Internet Nominated For 2010 Nobel Peace Prize

An anonymous reader writes "It's official. The Internet, which has virtually revolutionized world communication, has been nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. 'Organizers said signatories to its petition backing the nomination include 2003 peace laureate and exiled Iranian activist Shirin Ebadi — which would make it a legitimate entry.' The nomination was proposed by the Italian edition of Wired magazine for promoting 'dialogue, debate and consensus through communication' as well as democracy."

Officially nominated?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, from RTFS, it seems like it's only been "nominated" by Wired magazine itself, which is not the same thing as receiving an official nomination. Is this the same shit that happened with that doctor in the Schiavo case, who went around on talk shows introducing himself as a Nobel Prize nominee because some Congressman wrote a letter to the Nobel committee once? It's like posting in a blog that Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg deserve an Academy Award for Epic Movie and then going around calling it an Oscar-nominated film.

Re:Officially nominated?

[twidarkling]

Excellent point. The Prize Committee doesn't tell who the nominated parties are until 50 years, according to the first link in the summary. I could nominate my toothbrush, and post about it, and it'd be as a legitimate a story as this one.

Re:While the internet has done a good bit for peac

[sznupi]

And who worked harder to make sure McCain didn't get elected than Obama?

Sarah Palin.

Not sure if she's eligible though - she probably was "thinking" that she's helping McCain, so her motivations weren't exactly at the right place.

Re:Fail

[LockeOnLogic]

All the examples you list are either broadcast or point to point communication. The internet is an evolution of these technologies that allows for both kinds of communication at a low cost of entry for billions. Not the greatest thing in mass communication in the last 100 years? A large and rapidly growing number of the population of this planet has the capacity to instantly communicate regardless of geographical location. It seems magical by comparison to communication technology of the past.

As for government control, having a million ants running around with megaphones is alot harder to stop (or control) than a few centralized points of broadcast. Look at the recent political turmoil is Iran as an example of a repressive state having alot harder time silencing it's populace than it would have twenty/thirty years ago.

Re:While the internet has done a good bit for peac

[nsayer]

Rather than giving it to him, give it to someone who worked to make sure McCain didn't get elected

You know, folks like you told me over and over again during 2008 that if I voted for McCain that we'd wind up having more troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, and they were absolutely right. I did vote for McCain and sure enough.

Re:darpa

[dreamchaser]

He also just called for increased funding for the development and testing of nuclear weapons. That was all on him.

Legitimate entry? Not according to Nobel's will...

[LockeOnLogic]

Excerpt from the will of Alfred Nobel (emphasis added): "...divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the PERSON who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the PERSON who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the PERSON who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the PERSON who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; and one part to the PERSON who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

This nomination of an object clearly goes against the founders intent. Are we going to aware the physics prize to the LHC someday?

Re:Decline of the Prize

[audunr]

There have been controversial winners throughout the peace prize's history. Sometimes the prize goes to people who have waged war at some point, other times to people who have done something that most people don't think of as peace related.

No need to discuss if Obama actually deserved the prize, but I think a lot of people here in Norway believe he was awarded the prize because the leader of the comittee, Torbjørn Jagland, wanted to bring about a lot of attention to himself (and Norway).

Re:Helps to put Obama in perspective

[shabtai87]

umm.... isn't the economics given to mathematicians a lot of the time anyways (since Nobel's vision seemed to have a blind spot for math)? Also if you look through the winners, almost all of them are associated with universities, which although may be greedy are not banks [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/]. I guess maybe it was really the evil mathematics and economics professors who hijacked the Nobel prize, but hey, I'm sure we all confused math professors for evil scheming bankers at some point in our lives!