> Build pyramids if you must, but build them like the Egyptians did: with a clear purpose

For dim people, like myself. What was the "clear purpose" for Egypt to build giant stone pyramids? Maybe the rest of this will fall into place for me when I understand that.

To build a tomb. Not a shrine, not a place of worship, not a functional structure. Not something that could be repaired or repurposed. A tomb and nothing else.

A purposeless pyramid would get bogged down with plumbing and fountains and extra passageways and observation decks and on and on and on. It would have been impossible to build.

Reliable secure high-persistence storage.

IIRC, their society depended on it. During peacetime, it was a major economic engine paid for from the royal treasury, with the work starting as soon as a new pharaoh ascended the throne, and the labor provided steady work when agricultural activity stopped due to Nile flooding. Of course, it's only in hindsight with our modern understanding of economics that we can see how such an activity at face value not important to any basic survival need was in fact a key piece of the economic fabric.

You think you're getting into the afterlife in a measly $2000 casket? Nah, the dead pharaohs had to ride in style.

> For dim people, like myself. What was the "clear purpose" for Egypt to build giant stone pyramids?

For them to be able to properly descend to and navigate the afterlife of course. This is why society today is so broken, all we get for our afterlife is a shitty urn and some bland sandwiches.