Dubai's Climate-Controlled Dome City Is a Dystopia Waiting To Happen 265
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."
Overreaction (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm missing the part where something in Dubai is waiting to be a dystopia...
Slaves of Dubai (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone sounds jealous...
Someone is well-informed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMh-vlQwrmU [youtube.com]
Re:Overreaction (Score:5, Insightful)
You say that but that's exactly it's intention. To seperate the rich from the slaves.
And this is a new thing? Cities everywhere tend to do this.
Re:Not about jealousy, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Slaves of Dubai (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone sounds jealous...
Someone is well-informed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMh-vlQwrmU [youtube.com]
Which has nothing to do with a dome, and everything to do with Dubai... The reaction to the dome is unfounded panic. Dubai will separate the people because Dubai separates the people. Dome, or no dome.
Re:Bling Bling Motherfucker (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Asimov predicted it! (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what happened to Trantor [wikipedia.org] 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...
Re:Life on Mars? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not about jealousy, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Life on Mars? (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re:Not about jealousy, but ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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 ...
Re:Slaves of Dubai (Score:5, Insightful)
sounds like a republican capitalist paradise. we should import a couple of the Dubai leaders to put the US poor to work. finally.
Right ... because it's Republicans who want to concentrate people in cities. Got it.
Re:Life on Mars? (Score:4, Insightful)
Earth is already a permanent space colony.
Yeah.
And just LOOK at how THAT turned out!
Re:Slaves of Dubai (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus this ignores the upside. I'd expect several staff per wealthy occupant of the dome, and so many poor enjoy the nice environment for each rich person. For Dubai, that's a step forward.
Re:Slaves of Dubai (Score:5, Insightful)
Slaves? WTF? Are you so blind to the conditions in much of the world that you think offering a job to someone is bad? Are you insane? These are the best jobs most of the poor in Dubai are likely to have offered in their lives.
It's not right for the first world, so better the jobs don't exist at all? Seriously, I can't imagine how you think this is bad. These jobs are vastly better than early industrial revolution American jobs, let alone no job at all in a place with no real social safety net.
Sheltered suburban enclave American middle class are something else. No sense of perspective at all.
Re:Slaves of Dubai (Score:5, Insightful)
Slaves yes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... [wikipedia.org]
http://www.vice.com/vice-news/... [vice.com]
The fact that it's a tough world out there doesn't excuse Dubai or UAE in general from acting like asshat clowns. They have the economy to take care of their foreign workers, but choose to screw them over. That's really not OK.