∑ilage

Joel posted this recent article by one of my favorites, Mike Davis. It's about Dubai, the growing consumerist-capitalist-utopian city (arcology?) along the coast of the Persian Gulf. His blog comments weren't working, so i decided to post my response here.

My summary of the article is as follows:

so, lemme get this straight:

phase 1. consolodating the world's resources into supporting a multi-trillion dollar pleasure palace designed for the richest people alive. check.

phase 2. taxing the ecosystem at a baroque scale just to satisfy some fucked up principle of the best. check

phase 3. clearing the region of hostile
forces so that building can continue. check

phase 4. live it up on top of the dying heap of the world as it chokes itself to death because it has no more fuel (oops, who knew it'd run out?). check

phase 5. eat a big fucking breakfast.



i love the way that science fiction, "imagineering," and speculation are now a way to cover up the fact that some shit, like, o i don't know, a mile high building or an underwater hotel, is just stupid and wasteful.
Some people have got this weird hang up where dreams must become a reality, science fiction must become real life. Then, in turn, real life becomes locked into and reaffirms a particular track of development and imagination which remains utopian for some and dystopian for everyone else.

It's chilling (and a bit cliche i guess) to think of Dubai as the equivalent of Sumerian Ziggurats and Egyptian pyramids, in their construction, maniacal purpose,
and the fact that people will be digging them up 1000 years from now wondering what the fuck we were thinking.

Some fantasies should just stay fantasies, like shitting on someone you hate or having sex with someone dressed in a big furry mascot costume. It might be less ambitious, but it would be a lot better than what we got now: a small group of decadent crazies tautologically chasing their imaginations towards a big fat doomsday.