this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2025
117 points (100.0% liked)

Chapotraphouse

14163 readers
705 users here now

Banned? DM Wmill to appeal.

No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer

Slop posts go in c/slop. Don't post low-hanging fruit here.

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 

i-cant 50 billion already spent

top 48 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Crucible@hexbear.net 84 points 5 days ago (3 children)

November 2024, 21,000 workers had been killed building Neom

I was trying to find the story of the old man they murdered because he didn't want to leave his tribal homelands. I believe they built the airport where his family had lived for generations

[–] godlessworm@hexbear.net 45 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (5 children)

wtf were they doing? using people’s foreheads as hammers? how do you possibly kill that many workers?

[–] CloutAtlas@hexbear.net 36 points 5 days ago

"So I read the Chinese have a famous great wall that has lasted centuries, I want Neom to be exactly like that"

"Sir, the laborers that died building it were entombed inside the wall and it was constructed on and off for 2500 years"

"Excellent. We'll do that"

[–] Belly_Beanis@hexbear.net 27 points 5 days ago

I'd guess lack of safety on job sites combined with overwork. Having people do 16+ hour days without hard hats or scaffolding is going to cause a lot of accidents.

[–] fox@hexbear.net 27 points 5 days ago

Yeah, it's such an absurdly high number I'm wondering if there isn't a yeonmi-park or zenz involved somewhere in the reporting.

[–] jackmaoist@hexbear.net 15 points 4 days ago

They use indentured slave labor so they probably don't care about safety.

Well you see, hierarchy in general and monarchy in particular are incredibly efficient.

[–] vegeta1@hexbear.net 35 points 5 days ago

Are you shitting me? That much more than even the death of migrant workers for the Qatar world cup

[–] Palacegalleryratio@hexbear.net 25 points 5 days ago

Yeah and the others sentenced to death for resisting eviction

[–] Robert_Kennedy_Jr@hexbear.net 70 points 5 days ago (5 children)

“When you flush the toilet, the stuff goes downhill, right?” the architect asked. “We’ve worked that out,” Qaddumi replied, according to the architect. “We’re going to have hundreds of shuttle cars running back and forth, picking up the sewage on retractable bridges.”

wtf

[–] OffSeasonPrincess@hexbear.net 33 points 5 days ago

Dubai style sewage system

[–] PorkrollPosadist@hexbear.net 25 points 5 days ago

Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic moment.

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 21 points 5 days ago (1 children)

??? Just make one poop train

[–] jackmaoist@hexbear.net 13 points 4 days ago

That would be Communism

[–] robotElder2@hexbear.net 16 points 5 days ago

:sans-doot When I was going up from town I met the turd train rolling down Every day hundred trains Every train hundred cars Every car hundred tons Every ton hundred tanks Every tank ten thousand Turds And every day smells even worse

[–] jack@hexbear.net 1 points 4 days ago

Damn, can't wait till we invent pipes

This was always the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard of in my life and I'm still surprised they made it as far as they did into the construction. Just goes to show that if you show a whole bunch of relatively 'qualified' engineers/architects/scientists a pile of infinite money they will go along with whatever you say as long as you pay them.

[–] kristina@hexbear.net 48 points 5 days ago (1 children)

dude played sims city once and thought that just one train going back and forth down an infinitely long city was peak

[–] keepcarrot@hexbear.net 17 points 5 days ago

Ok, look, Workers and Resources is actually a pretty hard game ok

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 50 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

the cruelty of the gulf states dictators is only rivaled by their gaudiness. (in case of saudis - a lack of foresight as well, uae and qatar are more competently evil)

(tfw oil at 60 and your cashflow gone to shits)

[–] InevitableSwing@hexbear.net 43 points 5 days ago

I'm very disappointed. I hoped MBS would triple down and spend another $100 billion or whatever to claim they were building a space needle that would literally reach the moon.

[–] musicpostingonly@hexbear.net 34 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Neom says that the attention has now moved to “the complex engineering and detailed design work associated with the first phase” of The Line.

You don't build a home before you design it. Tract home, palatial mansion, or hovel they all have a plan in place before it is built. This is squarely in wiping-your-ass-before-you-shit territory.

Fifty billion. Fucking dumbass.

[–] rubber_chicken@hexbear.net 12 points 5 days ago (1 children)

There's the Winchester House in San Jose that was design-as-you-go and ended up such a clusterfuck that it's now a tourist attraction.

[–] musicpostingonly@hexbear.net 2 points 4 days ago

That was the result of money and mentail illness. I'd argue Neom is money and man's hubris.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 21 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (4 children)

They could've built a space elevator with the level of hubris this project had and it would've been more genuinely useful and just as much of a statement. They have an excellent location for it.

You can see it on google maps too, they've dug out 106km of foundations for it, some straight through actual mountains. What they've done is an environmental blight.

[–] Civility@hexbear.net 13 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 13 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Right? Plus if you build that thing nobody else is ever building one. The city that owns the space elevator will be one of the most important locations in the world eventually and putting it on the route through the most important trade corridor through the panama canal is a very good location even if it's not on the equator.

The best equatorial location for it is Singapore or near Macapa, Brazil though probably.

[–] Palacegalleryratio@hexbear.net 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, but a space elevator is beyond our current capabilities of materials science. Neom has the benefit of being physically buildable even if the end result isn’t desirable.

[–] rubber_chicken@hexbear.net 6 points 4 days ago

The oversized rectangular prism, sure, if you can get the materials in the quantities necessary. I'd be very surprised if any structural engineers said the chandelier idea was feasible without being paid a lot of money to say exactly that.

[–] egg1918@hexbear.net 5 points 4 days ago

Picking up my coffee at Starbucks Neom Community-1, anyone want anything?

[–] Wertheimer@hexbear.net 31 points 5 days ago

Line go down. stonks-down

[–] Monk3brain3@hexbear.net 24 points 5 days ago
[–] AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml 22 points 5 days ago

This is hilarious and predictable

[–] ConcreteHalloween@hexbear.net 21 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Did anyone expect otherwise? Even the Saudis?

[–] CrawlMarks@hexbear.net 16 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I kinda expected to build like a visor center and a tramstop not connected to anything.

[–] ConcreteHalloween@hexbear.net 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I sometimes wonder why the Gulf States just don't build a giant flaming Mammon head to throw their excess wealth in, it's probably a easier way to eat up all that dead capital than planning all these bullshit mega projects.

[–] CrawlMarks@hexbear.net 12 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I mean, I kinda assume none if that money is like, actually real. All just spreadhseet stuff they hypothetically have but can't really spend, but investing it and hiding losses still works out.

I am with it though. A world where we have cool bullshit megaprojects is a better world than we have.

[–] UmbraVivi@hexbear.net 13 points 4 days ago

MBS is such a fucking idiot.

[–] grandepequeno@hexbear.net 18 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Communism would've been able to do this

[–] NuraShiny@hexbear.net 25 points 5 days ago (2 children)

But would have been too smart to try.

[–] theturtlemoves@hexbear.net 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] NuraShiny@hexbear.net 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Last I checked, that's a town and not a line of houses in the desert. Are you really trying to draw an equivalent between planning and building a new town vs whatever the fuck the Line is?

[–] theturtlemoves@hexbear.net 9 points 4 days ago

It was initially designed as a linear city. It wasn't as dumb as the Line, but still a weird idea.

[–] Kopfrkingl@hexbear.net 10 points 4 days ago

What was the grand idea anyway? A stupid bawdy city that vapid people will visit? They already have those, this always seemed like an utter waste of time.

[–] FnordPrefect@hexbear.net 16 points 5 days ago

kelly The Great Fail of Arabia

[–] john_brown@hexbear.net 14 points 5 days ago