NationStates Jolt Archive

OK... here's the question.
What are the 7 wonders of the modern world?
Here are rules to avoid the usual ehtnocentric view.

1) You're not allowed to name wonders in your own country
2) These wonders must be man-made, and built after 1900

Let's goooooo.

Any of the space shuttles, but preferably one that didn't kill everyone inside.

Johnny Depp

The Osaka Kansai airport, despite the sinking.

I mean, come on. Only the Japanese would have the balls to build a giant airport out of nothing. IN A BAY.

Last 105 years is really narrowing it down. Why not since 1700 or 1800?

The Osaka Kansai airport, despite the sinking.

I mean, come on. Only the Japanese would have the balls to build a giant airport out of nothing. IN A BAY.


I have to go with this one too, the airport is amazing. The work they did to try and support it above the water only to have it start sinking.

I have to go with this one too, the airport is amazing. The work they did to try and support it above the water only to have it start sinking.

Thirded.

..Gah...I can't think of any after 1900. This is getting really frustrating. I'll have to think on this.

The Channel Tunnel
The Sydney Opera House
Osaka Kansai Airport
The Panama Canal
Empire State Building
The Internation Space Station
NationStates

okay, the last one isn't serious. :p

...Internet?

The Osaka Kansai airport, despite the sinking.

I mean, come on. Only the Japanese would have the balls to build a giant airport out of nothing. IN A BAY.
Second.

I saw teh documentary about the construction on discovery, and was thinking only the Japanese could or WOULD do this.

The CN Tower? (Oh, right.. not in my country..)

...Internet?

#1.

That CN tower in Toronto, world's tallest structure.

I'd put a few bridges in that.
The Japanese are building a very long one. And there's this giant bridge in France, that was built over a whole valley. It's in the clouds half of the time. Amazing.

Myrth! :p

Myrth! :p
Is it bad I laughed in RL?

THe A380 :P

I'd say the Saturn V/ Apollo Program. Only time humans have left LEO (Low Earth Orbit) and walked somewhere that's not Earth.

Despite its being gone, and nothing really physical, I say the Iron curtain.

The Sydney Opera House
Empire State Building

Why these? Neither of these are remarkable; they're only famous.

Ebolapox.

Am I counted as being as Scottish or British?

If Scottish, I'll say The Dome.

Beautiful architecture, even if was a load of monkeynobs.

Otherwise I'll say the Russian Space Center, or whatever they call it.

First man in space, first satellite in space and first dog in space.

Oooh... I have another!

Shoot...

oh well, Mount Rushmore, or the Crazy Horse Memorial. I know it's in my own country, but you have to give people credit for carving things out of mountains.

Despite its being gone, and nothing really physical, I say the Iron curtain.

I agree - the Berlin Wall. Isn't it wonderful how walls, which were used to repel invaders, were used in Berlin to stop people from getting out? Lol :D

Why these? Neither of these are remarkable; they're only famous.They were on the list I Googled. Rest of the list wasn't much.

Oooh... I have another!

Shoot...

oh well, Mount Rushmore, or the Crazy Horse Memorial. I know it's in my own country, but you have to give people credit for carving things out of mountains.

Mount Rushmore is cool if you are talking about the one made so Team America can get in and out :D classic film

Oooh... I have another!

Shoot...

oh well, Mount Rushmore, or the Crazy Horse Memorial. I know it's in my own country, but you have to give people credit for carving things out of mountains.

Neither of those is a wonder. Mount Rushmore is really cool to look at, but it's hardly something that was a massive undertaking. Ditto the Crazy Horse... and that's not even close to being done.

The Internet & Apollo Programs are wonders, IMHO. Maybe the Atomic Bomb and the UN... (gotta stop playing Civ III!)

1. The Nuke
2. Internet
3. Space Program
4. Stealth Aircraft
5. World Trade Centers
6. Empire State Building
7. Sprite

The order I put them in is just as I thought of them.

The BBC did "seven wonders of the industrial world" before

The Bell Rock Lighthouse (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/industrialisation/seven_wonders_02.shtml)

The 'Great Eastern' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/industrialisation/seven_wonders_03.shtml)

Bazalgette's London sewers (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/industrialisation/seven_wonders_04.shtml)

The Transcontinental Railway (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/industrialisation/seven_wonders_05.shtml)

The Brooklyn Bridge (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/industrialisation/seven_wonders_06.shtml)

The Panama Canal (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/industrialisation/seven_wonders_07.shtml)

The Hoover Dam (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/industrialisation/seven_wonders_08.shtml)

Here are mine, in no particular order:

Hitler's Atlantic Wall
The Hoover Dam
The Panama Canal
Trans-Siberian Railway
Apollo Program
The Microchip
The Internet

1) You're not allowed to name wonders in your own country


Damn. I can't name the Millenium Dome :(

Plastics

How the hell is the dome a wonder?! its a giant tent with boring stuff inside

I suggest the Delta Works, even though they're in my country.

How the hell is the dome a wonder?! its a giant tent with boring stuff inside

You thought I was being serious :p

Taipei 101, it just looks cool

Otherwise I'll say the Russian Space Center, or whatever they call it.


Baikanaur Cosmodrome!

You thought I was being serious :p

I saw quiete a few people put so I started to

1) Internet
2) Panama Canal
3) Atomic power (includes nukes)
4) Computers
5) Chunnel
6) Hoover Dam
7) Stock Market (modern Wall Street version)

Hmmm... When someone says wonder you generally think of something big. Like the Pyramids. But I don't think any of the wonders of the 20th century are large. In fact I think they're probably the tiny things in comparison, but the network they help create is huge. The thing that sets this century apart is communication. So I would say that the 7 wonders would be

Radio and TV
The internet
Mobile phones (Cell phones) edit: Just the Telephone in general.
The Aeroplane (if it was invented just before 1900 then comercial aviation :P)
Computers
edit: Automobile
And Plastic Money

1. The United Nations
2. Bangadeshi National Assembly Buildings
3. The Model-T Ford
4. Pet Sounds
5. George Foreman's Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grillin' Machine
6. The Chrysler Building
7. Apollo 11 (even if they faked it)

Rammstein

Have to agree with you there :)

...Internet?

Absolutely! The number one wonder of the world. Every one of us can take credit for building it in some way. Oh wait, I think Al Gore already took the credit...

The mag-lev train.

I know it's American and all, but McDonald's. The things are freaking everywhere.

I know it's American and all, but McDonald's. The things are freaking everywhere.
That's because they are franchises. This means that the McDonald's corporation doesn't run them, it merely sells them the concept and marketing.

But, on-topic:

Radiowave networks. You can talk to anyone by a cellphone, in most developed countries almost everywhere. You can receive TV signal. And so on.

Air travel and the aviation network in general. This was pulled out from thin air within a century, or actually, within about 60 years.

Internet. This was pulled from thin air in 30 years. Transferring data intercontinentally used to be an expensive, slow and difficult business. It's amazing that the first e-mail was sent in 1971, and now e-mail may be received about 10% of the world's population and well over half in developed countries. If you think 10% is little, try it yourself, make 600 million people do something that is both expensive and doesn't give you any immediate benefit. This was a major "selling sand in Sahara" marketing trick.

The Chunnel has to get a mention. It's something that you'd think as impossible.

The Trans-Siberian railway was built by an impoverished nation using slav labor. Yet its size is much like another Great Wall of China.

Plastics. An entire area of chemical engineering mostly developed during the last half of the last century, results found in everywhere.

While we're at it, modern chemical engineering. Without this, most of the wonders mentioned would not be possible.

(Dicslamer: All puns indented.)

The geodesic dome in Montreal built for the 1967 World's Fair. I'd say "the geodesic dome," period, but then the inventor, Buckminster Fuller, was an American, hence from my country... Why the geodesic dome? It was a major technical breakthrough in architecture, making clear-span structures of virtually any size possible, because the structure distributes stresses throughout.

The communications satellite. Think about it: hundreds of tons of transatlantic cable (how data used to get across the Pond) replaced by something not much bigger than a beer keg, while increasing performance (amount of data carried) by orders of magnitude. Technically, I shouldn't be able to post this, since AFAIK the communications satellite was invented in America (although Arthur C. Clarke first proposed the idea in a sf novel, and he lives in Sri Lanka...), but then the satellites aren't exactly *in* America now, are they? ;)

The genre of literature we call "science fiction." For the first time in history, people were able to imagine, then accept as reality, the idea that "in the future, we will have radically different, and more advanced, technologies, and different cultures." This is a kind of societal "thinking outside the box" that we did not possess in previous eras.

The assembly line. This made it possible for people of average means to afford things they could not possibly have otherwise. For example, if automobiles had to be produced by hand by expert craftsmen/-women, they would cost well into six figures. Oh, yeah--Henry Ford built the first assembly line in the U.S. Oops. >grin<

The Zeppelin. Sure, there aren't many around these days (the Zeppelin company has developed a modern Zeppelin called the Zeppelin NT), but it must have been an awesome sight to see something nearly a thousand feet long *floating* over a city!

If you can't compare it favorably to The Pyramids or even The Eiffel Tower, it's certainly not a wonder.

I really can't consider the Chrysler Building or cell phones a wonder of the world. They're really cool, but hardly earth shatterning/pinacle of an age sort of thing. ;)

The mag-lev train.

Which i've worked on, partially. :D

The Zeppelin. Sure, there aren't many around these days (the Zeppelin company has developed a modern Zeppelin called the Zeppelin NT), but it must have been an awesome sight to see something nearly a thousand feet long *floating* over a city!

:D That thing flies over my flat every day, now tell me where i live :D

2. Bangladeshi National Assembly Buildings


This (http://www.betelco.com/bd/dhaka/sangsad.gif)?

The Saddam Hussein palace ruins?
LOL just kidding.