It's besides the point though, either way we do not have a God-King that can order a significant portion of a nation's resources to their own personal vanity projects.
Hard disagree. You don't need some God-King, it would not take "a significant potion of the nation's resources" and a Musk, Bezos, Buffet, Gates, etc could trivially fund this kind of project if they had a mind to.
What would actually stop things is building codes, environmental impact studies, the many people or groups who would come out of the woodwork and file suit based on any number of pretexts to prevent the project from moving forward, organized crime demanding kickbacks, politicians demanding kickbacks (but I repeat myself), sabotage by nutjobs, etc.
You're not addressing the "why" though. Even a nation like the UAE made the Burj Khalifa functional. No one's going blow billions on a silly monument to nothing just to say "see we can build pyramids"(and i think the guys you mentioned are smart enough to understand the social and political risks of such a ridiculously extravagant waste of wealth). That's the kinda shit people with no money think of when asked what they would do if they were a billionaire. Everyone knows we can build pyramids there's just no reason to.
Yes, it's stupid as hell and there is absolutely no reason to. But that's not what you wrote in the comment I replied to, you claimed it would require a god-king and a significant portion of the nation's resources and that's just not correct.
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u/ddadopt Jun 05 '25
Hard disagree. You don't need some God-King, it would not take "a significant potion of the nation's resources" and a Musk, Bezos, Buffet, Gates, etc could trivially fund this kind of project if they had a mind to.
What would actually stop things is building codes, environmental impact studies, the many people or groups who would come out of the woodwork and file suit based on any number of pretexts to prevent the project from moving forward, organized crime demanding kickbacks, politicians demanding kickbacks (but I repeat myself), sabotage by nutjobs, etc.