The new seven wonders

Finally, today we will find out if Petra has been chosen to be one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. Jordanians have been inundated with bill boards, print adds, songs, internet and radio advertisements appealing to their nationalism to vote for Petra for the last few months. Will is work? More importantly, does it matter?

We will find out if it works soon enough. The question of whether it will matter is another story. It depends on how much the media will react with the list and how long this new list will be considered credible. I am more inclined to believe that this whole story is a flash in a pan, and will not be in the news for more than three days. Tourism promoters might use it for a longer time, so there might be some benefit in that.

The New Seven Wonders program has been disavowed by the UNESCO, who faults its objectives and methodology. The seemingly democratic vote really is not methodologically sound. Of the millions of people who voted, I would hazard a guess to say that fewer than 100 have actually seen all 21 candidate sites. And even if one has been to all of these sites, what criteria can be used to choose the top seven? How can one compare a 20th century building like the Sidney Opera House with a stone aged site like Stonehenge? How can these be compared with giant statues like Christ the Redeemer or the Statue of Liberty. These comparisons are beyond apples and oranges.

Absent any criteria, we are invited to vote based on nationalistic sentiment. I find that appealing to nationalism to compile a list of sites that are of world wide value somewhat ironic. But this is the reality. How can a country like Jordan, which is the home of about 0.1% of the world's population, compete with China or India?

So, you wanted to vote. There were two ways to do it. You could either have filled out an online form and voted for free, or you could have used SMS phone massages and paid 10 piasters per vote. The free option is more democratic, but you could only vote once. Moreover, you needed to choose seven sites. This presented a problem if you are only interested in one site. Playing game theory, you needed to decide how the other sites affected Petra. So, this means choosing candidates that were obviously going to win anyway, or weak candidates that you think that had no chance of competing. Thus, you needed to try and eliminate the mid tier candidates for this one vote.

Using SMS messages eliminated this hassle by being able to vote for one candidate many times. Companies and institutions were donating the cost of hundreds of thousands of votes. The New Seven Wonders organizers didn’t seem to object to this subverting of the supposed democratic process.

So, at the end of the day, I can tell you who will be the biggest winner of this contest.

Mr. Bernard Weber.