Der Spiegel has a great story, aptly titled “The Peak of Insanity,” about a Dutch attempt to construct a fake mountain. A Dutch journalist, Thijs Vonneveld, proposed the project as a joke, but someone took him seriously and now the project has taken on a life of its own. Zonneveld says that the Dutch have a fascination with mountains and cites the many Dutch people who take vacations to Germany for its beautiful mountains. Dutch engineering is impressive, with much of the country being reclaimed swamp land. It is for this reason that Thijs Vonneveld thinks that the construction of an ariticial mountain in what is a flat country is not completely impossible or without precedent. A proposal is to construct the mountain and make it hollow. In my opinion that kind of kills the whole point. Zonneveld is not going to let material burdens like cost and where to procure such massive amounts of steel or whatever is needed to build a hollow, faux-alpine mountain stop him from pursuing his fever dream. If only he had been born in Dubai.