Middle East isn’t some 3rd world. If you can imagine futuristic cities, rich Middle East countries are already living in them with all the oil wealth.
They have phones, computers, digital services just like the US and Europe. Makes sense they want a data center in the region, close to them just like the US and Europe have data enters close to their users.
I have lived in the Middle east (Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia) for ~10 years. I have also lived in the US for 10 years. Infrastructure in the Middle East (roads and bridges, public transportation) is actually better than USA. Poverty is lower because the government has oil money and everybody (citizens) is on welfare. Some countries like Iran are more educated than the USA. Saudi Arabia has the biggest supercomputer in the world and my college friends who went there for grad studies got duplex villas to live in whereas I toiled on 20k annual salary in the US. Of course there are issues- human rights, minorities, cultural issues and racism- but it's not like those problems don't exist in the US.
The data centers are there because customers are there. If you stumble on to a twitch streamer or tiktoker from Dubai, you'll find there's are thousands more.
Slight tangent, but to me futuristic cities are actually places like Amsterdam, with cozy streets and bike lanes everywhere, not places like Dubai with 16-lane freeways and a quasi-slave underclass staffing the tacky malls.
I said "independent to the degree possible", not absolutely.
I do not live in a binary world. I accept things in between.
Being part of group should be voluntary, not forced
What I definitely do not want is my life to be dictated by a few imbeciles at the top who are bought by large corps to pretend to be "by the people for the people".
The solution to that is widespread active low level constant community engagement in policy and monitoring the people you hire to debate policy (politicians) and the various silo's created to enact policy (military, civil service, legal, emergancy response, etc.).
Some people think it sufficient to pay no attention and let things slide indefinitely because "ultimately we can just rise up and shoot the government".
Isn't it expected that in a system that favors individualism over collectivism that a few people will be able to amass disproportionately more wealth and power than everyone else with no incentive or societally enforced responsibility to share that wealth and power, thus creating a society were your life is dictated by a few imbeciles at the top, not who are not bought by large corps, but who own the large corps?
Collectivism has many problems as well including that some are "more equal" and amass the same disproportional wealth (maybe under the cover and not placated but it is still there).
Indeed. It then follows that the optimal arrangement will find a balance, ameliorating the flaws of system each with the strengths of the other.
Several Northern European countries (like the Netherlands, which GP finds congenial) pursue this, though pragmaticism (unlike ideology) never reaches an end-state, and remains a work in progress. The USA, from ~1933 until sometime in the 1970s, operated on this model. It's probably only possible to sustain in high-trust societies.
A city whose citizens mostly drive is less independent than a city whose citizens mostly ride bicycles. Bicycling infrastructure is orders of magnitude cheaper to maintain than the same for heavier, motorized vehicles. It's not just the roadways: you need service stations, tire shops, parking lots and garages. Gasoline engine cars need gasoline distributed to stations all over the place and emissions testing. All of these things take up lots of space because motor vehicles are big.
All that bicycles really need are a (much narrower) right of way and some cheap pavement. Maintenance can be done all at home, even in a small apartment. The apparent independence available to motor vehicle drivers is an illusion afforded by massive private and public investment.
Maybe, but the "loneliness epidemic" articles and frankly, my own experience lead me to believe that independance is overated. Community is not though.
Independent? You say independent, I say parasitic. Just like any ruling class of the Middle East, especially the UAE. They’re not independent, they’re very much dependent on the semi slave labor they manage to exploit. Anything that makes life worth living is the result of collective labor. People coming together and building or learning upon previous knowledge. Hell, even your understanding of yourself comes from the social relationships you form during your formative years. This desire to be what amounts to an outcast is a defect, an abnormality imposed by the mode of production that organizes the world right now.
This sounds like a wise parent explaining some higher truth to a kid. Except that it is not truth but some our of blue baseless conclusion you've managed to somehow extract from my sentence.
Look man I'm just telling you about my own life. I feel more independent when I have a smaller space and less stuff that's easier to account for or move around.
Eh, I think its just that the infrastructure rewards having a car and not bikes. I thought the same before, only after experiencing for years the small things that make it possible, have I come around to it.
The little Honda City/Today with its trunk scooter from the 80's was ahead of its time, really. Its a path one should look at in large metropolitan areas. With electric bikes, even cities with large elevation deltas have a chance nowadays.
Indeed, but sprawling lead-smoke infested freeways is the stuff of the 1950s; bike lanes and playgrounds and grassy tram tracks is what some cities are starting to do just now! So actually more futuristic, objectively speaking :)
This is a hilarious comparison given Amsterdam's own history with regard to immigration. Not even historically but contemporarily too.. Just Eat, probably the largest employer of bargain bucket labour across Europe today is headquartered in Amsterdam
It was snippy and unclear, after the edit, its that and weak. I’d motion you just delete. Not sure literal slaves is comparable to a company that pays bargain basement salaries
It is hilarious, because it is blinded by our own self-imposed optics. It has been our policy to import droves of immigrant workers who have little hope but to take up gig economy jobs often illegally and remain fixed at the same (or worse) levels of economic status as the day they arrived in the country. Yes in Dubai they simply confiscate passports. At least they're honest about it
The kafala system confiscates your passport. You can't quit, can't switch employers, can't leave the country. People die in labor camps building these vanity projects. The UN classifies it as modern slavery.
A Just Eat rider in Amsterdam can quit tomorrow and sue their employer. Those aren't the same thing. You can criticize Europe's treatment of immigrant workers without pretending the difference is just honesty.
As I understand it in most cases they have enormous wealth disparities, so like the rich in Dubai have pampered tourist experiences but there's also serious issues with like lacking basic sewer infrastructure for ordinary people.
Americans seem to think the middle-east is some dystopian place where everyone is near poverty living in mudhuts, when places like Iran have a higher level of literacy than the USA, with more female college graduates.
There's definitely a lot of issues that need to be addressed at a cultural and social-economical level in places like Dubai exploiting migrant workers like slaves, the UAE, etc... but America has plenty of issues back home at a state by state case. Poverty, infrastructure falling apart, lack of education, lack of affordable health care, lack of job opportunity, high criminality, drug epidemics, etc... Some states feel like entirely different countries when compared to something like New Hampshire.
Even places like NYC and California which are economic hubs have this wide disparity of class, with entire communities of homeless populating the streets at crazy numbers that would make other nations blush (Cali has well over 100k).
I’m not really surprised. The US (and their allies) has made a concerted effort over a number of decades to turn them into to the third world. The current sitting US president has threatened to blast them into “oblivion” and “back to the Stone Ages, where they belong”. A lot of imagery of middle eastern countries seen in the west is of the places they’ve collectively destroyed.
So... The future is Dubai? I am still to hear a better argument in favor of extinction.
This reminds me of a quote from "Stranger Than Fiction":
> Harold: "I don't want to eat nothing but pancakes, I want to live! I mean, who in their right mind in a choice between pancakes and living chooses pancakes?"
> Dr. Hilbert: "Harold, if you pause to think, you'd realize that that answer is inextricably contingent upon the type of life being led... and, of course, the quality of the pancakes"
Even 3rd world have those nowadays, unless you talking the more troubled of countries. TBH "3rd world" as a concept is quite outdated.
I'm a bit skeptical on how "futuristic" the cities are. There's a lot of money, sure, but from I can tell the projects are pharaonic in a lot of ways, including being out of touch with the practicality of such projects.
> but it certainly is from a culture and society perspective. Like living in the 12th century except there are also shiny glass skyscrapers.
I am surprised looking at this seemingly racist comment.
Just because someone doesn't follow your tradition/culture doesn't mean they are living in the 12th century. There are people living everywhere in the world.
Dubai is in fact very developed, and there are not just camels living there - there are people, and many companies - albeit not so much primarily in the tech industry.
They do not have the tallest building in the world there worth $1.5 billion for no reason.
They have tech needs like any other country and I hope that clears your confusion.
Putting aside the cast-based insane wealth inequality and the extremist religious zealotry, I suspect they are referring to the pervasive slave labor culture
I don't think you really understand Middle East countries. 94% of Iranians are literate. They are a very sophisticated culture that dates back to pre-history.
They certainly may appear backwards from our western culture but that is only superficial.
Sorry, how are gay couples treated in Japan? People are conservative here, so no marriage, but from all gay couples I know here, they’re doing fine. Now, you can talk about PDA, but that kinda includes the straight couples as well to a point.
"people are conservative". Perfect, not allowing same sex marriage is now "conservative". This is how fickle people are, perfect example.
Edit: Just as a side note, I saw western people bend over backwards to please people when I went to Japan. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy some treatment they get will be positive when you behave in such a way (like a guy bowing 5 times just for getting his photo taken, stuff that would never happen to anyone else) almost embarrassing really.
Man, what are you on about? Conservatism here is much different than NA’s conservatism. Japan has a lot of problems, but the ones you’re rambling about are kinda… weird?
As opposed to the West’s genocide of millions upon millions of natives across their colonial projects? How about the millions killed as a result (directly or indirectly) of wars of aggression in the global south? Or perhaps the ongoing & unrelenting support by the West of genocide in Gaza?
Or are we not allowed to compare these things because of who the perpetrators are?
And, in the case of colonial crimes, don’t tell me to “let bygones be bygones” until apologies have been made and reparations disbursed.
In the meantime, the West is complicit and can instead direct their holier than thou attitude and patronizing lectures inwards.
The people who voted for Trump are going to tell you how to be civilised. It is peak irony. So many rights are going to be taken over time and there doesn't seem to be self-awareness. Oh well, self-inflicted damage.
They have phones, computers, digital services just like the US and Europe. Makes sense they want a data center in the region, close to them just like the US and Europe have data enters close to their users.