4 ms·
Sure, but no-one on Earth today is willing to pay for a pyramid - or anything like it - even with the convenience of modern construction. I have a similar feel
by FLHerne 4mo ago
Sure, but no-one on Earth today is willing to pay for a pyramid - or anything like it - even with the convenience of modern construction.
I have a similar feeling looking at the great cathedrals.
These structures took up a huge proportion of the community's money, labour and talent, for decades on end.
They're orders of magnitude bigger than any 'normal' building of the time or for centuries later.
All with no prospect of any tangible return.
If we set out now to build the largest structure that the limits of our technology allow, designed almost purely as a work of art with little regard to any function, what would that look like? I don't know, no-one's done it for centuries.
The closest thing is the Eiffel Tower.
It's a national icon, the wrought-iron equivalent of a pyramid - but it took two years to build, not twenty. What would an Eiffel Tower with 10x the resources look like? And that's more than a century ago.
It's not hard to believe that humans could build these things, but it's occasionally hard to believe that they chose to.
- card_zero 4mo agoEiffel tower: 10,000 tons Great pyramid: 5 or 6 million tons So only around 500 times as much moving material around, feasible I guess. You might need a dedicated rail line built direct to the quarry. Funny to mention cathedrals considering that they finished one in Spain just recently. There's also Guédelon Castle in France, still being slowly built.
- marshray 4mo agoFor anyone interested in modern humans' ability to move material around when it is economically advantageous to do so, try a web image search for "largest open pit mines".
- sscaryterry 4mo agoThere is a big difference though between placing blocks precisely, and running dump trucks.
- marshray 4mo agoLook up a photo of one of the large mining trucks and compare it to the size of the blocks used in the Egyptian pyramids. Working with blocks of this size is just not a problem for modern equipment.
- AngryData 4mo agoTo be fair you got to also move a lot of ore to refine that metal. But there was also a lot of mechanically generated power used to get it.
- applfanboysbgon 4mo ago> I don't know, no-one's done it for centuries. I suppose the Burj Khalifa, the Sky Tree, the Sphere, and the Luxor don't count? Mount Rushmore? The only thing that's changed is that we've gotten more efficient at megaprojects and, I suppose, they've become so common you don't register them as interesting anymore.
- crooked-v 4mo agoThe Burj Khalifa is exactly the kind of vanity megaproject you're talking about.
- jubilanti 4mo ago> Sure, but no-one on Earth today is willing to pay for a pyramid - or anything like it - even with the convenience of modern construction. - Luxor in Las Vegas: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Las_Vegas_Luxor_04.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Las_Vegas_Luxor_04.j... - Bass Pro Shop Memphis Pyramid: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Memphis_Pyramid.JPG https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Memphis_Pyramid.JPG - Sunway Pyramid Mall, Malaysia : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sunway_Pyramid_front.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sunway_Pyramid_front... - Walter Pyramid, Cal State Long Beach: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Csulb-pyr1.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Csulb-pyr1.jpg - Muttart Conservatory, Edmonton: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Muttart_Conservatories_Edmonton_Alberta_Canada_01A.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Muttart_Conservatori... - Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, Kazakhstan: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%9C._%D0%90%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B0.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%9C._%D0%90%D1%81...
- jubilanti 4mo ago> What would an Eiffel Tower with 10x the resources look like? The Burj Khalifa.
- enaaem 4mo agoI found out that classical building with ornaments aren't that more expensive than modern glass boxes. The Berlin Baroque palace costed 680 Million euros which isn't atypical for buildings that size, and it includes carved stone ornamentation [1]. Modern CNC robots have made stone carving much more efficient. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HC1lLC7zY4&t=537s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HC1lLC7zY4&t=537s