Originally Posted by powerclown

Imagine if scientists found an alternative to the internal combustion engine, that ran on, say, water. The world is no longer reliant on oil, so basically the only natural resource of note left in the middle east is sand. What would the middle east do in their loneliness...with nobody in the world paying attention to them and their oil anymore? Build towering glass castles in the sand? Would all the pockets of jihad in the mountains of waziristan and bajoul likewise dry up? What would these radicals (in bajoul, not berkeley) do with their time if not chanting "death to america" or carving "kill bush" into their foreheads? Would they pick up a book of economics or crop irrigation? Would they start building moviehouses and multiplexes? Would they study the bible and christianity, in earnest? Would they try to incorporate sand into their diets, out of thrift? I would be very interested to see what might come out of the middle east while left to their own devices.