Strange Human Rush To Erect Super Skyscrapers

By James Donahue

December 2005

First there was the Taipei 101, a super-tall building in Taiwan which, at 509 meters, makes it the tallest man-made structure in the world. The very weight of this colossal giant is said to be threatening to shift earthen plates under the ground and setting off destructive earthquakes. Five construction workers died in March, 2002, when a 6.8 earthquake caused two cranes to fall from the 56^th floor.

Next the United Arab Emirates is erecting the Burj Dubai, or Tower of Dubai, expected to surpass the Taiwan structure by rising to at least 705 meters (2,313 feet) by the time it is finished in 2008. Its exact height remains a closely guarded secret, however.

Now a London architectural firm, Eric Kuhne and Associates, have revealed plans for an even higher skyscraper under consideration by the Kuwaiti government. This monster would tower at 1001 meters and be the centerpiece for a new “City of Silk” to be known as Madinat al-Hareer. The building could house 7,000 people and take 25 years to complete.

Two other mega-tall structures going up in major world cities include the Freedom Tower in New York City and the Shanghai World Financial Center. While these are taller than other existing buildings, they do not reach the height of the Taipei 101.

All of these buildings are so tall they require exceptional engineering design to reach such heights. In addition to the sheer weight, requiring unique structural preparation, foundational support and high-speed elevators capable of moving people, they also are navigational hazards for aircraft that now fill the world’s airways.

In light of the fact that the former world record holders for tall buildings, the twin towers of the World Trade Center, became targets for terrorists who succeeded after two attempts to destroy them and kill thousands of people working in them, what is prompting this world rush to build even taller and more spectacular buildings? And who would wish to work, live in or occupy such buildings?

The answer we are told is a problem of overpopulation. We running out of room for new buildings and places to live so architects say they are looking up rather than out as they design for the future. Building space in all of the cities and even the countries where these mega-towers are going up is at a premium.

One might wonder, due to the threatening times we are living in, why architects are not also looking down? Surely entire cities built deep in solid bedrock deep in the Earth might provide many people safer shelter from things like a world nuclear war, the global threat of a possible asteroid strike and other suggested end-times horrors. One would not think it to be any more costly to build underground than to erect such structurally challenging towers into the sky.

We think there are more subtle and unspoken reasons behind this rush to build super towers. As a reckless human race we have literally upset the perfect balance in the world’s ecological system and we have sent our planet into a wild spin into global warming that will bring catastrophic weather changes, super storms and eventual heat the planet until it becomes impossible for anything to remain alive. Thus we subconsciously know that we are a dying race living on a dying planet.

Before we go extinct, humans are eager to erect colossal monuments so that alien races that someday happen to look down upon this planet will see that we were once here, and may stand in awe at what we accomplished. It is the human ego at work.

Even more subtle is that irresistible wish by the dominant males to portray the human phallus, forever declaring his glory as the ruling force in world affairs.

In the end, they are pretty silly reasons to be spending the money required to design and erect such buildings. Once we are gone, all that we ever built will be rubble and our existence will have been forgotten. We would do better to concentrate our genius on solving the world overpopulation problem than devoting what is left of our raw materials to building skyscrapers.