equally accessible from any place in the line city) which you can use for more infrastructure (e.g. airports), industry, recreation, agriculture etc. Meanwhile if you design a disc city, you can keep expanding outwards, but that's going to be increasingly far from the center. It's going to be very difficult to build a new ai…

Ifs contingent on whens and you end up with a blob anyway. Until you get to the blob everybody's life is miserable because a line is daft.

This is applying the terrible thinking that gives us micro service hell to city planning.

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

#400

Post by q1w2 »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #376
atonse wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What money would they need to launder? Isn’t most oil money just regular revenue in Aramco? Just curious, it wouldn’t surprise me but wasn’t sure.

my boss' guess was that it was to fund a nuclear weapons program but keep it hidden. or a climate change / fallout bunker for 1/3 of the kingdom. like it's big, elaborate build outs, nothing delivered, and some sort of under the table deal nuclear with Trump's brother in law that got him a Billion. the Iranians have, or can rapidly enrich, and Israel is popping off again (and may have ~100 nukes), so Saudi has means,…

Building a large building does not look anything like building a nuclear silo.

This comment is 100% ridiculous speculation.

That's not to say they don't have a nuclear weapons program - they probably do - but needing a mega-project to cover it up is just silly.

Post reply on HN