I don’t think I’m stoked about the prospect of saudi police- or any police for that matter, but especially saudi- having fucking drones.
Why especially Saudi? ACAB but Saudi police from personal experience are nowhere near as brutal or deadly as some police in other supposedly more civilized and developed countries. Our notorious religious police has been disbanded, and is no more.
Oh, I was definitely referring to the notorious religious police. If that’s no more then… I guess just acab, yeah. Would you have a source I can read more about this on? I’d maybe like to share it.
Some news articles:
https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/14/middleeast/saudi-arabia-religious-police-powers/index.html
https://apnews.com/general-news-615a3fff5c7e4df9accb85bb8e17337a
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0XA25J/
and this is Saudi Arabia now:
https://youtu.be/FC0bl2PObW4 (short documentary by DW)
This definitely doesn’t go as far as I was hoping based on your initial description, but it’s an amazingly positive step in the right direction for such a conservative country.
The news is old, you should come and see for yourself. You need to keep in mind that generally the people are more religious and more conservative than the government and the government cannot upset them too much. Our opposition abroad is even more religious and conservative and use the progress made as arguments against the legitimacy of the monarchy.
I went to Dubai and Abu Dhabi some 5 or 6 years ago. Beautiful cities, excellent food and museums. I swore I would never go again just because of the facade of ostentatious opulent wealth on top of a massive complex network of definitely-not-slavery-because-that-would-be-illegal. I have every reason to believe SA has the same definitely-not-slavery problem. Also, I am an unabashed heretic, and (if I understand correctly, strictly speaking) an apostate, since I have read and understood subsequently rejected significant portions of al quran, and religious apostasy laws are still on the books, even if they are seldom enforced. I will not be visiting SA despite your otherwise excellent suggestion.
You are free to make that decision. There’s plenty of wealth and far more people in China anyways, and they don’t hate us the same way people in the West do.