Don't go to Dubai.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus@cyberplace.social]

@GossiTheDog Dubai is like a pheremone trap for the sort of person who thinks that having a financial services sector means being a part of the developed world in all the senses that you usually take for granted.

[rubinjoni@mastodon.social]

@GossiTheDog There's a whole org called Detained in Dubai...

[cstamp@mastodon.social]

@GossiTheDog And heaven forbid a woman report a rape.

[jt_rebelo@ciberlandia.pt]

@fuzzyfuzzyfungus don't forget "tax evading effluencers" (yes, effluencers is well written, what influencers do equals the effluents oozing from a pigsty) @GossiTheDog

[stonykark@mstdn.ca]

@GossiTheDog it's also a barren desert filled with rich people who own slaves. I've never seen the appeal.

[losttourist@social.chatty.monster]

@GossiTheDog Just in case "is an active war zone" wasn't enough to put you off!

[kevred@mastodon.social]

@GossiTheDog i wonder if they’re expecting a visit from Ms. Streisand…

[me@aron.social]

@GossiTheDog Also: Don't visit Dubai.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus@cyberplace.social]

@jt_rebelo @GossiTheDog Yeah. I try to keep in mind that there probably are decent people who get swept up there; but an awful lot of the west's terrible people who are all "hey, this seems home-adjacent and I can have a domestic slave!" and then are all "Surprised pikachu learns about debtor's prison".

[gimulnautti@mastodon.green]

@GossiTheDog Such freedom, American influence!

[charlesdelavalleepoussin@mastodon.social]

@GossiTheDog

such places always seemed very artificial veneers of western modernity around a brutal and repressive monarchy

[pibert@bertha.social]

@GossiTheDog who would thing that lack of democracy would be like that?

[noodlemaz@mstdn.games]

@GossiTheDog weird to me how people need more reasons besides all the others that exist

[art_histories@mastodon.social]

@fuzzyfuzzyfungus @jt_rebelo @GossiTheDog Indeed, we lived in the Emirates for a while. Okay, it was a while ago with no influencers. Most people were just working there. My husband worked as an engineer, I met a lot of his colleagues, a lot of teachers - just normal people from every corner of the world, trying to make a living.
But as others said: The western guise is a veneer. It is authoritarian and for unskilled labourers and domestic workers it can be hell.

[enema_cowboy@dotnet.social]

@rubinjoni @GossiTheDog

Can they make a *Hogan's Heroes" type sitcom called "Detained in Dubai"?

[bontchev@infosec.exchange]

@GossiTheDog Right now most people are trying to get *out* of Dubai - not to fly in - and it ain't easy.

The cousins of a colleague of mine were stuck there for a while; I'd have to ask him tomorrow if they've managed to get on one of the emergency planes our government is sending.