The Chaser Report - The Screen Is Everything | Welcome To The Future

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

Another special weekend episode of Welcome To The Future uploaded into The Chaser Report's feed. Find WTTF here: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/welcome-to-the-future Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. It's the weekend, so we thought we'd put a little special treat into your feed, which is Wednesday's episode of Welcome to the Future. If you like this, we won't keep doing this forever. So if you really like this sort of episode, the Welcome to the Future Go, and subscribe to it in your podcast app of choice on its own feed. Yes. So we're spinning it off, basically.

So the Chaser report's going to keep being about the news the day or whatever, or Charles's personal problems, whichever it happens to be. But the Welcome to the Future, we've been enjoying it so much we thought we'd make it a standalone thing. So we encourage you to subscribe to that by giving you this episode,

which is all about the future of buildings. And let me tell you, they're building some bat-sheet insane ones, mostly in Saudi Arabia. Hello, and welcome to... Welcome to the Future. That was a stupidly deep voice, Charles Firth, and I'm Dom Knight.

And I'm our... I've actually got some future to share with you today, Charles. Oh, yeah. Today we're talking about the future of buildings. Oh, yes. You know the thing that we're in right now in our podcast studio. Oh, yes. This could be a lot more expensive and a lot more ridiculous.

Oh, that sounds. Does it involve Bluetooth? I suspect it does somewhere, but I'm not entirely sure how. Let's begin with the future of like large concert venues. And then we'll get to the future of the building itself. Oh, wow. That does sound high tier. Remember we talked about the ridiculous building happening in Saudi Arabia.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The line. 170 kilometres long. Made of glass. Made of glass. And I think it's 400 metres wide and 500 meters tall. Update on that. And then that's not the only ridiculous building that the Saudis have planned.

Let me guess it goes up. 470 kilometers. Not quite, but it is ridiculous. Let's begin, though, instead with the future of concert venues. Now, you like going to see live. music, don't you? I love, love music. You also like Las Vegas because you're a trashy human being. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, everyone likes Vegas. Well, Las Vegas is the home of the future of the concert

of the live event. Oh, no. It's a space called the MSG sphere. Now, clearly... Is it sort of Chinese takeaway? Like, is it a massive Bain Marie? Yeah, it gives you a massive gluten intolerance. That's right. No, it's, so MSG, they've clearly just ignored the branding problem because MSG also stands for Madison Square Garden. Oh, yeah. As you know, the giant arena. Now, I went to Madison Square Garden once, and I, like much of America,

I couldn't quite believe what a time war, but it was back to the mid-80s. Like, it seemed as though nothing had been renovated in that building since the Reagan administration. Well, it's because there's something on every night. They wouldn't have time to renovate. But anyway, so MSG, this company, this is a musingly named company, has decided that despite having this really dated crappy old arena, they don't want to fix that.

Instead, they want to build the MSG sphere. Right. So it's Madison Square Garden, Las Vegas style. It is. It's the Venetian, which is this hilarious recreation of Venice. They've got like condolers and canals. So they're no strangers to ridiculously expensive building projects. $1.865 billion.

And it's coming online this year. in Nevada. Now, if you were designing today, Charles, a new arena to put on gigs, big events as a draw card in Las Vegas, how would you deck it out? I'd deck it out with not enough toilets because that's the key thing that you need in any stadium. What they're doing is, you know how this amazing system set up called the volume for filming the Mandalorian where basically there's LED screens around in every direction? So you don't actually have to turn up,

like the performers don't have to turn up, they can just turn up on a screen. Well, they could. So the sphere has screens on every surface inside the arena. Because the whole problem with modernity is that there's not enough screens. That's right. There's not enough screens.

You need more screens. And when you go out to a concert, you don't want to be looking at reality. You want to be looking at more screens. But the brilliant thing is, Charles, at the moment when you go to a concert, some fucking dipshit is holding. their iPhone in between you and the event.

Like they're holding every single thing. There's hundreds and hundreds of phones. You can't actually see the artist because some shit is holding up the phone and they're to get a bad video. Don't we? So you can't see it live. We sound like old people. Yes, but we're still right.

We didn't have screens. But I've watched those videos and they objectively suck. If they were recording good, I'd sort of understand. But they're ruining everyone's experience for a piece of shit. Anyway, they're going to have a 100. 160,000 square foot wrap around LED display on the interior. So every single...

Behind... In every direction. So you'll be sitting on the ground. It'll be in the round. Right. The followers will go in the middle. Yeah. Or potentially outside.

So where does the screen fit? Because if... It's a sphere. So you're inside a sphere. Oh, and the sphere is like... So the screen is the wall and the ceiling. The screen is everything. It's 16K.

The screen is everything. Yeah, it's 16K by 16. It's got to be the name for this here. Forget your 4K. Forget your AK. This is 16K by 16K. And they want to transport you to the location. What do you mean 16K by 16?

What does it even mean? It's just incredibly high resolution. Oh, okay. And so the aim is... Well, you'd want it to be. It's like fucking 50 kilometers long, isn't it? There are, guess how many speakers there are? 364,000 for spatial audio.

I was only 163,997 off. So the concept is, when you're sitting there in the sphere, and this is the most delicious part of the experience, you feel as though you're not in Las Vegas. Like, the Venetian spent all this money to make you think you're in medieval Venice, and now you'll just imagine you're actually inside a television. I wonder whether they'll have a Venice-based show.

Oh, I'm sure they would. What they'll do is have incredibly expensive just like other parts of the real world that aren't Venice. Because that's what Las Vegas is. If you haven't been, like they've recreated Paris. Yes. New York. New York, New York is a new casino.

There's heaps of casinos. The ancient Egyptian one. The Pyramid? Yes, the Pyreys' Palace, an ancient Rome. Yes. Yes. So it's basically attempts to not be in Vegas. That's right. So that's the aim. So it's actually worked amazingly well.

So the concept is... But can you hook your Bluetooth to it? Like, can you... Can somebody hijack it and, like, just airdrop... Airdrop porn. Air drop a dick pick in 16 by 16K. So not only does it have all these screens, it also has 4D capabilities, wins and cents.

And here it comes in... Winds. It does, it can create a breeze. Wow. But actually natural, like, you won't need to leave it. No. To feel you're in the real world. Yes, yes.

So what you can have is you can display a high resolution thing of, like the Grand Canyon. Of a field. Of a field, yeah. A technologyless field. And you go, imagine we're in a world where you're in a field. Yeah. The scent of grass surrounds you. And everyone's, you know, I feel like it's sparked off.

So it's incredible. So there's all this cooling everywhere as well And they're going to use it for everything they can think of Yes There's going to be live performances, sports, gaming Do they have comedy shows? Like could we take wake economics there? I think there'll be a lot of wayconomics on display

At this event, the MSG sphere So Charles, not only are there giant wraparound screens On the inside of the building There are also giant screens On the outside of the building So that they can pretend That it doesn't exist That the people inside are having fun

They can show everyone inside and just record crowds having fun and then pretend that that's having value for money because I don't know the tickets. So why would it be on the outside? It doesn't that feel like giving value to people who haven't paid? It's not the same. I don't think the screens are as sort of high-res, but it's basically going to be for advertising.

Oh, right. You'll drive past it on the way, I think, into Vegas. Oh, I think the inside should be for advertising as well. You should just go in and have ads. And have ads. Yeah. So the Grand Prix is coming to Vegas later in the year. the first time, and it will go past this thing.

So they've already sold the ads on the outside of it for the Grand Prix. So it's going to be absolutely huge. Not only are they doing this, Charles. Welcome to the future. Ads, ads, ads. It's the largest spherical thing in the world. It's more of them. 516 feet wide and it's bigger ads.

20,000 getting these bigger ads. That's a huge arena. With breeze. That's right. With Fart Spills. But they're going to build these things all over the world. They're building one in London. Oh, we need one in Sydney.

Oh, surely, surely, Adelaide. Actually, Brisbane. Yeah, it'll be Adelaide, right? So people can pretend they're not in Adelaide. I like most of all. Does it create good coffee? Ah, yeah, we'll give you the illusion of good coffee. An ad for good coffee.

So they'll be able to do live events and so on. So you'd be able to be watching a gig in London that's coming live from this arena or whatever. I told you, this is so that. Performers don't have to go to Las Vegas. Yeah, that's probably right. But they're also doing esports. I don't know if you saw recently, but at the Kump Nu, which is the Barcelona Stadium, 90,000 people went to watch this Twitch soccer game.

It was full of, like, Twitch celebrities and a few famous soccer players. Yes. And it was full. So this is what people want now. They don't actually want regular sport. No. They want dorks from YouTube playing sport. And that's more entertaining than the real thing.

No, but it is. My kids watch e-sports. There you go. So we should clearly become dorks from YouTube. Anyway, so they're building this thing, this amazing venue. Yes. And Charles, they have announced the first act to perform in the MSG sphere. Who do you think, if you wanted to get a truly exciting artist of today, a true draw card to get people to come to the MSG sphere?

Who would you get? Well, it has to be Beyonce. You have to open it with Beyonce. Imagine Beyonce only much less exciting. Household names. But I just saw this and I was like, it'll be Eric Clapton. You're closer, closer, closer.

You're just going, yeah. Okay, let me guess. He's still alive. Okay, if I say to you incredibly hackneyed, we're all sick to death of this band. Oh, I think I know who you mean. Who is it? Is it Frenti?

Not quite. No, if there's, because this is a band that loves being annoying with new technology. Oh, no. No, is it you too? It's you too. Oh, no. It's the band that gave every iPod customer in the world and iPhone a free album that no one wanted.

Everyone said, no, how do I delete this? But not only is it you too, Charles, not only is it you two performing. Are they going to force people to go to this? Yeah, they're going to, they're going to be there for a very long time. Find themselves transported. They're like, I really want to see this fear. Oh, fuck, I've got to watch you too. But not only is it.

going to be there for a long time. They're doing a long residency in this space. Not a one-off. But they're not just performing their new music. They're performing their album, Aktung Baby. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I don't know, for 30 years ago or something. So the most cutting-edge event.

I'd see that. Is this old band doing an old album. And, you know, they released this hilarious video where the sphere flies around the world and picks up different people from, like, you know, street kids from Lagos and, like, program. And the idea is that they all know YouTube's Actung Baby.

that somehow a 20-year-old will have heard of Uctung Baby. Anyway, so that's the most exciting entertainment event this year. You two, I think at the end of the year, performing in Vegas some shitty old album. I don't mind Uctung Baby. I have booked my tickets. You're so old. How are you only one year older than me? No, to Adelaide, to get away.

Okay, so that's the first building I wanted to mention. Now, Charles, you'll remember that a few podcasts ago, I think before you had Welcome to the Future. as our tech spin-off, we talked about an incredible building in Saudi Arabia. Yeah, the line, part of their Neon project. A bit of a report. By the way, Dom, before we get into that, on Twitter, is every second ad you ever see for neon? Yes.

I eventually said, I'm not interested in this, and it went away. Oh, right. And I think I've now got a death sentence, I think. Because I know it sounded exciting, this 170-kilometer-long project. And just to be clear, when we last talked about this, one of the scams was that, you You can, like, there's lots of jobs available to work on the Neon project. Yeah, that's right. And they're hiring essentially anyone from all around the world as experts.

So it's very, very, if you want to get a $900,000 a year job that you only have to do for about a year and then you're rich, right? Why aren't we doing the official podcast as online? You should, you should just go and get a job in Saudi Arabia. The only drawback being you have to work with MBS who sounds like an absolute tyrant. Yes, I mean, you may think that, but Charlie. He's putting all this behind him, okay? I wanted to update you on the line. And NBS being the Crown Prince.

Muhammad bin Sultan. The guy who chopped up that Washington Post journalist, Kachaji, and... With a bone saw. Okay, so this is from Engadget. And, I mean, it sounds like an amazing futuristic paradise. 170 kilometres long. It's got glass walls. Yes.

You can five-minute walk from everywhere. Well, except for the places that are 170 kilometres of ways. Yes, that's right. But everything you could want, schools, health, all that sort of stuff. The whole point... Because I think the point is, It's only 400 metres wide. That's right.

It's very narrow. But the main point is that when you're in it, you don't feel like you're in Saudi Arabia. That's the basic idea. Right. And according to Nelson's her. They should put it in Las Vegas. They probably will. So here's an update from Engadget.

And let's just say the few little issues have crept into the mega city. The first is that it turns out that the place, if you're going to build 170 kilometre long building, you end up displacing a whole lot of tribes that have been there for a very, very long time. And it doesn't always gone so well. Those who have dared to speak out against the government's plans or refuse to give up their homes have been harassed and abducted by Saudi security forces, arrested or in some cases killed. For example, Abdul Rahim Al-Hawati, a prominent Hawatat activist, was killed by police in April of 2020 after posting videos on social media trying to raise awareness of the forced displacing.

So it's important to note that even though they've built this futuristic city, you can still be killed in it by MBS's security forces. Which we were suggested as a joke, by the way, when we were. talking about it before. Yeah, it's just already happening. Hang on, just to understand, so to sort of build this place, they've got to actually just get rid of the people who are already living there. All these people, and they're just killing them. And they've been projected, so the easiest solution to the problem is to just kill them.

Well, I must say, Dom, I think that that's just a sensible policy from a very fair and just rule. Well, they didn't want to get with the program. Imagine the ingratitude of someone building the world's most advanced linear city next to where you live and you objecting rather than going and living in the air-condition

comfort. Was that, was they offered a thing or was it just the offer of get out of here? I imagine that death was always part of the general. But you see,

the thing is, it is futuristic. In that sense, it's still like Saudi Arabia. See, I mean, look, not wanting to get too authoritarian on you at this point,

Dom. I do think that say, our local planning laws could be radically hastened up and, and made better. With bone sores.

If we had a sort of, if you object to the next development, we will kill you type attitude. Because, you know, there's a housing crisis, not just in Australia, but all around the world. And part of the problem is that, you know, people can object in democracies. Oh, and they tie it up in red tape. In the table and red tape.

You got to, oh, what about the shadows? What about it blocking my view? What about the fact that I've lived here for the last 60,000 years? Get rid of all that. Interesting fact. Once you've dismembered somebody, The tape you use to seal the body bag is also quite red. Yeah, yeah.

So anyway, just another insight into how the line's going to work. Because if you look at the video, the renders, it's very futuristic and modern. But obviously the dismembering and all that that's going on is very old-fashioned. That's old Saturday, right? But maybe they need to innovate with a sort of Bluetooth hexaw. They are going to innovate actually in the line. This is what it's going to be like, according to Engadgett. The line is expected to be loaded with countless.

sensors, cameras, and facial recognition technology that in such a confined space could push government surveillance to almost unthinkable levels. Now, that would be troubling in any nation, but in a country like Saudi Arabia where homosexuality is outlawed, LGBTQ people are persecuted, and women hold almost no rights, it's downright terrifying. So if you think about it, it's actually a 400-meter-wide prison with surveillance cameras everywhere. And presumably the Saudi government will be able to just shut down any bit of it, a bit like in Judge Dred. Have you ever seen Judge Dred where there's... Yeah, yeah.

He is the law. It's a horizontal version of Judge Dred. There'll be no escape. There's been no way out of the skyscraper. Yeah. You can't jump out. Yeah. It's 400 metres up in the air or whatever it is.

So it's brilliant. It's the future of totalitarian surveillance. So, I mean, Saudi Arabia is known for its kind of old-fashioned approach to things like, you know, beheadings with swords. Yes. But they're getting right up. I mean, full credit to NBS for modernising the regime. It's doing a wonderful job at that.

Yeah. So it's high-tech authoritarianism. Yeah. That's great. Okay. So, but this is a little bit pie in the sky. It's going to take them a long time to build the line. The new project, Charles, is a lot, a lot easier to build.

Oh, great. Let me introduce you to another form of the future. Introducing the new horizon for Riyadh, a new icon. The mukab, the world's first immersive experiential destination. That's the world's first immersive experiential. I thought we had that in Las Vegas. Yeah, that was the MSG sphere. Yes, MS, yeah, emmins.

So that was a giant circle. The mukab is a giant cube. They're building a giant cube in the middle of Riyadh. Let me tell you more about just how exciting it's going to be. A gateway to another world. Step inside and it's unlike any. anything you've ever seen at a scale that's unprecedented, big enough to hold 20 Empire State buildings.

Yep. Oh my God. So if you imagine a cube big enough, yeah, to hold 20 Empire State buildings. And once again, it's actually massive and very hard to get out of. I love the fact that all these projects are about, you know what we need. We need something which allows you to go to a different place other than the place that you're already in. It's funny, Charles, you say that.

Enter a different world. Because this is a key part of the pitch. Where you and those around you enter a new reality, transporting you to Mars one day and magical worlds the next. Oh, see, that's good. Yep. That's very good. Because if I were in Riyadh and I couldn't get out of Riyadh,

I think the notion of trying to leave the planet entirely would appeal quite a lot. But I don't actually know from this render, because it's just all CGI renders, whether or not they're just projecting screens around kind of like title recall, or if it's actually meant to be a Mars spaceboard. I mean, NBS is capable of either form of delusion at this point.

But the hilarious thing about the macabre is that it all comes down to retail. Like all this stuff, all these screens. It's not meant to be a future of a community. It's basically the world's biggest. Westfield. Yeah. It's a Westfield.

It's a massive Westfield in the desert. Has it? Oh, only unlike Australian shopping centres, they're not putting rainbows in for Mardi Gras or World Pride. Oh my God, poor Frank Lowy. He must be so sad that he didn't think of that first. Yeah. I mean, he did think of it first, but he didn't think of it best.

See, Frank Lowe's problem is he envisaged Bondo Junction in Sydney. If you haven't been there, it's basically an entire suburb swallowed by Westfield. It's a black label, Westfield. Yeah, it's a wrap around. like basically Westfield wraps around kind of like a giant a giant symbiotic parasite basically what he didn't do was just enclose

the entire thing in a giant cube but the other thing is Charles I don't know if you how familiar you are but when you go to Mecca the most sacred site in the whole of Islam is that cube-shaped sanctuary so it's deliberately

the same like it looks like a Muslim version of a cathedral Yeah, it's the holy of holies. But a shopping centre. Yeah. It's sort of the perfect. Like, and will there be a mecca? Like literally, you know, the makeup brand mecca.

I think there'll be a mecca megastore. Yeah, this is the cabar in mecca. This is what you're supposed to visit. Will there be a virgin megastore? Oh, quite possibly. What there won't be, because they've just gone break, is, yeah, but also sanity will be not there. So, yeah, you're supposed to, so weirdly, weirdly sacrilegious. of MBS to have done this.

So he may get dismembered with a bone saw before long. Yeah, well, I hope there's a bunnings there. You can have a lot of bunnings is inside this cube. So this is the future of buildings, Charles. We're getting whatever it is, it's got to be a giant sphere. Yes. Or a giant's cube or a giant line. You can't have anything else other than massive geometric.

Well, I guess the pyramids came first. I'm glad all these developers are focusing on the real problems that are facing people, which is our reality is so shit that we don't want more schools, hospitals, roads, you know, dwellings and things. I mean, that's the really big relief for me, Charles, that all this time and effort and energy could have been put into affordable housing. Yeah, but no, no. No, but you can escape the reality that you can't afford your home.

With screens. With screens. And I like this. I mean, basically, the pitch for the line, this, and if you haven't seen it, please go and check it out, it's bizarre. The pitch is that it's going to have nine million people in it. So if you find that, you know, living in Sydney or something, you can't afford to rent, if that's a horrible reality, go and live in the line, be surveilled by the Saudi government.

You won't be able to escape this one thing that's in a line. Don't be gay or a woman. Yes. And that will make even Sydney property prices seem a relatively good bargain. And if, you know what, the one thing we can guarantee is that when this finally gets built, I don't know, 2060, 2070, somehow fucking you two is going to play the opening. Our gear is from Ride. We are part of the Iconiclass Network.

See you next week. And make sure you book now for our interview show in the sphere in Las Vegas. Tickets will go fast, I'm sure. You two's going to perform.