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Comment by cs702 | Hacker News Reader

Oil-producing kingdoms[a] like Saudi Arabia face an existential risk. If the world transitions away from fossil fuels, and these kingdoms fail to develop technological engines of economic growth in clean energy, electric vehicles, software, AI, robotics, biotech, space exploration, and other new fields, they could become... poor.

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[a] Yes, kingdoms. Yes, in the 21st century. Yes, very different from the West.

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Going back to camals, and they are deeply afraid of that.

> The founder of Dubai, Sheikh Rashid, was asked about the future of his country. He replied, "My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I ride a Mercedes, my son rides a Land Rover, and my grandson is going to ride a Land Rover…but my great-grandson is going to have to ride a camel again."

I think at this point there's an element of, "If we don't have the money to wield absolute power, our own people are going to tear us to pieces before they retreat back into the sunset."

If they keep up trying to keep the world on oil, we (collectively the nation states funding or providing military support to these kingdoms) should let their people at them. Some folks only understand that incentive mechanism (believing discussion, collaboration, and diplomacy weakness to be exploited, only responding to force, or the threat of it).

I really do think that's how this all ends, but not until said funding nations have settled alternatives to oil. Pretty much the day after that happens, I think it would be a bad time to stay in the Middle East.

Agree, but I also put forth that with EVs and renewables on a fast takeoff trajectory, that day is rapidly approaching. Were deploying more than 1GW of solar a day at current rates, and approaching 15M/units of EVs sold this year (1/6th of total global light vehicle sales), and these manufacturing and deployment flywheels are still coming up to speed.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/1gw-per-day-futureenergyventu...

Solar is definitely the big success story of my lifetime, one of the areas where the need for more generation, the need to decarbonize, AND the economics actually align.

Additional citations:

https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/09/1-8-million-barrels-of-... (“1.8 Million Barrels of Oil a Day Avoided from Electric Vehicles”)

https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/09/ev-sales-growing-faster... (“EV sales growing faster than expected”)

https://assets.bbhub.io/professional/sites/24/2023-COP28-ZEV... (“Zero Emission Vehicles Facebook”)

in that case he wouldn't be riding anything, he'd be dead.

If camels can survive the climate in the desert in the future. Might be walking

They'll get to fly away when their country becomes too hot to survive in. They can still drive luxury cars wherever they flee to.

It is good for the world in three different ways when the world doesn't depend on oil-producing kingdoms: (a) environment (b) economy (c) politics.

which west? kingdom of netherlands? spain? denmark? brit?

In Saudi the monarchs wild real power. In Europe, its window dressing.

Bullshit, this is just the standard lie rolled out to keep people from questioning it.

I’ll bite, what real powers do European kings and queens still have? And do those powers supersede the powers of elected officials?

Whereas, we know Saudi kings can order assassinations on foreign soil and request a live recording of it… and get away with it.

Why all the free material riches and special treatment then?

If they’re effectively useless, why provide such privilege?

Their power is symbolic, but symbolism provides an important service.

Disagree.

This sounds like a school answer. What is symbolic power mean? Like Dry rain

When we figure out what symbolic power mean then we can dig into its importance

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26081208

Not parent, but he probably meant the oligarchy of always-the-same-politicians wield similar power and do as they please, just with extra steps.

Monarchs are pretty irrelevant in Europe afaik.

People don't really have a choice when electing candidates in their country because all parties tend to drift in the same direction (authoritarian, crony capitalism) and they have no clue who their country's representative in the EU is.

In regards to assassinations, I'm not sure about Europe intelligence but I'm sure someone will have something like the CIA in the old continent.

European party coalitions change all the time, what are you even talking about. You can easily go start a new party and get into parliament since many EU countries have proportionate representation.

Vatican City and Lichtenstein monarchs have a decent amount of power still.

There are many more monarchies in the west. Although not all may qualify as "kingdoms" (because the title of the monarch may be something else, like prince or pope)

sweden, Norway and Belgium. Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Andorra, Vatican City.

(Morocco is also technically west although geography is not what people usually mean when they think of west)

They'll probably stop being kingdoms when the fundamentalists that currently pay zero taxes overthrow the likes of MBS and his family once the kingdom can no longer survive off oil. That's why SA is hosting sporting events, raining money onto football stars and building multibillion real estate projects like Neom: they're trying to copy Dubai, bring in tourists and whitewhash their image.

Everyone will become poorer. Not to mention after the severe "population shrink".

Of course, countries don't want to actually do away with fossil fuels. As leadership also depends on them. What they want to do is justify continued antidemocratic power in the name of nebulous concepts that, ideally, are articulated as problems that aren't actually solvable.

Whatever leaders think, many younger people are keen on doing away with fossil fuels.

That's been the case for decades. Those young people eventually became older.

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