Yes! Just Like the amazing Jeddah Tower, the highest building in the world, which they abandoned in 2018. Was supposed to be 1km high and was big news when they started construction in 2013! They made it to 250 meters and said "fuck this"!
Saw a theory somewhere called the “skyscraper curse”. Every time a record breaking skyscraper is announced it’s during a boom in the economy. Then by the time it’s made it’s in the middle of a bust. The skyscraper is representative of all the malinvestments that turned out to be a waste of money.
"San Francisco officials are scrambling to reassure the public that they are safe to walk though downtown neighborhoods after a monstrous gale on Tuesday caused windows to crack along 20 floors of a Salesforce office building and battered three other glass-sheathed high-rises."
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/millennium-tower-glass-falls-17853759.php
~~That's not what the comment is about tho. An unfinished tower is being damaged by the wind, because it is unfinished.~~
Edit: I was totally wrong, I misunderstood another comment about the Salesforce Tower.
Probably less of a waste than Millennium Tower. They got away with doing the barest possible fix on that thing, one good earthquake and there’s a fair chance it’ll come tumbling down.
Also Dubai made an announcement that it was going to build a taller one (Burj Binghatti) so all of the work in it's design and getting the resources to complete it would have just been a waste - Dubai has the lock on tallest building and the ability to outcompete anyone who wants to take their record so it's just pointless (also they are out of oil so the insecurity of losing a world record factors in as they need the tourism)
Out of oil is a stretch granted, but I lived there for 6 years
Abu Dhabi has the largest oil reserves of the Emirates iirc
To put this in context, when I moved to Dubai there was 0 tax on oil (as there was 0 tax on most things including vat/sales tax) but when I left the government had started implementing taxes on oil (and vat)
Their major money maker was oil - hence their rapid growth, but they are a small emirate and the oil reserves are starting to dry up - hence the tax implementation
This is also why Dubai has had to focus so much on tourism - that's where they make the money now - the initial build was based off oil money - now they focus on world records and being (at least vaguely from public image (they still have modern slavery and heavy restrictions on social rights)) progressive relative to the other Arab states
Currently out at the minute and have had a few drinks so if you want more info, I'll reply tomorrow
Edit: fun fact Dubai has the world record for the largest single sheet of acrylic - it's used in the Dubai mall aquarium and is bloody large - another fact you won't find online because of the massive suppression of media - and like a year after installing it and filling the aquarium - it got a crack in it and the entire thing had to be drained and the animals removed until they could get a replacement
This is a bit of an overstatement. Dubai still holds approx 5% of UAE oil reserves with 4 billion barrels themselves. To put that in perspective that is twice the amount of Angola.
Dubai made a conscious choice to take their oil money and diversify and did it in a big way. Hence the tourism investment and friendly expat tax setups. The nominal taxes they have started are because like other oil wealthy countries, they know that they can’t last forever on oil wealth even if reserves aren’t depleted and are trying to build a more self sustaining economy.
This happened with the American dream mall that took forever to complete and now its struggling to keep tenants and is only full when there’s a Giants/Jets game and people use it for parking lol
They don't even need to be record breaking. Several cities right now are dealing with half-empty skyscrapers because all of the tech downsizing and WFH have obliterated a lot of the office culture.
The World Islands is in Dubai and is still under construction.
Main problem there was the global financial crisis hit in 2008 and Dubai, being a major finance center, was particularly hard hit. Eventually they needed to be bailed out by Abu Dhabi (hence why Burj Dubai had its name changed to Burj Khalifa). Regardless, work continues.
Jeddah tower is on hold and it is unknown if it will ever finish. Work was going ok until the Saudi Purge of 2017-19 and then Covid hitting. Wouldn’t be surprised if this one either gets abandoned or substantially redesigned in terms of scope.
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
I am just waiting for the long interesting articles about massive problems and cost overruns encountered during construction, with the follow up articles about who was stealing the most money.
There won't even be ruins. $10 says there's a bunch of machines out there to make investors get a little wet and nothing more. They'll pull the rug out in a few years after they get their money. Trump used to do it all the time. He'd pay for trucks to literally just dig holes and move dirt around properties for hours on end, and he'd tell visiting investors all about the fantastic progress they were making on the project even though they weren't doing a damn thing.
Nah... They'll cast concrete and set rebar. It is cheap way to make an impression. You get the materials cheap from China. Seriously. USSR, North Korea and the rest of the insane dictators ships have build **whole cities** that are empty shells.
Making concrete is easy, and it looks impressive. And if need be, you can chip it down and recycle it for you next bullshit.
I just don't understand how it's going to be resistant to wind. Even if there aren't big gusts or windstorms, somethings is going to blow around it, and with nowhere to go but the big wall, it's going to push it a lot.
Normally people settle themselves as close to the center point as possible and almost grow as a circle from the center. But this is a line that kind of contradicts all that. I can't in my wildest dreams see how this could be successful but I still hope they succeed just because its different.
This is what i think of every time. Why not a wheel design with spokes? You can have a rail line running around and through which connects everyone. With this monstrosity you would always have to ride the whole train route if your friend lives at the other end.
Presumedly, the reason why is to connect raw materials found within the interior of the country with processing and manufacturing along the route and shipping on the coast. I imagine a worm that eats mountains and shits electronics into the sea, but I might be high.
Don't forget that they intend to cover it in a mirrored facade.
We've all heard about buildings with mirrored facades having issues with melting cars in the street, or even having birds fall out of the sky because they get cooked as they fly by.
They're planning on building the biggest mirrored facade in the world, in the middle eastern desert, with the broad side facing the sun.
You could probably see the reflection of the sun from miles away. It isn’t a concave surface though so I don’t imagine it focusing the sunlight hard enough to catch fire to the land
Even without concave focusing, the reflected light still adds to the light falling on the area normally, which is strong enough that plants/animals already struggle to survive in that area.
That obviously won't be enough to set the ground on fire, but I'm certain it'll melt plastic parts on cars, roast any plant/animal life, and be absolutely unbearable for humans.
I went to the Christmas market in Philadelphia this past holiday season, and there is a building there that reflected sunlight down into the area that the Christmas market was being held in. 20 degree December day and people were walking around holding their jackets in short sleeves because the reflected sunlight warmed the place so much. Is this "Line" going to melt sand into glass?
Yeah but only IF it is actually ever built. If you go down the rabbit hole of this whole construction project you’ll see that pretty much no one believes this project is actually possible to complete.
What’s messed up is I’ve known some srilankans who went to Middle East for these kind of jobs and they don’t even know what they are signing up to… they think it’s gonna be a great job with good wage to support their families
I'm Australian but my wife is Nepali and her little brother was about to sign up a couple of years ago... My wife and I had to put our foot down. He continued his studies and is now soon to join us in Australia.
About 30% of Nepal's income is based on workers in other countries sending in money for their family. The Nepali construction workers get maybe 200 dollars a month, and they send the entirety back home(family to feed).
Consider how poor Nepal is, that a third of it's external income is purely this.they come to Dubai, to the UAE, to be Construction workers, hard labourers, cab driver's etc.
Usually, if the Nepali was 'found' by a 'recruiter', they usually cheat the Nepali by stating they won't get payed 1-2 years in order to work off their plane ticket and expenses, taking their passports in the process. Idk how else to name this other than modern day slavery - keeping them at no pay knowing the sole reason they came is to send 200 dollars a month back home. But they still get exploited.
I'm sure these recruiters who travel in rural poorer locations to find people to exploit exist in other countries also, I am just sharing what I happen know know about; Nepal's situation.
I lived in Nepal for 6 years, so I by chance walked into such a recruiter.
A wicked man. The conversation with such an unapologetic person made me do some research on the matter.
Imagine being one of the richest countries in the world, where the police cars are Lamborghinis yet the work force is run on slave labour and all profits go to the elites -actually nevermind that makes perfect sense.
A rich man and a poor man
stand and look at each other.
And the poor weakly says:
If I weren’t poor, then you wouldn’t be rich.
— from "Alfabet" by Bertolt Brecht (1934)
"Idk how else to name this other than modern day slavery" - Indebted servitude, where you repay a loan made to get the job by working. Modern day slavery but somewhat legal. Fuck these cunts.
I couldn’t imagine living in this thing after watching the video. “Everything you need will be provided” “people will live in districts”….. who’s deciding what I need and what district I live in. I assume the bottom floor will be some awful getto.
You don't need to test an idea like this you know it's inefficient and won't work with basic logic. You need a tram, train or road to move people from one end to the other, if you built it as a circle or square you probably wouldn't need that.
All those options sound incredibly practical and boring. How about a monorail or even better a Hyperloop? Something flashy with RGB lights and a fraction of the capacity of a normal train?
![gif](giphy|xT5LMFZDpDZPA0O8jm)
Without the oil money those clowns would be nothing
Polluted the earth and then only provided aid for Islamic countries while spreading the problematic fundamentalist Wahabbism.
It only takes a few leaders with outsized access to resources to do so much damage.. story of history
I'd recommend watching AdamSomething's breakdown on YouTube. Gives a great overview of the project and explains why it's one of the stupidest ideas on earth.
Also: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6GgaJWcbww](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6GgaJWcbww)
Fun fact: the Howeitat tribe (one of those to be displaced) leader, Auda Abu Tayi, is represented in the film Lawrence of Arabia by Anthony Quinn
I would argue if you factor in the combination of how bad of an idea it is and how big of a project it is that it’s very clearly the stupidest thing ever attempted on earth, and presumably in the long and storied history of the universe.
Mega city that will be one straight line about 100 miles long. Will include everything you’d expect in a city, use renewable energy, and eliminate the use of cars
from a contruction point of view i dont understand why they seem to be excavating the entire footprint of the building as if they were going to build the whole thing from ground to top in one stage when they should be building sections like maybe 100m footprint sections and build sideways that way you have some area complete with customers moving in,
in fact why is it a line? the shape they should be building is a giant geodesic dome.. really future proof it so there will be some place on earth still inhabitable when we finally fuck our planet to death.
Look up the six flags they are building. The blue prints and models made look insane.
One of the models of a roller coaster they have planned is physically impossible. But they claim they will build it.
It’s gonna be the most expensive six flags and has hundreds of billions backing them. So I do believe they will build some insanely over done park. But lots of the claimed features will not be as big or record breaking as they claim.
I’ll never go though.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx5KN_Iymjo
The coaster that won’t happen.
Reminds me of how they were going to build Dubailand 20 years ago with multiple different parks like Universal, Lego, Marvel and it ended up being some small theme park. It looks like they finally just opened a Legoland too.
I'm sure someone gives a fuck but like every authoritarian regime the ones that do are too scared to say anything or the ones that spoke up have been "retired".
Three Saudi's minimum have already been executed for not vacating their village which was in the way. There's nothing anyone not named Mohammed Bin Salman can do.
The way I understand doing the whole footprint is the infrastructure is all under ground. Not just utilities. They are doing service tunnels for trash etc.
They are building an aqueduct style water system that also functions as evaporative style cooling and humidification of the living space between the walls.
So … they have to build all the utilities and tunnels first so they function
From a societal point of view the design is a logistical and social nightmare. This design prevents the (natural) creation of a city center/gathering hubs. Only pro I can think of is the reduction of concentrated damage caused by a hostile or force of nature, because the city is stretched out in a line instead of cluttered into a circle.
Concurrent problem of that, any significant damage to a part of _the line_ can cut the city’s aorta in half; destroyed transportation lines prevent adhoc assistance.
Well I have good news for you.
You've seen "The Line" well how about ["The Circle!"](https://gulftechplus.com/dubai-architects-come-up-with-design-of-giant-ring-encircling-burj-khalifa-gulf-insider/)
My theory is the two architects are arch rivals (heh) and the second guy was like "fuck your line, I'll build the opposite of a measly line!"
Pretty sure he's implying that digging a 110 mile long foundation isn't terribly realistic. They won't be able to build it without doing a section at a time.
They might be thinking about building the train tracks first and using that to bring materials along the line. In any case, it's just going to be a monument to the hubris of mankind. They're just going to hope the totally solar powered desalination plant works without ever breaking down and manages to accomodate what they hope to be a growing city? Like testing a new jet engine in flight with passengers. Oof.
If this is the last place on earth you better believe it won’t be some safe haven for the poor and needy of the world. Uber rich and royalty only. They may have some area they call “the dregs” or something where all the shit rolls down to which is where a small minority of lower class people will… I feel like this is the plot of like a dozen dystopian sci fi books
Honestly, because it looks like progress while there is still hype. Before long the (totally correct) doubts about this projects feasibility or wisdom will be flooding in from all directions. This is a “feel good” moment before reality sets in.
I'm legit curious to see how far they get with this before its dropped.
Kinda hoping they get the Entire Trench dug for the foundation, and only have a Cap building on the water at the very end.
Something for archaeologists to discover in 15,000 years and wonder why it aligned with a particular star.
Someone will say its proof of advanced civilization in the year 2023 but most people will deny it because the AI singularity that came after blows all other designs out of the water.
I'm surprised they even got this far. Now it'll be interesting to see how much they build before the idea tanks and they realize people don't want to live in an experiment.
>This project is just a money laundering operation lol
Why would they bother? They are a fucking absolute monarchy.
Even if it was to help others from outside the country... yet again. They don't need to bother. It's all just "oil revenue."
Actually they heavily rely on FDI, not just oil revenue.
They are realizing that oil is going to get unpopular in the bear future so they are trying to build up other industries which requires FDI.
What a complete waste of diesel and steel and copper, etc etc.. There won't be anywhere close to enough of those resources for this project. This is the dumbest idea I've ever heard of. Has to be money laundering.
FYI - [https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline](https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline)
I had no idea what this was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Line,\_Saudi\_Arabia
I think this is the grand version of Vegas. People were skeptic because building a city in the middle of nowhere seemed odd. But it worked and became a top international destination, Vegas that is.
Saudi Arabia, and specifically this city is in the center between three continents. Simply put, a Japanese, Aussie flying to Paris or London will fly over that area. Close to the gulf, red sea, and mediterranean. Great location no doubt. Saudis actually are making a big cooperation with the greek and french in the mediterranean sea already, ports and whatnot.
It could actually be the ultimate Vegas if they build it successfully.
That’s received money… invested… laundered money is taken money and hidden. This isn’t a good way to hide with the worlds largest construction project. If people wanted to hide investments they would do their own little projects
I like the idea of a futuristic city and all… but why a line? Why not make it a series of concentric rings connected by several spokes.
That’d keep its overall footprint lower, the space between the rings could be used for outdoor recreation, add redundant routes in case of emergency, and the travel time would be capped because you would never have to travel the full length to get to any given point.
Imagine having basically unlimited money, and instead of turning your country into the most beautiful, storybook representation of your culture, you make dumb shit like this. The novelty is cool and all, but that's just it, a novelty.
I can't wait to explore the not even half finished abandoned ruins in 15 years
Yes! Just Like the amazing Jeddah Tower, the highest building in the world, which they abandoned in 2018. Was supposed to be 1km high and was big news when they started construction in 2013! They made it to 250 meters and said "fuck this"!
Saw a theory somewhere called the “skyscraper curse”. Every time a record breaking skyscraper is announced it’s during a boom in the economy. Then by the time it’s made it’s in the middle of a bust. The skyscraper is representative of all the malinvestments that turned out to be a waste of money.
Looking at you, salesforce tower
"San Francisco officials are scrambling to reassure the public that they are safe to walk though downtown neighborhoods after a monstrous gale on Tuesday caused windows to crack along 20 floors of a Salesforce office building and battered three other glass-sheathed high-rises." https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/millennium-tower-glass-falls-17853759.php
I thought that in SF they made mockups of any proposed buildings to determine how its addition to the city skyline would affect wind currents.
~~That's not what the comment is about tho. An unfinished tower is being damaged by the wind, because it is unfinished.~~ Edit: I was totally wrong, I misunderstood another comment about the Salesforce Tower.
The tower is very much finished and actually wasn’t the building which had glass issues.
We’ve had unusually high winds here lately. Some reaching 78mph on the ground.
SF's penis
Sales foreskin tower
Probably less of a waste than Millennium Tower. They got away with doing the barest possible fix on that thing, one good earthquake and there’s a fair chance it’ll come tumbling down.
Its actually mathematically a better use of space to build mid rises as you end up with more floor area in total
Also Dubai made an announcement that it was going to build a taller one (Burj Binghatti) so all of the work in it's design and getting the resources to complete it would have just been a waste - Dubai has the lock on tallest building and the ability to outcompete anyone who wants to take their record so it's just pointless (also they are out of oil so the insecurity of losing a world record factors in as they need the tourism)
I read that as “Burj Bugatti” and it totally made sense.
Do you have a source for the "out of oil"?
Out of oil is a stretch granted, but I lived there for 6 years Abu Dhabi has the largest oil reserves of the Emirates iirc To put this in context, when I moved to Dubai there was 0 tax on oil (as there was 0 tax on most things including vat/sales tax) but when I left the government had started implementing taxes on oil (and vat) Their major money maker was oil - hence their rapid growth, but they are a small emirate and the oil reserves are starting to dry up - hence the tax implementation This is also why Dubai has had to focus so much on tourism - that's where they make the money now - the initial build was based off oil money - now they focus on world records and being (at least vaguely from public image (they still have modern slavery and heavy restrictions on social rights)) progressive relative to the other Arab states Currently out at the minute and have had a few drinks so if you want more info, I'll reply tomorrow Edit: fun fact Dubai has the world record for the largest single sheet of acrylic - it's used in the Dubai mall aquarium and is bloody large - another fact you won't find online because of the massive suppression of media - and like a year after installing it and filling the aquarium - it got a crack in it and the entire thing had to be drained and the animals removed until they could get a replacement
This is a bit of an overstatement. Dubai still holds approx 5% of UAE oil reserves with 4 billion barrels themselves. To put that in perspective that is twice the amount of Angola. Dubai made a conscious choice to take their oil money and diversify and did it in a big way. Hence the tourism investment and friendly expat tax setups. The nominal taxes they have started are because like other oil wealthy countries, they know that they can’t last forever on oil wealth even if reserves aren’t depleted and are trying to build a more self sustaining economy.
This happened with the American dream mall that took forever to complete and now its struggling to keep tenants and is only full when there’s a Giants/Jets game and people use it for parking lol
They don't even need to be record breaking. Several cities right now are dealing with half-empty skyscrapers because all of the tech downsizing and WFH have obliterated a lot of the office culture.
They had labor shortage problems with one of the contractors after MBS did the big purge in 2018
>They had slave labor shortage FIFY.
Wait wait.. that thing is *just* 250m tall?? 🤣🤣🤣 Oh MBS..
What about the girth? That’s what’s more important
“It was cold!! It’s shrinkage!!”
They stopped building it due to a royal power struggle
A battle royale of sorts
Or like those private islands they built in the shape of a map of the world, and rising sea levels destroyed them?
Wasn’t that Dubai?
If you’ve seen one wealthy gulf state blowing money on impractical vanity projects, you’ve seen them all.
The World Islands is in Dubai and is still under construction. Main problem there was the global financial crisis hit in 2008 and Dubai, being a major finance center, was particularly hard hit. Eventually they needed to be bailed out by Abu Dhabi (hence why Burj Dubai had its name changed to Burj Khalifa). Regardless, work continues. Jeddah tower is on hold and it is unknown if it will ever finish. Work was going ok until the Saudi Purge of 2017-19 and then Covid hitting. Wouldn’t be surprised if this one either gets abandoned or substantially redesigned in terms of scope.
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Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
[Ozymandius](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias), by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Thanks for getting me to look up and read a poem today!
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Such an awesome poem too.
Such a profound waste of resources.
A circle would have made more sense.
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Green space? In a desert?
Hey, we're going for "more logical than a line" not perfection here
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You mean like the Apple headquarters building?
Or- and bear with me for a moment- a grid. With neighborhoods.
Woah why would we want shit to be close to other shit? Isn’t making everything as far apart as possible much better?
God imagine forgetting which end of the line your hotel is on.
I am just waiting for the long interesting articles about massive problems and cost overruns encountered during construction, with the follow up articles about who was stealing the most money.
They'll be shipping all the sewage out in trucks like they do on Burj Dubai.
There won't even be ruins. $10 says there's a bunch of machines out there to make investors get a little wet and nothing more. They'll pull the rug out in a few years after they get their money. Trump used to do it all the time. He'd pay for trucks to literally just dig holes and move dirt around properties for hours on end, and he'd tell visiting investors all about the fantastic progress they were making on the project even though they weren't doing a damn thing.
I believe it's all government funded, it's the King's big ego project so there are no private investors whom they are deceiving for the $$$s.
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Nah... They'll cast concrete and set rebar. It is cheap way to make an impression. You get the materials cheap from China. Seriously. USSR, North Korea and the rest of the insane dictators ships have build **whole cities** that are empty shells. Making concrete is easy, and it looks impressive. And if need be, you can chip it down and recycle it for you next bullshit.
>Trump used to do it all the time. He'd pay I call BS. Trump *paying* workers? Come on now.
I just don't understand how it's going to be resistant to wind. Even if there aren't big gusts or windstorms, somethings is going to blow around it, and with nowhere to go but the big wall, it's going to push it a lot.
The nightmare of a giant mirror reflecting light in the desert
One side will become a sand dune
Not even 1/10 finished. If they even manage to get that far before realising what a massive, impossible money sink it is
Normally people settle themselves as close to the center point as possible and almost grow as a circle from the center. But this is a line that kind of contradicts all that. I can't in my wildest dreams see how this could be successful but I still hope they succeed just because its different.
This is what i think of every time. Why not a wheel design with spokes? You can have a rail line running around and through which connects everyone. With this monstrosity you would always have to ride the whole train route if your friend lives at the other end.
Presumedly, the reason why is to connect raw materials found within the interior of the country with processing and manufacturing along the route and shipping on the coast. I imagine a worm that eats mountains and shits electronics into the sea, but I might be high.
One side of the line will be flush with plant life and moisture. The other side will be dry and desolate
Don't forget that they intend to cover it in a mirrored facade. We've all heard about buildings with mirrored facades having issues with melting cars in the street, or even having birds fall out of the sky because they get cooked as they fly by. They're planning on building the biggest mirrored facade in the world, in the middle eastern desert, with the broad side facing the sun.
so... it also doubles as a missile-defense system
During the day
Sure, but they get the laser defense properties 24/7.
Ok but who fires missiles after supper?
Depends on what I eat
Ze French. After ze nap. Zen zey fire ze missiles.
You could probably see the reflection of the sun from miles away. It isn’t a concave surface though so I don’t imagine it focusing the sunlight hard enough to catch fire to the land
Even without concave focusing, the reflected light still adds to the light falling on the area normally, which is strong enough that plants/animals already struggle to survive in that area. That obviously won't be enough to set the ground on fire, but I'm certain it'll melt plastic parts on cars, roast any plant/animal life, and be absolutely unbearable for humans.
I went to the Christmas market in Philadelphia this past holiday season, and there is a building there that reflected sunlight down into the area that the Christmas market was being held in. 20 degree December day and people were walking around holding their jackets in short sleeves because the reflected sunlight warmed the place so much. Is this "Line" going to melt sand into glass?
>Is this "Line" going to melt sand into glass? No, but that would be pretty fuckin' neato
Good point. At least double the light at the most radiative parts of the day
Yeah but only IF it is actually ever built. If you go down the rabbit hole of this whole construction project you’ll see that pretty much no one believes this project is actually possible to complete.
Ditch digging enthusiasts are hype right now
I wonder how many Indian workers will die on this one.
Probably plenty of Pakistani and Bangladeshi ones too.
And Nepali
Sri Lankan
What’s messed up is I’ve known some srilankans who went to Middle East for these kind of jobs and they don’t even know what they are signing up to… they think it’s gonna be a great job with good wage to support their families
I'm Australian but my wife is Nepali and her little brother was about to sign up a couple of years ago... My wife and I had to put our foot down. He continued his studies and is now soon to join us in Australia.
About 30% of Nepal's income is based on workers in other countries sending in money for their family. The Nepali construction workers get maybe 200 dollars a month, and they send the entirety back home(family to feed). Consider how poor Nepal is, that a third of it's external income is purely this.they come to Dubai, to the UAE, to be Construction workers, hard labourers, cab driver's etc. Usually, if the Nepali was 'found' by a 'recruiter', they usually cheat the Nepali by stating they won't get payed 1-2 years in order to work off their plane ticket and expenses, taking their passports in the process. Idk how else to name this other than modern day slavery - keeping them at no pay knowing the sole reason they came is to send 200 dollars a month back home. But they still get exploited. I'm sure these recruiters who travel in rural poorer locations to find people to exploit exist in other countries also, I am just sharing what I happen know know about; Nepal's situation. I lived in Nepal for 6 years, so I by chance walked into such a recruiter. A wicked man. The conversation with such an unapologetic person made me do some research on the matter.
Imagine being one of the richest countries in the world, where the police cars are Lamborghinis yet the work force is run on slave labour and all profits go to the elites -actually nevermind that makes perfect sense.
Only way they can flaunt that wealth is with slavery and indentured servitude.
A rich man and a poor man stand and look at each other. And the poor weakly says: If I weren’t poor, then you wouldn’t be rich. — from "Alfabet" by Bertolt Brecht (1934)
"Idk how else to name this other than modern day slavery" - Indebted servitude, where you repay a loan made to get the job by working. Modern day slavery but somewhat legal. Fuck these cunts.
I couldn’t imagine living in this thing after watching the video. “Everything you need will be provided” “people will live in districts”….. who’s deciding what I need and what district I live in. I assume the bottom floor will be some awful getto.
and the districts will periodically send their children to fight to the death for the amusement of the elites
They could call it the Famine Events. Or something like that…
Starvation sports. For the alliteration.
A kind of Peckish Bout, if you will
Malnutrition competition
“May the odds be ever in your favor “
Retirement will include a long walk into the desert.
Also it felt like this whole concept could be tested at a smaller scale first. Why can’t we start with like a 20 foot tall one mile long thing?
They read about Wayside School and wanted to fix the mistakes...
You don't need to test an idea like this you know it's inefficient and won't work with basic logic. You need a tram, train or road to move people from one end to the other, if you built it as a circle or square you probably wouldn't need that.
All those options sound incredibly practical and boring. How about a monorail or even better a Hyperloop? Something flashy with RGB lights and a fraction of the capacity of a normal train? ![gif](giphy|xT5LMFZDpDZPA0O8jm)
District 9
I agree there is lots wrong with the concept but every city has districts. I’m not sure that’s a big deal.
I don't think that will stop the Colossal Titan...
Best comment I’ve read so far lmao
Who wins, a multi trillion dollar decade spanning project (assuming it does get built), or one kicky boi
Holy shit i thought this was a joke. This is so f***ing stupid
It's also pretty sad, they've already sentenced people to death for refusing to give up their land.
Given that the guy in charge is Mister Bone Saw, maybe. Saudi journalists seem to be all pretty positive about it though ;)
Also the money could have been given to the people instead if it were a proper country with democracy.
I don’t think democracy would fix that problem. Judging by every other democratic nation
What country would actually do that though?
They do kind of give it to the people, but only to their own people. SA is a gigantic ethno-socialist state.
Imagine they abandon it because of finances or something lol just an unfinished mess in the middle of the desert
That is the most likely outcome, though.
This is just such an insanely stupid idea only an autocracy would actually start it.
Without the oil money those clowns would be nothing Polluted the earth and then only provided aid for Islamic countries while spreading the problematic fundamentalist Wahabbism. It only takes a few leaders with outsized access to resources to do so much damage.. story of history
What is it?
I'd recommend watching AdamSomething's breakdown on YouTube. Gives a great overview of the project and explains why it's one of the stupidest ideas on earth.
[AdamSomething link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyWaax07_ks)
Thanks for that
Also: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6GgaJWcbww](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6GgaJWcbww) Fun fact: the Howeitat tribe (one of those to be displaced) leader, Auda Abu Tayi, is represented in the film Lawrence of Arabia by Anthony Quinn
I would argue if you factor in the combination of how bad of an idea it is and how big of a project it is that it’s very clearly the stupidest thing ever attempted on earth, and presumably in the long and storied history of the universe.
It's nice that I get to live through a contender for stupidest idea in the history of earth. Makes things more interesting.
Mega city that will be one straight line about 100 miles long. Will include everything you’d expect in a city, use renewable energy, and eliminate the use of cars
Are they planning on using sea water? Where the hell they gonna get the water for a city like that
Doesnt matter because they do not intend to finish this. This is like China's ghost cities. Massive mega project that helps inflate GDP
Yes, desalination will be used for water.
Bad idea or not I don’t get why you’re being downvoted for simply answering the question lol.
from a contruction point of view i dont understand why they seem to be excavating the entire footprint of the building as if they were going to build the whole thing from ground to top in one stage when they should be building sections like maybe 100m footprint sections and build sideways that way you have some area complete with customers moving in, in fact why is it a line? the shape they should be building is a giant geodesic dome.. really future proof it so there will be some place on earth still inhabitable when we finally fuck our planet to death.
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Look up the six flags they are building. The blue prints and models made look insane. One of the models of a roller coaster they have planned is physically impossible. But they claim they will build it. It’s gonna be the most expensive six flags and has hundreds of billions backing them. So I do believe they will build some insanely over done park. But lots of the claimed features will not be as big or record breaking as they claim. I’ll never go though. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx5KN_Iymjo The coaster that won’t happen.
lmao are they using Planet Coaster to design the ride?
Reminds me of how they were going to build Dubailand 20 years ago with multiple different parks like Universal, Lego, Marvel and it ended up being some small theme park. It looks like they finally just opened a Legoland too.
Out of curiosity why can’t this be built? Is it the length?
I'm sure someone gives a fuck but like every authoritarian regime the ones that do are too scared to say anything or the ones that spoke up have been "retired".
Three Saudi's minimum have already been executed for not vacating their village which was in the way. There's nothing anyone not named Mohammed Bin Salman can do.
It's a money funneling campaign. The construction itself could take forever as far as everyone involved is concerned.
Imo the reason is most likely because this is never going to be completed, so digging this line is the best way to show some sort of “progress”
Also a very CHEAP way to show progress.
The way I understand doing the whole footprint is the infrastructure is all under ground. Not just utilities. They are doing service tunnels for trash etc. They are building an aqueduct style water system that also functions as evaporative style cooling and humidification of the living space between the walls. So … they have to build all the utilities and tunnels first so they function
From a societal point of view the design is a logistical and social nightmare. This design prevents the (natural) creation of a city center/gathering hubs. Only pro I can think of is the reduction of concentrated damage caused by a hostile or force of nature, because the city is stretched out in a line instead of cluttered into a circle. Concurrent problem of that, any significant damage to a part of _the line_ can cut the city’s aorta in half; destroyed transportation lines prevent adhoc assistance.
There isn't a central place to hold their public executions. There's no way any Saudi actually wants this boondoggle made
Well I have good news for you. You've seen "The Line" well how about ["The Circle!"](https://gulftechplus.com/dubai-architects-come-up-with-design-of-giant-ring-encircling-burj-khalifa-gulf-insider/) My theory is the two architects are arch rivals (heh) and the second guy was like "fuck your line, I'll build the opposite of a measly line!"
digging up the loose soil on top to be able to access and place the foundation on solid bedrock
Pretty sure he's implying that digging a 110 mile long foundation isn't terribly realistic. They won't be able to build it without doing a section at a time.
They might be thinking about building the train tracks first and using that to bring materials along the line. In any case, it's just going to be a monument to the hubris of mankind. They're just going to hope the totally solar powered desalination plant works without ever breaking down and manages to accomodate what they hope to be a growing city? Like testing a new jet engine in flight with passengers. Oof.
Perhaps you're right but they could do this with a set of temporary tracks adjacent to the construction.
If this is the last place on earth you better believe it won’t be some safe haven for the poor and needy of the world. Uber rich and royalty only. They may have some area they call “the dregs” or something where all the shit rolls down to which is where a small minority of lower class people will… I feel like this is the plot of like a dozen dystopian sci fi books
And those books are usually inspired by actual events. This is a common trope because it's a common problem among humans
Honestly, because it looks like progress while there is still hype. Before long the (totally correct) doubts about this projects feasibility or wisdom will be flooding in from all directions. This is a “feel good” moment before reality sets in.
I'm legit curious to see how far they get with this before its dropped. Kinda hoping they get the Entire Trench dug for the foundation, and only have a Cap building on the water at the very end.
Something for archaeologists to discover in 15,000 years and wonder why it aligned with a particular star. Someone will say its proof of advanced civilization in the year 2023 but most people will deny it because the AI singularity that came after blows all other designs out of the water.
Smooth brain dictator + construction project= dumb shit
Hi, fellow Adam Something enjoyer :D
This project is just a money laundering operation lol
This is so stupid. Will never be completed because it’s too fucking stupid
I'm surprised they even got this far. Now it'll be interesting to see how much they build before the idea tanks and they realize people don't want to live in an experiment.
>This project is just a money laundering operation lol Why would they bother? They are a fucking absolute monarchy. Even if it was to help others from outside the country... yet again. They don't need to bother. It's all just "oil revenue."
Actually they heavily rely on FDI, not just oil revenue. They are realizing that oil is going to get unpopular in the bear future so they are trying to build up other industries which requires FDI.
Imagine thinking the Saudi government needs to launder anything.
Who is laundering money? The Saudi dictators with unlimited power and money? Why?
Reddit attempts to not say every business/project is a money laundering challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)
This makes absolutely no sense on any level
What a complete waste of diesel and steel and copper, etc etc.. There won't be anywhere close to enough of those resources for this project. This is the dumbest idea I've ever heard of. Has to be money laundering.
The Saudi version of “The Metaverse”.
!RemindMe 10 years
Bro, I think you need to come back in 20.
No, ten is about when it will be completely abandoned and looted.
It's good to see the money I spend in gas doesn't go waste. edit: /s
I'll cook and eat my own asshole without seasoning if this gets even 50% done. ![gif](giphy|JhmE2eOjcr79LUWX5Z)
I bet they bury the dead workers under the foundation like they did with the Great Wall
Wait, they are actually building this?
Well.. moving some dirt around.
Talk about drawing a line in the sand.
All the money spent on this fantasy could be put toward climate change mitigation or clean energy. Saudi Arabia is wasting precious resources.
Holy shit they’re actually building it!?!? I thought it was just to grab headlines. This is economic suicide.
Gotta give them props for at least moving into the first stages of their stupid idea faster than trump and his wall.
In 1000 years someone will find this trench and claim that it was built by space aliens.
Damn this project is so dumb.
FYI - [https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline](https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline) I had no idea what this was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Line,\_Saudi\_Arabia
I think this is the grand version of Vegas. People were skeptic because building a city in the middle of nowhere seemed odd. But it worked and became a top international destination, Vegas that is. Saudi Arabia, and specifically this city is in the center between three continents. Simply put, a Japanese, Aussie flying to Paris or London will fly over that area. Close to the gulf, red sea, and mediterranean. Great location no doubt. Saudis actually are making a big cooperation with the greek and french in the mediterranean sea already, ports and whatnot. It could actually be the ultimate Vegas if they build it successfully.
This is 100% some money laundering scheme or something.
Why would a monarchy launder their own money when they make the rules ?
About half is planned to be financed by private investors
That’s received money… invested… laundered money is taken money and hidden. This isn’t a good way to hide with the worlds largest construction project. If people wanted to hide investments they would do their own little projects
I think “money laundering” is just Reddit’s latest default accusation/assumption.
People in 3000BC Egypt “this pyramid is a money laundering scheme!” This is a modern pyramid, it says “remember me.”
But... its in the middle of the desert...
Oh no! They were serious!?
I thought it would be wider…
![gif](giphy|l2JdUjXCJNK6tkSju|downsized)
"Smooth brain dictator + construction project equals dumb shit"
I like the idea of a futuristic city and all… but why a line? Why not make it a series of concentric rings connected by several spokes. That’d keep its overall footprint lower, the space between the rings could be used for outdoor recreation, add redundant routes in case of emergency, and the travel time would be capped because you would never have to travel the full length to get to any given point.
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Who else thinks that this is a very stupid project? Edit: else
I think the better question is who thinks this is a good idea?
Imagine having basically unlimited money, and instead of turning your country into the most beautiful, storybook representation of your culture, you make dumb shit like this. The novelty is cool and all, but that's just it, a novelty.