Chelsea, I know you're expecting to do this Fringy Mini, but I actually found a recent news story
that is an update on one of the Fringy Minis that you did that I think we should get talking about.
Okay, are you talking about your wife? I can talk about it. Okay. Mostly because you haven't seen
the news story, I assume. Okay, good. This comes from The Guardian, written on April 10, 2024,
by Peter Beaumont, article title, End of the Line, Saudi Arabia forced to scale back plans for
Desert Megacity. Crown Prince's pet project, you know the line that we've talked about in the past,
was sold as a 105-mile-long city of the future. Finances may have led to a rethink. Oh no. It was
billed as a glassed walled city of the future, an ambitious centerpiece of the economic plans,
backed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to transition Saudi Arabia away from oil dependency.
Now however, plans for the Miracleid Desert Metropolis called The Line have been scaled down
in the project, which was envisaged to stretch 105 miles or 170 kilometers, is expected to reach
just a mile and a half by 2030. That's disappointing. I almost feel like there's Amazon
warehouses bigger than that. But they have limitless funds. Dreamed up as a linear city that would
eventually be home to about 9 million people on a footprint of just 13 square miles, The Line is
part of a wider neon project. Now at least one contractor has begun dismissing workers. The
scaling down of Prince Mohammed's Most Grandios project was reported by Bloomberg, which said
it had seen documents relating to the project. The project, which had been slated to cost $1.5
trillion US, was pitched as a re... Sorry, it says 1.5 trillion, I assumed US, but then it says
1.2 trillion pounds. So I'm not sure which 1.5 trillion they're talking about. Maybe Saudi Bucks.
Maybe Saudi Bucks. Obviously, maybe, perhaps. This was pitched as a reinvention of urban design,
however it has long attracted skepticism and criticism, not least after the reported execution
of several members of the Hawaii Tatt Tribe who had protested over plans to construct on their
ancestral lands. Also, we didn't learn about that in the previous episode, I don't think.
We did not know. Then there were reports of Prince Mohammed's changing vision for the project,
budget overspends in an ever-changing roster of key staff with some who have worked on the project
describing it as untethered from reality. Yikes. According to Bloomberg, the scaling back of the
line comes as the overall neon budget for 2024 has yet to be approved by Saudi Arabia's sovereign
wealth fund amid declining cash reserves. Promotional presentations had suggested something
out of the science fiction novel running inland into Tabuk, a province from the mouth of the Gulf
of Aqaba where it enters the Red Sea. A few hundred meters wide, the linear city had been
sold as the future of accessible urban planning with amenities for residents within close walking
distance to accommodations and districts connected by one of the world's fastest trains.
Promotional material described the line in almost mystical terms, a cognitive city,
and a civilization revolution where amenities would be provided by AI. Prince Mohammed, who has
long been accused of a violent and killing of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi
in Istanbul in 2018, had described the city project as tackling the challenges facing humanity
and urban life today, to shine a light on alternative ways to live. Not everyone, however,
has been convinced by the Prince's glossy prospectus. Writing the New York Times in 2021 at the time,
Neon released a video describing the prospect of living between the city's silvered walls.
The U.S. journalist and author Robert Worth said, quote,
to watch the Crown Prince's promotional video is to be immersed in a distinctly Saudi form of
arrogance, blending religious triumphalism and royal grandiosity, end quote, and hubris to
apparently. That's the end of the article. So it looks like the line is not going to be anywhere
near as fancy as they talked about. And also there was some definitely issues with the inhabitants
of the land that the line was supposed to go over with it looking like they might not even build on
that land. I wasn't expecting so much talk about people being murdered, that's for sure. Chelsea,
it's an article on Saudi Arabia. What did you expect? I know, then I was going to say, but then
again, maybe it was to be expected and it was just me being naive. There wasn't that much talk about
murders. It is hilarious. So I actually find because usually news articles paint Saudi in very
good light because they have a ton of money and they have invested in basically all the media
groups. The fact that when they talk about Prince Muhammad, they talk about the murder that he
definitely at least told someone to do back in 2018. That usually gets put under the rug. So good
for the Guardian on that. Wow. That was a refreshing take on the first Fringy Mini I did on the line.
And anyhow, it looks like we might have more updates as this project goes further and further
into developmental shit. I guess we'll see as time goes on. Hopefully we'll have another update at
some point. I'm also a little terrified of what Saudi Arabian AI is like. No kidding. Not that
ours is any better, but hey, it's based on Judeo-Christian values. So it's good for our army,
apparently. Wow. I'm a little bit taken aback by that. But in any event, I think, hey, we'll see
you in 48 hours, whatever technology deems to be 48 hours from now. So whatever your phone says,
that's 48 hours. We'll see you then. It keeps track of it pretty sure. Goodbye.