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The only thing the Gulf states have going for them is oil money and a good hub location on the Europe–Southeast Asia airline routes. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh,

The only thing the Gulf states have going for them is oil money and a good hub location on the Europe–Southeast Asia airline routes. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Bahrain, Qatar, they all remind me of that quote from King of the Hill—they are monuments to man's arrogance. Desert cities hitting 50+ °C air temperature at midday which means air conditioning everywhere; vapid luxury in the form of expensive garish cars, shopping malls, and weird buildings and monuments, all while local chiefs who oppose stupid and unrealistic white elephant vanity projects are executed in the back alley. This is one reason why I would like more nuclear power: it'll take some of the money away from the Gulf.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Desert cities hitting 50+ °C air temperature at midday which means air conditioning everywhere Couldn't that element be self-sufficient on solar?
- widforss 3y ago
  My first thought was that it would be like a perpetuum mobile, but since heat pumps have like 400 % efficiency, it should, yes.
- evrimoztamur 3y ago
  Solar in desert has a lot of issues including wind and sand coverage. Although the deserts of the region may seem like unchanging environments, the ecosystem and weather is hostile to solar installations (amongst other things). Moreover, solar panels become less efficient at higher sustained temperatures, which increases land and infrastructure maintenance costs. https://eepower.com/industry-articles/is-desert-based-solar-a-good-idea/ https://eepower.com/industry-articles/is-desert-based-solar-...
  - onethought 3y ago
    Some kind of cool idea that desalinates/heats water and cools solar panels at the same time. The sand bit feels like a filter problem.
    - triblemaster 3y ago
      You want to install a filter the size of a small city?
    - josefx 3y ago
      Why cool PV panels when you can build a solar thermal plant instead.
- bdjsiqoocwk 3y ago
  What does "self-sufficient" even mean here? Can you power air conditioning if you build enough solar plants? Yes, but that's true everywhere. That doesn't mean it's financially viable.
- troupo 3y ago
  > Couldn't that element be self-sufficient on solar? Night happens even in the desert. Plus what others said about wind. Here's video about a recent sandstorm: https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/dust-storm-sweeps-across-uae-video-1.16430 https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/dust-storm-sweeps-across...
  - themaninthedark 3y ago
    Yes but the 50C ambient is at midday when solar is available. I find it very interesting that when nuclear power is brought up, there are a lot of people who talk up how solar + wind & batteries are a perfect solution. Yet when it comes to the Middle East and conditions there, none of the back and forth about how it is not the best solution occurs.
rrr_oh_man 3y ago
> all while in the back alley local chiefs who oppose stupid and unrealistic white elephant vanity projects are executed Can you give any keywords what to look for to read more about this?
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017–2019_Saudi_Arabian_purge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017–2019_Saudi_Arabian_purge
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    That's not really what that was about, at all. I think most don't understand the state of Saudi Arabia. Modern Saudi Arabia was only founded in 1932, but the really interesting thing is that the founding king also had around 100 children, including 45 sons. And those sons also had tons of children. So there are thousands of direct lineage legitimate princes and princesses in Saudi Arabia, in a country of just 33 million! There is a formal succession process, but it's been regularly sidestepped for various reasons. So you basically have a real-life Game of Thrones where your family aren't your loyal and trusted confidants, but the exact people you're paranoid of. And for very good reasons. For instance one Saudi king was assassinated by his nephew (who was later publicly decapitated), then his brother took the throne, and so on endlessly.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > there are thousands of direct lineage legitimate princes and princesses in Saudi Arabia Who do you think MBS was purging in '17? Other royals. Rich royals. Competition for the throne.
      - somenameforme 3y ago
        That's exactly what I was saying. These weren't just random "back alley local chiefs" being oppressed for having different views. It was (and is) basic power struggles.
mamonster 3y ago
Abu Dhabi does not belong in the list with the other ones. It has been extremely well run since Zayed bin Sultan and will probably transition quite well to a post oil future.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > Abu Dhabi does not belong in the list with the other ones. It has been extremely well run since Zayed bin Sultan It's also governed differently from the others in being an oligarchy. That requirement for consensus-building and internal variation creates robustness; it gave Dubai the room to experiment, for example, with religious moderation. It's not a view I hold too seriously. But I remember visiting the Emirates and Saudi Arabia--shortly after the Phillipines and India--and thinking to myself that the British were, in their time, far better at nation building than we've (EDIT: America) been in the post-War era.
  - dkdbejwi383 3y ago
    > the British were, in their time, far better at nation building than we've been in the post-War era who does "we" refer to? The Dutch? France?
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > who does "we" refer to? The Dutch? France? Sorry, clarified as America. Not aware of any Dutch nation building after WWII. (I'd argue the British also did better than the French.)
      - nicolas_t 3y ago
        If you read historical political discourses in France regarding the colonies, it's easy to see why the British were far better than the French. There was a lot of talk about bringing the light of civilizations to those poor colonies so, in general, they pretty much tore down the existing administrations and instead recreated their own administration from the top up. The British strategy was far more pragmatic, they kept the local powers in place and played each of them against each other to maintain control over the colonies. Of course, I'm generalizing but there's a clear difference of ideology that I do think explain the differences between the French and British when it came to managing their colonial empire.
Simon_ORourke 3y ago
> local chiefs who oppose stupid and unrealistic white elephant vanity projects are executed. Let's not gloss over the absolutely appalling respect many of these societies have for human dignity. Public executions and flogging, discrimination and imprisonment based solely on gender, absolutely zero regard for freedom of conscience when it comes to matters of religion. There's only so much you can get away with by saying it's my society's accepted practice, what's wrong is wrong. And there's plenty wrong with other countries and societies too, including my own, but it doesn't excuse human rights indifference.
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  Not to mention literal modern day slavery where they bring in South Asians on the promise of better pay, then take away their passports and pay them pennies.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - atlasunshrugged 3y ago
    Increasingly seems like they're coming from East Africa too, although it appears it may be at the behest of the government in some cases. https://africanarguments.org/2024/03/go-gulf-is-ethiopia-sacrificing-youth-workers-to-balance-economy/ https://africanarguments.org/2024/03/go-gulf-is-ethiopia-sac...
  - pas 3y ago
    How Qatar built the stadiums for the World Cup? Well, like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMqLDhl8PXw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMqLDhl8PXw
    - tzs 3y ago
      Disclaimer: Qatar is a terrible place when it comes to treatment of migrant workers. The following is not meant as a defense of Qatar. It is meant to correct one particular thing that most reporting gets wrong. The part where it talks about 6500 migrant worker deaths over the decade of World Cup facility construction has a serious error. It fails to look at the death rate. Qatar has around 2 million migrant workers, and the 6500 deaths are all deaths of migrants in the country rather than just work related deaths. 6500 deaths over 10 years in a population of 2 million is a death rate of 32.5/100k/year. A death rate of 32.5/100k/year should raise questions, especially if we assume that migrant workers in Qatar skew younger, but the question should be why is it so low? For comparison the death rate for 15-24 year old males in the US is 100/100k/year, and for 25-34 year old males it is 177/100k/year. It's possible that Qatar's poor treatment of migrant workers does result in an unusually high job-related death rate but something else Qatar does results in an unusually low death rate when not at work with the net result being the overall death rate is low. In the US the top causes of death of young males are poisoning (which includes drug overdoses), suicide, automobile accidents, and homicide. Qatar is very anti-drug, with harsh penalties and almost no tolerance, giving them a drug death rate around 4% of the US drug death rate. They are also much more intolerant of drunk driving, which is a major contributor to automobile deaths in the US. In Qatar if there is any detectable alcohol in your blood after an accident you are considered to have been drunk driving. That threshold is so low that you would be considered drunk if you were in an accident in the morning and had one drink the night before. Also I'd expect that most migrant workers use some other form of transport most of the time. Their homicide rate is also very low. Are those enough to offset a high work-related death rate. I don't know. I should know because all of the articles I've seen talking about migrant worker deaths in Qatar should have looked into this.
yard2010 3y ago
What's the obsession with phalic towers? I would think letting toxic masculinity rule everything would result in less dicks everywhere but it is the other way around?
- walthamstow 3y ago
  Is there any other kind of tower?
  - southernplaces7 3y ago
    Perhaps they can construct a deep underground, inverted tower, inside a sort of fissure, so some can then call it a vaginal tower. In all seriousness, in those baking desert landscapes, it would even make a considerable amount of sense for cooling costs.
    - sieste 3y ago
      You're describing open pit coal mining, the very birth place of many of the rich societies that now build phallic towers, pun intended.
DrBazza 3y ago
You can build all the vanity projects you like when you're rich with petro-dollars, and pay Asian workers less than $10 per day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa#Labour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa#Labour
- geocar 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat... In 2021, inmates in federal prisons earned between $0.23 to $1.15 per hour.
  - zaroth 3y ago
    Well, yes, because they are literal criminal prisoners, and exempt from the 13th amendment. The workers in SA aren’t criminals being jailed for some crime.
    - geocar 3y ago
      https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/constitution-check-do-individual-rights-stop-at-the-u-s-border https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/constitution-check-do-in... The US believes the constitution ends at its borders and people; This is what the law is in SA. I can't say I like it either, but I think jailing human beings and enslaving them to the benefit of others is simply not Good. If you can agree then maybe we can work together to fix it in the US in a lifetime or two, but there's frankly little we can do about SA if we can't show the world what being Good looks like in America.
      - woodruffw 3y ago
        Morality isn’t a game of brinkmanship. It’s incumbent upon each country to improve itself, without resorting to their peers’ moral failures as a cheap response to observations of their own failures.
- zaphirplane 3y ago
  What’s the value of that statement, do you dream that people working in retail are sharing the wealth with Hermes
diebeforei485 3y ago
Air conditioning is far more efficient than heating (by a factor of 4x)
- robin_reala 3y ago
  What form of heating?
  - diebeforei485 3y ago
    I'm referring to the forms of heating that are actually in use - natural gas and electric furnaces / wall heaters.
    - robin_reala 3y ago
      Right, because from my perspective (Sweden) heat pumps are at 42% of the market.[1] I assume your market looks different? [1] https://reasonstobecheerful.world/heat-pumps-norway-efficiency-emissions/ https://reasonstobecheerful.world/heat-pumps-norway-efficien...
      - diebeforei485 3y ago
        The global market. Of course there are some regional variations.
- tromp 3y ago
  It's 4x more efficient than an electric heater, but not 4x more than a heat pump [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance
  - pembrook 3y ago
    It still takes less energy than heating given climate differentials, so any argument that air conditioning is “garish” and “wrong” needs to be applied to heating also (and anyone living in cold climates ie. Europeans, Americans, etc). I see the argument that air conditioning is somehow “wrong” or “unsophisticated” on HN all the time (usually from Europeans) and it’s one of the weirdest things. I see no explanation for it other than racism. To claim you are somehow more virtuous than Arab people because you use artificial heating instead of artificial cooling is downright hilarious given this context.
deleted 3y ago
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RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
> Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Bahrain, Qatar, they all remind me of that quote from King of the Hill—they are monuments to man's arrogance. Do you also call Amsterdam with its dikes and below sea level, “a monument to man’s arrogance? Wasn’t the moon landing a monument to man’s arrogance? I think calling something “a monument to man’s arrogance” reveals more about the biases of the person saying it than about the actual thing.
- lupusreal 3y ago
  Why do you think either of those aren't?
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
    Of course they are. Every human achievement is in a sense a monument to the arrogance of man. My issue is that when the term is used as a pejorative, it more often used with regards to projects in developing countries.
- avar 3y ago
  > Do you also call Amsterdam > with its dikes and below sea > level, “a monument to man’s > arrogance? Amsterdam mostly isn't below sea level[1], nor is most of the Netherlands's area that people inhabit. 1. https://www.floodmap.net/elevation/CountryElevationMap/?ct=NL https://www.floodmap.net/elevation/CountryElevationMap/?ct=N...
lvl102 3y ago
For decades, they wanted to diversify away from oil and build tech industries. The problem is they don’t have skilled labor and would have to import “slaves” as they do with everything. They have some of the lowest skilled and laziest labor in the world. If/when dependence on oil ends, these countries will go back to being poor. Edit: contrast ME with Mexico who is running out of oil. Yet, they are able to build because they happen to have some of the hardest working labor in the world (though not notably skilled). I rather bet on Mexico revival over ME 100/100.
- throwterrr 3y ago
  [flagged]
- pdimitar 3y ago
  > For decades, they wanted to diversify away from oil and build tech industries. The problem is they don’t have skilled labor and would have to import “slaves” as they do with everything. Quite correct. I had people reaching out to me saying they want me to contract for Arabic millionaires -- websites, backends, a lot of stuff together -- but every time they demanded time tracking, they wanted to know my physical address, wanted my photo, and one of them even wanted me to install camera so he can track me in real time with some misguided AI-based software. Each time I giggled to myself and responded something along the lines of: "While the offer sounds tempting financially, and while I would love to have some tech independence, your offer falls short on the privacy front, and it also contains clauses that can nullify the independence to choose tech tomorrow. I'll have to decline and if you are open to feedback: insisting on face tracking is not how you hire the really good programmers, to which I don't pretend to belong but have known a good number of them". So yes their mindset is apparently always 10 masters + 20_000_000 slaves and as hard as they are trying, they will not export this culture to anywhere else except maybe India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China and a few others. The West will not change for them no matter how rich they are. The Qatari have also obviously paid off various FIFA officials but hey, that's just football.
  - nicolas_t 3y ago
    In my experience of working with software developers in India and China, the ones who are really good would absolutely refuse this kind of privacy invasion. Good developers living in those countries have choice and are well paid.
zaphirplane 3y ago
Clearly you dislike gulf countries. The points raised are a mixture of facts, fiction, jealousy and dislike. You want them to boil in desert heat with some environmental appeal, while many countries pump the air full of pollution from factories or massive ICE cars I haven’t heard of back alley executions over there I don’t feel hate towards someone spending their money on 2 cars or a holiday house or whatever luxury shoes, or paint their house whatever color. Why does it annoy you so much. Why hate on people with different taste, very strange I get it’s ok to hate on gulf countries without backlash more than hating on say Denmark FWIW I’m not from there and don’t live there
- delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
  > Clearly you dislike gulf countries. I'll be frank: I have a deep mistrust of any culture present in the Arabian peninsula since about 632 CE.
  - zaphirplane 3y ago
    Could it be racism?
    - Biganon 3y ago
      Could it be that they execute honosexuals and treat women like second class citizens? Nah, it must be racism.
      - zaphirplane 3y ago
        Like abortion rights, let’s see let’s encourage people to hate on Canadians and Americans because the us government has a policy on abortion. To reiterate, having an issue with a government for a specific reason is informed. Hating an ethic group is racism. Ps I’m not from there or live there
        vladms 3y ago
        The above replies did not mention an ethnic group, rather a geographical area. The main ethnic group in that area is also very present in north Africa, and there is much less general "mistrust" (or negative feelings) towards that area than to the other. Not sure if "geographic discrimination" is in any way better than "racism" but using terms correctly is required for good communication.
mrtksn 3y ago
It's not like they have another option, have they? It's an interesting challenge to transform an uninhabitable piece of earth into something where people might want to live. Also, AFAIK they are very aware that oil money isn't going to keep pouring forever and they indeed are trying to diversify. Their elites all study in UK, France, Switzerland and the USA and the questionable stuff they do is actually about the local culture they are trying to transform. Their prince who is celebrated for pushing social and cultural reforms is the same guy who ordered the killing of a journalist in their Istanbul embassy. So, it is what it is. BTW, IMHO they should look into what Jewish did in Israel with the Kibbutz. I'm a great fan of the idea and the Jewish culture that made it possible and it appears to work. Maybe instead of building giant skyscrapers and shopping malls, take a note from the Israeli or even work with them instead of pouring tour money into "Las Vegas". Skip the illegal settlements and genocide of the locals of course, but the Israeli have already proven methods of building high quality high prosperity communities on barely habitable lands. So, the Arabs should take a note. Maybe they don't have other option than trying to transform the environment using their fortune but they have options on how to do it exactly.
- pdimitar 3y ago
  > It's not like they have another option, have they? You always have another option than to treat people like cattle though. > the questionable stuff they do is actually about the local culture they are trying to transform. Is it though? Or their Western education has helped put things in perspective, they understood how good they have it and they want to double down on it and make very sure they'll never lose it? > Their prince who is celebrated for pushing social and cultural reforms is the same guy who ordered the killing of a journalist in their Istanbul embassy. So, it is what it is. We can also choose not to engage in business with them but money talks, apparently.
- tweakimp 3y ago
  Sure, they could put money in education, research climate change and photovoltaic or other technologies and try to improve quality of life with sustainable stuff. But to the people in power, only symbols and power are important.
quonn 3y ago
> nuclear power Any kind of thermal plant will not save us. Renewable energy can do it.
otikik 3y ago
You are wrong, there aren't any back alleys in Doha. It's just big lanes devoid of cars between the towers devoid of people. And then a small road connecting to the Industrial Area.
paganel 3y ago
> The only thing the Gulf states have going for them is oil money and a good hub location on the Europe–Southeast Asia Do they need anything more? And you mentioned airplanes, but you failed to mention logistics more generally and container shipping, with Jebel Ali port being the third largest (behind LA and Rotterdam) in a list that would exclude East Asia and Singapore. [1] There's also tourism because, yes, people are actually paying money in order to visit places like Dubai, and that's because they like what they see there. And then there's finance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_container_ports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_container_port...?
John23832 3y ago
I present you, Phoenix AZ.
refurb 3y ago
Wait, you’re blaming them for developing their country because it’s a desert and hot? Are you suggesting they should have just remained on camels while sand blows around them?
- ineverything 3y ago
  I was also confused reading this, until I had read this comment (from delta_p_delta_x), which clarifies things.. > I'll be frank: I have a deep mistrust of any culture present in the Arabian peninsula since about 632 CE.
logicchains 3y ago
>they are monuments to man's arrogance. Desert cities hitting 50+ °C air temperature at midday which means air conditioning everywhere They are monuments to the brilliance of human engineering, allowing millions of humans to live comfortably in the scorching desert heat.
tehjoker 3y ago
don't forget sea routes

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Desert cities hitting 50+ °C air temperature at midday which means air conditioning everywhere Couldn't that element be self-sufficient on solar?

widforss 3y ago
My first thought was that it would be like a perpetuum mobile, but since heat pumps have like 400 % efficiency, it should, yes.
evrimoztamur 3y ago
Solar in desert has a lot of issues including wind and sand coverage. Although the deserts of the region may seem like unchanging environments, the ecosystem and weather is hostile to solar installations (amongst other things). Moreover, solar panels become less efficient at higher sustained temperatures, which increases land and infrastructure maintenance costs. https://eepower.com/industry-articles/is-desert-based-solar-a-good-idea/ https://eepower.com/industry-articles/is-desert-based-solar-...
- onethought 3y ago
  Some kind of cool idea that desalinates/heats water and cools solar panels at the same time. The sand bit feels like a filter problem.
  - triblemaster 3y ago
    You want to install a filter the size of a small city?
  - josefx 3y ago
    Why cool PV panels when you can build a solar thermal plant instead.
bdjsiqoocwk 3y ago
What does "self-sufficient" even mean here? Can you power air conditioning if you build enough solar plants? Yes, but that's true everywhere. That doesn't mean it's financially viable.
troupo 3y ago
> Couldn't that element be self-sufficient on solar? Night happens even in the desert. Plus what others said about wind. Here's video about a recent sandstorm: https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/dust-storm-sweeps-across-uae-video-1.16430 https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/dust-storm-sweeps-across...
- themaninthedark 3y ago
  Yes but the 50C ambient is at midday when solar is available. I find it very interesting that when nuclear power is brought up, there are a lot of people who talk up how solar + wind & batteries are a perfect solution. Yet when it comes to the Middle East and conditions there, none of the back and forth about how it is not the best solution occurs.

rrr_oh_man 3y ago

> all while in the back alley local chiefs who oppose stupid and unrealistic white elephant vanity projects are executed Can you give any keywords what to look for to read more about this?

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017–2019_Saudi_Arabian_purge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017–2019_Saudi_Arabian_purge
- somenameforme 3y ago
  That's not really what that was about, at all. I think most don't understand the state of Saudi Arabia. Modern Saudi Arabia was only founded in 1932, but the really interesting thing is that the founding king also had around 100 children, including 45 sons. And those sons also had tons of children. So there are thousands of direct lineage legitimate princes and princesses in Saudi Arabia, in a country of just 33 million! There is a formal succession process, but it's been regularly sidestepped for various reasons. So you basically have a real-life Game of Thrones where your family aren't your loyal and trusted confidants, but the exact people you're paranoid of. And for very good reasons. For instance one Saudi king was assassinated by his nephew (who was later publicly decapitated), then his brother took the throne, and so on endlessly.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > there are thousands of direct lineage legitimate princes and princesses in Saudi Arabia Who do you think MBS was purging in '17? Other royals. Rich royals. Competition for the throne.
    - somenameforme 3y ago
      That's exactly what I was saying. These weren't just random "back alley local chiefs" being oppressed for having different views. It was (and is) basic power struggles.

mamonster 3y ago

Abu Dhabi does not belong in the list with the other ones. It has been extremely well run since Zayed bin Sultan and will probably transition quite well to a post oil future.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Abu Dhabi does not belong in the list with the other ones. It has been extremely well run since Zayed bin Sultan It's also governed differently from the others in being an oligarchy. That requirement for consensus-building and internal variation creates robustness; it gave Dubai the room to experiment, for example, with religious moderation. It's not a view I hold too seriously. But I remember visiting the Emirates and Saudi Arabia--shortly after the Phillipines and India--and thinking to myself that the British were, in their time, far better at nation building than we've (EDIT: America) been in the post-War era.
- dkdbejwi383 3y ago
  > the British were, in their time, far better at nation building than we've been in the post-War era who does "we" refer to? The Dutch? France?
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > who does "we" refer to? The Dutch? France? Sorry, clarified as America. Not aware of any Dutch nation building after WWII. (I'd argue the British also did better than the French.)
    - nicolas_t 3y ago
      If you read historical political discourses in France regarding the colonies, it's easy to see why the British were far better than the French. There was a lot of talk about bringing the light of civilizations to those poor colonies so, in general, they pretty much tore down the existing administrations and instead recreated their own administration from the top up. The British strategy was far more pragmatic, they kept the local powers in place and played each of them against each other to maintain control over the colonies. Of course, I'm generalizing but there's a clear difference of ideology that I do think explain the differences between the French and British when it came to managing their colonial empire.

Simon_ORourke 3y ago

> local chiefs who oppose stupid and unrealistic white elephant vanity projects are executed. Let's not gloss over the absolutely appalling respect many of these societies have for human dignity. Public executions and flogging, discrimination and imprisonment based solely on gender, absolutely zero regard for freedom of conscience when it comes to matters of religion. There's only so much you can get away with by saying it's my society's accepted practice, what's wrong is wrong. And there's plenty wrong with other countries and societies too, including my own, but it doesn't excuse human rights indifference.

satvikpendem 3y ago
Not to mention literal modern day slavery where they bring in South Asians on the promise of better pay, then take away their passports and pay them pennies.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- atlasunshrugged 3y ago
  Increasingly seems like they're coming from East Africa too, although it appears it may be at the behest of the government in some cases. https://africanarguments.org/2024/03/go-gulf-is-ethiopia-sacrificing-youth-workers-to-balance-economy/ https://africanarguments.org/2024/03/go-gulf-is-ethiopia-sac...
- pas 3y ago
  How Qatar built the stadiums for the World Cup? Well, like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMqLDhl8PXw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMqLDhl8PXw
  - tzs 3y ago
    Disclaimer: Qatar is a terrible place when it comes to treatment of migrant workers. The following is not meant as a defense of Qatar. It is meant to correct one particular thing that most reporting gets wrong. The part where it talks about 6500 migrant worker deaths over the decade of World Cup facility construction has a serious error. It fails to look at the death rate. Qatar has around 2 million migrant workers, and the 6500 deaths are all deaths of migrants in the country rather than just work related deaths. 6500 deaths over 10 years in a population of 2 million is a death rate of 32.5/100k/year. A death rate of 32.5/100k/year should raise questions, especially if we assume that migrant workers in Qatar skew younger, but the question should be why is it so low? For comparison the death rate for 15-24 year old males in the US is 100/100k/year, and for 25-34 year old males it is 177/100k/year. It's possible that Qatar's poor treatment of migrant workers does result in an unusually high job-related death rate but something else Qatar does results in an unusually low death rate when not at work with the net result being the overall death rate is low. In the US the top causes of death of young males are poisoning (which includes drug overdoses), suicide, automobile accidents, and homicide. Qatar is very anti-drug, with harsh penalties and almost no tolerance, giving them a drug death rate around 4% of the US drug death rate. They are also much more intolerant of drunk driving, which is a major contributor to automobile deaths in the US. In Qatar if there is any detectable alcohol in your blood after an accident you are considered to have been drunk driving. That threshold is so low that you would be considered drunk if you were in an accident in the morning and had one drink the night before. Also I'd expect that most migrant workers use some other form of transport most of the time. Their homicide rate is also very low. Are those enough to offset a high work-related death rate. I don't know. I should know because all of the articles I've seen talking about migrant worker deaths in Qatar should have looked into this.

yard2010 3y ago

What's the obsession with phalic towers? I would think letting toxic masculinity rule everything would result in less dicks everywhere but it is the other way around?

walthamstow 3y ago
Is there any other kind of tower?
- southernplaces7 3y ago
  Perhaps they can construct a deep underground, inverted tower, inside a sort of fissure, so some can then call it a vaginal tower. In all seriousness, in those baking desert landscapes, it would even make a considerable amount of sense for cooling costs.
  - sieste 3y ago
    You're describing open pit coal mining, the very birth place of many of the rich societies that now build phallic towers, pun intended.

DrBazza 3y ago

You can build all the vanity projects you like when you're rich with petro-dollars, and pay Asian workers less than $10 per day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa#Labour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa#Labour

geocar 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat... In 2021, inmates in federal prisons earned between $0.23 to $1.15 per hour.
- zaroth 3y ago
  Well, yes, because they are literal criminal prisoners, and exempt from the 13th amendment. The workers in SA aren’t criminals being jailed for some crime.
  - geocar 3y ago
    https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/constitution-check-do-individual-rights-stop-at-the-u-s-border https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/constitution-check-do-in... The US believes the constitution ends at its borders and people; This is what the law is in SA. I can't say I like it either, but I think jailing human beings and enslaving them to the benefit of others is simply not Good. If you can agree then maybe we can work together to fix it in the US in a lifetime or two, but there's frankly little we can do about SA if we can't show the world what being Good looks like in America.
    - woodruffw 3y ago
      Morality isn’t a game of brinkmanship. It’s incumbent upon each country to improve itself, without resorting to their peers’ moral failures as a cheap response to observations of their own failures.
zaphirplane 3y ago
What’s the value of that statement, do you dream that people working in retail are sharing the wealth with Hermes

diebeforei485 3y ago

Air conditioning is far more efficient than heating (by a factor of 4x)

robin_reala 3y ago
What form of heating?
- diebeforei485 3y ago
  I'm referring to the forms of heating that are actually in use - natural gas and electric furnaces / wall heaters.
  - robin_reala 3y ago
    Right, because from my perspective (Sweden) heat pumps are at 42% of the market.[1] I assume your market looks different? [1] https://reasonstobecheerful.world/heat-pumps-norway-efficiency-emissions/ https://reasonstobecheerful.world/heat-pumps-norway-efficien...
    - diebeforei485 3y ago
      The global market. Of course there are some regional variations.
tromp 3y ago
It's 4x more efficient than an electric heater, but not 4x more than a heat pump [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance
- pembrook 3y ago
  It still takes less energy than heating given climate differentials, so any argument that air conditioning is “garish” and “wrong” needs to be applied to heating also (and anyone living in cold climates ie. Europeans, Americans, etc). I see the argument that air conditioning is somehow “wrong” or “unsophisticated” on HN all the time (usually from Europeans) and it’s one of the weirdest things. I see no explanation for it other than racism. To claim you are somehow more virtuous than Arab people because you use artificial heating instead of artificial cooling is downright hilarious given this context.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago

> Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Bahrain, Qatar, they all remind me of that quote from King of the Hill—they are monuments to man's arrogance. Do you also call Amsterdam with its dikes and below sea level, “a monument to man’s arrogance? Wasn’t the moon landing a monument to man’s arrogance? I think calling something “a monument to man’s arrogance” reveals more about the biases of the person saying it than about the actual thing.

lupusreal 3y ago
Why do you think either of those aren't?
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
  Of course they are. Every human achievement is in a sense a monument to the arrogance of man. My issue is that when the term is used as a pejorative, it more often used with regards to projects in developing countries.
avar 3y ago
> Do you also call Amsterdam > with its dikes and below sea > level, “a monument to man’s > arrogance? Amsterdam mostly isn't below sea level[1], nor is most of the Netherlands's area that people inhabit. 1. https://www.floodmap.net/elevation/CountryElevationMap/?ct=NL https://www.floodmap.net/elevation/CountryElevationMap/?ct=N...

lvl102 3y ago

For decades, they wanted to diversify away from oil and build tech industries. The problem is they don’t have skilled labor and would have to import “slaves” as they do with everything. They have some of the lowest skilled and laziest labor in the world. If/when dependence on oil ends, these countries will go back to being poor. Edit: contrast ME with Mexico who is running out of oil. Yet, they are able to build because they happen to have some of the hardest working labor in the world (though not notably skilled). I rather bet on Mexico revival over ME 100/100.

throwterrr 3y ago
[flagged]
pdimitar 3y ago
> For decades, they wanted to diversify away from oil and build tech industries. The problem is they don’t have skilled labor and would have to import “slaves” as they do with everything. Quite correct. I had people reaching out to me saying they want me to contract for Arabic millionaires -- websites, backends, a lot of stuff together -- but every time they demanded time tracking, they wanted to know my physical address, wanted my photo, and one of them even wanted me to install camera so he can track me in real time with some misguided AI-based software. Each time I giggled to myself and responded something along the lines of: "While the offer sounds tempting financially, and while I would love to have some tech independence, your offer falls short on the privacy front, and it also contains clauses that can nullify the independence to choose tech tomorrow. I'll have to decline and if you are open to feedback: insisting on face tracking is not how you hire the really good programmers, to which I don't pretend to belong but have known a good number of them". So yes their mindset is apparently always 10 masters + 20_000_000 slaves and as hard as they are trying, they will not export this culture to anywhere else except maybe India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China and a few others. The West will not change for them no matter how rich they are. The Qatari have also obviously paid off various FIFA officials but hey, that's just football.
- nicolas_t 3y ago
  In my experience of working with software developers in India and China, the ones who are really good would absolutely refuse this kind of privacy invasion. Good developers living in those countries have choice and are well paid.

zaphirplane 3y ago

Clearly you dislike gulf countries. The points raised are a mixture of facts, fiction, jealousy and dislike. You want them to boil in desert heat with some environmental appeal, while many countries pump the air full of pollution from factories or massive ICE cars I haven’t heard of back alley executions over there I don’t feel hate towards someone spending their money on 2 cars or a holiday house or whatever luxury shoes, or paint their house whatever color. Why does it annoy you so much. Why hate on people with different taste, very strange I get it’s ok to hate on gulf countries without backlash more than hating on say Denmark FWIW I’m not from there and don’t live there

delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
> Clearly you dislike gulf countries. I'll be frank: I have a deep mistrust of any culture present in the Arabian peninsula since about 632 CE.
- zaphirplane 3y ago
  Could it be racism?
  - Biganon 3y ago
    Could it be that they execute honosexuals and treat women like second class citizens? Nah, it must be racism.
    - zaphirplane 3y ago
      Like abortion rights, let’s see let’s encourage people to hate on Canadians and Americans because the us government has a policy on abortion. To reiterate, having an issue with a government for a specific reason is informed. Hating an ethic group is racism. Ps I’m not from there or live there
      - vladms 3y ago
        The above replies did not mention an ethnic group, rather a geographical area. The main ethnic group in that area is also very present in north Africa, and there is much less general "mistrust" (or negative feelings) towards that area than to the other. Not sure if "geographic discrimination" is in any way better than "racism" but using terms correctly is required for good communication.

mrtksn 3y ago

It's not like they have another option, have they? It's an interesting challenge to transform an uninhabitable piece of earth into something where people might want to live. Also, AFAIK they are very aware that oil money isn't going to keep pouring forever and they indeed are trying to diversify. Their elites all study in UK, France, Switzerland and the USA and the questionable stuff they do is actually about the local culture they are trying to transform. Their prince who is celebrated for pushing social and cultural reforms is the same guy who ordered the killing of a journalist in their Istanbul embassy. So, it is what it is. BTW, IMHO they should look into what Jewish did in Israel with the Kibbutz. I'm a great fan of the idea and the Jewish culture that made it possible and it appears to work. Maybe instead of building giant skyscrapers and shopping malls, take a note from the Israeli or even work with them instead of pouring tour money into "Las Vegas". Skip the illegal settlements and genocide of the locals of course, but the Israeli have already proven methods of building high quality high prosperity communities on barely habitable lands. So, the Arabs should take a note. Maybe they don't have other option than trying to transform the environment using their fortune but they have options on how to do it exactly.

pdimitar 3y ago
> It's not like they have another option, have they? You always have another option than to treat people like cattle though. > the questionable stuff they do is actually about the local culture they are trying to transform. Is it though? Or their Western education has helped put things in perspective, they understood how good they have it and they want to double down on it and make very sure they'll never lose it? > Their prince who is celebrated for pushing social and cultural reforms is the same guy who ordered the killing of a journalist in their Istanbul embassy. So, it is what it is. We can also choose not to engage in business with them but money talks, apparently.
tweakimp 3y ago
Sure, they could put money in education, research climate change and photovoltaic or other technologies and try to improve quality of life with sustainable stuff. But to the people in power, only symbols and power are important.

quonn 3y ago

> nuclear power Any kind of thermal plant will not save us. Renewable energy can do it.

otikik 3y ago

You are wrong, there aren't any back alleys in Doha. It's just big lanes devoid of cars between the towers devoid of people. And then a small road connecting to the Industrial Area.

paganel 3y ago

> The only thing the Gulf states have going for them is oil money and a good hub location on the Europe–Southeast Asia Do they need anything more? And you mentioned airplanes, but you failed to mention logistics more generally and container shipping, with Jebel Ali port being the third largest (behind LA and Rotterdam) in a list that would exclude East Asia and Singapore. [1] There's also tourism because, yes, people are actually paying money in order to visit places like Dubai, and that's because they like what they see there. And then there's finance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_container_ports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_container_port...?

John23832 3y ago

I present you, Phoenix AZ.

refurb 3y ago

Wait, you’re blaming them for developing their country because it’s a desert and hot? Are you suggesting they should have just remained on camels while sand blows around them?

ineverything 3y ago
I was also confused reading this, until I had read this comment (from delta_p_delta_x), which clarifies things.. > I'll be frank: I have a deep mistrust of any culture present in the Arabian peninsula since about 632 CE.

logicchains 3y ago

>they are monuments to man's arrogance. Desert cities hitting 50+ °C air temperature at midday which means air conditioning everywhere They are monuments to the brilliance of human engineering, allowing millions of humans to live comfortably in the scorching desert heat.

tehjoker 3y ago

don't forget sea routes