Saudi Arabia's Mukaab is a Dystopian Nightmare

[@ahmedabdolghani8879]

The cube is simply a physical manifestation of pride and ego, the Saudis are literally called caretakers of the two holy places of Islam, the religion that warns against pride and ego The jokes write themselves at this point

[@JeedM]

Mukaab literally translates to cube. We've seen "the line" now the cube. I can't wait for the circle and the triangle to be announced

[@devotchkac8365]

The triangle? Nah, that's soo 2500 BC

[@jonadams8841]

Next, the Tesseract!

[@danielkemp868]

Surely the next phase is 'Al Dodecahedron'.

[@madcircle7311]

Just wait till the Arabs discover 4D geometry

[@zacharymoore6816]

They're putting a sphere in Vegas 🤦‍♂️. I know it's not Saudi, but Las Vegas is contributing "The Circle" to humanity's cube and line.

[@romanovec]

You know that things are serious when adam didn't use trains as ultimate problems solvers

[@skeetsmcgrew3282]

Hey, making videos is hard. Coming up with a way to blame cars for literally everything gets exhausting

[@RedSander_BR]

He wanted to keep the video short, in the director's version he states that if the dictator added a train pod system inside the giant cube, then Adam would approve the project.

[@Marc83Aus]

WHat if the city was just a giant train? 2 million square feet of living space, 1.21 gigawatts of tr active power, and a giant structure built for the train to continuously navigate through? Still stupid but at least it has trains.

[@gabrielandradeferraz386]

to be fair, crashing enough trains into saudi arabia might atually solve the dictator problem.

[@archvaldor]

@@Marc83Aus That's the plot of the film "Snowpiercer".

[@TLSFC5050]

Not going to lie, for that whole build up to the "thing," I thought it was a giant sewage tank to replace the lake

[@777VOID-1]

I thought the same...!!!😂

[@zuglymonster]

Me too 😅

[@JFKuehne]

At the top of the "Thing" tower will be the first Sentient Islamic AI. Then come the Borg......

[@cvspvr]

@@JFKuehne imagine how many rtx 4090s they'd be able to fit inside the thing

[@casualdejekyll5168]

I thought it’d be a huge parking garage

[@max_bikeroom]

Wait a sec - you also need to remove the heat produced by the panels. They’re producing 58 MW of heat, and it’s not like the cube is radiating heat to the outside in the Arabian desert. That’s a lot of air conditioners to move 5e9 BTU/day!

[@laurencefraser]

If you were feeling Really clever you could actually Use that heat for various productive activities... (probably not enough to justify producing it in the First Place, but still...) It also seems like it would make more sense for the 'screens' to be projector screens and have massive projectors in the tower, rather than LCD pannels everywhere.. though that has obvious downsides even if I'm right about that. So, of course, they Won't... oh well!

[@Llortnerof]

@@laurencefraser Not like those massive projectors would be much better. And i'm not convinced whoever came up with this stupid idea considered that.

[@Compgeek86]

Plus you need something serving video to all those screens

[@BioluminescenceOfTheSpirit]

I was hoping they'd use projectors like every sane person. Who needs a screen when you have a projector?

[@reiniertl]

@@BioluminescenceOfTheSpirit Don't think projectors would be better, the inverse square law is going to require serious power to make it viable. The amount of energy this thing needs is immense and cooling it down would be a nightmare. Maintaining it means most of the time some sections would be not working at all.

[@midnightflare9879]

It's literally like those Cities Skylines videos where people make poop waterfalls and infinite power hacks with sewage.

[@olympique3256]

almost heaven

[@SahnigReingeloetet]

West Virginia

[@VisiblyPinkUnicorn]

Blue Ridge Mountains

[@abangkumusa5724]

Shenandoah River

[@brakorinspaceo81]

Life is old here

[@Matt_JJz]

Why does Saudi Arabia seem to be interested in building all sort of shapes and weird contraptions, instead of an actual city that will get past the cgi phase

[@The_Empty_Shadow]

GCI?

[@-AirKat-]

Because the guy who only cares about the cool cgi is the one who signs the check

[@bleeb90]

Because clearly they all have decided they'd rather go down in history as that weirdo with is failed real estate project, rather than that person that managed to solve homelessness and provided a new, better living standard for all their citizens.

[@paha4209]

@@bleeb90 It´s basically the modern version of "if X has/build a brand new castle i need one too but bigger."

[@robbuelens]

@@The_Empty_Shadow CGI I guess

[@meliagant1650]

As a child I was taught humanity learns from its mistakes. Now as an adult I want to go back to the days where I believed such statements

[@cintiapollock2486]

but it was never true

[@jordansomeone2555]

Tired of parents constantly lying to their kids about the world

[@etherospike3936]

To be honest , nobody has built such a giant turd before , so if there's something to be learned, we must draw our conclusions watching their stupidity.

[@Nomadistar]

The ultra-rich did learn...and here the rest of we are.

[@KRYMauL]

@@Nomadistar The ultra-rich never learn, they just have the money to not worry about it. What I'm surprised is that some billionaires aren't investing in large company towns that connect to high speed rail systems. These guys have the net worth of small countries.

[@northMOFN]

Important to remember that the 70 megawatts of electricity to run the dome-screen becomes 70 megawatts of heat inside the dome. Ballpark an additional 20 megawatts to run the heat pumps to move that heat outside the building, and maybe another megawatt for an air raid siren style system to warn people on the downwind side they can't go out walking in their 15-minute neighborhood.

[@clray123]

But heat pumps are so greeeen!

[@northMOFN]

@@clray123 Right, um, but they are. That’s why it “only” takes 18 to 20MW for them to move 75MW worth of heat. I know you think you’ve scored a gotcha or whatever, but I need you to understand that 20 is a much smaller number than 75, and that the problem is that it’s the 75 that is ridiculously big.

[@captainotto]

Yeah, and assuming the heat problem gets resolved, now you have to maintain and replace those screens as they inevitably fail over time. "Small things only annoying engineers think. If only they had vision instead of complaints." Ideas like these are only ever possible in circles of power where nobody is able to speak up. And in practice rarely live longer than the drawing board. The moment you start actually digging, reality rears its ugly head.

[@6-V-6s]

Have they actually said it will be screens on a wall though? I'd imagine the better way to do it would be giant white walls to project on from the 360 degrees of the central tower. Also the dome would make more sense to keep a pure white wall clean....just a thought. The rest....still trash.

[@beno1129]

@@northMOFN I think the other commenter was just being sarcastic and was actually agreeing with your original comment.

[@arandombard1197]

My first thought was "well at least a giant cube would have a lot of floorspace and be pretty dense", then they reveal they just filled the whole cube up with a giant spherical cinema, as if going out of their way to make all of these projects shitty.

[@zandaroos553]

“An arcology, but bad”

[@kaijuking5971]

​@@zandaroos553surviving mars?

[@donjulioanejo]

IDK to me that actually sounds cool. Not everything needs to be a Soviet apartment block with the most efficient use of space.

[@vojtechjanda9684]

Absolutely no windows for most of the floor space though, so you end up with either a place with limited uses or space where people slowly go insane.

[@arandombard1197]

@@vojtechjanda9684 I didn't say it was 'good' but it was at least 'efficient'. A giant cube building is a dystopian nightmare of architecture and engineering but it would at least have high density and be theoretically liveable (but depressing). I'm re-treading the content of the video a little bit here, but they could have just built a large campus with dozens of high density apartment blocks, along with a central 6 storey shopping mall that contained all the relevant services for the surrounding residents.

[@tayzonday]

They have to outdo Dubai

[@moaen1]

Legend 💯

[@domtromans2783]

@@bababababababa6124 Tbh ‘Chocolate Rain’ sounds like a Jeddah sewage catastrophe.

[@jacksampsonforever]

you need to bless us with new music!!

[@NemesisFromResidentEvil]

​@@bababababababa6124 Such a cringe song

[@theangrycheeto]

​@@NemesisFromResidentEvil How dare you

[@PyschYaBatman]

This could be a good option for a new Bioshock sequel. Instead of a city with underwater skyscrapers - a megacube in the middle of a lifeless desert.

[@jackdague1792]

No joke, the idea of a giant domed screen in the center of a dystopian town meant to offer beautiful scenery was literally an idea I had for a novel. Haven't delivered on it, but holy fuck Saudi Arabia beat me to it.

[@ruffethereal1904]

Nothing quite like dismissing a silly idea for fiction as too unbelievable and seeing someone take it completely seriously.

[@dukevonvagabond8123]

Quickly write it and when the poeject doesn't happen (hopefully) you can take partial credit... or if they do you can wait for a great I told you so.

[@samuelbroad11]

I had the exact same thing but with an ironic "green" solar powered military tank for a visual artwork spoof...then I googled it, spoiler, it exists! I was never so pleasantly surprised by the military industrial complex.

[@socialistrepublicofvietnam1500]

Write it anyway, act like you were just adapting the actual bullshit Saudi project, then hide you and your family from the Saudi death squad

[@tenaciousrodent6251]

Let me guess: The ending involved images of the starving underclasses and ruined nature flooding that giant screen? And the bad guys are unable to turn them off?

[@channel_no_longer_active]

This really feels like a trailer from a sci-fi video game before everything goes wrong and the zombies attack.

[@PakBallandSami]

funny but true

[@Sharkamfss]

Instead of zombies the society just decays on its own. It's not going to be a "how did this fail?" Kind of dystopia, it will be a "of course it failed" one.

[@crabohato4954]

Horse lover?

[@Sharkamfss]

@@crabohato4954 Vosna?

[@Angel24Marin]

I'm still waiting on a post apocalyptic film/game based in an Abu Dhabi swallowed by the sand dunes.

[@Wrswest]

What is WITH desert states and building dystopian nightmares? Like, c'mon, do we really need ANOTHER stupidly dystopian urban proposal in this category?

[@SomeFactsYouMightNotKnow]

Yes

[@moaen1]

Propaganda

[@Silvermoon424]

It's because of that sweet oil money, apparently it rots your brain.

[@tombo416]

Easy to build idiotic projects when all decisions are made by a single dude

[@matttheaveragegamer]

Cause most of them are dictators

[@phuturephunk]

The ironic thing with this specific vanity project idea, is that NYC is literally grappling with commercial real estate and conversions to residential and finding that many of the larger towers that we've built over the years just aren't suitable to even convert to living spaces. At a certain point the floor plate footprint on a structure gets so large that human habitability is severely hurt. Lack of windows, lack of natural light (and no you cannot substitute LED light for this purpose, as of right now).

[@kalzium8857]

Maybe you get another email from a friend to the current ruler

[@neres5795]

About time to flex with EU citizenship.

[@thegoodboy4699]

i think he wouldn´t have the balls for that honestly

[@Raptor747]

I love how you transitioned from "Jeddah finally built a sewage system after luckily and narrowly avoiding a literal flood of shit across the city" to "the next logical step was to build The Cube, the sequel to The Line."

[@wolframwantruzo4229]

For a brief moment I was hoping they would store all the poop in the centre of the cube.

[@therealspeedwagon1451]

Next they’re gonna build the pyramid. Oh wait I shouldn’t be giving them any ideas. Better hope the Egyptians don’t look outside their windows at the pyramid structures and turn those into dystopian hell scapes.

[@LifesNeverHumDrum]

The Line was originally meant to be The Cube iirc, so I’m not surprised

[@fyraltari1889]

With baited breath, I wait for the announcement of... The Sphere.

[@therealspeedwagon1451]

@@cadengeddes No because at least the square has *some* logic behind it

[@Gear3k]

I struggle to imagine the mindset you have to be in where you live in the literal desert, have to get rid of a lot of sewage and your first thought is "dump it all in the big lake full of water".

[@BassGoThump]

Well you see it is very hot there and when you spend too much time in the sun you can’t think clearly anymore.

[@caesiumtable-baron7314]

​@@BassGoThump Gosh, the plumbers needed a break from that heat! So in the mean time, we dumped the sewage into the local lake.

[@theviniso]

Wait, I thought it was a literal lake of sewage, as in the only reason there was any water there at all was because we dumped it there. I can't believe anyone would ruin a natural lake in the middle of the desert like that, they can't be that dense

[@royalhydra9790]

@@theviniso It probably was originally a lake of only sewage. And then they had to get more space to dump sewage.

[@WhatIsSanity]

@@theviniso Oh no there was a lake there. They are that dense.

[@JoshSweetvale]

1:10 They Golden Calf'd the Kaaba. Didn't all three books say "DO NOT DO THIS" ?

[@RAFMnBgaming]

My guess was that inside the cube was a nuclear reactor powering the city. Apparently even that was too practically minded.

[@thenamescarter8279]

I thought it was at least a waste disposal facility but if it ends up cooking the 1% to a crisp i guess it would still be one 😂

[@AsbestosMuffins]

i mean I'm all for density but maybe we should not put the residential flats on top of the containment dome

[@TheRezro]

The worst part is that they could make it somewhat functional if the middle would be hollow (like actually many rationally build buildings, what tend to be flat but paced in way what make them look large). Glass dome could make even sense to provide nice environment inside (still absurdly costly). But like usual what we get is dumb waste of money. When common people starving.

[@zdrux]

Less useless eaters for royalty to worry about.

[@CraftyF0X]

@john Robinson Won't last forever, even they know this... I mean they know this right ?

[@mileshill7196]

I’ve been getting ads trying to convince me to move to Saudi Arabia and invest in the Mukaab. I wondered when you would make a video on it. This thing reminds me of the judge dredd Hab blocks. This is madness.

[@Llortnerof]

Got some of those too. Figured just from the way they were made that it was one of these big budget, zero sense megaprojects that clearly had nobody working on it that actually considers practicability. Seems i was right.

[@abdullahtshabal9522]

Ironically, the hab towers in Dredd are far more practical and with a bit of maths, appear to not sound as dystopic. Well, besides maybe the "1-kilometer tall" part (then again, it justifies it by having the setting be in like the 2130s). 70,000 people in a single tower, 200 floors means 350 people per floor in a building that looks like it takes up about 10 hectares of space, with half for the open core in the center. Assuming the space needed for corridors, businesses, lifts, utilities, common areas take up hmm... 75% of the useable space, that leaves at least 1 hectare (10,000m2) of space for apartments. With 350 people per floor on average, this means about 30m2 per person and assuming 3-4 people on average per unit, each floor would have 100 apartments, 25 on each quarter, almost 100m2 for each unit size average. This would suggest that ideally, there is windows and sunlight that can enter every unit too from the outside.

[@Llortnerof]

@@abdullahtshabal9522 75% is probably way to high. Cities tend to be more residential space than businesses and the like. And even at 50% you'd already have 60m^2 per person, which is more than enough for a comfortable life.

[@abdullahtshabal9522]

@@Llortnerof The megablocks also have schools, clinics, food courts and municipal services included in them. There is also the consideration of space for elevators and the superstructure needed to keep a kilometer-tall tower standing.

[@Llortnerof]

@@abdullahtshabal9522 Sure, but so do cities. Residential tends to be well over 50% of them. And besides, even at 40% every person would already have nearly 50m^2. Not to mention that at 1km height, each floor would be 5m high. Chances are, the actual floor height is less and much of the maintenance, superstructure and utility measures are in "fake" floors, thus not actually taking up any space in your calculations. An elevator would just be the shaft, which generally isn't all that big. These things only seem dystopian due to the general vibe of the comics, they're actually pretty good deals.

[@Ivytheherbert]

Most people starting Blender: "Time to delete the default cube!" Architects: "But what if I were to leave it in, and disguise it as my own design?"

[@valentinmitterbauer4196]

"Delightfully haram, Seymour!"

[@RTSRafnex2]

I mean the design already looks like someone experimented with Geo Nodes.

[@KRYMauL]

Architects need to have some more engineers to yell at them that their designs are stupid. Build a palace not a geometric shape!

[@DarthMcDoomington]

Well the thing is they probably tried to show sane designs. It's just that the people on top are the ones making the decisions and they consist entirely of stupid rich people and kids who's education is going to teach them how to be stupid rich people and not say, scientists or economists. The people on top don't care, they just want some drone to show them something big and shiny, same problem with corporations, the brain dead senile billionaires pay them, so they're the ones who have the final say.

[@James-fg8rf]

I feel the biggest issue is how quickly it will become outdated. That screen, in 10 years, will look totally outdated. And you can’t just replace the entire thing as it is the skeleton of the building. This is different to Time’s Square for instance, where each screen can be dismantled and replaced with minimal effort.

[@rohankishibe8259]

Mukaab and murabaa Creativity is overload damn!!! Literally "the cube" and "the square"

[@user-op8fg3ny3j]

Based pfp

[@Verity98765]

I'm going to pitch them "the rectangle" and make millions.

[@Mayankgupta0809]

Tells you sth abt the target audience. I'm sure to an arabic-speaking saudi it sounds ridiculous, but for your average white investor the word is +100 culture.

[@konstagr]

Also "The Line"

[@rohankishibe8259]

@@user-op8fg3ny3j hopefully Uighurs find peace and freedom

[@hazloner117]

Hi, entertainment rigger here. Led screens that big really aren't viable. There are basically 0 drivers on the market capable of slaving out that many screens. Your going to need a dedicated control software and driver racks on the scale of a small data center. I'm not super sure where your gonna put that considering the amount of support structure you'll need to integrate as well. Led walls aren't wicked heavy but they aren't light and cable is made out of copper. The ability to hang something like that is actually nuts. As for projection, I mean good luck making a smooth surface that size because your certainly not using a fabric screen or even screen array. Getting fittup across that many panels without it looking like ass is not happening. Not to mention the 90 projectionists you'll need working for a month straight getting the whole thing covered and shadowboxed. Glhf

[@samcan9997]

you would be using fiber optic cables for that as copper doesnt have the signal integrity which would also help a decent bit with weight and power consumption

[@hazloner117]

@@samcan9997 fiber optic Ethernet? I know of 0 led grids that take fiber in for data. And that's not the heavy cable, the heavy cable is power, which has to be copper. Makes me think they'll try using thinner gauge to save weight only for the whole thing to catch fire, can't imagine that level of incompetence but it's a funny thought though.

[@samcan9997]

@@hazloner117 wouldent be ethernt display port can run over fiberoptic so can hdmi if you get the right chips as digital data is just ones and zeros And if you want to be perdantic you can run displays over ethernet Yeah the power cables would be a big issue but you could potentially get around that using HVDC

[@hazloner117]

@@samcan9997 LED walls aren't displays. They take DMX or DMXoE. You can't run display port with that. Also most panels take 240vac. You could make a custom solution specifically for this install to get around that but your talking about some pretty serious engineering time. When you get into the entertainment space you can basically throw out any protocol from the past 30 years ago, no one uses them and nothing off the shelf works with it. I have installed lights using custom pinned cables for dc direct lighting (48vdc) but those cables sure weren't light and were talking 6 point lights, not a grid array.

[@clgr1323]

Say, what if they make it like a Planetariuom and use a HUGE ass projector and make the whole dome lice a cinema screen?

[@djukor]

To be fair soviet apartment blocks tend to have a lot of greenery around them at lest they do in my city. And id rather have miniature parks over just nice looking buildings. Also a trend of paining cool murals on the sides of them has made them even more appealing.

[@glennllewellyn7369]

G’day mate! Australia

[@skeetsmcgrew3282]

I don't see the utter disgust with apartment blocks. I feel like it became a symbol of the failure of communism. How often do you look at your apartment building, like 5 minutes a day. Just make a damn rectangle with parks in between and be done with it

[@XMysticHerox]

@@skeetsmcgrew3282 I also find it funny because aparment blocks are extremely common in the west as well.

[@mochagoat1998]

I kinda like brutalism mixed with greenery. You get a strong, practical building but it doesn't have such an oppressive feeling when its got plants on balconies and garden spaces

[@bluexephosfan970]

Never underestimate the beauty and power of just letting people go ham painting the sides of commie blocks tbh

[@CalamityAndy]

LED wall engineer here. 1.5mm pitch is not average, that's a VERY low LED distance. The Mandalorian set uses 2.84mm between the LEDs, filming with 4k cameras from ~20ft away. For a wall that big and at that distance you'd be using probably 10mm pitch LED modules (or higher). P1.5 is 150,000 pixels/m2, whereas P10 is 10,000 pixels/m2, and takes far less energy (and money to build).

[@raphaelnaidoo7117]

Not an engineer, but I'm curious. It would still be an inadvisably monumental amount of energy though, right?

[@mortenbund1219]

​@@raphaelnaidoo7117Very basic math would imply that it'd only comsume 1/15th of the energy, at least going by pixel spread. I know there's probably some baseline amount I am ignoring, but I think the 1/15th is a decent approach which would be 4.666666667 mWh, which we can round up to 5 mWh to account for that ignored baseline and maybe something to spare (Don't trust this, I failed phyics)

[@AsbestosMuffins]

If I had a nickel for every time a billionaire proposed to build a giant windowless cube I'd have two, but that's still weird its happened twice

[@rtmpgt]

Can't throw molotov cocktails through the walls of a giant windowless cube...

[@AsbestosMuffins]

​@@rtmpgt well the Munger Cube is meant to keep college students contained not keep them out

[@bernadmanny]

As someone who is 187cm (6'2") and absolutely loaths bed-ends on too short beds the Munger dormitory prison is my idea of hell.

[@marcosburgos8415]

You left out a but of the joke lol

[@faarsight]

You'd have waaaay more than 2, it's not even funny

[@normalcitizen_1]

First thing I think about when I hear about these mega structures is “what if there is a fire?”. The line city and skyscrapers are perfect examples. One fire in those things and everyone and everything in that building is done for.

[@RAFMnBgaming]

I'm not sure how I hadn't even considered that but... yeah. The future is full of fire hazards and Dahir Insaat's quadcopter firetrucks will not save them.

[@Truckngirl]

There will be automated internal fire suppression. That technology already exists.

[@ruffethereal1904]

​@@TruckngirlAssume that fails? What's next?

[@lovelandtales527]

First thing I thought about was, "wait, so the people who live on the inside areas of the cube have no windows?" Well, at least I guess that thought *was* accounted for...

[@RAFMnBgaming]

@@Truckngirl Those are good practice, sure, but places with fire suppression and extinguishers around still catch fire from time to time, hence why we all still have alarms, evacuation plans and fire trucks. No solution is perfect, and 30 years down the line when nobody's paid to mantain the infrastructure, because that always happens, it'll be a giant cubic grenfall waiting to happen.

[@OuterGalaxyLounge]

The Rich: "We're all holed up in a concentrated giant cube. Whatcha gonna do about that?" The People: "Block the doors, surround the place, and light the match."

[@marseldagistani1989]

Or just Bombard it

[@carno.5911]

Actually the Waste-heat of all the electronic inside it, would lead the bulding to ignite its self.

[@MisterTalkingMachine]

What will you do about the bootlickers (police & military) though?

[@marseldagistani1989]

@@MisterTalkingMachine Let them carve it out

[@RevolutionaryGuitar]

@@MisterTalkingMachine I’m sure some of them would be willing to switch sides. And for me an American 2nd amendment is how I deal with them.

[@annieshavingthoughtsagain]

Got to wonder how many of these mega projects will actually be built.

[@mastertroll1780]

Indian migrant workers. Same as Qatar's world cup infrastructure.

[@Zeni-th.]

That's the fun part, they won't be

[@NoobsDudes]

As long as there's workers you can severely underpay and get away with it, these megaprojects can be done.

[@yvesgingras1475]

Probably none, they will get started, runout of money because its way more complicated in real world than 3D modeling.

[@GenericNameeee]

I can see it being built, but severly downgraded.

[@endlessteatime4733]

I've been getting this Mukaab ad on youtube quite frequently and the first few times I thought it was a trailer for a dystopian movie. When I realised it was a serious ad for the cube thing, I started thinking, "this sounds like something Adam Something would pick apart"

[@catfish552]

That was exactly my reaction when I first got The Line! "Wow, that's a pretty cool setting for some dystopian sci-fi! Wait, you're serious?!"

[@nickolasbrown3342]

Wait, there's ads for this shit?! To ordinary people?! WHY??

[@ribtickle4143]

Presumably to drive tourism, as these stone age Muslim countries have nothing to offer but excessive consumerist hubs of this nature.

[@JoeOvercoat]

@@nickolasbrown3342 To convince you that it’s for your benefit.

[@puffitale]

I thought it was for a video game

[@syiridium703]

Funny, how some people watch dystopian movies, they focus on the parts that the screenwriters/directors put in as a warning of some horrid future and these people are like: "Yeah, we would like to build just that!"

[@thomashorneman563]

common man MBS is a man child he truly believes what they are telling him is legit...think about the luxury he grew up in...let them eat cake

[@brachypelmasmith]

Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus

[@PacdemonStudios1]

​@@brachypelmasmith thanks dawg you beat me to it

[@Paul_C]

But America is a Dystopia Inc., be that their sprawling cities, screen writers, politics, money, mining, oil, infrastructure or anything else that America get their paws on.

[@vilena5308]

Few minutes in, and my head just started a replay of "Dredd" from 2012.

[@antonnurwald5700]

I am actually a big fan of these projects. They are so ludicrously disfunctional. I mean take that glass wall city, it's a set-up for the most spectacular failure the world has ever seen. I can't wait. Just picture the archeologists who will dig this thing up 10.000 years from now. It will be glorious. I'd be much more worried if the rich actually built something useful for themselves. These things look more like deathtraps. There is a book called "survival of the richest" and it's on the, shall we say, creative assumptions rich people have about the world when they build their private islands to survive the apocalypse. For instance it never occurs to them that their employees may turn against them. Also nature has an opinion about artificial islands, just like it has an opinion about giant glass walls in the desert. Physics is invited to the party too. And even aside from apocalyptic events, you have to consider that the era of oil will end, which means that the golf countries will be introduced to a concept called economics. It has to do with scarcity and efficiency and such things, and it punishes structures that require all of a country's wealth to be kept alive while producing absolutely nothing. The world a couple decades from now will be an El-Dorado for urban explorers and connoisseurs of ruins and ghost cities. From condo towers in British Columbia to ghost cities in China to post-apocalyptic Dubai to, it seems, all of Saudi Arabia, not to mention the new Egyptian capital. I'm here for all of it. In fact, that box is much too small, and it would be super disappointing if it had sewage access. Got to be 1 km each side and a line of poop trucks from here to te moon, yessir.

[@slowarim5091]

XD my type of guy.

[@graciliraptor3990]

Do you recommend the book?

[@dave2.077]

not like the middle east has any shortage of crisises

[@antonnurwald5700]

@@graciliraptor3990 I just read an interview with the author about his book and his experiences with very rich people and I kind of peeked into it. It looks so promising that I am planning to read it fully but haven't so far.

[@steemlenn8797]

You found the tower of Babylon? Hah, I found Neom!

[@doug960]

A structure like this would require not only a dedicated power plant, but MULTIPLE enormous chiller/ boiler pump plants for climate control and domestic hot water. Not to mention the amount of fresh water needed. It would need its own water treatment plants. There would be no room for the 15 minute city space around it. That would all be taken up by infrastructure necessary to make it habitable.

[@vintagestuffguy1998]

I had a 7 hour through the night layover in Jeddah airport a few months ago. The airport made me think of the future I imagined of the Neom adverts they show before the movies on Saudi Airlines (which was why I transited through Jeddah). It was very new, half finished, most of the shops and restaurants were not finished or open yet, none of them accepted American dollars and the only cash exchange machine was broken. The wifi was not working the whole time (7 hours) and no chance to sleep because all you get is rock hard chairs with armrests between them. They also interestingly segregate men and women’s smoking rooms though the one women’s smoking room was closed so I witnessed a lady having to debate with airport staff whether she was permitted to use the men’s smoking room. It was a fascinating adventure (not to mention the plane aborting takeoff part way down the runway when it was finally time to leave and sitting at the gate for an extra 3 hours while they fixed it), but I can easily say it was the worst layover I’ve ever had - and I’ve booked a lot of cheap shit long haul flights with many layovers before. Saudi airlines: Very nice staff, decent food, decent new planes, OK movie selection - atrocious layover.

[@TheJonesdude]

Sounds like a German airport, except for the smoking area bit, and looking like the future

[@ashwanikumarmishra9920]

Man, you were simply few years early. I don't see the point of it comparing to Neom as of now.

[@ShaiyanHossain]

honestly women's only gyms and other spaces that they have in Saudi Arabia make a ton of sense- no need for women complaining about male harassment and no need for dudes worrying about being labeled as such

[@vintagestuffguy1998]

@@ashwanikumarmishra9920 Yeah maybe that's a fair point, but since the plane's entertainment systems had already been advertising Neom to me for the past 12 hours on the first leg of the journey, it was very much on my mind when I arrived 🤣

[@ashwanikumarmishra9920]

@@vintagestuffguy1998 I can understand. Too much forced consumerism these days! But I feel that Neom would be pretty awesome if they are able to achieve what they have envisioned.

[@fl00fydragon]

"After building a sewage system Saudi Arabia is ready to proceed to the next logical step" My brain: wait they're actually going to do something rational in terms of infrastructure? "A giant, cube shaped, supertall, golden skyscraper." My brain almost imlpoded at that point.

[@raxenladevaldak1749]

Same. Had to pause the video to process.

[@HighFiveTheHorizon]

NEOM: What if we build the longest LINE MUKAAB: What if we build the biggest CUBE Rich folks over there are really acting upon the thought: What if we used the most basic geometrical shapes but make them dystopian and impractical

[@MVargic]

At least this is over 250 times smaller than the line

[@SomePotato]

Thankfully, rich prick Walt Disney already built EPCOT center. Though, with its measly 50 m diameter, some other rich prick might want to build a bigger ball. Or better yet, two with a giant tower in the middle.

[@stachuvonokrutny7071]

Pyramids:

[@MTTT1234]

Next step, the biggest ball? Since the biggest pyramid is currently allready standing in Egypt?

[@delcane92]

@@MTTT1234 Don't give them ideas. Imagine building a 400m diameter ball-skycrapper, only to have it roll onto some poor suburbs after a storm

[@mg-jf5ld]

-Resistance is futile. The Borg (who live in a shockingly similar cube).

[@SecondVox]

I've been advocating for a global personal 1b "wealth cap" since like 2010 and people have been literally looking at me like I'm a lunatic, it's nice to know that I'm not alone. It's about time we realised that reaching unimaginable levels of wealthness is not only immoral, it's simply dangerous. Keep up with the good content, Adam, cheers.

[@raffifasaro]

How do you exactly want to cap gains on unsold shares? Let's take Elon Musk for example. All his net worth is made up of inflated shares and if he tries to sell a few to buy twitter, his share value plummets. He realistically has not even close to a billion in real wealth. It's the same with basically all western billionaires, the only really which people are Russian oligarchs or dictators.

[@Genexperiment100]

You are not alone, I had the idea too a few years ago. Just think about it. If someone ownes just one billion dollars, tjis person can spend 1 Million, every year no need to do anything. And they can keep doing this for 1000 years, a timespan from the middle ages till today.

[@raffifasaro]

@@Genexperiment100 🤦‍♂

[@Nn-3]

Would there be any noticeable difference between this and a 90% tax rate? Why the need to cap it off entirely?

[@chrisgarbutt1893]

The idea to cap wealth is not new. Huey Long had a similar idea to cap the wealth of rich oil barons and industrial magnates with the Share Our Wealth Program. It goes to show how our society values wealth so much that capping it automatically means your anti freedom, even if said idea will benefit society as a whole.

[@private755]

I gotta imagine that managing the heat that accumulates on the sides that face the sun and living in the shadow of it are huge problems they clearly didn’t consider at all

[@arachnenet2244]

Oh but see, the people who don't live inside the kjoooob don't matter at all. They can die and rot for all they care. And heat management? We've got aircon for that, right??!? Not to mention the heat those LED panels will give off. Just shhlap some aircon on that and poof like magic, we'll be nice and comfortable!

[@empyrea_2546]

I was also thinking about issues of cooling....damn, I can't even begin to fathom the ridiculous cost of aircon for the units.

[@Jezato]

Not to mention the head generated from all those screens, the radiant heat on the interior would be massive.

[@Jet-ij9zc]

It's a feature, they'll be able to see the ants bellow then get burned

[@maja2144]

يخي وش هالغباء ؟😂 هل الناس اشكالك للحين في سنة 2023 يحسبون ان ما عندنا اي ناطحات سحاب او اي مفهوم للعمرانية ؟ اشكالك من البقر يحسبون السعودية كلها منطقة وحده صحراء السعودية عملاقة فيها جميع انواع المناخ منها الحار جدا ومنها البارد جدا والرياض تعتبر في الوسط. بالمختصر اخرسوا ولا تتكلمون عن شيء ما تفقهون فيه

[@anotane7040]

Some regions measure urban progress by some wacky metrics like public transport, green spaces or services availability. Middle east knows it's all about how many empire state buildings can you fit inside your giant rectangles

[@AlexSKS]

Europeans and Americans thinking the same metrics apply to desert countries. Good luck with that

[@CollegeDroputPowerpoints]

Saxton Hale and Admiral Aladeen are the quintessential parodies of these billionaires I swear to God.

[@matthiasmuller7677]

Imagine being in a desert waistland and suddenly there's a flood but it's all shit 😐

[@williamhuang8309]

average cities skylines player

[@Zeni-th.]

The emoji makes funnier💀💀💀

[@MonkeyPoida]

Well imagine no more, now they can live the dream!

[@guydreamr]

💩

[@vanDaalstad]

"The skyscraper concepts will continue until morale improves"

[@unavi]

I live in Austria, and it might not be as bad as in other countries, but we didn't dodge the rise in Living cost. For caping the size / concentration of companies, I thought about introducing a progressive VAT system where companies with huge gross revenue would pay e.g. 25% instead of 20%. This would give a competitive edge to smaller companies.

[@Rubycek]

We got the klima bonus though

[@cestaron634]

Austria fucked themselfs over by not wanting nuclear powerplants. But building them and then proceding to not use it.

[@shukes4645]

@@aturchomicz821 here in the uk you sure about that?

[@edwardgray6167]

VAT is applied to the cost of the product though... its consumers who pay it, really. It might help a bit but I can't help thinking that whatever you use to decide the VAT thresholds will have a loop hole that actually makes large companies better off. Also, at what point do you calculate a companies threshold? Is the vat rate for the new year based on their revenue for the previous year?

[@avinashreji60]

How come you Austrians haven’t escaped the cost of living crisis?

[@amorosogombe9650]

People who live in democracies don't appreciate how lucky they are.

[@TheVaryox]

Have you considered adding metal wheels, overhead electric wires, and rails to the current system?

[@cucumbalover4569]

That way we can dumb it into the ocean

[@pwn3dname]

wait a minute, let my man cook here. If this is what it takes to finally build a spacious train, then I'm on board.

[@gettingcomfy]

little correction about austria having avoided the cost of living crisis: even though most energy providers are publically owned, weve had horrifying price increases of up to 200% (thats the highest i can remember at least) because they still want to turn a profit - some big public energy providers even secretly switched the energy contracts of hundreds of thousands of people to much more expensive ones and were like "well we gave you a week to change plans!" so yerp

[@burningsheep4473]

Yes, I was also surprised about using Austria as an example. I think it's much more worth pointing out that some reforms that happened in Germany never happened here. We never were stupid enough to sell off all public housing for instance and the partial privatization of the pension system also never happened. The system is also simply more generous than over there. I'm sure there are other good examples. The chief editor of weekly "Falter" once pointed out how we are more comparable to the scandinavian countries rather than Germany. But with added corruption of course ;)

[@hausmeisterbanane]

This is such an easily checked fact, so I am really confused how it made its way into the video.

[@ShinyFox]

yeap, was also looking for this comment. He definitely didn’t do any good research about Austria. my electricity bill can confirm :D

[@O52401]

The Mukaab would absolutely be the setting of the next Bioshock sequel.

[@myview5840]

Elite doesn't mean intelligent

[@general_paul]

Funny part is that when you told of filling the aisle of the Soviet sryle apartments to get a floor area of 16M sq metres, I also coincidentally thought of Kowloon 😅

[@razorsaber2287]

Never would I have thought there would be someone who thought building cities like we build Disney world attractions was a good idea

[@razorsaber2287]

@@notastone4832 that was way better designed than this could hope to be

[@backintimealwyn5736]

really? yet I bet you'd like to visit the forbiden city in Beijing , Versailles in France, the vatican, etc... like it or not , "stupid" or not , these kind of projects are what's left and what generations upon gernerations we value and cherish.

[@razorsaber2287]

@@backintimealwyn5736 right the screens with a limited lifetime and the tons of electrical components will be working for generations to come

[@themissmay]

There are old videos of Walt Disney talking about Epcot center and he intended it to be an actual place for people to live… You could also look at Jacques frescoes the Venus project which kind of alludes to something similar. Walt Disney was trying to create little cities.

[@backintimealwyn5736]

@@razorsaber2287 they'll be repaired and maintained like the stones and sculptures of Le Louvre. I noticed everytime an arab country decides to do something they get dumped on. They're the only ones trying bold things lately, everything everywhere else is the same generic postmordern ugly unimaginative bore.

[@paulcoffey359]

The Saudi's are only 59 years behind The Total House in Melbourne Australia, which like many international examples of the era provided all the services and benefits of the Mukaab (Macabre, more like it) but within a conventional sized tower.

[@linusgoblin]

Totally insane project. These guys are out of their mind. I would have liked to see your calcul for the air condition bill to cool that absurd screen dome.

[@MVargic]

For comparison "The Line" is supposed to be over 250 times larger than this.

[@TmOnlineMapper]

When I initially heard your 100% tax on anything above 500.000, I first thought "But that means people won't have any reason to try to get more then. That's not a good idea". For a second placing myself in my current situation there. But then after a moment I realized that that actually would make things better, because that means people won't have any reason to grift money from the poor anymore. Potentially to improve this even further, if those people fund something that has a demonstratable benefit for everyone, we can increase the cap to a billion for example.

[@BuddyReiner]

Banning anything is never a good idea. As you said if people don't have incentive to try anymore, you will not see any major innovation that can actually help the masses. Inventions happened in earlier 1900s as well, but the market in 2000s has what made it accessible to the masses today. Also, this gives more authoritative power to the government as no one is financially strong enough. In a real world scenario, even trillionaires are also inevitable if something like space mining begins. It may take time but eventually it would happen.

[@heb2024]

Considering billionaires and heads of state are required to be megalomaniac psychopaths in order to amass that sort of power, I'm confident we have better chances just by curing psychopathy somehow. A tax on riches would only encourage them to either hide their money or find figureheads as fronts. Billionaires already do it with their "philanthropic" ONGs. It's a problem of the human nature and it will simply won't go away. There will always be oligarchs, kings, queens and billionaires. Someone has to fill the power vacuum and there is people whose only desire in life is to accumulate power.

[@benisboop]

You sound like me when I was 12

[@FakeSchrodingersCat]

You missed 3 extra 0s

[@kiwi_2_official]

it should be lower like 2 million the tax is the fund to the things that have demonstrable benefits for everyone; thats why it exists

[@PakBallandSami]

“The Saudi experience with IBI, though brief, proved instrumental and became a model for how the Saudis went on to conduct business. Saudi Arabia understood that it lacked the resources of more developed nations. These included a large population, an educated populace, capital, credit and native businesses” ― Ellen R. Wald,

[@bubba842]

It's more likely that its oil fields a drying up. They are trying to bring more investment into the country, but no one cares about a medieval society that stones women to death. They will be back to trading camal shit in about 20 years time. An we can look on and see how one of the richest countries in the world squandered all it's wealth.

[@cowlinator]

What is IBI?

[@benji.3002]

​@@cowlinatoruniversal basic income

[@LSgaming201]

​@Benji.300 That's UBI, not IBI. IBI in this instance refers to IBI Engineering Consultants.

[@LSgaming201]

​@@cowlinator A company.

[@shubhambhat3710]

"If they don't have Bread to eat... let them have cake" With your every new video that comes out, this quote makes more sense to define those dictators and billionaires mentality

[@nef36]

A few years ago I learned that quote was said by a five year old at the time, which perfectly encapsulates my own idea of what the rich think like.

[@theangrysocialist6884]

@@nef36 well stupid or not what they are doing is objectively evil

[@tabbymoonshine5986]

Until.....we stop them.

[@shubhambhat3710]

@@nef36 It would be comical for those people if they are exposed to the reality of the majority of their population beneath them....living cost crisis doesn't make a difference to the ultra rich

[@Notsorandomnumbers]

let them have a theoretical CGI cake that they won't be able to afford, that won't ever exist anyway.

[@tobiasrosch9386]

Building a giant screen around an arcology, what a refreshingly genuine and new idea! Luckily nobody ever came up with this before, like in a movie from 20 years ago (edit: talking about "The Island").

[@soli_emmanuel1233]

The one with obi wan kanobi right

[@drixc1]

or the truman show

[@danielafrelichova5572]

literally the arena in the hunger games

[@donnydogpiss4533]

Or the most recent King Kong movie where Skull Island turned out to a holographic domed LED enclosure that he one day breaks through after cracking one of the LED screens.

[@tobiasrosch9386]

I'm sure, there are some more examples, that show, that this "idea" is everything but new and innovative. Which is what I believe @Adam Something is always saying: take an old futuristic looking thing, which makes no sense in real life at all, make some shiny CGI, give it a fancy name (including cyber, hyper or any other superlatives in case of Elon Musk) and pretend to be doing something good and innovative. Be it to attract investors dumb enough to believe your BS or for a d*** measuring contest. Either way, the screen is always used to keep someone prisoner without them knowing or so the elites inside are not forced to witness the shit show outside caused by them.

[@Bendetoma]

Wouldnt it also be extremely hot? LIke not only is it hot there to begin with, but then those gigantic screens heating up the place as well. So you would need extreme amounts of AC power in addition, adding even more power consumption.

[@terraneko8999]

just spend 100 more million a day for cooling

[@MrZoomZone]

Imagine living downwind of that putrid lake. It is bad enough being downwind of a proper sewerage treatment plant - but that lake is unthinkable. It speaks volumes about the priorities of the dictating ruling class in that domain.

[@firstnamelastname-uw6vq]

Add to that the scorching temperatures there. The smell was lovely for sure

[@void-creature]

Wow, *Night City* is starting to look more appealing by the day... Compared to this nightmare at least.

[@Blutwind]

Night city has a functioning public transit system at least heck you get on demand coverage even a good distance out in the desert and besides downtown most places have fast on foot distances for supplues and community... Thinking about it night city is kinda good besides the whole crime and cyberpunk dystopia

[@tsumikiayato1560]

@@Blutwindreal life is just cyberpunk without the cool shit

[@CatsMeowOwO]

@@tsumikiayato1560 Or as Johnny Silverhand puts it: "Wake the f@ck up Samurai! We have a city to burn!" >;3

[@rafidsadman]

Night City as a place (ignoring the rampant crime and corporatocracy) would be a fairly average city with future tech in it. The big issue with it is, well, the rampant crime, class division and big corporations literally waging war against each other.

[@invinciblemic]

At least they have the cool implants

[@gp8666]

If anything I'll be interested to see how they integrate ventilation

[@fen4ri]

judging by their previous planning regarding the sewage? They wont. 🙃

[@soratbeats]

they won't build even half of it, impossible with today's engineering.

[@Nawang013]

@@soratbeats I hope these dictators keep wasting their oil money on useless unsustainable things until they have nothing left for their future.

[@livingdeadgirla]

Enter the wizards of Las Vegas.

[@TheAliXxD]

@@fen4ri sewage? what? where?

[@akana_]

I never knew Borg Cubes could land!

[@almo2001]

When I saw the Mukaab, I thought "heat dissipation". With that huge screen running, there would definitely be heat problems.

[@clray123]

The will hire a million Indian/Bangla workes to wave the fans, thus also solving the unemployment problem in poor countries (to applause of Mr. Adam S., no doubt)

[@puma7171]

No problem, just add airconditioning and a cooling tower on top

[@saosaqii5807]

A heat pump, fan and maybe a sterling engine/ steam turbine setup would reduce overall energy usage.

[@ulrichleukam1068]

@@puma7171 the building is located in a desert where the average temperature is arround 40°C

[@Blazee2897]

@@clray123 You're wrong. They also hire paki and afghani workers.

[@InformatrIIcks]

There's the screen. There's cooling the screen. But then there's also, like, having something to display on the screen. The amount of infrastructure required to drive a sky-sized screen is going to be massive. It's porbably going to require a full server center just for the screens. Honestly i'm not sure you could imagine a better way to waste scarce rare materials and precious resources like water (for cooling) and electricity.

[@oswaldmosley5012]

I'd imagine they're likely to dramatically reduce screen resolution. Pixels will be in the range of centimeters to tens of centimters. At that distance it won't matter. should be a lot easier to program.

[@JB-yb4wn]

Hey, as with all Arab projects, build it and watch it crumble. These guys are morons.

[@InformatrIIcks]

@@oswaldmosley5012 we're talking a sky sized screen. Even if it's tens of meters away it's not going to be 1080p. Of course the pixels are going to be massive, but more for a brightness problem I think. With the inverse square law a screen that far would have to be quite bright if it want to be seen by our tiny eyes, so yeah definitely not micro Led for that. But still ... Just imagine the size of the screen.

[@iminfinite8282]

@@InformatrIIcks I dont know where the presenter gets his information from, but it seems to be bs... you could easily use projectors covering large areas, while consuming way less power and being easily replaceble/repairable at the same time... it would be madness cover the entire inner dome with LCDs

[@InformatrIIcks]

@@iminfinite8282 so 1) he probably gets his info from datasheet of big public entertainment screens (like stadium, concerts etc), where they use LED panels for a reason. Have you ever used a projector in a non light controlled environment? It sucks. Projector are just not bright enough, and that's even before considering the scale of this 2) projector, even if they worked, would take just too much space ... Unless you want to have them in front of the screen which is super ugly, there would need to be even more space behind the screen for it 3) my comment is about compute power. Even if projectors were more efficient (spoiler : they are not), it would take the same amount of compute power to render an image for a lcd, a LED or a projector... But hey, at least it's sticks to the "let's have the worst idea" ideology/philosophy that's displayed by this project so why not but

[@FinlayDaG33k]

And before you know it, Megatron lands on earth trying to search for "the cube" and shits his robot pants when he sees this "Mukaab"...

[@misterlestari5772]

maybe the end of the world would be Megatron going to saudis to find AllSpark, all along and bring destruction to the world by starting the age of Cybertron

[@IRosamelia]

Hello Adam, could you speak about the people being executed in Saudi Arabia for resisting to vacate their villages for construction of The Line? Shadly Ahmad Mahmoud Abou Taqiqa al-Huwaiti, Ibrahim Salih Ahmad Abou Khalil al-Huwaiti and Atallah Moussa Mohammed al-Huwaiti

[@Isimud]

The last time somebody envisioned such a big cupola was when Hitler planned to build the people´s hall in Berlin aka Germania. Somebody said it would have created a climate of its own with rainclouds inside.

[@lofor6434]

The Mukaab is so dystopic that it reseembles a Borg Cube from Star Trek

[@johannageisel5390]

I kind of like the facade of it, those interlocking triangles in gold... Just put it on an actually useful building.

[@renaisnisbett]

Yeah. That's what I thought too. A standard Borg Cube is 3,037 m X 3,037 m X 3,037. This building would be a mini cube in comparison.

[@dannymzitoe]

Barony was the capital city of planet Giedi Prime during the rule of House Harkonnen. After the fall of the Harkonnens, the name of the city was changed to Ysai. Barony's skyline was dominated by an extremely large rectangular building in its centre, which was surrounded by mostly low-level housing. The structure was 950 stories tall and 45 kilometers long, with no access at ground level, as it was a slave colony. It was here that Duncan Idaho was enslaved with his family. Architecturally, the idea was so that the populace could "look up" to its rulers, and remember their lowly place. I guess they got the idea from this

[@rudboypaintbrawl]

There is bigger communist block than that Hungarian one. It's in Poland in Gdańsk called Falowiec (Waver) as it breaks like wave every 50 meters or so. That monstrosity has 860 meters in length, 13m width and 32m height - 11 floors(quiet standard height for communist times high rise apartment block). IDK how many people live there, but number of flats 1793 suggests that they could quarter there Roman Legion without issues xD It's from what I've read the longest apartment block in Europe.

[@mrajsma01]

"the system needs to limit the hoarding at the top" My man, the top IS the system

[@BlueTyphoon2017]

Yeah, I honestly believe he could’ve phrased that better, especially considering his pro socialist leanings.

[@blerst7066]

No matter what country, the rich are the politicians.

[@97Lacko]

He is Hungarian just like me. Here in my country we are taught misinformation or outright lies about former socialist countries. He now has his first cracks on his belief in the free market.

[@moon-uh5kd]

Exactly it’s like he keeps saying we why is he involving himself I’m confused

[@loneIyboy15]

It's weird how his solution here is Socialism. As if suddenly Pareto Distributions just vanish if a politician touches something.

[@shinjinobrave]

The Mukaab looks like something the Harkonnen family would live in.

[@crunchbuttsteak8741]

the house of saud is basically the irl harkonnens

[@kaputasri]

So true I bet by that point they'd start looking like them too .

[@MTTT1234]

So, they just built a gigantic version of the Kabaa, just with a shopping mall in the center? Looks like we know where they have their priorities.

[@youmukonpaku3168]

religion for their peasants on the outside, religion for their leaders on the inside.

[@heathjordaan5488]

who would have thought that Saudia Arabia would take the Judge Dredd comics city planning so seriously that they want to recreate the Mega city blocks ...

[@captainevenslower4400]

Austrian here. We do have a cost of living crisis. Not as severe as other places, but prices are still rising painfully and too much for many of the people.

[@TurtleShroom3]

Government ownership of energy makes it worse. Venezuela nationalized (stole) the oil infrastructure and their economy collapsed despite having some of the richest reserves in the New World.

[@ksoosk]

​@@TurtleShroom3 but that was communism at work.

[@TurtleShroom3]

@@ksoosk The first and most critical component of Marxist thought is the seizure of the Means of Production. The secret ingredient is and has always been crime.

[@jorgesepulveda4379]

​​@@ksoosk they will say that you are a CIA fascist nazi Muslim Catholic neoliberal old liberal pawn

[@tillmanott]

Since the whole thing is placed in the middle of the dessert, you can easily double if not triple the energy consumption of the screen. Since most of the energy of it is lost in heat, you'll need a gigantic cooling solution to keep the inside at a comfortable temperature.

[@androgenius_alisa]

Lol, they almost did a physically plausible building and then just slapped a BALL inside of it Also, Kowloon is kinda cool, ngl

[@SahnigReingeloetet]

We ballin

[@sirblockepicmcswaggins5248]

Kowloon is a very interesting case study, although far from anywhere good to live

[@hamzaj1127]

I think a dense place welcoming for all can be very nice, with maybe some more health regulations for safety of building and maybe a few more lights and meters of space to breathe

[@notrod5341]

Kowloon is cool in the way something like night city or rapture is. Cool as hell in concept, but inhumane for actual people to live in.

[@georgepickle2871]

@@sirblockepicmcswaggins5248 To the point that the version in Shadowrun Hong Kong was barely even a stretch past the one in real life. Even with the whole Erdrich Horror contained within feeding upon the inhabitants' nightmares.

[@dimo2081]

the dictator of saudi arabia really do be playing cities skylines irl

[@rowboat8343]

Love it. My former co-worker referred to our boss's porsche as his dick extension. Not near the level of a middle eastern dictator being a mere millionaire but your comment made me laugh as it reminded of that. Some things should not be privatised.

[@majungasaurusaaaa]

Except dictators work with public things. Privatizing keeps them way from the corrupt government.

[@justachilldude8426]

@@majungasaurusaaaa UK privatized their electricity, and prices are like 3-5 times higher I think. Same for rail transport. Now they are teetering on economic stagnation, and according to some of those within the country, economic collapse. Privatization of important industries literally destroys countries, if not accompanied with regulations. For example, about 40% of Americans are obese due to lack of food regulations. And spend 2-3 times more per capita for healthcare, which is often overpriced. For both of these, you see either natural monopolies or in elastic demand make corporate control untenable. Imagine Thomas Hobbes “State of Nature.” According to him, without government, people will behave like beasts (this is largely exaggerated imo). But if not clear from previous examples, this becomes much worse with companies because they hold infinitely more control over their immediate environment than individuals. For example, in China, companies dump lethal chemicals into rivers and kill people downstream relying on that water because it’s cheaper. As another example, in the steel mills of Andrew Carnegie, one of the wealthiest men at the turn of the 20th century, and well loved by the public, about 1/10 of the workers died each year from workplace accidents or health complications, just so he could compete with Rockefeller to be the wealthiest man in America. There was also poverty wages, and Carnegies purchased a private army to break unions. Pursuit of that much wealth is not only worthless, it is sinful if at expense of others. Now I personally want to lax regulations around zoning laws to allow for more creativity on civic projects, but from my examples of Britain and America, as well as China and Carnegie, it’s clear that most industries require at least some regulation up to being publicized to work efficiently and/or humanely.

[@christopherg2347]

@@majungasaurusaaaa I fix that for you: "Privatisation makes the company your future dictator."

[@Kickiusz]

A Pole, by any chance? Calling luxurious cars "penis extenders" is a common joke here.

[@FlamingKetchup]

Someone in Saudi Arabia's ruling class must have found Superstudio's dystopian architecture and went, "Wow, this is great, we should build this!"

[@antonnurwald5700]

This is a typical problem whenever you create something dystopian. Some people will inevitably say: this looks great, let's do this!

[@WillieFungo]

The local people don't find it dystopian or horrible. So what is your problem?

[@batatanna]

@@WillieFungo you don't know dystopia when you live in it. It's just topia

[@antonnurwald5700]

@@WillieFungo you mean the local people who got evicted with 24 h notice. Yeah I'm sure they're loving it.

[@Nawa11YT]

@@antonnurwald5700 What people? oh, you mean the Figments of your collective Imaginations? I love how You always undermine our opinions on OUR country.

[@jakobvelkavrh1965]

Just wanted to say that the screens would produce a lot of heat....in an isolated space....in the middle of a desert.....an oven would be more bereable. Also: If you ever need translations of žižek, some of us know slovenian :)

[@crackedemerald4930]

It would create such an interesting weather pattern inside.

[@XMysticHerox]

Thats was my first thought. How would you possibly keep this thing cool especially in the desert.

[@jarivuorinen3878]

Very nice place to go farting in public and evacuate outside ;) but to be honest, there's nothing wrong with building big structures in extreme conditions, but it of course works better in less warm places. There will still be lots of people who don't go outside for much and prefer indoors activities, and there's nothing wrong with that. I wouldn't like that myself but people like that exist. When you increase size of a building you are minimizing surface area that radiation and atmosphere touches. It minimizes energy usage for warming or cooling but of course building giant heater inside a building in the middle of a desert makes zero sense.

[@jarivuorinen3878]

Just to add to my own comment, 400x400x400m building is from science fiction. On Earth that is. What you have under the building has to be sturdy and stable enough to support your giant cube. Unfortunately it is just not feasible to build twice the volume of foundation under that massive cube to support the weight, and also make your foundation sturdy enough that ground movement doesn't maim your foundation and crack your cube. Unless you can build some big structure using light materials it's just not possible today without problems tomorrow.

[@SomePotato]

If you get to that scale, what are a few more megawatts for AC. :P

[@samiamallen3107]

Instead of having a 100% tax for a specific dollar value. Have it fixed to the average income x5, that way it insentivies people to increase the wealth of others if they want to become richer.

[@Amaling]

This is quite literally the Deca-Dence anime, would strongly recommend it to anyone who's fed up with this stuff. Has the 1984 symbolism and imagery, the isolated techno-dystopia for the mega-rich, even has a poop/sewage area slaves episode

[@trenomas1]

That kind of screen running all day would generate an absurd amount of heat, and it's all directed inward. It would be a furnace.

[@LifesNeverHumDrum]

I knew about the poop trucks, didn’t know they were going to a lake to get dumped. Silly me assumed if they were bothered to ship the sewage out, it was going to a treatment center sonewhere

[@antonnurwald5700]

You sweet summer child

[@marvin19966]

imagine the smell

[@jepulis6674]

Thats a Borg cube. Dont be fooled by them, they show no mercy.

[@Nautelmaprokkis]

After the sewage issues mentioned in the beginning I honestly thought you were going to say the center is meant to just store feces. Not sure how that now feels like a pretty solid idea in comparison...

[@refragerator]

It does if the royal family moves in.

[@Nawa11YT]

@@refragerator Of England? I agree.

[@ÇALAKNÊT]

@@Nawa11YT Of Saudi Arabia

[@ÇALAKNÊT]

Shammar should’ve won the war

[@Nawa11YT]

@@ÇALAKNÊT nah, they won't move in.

[@Twmpa]

I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the film but it was set in the future in a massive but supposedly inescapable prison. The appearance of the Mukaab reminds me of that prison. Also, I love the juxtoposition of the Line being all about space efficiency whilst being built in a vast empty desert whilst the Mukaab, which is being built in the middle of an existing city, is anything but space (or energy) efficient.

[@Fru_videos]

funny enough, you're thinking about movie called Cube :)

[@scottthewaterwarrior]

@@Fru_videos How did this not remind me of that great film?!? I guess I'm just so tired...

[@teklife]

It's called The Cube, and it's what I was thinking about while watching this. What a missed opportunity, they could have designed many balconies and a green roof, etc.

[@scottthewaterwarrior]

When I first saw the "thing" in the middle, I assumed it was an indoor helicopter stunt course, so a retail tower with mega screen around it is still more reasonable then that!

[@MyUsersDark]

It still doesn't make it a good idea

[@couplingrhino]

When an indoor helicopterstunt course would me an environmentally friendly alternative...

[@Llortnerof]

I mean, they might still pick that idea up. Though i expect this to be mostly a wealth drain with very little practical benefit for anybody.

[@scottthewaterwarrior]

@@MyUsersDark Of course not! But that's how crazy these projects have been getting, you see a few CGI renderings and your brain assumes the dumbest thing possible. I was a little too dumb this time, but would any of us been surprised if that's what it actually was?

[@ArchOfWinter]

I think there should be one exception for that 100% tax on billionaires. If their wealth is gained without any exploitation, then let them keep it. If they can pay everyone, employees and contractors, suppliers and transporter, all well above a thriving wage and without causing environmental damages through their supply chain, then let them keep that billion. It's a challenge.

[@Mattz554]

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." - Ian Malcom, Jurassic Park - Sums up about everything humans are currently doing wrong. Thank you Adam ❤

[@gregoryl.levitre9759]

*currently doing Insanity reigns supreme on Earth in this era. All Globalist tech is being designed by mad scientists who are clearly insane.

[@dimiturtabakov1108]

On the other hand, the notion that a person or a body may get to determine if and when science can and cannot investigate a subject terrifies me incalculably more than a pig-ugly building in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, Some Desert.

[@Mattz554]

@@dimiturtabakov1108 Why does that terrify you? I don't understand what you're saying. I mean, as long as there are enough subjects to study, there isn't any problem. Am I wrong?

[@dimiturtabakov1108]

@@Mattz554 Yeah, I expressed myself really poorly there; also, I was kind of putting words into your mouth, which isn't fair. Nevermind, it would take a whole essay to say what I wanna say and, to be honest, it's not amongst the brightest things I've thought up :) More or less, a brainfart - ignore. Cheers!

[@junechevalier]

Same thing is happening with AI

[@PakBallandSami]

“In 1979, while Saudi Arabia was in the midst of a process of liberalization, a group of religious fanatics seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The Masjid al-Haram houses the kaaba, considered the holiest sitefor Muslims. This incident was a national trauma and transformative for al Saud, who reacted to it with an increased religious traditionalism enforced by the government and spearheaded by the ulama. Ambassador Smith credited a clear transformation to what occurred in 1979. “Saudi Arabia started going ultraconservative after the takeover of the Holy Mosque.” ― Ellen R. Wald,

[@apeshape4871]

The Mukaab is literally just a Mega-Block from Judge Dredd.

[@zavertaylom]

7:37 They needed less to fucking time travel in Back to the future than this thing consumes per day

[@CptApplestrudl]

The LED density of a regular screen is proportioned the way it is to look seemless at a low distance. If you try to emulate a seemless screen onto a far away layers you can literally take big LED lights and leave a lot of space between them to get the same effect. They use a similar technology for new Starwars production like the Mandalorian. It's no longer a greenscreen, but basically a large LED screen.

[@clray123]

You would not expect our learned host to understand LED technology or basic arithmetics for that matter. His specialty is communism and being green.

[@sheriefelsayad5578]

Dont bother. These People know nothing about technology 😂

[@ghoulas]

But if we take in the profesional display screen that is commonly used on bilboards like P6 ones they still are consuming around 160-190W per sqare meter so not so much less.

[@michaelweir9666]

Sometimes it just feels like we're just swiftly accelerating towards societal collapse and there's not really anything we can do but to watch and hope that we'll be one of the few who can whether the worst world-ruining event since the Bronze Age Collapse.

[@Yora21]

At the end of the bronze age, we find the burned out ruins of royal palaces throughout all the regional empires. Which does not necessarily mean it was a bad thing.

[@Amaling]

@@Yora21 the main issue with that stuff is burning of information

[@bluester7177]

I feel like this but I don't want to weather anything, I live in Rio, I can listen to gunfire like I'm in a warzone from my house pretty frequently and I'm already lucky because it could be worse, if gets more dystopian, I just want to be one of the first to go.

[@navneetnair3314]

Truth be told, we are currently living in some of the most peaceful times in Human History. War crimes actually count as crimes, the life expectancy stands at 72.6, health and educational standards are only improving and so on. Simply because a country or two wastes money on Vanity projects does not mean that the whole world is falling apart. The red tinted lens of Negativity bias has a tendency to overexaggerate the total impact of the one or two cases within our immediate field of perception.

[@debbiehenri345]

Unfortunately right now 'everyone' thinks they can weather out any societal collapse, that they can survive the runaway climate change. I suppose it's the human condition that we all think we're the 'bright ones' and everyone else is necessarily stupid and will fail before us. However, I'd say we'd be lucky if any of us can survive what's coming. Indeed, even the billionaires with their fancy bunkers won't make it, not for long - because if the tech running all their systems doesn't break down, their mental states will. No way will a small group of people (billionaire, his family and security guards), with no way out 'ever,' be able to live in close confines without one of them going absolutely berserk and 'eating' the rest of them. There's only so long a security guard is going to take orders - before he suddenly remembers he sacrificed his family, his friends to come and live in this dungeon, to be bossed about by some rich, entitled muppet until he's too old to function and gets thrown out the bunker door.

[@abatpanat4676]

i just love how he just went from world of tanks straight to a image of middle east in first 3 seconds

[@you_need_god]

Natural progression

[@RandomFBIguy]

I thought "IT" was the new sewage tank. Turns out I was only partially wrong because the "IT" was still full of shit.