this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2024
237 points (98.8% liked)

News

23259 readers
3386 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Saudi Arabia’s wildly ambitious plan to build 500m tall, mirrored, 170km long parallel skyscrapers, forming a 1.5M population desert city has been curtailed to 2.4km long.

The news was broken by the financial news publication Bloomberg, which said that Saudi Arabia’s government had “scaled back its medium-term ambitions” for Neom, of which The Line is the most significant sub-project.

The Saudi government had hoped to have 1.5M residents living in The Line by 2030, but this has been scaled back to fewer than 300,000, according to the report. It is unclear how it intends to house a higher concentration of people considering the proposed length (and therefore area) has been massively slashed.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 96 points 7 months ago (2 children)

The stupidest idea for a city that I've ever heard has gotten marginally less stupid.

At least now you can get from one side to the other quickly in an emergency.

Not that they'll even build these 2.4 km.

[–] DrunkenPirate@feddit.de 29 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I think it came up like this: Saudi king at his last visit at Chinese Wall. „Uw, one can see it from the space? That’s awesome.“ At home: „Servants, build something as big as the Chinese Wall that is visible from the space, so everyone sees how great I am.“

[–] dwindling7373@feddit.it 19 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I'm pretty sure the whole "can be seen from space" is wrong.

[–] RGB3x3@lemmy.world 25 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Ever used Google Maps? Everything can be seen from space.

[–] june@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago

Some things are too small to be seen from anywhere.

Like ur dick

lol gottem

[–] Canadian_Cabinet@lemmy.ca 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You can't see it with the naked eye, but only with magnification

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

It was the crown prince, not the king, but I'm pretty sure that's more or less how it went.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That would be crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, because king Salman has retired in all but name

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Is that bone saw cunt, or some other auth piece of shit cunt?

[–] Habahnow@sh.itjust.works 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)
[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I live in the city (Terre Haute, Indiana) where Mr. Kashoggi, the man who was murdered by MBS, went to school (Indiana State University) and there was very little outcry, which saddened me greatly.

[–] Confused_Emus@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Well yeah, he wasn’t white.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social 4 points 7 months ago

Yes it’s Mr Bone Saw

[–] aniki@lemm.ee 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Ask anyone who's ever built a house and they can tell you what a stupid fucking idea it would be to have a foundation that large.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Even if they somehow had some magical way to solve the foundation issue, with the original plan... could you imagine having to go from one part of the city to another for pretty much any reason? In a linear city? You better hope that other part is really close. Especially if it's a personal medical issue or a dying loved one.

[–] themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works 9 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Also: this city has only one road. How is traffic going to be? Better hope you somehow get a flat near your work, and that everyone else does too, and that nobody ever moves or cha'mnges job for any reason. This is such a horsehit project I'm surprised the guy who proposed it didn't get thrown out of the window like in the meme.

[–] jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Their plan was to have most people commute by train and have a veritable army of self-driving trains. That's easily the most well thought part of the harebrained idea.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago (11 children)

Never mind commuter traffic, imagine how long it would take necessary commodities to the right places in a timely manner!

load more comments (11 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] magic_lobster_party@kbin.run 41 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Do we have a list of stupid city ideas? I think El Salvador’s Bitcoin City and Egypt’s new capital should belong there.

[–] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 24 points 7 months ago

If you're interested in the inner workings of shitty civic planning check out James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State. He's an anthropologist who took a particular interest in why top-down societies always seem to miss the mark in infrastructure, ecology, agriculture, and social services (among others). A significant portion of the book is spent critically analyzing Le Corbusier's work and his ideological contemporaries. With Brasilia as a case study for the failures of "high modernist" ideology and design philosophy. It's a great read and I think a lot of these new urban planning projects that are obviously insane and impractical owe a lot to these batshit crazy people from the past that founded this particular flavor of foolish

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 32 points 7 months ago (1 children)

This is truly the most moronic project ever, but at least I had a good laugh about it today.

[–] Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 29 points 7 months ago

It's even dumber than dumping sand into the ocean in the shape of a palm tree and calling it a suburb.

[–] golli@lemm.ee 26 points 7 months ago

It is unclear how it intends to house a higher concentration of people considering the proposed length (and therefore area) has been massively slashed.

I got a brilliant idea: extend it slightly to the sides, maybe in a round shape. This allows for a more efficient way to house a high concentration of people.

[–] SrTobi@feddit.de 25 points 7 months ago

The ~~Line~~Dash

[–] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 22 points 7 months ago
[–] 3volver@lemmy.world 19 points 7 months ago

Huge waste of time and money. That effort could be focused on many better and more reasonable projects. This is what happens when fucking idiots get a ton of money inherited from their parents. We should never have relied on Saudi oil, it's been a drain on humanity.

[–] guacupado@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

I think at that point it's a town.

[–] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 9 points 7 months ago (4 children)

desert sun's rays nuke the lake in front of glass wall/city

"Where lake go?"

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's not a big problem since this is in a desert. Getting any water there in the first place is the problem. And, based on the mockups I saw, there's supposed to be a lot of greenery.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

water policies of saudi arabia are straight up insane. riyadh takes half of water from seashore desalination plants (that burn massive amounts of oil, so big that it cuts into their oil revenue very significantly). for the other half, they have somehow found non-renewable water, literal fossil water, and it'll run out in decade (might have misremembered). at the same time there are no water meters in the city at all

[–] tal@lemmy.today 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

at the same time there are no water meters in the city at all

Apparently Ireland hasn't billed for water either, and the prospect of the introduction of billing had activists objecting on grounds like "you can't charge for water, water is life-critical and a human right". I remember reading comments on /r/Europe from Irish readers who were really upset at the prospect of needing to pay for water.

googles

It looks like as implemented, billing is only for households that use substantially more than the average and start going out late this year:

https://www.moneyguideireland.com/water-charges-2017-new-rules.html

The latest information from Irish Water is that the earliest that excess charges will apply is Q3 2023 at the earliest.

So the earliest any household will get a bill from Irish Water is October 2024.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 7 months ago

ireland has less issues with potable water supply i suspect

also unrelated but why are you googling loudly

[–] TheOctonaut@mander.xyz 4 points 7 months ago

You've missed the point that the government had relatively recently introduced a 'temporary' Universal Service Charge during the recession and had not (and have not to this day) removed it. I was in favour of metering water but the argument wasn't as simplistic as you're making it.

Ireland being a low density country with an inundation of fresh water rain and springs is certainly worth mentioning when comparing with Saudi Arabia though...

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›