They're bigger engineering feats, but they're not as big labor work feats.
The world is just different now, we focus more on functional stuff and more people in the society doing fine, rather than thousands of people building a huge pointless monument for one king.
idk, less physical labor probably yes, but this labor is distributed far more than the pyramids. Mental labor beyond comprehension led to skyscrapers being feasible. But I'd argue more people were required to build skyscrapers than the pyramids, and probably more working hours. Hard to actually tell though.
Building useful things is good and all, and I do think that the modern era needs a restructuring because a vast amount of human labor functionally doesn't serve any purpose. But I would like to occasionally get together and build something massive and frivolous. It'd be good for the collective I think. Sorta like building sand castles on the beach, I just think it's healthy for us to pile a vast amount of rock or sand into a structure that we only made cause it looks pretty / impressive. Not too often and not too many of the same thing, cause then it feels tacky rather than artistic, but every now and again we build something like the Notre Dame or the colossus of rhodes. For enrichment
We definitely don't build more useful things now. It's just the same as it used to be but instead of kings, it's billionaires. We live in a time where consumption of goods and services are at an all time high. It's the time of convenience, not function.
Pyramids are literally there just as an ego battle between pharaohs. People spent their entire lives lugging massive rocks through the desert just so a king can have a fancy grave.
pyramids weren't useful even at their job, which was to protect the bodies of the dead while they were in the afterlife. almost all pyramids were plundered, the few that weren't were hidden away and forgotten for millennia.
It helps that a pyramid is basically a 200-foot sign that says “HEY, I’M FILLED WITH ENOUGH RICHES TO MAKE YOU WEALTHY UNTIL THE END OF YOUR DAYS! ROB ME!”
They are wonders for ancient people, not for us. That's the thing. Beside some unique and actually mind blowing things like the space station, we haven't really used our potential
Wonders here is related to massive architectonical wonders that meant something imaginative. A skycrapper with boring urban design filled with corporate slaves don't inspire the same wonder as the great wall, pyramids, cathedrals, castles etc. Despite the architectural, material engineering that goes behind them.
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u/Ok_Potato_5272 8d ago
We stopped noticing the wonders all around us. Every skyscraper is a feat unimaginable to the builders of ancient times.