Slashdot Mirror
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."
It is just a big mall with AC, not beginning of Mad Max. Calm down.
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.
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..."
Actually, one giant building requires a lot less energy to cool than an equal volume of multiple tiny buildings, because the big building has much less surface area / volume and thus transfers heat more slowly.
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
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...
Earth is already a permanent space colony.
Volume and mass do not matter as much as surface area. This is an ecological win. The enclosed area will also mean less evaporation, so more green spaces and more efficient use of fresh water supplies. This is a win, at least in theory.
No one will EVER live in a permanent space colony. Sorry.
While I share your pessimistic outlook for the foreseeable future, forever is a really long time. Are you willing to say that absolutely nobody will be living in a permanent space colony in 100 years? 500 years? 10,000 years? If so, what makes you so certain?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The extra ironic part is that by selling you the gasoline to burn, they contribute to the slow heating and eventual flooding of a city that is basically on an island at sea level ...
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Earth is already a permanent space colony.
Yeah.
And just LOOK at how THAT turned out!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."