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Leaked Documents Reveal Saudi Arabia's Plans For Its Next Megacity (theverge.com) 138

Posted by BeauHD from the future-plans dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: A new report from The Wall Street Journal shares some of the proposals for Saudi Arabia's biggest megaproject yet: a city built in the desert named Neom, where robots will outnumber humans and hologram teachers will educate genetically-enhanced students. These are only proposals, of course, dreamt up by American consulting firms like McKinsey and Boston Consulting who have no incentive to bring Saudi leaders down to Earth. But all the same, they give you a flavor of what trillions of dollars of oil wealth will do to your sense of proportion.

The whole Neom project is undeniably fascinating. It was first announced in 2017, with Saudi Arabia's de-facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, saying he wants the city to attract the "world's greatest minds and best talents." According to planning documents reported by the WSJ, bin Salman "envisions Neom the largest city globally by GDP, and wanted to understand what he can get with up to 500 billion USD investment." The project is the flagpole of Saudi Arabia's plans to diversify the country's economy away from oil. MBS and other Saudi leaders known this source of revenue can't last forever, and they're keen to develop cities like Neom as new commercial hubs. As currently planned, Neom will occupy a region the size of Massachusetts. This will include a huge coastal urban sprawl; outlying towns and villages; advance manufacturing hubs in industries like biotech and robotics; and links with international shipping routes. Early building work has already begun, with facilities including a new airport and palace. Some of the key features of the city include cloud seeding to make it rain, dystopian surveillance to keep citizens safe, genetic engineering to increase human strength and IQ, robot cage fights and "maids," flying taxis, and even a fake moon that could perhaps be created by a fleet of drones or via live-streaming images from space.

The report notes that it's anyone's guess as to whether Neom will live up to its planners' dreams. What may hinder its success is Saudi Arabia's corruption, difficult legal system, and unappealing social norms. "Alcohol is banned; women's rights are restricted; and homosexuality is illegal," the report notes. There's also the sweltering weather that'll only get worse with climate change.
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Leaked Documents Reveal Saudi Arabia's Plans For Its Next Megacity More

Leaked Documents Reveal Saudi Arabia's Plans For Its Next Megacity

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  • More money than brains (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Friday July 26, 2019 @07:14PM (#58994742)

    This shows what happens when you have lots of money but no grounding in reality. You attract a lot of pie in the sky consultants who will sell you an impossible dream.
    The fool and his money will part.

    • Re:More money than brains (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 26, 2019 @07:24PM (#58994804)

      This shows what happens when you have lots of money but no grounding in reality. You attract a lot of pie in the sky consultants who will sell you an impossible dream.
      The fool and his money will part.

      A fool and his money are soon elected - Mark Twain

  • My new city (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 )

    Big deal. My new city on Mars (once Musk gets us there) will have unlimited alcohol; unlimited women's rights; and unlimited homosexuality. So a big FU to the Saudis!

    • This sounds like my kind of city.

      Where do I sign? I'm hoping this isn't a backdoor to some LGBT communist paradise? I want unlimited women's rights, but I also want freedom of speech and the same rights for men, and everything else, but not extra rights for people who have mutilated themselves or have more, or less melanin. Just the same damn rights, and preserving my right not to pay for them to do it, or have it forced on my kids because Luke was caught staring at Jimmy a bit too much. Once we clear all t

      • Backdoor? Is that some kind of crack?

        • Did you just twist my first draft of our anti-lgntqi2 proto-legislation for Mars Colony 5 into some kind of gay innuendo?? How are we gonna build Mars if you cant take the proposals seriously? Lashes for the binary guy.... oh wait, something tells me he might enjoy that (looks guiltily at own username)...

      • You're likely using weasel words there... Trying to stretch "forced" and "extra". People who complain about it being forced on them almost always mean "it's fine as long as I don't have to ever see those people where I don't want them!". Like on TV, or in the bathroom, or interacting with their kids. You know, what people said about those coloreds. "I don't have a problem with them, as long as they're properly segregated". And we don't really get to choose what medical procedures are "morally right" and the

    • Big deal. My new city on Mars (once Musk gets us there) will have unlimited alcohol; unlimited women's rights; and unlimited homosexuality. So a big FU to the Saudis!

      And with blackjack and hookers?

  • Two thousand years from now, if anyone is still alive, they'll have fun excavating the lost city of Neom from beneath the scorching sands of the Arabian Peninsula.

    • Re:Leaving a little something to future archeologi (Score:4, Insightful)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Friday July 26, 2019 @08:04PM (#58994990)

      People will still be alive, we actually don't have the means to kill everyone on Earth. Not by nuclear war nor by burning fuel like there is no tomorrow. Could collapse civilization and make billions die but that is different matter.

      • Humans didn't kill off the dinosaurs. I didn't say what might kill people off. I leave that to your imagination.

        • A natural mass extinction event is extremely unlikely in the next hundred thousand years. Raise the scale to tens of millions of years and sure it's likely, but then what we'd call human won't be around

      • The last time the atmosphere had this much co2 in it, the climate would not have supported human life.

        You're making declarative statements unsupported by the available evidence

        • The last time the atmosphere had this much co2 in it, the climate would not have supported human life.

          [citation needed]

          It may not have supported non-tool using paleohumans, but it would certainly support modern humans. Modern humans live in regions below 0C to regions above 37C. We are an adaptable lot.

          That doesn't mean it will support 7 billion of us, to be sure.

      • Do you base your claim that people will still be alive on some data? I'd like that to be true, though whenever I hear this I can't help but ask: how do you know? What do you base that claim on? I think that it is equally possible that we'll have 200 degree C with sulphuric acid rain and no life possible. I think that claim that people will survive global warming is baseless. It's a belief helping us to feel better, isn't it?

  • Hahahahaha, No (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Half of the world's greatest minds and best talents are women, and they're not going anywhere near the place.

    • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by 110010001000 ( 697113 )

      Half of the world's greatest minds and best talents are women, and the other half are here on Slashdot.

    • you speak as if there aren't 210 million women in the Arab world, or 900 million muslim women in the world.

      • Well, the ones already in Saudi Arabia can't move without the approval of a male guardian, so they may be somewhat SOL. The article I read on Neom explicitly mentioned that women would not be required to keep their heads covered, though, and implied that they would have rights - at least, more than in the rest of the country - within Neom. The way it was described, the prince basically decided that women's rights reform was socially and politically non-viable in the currently-settled parts of the country, s

        • Well, the ones already in Saudi Arabia can't move without the approval of a male guardian, so they may be somewhat SOL. The article I read on Neom explicitly mentioned that women would not be required to keep their heads covered, though, and implied that they would have rights - at least, more than in the rest of the country - within Neom. The way it was described, the prince basically decided that women's rights reform was socially and politically non-viable in the currently-settled parts of the country, so he is going to try creating a new area without the historical baggage. I'm doubtful it'll work but would love to see the experiment done.

          Perhaps.
          But what is given by the sovereign can be taken by the sovereign should it become inconvenient. Or no longer in step with current sensibilities. Or..... Or..... Or....
          I don't share your belief that success is doubtful only because they could start off "free" and then change things once it's established thus taking advantage of investments and momentum already created.

  • The prince thinks he can power his futuristic city with windmills and solar collectors? Good luck with that.

    I don't care if the city is in the sunniest spot on the planet, this will fail without some other sources of energy. The kingdom wants to transition to an economy that does not rely on oil and natural gas, so if this city is going to be an example of the future for the kingdom then fossil fuel use in the city will certainly be a stain on this idea.

    Then there are all the other problems of building wh

    • The prince thinks he can power his futuristic city with windmills and solar collectors? Good luck with that.

      I don't care if the city is in the sunniest spot on the planet, this will fail without some other sources of energy. The kingdom wants to transition to an economy that does not rely on oil and natural gas, so if this city is going to be an example of the future for the kingdom then fossil fuel use in the city will certainly be a stain on this idea.

      Then there are all the other problems of building what is supposed to be a site of international trade in a backward nation.

      The cost generation per kilowatt hour of renewables is now on par with natural gas. And in the middle east, solar is super efficient. Battery technology advances within the 10 years are expected to drop generation costs to $0.05 per KW.......1/2 to 2/3 the cost of natural gas generation.
      If they can figure out the transmission issues, they could very possibly remain the world's top producer of energy.

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/d... [forbes.com]

    • The prince thinks he can power his futuristic city with windmills and solar collectors?

      Maybe he'll just generate a sun to go along with the fake moon. Not enough solar power? We'll put up a fake sun! DOUBLE SUN POWER!

  • Robots you say? (Score:3)

    by Misagon ( 1135 ) on Friday July 26, 2019 @09:12PM (#58995264)

    That reminds me of the prequel to the Matrix films: Animatrix: The second Renaissance, where intelligent robots built a city in "The cradle of civilisation": Mespopotamia ... or close by: Northern Saudi Arabia.

  • Or rather what getting away with murder will do to your sense of proportion.

    Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, saying he wants the city to attract the "world's greatest minds and best talents."

    Good luck with that.

  • I'd like to see it built then see it bombed back into sand. Fuck Saudi Arabia

  • If they want a vanity project, why not something that at least potentially could be practical, say, a world-class Arabic language university. Maybe two, so one can be secular.

  • Building a megacity in one of the most inhospitable climates on Earth sounds like madness. Presumably it will be housed in a giant air-conditioned bubble? Hopefully solar energy figures in the plans but goodness knows where all the water will come from? That said, a megacity without all the depravity of the Judge Dredd comics sounds rather boring!

  • I wonder what the Wahhabi clerics have to say about it.

  • Hm (Score:3)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Saturday July 27, 2019 @08:41AM (#58996768) Journal

    Boy are these guys in for trouble if/when oil is no longer precious.

    • Boy are these guys in for trouble if/when oil is no longer precious.

      Oil will always be precious. We may even consider it precious enough to stop burning it one day. /Disclosure: Typed on a keyboard with synthetic components made in part with oil.

  • key features of the city include cloud seeding to make it rain, dystopian surveillance to keep citizens safe, genetic engineering to increase human strength and IQ, robot cage fights and "maids," flying taxis, and even a fake moon that could perhaps be created by a fleet of drones

    This just sounds like a setting for some sci fi movie now.

  • "unappealing social norms" (Score:3)

    by Voice of satan ( 1553177 ) on Saturday July 27, 2019 @12:03PM (#58997344)

    "Unappealing social norms" is an elegant euphemism. A retired diplomat has said that Saudi Arabia was "A DAESH which would have succeeded". DAESH is an Arab acronym for ISIS. Also, forbidding marriage between cousins seems to me a rather low-cost technique of genetic enhancement

    That said, all the nonsense seems to come from consulting companies. As often. They would help out humanity if they discredited themselves through this insane "project".

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