Along the Nile valley, the automation of irrigation reduced the number of people needed for food production. The armed forces were as big as they needed to be, and the unemployed farm workers had to be kept busy. So, those made umemployed by technology were made to build pyramids, from which the souls of the pharaohs could be launched into space, apparently toward the star Sirius.
Why someone would want their soul to be sent to Sirius is beyond the scope of this column, but they must have had their reasons. As a result of convincing leaders that pyramids should be built, people were dragooned into work squads. They quarried, cut, and moved stones for generations, heaping up one vast pile after another. Some worked on elaborate paintings, carvings, coffins. Their output was all the more remarkable for its utter uselessness.
The only good thing about them was that they did provide tourist income for a couple of thousand years. Even today, people spend a lot to go to Egypt, look at the pyramids, and be impressed with the scope of large-scale government projects thousands of years ago.
Governments never stop building pyramids. Today’s monuments have little lasting structure and more lies. We see vast edifices in which the environment, social justice, and universal well-being are served by endless hordes of priests and acolytes in the new pyramids.
As long as the armed forces are maintained, it really doesn’t matter much, except for those whom they help. The recipients of such “aid” are routinely destroyed by such assistance.
