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Dubai's Climate-Controlled Dome City Is a Dystopia Waiting To Happen
Daniel_Stuckey writes: Dubai is building "the world's first climate-controlled city" — it's a 4.3 mile pedestrian mall that will be covered with a retractable dome to provide its shoppers with air conditioning in the summer heat. The Mall of the World, as it's called, will become the sort of spectacular, over-the-top attraction Dubai is known for. Shortly after, it will probably become an equally spectacular real-world dystopia.
By sectioning off a 3-million-square-foot portion of the city with an air conditioned dome, Dubai is dropping one of the most tangible partitions between the haves and the have nots of the modern era—the 100 hotels and apartment complexes inside the attraction will be cool, comfortable, and nestled into a entertainment-filled, if macabre, consumer paradise."
By sectioning off a 3-million-square-foot portion of the city with an air conditioned dome, Dubai is dropping one of the most tangible partitions between the haves and the have nots of the modern era—the 100 hotels and apartment complexes inside the attraction will be cool, comfortable, and nestled into a entertainment-filled, if macabre, consumer paradise."
Someone sounds jealous...
It is just a big mall with AC, not beginning of Mad Max. Calm down.
It's just a mater of time before the desert swallows the place...
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Being the largest climate controlled dome of its kind, perhaps the engineering "lessons learned" could be applicable to creating a self-sustaining space colony -- one of the chief challenges being climate control. ..or else, I've just been playing too much Kerbal Space Program and reading too much Heinlein;)
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
They can afford it while the only thing you can afford is cheap insults.
I'm missing the part where something in Dubai is waiting to be a dystopia...
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Sounds good to me. All in favor say Ay!
What's Gaza got to do with it? Just a second-hand strip of land.
but needs UFO aliens, not Arabs.
Man, they're really going all out for that next Bioshock.
What will happen when eventually, inevitably, the oil and gas of the UAE starts to dwindle, the economy correspondingly does the same, and the energy supply to keep the whole thing cool becomes prohibitively expensive? The whole thing runs on massive, cheap oil and gas.
Even if global warming wasn't a factor, it would still be a dystopia waiting to happen. There's no way that thing is remotely close to sustainable. It's a big binge party before all the pizza and beer is gone.
Someone sounds jealous...
Someone is well-informed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMh-vlQwrmU
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
and when the oil runs out they will have a nice place to park their camels.
"macabre, consumer paradise" or monitored controlled populace?
... disaster waiting to happen
The place is in the middle of a fucking desert, and it is fully air-conditioned
Do you know how much power the building needs just to keep it in operational ?
It is an ecological disaster in the making, and even I, someone who doesn't really care about the environment also know something is really totally fucked up regarding that kind of concept
? pffttt
Nobody heard of dystopia called Earth ?
Any Borderlands 2 players?
I suddenly realize that Dubai may have been the inspiration for the not-yet-built city of Opportunity.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
A big shopping center - sounds like hell on earth! I just can't understand the obsession with shopping, once you have your clothes & stuff just leave and do something interesting.
Las Vegas with a dome over it? Meh... Sounds like a Stephen King novel.
The Caves of Steel.
and when the oil runs out they will have a nice place to park their camels.
Or, they can install the solar everyone else is spending a fortune developing in the plentiful sunlight they have.
Mostly a gigantic rant of, "if the poor people can't have something, than neither should the rich!"
It could have, say, POINTED OUT HOW DUBAI IS ALREADY A DYSTOPIAN FUTURE COUNTRY, or maybe talked about how domed cities could save huge amounts of energy in the future, but no, if everyone can't have something, then no one can.
Or, they can install the solar everyone else is spending a fortune developing in the plentiful sunlight they have.
I think that they'll find that selling solar power is far less profitable than selling oil.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
WTF? So the fact that rich people exist, and can afford to habituate certain areas of a country, is 'macabre'? I suppose rich people driving nicer cars than poor people is 'macabre'? WTF?
Experimenting with tech such as a domed city should be welcomed, but calling it a dystopia is emotional clickbait and nothing more.
Dear geeks:
Early adopters are why you can afford your modern PC, phone and other electronic necessities not to mention countless other technologies and consumer goods.
Someone with deep pockets has to fund the R&D, and Dubai is doing that in this case. The Persian Gulf is a bad place to live so adaptive tech is in order.
You could say the same about any nice high rise apartment building or home in any hot city in any hot country. my home has AC too, other people in my state don't.
I went to school for 19 years to have job so I could afford nice things like HVAC. other people, didn't.
That's what happened to Trantor in Asimov's Foundation series:
Trantor is depicted as the capital of the first Galactic Empire. Its land surface [...] was, with the exception of the Imperial Palace, entirely enclosed in artificial domes.
And so it begins...
Dubai has very little oil. Less than 2% of the economy is oil and gas.
Someone sounds jealous...
Jealousy and other issues as well. The Vice article seems to have strong opinions as to what sort of conditions other people may live in. It just states that it is dystopian without much evidence. And as to the poor in Dubai, they are already richer than many of their compatriots back home (many are immigrant workers) and given time and further economic development they no doubt will get richer themselves. The United Arab Emirates are the one most forward thinking areas in the Middle East. They are slowly going through what the West did in the reformation and enlightenment. Of course it will take time but I am sure they will be much more progressive societies in 300 years.
/or prevent men there from impregnating them, you really cannot complain. I am always amazed at people who are shocked when they hear others moralize about women giving birth when they are very poor. They pontificate about every women having the 'right' to have children. Often these same people then later complain about the environmental consequences of such children when they reach adulthood.)
Then there is the issue that some people simply fetishise nature and assume that everything 'natural' must be beautiful. It simply is not the case. Most 'natural' places are ugly. The ones that we photograph are the elegant and interesting ones. A lot of the time those people who enjoy extreme temperatures and who are in excellent shape imagine that rest of humanity has the same take on their surroundings. It's so easy to forget that without keeping out the heat or cold many people would be miserable - particular in an extremely hot desert which is where Dubai is located. The heat is simply oppressive. And of course by allowing this dome, it means people can venture out of their homes and get more exercise - something that is otherwise not possible.
I can imagine that some people would say that humans should not be living there to begin with. To which I answer: someone gave birth to them and once there here on planet earth they have to live somewhere. And most people living in the middle east don't have much choice as to where to live particularly if they don’t want to live in absolute poverty. (So unless you want to stop Bangladeshi and Pakistani mothers from getting pregnant and
Please STFU and quit posting your socialist nonsense under the guise of "technological" articles.
I too have seen Elysium. (OK i haven't. but this author is describing the plot.)
Global warming is measured using terms like "degree" and "decade" (degree, as in singular)
Dubai is ridiculously hot already. The Filipino and Indian laborers are already mistreated and underpaid. They already outnumber Emirati's by 3 to 1 (or more?). If they aren't rioting in the streets yet, a few measly degrees warmer in the coming decades won't do it either.
If this retarded gimmick manages to stand up long enough for one of the hottest areas on the earth to become practically Venusian, That will be an achievement rivaling the pyramids. But it won't. Dubai's economy will eventually tank, once their neighbors oil runs out, and and the real estate market collapses again. THEN the laborers and migrants will riot. But the dome will have fuck-all impact over that.
I'm not sure the author knows what this word means...
Dubai a city with a significantly challenging future and it has little to do with a dome. It's the center of little, its propelled by wildy deep pockets vs. social need, and wealth centers in the middle east are already distributing their investments to other regions. Forget the fact that once the oil's gone the wealth remaining in the region will leach away as there's so few people (though it'll take a very long time). UAE: 9mil, Yeman: 23mil, Oman: 4mil, Saudi Arabia: 30 mil. They have huge gulfs of weath distribution, and generally horrible climates. Why would people go to Dubai if it wasn't a spectacle or a huge weath gaining opportunity? My advice: Bilk Dubai for all its worth now, because in 50 years it'll be a distant memory of largesse gone awry by modern standards.
Bye!
Oh, I think it's most certainly going to be profitable, but to whom are they going to sell it? North Africans, OTOH, have Europe right across the pond...
Ezekiel 23:20
They have their very own property bubble, though. Although I'm not sure that is a good thing...
Ezekiel 23:20
I know someone who works on this kind of stuff.
He works on theme parks, recently getting hired (within his company) to fix mistakes and problems with them, in Dubai and the surrounding area. His take is repeatedly that they don't know how to do quality-control there. Their projects SOUND amazing, but they skimp on the essentials and end up with disastrous results much of the time. He believes this is a mess waiting to happen, given the area's track record, but isn't involved in the project.
-
"Run, runner!" That's what I thought of in that film on reading this along with the term dystopian (especially since I see this posted a lot here "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!")
A domed city with a shopping mall inside? How long til they implant the palm-flower and exterminate anyone over 30? Obligatory link for those who don't know Logan's Run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
TV is full of people doing something without "any good reason to do it other than the coolness factor." That phrase might describe the whole entertainment sector of the economy.
because they will need it eventually, http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=24.6999,54.6438&zoom=8&m=9
http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... & thanks for the link (IF it's the whole film that is, since it's a great sci-fi classic about a dystopian future type scenario).
Given the size of the dome, I'd be interested to see if any micro weather systems happen inside, or what the plans are to mitigate environmental effects.
Its not unheard of for weather to form in large open structures. Take for instance Hangar One at Moffett Airfield: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangar_One_%28Mountain_View,_California%29) or the Goodyear Airdock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodyear_Airdock) Though not climate controlled, these have fog (and apparently, rain) due to the massive size.
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
And how is this different from many other urban areas, it sounds exactly like any other mall. The fact that they're building it bigger and more centralized doesn't change the fact that there are many such climate controlled shopping centers in most other cities, more than a few located only a stones throw from the "bad side" of town where their poorly paid workforce lives.
It's easy to complain about how awful malls are until you have to walk around outside when it's 105F out, or when it's -5F with two feet of snow on the ground.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
The AC system expels hot air through a small thermal exhaust port, about 2m wide. In order to access it, we'll have to drive really fast down Main St.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
or weed, or free speech. In fact you better hide those elbows and knees, or you can be stoned on the street. Did I mention proffered neck line is a turtle neck?
If you are lucky police will be called instead of immediate stoning/being beaten with sticks. Official punishment for dress code violations is 1 month in the slammer.
Dubai - perfect sausage fest vacation destination.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
What you say would have more merit if there was free choice for these Bangladeshi people to come and go. Why have their passports been confiscated? Why is there not a viable means (steerage in low cost cargo ships) for them to return home if they wish? The arrangement as it stands amounts to what is called 'Indentured Servitute' which is a fancy name for slavery.
Extra points, though, for trying to turn the issue into something 'dirty and sexual' by using the term fetishise. Tell your masters to give you an extra bonus for your effort, because you've written some excellent propaganda.
ONe of the largest concentration of shopping malls is Route 9 in Framingham, about 10 miles due west of Boston
Some developer built a luxury condo building next to the mall and advertised it as being next to the mall, allowing the residents luxury shopping lifestyle
so, repulsive developments are here in the USofA to
The Shanghai Tower has them beat in terms of being the first.
I come here for the love
Our first step towards colonizing other planets.
The social setup has some similarities to Fritz Lang's Metropolis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
What an incredible non-story that was.
c++;
Everyone will be free to visit - like Manhattan or San Francisco or countless other desirable places in the world. Most will not be able to afford to live there - again like all of these places. Cost of housing will probably subsidize construction that couldn't sustain itself just on visitors. By all signs, they are trying to keep out desert heat and not their own people. If I lived in this kind of climate, I would love a place to cool down for a couple of hours. I think people just feel jealous that we don't make this kind of projects in United States.
- who lived in a dome in a beautiful field next to a river of foam...i fell asleep before it was over: i must have dreamt of the end...they'd be young forever as long as they stayed in the dome, but barbarians came and set fire to their home, exposed the dome dwellers to the outside: they must have known it was the end...all of their wealth couldn't save them, all died inside the flames, destined to make that same old mistake; god that's such a shame...the barbarians picked through the ashes of the dome, then went on their way, yeah, continued to roam, but a curse was laid upon them: they must have known it was the end...all of their strength couldn't save them, all died inside the flood, destined to make that same old mistake, the way of all flesh and blood... ...i saw this film about some people who lived in a dome...
Send "Dome" Ringtone
A domed city isn't really that impressive when you compare it to what they could be building.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Talk about a short attention span. Also evaporative cooling - "look it up", especially on which side of the system the water goes.
Kuwait had a similar dream in the 60's. Flush with oil money and the increasing air-conditioning of households, someone came up with the idea that it would be easier to aircondition the whole city instead. They wanted to build a dome that would enclose the entire city and make the hot summer months bearable. Fortunately, that just fizzled out.
> What you say would have more merit if there was free choice for these Bangladeshi people to come and go.
> Why have their passports been confiscated?
Don't you know? They freely chose to let their passports be confiscated!
You won't even have to go outside. Allahu Truqbomb!
Just like most of the Emirates, Dubai is a Disneyland. Only bigger.
Seriously, I don't know what crack these bedus are smoking, but there are more books translated into spanish each year than into any language of the emirates in the past 100 years. These people base huge chunks of their view of the world on an ancient facist monotheistic religion, live in societies that by social structure resemble the grimmest of dark ages, sharia law and all, and all they have is truckloads of money from selling their oil and no real idea what to do with it other than squander obscene amounts of resources to build a huge disneyland out in the desert. The amounts of water wasted alone are beyond imagination.
I'd have no problem with building a high-tech nation within a few years, if I'd actually be seeing some real progress, but I don't. I'm seriously sceptical of Dubai and its likes gaining critical mass and actually building sustainable societies
The prince of Dubai would be well advised to use all that money of his of building universities, implementing basic human rights and getting a modern society going and perhaps building a modern armed force to defend it. Since it doesn't look that way, I'm not placing my bets to high on this whole Dubai thing.
I wouldn't be suprised if this all collapses within 20 years and we have a bunch of impressive ruins but nothing more.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Faux-socialist misanthropes are WINNING.
Time to beat them down.
Because modern technology has made them "civilized" and "comfortable" and soo "enlightened".
It starts when they are children. They are the bullies who would kick or trip others for fun, but do not because they are afraid. The more fortunate among them actually did these things and got an ass whoopin' -- and at least in the context of person-to-person relations, (perhaps) learned the greatest lesson -- that restraint of bully impulses saves you from retaliation, but also even a tiny bit of polite respect gets you further still.
But as emerging adults they learned that the human race as a whole, has no staunch defenders. You can trash the human race as a whole, in as stupid or skillful a manner as you wish, and as long as you are speaking about people in general, your opinions and remarks go unchallenged.
And sadly, they do not. Among others who also get off on this people-hating trend, you are a celebrity in this useless and ultimately dangerous sport. Those who disagree are held back by social conditioning that, in striving for a conflict free world, encourages you to disengage from confrontation.
In order for our species to succeed it is NOT ENOUGH to teach politeness and respect.
You have to teach children to draw a line, their own personal line.
And you MUST teach your children that is their duty to kick ass, LOUDLY, when someone crosses that line.
People all over are teaching their children that when someone crosses a line, it is okay to re-draw the line.
Meanwhile, the most ugly sentiments get the most traction.
Which is why assholes like the one who wrote TA feel free to take something he did not think of himself, something that would ennoble the human species with the simply inspiring, breathtaking act of its construction -- sitting in his electricity powered climate controlled room, he will proceed to take a shit on the idea and try to smear it all over the rest of us.
Okay it is painfully obvious what he is against. Maybe, it all sounds so vaguely political. That 'thing'. What is he FOR?? He does not think it worthwhile to elaborate on what his real 'plan' for those resources are, he'll leave it to you. He can't be bothered. He's done.
What you read in TA is a symptom of a really dangerous problem.
Someone who respects and stands up for the whole human needs to kick his ass. Verbally and en masse, of course.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Honest question: is it possible for people to have opinions that don't agree with yours? Or is everything that disagrees with you propaganda? Is calling it propaganda a way to relieve yourself of the burden of giving serious consideration to other viewpoints, and perhaps changing your mind once in a while?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I have modpoints but I'm still waiting for some of you fucktards to figure out you're talking about a 50 year old reactor design
and post instead about, you know, a modern design, or even a, gasp, non weaponizeable design, that has a self limiting reaction and doesn't need water to cool it.
apparently nobody has any idea, and your liberal/green propqganda lies are going to propagate for yet another generation of idiocrats because no one stands in your way to correct you for me to mod up
...the arcology in Appleseed.
We only have to worry when they start selling Landmates and producing Bioroids to populate it.
OMG, global warmening!
Good thing they're going to enclose the important parts under an environmentally controlled dome then. Truly these guys are planning ahead.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
+1 for Guinea Pig B reference! One of the world's most successful failures.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Why hasn't anyone called this the Sprawl (as in Neuromancer) yet?
These days, whenever someone tries to build something nice people are all "what about the poor?"
Well, what about the poor? Are the poor going on those Moon or Mars missions that /. readers love to think about? No. Are the poor gaming on i7s in their mom's basement while posting on Facebook? Are the poor worrying about how to spend their bitcoins?
Fuck worrying about the poor. They don't worry about you. Most of the poor would steal all your stuff and pawn it.
Is there any other proof needed that we do not need to be paying the oil industries any sort of subsidies and that we are paying too much for gas?
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
I don't see a dome. http // www.technovelgy.com/graphics/content09/houstondome.jpg is a domed city. Geez, they can't get anything right....
And, of course, smaller domes means that you can create smaller disasters... and then there's the question of how they control their HVAC....
mark, in an office in a govenement building that's either freezing or roasting at least 30%-40% of the time.
They aren't spending all of their oil money to gear themselves up to be a power producer and distributor. They are positioning themselves to be a financial center and tourist destination. If that fails then they have nothing to show for their oil wealth except a shiny city built on top of sand.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Only the dome? I thought that entire country was a dystopia?
"Spectacular", yes. "Over-the-top", certainly.
"Attraction?"
It's in fucking Dubai. That in itself makes it as attractive as a dose of syphilis.
(OK,I'll admit to having had to work in that area - there are a few nice people in the working classes, but most of the locals and ex-pats are a bunch of bastards.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Your gasoline dollars at work.
I posted this on Engadget on an article about the World Mall in Dubai.
I'm typing this from Dubai. Most of the people posting here know nothing about Dubai. Indians make up the largest population of expats and now make up 30% (google it) of the entire country's population. When talking about Dubai alone, it's closer to 45% with the other majority of expats being Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who in total make up close to 80% of the city's population.
Now before you get into a racist and extremely cliched rant about how those South Asians are indentured servants/slaves forced into labor camps to build glass palaces for the oil wealthy robber baron overlords, let me illuminate your close minded mentality for a few seconds.
Everyone living in this city for the last few decades knows that Dubai has little to no oil reserves worth mentioning. Dubai's economy was built by these South Asian expats due to their engagement in trade. Dubai is still the Middle East and Africa's trading hub and centre catering to over 2 billion people in the region. Most major businesses in the region are owned by citizens of the above mentioned South Asian nations. At 1 point the worlds largest exporter of Textiles was an Indian entrepreneur based in Dubai. Indians alone own 50% of the worlds tallest tower Burj Khalifa. Multi billion dollar companies are run by the South Asian community here who have spent their entire lives making Dubai their homes. They in turn have employed much of the community in this country. A majority of these expats own or work at these businesses throughout the country rather than as slave laborers as per your entirely western centric view of the world.
Regarding the stories you have read about forced workers being exploited in Dubai, those are cases that have received a lot of media attention and they do exist but they are very rare and whose perpetrators have also been dealt with harshly by the judicial system. Dubai police is one of the finest in the world (look this up also) and the laws are are enforced to the extreme. Minimum wage laws exists, worker hour laws exist, and mandatory pension and health care are now in force, for every single salaried employee in the country. All these workers get paid more than 3 to 4 times what they would normally get paid in their respective countries, and nobody even the Sheikh himself can keep anyone in this country against their will. A simple visit to any police station by any of these employees due to worker abuse and the employer is looking at years of litigation, fines and bad PR and the employee receiving his or her due compensation and allowed to go home or find another job in the country.
Dubai was built on trade, and has now evolved into a one of the world's largest tourist and shopping destination thanks in part to the visionary airlines run by the rulers, Emirates Airlines. With the way the city has expanded it's no wonder millions of people come here to spend billions of dollars every year and it's the ruler's far sighted vision that has allowed this to become a reality.
Wake up from behind your Western Tinted glasses and look around some time and don't just take everything you read on the internet as gospel. Dubai has a bright future and and the nay sayers, either came to the country and failed or are simply jealous.
SIDE NOTE: I'm not saying the country or city are perfect, but when an article about a massive achievement is posted and I see ignorant, racist rants in response, I feel I need to chime in and bring some balance to the conversation.