alt Hacker NewsMiddle 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.
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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).
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.
If you can imagine dystopian cities, rich Middle East countries are already living in them with all the oil wealth.
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 TBH "3rd world" as a concept is quite outdated.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.
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.