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Comment by nephihaha | Hacker News Reader

Bhutan sounds cute, but I wonder what the reality is. The city sounds like another one of these globalist smart city projects like Neom in Saudi Arabia, or Rwanda's African showpiece. I'm sure said city will have cameras on every corner, and probably 15 minute city aspects.

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Weird comparison. Neom doesn’t exist, whereas Bhutan has been around for centuries.

It’s a unique place, not just an idea. Friendly people and a government that looks at more than GDP as a success metric.

I think he refers to Gelephu Mindfulness City. I read it differently, not as a generic globalist city but very much a middle ground between Bhutanese culture (deep Buddhist presence, it will maintain vernacular architectures codes throughout, no skyscrapers) and global capital attractiveness (special economic zone, some tax benefits but not a tax haven in any way, crypto adoption, etc.)

I didn't mean Bhutan in general. I was referring to Bhutan's new city project. It seems similar to new cities elsewhere, maybe even Auroville (or whatever it is called). Singapore is great in some ways, not so much in others. (It is arguable how democratic Singapore is, since its parliament has a lot of hereditary politicians in it, like Thailand or Greece.)

Bhutan has sold itself as a Shangri La for decades. Whether it is, is another problem. It seems all over the world the peasants are being herded into urban panopticons.

what’s wrong with a 15-minute city?

You can't imagine how insufferably smug everyone who lived there would be? Living lives all happy and nice and not horrible? Gosh, what a terrible place it must be!

How much was rent again?

It depends whether your happiness relies on someone else micromanaging every step of your life. Mine doesn't. Maybe yours does.

Everything's fine until the government enforced lockdowns start

The 15 minute city is sold as a place with amenities within easy. The reality will end up being forced to live within a small area in some kind of gated community with a curfew.

Besides which, where are these amenities nowadays? Small businesses were decimated by discriminatory lockdown enforcement. Physical libraries and community centres are being shut. As are bars and cafes. If there was a real 15 minute city, it's in the past. The internet is no substitute for in person interaction.

Why would there be lockdowns?

Disease, the environment, riots, the economy etc etc. So many potential excuses.

I’d argue that any sufficiently dense city is naturally a 15 minute city, and tens of millions of people (including myself) live in them. For example: in New York, Tokyo, London etc. one can feasibly access all the amenities they need within a “15-minute walk, bike ride, or public transit ride”.

The key thing is that these cities developed this way organically. There is nothing stopping me leaving my 15 minute radius if I want to, and I regularly do.

The suburbs aren't in most major cities. The idea of being stuck in that small area is nightmare fuel... Like Melbourne, Victoria telling that residents could not travel more than a few KM/miles away four years ago.

I get what you mean, it’s hard to retrofit/force this concept on low density, car dependent suburban sprawl.

But I’m not sure if I understand the conflation of 15 min cities and covid lockdowns? I don’t think any government would want its people to be permanently geofenced to 15 minute bubbles, this would absolutely kill commerce.

It's not a conflation at all, it's all coming from the same mentality. The rulers trying to work out what to do with the ruled. In the Middle Ages, peasants were limited in how far they could travel, what they could eat and which fuel they could use. There are people on top who would like to see that return, and we see signs of that returning.

Lockdown killed off a lot of commerce, and we're still paying it off. Whether it was necessary or unnecessary, it was mismanaged. Automation will take almost any job if it keeps proceeding this way, and so that means the masses will become of little use to the ruling class economically. There are several ways to address that problem. One is restricting their interaction and movement. Another would be to create artificial work just to keep them quiet. As for the other possibilities, they are pretty dark.

You’ve been reading/watching too much propaganda and disinformation, and are weirdly focused on COVID precautions that are long over. You should break out of whatever online communities you’re part of that consume this sort of nonsense.

Who decides what is "disinformation"? Oh yes, it's the same groups already running everything. Covid precautions are not long over. They are only three or four years ago and still affect global food prices. Some businesses are still struggling to pay off that shortfall if not bankrupted. It's also allowed the ruling class to use ever more scaremongering as a means of social control... And use the "misinformation"/"disinformation" labels to shut down public debate.

Also half the stuff they came up with was not scientific like allowing flights to continue while shutting small businesses.

By the way, most of what I am talking about is what I saw at street level. You couldn't be much radicalised by online activity. I got censored by Facebook for asking simply about the mental health cost effects of lockdown. Absolute disgrace. I knew several people who died from the isolation including one who drank himself to death.

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