The Large Hadron Collider and the International Space Stations are amazing wonders. It used to be that humanity’s most expensive projects were religious temples. Now it’s machines for scientific research. Some people apparently have a problem with this, and they’re generally not the sort of people I like to be around.
Those are exceptions. The majority of our (visible) expensive projects today are homages to power and money
It used to be that humanity’s most expensive projects were religious temples. Now it’s machines for scientific research.
I wish that were true, but the world spends far more on machines of war than we spend on science.
This is the headquarters of the fishery development board in Hyderabad.
It looks like a fish because they manage the fish there.
Nobody is doubting it looks like “a fish”, it’s just it looks like a fish drawn by a 3 years old
“This meme was brought to you through a single piece of glass several thousand miles long, at the bottom of the ocean”
Single piece of glass that runs on electric pulses which travel trough a neatly arranged mineral structure.
Edit: (not directed at OP)
Bro have you seen the size of the bridges, stadiums and skyscrapers we build? Fuck it, have you seen the LHC?
Should we start adding spires and arches to hospitals and train stations to get support from the RETVRN crowd?
Seriously, we started building things so massive that you literally can’t see all of it at the same time unless you’re in the air, riding in a magical skychair.
Exactly, yes! The LHC is so much more (larger isn’t the right word, maybe massive?). If it was on the surface instead of being buried, and the earth was perfectly spherical, you wouldn’t be able to see it standing in the middle of it, because the ring would be on the other side of the horizon all around you.
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The ones in DC are pretty inspiring, too, in a Brutalist kind of way.
They’re lit from below, so you can tell when a train is at a platform by the shadow it casts on the ceiling, which perfectly aligns with the recessed concrete blocks that make up said ceiling.
Really impressive.
I looked up photos of about a dozen separate metro stations in DC, and… they’re all the same design. I get pragmatism, but those are downright depressing. The only one I liked was Anacostia because the yellow overhead lights and the bright blue advertisement screen made interesting patterns reflecting off the water-damaged walls.
Compare that to Moscow: underground palaces. Marble, statues, reliefs, arches and columns, chandeliers everywhere. Hate the Soviets all you like, but they knew how to build beautiful.
I even like the ancient 81-series rolling stock, if only because of nostalgia.
The duomo took 600 years to be mostly complete and still has work being done though mostly restoration and maintenance. It has a marble quarry dedicated solely to it. Absolutely magnificent building, I did all the tours a few months ago, loved it.
That is why we don’t build buildings like it anymore, insanely expensive and time consuming. Plus our current rich people would rather rape kids on their massive yachts and private island than commission beauty to be admired by wider society like the wealthy of old.