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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

The author has a point. Most of the 9/11 attackers were Saudis. Bin Laden was a Saudi. Saudi Arabia is a dysfunctional country propped up by oil money.

It's even more insular than it used to be. Saudis used to send their kids to the US to go to college, with Government funding. Now Saudi Arabia has enough educational institutions that they don't do that.

Years ago, I met a Saudi girl finishing Stanford who mentioned she was going to drive to New Orleans. That route meant a long drive through the boring part of the US. She said it was the only time in her life she'd be allowed to drive on a long car trip. That was decades ago, and Saudi Arabia still doesn't let women drive.

Here's a good set of articles by a Saudi expat in Britain: http://muttawa.blogspot.com/

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The Saudi's you meet in the America or the west are the rich aristocracy. For the most part, these people aren't extremists. And that's why the West has a hard time dealing with the problem. The people who ostensibly rule the Kingdom aren't salafists.

But the actual people in the Saudi Arabia, the commoner, is very fundamentalist.

It's a dysfunctional country propped up with a deal with the devil. The fundamentalists get most of what they want, while the royal family keeps their money and their land.

It's not an easy fix. If the world turned on the royal family, they'd fall from power and be immediately replaced by fundamentalists. Fundies now backed with the worlds largest supply of oil.

Also, the fundamentalist cancer they spread is now too far gone. Even if Saudi's went back to total poverty like they were in 100 years ago, the roots of radicalization are already in other countries.

Moderate Islam needs an organized response, but there has been none.

As someone pointed out to me earlier this week here on HN, Seymour Hersh's article on the Bin Ladin assassination, the real story of Al Qe'da is that the Saudis funded it tacitly. And as a result Saudi government is partially responsible for 9/11.

The sooner we figure out how to make petroleum irrelevant, the sooner places like Saudi lose their influence. Gas == War.

I imagine that any country near Israel will never become to irrelevant to the US because protecting our long time ally Israel is hugely important.

The reason why Israel is important is because of its proximity to the Grand Lever of geopolitics that is crude oil. Once we stop burning crude oil, the relevance of Israel to US foreign policy wanes considerably.

I don't think so. Israel is an important historical ally. Oil or not, Israel's importance in US politics isn't going away.

Nonsense. US is completely pwned by Israel.

The US only imports about 15% of crud oil and related products (such as gas) from Saudi Arabia. 70% is non-OPEC, and 40% is from Canada [1]. At the same time, the US produces roughly the same amount that it imports [2]. So at this point in time, the US no longer needs the Middle East for oil.

[1] http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_...

[2] http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MC...

Completely true: the US doesn't need middle eastern oil. But the politics around oil are not just about getting it. It's also about preventing certain groups from getting it AND controlling access to oil to our strategic allies. Oil is the lever of all geopolitics. To understand the balance of power, the economics and politics of oil go hand in hand. It's not just about driving your car: it's about ruling the world.

I went to a school in the North West with a large international program. A ton of students were Saudi Arabian. The new king actually raised their living stipend. Students are payed something like $1000 for every time they are published, regardless of the journal's reputation.

I think at high levels they realize their reliance on oil will be their downfall. And they are making huge investments in education (in my experience mostly for men) and I believe renewables as well.

Saudi Arabia has enormous potential for solar energy. Consider all the land they have, pretty close to the equator, that is otherwise unproductive.

But that's only useable within their country, and potentially exportable to neighboring countries (who have the same potential). Its utility will be in providing (relatively) cheap energy to other industries (whether manufacturing or intellectual or financial) within the country.

Useless for people, but I wonder what the environmental impact is of putting solar powered panels everywhere so we can satisfy our CandyCrush addictions.

Is there a sufficient grid infrastructure to support mass export of electricity, and given such, how do you keep it safe from vandals or saboteurs?

One thing it does miss is that Al Qaeda is also Wahabbist in its theology. The problem isn't Islam so much as it is Saudi Arabia's "denomination" of Islam, Wahabbism.

>That route meant a long drive through the boring part of the US.

The US southwest is the boring part? You don't get those desert views anywhere else.

Virtual drive: http://www.brianfolts.com/driver/#origin=stanford&destinatio...

I would imagine that a Saudi Arabian exchange student wouldn't have "desert views" high on their list of sight-seeing priorities.

I guess you are imagining wrong then.

Either way, the US southwest desert is quite a bit different than the Saudi Arabian desert.

Watching Lawrence of Arabia I kept trying to identify the geologic layers in the familiar rock formations. Then I realized that it was actually filmed in Arabia. It only looked like Arizona.

So no, I don't expect that a non-geologist would find the American southwest so very novel compared to Saudi. But I've never, ever been bored in the American southwest in tens of thousands of hours of travel there.

I don't doubt that rocks have similar compositions throughout the world, but even a cursory examination of the areas from a distance reveals many differences. For one, the US southwest doesn't have huge swaths of fine sand.

US southwest vs Saudi Arabia @ same scale http://imgur.com/a/OkRuI

Yeah, but western texas to louisiana sure does sound awful.

Having made this drive numerous times, I tend to cut diagonally from Albuquerque->Lubbock->Austin->New Orleans in order to take in some Hill Country on the way

---> Saudi Arabia is a dysfunctional country propped up by oil money.

I can't wait, the world can't wait any longer to end our dependence on fossil fuels. The world / middle east will be a better place if we reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

May the force be with Elon Musk / Telsa ;)

Somebody from the oil industry complex just down voted me.

Elon Musk downvoted you for spelling Tesla as Telsa.

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