it continues to be weird how many of these things want to Just Build A New City as magic solutionism. the same strain of “that’ll fix it” it shows up with Neom and some others too. dunno if I have a conclusion with that really, just that picking cities of all things seems like the fucking weirdest all-in-one pick to go with
anyone happen to know if there’s someone that’s studied this and written a bit about it?
It's part of their retrofetishism & sneaking admiration for dictators and autocrats. "Remember when we used to really build things? Build whole cities, even? When we used to displace 10,000 people at the drop of a hat so we could build a new freeway? We don't do that anymore, because of woke bureaucracy"
I am actually talking book proposals about this one. (I told my agent about the Akon City article and her eyes lit up.) There's a definite strain of compelling crazy to pursue here.
obviously I should write an AI book first. But also, writing isn't fungible, so it'll be what I come out with first.