And by "awe" we mean pants-shitting horror. If this is the future, then the future is filled with terrible, terrible ideas.

Every couple of months you hear about some new, fantastic space-age construction project they're building somewhere in the world. Towers that stretch a mile into the sky, or rest under the sea. Entire cities built into massive skyscrapers. You can't help but gasp in awe.

5 Hydropolis

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Hydropolis is a sprawling underwater hotel under construction in Dubai of the United Arab Emirates, the home of most of the world's ridiculous construction projects. Sixty-six feet below the Persian Gulf and covering an area equal to London's Hyde Park, this $5,500-a-night undersea pleasure dome caters to a very select clientele--obscenely rich folks who have never read Michael Crichton's Sphere.

Why It's Awesome:

Juxtaposing an aquatic city next to the world's biggest desert boomtown is such a goofily whimsical idea you can't help but smile. It's like the UAE hired Dr. Seuss as their urban planner. If you still can't picture the sheer ridiculousness of all this, imagine if, across the street from their famous ice hotel, the city of Quebec built a hotel made entirely of fire.

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Also, you can look at the beautiful fish of the Persian Gulf. For $3.80 a minute.



"Look, a fish!"

"Cool!"

"Want to go watch TV?"

"Yeah."

Why You Will Shit Your Pants:

Hmm, what part of "experimental underwater hotel that literally costs the GDP of East Timor, is filled with moronic rich people and is in a politically tenuous corner of the world" does not sound like the next installment of the Die Hard franchise? Or the sequel to Bioshock? Or, hell, any episode of Sealab 2021? Could the potential for shit to FUBAR be any higher?

We'd compare this opulent, waterlogged enterprise to the Titanic, but the Titanic didn't have a built-in missile defense system waiting to malfunction in some horrifying way.

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Other Inconveniences:

Forget booking your honeymoon here. If you're spending $5,000 a night, you're not going to close the drapes; you want to fuck like Namor the Submariner. And that means Hydropolis is guaranteed to be an aquatic Eden for scuba-diving peeping Toms. Enjoy your stardom on YouTube, kids!