Ethics of having fun in Dubai

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true, I guess these other issues do deserve a separate thread.

Yep, also familiar with French pharmaceuticals testing and selling drugs in Africa and of course coffee and tea we drink picked by child and slave labour. I think to myself, what a wonderful world (apologies to Louis Armstrong).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJGw509Yjbg&t=72s

Nestle literally commits actual genocide, widespread slavery, murder camps, r@pe and pillage, destroying entire populations, etc... That's Nestle's business model.

Yet nobody seems to be bothered - as long as they still get their coffee and cookies.

As for the likes of disney and vegas and nestle etc, it's not really a separate issue, but rather, more manifestations of the same issue - affluence, and exploitation, and the acceptance thereof.

^^^ Definitely deserves another thread.

I think the governments of countries from where many of these workers are from need to do more to protect it's citizens. For example the corrupt Malaysian high commission in Dubai have a notorious reputation of looking the other way for bribes.

Vegas has cleaned up it's image a lot compared to a few decades ago. It's not quite family friendly, but there's at least less seedy stuff to do nowadays.



Well said. Dubai seems uniquely transparent about being a soulless playground for the elite.

Like don't get me wrong, I'm sure stories equivalent to the Dubai portapotty stories (for example) occur in other places, but Dubai is one of the few places where you just shrug and don't feel any shock about the revelation.

And that makes it worse, you can choose a holiday destination knowing (and not being shocked) at the reputation. I'm reminded of apartheid South Africa pre-1991 which was very popular with Australians, European and white American tourists who flocked to the segregated beaches of Capetown, safari parks, high end hotels in Johannesburg and of course the famous Sun City Resort which was the mecca for the rich and famous from all over the world.

Fun fact: Dubai ran out of oil years ago and is now a house of cards whose entire economy relies on tourism. It's a city propped up by literal slave labor and they're so focused on being glamorous that they barely have any infrastructure. The Burj Kalifa barely even has functional plumbing, and they need trucks to carry all the poop out on a daily basis. Also, they like to advertise how there's no crime, but that's only because Dubai is an authoritarian police state where even the pettiest crimes get you life in prison. I'd rather vacation in some third-world $hithole like Bangladesh or Liberia than Dubai. Let the house of cards collapse. Let that evil city whose economy is based on slavery and human trafficking crumble into dust. Seriously, if someone is talking about how much they want to go to Dubai, I immediately assume that person is a sexual predator.

I'm afraid that's a "desert mirage." The UAE holds the world's sixth-largest proven oil reserves, estimated at approximately 111 to 113 billion barrels as of 2025-2026, accounting for roughly 6.4% of the global total.

While it's true only 1% of Dubai's economy relies on oil, the UAE will happily keep pumping investments to keep Dubai running for at least 96 years based on its own oil reserves.

Dubai is very dangerous for sex tourism, alcohol and drugs. Foreigners get arrested all the time. Much of that illicit activity is exclusively indulged by the local Arabs who seek out and prey on young women from all over the world (protected by the ultra-corrupt Dubai police).

A lot of families, young travellers and expats choose Dubai for completely different reasons.
Families - Dubai is the entertainment capital of the world
travellers - everything is the biggest and best, photo ops, popular with vloggers and youtubers who are given free accommodation and money to promote Dubai's tourism, also a cruise ship, tour guide stopover to Asia
Asian middle class - is a trade emporium for duty free, designer brands, textiles, gold (biggest gold/jewellery market in the world - replaced Singapore long ago).
Expats - $$ paid a lot so attracts professionals from all over the world

I'd just assume they're superficial with no sense of taste; but if later on they're found to be a predator I won't be able to say there were no signs whatsoever.

Part of the appeal to Dubai rich expats is no to low taxes on income.....however us Americans will never be able to pay zero taxes by moving to Dubai unless we renounce our cititzen ship.

It's easy to have low income tax in a country where government projects are dirt-cheap because they're all built on slave labor. If you're able to live in a country for free, someone else is paying the price.

But even if was rich and lived in Dubai I would still paying taxes to America. So I dont really get the point for a future me.

The main thing that seems to set Dubai apart from anywhere else is that Dubai is still pretty open about their caste system, which other nations try to pretend they don't still also live by. Pretty much every nation has what they'd consider "lower class citizens", or "others" of some sort, to whom, it doesn't matter what happens, so long as they're useful.

In the abstract, it's easy to care about all 8 billion souls on earth. But in practice, the value of other people tends to quite rapidly drop off, once something of value is at stake, or someone is expected to take action.

People are ok with genocide, so long as they still get their coffee and tea. Visitors of Dubai likely tell themselves that "it's just their culture" and decide that it's "none of their business" - but "if they go and spend money", at least they're "helping", vs if nobody goes, then things "get worse". People will rationalize all kinds of stuff if it means they get to keep living their comfy lives.