It's clear from the story of the tower of Babel that people should avoid building big monuments ( hear that Trump?), but people do anyway. You just have to look at D.C., Paris and the Vatican for examples.
Then there's the story of the Jewish exile. The Assyrian king Nebuchadnezzar sacked Jerusalem and took the rich and elite into exile to Babylon, but he left the poor to work the land and even redistributed some of the land so the poor could have their just rewards. And the land knew 70 years of peace. People could worship the way they wanted, setting up home alters and hilltop shrines.
But then the Persian king Cyrus, toppled the Assyrians. I suppose he didn't want the expense of supporting the exiled Jewish community and sent them back to Israel/Judah. And following in the ways of the elite before and since, they rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem, decreed that is the place for worship and re-instituted all ceremonies, festivals and Temple taxes. The regular people never get much of a break.
And religions have been following suit ever since. Building big churches and spending 80% of their money on buildings and salaries.
The thing that got me thinking about this post is the Pope came out with a speech on regulating AI. Regular people don't really need to hear this. The Pope and most other world leaders are just neo-babelites. Just go find a quiet monastery somewhere and turn the Vatican and Notre Dame in Paris into housing. Can autonomous cars be any worse than the human drivers? Can AI running things be any worse than the crazy governments we have now. The rich and elite just never want to give up any power.
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