Unfortunately, instead of a metaphor for renovation and adaptation, Neom is becoming a metaphor for the Kingdom’s failure to modernize—its inability to throw off the shackles of the past, and its delusion (which appears to be quickly dissipating) that it might somehow transform itself into a paragon of the future. At the same time, said floundering metaphor is being held aloft by thousands upon thousands of precarious workers, many of whom, according to a report from Human Rights Watch, have died for the project. There’s just something about a hubristic mega-project being built in the desert with the blood of countless laborers that doesn’t exactly speak of modernism.