> So is this all just image massaging? To try and associate Saudi Arabia with things other than the executions, human rights abuses, etc.? Think of it as a Tru

> So is this all just image massaging? To try and associate Saudi Arabia with things other than the executions, human rights abuses, etc.? Think of it as a Truman show for westerners, same as Dubai and Doha. All three want a city like that so that they appear progressive, technologically advanced, and a good place to move to with high salaries and little to no taxes (Sharia has a designated exception for non-Muslims[0] that comes in handy). As long as they keep that image and keep Europeans and Americans happy, they can do as many human rights abuses as they want, while also allowing westerners to live there completely blind of the abuse that's literally all around them. And because of the war and Europe looking elsewhere for more natural gas and oil, Arabian peninsula is about to get even more unfathomably rich and build even more stupid impractical structures. Qatar in particular, there's a giant natural gas reserve under the Persian Gulf between Qatar and Iran. The only thing that surprises me is why it took so long for Saudi Arabia to build a city like that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi