It's only "Picture perfect" from a few superficial angles. I've lived there, I've seen the poor neighborhoods, I've seen the work camps. Most of Dubais actual population live terribly, they're the ones who build it and clean it.
I've come to the realization that I am almost completely incapable of thinking of Dubai as a real place. It's just too much of everything that it is. Concentrations of opulence and human rights abuses and massive scale and miserable infrastructure and lush oasis and harsh desert that are all so dense they bend the spacetime of the place out of my ability to perceive it.
Which makes reacting to stuff like this difficult. I am aware, conceptually, that this is pretty terrible, and that none of the people who get the "picture perfect" side of Dubai will be affected by the flood, but the people enslaved to keep it running will. But I cannot get that past the primary thought that "oh, yeah, Dubai is for apocalypses. It's the perfect place for everything to go to hell."
Alifad on April 18th, 2024 at 17:50 UTC »
It's only "Picture perfect" from a few superficial angles. I've lived there, I've seen the poor neighborhoods, I've seen the work camps. Most of Dubais actual population live terribly, they're the ones who build it and clean it.
dpforest on April 18th, 2024 at 18:20 UTC »
LOL picture perfect.
DrNomblecronch on April 18th, 2024 at 18:23 UTC »
I've come to the realization that I am almost completely incapable of thinking of Dubai as a real place. It's just too much of everything that it is. Concentrations of opulence and human rights abuses and massive scale and miserable infrastructure and lush oasis and harsh desert that are all so dense they bend the spacetime of the place out of my ability to perceive it.
Which makes reacting to stuff like this difficult. I am aware, conceptually, that this is pretty terrible, and that none of the people who get the "picture perfect" side of Dubai will be affected by the flood, but the people enslaved to keep it running will. But I cannot get that past the primary thought that "oh, yeah, Dubai is for apocalypses. It's the perfect place for everything to go to hell."