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Comment by rottencupcakes | Hacker News Reader

So were the Pyramids of Giza and Angkor Wat.

Isn't anything that isn't humanitarian aid technically a waste of money?

I would pick humanitarian aid over religious monuments to glorify unelected monarchs.

Recently read the argument that monuments are less about glory and more about keeping the unwashed masses busy with work, so they don't have time or energy to overthrown the ruling class.

... or juicing the economy with a little redistribution, without simply giving handouts. Or a little of both.

The CCC in the US was a similar thing: paying people to build nice things in parks and such while people were going hungry. We absolutely didn't need that stuff. Coulda just given the money away to those who needed it. Though, this way, at least, we got some wonderful benefits that endure to this day—indeed, the kind of well-built, long-lasting, and nice-to-have but unnecessary infrastructure and flourishes, for the enjoyment and appreciation of all, that make one feel like one actually does live in a very-rich country—even if the resource-allocation wasn't ideal from a greatest-good-for-the-suffering perspective.

A sincere attempt at economic stimulus, or keeping the able-bodied masses busy & fed so they don't get any ideas? Probably both.

As for the true motivations of the pharaohs—who knows.

“As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs.”

- Henry David Thoreau

> So were the Pyramids of Giza and Angkor Wat.

Of course they were a waste. The reason we like them is because we didn't have to pay for them and we marvel at those who did. I like the moai on Easter Island; should we do more of that?

technically yes. both those things are a waste of energy that could have been spent bettering humanity. not to mention they were probably made by 'slaves'

Archaeological evidence suggests the pyramids were built by paid laborers who got free food and housing, rather than slaves. That's a better deal than most workers get today.

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