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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.
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.
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..."
and when the oil runs out they will have a nice place to park their camels.
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.
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.
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
If you look at the pictures, it's mostly enclosed walkways connecting all the buildings.
It's easier to cool a building if you're not pissing your cold air out the doors.
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.
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!
Vokda?
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.
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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".
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.
If you read the news from Europe these days, they seem to be doing exactly that.