Saudi Arabia’s mega-city Neom

Saudi Prince Plans City With Human Gene Editing, Artificial Rain

It’ll also have constant government surveillance and a fake moon.

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But also buried in the 2,300 pages of planning documents obtained by the WSJare plans for the forcible relocation of local tribes, the creation of human gene-editing clinics, and 24/7 government surveillance — meaning this futuristic city may be more like dystopian sci-fi than the fun Jetsons kind.

Since 2017, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, better known as MBS, has been working with teams of consultants to develop his vision for the $500 billion city in the currently barren northwestern corner of Saudi Arabia.

It won’t be desert for long, though — MBS plans to use “cloud seeding” to produce rain over Neom, cooling the city and making fresh produce widely available.

……..It’d be easy to get distracted by all the shiny things detailed in the Neom planning documents — but the futuristic city also sounds suspiciously like a totalitarian surveillance state.“This should be an automated city where we can watch everything,” Neom’s founding board is quoted as saying in the documents, according to the WSJ. “[A city] where a computer can notify crimes without having to report them or where all citizens can be tracked.”That’ll be thanks to all the medical clinics genetically modifying Neom’s citizens to be stronger, not to mention smarter — meaning MBS might not just be planning to create the city of the future, but the humans of it as well.

https://futurism.com/saudi-city-neom-human-gene-editing-artificial-rain