Everything is going wrong for Muhammad bin Salman
economist.com
economist.com
Anyone could have told you his genius ideas like “turn a city into a thin line across desert/mountains” were the stupidest thing anyone had ever said. But you can’t tell him because he’s the king and he’ll kill you.
Can happen in democracies just as much.
The more functional the democracy, the less "just as much".
I think that a two-party system is more vulnerable than a multi-party system however Yes parties can still form collations and push their agendas but it's more difficult.
You can see this in action in Canada for example.
And it's working... somewhat. Less well than I'd like, and less well than it did in Trump's first term, but he is at least somewhat restrained by the system.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Trump_-_...
And I hate to use that overused analogy, but in WW2, after the initial success of Hitler with the Blitzkrieg, there was not much criticism of him anymore (unlike popular believe, he was not a absolute Dictator but under serious pressure at various points). That only started again after they began loosing.
And they also get to exempt themselves from laws they don't like, like racial discrimination laws (well into the 1970s, brown and black people were deemed unfit for anything more exalted than cleaning toiletsat Buckingham Palace). Or the Cornish or Lancastrian tenants of the crown who have far fewer protections than any others in the UK.
Fun fact, MBS is a big fan of Age of Empires 2 and plays it in the mornings. Also funny story, I once saw a match being played, around US night time, where one player built a line of houses into the enemy territory so that the opponent was forced to micro their soldiers manually. Think of that what you may.
"Let's exit one of the largest and most powerful economic and diplomatic unions"
"Let's give away control over our country to real estate agents"
There have been strong stupidest vibes all over in the recent years.
The location itself is kinda decent for development. It could've been pretty feasible if the plan was to pump desalled water up the mountains and let it flow down like rivers through smaller developments, while pumping out water laterally for irrigation.
Could've slowly greened their side of the Red Sea, hooked themselves up with a bridge to Sharm (and onwards to Cairo I believe with Egypt's HSR plans), built a few marinas, resorts, and stuff, and become quite a popular destination for a fraction of the cost.
Didn't they have a whole plan for processing the brine into concrete for development, too?
Someone called Putin started 100× worse war and enjoyed the close to unanimous support domestically.
Someone committed genocide in Palestine who cannot not be voted down.
I think I really don't see any better political systems.
Read any government document from almost any department and the language for citizen has become customer. Language matters, I’m not a customer, but no one cares.
That’s what Russian propaganda wants you to believe. And I see no reasons to trust it. Assessing public opinion in an autocracy is from hard to impossible - people afraid to tell what they think and they have good reasons for this.
Keep getting inundated with Monopoly Go / Scopely ads because McDonald's is funneling money back up the chain for McDonalds Monopoly. It's that time of year again!
There are 25,000 princes and princesses. Forty percent of the population are imported workers who do all the hard work. Citizens work in government or government-owned companies, with good job security, good wages, and short hours. Low- and middle-income families also receive monthly cash transfers through the Citizen’s Account Program.