I'm surprised not to see the article mention the previous report[1] about the three men who were sentenced to death, the killing of one, and the decades long prison sentences for others over their opposition to this project.
Karmic justice requires this project to be crushed by the sand that these arrogant dictators tried to impose their steel dick over.
> I'm surprised not to see the article mention the previous report[1] about the three men who were sentenced to death, the killing of one, and the decades long prison sentences for others
It's a small number of people, who are opposing known tyrants, foolishly. The ruling class can kill and enslave, at will. The indentured servitude imposed on thousands of immigrants who built and maintain it, is much more concerning imo.
It's a barbaric country. US support has created another blemish on US history. Was it worth it to ensure safe seas to enable global commercialism, which kept most of the world stable for decades? I do not, but I'll never be in charge either way.
FTA: “However, it has long attracted scepticism and criticism, not least after the reported execution of several members of the Howeitat tribe who had protested over plans to construct on their ancestral lands.”
Indeed, there is a reason for the saying "what comes around, goes around". In this case, a prestige project that the Saudis try to market themselves to the world as modern and green and ambitious, but they still are quite authoritarian in the end.
The Saudis announced six megaprojects in 2005. King Abdullah Economic City was the only one that went anywhere. I believe it was supposed to have 2 million people and reached about 7 thousand.
They've kicked people out of the area, killed at least one person, trashed the area with initial construction efforts (I've driven past) and now the inevitable seems to be coming to pass already.
They still have time but they need to do something to diversify from oil in the way Dubai has eventually. Building a new Dubai, with a different legal framework (only rumoured for Neom AFAIK), doesn't seem like the worst idea to me, but starting with an overly ambitious design probably isn't the way to get traction. The Middle East do love a pissing contest though so starting small isn't what they're into.
Is Dubai really diversified away from oil? My naive impression is that it’s a major center for capital, with most of that capital coming from oil.
Saudi diversification from oil is a fantasy. The culture is medieval from the POV of the rest of the world, and the hostile climate is only getting worse.
I think these projects mostly exist to funnel away / launder money, no one really thinks they will become reality. A multi-decade mega project is just a great way to divert large amounts of money without raising too much suspicion as there’s very little oversight of what’s really happening there.
Pretty much this. The companies subcontracted on Neom all had some amount of investment or ownership from either the royal family's fund or the sovereign fund.
Oh, I can totally believe that Saudi's crown prince does believe in the project. After all, if you're a Saudi government officer, what are you going to do? Say no to the Crown Prince?
I'm sure a lot of underlings are making a fortune out of the budget, but I don't believe that was the initial motivation for the project. Consider yourself in the shoes of bin Salman. Why would you need to funnel money away, when you are the absolute monarch and the whole country is yours? It makes about as much difference as taking coins out of your left pocket and shoving it back to the right pocket.
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.
Of course it is - this is clearly prince's personal ego stroking project and wall placed across nearly the whole province looks adequate than just some 'boring' circular megacity
Is that actually true from a transportation physics perspective? I can’t imagine that a curved tram/train/etc. would be able to accelerate and decelerate as efficiently as one on a straight path.
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 city circular takes advantage of geometry - even at the cost of having to build more than one train line. It also opens up the possibility of other forms of travel - buses, bikes, cars.
It doesn't surprise me that this is starting to fall apart. When it was announced it seemed completely unhinged.
a) So you have people living uniformly distributed on a line of length 1. When you pick 2 at random, what's the average distance from one to the other?
b) How about if they live on a circle of circumference 1 (and you can only travel along the circumference)?
c) How about if they live on a disk of circumference 1 (and you can travel straight across the disk)?
I want to see someone seriously analyze what would happen if there was a power loss to the Line. Hundreds of thousands of people in a glass box in 50C weather with no AC sounds like a recipe for a record breaking mass casualty event.
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 building itself to pull up and distribute that cold water through cooling ducts throughout the structure.
They were also planning to desalinate seawater, so such a system would perform the double duty of pulling that seawater into the building.
Lets ship all the influencers there, who peddle the luxurious lifestyle narative and sign contracts to never say anything bad about these countries. "Influencer license" haha.
Depends on how the Line is powered. A single long-distance line to a distant nuclear facility powering the whole thing? Or dozens of independent solar farms in the surrounding desert, each powering a nearly section of the Line, with both local storage and backup power from afar?
A proper fault-tolerant design will buy enough time for most residents to walk to a neighboring section that still has power.
How's the Saudi ski resort coming?[1] That's part of the same project.
That's supposed to be ready for the 2026 Winter Games.
Google Earth shows roads, a perimeter fence, a water tower, and some buildings as of August 2023, so work is going on.
I worked on the design of this a couple of years ago. One day we were tasked with working out how to freeze the lake over so that people could go ice skating on it.
There's a fractal insanity to the whole project. As you focus in on any one aspect, more silliness appears. The design process is driven by the Crown Prince pointing at 3D renders and saying he likes the one that looks the most cyberpunk.
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, shopping malls, and weird buildings and monuments, all while local chiefs who oppose stupid and unrealistic white elephant vanity projects are executed in the back alley.
This is one reason why I would like more nuclear power: it'll take some of the money away from the Gulf.
> local chiefs who oppose stupid and unrealistic white elephant vanity projects are executed.
Let's not gloss over the absolutely appalling respect many of these societies have for human dignity. Public executions and flogging, discrimination and imprisonment based solely on gender, absolutely zero regard for freedom of conscience when it comes to matters of religion.
There's only so much you can get away with by saying it's my society's accepted practice, what's wrong is wrong. And there's plenty wrong with other countries and societies too, including my own, but it doesn't excuse human rights indifference.
For decades, they wanted to diversify away from oil and build tech industries. The problem is they don’t have skilled labor and would have to import “slaves” as they do with everything. They have some of the lowest skilled and laziest labor in the world. If/when dependence on oil ends, these countries will go back to being poor.
Edit: contrast ME with Mexico who is running out of oil. Yet, they are able to build because they happen to have some of the hardest working labor in the world (though not notably skilled). I rather bet on Mexico revival over ME 100/100.
It's not like they have another option, have they? It's an interesting challenge to transform an uninhabitable piece of earth into something where people might want to live.
Also, AFAIK they are very aware that oil money isn't going to keep pouring forever and they indeed are trying to diversify. Their elites all study in UK, France, Switzerland and the USA and the questionable stuff they do is actually about the local culture they are trying to transform.
Their prince who is celebrated for pushing social and cultural reforms is the same guy who ordered the killing of a journalist in their Istanbul embassy. So, it is what it is.
BTW, IMHO they should look into what Jewish did in Israel with the Kibbutz. I'm a great fan of the idea and the Jewish culture that made it possible and it appears to work. Maybe instead of building giant skyscrapers and shopping malls, take a note from the Israeli or even work with them instead of pouring tour money into "Las Vegas". Skip the illegal settlements and genocide of the locals of course, but the Israeli have already proven methods of building high quality high prosperity communities on barely habitable lands. So, the Arabs should take a note. Maybe they don't have other option than trying to transform the environment using their fortune but they have options on how to do it exactly.
> The only thing the Gulf states have going for them is oil money and a good hub location on the Europe–Southeast Asia
Do they need anything more? And you mentioned airplanes, but you failed to mention logistics more generally and container shipping, with Jebel Ali port being the third largest (behind LA and Rotterdam) in a list that would exclude East Asia and Singapore. [1] There's also tourism because, yes, people are actually paying money in order to visit places like Dubai, and that's because they like what they see there.
Abu Dhabi does not belong in the list with the other ones. It has been extremely well run since Zayed bin Sultan and will probably transition quite well to a post oil future.
What's the obsession with phalic towers? I would think letting toxic masculinity rule everything would result in less dicks everywhere but it is the other way around?
The points raised are a mixture of facts, fiction, jealousy and dislike.
You want them to boil in desert heat with some environmental appeal, while many countries pump the air full of pollution from factories or massive ICE cars
I haven’t heard of back alley executions over there
I don’t feel hate towards someone spending their money on 2 cars or a holiday house or whatever luxury shoes, or paint their house whatever color. Why does it annoy you so much.
Why hate on people with different taste, very strange
I get it’s ok to hate on gulf countries without backlash more than hating on say Denmark
Saudi Arabia has this weird affinity for these completely ridiculous sci-fi projects that are proposed as actual non-fantasy developments. See the Mukaab for another example.
What would be the motivation for a boycott? That the Saudis spend their money on stupid vanity projects? In general I think this is one of the better uses of the cash - hell, a vast amount of the money spent on this is going to flow straight out to western companies who have the experience and expertise to actually deliver these complex infrastructure projects.
Think of the alternatives, top 5 oil producing countries: US(13bb/day), Russia (13bb/day), Saudi (9bb/day), Canada (5bb/day), Iraq(4bb/day).
We all know what's currently happening in Russia. The US and Canada have good production, but they're a long way from Europe. So how exactly do you expect Eastern Europe to heat their homes during winter?
Let's be clear, they can't even really afford to boycott Russia at the moment - Russian oil is pumping out to India and getting re-badged. So the idea they'd pick a fight with Saudi Arabia seems ambitious to say the least.
The problem with The Line was not that it was a line, it was the scale. It's so ridiculously large it is akin to Altman's request for 20% (?) of the world's GDP. Not only it wasn't happening, it literally can't happen.
If you go to Google Earth (the app), it lets you see historical imagery from the site and for the past three or so years you can see continuous progress on digging out The Line; that alone is quite impressive on its own! But then again, digging it is only like 1% of it, and the easiest part. It's an impossible project.
Are there any forums like HN but for architecture, and not prone to devolving into sociopolitical criticism, and instead focusing on the structures themselves? I find experimental architecture fascinating and would rather discuss the merits and flaws of the design itself.
Neom reminds me of Łódź, a city in Poland that is built around a single 5km long street. It’s quite cool and the simple geometry is aesthetically appealing in a way I’ve yet to find elsewhere.
> and not prone to devolving into sociopolitical criticism
Some years ago I occasionally read a German architecture forum [0] that may be compared to HN (mainly professionals). For example, I remember the thread about the reconstruction of parts of the historic city center of Frankfurt [1] being really interesting, with a lot of excellent pictures and insider knowledge. The discussion was mostly centered on the aesthetic quality of the quarter and the use of historic construction methods (and how this use of traditional craftsmanship highly motivated the workers), while bigger media outlets often completely ignored this and focused on a strange political discussion that went along the lines of "reconstruction of something destroyed in WW2 = revisionism = supporting neofashists".
thing is, such projects do affect sociopolitical edges of the society. The architecture can influence how people meet, how they protest, how they receive/buy the goods, how easy is it to suppress people that doesn't follow what central party says, etc...
Physically, if the environment allows it, there are no reasons to not expand in disc/square form compared to a straight line. You get more economic activity per sq km, more viable public transit, more options to reach same destination and more options to create different business activities and all of this is due to higher density while maintaining high commute speed. It also makes maintenance and infrastructure cheaper(because you are not limited to a line)
I find there are corners of facebook where you can find good discussion of some topics. Birdwatching is fairly easy, lots of interesting discussion even on big groups. Public transport is contentious but local city groups often have posts from insiders or serious hobbyists which are high quality. For weather I am finding a mix of subreddits and storm chasing facebook pages to be ideal for avoiding both the doom and gloom and conspiracy crud that comes with that topic.
Economics explained YouTube channel has a good coverage on the rationale behind the crazy projects like this. In short, while the project itself might not make much sense, the infrastructure created to build it will stay and it makes it more accommodating to build other, more rational projects.
That's a rationalization, not a rationale. Every project can have useful byproducts, and nobody's rationale is to start a dumb one trillion dollar project rather than a smart one.
The reason why this exists is obviously that these projects are started by absolute rulers who want to build themselves vanity monuments the same way their ancient predecessors did.
Maybe I'm cynical but I really doubt that the Crown Prince is smart enough to have thought about it like this and even then, they could achieve the same (supposed) end result while also pursuing a more achievable mega project and get more out of that $1.5T.
If you're only building a mega project so you're forced to develop the infrastructure around it, why don't you choose a sensible megaproject instead? Answer: because that's not why they're doing it, you just made that up.
I doubt that. It would be somewhere in London, and no way anyone making decisions would allow their property values to drop by building that much anything.
Pity that the constructors cannot extract more money for this vanity project. Maybe they should pivot, reduce the length of the line a bit, to the length of an average penis.
Oh the bias, quiet unfortunate. So many comments against ME countries with so many false pretenses, you can easily tell many haven't set a foot on ME soil let alone actually lived there - holiday doesn't count. Having lived in ME for a long, long time I've had many liberals and atheists friends jump on the first ship to ME on a 'good' salary - slavery you say. I'm an Englishman, not a middle eastern.
This is so true, give them a good salary and all these people would be willing to come here, just plain shallowness and you end up feeling pity for them. No real backbone
The likely reason they want to do NEOM, besides basic hubris, is to jump start a modern economy. All the insane projects bring in foreign engineers, manufacturers, etc. At first your local industry feeds materials and labor into them, but in time you work your way up the value chain and replace them.
It's a time tested strategy. The main problem is SA is doing it in the most useless and bloody way possible.
That comes unexpected. I really would like to see how this works out. It's a possible way of living in the future. If the earth becomes more fiendly, such cities would offer autonomous compounds for the people. Now i would like to know if somebody is building the ARCs ...
the project was/is as feasible and advanced in renderings compared to classic cities as hyperloop was compared to classic high speed rail. It's not a possible way of living in the future, because there are examples of line cities that did exist and some exist today and these cities do have drawbacks that disk/square cities do not have while advantages are minimal and this line project approved by the dictator even in project phase. It's much more expensive, much more inelastic to the economic and people demand, much less economically profitable (per sq km compared to classic cities that expand in all directions) and much worse for commute options too (if you want to use a bike instead of pub transport, you'll have to travel more compared to a med/high density mixed use city developed in all directions with proper and much cheaper infrastructure set in place. This project is nothing more than a dictator's fantasy and should be treated as such. If you want to see a line city-there are several that exist today across the world and you can compare by yourself what's good/bad in these compared to a 'traditional' developed city
That is not the word I or most of HN would have used…
It’s a sad state of the world that this delusional lunatic is dictator of a $1T GDP country instead of everyone else that understands this is a stupid idea.
The sheer arrogance of Westerners is one of the reasons I'm so biased against them and letting them enter any of the Muslim countries, like come on are we supposed to be taking lessons from people who gave us the Holocaust, the World wars, the Iraq war, the forceful displacement of Palestinians so they can create their own country. Are you people really that blind that you think whatever you think or values you have are the right ones? If that's true why do your governments still have a presence in defense contracts with these countries, if you're such upholders of these values why do you sell weapons to countries like Saudi Arabia, Israel etc which have proven that they cannot uphold human life. I have worked with the Westerners and someone who's born and raised here, I can tell you this much, there is good and bad in every nation but your bad is the worst every time and the arrogance you have has blinded you to accept your faults.
We might have our faults but our people are working towards progress, it takes time but we don't go bashing Western people and how they are the worst examples of humanity, even knowing their history and countless examples of genocides conducted by them and then denying it. Shame on you people and those who think they are the best examples. Next time when you're offered a job in a Middle East country, don't accept it simple as that instead of coming here, bashing and then saying money talks. Greed is all you guys know.
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
endoftheline|1 year ago
Karmic justice requires this project to be crushed by the sand that these arrogant dictators tried to impose their steel dick over.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/03/un-rights-expe...
Supermancho|1 year ago
It's a small number of people, who are opposing known tyrants, foolishly. The ruling class can kill and enslave, at will. The indentured servitude imposed on thousands of immigrants who built and maintain it, is much more concerning imo.
https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/country-studie...
It's a barbaric country. US support has created another blemish on US history. Was it worth it to ensure safe seas to enable global commercialism, which kept most of the world stable for decades? I do not, but I'll never be in charge either way.
Someone|1 year ago
I also see a link to https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/may/04/i... to the left of that text on that page
neglesaks|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
cs02rm0|1 year ago
The Saudis announced six megaprojects in 2005. King Abdullah Economic City was the only one that went anywhere. I believe it was supposed to have 2 million people and reached about 7 thousand.
They've kicked people out of the area, killed at least one person, trashed the area with initial construction efforts (I've driven past) and now the inevitable seems to be coming to pass already.
They still have time but they need to do something to diversify from oil in the way Dubai has eventually. Building a new Dubai, with a different legal framework (only rumoured for Neom AFAIK), doesn't seem like the worst idea to me, but starting with an overly ambitious design probably isn't the way to get traction. The Middle East do love a pissing contest though so starting small isn't what they're into.
jjfoooo4|1 year ago
Saudi diversification from oil is a fantasy. The culture is medieval from the POV of the rest of the world, and the hostile climate is only getting worse.
throwaway63467|1 year ago
atonse|1 year ago
Just curious, it wouldn’t surprise me but wasn’t sure.
alephnerd|1 year ago
yongjik|1 year ago
I'm sure a lot of underlings are making a fortune out of the budget, but I don't believe that was the initial motivation for the project. Consider yourself in the shoes of bin Salman. Why would you need to funnel money away, when you are the absolute monarch and the whole country is yours? It makes about as much difference as taking coins out of your left pocket and shoving it back to the right pocket.
gherkinnn|1 year ago
jannw|1 year ago
pndy|1 year ago
readthenotes1|1 year ago
But only with a line can you be aligned with your ruler's dreams.
keiferski|1 year ago
leoedin|1 year ago
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 city circular takes advantage of geometry - even at the cost of having to build more than one train line. It also opens up the possibility of other forms of travel - buses, bikes, cars.
It doesn't surprise me that this is starting to fall apart. When it was announced it seemed completely unhinged.
meindnoch|1 year ago
amelius|1 year ago
By using a line they can just shut off one part of the line from the rest with one or two cuts.
FabHK|1 year ago
a) So you have people living uniformly distributed on a line of length 1. When you pick 2 at random, what's the average distance from one to the other?
b) How about if they live on a circle of circumference 1 (and you can only travel along the circumference)?
c) How about if they live on a disk of circumference 1 (and you can travel straight across the disk)?
tossandthrow|1 year ago
amelius|1 year ago
alangibson|1 year ago
avar|1 year ago
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 building itself to pull up and distribute that cold water through cooling ducts throughout the structure.
They were also planning to desalinate seawater, so such a system would perform the double duty of pulling that seawater into the building.
1. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-i-admire-saudi-arabi...
2. https://os.copernicus.org/articles/16/149/2020/
zelphirkalt|1 year ago
seydor|1 year ago
kijin|1 year ago
A proper fault-tolerant design will buy enough time for most residents to walk to a neighboring section that still has power.
smashah|1 year ago
brodo|1 year ago
- Adam Something: NEOM Is The Parody Of The Future [1]
- Thunderf00t: NEOM, The Line: BUSTED!! [2]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB_X5ZUcZlE
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyWaax07_ks
apexalpha|1 year ago
At the time of publishing thousands and thousands were already on the road for years in the Netherlands.
This guy checks what his audience already thinks on a subject and then makes up arguments to go along with it.
Take it with a kilo of salt.
Animats|1 year ago
[1] https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/trojena
cjs_ac|1 year ago
There's a fractal insanity to the whole project. As you focus in on any one aspect, more silliness appears. The design process is driven by the Crown Prince pointing at 3D renders and saying he likes the one that looks the most cyberpunk.
delta_p_delta_x|1 year ago
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, shopping malls, and weird buildings and monuments, all while local chiefs who oppose stupid and unrealistic white elephant vanity projects are executed in the back alley.
This is one reason why I would like more nuclear power: it'll take some of the money away from the Gulf.
Simon_ORourke|1 year ago
Let's not gloss over the absolutely appalling respect many of these societies have for human dignity. Public executions and flogging, discrimination and imprisonment based solely on gender, absolutely zero regard for freedom of conscience when it comes to matters of religion.
There's only so much you can get away with by saying it's my society's accepted practice, what's wrong is wrong. And there's plenty wrong with other countries and societies too, including my own, but it doesn't excuse human rights indifference.
lvl102|1 year ago
Edit: contrast ME with Mexico who is running out of oil. Yet, they are able to build because they happen to have some of the hardest working labor in the world (though not notably skilled). I rather bet on Mexico revival over ME 100/100.
JumpCrisscross|1 year ago
Couldn't that element be self-sufficient on solar?
DrBazza|1 year ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa#Labour
refurb|1 year ago
Are you suggesting they should have just remained on camels while sand blows around them?
mrtksn|1 year ago
Also, AFAIK they are very aware that oil money isn't going to keep pouring forever and they indeed are trying to diversify. Their elites all study in UK, France, Switzerland and the USA and the questionable stuff they do is actually about the local culture they are trying to transform.
Their prince who is celebrated for pushing social and cultural reforms is the same guy who ordered the killing of a journalist in their Istanbul embassy. So, it is what it is.
BTW, IMHO they should look into what Jewish did in Israel with the Kibbutz. I'm a great fan of the idea and the Jewish culture that made it possible and it appears to work. Maybe instead of building giant skyscrapers and shopping malls, take a note from the Israeli or even work with them instead of pouring tour money into "Las Vegas". Skip the illegal settlements and genocide of the locals of course, but the Israeli have already proven methods of building high quality high prosperity communities on barely habitable lands. So, the Arabs should take a note. Maybe they don't have other option than trying to transform the environment using their fortune but they have options on how to do it exactly.
paganel|1 year ago
Do they need anything more? And you mentioned airplanes, but you failed to mention logistics more generally and container shipping, with Jebel Ali port being the third largest (behind LA and Rotterdam) in a list that would exclude East Asia and Singapore. [1] There's also tourism because, yes, people are actually paying money in order to visit places like Dubai, and that's because they like what they see there.
And then there's finance.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_container_port...?
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
John23832|1 year ago
rrr_oh_man|1 year ago
Can you give any keywords what to look for to read more about this?
otikik|1 year ago
It's just big lanes devoid of cars between the towers devoid of people. And then a small road connecting to the Industrial Area.
mamonster|1 year ago
logicchains|1 year ago
They are monuments to the brilliance of human engineering, allowing millions of humans to live comfortably in the scorching desert heat.
RcouF1uZ4gsC|1 year ago
Do you also call Amsterdam with its dikes and below sea level, “a monument to man’s arrogance?
Wasn’t the moon landing a monument to man’s arrogance?
I think calling something “a monument to man’s arrogance” reveals more about the biases of the person saying it than about the actual thing.
diebeforei485|1 year ago
tehjoker|1 year ago
quonn|1 year ago
Any kind of thermal plant will not save us. Renewable energy can do it.
yard2010|1 year ago
zaphirplane|1 year ago
The points raised are a mixture of facts, fiction, jealousy and dislike.
You want them to boil in desert heat with some environmental appeal, while many countries pump the air full of pollution from factories or massive ICE cars
I haven’t heard of back alley executions over there
I don’t feel hate towards someone spending their money on 2 cars or a holiday house or whatever luxury shoes, or paint their house whatever color. Why does it annoy you so much.
Why hate on people with different taste, very strange
I get it’s ok to hate on gulf countries without backlash more than hating on say Denmark
FWIW I’m not from there and don’t live there
hn_throwaway_99|1 year ago
JumpCrisscross|1 year ago
Same reason Egypt is building a decadent new capital: it lets the ruler pay off his supporters.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF|1 year ago
benjijay|1 year ago
dragonwriter|1 year ago
Not sure who this “we” is who ever started, which is a requirement for stopping.
slifin|1 year ago
A lot of people in western countries indirectly pay for this
SilverBirch|1 year ago
Think of the alternatives, top 5 oil producing countries: US(13bb/day), Russia (13bb/day), Saudi (9bb/day), Canada (5bb/day), Iraq(4bb/day).
We all know what's currently happening in Russia. The US and Canada have good production, but they're a long way from Europe. So how exactly do you expect Eastern Europe to heat their homes during winter?
Let's be clear, they can't even really afford to boycott Russia at the moment - Russian oil is pumping out to India and getting re-badged. So the idea they'd pick a fight with Saudi Arabia seems ambitious to say the least.
pfdietz|1 year ago
You can thank all the engineers and business people working on batteries, electric vehicles, and other petroleum alternatives.
Jaxan|1 year ago
moralestapia|1 year ago
If you go to Google Earth (the app), it lets you see historical imagery from the site and for the past three or so years you can see continuous progress on digging out The Line; that alone is quite impressive on its own! But then again, digging it is only like 1% of it, and the easiest part. It's an impossible project.
keiferski|1 year ago
Neom reminds me of Łódź, a city in Poland that is built around a single 5km long street. It’s quite cool and the simple geometry is aesthetically appealing in a way I’ve yet to find elsewhere.
lqet|1 year ago
Some years ago I occasionally read a German architecture forum [0] that may be compared to HN (mainly professionals). For example, I remember the thread about the reconstruction of parts of the historic city center of Frankfurt [1] being really interesting, with a lot of excellent pictures and insider knowledge. The discussion was mostly centered on the aesthetic quality of the quarter and the use of historic construction methods (and how this use of traditional craftsmanship highly motivated the workers), while bigger media outlets often completely ignored this and focused on a strange political discussion that went along the lines of "reconstruction of something destroyed in WW2 = revisionism = supporting neofashists".
[0] https://www.deutsches-architekturforum.de/
[1] https://www.deutsches-architekturforum.de/thread/10345-dom-r...
Moldoteck|1 year ago
ImaCake|1 year ago
theshackleford|1 year ago
There are none and as such there is nothing to discuss.
sztanko|1 year ago
https://youtu.be/pnrAxfzHElo?si=ceaS6MIs7qrP9ohL
Barrin92|1 year ago
The reason why this exists is obviously that these projects are started by absolute rulers who want to build themselves vanity monuments the same way their ancient predecessors did.
rany_|1 year ago
bdjsiqoocwk|1 year ago
If you're only building a mega project so you're forced to develop the infrastructure around it, why don't you choose a sensible megaproject instead? Answer: because that's not why they're doing it, you just made that up.
jimjimjim|1 year ago
Who said, Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert.
mangamadaiyan|1 year ago
zelphirkalt|1 year ago
yreg|1 year ago
Is there a way to make money by betting against them?
gnabgib|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
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Havoc|1 year ago
fuzzfactor|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
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sheepscreek|1 year ago
throwterrr|1 year ago
bryanrasmussen|1 year ago
Ekaros|1 year ago
smnrchrds|1 year ago
01HNNWZ0MV43FF|1 year ago
seydor|1 year ago
x2dhump|1 year ago
Ahmd72|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
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redwood|1 year ago
RGamma|1 year ago
neglesaks|1 year ago
bangaroo|1 year ago
Shocked, I tell you.
aaron695|1 year ago
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unknown|1 year ago
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alangibson|1 year ago
It's a time tested strategy. The main problem is SA is doing it in the most useless and bloody way possible.
theGeatZhopa|1 year ago
yard2010|1 year ago
Moldoteck|1 year ago
reducesuffering|1 year ago
That is not the word I or most of HN would have used…
It’s a sad state of the world that this delusional lunatic is dictator of a $1T GDP country instead of everyone else that understands this is a stupid idea.
Ahmd72|1 year ago
We might have our faults but our people are working towards progress, it takes time but we don't go bashing Western people and how they are the worst examples of humanity, even knowing their history and countless examples of genocides conducted by them and then denying it. Shame on you people and those who think they are the best examples. Next time when you're offered a job in a Middle East country, don't accept it simple as that instead of coming here, bashing and then saying money talks. Greed is all you guys know.
Ahmd72|1 year ago
dappermanneke|1 year ago
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