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Friday, November 27, 2009

Wonders of the Modern World:

Recently, some society or other released a new 7 wonders of the world.

Their choices can be found here: http://www.new7wonders.com/n7w/world

Out of the 7, there is only 1 European wonder of the world, the Colosseum. Latin America got a full 3 wonders of the world, it's apparently the cultural center of humanity and our greatest legacy on Earth.

I'm not satisfied with these results. I think they suck.

Instead I think I'll offer my own 7 wonders of the world. First, in a strict architectural sense:

1. Eiffel Tower.

















2. Hagia Sophia.






















3. Sistine Chapel.



















4. Parthenon.


















5. Pyramids of Egypt.




















6. Taj Mahal.

















7. Kremlin.























But we must recall that all buildings are built not just to look pretty, but with some function in mind. Due to this, all great buildings have some utilitarian role in mind, they aren't just to be looked at. The churches, temples, tombs, and world's fair proof-of-principle concepts listed above were all designed with a function that meant a great deal to the people of their era. The modern world is different. We don't have enough faith anymore to build a new cathedral or mosque to match the old ones. So it is important to ask ourselves, what structures we Are building in the modern age, that are of enormous scale, but funded anyway due to some function we find desirable. When you look at it through this lens, we can find a lot of more interesting targets for the title, 'modern wonder of the world.'

1. The US Flag on the Moon.
2. The International Space Station.
3. The map of the human genome.
4. The Large Hadron Collider.
5. Dolly the Sheep.
6. The nuclear submarine.
7. The World Wide Web.

I don't list either the first list, or the second list, in any particular order. I think they are all incredible achievements. I am perfectly willing to believe that I'm missing a few items, and should replace a few items listed. It doesn't matter. This is a good barometer of the true wonders of the world, and is accurate enough to make my point.

I think these are our most 'wonderful', hands down 'splashy' achievements not because they might be the most useful invention (like say, antibiotics, or transistors, or silicon chips), but because they evoke the same ancient spirit of creating magnificent, overawing landmarks and breakthroughs. The fact that man once walked on the moon, and the small little flag that dots the lunar landscape to prove it, has to be our proudest achievement in that vein. But the decades long project to create a continuously manned, scientifically useful, and comfortably, safely, cheaply habitable space station is also great stuff. The ISS constantly growing and morphing these last decades, moving steadily towards completion, using the united space programs of the entire civilized world, is a wonderful and splashy sight.

The fact that we can now clone life forms and take reproduction into our own hands is a signature breakthrough with huge potential across many fields, and the humble little sheep named Dolly will always go down in history as its representative. After billions of dollars and decades of work, our computers have finally given us a complete map of the human genome. Not only is this simply an enormous landmark of data over the most interesting topic in the universe, but it opens up the possibilities for genetic engineering and the discovery of how genes relate to intelligence, personality, disease, mental illness, sexual preference, and behavior. That endless string of letters is the answer to the questions that have dogged our philosophers and theologians for thousands of years.

The overlaying of virtual and physical reality into a new, parallel, e-world is something no one even imagined in the past. People are just as likely to interact online as in real life, digital content from music to movies is easily downloadable, shopping can be done at home, businesses can stay in touch with their workers and their products, and information previously unheard of or known only to a few scholars is available to everyone on earth for free. The world wide web has made us redefine reality, romance, communication and commerce, and continues to shape each generation's lives in new and unexpected ways.

The nuclear submarine encompasses an impressive display of independent technologies, and is the ultimate weapon in humanity's arsenal. With a nuclear power engine, it stealthily floats miles beneath the sea, using a specially constructed metal skin that can resist both water pressure and detection from above. Deep in its vaults lies the nuclear missle, combining a rocket that can send payloads into space and a nuclear weapon that can annihilate whole cities. Such a creation is on the level of ancient gods, it's hard to believe Thor or Zeus would stand any chance against it. A submarine can survive virtually any disaster, natural or man-made, and can stay underwater for months. The owner of a nuclear submarine, just one, is stronger than the majority of nations on Earth.

Deep beneath the mountains of Switzerland lies our newest microscope, the Large Hadron Collider. Using billions of dollars, endless vats of computers, magnets, cooling agents, miles of underwater tunnel, and thousands of highly trained scientists, we accelerate particles to near light speed and smash them together with unimaginable accuracy, just in hopes of seeing something we haven't seen before. As proof that man will go to any length to satisfy his curiosity, and having the real potential to finally make sense of the laws of physics that define our universe, the LHC cannot be rivaled in importance by anything else in science. The sheer scale of the project, the tininess of the subject they are studying, and the foundational aspect of what its discoveries mean for both the origin and destiny of the universe, makes the LHC as splashy as it gets.

Without political correctness' intervention, the architectural beauty of the world is centered in Europe. It contains 5 of the 7 wonders of the world. Both the pyramids and the taj mahal were built by Caucasians, which under a wider net would give us 7/7 wonders of the world.

Given that man's genius has always sought some function to its endeavors, rather than buildings for the sake of mere frippery, and given that religion has taken a back step to science in the modern age, it stands to reason that we should look at giant scientific works of the modern world as our new 'wonders.' From that viewpoint, whites have built 7/7 of the new wonders of the world as well.

So after looking at these lists, you have to come to a new conclusion: The greatest wonder of the ancient and the modern world, is the white race who built all the others.

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