Neom: An Update on the World's Most Ridiculous City (It's Still Ridiculous...)
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2024
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Don't waste your money!! The only thing surfshark does is slow down your internet connection for no reason. It's not worth paying real money and getting negative consequences for "peace of mind". No one is hacking you. You don't need a VPN.
You still alive after the first NEOM video? I guess you didn't go to Turkey.
Fun fact, VPNs don’t work on android, just not possible, it is not “safe”
Do you live in Cezchia ? Thats what youtube says 😂
They’ll make Solar energy and make glass and silicone from all their sand. They can also threaten the major global routes to extort protection money and are perfectly located at the centre of the world’s land mass. They have lots of other minerals and exotic things like Frankincense and Myrrh.
They can desalinate seawater, to make freshwater and salt to sell.
They’re the epicentre of Islam and so will always have pilgrims bringing wealth in and the trades and crafts related with a religion.
They have many friends around the world and few enemies and are increasing their higher educated citizens with every generation.
They’re investing in their future and will expand exponentially with every passing year.
Saudi Arabia has more going for it than most countries and should be the least of our worries.
Yes they’ve got some wacky ideas, but if you’re a US Asylum citizen, then you should take a good look in the mirror. Look at the trillions that you’ve wasted going into Space, on military might and investing in future destruction, while half the population of Earth starves to death and from easily curable diseases. Look at all your health problems with morbid obesity, pill munching and your self obsessed consumerism. Just take a good look at all the materialistic crap you waste and pamper yourselves with. Body implants, plastic surgery, body reforming, sculpting and make up.
Just look at all your crazy motorsports burning up the atmosphere and your whole sports, wrestling and bloodsports industry and all your gambling and casinos.
Just look at all your strip clubs, prostitution and porn industry. Just look at all the trillions in the music and entertainment business. With all your disposable throwaway idols that people pour their money and lives into, only to fall down and worship the next false god and the next and next.
Just look at all the BS and torrents of crap that goes into your brains each day, from fake news, propaganda and pop chat culture.
Just look at all your electrical devices, gadgets and computers, piling mountains at landfills and scrapyards.
Just look at all your Pollution, litter and cancerous cells.
Just look at all your social woes and unrest.
Just look at all your failed marriages, relationships and abortion, and all your sexual perversions.
Just look at all your tobacco products, alcohol and drug problems.
Just put your head in all your own shit for a moment first, before you go around judging everyone else.
"You start in a bad location, so the city naturally forms a line as it attempts to get away from itself."
-Pat Boyle
Ah another fellow intellectual. Our rap news God was right yet again.
That Patrick’s video is YT gold😄
_"You start in a bad location..."_ Yep, just like New Jersey. 😹
@@LoneTiger New Jersey is a bad location because of the culture and policy. In terms of resources to work with, it's not that bad. Or, at least it wasn't when it was first founded.
You call him Pat? 😂
"A city with a predictive A.I. that monitors everything happening" doesn't sound like the plot of a dystopian science fiction novel at all
Can’t be any worse than the absolute hellscape of anarcho tyranny the west is in now
At least it's in a religious state, so it's not quite dystopian.
@@TY-Tianyou 😂😂😂😂😂
Famous hollywood movie from 1993 Demolition Man, with many big name actors now, kind of showed it... whoa
Logan's Run?
My favorite part of Neom is when they said the birds would fly through the "specifically designed migration paths" instead of smacking into the gigantic blazing mirror they'd plopped down in the desert.
because birds are well known for following human instructions, like that time we told them to shit all over everything we ever placed outside.
The Bird Representative (a chicken) was at the planning meeting! When we took the vote on the migration paths the Bird Representative said 'cluck', so it was unanimous! They agreed to it!
After the meeting we voted on what to have for lunch - the Bird Representative said 'cluck' to the vote was unanimous. We had chicken.
In hindsight, telling them to shit all over everything we put outside was a mistake.
🤣😂
🎉😂😂😂😂
Who said that
As Adam would always say... "Smooth brained dictator plus construction project equals dumb shit."
Dreamworks are planning a children's feature about a dyslexic camel lost in the Arabian desert called Finding Neom
🤣😂🤣😂😝 That is HILARIOUS!!
i bet pixar is gonna have something to say about that :-)
Lmfao
You win....ha!
Lmao 😂
Every time Simon says "Neom", I just imagine a race car going by.
Comment of the year winner here folks...I can't unhear neommmm!
Thank God I didn't see this earlier. I wouldn't have made it through.
You're evil, here, have my like.
When you say it in out loud. 😂
😂😂😂
Every time I hear ” philip”, I imagine a Philippine person .
How many sci-fi disasters can you name that begin with a fully enclosed Utopian civilization ruled by an incredibly advanced computer?
4 or 0, not sure
I can't count that high.
Honestly, at this rate they'll be lucky to build enough for a film set..
Neom.
@@palomarjack4395 Great, thanks. I just got that out of my head.
WHy does it feel like these project descriptions were made by people who never turned off "Infinite money" mode in city building games?
When your income is as disposable as your common sense. 😂
Like? it was wrote by people who has 'infinite money' turned on.
Best description of this project I have found. 😂 Funny and accurate.
The people who had the money that they were pitching this to were princes that probably failed school but they didn't know that because daddy just paid off the school to keep passing them.
So they see shiny thing and they love it enough to dump the money in their pockets.
Bigotry, greed, and vanity are the destructive forces of humanity.
I learned in Dubai that when they promise a tram, you will get a tram. When they promise a hyperloop, you will get a tram.
But I like trams...
funny
To be fair, trams are actually a useful method of transport.
Well, the hyperloop doesn't exist (and will not exist) so they might as well have promised a hen laying golden eggs.
LOL and if they promise Neom you get??? A road to nowhere ???
I think the prince should just write a sci-fi novel and call it a day
And that novel should be called 'The fantastical world of MBS'
Seriously. Or a SF tv series. He has an imagination, maybe it would be very lucrative.
@@rickwrites2612yeah maybe he can then stop oppressing and killing anyoke who opposes his tyrannical rule not limited to islamic scholars,journalists,,teachers,etc
Huh? See you in 2030
Maybe saudi arabia should invest in making sci-fi movies
8am, loud horn sounds. "Residents, go shovel the sand away from the wall". 5pm loud horn sounds "Residents, stop work, go home" Repeat...
To be fair, he only said they'd deliver something unprecedented, he didn't say it wasn't unprecedented failure.
😂😂😂
Touche
Exactly!
Yep, if someone uses 'unprecedented' 3 times in a single sentence, I know they mean 'unmitigated disaster of epic proportions'.
He'd bet $1 on the "price is right"
I had a few friends who worked on the design and concept art you’re seeing here. The Saudi prince initially hired traditional architects, but their designs weren’t ambitious enough for him. That’s when he reached out to my friend who is a concept artist for film and television. He specializes in large-scale designs like cities and planets. The prince wanted designs he saw in the movies - most especially sci-movies like Guardians of the Galaxy, a film my buddy worked on. This is why the designs don’t work practically - concept artists are not architects or engineers.
unless its just a scam and all it needs to be is attractive...
Considering the trackrecord of Saudi Arabia ... it"d go for the scam, they're on top and dictate the rules, yet it is still and never will be enough. Too much money makes them probably think they're gods
If a district of "The Line" was planned to become a nightlife district like in "Blade Runner" or Kowloon Walled City, then that would be forward-thinking and a possible popular tourist destination! But you need alcohol, music, and allowance of scantily clad women. Without that, you can kiss it goodbye. It would be great, but I'm skeptical regarding a bacchanal in SA.
@@727skydivers The sort of people that make a place like Kowloon work are specifically not the sort that they're looking for. If they built something like that, a place that could offer decent living conditions compared to the hellholes that most of the regions refugee camps are turning into, I could see it evolving a culture of its own. No one would bat an eye at their Only Muslims Allowed policy, the whole city of Mecca already has that. They even wouldn't need alcohol since, again, Only Muslims Allowed. The real problem is that he's hoping to attract young professionals. The sort who could live in Silicon Valley or Manhattan. They actually want that sort of person to choose to live in a place with 24 hour surveilance, as the subject of a King
@@alton19pinto It looks like a supermodern glass prison to me. There is no escape, only scorching desert all around. I wonder if people are even going to be able to go out behind the glass wall. That would require building roads, paths, etc. even around the noodle city.
So... This project is doing a lot better than I thought it would. I was expecting a long, thin hole in the ground, being slowly filled up with blowing sands. It seems they may end up filling a tiny bit of the hole with some sort of structure. Just goes to show, we pessimists and naysayers aren't always completely right. Sometimes we're only 99.9% right.
Good one lol
I lived and worked in Saudi and the only thought I had was "why do they leave these construction sites unfinished but aspire to build a sci-fi city that makes no sense"
The amount of abandoned construction sites and buildings in Saudi is eye-watering
I would love to see a documentary series on this
Money laundering and Ponzi schemes.
Bullshit.. highly doubt you even stepped foot in Saudi, but if you did, other than the remote building that you probably never seen (Jeddah tower) what other half built/ abandoned construction sites did you pass by? Yes, they announce some projects that are never even started, but never abandoned after construction starts.
@@Sam..572you get WiFi at the riyadh ritz-carlton lol
@@Sam..572you get WiFi at the riyadh ritz-carlton lol
I had high hopes for Neom. As a derelict places buff I was looking forward to visiting an epic region of massive ruins in fifteen years or so.
You will get it so make sure your passport is up to date ! :~)
literally also exactly what i was looking forward to
@@andymouseWon't do you any good unless you are on your once in a lifetime pilgagramage to Mecca as.a Mualim. Or a specific invite of the Saudi government. There are no other kinds of fvisas There are especially no visitor visas.
@@stevewhite3424 What are you talking about? A lot of citizenships can literally get it fully online (for 90 days in a year)
Like going to Chernobyl
For the record,
Mr. Whistler is in perfect health,
Is not suicidal, and the brakes on his car are in perfect repair.
🤣
comments like this would be better served in his video's regarding Russia lmao.
what he meant to say, was that all his limbs are still perfectly attached together
@@thefloop2813 or Boeing
Mr Whistler should be fine - he only said "Bo*ing" once.
I have lived in a city that was wedged between the sea and mountains on a narrow strip of land - it was frustrating to get from one end to another.
Neom would be a nightmare that I would avoid.
Peru?
Yes, it seems the worlds leaders do not understand people NEED space for the sake of their mental wellbeing!
everything within 5min, people not moving is the whole point.control
Can you imagine living in a city, working in the same city, and because the train broke down today you have a 170km walk to work?
They wont have luxury golf carts on the side roads shuttling people back n forth? Lol
@@d.aardent9382 Of course they will! But only for the ultra rich
May rather spend 3-6 hours in a common underground train adjacent to high speed lane. Quite inspiring backup alternative!
😂🤣😛🤣
one of the promo videos featured people floating around in mid air. that's when I laughed and thought well some people are going to get very rich off this deal and some people are going to lose everything because of how much money can be spent before anything tangible is constructed lol whoever puts more than a dime into this scam deserves to lose all their money in the end, and I won't be surprised when that happens
As most town planners will tell you,
a linear city is really a dumb idea.
But hey, it always looks so good with animated CGI.
Amazing how cgi can do that with a lot of things that are actually trash in the end!
It would be better to invest in Saudi Arabia's future as a VFX hub.
rederite is amazing material, so are CGI microclimates in a fire trap.
I like how the CGI had trees floating on little anti-gravity islands. Anyone who invested in that is dumb as a stump.
It's about as real as the girl floating through space through the structure
It went wrong, shock, horror. It's like a dystopian prison. This is what happens when a load of egomaniac children run a country.
Just like our country Absurdistan 🏳️🌈 (formerly known as germany🇩🇪)
The leadership of Saudi Arabia is really, really stupid.
@@gerharddeusser9103how horrible that Germany legalize lgbtq
Yeah, when he said it would attract free thinkers...in Saudi Arabia.
You mean a strong leader who will have you dismembered alive if you disagree with him doesn't result in sound plans and flawless delivery?
Imagine how much could be accomplished if they used these funds for sustainable terraforming instead. They could slowly reclaim the desert.
Neom was a massive success, and works just like previous "failed" megaptojects.
It's just a legal way to embezzl money into the hands of contractors and industries that need a payoff.
If it happens to get funding from the outside world to fund it, then it just discounts the amount that the crown has to put forward into the project.
But who is stupid enough to "invest" in this nightmare?
Sounds about right. They can have their friends dig foundations for the next 30 years.
I suspect most of the world’s real investors are going to be a lot less easy-going with their wealth than the Saudi crown prince.
I reminds me of the Barnsley Halo (which mercifully never even got to the geotechnical survey stage before being killed by the Credit Crunch) except that seemed to be a fraud perped by an 'architect' upon the local council.
@@agathaloewen877 "But who is stupid enough to "invest" in this nightmare?"
Someone who has huge amounts of extremely dirty money that they can't launder any other way. That's about all that paper mega-projects are actually good for.
Basic geometry: A city is a hub. A line is NOT a hub. A line is a road, that in this case ends nowhere.
The future is linear cities, spiral roads, and square tires.
And chrome …
Its the emperor clothes all over again. It might yet get built but given the current state of things its not feasable.
Space elevators.
Hey, it worked extremely well in the last sim city game... Right?
I had a co-worker that did a teaching gig in Saudi. He told us that no matter what, if you are well to do, you have to save face. Like if a kid was failing class, and that kid was a "prince", he WAS passing no matter his grade.
This sounds like the same thing. Just with this massive project.
Honor-Shame dynamics 101.
The "Prince" is probably using it to get away with being stupid
There was a perfect example of this at the 2023 Saudi Grand Prix. The band that performed the national anthem simply could not play the instruments - it was just a cacophony. People living there said that was quite a common thing, kids of rich parents would have them as part of the band, and they would play in the band no matter what. You weren't allowed to tell them they had all of the talent and grace of a baboon in mating season.
The kings take care of Saudi people in general
saving face in asia is pretty important too, and sometimes in very indirect ways that lead to misunderstandings with foreigners (americans) and locals. For a while i used to teach as well, and while you are held accountable for the kid failing, you must make them succeed by any means (i had people tell me to beat their kids), probably less so in lesser well off schools, the rich kid schools were my least favourite (and generally had the most bullying among students). When teaching saudi medical staff in Europe i mostly remember them as extremely rude and crass (most female staff refused to go near them).
One of the key hallmarks of cancer is "Inducing Angiogenesis".
It's when a bunch of cells who only care of themselves (arrogant), generate new blood vessels to drive nutrients their way.
Wicked!
“The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” - Matt Taibbi
That is every Billionaire on Earth.
thats actually a great way of putting it
Bro just described capitalism in medical terms
Wow, who could have guessed that this would be an embarrassing failure
Everyone DID, why would anyone want to visit Saudi Arabia anyhow?
@@RamblingRodeo If I was forced to go to a murderous dictatorship, I'd at least choose one where I could drink
@@bimblinghill oh, so that is why you think its a failure and not the design flaw.
@@bimblinghill ps. a lot of people go to Saudi, mainly for business and vacations.
@@bimblinghill Bingo, however they do have bars for Westerners in Saudi. Most Saudi's or at LEAST the ELITE ones are allowed to.
This has all the makings of a great sci-fi story. Meglomanic "Prince" builds a boondoggle of a city to trap people within it and monitors them for subversive behavior, talk and even thoughts. What a hell hole, no matter how transparent and shiny.
That sad part about this NEOM is that villagers have been JAILED, EXECUTED and PUSHED OUT their homes..while SOME were given. MONEY instead of settling them in. New houses
"I drive everybody like a slave, when they drop down dead, I celebrate. That's how I do my projects" being said like it's a positive is just the most insane thing to hear.
A perspective shared by many of the 1%.
Sadly many Americans would share this sentiment. Most of them boomers, but still. Hustle culture and late stage capitalism are a brain rot that actively works against all of our best interests
He is trying to posture so as to be seen by MBS (and the world) as Steve Jobs starting Apple from nothing.
Unfortunately, though, “treating people like slaves” has a very different meaning in KSA than in most of the developed tech world.
In KSA, the master-slave relationship is a common model. Laborers are viewed by many as being expendable. The gazillions of laborers from India, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines all tell their stories…
@@skeetsmcgrew3282 You're a bit generation biased. Read up the history of the Panama and the Suez canal, and most of the US railroads and bridges.
It was happening long before the "boomers"
@@dnomyarnostaw Ok but they openly treated brown people as sub human and would be extremely unlikely to brag about how they drive white men into an early grave. It was more about pure racism than pure capitalism
I remember when I first saw the ads and the sheer horror that hit the moment I realised it wasn’t a dystopian film trailer. Deserts are ecosystems, not empty wastelands, and the disruption to native wildlife of a massively long and high solid fence would be devastating.
Dystopian movies are just the elitists telling us what they are working towards.
@@Jbs6187 For these hippies, the world is but a morality play between evil humans and vegetarian lions.
- Adûnâi
@@Jbs6187 Oof. I mean, they got a point that the project is *also* an ecological disaster,
but yeah, next to all the slave labor and waste of economic resources (that could be used for a variety of purposes, including ecological ones),
the ecological concerns kind of pale out.
I thought it was one of those fancy sci-fi projects that architecture students come up with for their final thesis and that are not even meant to ever be build but are interesting case studies concerning the infrastructure of the design. I was very much surprised to hear that they are actually building that thing.
@angamaitesangahyando685 Oh, and what are you and yours going to do? Eat lead when/if it gets too hot for your body to sweat the climate change heat?
Hmm, guess so. :)
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
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.”
Yep... A lot of people don't know the rest of the poem :D
And before that was the Tower of Babel.
Cool quote/poem from Dune:Messiah...
Here lies a toppled god
His fall was not a small one
We but built his pedestal,
A narrow and a tall one.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart.[d] Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Percy Shelley, "Ozymandias", 1819 edition
LOL!!!
I posted the exact same lines
I changed the name of Ozymandias to Prince… Saud.
You get the feeling that when they were designing this, they just "To Be Invented" at every technology question.
The entire project is about as dystopian as it gets. Imagine being the poor workers living shoulder to shoulder in the bottom level of this walled city. They would essentially be slaves with no where to run as desert goes for miles in every direction.
Absolute nightmare fuel.
Warhammer 40k style Hive City.
came here to say this but you beat me to it. How do you get out if you're not rich enough to afford a helicopter? Nightmare.
They watched Silo on apple TV and then asked a slave to hold their beer.
Why would this be a problem when you are fundamentally evil ?
"The Line" = What they were snorting when they came up with the idea.
MBS really needs to stop taking so many trips to nightclubs in the Maldives
Top Comment
Sand!
exactly that
It gets a really nasty twist if you've ever played the brilliant and disturbing Spec Ops: The Line...
“The adoring public started laughing”
Actually, I think the public was laughing the entire time. We just started laughing even harder
The reason all the talking heads in Saudi Arabia are still saying Neom and all of its projects are still happening is that disagreeing with the royal family is a great way to wake up missing your head. Don't forget one of the first reporters to talk bad about the Line was allegedly killed because of it. People in SA are too afraid to laugh.
ua-cam.com/video/qppZQCReiDg/v-deo.htmlsi=M5PQddrry7qchZ3G
I’m not laughing. This was probably a grift by the extremely rich to ensnare the money from the merely very rich. Rich people grifting other naive rich people. Or something. No way it was going to get done, so it had to be some kind of money scam…
exactly
"Oh wait, you're serious. Let me laugh even harder"
2018: Jamal Khashoggi and Mohammed Bone Saw. A leopard does not change its spots.
Using the phrase "heads will roll" with a country that still beheads people causes a little shiver down the spine.
he was being very literal
One way or another 😂
Imagine wanting to build a city without cars, and then designing it in a way that makes everywhere you want to go to as far away from eachother as physically possible
While I think the Neom concept is bonkers, it makes sense that in a linear city only 200 meters wide cars are unnecessary if there is public transport running down the centre
@@olp1e The insanity is that it would only have one, singular, train. So if anything goes wrong anywhere at all on the length of that line, the entire system backs up and fails. Also, cars would still be unnecessary if you just made the thing a grid and had functioning public transport there.
And as if Saudi's don't love their 4x4s!!
Back to the *"Drawing Board"* ❕️❗️❕️
@@andrewauchter7759 I didn't say train I said public transport which could be a bus or tram. Also if the city is just 200 meters wide, a spinal road for cars would take up too much space. As I said before the whole idea is bonkers, and until the final design is known it's pointless to continue this discussion.
Classic Dunning-Kruger effect. Just because you're good at selling oil and dismembering journalists, now you're suddenly a visionary architect and engineer.
This is what happens when a long line off camel and goat herders come into a lot of money.
It is hard to stay on track with all that oil under their feet
I’m reading all the comments and I’m weak with laughter and tears, I haven’t laughed this hard since God knows when, truth with sarcasm and laugher, you guys are incrediable. I’ve been following all these Gigaprojects for awhile now, my thought was, why not do one project at a time, not eleven or twelve on the go now, just didn’t make sense to do it that way, maybe I’m dense, but the Line gosh that’s impossible, someone’s smoking a lot of weed or snorting cocaine to have those visions, ☮️🇵🇸☪️🙏✝️🇨🇦
yup.
🤣😂😝. Excellent analysis!!
neom the noise you make as you drive your bugatti down the one road lol
I kid you not, back in 2019/20, I spent a year at a prominent branding agency in London working on various Neom design projects. Investor presentations, early tourism stuff and websites. My boss had flown out there a few times. The Zoom calls with the Saudi team could be a bit intense. It was fun to work on but I don't suppose anyone really thought they'd make it happen.
I've always thought it absolutely ridiculous that they really believe the world's wealthiest would want to vacation in one of the most extreme climates on the planet, only to sequester themselves indoors.
That's where they live so of course they would think so.
But they will vacation there... you should look into how the rich spend their money. They're all absolutely ignorant and only thinking about themselves buying 20 dollars a litre water bottles... They would absolutely be the first ones to go there.
They saw it kinda work for Dubai. And now every Gulf State is trying to one up Dubai.
Hey, Saudi are building an island for extra rich. Imagine US government doing the same, people would go nuts
Americans and Brits already do this 24/7, it's all about status. They'd rather swim in a pool on a cruise ship rather than set foot in the ocean lmao
A designer's dream is an engineer's nightmare. An artist's dream is a designer's nightmare. Now what happens when an artist tries to design an actual city...
Don't blame us artists. We aren't psychopathic Saudi princes.
And the engineers dream is a contractor’s nightmare……
Is at an "artist" behind this though. Calling the Saudi crown prince an "artist" is...not accurate, I'd say.
@@stephenschiffman5940it's absolutely art, no question about it. In fact that's the main purpose.
Doesn't make it more worthwhile or less stupid though.
you mean a dictators dream is an engineers nightmare. Dictators love these projects. compare with hitlers planned city of germaina or ceaușescus centrul civic
Looks like every dystopian movie. Waste land outside. Total controll inside. Controll for traded being "free"
They keep pissing their finite oil-money away, this part of the world is going to be up the creek without a paddle when the oil runs out
yea im sure they are worried about what happens in thousands of years..
oil doesnt come from dead dinosaurs. you know that right?
Or when science pulls its finger out and we all get a Mr. Fusion to power our flying cars.
True, and who shall suffer? The people, and so-called visions are no visions, just arrogance spoken as such. Around the world cities have been created, never to be inhabited because the vision was, again, not a vision, but sheer arrogance
@@darthtac Oil will still be valuable as a source of chemicals.
@@disorganizedorg If anything, prices will go up for the useful but not burning it for fuel aspects.
6:57 Imagine being a theocratic monarchy with a history of human rights abuses, and thinking the phrase "free thinkers and free spirits" has any merit to outside investors
imagine wearing a checkered tablecloth as a hat.
Just had this very thought
HEY! They finally let women drive.
@dudleyvasausage
Criticize bad people for the bad things they do, not for bullshit reasons. Randomly insulting people's cultural clothes makes YOU a bad person. Be better.
@@SovietReunionYT It's very simple: actions have consequences.
The idea of "the line" is so stupid it boggles the mind. You know what would be cool, building a city in a line. But then you could fold that line back on itself to save space right? And then you could do it again until you have a zig-zag city. But then you could connect the ends of the zig-zag together to save driving time and...oh, it's a grid.
😂😂😂 very succinct
Why you don’t want people to build something new ? If your logic is on every human they will never be planes, cars, skyscrapers, etc
They tried building in NYC cubes that rose from the sidewalk, 800 feet straight up on four sides with no setbacks, but some residents complained, 100 years later, NYC is more expensive(income by percentage of Gross metropolitan product ) than 1924. So what gives?
@@oFaisalo "Why don't you want people to try eating dogshit? If every human shares your logic, nobody will try eating dogshit off the sidewalk!"
@@oFaisalo People should try to build something new when there are expected benefits to building it that way. What actual benefit is there of this being a giant straight line rather than some other shape?
So basically this boils down to: Saudi Arabia has an almost unlimited amount of money Architects and developers have an almost unlimited ability to generate bullshit (with state of the art CGI included).
MBS meets architects-match made in heaven
The project is not just strapped for cash, it's strapped for physics.
How exactly is it strapped for physics?
@@justicedemocrat9357 170 km train trip in 20 minutes? 🤣
You do the math.
I suggest taking into account acceleration and deceleration (G force) and A LOT of stops along the way, since there is no space at the bottom for hundreds of lines.
@@goncalovazpinto6261the whole Line constantly shaking because of the trains endlessly going back and forth. + the noise reverberating on the glass/mirror walls. Hell on Earth.
@@10HW so many memes...😆
@justicedemocratrandomstuff:
One word. Sand.
As someone who lives at the beach. Sand is not static, if you build something that tall and that long. It's going to block the flow of the sand. I could see that becoming a huge long term problem.
Exactly what I thought too, having seen how intentional placed fences work with blowing snow in Canada.
And the lovely glass walls will be sandpapered to a dull matt finish.
On the bright side it's cheaper to keep a glass building in the world's hottest desert cool if it's covered in sand 😉
The straightest sand dune in the world
Among many others.
The Emperor's New Clothes played out on a grand scale.
The Uber Rich are turning our earthly paradise into HELL..........
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart.[d] Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Percy Shelley, "Ozymandias", 1819 edition
yeah right. I don't think they're going to make it as far as actually building the thing.
Thanks for sharing this.
So, this will be the largest palace ever built, with slave quarters on the lower levels. Control transportation, water, and power. Monitor every aspect of every worker's life. What could go wrong?
Anyone who displeased the Spice Overlord will be sent outside via one door at Neom to die in heat of desert with no food and water.
@@WindTurbineSyndromethey probably have ‘punishment’ doors that open into the desert, and the condemned would have to step out…
Haha like Dune.
Some questions…..
1. How deep in the sand do you have to dig to form a solid enough foundation for a building that high?
2. Are they finding any interesting archaeological discoveries?
3. Do the desert winds or rains keep filling in the holes? How are they kept perfectly level?
4. What effect would an earthquake or crack in the glass wall have on the rest of the building?
5. Financially, how would the prisoners, I mean tenants, pay for the cost of building and maintaining the project?
6. Would it gradually get sandy inside because of the location?
7. Aside from the end exit in the sea, how do tenants escape, I mean leave, especially in case of an emergency like a fire?
8. What would happen in the case of a severe rain storm like Dubai had recently?
9. Is the top open, or does the entire city have to be air conditioned?
10. How many residents are waiting for occupancy?
11. Is this a project of UN Agenda 2030?
12. Who did the financials on this idea?
and the first one I thought of: who/how will keep that expanse of glass clean?
@@elizabethkeatley5010 …yes, myself as well. Clean is one thing; completely pitted and dull after the first sandstorm is another . Which is what happens to solar panels in sandy areas or after hailstorms. Not sure if the mirrored sides have any use aside from deflecting sun, but 1. Where do you get a continuous mirror that large, and
2. Would it tend to melt or blind things near it depending on the angle of the sun?
You're asking too much questions.
I will advise you not to go near any Saudi embassy.
@@Debodreal1 ….no worry, I’m just a little 80 year old lady who can barely get off the couch, having some research .
Number 4... I looked into that,and the project is being built in an area with 10 seismically active fault zones.
Thanks Simon. The biggest problem I see with Neom is its lack of a planned economic foundation. Cities usually develop around transportation nodes, resources for processing of raw materials, industry and other key economic activities. They are generally circular to some degree designed around having laborers, administrators, business headquarters and services in walking or convenient accessing distances. While building a industrial center near the Red Sea to utilize Saudi Arabia's potential solar energy build out with transportation from a harbor for various industries would make sense, like Gary, Indiana, USA, Neom doesn't.
I worked in Saudi Arabia for one year at a company under the PIF umbrella. IT WAS THE WORST EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE.
Never had I ever been in such a toxic work environment ever. Lies, preferential treatment to Saudi employees, underhanded deals, boys clubs where women’s opinions meant nothing. Workplace discrimination, etc. I was paid a lot of money but NOTHING is worth going through that to me.
And at the end of the day you can't even have a beer! It is so weird to me that rich tourists flock to states that will *execute you* for breaking the rules. I also can't fiscally support countries that treat women like dangerous objects. I'm just a bro with boobs, honestly.
I mean, you chose to work in Saudi Arabia for a year. What did you expect? It's Saudia Arabia.
@@a.jherbert5436 I had lived in the Middle East for 10 years before so at least I have knowledge of the region to assume what to expect from the country. I don’t expect the workplace culture of the company I went into. There’s plenty other companies in ksa that are absolutely fine to work at. I assume you’ve never lived or worked in the Middle East so your opinion really doesn’t mean much to me. Everybody looks for better opportunities in life and I’m sure if you were offered buckets of money to go do a job you would too, which is why I said that in the end the money was not worth the heartache for me.
I have no desire to give them any of my money. A toxic country.
Money corrupts and Saudi Arabia was blessed with a lot of it very quickly.
Anyone with half a brain and some common sense would have looked at the Line project and seen the huge flaws in it.
From the mirrored exterior literally cooking the surrounding sand and turning it into glass, to the fact that it would turn into a dystopian hellscape with the "lesser-than" workers and staff living on the bottom floors and receiving no sunlight at all and the rich and powerful living at the top floors.
If I, not an architect nor an engineer, can see these few glaring issues how come no one in charge of the project did a double take is beyond me.
Yessir, I believe you are right. Architect here. I'll add too that given it's shape, linear in both horizontal and vertical axes also means that there would be a hierarchy in distribution of resources (energy, food, etc), not to mention waste management💀, and quality of life in general (i.e. access to public spaces, are those spaces receiving sunlight, open, or tucked down into crevasses where crime and danger are far from the eyes of those who would have the power to do anything about it). Living on a specific side of this could mean you are destined to live your entire life in shadow, or exposed to intense sun. You would probably be subject to communal taxes which would pay for resources that only some get. In all, I dont think this has any intention of being built and all the intentions of simply moving mass amounts of money around. There's a reason humans have not built linear cities in our entire history. If they were beneficial natural selection would have led us to build them this way a ver long time ago 🤷🏽♂️
Nobody should expect a Saudi royal's pet project to be designed with any car for the lower-class people.
*care for the lower classes
What happens with air flow? any fire would have a chimney effect. floods would be devastating. Look at the flood in Dubai recently. (by the way, how did the skyscraper that trucks out human waste daily fare in the flooding?)
@@Horse-and-Butterfly this is why structural engineer hates Architects. as for structural this would be the cheapest in design since it's copy / paste and less to almost no bends meaning everything will be cheaper to build with, this building will be cheaper then making the same number of sky scrapers to hold the same amount of population
My dad's company was contracted to help build it, he told me they were given millions in dirhams(because the branch that was contracted was the Dubai branch) and because Neom changed where the Line had to go, my dad's company went through all that money trying to survey the area that the Line willbe built on before the location is changed again, in all, they went through millions of Dirhams, did not build anything and NEOM got mad at my dad's company when it was all their fault, if NEOM didn't change the location all the time, something would've been built
I believe it.
Narcicissts blame everyone else for their faults.
WOW! From your story it looks like from the beginning the NEOM did it intentionally coz didn't want anything to be built.
They just wanted to rise funds and wash their hands.
When it comes to construction projects (al least in Europe) , first they do full geological study, that might take years before starting construction .
Why are you exposing your own dad's confidential information on the Internet? For a few likes, you'd risk getting him in trouble. Wow.
@@shizzlecrystal5964 I didn't say which company he works for, why do you think I always say "my dad's company"? Besides, it's always good to let people have some insight from the people who worked on this damned project
Edit: I sent a reply before this but UA-cam on mobile was acting up on me and I thought it didn't send but it did so I deleted that one and just went with this current one and besides, a project of this scale requires many companies, can't really track down which company on the project that my dad works for
These megaprojects are always like the kind of stuff you'd come up with your friends as a kid. "And every house will have a waterslide, its own movie theater, and and a candy dispenser in every room!" Completely nonsensical fantasies that have no bearing in reality.
I used to work in Saudi, and I've to say that the racist & xenophobic take on "modern slavery" the Saudis have was an eye opener! It has been the worst experience of my life ever. During the peak of COVID and when all Saudis had the privilege to WFH, we (expats) were given special permission that allowed (forced) us to turn up at work. You couldn't even leave the country if you wanted to - you needed authorization from your employer to do so.
Thanks to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, I don't have to imagine what it is like to be a slave.
I echo that. Nightmare country.
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Percy Shelley, "Ozymandias"
Certified GCSE English banger 🔥
Thank you. Very appropriate.
thanks for the quote
I quote the end of this every time the subject of mega structures in Saudi Arabia come up, I’m glad I’m not alone.
versailles still stands
The mirrors will make a "death zone" on the sunny side of the line. Imagine all the dead birds, confused mammals, and desiccated insects as they encounter the double Sun wall. Also, what's with the levitating trees?
Well, atleast the deathzone would be clearly marked after a few months, "Dont venture into the Area with the glass ground and the charred corpses"
@@neotronextrem it might be okay for scavengers if they're quick. It would be an endless supply of jerky.
A previous comment says Neom was created by a cgi artist who renders sci Fi scenes NOT an architect or anyone in reality business because the Boss wasn't impressed by reality being a despotic dictator living in a fiefdom with too much money in a country 90% unhabitable due to lack of water. Bedouin nomads who actually lived in that area were forced off to build Neom with zero human rights just scraped off.
It’s tragic and terrifying to think about.
all of these are great ideas and settings...for a sci-fi novel, dystopian murder mystery, or other type of content. Real life? Nope.
I've said this elsewhere, but the Line and all of Neom is just a massive vanity project that was never designed for humans first. the only people benefiting from it are MBS (and his ego), the contractors who built those islands etc., and the consultants and concept artists being hired to create the fancy visualisations.
but hey, they all got paid so it doesn't matter as much to them whether this thing succeeds (which it was never going to, it's unworkable)
Most middle aged men with insecurity just buy a porche
@@peterhall8572A porche is worth less than a fraction of a penny to the kind of wealth these assholes have.
he built it for Isaelis to go live there
it was never designed to be build. but to be a grift to scam rich people out of their money by playing on their insecurities
The Line is still the stupidest future project I've ever heard of.
I think all vloggers talking about this subject should show the project the respect it deserves. Every time you say "Neom", you should have a toy plane in your hand that "flies" as you say it.
😂😂😂
No, it should be an elephant called Dumbo in a white suit (I wasn't going to suggest a flying pig cos the imagery would be too insulting)
No. Chocolate chip cookies, "neom, neom".
Dude, that's a next level dad joke
Oh my God! I’m crying I’m laughing so much, love it, imagining it as you said it, I wonder if MBS reads all the comments, alot of tantrums and fits, you no he’s thin skinned, the Washington reporter who was chopped up found that out.
"Saudi Arabia" and "Free Thinkers" are 2 things that can't appear unironically in the same sentence without some synonym of "does not want" between them.
An Oxymoron
@@MARKCRASTO Oxagon-morons. Heyoooo.
Bro Saudi Arabia isn't America lmao 😂😂😂
@TY-Tianyou I mean America didn't give a driver's license to a robot before a woman.
@@steel8231 doesn't change the fact that they brainwashed their own citizens and ours
It's good to see that they are still using the Thousand and One Nights Tales of Fantasy as their guidebook!
When they can't even finish a single skyscraper, did anyone really think this would be built. It was likely nothing more than a giant scam.
Dubai has no skyscrapers?
@@brockpowell5417 Who's talking about Dubai? This comment makes me assume you're American. 😂
Exactly
@@jimwoodford3984eh. Fair. I couldn't name a single Saudi city, myself, and I've never cared to look up where Dubai is. As an American, I had 50 States to learn about in school, with their histories and the cities within; countries an ocean away hold very little importance.
@@brockpowell5417
He's referencing Jeddah tower
A line seems like how you'd organize a city if you wanted every part to be the maximum possible distance from every other part.
Which is basically the opposite of what a city is for if you think about it.
Yeah they could have made it a square and it would have been far more efficient. It also would have been a normal city.
Belgium has huge issues with what we call "line buildings". But we didn't plan this, on the contrary, it's the lack of plans that caused it.
The decades after WWII, the country had to be rebuilt. And there was no time for planning. Any material that could be found to construct houses was fine, and any location was fine too.
It was the advent of cars,, which meant that you could easily build next to a highway connecting two towns, and still have access to the services of those towns.
So instead of expanding the towns, all connecting highways got a flanked with buildings on both sides.
This now makes it very costly to install and upgrade utilities (water, electricity, sewage, internet,...), as it's all very stretched out. It also makes road upgrades very costly: adding a cycle path is prohibitly expensive or redesigning a crossing requires to demolish the houses standing next to it.
The impossibility to separate through traffic from residential traffic also causes a lot of traffic jams, and requires pretty low speed limits overall.
So all in all, there are almost no advantages to building a line structure.
Yep. Ask why no other city in history has naturally evolved into a line? The closest approximation are cities which develop along a natural barrier like a river or a shoreline.
It's incredible to me that people think Autocratic nations are able to develop better because they have "More Consistent" leadership and yet so many of them do sh*t like this and just shoot themselves in the foot(not to mention the people they actually shoot). I don't understand how people can believe these places are somehow better for developing technology.
Because oversite is the devil and regulation stymies progress... something something long live the king... idk man, people think red tape is somehow worse than a person having the power to commit a genocide without any consequences.
That’s what you get from propaganda of those autocratic nation
as someone who used to be a fascist as a teenager, now an authoritarian-technocrat, I agree. Autocracies have the 'potential' to be far more efficient, but only when conditions are right. Individual action is autocratic; a diesel engine is autocratic; the best possible civilization using the highest possible technology is 'functionally' autocratic, but they're all giant double-or-nothing gambles that rely on the sole leader making the absolute most perfect decision every time. When you attempt it with something as complex and unknowable as human civilization where a sjngle man can't physically live long enough to learn even 10% of all information, it's absolute civil suicide.
Turns out, running a country is too complicated and there's too much work for a single person. Every leader has to delegate. Even the kings and dictators.
The problem for kings and dictators though, is that competency isn't the most important attribute for those you delegate power to - it's loyalty.
If you give someone competent power, they might decide they can do your job better than you can, and they're probably competent enough to take that job from you. In an autocracy, for you, the incumbent, that often means that you lose more than your power, wealth, and status. Life in prison is the best case outcome. In an autocracy, smart people aren't just an asset, they're a potential future threat.
So, who do you promote? Those who are stupid and loyal. Yes men who won't question your stupid ideas because they know better.
That system results in... Neom.
@@curious5887 It's hardly just propaganda from authoritarian countries. Western propaganda also pushes this idea, although framed somewhat differently: the whole "great man" theory.
Amazon wasn't build by the efforts of hundreds of thousands of employees, often being overworked and underpaid to a (literally) criminal degree, it was all the genius of Jeff Bezos. Let's interview him and write a billion books about how he works and thinks so we can all aspire to be so successful.
Part of the problem is that humans are probably naturally inclined to think like this, it's easier to look at one person and put the credit (or blame) on them, instead of having to understand all the systemic and foundational factors.
It's easier to think "Albert Einstein invented the Theory of Relativity" than it is to think "Relativity was the result of hundreds of years of iterative innovations and developments in math and physics, carried out by ....[list of hundreds of people]".
The flip side of that is, when everyone is used to thinking that great things were just done by solitary geniuses and visionaries, it's easy to think that if you just gave one strong leader all the power, they would obviously be able to do great things.
Even if the Saudi government were to actually build this city, it would still be grossly expensive and likely result in a huge financial loss.
Credit to the Saudis. This would have taken an ungodly amount of cocaine for an American to come up with and then mess up. They've managed to do that without drugs and alcohol.
That these clowns don't do drugs or alcohol is a big claim
Megalomania is a helluva drug.
Theres no way someone sober came up with the original idea
Or so we've been told
Nobody at college did more coke than the Saudis.
A 500 meter tall mirrored wall, what could go wrong? The ground in front of the south side would suffer from insane (near) double solar irradiance and the ground on the north side would be in perpetual shadow. The desert biomes would go nuts around the wall. Plus the wall would completely mess up species movement across the land in the north-south direction.
Don't think they care. They've used lethal force to move along the tribe that lived there.
The plan was to build it more or less from north to south. So I guess instead you'd get really weird mornings and evenings as it reflects maximum light... Not entirely sure what that would mean...
Hey! Quit screwin up a perfectly good - Obviously Bong induced - idea with your uhh..."Facts"...Gee Whiz....
Something that tall and that long would virtually stop the flow of sand. That could cause some real long term problems.
Think of all the dead birds. 😔
Remember children, an architect's dream is an engineer's nightmare
Been on a construction site like that before.
If you think it's bad for the engineer, imagine how bad it is for the tradesmen at the end.
do they even have architects for this or just cgi artists?
@@scottabc72someone in the comments above said that they’ve first hired architects but their designs weren’t flashy enough for the king so they’ve hired concept artists who’ve worked for sci-fi movies and games💀
@@ShiNiGaMi-bb2ep Wait, are you trying to tell me that an architect didn't design those floating tree pods? 🤣
*Year 2070*
Prince of Saudi announces development of a brand new city that will be levitating all day and night.
For your own safety Simon, please keep a safe distance from any Saudi embassy in the world, we still need your outstanding and bold shows.
Outstanding and bald*
The House of Saud had a native in the area who refused to move executed so they could spend over a trillion dollars to dig a trench that today sits undermanned and near abandoned.
I don't even know what to say.
The hubris of man is infinite ....
don't do dictatorship
When the Sheik says "this is my idea for the future" and there is a background of unsuccessful critics,who is going to subtly suggest "this ain't gonna work mate."
Neom is a solar roadways grade example of absolute stupidity.
"What a great idea!" Said nobody, ever.
Elon Musk probably likes it
I liked solar roadways... when I was in high school forever ago. For two weeks.
A solar roadway, especially in Arabia would be a lot more plausible and acceptable.
The official name is Solar _Freakin_ Roadways.
@@ethancoster1324 😂
I used to work for one of the major US based construction management and engineering firms that SA is using for these projects. I also worked for a joint venture team with another major engineering firm working on this. The conversations behind the scenes with these firms is that these projects will never be completed, at least within the current scope. I haven’t talked to anyone inside who thinks this will be built.
No one outside thinks it will be built, no one inside thinks it will be built, it's almost like it's some kind of... front... if you will 😂
Bhf@@rivertam7827fggggfgggf hi ggggghgghjjnkkkcjnbfffgggghggkjkkkkgfkgkjigjignhjijgngigjjghjhjghigggkgngjijgigjgjn
@@rivertam7827 yup, exactly. These American firms are just milking the contracts for all they’re worth until the Saudi government abandons this.
Let's not forget that the Burj Khalifa has its sewage carted away by trucks....
Who gives a…shit lol
Isnt it the entire city of Dubaï ? Im pretty sure ive heard that sewage being evacuated by trucks is a city wide thing as the city has no/poor sewage system.
@@Ka0ziun They have a sewage system. Jebel Ali plant and one in Al Awir. They're also further expanding that system and invested 16 billion USD to accomodate the growing population.
@@syedhasanalimahdi7390I wonder how much of that money was invested in housing their starving slaves
@@lukasd.4389 „Starving slaves“ lmao. The UAE is one of 20 countries with a GHI (Global Hunger Index) score of less than 5 . Living conditions for migrant workers need improvement but this is just exaggeration. No one is starving in the UAE.
Literally Ozymandius - “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 feel like every time someone gets a chance to build a megaproject, they focus more on making it as flashy as possible with 'future tech', rather than using the opportunity to use what already exists without all the tangled issues of pre-existing cities.
I think they're the fever dream of people who might believe, that they, great thinker of the age, know how to fix all that is problematic in this city!
They'll start a new city, -with blackjack and hookers... wait, that's Vegas- and it will use some kind of monorail/ vacuum tube/ pod transport system, and it will be flush with artificial canals, with many futuristic walkways criss crossing the canals at random intervals. People will be five minutes from everything, and maybe there will be elevators all over the sides of buildings, or maybe it will be trees and shrubberies, I guess it will depend on how much green the artist wants to use on their picture.
It will be called Furtureville, and it will not have an unhoused population, or overcrowding, or any massive wealth and economic disparity within its zones.
A crime-free, drug-free, trash-free utopialand, where tomorrow's future is here now!
Whooo.
These people are dipshits, really. They can't actually come up any solutions to the myriad issues already here, so they childishly assert they can solve it all with Tomorrowtowntoday, a city of their genius vision
It's because if they had an ounce of common sense, they would abandon their stupid mega industrial projects.
Yep, and rather than focusing on improving the lives of their people, all these autocracies from the Middle East, to China and Russia, instead choose these narcissistic 'expansions' and 'mega-projects to flatter their own vanity and self-image.
A futuristic city built under a medieval government and culture, what could possibly go wrong?
I m Muslim and I really liked your comment 🎉
@@SwissExplorer_Official For the record I wasn't slamming Islam. Just the Saudis.
I still see MSB and think mister bonesaw
That kind of government and leadership will lead to blunders and nothing else, a global disgrace. And something like old stupid medieval stories, to be told in the future as "I know it sounds stupid, but it really did happen" told around campfires.
Mr bonesaw and his limp line.
Don't insult the people from the dark ages like that.
First of all, the Middle Ages gave us an awful lot of good and useful things. How dare you equate the middle ages with the Saudis.
Khashoggi was tortured and murdered for warning that this vanity project would be a colossal waste of money.
That’s not the only reason.
@@xiaoka no it wasn’t. He spoke out against Mohammed bin salman many times. Everyone knows you can’t speak ill of a leader of an autocracy or you suffer a nasty end, like disappearing into thin air, falling out of a window or under a train, poisoned in a cafe or cut up into tiny pieces.
It's more that he knew this was a massive corruption, theft and money laundering scheme
no he wasnt tortured for this project , he was murdered for being a foreign agent of the west working against the state.
@@mohammedaj08then Why Saudi people are so obsessed with consuming Western products ?
I definitely want to live in a glass encased, self contained, AI CONTROLLED wannabe futuristic Hotel... in the scorching hot desert.
Cannot think of a single thing wrong with that.
This is basically high-level money laundering
You launder money to hide how it was made. This country is run by king the project was started by him. They don’t have to hide nothing.
Never thought about it like that
The rulers don't have to worry about any anti-money laundering rules. They make the rules.
It's the curious thing. As MBS doesn't have to do this to launder/embezzle it. He may just be crazy and falling for pretty renderings. But anywhere else, this is how they'd move money to their cronies. Also, does make sense MBS going for a commodity based approach to post-oil economy. (tourism, direct capital investment) To have the economies of a 'Western' country, you have to allow certain civil liberties, large reason why rich Saudis are educated in USA/GB, and not domestically.
Few people understand that money by itself is just a shared fantasy that determines who gets to make decisions and how big those decisions can be, and it's what people with the money make other people accomplish in real assets and knowledge that matters. Saudi Arabia spent half a century of massive profits on outsourcing nearly all labor, defense, and industry, absurd construction projects like marble laden homes in cities for the revered Bedouin who never used them, filtering excessive sums to religious institutions and extremist groups to buy their acquiescence, as well as the usual golden palaces and private jets. They didn't work on a professional army. They didn't work on reasonable and sustainable housing and infrastructure for their people. They didn't work on any sort of real world education system, or tradespeople, or factories, or anything of real use. Now, seeing the writing on the wall, they're trying to catch up to the UAE in the only thing they know -- catering to rich people like themselves -- and they're failing at that with magical thinking.
This is what happens when you surround yourself with people who are afraid they'll get Khashoggied if they say "This is a *_really_* dumb idea."
I'll bet that 99% of the people under 45 have no idea who that was.
Just for some perspective, you could get a city of the same area by just making a 6x6km square. That is barely over HALF the size of Manhattan.
You could walk diagonally across the whole city in about 90 minutes.
In Neom, walking from one end of the city to the other would take 28 hours.
You wouldn't be supposed to walk. Transportation would be by Hyperloop. Which ironically has been abandoned now.
@@stevenvanhulle7242 Yes but with just 4 stops! So you could still have to walk 12 miles or more to get to the Hyperloop.
@@stevenvanhulle7242 omg HYPERLOOP. that’s what Elon wants on _Mars._ Tunnel boring machines digging long linear tunnels and, everyone living underground to avoid the radiation on the Martian surface, which is basically asking to get cancer.
So we have the Musk billionaire hubris times the House of Saud billionaire hubris. Let’s make everyone live in straight lines! And all the construction profits flowing straight into our bank accounts! What could go wrong?
Neom: The city that sounds like the noise an F1 car makes as it goes by
I was offered a job there as an Environment and Sustainability specialist, originally offered an apartment on a workers complex with gym etc, however they then said they had run out of accommodation so had tents on site similar to the Saudi world Cup, so I would've been stuck in a tent for three years with little family contact! They also changed from a healthy day rate for pay to a "we'll give you a 15% raise if you send us payslips" which is why they don't have the right specialists designing and building it 😂
they are slavers, once your in you cant get out
you need to ask to be housed in a proper 'compound' on their dime.
the higher end aircon tents aren't that bad though but you'd need 2x wage then or if you had to rent your own place (the better compounds in say riyadh are fairly expensive as far as rent goes). a compound in this context is like a closed off community/village with it's own security and more importantly it's own rules when it comes to dicking around in shorts, frowned upon drinks and stuff like that and easier to have your family over etc.
The Line now becomes The Dash.
What's next? Introducing The Dot.
😂❤
personally i would have liked the underscore better. A subterranean structure spanning the desert, safe from the sun, sandstorms and even a nuclear holocaust if one should ever arrive!
lol The Dash and next The Dot, good one lol
Hey Simon, when Crown Prince Bonesaw offers to give you a personal tour of Neom... I'd decline
Can't wait for the 2030 update where this still isn't built
I’m so happy this popped up again on my feed, I laughed so hard the first time and now just as funny the second time with a few more statements.
The irony is that for a fraction of the funds spent on these ridiculous ego-driven projects, a push towards setting up eco-resoration permaculture systems could turn major areas of Saudi Arabia into arable land. Check out the "Greening the Desert" projects in Jordan, China, South America and Africa for example. With a better vision and a more realistic attitude, much of Saudi Arabia could be turned into agricultural land, and generate better lives for it's people. It's not flashy, like building cities, and can take decades to fully establish, but it promotes biodiversity, slows erosion and reverses desertification.
I love the idea of a permaculture world, yet, the examples that have been documented in Jordan and Australia by Geoff are very small plots of land needing a LOT of time and patience. I would love to see permaculture break into the 10,000s m2 plots of land, and if you know of one that would be great. So long as permaculture stays in the minds of off-the-grid old hippies in Belligen and Nimbin and not in the minds of state government planners and agricultural decision-makers, it remains just in the annals of Grass Roots magazine.
In this particular instance, as long as the pretty, flashy things is the only stuff greenlit by the Prince who metaphorically has no clothes, it will never happen. It's not like he's gonna get voted out of power anytime soon.
Wait till people get behind the idea of restoring large areas of land and then.........leaving them for plants and animals and ecosystems to flourish.
this is never ego driven but rather this is your understanding. Neom will still generate better lives for people despite your opinion
@@AsmaAlOtaibi-t2r Shoo! Away with you, bot.
"Neom" is not anything, now.
As someone writing a satirical story about the comically wild spending of the ultra rich, these Saudi boondoggles have been a fantastic source of inspiration for locations and projects to lampoon.
Also look into the Pangeos Terrayacht.
It looks like a design for a Sci-Fi MMO that landed on the wrong desk and got confused with actual plans.
According to a comment higher up they hired a guy who makes stuff like that for the concept art you’re looking at
Sounds like MBS played cities skylines 2
@@artnull13If "Country roads" plays when Neom is destroyed by a shit tsunami, then it will be proof that we're not the primary timeline.
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@@DonVigaDeFierro Saudi Arabia does seem like a great location for a Mad Max type of IP where desert gangs battle for the oil fields. But I dont think thats the sort of "tourists" the country wants to go for.