Did We Really Need Seven New Wonders? 324
freakxx writes "Seven new 'wonders of the world' have been announced today in a ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal. People throughout the world have voted actively to elect the new 7 out of 21 finalists.
The final lineup is: Chichen Itza, Mexico; Christ Redeemer, Brazil; The Great Wall, China; Machu Picchu, Peru; Petra, Jordan; The Roman Colosseum, Italy; and The Taj Mahal, India. The Pyramids of Giza was the only candidate that used to be among the original seven wonders. Did we really need seven new wonders of the world? Why was this decided via a website poll (pdf) and SMS messages?"
It was a PR stunt (Score:5, Interesting)
Why lament it? (Score:2, Interesting)
This is also good exposure not just to the 7 winners, but to all the nominees. I certainly learn about a few sights I have not heard of before. Unless you think us Americans really ought to go to stay ignorant and go to Disneyland every year (I give no money to that company).
The reason... (Score:5, Interesting)
With the increased tourism revenue that being on this list would provide, one can expect that many governments would have taken advantage of this offer.
This list was a scam, plain and simple. There are so many wonderful things in the world... what the hell is the point of identifying 7 "most popular" ones?
Sid Meier had a better list (Score:3, Interesting)
Chichen Itza (Score:3, Interesting)
Before this new 7 wonders stuff... I had never really appreciated the pyramid of Chichen Itza (I'm mexican). I said, yeah it's just an old building so what? The egyptian pyramids are cooler.
But due to the new 7 wonders poll, Discovery Channel made a documentary about Chichen Itza. I was amazed of the cultural richness of that thing. Not only the pyramid, but the whole temple and mayan culture. It really helped me appreciate my own roots.
So, how should we mod the new 7 wonders phenomenon? Troll? Interesting? Insightful? Informative?
I'd say both interesting and insightful, and if we count the future documentaries done on these wonders, I'd add "Informative", too.
The real wonders (Score:2, Interesting)
Our Solar System
Our Sun
Planet Earth
The Human Race
Our children
Love
Seems like we are extremely short sighted in our localized definition of wonders
Re:because it's dumb. (Score:2, Interesting)
Yep. (Score:3, Interesting)
Statue of Liberty 151' 1" (46.5 m) + pedestal 154 feet (46.9 m) = 305'1" (93.4 m)
Christ Redeemer 125 feet (38 m) + Corcovado [wikipedia.org] 2,330 feet (710 m) = 2,455' (748 m)
Both standing on the Atlantic Ocean (the Corcovado is a mountain right on the shore (*), and that's what make it quite impressive...) I'm Brasilian, but not Carioca [wikipedia.org], so I have only been there twice, but the view is incredible.
(*) Ok, technically not. The Corcovado is right on top of the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, and the Lagoa is itself like 1km from the shore. take a look [google.com].
Re:Chichen Itza (Score:3, Interesting)
From the 7 winners I have only seen Chichen Itza, but my father has seen the Wall of China and the Machu Pichu and my girlfriend have seen the Coliseum, and both agree that they *really* are wonderful. Of course I can think that according to some of the USA thinking, a lot of individuals here in slashdot will think that, because certain construction was on included in that list, it makes the list less valuable or accurate but then again, they fail to understand the concept of voting.
I agree with the person that said that the Easter Island Heads (Moais) should have been into the list (personally instead of the Christ), but I haven't seen any of the two so my thought is only a guess. But it at most naïve to think that the ones selected won due to some kind of voting bias, as I am sure in the case of Chichen Itza, less than 0.01% of Mexicans voted... I am *sure* it is more appreciate by more people outside Mexico than by Mexicans.
What a great scam (Score:3, Interesting)
According to the terms of the company that set all this thing up, New Open World Corporation, anyone could vote one time for free, on the internet. You could additionaly vote as much as you wanted via sms. Also according to their terms, they could exclude any votes they wished, at any time.
If you believe their 100 million votes claim, and if you think that each sms vote costs 50 euro cents (I usually see them more expensive on contests, so the lower price helps offset the free votes), they just made a whooping 50 million euros with the sms voting alone. Now this doesn't count all the private donations they got, most definitely from countries that wanted to make sure their entry made it to the top of the list and stayed there (after all, it is a nice boom for tourism) - I don't know if the countries payed to have their entries on the list per-se, but you can bet the tv stations that syndicated the show payed through their nose for the rights.
The show in Lisbon cost 12 million euros. We can even raise that figure to 20 million to cover the marketing campaign costs of the last 6 months. Heck, put in 25 million, just to be on the safe side.
They still made 25 million euros with the sms voting alone. Now how's that for a scam?
Who cares ?! (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Letting Diebold get away with rigging the elections right in everyone's face!
2. Destroying the US economy by funneling most of the country's cash into credit firms and war efforts
3. Spending man-years in court fighting over flexible definitions of common English terms
4. Making huge violent fusses over our imaginary friends in the sky
5. Being more interested in building the highest, most expensive hotel on the globe, than diverting 1% of that money to help improve local conditions and health.
6. Having a solution to nuclear war that's called "mutually assured destruction"
7. Being so obsessed with other people's money that we have to fight over who gets included in some bullshit tourist list.
and what about the world's largest ball of string? (Score:5, Interesting)
world's largest ball of string:
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/MNDARtwine
world's largest pecan:
http://www.worldslargestthings.com/missouri/pecan
world's largest buffalo:
http://www.wlra.us/wl/wlbuffalo.htm [www.wlra.us]
world's largest pineapple:
http://www.wlra.us/wl/wlpineapple.htm [www.wlra.us]
world's largest muskie:
http://www.wlra.us/wl/wlmuskie.htm [www.wlra.us]
world's largest catsup bottle:
http://www.catsupbottle.com/ [catsupbottle.com]
Re:Why lament it? (Score:3, Interesting)
And for that the new list serves pretty well.
The Banaue Rice Terraces (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention including Christ the Redeemer and giving the Pyramids "honorary" status. What a joke. The whole "Wonders of the World" thing was just a way to interest the general (European) public in the amazing sights to be found in the far corners of what was then still a mysterious world, and there were seven of them because it dovetailed well with the romantic notion of "Seven Seas" and "Seven Continents". It was just basically all about publicity by and for the archaeologists and explorers. This "New Seven Wonders" shtick is about nothing more than publicity as well, because if I had to limit it to only seven, Christ the Redeemer would not be on it.
The case could easily be made for Angkor Wat, as well as many, many other sites of cultural, historical, and/or architectural significance, but AFAIK the "Forgotten Wonder" has never even been mentioned on any list of "World Wonders". I'm speaking about the Banaue Rice Terraces of the Philipine Cordilleras [wikipedia.org], which were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995, and which have my vote as the most amazing civil engineering project in human history. The terraces certainly fit the "Wonder" criteria many times over: they're ancient, having been built between 6,000 and 2,000 years ago, predating any of the current or vanished wonders; they're colossal, covering almost 4,000 square miles of mountainside; they're a marvel of engineering, the entire vast system of walls, terraces, steps, not to mention the ancient irrigation system which brings water down from the rainforests above the terraces, were built by hand; and most incredibly of all, 2,000 years after completion they're still maintained and used by the descendants of the original builders.
Everything about the terraces is truly mind-boggling, including the idea of a people still pursuing the same cultural traditions for literally millennia, but I guess that a bunch of ancient mountain farmland in a remote part of Asia isn't as sexy as Jesus in Brazil.
Industrial Wonders (Score:2, Interesting)